~~~~SS~~~~

Friday 29th, August 1997

With most of the professors moving back into the castle the previous Tuesday, Severus's weekly tea with Minerva had been pushed back until Friday afternoon. After three days of grueling classroom set up - reminding Severus why the prospect of not returning to the classroom had been so enticing to begin with - during the daylight hours, and each night spent pouring over various Charms books hoping to find a logical solution to present to Mae the following day, the professor needed whatever break he could get; even an hour of tea with his esteemed colleague.

Yesterday, he'd taken Harry to the uninspiring brick medical office in Surrey for his first appointment with the muggle mind doctor - though he shouldn't call Dr Snyder such, as the title sounded a bit too harsh and Severus truly believed the muggle man could help Harry learn to cope through his current challenges - Dr Swanson recommended. He'd gone through all the reminders with the young wizard about things not to mention: magic, Hogwarts by name, potions, and spells. Ultimately, he would have felt infinitely more comfortable sending Harry to the squib doctor just in case, but this was the Gryffindor's decision and his need to come to terms with how to handle the upswing in his diagnosis was more important than possibly having to Obliviate the man. As Severus sat idly in the small, ironically almost claustrophobic waiting room, flipping through some muggle magazine on healthy living, he couldn't stop his own mind from attempting to sort through all the things he'd been trying to cope with on his own. In the end, he simply placed them neatly behind his Occlumency shields to deal with at a more convenient time.

When Harry returned to the waiting room - his new doctor following behind - the teen looked more shaken up than Severus expected. Based on his eyes, it was obvious he'd cried at some point, but his shifting weight said he didn't want Severus to know about it. The professor couldn't care less if he'd cried, Merlin himself knew they'd been through more than enough to warrant it. Hopefully this process, overall, would help Harry understand better about the things going on with his body and allow him to come to terms with them. Dr Snyder, a man who appeared to be in his late-fifties, surprised Severus by stating he wanted the two of them in his next session scheduled for a fortnight; allowing Harry to adjust to his first full week of classes in over a year. Somehow, leaving the office with family therapy on the horizon hadn't crossed his mind, and he questioned if should consider discussing what to expect with Lucius at their own meeting next weekend - after his first day of work at the Malfoy Lab for Disease Research and Development, or MLD for short.

Needless to say, when Minerva walked into his Defense classroom office with a pot of tea expertly levitating in front of her, he was more than a little relieved for the bit of normalcy the witch provided. His desk was completely covered with random Charms books and stray parchment, easily stacked with a wave of his wand into a neat pile on the side of his desk.

"Don't you think it's a bit early for your desk to be this cluttered with work? Classes don't even start for another four days," she teased, but Severus thought back to this time last year. Hadn't he discovered the possibility of Voldemort having Leukemia back on the first day of term by doing almost this same thing? The parallel between the two starts of term frightened him, not that he'd admit to such. There could not be any possible way this year would compare to the last, and if so, Severus wasn't sure they'd survive.

Never one to respect his privacy - or more accurately, one who liked to see how far she could push her boundaries - Minerva reached over and grabbed the top book, Advanced Spellwork for the Wizarding Home, and then peered at the rest of them neatly stacked on the desk.

"If you are attempting to purloin Filius's position, you'll need more than-" she mentally counted the texts, "- seven texts on the subject. He has quite the extensive pedigree for Charms."

Annoyed, Severus rolled his eyes.

"It's for a personal project," he responded, pouring them both a cup of peppermint tea; a rather interesting choice for the meeting.

The grey haired witch took a sip of her tea and settled back into the straight backed chair across from Severus. With a smile, she asked, "Is it something to do with Harry? If so, I'm certain Filius will assist, if you humbly ask."

"This has nothing to do with Harry," he reassured the young wizard's former guardian. "Which reminds me," the Slytherin opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out the final schedule for Harry's return to classes and handed it to Minerva, more than happy to have something else to focus her attention on. Without a word - knowing exactly what she held - her eyes started scanning the timetable.

Wednesday's magical testing had been more tedious than Severus expected, thus taking them a bit longer to decide where to place the Gryffindor. The seemingly sporadic and half successes appeared to distress the young wizard more than the spells that had simply failed to react,

and briefly he considered if it would have been better for the teen's magic to be completely new and untrained. As it always seemed as of late, Harry continued to be an anomaly in that his magic worked a little here and a little there, making it nearly impossible to pinpoint the levels where he should start. When Harry had gotten back from his run late in the afternoon, the two wizards sat down to discuss Alton's results and what this year could look like for the Gryffindor; or at least the recommendations he'd take to Albus and the board of Governors.

Getting Albus's approval proved harder than any of them expected. He brought his recommendations to the Headmaster for initial approval and the older wizard challenged them - more so than Severus thought necessary - about the logistics of having a student who should have been starting his seventh year sharing classes with second and third years; where Severus ended up recommending Harry's placement on most of his subjects. It led to a heated debate over Harry's status as a student in general. In the end, Albus agreed to take the recommendations to the Board of Governors, where they approved it the same day, and Harry was officially re-enrolled in Hogwarts.

