Harry woke the first day of school sixth year feeling sore and achy, like he always did at the start of a new school term. He figured it was from sleeping on his old lumpy mattress at the Dursleys’ that caused it. After all, what else could it be? His memories of summer breaks were never better than vague and sketchy, but he knew nothing bad had happened.

Breakfast was welcome, as the only meal he’d been allowed since last year was dinner, and then only when he finished his chores, but he had almost always finished, so it wasn’t terrible. Not like it could have been.

Could have been? How could it have been worse? Was it ever worse?

He shook the confusing thoughts away and focused on the delicious smell of bacon that permeated the Great Hall. Not even the knowledge that Potions was first that day could ruin bacon.

Hermione and Ron both asked him if he was alright, as they had a tendency to do, but he assured them he was fine. After all, he was; he was great, he was happy, he had two good friends, and he was home. What could be better?

Maybe if your back didn’t ache so badly. And why do your ribs hurt?

The trio sat in their usual spot in the back of the class and waited for Snape to swoop in, as he always did. The great bat of a man stalked to the front of the class and gave a short lecture on glamour revealing potions, before giving them instructions to brew a simple form geared toward cosmetic glamour charms.

“As this could be a potentially embarrassing situation,” Snape said when they were done, complete with a distasteful expression that told them all that, had the headmaster not interfered, there would be nothing to save them from the humiliation, “I will be the one to test one of your potions. Potter! Bring me a vial from your cauldron.”

“Yes sir,” Harry sighed, ladling some into a glass. At least his looked pretty close to Hermione’s, so he was almost sure he wouldn’t be poisoning the man.

Snape looked at the liquid with clear distaste, but downed it quickly and without complaint. He looked around the room, eyes lingering on some of the vainer girls like Parkinson and Lavender before coming to rest on Harry himself. Almost imperceptibly the man’s eyes widened, but then the expression was gone.

“Class dismissed,” he growled. “Potter! You stay after.”

Rolling his eyes, Harry motioned to Ron and Hermione that they should go on ahead, he’d be fine. Snape was just being childish, he was sure. As the door closed behind the last student, though, Snape whipped out his wand and cast a high level privacy charm.

“Mr. Potter, explain yourself,” Snape demanded. Harry blinked.

“Excuse me? Sir?”

“Explain this…this,” Snape sputtered motioning at Harry’s body. “Explain yourself,” he finished lamely. Harry was confused, had someone put a glamour on him without him knowing? But, he looked just like he always did, so what would it matter if the glamour was seen through? And why was he suddenly terrified?

“Sir, I don’t understand,” Harry admitted softly, hoping Snape wouldn’t see this as reason to give him detention or take house points. No such luck.

“Ten points from Gryffindor!” Snape hissed, going alternately pale and flushed. “Now explain, boy!”

-8-8-8-8-8-

“Ten points from Gryffindor!” Severus shouted, half frantically. He couldn’t comprehend what he had seen under the glamour – an underfed, practically half starved, badly bruised and beaten, malnourished and under-grown child. And now Potter was denying any knowledge? Couldn’t the boy see that lying wouldn’t help, as Severus could quite clearly see through the disguise. “Now explain, boy!”

Suddenly, the glamour fell and Potter hunched over, crossing his arms over his stomach and lowering his head to look at the floor. The Gryffindor backed away a few steps before standing there trembling.

“Boy doesn’t want to tell, Boy can’t tell,” he was muttering in a voice more suited to a first year. “Boy gets hurt when he tells, don’t tell, don’t tell.”

“Potter?” Severus gasped. The boy’s head shot up and the glamour fell back into place.

“Yes sir?” he asked innocently. “I really don’t understand what you want me to explain. I’m sorry. May I go now?”

Severus nodded dumbly, before catching himself just as Potter reached the door. “Detention tonight at 7, Potter. Don’t be late.”

The Gryffindor’s shoulders hunched, but he answered with, “Yes, sir,” as he left.

Severus leaned back in his chair to think about this strange new development. It was clear Potter was faking, that was what Potter did. The question was, why? The facts:

Potter had reacted to being called ‘Boy’ by panicking and withdrawing.

Upon being addressed as ‘Potter’ again, he returned to normal, apparently having no memory of what had occurred.

Potter’s body shows signs of severe abuse and malnutrition. Self inflicted? That would be the clear ‘cry for help’ type of attention scam he wouldn’t put past the boy.

So why the glamour? And even more confusing, why deny the glamour when it was clear he, Severus, had proof positive of the glamour’s existence and Potter’s condition underneath? It was confusing, a conundrum of the highest degree.

That night, at 7 on the dot, Severus’ door opened and a head of messy black hair peaked in.

“Quit stalling and enter, Potter,” Severus snapped. “I don’t have all day.”

The Gryffindor nodded and closed the door behind him, moving to stand in front of Snape’s desk.

“Now, care to tell me what your little show was all about this morning?”

“I’m sorry for that, sir,” Potter said, speaking more to the desk than to his professor. “We – that is to say I – had a hard time sleeping and w-I was just a little frazzled, that’s all.”

Severus leaned back, steepling his fingers in front of his chest. “Indeed,” he deadpanned. “And what of the glamour, the wounds, the starvation?”

“I’m afraid you were mistaken, professor,” said Potter. “We-I don’t wear glamour, and I’m certainly not injured. You can check now, if you’d like; try and remove any spells I might have.”

Thinking to take the boy by surprise, Severus immediately whipped his wand out and muttered, “Finite Incantatem.” He blinked. Nothing had happened.

How was that possible? He knew Potter’s potion had been nearly perfect – certainly good enough to let him effectively see through the glamour he knew must be there. But why didn’t the counterspell remove it? Unless…

Perhaps Potter was reapplying the spell in the split second after the counterspell hit. Severus had blinked, maybe he had missed something crucial. He cursed himself mentally; he should know better, really.

“There, I hope that’s proof enough for you, sir,” Potter was saying, but Severus wasn’t paying attention. He pulled out of his bottom drawer one of his most priceless possessions – a spell stone amulet – and cast the counterspell and a sticking spell onto it. Spell stone amulets had the ability to absorb spells and make them affect whoever was wearing them, regardless of countermeasures. “May I go now, sir?” Potter’s voice cut into Severus’ musings.

“Not yet, Mr. Potter,” Severus sneered. “One last thing. Dumbledore has asked me to give this to you,” he held up the amulet, “as an extra protective measure. Come here and put it on.”

Potter nodded guilelessly and slipped the amulet over his head. Immediately, the spell disintegrated, leaving the true Potter – small, skinny, and badly wounded – standing there shocked.

“No! Dammit, I knew James couldn’t handle this!” Potter shouted, sounding much more like who he had been the previous year, gritting his teeth and clenching his hands into tight fists. “He hasn’t had to be Harry since second year. You aren’t supposed to know! Not even Harry knows! Why can’t you leave us alone?” His voice changed suddenly into that of a tearful child. “Why do you have to be like him?”

“Like who?” Severus asked, startled and intrigued by this new turn. Who was James? And why was someone else impersonating Potter in second year? Or now, for that matter.

“Can’t,” the child-like Potter declared. “I’m no grasser, you won’t catch me telling tales on Harry. I know! Let’s play a game!”

“A game?” Severus balked.

“Yup. D’you know the story of Rumplestiltskin?” Potter asked, practically bouncing. Severus nodded, too confused to do anything but answer truthfully. “You get three guesses to guess my name and if you don’t get it right by the third time I get a pudding! ‘K, go!”

