The door to the Wizard Family Council room opened and an elderly witch with a small girl in hand stepped out. She bent and spoke reassuringly to the child, patted the back of her hand. Harry stood patiently beside Snape waiting for their turn. At the moment he was just grateful to have made it through the Ministry Atrium in one piece. The receptionist who registered his wand stared at him in silent shock for an awkwardly long gap before he handed it back. By that time the entire Ministry, it seemed, had gathered ’round to shake his hand and thank him.

When they had finally escaped, Snape had commented, “You have not been very visible. It is true.” Harry had been relieved by that, since he had not been certain how Snape would react to such a scene.

Fortunately, the hearing room was in an out-of-the-way corner on the second floor below ground. Harry’d been worried about running into Mr. Weasley. Since he hadn’t owled Ron with the news, he wasn’t keen on making up a story on the spur of the moment, especially not in front of Snape.

Kranden gestured that they should enter. As they stepped inside, a witch seated at a small desk off to the side said, “Next we have the application hearing for Severus Snape. He is applying to adopt one…Harry Potter.” The witch scowled at the paper then looked up at them in surprise. The members of the council, peering down from elevated tiers, murmured among themselves and perked up considerably.

As the three of them approached the podium facing the council, the murmuring stopped and all the council gazed at Harry with amazement. Kranden ignored this and took out the sheaf of parchments. She unwrapped them, kept one copy of the long form for herself and handed the others over to the council secretary. “Good morning, members of the council, I am Felicity Kranden. I am assisting Mr. Snape in this application.” She went on to explain their application in legalese. Harry stood beside her with his hands clasped extra casually in front of himself. That panicky feeling was trying to build again and he did not want it to show.

Finished with her statements, Kranden stepped back and waited patiently as the secretary handed the forms over to the council chair after registering each document. “Any of them can ask questions now,” the solicitor whispered.

After looking over each sheet, at least momentarily, the chairwitch leaned forward. “Mr. Potter,” she began with a quizzical expression, “this is a bit unexpected.” She cleared her throat and sipped from a teacup before continuing. “The first question that pops into my head is, why now? Why not while you were truly underage and in need of a permanent guardian?”

Harry moved to the podium and glanced at Snape in question.

The chairwitch said stridently, “Do not look to him. I want to hear your answer.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” Harry said. “It is just that there are some things Albus Dumbledore didn’t want anyone to know and it is hard to remember that they don’t matter anymore.” The gazes of the council grew even more interested. “You see, Dumbledore put a spell on my mother’s sister’s house to make me safe from Voldemort while I was there. I had to consider it my home for the spell to keep working. None of that matters now.” He started to step back and then added, “That is why now, rather than earlier.”

More murmuring ensued. It quieted as the chair said, “And your mother’s sister has provided a signature I see, as well as your uncle. Is there a reason they are not here in person?”

“They hate wizardom, ma’am,” Harry supplied. 

Kranden stepped up beside him. “I know my comment isn’t necessarily relevant, but for what it is worth, I will strongly attest to that.”

An old wizard in the back row said, “You have survived well enough, it looks to me. Seems like sticking with blood is the best thing.”

Kranden stepped up again. “If I may.” She pulled out another parchment and handed it over to the secretary. “This is just a partial chronicle of Mr. Potter’s treatment by the Dursleys.”

The parchment was subjected to the same procedure and eventually passed to the senior member, who frowned at it. “Locked in a cupboard, Mr. Potter?” she asked doubtfully.

“Yes, ma’am,” Harry admitted with difficulty.

“Manhandled? Were you ever seriously injured?”

“No, ma’am. Repelling magic usually kicked in before then.” The council peered down at him now in dismay and sympathy. Harry deeply regretted being there.

“Starved?” she went on, reading the list. “For how long a time?” she asked in an annoyingly factual voice.

