Severus had always believed the other shoe never fell, that was until James stole Lily and there was nothing he could do about it. That was the shoe hitting the ground, and as far as Severus Snape was concerned, Harry Potter was said shoe.

Everyone knew James Potter and Severus Snape didn't get along in school, and the same was said for Potter's gang of miscreants. They disliked Severus, and Severus disliked them. In their younger years at school however it hadn't morphed into hate or loathing, just simple dislike. It was then for Severus and the Marauders as it was now for Harry and Draco, and that was nothing special because there were similar rivalries all over the school. James and Sirius would pull a prank like filling Severus' bag with pudding while he was busy trying to transfigure a pincushion in class, and Severus would retaliate by turning James hair Slytherin green or bright pink by way of slipping a potion into his drink or getting someone else to put it into the Gryffindor's shampoo bottle. They might exchange nasty words in the corridor, but it was tit-for-tat and Severus never really felt any of them meant the words that were said. "Maybe wash your hair sometimes, yeah Severus?" James would call, and Severus would sneer and shoot back, "I could only aspire to have pink hair like yours someday. It's a lovely look."

Even when Sirius pranked Severus by luring him out during the full moon to see a real live werewolf and Remus almost tore his face off in the Shrieking Shack, that had not been enough to make Severus hate them. Severus hated that the teachers had never given the Marauders any real punishment for the deed (and it took him a long time to forgive Dumbledore and McGonagall), but not the four Gryffindors who had done it. Peter and James had shoved Severus out of the way before Remus had gotten close enough to do him harm, and weeks later Severus never got in ‘real' trouble for orchestrating all four boys waking up naked in the Great Hall right as the breakfast rush came in. Tit-for-tat.

The one who turned things nasty was Sirius, who never understood why James and Remus and Peter never took it further than they did. In 5th year as Severus grew closer to Lily than he had ever been before, Sirius egged his friends on to bigger and better things than simple pranks. He spread rumors about Severus that weren't true, put his clothes down and spread word of Severus' poverty and half-blood status to the entire school, and besmirched the Prince family name (for marrying into such a dirty, poverty stricken Muggle family and producing Severus as an heir). Even though James wielded the wand that took Severus up into the air by his ankles, it was Sirius who was egging him on, whispering things that weren't true into his ear about Severus and Lily. And then it was Sirius who pulled Severus pants down in front of the crowd. Severus had called Lily a name he would never forgive himself for, and suddenly it felt like Sirius Black had won his war against the poor boy from Spinner's End. That was the day Severus began to hate Black, because from there, even though Severus had long since felt he'd lost the war with him, Black kept stepping things up against him until finally Severus was released from his hellish fifth year and allowed to go home in peace.

Only home didn't equal peace for him when his father was frequently drunk and raging against Severus simply for existing. Strangely enough, when all that had gone between Severus and James had not been enough to cause him to hate him before, it was Tobias Snape that caused Severus to skip straight past hate to loathing, and everyone knew that Severus Snape loathed James Potter. They all thought it was the rivalry between them, but they were all wrong. Only Severus knew. He suspected James knew as well, but James had eventually ended up dead and that left Severus alone with his loathing.

Severus, exhausted from his fifth year at school, exhausted from being tormented endlessly by Sirius Black in an ever escalating way, returned home to Spinner's End to his father. Eileen had died the year prior, and now Tobias was all Severus had. Tobias too seemed to realize that Severus was all he had, and that made him angrier and took his drinking to new heights.

For the first month and a half of summer Severus stayed out of the house as much as he could to escape his father's anger, his biting words and his fists, but he had to return home at some point to eat and sleep. That was when Tobias would corner him and give him a black eye or shove him into a wall as he passed by him. It generally never went beyond that however. Severus still had a place to sleep, his father still worked and provided food and clothes, (even if they were from the second hand store), and occasionally, even if it was a rare occurrence, his father shot him a look of approval when Severus did something particularly smart, like figuring out how to patch the leaky roof when they had no money to do so.

It was into this horrible summer that James Potter and Remus Lupin decided to insert themselves into his life, and it was this act that made Severus loathe them both. Yes, those at school knew Severus was poor, that he wore second hand clothes and read used textbooks, because Black made sure they all knew. Yes, the school thought his hair was greasy, because that's what Black called it. Yes, Lily was mad at Severus currently because of what Black had caused Severus to call her. That was the extent of it though. No one, not even Lily truly knew what Severus dealt with at home during breaks. No one knew until James and Remus came to London to visit Black and found that he wasn't home, and decided instead to figure out where Severus lived so they could engage in their regular tit-for-tat during summer months simply because they were bored.

A visit to Lily's house where they encountered Petunia told them where Severus lived and within an hour of their arrival in London they had found the crooked house on Spinner's End. They had also found Tobias drunkenly beating Severus in the alley between two houses.

"H-hey! Cut that out!"

Severus heard James Potter's voice but he didn't understand it. He wasn't at school so it didn't make sense. Then again, not a whole lot had made sense to him at that point. His father had never taken things this far before, but he was now. Severus had chanced coming home at lunch, believing his father was at work and found him home and already drunk and the living room in shambles. It had taken Tobias less than a second to start shouting that all that was wrong with the world, and with his life was Severus' fault, that Severus by his magic had somehow cursed him with his birth, and that he was no longer welcome on Spinner's End. Severus should have left then, should have not tried to go up the stairs to lock himself in his room or try to get his things. ‘Should haves' would have been nice if he was smart enough to think things through, but he hadn't been smart enough at the time and Tobias had decked him hard enough to put Severus into a stupor. He'd dragged Severus out of the house by the back of his shirt collar and proceeded into the four foot gap between their crooked house and the next one, where he screamed Severus even more senseless and hit him until his face was bloody, his hair was a mess and his lip was trembling.

"I said stop!" It was James Potter's voice again, but they weren't at school. Severus chanced a glance to the street and found James and Remus standing there, looking both scared and uncertain. Tobias punched Severus one last time, hard enough to knock him unconscious, before turning to the two teens at the entrance to the alley.

"Move off," he said, drunkenly waving them away. "It doesn't concern yeh."

"Leave him alone," Remus said, hand shaking as it gripped his wand. "Back away."

"Yeh'r from that school. Freaks like him."

"Freaks who can curse you into next Wednesday," James said. His voice shook like Remus' hands. It wasn't everyday that you had to face off with an abusive adult. In fact, for James and Remus they'd never had to deal with such a situation before.

Tobias cursed and stumbled past them and then up the two crumbling steps into the crooked house. He slammed the door and the two Gryffindors exchanged glances before they moved into the alley to Severus.

"He's alive."

"What do we do with him?" James asked.

"He can't go back in there, and I don't think he'd appreciate it if we took him to St. Mungos."

"Lily's house?" James suggested.

"She's not even home and won't be until tomorrow. There's no way Tuney Evans is gonna let us clean him up or keep him there."

"Well we can't take him to Sirius' house either," James said. "Sirius would never have it and he'll be back soon, and your house is out."

Severus never knew the conversation that had gone on between the other two boys about where to take him and how to get him there, but he knew they'd settled on taking him to Hogwarts in the end. Apparently they dragged his unconscious form a mile and a half to Black's House, borrowed Sirius and Regulus' brooms, and flown him cross country to Hogwarts. Severus did remember waking up several times in flight and having James yell at him to hold still or they'd both plummet to the earth and die, and he remembered the two Gryffindors helping him clumsily up the castle steps and into the Entrance Hall. Unfortunately he remained conscious after that and would forever remember the humiliated feeling of the Headmaster finding the three of them in the Entrance Hall, Severus covered in dried blood, face swollen, one eye bloodshot, and James and Remus covered in Severus' dried blood as well.

"What has happened to him?"

"I think he'd better tell you sir," James said.

"Severus?" Dumbledore questioned. The Headmaster had been younger then. There were still a couple streaks of auburn in his hair and his beard hadn't been nearly as long. He'd only been headmaster since Severus' second year at school, and Severus imagined this was a first for him, having three students show up at nearly midnight in the middle of summer holidays covered in blood.

Severus looked away and didn't answer him, so Dumbledore tried Remus instead. "Remus?"

Remus shrugged as best as he could while still holding one of Severus' arms over his shoulder.

"We can say we didn't do it," James said quickly as the old man's eyes traveled between the two Gryffindors and then once again took in Severus' face.

"Let's get him up to Poppy. Fortunately she came back from her holiday early."

The Headmaster got Severus onto a floating stretcher and levitated him up to the Hospital Wing, where Poppy tsked and tutted over the state of Severus as she healed him, and grew ever more irritated that none of the boys wanted to tell her what happened.

At some point that night James and Remus asked if they could use the floo to get back home and asked if the Headmaster could write them some sort of note to give their parents so they wouldn't be in too much trouble for going missing all day and half the night. The headmaster and Gryffindors left and Severus, finally on the mend fell asleep. That had been mid August, and Severus had been surprised when the Headmaster had told him the following day he could stay at Hogwarts until school started in a couple weeks. Severus had been pleased he could stay, and somewhere the Headmaster and McGonagall had dug up clothes for him to get him through the last two weeks of summer. What he hadn't been pleased about with the situation was that Dumbledore wanted Severus to tell him exactly what had happened that summer.

At first Severus had refused. He'd lasted a whole three days before the Headmaster had convinced him it was in Severus' best interest to tell him how he got his injuries. And then Severus had broken and told him about Tobias. The Headmaster had thanked him and left him alone for a couple days, and at the end of his first week back at Hogwarts, had shown up again with Severus' things from Spinner's End.

"You went back?" Severus asked, eyes shining and worried and confused.

"Your father and I agreed that you'll be living here now. I was able to secure all of your belongings. I'll be taking you into Hogsmeade and Diagonalley tomorrow to get clothes and school things for the upcoming year."

"But- my da doesn't have money for all that." Severus usually traded services like Potions tutoring with older students to get their used books from their previous years.

"He'll have no further part in your life Severus unless you want him to, and then only after you have come of age."

Severus still didn't understand. "So- the school is paying for my books?"

Dumbledore sighed and then looked Severus in the eye. "You're my charge now. Don't worry yourself overmuch about it Severus. From this point forward I'll see to it that all your needs are met. You're to come to me if you need anything, do you understand?"

Severus had nodded, even though he hadn't understood. He hadn't understood until years later that Dumbledore had really meant what he'd said, that Severus was his charge, even after he'd come of age.

As it turned out, James bringing Severus to Hogwarts was the catalyst for James being given Prefect status. Previously Dumbledore hadn't believed the Gryffindor capable of the maturity required for such a position, and so James had missed out on being a Prefect in their 5th year, but a week and a half later when their sixth year started, James Potter had a shiny new Prefect badge on his uniform. As it also turned out, Severus found that he loathed James and Remus in a way he never thought he would have. James thought Severus might have been grateful, but like most people when thinking about Severus, he'd been wrong. James and Remus hadn't told the school or their classmates what had happened, and they never asked Severus about it after that night they'd brought him to Hogwarts bloody and bruised, but Severus was forever waiting for the other shoe to fall after that. He was waiting for the news to be spread across the school that his own father had beaten and abandoned him. He was waiting for them to tell Sirius so Sirius could use it against him in his every interaction with him, but it never came. Lily tentatively forgave Severus for his slip of tongue the year before, yet still what had happened over the summer never came up.

Severus always knew the other shoe would fall, and he loathed James and Remus because of it. They knew, and they would use it against him, some way, somehow. Then in the middle of their seventh year James stole Lily right out from under his nose, and there was nothing Severus could do about it, because if he did James would retaliate by using what he knew to make Severus' life at school hell. James must have known it too, because he was careful never to meet Severus' eye when they crossed paths and he was with Lily. To make matters worse, James and Lily had a son together, a son that Severus had to loathe because he loved Lily too much and she could now never return that love to him with such a child in the picture. Less than a year after that James Potter was dead. He could never use what he knew against Severus now, but it was too late for Severus. The shoe had already hit the ground.

Part Two - The Second Boy, The Headmaster Who Used What He Knew, And The Lasting Of More Than Three Mere Days

Harry James Potter was pissed off, and he didn't care who saw it. There was no way he could cover up his black eye, his split lip, or his bruised face. His clothes hid his other bruises, but his face was enough to announce to the whole world that The-Boy-Who-Lived had been beaten to a pulp. It angered Harry and really, if there was something good to be angry about, this was it. Draco would have a field day with it. Let him, Harry thought to himself as he climbed off the carriage with friends who couldn't hide their worried looks.

Hermione had threatened to send an owl ahead of them earlier, before the train had pulled into the station, and Harry had told her not to, but at some point she'd disappeared for a few minutes and he was sure she had anyway. When they made it to the top of the steps and into the Entrance Hall, there were no staff to greet them though.

"You didn't send an owl?" Harry asked skeptically, albeit quietly.

"You told me not to Harry," Hermione said stiffly, "I respect your right to be an idiot."

Harry huffed and strutted into the Great Hall as if he owned it and was angry that there were other people there without his permission. He knew what it looked like and he didn't care. People did look, but the anger across his face was enough to turn their eyes away from the bruises until he'd passed and they could safely look at his back without a laser hole being burned right through their skull. Harry, Ron and Hermione took a seat at Gryffindor halfway down the table and when Harry heard his name whispered behind him by some younger Ravenclaws he turned and glared until their whispers hushed abruptly.

"The staff are going to notice," Hermione said.

"So?" Harry snapped.

"Calm down mate," Ron said, trying to keep the peace. "She's looking out for you."

"By pointing out that my life couldn't possibly get any worse at this moment?"

Ron and Hermione exchanged glances and Ron muttered, "McGonagall's coming over."

Harry huffed and looked down at the table. Maybe he should have let Hermione send an owl ahead. It might have prevented a scene like this and prevented even more attention from being drawn to him, if it were even possible to draw more attention.

"Mr. Potter, are you all right?" she asked, voice lowered and full of concern.

"Do I look all right?" he snapped, though he immediately regretted it. He knew better than to talk to professors like that.

Ron put his hand on Harry's arm to bring him back to reality but Harry was already there.

"We're sorry Professor," Hermione said quickly before Harry could apologize himself. "I should have sent an owl ahead."

"Perhaps you and Mr. Weasley should accompany Mr. Potter and I to the Hospital Wing Miss Granger."

"No," Harry said flatly as he stood up. "You two stay and eat."

Ron and Hermione sat back on the bench but they exchanged a worried look with McGonagall before she and Harry moved past the students still trying to find seats and into the now empty Entrance Hall. The Headmaster was already there waiting for them.

"Harry my boy, what has happened to you?"

"A dragon ate me," he said, voice too full of sarcasm. He wanted to yell as the Headmaster and McGonagall exchanged a look, the same ones his friends had been exchanging all day as they rode the train. This wasn't fair, none of it. "I'm fine," Harry huffed. "Nothing happened."

"Nothing turned your face black and blue?" McGonagall said skeptically, voice somehow conveying both worry and irritation all at once.

"Nothing," Harry mumbled, feeling chastised for having brought his head of house to irritation with him. He'd only meant the angry act to be conveyed to the students, but Harry found that the more he acted it out, the more he genuinely felt angry about having to return to school like this. He couldn't keep talking to the professors as he had or he'd end up in detention before the night was out though. The last thing he needed was to start the year in his housemate's bad graces because he'd lost them a hundred points before anyone had even had the chance to gain any.

"Let's get you to the Hospital Wing Harry."

"Yes maam," Harry mumbled again, no longer interested in meeting anyone's eye and instead staring at the flagstone floor.

"I'll send Madam Pomfrey up," Dumbledore said quietly, "and I'll be along as soon as the sorting is finished."

"You don't have to baby me," Harry said looking at the Headmaster. "I know Professor McGonagall has things to do. I can get to the Hospital Wing myself and you can both go to the sorting."

"Nonsense Harry," McGonagall said to shush him, and ushered him along towards the stairs leading to the next floor, leaving the Headmaster staring after them with a saddened look.

"But you're in charge of the sorting," Harry said as they rounded a corner and made for another set of stairs. "You're the Deputy Headmistress."

"And Professor Snape is third in command," she said, not missing a beat. "As my duties as Deputy Head sometimes take me other places I'm needed, there's a need for a third. It won't be the first time he's lead the sorting ceremony. In fact, he almost lead it your first year, but I was able to make it back with moments to spare so I could lead you all into the Great Hall."

As they continued up through the castle towards the Hospital Wing, Harry wondered what the sorting might look like with Snape in charge. McGonagall had greeted Harry and his peers in that dark stairwell and had been gentle with them, knowing they were all scared. Snape would probably make the new kids wet their pants before they even got into the Entrance Hall. He wondered what Snape would say to them about Gryffindor and Slytherin. Maybe Gryffindor would end up with no new first years at all this year and Slytherin would have a double class size.

They made the Hospital Wing and it was only a few moments later that Madam Pomfrey bustled in behind them. "Sit there Harry, yes that one. I don't suppose you want to tell me what happened?" When Harry just looked at her, she shook her head. "No, they never do. Take off your shirt. Don't mind Professor McGonagall Harry," Pomfrey half scolded when he gave her a dirty look at the command to disrobe. "She's helped heal more students than you might think. Come to think of it, she's been up here when you've come in unconscious before."

Harry huffed again and took his shirt off, intentionally not looking at them because he didn't want to see their expressions at all the damage.

"Did someone do this to you on the train Harry? Is there another student we should be worried about having injuries that need to be seen to?"

"No."

"If I ask her, will miss Granger confirm that?" McGonagall asked.

"I was with them the whole time. We had a compartment to ourselves. We didn't even see the lady with the snack trolley."

"Did you get into a fight prior to boarding the train? Today or in the days before coming to school?"

"No," Harry said, keeping his eyes averted as Madam Pomfrey ran her scans and then brought over several potions bottles and tins of healing salve. "I can do it," Harry said when she unscrewed a lid of bruise balm, and Madam Pomfrey handed it to him.

"I'm aware," she told him. You can do your chest and arms. I'll do your back and face." At the dirty look Harry gave her she said, "I'm not above taking points for arguing."

"I know," he said, subdued. He'd seen her take points off Ron for arguing about wanting to leave the Hospital Wing earlier than she was willing to let him, and once he saw her take five points from Draco for arguing about taking a potion that looked as nasty as it smelled. Harry had made a silent promise to himself on the way up not to start Gryffindor out in the negatives this year, so he wouldn't argue with Madam Pomfrey if he could help it.

"Harry," McGonagall said, sitting in a chair beside the bed where Harry sat on the edge as he began smearing bruise balm up and down his arms. He glanced up at her but looked back at the balm to see what he was doing. "Would you be more comfortable talking about it with the Headmaster? Or Professor Snape?"

Harry scoffed but didn't say anything for fear Pomfrey would take points even if she wasn't the one he was mouthing off to.

"I only meant because they're male," McGonagall said, sitting back in the chair and smoothing her dark green robes down in front of her.

"I told the Headmaster what happened," Harry said. "A dragon chewed me up and spit me out." It was talking back, but it was better than what he would have said if he'd made a comment about Snape. His mind drifted again to the man and what that would look like if they dragged the man up there so he and Harry could have a ‘man to man' talk about Harry getting the crap beat of him by his uncle. He doubted Snape would believe him, and Harry would likely end up with a month's worth of detentions for getting into some imaginary fight with an imaginary student. Snape had accused him of that sort of thing before and Harry had let him believe it when he'd come back from holidays with a visible bruise. Harry would never say it aloud to anyone, but sometimes having someone around that always believed the worst in him worked to his advantage. It was a great way to get the conversation away from the truth. He only hoped he wouldn't encounter Snape until tomorrow when other Gryffindors had had a chance to earn some points before he lost a whole bunch of them.

Madam Pomfrey was still smearing bruise balm on his face when Dumbledore came in forty five minutes later. She had insisted on not missing any spots and gotten the back of his neck and even the back of his ears even though there were no bruises there.

Dumbledore sat down in the chair Professor McGonagall had just vacated for him. Apparently she was going back to the feast. "I'll try to be back before you go to the tower Harry."

"Harry," Madam Pomfrey warned, and Harry cleared his throat and thanked McGonagall before she gave him a small smile and left the ward. Dumbledore watched the quiet exchange with amusement before his face turned serious. Harry tried to ignore the concern he saw there by looking away.

