In which the Boy-Who-Lived faces questions from every side.

I watch you smile

You steal the show

You take a bow

The curtain falls in front of you

You're magical, on display

I gaze into your eyes and

You turn to look the other way

But I'd really love to know

I'd really love to climb

My way into your heart

And see what I could find

Disappear, Jars of Clay

They talked, laughed, and entertained themselves for several more hours before Harry escaped to his room, pleading exhaustion. He really was exhausted, and suspected one of the adults had spiked his last cup of hot chocolate with a sleeping potion. Still, he wasn’t bothered; ever since he had come back from speaking with Dumbledore, he could sense that his friends were itching to get him alone and interrogate him. He wasn’t looking forward to it, but for now he would be able to sleep.

He woke from a nightmare before the sun rose, and knew from long experience that he would not be sleeping again. He sat up and ran a hand through his hair—and froze. His hair was long again. He hurried over to the mirror to see a strange sight. His hair was long, hanging past his shoulders, but his face was still what he was beginning to mentally call his “James Potter face.” He quickly shortened it so that his features “matched.”

Having corrected his appearance, he wandered down into the kitchen. He was surprised to find that it already had an occupant. “What are you doing up, Tonks?”

Tonks looked up from her coffee, which she had been staring into blankly. “Have to go to work in a little while. What about you?”

He shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.” For several minutes, they sat in half-conscious silence. Finally, Harry decided to satisfy his curiosity. “When you wake up, is your hair the same brilliant shade of green as when you went to sleep, or does it revert to normal? What is normal, anyway?”

Tonks looked briefly surprised. Then she shrugged. “Sometimes it stays the same, sometimes it changes. Usually if it changes, it’s back to normal, but not always.” She paused to consider. “I’m not quite sure what triggers it, to be honest. And as for what’s normal… that’s a state secret!” She smiled at him. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. I was thinking about metamorphmagi, and started wondering… and then I figured, since I had you at my mercy…”

“Any other tough questions for the resident metamorphmagus?” Tonks asked with a playful grin. For a heart-rending moment Harry felt as though he were having a conversation with Sirius, rather than his cousin.

He pushed that painful thought away, and focused on his words. “Actually, I did have one other question… Well, sort of more than one… I was just wondering, how do you change? I guess I always imagined that you had to picture what you wanted to look like, but then I started wondering, do you have to do that to revert to your natural form?” He paused, and then added a little tease. “I mean, with the way you change your hair so often, aren’t you ever worried that you might forget what your natural hair color is?”

Tonks laughed at loud at this. “How kind of you to be so concerned, Harry!” She shrugged. “It’s hard to explain, exactly… Usually I do have to picture what I want to look like, but if when I’m changing I just focus on who I am, rather than what I look like, I go back to my natural state. Not that I’m going to tell you anything about what that is; it’s classified!” She laughed again, shaking her head. “Where you come up with this stuff, I have no idea.”

Harry shrugged, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. “Just curious, like I said. I haven’t exactly seen a lot of books on metamorphmagi, and even if I had, it’s much more interesting to talk to you about it.”

Soon after this conversation, Tonks abandoned the remains of her now cold coffee to step outside and apparate to the ministry. At this point, Harry vacated the kitchen in favor of the library. This was a strategic decision—he hoped that no one would guess (at least for a while) that he was there, and would assume instead that he was still asleep. Secondarily, he wanted to know what exactly was in the Black library.

When Ginny wandered in nearly three hours later, she found him surrounded by books. “You’re awake!” He nearly jumped at her unexpected voice. He looked up and nodded. “We’ve been waiting in the kitchen; we thought you were still asleep!”

Harry had to work to keep the smile off his face. He decided it was advisable not to comment on how long he had been awake. He shrugged. “I wasn’t hungry, so I decided to see if there was anything interesting in here.”

“And is there?” she asked distractedly while reading the cover of a book that she had selected at random.

