Harry isn’t sure how he winds up here.

It is the third week of September and, by all means, he should be content. He’s back at Hogwarts, surrounded by his friends, but it is, apparently, not that simple anymore. No, of course not, he thinks wryly. Things are rarely simple with him.

So, no, he doesn’t know how he winds up here. Except that he sort of does.

His father’s Invisibility Cloak is laid out beside him, and he leans against the stone wall of the tower, watching out from so very far above. There is a part of him, he will admit, that can’t help wondering what a fall from here would feel like. Perhaps it would be akin to the exhilaration he gets from a steep dive in Quidditch. Perhaps it would be something completely different, something altogether more dreadful.

It must be at least one in the morning, he’s sure. He awoke some hours ago, Cedric’s blank face and Wormtail’s curse flashing behind his eyes. There is a deep, uncontrollable anger that threatens to burst out of him if he focusses too much on that, and so he doesn’t.

Instead, he turns his gaze upward, trying to see something between the stars he knows he won’t find. This is the tenth or eleventh time he has been up here since those first few days of term; he really can’t remember—he’s been trying not to count.

In truth, the nightmares themselves aren’t really new. He’s been having them since the end of the last school year, but he doesn’t think anybody has realized yet. He always falls asleep last, and wakes up first. Maybe Hermione has her suspicions, but what can she really do? Besides, the last thing he wants right now is pity. Not from Hermione, or from anyone, really. A few times during the summer, Harry thought about confiding in Sirius, but the very thought of it, even now, makes him rather sick.

No, he thinks decisively. Best to deal with this on his own, and if he can’t…

Well, then, that just means he’s weaker than everybody thought he was anyway, and he was never going to be their “saviour” or whatever they all expected him to be.

It is a surprisingly reassuring thought, though perhaps it shouldn’t be. If he’s not destined to save anybody—if, on the contrary, people seem to die just by making the mistake of trusting him—then he has nothing to stick with it for, does he? He’s been living on borrowed time, anyway, alive because, even by wizarding standards, he’s some sort of “freak.” Voldemort will see him dead someday, no matter how many times he gets lucky before then.

Though it makes for a bleak future, he knows it to be true. It’s probably closer than he thinks, too; now that Voldemort has risen again, it is only a matter of time, really, before he comes for Harry again. And how can Harry hope to get away a second time? Not when there is nobody else there to die for them, not when there is no immediate escape from that treacherous graveyard…

Suddenly, it feels quite cold.

He lets out a short sigh and leans more heavily on the castle wall. From here, the stars would normally be shining brightly above, easy to locate even without a telescope, but, tonight, they are shrouded from view by a thick layer of clouds. There’s a breeze cantering through the air, one that smells of the coming autumn, but Harry knows he would not feel any warmer even if he were in Gryffindor Tower with his housemates.

It’s easy to lose track of time here, though it once was not. If he thinks back on them, Astronomy classes feel terribly distant, but they aren’t, not really. He still has them, even. The only difference between then and now is that he would be awake at this time anyway.

He stays until the clouds begin to part, and sunshine peeks out from the horizon, then he slips the cloak back on and returns to his dormitory. This, too, is strange. Almost as if he is a spectator of his own life, rather than the one living it. His bed is made, his schoolbag packed, but in such a way that it is impossible to tell he is the one who did it. He is, of course, and yet it is all awfully mechanical, a force habit rather than a necessary but painfully boring task.

He waits for Ron, and then they leave the dormitory together, like Harry has not even left it in the first place. They meet Hermione in the Common Room and the three of them head for breakfast between light conversation. They’re all still waking up, in some sense.

“You look tired.”

Harry blinks, turning to face Hermione. Though Ron continues to indulge in his meal at Harry’s side, she gives no attention to the food on her plate. Instead, her eyes are fixed on him, in such a way that reminds Harry a bit of the way she looks at texts she doesn’t quite understand—a little angry, perhaps, but mostly determined to solve the mystery before her.

Harry really doesn’t want to be her riddle.

“It’s Monday morning,” he mutters. “‘Course I’m tired.”

She shakes her head, though. “That’s not what I mean. Are you—?”

“I’m fine,” he interrupts, but his tone is a bit colder than he meant it to be and she flinches, dropping her head and focussing on her breakfast again. The words she has not said hang heavily between them, but, even if she’s hurt, he prefers them like this: unsaid.

This has been the norm, since the beginning of term. He’s trying, really, but Hermione wants him to talk—talk, she insists, and not yell—and Harry very much doesn’t want to do that. They’re his friends, his best friends, but, well…he doesn’t think they would understand. He’s not really sure if he even understands, himself.

Ron, for his part, doesn’t really seem to notice. He sticks by Harry’s side throughout the day, in far higher spirits than either Harry or Hermione, and says nothing about the conversation that didn’t happen at breakfast. It’s a relief, in every way that it is not.

By the time their afternoon Potions class arrives, though, Hermione has mostly recovered from their interaction this morning, and she takes her regular seat by Harry without protest. Still, Harry can see the irritation in her, the chill in her words when she does talk to him. But better she be angry with him, Harry thinks, than probing into things that he’s sure neither of them wants to discuss.

Either way, he doesn’t really have the energy to deal with it. His lack of sleep has begun to catch up with him, and, more than once, he catches his eyelids drooping when he really ought to be stirring his potion. Perhaps as a non-verbal “I told you so,” Hermione makes no move to help him even as he adds lavender when he was supposed to add ginger, and his potion turns a rather sickly shade of green.

Which is the moment Snape stalks up to their table, of course, sneering in disdain at Harry, though Harry’s sure he hasn’t even seen the state of his potion yet.

And, for sure, as soon as he does see it, his sneer somehow deepens.

“I had thought,” he says lowly, “that by now you may have learned how to read, Potter. Clearly, I was mistaken.” Shaking his head in disgust, he waves his wand, and Harry’s potion Vanishes before his eyes—for the second time, Harry recalls, since the beginning of term.

“Maybe it’s just this class boring me to sleep,” Harry snaps, before he even really realizes he is speaking.

It’s the wrong thing to do—of course it is—because Snape’s eyes darken. “And I suppose you think yourself above such mundane activities as school? Even when you are clearly failing abysmally at it?”

By now, the entire class is watching them. This isn’t anything new, not really, Gryffindors holding their breath and Slytherins snickering amongst each other, but a fierce rage swims up through Harry’s chest, and he is nearly on his feet in anger before Hermione reaches over and puts a hand on his arm, keeping him down.

“Detention, Potter,” Snape says, drawing back. “Tonight, if you please. What are you are all staring at? Get back to work!”

As he turns and leaves, Ron shoots Harry a sympathetic look. Hermione, though…

“You shouldn’t have said anything,” she mutters, shaking her head. “You know that.”

He scowls at her, but knows she’s right. Even if it was unfair for Snape to Vanish his potion over such a small (was it small? He’s not really sure. He really hadn’t been paying attention to the directions for the potion) mistake, he knows that he played directly into the professor’s hands, taking the most obvious sort of bait he could’ve been offered… It’s the sort of thing he was able to keep himself from doing two weeks ago, but now…

Well, it certainly sours his mood for the remainder of the day, not that there was much good about it in the first place. By the time dinner comes, he wants nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep, but he knows, with an aching sort of certainty, that it will do no good anyway.

So, maybe, in a way, a detention this evening is not such a bad thing after all.

It’s not a cheering thought, but it does offer some relief. The longer he can go without falling asleep, the longer he can go with the nightmares. And even if he is awake many, many hours before the rest of the castle, that’s not so bad, either, because it’s better to be awake and exhausted than asleep and restless.

Ron bids him a mournful good-bye after dinner, but Hermione does little more than give him a sideways glance before pulling Ron away with her and telling him they ought to be getting a start on the homework they were assigned today. Harry’s almost glad he won’t have to be a part of that.

He’s more punctual than usual when he reaches Snape’s office, but Snape, for his part, seems unsurprised by it as he tells Harry to come in and sit.

That in itself is a bit odd, Harry can’t help thinking. Maybe he’ll be writing lines? Though Snape usually comes up with far more creative ways to torment those who find themselves in detention with him…

“You should know,” Snape says, in that quiet, dangerous voice, “that I do not care about your nighttime wanderings, but should they affect your ethic in my classroom, I will not take kindly to it. Do you understand, Potter?”

He does understand, but—

Nighttime wanderings. His mind catches on that, and he feels his pulse begin to race beneath his skin, a sick feeling creeping up from his stomach.

“I don’t do any nighttime wandering,” he croaks.

Snape folds his arms over his chest, annoyance darkening his face. “Do not lie to me, Potter. I have just told you—”

“I’m not lying!” There’s that anger again, seizing him completely before he even notices it is there. His vision swims with it, a dizziness overtaking him, and he is breathing very hard, suddenly. “And isn’t that what everyone says? That I’m a liar? Well, I’m not! I didn’t lie about Voldemort, and I’m not lying now!”

As the words settle between them, Harry sees the Potions Master watching him with—irritation? No, not completely. Something else. Almost as if Harry is some sort of potions ingredient, one he is just about to slice up and throw into a cauldron.

And isn’t that a thought.

“I’m well aware that you’re telling the truth about the Dark Lord, Potter.”

For a moment, Harry isn’t completely sure what he means by that, and then he connects it to everything else he has just said, and heat rushes to his face.