"I want you to tell me what happened dear boy," Dumbledore said, and in that moment the concern in his voice was really enough to make Harry want to tell him. He wouldn't tell him though. People could see the bruises, and they could make their guesses, but it wasn't real until he told the truth. It would only be rumor, and he bet Snape could change that rumor to Harry fighting in London before boarding the train. Surely a detention and heavy point loss would start that rumor on it's own. The second he told though, everyone would know the truth.

"Dragon," Harry said quietly.

Dumbledore sighed slowly and quietly. "Harry, whatever it is, I'll listen. You won't be in trouble for telling me. I'm very concerned about what happened to you. If it was truly a dragon, you know I would seek out that Dragon to be certain it's not a danger to anyone else."

"What if I just got into a fist fight in London?"

"Like last year when you returned and Professor Snape gave you detention?" Dumbledore asked quietly. Harry knew he wasn't buying it. Let him not buy it. Harry wasn't going to say a word. "Will you let him give you detention for it this year too?"

"Just don't let him near me til' tomorrow when we actually have some points to lose," Harry said half jokingly, even though he was entirely serious about it.

Dumbledore looked up at Pomfrey. "Will he be able to return to his dorm tonight?"

"Certainly. The bruises will remain for a few days but they'll start to heal with the balm. He'll still be in some pain, but there were no broken bones, no malnourishment or anything else concerning revealed in the scans. Just bruises and swelling."

Harry picked up his shirt and pulled it back on, trying not to act as though he were doing so gingerly. He stood up and made sure he had his wand. As he turned to leave Madam Pomfrey said, "And Headmaster," Harry paused to hear what she had to say, "I'm entirely sure he was in a fight." Harry turned to look at her, unable to believe that she was backing up his made up story until she finished with, "With a much larger, and perhaps older person." Harry frowned and restrained from growling as he made for the door. He did remember to pause and tell her thank you, though he didn't look to gauge her reaction before quickly moving out into the corridor. He was unsurprised to find Ron waiting for him a few steps down the hall, leaning on the wall with his hands in his robe pockets.

"They let you out already?" Ron asked.

"It's just bruises."

"Looked like a lot more than that," Ron said.

Harry shrugged.

"Snape led the sorting."

"Yeah," Harry said quietly as they made their way towards Gryffindor.

"I thought it'd be worse."

"Was it?"

"Seems like we got the same number of kids as every year," Ron said. "None of the first years came into the Great Hall in tears."

"Funny," Harry said, "I wondered if he'd make them cry."

"It was weird, having him do it," Ron said. "He seemed to enjoy it. Like... he took pride in doing it or something."

"McGonagall said he's third in command and he's done it before."

"Maybe he's angling for McGonagall's job," Ron said.

"Or Dumbledore's," Harry said with grim satisfaction. Ron grinned at him. Saying things about Snape was one of their favorite pastimes and Harry wondered if Ron had brought Snape up with the intention of cheering him up. Usually they only did it to irritate Hermione, who insisted on correcting them if they didn't call him Professor, but- "Ron?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for coming."

Ron grinned as he glanced sideways at his friend. "Hermione's furious with you. I didn't know there were that many ways to call someone an idiot. She might have come otherwise."

Harry laughed in spite of the fact that he felt like doing anything but.

"You tell them you got into a fight again?" Ron asked.

"Dragon."

"You shoulda said werewolf. That woulda thrown ‘em for a loop."

"Only if I wanted to be locked up for three days at the end of the month."

"It's not too late," Ron said, his voice raising at the end as though he had hope of convincing Harry to tell.

Harry kept his mouth shut. He knew Ron wasn't referring to telling them he was fighting with a werewolf. It'd be easier for Ron if Harry told, he thought. Then Ron wouldn't be one of the few who knew what life at the Dursleys was like for Harry... wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. Harry didn't know what to tell him though. He wished Ron didn't know, but silently, he was glad he did. That was enough for Harry, that someone knew and he had someone to commiserate with. No one else needed to know, because there was nothing to be done about it.

"Dumbledore said he'd track the dragon down... keep it from hurting anyone else."

"Kind of him," Ron said quietly as they neared the entrance to the tower.

"He'd take it back if he knew."

"Yeah."

Ron gave the new password to the portrait and it let them in. Parvati told them Hermione had already gone to bed and Fred and George gave Harry a hard time for a few minutes about fighting with mountain trolls. They knew about Harry too and had likely guessed where his bruises came from, though Harry was grateful they only joked about it in front of the others instead of really giving him a hard time.

Later, as Harry lay in bed unable to sleep, staring into the darkness of the hangings above his bed, he wished he could tell Dumbledore the truth just this once. It would hurt too much to tell him and then have him do nothing about it though. There was no slaying Harry's dragons, so there was no telling. It was too bad really, because it was one hell of a dragon.

* * *

Severus didn't want to be called into the Headmaster's office, not for this. He dreaded it in fact. Severus wasn't one to put off that which could be done as soon as possible however, so he didn't wait to be called upon, and was waiting in the Headmaster's office before he got back from the Hospital Wing.

"Severus." Albus sounded tired as he moved past him to his desk.

"Albus."

"You saw him? At the feast?"

"I saw him biting his friend's heads off and scaring younger students as he sauntered into the Great Hall."

"He seems very angry."

"I'd be angry too if I'd been caught after wrongdoing," Severus said. He wanted to make his stance on Potter clear. Potter hadn't come to school looking like that because he'd been abused. It was because he'd been fighting again. It was his own fault for showing up battered. If he had any sense he wouldn't pick fights with those more able with their fists to begin with. Dumbledore gave Severus a serious look that quieted him however, and Severus took a seat in the more comfortable of the two visitor's chairs.

"Poppy was of the opinion that he was beaten by someone much larger than him. Someone with power behind their punches."

"Poppy believes every child that comes in has been abused."

"Poppy believed it of you," Albus said, pulling a sheet of parchment out and making note of something on it.

Severus held back the huff that wanted to escape him. He was beyond letting juvenile impulses overtake him. "The boy is a troublemaker. What did he have to say about the state he arrived in?"

"He said he'd been chewed up and spit out by a dragon. Later he said he'd been in a fight."

Severus nodded with a smirk. He knew it. Potter was usually pretty forthcoming with his wrongdoings once called out about it. It was one of the child's only redeeming qualities, that he didn't continue lying when caught.

"Severus, I don't believe for a moment that he was fighting, not by choice. If by some circumstance he was and we could prove it, I would be happy to speak with him about the behavior and then drop the matter."

"But you don't believe him? Are you calling Potter a liar?"

"What did you feel Severus when I'd been asking you for days about what happened to you?"

"Why do we have to bring up my circumstances when they are clearly different than Potter's?" Severus snapped, before closing his mouth to bite down on his anger. This was exactly why he'd dreaded being called up here. He knew the Headmaster was going to try to get him to talk to the Gryffindor golden boy.

"I want it proven that the circumstances are different, or that they aren't," Albus said.

"And you want me to do so?" Severus asked.

"Wouldn't you relish the chance to prove he's been fighting? I assume that's why you were waiting in my office for my return."

"I came because I knew you'd call me here to begin with." Severus felt it was grossly unfair of the old man to use what he knew against him. Here, look what you've been through, that means you're to be the one to speak to students we suspect have been abused henceforth. Well, not all students, just Potter. There had been a girl Minerva had spoken to almost a decade ago, but it turned out in that case that there had been no abuse. Severus certainly wasn't the only case of abuse to show up at Hogwarts, but he had been the most recent that had been proven true. It wasn't possible that Potter junior had been abused. He was too cocky. Everything about the child said he'd been spoiled rotten, just the way James Potter would have wanted it. He wasn't quite as bad as Sirius Black had been, but Severus wasn't holding his breath for The-Boy-Who-Lived to turn out much better by the time his years at Hogwarts were at an end. The fact that Albus knew Severus' history with James Potter and had chosen him to speak to Harry was a gross injustice.

"What makes you think the boy will tell me anything?"

"Have you not said you found the boy to be truthful in the past?"

"Only when he's been caught," Severus sneered. Harry made him feel like he had to be on his toes at all times in order to catch him in his wrongdoing.

"Then catch him Severus," Albus said seriously, and Severus knew he had no right to refuse given all the Headmaster had done for him... all he'd overlooked about him to get him into a teaching position at Hogwarts, one he clearly didn't deserve but had been given anyway.

Angry, but not wanting to feel like a child storming out of the room, Severus stood calmly and said, "If that will be all Headmaster?"

Albus gave him a knowing look at the use of his official title, and said, "Give him until tomorrow before you talk to him."

"Because?" Severus asked, feeling testy.

"Apart from the fact he's clearly had a long day and it's nearly ten at night, he mentioned wanting to be sure there were points for him to lose before he ran across you."

Severus did let out a ‘hmpf' at that and then with a nod to Albus he left. How was he to ‘catch' the boy at something that had happened before he'd shown up at school, whatever that something was? The Headmaster wanted it to be abuse. He wanted Severus to prove it was, but Severus knew it couldn't be. If there was something Severus hated to be it was a disappointment to the old man, which was something else Albus knew and had used against him in assigning this task. How ironic, that the man he had loathed had never used what he knew to torture him, and the man he loved as a father did?

* * *

Severus had a free period during the same hour Harry had Study Hall in the Great Hall and decided not to put off speaking with the brat until after dinner. He wanted to get it over and done with and report back to Albus by dinner that he'd fulfilled the task he'd been given. He could have no idea that Potter had determined himself not to make that possible.

"Potter, I require a word."

Potter made a show of rolling his eyes and acting angry as he packed his books up and shared a knowing look with Weasley before following Severus from the Great Hall. Severus didn't fail to catch the look Potter gave to Gryffindor's hourglass as they passed it in the Great Hall. Severus looked too. It looked to have at least forty red rubies in it.

"Forty Potter."

"Yes sir."

They continued down to his office in the dungeons, where he closed the door and threw a quick ward at it. Potter flopped into the hard guest chair and gave Snape a smirk. Severus paused at the look and the way the brat was conducting himself. Typically the boy tried to avoid angering him, but not today.

"You find something amusing?" he asked, already feeling as though the boy's mere presence was grating on his nerves.

"No sir," he said, smirk still in place. He ran a hand through his hair as if smoothing it back would help his case, and then leaned back in the chair as if he wasn't worried.

Trying not to grit his teeth, Severus said, "You're to explain your presence last night looking as though a hippogriff had gotten hold of you."

"Big hippogriff," Harry said nonchalantly.

"I'm not here to play games with you Potter."

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"The truth. You were fighting again weren't you?" Severus demanded. Potter shifted, and Severus wasn't sure at first how to explain the change in the boy. He'd already been leaning back in the chair as though he was cocky and had not a care in the world, but somehow that had fallen from his posture and he seemed... relieved.

"You caught me sir. There was this really big guy in London. My aunt dropped me off a few hours before the train was due and I went out to get a bite to eat. I'm not allowed to use my wand or I would have had him."

Severus narrowed his eyes and when he didn't immediately say something Harry shifted nervously in the seat. He no longer seemed relieved or carefree. There was an anxiousness that radiated, if ever so slightly, from his posture. Severus let his eyes rake over the healing black eye, split lip, and bruise down the side of his face and neck. The boy had his school robes on or else Severus would have been able to see his arms.

"And just what did you fight about?" Severus asked. He raised his hands as if asking, what harm could it do to tell me since you're already in trouble. "Just so I know what to tell the Headmaster when he asks why you're in detention for the next month."

"Guess he didn't like what I said." Harry tried to put on the air of confidence again, but his smirk wasn't quite as believable as it had been before Severus had seen the boys earlier slip.

"Which was?"

"He was taking his time at the breakfast counter making up his mind. I didn't want to wait around for him so I muttered something about slow and dumb."

"I see," Severus said. "So there in front of a breakfast crowd he pummeled you?"

"He glared at me and got his breakfast and left. I got mine and when I left he was waiting for me."

"What restaurant did you go to?"

"I-" he faltered and squinted as if trying to think of an appropriate answer. "I dunno," he said after a moment. "It was in the subway around the corner from Kings Cross. Some Muggle place."

"What did you order?"

"I thought this was about my future detentions," Harry said, a glint of anger in his eyes.

Severus glared at him and said, "As the Headmaster has previously informed me, I am not allowed to take points for something that happened before the official start of term, or else I would have thirty off of you for being such a dunderhead Potter. I can however give you detention for behavior unbecoming of a Hogwarts student, whether the infraction happened on or off of school grounds."

"Doesn't seem fair," Harry said, though he seemed relieved again.

"A loophole to account for field trips," Severus said, voice lowered. "Two weeks detention with me Potter. Seven p.m. Monday through Friday. I do not have the time or desire to supervise detentions on weekends."

"Yes sir," Harry said. He stood up and moved to go, but Severus cleared his throat and Potter half turned to make sure he was dismissed.

"Does that suit Potter?"

"Sir?"

"I assume you'll make a show of your detentions in front of the school. Does two weeks suit your need for a cover story, or should I assign more?"

"C, cover story?" Harry wiped his hand on the side of his pants as if it had suddenly grown sweaty.

"I'm sure you've done something wrong that I don't yet know about that is deserving of detention, or will do, so I am not technically abusing my power for giving you detention for a fictional infraction."

"It's not-"

"Don't test my patience Potter. You will tell me the truth during detention. Get back to study hall. I will check to be sure you made it."

Harry swallowed and opened the door once the privacy ward had been removed, and slowly made his way down the corridor back towards study hall, trying to work over all Snape had said. I'm not abusing my power for giving detention for a fictional infraction. He knew Harry had lied. It was the only thing that made sense. Last year Snape had bought the fighting bit hook line and sinker, so why hadn't it worked this time? Dumbledore must have spoken to Snape since last night. Snape trying to get the truth out of him didn't make sense though, unless Snape thought Harry had been out doing something even worse than fighting. Snape would never believe his uncle had caused his injuries. It wasn't in Snape to believe such a thing.

"You lose points Harry?" Dean asked when he came back to Gryffindor table and sat down in the middle of the group of 5th years.

"No," Harry mumbled. "He's not allowed for things that happen off school grounds before term starts I guess."

"Well that's good," Seamus said, going back to his Charms homework.

"So you got off with no punishment?" Ron asked.

"Two weeks after dinner detentions, for fighting and behaving in a way unbecoming a Hogwarts student," Harry tried to repeat it as Snape had put it. Ron gave him a knowing look but didn't ask anything else. Hermione didn't scold him either. Harry and Ron had never told her, but he suspected she'd figured it out. Not much got by her.

Harry pulled his schoolwork back out, but he did little more than stare at it for the rest of study hall. If Snape didn't believe he'd been fighting this time, did that mean he didn't believe Harry had been fighting at the end of the previous summer? Harry had only come back with a black eye last summer and had looked a lot less pathetic than he had last night. When he looked in a mirror in the bathroom between classes later that day, he supposed he still looked pretty pathetic. His lip had mostly healed, and the bruises had changed color and now looked a lot less fresh, but he still looked as though he'd been through the ringer. It didn't matter what the infraction had been, his uncle had been a real jerk for sending him back to school this way.

"All right mate?" Ron asked as he came out of a bathroom stall behind him and found Harry leaning on the sink and staring angrily into the mirror.

"Yeah," Harry lied, "we'll be late for Defense if we don't hurry."

Harry was nervous through dinner about the upcoming detention and hoped Snape had planned something like cleaning cauldrons or mopping floors. Because Harry did good work during detentions and because Snape usually couldn't stand the sight of him, he usually left Harry alone to do menial labor.

Harry was dismayed to find that the broom cupboard with cleaning supplies was locked tight when he made it to the dungeons and wasn't already open for him. He found Snape in his office, door open and waiting for him.

"On time for once Potter," Snape said. Harry was always on time, but he suspected Snape enjoyed saying things like this to him as much as Harry and Ron enjoyed saying things about Snape behind his back. Harry didn't sit as he expected (hoped) to be sent off to start cleaning something in a classroom or down the hall.

Snape stopped grading whatever summer homework he'd been looking over and looked up at Harry. "You have a choice Potter. You can tell me what I want to know and skip detention- go sit in a classroom for an hour and do homework to show your peers you had detention."

"Or?" Harry asked. Snape narrowed his eyes and Harry thought he'd smile with whatever grim thing he was about to say, but he didn't.

"Or you can go do a two hour detention, scrubbing cauldrons or floors and then come back here and tell me what I want to know."

"There's nothing to tell sir."

"Detention first then."

Harry sighed and gripped the strap of his book bag. "What am I to do sir?"

Snape looked back up from the paper he was grading. "For a fictional infraction? You will have to figure it out yourself Potter. Find something to clean and clean it. Or don't. You will return here in two hours with nothing but the truth on your tongue."

"What if I don't have anything to tell you?"

"We have two weeks of detention to figure it out, don't we?"

Harry mumbled something about making something up, but Snape heard.

"You could make something up," he agreed. "Though it would do nothing but put off what is to come. You will tell me Potter."

Fat chance, thought Harry as he moved off and used his wand to unlock the broom cupboard down the hall. He pulled out the broom and a mop bucket and decided to attack the long straight corridor Snape's office was in. Sweeping and mopping that would make him visible to any passing Slytherins and prove he'd been in detention at the least. At least Snape was being halfway decent about it. He'd given Harry a choice of what to do (which was downright strange), instead of telling him to scrub floors on his hands and knees without a mop or some other task meant to be harder than necessary. Being able to use a broom and mop meant the task was done in thirty minutes though, so Harry dragged his supplies to a dungeon classroom and cleaned the floors there, and then did the same in two more classrooms before he returned the supplies and went back to Snape's office to tell him he was done.

"All done sir." Snape waved his hand without looking up from his grading as though saying it was all fine and dandy.

"Am I dismissed?"

"Do you have something to tell me about the incident before you arrived at school last night?"

"I ran across a troll."

Snape looked up, face expressionless. "A pathetic attempt Potter."

"I already told you what happened."

"Return tomorrow at seven."

"Do you want to know what I did tonight?"

"For a fictional detention?" He seemed amused and at the same time not amused. "Be gone."

Confused, Harry picked up his bookbag and left, once again feeling as though he had to figure out what Snape was playing at. Harry really didn't know what to tell him to make him believe him. He supposed he had another day to figure it out though.

"How was detention?" Ron asked when Harry got back to the common room.

"Disgusting," Harry said. "I pickled toad spleens."

Neville looked disgusted and Harry sat down to do homework with Ron and Hermione in a corner of the common room, though for a second time that day, Harry did little but stare at his work. What could he say to Snape that would really make an impression?

* * *

This time Severus didn't need to seek out the Headmaster. It was Albus who stepped out of the floo into his office five or ten minutes after Potter had left. Severus supposed the man must have waited on word that the portraits had seen Potter heading back to Gryffindor before coming down. There was a reason they kept so many portraits around the castle. It was the same reason Severus didn't allow portraits in the dungeons anywhere but outside of the Slytherin common room and between Slytherin and the stairs leading to the Entrance Hall.

"Severus," Albus greeted.

"Albus."

Albus smiled, glad Severus seemed to no longer be miffed at him and was using his first name again instead of his title.

"You spoke to him?"

Severus pretended to not be interested and continued grading the third year summer assignments. "I did."

"And?"

"He did two hours of detention and then told me a troll went after him."

"It was a dragon last night."

"I am aware."

Dumbledore sighed and sat down in the same chair Harry had occupied that afternoon. "You really should do something to spruce up your office Severus. It's so uninviting."

"You think that would get him to talk to me?" Severus asked seriously.

"It couldn't hurt," Albus said, though Severus doubted he meant it.

"I don't know what you expected. He dislikes me. Minerva or Poppy would be better suited to get answers from him. Perhaps Rolanda or Hagrid."

"You are the person I asked."

Severus didn't ask why. He didn't have to.

"Severus... did you tell him about your own experience in this area?"

Severus set his quill down and splattered red ink across Alice McCormac's essay on Dragon blood. Angry at the mess and with Albus both, Severus snapped, "That is my personal information."

"But you expect Harry to share his personal information with you?"