“But I already know your name, Potter,” Severus drawled, eyes narrowed.

“Nope, there’s one guess gone,” the boy cried happily.

“So you are not Harry Potter?” Severus felt something like fear constrict in his gut. If this wasn’t Potter, who was it, and were was the Golden Boy?

The man-child wrinkled his nose. “You’re bad at this. Guess again!”

Perhaps the same trick would work twice. “Boy?” Severus hazarded.

“No, you’ve met him!” the child denied. Then giggled with delight. “You lost, I won, where’s my pudding?”

“I never consented to give you a pudding,” Severus sneered

“That’s not fair!” Potter wailed, stomping one food petulantly. “You’re mean. I’m telling Mike!” The boy’s face went blank for a moment, then changed dramatically to a glare. He folded his arms over his chest defiantly and stared down a particularly offensive stone on his left.

“Mike, I presume?” Severus asked sarcastically, wondering when and why his night had taken such a turn for the strange.

“Yeah, like you fucking care,” the boy muttered. “You even treat the kid like shit. His name’s Foster, by the way, if he tries to play that stupid game with you again. And I know he’s a bit of a pest sometimes, but you’re not exactly sunshine and daisies either, you greasy git.”

“I will not be spoken to in such a way!” Severus hissed. “Twenty points from Gryffindor for language and insolence.”

“You’re a bastard, you know that,” ‘Mike’ answered, glaring directly at him. “I don’t want to deal with you any more.”

Potter’s face suddenly went blank again. Terrifyingly blank. Severus waited with bated breath for some new, half familiar face to pop out at him, and was slightly disappointed when the familiar – if slightly confused – unharmed visage of Harry Potter came into view.

“Professor?” he asked timidly, sounding confused. He shook his head and seemed to orient himself, though he clearly had no memory of what had transpired. “Sorry, sir, did you want me to scrub cauldrons for detention?”

“Spacing out again, Potter?” Severus sneered. “Detention is over for tonight, but you will return every Monday night until you stop having these unfortunate lapses in attention. Dismissed.”

-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Harry didn’t waste a moment, practically running out of the classroom. He didn’t like the idea of more detentions, especially not with Snape, but if the man could cure him of his faulty memory, he’d forever be grateful. For as long as he could, well, remember, Harry had been having what he called ‘blank-outs’, where he’d lose completely a few minutes, an hour, sometimes even days at a time. One moment he’d be somewhere, the next, somewhere else, doing something else, and he could only rely on his watch to tell him how much he’d missed. It was frightening sometimes, especially because it wasn’t like he fainted or anything, people would be talking to or working with him as if he’d been his normal self.

Sometimes he wondered if Voldemort was possessing him.

But, he’d been having Blank-Outs since he was little, he was sure of that at least, and that was when Voldemort had still been in Albania or wherever. That was mildly reassuring, but still left him with the problem that someone or something was controlling his body while he wasn’t there. He hated it, it scared him and left him feeling helpless and Harry would even suffer working with Severus Snape, Potions Master of Hogwarts and Greasy Git extraordinaire, if it meant getting rid of them.

-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus watched the boy leave as if the hounds of Hades were after him, a smirk settling easily on his face. He pulled out the notes he had made so far and added to them:

Mike – sulky, brooding, angsty teen. Potter from 5th year? Foul mouth.

Foster – child, 7-8? Likes games, fairness. Seems happy, but quick to tears. Obsessed with ‘grassing’.

James – ? Apparently ‘played’ Potter in 2nd year.

Faking – still possible, Potter is quite the accomplished actor. Powerful as well, reapplied glamour over a counterspell amulet unconsciously.

Does Potter have MPD? Implies unhappy home life, but Potter is pampered, is he not? Too many questions, further research required.

The next Monday, Severus waited patiently at his desk. At 7:05 his door opened authoritatively and Harry Potter stepped in, an unfamiliar swagger in his walk and an almost familiar smirk on his lips.

“So glad you finally saw fit to join me, Mr. Potter,” he sneered. Potter didn’t respond. “Take a seat.”

The boy pulled one of the stools from behind the tables and perched on it unconcernedly. He gave Severus a calculating, appraising look before slouching back and relaxing slightly.

“Where shall we begin tonight, Mr. Potter?” Severus drawled. “The bruises? The scars? The starvation?” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “How long has it been going on, Harry?”

“I’m not ‘Potter’ or ‘Harry’,” the boy sneered, “so kindly stop referring to me as such.”

“I apologize,” Severus said silkily, making clear there was nothing further from his emotions at the time. “Who are you?”

“My name is Tom,” he said, then laughed at Severus’ shocked expression. “I know, quite the coincidence, isn’t it? Not to worry, I’m not out to harm your precious Boy-Who-Lived. After all, if he dies, I die.”

“What do you do, Tom?” Severus asked, observing how this boy held himself so much different than the one he knew, or the other ‘alternates’ he had already observed. Tom leaned back in his chair gracefully, looking totally relaxed, his eyes half closed in a way that made him seem vaguely dangerous. His fingers hovering always near his wand pocket.

“I do the bad stuff, the dark stuff,” Tom answered casually. “I’m the Parselmouth, you know. Harry can’t speak to snakes, he wouldn’t dare. He’s only done it once, and that was because I couldn’t take over. I can never take over when someone’s in trouble. James doesn’t trust me to save them.”

“James?” Severus asked quickly.

“No,” Tom answered, smirking. “We’re talking about me. I never get to talk about me. You can talk with James about James later. Anyway, Harry’s got a strong will, when it comes to saving people. It’s probably the only thing he can do without feeling inadequate. Or it was, until-” Suddenly the voice and posture changed to that of the little boy, Foster, “No, no, no; no telling, no grassing, Harry wouldn’t want us to grass on him,” then back to Tom. “Yes, yes. Fine. Suffice it to say, Harry won’t be doing any heroics anymore. You’ll have to trust Potter for that, I suppose. Or me. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants for ol’ Voldie? Being defeated by Tom. After all, I’m almost exactly like the younger Tom Riddle, whom Voldemort got rid of. Sort of ironic, don’t you think. You appreciate irony, don’t you, Professor?”

Severus tipped his head in agreement. “Irony is a fine art, generally only appreciated by Slytherins and Ravenclaws.”

“Good thing I’m Slytherin then, isn’t it?” Tom smirked again. “Oh, I know Harry and the others are Gryffindor, but I’d have been much happier in your house. Harry probably would have too, for that matter. Might have gotten a chance to take care of the Dursleys already. But don’t worry, James has promised to give me free range once we come of age.”

“You seem rather talkative, compared to the others,” Severus noted. “Why is that?”

“Because I’m smarter than them,” Tom said simply. “James comes close, but he’s too stubborn. He still resents you for acting like him and being a bastard to Harry. I, however, can see into your soul and know you aren’t going to do anything to hurt us. Besides, better to talk about present and future than past.”

“Why, what has happened in your past? Who are you, to Harry?” Severus asked.

Tom got a distant look in his eyes and said, in a sort of strained voice, “I’m the one who hates.” Then suddenly he was gone, and Foster was back.

“You aren’t gonna tell, are you Mr. Snape?” he asked fearfully. “Tom wasn’t supposed to say that. He grassed on us. James’ll be mad. I gotta go, you won’t tell, right?”

“I won’t tell, Foster,” Severus promised. “May I ask who’s coming out now?”