“W-well, that’s not what I mean. I—”

“As for the rest, I would be more inclined to believe you if it wasn’t so terribly obvious that you’re lying to me.” Now, the look is all irritation. “So tell me the truth, or you will be sorry.”

“I am telling the truth.” At Snape’s raised eyebrow, he adds, “Sir.”

“And yet,” Snape murmurs, leaning forward in what Harry can only see as a show of genuine malice, “you have given me every reason to believe you are not. The truth, or this will be only the first of your detentions with me, I assure you.”

Harry scowls, looking away from him. After that hellish week of detentions with Umbridge, he isn’t feeling too keen on repeating the process. Though, he muses, it may be possible that even Umbridge is more awful to serve detention with than Snape. Snape, at least, has never made him write in his own blood.

And it shouldn’t be funny, not really, but it sort of is. Harry feels his shoulders relax and he shouts Snape his most defiant look.

“I’m not lying,” he says. “And you’d hardly be the first to punish me for telling the truth, sir.”

This, at least, is familiar territory. Snape glowers at him, and Harry meets his gaze levelly, daring the professor to attack.

And attack he does.

“Very well,” he finally says, leaning back. ”Tomorrow evening, we can resume this line of conversation. As for now, if you would write out the steps of the potion you so terrible botched today until they have thoroughly sunk in, that should be…sufficient.”

Harry blinks. “That’s all? Sir?”

Snape just sneers at him before getting to his feet to do something on the other side of the room.

Taking but a brief moment to rid himself of the confusion at the assigned task, Harry eventually sets out to retrieving his supplies and his textbook from his schoolbag. Though Snape has used the same words as Umbridge—until the message sinks in—he has allowed Harry to use his own quill and ink, which, though it shouldn’t be, feels like a relief in its own right. Perhaps he had worried, just a bit, that Snape and Umbridge were sharing secrets on how best to deal with trouble-causing liars like Harry.

As he sets about his task, he considers this thought carefully. Yes, Snape is calling him a liar—and, well, perhaps he’s right, in this case, but Harry would much rather let him believe that these “nighttime wanderings” are born of a desire to make mischief, rather than…whatever they really are—but he’s part of the Order of the Phoenix, as well, and Dumbledore trusts him, doesn’t he? Not that Harry has ever really understood why, but, well, at least Snape, though he may not mince words, won’t be telling him that Cedric’s death was under different circumstances than it really was.

It makes the time pass a little more easily, at least. Without having to focus on the anger people like Umbridge and Seamus seem to ignite so readily within him, he finds it almost a soothing task, one he is eventually able to do without so much glancing at the textbook for guidance.

“I assume you know, now, what your mistake was?”

Harry doesn’t know when Snape sat in front of him again, but he tries not to let that surprise him.

“Er, yes, sir. I knew when I—”

“When you did it, yes. I’m aware.”

“Then why—?”

But the glare Snape sends his way is more than enough to silence his question before he can even get it out.

“Leave,” he says. “Tomorrow evening, at seven. Do you understand?”

Harry doesn’t need to be told twice. With a meek, “Yes, sir,” he gathers his belongings and makes for the door. Snape says nothing more, to his relief, and he makes it back to Gryffindor Tower without further incident.

Ron and Hermione are still in the common room, pouring over some essay or another. Ron notices him first, with a grin and an enthusiastic gesture. “Glad to see you survived, mate.”

Harry offers him a weak smile in return. “It wasn’t so bad,” he says, shrugging. “But, er…”

Hermione looks up from her homework, finally, frowning. “What did you do?”

“Why do you assume I did something?” He shakes his head. “He wants me to come back tomorrow, that’s all. I guess, er, he feels I didn’t do good enough, so he wants me to do it again.”

“It seems pretty severe just for a small mistake,” Hermione says. “Are you sure—”

“I’m sure,” he says flatly. “What are we working on?”

Brightened at the thought that he is willingly doing his homework, Hermione drops the topic immediately and fills him in on the assignments they’ve already been over since he’s been gone. He assures her that, once they’re finished this, he’ll work on those ones too, and she falls back into homework-mode, completely fixated on a puzzle that is, thankfully, not Harry.

By the time Ron and Hermione are packing up to go to bed, Harry is thoroughly exhausted, but he bids them a good night and keeps at his homework for at least an hour longer before heading to bed himself. Thankful for his many years of pretending not to exist, he sneaks into the dormitory and into bed without making any noise.

He’s asleep even before his head hits the pillow, but it is not long after that he begins to dream: a cold voice, talking of death and—sacrifice, the utter ridiculousness of the power of love. I can touch you now, and there, from the corner of his eye, a flash of green, but when he turns, it is not Cedric’s eyes looking up at him, but Sirius’s…

He wakes with a muted gasp, cold with sweat. Taking in a few deep breaths, he looks around at his surroundings. It’s still quite dark, a testament to the surely late hour of the night—or early hour of the morning, perhaps—and the snores of his dormmates assure him that he is the only one in the room awake.

This is beginning to be normal, too. He stays, tonight, hoping that even the pretense of sleep may be enough to make him feel rested (it’s not), and, eventually, the others begin to stir too.

The day begins on a slightly better note than the last, with no awkward conversations or annoyance with him from Hermione. From Transfiguration to Herbology, they remain in good company with one another, until Harry is once again forced to leave them to meet with Snape for what he can only assume with be another strange detention.

It is true, Harry thinks, that two detentions is severe for a minor mistake in class—when, indeed, others had done far worse in the very same one—but it doesn’t weigh on his mind too heavily. It’s Snape, he reasons, and Snape hates him. Of course he would want to punish Harry above anybody else.

Still, it is hours added on to his day that he otherwise could have been using to try to recover some of his energy, and it’s showing even before Snape invites him into his office.

The punishment remains the same, to Harry’s surprise, but he chooses not to complain about it, knowing there are far more erroneous tasks he could be forced to complete under Snape’s supervision. Still, the repetition quickly becomes tedious, and his eyes are closing even before his hands stops moving…

“Potter!”

Harry jumps at the voice behind him, his hand flying forward and knocking his ink well over. Cursing, he reaches for his wand to clean it, but Snape has already done so before he even pulls his wand out.

With a pounding heart, Harry turns to face the professor, who is looking down at him with something far beyond mere agitation. Beyond hatred, even.

“I don’t recall saying you could fall asleep here, Potter.”

He’s right, of course, and yet…

“I didn’t mean to,” Harry protests. “I was just—”

“Whether you meant to or not does nothing to change the fact that you did.” Snape looms over him, all dark and angry. “Tomorrow evening, then, Potter. See that you are punctual about it.”

Harry takes that as his cue to leave, and wastes no time in doing so. In the back of his mind, he is aware that, should this keep up, Angelina will be even more irritated with him than Snape is, but, if this is the game Snape wants to play, Harry has nothing else but Quidditch to lose, and, these days, that is becoming less and less important, anyway.

Not that he would expect Angelina to find another Seeker to replace him, but, still, the possibility is there. And she really will be angry with him, will tell him, as she did before, that he really ought to talk Snape out of these detentions. But that’s even less likely than convincing Umbridge, he thinks, and so he doesn’t entertain the hope that he may get a reprieve to train with his teammates this week.

And the week does continue in a similar trend. No matter what Harry does or does not do, it seems impossible to please Snape, and, by Saturday—Saturday! Really!—he’s beginning to grow frustrated with it.

“I didn’t even do anything!” Harry doesn’t let himself shrink beneath Snape’s sneer tonight. He has done everything Snape has asked of him, and he hasn’t even come close to dozing off in the process. He’s already behind on his homework, and Angelina will only give him so much more patience as the match with Slytherin draws steadily closer. If he can’t get out of it himself, she told him darkly, she’ll be going to have a word with Snape herself.

“That does appear to be the problem, yes.” Snape crosses his arms over his chest in a manner that briefly reminds Harry of Molly Weasley, but he quickly chalks this insane comparison up to sleep deprivation.

“I don’t understand.”

“Clearly,” Snape drawls. “Do you not recall, about a week ago, when I told you that you must tell me the truth, Potter? I assure you, I enjoy this wasted time none more than you do, but I have no intention of going back on my word.”

For a moment, Harry isn’t really sure what he’s saying.

And then, as it sinks in, he practically feels the colour drain from his face.

“I—I don’t have anything to tell you.”

“If you could get it through your head,” Snape says quietly, “that I am trying to help you, rather than hinder you, this conversation would be much simpler.”

Harry can’t help it:

He laughs.

There’s that rage again, rising like an unstoppable tide, from his stomach to his chest to his lips.

“Help me? I’m not sure we have the same definition of helping, Professor, because I don’t feel like I’ve really been helped at all. Nighttime wanderings, that’s what you’re referring to, right? You want the truth? Fine! The truth is that I wouldn’t be sleeping whether I was wandering or not, so this really is quite useless for both of us and—”

“Mind your tongue, Potter,” Snape says sharply. “I have no desire to be lectured by you, nor do I think it would be in any way educational. If you are, however, admitting to such nighttime wanderings, it would do you well to elaborate while I am still giving you the chance to.”

It is gone as quickly as it comes, leaving him empty and tired once again.

“I leave the tower sometimes,” he allows. “But I’m not doing anything wrong. Sir.”

“It is against the rules to be out past curfew, though.”

Harry looks away from him, shrugging. “Doesn’t matter, does it? I won’t sleep any better anywhere else in the castle than I will in a room with a person who thinks I’m…” He trails off with a short sigh. “You can punish me for it if you want, sir. It doesn’t make a difference.”

