Harry stood in the corner of the DADA classroom, watching Professor Quirrell sifting through a large pile of papers on his desk.

He didn’t move, and even silently held his breath, hoping the professor wouldn’t notice him.

 “Where is it? Where is it?” Quirrell muttered, his paper-shuffling become more furious as he searched for something.

 “We have no use for it, you imbecile,” another voice hissed. “Use the boy to get to the–”

 Harry audibly gasped as his scar began to sting, his hand flying to his forehead.

Unfortunately, the disturbance was enough to notify the professor of his arrival, and whomsoever the other voice belonged to, as the room fell silent.

Professor Quirrell looked up from his desk.

 “P-Potter. Where is it?” he asked.

Harry opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

 “Where is it?!” Quirrell asked, his voice louder this time as he moved across the classroom towards Harry.

 “Where’s what, sir?” Harry asked, trying to back up but finding himself penned in by a stone wall.

 “The essay, you fool! I TOLD YOU that I wanted a rewrite, on your real fear!” the professor cried.

 “But sir, I did write about my real fear–”he began.

 “Don’t lie to me, you miserable brat!” Quirrell shrieked, his face twisting with fury. “You will write your assignment about the Dark Lord, just as planned!”

 “Planned?” Harry frowned. “But he isn’t what I’m most afraid of. I don’t even rem–”

 “That will soon be rectified…” the other voice hissed. “Seize him!”

Quirrell reached out a trembling hand towards him, long, dirty finger nails scraping against his neck.

Harry screwed his eyes shut, and began to scream.

OOOOOOOO

Severus Snape bottled another batch of Wolfsbane and glanced at the clock.

It was far too late to be brewing, but the headmaster’s visit and subsequent cryptic words were enough to ensure he never slept again. Was Dumbledore really suggesting that he, Severus Snape, former Death Eater, be… what? Be there for the Potter boy? Be some kind of trusted adult?

He shook his head, placing the delicate glass bottle into the wooden crate alongside the others.

If this was the case, then the headmaster really had lost it, finally. He could not be someone for the child to rely on – any child, for that matter, but especially not that one.

No, the potions master decided, he needed to put some distance between himself and the boy moving forward.

A sudden, blood-curdling scream brought him from his thoughts, and he was swiftly reminded that said boy was still asleep on his sofa. Or at least, so he had thought.

Opening the door to his potions lab, Snape hurried back towards his living quarters, wondering what on earth he was going to find.

Sure enough, Potter was still on the sofa, and it quickly became evident to him that the boy was currently embroiled in some form of night terror.

Moving across to the sofa, Snape sat down, reaching out a hand to steady the small, thrashing body beside him.

Harry let out another, more muffled scream.

 “Potter, wake up,” Severus said, giving the boy’s arm a shake to bring him out of it.

The child flew into an upwards position, gasping for breath.

 “It’s okay. You were dreaming. You are perfectly safe, Mr Potter,” the potions master assured him.

Harry choked back a sob, searching frantically for something.

For a moment, Snape was at a loss, and then he realised.

Reaching out, he picked the boy’s glasses up from the side table, placing them gently onto the bridge of his nose.

Harry’s chest heaved for air as his eyes adjusted to his surroundings.

 “You are safe,” Snape repeated.

The child’s emerald eyes flicked in his direction, as if he had been totally unaware of his professor’s presence until that moment. And then he outstretched his arms, another sob escaping his lips.

For a moment, Severus Snape didn’t move.

And then it occurred to him.

The child was asking to be held.

No, the child was asking to be held by him.

Completely unequipped to deal with such a situation, he reached out - albeit cautiously at first - and drew Harry nearer.

Harry curled into his chest, burying his head in the black robes, his body trembling.

This child has never been held after awakening from a nightmare.

His fingers moved through Harry’s hair, moving the damp fringe away from his forehead as he spoke softly to the boy, reassuring him that he was safe.

Eventually, Harry’s breathing steadied somewhat and he relaxed into the potions master’s arms, gathering up a fistful of the said man’s robes as he did, as if fearful the contact might end as he calmed.

 “Do you wish to talk about it? Your nightmare?” Snape asked eventually.

Harry shrugged.

 “What frightened you so?” the professor asked.

 “Pr… Professor Quirrell,” Harry began, his cheeks colouring, as if he expected the older man to laugh.

Severus Snape did not laugh however, and merely arched an eyebrow.

 “I see. Has he bothered you again, since the last… incident?”

“Not really, sir. Not since… whatever you said to him…” Harry said, pausing as a small furrow appeared in his brow. “There was something else, though… Another voice…”

 “What do you mean?”

 “In the dream… I don’t… It’s hard to explain,” he said, feeling as though the images he had seen and the things he had heard in his sleep were already becoming fuzzy. “Do you mind if we don’t talk about it?”

The potions master inclined his head. “As you wish. In any case, it is the middle of the night, and it would be prudent for you to try and get a proper night’s sleep.”

Harry glanced up at him, nervously. “Can… Can I stay here tonight?”

 “May I, Mr Potter, and yes you may, on account of the fact that it is far too late for you to be wandering the corridors of this castle,” Snape said. At least he had made it clear that curfew was the only reason the brat was being given such as a privilege. “However I must inform you that you will have to remain on the sofa, given the fact that there is no spare bed in the guest room. I am a solitary man and do not often care for visitors.”

 “That’s okay sir. ‘S’really comfy,” Harry told him, rubbing his eyes.

Snape gave the boy a small dose of Dreamless Sleep then, which Harry swallowed with a grimace.

 “What’s it s’posed to do?” he asked after swallowing it.

 “Don’t be dense, Potter. It does exactly as it purports to do on the label – enables the consumer to sleep without the interruption of dreams, or in your case, nightmares,” Snape told him, evenly.

 “Wasn’t being dense, sir. I just wondered, because the one I took in the infirmary didn’t exactly work,” Harry said, sulkily.

 “What do you mean it ‘didn’t exactly work’?” the potions master asked.

 “I mean I still had dreams and stuff.”

 “Then why, Mr Potter, have you just taken another dose?” he enquired, a lecture about wasting good potions already forming in his head.

 “Well… I figured this one might be a better version, sir. And it might actually work,” Harry mumbled.

 “And how, pray, did you come to that conclusion?” Snape asked, wondering if he would ever understand the inner-workings of a child’s brain

Harry shrugged, giving him a watery smile. “Because you made it.”

For a moment, Severus Snape said nothing.

And then he nodded stiffly.

 “An entirely plausible theory,” he said – one which he would be sure to share with the mediwitch at a later date.

With that, he stood up.

 “Get some rest, Potter.”

 He made it to the door before the boy spoke again.

 “Sir?”

Stopping, he turned back to face the child. “What is it?”

 “Could you… I mean, if it’s not too much trouble… could you maybe stay with me? Just ‘til I fall asleep?” Harry asked, emerald eyes full of hope.

And that was how Severus Snape came to be sitting on the sofa in his quarters at nearly 2 o’clock in the morning, with the head of his worst enemy’s son resting in his lap as Dumbledore’s irritatingly cryptic little message played over and over in his mind.

“The rest, as they say, will follow.”

Just what had he gotten himself into?

OOOOOOO