“Harry’s coming back,” Foster said, grinning. “We’re hungry, it’s time for dinner.” The boy blinked, yawned, and shifted into the familiar half-slouched figure. “I’m sorry, professor, I must have fallen asleep. May I go now?”

“Yes, Harry,” Severus said, knowing it was odd to call the boy by his first name, but also knowing that saying ‘Potter’ might call out someone else. “Go on and get to dinner.”

Harry left, looking at him oddly, but Severus just pulled out his notebook and added more to the list:

Harry – host, polite (unfailingly, unnervingly so)

Potter – the hero now? Why did Harry lose that status?

Boy – quivering mass of despair, age unknown

Tom – Slytherin, Parseltongue, dark, ‘the one who hates’. Foul mouth as well.

James – Who is James? Disciplinarian? Older brother? Father figure?

One reference to ‘taking care of the Dursleys’, sinister, revenge? For what?

One more reference to ‘him’, who I apparently act like. Who?

Too many questions still.

He wanted to meet this mysterious James. Tom, he found more than a little disturbing. He had heard from Dumbledore that Harry had attempted to cast the Cruciatus on Bellatrix Lestrange at the Ministry last year.

Had that perhaps been Tom’s doing?

Harry wandered slowly back to his dorm after dinner, pondering the ‘Snape Problem’. The potions master had been…almost tolerant. And had called him by his first name. And hadn’t taken points off for him falling asleep during detention.

I don’t like it. I don’t trust him. He’s never treated us with anything other than contempt, Harry’s ‘sensible’ inner voice said. His ‘cunning’ inner voice disagreed almost immediately.

True he’s never liked us, but he’s always looked out for us, hasn’t he? He’s never seriously tried to harm us.

What about the pensieve incident? He threw a vial at us.

He was pushed over the edge. We did invade his privacy, after all. Anyone would be pissed after that. I say trust him.

Both voices fell silent. Harry didn’t question why he thought in plural, it just came naturally. It wasn’t like there were actually other people there. He was just debating, having an ‘inner conflict’, one could say.

He knew the ‘cunning’ voice had a point, that Snape had always ultimately looked out for his wellbeing, but he couldn’t help being wary of the man. Snape in a rage reminded him far too much of something to be afraid of. He couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but something inside him froze whenever the Potions Master got that ‘I’m going to thrash you within an inch of your life’ look in his eyes. Harry decided, in the end, to just wait and see. So long as Snape was being less nasty, he could at least tolerate the man one day a week. Especially since he never seemed to be able to remember what happened.

What if Snape was memory charming him?

But no, he was sure it was just one of his Blank-Outs. They’d been happening with greater frequency lately, so it was no surprise that someone as stressful as Snape would bring them out.

“Hey, Harry,” Hermione called from her seat by the fire as Harry entered the common room. “How have you been? Did you have a chance to eat dinner or did Snape keep you too late? How was detention?”

The barrage of questions, especially the speed at which they were asked, made Harry want to laugh out loud. Hermione would never, ever, stop being curious. If that happened, he was quite sure the world would implode upon itself.

“I’ve been good, yes I’ve eaten, and detention was,” Harry paused. He didn’t want to tell Hermione he slept through it, especially since he didn’t think he had, because that would mean he fell asleep in the library and woke up in Snape’s classroom. He finally decided on saying, “good.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, since Snape not taking points was definitely good, but he still felt guilty.

“That’s good,” Ron sighed. “The last thing you need is Snape acting like a git, right after Si–” And Harry didn’t hear any more.

-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

“–rius…er…sorry mate,” Ron apologized quickly after Hermione hit him. He had a talent for sticking his foot in his mouth.

“Yeah,” Harry said moodily. “I’ve got to go. See you later.”

He ignored the fact that he had just barely entered, turning back and leaving the portrait hole. Stupid Ron, bringing Sirius up. He hadn’t had a chance to grieve yet, so the wound was still raw, and steadily festering.

“Hey Potty, what’s the matter?” an incredibly unwelcome voice asked. “You’re running like there’s a dementor after you.”

Malfoy’s goons laughed, or rather grunted amusedly. Harry turned to face him, sneering.

“Maybe I just saw my shadow,” he suggested calmly. “After all, I’m more dangerous than anything you’ve ever experienced.” He drew his wand and pointed it at the blonde, who seemed frozen in shock at seeing the ‘Golden Boy’ acting so strange. “I wonder, Malfoy; what would you do if I tried? If I said the killing curse right here? Would you just stand there, petrified like the scared little ferret you are?”

“Potter!” Snape shouted, swooping down the hall.

-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Harry shook his head to clear it. He had just had a Blank Out, he knew it right away. Now if he could just figure out why he had his wand pointed at a terrified Malfoy in the middle of a nearly empty hall, maybe he would know what had made Snape look so mad.

“Sir?” he asked, slipping his wand away.

“What is going on here?” Snape hissed, his face livid with rage. Harry wanted to shrink back from it, but forced himself to stay.

“Er…Malfoy and I were just…talking, sir,” he lied, less smoothly than he could have.

“He was going to kill me, Sir!” Malfoy whined. “He’s crazy, batty! He should be in St. Mungo’s, I tell you!”

“Indeed,” sneered Snape. Harry got the feeling the professor agreed wholly with the Slytherin’s assessment. “Twenty points from Gryffindor, Mr. Potter. Return to your dormitory.”

Harry nodded glumly and retreated, not willing to risk losing more points.

If only he knew what in Merlin’s name he had done!

-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus knew immediately, as soon as he turned the corner and caught sight of the altercation, just who was threatening Draco. That stance, that sneer, the dangerous glint in those eyes could only belong to a Slytherin; it was Tom, and Tom was capable of almost anything, he was sure.

“Potter!” he shouted, trying to bring the boy back to himself. It worked, but now what to do? Harry Potter would not threaten to kill another student, but with Draco there he couldn’t possibly be lenient, or take Potter aside and explain what had happened. The boy didn’t even know who Tom was.

If he wasn’t faking. Which he was. That’s what Potters did.

He would have to be satisfied with taking points, as he couldn’t very well hand out even more detention. Who knew what would happen if he was exposed to the boy too much. He was looking forward to having the rest of the week Potter-free.

Unfortunately, it was not to be.

An hour before curfew on Friday, there came a soft knock at his door. He told whoever it was to come in, but when nothing happened, got up and angrily threw the door open himself. The hallways was empty.

“Idiot children and their pranks,” he muttered, even as he felt a breeze and wisp of fabric go by. Closing the door, he turned and watched his office space expectantly.

Sure enough, Potter appeared, balling up a silvery cloak and stuffing it in his robe pocket. Severus noticed immediately what had brought the boy here – the glamour had apparently succumb at last to the spell stone amulet, revealing Potter’s horrific condition for all to see.

“What are you on about, Potter,” Severus sneered nonetheless. “Why are you in my private office?”

“Don’t play dumb, Professor,” Potter sneered. “You know why we’re here and you know what we want. Now take it off.”

“Whatever do you mean, Tom?” he asked, leaning back against the door to prevent any escape.

“This,” Tom said, motioning to the stone. “We can’t hold the spell up any longer, not without bringing it to Harry’s knowledge or losing control altogether. So take it off.”

“No,” Severus said. Tom glared, eyes so intense that the former Death Eater almost backed down. “Not yet,” he amended. “You need to be healed first. Now, I am no medi-wizard, so–”

“We’re not going to Pomfrey,” said Tom firmly. “We won’t betray Harry like that.”