“Are you quite sure about that, Potter?”

He nods.

“That is ridiculous.”

Blinking, Harry looks forward once again to see Snape watching him in disbelief.

“Do not play me for a fool, Potter. I have taught you long enough—”

“I don’t care,” Harry snaps, putting his hands flatly down on the wooden surface of the table and glaring at the Potions Master. “Really. You could give me detentions for the rest of the term for all I care. It doesn’t make a difference.”

Snape is quiet for a moment, and then his gaze drops down to—

Harry’s hand.

“What’s that, Potter?”

Hastily, Harry pulls it away. “Nothing, sir.”

“I believe we have already established what would happen if you lied to me. Now, tell the truth.”

He doesn’t want Snape to see the words etched into his hand, and yet, he knows—this cycle will only repeat until one of them breaks.

And Harry will be the first to admit to being a little fragile these days.

He lifts his hand again and places it on the desk between them, not looking as Snape studies the words. Perhaps it is a bit ironic, Harry thinks, when Snape has kept him here for all the same reasons Umbridge did.

“I’m not a liar,” Harry says quietly. “Not about the things that matter.”

“What is—?”

“You won’t tell anybody will you?” Harry frowns down at his feet. “I can tell you, but only if you promise me. Sir.”

“If someone were inflicting harm upon you, I would—”

“Then, I won’t tell you.” Harry moves his hand away again and chances a glance up at the professor. “Even if you give me detention until I graduate.”

Silence.

And then, “Fine, Potter. Is my word enough, or should we summon someone here to swear us under an Unbreakable Oath?”

Harry doesn’t know what that is, but he knows better than to ask when Snape’s voice is dripping with such heavy sarcasm.

“It’s enough,” Harry says, finally looking up again. “It was…er, it was Professor Umbridge. She had me write lines for—well, for a week, hours every night, but she made me use a quill of hers. It, well…”

The very thought of explaining makes him feel very sick, and, yet, Snape’s eyes are narrowed at him, as if he can’t quite believe what Harry is saying.

“You mean to tell me that a professor under this roof administered corporal punishment on a student, and you wish me not to tell anybody?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s that bad,” Harry hedges. “Er, I mean—I don’t want to give her more reasons to hate me, sir. I’m sure you understand?”

“You are an idiot, Potter.” Snape shakes his head, looking down his nose at Harry with disdain. “Had it not crossed your mind that she may be using this punishment on other students? Or that, in the future, she will, and therefore your sharing of the information would be an essential step in stopping such a thing from occurring?”

Before Harry can even open his mouth to respond, Snape sighs and continues on: “Of course you didn’t. You are arrogant, Potter, thinking only of yourself in every situation.”

“Arrogant?” The anger swells within him again, torrential in its power. “Yeah, of course, I’m arrogant for wanting to keep quiet about something I can’t change. Tell me, sir, do you have the authority to stop her?”

“Not I, but Professor Dumbledore—”

“Professor Dumbledore has bigger things to worry about,” Harry says dismissively. “Besides, I doubt she’s making other people do it, only those of us who are telling the truth about what happened, but, well, who else is there, anyway? Professor McGonagall already told me I ought to keep quiet about it, but…”

“Professor Dumbledore values his students’ wellbeing,” Snape says, voice so stiff Harry wonders if he even believes that himself. “As it is, I’m certain he would want to know about this, regardless of whatever else he may currently be dealing with. You aren’t the one to decide that, Potter.”

“You gave me your word,” Harry mutters, gaze falling back down to his feet again. “I’ve already made my decision.”

Snape lets out an annoyed huff, but he concedes, “I did. And I will keep to that. However—”

Harry tenses, waiting for the worst.

“—in the future, should such things occur, it would be in everyone’s best interests to report it.”

“What?”

“Sir, Potter.”

But Harry can hardly hear him, so confounded by his last words.

“I don’t understand,” Harry says, leaning forward as he locks eyes with his professor again. Something like desperation claws at his stomach, but he isn’t sure where, exactly, it is coming from. “Why would I say something about it? I mean—sure, if were happening to someone else, but—”

He stops, horrified at the words coming from his mouth, but he can’t take them back now. Snape watches him with interest.

And he would be interested, Harry thinks bitterly. Some of Petunia’s favourite old epithets come to mind, and Harry can’t help thinking that Snape would probably agree with each and every one of them.

“Do finish your thought, Potter.” Snape’s eyes never leave his face, but embarrassment keeps Harry from meeting them.

“Th-there’s nothing else, sir. That’s all.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Harry bites back a retort, like, Well, I don’t know what you want me to do about that, and keeps his gaze stuck to his shoe-covered toes.

“You are no more above such duties to your peers as you are to your professors,” Snape tells him. “Even if you don’t wish to say something, you have a responsibility to do so.”

“You don’t get it,” Harry mutters. “It’s not—that’s not what I mean.”

“Then what, pray tell, do you mean?”

Harry inhales sharply. He has a feeling that, no matter what he says, it won’t be enough to get him out of this.

“W-well, if it were Hermione, it’d be different, wouldn’t it?” He looks up nervously, wondering why in the world he should be feeling afraid, now, rather than annoyed, as he has been at all of Hermione’s attempts to get him to talk about things, or about Ron’s insistences that he really ought to tell McGonagall or Dumbledore about what happened in those detentions.

Snape is not Hermione or Ron, though, is he?

“Would it be?” Snape looks doubtful. “I had thought you valued your friends more highly than that, Potter.”

Harry shakes his head. “That’s not what I mean, sir. I just—er, well, it’s different for her, isn’t it? I mean, I can take it. I’ve dealt with worse—or, not worse punishments,” he hastens to add. “Just worse in general. Why are you asking me all this, anyway? I thought you might think it was…you know.”

Something very dangerous flashes in Snape’s eyes. “Say what you will about me,” he says, so quiet it seems to send a tension throughout the entire room, “but I do not condone the physical abuse of students.”

“It’s not abuse.” The words leave his mouth so quickly, he couldn’t even begin to hope to catch them.

They’re old words, ones he used in primary school. Never in Hogwarts. Never.

“Isn’t it?” A raised eyebrow, as if daring Harry to challenge him.

If that’s what he wants, then Harry is more than happy to oblige: “Well, yeah. It’s just a punishment. I said something she didn’t like, and she disciplined me. Isn’t that what professors are supposed to do? Sir?”

When Snape says nothing, that desperation begins to rise in Harry’s stomach again, tasting unpleasantly of bile. Thankful that his lack of sleep has kept him from having much appetite lately, he continues, “I’m not saying it’s a good thing. I just mean that…”

He stops, suddenly not so sure that he really will be able to hold his small dinner down after all.

“I’m not quite sure what you are saying, then, Potter.” Snape doesn’t look confused, though. Rather, his eyes are critical as they sweep over Harry, perhaps seeing all the faults Harry knows linger in his words and more.

Mutely, Harry shakes his head. This conversation has already gone on long enough, surely? Maybe it’s some sort of surreal dream—even if strange, it would be a welcome reprieve from his regular dreams lately.

But he knows it is not, and that if he sicks up now, he really will be doing so all over Snape’s desk.

“If you have something to say, do say it,” Snape drawls. “I’ve no desire to try to put your few flimsy justifications together myself.”

“I—I’m not justifying—”

He stops, swallowing thickly.

“Then, perhaps you could answer me a different question,” Snape says after a moment. “Why are you wandering the castle at night, rather than sleeping?”

Like that’s an improvement.

Still, Harry can do little more than stare at him, feeling a lot like he remembers feeling when he was just a kid and his aunt would chastise him for something. Taking up too much space, maybe, or having the audacity to believe that a freak like him could in any way be loved, especially when compared to someone like Dudley…

He wraps his arms around himself, willing the sick feeling to go away.

“I—I’ll come back tomorrow, then, sir.” He takes in a deep breath and gets to unsteady feet.

And he turns to go, even while Snape calls after him not to. Only later, when he is in bed, does he realize that, if Snape had really wanted him to stay, he could have locked the door.

So, why didn’t he?

---

True to his word, Harry does return on Sunday evening, but, today, he feels he is sufficiently prepared for any strange conversations that might take place.

Until Snape starts talking, that is.

“I have nothing to punish you for,” he says. “But I believe we have an unfinished conversation.”

“I don’t think it was unfinished, sir.”

Snape sneers. “Of course not, since you all but ran away from me when you had had enough of it. But you can’t merely run from your responsibilities, and so…”

Harry huffs. “When have I ever run from my responsibilities, Professor? I don’t think I could run from them, even if I were trying to. Besides, I’m not sure what my responsibility is here. I don’t have to talk to you about anything.”

“And what of my responsibility to you, Potter?” That raised eyebrow again, as if this should have been obvious to Harry. “As your teacher, who has heard from you, yourself, something quite awful. Torturous, if I may say so.”

Perhaps the look on Harry’s face says what he is thinking, because Snape sighs.

“I believe I would be correct in assuming you’ve not confided in any other teachers about this?”

He hesitates a moment, then nods.

“Therefore,” Snape says slowly, “as the only person you have confided in, I have a duty to you, my personal feelings aside, to ensure it does not happen again. Am I quite clear?”

“I did tell Ron and Hermione,” Harry protests. It would do him no good to mention that he had never intended to tell them, but this is, at least, a partial truth.