"You expect that," Severus reminded him, "though I can't fathom why. If I tell him and he has not had a similar experience, that information would become public in a matter of minutes after he left my office."

Albus thought on that for a few moments and asked quietly, "Then you truly believe he was in a fight in London? That the injuries did not happen at home?" He looked at Severus until Severus' eyes came up and met his. Severus picked up the quill again and wrote a grade at the top of the splattered paper and then set it aside to dry.

"Whatever he did, he did not get into a fight in London."

"You have the same suspicion the rest of us have then?"

"I reserve judgement until the truth is told." It was in that moment that Severus was forced to reevaluate his earlier opinions of Potter, with Albus staring at him as he did. Potter was not truthful when caught. He'd clearly caught him in his lie that afternoon and reinforced that assertion during detention, yet Potter hadn't come clean. Potter was a liar, and it surprised him.

"What are you thinking dear boy?" Albus asked.

Severus pulled himself from his thoughts and began marking up the next essay. "You don't want to know."

* * *

Despite what Severus had told Albus about not expecting results, he'd really believed it would be easier to get Potter to tell him the truth. After all, he'd only lasted three days before he'd told the Headmaster. A mere three days, he thought with disgust. It had been two weeks and Potter was still holding onto his secrets, whatever they were. He'd made mention of a dragon several times, and the troll again as well. He'd tried to convince Severus up down and sideways that he'd been in a fight with a ‘very large man' in London, but every detention ended the same way, with no answers Severus could take to the Headmaster. There was one detention left for the boy to serve, and he wasn't certain how to get the truth out of him short of Veritaserum, which was only a little more than slightly illegal to use on those under age 17 without their guardian's permission. He was not however going to tell the boy his personal life story, that was for certain.

Potter appeared at his office door, looking smug and wary at the same time. The boy wanted to celebrate his victory but wasn't certain if he could yet before his last detention was over.

"What am I to do tonight sir?" Harry asked, setting his bag down just inside the door. It was the same every night, and every night Potter came up with something new to clean all on his own (Severus had checked).

"Sit."

"What am I to clean sir?"

"Clear the air. Have done with the falsehoods."

Harry frowned and sat down, though he looked uncomfortable.

"Do you have rat spleens to pickle?"

"Do you?" Severus asked, sitting back in his chair and adopting the once smug and confident look Harry had taken in the seat across from him.

Harry didn't say anything, so instead Severus asked, "Did you really call Draco Malfoy a rat fink outside of Transfiguration this morning?"

"I knew he'd tell," Harry said, irritated as he sat back in the chair and relaxed a little.

"He did not. Professor McGonagall reported at the staff meeting this afternoon that you seemed to be angry with everyone and everything."

"Wonderful," Harry sighed in frustration.

"What are you so angry about Potter?"

Harry rubbed his forehead for half a second and then quickly pulled his hand down, looking angry. "Nothing. What the hell are you so angry about all the time?" He looked stricken as soon as he'd said it though, and looked up at the Potions Master to see what kind of tongue lashing he'd receive as a rebuke.

"Dragons, trolls, and a man in London. What do you have for me tonight?"

"I keep telling you the truth about the guy in London but you won't believe me," Harry insisted. "I've been making stuff up just to please you."

"Of that I'm certain. Tell me Potter, what would you do if I slipped you Veritaserum during one of your meals, quite by accident of course?"

"Fine. Go ahead. Hermione said it's illegal, so I assume the Headmaster will have to fire you. We'll all be sad to see you go though."

Severus could tell he'd startled Harry when he laughed out loud at the boy's sarcasm. It wasn't funny, it was disrespectful and Severus wasn't sure why he'd laughed, but he had. Harry looked perturbed after he'd gathered his wits long enough to snap his mouth shut.

"Is my detention over?" Harry asked. It had barely been five minutes since he'd arrived, but he seemed anxious to leave and Severus wondered if that meant he was making the boy uncomfortable enough to slip up and say something that resembled the truth.

"Go Potter. Do not return tomorrow at seven."

Harry practically leapt out of the chair and grabbed his bag off the floor. Before he could open the door Severus said, "Just tell me one thing Potter, before you go."

"Sir?"

"Do you really plan on returning to that house at the end of the school year?"

"What house?"

"The one where you're beaten and mistreated." It was the last card Severus had to play. Harry didn't say anything and didn't make a further move to leave. The silence stretched on for almost another minute before Severus decided to fill it himself and see if it got him anywhere. "Every time I suggest to you that this is a detention for a made up offence... the offense of getting into a fight with a man in London, you don't object. You don't correct me or insist it's real. You insist you're telling the truth about it at other times, but not when I talk about why you got the detention. If you are telling me the truth about a fight in London, why can't you keep your story straight and maintain the story across all lines of communication?"

"I don't know what all that means," Harry admitted, hand still on the door knob. He was so close to physically escaping, but he seemed glued to the spot, unable to answer or make anything up at all.

"It means I caught you."

"But I didn't do anything," Harry said quietly.

"That is my point. You are serving detention for something you did not do. You did not fight with a man in London. Nor did you face down a troll or get eaten by a dragon. So tell me again Potter. Lie to me one more time so you can get out that door. But I want to know if you really expect to return to that house. Put on airs and act like a self-assured boy who knows I've got it wrong." It'd be simple really, the boy had done it off and on for two weeks already, and possibly even in the years before this.

"I can't go back to that house Professor," Harry said. He looked up at Severus and Severus was a little taken aback at how lost the boys green eyes looked. They looked empty. Hollow and uncertain. The boy radiated anything by self-assured. "That house doesn't exist," Harry said, letting go of the door knob and moving back to the chair. Severus felt like it was an answer that should have gotten the boy out the door, but was the truth at the same time.

"It doesn't exist?"

"I don't have a house to go back to. They moved. Without me."

"When?" Severus didn't need to dare the boy to lie again, and his voice was nothing but serious.

Harry sat down, this time on the very edge of the chair, as if he didn't intend to stay.

"The day before I got on the train to school."

"And the bruises?"

Harry bit his lip to keep it from trembling, and Severus realized that he was simultaneously angry and also sitting on the edge of his seat, waiting to hear the truth for the first time.

"Uncle Vernon manhandled me out of the house and into the car to London. I fought back when I shouldn't have. I wanted my stuff for school... my owl. He drove me to London and dumped me in front of the train station and said they'd be gone by the time I got back from school again."

Severus waited to hear what else the boy would say, and as he waited, his eyes flickered to what remained of the boy's bruises. They'd almost gone now, but they were still faintly visible around one eye and on his neck. He realized now the bruise on his neck was probably a handprint from pushing the boy down into a car against his will.

"I hitched a ride back to Little Whinging, and broke into the house in the middle of the night for my stuff. Then I ran because Uncle Vernon chased me out of the house again, yelling he'd kill me if I came back. I walked all night and finally caught another ride to London. I didn't have money for breakfast. I just sat around the platform until the train pulled in and people started to show up."

"Didn't your friends have questions about your injuries?" Severus had wondered if he'd lied to them too or if they'd been complicit in it all.

"Ron and the twins knew already. They rescued me one summer in Mr. Weasley's flying car in the middle of the night."

Severus reached back into his memory and remembered Harry and Ron flying that car to school, but he couldn't recall another incident with it.

"And miss Granger?"

Harry looked down at his hands and shrugged. "She's smart. I'm sure she figured something out."

"Why did you lie to me?"

"I didn't," Harry said.

"A dragon?"

"Uncle Vernon's face gets all red when he yells at me and calls me names, like it's on fire. And he is a huge man. Stupid and dumb like a troll. When we got to London he pulled me out of the car, and when I tried to get back in, he slammed my face against the door and left me on the ground as he drove away."

Harry wasn't crying, Severus knew because he'd looked at the boy's eyes, but he seemed emotionally done for the night. Before Harry picked his bag up again to leave he said, "You can tell Dumbledore all that, but it won't make a difference, you know?" Harry looked up and his expression seemed pained, but earnest. Apparently the boy had a lot to cover up with all the anger he'd been throwing around the last two weeks. "He promised he'd take care of the Dragon... make sure he couldn't hurt anyone else again. Or me. He only meant it as long as he didn't know who it was though. He said himself when I asked not to go home at the end of first year, that I had to. Every summer I have to go back. Til I'm 17. He'll just figure out where they moved and move me back in. Doesn't matter what you tell him sir. Doesn't matter."

Harry got up and left, and Severus sat back in his chair, disturbed and angered by what he'd been told. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, hard. He wasn't altogether certain what to tell Dumbledore that the boy had told him. It would really upset Albus if he heard that Harry didn't believe in him to help solve his problems... to keep him safe. It would cut him to the core. Severus felt cut too. It wasn't that Harry didn't believe in him to help, because clearly he believed there was no resolution to the problem. It was just that his own old wounds felt raw and fresh, as though they'd opened again. Severus had never seen his father again after the day James and Remus had taken him to Hogwarts. It hurt to be thrown out. To be unloved and unwanted. Harry, apparently, knew all too well what that felt like, and there was nothing Severus could do about it. Not a damn thing.

For the first time in his remembrance, sixteen year old Severus had new clothes. They weren't just new, they were nice. He had adequate school supplies too, and didn't have to borrow from Lily or beg for quills and ink from Lucius and other boys in Slytherin. Severus had never had a new book either, but he did now. He had brand new text books and felt pretty princely to be the first one to mark them up with notes. He was especially fond of the new Potions Book he'd been bought and delighted in adding his own twist to as many potions as he could, cramming his notes into every margin, drawing diagrams he really thought should have been in the book to begin with, and writing his name inside the front cover: Half Blood Prince. He was a Prince, technically, even though he'd never been to Prince Manor and had seen his grandparents and cousins only a handful of times. Whether they wanted to acknowledge him or not, he was a Prince, and now that he had brand new things, and nice polo shirts and brand new robes for sixth year, he felt princely. Not even Sirius Black would be able to find fault with what he wore now. Only he did, but James and Remus were telling Black to lay off of Severus' case frequently now. Severus didn't mind at first, because it seemed to confuse Black and it gave Severus a break. The problem was, the longer that went on, the longer Severus felt like James Potter might be up to something, like he might just be waiting for the perfect moment to reveal what he knew of Severus and what he'd seen, most likely in front of Lily.

It wasn't just the clothes and books that made Severus feel like a different person, it was the way the Headmaster treated him. He'd always felt like the old man had favored James Potter and his crew (clearly he still did to some extent judging by the shiny new Prefect badge James wore). But now Severus was invited to tea in the old man's office frequently and asked how his classes were coming. He was asked if he needed extra tutoring in anything or if he was having any problems in school.

Severus ate up the attention. He felt rich indeed, as though he had grown up at Prince Manor and had always had access to extra tutoring and the privilege that families like the Princes and the Malfoys and the Blacks had. It was the pure-blood privilege Black frequently flaunted in front of his face, always having the newest broom and the name of Black to back him up if ever he got in too much trouble to dig himself out of. Severus had that now. He had an ear with the Headmaster if Black tried to lure him out at the full moon again, or if he pulled a prank that backfired horribly. Severus didn't pull pranks anymore because he was afraid of what James Potter would say if he did, but it was nice to know someone had his back.

Lucius seemed impressed by Severus' new status at the school as well. Lucius had always looked out for Severus, but only grudgingly, as though it was his duty as a Slytherin and as a Prefect. Now he asked Severus to sit at his table to study in the common room and to sit with him and his seventh year friends at meals, and acted as though it was his privilege to have Severus there.

"Since you have the Headmaster's ear Severus," Lucius would say to him frequently, "perhaps you could ask him for permission for the Quidditch team to have an extra day of practice out on the pitch."

Lucius and others had asked Severus how he'd done it... how as a regular student without Prefect status he'd managed to find his way into the Headmaster's good graces, but Severus had never told. As far as everyone else was concerned, he still lived at home and went home for the holidays. He explained away his new clothes and school supplies as having recently come into some money. It was the way the Headmaster seemed to favor him that others respected though. He was no longer the lonely little boy from Spinner's End that wore tatty gray robes to school. He was the Prince from Hogwarts. The boy that felt as though he really deserved to be recognized as a Prince family heir, and not the heir of Tobias Snape.

The other Professors knew Severus now lived at the castle, but they never mentioned it in front of anyone else. McGonagall and the others didn't favor Severus like the Headmaster did, but they also didn't try to catch him at things like they seemed to with the other upper class Slytherins.

"You might be going places in the world Severus," Lucius told him somewhere towards the middle of the year. "With your potions skills and keen mind, you could really make a name for yourself."

Severus didn't excitedly ask him, ‘really?', instead he just nodded as though he already knew that and was making plans, and Lucius laughed and patted him on the back. "Good man Severus." If only Potter and Lupin would keep their mouths shut, the new life Severus was building wouldn't come crashing down around him. All it would take was one sentence from Potter's lips and everyone would find out he was really just a charity case... that he didn't have the Headmaster's respect or his ear, that he was in the man's charge and only had new things because it was the man's duty to provide for Severus now.

The longer Severus pretended that he wasn't Dumbledore's charity case though, the less he believed he was. He had started to genuinely feel as though the old man cared about what his grades were, and what he thought about certain topics and whether he was getting along with his peers or not. Albus wasn't his mentor, not yet. That wouldn't come until later, but he was something more than the Hogwarts Headmaster to Severus, and Severus had started to look up to him in a way he'd never looked up to anyone except Lucius Malfoy and other upperclassmen before.

Severus' sixth year passed by in a flurry of new friends in Slytherin, good grades, and little to report by way of getting into trouble thanks to the unspoken truce between he and James. He'd even spent a good deal of time with Lily without too much interference from Black, and felt as though Lily had finally forgiven him for what he'd said to her in fifth year.

Something else that was a first for Severus was having a peaceful summer. He wasn't allowed to leave the grounds on his own because he wouldn't be 17 until just a few days before seventh year started, but the Headmaster did take him to Hogsmead several times just to get him away from the school and to spend time with him. The rest of the summer was spent laying in the grass by the lake and reading Potions theory books Professor Slughorn had lent to him, as well as new defense books Albus had bought him as an early birthday present.

By the time school started up again, Severus felt ready to tackle his seventh year with as much grace and dignity as Lucius had the year before. It wasn't all easy, because once Lucius and the others had graduated, Severus had had to find new people to hang out with and had to convince them that he was just as good as Lucius had ever been. Severus was never looked up to as Lucius had been, but Severus was ok with that. He was happy to just be having another good year. That peaceful feeling he had lasted through the first month until Lily bounded up to him in the corridor one day outside of Potions with a grin on her face. "I have exciting news Sev."

"And what would that be?" he asked. She smiled as Potter came up behind her and slipped his arm around her. Severus let his eyes move down to find their fingers intertwined, and Severus' mind went blank.

"I'm no longer in the running for last of the Gryffindor upper class to never have dated. Isn't that exciting?"

When Severus didn't answer, because he honestly couldn't find the mental capacity to understand what was being said to him at that moment, James asked in a concerned voice, "Severus?"

"Speak up Snivellus!" Black said loudly, snapping his fingers in front of Severus' face. Severus looked up at Black and then over to James and Lily, who were still holding hands. He wanted to yell, to barrel through them and separate them. He wanted to hurt James and tell Lily that she'd hurt him by doing this, and demand that she never even consider dating Potter again. James was looking at him anxiously though, and Severus wasn't sure why the seventh year Prefect looked stricken when he had exactly what Severus wanted and could no longer have. "Con-" he cleared his throat. "Congratulations," he said, voice emotionless, and held out his hand to James. James hesitantly let go of Lily's hand, if only for a moment, and shook Severus'. Severus would never say those things to James Potter. He'd never hurt him or tell Lily to keep away from him, and James and Severus both knew why.

Lily looked confused as she walked into Potions with James and Remus, but Severus mouth was dry and he was unable to go in. Suddenly Black slapped Severus on the back hard and said in a low voice in his ear, "You can act like one of us Snape, but you're not, and you're never gonna get the girl." Black moved past him and into the room, leaving Severus feel powerless in the corridor. For the first time in a year Severus felt like he was back at Spinner's End. He didn't feel like a Prince, or like a man on his way to making something of himself. Severus skipped class for the rest of the day, and didn't turn up at meals either. Albus found him sometime later that evening in the darkness out by the lake, tie undone and robes shed in a pile on the ground.

"Do you want to talk about it dear boy?"

"About what?"

"Whatever it is that has upset you so. Your professors have each expressed concern over you at some point in the day that you haven't been at classes or meals. It's not like you to skip."

Severus might have told him, like he'd told him about Tobias and about life at Spinner's End, if only he could find the words to say. He couldn't. How could he explain to the old man that what Black had said was true? That he would never be part of the upper social class of wizarding society, because he wasn't pure-blooded, and because he didn't have a pure-blooded family to claim him? Hell, he didn't even have his own father to claim him. And how did he explain that even though he'd enjoyed his new status over the last year, that that status really meant nothing if he couldn't find just one person on earth to love him? Lily was Muggleborn. If he couldn't even gain the love of his best friend who would never be part of upper wizarding society, who would deem him fit to marry?

Severus never told Albus, though he thought maybe perhaps Albus already knew what the problem was. Albus lowered himself to the ground to sit next to Severus on the cold grass instead. "It's been some years since I've come to sit on the grass and look at the stars, now I feel perhaps is the perfect time to do so, and in the company I might add, of my favorite student."

"I can't be," Severus said.

"Why not?"

"James Potter- or Black maybe. Or Frank Longbottom, he's head boy."

"And why is it you would think they would be my favorite?"

"Potter's family owns half of Diagonalley, and Black is from one of the most notable families in the aisles. Frank too. And I'm not a Prefect, or Head Boy. I'm not even on a Quidditch team."

"And that makes you less worthy somehow?"

Severus scoffed as he pulled his knees up for warmth. "You're the Headmaster. You're not even supposed to have favorites."

"But I do."

Severus looked at him, incredulous. "Why? Why me?" he asked angrily. "I'm not special in any way other than that you had to take me on as a charity case!"

Albus considered him for a moment before answering. "I had to do nothing." It seemed that was all he had to say on the matter, but after a long pause, he amended, "I regret nothing." They sat in silence for quite some time after that, Severus trying to puzzle through what the old man was really saying as they sat looking at gentle ripples caused by the wind as they made their way across the dark lake, or at the stars. Severus had just begun to wonder if Albus had fallen asleep, even though he was still sitting up, when Albus spoke again. "I have no children Severus."

"I know." Albus had mentioned it before, and just as it had been before, it had been out of the blue and Severus had no idea why he'd brought it up.

"I chose at first to take you as a ward because it was the right thing to do. You needed a safe place to go, and someone to look out for you. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to provide that safe place. I wanted to ensure your suffering was over."

Severus stared at him open mouthed as he spoke.

"You were never a charity case Severus, you were just my ward. You didn't stay just my ward for long however, because as we met for tea or chess, as you confided in me, as I began to get to know your quirks and moods and as you got to know mine, I felt for the first time as though I had a son."

"But-" Severus didn't know what to say. He wasn't the man's son. He was nobody's son. His grandfather wanted him to have no part in the Prince name, and his own father regretted that he'd been born and made no secret of it. How could Albus think on him as anything other than a ward, or a friend at best? Nevermind how Severus felt about the old man... how he wished he were his father, not just his guardian.

"But nothing Severus," Albus said. "Who your thoughts are with, where your time and effort are spent, where you put your money... there will your heart be also."

Severus wanted to argue with him, but as he puzzled over what Albus had told him, for days and even weeks later, he could find no fault with what he'd said. And as he spent the rest of the year loathing James, and avoiding Lily as often as possible, what kept him going to classes and putting effort into anything at all was the thought that he wanted Albus to have a real reason to love him as a son, and that he would hate to disappoint the old man and give him cause to give up on him.

Part Four - The Way It Wasn't, Not for Harry, Not For Severus, Not For Anyone

Severus had told Albus all of it, everything that Harry had told him, though it pained him to do so, and only then because of a promise he'd made long ago to be honest with the old man. As they drank tea a house elf had delivered half an hour ago, Albus sat silently, considering what Severus had discovered about Harry's problem at home. Severus hoped the man wasn't too upset, because he hated to see Albus sad. He'd spent two days trying to figure out the best way to tell him before he'd been called up Sunday evening to discuss the issue whether he was ready to do so or not.

