July 5th.

Harry stops, the pen in his hand stilling. He’s sure this is the date—quite sure, because he heard it on the telly this morning when he was listening to the news from where his aunt and uncle couldn’t see him—but it feels so much colder than that. There are thick grey clouds overhead, the smell of heavy rain invited by them. It makes for a quiet day, if nothing else, but he’s not so sure, anymore, that quiet is really what he needs.

The pen is one he stole from his uncle, though Harry’s confident that Vernon loses these things so often he probably wouldn’t even think to consider that his delinquent nephew might’ve taken it—or, because he might not believe Harry can really read and write, so often does he tell other people that this is the case. The parchment is his own, and he would be using his own quill and ink, if it would not seem so suspect to other people.

It’s better to be out of the house, these days. Vernon and Petunia don’t care, as long as he isn’t causing them any troubles (which, it is easy enough to surmise, he manages best when he’s within fifty metres or less of them). Dudley and his gang are up to something else today, by Harry’s estimation, and, he knows, by sitting here in this park, he makes the job of watching him easier for whichever unfortunate Order member has been stuck with babysitting today.

He’s not completely stupid, contrary to popular belief. Short of telling him he can’t leave his aunt’s house at all (like he would ever adhere to that), there’s little they can do to keep him from being attacked by Death Eaters, or maybe even Voldemort himself. It should be a relief, maybe, to know that there are people ready to spring into action as soon as he might be danger, but he just can’t find it in himself to be relieved by it.

He turns his gaze to the parchment again, sighing shortly, and presses the pen down against it once more. It takes more pressure to write in pen on parchment than with a quill, but it still works, and, anyway, it’s not like these letters will be going anywhere, will they, when the intended recipient of them isn’t around anymore to receive them.

That’s the reason he’s dated it, too. Without a response to remind him when and why he has written each letter, the date serves to do just that. Also, it helps him count down the days until the first of September, though he’s not so sure that returning to Hogwarts will really be enough to ease his mood anymore.

Dear Padfoot, he writes, and stops again, frowning. After a brief moment of consideration, he lets his hand do the work, putting down all the things he knows he would never say in a real letter, anyway.

I miss you. They all start like this. Really, I keep thinking that I’ll see you again at the end of summer, but I know I won’t. It’s all my fault.

He scowls, dropping the pen and listening as it falls and rolls over the grass at his feet. He doesn’t know why he’s doing this, why he started doing it. Maybe that very first time, the day after he arrived from Hogwarts, he really did think that Sirius would be able to receive the letter. Even if he had given it to Hedwig, he knows that she never would have been able to deliver it anyway. She would have tried, but it just would have come back to him, and it would be as it is now: a crumpled piece of paper on the floor by his bed, smudged with ink blots and written in shaky hand.

But he keeps trying anyway, because there is something to say, and this might be it, maybe—it’s my fault, I’m so sorry, I wish I could take it all back—but, then, he knows better. Knows Sirius wouldn’t want him to say so, wouldn’t want him to blame himself, even if it is all his fault.

And so he leans down, picks the pen up again, and writes all of that down.

It’s the same as all the others, all messy and disorganized and pointless, but he finishes it, signs it, and folds the parchment into little squares, not wanting to see the words written on it any longer.

And then he goes back to his aunt’s house, because there is nowhere else to go.

This is the way all his days progress lately. He’ll wake up, let his aunt boss him into making breakfast for everyone, then listen to Vernon ramble on about whatever awful thing he has done this time. If that comes with a slap or a punch or just a sneer, it doesn’t matter, because they all feel similarly unimportant. Apparently, they have decided that they can do anything they want with him this summer, in a way they have not really done since before he went to Hogwarts. He’s older now, though, and he understands—perhaps not because of the reasons they say so, but he really does deserve it. Deserves the harsh words and, sure, even the occasional (or frequent, maybe, he’s not so sure) bruise.

It’s like he keeps writing, over and over again: all my fault.

So, the days continue on, as bleak and unfeeling as the last.

Sometimes, he gets into fights with Dudley, and he’s not even sure which of them starts it, but it always ends the same way, as one-sided as ever. There’s no joy in it as there may have been when he was younger and he thought that winning in a battle of wits against his cousin was something to celebrate, nothing to make him want to keep pestering Dudley, and yet it keeps happening anyway. Dudley will say something ignorant, about things he can never understand, and Harry will say nothing, and Dudley will just laugh at him, like he’s attained some great victory. He’s as physical as ever, too, but there’s a distance between them since the Dementor incident last summer, like Dudley doesn’t really want to hurt him, not the way his parents do, anyway, but Harry thinks that it wouldn’t be so bad, at least it would feel normal…

By the time July 8th comes, he has what feels like a rather sizeable stack of letters. He’s taken the ones he’s nearly thrown away and smoothed them out, put them all together in a pile by his bed that would probably make Hermione proud. It doesn’t do much for him, though, other than give him something more to look at during those sleepless hours of the night.

It’s funny, almost, how unbearable being awake is, when it once was preferable to sleeping. But living in a world where Sirius no longer exists, or dreaming up one where he does, even for those brief moments before it all ends…

Well, it’s hard to decide, sometimes, whether it’s better to be dreaming or not.

As far as the Dursleys are concerned, though, he’s better off avoiding his dreams. They disturb them, according to Vernon—who heard so from Dudley, Harry’s sure, because he doesn’t think anything could wake the man when he’s asleep—and so he should just, well, stop, as if it’s really that easy.

It’s quite late now, and Harry thinks that Petunia must be nearing the end of her pre-sleep rituals, the obsessive checking and re-checking, as if she really thinks Harry is stupid enough to put the dishes in the wrong place after all the years he was punished for doing so. Possibly, it is just an excuse to find a reason to punish him, but he doesn’t really care so much, these days.

Knowing it will do him no good to continue to lie here and stare at the pile of letters, he grabs his trainers and slips out of the room, heading for the front door. Ever thankful for his ability to get around this house without being seen or heard, he gets out without Petunia noticing him, and he makes for the same park he has been frequenting over the past week.

On the nicer days, children play here, laughing as one of their parents or friends pushes them higher and higher on the swings, always looking as if they have no idea of the terrible realities outside of this place. And they wouldn’t, Harry knows. They’re Muggles, after all, aren’t they? He envies them sometimes, but it doesn’t do him any good, not really, not when he already knows there’s no way out of this. The prophecy hangs over his head, somehow the most and least important thing in his life all at once.

But at this time of the day, there is nobody else here. A lonely wind whispers around him, but its cold fingers barely even graze his skin. He is completely alone, except that he isn’t.

He wonders, sometimes, what the Order members who have to watch him think, watching his daily rituals. Do they see what goes on within the walls of Privet Drive, or do they only see outside of it? According to Dumbledore, the blood magic of the house is enough to protect him, but, then, Harry doesn’t really know all the details. Dumbledore hasn’t always been the most reliable source of information, has he?

It’s almost shocking to realize exactly how embittered he is towards Dumbledore, but after everything the Headmaster told him in June, it’s been difficult to feel the same warmth he once did towards the professor. He understands, maybe, but understanding and accepting are very, very different things.

Hence all the letters.

But he’s not writing a letter now, merely mulling over their existence in his life. Perhaps it is somehow symbolic that he can only bring himself to write letters to a dead man, even when his friends are expecting his correspondence too, but he’s not so sure. He hasn’t even really seen a “bigger picture” or anything in his life. It just sort of...is. He does what he has to do, and little else.

It may be his fate, bound to a prophecy spoken before he was even born. Sometimes, in the darkest hours of the night, he wonders what his life would he like if Voldemort had signalled out Neville instead of him, but he knows it is entirely pointless to even consider. That was nearly fifteen years ago. He can’t remember a time that he didn’t have this scar, so why should he try to pretend that such a life could ever exist for him?

No, he can’t consider alternatives. The “could have”s and the “would’ve been”s are, frankly, just too painful. There has been good in this life too, after all. That’s why he keeps going, isn’t it?

It becomes a weaker argument every day, though.

He can always tell, when he leaves his aunt’s house, that he’s being watched. It seems odd that even at this hour there is someone lurking in the shadows, ready to spring into action for him, but Harry suspects Dumbledore just doesn’t want to take any chances. A year ago, Harry would’ve wondered why it mattered so much. Now, though, the prophecy’s lines echo endlessly through his mind, a constant and rather annoying reminder of his destiny, or whatever.

Still, he wonders about it. Wonders who is watching. Wonders what they see when they look at him. Wonders if they think it’s pointless, without the prophecy to convince them it’s not.

He surveys the area thoughtfully, watching for movement but finding none.

After a moment, he says, “Don’t you get bored?”

And wouldn’t he seem completely mad to any person passing by, speaking into thin air like this? But he’s spent quite enough time, already, with people thinking him some kind of insane. This situation seems to drastically pale in comparison. Besides, Petunia and Vernon would rather people think him mental. That way, it’s okay that they don’t love him. Or something like that, anyway.