Harry sighed painfully then jumped lightly as fingertips brushed the back of his arm. He angled his head and determined that it had to have been Snape. Bolstered by that gesture, Harry replied, “Not usually more than two or three days. My friends were sending me food packages by owl, but one summer my uncle bolted the window closed. And another summer the Malfoy’s house-elf charmed my uncle’s neighborhood to prevent any owls from approaching.”

“Why?” she asked honestly.

“It is a long story, ma’am, and not really relevant,” Harry commented.

The chairwitch continued to read the list. “I see. Basically the rest is a long list of general neglect incidents.” She stared at Harry. “You are trying to convince me that Albus Dumbledore, whom I know very well to be a kind and compassionate man, left you in this household for years, knowing this?”

“It turned out that there wasn’t any choice.” Harry swallowed with difficulty. Struggled for a long span. “But I also didn’t explain to him very well why I didn’t want to go back.”

The chairwitch sighed. “Well, that is something we are overly familiar with here, I’m afraid.” She put the parchment aside. “Anyone opposed to dispensing with the in-person requirement?” The secretary looked over the council and made a notation when no one raised their hand. The chairwitch then pulled the long application out again. “Ms. Kranden, this is a standard form, I take it. Right of board, abode, inheritance, all that? Nothing untoward buried in here?”

“No, ma’am. It is standard.” Kranden stepped back and waggled her eyebrows once at Harry and Snape.

The witch on the left of the chairwitch leaned over and whispered something that made the chairwitch’s brow furrow deeply. “You are certain?” she asked her fellow member and received an emphatic nod in reply.

“Mr. Snape, if I may?” she said. Snape stepped forward beside the podium and took on a pose of attentiveness.

“Is it true you were a Death Eater, Mr. Snape?” she asked in a grave tone. Gasps sounded around the room. 

“Yes, that is true,” Snape replied evenly. Harry saw Kranden blanch before her professional face reasserted itself.

The chairwitch seemed to be at a loss for words. She finally managed to say, “Why in Merlin’s Realm would we allow a former Death Eater to adopt anyone, let alone Harry Potter?”

Snape opened his mouth and Harry put up his hand to stop him. He felt a renewing energy pumping through him. “There are seven Death Eaters on the official Ministry wanted list. I can name them for you if you wish. You know as well as I that Professor Snape’s name is not on it. Otherwise, I would assume we wouldn’t have been able to waltz through the Atrium as we did.”

“It speaks to his character,” a younger wizard on the council said.

“That he put himself at risk spying for Dumbledore?” Harry asked the man. The wizard’s face puckered at that.

“Is that what you were doing, Mr. Snape?” the chairwitch asked.

“Yes.”

The chairwitch’s eyes locked onto Snape’s. “That is why you joined He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named?”

“Yes,” Snape replied again. Harry forced himself to remain casual at what he knew was a lie. Snape spent years fooling Voldemort, certainly he could handle one Family Council Chairwitch.

“Can’t penalize him for that,” the old wizard in the back who had previous wanted Harry to ‘stick with blood’ stated. “Someone had to put himself out there.”

The chairwitch frowned deeply. “Mr. Potter, do you trust this wizard?”

Taken aback, Harry replied. “Of course, ma’am. I wouldn’t have said yes to his offer if I didn’t. He’s saved my life several times.”

“How many?” she asked.

“Um, I don’t have a count. Er, let me see…the Quidditch incident was probably the first time.”

“I doubt you would have been killed. Just maimed,” Snape commented blandly.

At the expressions on the council’s faces, Harry elaborated. “Another teacher, Quirrell, was trying to get my broom to throw me in the middle of a match. Professor Snape used a counter-curse to stop him.”

“What happened to this Quirrell?” the chairwitch asked. 

“Oh, he disintegrated when he touched me while he was trying to get the Philosopher’s Stone.” Harry shrugged. “Having Voldemort sticking out of the back of his head turned out to be a bit of a disadvantage.” Harry waited for their expressions of shock to neutralize. He hated to say the next part, but he did it anyway. “There was the time Professor Snape stepped between a werewolf and me and my friends during the full moon. And then four months ago when he and Dumbledore rescued me after two Death Eaters tried to get even for my helping get Lucius Malfoy arrested.” The litany was draining him. With a sigh he added, “And again during the final battle when Belletrix Lestrange came at me after Voldemort had fallen. He stepped in the way again.”