"And you believe this will help curb his raw magic?" asked Minerva, skeptically. From any other person, Severus would have found himself insulted and have the strong urge - which he'd probably succumb to - to reply sarcastically. With Minerva, however, he legitimately valued opinion and welcomed her challenge.

"I have my doubts," he honestly replied, "but Alton appears confident and our options are limited. Based on the testing done, it's believed starting him a year above where his magic reacted… questionably… will help accelerate the process overall. For Charms and Transfiguration, that is second year, while Defense is third year. Potions and Herbology he can retake his sixth year, NEWT level, and be perfectly safe as the required magic is not too extreme."

"So then his magic had some kind of reaction?"

"Oh, yes," he took another sip of his tea and leaned back in his black chair, crossing his right ankle over his left knee, "for almost every first year spell, he had at least a partial reaction. Most weren't consistent, by any means, but a reaction nevertheless, and therefore something we can build on."

Minerva paused to take in what he'd told her as she mirrored his own sip of tea. The former spy noticed a small tremor to her hand as she placed the floral tea cup - lilies, he recognized - back onto its saucer on his desk.

"Is there a way to check-in that it's going well?" She eventually questioned. Severus tried to ignore the pleading, or exasperation, evident in her voice. "Or will we one day wake to his magic over taking him?"

"For one," Severus answered, "we will definitely notice if the magic does not cease to desist. Similar to the event at Diagon Alley, he'd continue to have these episodes rather than stopping them. Alton has also devised a… system, so to say, to help keep track of his disorganized magic. The value alone is useless, but keeping a graph of the values over time will give him an indication if it is successful or not."

A companionable silence enveloped the two colleagues who, to anyone else, would define the other as a friend, though they'd never claimed it to one another. Severus could see the question weighing on her sharp mind, the words forming on her lips for a second before dropping it. She didn't want to ask. Or more accurately, she didn't want to hear the answer. He patiently waited, hoping she'd drop the issue, yet knowing she would not.

"And are we supposed to simply hope it aligns itself before it kills him?" She asked discontentedly. "Is there no contingency plan in place should these numbers not end up favorable?"

Being lectured by Minerva McGonagall always reminded Severus of his own awful Hogwarts days. Back then, she still blatantly favored her Lions, and therefore he usually found himself on the wrong end of a lecture about how he should not instigate trouble between himself and the Marauders. If she ever spoke with his four bullies, Severus never knew about it. Inevitably, Slughorn would give him a similar lecture, though he mostly focused on how one needed to choose one's battles carefully. Neither were very helpful in the end, and he loathed thinking back on them.

"Unfortunately it's not too unlike his chemotherapy treatments," Severus rationalized, already knowing the witch wouldn't believe he agreed with his own statement, "it's killing off all the rapidly growing cells in hopes of ridding the cancer at a faster rate than it can multiply. If it is successful, as we've seen thus far, he continues to live, if not… well we just have to hope-" he emphasized her own choice of wording back to her, "we catch it in time."

Being posed with the very pointed question, Severus made the executive decision to bring Minerva up to speed on the magical block ritual as a contingency plan, justifying it by telling himself it's better she heard about it now - when the likelihood of using it was still low - than before they were forced to move forward. Although Draco's ritual hadn't been made public, as part of the Order, Minerva had been briefed on everything that had occurred during their time in the Manor; including high level details of the Blood Cleansing Ritual. He'd been right when telling Harry that the blood required for the potion aspect of the ritual wasn't nearly as barbaric as the one Draco went through, but based on Minerva's equally repulsed face as he outlined the process, the fact the ritual needed blood - not to mention soil from his parents' grave - to begin with was already too much. As he continued going through the ritual's history, its use, and procedure, he started to hope it would never be needed.

"And Albus actually wanted Harry to go through this?" Minerva asked once he completed his miniature lesson on the dark magic ritual. "Rather than simply try to retrain his magic?"

"I think Albus wanted to do everything in his power to give Harry the best chance of living in the magical world as possible," Severus said; until that moment, he hadn't considered the reason why Albus chose this route first, but he found himself believing his own explanation. "It's the least the headmaster could do for leaving a magical child in the hands of Petunia Dursley. He's lucky Harry hadn't become an Obsurial for Merlin's sake."

She didn't comment on his implication, confirming what Severus already knew to be true: she questioned what happened over the summer holidays, why Harry always returned to school thinner and tired looking. Yet she never did anything about it. Until, in his old reality, only he made the horrid decision to almost hit the young Gryffindor, no one ever challenged the headmaster on his decision to place Harry in the muggles' care, that Albus's "love will conquer all" mentality would fail them.

"The good news is," Minerva changed the subject, handing the timetable back to Severus, "the students in his second year classes hardly know Harry, other than by name of course, since he barely attended classes en masse last year and never lived in the Tower. Your third year Defense may prove difficult."

With a hmph and a sneer he topped off the two cups on the desk and replied, "I dare a single student to even attempt to cause trouble in any of my classes, let alone towards a student in Harry's predicament."

"And your Slytherins?" She challenged, both eyebrows raised interested in his answer.

