Harry shifted in his seat and looked around Snape’s dungeon-office, bored. The place was dark and creepy, lined with multiple shelves of jarred specimens floating in noxious smelling liquid. Firelight danced across their glassed surfaces, illuminating the outlines of pickled animals and what suspiciously looked like dissected human body parts. But those things had long since lost their initial disturbing quality. After several hours of listlessly staring at them, not even the shriveled forms of pickled hinkypunks could keep Harry’s attention.

Harry gave a bored sigh and shifted in his seat again. He had been there all day since earlier that morning when Snape had announced he had work that needed done down in the dungeons, and had darkly ordered Harry to follow him in compliance with Dumbledore’s order the night before that he had to keep Harry in sight at all times. Harry still remembered the look on Snape’s face when Dumbledore had said that, and felt as if he was now being punished for it by sitting out some sort of unofficial detention.

After reaching Snape’s office, the acerbic Potions Master had immediately confined Harry to a chair in front of his desk and forbidden him to get up or talk for any reason. “I don’t want you poking your arrogant little nose around where it doesn’t belong. And I don’t need your mindless chatter plaguing my ears while I’m trying to work,” had been Snape’s exact words. Said Potions Master was currently on the other side of the room, bent over a caldron of bubbling red liquid.

Harry glanced over at him and glared at the dark haired man’s turned back. Greasy git...he couldn’t help but mentally spit. The man wouldn’t even let him get up to walk around. He had been sitting there for hours and was starting to get nervous and fidgety. It was already getting close to evening. Just how much time did Snape spend everyday brewing his little concoctions?

Harry was half tempted to ask Snape if he could find a book for him to read, but then remembered he had no way of turning the pages, and doubted very much Snape would be willing to do so for him every couple of minutes. Besides, Harry doubted Snape had Quidditch Through the Ages or anything else of the ilk. He probably only had Potion books, and Harry already knew those held absolutely no appeal to him. It was bad enough he had to deal with the subject in class let alone try and pass it off as pleasure reading now... Maybe if he wanted to use them in lieu of a sleeping aide that’d be fine, but he wasn’t allowed to do that either...

Shifting in his seat again, Harry gave an unhappy sigh.

“Are you absolutely incapable of sitting still, Potter, or are you just purposely trying to annoy me?” came an angry bark from the other side of the room.

Harry looked over at Snape, fighting to keep his eyes from narrowing with disdain. Snape however held no such qualms and openly glared at his ghostly charge.

“No, Sir,” Harry tightly mumbled, “I was just wondering how much longer we were going to be down here.”

Snape’s upper lip curled into a condescending snarl. “Why? Not used to not being the center of attention and having everyone fawn over you?”

Harry had to bite the inside of his cheek before he trusted himself not to shoot back with an angry comment. “No. I’m just starting to worry about Sirius. I just want to make sure he’s alright.”

Snape’s scowl darkened. “I assure you your mutt of a godfather is perfectly fine, Potter, as much as I loathe to admit it. I managed to convince Dumbledore to make Black get some rest while we were gone before I left. He probably would have thought it noble of himself if he let himself collapse from exhaustion while hovering there by your body like some kind of lost puppy. Honestly, you Gryffindors are nothing but a bunch of hopeless martyrs – always eager to throw yourselves away at the slightest opportunity of doing something that would make you look like the hero. It’s pathetic. But what’s worse is that everyone always eats it up and puts you on pedestals like it’s the greatest thing in the world.”

Harry clenched his teeth together in silent fury and turned away to glare at Snape’s collection of jarred potion ingredients along the wall, secretly imagining Snape’s face superimposed over each of the pickled swamp toads’ shriveled faces.

As if satisfied with the boy’s reaction, Snape turned back to his bubbling cauldron, a smug smile pulling at his lips.

After awhile, Harry began to feel his anger abate and boredom return. This was worse than being at the Dursleys. At least they made him do chores or some other kind of work that kept him occupied. Here he felt like Snape was purposely trying to test his patience.

Absentmindedly tracing the curves of the chair arm with his finger, Harry began to softly hum the tune of some new rock song he remembered hearing Dudley listen to the day he’d been hit by a car under his breath. He didn’t particularly like the song, but it was the type of song that got stuck in your head whether you liked it or not, and it gave him something to distract himself with. He was almost to the refrain when his unwitting audience finally could take no more.

“Potter!” Snape roared, whirling around on Harry again, “What did I tell you before about keeping quiet!”

Harry looked up at Snape in surprise, having not even realized what he’d been doing until then. “But I didn’t say anything,” he replied innocently, secretly enjoying Snape’s annoyed expression at his feigned ignorance.