“Let me rephrase, then: I am the only person in a position to do something about it that you have confided in. Do not misunderstand me, Potter. I’m not trying to create any sort of relationship with you, aside from what already exists. But I am no more fond of Dolores Umbridge than you are, and should she be harming students, it does matter to me.”

“Because it’s your responsibility?” Harry asks, just to be sure.

“Precisely. As it is your responsibility to do well in class, thus our other conversation.”

“I’m doing fine in my classes,” Harry lies. “A few bad days don’t—”

“Your professors do not exist in vacuums separate from one another.” Snape all but rolls his eyes. “Your performance is passable, but you shouldn’t be surprised if professors begin approaching you outside of class time to tell you that passable is not good enough.”

“You never cared before,” Harry points out, but his voice comes out quietly, barely more than a whisper.

“And I don’t particularly care now,” Snape says harshly. “Except that your performance reflects on me, as well as your other teachers. And if it is the result of rule-breaking—”

“—It’s not—”

“—then I am well within my rights to discipline you. And might I remind you that you have already admitted to being out of bed past curfew regularly. The only question you have left unanswered for me is why.”

“But why does it matter?” Harry presses. “I already said that—”

“You wouldn’t be sleeping?” Snape’s eyes are narrowed. Harry is briefly reminded of Hermione’s puzzle-solving look.

“Yes, sir.”

“But that is not a satisfactory answer.”

“A— What?”

“You’ve given me no reason to let you get away with rule-breaking,” Snape says impatiently. “Which, you might notice, I have been allowing you quite the opportunity to do so.”

Harry blinks. That’s true, he supposes, but, then, hasn’t he just served a week of mostly-meaningless detentions with Snape?

“But you don’t care,” Harry says, the desperation tugging at his gut again.

“I’m asking you a question, and I expect an answer.”

For a moment, the anger threatens to rise inside of him again, a great and endless fire, but it dies down again just as quickly. He expels the remainder of its dwindling smoke with a small sigh.

“You’ll use it against me,” he says. “Why should I trust that you wouldn’t?”

Snape does not look away from him. “I could give you my word on this, as well, if it would put your mind at ease.”

It’s an oddly enticing offer, but Harry supposes it’s just the exhaustion. Maybe there’s a part of him that thinks that Snape really could help him—that same part of him, perhaps, that once believed he could make his aunt and uncle love him, even when they never gave him a reason to believe they ever would…

“I can’t,” he says, trying for firm but failing rather miserably. Giving a small cough to hopefully steady his voice, he adds, “It’s really quite stupid, Professor. I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to waste your time with it either.”

“You’ve already wasted quite enough of my time this week, Potter. Another few hours is hardly going to hurt.”

And it’s ridiculous, really, but—

Well, Harry can’t help the constriction in his chest, the realization that he has “wasted” a lot of Snape’s time, but Snape has let him. Has made him do it, really, just because…

Because…why?

After a few long seconds of pondering, where he can come up with no better answer than that he merely wants to know, Harry says, “I just can’t sleep.”

Snape seems to consider this for a moment. And then: “Why not?”

Harry shrugs.

“A verbal response, if you please.”

Harry scowls at him. “I dunno, sir, maybe I’m just worried that Voldemort will get to me while I’m sleeping.”

“That is ridiculous, Potter.”

“Is it?” Harry’s not so sure, honestly. “You know, it could have been me. Instead of Cedric, I mean. If I had had a different wand, or if—if he hadn’t needed my blood, or if the Portkey hadn’t gone two ways. I just got lucky, didn’t I? Who’s to say I’d be so lucky again?”

“But the Dark Lord cannot get into Hogwarts.” Snape speaks slowly, as if he is explaining this to a child far younger than Harry. Perhaps he feels like he is. “And even if he could, I very much doubt that he would get past the Headmaster.”

But Quirrell was in Hogwarts for a year, wasn’t he, with Voldemort attached to the back of his head? And what about Tom Riddle’s diary, the one that very nearly killed Ginny? And was it not from Hogwarts grounds, last year, that Harry was transported away to that graveyard?

“Well, it doesn’t matter.” Harry looks down at his hands, folded in his lap, unseeing. “I’m not really that worried about it anyway, but maybe I ought to be…”

“Then, what is the issue, Potter?”

Everything feels far away. Sort of like the stars from the Astronomy Tower: they look close enough to touch, and, yet, they can’t even hear the words one would whisper on the wind from up there. And they’re getting duller, he thinks. Every time he sees them, they are duller.

Or maybe he’s just not really looking properly. He isn’t so sure.

He fixates on it, a bit. Too much, maybe. On whether or not the stars can see him. If they would see if he fell from the tower. Would it be exhilarating? Terrifying? Maybe it wouldn’t feel like anything at all. Aside from the anger, and this new desperation, he really can’t remember the last time he felt something.

“The Astronomy Tower,” he says quietly. “That’s where I wander to.”

“Why?”

“I dunno, sir. I guess I just like the view.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Harry knows that. Still…

He sighs. He can’t take his eyes off of his hands, but it doesn’t matter; he can barely see them anyway.

“I…” He stops, swallowing. He knows that Snape won’t let him leave here until he has given a “satisfactory” answer, but it isn’t making the words come any easier.

Still, Snape says nothing. Silence hangs between them for a few very long minutes.

Finally, Harry finds his voice again:

“I dream about it.”

Snape doesn’t even miss a beat. “The Dark Lord?”

Harry nods. “And Cedric. And...everything else. Every night.”

It’s not as painful as he is expecting. In fact, as the words fall from his lips, a lightness rises in his chest, a sort of relief he isn’t sure he has ever felt in his life before. At least, not in a very long time, if he has.

It doesn’t seem to matter who his audience is. With those few words, the rest seem to tumble out without pause:

“I can’t deal with it, that’s all. I’d rather be tired all the time than waking up sick because I saw him die again. I don’t care if that makes me a coward, or—anything else. It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to see it anymore.”

To his surprise, though, Snape doesn’t say anything of the sort. Instead, he asks, “Why the Astronomy Tower?”

Harry’s not so sure, honestly. It seemed like the best place, the first time, to get some much-needed time away from everyone else, but after that…

“Er, because it’s so high, I guess.” He shrugs. “The view really is nice.”

“The view is nice,” Snape repeats, voice flat.

“Well, usually, yeah. Sometimes it’s too cloudy or something, but…”

“And does it help?”

“Huh?” Harry frowns, finally looking up again. “Er, no, not really. I don’t think anything would, honestly, sir.”

“Talking, perhaps?”

Harry stares at him.

For some reason, this seems to amuse the Potions Master. He rolls his eyes and leans forward, just a bit. “Surely it’s not such a foreign concept? We’re talking now, aren’t we?”

And—yes, they are.

Suddenly, it occurs to Harry just how strange this all is. Here he is in Snape’s office—quite willingly, even—having a conversation with the man. One he would never dream of having with even his closest friends.

“Yeah, but—why? I mean...why are you bothering? Sir?”

“Because I detest students sleeping in my class,” Snape says stiffly. “And, clearly, a mere punishment wasn’t going to stop you from doing so.”

“Sorry,” Harry says automatically. “I didn’t—”

“That is neither here nor there, Potter.” Snape waves a dismissive hand between them. “As it is, you appear to have much bigger issues. See that you deal with them, lest I have someone intervene. Do you understand?”

The sudden change of his tone is enough of a cue for Harry, who nods only after a moment and jerkily gets to his feet. As he gathers up his belongings and turns to go, the anger washes over him again, and he takes great satisfaction in slamming the door behind him as he goes.

Stupid of him, to think that Snape—Snape! Of all people!—really had wanted to help him, but, then—

Why does he care, anyway? He already knows that nobody can, or will, help him. It’s why he won’t talk to Hermione. Why he won’t listen to Ron. Why he let Umbridge make him etch those words into his own hand over and over again, I must not tell lies.

That endless rage holds him tight, and even by the time he falls asleep that night, he can’t shake it away.

---

It encases him for days after.

On Monday’s Potions class, he brews a perfect potion, if only so he cannot give Snape any excuses to hold their conversation against him. What was he thinking, anyway, telling Snape something like that? Word or no word, of course Snape is going to use it to mock him, to ridicule him in front of all his classmates. As if they don’t all already think he’s mad enough as it is.

Without the opportunity to do so, though, the class passes without incident, and yet Harry cannot help but feel heavy as he leaves with Ron and Hermione, neither of whom seem to notice anything amiss about him today. It occurs to him that, maybe, there isn’t anything amiss. Has he been like this since the beginning of the term? Since June, maybe, or sometime during that summer after spending time with his relatives—relatives who don’t have time for sick children, or teenagers who still have night terrors.

It was the first time he learned that, sometimes, while he dreamed, the noises he made within his mind were in fact ones he was expelling in reality. After that first incident with Vernon, Harry figured it was probably best to sleep only when there was a chance it wouldn’t disrupt the other inhabitants of Privet Drive. Not that it did him any good, he can think now, rather bitterly, given their reactions after the Dementor attack.

Such thoughts don’t leave him as the afternoon slips into evening, and by the time Ron and Hermione bid him a good night, the heavy feeling in his chest has still not lightened in the slightest.