An ancient wizard who resembled a moulding peach and, up to this point had not spoken, said in a gravelly voice, “Wanda, I think we should just give this boy whatever he wants. He wants to be adopted by an ex-Death Eater, I ’spect he can handle it.”

The chairwitch appraised Harry. “You want this Mr. Potter?”

“Yes ma’am, I do.” Harry said with an assurance that surprised himself.

She glanced over the application again. “Does anyone have any objections?” No one did. She held the parchments out for the secretary to pick up. “Register these, please.”

The secretary embossed each copy and brought all but one back to the solicitor. “You are all set, dear. Have a good day.”

In the corridor, Kranden leaned over to Harry. “Nicely done.” She turned to Snape. “But a bit of warning would have been appreciated.” She stewed for a moment. “Never obfuscate to your representation.”

“Sorry,” Harry answered for them. “And thank you, ma’am. The hearing wasn’t as easy as it should have been,” he said tiredly. He longed for lunch and tea.

“You need a break from things, I believe,” Snape said as they waited for the lift.

“When can we leave for your house?” Harry asked as they stepped into a mercifully empty lift. “Our house,” he corrected himself. “Merlin,” Harry breathed, still adjusting to that idea.

Harry spent the evening packing his trunk in a kind of daze. He had a hard time closing it and had to sit on the lid and bounce a few times to latch it. After he finally managed that, he noticed the bedspread and some other things that he would like to take. He’d have to borrow a second trunk.

Not sure where to find one, Harry headed to McGonagall’s office to ask. She looked up from her own packing when he knocked on the open door. “Do you know where there’s a spare trunk I can borrow, Professor?”

She stood straight and thought a moment. “In the north wing attic, I believe, are some old unclaimed trunks. Take whichever you like.” Before he could head off, she said, “Excited to be leaving for Severus’ house?”

Harry smiled. “Yes, Professor.”

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t be,” she commented quietly in a tone of disbelief, although she smiled as she said it. McGonagall moved her hands to her hips as she considered him. “Good luck, Harry,” she said sincerely. 

“Thank you, ma’am. I’m not going to be gone long, so hopefully I won’t need it.”

In the attic, Harry did indeed find several dusty trunks, one with a fancy blue satin lining. He hovered it back down to the dormitory and set about repacking. It was going to be nice to set up his things without having to hide everything wizard related. He looked forward to that, and to his own space that didn’t feel grudgingly loaned or borrowed. As he and his dormitory mates had aged, their tower room had become cramped and territorial.

The next morning, Dumbledore saw them off personally. Harry shook his hand as they stood on the steps to the castle. The headmaster seemed to be aging faster now, making Harry anxious to look at him. “We’ll be back in three weeks, sir. According to Professor Snape.”

Dumbledore smiled and touched the top of Harry’s head fleetingly. “Have a good rest, Harry.”

Harry hovered his two heavy trunks down the lawn behind him while he carried Hedwig’s cage. He followed Snape, who had just one satchel. “Need assistance with those, Mr. Potter?” he asked pointedly.

“No, I’ve…It’s going to take me some time to get used to calling you ‘Severus’,” he said.

“Apparently.”

They boarded the afternoon local train and found an empty compartment. Harry dragged his large trunks inside and sat across from Snape at the window. He thought momentarily about hovering the trunks up to the rack and then decided that their present location in the middle of the floor would dissuade anyone from joining them.

With a hiss, the train started out again. Hogsmeade disappeared around a bend and the trees closed in. Harry stared out at the mountains sliding by until the trolley came up the aisle. He jumped up and opened the compartment door. “Want anything?” he asked Snape.

“Tea would be nice, if it is hot.”