Severus thought for a moment. “How about we make a deal,” he suggested, finding himself surprisingly willing to compromise with the obviously Slytherin side of Potter. “I’ll take off the amulet if you promise to only put a glamour on your face until Poppy’s taken a look at you. No one will know Harry was ever injured, but you’ll still get medical attention. What say you?”

Tom thought it over, then looked at him with wide, bright eyes, stuck out his lower lip, and said, “I want a pudding, too.”

“Fine, Foster,” Severus sighed, aggravated. “A pudding, too, after you’re done.”

“Then we have a deal, Professor,” Tom agreed, inclining his head respectfully. “Now remove the stone.”

Severus complied, then moved in front of the door again, waiting expectantly. The boy sighed.

“Isn’t there a healing potion you can give us?” he asked resignedly.

“There are such potions, but I do not have any prepared, nor would you be able to ingest any,” Severus pointed out. “With the sever malnutrition, it would practically burn a hole through your stomach.”

Tom sighed. “Very well.” He raised his wand and applied glamour to his face, making the changes slight but noticeable. His hair he lightened from jet black to a dark brown, lengthening it to the bottom of his ears and making it straight. He added freckles, took away his glasses, and changed his eyes to brown. No one would ever think this was Harry Potter.

They walked in silence, Severus making sure to walk behind Tom so he could keep the boy from walking off, if necessary. Thankfully, Tom showed no signs of going back on their deal and soon they were in the hospital wing.

“Stay here,” he ordered firmly, striding off to fetch Madam Pomfrey. The medi-witch was in her office, filling out some reports, but stood up quickly when Severus entered.

“How can I help you?” she asked, smiling politely.

“I have a student here who is suffering malnourishment as well as various injuries,” he explained quickly. “Before you ask, he wishes to remain anonymous, but will answer to the pseudonym ‘Tom’.”

Poppy nodded and hurried out, followed closely by the potions master. In the main ward, Tom had moved exactly one large step to the right and seemed to be snickering at his little joke. Severus rolled his eyes. Juveniles.

“Goodness me!” Poppy gasped, bringing his attention back to the situation at hand. She raised her wand and cast a series of spells, causing a scroll to appear in front of her, which she reached out and grabbed before it could flutter to the ground.

“Forty kilos, severely underweight,” she muttered, “lesions covering back, upper thighs, buttocks, and chest; drastic bruising, including hematoma on the back and at least one organ, regular bruises on the back, thighs – front and back – and upper arms; burns on hands and arms, and a hairline fracture in his left humerus. Merlin, who would do this to a child?”

Ignoring her own rhetorical question, the nurse had Tom remove his baggy, tatty muggle clothes, allowing him to retain his pants, and went to work. The cuts came first, as those could be healed with a touch. Most of them didn’t leave marks, but the older ones that had started to get infected would leave scars – on top of those he already had, evidence of long-term abuse. In the end, his back was pretty much half scar tissue and half bruise. His chest looked like that of a war veteran at least twenty years older than Harry. The rest healed cleanly.

Bruises couldn’t be healed as quickly, unfortunately. Poppy had to use a few complicated spells to subdue the hematoma, but that obviously took too much power on top of the healing she’d already done. The burns would have to be taken care of with a salve, which the medi-witch applied deftly.

Tom stood there, looking bored, during the whole ordeal, but Severus could see quite clearly that the boy was being affected, and not positively. After over a decade looking after Slytherins, including several students from abusive homes, he could easily spot the suppressed flinches and the tensing. When it got time to apply the bruise salve, Tom was practically trembling.

“Just a moment, Poppy,” Severus suggested, holding the witch lightly by her arm. “Perhaps a break, to give the paste time to soak in and settle? Why don’t you have a cup of tea to get your strength back while we wait.”

Poppy, no fool herself, could easily see the truth and nodded, pouring cups for the teacher and student as well, to bring them when the break was done.

“Are you alright?” Severus asked quietly once the nurse was gone.

“I don’t like being touched,” Tom snapped, breathing harshly. “I don’t know if I can do this for the burns.”

“Is there one of you who does like touch?” Severus asked. Tom snapped a glare on him that suggested Severus had just put his foot in it, so he hastily qualified his statement. “Comforting, healing touch?”

“Foster does,” Tom said softly, “but he’s the worst actor of the lot of us.” He sighed. “Danny could…probably handle it. And he’s almost as Slytherin as me.”

Harry’s face went blank. Severus leaned forward in anticipation of meeting this new ‘person’. After several tense moments, an expression of boredom appeared. Not the dangerous-looking boredom of Tom, but plain teenage why-aren’t-I-doing-something-fun boredom. Severus actually recognized the look – he had seen it on Potter’s face whenever he was listening to Hooch’s pre-game pep talk or being forced to sit through his captain’s lecture to the chasers or beaters.

Danny played Quidditch for Potter.

This surprised Severus, as he had thought Flying was something Potter was naturally good at. They would certainly be talking about this.

“Snape,” Danny hissed, “is the break almost over? I’m this close,” he put up a hand with his index finger about half an inch from his thumb, “to summoning my Firebolt and flying out through one of the windows.”

“That would not be a good idea,” Severus pointed out dryly.

“That’s why I haven’t done it yet,” Danny said, sounding like he’d just barely left off, ‘obviously, moron.’

Luckily, just then Poppy reappeared, levitating two teacups and a jar of greenish salve in front of her. Danny slouched in an approximation of Tom’s stance (a rather poor approximation, in Severus’ opinion) and sipped the tea distractedly as Poppy gently rubbed the salve on his burns. The potions master’s respect for the boy grew, as he knew burns positively screamed with pain while being treated. The only indication was the harder-than-strictly-necessary way Danny put his cup down.

Poppy gave him a smile and sent them on their way. The moment they were out of sight, the boy’s control crumpled, as did his posture.

“Hurts, hurts, hurts,” he moaned softly, “bad Boy, bad! What did Boy do? Boy doesn’t understand, why is Boy being punished? Sorry, so sorry, won’t do it again, don’t hurt Boy, please don’t hurt Boy.”

Severus sighed, barely catching the sound from coming out sympathetic, and pulled a numbing potion out of his robes. He knew that without it, Potter (Harry, whoever the real person was) wouldn’t come back, and it seemed like Boy was the only one able to deal with pain, if only by retreating inside his own mind.

“Boy,” he said softly, trying to make his voice sound unthreatening. The broken form looked at him, face pinched as though about to cry, but eyes dry. “You need to drink this. It will stop the pain.”

“Won’t hurt?” Boy asked thickly.

“Won’t hurt,” Severus agreed. In a flash, the vial was gone from his hand and held upside down over Potter’s mouth. The boy drank it down with a grimace, then relaxed marginally when the potion went into effect.

“Potter,” Severus ordered. He wondered momentarily that, although Tom had hinted the there was a persona named ‘Potter’, calling out ‘Potter’ seemed to bring out Harry. More evidence that it was a hoax, he supposed.

The next instant, the glamour was back up and Potter looked at him confusedly.

“Professor Snape?” he asked, then checked his watch, eyes widening. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t realize it was after curfew, I was just going for a walk.

Severus sighed.

“Never mind, Potter. Just get back to your dormitory. And don’t forget your detention on Monday!”

“I won’t, sir,” Potter promised, half-running in the direction of Gryffindor tower. “Thank you sir!”

Severus ignored the likely-faked gratitude and returned to his quarters. He had new information to add to his notes.