"I cannot take Harry, and he cannot return home," was what Albus finally said after almost forty five minutes of silence.

"What will be done with him then?" Severus asked. Black was out of the question, and even if Severus had to find a place for the boy himself, he'd fight tooth and nail to keep him out of Black's hands. The more time Harry and Black spent together, the less of a chance Harry had. Albus must have agreed because he didn't suggest Black for potential placement.

"I'm not certain. He doesn't trust me, and even if he did, after what happened at the tournament a few months ago, my position with the Ministry and the board of governors both have become precarious. I could guarantee Harry no stability if I took him on as my ward." While Severus did want to see Potter removed from the Dursleys and given a suitable home, he was secretly glad that Albus had come to this decision. Albus wasn't his father, but he was as good as, and Severus did not need nor want a brother, especially if that surrogate brother was Harry Potter. Severus thought Albus was done talking, but he wasn't. "I also question my ability to keep him safe in the coming war. You know of the prophecy and my fears about Harry's scar. I could not-" Albus turned away. "I couldn't send the boy to die. Can't, send him to die," he finished quietly. Severus recoiled at the thought of sending any child to die, let alone The-Boy-Who-Lived. It wasn't the first time they'd discussed this however, and Severus knew that if Harry was a horcrux, and that if he really was the boy of the prophecy, at some point Harry would have to die. Since the end of the Tri-Wizard tournament they'd discussed at length, (along with Remus, Black, McGonagall and Kingsley) ways of circumventing the prophecy, removing the horcrux without killing Harry, or bringing him back from the dead once the horcrux had died, but had yet to come up with any solutions.

Trying to tear his mind away from Potter's upcoming demise at the hands of Voldemort, or Albus in fulfillment of the prophecy, Severus said, "Perhaps we should tackle one problem at a time. We have until the end of the school year to figure out where Potter will be best kept and with whom. Until then, he has been terrorizing his friends, peers, and staff with his angry outbursts."

"That might be too strong of an analysis Severus," Albus chastised, but he nodded in agreement anyway. "Harry is very angry. He needs guidance which I'm reluctant to give given his distrust of me and the fact that at any time in the near future I could be removed as Headmaster."

"Perish the thought," Severus growled. He and McGonagall were prepared to take over as Headmistress and Deputy Headmaster if Albus was removed, but he hoped it never happened. It wasn't Hogwarts without Albus leading it. Albus had even named Pomona as fourth in command, Filius as fifth, and Poppy as sixth, just in case things really got that far. It was something else they'd discussed to no end with Kingsley and other members of the newly reformed Order. Severus hoped that Albus had not secretly named Hagrid or Filch as next in line for command somewhere down the line after Poppy, and heaven forbid Sibyll.

"Severus." Severus looked up and stopped rubbing his temple where a headache was setting in from thinking of everything that was to come in their future if the Ministry got their way and got a foothold at Hogwarts. "I think you should continue to talk to Harry."

"How you could think that is a wise idea-" he closed his mouth as Albus held his hand up.

"If I am removed, Minerva could be removed as well. Being third in command you have the longest to stay should things start to go as we believe they may. That will give you the most time to win over Harry's trust. I also believe it's still the right course for you to explain your understanding of his situation to him. That makes you the most qualified out of us to lead him through this, given you know what it feels like to be in a similar situation."

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. "Again," Severus said, trying not to raise his voice with Albus, because he didn't like to, "how you could think I am the most capable is beyond me. With Draco, perhaps, or even with an intellectually capable student such as Theodore Knott or Ernie Macmillan or even Granger maybe. Potter and I have no basis to form a relationship however. None at all."

"He opened up to you Severus, even when he wouldn't to me or Minerva or Poppy."

"Because I was persistent in calling him out on it!" Damn, he'd raised his voice after all. Pretending to adjust his sleeve cuff, he took a moment to calm himself before he spoke again, but Albus was waiting for his eyes to come up and didn't give him the chance.

"Be persistent Severus. Perhaps what Harry needs most is someone who is persistently there for him."

"You want me to spend time with him." His voice was flat and unamused.

"Preferably outside of detention," Albus noted, and Severus took in a deep breath to steady himself and let it out again slowly. "I would not ask you to do something I myself have not already done, or at the very least considered your feelings in getting involved in Severus."

"I'm not you," Severus reminded him.

"No dear boy," Albus smiled, that quiet sort of smile he got only when dealing with Severus, "I had perhaps hoped you would someday be better."

* * *

"Potter." Harry's head snapped up from his lunch and found Snape standing across from him. "I need a word."

Harry hung his head for a moment, and as it happens when any Professor comes down to one of the student tables, student eyes found them as people wondered what was going on. Harry lifted his head after a moment and said, "Professor," and though he'd said it as politely as Severus thought was possible from the boy, he could detect desperation in his tone. "I don't need another detention. I haven't done anything, I swear."

Severus already felt exasperated dealing with the boy. "You are not scheduled for detention, but if you keep being melodramatic and scaring the younger students, you will be."

Harry let his eyes roam to the left and found several first and second years listening intently to the conversation, and looking as though any detention with their Potions Master might be their last if their upperclassmen was begging not to get one.

"Go back to your lunch," Harry snapped irritably, and rose quickly from the table to go with Snape.

"Two points from Gryffindor, for being unnecessarily rude to younger students," Snape said loudly enough for the first and second years to hear, and Harry glared at his back as he followed him away from the table.

A few minutes later, Harry found himself once again in Snape's office in the dungeons. He was surprised to find a new chair in place of the old visitor's chair. While it was still wood, it wasn't flat in the seat and looked as though it might be slightly more comfortable. Harry found it was and wondered if it had a cushioning charm on it.

As soon as the door to the office was closed, Harry said, "I told you the truth. I swear. Please don't make me tell it all again. I didn't make it up."

"I believe you Potter. I wanted to inform you that you will not be returning to your relatives."

Harry shook his head. "Dumbledore would never allow it."

"The Headmaster has made the decision that you are not to return."

"Where- where am I staying then?"

"For now, at Hogwarts."

Harry was quiet for several moments in thought. "You promise I don't have to go back?"

"The Headmaster has promised, and even if he did not, I would not allow you to return."

"And I don't have to do more detentions?"

"Have you done something that warrants it?"

Harry shook his head.

"Understand one thing before you go Potter, if your attitude and angry outbursts continue, you will find yourself spending a lot more time in this office. With me." He wanted to give the boy a chance to prove he could control his emotions now that he knew he was never going back to his relatives, and to make it abundantly clear that not doing so would result in them spending more time together than either of them wanted. "Do you understand?"

"Yes sir."

"That will be all then. You may return to your lunch."

Harry stood up, and before Snape could stop him with any questions or other commands, he made a hasty exit and didn't breathe a sigh of relief until he was all the way back in the Entrance Hall. Lunch was over by the time he got up there however, and he met Ron as he was coming out of the Great Hall. "What was all that about?" Ron asked.

"Nothing. I'll tell you later."

"Is it good or bad though? Do you have detention again?"

"No. I'm not sure. Let's talk about it later."

Later that night Harry and Ron saved their showers until they were sure no other boys were going to use the boys showers in Gryffindor for the night, and went in so they could talk privately. They warded the door against sounds and as they went into separate shower stalls Harry told Ron what Snape had said about not going back to the Dursleys.

"That's great Harry! Maybe you can come stay with us now!"

"He said I'm staying at the school for now."

"I don't understand, how'd he find out? Did you tell Dumbledore or McGonagall or something?" Harry heard Ron's shower switch on.

"I told him."

"You told Snape?"

"He wouldn't let me leave detention until I did."

"But-" Ron was quiet for a minute as he showered, but once he'd gathered his thoughts he asked, "aren't you glad you told someone? Because now you don't have to go back?"

Harry shrugged, and realizing Ron couldn't see it, said, "I guess. Snape pestered the crap out of me until I told him."

"I wonder why," Ron said, turning his shower off. Harry wondered why too. He'd expected Dumbledore or McGonagall to come asking more questions, but not Snape. He hadn't expected Snape to realize what was going on without being told either, but somehow he had.

"I don't know how, but-" Harry trailed off.

"What?" Ron asked, coming out of his stall with the towel draped over his hair and wearing pajama bottoms.

"Somehow he'd already figured out what was going on. He knew and he spent two weeks trying to pester me until I told him what he already knew."

"Don't look at me," Ron said. "I didn't tell. Fred and George wouldn't either. Hermione's kept pretty quiet too."

"You think she knows?"

"Don't you? She figured out Remus was a werewolf and all. Snape's smart, like Hermione. Maybe he figured it out on his own."

"Maybe," Harry said, but the previous year he'd been so eager to pin Harry's injuries on him picking a fight. He'd jumped right to the same conclusion this year too. Harry wasn't sure what had changed since last year, but something had. He wished he knew, because he didn't wish it to be so obvious to everyone by his mannerisms (visible injuries aside) that he'd been getting the crap kicked out of him on a regular basis.

"Ron- I don't act... you know. Weird or anything, right? I mean, you couldn't tell about the Dursleys from the way I act?"

"Harry, I had no idea until we flew a car to your window and found you locked in. It wasn't until then that I figured certain things were because of that."

"Like what?"

"I dunno... the nightmares you have sometimes, and the way you jump if someone comes up behind you too quietly and touches your shoulder or something."

"So I do act strange, and it's noticeable." Harry huffed in frustration. He just wanted to blend in with everybody else.

"No, and not unless someone knows something is wrong to begin with."

Later, Harry was still wide awake long after everyone else in the tower had gone to sleep. He couldn't keep his mind from circling. He wished for the millionth time that he'd never gone to live with his aunt and uncle in the first place. Obvious reasons aside for not wanting to have been put there, he felt like it was their fault he was different from everyone else and would never be the same. He didn't like feeling like the odd person out, even when with his friends, and it hadn't been until near the end of last year that that feeling of differentness from Ron and Hermione and the others had started to fade. Thanks to uncle Vernon it was back in full force though. It wasn't fair, and that made him sad and angry at the same time. Punching his pillow to make it softer, Harry rolled over and tried to shut his mind down for the night, but couldn't. By morning, he'd slept very little, and when Ron woke him, he braced himself for the coming day.

Unfortunately for Harry, the day had started out poorly. Draco had laughed at Harry as the shoulder strap on his book bag ripped and sent his bag and several books and quills scattering to the floor, and Harry couldn't think of anything good to snap back at him. "Love the bag Potter," Draco had called as he passed him by on his way to another class. Harry in turn had snapped at Professor McGonagall on accident at the end of Transfiguration, and at Ron unintentionally on their way to lunch. By dinner he'd grouched at several other people as well, and he found Snape walking to Gryffindor table, straight towards him. Harry wasted no time in putting his head straight down to the table, forehead flat to the surface while he waited for Snape to come tell him off.

"Potter, follow me."

"Professor," Hermione said, and Snape turned around.

"I'm supposed to tutor Harry in Transfiguration this evening after dinner in the library. Professor McGonagall asked me to."

Harry's head came up off the table. That was right! He'd struggled so much in class today that McGonagall had directed him to have a mandatory study session with Hermione. He was almost gleeful until Snape replied, "It will have to wait miss Granger. If necessary I will tutor him in the required subject matter before I send him back to Gryffindor tower. Potter, don't waste time, we have somewhere to be."

Severus heard a first year tell a friend knowledgeably, "Detention," and he didn't correct him as Harry rose and followed him out of the Great Hall once again.

"I warned you Potter, and gave you explicit directions to cease and desist terrorizing the castle's residents."

"I didn't terrorize anybody," Harry complained feebly as they made their way to the Dungeon entrance and down the stairs.

"Did you not tell Michael Corner to ‘stuff it' this afternoon as you passed him outside of the Potions classroom?"

"He bumped into me and almost made me drop my book bag again."

"And what did you snap at Professor McGonagall in Transfiguration? She was reluctant to say."

Harry mumbled and Severus said, "Speak up!"

"I said I'd rather be sleeping. I wasn't trying to be mean to her and I apologized."

They made his office and he let them in and shut the door with a snap.

"Was my warning not clear enough? You will find yourself spending more time than you wish with me if you cannot find a way to change your attitude."

Harry took a deep breath and held it. Severus thought he'd let it out, but he didn't. Was the boy being petulant like a toddler and holding his breath? After almost a minute, he finally let the breath out.

"What was that about?"

"You didn't want me to snap at people and I didn't want detention," Harry snapped, despite his effort not to. Like with McGonagall he immediately apologized though, trying to negate some of the damage. "I'm sorry. I'm just really tired. I didn't sleep at all last night. Then Draco made fun of me in the hall for having an old book bag and everything all day seemed to fall apart."

Harry thought Snape would yell at him, but instead he sat behind his desk and said, "Explain the incident with Draco."

"Did he complain too? Look," Harry put his old brown book bag on the desk in front of Snape. He'd had to carry it in front of him all day since the one remaining strap had broken. "No straps. He thought it was funny when it fell off my back and all my stuff fell out."

"You lack a proper book bag because your relatives did not provide you with a new one?"

"I've had this one since second year. It's Percy's old one. Mrs. Weasley or Ron's brothers sometimes give me their old stuff."

"I see. Do you not spend money from your vault on new things for the school year?"

"There's not that much in there. I counted. I have just enough for school books and robes each year until I graduate. Then it's all gone. It's not my fault Draco's parents spoil him with expensive new bags that have charms to keep them together. He's so spoiled he doesn't realize he's being mean." Harry had worked himself up by the end of his tirade.

Severus was quiet for several moments as he thought, mind flying back to the first new book bag he'd ever gotten amongst other things. Finally he said, "Have you heard of coping skills Potter?"

"Hermione might have mentioned something."

"And? Explain the concept to me."

"Well I held my breath when I wanted to yell at you!" Harry said, although he looked chastised when Snape raised his brows at his outburst.

"I will explain the concept to you, because it was once explained to me by a student a year ahead of me, and because miss Granger seems to have failed to teach it to you." He didn't mention that it was Lucius Malfoy who'd taught him, as he thought Harry might refuse to listen if he did. "A coping skill is something that works for you to help deal with emotions that seem too strong to handle during the moment. Did holding your breath work?" It clearly hadn't, but he wanted Harry to work out the answer for himself. Harry shook his head. "No," Severus agreed. "It's important to have at least one thing that works for you, but advisable to have three or even four, so if you can't use your preferred coping skill, you have others to fall back on. What works for one person may not work for another. The other important thing is that the thing you choose shouldn't be destructive or it's not really a coping skill."

"I don't- there's nothing that works. I was up all night because I was so mad. I couldn't stop thinking about it."

"Perhaps you should ask your friends what they do when they are feeling angry or upset in some way to calm down, and try what they do until you find something that works for you. The Headmaster eats lemon drops, for example, and Professor McGonagall changes into her animagus form in her free time when feeling overworked."

Harry thought that suddenly the pouch of lemon drops the Headmaster always carried with him made sense and that it also made sense why he seemed to offer them to students when they were stressed out or upset. Harry didn't like the taste of lemon or he would normally jump at the chance to have any candy at all.

"What about you?" Harry asked.

Snape pulled himself up to his full height in his chair, and moved as far back into it as possible, as if to distance himself from Harry, but after a moment the man seemed to calm down. "I prefer to read something that has nothing to do with what I'm upset about. Reading for pleasure in the middle of a Potions class is not always a viable option however. When reading isn't an option, I try to remove myself from whatever situation is causing me anger. Again, not always an option during classes or other situations, which is why it's advisable to have more than one or two options to fall back on."

"Is- do you have another one you use then?"

"No." It was a lie, but he didn't care. He'd already told Potter too much. He didn't need the boy to be able to read him easily when he was stressed or upset.

Across from Severus, Harry was musing over the fact however that it was fairly easy to tell when Snape was upset when his two coping skills weren't an option, because he was always yelling in class or calling students things like dunderhead.

"Try things until you find what works for you. If you are still having issues you may... return here."

Harry frowned. "You mean you'll drag me back again?"

"That is possible Potter. I meant the warning I gave you yesterday. However, you do not have to wait until I drag you down here to return if you want help."

If Harry and Ron had thought the night before that Snape was being weird, Harry thought he was being even stranger now.

Snape dismissed him a minute later after asking if Harry had any questions, (he didn't), and Harry went back to the tower since dinner was over. What Snape had said kind of made sense, at least more sense than what Hermione had told him. He did ask Ron what he did when he was mad, and Ron advised against punching people, before telling him he liked to draw. Harry had seen Ron scribbling things on the side of his notes in class, and even in his books, and just like the Headmaster's lemon drops, it made sense now. So did the picture Ron had drawn earlier that day of Draco falling off a broom from a hundred feet in the air. Harry laughed, and spent several minutes describing to Ron the latest way in which Snape was acting strangely.

* * *

Harry had been dragged to Snape's office three more times by the end of the week, (Thursday it had been twice in one day), and he could tell Snape was feeling as exasperated with him as Harry was feeling with Snape. Saturday the two were seen having a shouting match in the hall in the Transfiguration corridor, and the next Monday Albus spotted Severus stalking angrily away from Harry and out of sight around a corner.

Albus approached Harry and offered him a lemon drop. Harry accepted even though he disliked the taste, and then regretted it as soon as he put the candy in his mouth. Snape had told him to try different things though, and he was feeling rather angry at the moment.

"Dear me," Albus said calmly as he pulled the drawstring bag of lemon drops closed and put it back in his robe pocket. "What has angered Professor Snape so?"

Harry huffed and swallowed the lemon drop whole just to have it over and done with. "I told him he couldn't drag me to his office anymore if I didn't have detention! He keeps pulling me out of meals or study hall or free time!"

"I see," said Dumbledore.

"He needs to just leave me alone."

"Perhaps he just wants to spend time with you dear boy."

"I doubt it," Harry laughed. "He hates me."

"Does he?" Dumbledore asked.

"He has since the first time he saw me."

"Did Professor Snape not purchase that book bag for you this week?"

Harry frowned and looked at the new bag. "No- you did, or McGonagall did. The elves brought it to me the other day. I thought maybe it was from lost and found."

"It wasn't myself or Professor McGonagall. That is a very expensive book bag. I believe one imbued with charms to keep it from tearing or falling apart from use." He reached out and touched the bag and said, "Not dragonhide, but definitely the hide of a magical animal. Most likely fire and water resistant. It's one of the finer ones I've seen a student with this year."

Harry had loved the book bag since the moment he'd seen it sitting on his trunk at the foot of his bed after waking up Wednesday morning. The thought that Snape had given it to him, or that it was expensive like Draco's had never crossed his mind.

"Snape wouldn't have given this to me," Harry said, shaking his head and gripping the shoulder strap tightly.

"I must be mistaken then," Dumbledore said with a smile. "I must have misheard when he told Professor McGonagall that he would provide you with a suitable replacement for your old one. Have a good afternoon Harry." He smiled and went on his way. Harry watched him as he went, scrutinizing his movement. His bag of lemon drops stayed in his robe pocket.

Harry thought on what the Headmaster said later that afternoon as he sat by himself in the library waiting for Ron and Hermione and examining his new bookbag more carefully this time. It might have even been nicer than Dracos. Harry wasn't sure how to tell if it was really imbued with all those charms the Headmaster said it was, but he didn't think Dumbledore would make something like that up.

Ron came in without Hermione and sat next to Harry, pulling out his Transfiguration homework. "Hermione stopped to talk to Professor Vector in the corridor."

Harry nodded but didn't respond.

"What are you looking at?" Ron asked as Harry rubbed his thumb over the leather of the bag. "The strap come off that one too?"

"Nope," Harry said. "The Headmaster said it had charms to keep it together and make it waterproof and a bunch of other stuff."

"So he bought it for you?"

"He said Snape bought it for me. He said it was one of the nicest bags he'd seen a student with so far this year."

"If it's anything like Malfoy's it'll have cost a fortune. Mum buys us Muggle book bags at a Muggle store and charms them herself, and she patches them all up for us when they rip over Christmas and Summer holiday. Cheaper that way."

Hermione came in and sat down across from Ron and Harry a moment later. "What are we talking about?" she asked, only having caught the last snippet of what Ron was saying.