“Two cauldron cakes, a chocolate frog, and a tea,” Harry said to the pink-frocked lady.

“Oy!” she exclaimed upon seeing him. Harry put his finger to his lips and she snapped her mouth closed and winked at him. “That will be eight sickles and a Knut, Dearie.” Harry reached into his pocket and handed over the coins. He piled the cakes in one arm and took the teapot with his other. The lady patted him on the head. Harry managed a false smile before turning and letting the compartment door slide closed.

“’Oy,’ is right,” he said as he handed the teapot over.

“Your public persona is most interesting.” Snape unscrewed the metal lid and poured the tea out into it.

“What does that mean?” Harry asked as he unwrapped a cake.

“Do you expect to be treated that way?” Snape asked snidely. “Patted on the head?”

“No,” Harry answered vehemently. “I get treated as though I’m thirteen or fourteen or something.”

Snape sipped his tea and considered him. “Your small stature is partly to blame for that.”

Harry frowned and sat back with his snack. A village came into view. The fields were radiantly green with pale dots of grazing sheep. After the second cake was gone, Harry opened the frog and let it hop onto the narrow shelf below the window. It tried to hop up to the open window, but Harry grabbed it in time. It solidified in that leaping pose as he sat back with it. He nibbled on one leg and worked the card free of the package. It was Dumbledore. The figure considered him with a tilt of the head, then stepped out of the frame. Chest constricted, Harry set the card on the shelf and tossed the box in the rubbish bin beneath the window. Snape lifted the card and glanced at it before replacing it between them.

Comfortably full, Harry turned sideways and put his feet up on the seat. As he curled his arms around himself, he asked, “How much longer?”

“Forty-five minutes.”

Harry leaned his head sideways against the back rest and closed his eyes. The movement of the train lulled him into a light doze. The next thing he heard was Snape saying, “We are here.”

Harry sat up and stretched his cramped neck. The wooden sign on the station read Shrewsthorpe. Snape had already hovered one of the trunks out. Harry grabbed the other and the cage and followed.

The partial sun made the village vibrant. Snape had said it was a half-wizard village. Harry couldn’t tell it wasn’t all Muggle by looking at it, other than things looked outdated. He watched Snape hover one of the trunks along to the steps and decided that it was okay to do the same.

The houses closest to the station were fieldstone with lots of white cement. Beyond that they were a little newer. Snape unhooked the gate in a low stone wall and stepped into the garden of an older house. Harry hovered the trunk through the gate and looked over the place. The mortar and face were rough where the whitewash had worn, the garden was a bit wild, the dark roof peaked steeply with tall narrow chimneys. It had an air of existing well past its expected era. It was about as far from Little Whinging as Harry could imagine.

Snape didn’t seem to be looking for an opinion. He opened the heavy wooden door and led the way along a narrow corridor into a main hall that seemed much larger than the place looked on the outside. The hall opened up to the next floor with a dark wood railing over wrought iron posts around the edge. Harry peered into the drawing room and tried to glance into what looked like a library before they headed up the stairs to the first floor. At the end, Snape opened the door and stepped inside. The wide warped boards of the balcony led to the stone floor of a bedroom. 

“I had the elf empty a room for you,” Snape said as he let the trunk hover to the floor inside the door.

The walls were plastered bright white with the dark heavy beams of the ceiling exposed. A massive hearth filled a third of the end wall. Harry stepped over to look out the small window onto the garden and the road. Two children on bicycles rattled past, racing each other. He turned back to the room and ran his hand over the thickly stained bed post. It was all his.

“It’s great, sir,” Harry said honestly. It didn’t remind him of the Dursleys one little bit.

They stood considering each other for a long silence, which Snape finally broke by saying, “I expect dinner will be in an hour or so.”

Harry nodded and, spying the wardrobe, went over and opened it. As he hovered his trunk over, Snape left him to his unpacking.