“It’s basically just babysitting,” he continues. “Isn’t it? And there’s nothing to do ‘round here, really. I get bored, and I’m not the one who has to stand around all day waiting for me to do something, I dunno, exciting? Or be attacked?” He pauses, thoughtful. “I guess it wouldn’t be a good thing, but at least it makes your job worthwhile, right?”

For a while, there is no noise but the sound of the wind wrapping its gentle fingers around the park, and then the sound of footsteps reaches Harry’s ears, and he looks up to see someone walking towards him.

In the dark, it takes him a moment to recognize the figure, but then Harry has to wonder how he could ever find that a difficult task, all things considered. Snape’s black robes billow behind him more than usual, thanks to the weather, and his characteristic scowl is as deep as ever. Harry gets the feeling that he dislikes babysitting Harry more than all the other Order members tasked with it.

“Talking to yourself is unhealthy, Potter.”

Harry snorts. “Yet, here you are. Have you been watching me all day, sir?”

Snape sneers, but he sits across from Harry anyway. “Unfortunately. You come here often. Why is that?”

Harry shrugs. “I like the fresh air, I guess. It’s close to my aunt’s house, but not too close, either. That’s all.”

“You were writing something.”

This, of all things, makes his shoulders tighten. “I told you,” he says. “There’s nothing to do here.”

“That seems a rather severe exaggeration to me, Potter. I’m quite certain there is something to do. Your summer homework, perhaps?”

Typical, Harry thinks, rolling his eyes. “It’s only the second week of break,” he points out. “Besides, I…”

But the words stick in his throat, and he trails off with a short sigh.

“Never mind,” he finally says. “Do you have to watch me all through the night?”

Snape studies him for a long moment, but Harry very purposefully avoids the man’s gaze. There’s no point in letting Snape see all the things he’s been thinking and feeling since Sirius died.

“No,” Snape says. “Only until midnight, and then someone else will take my place.”

Harry nods, but he honestly doesn’t know how many hours it is until midnight. Either way, he will have to get back to his aunt’s house sooner or later, even if he won’t be getting any sleep there, either.

“Will you walk me back, sir? Instead of just following me, I mean.”

Snape’s eyebrows furrow, just a bit, but he says nothing. Instead, he gets to his feet and begins to walk, not even waiting for Harry to rise and catch up.

He does, though, and he manages to match Snape’s pace all the way back to Number Four Privet Drive. Neither of them speak, but that’s all the better, for both of them. If Snape thinks he’s acting oddly, he says nothing about it, and Harry doesn’t really have it in him to pick a fight with his hated Potions teacher today. Maybe next time. If there even is one.

Snape leads him as far as the driveway, then says, “I wouldn’t advise any more nighttime wandering, Potter.”

Harry’s lips twitch up a bit. “There’s no curfew here, though.”

“Regardless.”

He shrugs. “Good night, Professor.”

Snape says nothing more as he heads back into the house, but, then, Harry wasn’t really expecting him to. But even if it is Snape, it occurs to him that this is the first time he’s talked to someone aside from his relatives since coming back from Hogwarts. And though he can’t say Snape is much higher up on his list of favourite people, he does make for better company than the Dursleys.

He does manage to get a bit of sleep, but it is broken into little bits, restless and filled with painful memories, some that may or may not even be real. It’s hard to tell, sometimes. On the worst days, he can’t even remember who was the one who actually sent Sirius through the veil. Bellatrix’s curse, but it was Harry who led him there, Harry who let him get hit…

On the worst days, he figures he as good as pushed Sirius beyond the veil himself.

Today turns out to be one of those “worst days.” He wakes for the last time exhausted beyond belief, and heads downstairs to let Petunia order him around the kitchen. When he grows so distracted the bacon burns, she screams at him and sends him away, as if he is just some ten-year-old kid again, ducking a hit from her frying pan and running to his cupboard. But while he still winds up going without food (not that he had much of an appetite anyway), he doesn’t find himself locked in the cupboard under the stairs, but back in his bedroom. Rather, Dudley’s second bedroom, but it has been years since Dudley really complained about the fact that Harry stole this room from him.

And July 9th and July 10th both pass him by covered by a thin haze he can’t seem to shake himself out of. He goes through the motions, and only finds himself picking a few fights with Vernon (ones he earns slaps or kicks or a mouthful of ugly words for), but, for the most part, he stays inside his room. He writes his letters, he folds them up with disgust at himself for the contents, and then he lies on his back and stares at the ceiling, wondering what it will take for him to feel less—whatever this is. Empty? He’s not sure if he could give it a name if he tried.

On July 11th, he returns to the park. There are children on the swingset, laughing and crying out in joy while their parents stand behind and chat together, occasionally pushing their child on the swing when necessary.

His gaze is pulled away from that scene, though, as he hears footsteps approaching him. While he knows he ought to raise his wand in defence, it almost feels too exhausting a movement, and so he simply watches, impassive, as Snape comes to a halt in front of him.

Surprisingly, the professor is dressed, rather well, in Muggle clothing. Much like with the pen Harry has laid out on the table over his blank piece of parchment, he supposes Snape is doing what he can to avoid attracting unnecessary attention to himself.

“Have you no ounce of self-preservation?” Snape asks, sitting across from him again with that same sneer. “I could be a disguised Death Eater, and you aren’t even reaching for your wand.”

Harry shrugs. “I guess even if you were, there would still be an Order member around to help me, wouldn’t there be? Besides, I already almost got expelled for defending myself with magic once before. No point in doing that again, is there?”

Snape presses his lips together into a thin line. “I don’t believe the circumstances are quite the same.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Harry says listlessly. “If you were a Death Eater, you’d have gone after me by now.”

He can only take Snape’s silence as a begrudging agreement.

He looks down at the blank parchment. After a moment’s consideration, he writes down the date, but he drops the pen again shortly after and glances up at Snape.

“Letters,” he eventually says.

Snape stares at him blankly. “Letters?”

“Yeah. That’s what I write.” He looks down again, unseeing. “I just never send them anywhere.”

There is a long stretch of silence between them, and then Snape says, “That seems an unnecessarily pointless task.”

Harry’s lips twitch up at that, but it is so unfunny that even the small fraction of a smile hurts his face.

“It is,” he agrees. “But I think if I didn’t do it, I’d forget.”

And, briefly, the words surprise him, but that falls away in short time. He’s known all along, but it is simply the act of verbalizing it that finally allows him to get it.

“Forget what, Potter?”

Harry waves his hand aimlessly. “Everything, I guess. But most of all, what day it is. They’re all the same, you see. All just as, I dunno, boring as the rest. If I can remember how long I have until summer ends, at least I have something to look forward to.”

“Who exactly are these letters to, then?”

Harry’s lips twist, and he looks away, focussing his gaze on the swingset. The children are gone now, but Harry suspects it won’t be long before others come to take their place.

“Sirius,” he says, and though his voice is soft, the word feels very heavy, very painful, as it rises in his throat and falls from his lips.

Snape doesn’t say anything, but Harry doesn’t think he really expected him to. Now, he looks to the professor again, and he laughs, but it is far from a sound born of mirth.

“You must think I’m mad, Professor. Writing to a dead man. Willing to let Death Eaters come for me, without even raising my wand against them. And enjoying your company. Yours! Can’t even count the days in my head, I have to write them all down…” He snorts, shaking his head. “But you’re sitting here, dressed like you never planned to do anything else. Why?”

Now, it is Snape who will not meet his eyes. “I don’t think you’re mad, Potter.”

“No? What d’you think, then, sir?”

“I think…” He pauses delicately, as if weighing his next words carefully. And then: “I think you should not be left on your own. And something about your habits suggests that you find the company of your relatives...unsatisfactory.”

Harry frowns, cycling through those words in his head a few more times. Finally, he asks, “Why do you care?”

“I do not care,” Snape stresses, meeting his eyes with a scowl. “But I have been tasked with keeping you alive, at least for the summer, and if this is how it must be done, then I will do it.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “You don’t really believe that, do you? I won’t die of loneliness or something stupid like that.”

“That isn’t what I mean.”

Well, obviously, but he isn’t be very clear about what he does mean, is he?

Still, Harry just shrugs, and as silence overtakes them, he tasks himself with writing his letter. The same as always. All my fault. I miss you.

It should’ve been me.

To his surprise, though, Snape is still there even when he finishes and folds the parchment into little squares.

“I don’t actually enjoy your company that much, you know.”

Snape ignores this, though. Instead, he says, “Read it.”

“What?”

“The letter. Read it.”

Harry laughs sharply. “Are you kidding me? Why would I do that?”

“It will help.”

“Help what?”

Now, it is Snape who is rolling his eyes. “Help you, Potter. Perhaps if you say the things you wish to say to Black to me, you can rationalize them. Better than you can just by writing them down, at least.”

Harry shakes his head. “That’s...that’s not fair, though. You…”

“Spare me,” Snape says icily. “No matter my personal feelings towards Black, we are clearly talking about you. Just read the damn letter, Potter.”

So he does.