Unable to sleep, he eventually decides to return to his regular perch at the Astronomy Tower a few hours after. His fixation with the fall only grows stronger each time he comes up here, and, yet, it is a more calming thought than any other these days. It gains more and more appeal, too, like—perhaps, this way, he could finally feel something other than the anger, or the desperation, or whatever this terrible emptiness is, though he thinks that may be a lack of feeling, rather than a feeling itself…

As the week continues on, he finds himself there every night, contemplating, considering, creating what-ifs where they probably shouldn’t exist.

What if he did fall?

What if he didn’t survive?

What if he didn’t have to deal with all of this anymore?

By Friday, he has begun formulating a—not a plan, not exactly. Something close to it, though. A truly solid idea, a suitable end to all these thoughts and the rage and the desperation and the heaviness. Has he thought it all out? No, not really, but he’s sure that the pros far outweigh the cons, and, anyway, he can’t help thinking back to the Priori Incantatem, the ghostly figures of his parents so close and yet so terribly far… They were together then. If he died now, would he be with them too?

It must be near at least four in the morning. He’s been here for a very long time, he’s sure, but he can’t make himself move. There is here and there is there, and he’s not afraid, not really, but, then, why is he still standing here?

Cowardice, maybe. That sounds right, before all other explanations. There is a possibility that the there is even worse than the here. Would his parents be disappointed in him? They gave their lives up so he could live, after all, and yet they had to have known that he could not, that it was impossible, that, even now, he has been living on borrowed time…

Or stolen time, rather. Time he stole from his parents, all for what has been, for the most part, a rather miserable existence.

And that thought is enough to make him move, but a sound from behind him halts his steps before they have even really begun.

He doesn’t turn around, mostly because he isn’t sure what he will find there. Briefly, the thought that Voldemort really has breached Hogwarts enters his mind, but it slips away just as quickly as footsteps begin to approach from behind. No, if this were Voldemort, he would have acted already. And what a thought that is, one that only gives Harry’s idea more merit. How much would it anger Voldemort, then, if Harry were to die by his own hand, rather than his?

“Potter.”

No, it certainly isn’t Voldemort. Harry thinks he could recognize this voice anywhere, but it does not hold all the hatred, all the animosity it normally would. Now, it merely sounds tired, likely a testament to the early hour.

When Harry doesn’t respond, Snape asks, “What are you doing?”

There’s a slight breeze here tonight, already much colder than the ones that graced the air in September. Harry barely feels it, though.

He turns around and meets his professor’s gaze through the darkness, surprised at his own calm.

“I’m going to jump,” he says confidently.

There is a moment of silence, where Harry almost expects Snape to turn around and tell him to continue on, and then Snape surges forward and takes a hold of his sleeves, pulling him away from the edge with a force that knocks the wind from Harry completely.

Harry barely has time to recover from the shock of it before Snape is looming over him, looking somehow far more dangerous than he ever has in the classroom.

“You are an idiot, Potter,” he hisses. “What in the world are you thinking?!”

“I…” Harry stops, swallowing thickly. Somewhere in the back of his mind is a compilation of memories that feel very much like this, but there is one thing, one essential difference here…

“Why are you trying to stop me?”

Whatever Snape expected him to say, Harry doesn’t think this was it.

“You may be a nuisance, Potter, but that doesn’t mean I think you should be dead.” He shakes his head, as if he can’t even believe that Harry would suggest such a thing.

Idly, the anger and the desperation tug at his gut, but he can barely even notice them now. There is such a calm here, invited by the hour and the season, the dull stars behind him. Though there is nothing about Snape’s presence that suggests serenity, Harry just can’t find it within himself to share in the professor’s mood.

“It’s for the best,” he insists, standing up just a bit straighter. “For everyone, really. I thought, maybe, I could see my parents again.”

He doesn’t mean to say it, but the calmness draws the words from his lips with ease. Even as Snape looks at him in what can only be horror, he can’t make himself regret the words.

“Besides,” he adds, “he’d just kill me anyway, wouldn’t he? I’m going to die no matter what. Shouldn’t it be…I dunno, on my own terms?”

The breeze whispers gently between them, wordless sentiments Harry would like to imagine are in agreement with him.

“You are…under stress,” Snape finally says. “You’re thinking irrationally.”

Harry frowns. “I don’t think so, sir. It really does seem like the best thing to do. I don’t see why you wouldn’t agree.”

“Why I—?” Snape stops, inhaling sharply. “Of course I wouldn’t agree, Potter! Life is not so—You can’t merely decide whether you get to live or die, not when…”

“I should’ve died a long time ago,” Harry argues. “It’s for the best.”

“You are being absurd!”

Harry glances towards the ledge he had been walking towards only moments before, chest tightening. “I don’t think you understand, sir.”

“Potter, look at me.”

But Harry can’t pull his gaze away. It’s only a few steps, only…

Suddenly, there is a hand wrapped around his wrist, and the calmness falls away, replaced by something that is neither anger nor desperation, something far more terrible, something that pulls those memories forward rather painfully.

He pulls back, stumbling, his breaths coming hard and fast.

“Don’t touch me,” he hisses. “Don’t—don’t—I won’t—”

“Potter, what on earth—?”

He knows this voice, but he can’t see anymore, can’t see past the familiar shape of his uncle, the echoing words of his aunt: We never wanted you!

“I’ll be gone soon,” he says quickly. “I won’t do it again. I won’t—”

He stops, the memory falling away from around him, and lets out a shaky gasp. He’s lost his footing, and is now sat on the floor with his hands defensively poised in front of him, waiting…waiting…

Waiting for what?

Snape looks down at him, expression incomprehensible through the dark.

Now, the calmness is gone completely. He can’t even fathom how it might have been here in the first place, how he ever could have faced this situation with anything other than panic, or terror, or all those other awful feelings that so often propelled him onward when he was a child.

“You clearly need sleep, Potter.”

Harry shakes his head, breaths coming hard and fast. His heartbeat roars in his ears, far, far louder than the autumn breeze. He couldn’t even hope to speak now, but there’s no way Snape will take him away from here, no way in which Snape will make him sleep when it is sleep that has put him in this position in the first place, the awful dreams, the angry words of his aunt and uncle, the very fact that sleep these days feels far more an illusion than it ever has.

“Stand up.”

Get up, boy.

“No.”

“I’m sorry?”

Harry can’t look at him. “Leave me alone.”

“Clearly, that would be a mistake on my part.” His footsteps come closer, slowly, quietly, as if he is approaching a cornered animal rather than a fifteen-year-old boy. When he speaks again, his voice is much closer: “I will help you, Potter, if you just listen to me.”

When Harry does turn to look at him, he sees that Snape is kneeling in front of him, leaving little space between them. Harry can think of a few other times that someone in Snape’s position ever got so close to home, usually in those situations where he would need to use those three words: It’s not abuse.

He probably didn’t even know what that word meant, then, but it was something that Petunia always looked down on with scorn. People who abuse their children, she would say, are in their own category of terrible—probably just above wizards, Harry thinks. So, if ever a complaint got sent back from Harry’s primary school teachers or nurses—something about marks on him, his poor eyesight, his awful clothes—she would scoff and she would remind Harry that those are the words he says because they’re true.

“We’ve done far more for you than we had to.” She would sniff here, in disdain. “You have nothing to whinge about.”

But Harry never really did complain, did he? He defended them, even. Because they did give him something when he had nothing, and they always did keep him clothed and fed, so what if they never let him cry or smile or indulge in his childhood the way Dudley was able to…

“Come with me, Potter. Come away from here.”

And maybe it is merely his imagination, softened by memories of things he would much rather leave to the past, but he thinks Snape sounds almost…gentle, like he really does want Harry to come with him, and—

Maybe it’s some sort of trap. Maybe Snape is going to take him away from here to punish him. Maybe he’ll tell Harry that he ought to have chosen a more thorough method, one he could really be certain would kill him.

But it doesn’t matter.

Harry hesitates only a moment before nodding and getting to his feet. Snape is already ahead of him, and as the professor turns to face him again, he holds something out between them:

Harry’s Invisibility Cloak.

Throat too tight to utter a proper thank you, Harry takes it and tucks it away. With that, Snape turns on his heel and leads him away from the tower, down, down, until they come to a room recognizable as Snape’s office.

Wordlessly, Snape lets Harry enter ahead of him, and then closes the door and guides him to the same seats they took during all those detentions just the week before.

“Sit,” Snape says, and Harry does.

“I believe it is past due time that you told me what is going through your mind.”

Harry’s eyes drop down to his hands. They’re shaking, he notes briefly, but he can’t even feel it.

“You were going to jump,” Snape presses. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” It is an automatic response, another one he has learned too well over the years. What happened to your eye? Why are you bruised here?

I don’t know. I’m clumsy.

But Snape does not appear satisfied with this answer. “You do know, Potter, or you would not have been there. You said something about—your parents? Is that the issue?”

“Yes,” Harry says, relieved at what appears to be an easy out. The shorter this conversation—

“I don’t believe you.”

—the better.

Harry looks up at him, eyes flaring, jaw set. “What do you want me to say? Why do you even care? You…”

But the anger slips away as quickly as it comes, and he drops his shoulders and his gaze again, sighing.

“You have nightmares,” Snape says.

Harry’s heart skips a beat. “Yes.”

“About what happened last June?”

Cedric, falling at the green light, falling, looking up with empty eyes…

Harry just nods, suddenly unsure if he can trust his voice or not.

“And you believe the Dark Lord is going to kill you?”