Taking extra care with each item, Harry hung his clothes up. There wasn’t much of any other storage. He hovered his trunks beside each other, one under the window. The room, even in the summer, was chilly. Harry changed robes to a thicker one and opened the other trunk. The bedside tables had small drawers and shelf space under them. He sorted through his stuff for things he would want out. His Quidditch books he set on the bed to put out, then put them back in favor of two textbooks for next year.

He found one of the quilts he had received for his birthday. With relish, he spread it out on the bed. It was orange and maroon with little lions here and there on the fabric. Not quite the Gryffindor symbol, but close. He dug in the trunk again and found the photo album. He carefully lifted it out and took it to the far side of the bed to put it in the night stand. Instead of putting it away, he couldn’t help flipping through it. Knowing it was a mistake didn’t stop him either. The photos of his parents holding him and waving made him feel more ambivalent than he had ever felt in his life. He shut the album a little hard and put it away.

A knock sounded on the doorframe. Harry jumped at it and turned. “Dinner?” he asked.

A chill like a spell passed over him as he followed Snape out of the room and along the balcony. He felt as though he had woken from a dream to find he was living someone else’s life. It reminded him of when he had first arrived on Diagon Alley with Hagrid and discovered that everyone knew him and knew more about him than he himself did.

With impatient movements Snape sat at the dining room table. His hair fell before his face as he did so. Harry sat across from him, pulling his chair up close to the table. A moment later a house-elf stepped in with a tray of covered dishes. As his large eyes fell on Harry, he hesitated in setting the tray down.

“Tidgy,” Snape said, “this is Master Harry, you will give him the same obedience as myself.”

“M…Master Harry?” Tidgy recovered and quickly placed the dishes on the table, removed the covers and with a deep bow said, “Anything else, Masters?”

Harry wouldn’t have minded some pumpkin juice, but he couldn’t bring himself to request it. He shook his head instead. Snape eyed him with a tilted gaze. “Bring Master Harry pumpkin juice.”

The elf bowed and quickly departed.

“Are you reading my mind?” Harry accused him.

Snape scoffed. “I do not require Legilimency for that. I have seen you drink it with every meal for the last six years.”

“Oh,” Harry said and realized he should relax. “Sorry,” he added quietly.

Snape served himself potatoes and peas. “Not hungry?”

Harry started. He had been focusing on calming down as the food steamed before him. He stabbed a piece of roast chicken. “Smells good.” As soon as his plate was full he started eating. It wasn’t quite up to Hogwarts’ standards but it wasn’t bad and there was a lot of it. Tidgy returned and gingerly placed a glass beside his plate. “Thanks,” Harry said automatically.

Snape’s fork and knife hit his plate as he set them down suddenly. “Potter,” he scolded in disbelief, “one does not—”

“Potter?” Tidgy interrupted in a frightened squeak. “Master is Harry Potter, sir?” The elf backed up a step as he realized his error of decorum. 

Snape gave the elf a disgusted look which made Harry grin. With a dark look Snape said, “Tidgy, you may GO.” After Tidgy backed out of the room, gaping at Harry, Snape said in a low voice, “One does not thank a house-elf merely for fulfilling their duties. One does not thank them at all, in fact.”

“Hm,” Harry uttered, unconvinced.

Tired from traveling and the oddness of settling into the house, Harry gave up on organizing his things and got ready for bed. He hung his clothes up and slipped into his pyjamas. The stone floor was cold. He tiptoed over to the wardrobe and took out the slippers that Hermione had knitted for all of them last Christmas. They were gold and maroon with pointed toes and leather bottoms. Her knitting had improved, even Ron had been forced to admit. Harry jumped up onto the bed and reached way down to set the slippers on the floor for morning.

The strangeness of this new place made him uneasy. He frowned as he considered that this was probably going to make his nightmares worse. He sighed as he turned down the lamp and darkness filled the room. He snuggled down under the soft covers and closed his eyes.