Every single word of it, even the ones that are not so pretty, the “my fault”s and the “I hate myself”s, and then he stares down at the letter, vision blurred, and waits for Snape to tell him that it is his fault, because isn’t this what Snape was expecting? What Snape was telling him all along, when he wasn’t taking their Occlumency lessons seriously enough?

But Snape doesn’t say that.

He says, “I sincerely doubt Black would blame you for his own recklessness.”

Harry glares at him. “It’s not his fault, what happened. If I’d never gone in the first place—”

“But you did,” Snape interjects. “And wondering about what would have happened had you not is meaningless. Perhaps you did know, to some degree. You made a mistake, and while I would agree you are more prone to them than others, you needn’t blame yourself for not knowing any better.”

Harry opens his mouth to respond, then closes it again, stunned.

“You will make more mistakes,” Snape continues. “And if you blame yourself so heavily for them, it will crush you. Kill you. If Dumbledore is correct and you will indeed be the one to fight the Dark Lord—though I sincerely hope he is not, given that you are, after all, a child—then letting your guilt destroy you now is not just harming you, but the rest of the Wizarding world as well.”

The words sit between them for a moment, and then Harry pulls back, chest swimming with a fiery rage.

“Why are you here?” he asks harshly. “I don’t even want to talk about this, let alone with—with you. Why are you—why won’t you—?”

“Just because you don’t want to talk about it,” Snape says quietly, “doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”

Harry deflates. “I—I know that, but… What good does it do, anyway? It doesn’t change anything.”

“No,” Snape allows. “It does not.”

And, for the first time, Harry thinks—he’s talking from experience, too, someone who has already lived through war, someone who has surely already lost enough… Does it make it better? Harry’s not so sure, but it keeps him from snapping again. Instead, he just nods his understanding, and neither of them say anything more before Harry rises to return to his aunt and uncle’s house. Just like the other night, Snape escorts him, but they don’t speak to each other as Harry makes his way inside, and Harry finds himself rather grateful for it.

The next few days, Harry finds himself butting heads at every opportunity with Vernon over one thing or another. Vernon is sort of a different beast than Petunia, in that he doesn’t want Harry to simply get out of his sight if they’ve fought about something. Rather, he wants Harry to “learn his place,” or something. It’s a particular game Harry has avoided, mostly, since he went to Hogwarts all those years ago, but this summer, he finds himself engaging in it more and more, even though he knows he ought not to do so. While he often goads his uncle into violence, however, he doesn’t think that Vernon is really trying to do any real damage. Not that Harry looks for it, not really. He’s sure he’s had worse, both at the man’s hands and otherwise, and so he doesn’t bother trying to inspect his body for injuries. He can’t feel them, really, anyway. There’s a dull pounding in some places, but he can barely register it through the haze at all.

Snape approaches him again on July 15th, and the very first thing the man says to him is, “What in the world happened to your face?”

Gingerly, Harry reaches up to touch his, presumably, bruised cheek. He frowns, dropping his hand and looking up at the professor.

“I’ve been picking too many fights, I guess.” He shrugs. “It doesn’t hurt. Does it look bad?”

Snape ignores the question and instead says, “I’m certain if you were getting into fights, one of us would have noticed.”

One of us. Harry’s babysitters, he means.

“Uh-huh. Y’know, I’ve been wondering for a while, what do you do when I go back to my aunt’s house? You can’t see inside, can you?”

“We simply wait. Supposedly, Death Eaters cannot get inside the house, but I am…less certain. Dumbledore says that you are safe within its confines, so long as you are under seventeen and can call that place home. And yet, I have never heard you refer to it so.”

“Hogwarts is my home,” Harry says.

“As it is for many students. That doesn’t mean you can’t call this place home as well, however.”

Harry just shrugs again. “Yeah, but it’s not really, is it? I don’t like it here much.”

“I see.” Snape’s lips press into a thin line. “I suppose it isn’t, then.”

Something about his tone makes Harry look away, uncomfortably reminded of the memories he saw in Snape’s mind during their first Occlumency lessons. Had Snape ever called a place home? Even if his childhood house hadn’t been “home,” it didn’t seem the man had found such a place in Hogwarts, either, as Harry had.

“You still haven’t answered my question, though.”

Harry glances up at the professor again. “I did. I told you, I get into too many fights. Don’t know when to hold my tongue. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

“But who are you fighting with? Even if you are not squabbling with Death Eaters, you should know that it is a very poor idea, indeed, to invite injury to yourself.”

Invite injury to yourself. Is that what he’s been doing? Antagonizing his relatives to make them retaliate physically? It’s not like he fights back, or protests, or even really tries to get away, though he surely could, couldn’t he, if he wanted to….

“It doesn’t hurt,” he says again, weaker this time.

Snape studies him for a long moment, but Harry can tell he isn’t trying to see into his mind. Simply reading something on his face, something Harry doesn’t even know is there.

Finally, he says, “I believe the mental anguish is more pressing than the physical damage.”

His voice is stiff, beyond formal, like he is trying very hard to keep any inflection out of his tone. And what’s that supposed to mean, anyway? It doesn’t upset him that he has a bruise on his cheek. It just...is.

He says as much, but Snape shakes his head.

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t hurting you.”

Harry eyes him dubiously, but doesn’t respond. Instead, he gets to his feet and turns to go.

Snape catches up to him, though.

“You are terribly avoidant, Potter.”

Harry keeps his gaze forward. “I’m not avoiding anything, sir. I just don’t see the point in talking about it.” Now, he chances a glance at the professor. “Or what you’re trying to get me to talk about, really. There’s not really anything wrong.” Except for the fact that he’s now living in a world without Sirius, but there’s nothing he can do about that. It’s not like Snape can bring Sirius back, even if by some miracle he did want to.

Snape sneers at him. “Your behaviour indicates that there are several things wrong.”

Harry shrugs. They’ve come to Privet Drive, now, and so Harry makes his way towards the door of number four. “See you, Professor,” he says, and Snape doesn’t respond, but Harry gets the feeling that there is still a lot he wants to say.

The next few days pass as all the others before them, but after the fourth one, Harry finds himself at a bit of a loss. It is the first time in a while, after all, that he has not seen Snape within two or three days. He tries to tell himself he isn’t disappointed by this, but on July 22ndd, he writes it into his letter to Sirius, and can only manage to stare down at the words, aghast, afterwards.

But Snape returns on July 28th, as if he was never even gone.

“Where have you been?” Harry demands, and then realizes how that must sound and hastens to add, “None of my other babysitters talk to me, you know. It’s been boring.”

Snape hardly seems fazed, though. Something about his gaze seems distant as he says, quite shortly, “Order business. Unrelated to you, though it may shock you to hear.”

Harry figures that, the same as if Remus has disappeared on “Order business,” Snape means he is using his unique position—as a Death Eater, rather than a werewolf—to get information or create ties amongst the enemy. But he won’t say that, obviously, because it might compromise his position.

They’ve all wondered, at some point or another, about Snape’s true loyalties. It’s likely those on the other side have as well.

Harry doesn’t think that really matters right now, though.

He says, “Well, I’m glad you came back.”

And it’s not a lie, though he’s a bit surprised himself to realize that. He must be mad, to be craving Snape’s company, but for all the man’s bite and deep scowls, it occurs to Harry that he is the first person who’s talked to him, as if he is a real person—not a “freak,” not the saviour at the centre of a prophecy, not a tormented and grieving child who has just lost the only person in the world he had left—in over a month. Harry can’t say he likes the Potions Master, but he does appreciate that he doesn’t seem to think he will snap Harry in half just be speaking normally to him.

“It is my job,” Snape says, like he’s bored, but he isn’t looking at Harry, almost like he’s worried Harry will see something in his face that he would rather not share.

“Yeah, well…” Harry stops, sighing. “I thought about what you said. Before. About—‘inviting injury’ to myself, or whatever.” And it’s true. He has been thinking about it, dissecting it over and over again in those late hours of the night when the house is too silent to offer reprieve from his own thoughts, but his sleep is the most vile manifestation of them. “Why do you think...why do you think that’s what I’m doing? It makes no sense.”

Now, Snape does look at him.

“Potter,” he says, slowly, in the sort of way he might explain something to a student he has deemed, well, stupid (so, any student even slightly below his endlessly high standards). “All those letters you’ve written to Black. Perhaps you may want to...read them over.”

“What d’you mean?”

“You’ve already answered your own question.” Snape folds his arms over the picnic table, and, it occurs to Harry quite suddenly, that this would once have been a rather comical scene. Snape, in Muggle clothes, sitting at the picnic table of a local park in Surrey. No children are here today. Given that the sky is a deep grey, perhaps the weather has called for rain. Harry wouldn’t know.

He thinks of all those letters in his room. Each of them with the same words etched onto them: All my fault. I’m sorry. I miss you.

He shakes his head. “I don’t see what that has to do with my relatives.”

Too late, he realizes he has said the wrong thing.

Snape arches a questioning eyebrow at him. “I wasn’t aware your relatives were a part of this conversation in the first place.”

“Just… Never mind.”

“You brought it up.”