"Harry said Snape gave him the bag and the Headmaster said it was better than Malfoy's."

"I'm sure he didn't say that," Hermione said, but she did look over Harry's bag again now that they were talking about it.

"How much d'you reckon Malfoy's bag cost?" Ron asked. "Mum never pays more than a sickle for each of ours."

Hermione stopped examining the bag and pulled her books out of her own bag with a huff. She didn't like to discuss money or compare their belongings to other students. Harry normally didn't either but he was curious. If Snape had bought it for him, how much had he spent? After a minute of flipping through her notes Hermione said stiffly, "I heard Draco bragging to Crabbe on the train that his parents spent a Galleon and a half on his bag this year. It was made of dragonhide."

"I bet Snape didn't spend that," Harry said, shaking his head and pushing his bag away from himself as though it would sprout teeth and bite his hand. "There's no way. I bet it was an old one he had lying around and wasn't using."

"It's possible he's just being nice," Hermione said.

Harry snorted and Hermione looked chagrined. "Yeah right Hermione. He hates me." He expected Ron to agree, but Ron was silent and trying to pretend he was interested in his half finished essay.

"C'mon," Harry said at his friend's silence, "you know he does."

"For a man who hates you, he's been awfully considerate of you this year."

"Considerate?!" Harry half shouted. The man had done nothing but get on his case and shout him silly in the corridors. "You do know I've had two weeks of detention already right?"

Hermione looked up at Harry and then at Ron, and then let her eyes wander around their general area, as if checking to see who else was around and might be listening. There was no one, and she said quietly, "You've said some rude things to him this year Harry. You've been very disrespectful to him in the halls, sometimes in front of other students. He hasn't given you any detentions for that."

"No, he just shouts at me til my ears want to bleed."

"He has shouted quite a bit," Ron agreed hesitantly.

"After Harry refuses to talk to him and be respectful. And I've seen Professor Snape stalking off more often than he shouts. Last year he would have taken points, put Harry down and given him detention for each thing Harry said to him. He hasn't done any of that this year."

"Two weeks detentions," Harry reiterated. He noted Ron averted his eyes. They both knew it was a lie. Apparently Hermione knew too.

"Whatever detentions you did or didn't serve Harry, he's been very reserved when it comes to you. He's treated you more like Draco than like a student he hates. Maybe you should just thank him for the bag instead of insisting he didn't do something nice for you."

Harry opened his mouth to argue but he caught the look Ron was giving him and shut it again. It looked like Ron agreed with Hermione.

Later that night before bed, before the other boys came up to the dorm for the night, Ron said, "Hermione's kinda right. He hasn't been accusing you of stuff you didn't do, or yelling at you about your clothes or your hair or anything like that this year."

"No, just everything else," Harry said.

"Yeah but-" Ron shot a look at Harry trying to gauge his mood. "When he pulls you out of study hall or a meal to tell you off, it's because you've been rude to people in the halls or because you punched a wall or told McGonagall to mind her own business. You know if I did that they'd send a letter home and mum would send me a howler or she'd come to school and drag me out of the Great Hall in front of everybody by the ear to yell at me in person. She did that once to Bill you know, when he'd been rude to Madam Hooch. Snape could be doing a lot worse than telling you off in private and trying to help you be less angry."

"You're on Hermione's side."

"We're on your side. Don't get me wrong, Snape's batty... plain crazy, I won't argue with you there. We both know what he's capable of, but Hermione was right when she said he's been nice to you. Would you rather he be like this, or like he was last year when he was taking points off you for having your tie done less than perfect?"

Harry flopped onto his bed with a huff and glared at his pillow so he wouldn't glare at Ron. He didn't know that he'd rather have Snape be any way, he only knew he'd rather the man leave him alone. The way he'd latched onto Harry that year didn't make sense. The man was Malfoy's Godfather and he didn't bother him that much. He rarely ever saw the two together and even then only in class. Yet here he was hounding Harry daily, or twice daily for his behavior as if Harry was his wayward Godson. Sirius never got onto Harry for his behavior, rude or not. And Harry wasn't being rude, not really, or at least not on purpose. He was just so angry, and he didn't know what to do with himself. Snape was only making it worse. Maybe Harry would just tell him that the next time he pulled him aside. Mind set on what he was going to say the next time he saw him, Harry got under the covers and tried not to think about it any more as the other boys came in and started getting ready for bed. Seamus and Neville were talking about next years Quidditch World Cup and Harry would rather participate in that conversation than spend his whole day thinking about Snape.

Once Severus had graduated, he didn't know what to do with himself. He didn't have a home to return to once the school year had ended, because Hogwarts had been his home for the last two summers and all the holidays in between.

"Severus, you are welcome to stay here for as long as you want," Albus told him.

"What, and live in a cabin next door to Hagrid?"

"We can find a position here at the school for you, or I can help set up an apprenticeship with a Potions Master. That is still what you were leaning towards wasn't it?"

Severus nodded. Potions wasn't his favorite subject, but it's what he excelled at. He found dueling and defense more exciting, but he didn't know anyone that had gone into the aurory program in the last few years and he wasn't sure he'd be accepted if he applied.

"You only need one year. The question is, would you rather apprentice a master who is close to the school so you can continue to live here, or would you rather we find a Potions Master who is more highly skilled. If distance isn't a barrier, that opens up more possibilities."

"I'd rather be skilled," Severus said. Besides, the others who had just graduated weren't going to hang around home now that they were adults. He would feel silly if he was the only one left at school, or at least that's what he told himself.

Over the next two weeks, Albus brought up several possibilities, including a Potions Master in France who had invented several new promising potions in the last few years, one in York who was skilled and had a thriving apothecary though he rarely did any kind of research or trial in new potions, and one in Norway who was known for his work with Potions invented and used by the Fae. In the end Severus decided he'd like to apply to work with the one in France and Norway, that way if one fell through he'd still have a chance to work with the other. He was surprised by how quickly he heard back from both.

"It seems you've been accepted by both," Dumbledore beamed one afternoon as he sat down to tea in the Great Hall next to Severus and Minerva.

"Both?"

"You had a glowing recommendation from your Potions Professor and the Headmaster from your school. You also had the highest NEWT potions score from your class. How could they not want to work with you?" Dumbledore beamed.

"Who are you going to choose Severus?" Minerva asked.

Severus really didn't know. He'd only hoped he would be accepted by one of them and had planned on going to work with whoever was willing to take him.

"Asmund has been praised for his recent success with the wolfsbane potion," Albus said.

"But Gauthier invented the wolfsbane potion," Severus said.

"I read last year that Asmund collaborated on a project with the elves to create new warding potions for a new colony," McGonagall said, trying to be helpful. "They involved the fifth transfigurative property and had to be imbued with elvish magic to be activated."

"Two interesting choices," Albus said. "One who works exclusively to invent new potions, and one who invents new potions in collaboration with fae but also works to improve known potions."

"What are we discussing today?" asked Flitwick as he came over with a cup of tea already in hand and sat at the table next to McGonagall.

"Gauthier vs Asmund," McGonagall said.

"Ah yes, I heard you were thinking of a Potions apprenticeship Severus," Flitwick said with a smile. "Didn't Asmund work with the elves last year on a potion incorporating elvish charms?"

The consensus seemed to be in favor of Severus going to Norway, and he did find the prospect of working with different types of people interesting, so he ended up writing back to Asmund and heading to Norway less than a week later. He was surprised when Dumbledore decided to go with him, ‘to be sure he was settled'.

Asmund, as it turned out, lived in a stone cabin with a wood roof covered in moss in the middle of the forest, hours from civilization in Norway. He had a spare room for Severus to stay in, which was fortunate considering there were no other dwellings available, and Severus was informed upon his arrival that he was Asmund's first ever apprentice. Asmund was only ten years older than Severus, and was therefore fairly new to Potions himself, though so far, from what Severus had read and gathered, he'd had a whirlwind potions career.

Albus stayed for two days before he left Severus to his new apprenticeship, but continued to write once a week. Once when Severus had been so engrossed in a project involving faeries and a new class of potion never before heard of, he forgot to write back, and his next letter from Albus was an admonishment to write back each week or Albus would come in person to be sure all was well.

"Your headmaster seems very interested in your wellbeing. I did not realize staff at Scottish schools were so invested," said Asmund when he'd glanced over Severus' shoulder at the letter one morning.

Severus wasn't sure what to tell him, because he'd never really told anyone that the Headmaster was his guardian (or had been before he'd come of age).

"He- raised me. For the last two years I was at school."

"Ah, it makes sense now," Asmund smiled. "Not your Headmaster, your father."

"Not exactly," Severus said as he prepared the base for their seventh try at this new potion class.

"It explains why he was so upset you didn't write back, and why he brought you himself," Asmund said. "My Headmaster was ready to see me off the school grounds personally when I graduated. He was tired of me blowing up classrooms with my experiments. So were the other teachers. The groundskeeper practically cried tears of joy when I graduated."

Severus laughed, though he wasn't sure what to say to Asmund about the Headmaster. He wasn't his father, and couldn't be. His father was probably lying in a gutter somewhere near Spinner's End, too inebriated to make it all the way home. Severus didn't know for certain that his father was still in Spinner's End, but he thought he probably was. He hadn't tried to seek him out after school. He hadn't had a chance because he'd been wrapped up in trying to secure his apprenticeship. The apprenticeship that was flying by faster than he would have liked.

Before Severus knew it, an entire year had passed, and he'd completed the required apprenticeship, meaning he was halfway to his Mastery. He'd learned so much from Asmund and all the work they'd done that he wished he could have stayed for a second year to learn more. Unfortunately, now that the word was out that Asmund was accepting apprentices, he'd been receiving applications every other week and Severus was going to have to leave to make room for a new apprentice.

Asmund and Severus were sorry to say goodbye because they'd become good friends over the course of the year, but it was a necessity, and Severus found himself back in Britain with no idea what to do with himself now that his apprenticeship was over. He couldn't return to Hogwarts, because he was almost 19 now, and it would be strange to tell anyone he ran across that he knew from school that he was still living at Hogwarts. They would have questions he wouldn't want to answer. Dumbledore did ask him to come back, at least until he'd found a place to live, but Severus politely declined, and ended up staying at the Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley. He had it in his mind to find out what had become of Tobias before he moved on to bigger and better things, whatever those things were, and Diagonalley was a good place to stay nearby.

Tobias Snape, as it turned out, still lived in the ramshackle two story house at the end of the street in Spinner's End. As it also turned out, he was still given to drink, and was less than pleased to see Severus.

"I thought I made it clear to that Headmaster of yers that I was done with you boy."

Severus didn't even know what to say to him as he stood there on the steps in front of the door.

"What's that look for? Were you expecting me to invite you in? Yeh'r not mine anymore. I wish you never were. I gave you away to that man with the beard. What was his name? Alvin? Avery? You shouldn't have come back."

"I just wanted to tell you I graduated," Severus said, mouth very dry. "And I'm on my way to earning my Potions Mastery. I did a year apprenticeship already-"

Tobias spat at Severus' feet and cut him off with a shout. "Aye! I said I didn't want to know! Yer not mine! Did yeh expect ter come back to old Toby and live fer free off my hard work again? I'm done with yeh boy! DONE!"

Severus had to jump back as the door was slammed hard enough that it would have broken Severus' nose or teeth if it had hit his face. He listened, but there were no other sounds coming from inside, and he stared at the door, not sure why he kept expecting it to open again. He felt... discarded. Tobias didn't even remember the name of the man he'd ‘given him away' to. Suddenly anger burned in the pit of his stomach, and Severus didn't know what to do with it. He felt like pulling out his wand and cursing every inch of that house, just to make his father's life as miserable as he'd always claimed Severus had. The thought even played across his mind to set the place on fire, but in the end he only ended up feeling stupid for standing and staring at the closed door for what must have been several minutes. When he turned around, he surveyed the street just to make sure Potter and Lupin weren't standing there, waiting to laugh at him for being thrown out yet again. There was no one there though.

Severus returned to the Leaky Cauldron, but felt too empty to return to his room and sit by himself, so he ended up wandering Diagonalley as the sun went down instead.

"Severus!"

Severus turned and found Lucius Malfoy holding his hand up in a silent wave, and a friendly smile on his face. It was different than the way Asmund smiled at him, but Severus was so desperate for anyone at all to be his friend in that moment, he was washed with relief that Lucius was smiling and not scowling at him.

"What have you been up to?" Lucius asked. "Did you hear I got married last month?"

"I was out of the country," Severus said quietly as Lucius came up beside him and slapped him on the back, as if they were old friends. In the time since Lucius had graduated, Severus had thought on the way things had been with him. Lucius had been friendly, but they hadn't been friends, and it seemed as though he'd only been interested in using Severus to get things from the Headmaster. But as Lucius started to speak to him, Severus also remembered how proud he had felt to be part of Lucius' circle in his sixth year, and how good it felt to have Lucius praise him and say he was going places. In that moment Severus wished he was further along in his Mastery so he could have something impressive to say to Lucius.

"That explains why you never responded to the wedding invitation."

"You invited me?"

"Of course I did!"

Severus frowned. He'd gotten all his other correspondence even though he'd been out of the country, but he supposed it wasn't unheard of for owls to get lost.

"I married Narcissa," Lucius said proudly. "A perfect match between the Malfoy and Black families, don't you think?"

Severus tried hard not to wrinkle his nose at the thought of the ‘noble house of Black' but Lucius only ended up laughing at his attempt.

"Narcissa was never fond of Sirius. I hope you know that. She always thought he was quite crass, especially in his treatment of you. You know he was practically disowned by his family after his sixth year right? He went to live with the Potters over holidays. Disowned, can you imagine?"

"I didn't realize," Severus said, straightening up. He was afraid Lucius would somehow be able to tell that he'd just come from his own father's house, who had just disowned him officially for a second time.

"I was just on my way to Knockturn for a drink. There's a wonderful pub over there that only serves those like us, have you ever been?"

Severus shook his head, and Lucius motioned for him to follow. Severus had only been up Knockturn a few times before. Lucius led him to a small pub with only six tables, all with highly polished wood and a grand chandelier hanging over the room. Severus wasn't sure what Lucius had meant when he'd said ‘those like us', if he'd meant pure-blooded or something else. Lucius had to know he wasn't a pure-blood. Severus felt like a fraud being there with him, but no one called him out as out of place, and they were seated at a table next to the window looking out over the alley without incident.

"Nice huh? Narcissa gets on me about coming without her, but there's no women allowed. As long as I take her out to a fancy dinner afterwards, she doesn't put up too much of a fuss though. You said you were out of country?"

"I did a year apprenticeship with a Potions Master."

"You're going for your mastery then? I always said you were going places Severus. I assume you studied with Gauthier?"

"Asmund."

"I heard he's become very popular recently. One of Avery's cousins tried to get an apprenticeship but there's a waiting list."

Severus knew why there was a waiting list and knew he was lucky to have been the first one in the door, but he wanted Lucius to be impressed with him as he had been before and said, "I had recommendations from the Headmaster and Professor Slughorn."

"It doesn't surprise me that he took you as an apprentice. Everyone in Slytherin knew you were top of the class in Potions. Asmund would have been a fool not to take you."

Severus took a drink of the fine brandy Lucius had ordered, and hoped he had enough money in his pocket to pay for his drink.

"So what does the rest of your Potions Mastery entail? I've never looked into it."

"I have several papers to write and submit to be published in Potions journals, and I have to invent a new potion. Then there is a test."

"They only require one year of apprenticeship then? I would have thought it was two. The aurory requires three and a year of supervised work after, and to work in most other Ministry departments it's at least two."

"There is an option to do a sixth month apprenticeship in lieu of writing two of the research papers. Then I would have to write one paper and invent a potion, then take the test. Those that get into the second apprenticeship usually get help writing their paper and help studying for the test."

"Why not do a second apprenticeship then?"

Severus wanted to. He wished he could go back to Norway, but even if Asmund wasn't busy with his next apprentice, the requirement for a second apprenticeship was that it be done with a different Potions Master.

"I haven't thought about who I'd like to apprentice with yet." If he would have been smart he would have had it all set up before he'd had to leave Norway instead of finding himself back in Britain with no plans of what to do next or where to stay.

"Maybe I can help an old friend," Lucius said, puffing his chest out as if he were proud to call Severus friend. Severus wasn't sure what to make of that.

"You know a Potions Master?"

"I know someone who might. And if not Narcissa and I could help you study. Narcissa was quite good at Potions, if you'll remember."

Severus did remember. Narcissa was a year behind him in school, and must have married Lucius right after she graduated.

"I couldn't impose on you," Severus said, but Lucius waved his hand at him and poured more Brandy into Severus' glass.

"You could come stay at the manor. We have a dozen guest rooms. Narcissa's mother just gave us a few house elves to add to our collection, so now we have six and they've no one to wait on."

Severus was about to object again when Lucius said, "You wouldn't deny me the chance to help a fellow Slytherin would you? Besides, when you get that mastery I'll be able to take some credit for it." He gave that smile to Severus again, the one he'd been desperate for an hour ago, and Severus wasn't sure if he wanted to refuse. He'd be living in a manor instead of the Leaky Cauldron and instead of at Hogwarts. When people asked him what he was up to these days, or asked after him, he'd be able to say he was well on his way to finishing his mastery, and not still living at home.

"You're sure I won't be in the way?" Severus asked. He wondered what Narcissa would think about Lucius inviting him to their home. He wasn't pure-blood, which Lucius knew, and he barely knew Narcissa, as she'd run with a different crowd when they were at school. "Narcissa wont' mind?" Severus asked.

"She's been saying she wants to entertain guests since we got married. You'll be our first."

Severus took another drink and then gave Lucius a nod. Malfoy Manor. Not a bad way to come back to Britain after all. He should by all rights be living in Prince Manor and not worrying about money at all, especially since it was now sitting empty, but his cousins had taken the family fortune and moved to Europe, and only those who had access to the wards could enter the Prince family estates.

After another hour of drinks, in which Lucius vowed to introduce Severus to some of his good friends after he moved in with them, they parted ways with plans for Severus to move to the manor in a few days. Severus for his part was excited, and wrote as much in a letter to Dumbledore. Dumbledore invited him via owl to tea at Hogwarts the next evening, and Severus apparated there, feeling good about his future, and feeling as though he might actually make the old man proud of him.

"Ah Severus," Dumbledore greeted him. Severus had expected to be having dinner in the Great Hall with the other staff, but Dumbledore asked him up to his quarters for the meal instead. Once they were settled in, Dumbledore asked him a variety of questions Severus was happy to answer about Asmund and the apprenticeship, before finally asking him about his most recent letter.

"I was curious Severus, about what you wrote in your letter. You said you were going to be staying with a friend?"

"Lucius Malfoy invited me to the manor," Severus said proudly. "He said he and Narcissa would help me study for the mastery test and come up with topics for the required research papers. He said he might know someone who could help me get a second apprenticeship as well. That would mean I would only have to write one paper." The Mastery papers would mean gruelling hours of research and writing. Many research papers submitted to Potions Journals took hundreds of hours to research and write. Some were years in the making. It was meant to take time, so the Mastery board could be sure anyone they granted a Mastery too was well versed in their field and more than capable.

"I could help you get a second apprenticeship," Dumbledore suggested.

"I've got it taken care of," Severus told him before taking another sip of his tea. He was grateful the old man had helped him get his first apprenticeship, but he wanted to show him he could do it on his own now. Well, not exactly on his own, Lucius was going to help, but how was he supposed to make Dumbledore proud of him if he couldn't really strike out on his own and get things accomplished without his help?

"Of course," Dumbledore said carefully, and this made Severus look up at him and wonder at his tone. "I only meant, that should you ever find yourself in need, I am here to help." They were quiet for a minute as they ate before Dumbledore spoke again. "I've heard some worrying things Severus."

"About me?" Severus asked, looking up and feeling panicked. He worried the old man had found out he'd gone back to Spinner's End.

"No, no," he held up his hand to quiet his worry. "I fear we are heading into troubling times Severus. While you've been away, some very troubling things have happened."

"What do you mean?"

"A few people have turned up missing, and one person was found dead. It appeared they'd been tortured to death."

"Who?" Severus asked, suddenly worried for Lily and some of his other friends from Slytherin.