“Once you weed out all the Dark Arts books, there are…” He began pointing to various piles. “Healing potions, antidotes, defensive transfiguration, charms, magical medicine… I’ve been avoiding the books on hexes and such, as I want to keep my dinner, but I think what I’ve found is interesting…”

Ron was not going to be happy with Harry’s newfound interest in learning. Still, if a possible job was a good motivation to work hard, knowing that you were going to have to face the most powerful dark wizard in the world (and try to win) was a phenomenal motivation. Of course, from Ron’s point of view nothing had changed—and Harry wanted to keep it that way. He would have to come up with some other excuse instead.

“Let’s go down to the kitchen, Ron and Hermione are waiting for you,” said Ginny, finally having tired of looking at books.

Harry gave her a mock-horrified look. “You left them alone together? They could be dead by now!”

Ginny laughed. “They are awfully bad, aren’t they? Still, I figure that since Ron is not very coherent in the morning, we’re probably safe.”

Harry shook his head, fighting to keep the smile off his face and look serious. “You had better be right…”

Ginny grabbed at his arm. “Come on, Harry, let’s go! We’ve got to save them!”

Harry held back, turning serious. “Gin? Why don’t you go get them and bring them up here? I have a feeling that the things you all want to ask me about are probably not things I want to discuss in the kitchen.”

Ginny looked surprised, as this was the first time since they had been at Grimmauld Place that he had truly been serious around anyone of them. Finally, she nodded. “Okay, I’ll be right back.” Then she pinned him for a moment with a stare that would have made her mother proud. “Don’t you go disappearing again!”

Harry tried to look surprised and offended. “Would I do that?”

“I don’t know, Harry James Potter,” she retorted, “would you?”

He looked down and in a sufficiently humbled voice replied, “No, I won’t.” He didn’t mean to hurt his friends by running off, he really didn’t, it was just that sometimes he just didn’t think he could face them. But how could they understand that? They had not had to grow up in an instant, trying to save themselves from a powerful dark lord who wanted nothing more than to murder them. And though he envied them in that, he would never wish any aspect of his life on them, and didn’t want his pain and premature maturity to infect their happy, innocent lives.

“Harry?” Ginny’s voice had quieted, and her tentative tone brought his eyes up to meet hers in an instant. “Don’t hide from us. We want to understand, and to help.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. How could she see through him like that?

“But I don’t want you to understand!” He could see the hurt that filled her eyes at this, and he continued quickly. “I’ve had to face so much, and it hurts. I didn’t want to understand, but I had to. You don’t have to, and I want to save you from that.”

The change that came over Ginny was both subtle and dramatic. Her chin lifted and her eyes hardened ever so slightly, but she fairly exuded strength at that moment. “I think you are under the mistaken impression that I—that we—are not involved. But we have already chosen, and we are involved. We chose to follow you into the Department of Mysteries, and in doing so, we committed ourselves to this fight. You cannot, and will not, protect us; we are responsible for ourselves and we have become involved of our own free will, because we care about you. Now, I’m going to go get Ron and Hermione, and you are going to talk to us.” With that, Ginny spun on her heels and stormed out of the library. Harry couldn’t have been more stunned if the nearest bookshelf had spontaneously transfigured itself into Fluffy and begun to serenade him. He still hadn’t completely recovered when Ron and Hermione followed Ginny into the library a few minutes later.

“Morning,” they all greeted one another. Harry sighed. Silence fell.

“How did you sleep, Harry?” asked Hermione in an effort to break the silence.

Harry shrugged. “Fine.”

Now it was Ron’s turn. “What’s with all the books?”

“I was just trying to see what was in here,” he mumbled, actually embarrassed at his intellectual pursuit in the face of his friend who spurned such things except in the case of necessity.

“Oh.” Ron clearly didn’t understand, but Harry was surprised to not hear any hurt comments from him about how he had abandoned him for Hermione. Ginny picked up one of the books she hadn’t yet examined, trying to ignore the deafening silence in the room. Harry, Ron, and Hermione all stared at various points on the floor in order to avoid eye contact.

Finally, Hermione jumped to the point. “What did you and Dumbledore speak about last night?”