Harry returned to his dorm, deciding to completely shrug off the fact that his Blank Out had yet again ended around Snape, and that he’d been wandering out after curfew, carrying his invisibility cloak, but not wearing it, and that he felt a hundred times better – aches he hadn’t even realized he’d had were gone. However, the fact that Snape had once again missed an opportunity to take points from Gryffindor was mind boggling.

And why did he suddenly have a fierce craving for pudding?

“Hey mate,” Ron whispered as he sat on his bed. “I’m really sorry for what I said earlier.”

He had said something earlier? Was it bad? Well, Ron was almost always saying things he shouldn’t, so perhaps it wasn’t so surprising that he’d overlooked something or other.

“Don’t mention it,” he answered, smiling for Ron’s benefit.

Today had been the oddest day.

-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus shuddered as he left the kitchens on Monday. House elves were horrid creatures and their high pitched fawning and eagerness gave him a headache. But how else was he supposed to get the idiot boy’s pudding?

He placed the chocolate dish on his desk and sat just as the door opened and Potter entered. Severus looked him over carefully, trying to see if he could determine what ‘persona’ was out now.

“Evening, Professor,” Potter greeted nervously. “Er…so what’s my detention today?”

Severus stared. This was Potter. How in the name of the Founders was he supposed to give him the pudding now? He could just see Potter’s expression if he told him that for detention he was to eat a bowl of chocolate. The boy would probably think he was poisoning him.

Well, he’d just have to draw Foster out. So what function did the child perform? How could he provoke Potter to get Foster to come save him?

“Sit down, Potter,” he ordered, while he thought. It was distracting to have him standing there. “You are here to talk, as you have been every other Monday.”

“S-sorry sir,” the Gryffindor stammered, “I don’t remember what I did during those times.”

Severus threw out his hardest glare, hoping to provoke something. “You don’t remember?” he growled, knowing full well the answer. “What have you been thinking about during those times, hmm? Thinking about your pathetic friends? Missing your fawning muggle family, perhaps? I don’t know how you stand such worship, really, but knowing you it probably just inflates your overly-large ego. You Potters are all the same, your father was an arrogant prat and you, though I fain thought it possible, are even worse.”

“Shut UP!” Potter shouted. “Just SHUT UP! You don’t know anything! Tom keeps saying we should trust you, but you’re no better than him! You keep treating Harry like some spoiled brat in desperate need of discipline, when all you really think is that we’re a carbon copy of James Potter and that you can take all your frustration at him out on us. Well let me tell you something, Snape, you know nothing about us or how we’ve spent the last fifteen years, so don’t you dare judge us!”

“You are correct there,” Severus sneered, “I certainly have no idea what it is like to spend fifteen years doted on as a savior.”

The boy glared furiously at him, breathing harshly through his nose, lips pursed so tight they had gone white with the pressure. Suddenly, he burst into motion, rushing forward and grabbing Severus’ arm, dragging him out of the classroom. The potions master felt fury rising at this audacious display, but decided that if he ever wanted to solve this mystery, it wouldn’t be done through yelling and punishment.

After all, he could always yell and punish afterwards.

Ahead, Potter was muttering to himself; Severus listened closer.

“It would be much quicker to just let him into our mind,” he said in Tom’s voice.

“I’m compromising as it is,” the voice that had ranted in the classroom retorted, still sounding angry. “Don’t push, Tom. Besides, no matter what, I am not letting that slime bag in one more time.”

“Fine, fine,” Tom agreed with a sigh, “but I want it noted that I think this is a bad idea.”

The first voice snorted amusedly. “Duly noted.”

By this time they were out on the grounds, headed toward the gate that signaled the edge of the anti-apparition wards. Severus found himself agreeing with Tom that this was likely a very bad idea, but he couldn’t deny his curiosity. He was now following voluntarily, as the boy had returned his arm soon after leaving the dungeons.

They stopped ten feet beyond the wards, the boy grabbing his arm even more securely and pulling out his wand. He couldn’t mean to…but no, he wasn’t even of age yet.

“John,” the boy commanded. A rather odd command in Severus’ opinion, but far too much had been odd in the past weeks for him to start questioning now.

“Yes?” Potter asked, blinking and squinting as if the prescription on his glasses wasn’t quite correct. “Ah, right. Off we go then.”

Sure enough, there was a slight dropping sensation and they were no longer on Hogwarts’ grounds – or anywhere thereabouts. It was a plain street, very muggle, with identical houses framing either side. The only lights were those of the streetlamps and an occasional window. Severus was led by the aggressive Potter up the walk of one particular house. They stopped on the front steps; he could just make out a number 4 by the mail drop.

“I want you to just watch, alright?” Potter said, pulling out his invisibility cloak. “Put this on and enjoy the show, as I’m sure you will.”

Severus sneered, but slipped on the cloak, almost gagging as he imagined that it still stank of James Potter. The arrogant idiot’s offspring knocked hesitantly on the door, almost as if he had to remind himself why he was there. Heavy footsteps could be heard inside, then the door was ripped open, revealing a bulbous, glaring, monster of a man.

“Boy,” he growled, menacingly. Severus watched Potter flinch with interest. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry, Uncle Vernon,” Potter apologized softly, trying to keep peace. Severus felt his memory spark – this must be Potter’s home, making the unpleasant man Vernon Dursley. “I forgot one of my schoolbooks. May I please get it? I won’t be but a minute, and they won’t let me back without it.”

Dursley grunted, but stepped aside, allowing Potter to enter. Severus slipped in behind as Vernon checked to make sure no one had seen before closing the door.

The moment the bolt clicked into place, Dursley spun on his heel and smacked Potter on the head.

“Idiot boy!” he snapped, striking out again. Snape felt his mouth drop open in shock and appall. “If I didn’t want to make sure you’ll be gone for the next nine months I wouldn’t let you set one filthy foot inside my house. How dare you leave one of your freaky books here!”

The fat man grabbed Potter’s collar and spun him around, slamming him against the wall, pinning him there.

“Seems to me you need a lesson in forgetfulness, boy,” he hissed eagerly, reaching for a cane that leaned against the wall nearby. “My old Smeltings Stick ought to do the trick.”

Holding Potter in place by the back of his neck, Dursley lifted the cane and brought it down on the boy’s half-healed back. Potter’s face scrunched up as he bit back a cry of pain. Again and again the stick came down on the boy’s back, and not once did he scream, plead, or even whimper.

Severus watched, paralyzed. Potter’s words repeated over and over in his head ‘enjoy the show, as I’m sure you will’ ‘enjoy the show, as I’m sure you will’ Had he really been so horrible to the Gryffindor that he thought Severus would find pleasure in watching him beaten by his own family?

“You’re a no good, lazy, worthless burden and you should be grateful we took you in,” Dursley shouted as he continued the ‘punishment’. “You’re father was waste of space drunk who couldn’t be bothered to work for a living and your mother was a freak and a whore. Say it!”

Don’t you dare say it, Severus willed mentally, trying to get his limbs to move so he could stop this. Don’t you dare give him that, Potter.

As if he could hear him, the boy suddenly kicked out, catching his uncle in the shin and forcing him to back up. Potter spun around, standing up tall and straight, and glared.

“No,” he said quietly, dangerously.

Dursley raised the stick again, but, as if Potter’s sudden action had unfrozen him as well, Severus threw off the cloak and grabbed the weapon before it could be used.