Snape scowled darkly. “A likely story,” he snarled, “Don’t try and fool me, Potter, I know how you always go around looking for attention. Always trying to be the center of attention just like your arrogant father before you.”

“Leave my father out of this,” Harry snapped. Why was it Snape always wanted to drag his father into every single one of their confrontations? Why was he so bloody obsessed? “He has nothing to do with this.”

This seemed to spark an old, deeply buried fire in Snape, which he readily latched onto. “I think it most certainly does,” he hissed, drawing himself up to full height so that he loomed like a menacing black shadow. “You know nothing about how your father used to strut around this castle like he was God’s gift to wizard kind – like the rest of us were just put here on this planet to bow down and worship the ground he walked on! Don’t think I don’t see that same streak of arrogance in you! How you always go around playing for other people’s attention – getting into trouble and expecting someone else to bail you out, then expecting everyone else to pat you on the back and tell you how brave you were and what a magnificent job you did. You’re nothing but a spoiled child – doing everything in your power to get someone else to pay attention to you. Well, I’ll tell you right now, Potter, I’m not going to be one of those people. I refuse to cater to your already overinflated ego. I do not tolerate your presence here out of the goodness of my heart. If Dumbledore had not ordered me, I could easily have left you in your godfather’s care without even a second thought. I have better things to do with my time than babysit you. You might find it amusing to make other people drop what they’re doing just so they can pay attention to you, but I don’t.”

Harry sat there frozen. He had heard all these accusations before in some varying form or another from the acerbic Potions Master over the years, but somehow hearing them now, phrased like that, struck a chord deep inside him. A strong, unfamiliar feeling rose up inside him – one of frustration and self-righteous anger the likes of which he’s never felt before.

“Oh, and I suppose you think I purposely let myself get attacked by a Death Eater and hit by a car just so I could go off and have a jolly good time with you?” Harry shot back, unable to contain his indignation for the dark haired man’s animosity anymore, “Well, I have something to tell you, Sir: I don’t want your bloody attention! I don’t want anyone’s! I never have! You think it’s fun going around having everyone stare at you like you’re some sort of animal in a zoo? Well, it’s not! I would give anything just to be like everyone else! I’m tired of being “ famous Harry Potter”, the Boy Who Lived, or whatever else you people call me! I just want to be plain old Harry who doesn’t have people staring at him every chance they get!”

At some point, Harry had leapt to his feet to confront Snape. His hands were tightly clenched by his sides, shaking angrily. A faint gleam of tears had begun to shine in his eyes, threatening to overspill his defenses. He was angry – angrier than he had ever been in his entire life. He was tired of Snape’s scathing remarks and unending snarkiness. He was tired and scared, not knowing if he would ever make it back to his own body again. Why did Snape have to be such a git? Did he really think he wanted to be like this? That he wanted to be magically bound to the greasy man and have to depend on him for help? Because if he did, then he was sorely mistaken!

“You think I like being like this?” Harry went on, his anger burning hot inside him, “That I like being some sort of ghost no one else can see but you? Well, I’m sorry, Sir, but I don’t! Right now, all I want to do is go home and go to sleep, and wake up in the morning and find out this was nothing but one horrible dream!”

Silence reigned absolute in Snape’s dungeons as Snape and Harry stared at each other, Harry’s fists clenched by his sides. The Potion Master’s face was unreadable, his features a blank slate of chiseled stone. Harry thought he saw something flash in the older man’s eyes before it quickly disappeared again from sight.

As he continued to stand there staring into Snape’s baleful black eyes, Harry slowly began to regret his angry tirade. He still felt justified in what he’d said, but he was beginning to wonder if it really hadn’t been the smartest thing to do to confront his Potions professor like that. Snape was infamously known for his temper and vengeful nature – especially towards him. What was he going to do now?

Snape seemed to be considering Harry. Whether for good or bad, Harry wasn’t about to venture a guess, but he was beginning to feel distinctly worried and ill at ease. Would Snape refuse to help him anymore because of what he’d said? Would he leave him to wander around as some kind of ghost until he finally faded out of existence? Would Snape actually let such a thing happen? A hint of panic began to creep up inside Harry.

Snape’s eyes narrowed, boring into the boy. “A moving speech, Mr. Potter, but in the end, too melodramatic,” Snape drawled, his lips curling into their usual condescending sneer, “Just like what I’d expect from a histrionic Gryffindor...” Then turning his back on Harry, Snape returned to his simmering cauldron of potion on the table.