"The death was an auror. Two former Slytherins, a couple years ahead of you went missing months ago, and recently Peter Pettigrew went missing, though he turned up a few weeks later with no memory of what had happened to him or where he'd been."

"What's happening to them?"

"There have been... rumors."

"What do you mean?" Dumbledore seemed wary and... almost afraid. Severus had never seen him like that before.

"People are saying an old student, Tom Riddle, is gathering up a group of followers around him. Some say to overthrow the Ministry. They think he and his group are behind the disappearances and the death."

Severus frowned. "Who's Tom Riddle?"

"A former Slytherin. He graduated nearly thirty years ago and disappeared for some time. He only recently resurfaced. It's been said he's been gathering students from his old house."

"But you have no proof," Severus said.

"I do not. I want you to be careful Severus. I don't want you to get caught up in all of this. You have a bright and promising future ahead of you."

Severus was upset that Dumbledore would think he would associate with such people. "Why do you think I'll get caught up in it?"

"You're going to stay with Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy."

"So? Just because they're Slytheirn doesn't mean anything."

"No, it doesn't," Albus agreed. "But Lucius has been suspected of being in the man's group for some time now."

"Lucius Malfoy? Why would he associate with someone that's killing and kidnapping people?" It would only bring shame on the name of Malfoy, and on the name of Black as well now that Narcissa was his wife. It didn't make any sense. No one from a pure-blood line would risk being disowned for such behavior. Severus certainly wouldn't. If his mother hadn't gotten herself disowned when Severus was born, he would have been walking on eggshells to stay a part of the Prince family.

"I don't know Severus, and I can't know for certain that he is involved. I just want you to be careful. Be careful of who you choose to be friends with and what you get involved in. I also want you to remember that no matter what, you have a place here."

"I can't keep coming back here. I'm not a student anymore, and I'm not a child."

"No, you're not. But this is your home. Remember that Severus."

When dinner was done, Severus thanked him for the invite and left, feeling miffed and confused at the same time, and also feeling certain that Lucius Malfoy wouldn't be caught up with anything that was bad. Three days later he moved in with Lucius and Narcissa and was given a suite of his own in a wing of the house reserved just for esteemed guests. He had a large room with a walk in closet and a huge bath. He also had large windows overlooking the grounds, and he felt for a moment like a king.

For almost three weeks Narcissa and Lucius spent time with Severus helping him study for the mastery exam and coming up with potential topics for his first research paper. As time went on, he stopped questioning why Lucius called him friend and had invited him into his home with open arms, and started just enjoying life for the time being.

From time to time Lucius brought other friends of his by the house for dinner or drinks, or invited Severus out to drinks after dinner at the pub they'd first gone to on Knockturn Alley. Severus enjoyed spending time with Lucius, and Avery and even Goyle, who had been a year ahead of Lucius and had never paid Severus much attention. It wasn't long before Severus began to feel as though they were his friends as much as they were Lucius'.

Sometimes after they went for drinks, Lucius would ask Severus to return home and let Narcissa know he wouldn't be taking her out to dinner that night. He'd ask Severus to distract her by asking for extra help studying. When Severus would ask where Lucius was going with Avery and Goyle, and sometimes others they'd had drinks with, Lucius would laugh and slap him on the shoulder and say, "Got a meeting to attend. We've got big things in the works Sev, big things!" This went on for almost two months before Severus finally got curious enough to ask what meetings he was attending. He'd assumed they were for business purposes as Lucius always had something in the works to increase the Malfoy fortune. He was invested in several new businesses and in businesses across France.

"It's a business meeting," Lucius told him.

"Oh," Severus said, preparing to return again to distract Narcissa with questions about the upcoming mastery exam.

"You understand, don't you? I have things to attend to. I'd invite you, but it's not my place."

"What do you mean?"

"I've been working with an exciting group of people. People who really want to see things get done for once. People who know how to effect a real change."

"What kind of change?"

"Things have been stagnant in our community for a long time. Some of the old laws just don't apply any more, but it takes years to cut through all the red tape to get anything done at the Ministry. Take Avery for example. You know his family owns a broom company? The Ministry won't let anyone make or sell brooms that go faster than the Cleensweep four. People want a faster broom though. Quidditch teams want something faster, and fans want it too. But the Ministry won't budge. His family has been working the last few years with lawyers trying to cut through all the red tape."

Severus thought that made sense. The brooms people used were slow.

"We don't invite just anyone to the meetings though. We're afraid the wrong person will come and then report to the Ministry about the changes we're trying to get passed into law. My friend is the one who makes the decisions about who comes."

Severus wanted to ask Lucius to let him come, so he could be part of what his friends were part of, but he didn't want to beg either. The last two months with Lucius and Narcissa had taught him more than just Potions knowledge. He'd learned decorum and how to act as though he actually belonged to the Prince family. Narcissa had even found a book with information on the Prince family for him with a family tree. He'd never had access to that kind of information about where he'd come from before.

"Look, I'll tell you what," Lucius said. "My friend, the one who decides who comes to meetings, he's the one who I was going to ask about getting you a second apprenticeship. I'll talk to him tonight and see if I can bring you along next time to talk about the apprenticeship."

"Ok," Severus said. Lucius smiled and went down the alley after Avery and Goyle, who had left them there several minutes ago so they wouldn't be late to their meeting while Lucius talked with Severus.

The next week when they went out for drinks, Lucius told Severus the good news. "He says he thinks he has the perfect Potions Master for you to work with. He can really help you study and prepare for the exam, and possibly even get that research paper done. You can come, but just for tonight."

Avery and Goyle shared a look with a smile, but Severus assumed it was just because they were happy for him. After drinks Lucius led Severus down Knockturn to the other end of the alley and into a shop Severus hadn't been in before. He told Severus he'd have to wait there in the shop until the end of the meeting to meet with his friend, and then disappeared into the back room with Avery and Goyle. Severus resisted the urge to go to the door to listen and see if he could hear what was being said on the other side, and busied himself instead with an old Potions text he'd brought with him to study out of. After almost two hours, after Severus was stiff from sitting on a stool the shopkeep apparently used during the day behind the counter, the door to the back room opened again and people streamed out. Lucius came out last and beckoned Severus over. The leather chairs inside looked a lot nicer than the stool he'd occupied all evening.

"Is this him Lucius?" came a voice from a chair half in shadow. Then a man in his thirties, or maybe early forties sat forward and smiled. He had short dark brown hair and was wearing smart clothing, like something Lucius would normally wear. Suddenly Severus wished he'd dressed up tonight instead of wearing the simple clothes he had.

"This is Severus. He studied with Asmund. He needs another apprenticeship for six months."

The man stood up and held out his hand for Severus to shake, which he did, and the man said, "A pleasure to meet you Severus. Won't you have a seat?"

Severus sat, and his back thanked him to find the comfortable chair.

"As it so happens, one of our members is a Potions Master. He has an apothecary in Blackpool. He doesn't invent potions like Asmund, but he knows his craft better than most. He has a sharp mind. Lucius said you had a paper to author and had to invent a potion? He might be willing to help. I happen to know he doesn't have an apprentice right now."

"Would you be willing to introduce us?" Severus asked.

"Of course," the man said. "Lucius said you're likely to be one of the top Potions Masters once you gain your mastery. I wouldn't mind helping along such a brilliant young mind."

Severus tried hard not to look as if he was beaming in front of these two men.

"Tell me about yourself a little Severus, so I can pass along some information to him to help him see if you'll be a good fit for an apprenticeship."

Severus spoke for several minutes about how successful his last apprenticeship had been, about his good grades in his last few years of school, and when asked about what he hoped to accomplish as a Potions Master (he wanted to invent potions that people hadn't seen or thought of before).

"What about your family?" the man asked, and Severus paused, not certain what to say. Somehow, I come from a poor family that lived in a crooked house on a dirty lane didn't seem fitting. He couldn't exactly say he was from Dumbledore's family either though.

"He's from the Prince lineage," Lucius put in quickly.

"Prince, that's a good name to have. I thought they had all moved to Europe." He turned to Lucius and said, "He's been staying with you hasn't he Lucius? Is there someone older than you that claimed your family estates?" he then asked Severus.

Severus cleared his throat and hoped Lucius wouldn't answer for him, though he himself didn't know what to say. Lucius did answer though, and Severus wasn't sure if he was supposed to be mortified or angry or relieved that he didn't have to say it all out loud.

"His mother was disowned because she married a muggle."

"What a shame," the man said. "You weren't provided for at all by the Princes? I assume at least the Muggle was of some wealth for your mother to give up her inheritance?"

Severus looked at his hands and shook his head.

"No? Even if a family disowned their heir they usually take care of future descendants. It's unusually cruel not to do so."

"He lived at Hogwarts the last few years, before he graduated."

Severus looked up and met Lucius eyes. He knew? How did he know? Who had told him? Had he seen Tobias disown him?

"Is that right Severus?"

"I- yes." That was it. He wouldn't get that apprenticeship now. He'd have to just study on his own and write three papers. He couldn't go back to Dumbledore and ask for his help. The man would look down on him as this man was now. Only this man wasn't looking down on him.

"This is what we've been discussing Lucius," the man said. "Too many things like this have gone on. Things have to change. To imagine there are bright young minds out there not being taken care of and placed in the hands of Muggles to raise and be abandoned. It's sickening."

Lucius nodded as though he understood exactly what the man was saying.

"There need to be safeguards in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening," the man said. "Wouldn't you agree Severus? Lucius? Why haven't you brought him to meetings before? He clearly understands what we're about and how things need to change. He could have valuable input on the issues we're facing."

"I didn't want to interrupt his studies," Lucius said.

"No, we can't do that," the man agreed. He met Severus' eyes then though and said, "I'd like to help you Severus, in whatever way I can. I'll speak to the Potions Master in our group and see if he has room for an apprentice. If he doesn't, I'll tutor you myself. Someone from the Prince family should never have been left on his own as you were, and I would be honored to take it upon myself to make sure you receive all the tutoring you need to succeed. And if you decide at some point in the future you want to come to one of our meetings, you'll be welcomed with open arms. I'm pleased Lucius has offered you a home while you study or I would offer you that as well. We take care of our own here."

Severus was stunned. He'd never been welcomed by a group like this before. The man and Lucius exchanged several pleasantries before they left and Lucius and Severus decided to walk the alley back towards the pub before apparating away.

"I have a feeling this is all going to work out for you Severus," Lucius said proudly.

Severus nodded but didn't say anything.

"What's wrong? Didn't you hear him? Even if there's not room for an apprentice he'll help you."

"I- how did you know?"

"Know what?"

"That I was staying at Hogwarts." He must have given it away somehow. He must have acted like the orphan he was.

"Suddenly you were spending a lot of time with the Headmaster, that's all. You stopped going home for holidays, and I didn't see you riding the train home anymore."

"But I wasn't acting like-"

"Like what?"

"Nevermind."

"Severus, this is all gonna work out. Tom's right you know, it's not right that you were removed from the Prince line. Something similar happened to Tom. He has a unique insight into the changes that need to be made because of it."

They went home and Severus thought on all that had been said. He thought about half a dozen changes he wished the Ministry would make and how he could propose that to Tom and the others at a future meeting, a meeting he fully wished to attend.

Severus did end up getting the apprenticeship in Blackpool, and while he continued to stay at Malfoy Manor, his days were full of working in the apothecary and studying with Andrei Karkaroff and his nephew Igor, who was an unofficial apprentice until the time which Severus was fully done with his apprenticeship. Severus didn't like working with the two nearly as much as he had with Asmund, and the work was boring, but Karkaroff was invested in getting Severus through the rest of his apprenticeship and had laid out a strict study schedule for he and Igor, and had even given Severus a brilliant topic for his research paper. Igor ended up moving back to Bulgaria after Severus was three months into his work with Karkaroff, but Severus didn't mind, as the boy was sour and disagreeable on the best of days. Severus started going to meetings with Lucius as well, and Karkaroff made sure to always tell Tom of the progress Severus was making.

Tom, it turned out, was Tom Riddle, the same man Dumbledore had warned him about, but for everything Severus could see, Tom was nothing more than a man who wanted to see positive change come into their world. It was something Severus wanted too.

There were several weekly meetings Severus found out, and he was only invited to the one every Friday night. Lucius started going to the ones on Saturday and Monday night as well, and Severus tried not to feel left out.

"Things have gotten a little scary with the way the Ministry has been vilifying us lately," Lucius explained. "We've started separating out the people we believe are reporting back to them. Only those we're sure are on our side have gone ahead to the other meetings."

"I would never-" Severus started, because he really did like Tom and wanted to please him, but Lucius held up his hand.

"Not you Sev. Tom thinks you're all right. He just doesn't want to interrupt your studies. He wants to be sure you've got your mastery first. You know, if the Ministry found out you were even coming to our meetings, they could block you from even taking the mastery test."

Severus nodded. He already knew. Avery had decided he wanted to become an auror and the Ministry had blocked his application.

"If you want to help, the best thing you can do is get your mastery and invent amazing potions. That will show people that we're not bad. After you get your mastery Tom will probably invite you to the other meetings."

Severus threw himself into his studies after that and in his last two months of the apprenticeship with Karkaroff, he researched and wrote his first paper, with a lot of help from Karkaroff and Narcissa. He'd also been able to invent a new potion with Tom's help, one that would render the consumer lighter than air and able to fly until the potion wore off. Tom praised him in front of the group at Friday meetings on a regular basis, and for a time Severus felt as though he couldn't possibly be happier.

In short order Severus passed his mastery test, underwent an interview with the Potions Mastery board, and had a certificate that declared him the country's newest Potions Master. Severus wanted to rush to tell Tom, Lucius and Narcissa about his achievements, but first he had to make a visit to Hogwarts. Dumbledore had invited him to dinner again, this time to celebrate. Dinner was to take place in the staff lounge. Apparently several of the staff had skipped dinner in the Great Hall with the students to come eat with them and congratulate him.

"Well done Severus!" Flitwick cried joyously. He'd said this more than five times already but he'd also had several glasses of wine so Severus simply smiled at him and went back to his conversation with Dumbledore and Slughorn.

"I was surprised to hear you took an apprenticeship with Karkaroff," Slughorn said, "but clearly it paid off. You've done very well for yourself Severus. I always thought you would."

Severus refrained from saying Slughorn never thought he would succeed. If he had he would have invited Severus to join the ‘Slug Club' along with Lily and James and others who had come before him like Lucius.

"It was an interesting choice," Dumbledore said.

"Why?"

"Well," Slughorn said, popping the last bite of a brownie into his mouth, "initially you had been so set on inventing potions, and that's just not what Karkaroff is known for. He's a potions master yes, but he's had a very quiet career running his apothecary."

"He was available and willing to help me study for the mastery exam."

"Of course," Slughorn said. "That is what the second apprenticeship is supposed to be for. He's very straightforward though... dry, if you know what I'm saying."

Severus did, but he refrained from saying so. He'd gotten so much help from Karkaroff and Lucius and Tom that he wasn't willing to say anything bad about them, even if it was something such as, ‘he was very boring to work with'.

After dinner, Albus invited him to his office for tea and Severus agreed. "I'm very proud of you Severus," the headmaster said.

"Thank you." It was what he'd been working for so hard for so long, but somewhere in the last six months, he'd stopped thinking about it and had started working for the weekly praise Tom was giving him at Friday meetings.

"Severus, I am proud of you."

"I know." He supposed he'd been too pensive and looked up and took a drink of his tea.

"I still worry Severus, about what we spoke about before."

"About Lucius Malfoy?"

"Amongst other people."

"I think you're wrong." It was the first time Severus had said anything to argue with the Headmaster, but he felt like he really should stick up for his friends.

"Am I?"

"Lucius just wants to see change."

"Was I correct in my assumption he's associated with Tom Riddle?"

"You're wrong about him too."

"You've spoken?"

"We've done more than just speak. They helped me earn my mastery. I've been to their meetings and I haven't seen anything like what you said. I haven't seen them kidnap anybody or torture them. And the people you said they kidnapped they didn't, by the way. McNair and Lestrange are alive and well and busy working on their own things."

"Then why don't they let the Ministry know that?"

"Why should they have to?" Severus spat. He paused then and pulled himself back, trying to reign in the emotion threatening to overtake him. When he was calmer he asked, "Why should we all have to answer to the Ministry in every thing we do and every person we speak to? That's overstepping what the Ministry should be."

Albus sighed. "Severus, I'm only concerned for your safety."

"You think they're capable of doing something to me?"

"I don't know what they're capable of."

"And what about me, what am I capable of?"

"What do you mean dear boy?"

"What do you think I'm capable of? Kidnapping? Murder? You think it of them, so you have to think it of me."

"I have to do no such thing," Dumbledore said. "I know you." He thought the man wanted to add ‘I raised you' but didn't.

"I'm one of them," Severus said. "I believe in what they're trying to do, and all they did was help me." He thought back to all the times Lucius and Tom had told him not to worry himself over something and to just concentrate on his studies. They looked out for him first before their own agenda. The only other person that had done that for him was Dumbledore, and he wished Dumbledore could see that they were good for him, and that Dumbledore wasn't the only one that was good for him.

"Severus, what is it you want to do now? Now that you have your mastery, what are your plans?"

"I-" he really wasn't sure.

"Do you want to open up an apothecary? Go abroad and study? Teach? I want to help you."

"I don't need your help, thank you," he said, trying not to sound irritated.

"I know you don't."

"You just want to get me away from them."

Severus stood up and set his tea cup down on the man's desk. Albus rose too.

"I only want what's best for you Severus."

In that moment, Severus didn't know that he did though. He knew that Lucius and Tom did, but he suddenly wasn't sure about Dumbledore.

"Thank you for inviting me, it's been a lovely evening," Severus said as he made for the door. Albus called after him to stay, but Severus ignored him. It was the last time he saw or spoke to Dumbledore for almost a year. Severus wished later on that he could have gone back to that moment and stayed, and heard the man out, but it was too late for that. Severus wished the following year could have been classified as all good, but being committed to go deeper into Riddle's ranks, there was no way it could have been.

Tom welcomed Severus to the Saturday meetings with open arms, but he wanted more. Severus wanted to prove himself to Tom after all he'd done for him. He wanted to prove he was every bit as good as Lucius and Avery and Goyle. Tom required him to prove it by doing something for him though. Doing something that would prove he was really loyal. Severus didn't know what that was at first, not until he overheard Lucius talking to Avery one day when they thought they were alone about ‘lord Voldemort.' He didn't know they were talking about Tom at first, but he heard others whisper ‘dark lord' at times too and figured it out. One day when Severus had gone to Hogsmead to gather ingredients for a new potion Tom wanted him to work on, he heard a seer give a prophecy against ‘the dark lord' in a back corner of the Hogshead, and he knew he had earned his way to the Monday meeting in that moment. Severus had been right. He'd given the prophecy straight to Tom, who though he looked disturbed, had praised Severus and called a meeting of his Monday followers immediately, even though it was Thursday. After the meeting, Severus was invited to come into the room. McNair, Lestrange, Lucius, Avery, Goyle, and a handful of others, including to Severus' dismay Igor Karkaroff, were waiting for him inside.

"Brothers and sisters, welcome our new brother Severus. He has proven once and for all that he is loyal to our cause and will not turn on us. After tonight he shall henceforth be known as your brother, and you shall do all you can to protect him. He will be known from henceforth as a death eater, because he opposes the death and destruction the Ministry seeks to bring us."

He asked for Severus' arm, and Severus was branded with an inky black tattoo of a snake going through a skull. Lucius explained to him later that night what all the tattoo meant and did, and for several weeks Severus walked around as though he couldn't be prouder of himself. But it was only a few weeks after he'd been branded that he realized that perhaps not all was as it had seemed when he'd taken the oath.