Harry glares at him. “But that’s not the point, is it?”

Snape doesn’t seem interested in the point, though. “Do you routinely get into physical fights with your relatives?”

“No. I’m talking about Sirius,” Harry reminds him impatiently. “Just tell me what you’re trying to say.”

For a moment, Harry thinks that Snape is going to argue about it some more, but then the man simply lets out a sigh and says, “If you think you should have been the one to die, perhaps it is not so...out-there...to assume you think hurting yourself will assuage you of your guilt.”

Harry’s immediate reaction is to protest, but the words stop before he can even begin to get them out. Closing his mouth again, he frowns, thinking that over. It is his fault, of course it is, and, sure, maybe he deserves some sort of—punishment? All his life, he has been punished for things he had no control over. For accidental magic he didn’t even know was magic. For having the gall to exist, to breathe and take up space and eat the food his aunt and uncle said was better given to Dudley, but the freak is here, and he’s why Dudley didn’t get the perfect childhood he deserved…

Harry wonders about that. Deserving.

“I should have known better,” he says quietly, not looking at Snape. “I...I never knew what I was doing wrong, when my aunt and uncle would get all—well, you know.” He shakes his head. “But I do know this. I know that you—and Hermione, and—and everyone else, surely—you all knew better. You...you wouldn’t have gone. But I thought…”

Even as Harry trails off, throat tight, Snape doesn’t speak.

In fact, he says nothing for a very, very long time.

Finally, stomach twisting with discomfort, Harry looks up at him and says, “Maybe I do deserve it, this time.”

Snape is studying him, so closely Harry wonders if he even registers the words. But then he leans back slightly, lips turned down.

“Your aunt and uncle are the ones hurting you?”

His words are like ice, but Harry finds his cheeks stinging with heat anyway. He ducks his head so the professor can’t see.

“It’s...it’s not… I can take a punishment, you know.”

“Punishment,” Snape echoes. “What does such a punishment entail?”

“It’s a punishment,” Harry mutters. “Seems pretty self-explanatory to me.”

“Yes, well...” Harry isn’t looking at him, but he can imagine Snape’s expression just as clearly as if he were. “When I was your age, I had thought punishment was synonymous with all the things I now know to be abuse.”

Again, Harry is reminded of those memories he saw in Snape’s mind last year. He gets the feeling that this isn’t something Snape wants to be saying—perhaps especially not to Harry—and finds himself oddly touched by the sentiment behind it.

He glances up, but can’t quite find the words to respond, so he averts his gaze again.

Snape says, “I find your behaviour unbecoming.”

Harry snorts at that. “Yeah, well, I don’t remember you ever being a fan of my behaviour in the past.”

“No,” Snape agrees. “But I have become...uncomfortably aware that you are not...yourself. I don’t believe being in your aunt’s house does anything but worsen your—state.”

State. Is Harry in a state? Such a strange way to phrase things, it almost makes him want to laugh.

But he finds himself rather floored, instead, unable to even find words to respond with. How often has he wondered why Dumbledore sends him back here every summer? How often has he thought, locked up in his cupboard or his room or by the mere thought that this is what Dumbledore wants, so it’s for the best, that he would give just about anything to leave here? Or when he tried, before his third year, but he was just returned the following summer, because it was safer….

No matter what he has thought or said, nobody has ever suggested that maybe he would be better off somewhere else. The wards here keep him safe, they say. It’s only two months, often less, if the Weasleys or anybody else can take him. And it has occurred to him before that he is sent “here” and “there” without even knowing where he is going, let alone why. He never gets a say, does he?

Of course he thinks about it, but, then, he has never been able to change anything. Sometimes, it’s like things just happen to him, and the only thing he has any control over is what he does after the fact.

This doesn’t feel like “control,” though. There’s a terrible emptiness to him lately, the knowledge that Sirius is dead, his parents are dead, and, probably soon, he might be dead too. And if he’s not, then…

Then he has to kill Voldemort himself, and though he knows he ought to be pleased merely with the idea that Voldemort can be killed, he can’t quite bring himself yet to stomach the idea of it all.

There’s some sort of phrase about killing. Having blood on one’s hands, like it can never be washed off. Wizards don’t need to spill blood to kill, but Harry doubts it makes a difference. Besides, he’s never killed someone himself, and yet…

“I don’t think Dumbledore knows,” Snape says after a moment. “About your relatives.”

Harry wonders what it is that Snape thinks he knows, but doesn’t say anything.

“But,” the man continues, rather delicately, “should we entertain the possibility that he does, I sincerely doubt he would vouch for you to be moved anytime soon. In such a case…”

“What, are you going to tell him?” Harry scoffs. “That I’ve been complaining? I don’t reckon that’ll do much good. As far as my aunt is concerned, complaining is the only thing I do, and it hasn’t gotten me sent away yet, has it?” He shakes his head. “Whatever it is you’re trying to say, just…don’t. It doesn’t matter if I don’t like it here. Not like it’ll change, will it?”

“I haven’t heard you complain,” Snape says quietly. “Except, perhaps, to tell me how terribly boring Surrey is. But that’s not what this conversation is about, and we both know it, Potter.”

“Because my uncle bruised my face?” Harry rolls his eyes. “That was my own fault. I was basically asking for it. Why do you care, anyway? You make it sound like you’re going to try to get me out of here.”

“That is what I’m saying, Potter.” Snape shoots him a rather exasperated look. It feels strangely…endearing, almost. Or, at least, lacking in the hatred that characterizes ninety-nine-per cent of the looks he typically sends Harry’s way.

Still, it is impressive. Harry can’t remember the last time he used a formal address towards the professor, and yet they haven’t even gotten close to fighting. Perhaps, here, without anybody to witness it, there’s just no point. And, yes, Harry has been looking forward to these interactions, but it’s only because there’s nobody else to talk to, really, and at least Snape is a reminder that Hogwarts is a real place and isn’t as distant in his future as he often feels it is lately.

“Nobody else cares,” Harry points out. “My other babysitters, I mean. They don’t care.”

“We can’t see what goes on within the walls of that house.” Snape’s lips twist into what Harry thinks is a rather bitter expression. “It’s likely that if they noticed you were injured, they…”

But he stops here, his sneer deepening. Harry wonders how he could’ve made the man so angry when he wasn’t even saying anything, but decides it doesn’t matter. An angry Snape is a familiar one, at least.

“Well, nothing really does ‘go on.’” Harry shrugs. “They’re boring people, sir. With boring, non-magical lives.”

“But they’re violent as well?”

“Well, sometimes. Why does it matter? Anyway, I’m almost seventeen, it’s a bit late to be making a ‘case’ for me, isn’t it?” He doesn’t mean to spit the last few words out, but they sit between them for a long time, barbed, potentially dangerous, urging Snape to be cautious about what he says next.

And cautious he is as he says, “It matters because you are not seventeen. That, as of right now, you are only fifteen—”

“Almost sixteen,” Harry mutters sullenly.

“—and your relatives are clearly not a good fit for you,” Snape finishes, glaring at him. “Have they always been violent?”

“They were worse when I was little,” Harry says airily, but, apparently, it is the wrong thing to say.

Snape is positively glowering at him now. “I beg your pardon?”

Harry shrinks beneath his gaze, not meeting his eyes. “Er, well, I don’t know, I think once I went to Hogwarts they worried that if they did anything to me I could use magic against them, or something. I mean, they realized when I got a warning from the Ministry before second year, but, well, then they just locked me up, so what does it matter? We didn’t even talk then, and we barely talk now, but sometimes I just—I dunno, I make them mad. And maybe I do do it on purpose, but—why does it matter to you? You don’t care, you’re just—this is just your job, to make sure I don’t get killed first because if I do then someone else has to kill Voldemort, but there aren’t exactly any other prophecies out there, are there?” He takes in a deep breath, throat sore with the heaviness and the heat of the words, but they aren’t stopping: “But that’s not even a reassuring thought, is it? You don’t think I’m cut out for it, right, Professor? I don’t think so either, but I don’t really get a choice, do I, because even amongst wizards I’m some sort of freak, and my parents are dead, and now Sirius is dead too and you’re the only person who even talks to me! Isn’t that—isn’t it just—”

He stops, something between a laugh and a sob caught in his throat, and stands up.

“This is stupid,” he snaps, but he doesn’t know if the accusatory tone in his voice is directed at Snape, or at himself. “It’s getting late. It doesn’t matter.”

“Potter—”

“Don’t. I already know, okay?” Harry takes a step back, in the direction of Privet Drive. For a moment, he thinks he could say more, but he already knows that he has said more than he should have. Has said things he surely wouldn’t even say to Ron or Hermione. That he’s scared, or he’s tired, or he wishes he could be somebody else, anybody else, as long as it wasn’t Harry Bloody Potter.

When he turns away from Snape, the man follows him, but doesn’t walk beside him. Doesn’t say anything.

Simply watches, because it is his job.

They don’t speak as Harry returns to his aunt’s house, and Harry can’t tell if he’s grateful or if he wishes Snape would have said something, even if it wasn’t a real reassurance.