“Isn’t he?” Harry’s voice comes out rough and scratchy, but he can’t be bothered to do anything about it now. “I got lucky, everyone thinks that—or—or everyone who even believes me about what happened.” His heart is beating fast and loud, and he knows his words are increasingly following its pattern, but they just keep coming, endlessly, endlessly, some broken dam setting free months and months of anger and desperation and maybe even hatred, hatred for Voldemort or for Barty Crouch Jr or for himself, for telling Cedric they could go together.

“I’m going to die anyway, aren’t I?” His chest aches. His eyes sear. “W-why bother? With any of it? It’s all so— It’s pointless! I should’ve died a long time ago, but—but—”

“Potter.”

He stops, gasping for breath. His eyes are stinging, and the room blurs before him, but it has been a very long time since he’s cried, surely, crying has always gotten him in trouble…

“You will not die,” Snape says.

Harry laughs. It’s painful beyond compare, from his head to his chest down to his gut. There is a heavy sickness rising in his throat, but he swallows it back and shakes his head.

“You don’t know that.”

Snape purses his lips, as if irritated by this objection. “No,” he allows. “I do not. But there is a chance you will not die, and you are, clearly, alive now. Your parents—”

“Are dead.”

“Died so you could live,” Snape says, like it is a correction. “Died for you. If you value that sacrifice...”

The anger flows through him, burning through his veins, like it is trying to create a barrier between the two of them, trying to defend him from all the guilt Snape is putting on his shoulders…

If Snape says anything more, Harry doesn’t hear it. He’s on his feet suddenly, shaking from head-to-toe, and glaring down at his professor through tear-blurred eyes.

“You think I don’t know that?!” he demands. “You think I don’t—think about it?! That I haven’t considered every—every single person who’s died so I could live?! But I can’t—I can’t do anything! I can’t save anybody, can I?! W-wouldn’t you be the first to say so, Professor, that I’m a useless, good-for-nothing—”

“Potter!”

“Shut up!” Harry roars. “I already told you to leave me alone, so just let me be. J-just leave me—!”

Breath caught in his throat, he stops, heart pounding, vision swimming. The floor feels unsteady beneath his feet, like he may fall at any moment, and isn’t he going to be in so much trouble, so much trouble, for talking back—for yelling!—when he has landed himself in such a terrible position already…

“Sit down,” Snape says, so quietly Harry almost misses it between his own harsh breaths.

“N-no.”

“Sit. Down.”

“No.”

“Potter—”

“You don’t care,” Harry spits, but each word is like a knife in his own aching chest. “You should have left me—”

“I would not have left you, Potter, now please sit down and let me talk.”

Harry opens his mouth to argue, but no words come out. Instead, a small, childlike sob escapes from his throat, and he sits, willing himself not to do something stupid like cry about all of this.

“Be honest with me, Potter.” Snape’s voice is quieter, now, but it still feels so very cold. “You think you deserve to die?”

It’s pointless.

He’s so tired, and it must be—what? Four in the morning? He can’t remember the last time he ate, can’t remember the last time he slept and didn’t dream, can’t remember the last time he felt stable, and now surely isn’t it.

He tries to keep it back, but it’s a completely futile effort. There’s nothing he can do about it, no way he can stop it.

He starts to cry.

It’s a terrible feeling, tight pain in his chest and his throat, an awful burning in his eyes, such a humiliating look, surely, flushed wet cheeks, a strangled sound he can’t quite keep behind his lips.

He cannot remember ever crying like this, even when he was very small. He learned early on that, if he was going to cry, he would have to be quiet about it, because nobody was going to put up with it, was going to listen to the incessant whining of an ungrateful freak like him…

But where Petunia would have told him to stop by now, would have shrieked at him and sent him away to his cupboard, Snape says nothing. Whether that makes it better or worse, Harry doesn’t know, but it doesn’t make the tears stop, doesn’t make his breaths come any easier.

It doesn’t last long, but it feels as thought it is an eternity before the tears stop falling and he can breathe again.

He doesn’t dare look up at Snape, but he hears the man murmur something, and then there is something dangling by Harry’s face, and he glances up at it to see the Potions professor is offering him a handkerchief.

Confused, he accepts it, but averts his gaze again immediately after.

Snape sighs. “A lack of sleep,” he says, “can certainly create problems, Potter.”

Harry says nothing, not sure what he could say even if he was able to speak.

“I will not pretend to understand what you’re thinking and feeling,” Snape continues, “but as things remain, it would appear I am the only person aware of your current...situation. As such, should you wish to speak of it, I will...listen. If not, I will have no choice but to redirect you to Madam Pomfrey. Do you understand?”

Harry’s shoulders tighten, and he grips the handkerchief with white knuckles.

“It would seem that we’ve taken the wrong approach with you,” Snape says quietly. “Perhaps it was too much to expect you not to react this way, all things considered.”

In the following silence, Harry turns those words over in his head a few times. Then, he steels himself and looks up.

“I don’t understand.”

Snape raises an eyebrow at this. “What don’t you understand, Potter?”

“Why you’re saying this.” Harry shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “It, er, it doesn’t make sense. Sir. I know I’m overreacting,” he says quickly. “I won’t do it again. I just—”

“Your mood swings are quite disturbing, Potter.”

Harry stops, blinking.

“Were you not telling me, only minutes ago, that I should have left you to die?” Snape shakes his head. “No matter what you say now, I hold no confidence that you would not do something rash the second you left this office.”

“I…”

“Don’t talk,” Snape says sharply. “You are giving me a headache, Potter. Your assertion that I do not care is untrue. You are a student, and I am your teacher. I have a responsibility to ensure your safety. Therefore, I would not have left you there to die, no matter our personal relationship, do you understand?”

Harry does understand. He understands perfectly.

“But you don’t really care,” he says, voice flat.

“I just told you—”

“That I’m your student and you have a responsibility, yeah. That doesn’t mean anything.”

Snape makes a short noise of frustration, then leans forward and fixes Harry with a rather severe look. “And you have nobody who does care about you, do you?”

Harry scowls down at his lap. “Not really. And my friends—well, I just make things hard for them, don’t I? And dangerous?”

“Your family—”

Harry laughs, cutting Snape short.

“Right,” he says. “Like they give a toss whether I live or die. They’d’ve thrown me out, you know, if they could. They tried, this summer! I’m sure they hate me more than you do, Professor.” He inhales sharply, feeling the anger simmering in the pit of his stomach again. “They think I should have died with my parents too!”

His words seem to ring out around them even long after they have left his lips. Snape watches him with a look Harry couldn’t even hope to begin to decipher, and Harry shrinks back from it, knowing—he has said too much, he has said all the wrong things, Petunia would be livid if she could hear him now.

Finally, Snape says, “The Headmaster had ensured us that your relatives were…quite happy to have you. Is this not true?”

Well, if it’s his word against Dumbledore, Harry doubts there’s any point in contesting it. He just shrugs, looking down again.

“You reacted rather strongly when I tried to grab you before.”

“Er…I was just surprised, sir.” Harry coughs, hunching his shoulders up further. “I—I don’t see what that has to do with my aunt and uncle, anyway…”

“How do they treat you?”

What is this, 20 Questions? Harry doubts either of them want to be talking about this, so why are they?

“What do you mean, sir?”

“If they wanted you gone,” Snape says slowly, “how did they interact with you given that you were still living with them?”

Those words rise on his lips again—It’s not abuse—but he pushes them down, knowing that it will only make things seem worse than they are. After all, nobody has said “abuse” yet, though he gets the feeling that that might be what Snape is implying. And isn’t that rich, coming from him!

“We mostly avoid each other,” Harry says instead. “I just, er, keep to my room. They don’t ask me to come out, so it all works out, doesn’t it?”

“But surely you haven’t always done that?”

“…No.”

“Then, what was it like before?”

Before when?

But Harry forces the tension from his body and just shrugs. “They don’t like magic, sir, that’s all. It was—fine if, er, if I wasn’t doing anything…” Freaky is the word his relatives would probably use, but he’s not so sure that it’s the right one to say now. Accidental magic is normal to Wizards, after all, so Snape wouldn’t think that it was really a big deal, but Harry knows better than that, knows that, to those who aren’t magical, it is a big deal.

“Accidental magic?” Snape presses. “It’s not uncommon for Muggles to be put-off by it.”

Harry’s eyes snap up to his, and, suddenly, he’s full of irritation again, sick of this ridiculous conversation and its many twisting paths. He scoffs and shakes his head.

“I wouldn’t say they were put-off, Professor. They hated it.”

“How so?”

Harry crosses his arms over his chest, wishing that it was enough to give him some much-needed security. “They just didn’t want me to do it, I dunno. My aunt said they didn’t want me to come to Hogwarts, but obviously I did, so—”

“She didn’t want you to come here?” Suddenly, there is rather mutinous light in Snape’s eyes. “Even after so many years, she would still…”

Harry pauses, letting the words drift between them for a while before finally leaning forward slightly and saying, “Sir? What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” Snape says harshly, and Harry falls back, closing his eyes briefly and drawing in a sharp breath.

When Harry opens his eyes again, Snape appears to have deflated somewhat, and he sighs. “We were…acquainted…at a time.”

He’s not looking at Harry, but he doesn’t need to be. It takes a moment for the words to properly register, and yet…

“You and my aunt? How?”

“It’s complicated,” is all Snape says.

Is it, though?

“You were…the same age as my parents, weren’t you?” Harry knows better than to push this, but, well, Snape has been pushing him, hasn’t he, been making him say and do things he never would have otherwise? And, still, it’s not quite sinking in yet, the weight of all that. Not so long ago, they were at the edge of that tower together…

“We were in school at the same time, yes.”