Harry stood there for a long moment staring at Snape, confused. That was it? That was all Snape was going to say in reply to the angry tangent he’d just gone off on? He had been expecting fireworks and all he got was a snide comment? Somehow this just didn’t seem right... Was Snape feeling ill or something? He had heard of sleep deprivation doing weird things to people after awhile, but this just wasn’t the reaction he would have expected from Snape...

But Harry was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, and tiredly sat back in his chair next to Snape’s desk, counting his blessings for Snape’s subdued reaction and feeling a fresh wave of weariness wash over him. He was so tired; his anger had taken more out of him than he thought. It felt like an eternity since he’d last slept. It somehow felt unfair that in his incorporeal state he should still feel so tired. Giving a weary sigh, Harry propped his head up on his hand on the armrest, wishing he was back in Surrey safe in his bed in Dudley’s second bedroom. It seemed so strange that he would wish he were back in Number 4 Privet Drive for whatever reason, but the Dursleys were the last place Harry remembered being normal before everything had gone so horribly wrong that fateful day. Maybe if he fell asleep, he’d wake back up in Little Whinging with nothing wrong and himself still in his body. Maybe if he fell asleep, he’d wake up and find that all this really was just some sort of horrible dream he could laugh about while he weeded Aunt Petunia’s garden. If only this were a dream...

Harry tiredly rubbed the heel of his hand over his eyes, forcing himself more awake. But he couldn’t go to sleep. As much as he might have wanted to, the danger of him doing so was too much to risk. Not if he didn’t want to start fading out of existence again and have Snape have to wake him up like that again.

“You better not be falling asleep, Potter,” came a cold voice from the other side of the room, “If I have to stay awake, then so do you.”

Speak of the devil... Harry thought sourly. “No, Sir. I’m fine,” he muttered tightly, forcing his head up off his hand, “I’m just a little bit tired...”

Snape stood straight from over his bubbling cauldron and turned back around to regard Harry. “Well, aren’t we all...” he sneered, fixing a nasty glare on his ghostly charge, “I’ve been awake for the past thirty-six hours and am feeling no more awake now than I was twelve hours ago. You’re not the only one that has to suffer because of your current state, you know,” Snape said, leveling an icy glare at Harry, “It still baffles me why you felt you had to involve me in this whole mess. I don’t know why you thought I would ever be willing to help you. If I had had any choice in the matter, I would have told you to find someone else to play the part of your servant, and to hell with you if you couldn’t find anyone else.”

Harry studied Snape quietly for a long moment of thoughtful silence. “But you’re still helping me,” he softly pointed out, meeting Snape’s cold black eyes, “You could have easily pretended to ignore me, or refused to take me to Dumbledore, but you didn’t. You convinced them I was still there even when Sirius wouldn’t believe you, and came back to find me when I started to fade. You may not like me, but you still decided to help.”

Snape froze, the boy’s words slowly worming themselves down into his brain. It was true. He hated the boy more than words could describe, yet he still had felt compelled to help him – still felt compelled to help him! It was then that Snape suddenly realized that even if he had had a choice to refuse Harry’s Acolant Spell, he still would have accepted it. He would have done so reluctantly, grudgingly, loathingly even, but he still would have helped the boy. His conscience would not have let him do anything else.

Damn Dumbledore, he thought, immediately blaming his unaccountable sense of ethics on the old Headmaster. Meddling old man’s turning me into a bloody Gryffindor...

But he was not about to admit the truth of his moral decision to the arrogant little Annoyance That Lived.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Potter,” Snape hissed, hiding his discomfort of such an unsettling revelation behind a facade of biting sarcasm, “I am only doing this because Dumbledore ordered me to. We’ve already seen what happens when you are left to your own devices... For whatever reason he seems to think you’re important (though I cannot even begin to fathom why), and doesn’t want you to fade away before we can figure out some way of returning you to your body. Plus, if he had ever found out I had ignored his little wonder boy and left him crying alone in some hallway, he would have ordered Hagrid to sic that blasted three-headed dog of his on me.”

Harry had to stifle a laugh at the sudden mental image of Snape running full sprint across the castle lawn, his long black robes billowing crazily behind him, with Fluffy following in hot pursuit. “I doubt Dumbledore would actually do that,” Harry said, still trying hard to suppress a smile, “And besides, you could have always just refused Dumbledore.”

One of Snape’s lips twitched slightly. “One does not simply ‘just refuse’ Albus Dumbledore...” he muttered darkly. Slowly turning back to his worktable, Snape said, “Well, Potter, if you’re going to do nothing else but sit there all night and complain about how tired and bored you are, you can at least make yourself useful and help me. Lord only knows how hopeless you are in class, but hopefully even you can’t screw this up too badly.”