Harry sighed again, finally allowing himself to be dragged out of his silent contemplation. Ginny was right, they deserved to know at least some of what was going on. He remembered how furious he had been throughout the whole last year when no one had told him anything, and the last thing he wanted was for these three to be angry with him. “I think that what you really want to know is what Dumbledore and I talked about after the Department of Mysteries last year.”

Ron nodded quickly, leaning forward in curiosity. Ginny smiled encouragingly, setting the book aside to give him her full attention. But Hermione… “Are you sure you’re ready…?”

“Don’t give me excuses,” he hurriedly warned her. He sighed again. “I’m not ready, but you should know. You deserve to know, after coming with me to try to rescue Sirius.” He tried desperately to keep his tone neutral, but knew that none of the three had missed the distinct wobble in his voice as he had finished the sentence.

“The recording of the prophecy was destroyed.” All three nodded. “But it still exists in one place: the memory of the person to whom it was given.”

Hermione’s eyes widened in understanding. “It was Dumbledore, wasn’t it?”

Harry nodded wearily. “It, well… The long and short of it is that… is that…” He didn’t seem to be capable of wrapping his mouth around the words that he knew he needed to say. He could see Ron fidget, and momentarily admired his usually impulsive friend’s newfound restraint. He wondered what Hermione had had to say to him to keep him quiet for this long. But he was avoiding the point. “It says that… that I’m the only one that can defeat Voldemort.” He blurted this last out, then closed his eyes in relief at having gotten the words out of his mouth. This had the added benefit of hiding his friend’s reactions from him, though he didn’t miss the three identical gasps.

“Well that’s just wonderful…” Ron muttered finally. Harry felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. That was the tone that Ron always used right before he was about to abandon Harry as a friend for some perceived slight. He held his breath and refused to open his eyes. “At least you won’t be alone, not so long as we can help it.”

Harry’s eyes snapped open and locked on Ron’s. His relief at the sincere concern and support that he saw there was almost overwhelming. “I—I—You’re crazy, do you know that?” He gave Ron a lopsided smile. “You’re supposed to look for excuses to get away from Voldemort, not go after him!”

Ron rolled his eyes. “Right. Just like you do. Would I be your friend if I were any more sane than you?” Then they grinned at one another. Finally, Harry tore his eyes away to assess the reactions of the girls. Ginny had a hard set to her eyes, but as soon as Harry turned toward her she offered him a weak smile. Hermione, on the other hand, had a soft smile on her face that seemed to be for Ron, but behind that Harry could see that she was already working through the information she had been given in her own highly intellectual manner.

And it was Hermione that had the first question. “How do they know that it’s you?”

Harry nodded, acknowledging that this was a logical question. “Well, it said that the person would be born at the end of July, and to parents that had defied Voldemort three times… But, more than that, it said that Voldemort would ‘mark him as his equal.’” He raised his hand to rub his scar. “He didn’t know that part of it. Just the part about when the person would be born and about his parents. He had no idea that by attempting to kill me he was actually fulfilling the prophecy.”

“So you’re mad at Dumbledore for not telling you before now?” Ginny clarified.

Harry hesitated a split second before nodding Here was his excuse—he wouldn’t have to talk about the Dursleys, or about why he hadn’t wanted to come to Grimmauld Place.

“So what did you talk about last night?” the petite redhead continued.

“I yelled at him,” he heard Hermione gasp, “and he forced me to promise to talk about it with someone—an adult.”

“So you’re going to talk about it with Remus?” Ron asked.

“No, I was thinking I was going to talk about it with Snape,” he retorted sarcastically. He looked up to see Ron’s hurt expression, and sighed. “I’m sorry, Ron. I’m just mad that he made me promise to talk to someone—if I don’t want to talk to anyone that should be my prerogative!”

Hermione shook her head. “No, Harry, he’s right. You need to talk about this with someone. It’s eating you from the inside out… don’t you want to move past the anger?”

Harry slammed his fist down on the table next to him. “Of course I do! But Merlin, I’m sick and tired of being minded all the time, as though I were a little child!”

“No one is trying to treat you like a child, Harry,” Ron responded tentatively, after a moment’s silence followed this exclamation.

“Right,” Harry responded bitterly, though he had calmed enough to keep his voice down. “I’m sure Dumbledore locks adults in rooms all the time to make them promise to talk to someone.”