Snape, not hearing anything from the boy’s room for a while, stepped down the balcony and looked in. The door was open and the chandelier behind him cast warm light across the floor, illuminating a pair of maroon and gold footwear beside the bed. Upon the bed was a matching quilt. Snape wondered in that moment what had possessed him that he had brought home a Gryffindor. Arrogant and unthinking they were, he thought darkly to himself. 

He stepped silently into the room. Harry was fast asleep, curled on his side facing the door. Snape’s dark thoughts slipped away, and he instead hoped that the change in environment would mean a reduction in the boy’s nightmares. Being away from the very place where he had confronted Voldemort for the last time couldn’t hurt.

Harry woke with the grey light of early dawn seeping into the room. He was stiff with unusually long sleep so he decided he should just get up. Grateful for the slippers, he padded across to the bedpost to pull down his robe. Snape’s door was closed as he quietly passed it.

Yawning, Harry wandered around the ground floor. There was a library across from the dining room. He found a book on lumination spells and settled into a lounger. Three pages into it, Tidgy appeared with a tea tray which he placed on the table beside Harry. As the elf bowed low, Harry said, “Thanks.”

“You are being a very great wizard,” Tidgy said in a wavering voice, “to be thanking a mere house-elf.” After a fidgeting pause, he went on in a whisper, “I am not wanting you to have trouble with Master, Master Harry. Not for sake of me.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Harry assured him. He took a chocolate covered biscuit, noticing Tidgy noticing which he preferred. Tidgy bowed again and backed out of the room.

A while later another voice came from the doorway. “You are up early.” Snape stepped in and poured himself some tea which he drank in one gulp.

“I got to sleep early,” Harry said with a shrug.

“Sleep well?” Snape asked. He had started for the door and stopped to ask this.

“Yes.”

“No dark shadows?”

Harry thought a moment. “No. Not that I remember,” he said, surprised.

“Good,” Snape said. “If you do, let me know.”

“Immediately?” Harry asked, half-joking.

“If it seems appropriate to do so. If you ever feel unsafe, certainly. You have a right to feel secure here. It is the least that should be provided for you.”

Harry considered that, feeling a twinge. “Yes, sir.”

“I will have Tidgy start breakfast,” Snape said before he stepped back into the main hall.

As Harry joined him in the dining room a few minutes later, Snape looked him up and down with a flick of his dark eyes. “Such Gryffindor gear,” Snape commented at Harry’s maroon robe with a crest on the pocket and his Hermione slippers.

Harry paused in sitting down. He hadn’t thought about that. This was just his stuff. “Does it really bother you?” he asked in surprise.

Snape huffed. “Gryffindors in general bother me, yes.”

“I can get other stuff.” Harry shrugged as he replied. “This is just what I have.” 

Breakfast arrived and Harry took a piece of toast and started buttering it. Tidgy departed with a low bow. Snape hadn’t replied to that offer. Feeling a little unsettled, Harry added, “Maybe you’d feel better knowing that the sorting hat wanted to put me in Slytherin.” Harry said this as Snape’s teacup was halfway to his mouth. Snape froze that way and gave Harry a surprised appraisal.

“You turned it down?” Snape asked, truly curious sounding.

Harry thought the explanation to that was obvious, but maybe not so much in this company. “I’d met Malfoy and didn’t particularly like him. I’d met Ron on the train and he was the first friend I’d ever met. So I talked the hat out of it.”

“That is not supposed to be easy to do.”

Harry added jam to his toast as he said in alarm at the memory, “Yeah, it kept insisting how great I’d be if it put me in Slytherin.” Harry shuddered and bit into his toast.

Snape sat back and crossed his arms to give Harry a long look. “I have to admit, Potter, it does make me feel better.” After thinking further, he mused, “I do, however, wonder what it meant by ‘great’.”

Harry put his toast down and wiped his fingers. He poured himself tea and sipped it cautiously. “Before the final battle when my dreams were getting very…strange…” Harry fidgeted as he remembered those awful nights. Snape still sat back, considering him. “When it seemed sometimes like…Voldemort was trying to bribe me to join him. Who knows?” Harry shrugged. “There were whole minutes in a row where it seemed worth it, just to get it all to stop.”