"I'll handle the issues as they arise," he strategically said, "and I'm sure we'll have plenty with both Harry and Draco's return, as well as students trying to oppose my own return as an authority figure. However, as the balance of power in the House has been challenged, we'll have to wait and see where the tides fall. There is a chance Draco maintains his status and can aid in my messaging of not being responsible for any of their relatives recent change of address to Azkaban."

She didn't understand and Severus wouldn't expect her to. As much as he knew about the Gryffindor way of life from navigating through it with Harry in his old world, they ran their house in a more laissez faire manner than Slytherin. In Gryffindor, they didn't have a pecking order to maintain in order to prevent over ambitious students from trying to sabotage one another.

"Should you need any assistance, Severus, simply say the word."

The conviction in her voice was such that he had no choice but to believe she would help if he needed it, regardless of her lack of understanding. And so with a small nod of his head, he reminded himself not to try to take on the world's problems alone, he had help if he could swallow his pride enough to ask for it.

"Now seriously," the Transfiguration Professor broke their silence, "what are you working on with all those charms books?"

Against his better judgement, he gave a small chuckle at her persistence. Glancing over at the stack of books, he briefly considered lying - flat out telling her it didn't concern her nor her students - but instead he found himself saying, almost without thinking, "I need to find a way to communicate with someone in the muggle world while here at school."

"Why? Don't all of Harry's physicians have magical methods of getting in touch?" He felt his face start to flush and couldn't remember a time when that had happened. But before he could remember Dr Snyder having no clue about Harry being magical - a perfect excuse for his endeavor - Minerva picked up on his obvious discomfort and asked with a smile, "Do tell Severus, this wouldn't happen to be a romantic interest, would it?"

The blasted woman was getting far too much enjoyment from this. His silence, though, spoke volumes and Minerva tried to hide her smile behind her tea cup.

"I don't know exactly what it is yet," he explained and gave a long pause as he contemplated what to tell her next. "But I want to see where it goes, which I cannot do if she cannot get a hold of me. And I can't very well tell her to expect an owl with my letter."

Gleefully, far more than she should have been, Minerva's eyes twinkled behind her glasses, "Have you considered asking Arthur?"

Taking him off guard, Severus shook his head, unsure if he'd heard her correctly. "Arthur Weasley? Why would I ask him?"

"For one," Minerva laughed, "he oversees the department involved with charming muggle objects, which I believe you're attempting to do. But mostly because his last task for the Order - before the rescue operation, obviously - had been to create a way for the members of the Order to be able to stay in contact with each other should we have had to go into hiding. I'm willing to bet he has a solution to your communication dilemma."

He hadn't known that, and the fact he hadn't known concerned him more than it should have. Did caring for Harry last year really pull him so far away from his other duties? Would he face the same challenges this year? And if so - which was more than a little likely - how would Harry staying in the Tower complicate the matter further? Suddenly, a trip to the Burrow before the start of term seemed appropriate and not only to see if the Weasley patriarch could help solve his muggle technology issue. He would need to ensure Harry had a support system in place among his friends and for them to feel comfortable enough to contact him - or Minerva - should an emergency arise.

"Thank you," he surprised himself by saying.

"Any chance you'll tell me who she is?" Minerva asked, pushing her luck further and further.

"None at all."

The two colleagues were laughing when a knock at the door drew their attention away from the awkwardness. Severus would have guessed it was Harry stopping by looking for him, and therefore put on alert by the sight of Kingsley Shacklebolt in his doorway.

"Kingsley," Severus stood to greet the head auror he hadn't seen since Draco's interrogation, "to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Tea?" Minerva asked, as the other wizard approached.

"I'm afraid this isn't a social visit, Minerva," Kingsley declined. Then he turned to Severus and said, "The news of the Board of Governors approving Harry Potter's return to the school hit the Ministry this morning. Unfortunately the DMLE sees no reason the boy can't come to provide his statement and memory on the Diagon Alley attack if he's been allowed to return."

Severus gave a hard sigh. He knew it would be coming when he read the two Death Eaters - Ash and Talpin - had been taken into custody, pending trial, in Monday's edition of the Daily Prophet. Nevertheless, the fact Harry wouldn't be accused of causing the attack didn't necessarily make the news any easier to hear.

"You know I've delayed as long as I could, Severus," the auror added.

"I appreciate it, Kingsley," Severus replied with a quick nod of head, understanding the words the other wizard hadn't said: 'I will continue to do my best to protect him'. And while Harry had a village of people willing to do whatever it took to assist him, Severus still went through every scenario this could possibly end in. "Do you need to accompany me to get him? Or will our arrival at the Ministry shortly after you suffice?"

"You know I need to go with you to collect him to ensure the integrity of the witness," the auror formally answered, "Technically, I don't even need your permission, and alternatively could bring him in with you unaware."

Severus had known that, or could have at least guessed, but it didn't ease his anxiety about what was going to happen. He wanted nothing more than to spare Harry the ordeal of going through the rigorous process of reliving the event and any kind of interrogation it might bring. Unfortunately, one did not always get what one wanted and it would only cause the situation, and Harry by extension, to appear guilty.

"Alright," Severus hesitantly agreed, "let's get this over with."