“That is quite enough,” he snarled. A quick glance at Potter (or Tom, if he’d recognized the tone during the denial correctly) let Severus catch a grateful half-smile before the boy’s eyes rolled up in his head and he lost consciousness.

-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Harry awoke and immediately gritted his teeth against the burning pain from his back. Merlin! It hadn’t been this bad since his first day back at school! Had he slept wrong? On one of his textbooks perhaps?

He opened his eyes and squinted against the glaring whiteness around him. The hospital wing. Harry sighed, it wasn’t from sleeping wrong, then. The worst part of waking up in the hospital wing was that eighty percent of the time it happened after a Blank Out, and this time was no different. The last thing he remembered was Snape glaring at him during detention.

Speaking of which.

A dark, blurry shadow to his right moved suddenly and Harry felt his glasses slide onto his nose, bringing the professor into focus.

Not again, he thought. Out loud he said, “Sir?”

“Potter,” Snape greeted with a nod. Then he stood and swept out with no explanation as to why Harry was in the hospital wing, or why he, Snape, had been watching him sleep.

Madam Pomfrey bustled in moments later, thoroughly distracting Harry with her poking and prodding. She turned him over onto his stomach and pulled up his shirt, gasping at his back. Harry wondered what was there.

“Goodness, child, you must have fallen down a whole flight!” she exclaimed.

“What?” Harry asked, confused.

“Professor Snape said you fell down the stairs on the way to detention,” Pomfrey explained, looking at him shrewdly. “Is that not what happened?”

“Oh, of course, I just didn’t hear at first, sorry,” Harry lied, wondering at the story. It wasn’t true at all, he knew that much at least, because he hadn’t had his Blank Out until he was already at detention. Why was Professor Snape lying?

A horrifying thought struck him suddenly. What if it was Snape who had hurt him? That would explain the lying – no way the head of Slytherin would admit to harming a student – and might even explain why he’d been waiting for Harry to wake up. But…something about that explanation didn’t add up, he couldn’t think what it was, but something kept the expected surge of suspicion and fear from welling up inside. Rather than feeling doubtful about his professor, he simply felt that the idea was absurd.

Rather odd, really.

“Honestly, Mr. Potter,” Pomfrey tutted, “I see you here more than anyone else, I believe, and you almost always arrive unconscious.”

Not able to think of a reply to that, Harry settled for keeping silent while she waved her wand. The relieving magic that washed over his back was delightful, and, though it didn’t take away the aches completely, it certainly soothed them and propelled them on the way to healing.

Soon enough she declared him healthy and sent him off to breakfast. It was, apparently, Tuesday morning. Well, at least he didn’t have potions, or any other classes with the Slytherins, today. Malfoy had been less of a prat than usual – possibly because whatever had made the boy look so scared at the end of that Blank Out the other day – but that still only put him at ‘barely tolerable’.

When he got to the Great Hall, the first thing Harry noticed was that neither Snape nor Dumbledore were present. He hoped nothing bad had happened.

-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus walked swiftly out of the hospital wing. He couldn’t get the image of death-green eyes out of his head. Now, knowing what was behind him, what had fragmented the boy’s mind; knowing that Harry himself didn’t know…those eyes seemed lacking, broken, dead.

And it certainly didn’t help matters that his favorite taunts were now out of reach. He doubted he would ever be able to mention Potter’s muggle family again without remembering how his face had pinched as he fought not to scream, nor the boy’s parents without hearing Dursley’s echoing insults.

The potion’s master found himself at the door of Dumbledore’s office with little memory of getting there, but knocked softly anyway.

“Severus, come in, come in,” Dumbledore said from inside, sounding relieved. “Perhaps you can shed a bit of light on a mystery of mine.”

Severus raised an eyebrow, but already knew what the ‘mystery’ was. The headmaster didn’t keep tabs on his staff, but the wards immediately notified him if a student left without permission. He smirked inwardly at the knowledge that all those times Potter thought he was ‘sneaking’ into Hogsmead, he was under the watchful eye of Albus Dumbledore.

“A student was out of bounds for approximately half an hour last night,” Albus elaborated. “He left under his own power, but was escorted back by a professor.”

“Albus I have no patience for this today,” Severus interrupted bluntly. Normally he enjoyed the verbal play Albus indulged in, seeing how well they could understand one another without ever getting to a conclusive point. However, normally he didn’t have shattered green eyes haunting him. “I cannot and will not tell you everything I know, suffice it to say that Mr. Potter will not be returning to his relatives for the summer holiday, nor any other holiday. If he does, you will have my resignation within a week and Potter will be in my family manor in two. Less, if I can manage it. Good day, Albus.”

Leaving a thoroughly shocked headmaster in his office while he returned to his normal activities of class preparation would normally have put Severus in a very good mood, but now all he felt was…rather hollow. Over the years he had had his part in keeping Potter at the Dursleys’ for as long as possible, arguing with the headmaster against Professor McGonagall, even the other members of the Order, that Potter was safest there and even if he didn’t particularly like his relatives (which Severus had always privately thought was because he was selfish and spoiled) he was safest from the Dark Lord there, and thus that was the best place for him whenever he could not be at Hogwarts.

Now he could only do his best to rectify that mistake. He hoped that the threat of losing his spy and potions professor, combined with the fact that Severus himself was the one making this demand, would be enough to get the headmaster to comply. If not, he fully intended to go through with it. He would turn his back on Dumbledore and Hogwarts and give James Potter’s son sanctuary in his own home if it meant he knew for a fact the boy wouldn’t have to face Vernon Dursley again.

He’d even let that idiot child have pudding.

The next time he was faced with Potter (any of them) was during potions the next Monday. He had seriously considered skipping, but he’d never skipped a day of classes in his life, not as a student and certainly not as a professor, and he wasn’t going to start now. Severus Snape could manage one class.

Severus decided halfway through that maybe skiving off wasn’t such a horrible thing anyway, and even Dumbledore took holidays, he was sure. The worst of it was that Potter wasn’t doing anything different. No, the potions professor couldn’t even blame his affliction on anything Potter had done, it was simply the fact that it was Potter. Just by being himself the boy had managed to completely disrupt Severus’ routine.

And he liked his routine.

And no he did not just sound like a petulant child who’d been denied a sweet, thank you very much. He sounded like nothing more or less than he was – a grown man who had lived a chaotic life and now wanted to settle down with firm boundaries who had just realized those boundaries were not just arbitrary but completely and utterly false.

He hadn’t been having so much trouble before he’d actually had to deal with Potter. The brief glances he’d been unable to prevent in the Great Hall at meal times (he refused to hide away) were nothing compared to having the boy in class. Every time he saw the look of concentration on Potter’s face, he was forced to remember how the Gryffindor learned such discipline; every time Potter smiled at something his friend Granger said, he couldn’t stop a flash of wonder that such a broken child could still smile.

It was bloody infuriating!

Severus was almost relieved when the time for detention came and he would, with any luck, only have to face one of the Potters who knew about the abuse already. Not that he needed to talk about it, Merlin no. It would simply be a relief not to know he was hiding it from the person who had experienced it.

At 6:59, the door to the potion’s classroom opened and Potter walked in. Severus forced himself not to gawk, and it was only his years of conditioning that let him succeed. Potter had somehow managed to tame his hair and also seemed to have found clothes that fit. Whoever this was, he cared about Potter’s appearance.

“Good evening, Professor Snape,” Potter said in a high pitched voice, doing what might, in any other circumstances, be called a curtsy.