Harry looked over at Snape warily. He wanted him to help? This couldn’t be good... Having Snape in class was bad enough, but to have a one-on-one potions session with him now could not bode well... He probably just wanted to find some other excuse to berate him while they were cursed with each other’s presence.

“Well, Potter? Hurry up!” Snape impatiently barked.

Sighing heavily, Harry reluctantly complied and walked over to Snape’s worktable like a man being led to the gallows.

“I assume you can read?” Snape snidely asked as he pushed a large, heavy bound Potions book across the table to Harry.

“Yes, Sir,” Harry ground out between clenched teeth.

“Good,” Snape said, turning back to his cauldron, “I want you to read the list of ingredients and instructions off to me starting from powdered monkshood leaves. Understand?”

“Yes, Sir,” Harry said, looking down at the page Snape had opened the book to. The potion looked fairly simple, like one they would do in class, but with several brewing techniques Harry had not yet learned.

“Take two pinches of powdered monkshood leaves and three drops Essence of Calamine, and add to base,” Harry read, pausing to allow Snape time to do so and add the appropriate ingredients to the simmering batch of liquid. “Allow mixture to simmer for exactly three minutes before adding two parts diluted bat’s blood and three cloves of chopped nettle root...” They continued on in this fashion for some time: Harry reading the instructions and Snape expertly carrying them out. Except for Harry’s reading, neither spoke to each other. Silence hung between them until Harry finally read the last line of the page and looked up at Snape, watching as he slowly stirred their finished product.

“A bit too thin, but otherwise perfect,” Snape murmured, eyeing the bright red liquid critically. “It must be the rain... Humidity in the air has a tendency to weaken the mixture’s viscosity...”

Harry stared at the potion then looked back down at the book in front of him. “That’s Dulaver’s Potion,” he said, suddenly realizing why several of the ingredients had sounded so familiar to him while he’d been reading. “It’s an antidote. It’s one of the ones you assigned for our summer Potions essay.”

Snape looked up at Harry in mild surprise, quirking a dark eyebrow at him. “Correct. And do you know what its properties are?”

Harry searched his memory. “It’s an anti-poison... Usually for plant and animal derived poisons.”

Snape stared at Harry appraisingly for a long moment of silence, as if trying to figure out if he’d somehow cheated. “Impressive that you would know such a thing, Mr. Potter, when you are perpetually incapable of answering any such question in class...”

Harry felt a small rush of heat on his face. “It’s just that usually in class you’re looking for any kind of excuse to deduct points from me, so I generally try to keep quiet to avoid losing any more points for Gryffindor than Neville already does.”

Snape eyed Harry for a long moment of silence, a thoughtful expression lightening his dark features. “Longbottom always does manage to lose a fair amount of points for your House every time he has class with me...” he said, a small satisfied smirk pulling at his lips.

Harry chose to ignore Snape’s clear enjoyment of Neville’s continued torment, and glanced back over at the simmering cauldron on the table. “So what’s the potion for?” he asked, glancing up at his professor curiously.

“I should think, Potter, that that is none of your business...” Snape replied coldly, beginning to clean his worktable of the unused potion ingredients.

“But it has to be for something,” Harry persisted, “Madam Pomfrey usually doesn’t keep a stash of anti-poisons in the hospital wing.”

Snape shot Harry a clearly disgruntled look out of the corner of his eye. “If you must know, Potter, it’s for Dumbledore,” he said, busying himself with brushing the shaved earwig shells off the table.

“But why would Dumbledore need a batch of antidote? He’s not sick is he?” Harry asked, worry instantly prickling his mind. Dumbledore hadn’t been poisoned had he?

“No, Dumbledore is perfectly fine,” Snape replied in a voice of waning patience.

“But then why–?”

“Potter!” Snape snapped, unable to take the teenager’s relentless barrage of questions anymore, “It is none of your concern! Mind your own business! Or are you totally incapable of keeping your infuriatingly large Gryffindor nose out of–”

But Snape never got a chance to finish his insult, as he suddenly cried out in pain and clutched his left forearm with his other hand.

“Professor?” Harry cried, startled by his Potion Master’s reaction. “What’s wrong?”

Snape visibly fought against the pain for several minutes of silence until he finally straightened and stared down at his covered forearm with a dark, foreboding look. “It’s the Dark Lord...” he whispered, looking up at Harry with ominous black eyes, “He’s summoning his servants to him...”