It hangs over his head the next couple days, but he still finds himself at that little park picnic table every day, wondering if Snape has disappeared on him again or not.

He thinks that everything he said is probably true. That Snape likely doesn’t feel confident that Harry can kill Voldemort. Likely, Dumbledore is the only person who really believes in the prophecy, and it is likely because he and Harry are the only ones, now, who know it in full…

But even knowing what all it says, Harry doesn’t feel very confident himself. As far as people like Snape are concerned, he’s just a kid. And maybe he is.

Only fifteen, Snape said. But Harry thinks that the number means very little, doesn’t it, if he were to compare himself to someone else who’s only fifteen? Someone like Dudley, who only just turned sixteen? They’re different, and it isn’t just the fact that Dudley isn’t a “freak” like Harry, nor that he is spoiled and pampered where Harry is not. It’s far deeper than that, lying somewhere between the deaths of Harry’s parents and the deaths of Cedric and Sirius…

Perhaps it is ironic, then, that the next time Harry sees Snape, the date he has written on his letter is July 31st.

It’s nicer today than it has been other times they’ve met here. There are more children at the park than usual, but while some of their parents shoot furtive looks on Harry’s direction, they barely seem to notice his presence.

Snape’s arrival only makes the parents seem more concerned, but they haven’t taken their kids and run away. Harry suspects that this is not the norm for Snape, but the man does seem to be scowling less today than usual.

“It’s my birthday,” Harry informs him as he sits down, before he can even think to get a word in.

“I’m aware, yes.”

“Yeah, but you brought me a present, right?” Harry grins at him. “It is customary.”

To his surprise, though, Snape doesn’t respond to the quip. Doesn’t even roll his eyes. Instead, he sets something on the table between them and pushes it towards Harry.

“I was joking,” Harry says weakly, smile falling.

Still, Snape doesn’t say anything, and Harry is left to instead reach for the thing between them and see what it is.

It’s a picture frame, he thinks, but it isn’t until he turns the glass towards him and out of reach of the sun’s harsh rays that he sees what the picture in it is of.

For a moment, he isn’t sure what he’s looking at, and then it hits him all at once. His eyes sting, suddenly, and he can’t bring himself to look at his professor.

“Why?” he asks, hating the harshness of his voice, the way the word scrapes at his throat.

“Because,” Snape says quietly, “it occurred to me that, perhaps, you need it more than I do.”

Harry doesn’t know who, exactly, his mother was to Snape. Doesn’t know what happened after that scene he saw in Dumbledore’s Pensieve last year. Doesn’t know what happened before it. He has thought, a few times this summer, of asking, but he has never seen the point to it, never considered that it might even be worth it, when Lily Potter is as dead as her husband, as Cedric, as Sirius.

This picture of her was probably taken not long before their fight, judging by her appearance. She’s outside, perhaps sometime during the late spring, with a book in her lap and her wand in her hand. She’s smiling, green eyes sparkling, and then she laughs about something, perhaps at something the person behind the camera has said. It occurs to Harry, in a way it never really has before, that his parents were not much older than he is now when they died. That, here, he is likely around the same age as her, but he wouldn’t know, would he, when he has never even learned her birthday…

“I can’t take this,” Harry croaks, moving to push it back, but a hand grabs his wrist and stops him in the movement before he can even really make it.

Shocked, he looks up to meet Snape’s eyes, only to find the man shaking his head.

“I wouldn’t have offered it if I felt I could not part with it.” Slowly, Snape pulls his hand away, but he doesn’t drop Harry’s gaze. “I suspect that...it is what Lily would have wanted, anyway, and so…”

Harry’s vision swims, and he blinks furiously, averting his eyes. “You were—friends?”

A pause. Then: “Yes. A long time ago.”

“Why didn’t you…?”

“I didn’t know,” Snape says simply. And he could he referring to anything, probably. That he didn’t know Harry would care. Didn’t know that there would be any reason to tell the truth about it. Didn’t know that there would be anything to tell, when Harry had been living with her family for all these years…

Gingerly, Harry touches the glass of the frame, his finger falling near his mother’s wide smile.

“How old was she?” he asks, barely above a whisper.

“Sixteen,” comes Snape’s answer immediately. “Late April. I didn’t take this picture, if that’s your next question.”

It hadn’t so much as crossed Harry’s mind, in all honesty. It doesn’t seem to matter, after all, when the simple fact is that this picture exists, that he is holding it in his hands, that there was a time when his mother was this young. All those pictures in the album Hagrid gave him, so many years ago, show his parents when they are older, once they had gotten together, when she no longer hated him, when Snape was no longer her friend…

“You loved her?”

“Yes,” Snape says simply. “She was...is...my best friend. I believe I am correct in assuming your aunt hasn’t told you much about her?”

Harry hesitates a moment, then nods. “She told me they were killed in a—drunk driving incident. Their own fault,” he adds, unable to help the bitterness that seeps into his tone. “I didn’t know which of them was older. About their parents, except that my mum never...I dunno, appreciated them as much as Aunt Petunia. She always said stuff like that I should’ve died with them, or they deserved it, or—well, y’know. And she always said I complained too much.” He rolls his eyes, but there is a leaden weight in his chest, and he can’t bring himself to look at Snape. “I stopped asking after a while. She had an early birthday, then, right? If she was already sixteen.”

“January,” says Snape. He sounds far away. “The thirtieth. As far as I’m aware, her friends often bought her books. She liked fiction,” he adds. “Her favourite author, at least when we were that old, was Jane Austen. But, of course, she was an impressive student as well. She was best at Charms and Potions, and enjoyed the theory nearly as much as the practical applications.”

Now, he stops, heaving a large sigh, and Harry clenches his jaw tightly. There is something quite nasty-feeling curling in his stomach, but he cannot even begin to place what it might be. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he thinks of the woman in the Mirror of Erised, of the shadowy figure in Little Hangleton, of that young girl in Snape’s memory, and knows that she is gone, far beyond his reaches.

Like Sirius, like his father. It doesn’t matter. Dumbledore sent him here because Petunia and Vernon are his only remaining family, but Harry secretly thinks that his only remaining family really actually died a month ago, and now he is only here because he has nowhere else to go.

And that’s sort of the crux of it all, isn’t it?

“Nobody wants me,” he says, because it’s the truth.

Snape doesn’t deny it, but he doesn’t miss a beat before saying, “She did.”

Harry doesn’t know when his resolve started slipping away. Or when Snape’s visits became the hole in the painful fog that has been his summer otherwise. He doesn’t know why he feels like the man can offer him something where nobody else has, but he has, has brought this picture, these memories, a conversation nobody else has ever been willing to have before.

“She’s dead, though.” Harry glances back at the children still playing at the park. Though there are more kids than adults, it’s clear to tell which children are there with their parents. Can see it in the way their eyes seek out that of their “person,” the one who is always smiling back at them.

It’s something Harry’s never had.

“Yes,” Snape says quietly. “She is.”

For a moment, it seems that neither of them is going to break the silence that ensues.

And then Snape says, “She would be disappointed.”

“In me?”

“In your aunt, Potter.” This time, Harry doesn’t think he imagines the lack of dislike in the words. The almost endearing tone, even though he has said something Snape clearly thinks is quite stupid.

“What do you mean?” Harry looks towards him now, narrowing his eyes. “She took me in, didn’t she?”

“But did she love you?”

“Well, no, but…”

Snape is shaking his head, though. “Would you really defend her? I was under the impression that you don’t get along.”

Harry frowns. “Well, we don’t really, but she didn’t have to take me, did she? It bothered me for a while, but…”

Well, sometimes it still crosses his mind—on days like today, or when he spends time with the Weasleys, even—but it doesn’t upset him anymore. He’s far too old for that, after all. Maybe there was a time when he could think of nothing he wanted more than the sort of attention Dudley got: loving, unconditional, constant. Now, though…

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, trying for firm. “Wishing for something else never made any of this go away. And it really did use to be worse. They didn’t want me, but they took me anyway. I thought that… Well, I guess I thought that I could live with Sirius someday, for a while, but…”

His voice dies out, and he drops his eyes again. Lily looks up at him, smiling widely. He wishes he could smile back, but he knows that it won’t make a difference. It’s only a picture, after all.

“Would it really have been preferable to live with Black than with your aunt and uncle?” Snape sounds disbelieving, but Harry can’t find the energy in him to get angry on Sirius’s behalf, not this time.

“Would’ve been hard to do worse than them,” he says. “Besides, he wanted me. He just couldn’t take me.” He shrugs. “I still thought about it, sometimes. What it would be like. But it doesn’t… There’s no point anymore, is there?”

“I spoke with Dumbledore.”

Harry blinks, surprised at the sudden shift in topic. Snape is watching him warily, guarded, like he expects Harry to get angry or something.

“About me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

A pause. Then: “You want to leave here, don’t you?”

Harry can’t help it: he laughs.

“You’re joking, right?” he asks after a moment, when Snape’s expression does not change. “You don’t care about what I want.”