“Good evening,” Severus drawled, barely keeping the confusion out of his voice. “Have we met?”

“No,” ‘Potter’ giggled nervously. “My name’s Amelia. I’m only nine years old, you know, but I’m the most civilized one.” She – for Severus had no more doubt that this was a girl in Potter’s body – giggled again. “None of the boys have table manners like mine, or can carry on polite conversation with all the proper ‘yes, sir’s and ‘no, ma’am’s. Anyway, I’m here to apologize. Even if you were a bit rude yourself, James shouldn’t have blown up like that, and he certainly shouldn’t have taken us to number 4.”

“James?” Severus asked quickly.

“Oh, yes, he didn’t even introduce himself, did he?” Amelia sighed. “So rude. James can’t come out at the moment for a proper introduction, since he’s the one responsible for what happened to Harry. Poor boy,” she said mournfully. “Even Tom had to get involved, and he usually stays well away from those interactions. But you were most wonderful, Professor Snape, and we’re all quite grateful to you for stopping him. I’m ashamed to admit most of us tended to equate you with him. I do hope you aren’t offended.”

Severus leaned back in his chair. In his desperation to not think about the events of the previous week, he had not put together the mentions of ‘he’ from previous sessions with Tom and Foster. So they actually thought he would abuse one of his students? He opened his mouth to deny it, but a sudden flash of memory made him stop.

Catching Potter peeking into his pensieve, gripping his arm tight enough to bruise, shaking him, throwing him to the floor and heaving the first jar he could get his hands on at him.

Amelia, apparently taking his darkened expression to mean he was offended, took the opportunity to flee and Severus leaned back in his chair to ponder the new developments in peace.

Potter obviously wasn’t faking. The abuse and Amelia were enough to ensure that. Not even his low opinion of the boy’s father could get Severus to believe Harry Potter would pretend to think he was a girl, thank him, and apologize to him for a prank. In fact, he thought with a bit of a smirk, Potter would likely be mortified when he found out.

Merlin. He was going to have to tell Potter!

A week passed. Severus had to endure several searching looks from Dumbledore, but the headmaster didn’t mention anything. On Monday, he left dinner early and took out his notes, determined to come up with an organized way of doing this.

Boy – takes beatings, broken.Foster – childhood happiness.Mike – sullen, angry, yet protective.Tom – Slytherin, defiant, proud, cunning, dangerous. Trusts me.Danny – Quidditch, can handle touch.John – can apparate.Amelia – girl, 9 years old, polite, manners Potter – hero? Still unknown.James – doesn’t trust me, was in charge, now in disgrace.Faking – not an option. Harry is abused.References to ‘him’ – Vernon Dursley, main abuser.‘Taking care of the Dursleys’ – yes revenge, justified. Would he like help?

Now, how to break the truth to Potter. It was obvious the boy had some idea – it was no secret that he didn’t like his muggle relatives. And really, it should have been obvious that they didn’t like him, as he never got owls from them, but Severus had tried to pay as little attention to Potter as he could, over the years. Apparently it hadn’t worked as he was quite familiar with the boy’s habits, and could recall even now that the only times Potter ever saw his owl during the first three years, were when she would come down at breakfast to keep him company; she never brought a letter with her.

He sighed, absently running a hand through his hair.

The notes hadn’t helped.

“It would be much quicker if we just let him into our mind” Tom had said. Would that work? Perhaps save Severus’ own memory of Potter being abused in a pensieve and show it to him?

He scoffed. That would go over well. Honestly, he’d like to think he had more tact than that.

What if he took Tom’s suggestion more directly, though?

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

When the door opened at 7:05, Severus felt he had a good idea who it would be. It was actually a relief, he needed to present this idea to someone who didn’t hate him. That would only be Tom.

The boy walked in and sat down, a cynical, but still genuinely amused smirk on his face.

“Evening, Professor,” he drawled. Severus inclined his head in greeting.

“Tom, we have something to discuss.” The boy looked at him sharply, tensing for a moment before relaxing back into his normal slouch. “You know of Mr. Potter’s destiny, correct?”

Tom nodded, sneering. “Oh, yes. That idiot Trelawney’s prophecy. Sounds rather self-fulfilling to me.”

Severus raised an eyebrow, too curious to avoid it as he had never heard the full prophecy, but not wanting to actually ask. Luckily, Tom was a Slytherin and that was all the prompt he needed.

“Well, if Voldemort hadn’t heard about the prophecy, he never would have attacked me, I never would have been marked,” he gestured with disgust at his scar, “and the prophecy wouldn’t matter.”

“Intriguing as the prospect of Voldemort not having been banished for thirteen years might be, you’ll forgive me if I don’t wish the past to change. Much,” he amended, reminded again of the reason Tom was there. “In any case, that was not the business I wished to discuss. I believe Mr. Potter as he is now, separated amongst you, will not be fit to defeat Voldemort.”

“Why not?” Tom challenged. “We’ve all got the scar.”

“But were all of you born as the seventh month dies? To parents who had three times defied Voldemort?” Severus countered. “Or were you born when Potter started to hate? Was the persona ‘Potter’ born when Black died and Potter realized he had been partially responsible?”

“Don’t lie! You don’t lie to us,” Potter hissed, his voice low and hoarse, his posture suddenly stiff. “It was all his fault Sirius died. Everyone around him dies. He’d be happy if we could join them. Go be with Mum and Dad and Sirius. But he doesn’t deserve the happiness.”

Severus blinked in shock. This obviously wasn’t Tom; he had said he wasn’t out to harm Potter. Whoever this was, he was self-destructive to an extreme Severus hadn’t witnessed in a long time.

“Doesn’t deserve anything but what the bloody muggles give him,” the boy continued to mutter. “They should have succeeded in killing him, sent him to the afterlife where he could see Mum and Dad and Sirius and Cedric and they could tell him how much they hate him, how worthless he is. That’s what he deserves.”

He broke off suddenly and hunched over, cradling himself as if he were holding a baby and rocking lightly.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he crooned, “Mummy doesn’t hate you. Mummy loves her little boy. Shhhh, shhhh, it’s okay. You’re a good little boy.” Potter looked up at him then and smiled sadly. “I apologize for Alex, he’s just a little upset. Don’t worry, Mummy can calm him down. Should I call Tom back for you, dear?”

Severus felt a sneer trying to come out at seeing a sixteen year old boy call him ‘dear’, but suppressed it as much as possible, nodding curtly. Potter’s posture shifted yet again, back into that of Tom, though the Slytherin looked a good deal less snidely casual now. Instead, the expression on his face was despondent and almost sad.

“Sorry about that, Professor,” he said softly. “We didn’t mean to let Alex out and, well, Mummy’s the only one that can calm him one he gets started.”

“Alex,” Severus repeated. “He is…”

“Suicidal, yes,” Tom confirmed. “Harry has a lot of guilt for what has happened to the people around him, too much for him to carry.”

“So Alex carries it for him.”

Tom nodded. “You see, Alex contemplates the fall during Astronomy; Alex spent hours at night staring at the knife Sirius gave us, before that got broken.”

“Alex, not Harry,” Severus suggested, beginning to understand. “And Alex wouldn’t pull out of a Wronski Feint, which is why Danny does the flying.” Tom nodded again. “And you? You said you’re the one who hates, you’re the Slytherin, you do the ‘dark stuff’.”

“Not Harry,” finished Tom, nodding again. He smirked sardonically. “I think you’re starting to understand us, Professor. Careful, our mind is a dangerous place.”