“He locked you in the room?” Ginny asked incredulously.

“Yes. Why else did you think we were gone so long? It’s not as though he would actually be willing to talk to me for that long.”

“Goodness! If you want people to start treating you like an adult, Harry, maybe you should start acting like one!” Hermione burst out finally. The room fell silent at this proclamation, until Hermione herself continued, “You know he tells you far more than he tells any other student. We never know half as much as you about what’s going on, except if you tell us.”

For a moment Harry felt anger swelling up in him at this insult, but just as quickly it deflated. She was right. He buried his face in his hands. “Merlin, I’m sorry, guys. I promised myself I wasn’t going to let myself blow up at you this year.”

“That’s why you need to talk to someone, Harry. You can’t just bottle up your anger and expect that it will go away.” Trust Hermione to have all the answers. And darn it, she was right.

“Okay, fine, I get the point,” he muttered finally.

Ron took his turn to break the silence that followed, and change the subject. “So, tell me again why half the books are on the floor instead of on their shelves?”

“I figured it would be a good idea to look to see what was in here that might be useful. I don’t know what may or may not be in the Hogwarts Library, and I need to learn everything I can.” He could see out of the corner of his eye that Hermione was nodding in satisfaction, but he was focused on Ron. His best friend looked slightly disappointed but seemed to understand.

What Ron said next made it clear to Harry more than anything else that he really had matured since they had entered the Department of Mysteries. “Well, can we help?” Since when was Ron the first one to volunteer to help do research? Not that he wouldn’t tag along if Hermione and Harry were working on something, but he would usually drag his heels and whinge the entire time.

“Thanks.” He grinned at Ron, knowing his friend would understand what was meant without any more words. “If you could just pick one of the stacks that I have lying around. I’ve been grabbing books that looked interesting.” Once again he listed off each of the piles for the benefit of the two who hadn’t been here previously.

Ron took the stack of charms books, Ginny examined the defensive transfiguration texts, Hermione immediately dived into the pile of antidotes, and Harry began studying magical medicine. All of them were so caught up in their research that none of them saw Mrs. Weasley when she came to the door of the library several hours. She stood for several moments with a smile twitching at her lips, before finally speaking.

“Are these really my children, so distracted by their studying in the middle of the holidays that they forget lunch?”

Ron, Ginny, and Hermione all jumped at her voice. Harry simply looked up, a slightly confused expression crossing his face. He hadn’t consciously known she was there; still, he hadn’t been the least bit surprised when her voice had broken the silence.

“Mum! Don’t scare us like that!”

“Well, do you want lunch or not?”

Ron was the first one on his feet. “Lunch! I’m starving!”

Hermione laughed. “When aren’t you starving, Ron?”

Ron frowned, then his face lit with a triumphant expression. “Well, you must admit that efficient studying requires the proper nourishment…”

Ginny looked back and forth between the two, Ron who was still smiling from his “victory” and Hermione who was looking inordinately proud of Ron at the moment. “Okay, that’s it, who are you and what have you done with Ron?”

“Hey, can I help it if being a prefect has taught me responsibility?” His expression was neutral but his voice gave away his teasing intentions.

“You don’t have a responsible bone in your body, Ron Weasley!” replied Hermione. Then she reconsidered. “Well, maybe one. You certainly are more responsible than Fred and George.”

“And a good thing, too,” added Mrs. Weasley, a smile having grown on her lips as she listened to the teens tease one another. “I couldn’t take another twin!”

“So did you say something about food, Mrs. Weasley?” Harry joined the conversation finally.

“Oh, yes! Dobby and I have been hard at work whipping up lunch for you four, but it will get cold if you don’t get down there, and quickly!” With that, all four dropped their respective books and stampeded toward the kitchen, nearly bowling Mrs. Weasley over in the process.

They continued their research for several hours after lunch before Ron called a halt. “It is summer, after all!” he exclaimed.

Harry was relieved that his friend had interrupted them. He realized that he was retaining less than half of what he was reading, and it was becoming harder and harder to even focus on the page in front of him.