Maybe three months ago, the words would have come out sharper. Now, they are dull. Flat.

But it occurs to Harry, perhaps a bit belatedly, that Snape has brought this photograph. That he has talked to Harry every time he was on duty here. That he approached Harry that very first night, when Harry suspects he was not actually supposed to.

“Just listen to me, Potter.”

And he doesn’t sound angry. Rather, he sounds...tired. Sad? No, that’s not it. It’s something else, something so un-Snape-like that Harry can’t even begin to place it.

So Harry gives a small nod, and he listens.

“I spoke with Dumbledore,” Snape says again. Pauses. Amends with, “Perhaps spoke with is the wrong term. He was quite adamant that you should stay here, where we can...keep an eye on you, so to speak. Apparently, your other ‘babysitters,’ as you call them, have reported somewhat...similar things as myself. The only difference, of course, is that I am the only one who’s spoken to you.

“Normally, I would put my trust in Dumbledore.” His lips press into a thin line. “But, this time, I cannot help feeling he is misguided. I failed Lily enough times when she was alive. So...I must, at the very least...offer.”

He stops.

Harry waits, but he does not continue.

Behind him, there are fewer children at the park than before. The air is growing cooler with the approaching evening, and Harry knows he ought to be heading back soon, too.

He thinks back to their earlier conversations. Something about being mistreated. Or, at the very least, unhappy. Something about leaving here.

You make it sound like you’re going to try to get me out of here, is what Harry said. And Snape...

That is what I’m saying, Potter.

But that would be absurd. He shuts down the thought just as quickly as he begins to entertain it.

“I already know I’m stuck here,” he says bracingly. “I mean, thanks for, er, trying, but—it’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t care what Dumbledore says.”

Harry furrows his eyebrows, studying his professor carefully. There is nothing on his face to indicate that this is some sort of cruel joke. For the first time since their second meeting here, Harry considers that this may not even be Snape at all—he hasn’t been acting like him, anyway. Maybe it’s all a ploy to get Harry away from the protection of his aunt’s house. To lure him to wherever Voldemort is.

But he finds that the idea is not as alarming as he is expecting it to be. Lately, things seem to happen to him, and there is nothing he can do but accept them.

That’s sort of what all of this is, too, isn’t it? He cannot ever remember a time where he would have willingly talked to Snape about anything, let alone his life with his aunt and uncle. Let alone his feelings about his dead parents, his dead godfather. But there is a part of him that thinks back to all the things Dumbledore told him in June and knows that, at least on some level, some petty student-teacher rivalry is about the least of his worries now.

And there’s nobody else here. Nobody to prove a point to. Here, for the first time, Snape is not his spiteful teacher, and he is not James Potter’s son. Here, now, he is Lily Evans’s son, and he thinks that it might truly make a difference.

Should it? He’s honestly not sure. His feelings towards his father have been complicated since he witnessed Snape’s memory, and while he knows that Sirius and Remus were truthful in their reassurances, he can’t quite help dwelling on it sometimes. That feeling, of being mocked and humiliated and so utterly alone—he has known it, just as intimately as Snape has. Harry doesn’t think he hates Dudley, not really, but...well, he has certainly wanted to.

It’s not so simple, though.

“Why do you think I need help?” he finally asks. “You saw a bunch of my memories before, and you never thought that any of them were...you know.”

“The context matters, Potter.” Snape’s voice is very quiet. “One or two memories amongst millions says very little about the quality of your home life.”

When Harry was in primary school, he sometimes noticed that teachers would look at him differently than his classmates. But if they knew about Dudley and his gang, they never intervened. If they wondered why his clothes were always in such a state, or why he was so small while his cousin was not, they never said so. Of course, then, he considered the attention to be due to the fact that he was, as his aunt would say, some sort of freak. With a weird scar and the uncanny ability to make “freaky” things happen around him.

And then he came to Hogwarts, and everyone continued to look at him differently anyway.

Snape has hated him since the beginning. That first day of class, unfairly called upon when of course he would not know the answers, and all those moments afterwards, house points taken unjustly and countless detentions, a threat of expulsion he thankfully did not have the authority to carry out…

It’s true that people often get ideas about Harry—or about everyone, maybe?—before they have even properly met him. Some have gotten over it, and become his friends. Others have expected things of him and been disappointed, but through it have come to understand that he’s not the person they want him to be.

Maybe that’s what this is, in a way.

He worries at his bottom lip. “You think my aunt and uncle are...what? Abusive?”

“Yes. Exactly so.”

“That seems like a stretch, sir.”

“Neglectful, then?”

Harry shrugs. “I dunno. They kept me under lock and key for a pretty long time, but I was let out at meals.” Sometimes. “And I went to school and stuff. I guess it wasn’t totally normal, but if I had a normal life, I wouldn’t be Harry Potter, would I?” He lets out a long, irritated exhale. “But I don’t see the point in complaining about it now. Someone could have taken me away from the Dursleys when I was eleven, but they didn’t. And it’s not like I never tried, either, you know? I wasn’t allowed to stay at Hogwarts over the summer. The Weasleys have taken me almost every year since they broke me out after first year, but it seems a bit much to ask in the middle of a war, don’t you think?”

“Broke you out,” Snape repeats.

Harry blanches. “It was just one time.”

It wasn’t, though, was it? He can say he was let out for meals and school when he was a kid, but he was really just expected to cook and clean, and he wasn’t exactly allowed to do his homework, either (not unless he did worse on it than Dudley, which was unfortunately far from an easy task. Eventually, he gave up). He knows that he’s basically defending his relatives—people he hates, and who hate him—but it feels the most natural thing to do. Besides, he really does just want to feel normal sometimes, and the way Snape is looking at him now…

“Do they know about Black?”

Harry looks away from him. Clearly, it is as good as a verbal answer.

“Then, I must insist that their company is not good for you.” Surprisingly, Snape’s voice is almost soft. It reminds Harry of the tone one might take on when trying to coax a wild animal towards them. “Though I am...aware your feelings towards me are not much better, I would—be willing to, at least, listen. Should you need me to.”

It takes a few seconds before Harry fully registers the words. Blinking, he faces his professor again with wide eyes.

“You’re having me on,” he says, but the accusatory tone is simply not there.

“I am not.” Snape spreads his hands out before him, as if to prove he has nothing under his sleeves. “There is but a month left until school begins again. My home is...not well known, but to a select few. Though I’m sure, if you wished it, a single letter to Molly Weasley would have her opening her doors to you in no time at all.”

But Harry hardly hears that last bit. “Isn’t that, I dunno—dangerous? If someone found out?”

Snape sneers at him, one of those looks he typically reserves for Harry’s worst academic failures. “I am aware of the risks, Potter, and I will not have you lecturing me on safety at this juncture. As it is, I have no tolerance for child abusers, and I dread to think what would become of the Wizarding world if you became so lost in your grief that you were unable to fulfill your role in the prophecy that Dumbledore assures us all is our last saving grace.”

Somehow, his sneer has managed to deepen with each word. Something Petunia used to say sometimes—your face will stick like that if you keep it up, boy!—comes to mind and Harry has to suppress a snort at the thought. Harry used to get a cuff around the ear, or a firm scolding, complete with new additions to his already-too-long chores list, if he dared to make faces about things. Even happy ones, mind, because Merlin knows happiness was the last thing the Dursleys ever wanted to see from him.

Still, Harry considers the professor’s words carefully. He has thought, for some weeks now, that Snape must be going at least somewhat mad—why else would he keep coming back here, after all, when he hates Harry so very much? But it isn’t so one-sided as that. After all, Harry waits for him every single day. Finds himself disappointed when the greasy git doesn’t show. Leaves this park every third or fourth day feeling lighter than he has all week.

It has occurred to Harry, of course, many times since Sirius died, that he doesn’t really have anybody left. He knows it isn’t true—there is the Weasleys, Hermione, Remus and Dumbledore and the rest of the Order—but he feels that Sirius represented something different. Some sort of connection to Harry that nobody else could even begin to boast.

Understanding, first and foremost, perhaps. Did anybody know him as well as Sirius? Even in those short years together, Harry wonders.

But they didn’t always get along. Sometimes, Harry felt that Sirius was trying too hard to see James in him. Trying to find a person that no longer existed, and yet…

It was that, maybe, more than anything, that set Sirius apart from others.

Sirius would be livid, surely, to know that Harry is comparing him to Snape of all people, but he thinks it may be the same.

So, he asks: “What about my mum?”

“What about her?” Snape responds immediately. Neutral. Wary?

“This is about her, isn’t it?” Normally, Harry wouldn’t dare to say such a thing to the cranky professor, but now he does his best to maintain eye contact anyway. It seems very important, suddenly, that he clear this up. “You don’t have to pretend to care, sir. I mean, I appreciate the thought. Really. But I’m almost of age, and I accepted a long time ago that things won’t change. Sirius…I know that he cared about me for me, but you don’t. And that’s okay,” he’s quick to add, because he really doesn’t mean these to be the words leading up to their first argument of the summer (and he pauses, briefly, to consider that, before pushing the thought away in order to continue on). “I would’ve said the same thing to him, if I hadn’t known. It’s not…I’m not my parents. Either of them. I can’t be. You won’t think like that once you realize I’m even less like my mum than I am my dad, or once I do or say something that reminds you why you hate me so much.”