Bellatrix had kidnapped Alice and Frank Longbottom and tortured them nearly to death, and certainly to insanity. Severus hadn't been there to see it, but it had happened. Lucius and Tom both told Severus that it was necessary because of the prophecy. It was clear by the prophecy that the Ministry was planning on killing Tom and all of his ‘friends', and Frank and Alice, who worked for the Ministry were refusing to give up information that would save all of their lives. Severus didn't agree with what had happened, but kept his mouth shut. Even Lucius told Severus that he had far too much to do with the new potions lord Voldemort wanted him to develop to be worrying about things which didn't concern him. Severus was also busy helping Narcissa with little Draco, almost a year old now. The house elves were some help, but with Lucius always away on business for lord Voldemort, Narcissa had begun to feel at her wits end with a crying baby that Lucius wasn't around to help with. Severus had been helping with the baby so much that Lucius had named him Draco's godfather, and Severus felt as though it was his duty to help.

It was a few days before Draco was to turn one that Severus learned that Lily had also had a baby. A baby with James Potter. Apparently he was a little older than Draco, but only by a few months. He wouldn't have known at all except he was on Diagonalley with Narcissa picking up some things for Draco's party when he saw Lily holding a bundle with a black mop of hair sticking out.

"Severus, are you going to help me?" Narcissa asked sharply when she turned around with several bags and realized Severus was staring at something down the street, unaware she'd been asking him to help carry bags for the last several moments.

"What?"

"The bags? They're heavy."

"Of course."

"What were you staring at?" She searched the street and caught sight of Lily. "He's a few months older than Draco. My mother said they named Sirius as his godfather. That's all I know about him."

"Black?"

"That's what I said. You didn't like her, did you Severus?"

"Of course not," he said, taking the bags from her, though his eyes flitted back down the street towards the shop she'd just disappeared into.

"I heard she married Potter. He's an auror now, or at least training to be one."

Severus couldn't have been thrown for more of a loop if the world had exploded just then and hippogriffs came raining from the sky, and for the first time in months he wished he hadn't cut off contact with Dumbledore, because he wanted to talk to him about it, but it was too late for that now. Severus couldn't know that in a week's time his world really would explode around him, and that he'd be facing Dumbledore whether he wanted to or not.

Before Severus knew that his entire future had slipped away from him, it had all gone in the dead of night without his knowledge. Lily was dead, Tom had killed her and James and tried to kill their son. Severus couldn't even ask Tom why, because he was dead too, though Lucius said he didn't think it was possible for Tom to die, that he'd put precautions in place. It was Lucius who told Severus that Voldemort had gone after Lily's baby, because he'd determined that baby was the weapon the Ministry had planned to use to kill them all. Severus had never apparated quicker, never run faster than in the moments after Lucius had told him. He'd arrived too late and there was nothing he could do but hold Lily in his arms and cry and tell her he was sorry. She'd never hear his words though, and she'd never see him flee as Black came running up the stairs calling Lily and Harry's names as the baby wailed into the night.

Severus broke into Hogwarts that night at almost two in the morning and raced up through the castle to the entrance to Dumbledore's office and chambers. He didn't know the password and knew no amount of begging would get him inside, so he simply pounded on the stone gargoyle until Dumbledore heard and let him in, his fists aching and scraped.

"Severus, what's wrong? What's happened?"

Severus collapsed into his arms and sobbed, and the Headmaster of Hogwarts listened to his former student, his surrogate son explain how he was responsible for the murder of James and Lily Potter, that even now they lay dead in Godric's Hollow.

"Severus- I-" the old man's face was pale. He couldn't be proud of Severus now. He'd never be proud of him again thought Severus.

Severus expected him to bind him in ropes and chains and call the aurors, to snap his wand and have him carted off to Azkaban. He expected Dumbledore to yell him senseless or strike him or curse him or even to torture him, but he did none of those things. The only thing he did was hold him as he cried. Finally, after almost an hour, when Severus had quieted and his eyes were raw, the Headmaster spoke again.

"You were working for me. You were a spy."

"What are you-

"Repeat it," Dumbledore said forcefully, and not sure what else to do, Severus repeated it.

"I was working for you, I was a spy."

"You were gathering names for me, reporting back about their activities."

Severus repeated it, and then he said, "I don't understand."

"If Tom Riddle is truly gone, as you say, there will be trials. His followers will be taken to Azkaban, especially with what was done to the Longbottoms and to James and Lily. But you were working for me Severus. You weren't actually one of them." Albus wasn't covering for him... he couldn't be, not after what he'd done!

Severus rolled up his sleeve and showed Albus his mark, and Albus nodded. "All part of the plan. And when he returns, you'll continue spying, just as you were before."

"Do you really think he's coming back?"

"There are ways within the dark arts to circumvent death. If Lucius says that is what he's done, I don't doubt it. Riddle will return, and when he does, you'll continue as you were before, as my spy."

"I never wanted any of this to happen," Severus said. "I didn't listen to you, and I should have. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry Lily," he said to the air then, and tears started afresh in his eyes.

"Are you sorry enough to make things right?" Albus asked.

"I can't make things right."

"You can try. That is all I ever wanted from you my boy, was to try."

"What do I do?"

"Harry is left in this world now without a home, without a family. He has no mother and father to protect him from the evils of this world. Will you protect him?"

"You mean take care of him?" Severus asked.

"I mean protect him Severus, even if it means your life."

His life was forfeit either way, he thought. He would get the Dementor's kiss for what he'd done, or Lucius and the others would hold Severus responsible for Voldemort dying and kill him. He certainly deserved to die for what he'd done to Lily and James.

"I'll protect him, even if it means my life." He couldn't make it right. There was no way he could. He'd orphaned a child. But he could try, if that was all Dumbledore wanted from him.

Dumbledore had left him there then, on the floor of his office, and had gone to see what had become of Harry James Potter. It was hours before he came back and the sun had already risen.

"I took the boy to his relatives. Lily's sister. Old magic will protect him there until he comes to school. If you really mean to protect him Severus, this will be the best place to do that."

"I don't- how?" The old man still wanted him to call the school home? What would he do, help Filch mop floors?

"I don't yet know, but I will find a way."

The next day Slughorn quit after hearing news of Lily's death and there was suddenly a position open for a Potions Master. And in the weeks that followed Severus was dragged through two trials, both of which Dumbledore showed up for and swore up and down that Severus had always been on their side, had always been a spy. And though he didn't want it... though he didn't deserve it, Severus found he had a home at Hogwarts, with the ghosts and the children, with the staff, and with Dumbledore. There was no way he could possibly do right by Lily or her child, and there was no way he could ever make the old man proud of him again, but he would try, because that was all he could do.

Part Six - Where Your Heart Is When You Realize Where It Should Be

Their defense teacher, Lewis Green had been unexpectedly sacked, or had decided to go on an extended holiday for some reason only a month into the school year. Nobody knew for certain, though rumors abounded. All they knew was that when they had shown up to Defense Monday morning, he was gone and a squat woman dressed all in pink had taken his place. She confiscated their defense texts and replaced them (free, courtesy of the Ministry) with new ones all about the ‘theory' of defense. No one knew what to think, especially when that night at dinner she stood up to introduce herself without the Headmaster's permission, and started talking about ‘pruning' what needed to be pruned in school.

"Seems a little batty, doesn't she?" Ron commented after her speech.

"She's from the ministry," Hermione said. "I heard Professor McGonagall talking about it with Professor Sinistra today in the corridor. You know what this means."

"No," Harry said, shaking his head, "not really."

"The ministry's interfering at Hogwarts."

"Can they do that?" Neville asked.

"They're not supposed to," Hermione said, ignoring her lunch and looking unhappy. "The school's supposed to be a separate entity, that's why it has a board of governors. The Ministry gets one member on the board of governors and that's as far as they're allowed to go."

"But here she is," Ron said. "What's the Ministry care anyway?"

"I'm not sure," Hermione said.

It became obvious fairly quickly to everyone however. Professor Umbridge wasted no time in passing several new rules without Dumbledore's permission, such as no hand holding by students on school grounds, and increased punishments for minor infractions. She also zoned in on Harry right away, and the second time they met for defense class with her in charge she wasted no time in picking at Harry until he practically blew up. The Slytherins laughed at the loss of points, but Harry had had enough detentions by now with Snape that he didn't even bristle at being assigned another one.

He would have served that detention too, except for the fact that Dumbledore met him on the way to detention that evening and informed him that he was to go to his office right away. Umbridge caught them on the way to his office and had stern words about him compromising her authority as a teacher before Dumbledore told her that all of Harry's detentions for the entire school year were to be assigned to Professor Snape, as he was the only one who could ‘handle' Harry's misbehavior as he was a strict disciplinarian. Harry didn't appreciate what Dumbledore had said in the least, but didn't mouth off or argue as he was led the rest of the way to Dumbledore's office.

"Harry, please have a seat."

Harry plopped into the chair and Dumbledore said, "You are unhappy with how I handled the situation."

"She's going to think I'm a troublemaker now and be on me all the time." The last thing he wanted was more detentions with Snape.

"Unfortunately Harry, it was necessary. Delores Umbridge is not a woman you want to cross. I want you to be on your best behavior around her. For now she is being forced on us by the Ministry. Make no mistake Harry, just because she is from the Ministry does not make her someone to trust. I would not put it past her to use dark magic on students, or to illegally dose students with veritaserum."

"Professor Snape threatened to do that, I don't have to be careful around him."

Dumbledore looked amused for only a moment as he said, "I'm sure he did." He turned serious again quickly though. "Harry, things are happening that you may not understand. You must be careful however. I will not always be here to protect you."

"What do you mean?"

"I think it's best for you to return to your dormitory. I'd advise you to stay there and to be in well before curfew each night. Tell your friends as well. Professor Umbridge will be doing nobody any favors. It's imperative that you understand this Harry."

"Yes sir." Dumbledore escorted him back to the tower and saw him inside with a last look that said, ‘stay out of trouble.' Harry didn't understand why Umbridge was so bad, but when he told Ron and Hermione, Hermione seemed alarmed.

"This is bad Harry. If she's going to use dark magic and the Headmaster warned you, it means there's nothing he can do about it because the Ministry put her here. If they're endorsing dark magic against students, we're in trouble."

"I don't know that that's what he meant," Harry said.

"I still don't even understand why she's here though," Ron said.

"You saw how she went for Harry right away. The Ministry has been printing lies about Harry and the Headmaster all summer. Maybe this is their way of finally discrediting them both."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"You could be expelled Harry."

"She can't just expel me. The Headmaster wouldn't allow it."

"Tell me again what he said about not being here," Hermione said.

"Nothing. He just said he wouldn't always be here to protect me or something like that."

"Don't you see Harry?" Hermione said urgently, "They're going to find a way to get rid of him too. Then he'll be gone and you'll be here with her. If she can get rid of the Headmaster and expel you, the Ministry can print that in all the papers. No one will believe you that You-Know-Who's back."

Harry paled and with a look at Ron it seemed the full force of it had hit Ron too.

Word spread fast about Umbridge, but students were seeing for themselves that she wasn't to be trifled with. She passed several more rules that were unpopular with students, including a ban on Quidditch for Harry and the twins, (to discourage further rule breaking), and a ban on all student clubs, which was a problem for Harry and his friends who had just come up with an idea to teach themselves defense since she wasn't teaching them anything. Harry and his friends had gone on with the defense club anyway (Dumbledore had to know about it, because Snape knew about it because he'd caught Harry on his way to the club twice already to tell him off for being rude or having angry outbursts), and it only took them four meetings to get caught. At the end of the fourth meeting, Umbridge and Filch had found them, confiscated the roster of students, and sacked Dumbledore for inciting a student rebellion against the Ministry under the name ‘Dumbledore's Army'.

Suddenly Harry found all his protection from Umbridge and the Ministry gone. Snape thought that would be enough to temper Harry's angry outbursts in the halls and stop him from snapping at students and teachers alike, but it wasn't, and Snape had doubled down on his attempts to temper Harry's emotions and keep them in check so he wouldn't get himself expelled. The only good thing that had come of it all was that Snape realized Harry needed new glasses and arranged for him to get an eye exam with Madam Pomfrey. Ron thought a second good thing had come of it too, though Hermione wasn't sure it was anything other than sad the Headmaster had been fired because of their club: it was McGonagall who had taken Dumbledore's place instead of Snape. Harry agreed with Ron. If Snape took over the school, it would be a disaster and Harry would have no peace.

* * *

Severus didn't know what he was supposed to do with the boy now. He knew what Albus wanted him to do, but he didn't know how to do it. No matter what he tried it hadn't worked, and Potter was still just as angry as the first day he'd arrived that term. He was still snapping at staff, (mostly at him and Minerva), he was still being rude to his friends (why they continued to tolerate it, Severus would never know), and he was still being rude to other students. Case in point, Severus needed to track the boy down and tell him off for trying to start a fist fight in the halls with Draco earlier that afternoon. Thankfully he'd heard it from Minerva instead of Umbridge. One of the last things Dumbledore had done before Umbridge had tried to have him arrested was ensure that all staff knew all of Harry's detentions were to be assigned to him, but he didnt' think Umbridge was really going to comply with it. Minerva had also made that clear to Umbridge, but again, she was dangerous and not to be trusted to follow the rules.

Severus stood in the corridor outside Gryffindor common room waiting for Harry to come in for the evening. Curfew was still a couple hours away but he was willing to bet the boy would turn up soon. Weasley and Granger had already gone back to their common room for the evening, and Potter was sure not to be far behind. He'd only been waiting for 10 minutes when he spotted him. Harry saw him and tried to put his head down and rush past, but Severus reached out and grabbed the back of his robes.

"What?" Harry snapped, face red and angry he couldn't get past him.

"We need to have words about what happened today."

"What happened is-" Harry bit down on the snarky comment as Snape gave him a stern look and held up his hand.

"Not here."

"Fine."

Severus let go of Harry's robes and led him back down to his office.

"Sit."

"I'll stand. I don't plan on being here long. I have homework to do."

"Fine," Severus said, trying not to grit his teeth. "Close the door."

Harry did as he was told and Severus said, "You cannot continue with what you are doing."

"What am I doing?"

"Being mad at the world."

"I'm not mad at the world, I'm pissed that Malfoy thinks he can get away with everything."

"Such as saying your new glasses look nice between classes?"

"That's not what he meant!" Harry shouted, huffing and crossing his arms.

"What did he mean?"

"I don't know but not that! He's always making fun of my stuff."

"Because he's spoiled and doesn't know better," Severus said, paraphrasing what Harry had told him weeks earlier.

"Yeah, so, it's not right!"

"But you do know better. You know why he does it, yet you try to goad him into a fistfight in the corridor not ten feet from the defense classroom! You will find and thank Professor McGonagall tomorrow by breakfast for stopping you from creating a fool of yourself and getting yourself expelled."

"Why do you even care?" Harry huffed.

Severus was silent for several moments, thinking about it. Because Dumbledore told him to. This was something he had to do, because he said he would, and because he'd made a promise long ago. This wasn't exactly what Severus had thought about when promising to protect Harry though. He'd thought of stepping in front of a curse to save him from Voldemort or something along those lines. Harry did need saving... he was in danger, but the most imminent danger right now was from himself. If he couldn't control his anger he'd get himself into a world of trouble, or he'd find in years to come that he wasn't a person with friends, only with people he'd pushed away. Severus knew because he'd gone through it in the years after he became a teacher at Hogwarts. Only Minerva, Albus, and strangely Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy had stuck by him. His friends were few. The more he took the time to think on it though, the more he came to the realization, as Harry sat there waiting for an answer, that in the last weeks he hadn't been tracking Harry down in every spare moment and arguing with him because Albus had wanted him to. He'd been doing it because he was genuinely concerned about Harry's well-being. James and Lily wouldn't have wanted this for Harry.

"Well?" Harry demanded. "Can I go now?" The boy looked smug, like he'd won something. What had his initial question been? Why was he doing this?

"Because your father and I were friends," is what Severus ended up saying, and he was surprised by the words coming out of his own mouth. They were words he never thought he'd say.

Harry scoffed and Severus' eyes snapped up to his. "This time I caught you in a lie," Harry mocked. "You hated him. Everybody knows it, and that's why you hated me."

Severus sat down in his chair and closed his eyes tight for a moment, remembering the stricken look on James' face when he realized that Severus was upset to find out he was dating Lily. Severus hadn't understood it at the time, and had not really thought about it after. Not until now. James had that stricken look because he cared what Severus thought and how he felt, and realized that he'd hurt him by dating Lily.

"I did not realize that we were friends until now."

"Yeah, explain how that works," Harry demanded. "I know who all my friends are."

"Do you?" Severus asked. He suspected the boy had a lot more friends than he thought.

"You're a liar," Harry said, crossing his arms in a huff. "No one just realizes after that long that they were friends."

"The way you and Draco Malfoy are in the halls with each other... the taunting, and ribbing each other... that is how your father and I were. He would pull a prank on me, and I would pull one on him. I didn't realize we were friends then, that I enjoyed the back and forth as much as he and Remus did."

"Sirius said you hated each other."

"Black and I hated each other. With a passion," he added. He still hated Black. "The things Black did and said were cruel and meant to hurt and humiliate. The things your father did and said were more of just an annoyance. I-" he didn't want to tell the boy about Tobias and the incident in the alley in Spinner's End, but he felt it had come to a point where he had no choice now. He'd been getting nowhere with Harry except arguing. It was a month and a half of wasted time and they'd gotten nowhere. Perhaps Albus had been right, and Severus should have come clean up front. Hadn't the boy frequently asked why it had to be his Potions Master that he had to talk to instead of his Head of House?

"And just like that, when it's convenient for your own purposes to say you were friends, you realize it? Out of the blue?" Harry's eyes were full of anger.

"I have recently had a lot of cause for reflection," Severus said, trying not to snap at the boy. He hated to be disrespected, especially by children.

They were silent for a few moments and Severus took a calming breath, preparing himself for Harry to scoff at him, and make fun of him for who he was... who he had been in his youth. "One summer your father and Remus came to my home, probably to prank me, and found my father beating me in the alley outside. When he was done, they flew me to Hogwarts."

"I don't believe you," Harry said, sounding as though he really hated the Potions Master at that moment with everything he had. "Just stop already. No one believes you."

Severus kept going however, face as serious as it ever was, and eyes refusing to meet Harry's angry gaze. "I was allowed to stay at Hogwarts for my last two years. The Headmaster looked after me."

Harry was shaking his head now. "You're lying. STOP LYING."

"James and Remus never spoke of it after that and neither did I. I thought they would tell Black, but instead they told him to stop bothering me. I thought they would tell everyone, but they didn't tell anyone. After that, we didn't interact at all, because I was afraid to prank them anymore. I didn't realize until now, that what James was doing, was being my friend."

"If you were his friend, why the hell do you hate me so much? WHY?"

Severus finally looked back up at Harry. "I did hate him. For years. I even hated him after he died. And I hated you when you came to school. I don't now." In trying to explain it to Harry, Severus realized that he missed that back and forth he'd had with James and even with Remus, and he'd missed the last two years of it during their schooling. While James was busy being a friend by not telling anyone about him, Severus was busy pulling away and enjoying his new status in Slytherin. He wondered now if James hadn't started dating Lily, Severus' best friend, in the hopes of really becoming friends. He'd looked so- shocked, and upset when he saw the hurt look on Severus' face when Lily had announced their relationship. Maybe that was why. Maybe Severus would never know.

Harry was shaking his head and standing up.

"Ask Remus," Severus said.

"Ask him what?" Harry spat. "Ask him if you're a liar? I know you are!"

"Ask him about all of it," Severus said, but Harry had already bolted from the room and slammed the door on the way out. Albus had been so wrong, Severus thought, and he felt betrayed that the old man wasn't there for him to tell that to right then. Tell Harry about your situation, ha, it was easy for him to say that and then run off to take care of Order business and leave Severus there to deal with Umbridge, and Potter, and all the confused feelings that were now stirred up in him about his entire school career and who was and was not his friend.

* * *

‘I need to talk to you. In person. Please.' Harry had sent the desperate note off to Remus as soon as he'd stormed out of Snape's office and been able to find an owl. He didn't want to ask him about the things Snape had said, he wanted to yell, and scream, and tell Remus all the lies Snape was spouting about his father. He wanted someone to commiserate with since Ron was no longer interested in bashing Snape, and he wanted an adult to help him calm down. Screw Snape and his coping skills.

Harry hadn't expected a response from Remus so soon, but was happy to receive one anyway in the form of Remus turning up late that night. He'd sent a message by owl to Harry to come out to the Greenhouses, and Harry had snuck out with his cloak at eleven thirty after snapping at Ron and Hermione to mind their own business and at Neville to leave him alone.