“What was he bribing you with?” Snape asked as he returned to his breakfast.

Harry shook his head. “I don’t really want to talk about it,” he said. The heart rending memory of his mother calling, wondering where he was, still chilled him as much as the Dementors’ last stand did.

Snape didn’t press the question.

After breakfast Harry went back to his room to finish unpacking. He was still basking in the notion that he could actually leave things wherever he wished in the room when he departed for school.

In his trunk he found a few old robes that he simply banished away because they were too small. Underneath those lay an assortment of random things that hadn’t been touched in a while, like his Sneakascope. If it hadn’t been a gift, he’d have just been rid of it. His first- and second-year textbooks he shelved in the back of the wardrobe with the later ones in front on the high shelf. They hadn’t been given summer assignments this year, in yet another celebratory gesture, so Harry had not kept his texts in any order. Lining them all up by year like that was satisfying. They felt like trophies that way.

He banished a few other old things and then lifted out a few old Hermione hats, uncovering the silver mirror, in the corner on the very bottom. Harry stared at its cracked glass and agony took hold of his chest. He reached in and lifted it out: the present from Sirius that could have saved his godfather’s life. If only Harry had opened it in time.

The silvering had corroded more where the glass had broken. Unthinking, he ran his finger along one of the breaks, drawing a line of blood along it as the edge bit his skin. The sting in his finger resonated with the pain in his heart. Uncontrollably furious with himself, he kicked the trunk several times until his foot throbbed.

“My goodness, Potter,” Snape said from the doorway. 

Harry stopped and hunched over, cradling the silver frame against himself.

Snape went on, “I don’t know whether to scold you or insist you tell me what is wrong.”

Harry brought himself under some control and backed up to sit on the bed with his back to the door and Snape.

“Are you quite finished?” Snape asked.

“Yes,” Harry snapped. Snape’s unaffected tone made him want to fling himself out of control, but he resisted it, just barely.

After a long pause Snape approached and said, “What is wrong?”

Harry adjusted his arms around the mirror to hide it. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said quietly, forcing his voice to come out approximately normal.

Snape stepped closer to the trunk. “You never opened it,” he observed in an oddly easy tone.

The comment thoroughly chilled Harry. He wasn’t facing Snape, he thought frantically, how did he know what was haunting him? Harry watched his replacement parent reach into the trunk and lift out the small wrapped box he had given him on his birthday. Harry had forgotten completely about it. It must have fallen out of his pocket when he had put his robes away. Numbly, Harry accepted it as Snape handed it to him now.

With the mirror face down in his lap, Harry unwrapped and opened the weighty box. Inside was a gold pocket watch with the case shaped to resemble a snitch. Silver embossed wings arched fancifully around to frame the edges. 

“It’s beautiful,” Harry said in amazement. The cover popped open when he pressed the tab on the bottom edge. The face was shiny white with flourished numbers in maroon.

“Nine fifty-two, I believe,” Snape stated.

It took Harry a moment to come to himself and realize he should set the time. He pulled the stem and dialed to the correct time, then wound it some so it would run. He closed it and admired its shape again. “Thank you,” he said, feeling undone. He wondered if he ever again would trust his emotions to stay put.

“Do you need anything?” Snape eventually asked.

Harry finally looked up at him, at his intent dark eyes. “No,” he replied, feeling calm now although his heart still ached. “I think I’m all set.”

There wasn’t a ton of furniture in the Snape house. Harry tried to get comfortable with his unanswered post on a padded bench in the main hall. He wondered if it would be okay to put his slippered feet up on a straight-backed chair because there wasn’t an ottoman. It was awkward to ask because either it would be okay and asking would be silly or it would be forbidden and asking would be unwise.

Harry opted for putting one foot up on the bench with the writing set he’d received for his birthday from some distant admirer propped on his legs. The set had clips for a stack of letters on one side and a pad of paper on the other, as well as a built in no-spill inkwell and a blotter on a string.