The rest of the evening was dedicated to entertaining themselves. This would have meant more reading for Hermione, if the boys had not dragged her “light” reading from her hands and hidden it. They had to promise her that she would get it back first thing the next day before she would think of doing anything else.

Once again, Harry pleaded exhaustion and went to bed early. Though he had enjoyed doing something other than studying, the effort of pretending to be happy and hiding his fears and worries was quickly overcoming him. And that was without mentioning the fact that he had gotten little sleep the night before, despite whatever sleeping draught he might have been given.

None of his three friends protested his early departure, so he was surprised when he sensed a presence behind him on the stairs. He turned around, only to find Ginny behind him. “What’s up, Gin?”

“Can we go to your room? I wanted to tell you about your birthday present.”

“Oh!” He had forgotten about the beautiful phoenix figurine that she had given him, along with her promise to explain more about it later. “Of course, come on,” he responded, continuing up the stairs.

Once they were both seated on his bed facing one another, Harry waited for Ginny to start. She reached past him and grasped the figurine, which Harry had set on the table beside his bed. She fidgeted with it in her hands for a moment before starting to speak. “Have you ever heard of a dream sieve?”

Harry looked up from the figurine, which he had been watching her fiddle with, and met her eyes, which had also risen. “No…” His mind was already whirling through the possibilities. But this figurine looked nothing like a Pensieve, even remotely.

Ginny laughed at herself. “No, of course you haven’t. Neither had I.” At Harry’s confused expression, she continued. “My parents actually gave me this, after my first year. They had to explain it to me then.” She paused, turning her focus back to the figurine itself. “A dream sieve is somewhat like a Pensieve, in the sense that you can store memories in it. But that’s the only similarity. It does not actually remove the memory from your mind, but rather stores a copy of the memory. That copy is used to serve its main function.” Harry thought that Ginny sounded a bit like she was quoting a textbook—or maybe Dumbledore. “Whatever memories you store within a dream sieve, it will prevent your sleeping mind from having a dream that incorporates any event from those memories, no matter how distorted.”

“I… wow. Are you sure that you want to give this to me, Ginny? I can always take dreamless sleep potion if I need a good night’s rest…”

Ginny leaned forward, her face deadly serious. “Harry, has anyone ever explained to you why you can’t take the dreamless sleep potion all the time?”

“Well… no.” This had never even occurred to Harry before, but now it struck him as terribly odd that no one had explained it to him before. “Do you know?”

“Yes, my parents explained this to me as well. You see, dreaming is part of the way that our mind incorporates what we have experienced during a day into our knowledge and solidifies the memories. Even muggles have found that when people are deprived of sleep, their ability to remember things that have happened to them over the previous day is greatly decreased. If you continue to take a potion to keep your mind from dreaming, your ability to remember will be deteriorates. If the use continues long enough, the effects can be permanent!”

“But… what about you? You’re not still having nightmares from what has happened to you?” He didn’t want to mention the Chamber of Secrets or Tom Riddle’s diary by name, if he could help it.

Ginny shook her head. “No… I have slowly been removing my memories from the dream sieve, and the dreams haven’t returned because I’ve had time to deal with what has happened. A dream sieve is not a permanent solution; it’s a chance for you to get some distance from traumatic events so that you can cope without reliving them night after night.” Harry opened his mouth to protest that it wasn’t that bad, but Ginny seemed to read his mind. “Don’t try to tell me you don’t have nightmares, either. Ron has told me that he’s heard you when we’re at school, and I’m sure it’s only worse now.”

Harry was relieved that Ginny did him the courtesy of avoiding mention of his own traumatic events. He had been steadily trying to forget about what had happened at the end of the previous school year. Not that he really had any chance in the middle of Sirius’ house, but he had to try for his own sanity.

He realized that Ginny was watching him closely and obviously waiting for a response. “I… I don’t know what to say, Gin. Except… thanks. I think this is the best gift anyone has ever given to me.”

Ginny beamed at the high compliment. “You’re very welcome. I just… I know how you must be feeling, even more than I think Ron and Hermione do, sometimes.” Harry nodded in understanding. “And I felt like I still owed you a big thank you gift for what you did in my first year.”