~~~~HP~~~~

The Ministry of Magic left no warm and fuzzy feelings in Harry as his only two visits to the governing body of Wizarding Britain had been stressful and depressing; in that order. Therefore, when Snape walked into the Gryffindor's dungeon bedroom only an hour earlier - where Harry had been taking his anger out on his practice snitch after two failed attempts to finish some half completed sketching - explaining how they needed to go to the Ministry of Magic, his palms immediately began to sweat and his breathing shallowed.

Anxiety. Panic attacks. Two conditions he'd become intimately familiar with in the last year, going as far as Dr Swanson flat out telling him he suffered from panic attacks after he had passed out from one. At the time, it made him feel weak, like he couldn't handle life how "normal people" did, or worse, how the people around him expected him to handle it. Snape's insistence that Harry confide in him helped the young wizard the most; to help Harry understand he didn't have to shoulder the responsibility alone, he could trust his emotions with someone else and lean on him when Harry needed support. But surprisingly, his appointment with Dr Snyder the previous day taught Harry to accept the words - anxiety and panic attacks - as a part of his life and not to shy away from them, going as far as telling Harry every cancer patient struggled with the same two conditions to some degree.

The session started out as Harry had expected, going over his previous medical history - physical and mental - and Harry found himself grateful Dr Swanson had already filled Dr Snyder in on some of the more sensitive topics, like living at a boarding school for "gifted students" or how he'd become the ward of the school last summer after his guardians had died in a car accident. What his muggle oncologist didn't mention was why Harry lived with his aunt and uncle to begin with, and so Harry found himself starting out by telling the middle aged, grey haired man all about his parents getting murdered when he was only a year old. Although it made Harry uncomfortable to explain it all - a task he rarely had to do because most of his peers knew his history - the doctor's validation over his rough start in life eased some of his initial discomfort about the appointment overall.

"So Harry," the doctor confidently transitioned, making Harry shift in the plush red chair he sat in, "tell me what you know about your diagnosis?"

Harry had been well aware the purpose for the appointment was to discuss his cancer, at the same time though, the bluntness startled him. For some reason he expected to warm up into that so he explained everything he knew about his cancer; Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, a blood cancer which had apparently been passed down from his mother's side - a fact he knew thanks to Dudley - and he was in the Maintenance Phase of his treatment.

"And do you know what Maintenance means?" Dr Snyder inquisitively asked.