Remus was waiting by greenhouse three, and they unlocked the door and went inside to escape the chill and avoid being seen from a castle window.

"Harry, what is it? It sounded urgent," Remus said, immediately serious after his quick hug to Harry.

"Snape is a bastard," Harry said, angry all over again even though it had been hours now since his latest confrontation with the Potions Master.

"What happened?"

"He was making up all these lies about you and dad and Sirius! He said Sirius was cruel to him and that you and dad saved him from getting beat up by his father and that he and dad were friends. I just want him to leave me alone! Why won't he leave me alone?" After Harry's tirade, he took a deep breath and then looked at Remus anxiously, waiting for him to go off about Snape. He didn't, and Harry felt more anxious the more Remus looked at him.

"What? Say something!"

"What exactly did Severus tell you about his father?"

"He said one summer you and my dad flew him to Hogwarts after his dad beat him up and then he made it sound like the Headmaster adopted him! He's crazy Remus and he's driving me crazy!"

"Harry, here, let's sit down." He motioned to a couple work stools the students sat on during classes and took a seat. Harry sat down too though he looked too amped up to stay seated long.

"Harry, you don't trust Severus."

"No, why would I? He's always had it out for me and now he's making up lies just because it suits him!"

"Do you trust me?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Are you sure?"

"You are Remus aren't you, not Umbridge in disguise?" Harry half joked, though he seemed too anxious and wound up to think it really funny.

"I wouldn't tell you this normally, because I've never told anyone before, but it seems as though he told you already, and he must have had a reason to. Your dad and I went to London to see Sirius, and when he wasn't home we went to your mother's house to ask where Severus lived."

"Why would mum know-" Remus held up his hand to forestall Harry's questions until he was done.

"Lily and Severus were best friends throughout school. They knew each other before school and lived near each other. Don't give me that look Harry, you said you trusted me, so trust me enough to give you the story as it is. Lily wasn't home either, but Petunia told us where he lived. James just wanted to go over there and pester him. I don't know that you can understand it, but it's what they did to each other. They thought it was funny to bother each other and prank each other. One time Severus organized the whole of Slytherin house to sneak into Gryffindor and take me, Sirius, your dad and Peter out of the tower and strip us naked and leave us in the Great Hall for the students to find at breakfast. You're shaking your head, but I'm telling you, it happened. It happened all the time until we found his father beating him senseless. James and I stopped him and were able to borrow some brooms from Sirius' brother and fly Severus to Hogwarts. Albus didn't adopt him, not legally anyway, but he did take him in. None of us ever talked about it because we figured Severus wouldn't want us to. I'm surprised to hear Severus acknowledge James as his friend. James and I always considered him a friend, or at least we considered ourselves friendly, but Severus was very angry with us for finding out about his home life and he barely spoke to us after that. I think he was even angrier when he found out James and Lily were dating. That is the truth, and you can believe it because I'm telling you it is."

"But- he said Sirius was cruel to him."

"He was. Sirius was a different person as a teenager than he is now Harry. Sirius was brought up in a pureblooded household with parents who ranted about half-bloods being allowed to attend Hogwarts and marry into pure-blooded families. He was taught that one half-blood or muggle-born could spoil an entire bloodline. To him Severus was one of those people that had brought an entire wizarding blood-line to its knees."

"What's that mean?"

"Severus' mother was a pure-blood witch from an old pure-blood family, and his father was a muggle. Sirius spread that all over the school and made sure everyone knew that Severus was poor and wore used clothes. He did all he could to make sure Severus didn't have friends and make sure he felt like he didn't belong, because to Sirius that was a fact, that Severus didn't belong there and shouldn't get an education."

"But mum-"

"Lily was a muggle born who hadn't married into a pure-blooded family yet."

"Mum and dad were dating."

"The Potters had pure-bloods in the family, with a mixed line back through the generations. It wasn't the same."

"Sirius doesn't seem like that now... it just doesn't make sense."

"Harry, you have the benefit of knowing the man that saw first hand the harm pure-blood ideology can cause. Like the rest of us, he watched Voldemort and his sycophants destroy families and take lives. He lost one of his best friends to that ideology and two more to the destruction those ideas cause. And then he had 12 years to sit in Azkaban and think about it all. Time to reflect like that will change a person."

Harry swallowed hard and closed his eyes. It was too much to think about... too much to take in. Reflection, isn't that what Snape had said? He'd had time to reflect? Snape had been so different towards him lately. They'd fought a lot, and argued even more, but the things Snape had been on his case about had changed. He and Snape used to avoid each other at all costs, and the things the man had harassed him about were things like having messy hair or having his tie done up wrong, or for mouthing off to him. Harry had done a lot of mouthing off lately and hadn't been chastised for it though. And he'd lied about what had happened to him and hadn't gotten in trouble. The things that Snape was chastising Harry for now were for being rude to others, and not using coping skills to calm himself down so he didn't get in as much trouble. But why? WHY? All because he realized he was friends with Harry's father?

"What are you thinking Harry?"

"I don't know why Snape is being so- different to me."

"Why don't you ask him?"

"I tried."

"Did you?"

Harry shrugged. Maybe he hadn't tried all that hard. Or maybe he had just yelled at him and stormed out.

"Harry, I'm here if you want to talk or if you need help. You know Sirius would be here if he could have, or the Headmaster. For now I think it's best if we get you back inside though. It's late and you have class in the morning, and if I'm caught on school grounds I'm likely to be hauled off by aurors."

Harry nodded. Now that he thought about it, it was selfish of him to have asked Remus to come. Umbridge was against any and all magical creatures, and with her pull at the Ministry Harry could just see her telling the Minister that Remus had come onto school grounds for a midnight massacre.

"I'm sorry I put you in danger."

Harry was about to put the cloak over himself when they heard a noise outside the greenhouse and saw a wandlight bobbing around towards the door. Harry grabbed his cloak and threw it over Remus, who protested briefly before the door flew open to reveal Umbridge.

"Mr. Potter, what, or whom would bring you out of the castle so late at night?"

Harry thought of pretending to be sleepwalking, but he didn't think he could pull it off.

"I just fancied a walk," he said. He wished he could have seemed defiant, but he was too scared she would spot Remus standing right beside him. He was so close Harry could feel his body heat and hear his breathing under the cloak.

"You're certain you weren't coming out to meet a certain ex-headmaster?"

"I thought Headmaster Dippet died before I was born," Harry said.

Her eyes grew sharp and she marched over to him and grabbed him by his ear, frog marching him to the door. Harry didn't dare turn back to see if Remus had pulled the cloak off himself for fear he'd give him away, and said instead, "I'll be fine! I'll be fine!"

"You most certainly will not!" Umbridge scolded, thinking he was trying to comfort himself. "This is a serious offense! Being out of bounds like this at this time of night! You'll be lucky to have any house points left at all by tomorrow morning."

Remus didn't reappear and Harry's ear felt like it was on fire by the time they made the Entrance Hall a few minutes later. What ensued was a moment Harry felt ashamed for for years afterwards. Headmistress McGonagall caught Umbridge hauling Harry inside by the ear and told Umbridge she was to stop manhandling the students. The two argued for several minutes before Umbridge smoothed down her blouse and said she'd be having words with the Minister about finding a new Headmaster, and stomped away.

Glaring after the squat woman's retreating back for a full thirty seconds, McGonagall finally turned to Harry.

"I'm so sorry," Harry said, shaking his head and eyes wide. He knew she'd be sacked by morning.

"I don't know why you were out of bounds Harry, and I'm not sure I care to. It was reckless, even for you. You've already been warned to stay out of trouble and out of her way."

"I know, I'm stupid. I'm really sorry."

McGonagall walked him back to Gryffindor and saw him inside, and in the morning his fears for McGonagall had been confirmed. At some point before breakfast Headmistress McGonagall had been sacked and escorted off the grounds, and Umbridge had thrown a fit of epic proportions (the way the portraits had told it) because Snape had somehow already been named new Headmaster before the Minister could even have his say in the matter.

Harry dared not tell his friends he was responsible for the Headmistress getting fired, or that he was responsible for what was sure to be the worst school year in Hogwarts history now that Snape was Headmaster and Umbridge was on the warpath.

* * *

This day was determined to be one of his worst this year, and possibly in many years. His feelings were confused because of the argument he'd had with Harry, because he'd told Harry practically everything and it hadn't helped anything and had only made the boy angrier. He'd had a few sips of scotch and then gone to bed, hoping to forget it all and put an end to his throbbing headache. The day wasn't done with him yet it seemed, because at half past four he was woken by three houseleves, who looked both sad and alarmed as they informed him he was the newest Headmaster of Hogwarts. They also informed him of the scene that had played out in the Entrance Hall between Minerva, Umbridge and Harry, though they had little other information aside from to tell him he had a lot on his schedule the coming morning. Wonderful. Barely two hours sleep and he had a full day as Headmaster ahead of him.

Severus showered and got ready for the day. He didn't even have extra special robes to wear for his first day as headmaster, he sneered. His teaching robes would have to do. He was certain Umbridge would have him fired before he could even order new ones in in any case. Then he'd be off with Albus and Minerva and the Order at Grimmauld Place plotting and planning the future of the entire wizarding world.

As Severus made his way up the spiraling stairs of the Headmaster's office (it was still Dumbledore's office as far as he was concerned), and then to the desk he had no right to sit behind, he reflected that in some way Lucius had been right. Lucius had always said he'd be going places and making something of himself. Even though he now knew Lucius had been grooming him since he was a sixth year to join Voldemort's ranks, that confidence from Lucius had spurred him on to things like getting his mastery in Potions.

"Well look at me now Lucius," he said to the empty room. "Headmaster of Hogwarts." Hmpf. He'd rather have Albus back. He surveyed the stacks of papers on the desk. Look at the lovely mess he had inherited with the position. He had a fifth year Gryffindor intent on tearing himself apart by the end of the year, a school full of children with raging hormones, an entire house on the recruitment list for Voldemort's ranks, and an insane woman with the backing of the Ministry trying to tear the entire school apart. One thing at a time he supposed. He wanted to call Potter up there and make him be awake just as early as he was, but an owl was tapping on the Headmaster's office window trying to get his attention.

Severus let the owl in and quickly read over two letters, one from Albus and one from Remus. The letter from Remus was short. It inquired about how Harry was doing and explained that he had Harry's cloak and what had happened in the Greenhouses. Severus was surprised the boy had done as he'd said and contacted Remus. He was also perturbed that Remus had come onto the grounds and called Harry out there in the middle of the night, thus getting Minerva fired and landing Severus in this odious position of Headmaster and cleanup crew.

The letter from Albus was both serious and bemused. Albus congratulated him on becoming the second youngest Headmaster in Hogwarts History, and then turned around and gave Severus a list of things he had to do right away, and a second full page of things he needed to watch out for with Umbridge. There was a third page that mentioned ways he might frame her or blackmail her into leaving, and at the end his final instructions were, "and you know what to do with Harry."

Severus growled and burned both letters. The sooner he could get Umbridge out of here, the better. They had enough to deal with between Potter and the return of Voldemort to have to deal with her as well.

Severus called a house elf and asked for breakfast for two, and then called another house elf and told her to fetch Harry Potter and get him into the office as soon as possible. Severus smiled with some satisfaction knowing it wasn't even seven on a Saturday and the boy was getting a rude awakening at this moment. It was only a few minutes before there was a knock on the door and Harry appeared being dragged by the elf. His hair was a mess, he looked half awake, and Severus was amused to see he hadn't even been given a chance to put both shoes on and still had one in his hand.

"Sir," Harry said.

"Thank you Tinky," Severus said, and the elf bowed and disapparated with a pop that made Harry jump.

"Sit down."

"Yes sir."

Severus wondered why the brat was finally being respectful. Perhaps it was because he knew just how much trouble he was in.

"Enlighten me to the events that took place last night after you left my office."

"I- erm."

Severus just stared at him, not wanting to interrupt. If he made the boy uncomfortable enough he'd get on with it already.

"I'm sorry. Please tell Professor McGonagall that I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get her canned, really."

"You were warned to stay on Umbridge's good side, and also to stay out of trouble."

"I know, I- I was so mad last night, and upset. You told me to ask Remus so I sent him a letter. I didn't know he was gonna show up last night!"

"Explain what happened."

Harry did explain, and when he was done, Severus stared at him. "Is your ear injured, or any other part of you?"

"My- what- no?"

"Was that a question or an answer?"

"No- I'm fine. What does it matter? I got Professor McGonagall fired! Everyone's gonna hate me!"

"It was going to happen eventually Potter. Umbridge will likely have me out of office before the day is out. It would have been nice if we could have put it off for a few more weeks, but it would have happened without your interference in the end."

"What do you mean?"

"It's all planned Potter. By the end of the year Umbridge will likely have every staff at the school fired. As to your other question, it matters if you were hurt in the altercation last night because if you are I'll contact Madam Pomfrey and have you tended to."

"You're not mad at me?"

"I'm extremely displeased that I was woken at four am after two hours of sleep to be informed that on top of my teaching duties I am now the Headmaster. Whether or not I am upset does not negate your need for medical attention if you were injured."

"I'm not." Harry looked as confused and bewildered this morning as Severus had felt all night after Harry had rushed out of his office.

"Good."

The first elf Severus had called that morning popped back into the office with two plates of breakfast, again startling Harry, though Severus pretended not to notice, and popped back away before Severus could even thank him.

"Eat," Severus said, pushing one of the plates of food towards Harry.

"I'm not in detention?"

"Oh, you have detention every day with me after school from dinner until curfew, and every weekend except during meal times. It will keep you out of trouble if you are in my office, and out of Umbridge's grasp. Eat."

Harry frowned and pulled the plate over to himself and pushed the food around for a moment before he picked up a crispy piece of bacon and ate it.

"Are these real detentions?"

"They're going on the records as real detentions. That will satisfy Umbridge that I am the strict disciplinarian the Headmaster praised me as."

Harry thought Snape took satisfaction from that label, but he seemed so calm that Harry wasn't really sure if he was having detentions for the rest of the year or was just going to be allowed to do homework or read like he'd been given leave to do at the start of the year.

"You're supposed to be mad," Harry said.

Severus ignored him in favor of his cup of coffee however, and after finishing his breakfast Severus ignored him for the stack of papers closest to him so he could see what Minerva had been working on. Eventually Harry finished his breakfast, and with nothing else to do, he sat there and stared at the desk until Snape was done with his stack of papers.

"What am I going to do with you Potter?" Severus asked, pulling the next stack of papers over to himself.

Harry shrugged. How was he supposed to know? "Remus said you weren't lying."

"I wasn't."

"Is that why you're being nice to me? Because of what happened with your dad?"

"I told you why."

"Because you were friends with James."

"Have your parent's other friends not been friendly to you? Remus, and Black? Minerva and Albus?"

"I-"

"You should never have been placed with your aunt and uncle, and once you were, you should have been checked up on. The Headmaster feels poorly about that decision and what it's done to you. Because the Headmaster- took me in, because of my circumstances, and because of my friendship with your mother and father, he believed I would be the best person to talk to you."

"Because you're a strict disciplinarian?" Harry asked, clearly not understanding yet.

"Because I've been in your shoes. Because I understand more than Minerva or Albus what it's like to come to school bloody and bruised, and to hope no one finds out about it." Severus looked up at Harry and wished he could somehow channel Albus in that moment. Albus had always known how to make Severus feel wanted, and cared about. "I understand what it's like to be angry because this has been done to you, because other people know. It was the reason I hated your father for so long... because he knew, and because I thought he'd use it against me. He didn't. I just didn't realize until last night how much of a friend he had been to me."

"Remus said- he and my dad always thought of you as a friend."

"Hm."

Severus glanced at the clock and called another elf. This one was older and less excitable looking than the one that had dragged Harry out of bed that morning and all the way up through the castle. "Find and ask either Ron Weasley or Hermione Granger to bring Harry's homework as well as their own studying and a board game up to my office."

Harry frowned as the elf left. "Why are they in trouble?"

"They are not. You are staying for the morning however and I have work to do."

"So-"

"You and one of your friends can do homework and keep yourselves occupied. Quietly."

Harry didn't ask any more questions, and waited quietly for twenty minutes until Hermione appeared uncertainly with hers and Harry's bookbags.

"Over there Miss Granger. Work quietly until lunch."

Hermione didn't question him and went to the little table Severus pointed at and Harry went to sit there as well. It was a table Albus frequently took his tea at and sat to read at away from his desk.

"What's going on?" he heard Hermione whisper, and he paused his perusal of the papers on the desk, waiting to hear what Harry would tell her.

"I dunno," he said. "I'm in detention for the rest of my life I think, but I'm not sure."

"But, he said to bring a board game? And- he's the Headmaster now?"

Harry shrugged.

They passed the morning quietly and if not for the occasional turning of a page, Severus might not have known they were there. Several staff came and went to speak to Severus, but made no comment about the two students in the corner of his office working quietly.

He released them at lunch and told Harry to come back as soon as he was finished, with or without Granger or Weasley, but not both of them at the same time. Harry came back with Ron, though Ron looked uncertain about what was expected of him, though the two managed to pass the afternoon playing chess without an issue.

The next several days passed for Harry and Severus in the same way. Harry turned up during free time for ‘detention', sometimes with Ron or Hermione, and sometimes alone. One day as the weather had started to turn colder, Severus had a new zip up sweat shirt and pair of gloves waiting for him, and Harry thanked him quietly.

The more time Harry spent in Severus' office, the less Severus heard from staff about Harry acting out, though Severus really wasn't certain why. He wasn't sure if it was because of the incident that had resulted in Minerva being fired, or if it was because he'd told Harry the truth about his own story.

As the days passed, and then the weeks, and as Severus continued to protect Harry from himself, and from several close calls with Umbridge, Severus realized that this was more than just paying forward what had been done for him. This was his chance to repay James for helping him. This was his chance to take care of Harry in the way he always should have been taken care of. He was starting to realize something else as well: Albus had been right. The more time Severus spent with him, the more energy he put into helping Harry, and the more money he spent on the boy for clothes or new glasses or school things, the more he cared about him. He didn't know if he would ever come to feel about the Gryffindor as Albus had felt about him after taking him in, and their relationship certainly wasn't perfect, they still had rows several times a week, but things had changed between them in a way that was almost tangible. Severus wasn't certain he could describe it, or that he wanted to. He only knew that things had changed, and he felt for the first time that year, and really for the first time in a long time that things would work out, for himself and for Harry.

Severus was sacked not long after Valentines day (for stopping Umbridge from using a blood quill on Harry and Ron in a joint unauthorized detention), and the next in line was put in place as head of the school. As Severus was walking off of school grounds, Harry ran down the lawns after him, cold in the crisp air and breathless.

"Wait."

Severus stopped and turned to look at him as Harry stopped, panting heavily. "Be careful," he warned, "Umbridge has banned student use of the grounds."

"Wait." Harry said again, breathing hard for several moments and then he looked up at him and said, "What am I gonna do without you?"

"Umbridge won't be here forever. I will return with the rest of the staff."

"But-"

Severus looked into the boy's green eyes. They were desperate... lost.

"Where I am- you are welcome." He wanted to take the boy off of school grounds and get him away from Umbridge. He didn't want to leave him behind to blood quill detentions and who knew what else.

"Do you mean it?"

"Yes."

"Do you promise?"

"Yes."

Harry did something unexpected then. He hugged Severus around the middle. It was a tight, quick, impulsive hug. Then Harry pulled back, looked as though he was steeling himself against the inevitable, and walked back up to the castle. Severus watched him go for a moment, and then turned and apparated away at the school gates. He wasn't sure what that was about, or what had made the boy do it (Severus had never hugged Albus before), but the hug stayed on his mind as he made his way to Grimmauld Place.

"Severus," Albus greeted, "you did remarkably well. You can't know how proud I am of you."

Minerva was nodding as they gestured for him to have a seat at the table and have a cup of tea to warm him from the cold.

"What happened?" Albus asked, followed by, "How's Harry?"

"He'll be fine," Severus said. He knew he would be because Severus would make sure of it.