Harry shook his head. “Ginny, you don’t owe me anything for that. To be completely honest, it had nothing to do with you. It seemed like what I had to do.” He held up a hand to silence her when she looked ready to protest, and quickly continued to keep her from being hurt. “I didn’t know you then, Ginny. Now that I do, I’m even more happy that you didn’t die. And you’ve more than repaid me by coming with me to the Department of Mysteries.” He tried his best to smile at her, despite the sharp pain he seemed to be feeling somewhere deep inside of him after even mentioning the horrible debacle that had gotten his godfather killed. “Now, I hate to kick you out, but I really am tired, and I want to try out this dream sieve now that I know what it does!”

Ginny nodded quickly and stood to her feet, handing the figurine to Harry. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had upset her, but he didn’t know how to fix it now. “Goodnight, Harry. Sleep well.”

“Goodnight Ginny, and thanks again,” he responded in kind, and then watched quietly as she closed the door softly. Then he turned the phoenix over in his hands a few times before beginning to focus on his most horrific memories one by one, starting with his parent’s deaths.

Harry woke early the next morning, but he was surprised to find that he felt incredibly well-rested. The dream sieve had worked perfectly, and he hadn’t had a single nightmare, nor had he awakened at any point throughout the night. Apparently, though, his body was used to getting little sleep, because he was far too awake to sleep anymore. Slipping out of bed, he plodded into the kitchen, yawning as he entered. He was surprised to find Mrs. Weasley awake and cooking, while he was less than surprised to note that Tonks was once again staring blearily into her early morning coffee.

Mrs. Weasley heard him enter and turned, obviously surprised to see him awake. “Harry! How are you feeling? Did you sleep well?”

He grinned genuinely and nodded. “Ginny explained how to use the dream sieve last night.”

This brought Tonks head up in an instant. “You have a dream sieve? They’re very rare!”

Harry was still digesting this piece of information when Mrs. Weasley answered her question. “Headmaster Dumbledore gave it to us to give to Ginny after her first year, and the little dear decided to give it to Harry for his birthday this year.” The older woman smiled, obviously proud of her youngest for her selflessness, and then turned to Harry. “I’m glad it worked so well. It helped Ginny quite a bit to recover after her encounter with…” Suddenly Harry felt incredibly awkward. He hadn’t really wanted to talk about his nightmares, or the events that had caused them.

“Like I said, it’s the best birthday present I think anyone has ever given me,” Harry hurried to repeat his words from the night before.

Mrs. Weasley’s smile broadened, as she obviously understood his reaction. He felt his cheeks color slightly as he realized how easy he was to see through, and he turned his head away, ostensibly to look around the kitchen. He spotted Dobby, his excuse away from the perceptive older woman. “Dobby!”

Dobby got as excited as ever at being shown attention. “Mr. Harry Potter, sir! What can Dobby be doing for kind Harry Potter sir?”

“Actually, I had a question…” He glanced back at the women and saw them watching. “Can we talk about this in the other room?”

“Certainly, Harry Potter sir!” With those words, Dobby popped into the next room (literally) and Harry followed him at a pace more confined by the laws of physics.

He looked down at the tiny house elf. Considering how loud Dobby tended to speak, he decided his next request was necessary. “Can you cast a silencing charm, Dobby?” The house elf nodded and did just that.

“What is Harry Potter wanting from Dobby?”

“Well, I was thinking that you probably know this house pretty well, now…” Dobby nodded again. Harry winced, worried that the poor creature was going to give himself whiplash with all his enthusiasm. “Do you know, is there a place where I could work on potions other than in the kitchen? I need to practice for school, but I don’t want to be in the way of you or anyone else.”

Dobby grinned and nodded. “Oh yes, Dobby is knowing just the place!” With that, the house elf took Harry’s hand (causing him to have to lean over just slightly, which was not the most comfortable position), and guided him down into the basement, to a room that had obviously been used for potion making at some point in the long history of the house. Harry had to wonder about the predominance of underground rooms as potential locations for potions labs.