"Of course I do," the young wizard aggressively answered. "It means I'm doing chemotherapy to prevent it from coming back."

"So then you believe the cancer is gone?"

Did he believe that? Hadn't he basically admitted just that?

"Erm…." the young wizard mindlessly ran his left hand across the back of his right, nervously rubbing the scar which constantly reminded him not to lie. He would never give Dolores Umbridge the satisfaction of knowing he'd started thinking about it as a way to keep himself honest about his own internal feelings; that ultimately it drove him to be honest with the muggle he'd asked to see, even though it made him uncomfortable, "I dunno. They… erm… Dr Swanson and Dr Smithe tell me it's kind of gone, but if I don't finish the next couple of years' worth of treatment, it can come back. Or it's more likely to come back than stay away… so I guess I have a hard time believing them. If it were really gone, then I shouldn't have to do anything else."

"That's a bit of an oversimplification of the process, but Dr Swanson is a very respectable physician in her area of expertise," the psychologist had replied, and Harry blanched then turned his focus back to his intertwined hands. He hadn't meant to insult her. He knew how hard she worked to keep him healthy. "She's told you ALL is one of the more treatable cancers in children, and the regimen you're on is what makes it so-" Harry nodded, "- then why don't you believe her?"

"I just…" Harry has felt himself struggle with how to explain himself, yet he had the suspicion Dr Snyder already knew. How many cancer patients did he see as a referral from Dr Swanson? A lot, he guessed. But once he got his head wrapped around what exactly was bothering him, he had the urge to say it out loud, or rather practically yell it, "... I can't see it. There's nothing that's different now from when I was declared in remission back in August! How can they… Dr Swanson… simply expect me to trust that it's gone when nothing has changed?! One day I'm doing chemotherapy so intense it almost broke me, and the next I'm told I only need to go once a month! It makes no sense!"

Those thoughts had been running through his mind all year, but this was his first time acknowledging them; giving them an identity, even if he'd said the words previously. That simple statement led them into a discussion about why Harry couldn't believe what was going on with his prognosis.

"It's like you're waiting for the other shoe to drop," the muggle psychologist had explained to him. He couldn't trust the relatively normal feeling because he'd been focusing too hard on what might go wrong. The psychologist further explained how people who are so used to negative things happening in their lives - to which Harry surely qualified - sometimes have a more difficult time accepting when life looked positive. When that happened, they tended to naturally gravitate back into the negativity; back towards the familiar place where they know what to expect.

He was told it had to do with his 'anxiety' and they'd work together to get him through it so he could start to enjoy the times he had the energy to do things like go back to school or hang out with his friends, and then separately be able to cope should something happen down the road. Like everything else - namely his chemotherapy - this would be a marathon, not a sprint. Though it initially seemed counterintuitive to the young wizard, admitting he needed help, in addition to saying those words - Anxiety and Panic Attacks - out loud, helped break through yet another layer of his boulder and Harry found himself leaving the appointment feeling lighter and looking forward to his next session in a fortnight: a combined one with Snape.

Of course, nothing he talked about the previous day with his newest physician helped ease the dread rapidly filling his body as he entered the atrium of the Ministry of Magic on Friday afternoon. The first time he visited the underground offices had been for his underaged magical use trial with Mr Weasley before his fifth year, and the last time, the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, he actively tried not to think about too often. On top of the physical times he, personally, had been in the atrium, Charlie Weasley's body had been found there last summer after he'd been killed by Death Eaters after the attack on the Burrow, leaving Harry feeling worse than ever.

Snape didn't attempt to hide his own discomfort and displeasure with the situation they found themselves in that afternoon. The man stoically and silently walked beside Harry as they followed Kingsley to the lifts. The Gryffindor was well aware Snape nor McGonagall were required to accompany him since he had turned seventeen only a month ago. Kingsley could have come to Hogwarts and demanded Harry join him at the DMLE, a fact Harry kept repeating to himself as a way to calm his nerves. The Order - or at least the previous members - were still looking out for him even after Voldemort's death. Between chemotherapy and the wedding, he hadn't had much time to discuss the attack on Diagon, and at the time, Harry found himself perfectly fine with it, partly because he didn't want to talk about the fact he'd run away from the danger instead of protecting the other patrons, and partly because he didn't want to think of Draco Malfoy bailing him out with his witness testimony. Now, though, he wished he'd asked so he would know what to expect.