Harry started with the letter from Ginny first, because he found it easier to write misleading truths to her than to Hermione, which was the next letter down. Certainly it was true that he was doing all right, and it was also true that he was disappointed he couldn’t meet them all somewhere for a day out, but it felt like lying all the same.

Footsteps brought Harry’s head out of his letter. Snape stood in the doorway to the drawing room. 

“Do you require a desk?”

“I’m good.” 

Snape stared at him as if not believing this. 

“Thanks again for the watch. It’s the nicest present I’ve ever got.”

Snape’s left brow went up. Harry had the oddest sense Snape thought he was lying. Harry cast his mind about for something to say that would sound true no matter what.

“I like the house. It’s not like my aunt and uncle’s at all.”

“I should hope not.” He glanced down at Harry’s lap, at the finished letters pinned to the board. “We should fetch a few owls from Hogwarts for you, it would appear.”

Despite the slightly snide tone, Harry answered the question seriously. “If that would be all right.”

“Of course it would be.” Snape shifted as if sighing silently. He took a step away but stopped. “Best to imply you are still at Hogwarts. I assume you know that.”

Harry’s palms went cold. He could not imagine explaining to anyone what had happened. “Yes, sir.”

“Also, you don’t have to address me that way. If you do not wish to.”

Harry considered that while his eyes roamed over the broad hearth on the far wall of the main hall. “I suppose I wish to.” He bit his lip. ‘Sir’ was the word Harry always resisted before, and it was the best he could do to show things had changed.

Snape turned his head slightly to the side, a gesture Harry had seen before but hadn’t understood. Now he decided it meant Snape had just used Legilimency to learn something unexpected. And at that moment, Harry thought that was all right.

“If you need anything to eat, you may ask Tidgy anytime. You’ve seen the kitchen, I expect, down the steps off the back hallway?”

Harry nodded. The elf had been busy working, so he had not spent much time there. He had mostly noted that it was nice and warm down there.

“You have no questions or concerns?”

Harry’s eyes went around the hall, over the beams on the ceiling, the iron railings. There were some rather dark books in the library that he’d wondered if he could read without getting into trouble. And there was one locked door on the first floor that seemed otherwise ordinary.

“Potter?”

Harry avoided looking at him. He started to speak, then stopped.

“Yes?” Snape’s impatient tone pinned Harry down between his instincts to avoid trouble at all costs in this new household and Snape’s annoyance with anyone who let weaker emotions rule him.

“Perhaps later, then,” Snape said, voice lilting. “Or shall I answer anyway the questions your eye movement gave away?” His foot tapped twice. 

Harry glanced down at Snape’s feet, then back up at his eyes, still giving away far too much. He could actually feel his thoughts slipping away like sand. Was there a point in saying anything?

“For lack of a better idea, I’m going to insist you ask. Aloud.” Snape crossed his arms and seemed to grow taller. “Ask. Harry.”

Feeling an impatience with himself equal to the one he heard in Snape’s voice, Harry said. “What’s in the upstairs room?”

“Storage.” Snape thought for a beat. “Also the remains of a few experiments that tend to cause some issues with the objects in there so I simply keep it locked, physically and magically to avoid any trouble. Most magical households have a room like that. This house lacks an attic, so it also serves as that. You can see it if you like.” He gestured in invitation. “Although we might have some clean up if we are unlucky. Tidgy won’t touch the room.”

Bolstered by the first question, Harry said, “There are some books in the library…that look interesting.”

“By interesting you mean gruesome, I assume. You may read any books in the house. The truly dangerous ones are in the locked room. I don’t recommend them, but you may peruse them if you wish. Let me know if you do.” He waited a bit. “Anything else?”

Harry shook his head.

Snape dropped his arms to his sides and his face shifted from stern to impersonal. “This isn’t a test, Harry. You can relax.” With that he went back to his desk in the drawing room.

Harry stretched his shoulders back and let out a huff. It certainly felt like a test.