“But my aunt is a Muggle.”

“Yes, she is.”

Clutching the handkerchief tightly, Harry studies his professor with narrowed eyes. Surely, surely he hadn’t misheard? And he knows, knows that they were the same age, Snape and his parents… Dumbledore told him so, a long time ago, hadn’t he? Or maybe Remus, he doesn’t know, but it has always been a given, one way or another, if only because Snape hates him so much…

“I don’t believe now is the time nor the place for this conversation,” Snape finally says. “Perhaps another—”

“But you—”

“I am talking about you, Potter, not myself.” Snape draws himself up, almost as if he is trying to intimidate Harry. It might be working, too, but only just a bit.

Harry thinks about this for a moment. Snape won’t let him leave here until he hears whatever it is he wants to hear, and, now, Harry has a personal stake in all of this too, doesn’t he, if there’s something he can learn here about…his mother, maybe? Or his aunt, at the very least, but Harry gets the feeling that there’s more to this than some sort of chance acquaintance, as Snape would have him think.

Slowly, he nods. “Then, if I answer your questions, will you tell me whatever it is you’re not saying?”

Snape blinks, as if affronted by this suggestion, but whatever surprise has overcome him fades away quickly.

“Very well,” he says. “You were saying that your relatives were not pleased by your accidental magic?”

There are two ways this conversation could go, now, Harry thinks. Maybe he’s just overtired. Maybe he is, like his aunt would tell him, starved for affection. Maybe he’s so enamoured with the idea of learning something, anything, about his parents, that he’ll say even the most damning of things to hear it…even if it’s coming from the mouth of somebody he hates.

And, really, it’s all very funny, if he puts it like that.

But it’s not funny here and now. Not at all.

“They kept me at home a lot,” he says carefully. “Y’know, if they ever wanted to take Dudley somewhere, they’d leave me with Mrs Figg. The neighbour, I mean. Er, I had to do a lot of chores, more than Dudley, anyway… Cooking and cleaning, you know…”

These are safe topics, he knows. He’s had a lot of years to learn what is and what isn’t, after all. As long as he doesn’t get into the specifics of it, nobody is going to be alarmed. He knows, obviously, that some of his punishments are severe, but it’s just different for him, isn’t it? They never wanted him in the first place, and he’s different than them. It can’t be helped that they don’t know how to deal with him sometimes, that they don’t want to see him all the time.

But Snape doesn’t look like he’s buying it.

“You said they wanted to throw you out,” he reminds Harry.

Harry knocks his knees together, anxiety rising through him. “Er, yeah, but that’s—well, I’m, er—I cause trouble, don’t I? I mean—you think so too, don’t you, sir? You wanted to kick me out of Hogwarts in second year.”

Snape takes a moment to think this over, and then he shakes his head. “I don’t believe those things are comparable, Potter. A guardian is supposed to…appropriately punish the children under his or her care. Putting one out of his home over a bit of mischief…”

“But Hogwarts is my home,” Harry can’t help pointing out.

Snape leans back a bit, raising his eyebrow again. “Not your aunt’s house?”

“I…”

“Be honest with me, Potter, or I certainly won’t be telling you anything about my own life.”

Harry bites back a scowl and tries to push down the sickness threatening to rise up in him again.

“Well, I dunno, we just—tolerated each other, didn’t we? And there was nothing to do there.” He shrugs. “It’s just, er, you know… I prefer it here because there’s no magic at my aunt’s house.”

“That is usually the case for Muggle-raised students,” Snape agrees, and Harry begins to relax again.

But then Snape adds, “However, it does not tend to keep them from being in some way attached to the place they came from.”

“I—I’m attached, sir.”

“Don’t lie to me.” Snape sounds tired. He probably is, but he’s still holding Harry here anyway.

...Why?

Harry looks down, not sure what to say. He’s run out of safe topics quite quickly.

“I understand,” Snape says, “that it is not...easy to admit when something is wrong. However, you are clearly under...a certain amount of pressure, and I am not yet wholly convinced that it is only due to your encounters with the Dark Lord.”

Yes, Harry’s had conversations like these before. Has listened to the soothing words of some young, kind primary school teacher who really does mean well but doesn’t understand…

“It’s not abuse,” Harry says automatically.

Immediately, he regrets it.

“I never suggested it was,” Snape points out. “But the fact that you would say so despite that is quite interesting. Do you often need to defend your relatives’ actions to others?”

Harry often thinks that Snape really can read minds, and now is no exception at all. Why did he have to say that? He may have gotten out of this office with at least a portion of his dignity intact, but that doesn’t look so likely now.

“Well, I guess.” He worries at his bottom lip. “Er, it’s just—well, it always looked kind of bad, I guess. I wore Dudley’s old clothes, and he was so much more...uh, outgoing than me.” He shrugs, affecting nonchalance. “People got the wrong ideas sometimes. We’re just different, that’s all. And he picked on everyone, not just me.”

“You wore your cousin’s old clothes?”

Of course that’s the thing Snape chooses to fixate on.

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

Harry shrugs. “They didn’t plan for an extra kid. Clothes are expensive. And they worked fine, they were just a bit big on me, that’s all…”

“Too expensive?” Snape sounds—and, amazingly, looks—astounded. “I was under the impression that your parents had left a rather large fund for you.”

“They did,” Harry says. “But it’s all in Gringotts. I never knew until my eleventh birthday.”

Snape is shaking his head, though. “I mean a fund for whoever came to have you in their care. It was a war, after all, many couples with children were preparing for the worst. The Headmaster said…”

Harry’s stomach twists. “Said what?”

“That you were well taken care of,” Snape finishes after a long pause. “Many...wizards wanted to send you money, you see, after the Dark Lord fell. But the Headmaster refused such donations, saying that they were unnecessary because your situation was more than comfortable already.”

Harry furrows his eyebrows, trying to understand. “But...my aunt said that they only…” He stops, breath catching in his throat.

He knows what Snape is saying, but there’s no way to tell, is there, if it’s true? It can’t be, or he would have gotten to eat as much as Dudley always did, would have gotten to have his own clothing before he turned eleven and started buying things for himself…

“It was not my intention to upset you,” Snape says quietly, clearly seeing something on Harry’s face that he can’t tell is there. “Perhaps it would be best to leave this—”

“Sh-she said it was—charity,” Harry cuts in. His hands are shaking again, his heart beating fast. “They took me out of the...the kindness of their hearts. They made me do all the housework, you know, because it was the—least I could do, when they were suffering because they took me in, because I was taking food out of their mouths, because...because…”

“Potter—”

“They made me sleep in a cupboard,” he blurts. “Until I got my Hogwarts letters. I think they thought someone knew about it, because the letters were addressed to the cupboard under the stairs, but—Dudley, he got both the bedrooms, and I had to...I was…”

He trails off, breathing hard. There are tears prickling at his eyes again, and he knows he has just said many things he should not have, but it doesn’t matter. Exhaustion pulls at him, and the longer this conversation goes on, the more things begin to solidify. He thinks of the tower again, of Snape kneeling in front of him, of that eerie calm followed by the fear…

“Why did you come after me?” he asks, before Snape can say anything about the cupboard or the food or any of it.

Snape seems to still be registering it all, in fact, and it feels like a very long time before he finally says, “Because I knew I would need to.”

“But...why tonight?”

Snape looks away from him. “It was not only tonight, Potter. But I had no intentions of intervening unless you needed me to, and, tonight, you did. That is all there is to it.”

“I don’t…”

“You told me,” Snape says, “that you favour the Astronomy Tower on sleepless nights. I recall...having a similar liking for it, as a student. I had worried that our fixations may have...come from a—similar place. It would appear I was correct.”

Harry opens his mouth to ask what he means, but closes it again, blinking. He can’t see his professor’s face, not really, but the words carry a heavy sort of weight to them, and Harry gets it, what he’s saying, what he’s not saying.

After a long pause, he asks, “Did you…did you ever…?”

Snape shakes his head. “I had someone to intervene when I needed it. I...will not say that I expect you to confide in me, nor will I be insulted if you choose not to do so, but...I believe that as that person once did for me, she would wish me to do the same for you. And so, should you want to...I will listen, and I will...help you.”

It’s obvious that these words aren’t easy for Snape to say, and Harry thinks he understands. They are, after all, not supposed to have a friendly relationship, Snape is not supposed to help him, not supposed to even pretend to like him… It disrupts a natural order, one they are both far more comfortable existing in, and yet…

“Nobody’s ever cared before,” Harry admits. “Wanted to help, I mean.”

“So it would seem,” Snape says mildly. “Perhaps I have had...the wrong idea about you, Potter.”

But that’s not something Harry wants to talk about, not really. He looks down at his hands in his lap and asks, “Who was it, sir?”

He doesn’t dare look up, knowing that it is very likely the one thing he says tonight that will manage to get him kicked out of here—and, with a small jolt, he realizes that he no longer wants to get away, as he did only, surely, minutes ago—but curiosity pokes at him from within, and, admittedly, it has been a very long time since he has felt properly interested by something. Yet here Snape is, giving him all sorts of fascinating half-truths…

It is a very long time before Snape says anything. Only the sound of his breathing echoes through the office, and then he lets out a short sigh and shifts slightly in his seat.

“Your mother,” he says, so quietly Harry almost misses it.