Being that the young wizard had wanted to be an Auror, walking into the office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement made him miss that particular aspect of his magical education. He could barely cast a Lumos - and inconsistently when he did - so his chances of actually entering the Auror Training Program once he finally made it through N.E.W.T.s was now non-existent. Another broken product of his cancer diagnosis - the need to refocus his efforts towards a new career, one he could start in his mid-twenties and not be too far behind - he couldn't continue to ignore.

For a Friday afternoon, the office appeared livelier and louder than Harry would have expected. The department floor consisted of several sets of pods, made up of three desks each - two facing one another and the third along the right side of the pair - with a filing cabinet set up for each pod. The wall to the right of the corridor leading into the office had floor to ceiling enchanted windows, only instead of a beautiful lake or mountain scene as he had at Hogwarts, it showed dozens of security footage Harry never knew existed from around the wizarding world; including the entrance to Diagon Alley, where they could watch witches and wizards coming and going at any given time, and within the Ministry of Magic itself. On the back wall, past the sea of desks filled with various employees in all states of activity, were five private offices, all with their doors closed. Files and parchment raced across the office, with drawers of the cabinets opening and closing automatically at the last possible second to safely store the weeks' worth of paperwork. Harry stood in the doorway to the office in awe at the pure organized chaos of magic that came with being an auror.

The same respect Harry always had for Kingsley radiated from each auror the three wizards passed on their way through the desks towards the private offices. While the room never really silenced, it did quiet down significantly with Kingsley's presence.

"Wortcher, Harry," Tonks called as they approached her desk in the row closest to the office. "Here for your memory retrieval?"

"Erm… yeah."

"You'll do great," the metamorphmagus exclaimed. "It's not as bad as everyone says, even with Williamson leading the way."

Harry felt Snape stiffen behind him at the mention of who Harry assumed was another auror.

"We should get this done," Kingsley beckoned to them, the door to the middle office now opened.

"Before you go, Remus and I would love to have you over for the holiday. I know it's kind of far away, but the school year passes by so quickly," Tonks said.

Harry wanted to hope Remus had this planned all along, but unless Tonks knew he'd be in for his memory retrieval - something that seemed unlikely because otherwise Snape would have likely known - the offer was strictly the Hufflepuff witch improvising. Maybe they'd talked about having him over the summer and never got around to actually inviting him, but it left him little relief of his sorrow over how little the last Marauder knew about him. He wanted a relationship with Remus, and Tonks by association, so if for no other reason, he should attempt to rebuild it; after all, it took two to make things work.

"That sounds great," Harry replied with a smile, swallowing back the lump in his throat. "I'm sure we can work something out."

"Perfect! Good luck in there," Tonks said with a wink before turning back around to whatever work she'd been feverishly writing down.

"Let's get this over with," Harry mumbled to no one in particular and then passed by Kingsley into the room.

The office for memory retrieval - as Harry unofficially referred to it - had a large rectangular, dark wooden table in the center with five chairs scattered haphazardly around it and a pensieve floating at the edge of the far side. Lanterns placed in each corner of the room provided little light leaving it dark and more menacing than he expected it to be. The worst part of the entire room - at least to the young wizard - was the frigid cold temperature; causing him to run his hand up and down his arms wishing he'd doubled his jumper. The door behind them closed with a loud bang echoing across the dark walls, making Harry jump a bit. With a shiver he tried to hide in an effort to appear fully in control, he approached the table where an auror in his early fifties stood just to the right of it.

"If it isn't the famous Harry Potter," the other wizard greeted the young Gryffindor, "I'm Mark Williamson and as the lead auror on the Diagon Alley attack, I'll be the one collecting and reviewing your memory of the event. This should be a pretty straight forward process."

"But you caught the guys responsible, right? I read about it in the Prophet earlier this week." It came out sounding more condescending than he wanted, but Harry wanted to sound competent for Auror Williamson, and therefore let the statement stand.

"While that may be true," the older wizard explained, "we still need to collect every piece of evidence for the trial. Leave no stone unturned and your viewpoint may show us things others couldn't."

"I didn't see them," Harry challenged back, ignoring the firm grasp of Snape's hand on his shoulder.

"Let us be the judge of that," Williamson winked at him. "Your mind absorbs significantly more information on the environment around you than you consciously realize, which is why we've found it's best to review memories of key events."

Harry looked back at the door where Kingsley still stood, and the Order member gave his head an almost imperceptible nod to confirm the other auror's validity.