He tugged his hand out of Dobby’s, sighing in relief as he was able to stand up straight again. “Thank you, Dobby, this is perfect. Can you do me a favor and not tell anyone when I’m down here? I want to be able to work on potions in private.”

“Yes sir, Harry Potter sir. Dobby is not being telling anyone about Harry Potter’s secret room.”

Now all he had to do was make sure that he was not down there when anyone might be looking for him…

The days began to settle into a routine almost immediately. That first day, Harry went up to the library and did some potions research in the early hours, so as to be available if anyone came looking for him. Each day afterward, he would wake up before the sun rose and sneak down to the basement, being careful to make sure that no one knew that he was awake. He would spend several hours making whatever potions he wanted to practice, which in those early days were often healing potions. Once it got late enough in the day, he would sneak up into the library and simply not tell anyone how long he had been awake. Once the others had awakened, they would have a filling breakfast before setting to work in the library, studying their respective stacks of books. They would break for lunch, then continue for several hours until Ron would announce that, “If I have to read one more sentence, I will go mad!” Ginny would giggle, Harry would shut his book with a resounding thud, and the boys would steal Hermione’s book once again. Invariably, Hermione would pretend not to have heard Ron’s announcement and would put up a fight to be allowed to keep her book. Unfortunately, she was simply no match against two teenage boys, and Ginny appeared to be avoiding taking sides.

Nearly a week passed in this manner, and Harry was beginning to relax and truly live in the present. The absence of nightmares to continually remind him of what had happened in the past few years was certainly helping in this matter. On the morning of August 6th, he realized with a start that it had been nearly a week since he had promised Dumbledore that he would talk to an adult about what had happened with the Dursleys. He groaned aloud, and began mentally eliminating adults once again as he slowly stirred his potion. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were out, he simply couldn’t talk about this with them, especially when they might not know anything about it. Remus was too close to his father and Sirius, he just couldn’t talk about something like this with him. Not to mention he was still slightly miffed with the man for tricking him into coming to Grimmauld Place in the first place, even if it was turning out for the best. He had even more anger reserved for Dumbledore, so that eliminated the older man. Tonks was too young. No, that wasn’t quite right. She was too fun-loving. He didn’t want to be the one to wipe the smile from her face, not if he could help it. Which left…

“Mr. Potter, may I ask what you are doing in the basement at 6:30 in the morning?” Professor Snape seemed to have appeared behind him while he was lost in thought. Harry wondered for a moment how the man had found his secret room, before cursing himself. Of course Professor Snape would know where the potions lab was!

Without turning around, he responded as calmly as he could, “Working on a potion, sir.” He continued to stir the potion carefully, while waiting for a response.

“Come, Mr. Potter, surely you aren’t still holding out hope that I will suddenly change my policies and let you into my N.E.W.T. potions class?”

Harry wanted to protest that the man didn’t even know what he had gotten on his O.W.L.s, but fortunately he realized before he spoke that just because he hadn’t received his results did not mean that his teachers had not. Maybe the man standing behind him was waiting for his defensive response to taunt him with the fact that he had received a mark of Dreadful on the exam.

“If I’m not in N.E.W.T. potions it will not mean that I do not need to learn potions, merely that you will not be teaching me.” He mentally added, “And I will certainly learn more.”

He waited with bated breath for the man’s response. Finally, he heard the man slowly respond, “And how, pray tell, will you learn potions?”

“I can read, you know,” Harry responded for the first time in anger.

“You could have fooled me, what with the way you never appear to have read a line of the textbook at the beginning of each school year.”

He felt the anger boiling up inside of him, but shoved it down in favor of speaking more calmly. He would not let the man get a rise out of him. “You know that has nothing to do with my ability to read. Tell me, can you honestly tell me that you never suspected the truth?”

“What truth, Potter?”

“That my relatives were… mistreating me.” By this point, Harry had had a “brilliant” idea. Later, he would curse himself and wonder if the fumes from the potion he was making had driven him to temporary insanity. He was going to talk to Snape about what had happened. After all, the man already knew quite a bit, after Occlumency training and his little outburst a week before, and of all the adults, he would be the least likely to want to continue the conversation, letting Harry fulfill his promise with the least amount of discomfort. Or, at least, that was his logic at the time.