But it would be impossible to miss, wouldn’t it, something like that? Yes, Harry already knew—they were the same age, but Snape hated his father, didn’t he, and Sirius and the rest of them? But what does he know about his mother, about Lily, other than the atrocious stories Petunia used to spin about her, the few pictures in the photo album Hagrid gave to him…

“We were—friends, at a time,” Snape continues. “She had a…particular way of making people feel…wanted, no matter what she may have been dealing with herself.”

“You…” Harry stops, letting the words wash over him. Five years, he thinks. Five years, and yet he was never told, never given a reason to even think…

“It’s not fair.”

Snape is quiet for a moment. And then: “What isn’t fair, Potter?”

Now, Harry looks up at him, stomach twisted with rage and desperation and, sure, maybe some fear, all the anxiety this conversation has invited and more. There is something terribly dark inside of him that wants to lash out, wants to yell and scream, because here is Snape—Snape, who hates him, who has always hated him—telling him that he knew, all this time, knew so much that Harry didn’t, and he never said anything.

“You could have told me,” he says harshly. “You could’ve—could’ve at least—considered, or—or—”

“What good would that have done, Potter?”

“What good?” Harry stares at him in disbelief. “I dunno, sir, maybe I could’ve heard something other than that—that she was some common slag that went and married the first man who gave her enough attention. And I know it’s not true,” he snaps, when he sees Snape going to say something, “but what d’you suppose I thought before anybody told me the truth? That—that my parents were reckless drunks who got themselves killed in an accident, and it was only—it was unfortunate that I’d survived it, because anybody with parents like that surely wouldn’t amount to anything, would they, no matter who raised them? And you—you knew…you…”

As Harry’s anger seeps out of him, he falls back, shoulders slumping, and looks away from Snape again. Silence hangs over them for a moment, and then—

“I had no way of knowing what your relatives may or may not have told you about your family.” Snape pauses, then adds, “And even if I had, I am quite certain there are others who could tell you better than I the sort of people they were. Lily was…only my friend for a time. We did not associate with each other at the time of her death.”

“But you still…”

“I knew her, yes.” Snape sighs. “I did promise…that I would tell you, did I not? We met before we came to Hogwarts. Her sister was…a dreadful thing, full of envy and spite. But we were only children. I had assumed that, as she got older…”

“Well, you assumed wrong,” Harry snaps. “If you knew what she was like, why didn’t you—?”

“I did not know, Potter. And even if I had, what could I have done? If it was my word against Dumbledore’s, nobody would believe what I had to say. You would have remained there, regardless.”

“You could have come for me.”

The words fall from his lips so quickly he can’t even hope to catch them. As they sit between the two of them, horror creeps up through Harry’s gut and his cheeks begin to sear with mortification. Snape, taking him away from the Dursleys. What a thought!

And yet, even as he thinks it, he’s sure that it would have been better than what he got. Snape hates him, sure, but does he hate him as much as Vernon and Petunia? It’s possible, but Harry isn’t so sure. At the very least, he could have grown up in the magical world, could have known the truth about his parents and his scar from the very beginning…

“You are being absurd,” Snape finally says. “You are quite sleep-deprived, and I would image it is keeping you from considering the weight of your words.”

“I just… I meant, well…” Harry glances up at him, his gaze catching in surprise as he notes that, rather than looking angry, Snape almost looks…embarrassed? Much as Harry feels, anyway. He swallows and finishes, “It would have been better than there, at least.”

Snape seems doubtful, though. “You must think quite lowly of your aunt, if you believe I would be more adept at raising a child than she is.”

Harry shrugs. “I dunno if I’d even really say she ‘raised’ me at all, sir. Aside from food and clothes, she never really… Well, I guess I sorta raised myself, didn’t I?”

“That is…deplorable.” Indeed, he appears quite disturbed by Harry’s words. “But regardless of…what could have been, this is where we are now. I…apologize that I said nothing before. I had thought that Petunia would have told you, but I understand that it was—a foolish assumption. Should you want to talk about her, of course I could…make myself available…but I’m certain there are others who could tell you better than I.”

There’s something about his preposition that makes Harry pause. He thinks of Sirius, who always wanted to talk about James and their times together, and realizes—this is very different, very different indeed. From what Harry can gather, Lily saved Snape’s life, at least in some capacity, but they weren’t friends anymore, once they were older…

For Sirius, the pain of losing James only exists within the event of his death. But Snape lost Lily long before she died.

Is it different? Harry doesn’t really know, in all honesty, but there is a sort of pain in Snape’s words that Harry doesn’t think he’s ever heard in someone before. Many long years of grief he has not quite managed to put aside, perhaps, a sadness that time can never really remedy…

Just who was his mother to Snape, then?

“It’s okay,” he says quietly, though it really isn’t. “I know… You don’t have to—be nice to me, or—or anything, just ‘cause you knew my mum or…anything like that.” The unspoken addition of or what happened tonight surely doesn’t go unheard, either, but Harry can’t quite bring himself to say those words.

“I don’t believe it’s so simple, Potter.”

Harry frowns. “What do you mean?”

“There are certain things,” Snape says, “that I have…learned about you in the past week or so. I’m not sure that I could…knowing what I know…”

He trails off, to Harry’s relief, but it doesn’t make the unsaid words any quieter. Maybe he’s right, too, and yet Harry isn’t sure, doesn’t know if this will last, if there is any hope in this conversation for him, himself…

But it’s so very late—or, early, rather—and his mind drifts back to the Astronomy Tower, to Snape pulling him away, to everything that happened after… He would have done the same for any student, probably, but, then, he followed Harry there, found him when nobody else would have…

When has anybody ever bothered with him like that? Sure, Dumbledore guided him away from the Mirror of Erised, went after him when he was fighting Quirrell, but this is not the same, not really, and Dumbledore isn’t here now, is he, to help him… Nobody has reached out for him since Cedric’s death, has really been able to get through the rage that has been constricting him since then, but here is Snape, doing just that.

Harry gets the feeling that no matter what he says now, Snape isn’t going to send him away. He hasn’t yet, after all, and Harry has surely given him every reason to—he’s cried, he’s yelled, he’s pushed and prodded where perhaps he shouldn’t have.

But he’s still here.

Even though it is late. Even though they don’t really get along. Whatever has happened tonight, or this past week, has changed something rather abruptly, and Harry can’t tell just yet whether that’s a good thing or not.

“It’s very late,” Snape says suddenly.

“Huh?” Harry stops, blinking. “Oh. Right, I can…”

Snape shakes his head, though. “Not so fast, Potter. I will let you go, but you must give me your word first, do you understand? That you will go back to your dormitory, and you will sleep, and you will not do any injury to yourself.”

Harry’s heart freezes in his chest, but as the words sink in, he lets himself relax again.

“Okay,” he agrees. “I won’t do anything.”

“Convincingly, Potter.”

“Er, I promise I won’t do anything? Anything stupid, I mean. I—I know that— It was stupid. I know that, I swear. I won’t do it again.”

Harry wouldn’t say that Snape does look convinced, but he nods anyway.

“Very well,” he says. “You may go. And, Potter?”

Halfway to his feet, Harry comes to a halt.

“Everything you have said to me will remain between us. Should you ever…feel as you did tonight, you should know that I will listen to you. Do you understand?”

Harry plays the words over in his head a few times, dissecting them over and over, trying to find some hidden meaning in them that simply isn’t there.

Finally, he looks at his professor.

“I understand,” he says, and, to his surprise, it is the complete truth.

“Good,” Snape mutters. “Then, sleep well.”

Harry watches as Snape pulls something from a drawer in his desk and slides it towards him wordlessly. It’s a potion, a royal purple colour, and, for a moment, Harry can only stare at it, shocked,. Briefly, he considers that it may be some sort of poison, but then he shakes himself of the ridiculous thought and reaches for the bottle.

It’s familiar, and after a quick inspection, Harry recognizes it as Dreamless Sleep, the same potion he took after he returned from the graveyard. The nightmares had started after that, when he no longer had a potion to keep them at bay…

Neither of them say anything for a long moment, and then Harry smiles, just a bit.

“Thank you, sir.”

Snape purses his lips. “See that you do not fall asleep in my class again, Potter.”

Perhaps, a week ago, Harry may have taken this as a dismissal. But now he can see—it isn’t, not really; there is a gleam in Snape’s eyes born of something else entirely, something more—dare he even suggest it—jovial. And isn’t that a thought, Snape, having cheerful feelings?

Still, it is enough, and Harry thanks him once more before turning to leave the office. It must be near the end of curfew by now, he thinks, if not already, but, well, it’s Saturday, isn’t it? And after everything that has happened tonight, sleeping in has really never sounded so wonderful.

Something has changed, undoubtedly. But the bottle of Dreamless Sleep, the lightness in his chest, compared to the heavy weight of all that grief that drove him to the tower in the first place—they seem to be enough evidence, to him, that it is not a bad change, by any means, no matter how strange it may be.

And, try though he may, he isn’t quite able to push Snape’s words from his head, even as he settles into bed to sleep. Something about helping, wanting to help, the admittance—It was not only tonight.

He tucks the potion into his trunk, to save for a time he may need it more—on Sunday night, perhaps, so that he really doesn’t fall asleep in Potions on Monday—and lets his thoughts wash over him, far kinder than they have been in many months, until he succumbs to the heavy lull of sleep.

And for the first time in a very, very long time, no nightmares plague him.