His lips pursed to prevent showing his fear, Harry muttered "if you say so," under his breath as Snape gestured for the teen to take a seat at the head of the table, closest to the pensieve, with Williamson to his right and Snape to his left. If it were even possible, the bottom of the plain wooden chair felt colder than any other part of the room, and this time Harry could not contain the shiver from running up his spine.

"Are you cold?" Williamson asked. "If I remember what I read correctly, your muggle disease has a rather… negative impact on your body. It's the reason Auror Shacklebolt had us delay this little meeting. I could get you a blanket if you need it. You should be as comfortable as possible for this to be effective."

Locking his bright emerald eyes with Williamson's duller green ones, Harry shook his head, "No, sir," he lied, ignoring Snape's concerned expression, "I'm fine."

"Let me know if there's anything I can get you in the meantime." Then turning to Snape, he asked, "Can we get some privacy? The boy is seventeen, after all, and I'm afraid we need no outside influences on his recollection of the events." The auror glared across the table at Snape as he made his request, which Harry already knew would be vehemently denied.

"No," Snape flat out refused, folding his arms across his chest. "I'll be staying for the recollection."

"Severus," Kingsley warned. The air in the cold room seemed to drop ten degrees as the seconds ticked by in silence, "You can wait outside of the door and trust me to keep an eye on Harry."

The young Gryffindor could sense the consternation emanating from Snape. "It's ok," Harry added, "I'll be fine."

Grudgingly, Snape glared across at Williamson, then stormed from the room, causing Harry to question to himself why the two wizards seemed at odds with each other. Once the door closed for the second time in his already short visit, Harry's heart rate increased exponentially.

Luckily, Kingsley took the lead and spoke first, "Have you ever had a memory removed, Harry?"

The young wizard thought back to his Occlumency lesson with Snape the previous year and gave a silent nod. "I can't do it myself, though," he remembered to mention, unwilling to give any extra context to the reasoning in front of Williamson.

"Not to worry, I'll be doing the extraction," the head auror announced, taking the seat Snape had vacated. "Once it's in the pensieve, Auror Williamson and myself will view it to confirm its authenticity. Do you have any questions?"

"Will I get it back?"

"Of course," Kingsley kindly replied, and Williamson gave a smirk from across the table, "as long as there are no issues upon its viewing, once the memory has been validated, we'll duplicate it, and return the original to you."

Seemed simple enough, except for the mention of "any issues."

"What would cause issues with the memory?" Harry tentatively asked, "I mean, it's my memory of the event, there's nothing you can really do about it."

"You'd be surprised what we find, kid," Williamson spoke up and Harry found it a bit hypocritical that the older wizard used Harry's new adult status to demand he do this process alone, yet referred to him as kid; a title Harry held in almost as little esteem as boy.

Sensing the stress levels rising, Kingsley positioned his chair so he was facing Harry and lifted his wand to rest it on the young Gryffindor's temple.

"Now Harry," Kingsley's already deep voice lowered at least an octave as he calmly explained what to do, "close your eyes and think about that day in Diagon Alley… where you were right before the attack, in as much detail as you can remember. Everything from who you were with, the sights, sounds, and even smells. When you think you have it all and are ready for me to extract the memory, nod your head."

Harry had to resist the urge to nod that he'd understood, and instead closed his eyes, thankful for a reason to get away from the dark, damp, and cold room around him. He thought about shopping in Diagon Alley with Snape, then focused only on after he went to Flourish and Blotts with Ron and Hermione - unwilling to chance that either auror would overhear the conversation he'd had with Snape about where he came from - in as much detail as he could remember. For as much as his memory enjoyed dragging him through the worst of times in painstaking details, recalling everything from the attack proved more difficult than he expected.

First, he brought forth the sight of Ron and Hermione, the bustling street where the small white kitten played, the sounds of their conversation, and then the interruption from Mr Cribbe. The fear and panic he'd felt that afternoon flooded his system once again when he remembered the man's hand pulling on his shoulder, and the threatening step he took towards Harry; unexpectedly, a vision of Uncle Vernon followed. Pushing that piece aside - hoping it wouldn't show up in the memory - he remembered pushing the wizard to the ground and all of the eyes in Diagon Alley turning on him. The loud explosion triggered something in his mind and the rest of the memory came to him without any struggle. Him running as fast as he could to get away from the crowd. The smell of burned wood from behind him. Another hand grabbing his left upper arm with so much force he unconsciously stretched it out while sitting in the relative safety of the auror's office. It had taken the full week for his wounds - his bruised arm and scrapped up side - to fully heal from the event. Then he could practically feel the electrical current of his raw magic fighting against him as it coursed through his body so strongly he couldn't recall being dropped, or more accurately thrown, to the ground as he'd been told after waking up at St Mungo's. The last image he pulled up, the one before his world went black, was the sight of Snape's worried face pushing his way through the crowd with Healer Walker right behind him. Love. That had been the final feeling he associated with the memory; Snape's love for him through his fear of Harry's wellbeing.