While Harry stops for a breath, Snape opens his mouth.

Chest constricting, Harry rushes out onward: “I’m sorry for your loss, sir. I really am. But I can’t be my mum, or—fill some gap she left for you. I wish I could, but, well, I couldn’t do it for Sirius either, so it’s…”

As he trails off, Snape’s stare seems to bore into his very soul. Though he’s certain the professor isn’t poking around in his thoughts, he still finds himself looking away, cheeks stinging at the admission.

It’s true, though. He let Sirius down in a lot of ways, but there are times when Harry can’t help remembering the chill his tone had taken on whenever Harry did something that James wouldn’t have. Or, rather, didn’t do something that James would have. And while he knows Sirius hardly wanted him to become a bully like James had been at fifteen, well.

It still mattered, and Harry had spent a lot of time trying not to make that sting too badly.

The truth is, most of Harry’s life has been spent behind one type of mask or another. The mask he wears, as a Gryffindor—Gryffindor through and through, not some hybrid creature that had nearly been sorted into Slytherin—as the Boy Who Lived, as Petunia’s freaky nephew. He has been handed all these roles, and he has done his best to perfect them.

But he never learned how to be like his parents. Everyone says that he looks just like his dad, except for his eyes, but Harry knows that looks don’t change his behaviour. But as much as he had wanted to become the copy of James that Sirius had hoped to see in him, he just didn’t know how to be.

And, now, knowing the less than shining example James had set at Harry’s current age…

Well, he honestly doesn’t think he wants to be.

That’s the thing about masks and roles. They get exhausting fast.

And Harry doesn’t like Snape. Snape doesn’t like Harry. There’s no reason to play the part of “Lily’s son” as the Potions Master would surely like, except perhaps to make Snape happy. And isn’t that a thought.

Finally, Snape takes in a deep breath, but Harry still doesn’t look at him, suddenly a bit worried that he has inadvertently caused a fight between them.

But then Snape says, “You are putting words into my mouth, Potter.”

Harry’s shoulders tense. He studies the grass beneath his feet, hoping that this conversation will be gone before he has counted each individual blade within his peripherals.

“It may have something to do with your mother,” Snape continues, in a voice Harry recognizes only from Potions classes where someone has screwed up rather spectacularly. “But not in the sense you are suggesting. As if I could ever see Lily in you! You are your father incarnate, no matter what Dumbledore will try to have me believe, and this suggestion only furthers to prove that! Are you truly so arrogant, Potter? Truly so…self-absorbed that you would think such a thing of me? I am well aware that Lily is dead, and I certainly don’t want to find her in you, of all people. No, if this is about Lily, then it is the fact that she died for you—though I will surely never understand why, all things considered—and you have thus far lived a miserable life in her absence, because her sister cannot be half-arsed to care for you like a real human being. Do you understand?”

Harry stops counting at twenty-six, and lifts his head.

“So, you don’t care,” he says, and with the words, the rest of his heavy emotions seem to seep out of him again. He stares blankly at his professor, glad, for the first time, that the fog seems not to have parted for him. “It’s just a way to…to rid yourself of all the guilt you feel? Or pity? I’ve always managed fine on my own, Professor. No need to start feeling bad about it now.”

“I—”

“I think I ought to be heading back, sir,” Harry interjects. “The sun is setting.”

And it is not a lie. The summer evening has turned cool as the pink-stained sky has begun to darken. The shadows of the park equipment have lengthened considerably, and there are no longer any kids to be seen here, unless one were to count Harry himself.

But Harry isn’t a kid, and so it is only really the twisting of his gut, the deep ache in his chest telling him that this was a mistake, that encourages him to stand and step away from the table.

“You said yourself,” he remembers, “that I shouldn’t be out in the night. Thanks for the picture, sir.”

He turns on his heels and makes his escape, walking far faster than normal (though some part of his brain snaps that he ought to be running instead) in order to get away before Snape can say anything. Of course, surely, if Snape had something important to say, he would catch up to Harry, pull him back, insist that Harry listen to him…

But it doesn’t happen, and Harry doesn’t let himself stop to consider what the sinking feeling in his stomach at that realization means.

After that, he does not return to the park. The first couple days of August are sweltering in their heat, and, for perhaps the first time in his life, Harry voluntarily picks up some of the chores around the house for his aunt. While she appears suspicious at first, her attitude quickly dissolves into uncaring, and Harry lets the little tasks distract him from the conversation with Snape.

On August 1stt, he writes about it in detail, and then sits back in his bed and scowls at the wall, hating that the very thought of it would be enough to make his eyes sting. Still, the picture of his mother stays by his bed, and his mind continues to drift back to what Snape said before: My home is...not well known, but to a select few. Of course Harry wants to leave the Dursleys, but, now, he isn’t even so sure that it would be a good idea if it were the Burrow that Snape had been talking about.

Which, he thinks, may well be the crux of it all.

Snape suggested before that he has been accepting the Dursleys’ “abuse” because he was feeling guilty. It may be sure, he conceded then, and the longer he thinks of it, the more likely it seems.

Yes, there is a haze over everything. An impenetrable fog. For a time, Snape was the only person Harry could see through it, but he understands, now, that that is absurd, that this fog is here for a reason, that if he had not caused Sirius to die, he wouldn’t even be in this position now…

But it is when he is halfway through the letter of August 3rd that the sound of his uncle bellowing from downstairs drags him to the door. Vernon sounds angry, as he typically does when speaking to or about Harry, but it is not until Harry is at the bottom of the stairs that he really sees why Vernon is angry with him this time.

It would be impossible to even dream up, though. There, standing between his glaring aunt and uncle, is Snape.

“Be quick, boy,” Vernon snaps as he takes a wary step back. “We won’t be having more of your lot around here for long, understand?”

Harry nods, but he barely hears the words. With that, his aunt and uncle retreat into the next room, though Harry gets the distinct feeling that they are eavesdropping anyway.

Not that it matters, he thinks mulishly. He doesn’t give a damn what they think, and, anyway, he doubts they really care either, so long as Harry isn’t up to any “funny business.”

“What are you doing here?” Harry asks, and if his tone is a little colder than he means it to be, that’s to be expected, isn’t it?

Snape stands stiffly. He looks distinctly uncomfortable—and, Harry thinks, he probably is. Though his ability to dress as a Muggle is surprising decent, Harry doubts that he’s too pleased with being in the foyer of one. Especially not ones like Petunia and Vernon, who seem to represent every nasty stereotype and belief wizards hold about Muggles in the first place.

But then he lets out a sigh, and looks up to meet Harry’s eyes.

“I owe you an apology,” he says.

He seems to swim before Harry, a mirage of some sort created by the fog. This isn’t real, this can’t be real, none of this is real…

“I was wrong to say what I did.”

…None of it is real. There is only the fog, its heavy and warm touch, guiding Harry’s hand in writing his letters, pushing him onward despite Sirius, despite the prophecy…

“I can help you, Potter, if you will just let me.”

It’s not real. It’s all the same. One day in, the next day out. All of it is the same.

“I don’t need help,” Harry says.

There’s no purpose anymore.

“Let me take you with me,” Snape is saying. “It is— I want to help you.”

There is a part of Harry, one untouched by the deadly haze of his summer, that desperately wishes to do as the professor says. It is the same part of him, he thinks, that remembers so fervently the tender hug Mrs Weasley gave him after the end of the Triwizard Tournament. The part of him that made him put Snape’s picture of Lily beside his bed while he slept, the part of him that still wonders what life would have been like if he could have lived with Sirius instead of the Dursleys.

And it is eating him up, he realizes. It gnaws at him, clenches his stomach, his chest, brings a painful stinging to his eyes, and every word he has written to Sirius in the past month comes back to him all at once, an internal assault even less precedented by Snape’s words.

Unsure of what else he can do, he steps forward, towards Snape.

For a moment, neither of them move.

And then Harry pushes past him and rushes out the door, gulping in the fresh air only briefly before breaking into a sprint.

He has no destination in mind, but he knows he needs to leave that house and all its awful memories. Needs to put distance between himself and Snape, who has never properly chased after him before and so surely will not do so now. Needs to bring the haze back under his control, at least for a while.

Eventually, he comes to a halt in the same park he has been going to all summer. Breathing hard, he collapses at the picnic table, and, only now does he register the dark clouds overhead. It is going to rain, perhaps even storm, but he cannot find it in himself to care, cannot find it in his heart to be concerned about something so trivial when there are greater things preying on his mind, like Sirius and the prophecy and Snape…

He doesn’t know when Snape became a “greater thing” in his mind, but it makes no difference. He, like everything else, is out of Harry’s control. Perhaps Harry could sit here for hours, wishing Snape would come and talk to him, but it simply would never happen. It is a ridiculous thought in the first place, anyway. What could they possibly have to talk about?