“Why would I possibly consider such a thing?” the man sounded angry now, but Harry was beyond caring. In another situation he might have smiled at the thought that he was remaining calm longer than his usually implacable professor.

“You saw quite a few of my early memories. And despite your anti-Gryffindor sentiments, I would think even you could have realized that there might be something more to the reason why I always returned to school undernourished and without having studied anything.”

“Undernourished…?” Harry could almost sense the man narrowing his eyes. “Potter, did your relatives feed you over the summer?”

“Sometimes I got dinner,” he responded shortly, realizing at the last moment that it was time to begin adding the powdered bicorn horn. Stir, add a bit, stir, add some more. He was so focused on the routine that he almost didn’t hear Snape’s next question.

“And how often did they hit you?” Harry had to wonder why Snape was asking so many questions. He had been expecting the man to end the conversation as quickly as possible. Maybe Dumbledore had told him what to do in case Harry did what he was doing now, and chose to speak to Snape? He didn’t know how the headmaster could have guessed, since he had no idea he was going to do it himself, but he never knew how the headmaster guessed anything.

“They didn’t hit me,” he replied defensively, then realized he needed to continue to avoid being yelled at for lying. “My uncle would trip me, or shove me, or knock me into a table, but he wouldn’t hit me.”

Harry had the feeling that Snape was rolling his eyes as he spoke again. “Fine. How often did he hurt you? And what about your aunt and cousin?”

“I don’t know how often he did it, I wasn’t exactly counting,” he grumbled, ignoring the second question. This conversation was not going as he had hoped.

“Once a week? Once a day? Ten times a day? Surely you are capable of estimating, Potter,” Snape responded snidely. “And don’t think I will leave your aunt and cousin out of this, I’m certain they were involved as well.”

“Did Dumbledore put you up to this?” he blurted out, adding the next ingredient without even thinking about it. His potions practice was paying off already, obviously.

“Did Dumbledore put me up to what, Potter?” Harry was becoming increasingly irritated by the man pretended as though he didn’t understand a word Harry said unless he spelled it out explicitly.

“Did Dumbledore tell you to ask me these questions? Or do you actually care about what they did?” Harry knew that this would get an answer out of Snape. He hadn’t taken potions for five years with the man without learning what would set him off.

“Please don’t make the childish error of conflating responsibility with caring. No, Headmaster Dumbledore did not tell me to ask these questions, as he had no idea that we would even come in contact. I would have preferred that we did not, but as you seem willing to answer my questions, it is my duty as a professor to ask them.”

At that moment, the last of Harry’s respect went out the window. It was the holidays, so Snape could not deduct points or give him a detention, and for all he knew he wouldn’t even have the bitter man as a professor, ever again. “Well, while we’re getting the truth out, I would not be answering your questions at all if Professor Dumbledore had not locked me in a room until I promised to talk about this with someone. So, your answers are: my uncle hit me as many times a day as he could, my aunt didn’t know that they were hurting me but had everything to do with starving me, and my cousin Dudley would enlist his friends to pin me and beat me as often as possible.” He removed his cauldron from the fire as quickly as he could without spilling its contents, having completed the potion, and set it to the side to cool. “I’ll let you have the basement to yourself now.” He turned and walked past Snape, taking care to not look anywhere near his face. He had avoided eye contact this long, he wasn’t going to start now.

“Potter!” Snape called out as he was at the door. Harry stopped involuntarily at the commanding tone in his voice, but didn’t turn.

“Professor Snape?”

“You have created an excellent burn healing paste. It’s unfortunate that school is not in session, for I might have awarded you 10 points…” Harry was shocked at the compliment, until the man continued, “and I would certainly have taken 50 points for disrespect towards a teacher.”

Harry shook his head. “So sorry to deprive you, Professor,” he replied sarcastically. With that he escaped the basement with all the haste that he usually reserved for leaving the dungeons of Hogwarts, and snuck into the library without being noticed by anyone. It was still only seven in the morning, after all.