Finally satisfied he had it all in place, Harry nodded his head. Just like before Occlumency with Snape, he heard Kingsley whisper a spell he didn't recognize and felt the tickle of a thread pull and tear across the front of his mind. It seemed to need more coaxing than with Snape, and Harry questioned if that was due to his trust in Snape more than the aurors or because of his improvement in Occlumency overall.

Time practically stood still before he finally heard Kingsley say, just above a whisper, "That's perfect. You did great, Harry"

The young Gryffindor didn't exactly believe him. He couldn't know how Harry had done with the extraction until they viewed the memory. It took Harry's eyes a moment - and several rounds of blinking - to readjust to the room around him, and even before they did, he couldn't miss Auror Williamson's odd glare across the table.

For obvious reasons, Harry couldn't go into the pensieve with Kingsley and Auror Williamson, but Snape hadn't been allowed to come back into the room either, with no explanation given as to why. That left the young wizard in an awkward position alone in the office with no idea how long it would take for his chaperones to return.

Being alone had its advantages, and the first thing Harry did was stand up in hopes of getting his circulation moving to help warm himself up. The room itself was small, barely big enough to hold the table where the pensieve sat, and the lack of window - enchanted, seeing as they were underground - made him almost claustrophobic, something he usually never experienced. The wall on the left side of the table was covered with moving photographs, all of the Diagon Alley attack from various angles. Harry naturally assumed they were taken from the memories collected in a similar manner he'd just gone through from all the witnesses.

One showed Harry and his friends in front of Flourish and Blotts, Ron and Hermione clearly bickering over the wedding details based on their facial expressions. In another, he could see Mr Cribbe talking to a witch he'd been in the Alley with when they recognized Harry and the plump wizard excitedly pointed at the group of three as they approached. Shame filled Harry as he realized the older man had been legitimately honest in his intentions when he greeted them that day; he'd only wanted to give his best wishes.

There were pictures - memories - from inside the buildings too: from Mr Olivander as he grabbed his most coveted wands from behind his desk so they wouldn't succumb to the flames shooting in through the windows, of Mrs Potts narrowly escaping the crumbling of her roof - reminding Harry too much of his bedroom ceiling collapsing in on him during the first Privet Drive attack - and one from the apothecary showing the moment in slow motion, using a photo developing technology Harry made a mental note to ask Collin about, the glass bottles shattered across the small shop. From the witness's vantage point in the apothecary, Harry could clearly see the other patrons get blasted with the shards of glass. Thankfully, he already knew no one had been seriously injured; besides himself, of course.

With a shake of his head, Harry had turned to go back to the table, anticipating Kingsley and Williamson's return when one last picture caught his eye. Tucked in the corner of the wall was a photograph showing a man in robes as black as night with hair to match, throwing a fireball from his wand into Olivander's store.

Frantically, the Gryffindor looked through all the other photographs attached to the wall, yet even knowing exactly where to look in the Alley, no others could show this precise act; the rest being blocked by a building or another person. It could only mean one thing, and Harry dreaded it: this memory had to belong to Draco Malfoy, confirming the Slytherin had not only been there - so close to Harry and his friends he could have been spying on them - but also he saved Harry from looking guilty in the whole situation.

"Dammit " Harry muttered under his breath. The last thing he needed was to feel like he owed Draco as they entered the school year having not spoken since they shared a prison cell in Malfoy Manor.

Kingsley and Auror Shacklebolt returned to the office only three minutes after Harry took his seat back at the table. The pair asked him several clarifying questions, like Did he recall anyone following them earlier in the day? - A lot of people were watching them as they did their shopping - Or to explain why he ran from the scene? - He felt trapped, and left it at that, thankful they didn't ask anything further, though he wanted to ask if the memory of Uncle Vernon had showed up or not. In the end, his memory of the event had been deemed satisfactory and Snape was allowed to re-enter the room. The young wizard hoped this would be the last he'd see of Auror Williamson having no idea they'd cross paths again in only three short days.