As he mulls it over, the sky begins to open up. At first, the rain comes in mere sprinkles, a few drops within many long minutes, but then it grows heavier and faster, and Harry’s clothes are drenched before he can even consider getting up and returning to Privet Drive.

Though his teeth chatter, however, the cold never seems to set in. It is a part of the haze, he thinks. The fog keeps its loving hands around him, warming him, protecting him.

Suddenly, though, there is a sound from behind him, and Harry finds his clothes have dried completely, and they are warmer as well, not an imagined warmth but a real, genuine warmth, one that reminds him inexplicably of Hogwarts, the first and only place he has ever called home.

“You’ll catch cold,” someone says, stepping around the table to peer down at him.

Harry looks up at Snape, throat tight. He opens his mouth to say something, but falters as his eyes meet the professor’s.

The haze seems to disappear entirely, and—now, he sees: Snape is not looking at him with disdain, or disgust, or even thinly-veiled hatred, as he typically would be. Rather, he looks…concerned.

Concerned…for Harry?

“Why do you care?” Harry manages after a moment. It is an echo of an older question, one he thinks he asked weeks ago. Then, Snape said he didn’t care. Now…

“Because,” Snape says quietly, taking up his regular position across from Harry, “it would appear there is nobody else willing to do it.”

And perhaps that should be upsetting. Should remind Harry of the unfairness of his life, all the awfulness that he can’t quite seem to escape no matter how desperately he wishes to.

But, instead, he finds his lips twitching upwards, just a bit. “No,” he agrees. “I reckon there isn’t.”

“I meant it, before.” Snape leans forward slightly. There is a shimmer in his eyes, a sort of openness that Harry suspects he is trying very, very hard to actually show. “I would like to help you. I suppose that…in my own way…I have grown…fond…of you.” Now, he averts his gaze and coughs, as if it is enough to keep Harry from seeing the look on his face. “It is not about your mother, though I do think she would—that she would want you to have someone looking out for you. Properly, that is. Caring for your wellbeing, regardless of if you are to be the one who defeats the Dark Lord after all.”

There are a thousand words, surely, bubbling behind Harry’s lips. First, there is the denial, the confusion, the anger, but they fall away quickly, so quickly that Harry suspects they were nothing more than a part of the haze in the first place.

Then, there is the acceptance. Understanding.

Deeper than that is something else, and it is only once he has already choked the words out that he is able to put a name to them:

“It hurts.”

They fall so easily from his lips, like there was never a chance he would have said anything else. And there wasn’t, really, he realizes. These words have been there for weeks and weeks, longer, even, than his meetings with Snape here have gone on. They have been there since Cedric died, since Wormtail took his blood in that graveyard, between the Cruciatus Curse and Priori Incantatem, since Mr Weasley was attacked by Nagini and Sirius fell through the veil, since Dumbledore told him the contents of the prophecy, since he came back here this summer, already certain he would not get out of it.

All of it comes out with those two words. The pain, the sorrow, the grief, all the things that Harry has not seen because of the fog that has obscured his view since Sirius died and he was forced to return to Little Whinging.

The rain continues to fall. A clap of thunder sounds out around them, but Harry cannot find any of it distracting enough to look away from Snape now.

“I know,” Snape finally says. “It will not stop hurting.”

Harry thinks of the way Snape speaks of Lily. Wistfully. Mournfully.

It has been nearly seventeen years. Longer, still, if he considers that Snape lost her many years before she died.

And he thinks that Snape probably does get it. Probably understands, better than his friends ever could, at least, how deep the hole in Harry’s heart seems to run. It is bottomless, an endless and aching chasm, which only seems to widen with each new thing. First, there was Cedric. Then, Sirius. Now, the prophecy, this painful knowledge that it is kill or be killed, that there was never a chance for anything else.

He wipes at his eyes, and Snape tactfully says nothing about it.

“You really want to take me away from here?”

A short nod. “If you will let me.”

“But you’re giving me a choice?”

“Yes.” Snape folds his arms over the table. “If you truly wish to be left alone, I will not come back. But I had to… I could not have lived with myself if I had merely given up on you after everything.” He grimaces. “You have not made it easy.”

Harry swallows thickly. “I wanted you to come back,” he admits. “I thought you wouldn’t.”

“I thought you hadn’t wanted me to.”

Harry looks down, unseeing. “Then, why did you?”

“I wanted to.” He says it as if it should be the most obvious thing in the world. Perhaps, to someone else, it would have been.

But Harry is not someone else, and he finds his breath catching in his throat, something very sharp piercing at his heart. He has known, for quite a long time—he is not wanted. He doesn’t get to ask for comfort, because such luxuries cannot be afforded to freaks. He has no right to expect such things as love.

In some ways, he knows better now. Knows that it is not so black and white as he once believed it to be. Knows that he is loved, and it is not because he has endeavoured to make himself the centre of some maudlin scheme, but simply because there are people that love him because he is, well, him.

And yet he can’t quite understand, can’t quite fathom how anyone could see something worth loving in him. There are obvious answers in some cases, and while he would certainly not say that Snape loves him, the small amount of care the man has shown him this summer really had seemed to be obvious in its roots.

Now...Harry isn’t so sure.

“I made you angry,” he recalls. “About my mum. I didn’t mean…”

Snape waits a moment, as if expecting him to say more. When he doesn’t, the Potions Master sighs.

“Yes,” he allows. “You made me angry, and I spoke out of turn. It is often…easier to say what we are used to thinking, than what we truly think. I have spent years believing you to be your father reborn. I know now that I was wrong.”

Harry shifts uncomfortably, thinking of Snape’s memory. “I know how that feels,” he mutters. “Being targeted like that.”

“Yes,” Snape says quietly. “Your relatives are cruel people.”

Despite himself, Harry feels his muscles tense at this. “I don’t want to be like that,” he says decisively. “I never did.”

Snape considers him for a very, very long time, as if he is a recipe he can’t quite figure out.

Then, he says, “I was angered by your insinuation, that you could replace Lily. But it was myself I was angry with. Not you.”

“Not me,” Harry repeats. Surely, that would have to be a first?

“Yes. For five years, I have gone out of my way to see your father in you. Even when the signs saying otherwise were rather obvious,” he adds. “I will admit that…hearing you accusing me of doing the same thing with Lily rather…struck a nerve.” His smile is grim, but, for once, Harry doesn’t think that really has anything to do with his shortcomings. Snape’s eyes are unfocussed, anyway, simultaneously fixed on Harry and very far away from him. “I had my suspicions during our Occlumency lessons, but then you saw—that, and I was too angry to care about anything else. I have had time to consider, however… And then Dumbledore asked me to join the rotation of Order members meant to watch you this summer. He knew as well as I that it was an unsafe position, but he did it irregardless of that knowledge.”

Harry soaks this in, thinking deeply. “So…you didn’t have a choice, right?”

Snape eyes him briefly. “In a manner of speaking,” he says slowly. “However…the last time we spoke, he seemed rather—insistent, I should say, that you stay here. And it occurred to me that he doesn’t really give a damn about your safety, let alone mine. I have long thought that Dumbledore has made mistakes regarding you, but now I’m certain he has. And so, I believe, you ought to have a choice. Whether you stay here or you go. Perhaps we should all have a choice on how we conduct ourselves. This is the choice I have made.”

Harry nods, understanding, if not agreeing with, the sentiment. It’s true, Dumbledore has made mistakes. He told Harry so himself, right after Sirius died. Right now, he’s finding it a bit hard to trust Dumbledore implicitly. Besides, as far as he knows, he doesn’t need to stay here all summer for the blood wards to work, or else he never would have been able to leave in years past. There’s no reason he can’t leave here, except for the fact that he has nowhere to go.

Or had, anyway.

He watches Snape, considering, and then ventures a, “Why?”

It could mean anything, but he thinks that Snape knows what he means, and not because he saw in it Harry’s mind or anything. No, he just knows, because he understands Harry. It’s the reason he’s still here. The reason he ever came here in the first place.

“For you,” Snape says. “It is not pity, if that’s your next question. Though you may think it impossible, I am capable of empathy.”

Harry feels his lips twitch slightly. “I wasn’t going to say you weren’t. I think…I would like to go with you, if you’re really okay with it.”

“Of course I am,” Snape murmurs, and then he is on his feet, coming back around to stand at Harry’s shoulder. With a surprisingly gentle hand, he helps Harry stand too, and, for a moment, there is silence.

And then he says, “Let’s go get your things, and then we shall go home.”

Harry’s chest warms, even as Snape turns and begins the march back to Privet Drive. Perhaps his wording was unintentional, a mere slip brought on by the length of their exhausting conversation. But Harry doesn’t think Snape has ever done something unintentionally, and he lets that thought bring a smile to his face as he hurries to catch up to his professor.

Home. Not his home, no, but closer to it than here.

It is not much, but it keeps the haze at bay, and for the first time in what feels like a very, very long time, Harry’s chest fills with happiness.

For the first time in what feels like a very, very long time, he lets it.