“That actually brings us back to my original topic,” Severus said. Tom tipped his head slightly to indicate his interest. “Harry must be made aware, and cured, of his…affliction.”

“Nonono,” Tom exclaimed, sounding slightly frantic. “We can’t do that. The whole reason we’re here is so that Harry doesn’t find out, he can’t find out, you can’t tell him, you can’t!”

“I am not proposing I tell him,” Severus said firmly, waiting while the boy’s breathing slowed down. “What I propose is that I enter your mind, the subconscious where the rest of you reside, and record a message from you as a memory to be placed in a pensieve, which I would then show to Harry.”

“Can’t!” Foster yelped, appearing and standing suddenly. “The only thing worse than grassing to someone else is grassing to Harry!”

“It is only a whole Harry Potter who can defeat Voldemort,” Severus growled. “We do not have much choice in the matter. It may be healthier to take our time with this, in fact it would probably be best if you were to go to professional counseling for several years, but we do not have several years. You have a part to play, all of you, but you must play it as a single person.”

Slowly, the boy sat back down, leaning his elbows on his knees and resting his mouth against interlocking fingers. He stared at nothing, yet his eyes flicked back and forth as if tracking an internal Quidditch match. Finally, he looked Severus in the eye and stood.

“If Harry will let you in himself,” he declared, nodded once, and left.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Tom stalked back up to Gryffindor tower, angry and scared. They had discussed the Professor’s suggestion and James had been adamant against it, and James usually made the important decisions. But James clearly wasn’t capable of doing what was best for Harry when it came to Snape. The others had placed Tom in charge, as he was usually making half the decisions anyway. He hoped that didn’t backfire on them now.

James had declared that Snape should never be allowed in their mind again, and in that he had a lot of support. Foster was still a bit sullen about the pudding, Alex never wanted anything to go right, Danny held no love for the professor either, and Mike was still bitter – more so than usual – about the cruel things Snape said.

But most of the others, even if they didn’t like it, saw the necessity of what the potions master had suggested. Amelia was singing his praises after he had stopped Him; Boy, well, Boy was hardly coherent, but it was clear he trusted Snape at least a little bit for stopping the pain; Mummy didn’t particularly like him, but she was sensible enough to know that he wouldn’t harm Harry on purpose; and John admired him intellectually.

So in the end, Tom had compromised. If Snape could get Harry himself to agree to let him into their mind, then they would do it. This felt safe enough, as Harry usually had a difficult time trusting anyone, but Tom secretly hoped that he would let Snape in. Of course, right after hoping that, he also hoped that Snape be worthy of the trust placed in him. If anything happened to Harry because of this, Tom worried that none of them would be able to handle it. They had all gone through so much pain in their life, anything else too drastic might break the fragile balance they had.

Why did everything have to be so hard?

Ugh, now he sounded like Mike. Tom shook his head as he walked through the portrait hole, assailed suddenly by the cheerful cacophony of a dozen or so ‘studying’ Gryffindors. Hermione was probably the only one actually studying, the rest were chatting to each other over their work or not even bothering to fake it. Seamus and Dean were playing exploding snap and Ron called ‘Harry’ over for a game of chess.

Tom, distracted by his thoughts on Professor Snape, forgot that he was supposed to be acting like Harry, who wasn’t terribly good at chess, and nearly beat Ron.

“Wow, Harry!” the redhead exclaimed. “You really had me on the run there for a moment. When did you get so good, have you been practicing without me?”

“Really,” Tom barely kept himself from sneering, “you use the same strategy every time. It was inevitable that I’d eventually catch on. You’ve probably gotten a bit worse, too,” he added in a mutter, “having only Harry to play against.”

Ron’s head snapped up and Tom realized with an inward groan that he hadn’t been quiet enough. The other boy grabbed his arm in what looked like a friendly manner, but was almost tight enough to hurt, and started pulling him toward the boy’s dorm.

“Hermione, could come with us for a sec?” Ron asked casually as they passed the reading girl. “Er…Harry wanted to see if we can help him with his Defense homework.”

Hermione looked up from her book and raised an eyebrow at them. Tom was impressed, the request would sound innocuous, but Hermione knew very well that Harry never, ever needed help with Defense. The bushy-haired girl followed them up to the dorm where they sat on Harry’s bed. Ron quickly cast a silencing charm and closed the curtains before shoving Tom down on the mattress.

“Who are you and what have you done with Harry?” he demanded, pointing his wand at him. Hermione gasped and drew her own wand, but kept it down.

Tom groaned, rubbing his face with one hand. “I do not want to deal with this right now,” he moaned.

“What’s going on, Ron?” Hermione asked. Ron explained about how Harry had been acting odd and how he’d almost won at chess and then the idiotic comment he’d made about ‘only having Harry to play against’. Tom groaned again to hear it explained in detail exactly how many stupid mistakes he’d made.

What to do now? He couldn’t just explain it to them, could he? They’d probably freak out, Gryffindors that they are.

Hey, stop underestimating them! James demanded. They’ve always been good friends. Ron overreacts on occasion but he always comes around, and Hermione’s never turned her back on us.

Besides, John added, she has access to muggle books in the summer, I bet she knows something useful.

And it really is rather impolite to lie to Harry’s friends, said Amelia.

Tom sighed. He supposed it was rather hypocritical of him to keep demanding they tell Snape everything and then try to hide from Ron and Hermione.

“Alright, I’ll talk,” he said aloud. “Just please, no hexes till I’m done.” Ron and Hermione nodded, Ron even going so far as to lower his wand, though he didn’t put it away. “First of all, my name is Tom, and while it’s true I’m not Harry, I’m not exactly someone else either. I’m Harry’s Slytherin side, and yes, he does have one; I’m probably going to get into big trouble for telling you this, but Harry was almost sorted into Slytherin.” Foster suddenly got all anxious and popped up. “You weren’t supposed to tell them that!” he exclaimed. “About us, yes, but not about that!” Tom pushed him out of the way. “I had to tell them about that so they can understand me,” he explained. “How are they supposed to believe I’m Harry’s Slytherin side without knowing he has one?” He turned back to Ron and Hermione. “Sorry about that,” he drawled, “I told you I’d get in trouble. Anyway, where was I?”

Neither answered, which wasn’t a surprise really. Tom figured they must sound weird, two different people talking in different voices out of the same mouth. However, he couldn’t think of anything more to say, so Harry’s friends would have to speak first.

Ron laughed suddenly, nervously. “Is this a joke or something? Come on, Harry, cut it out, you got us. Good one, mate.”

Tom shook his head. “It’s not a joke, and Harry can’t hear you.”

“Can’t…can’t hear us?” Hermione stammered.

“No, whenever one of us comes out, he goes to sleep,” Tom explained. “You see, we’re here to handle what he can’t. It would probably be safe for him to come out now, but he can’t explain any of this to you as he doesn’t know what’s going on. Professor Snape’s planning on changing that, though.”

“Snape?” Ron asked, scrunching up his nose in disgust. “What does this have to do with that greasy git?”

So Tom explained to them about the detentions, how Snape had been trying to draw them out, learn about them. He told them about Snape’s idea, and his compromise, and even spilled his fears about whether it was a good idea or not. He left out the Dursleys, though. There were no excuses good enough for telling the secret so tightly protected not even Harry himself knew; Foster would have his head if he so much as hinted at it. They let him speak until he ran out of words, even waiting expectantly while he consulted the others mentally about whether or not they had anything to add.

Foster wanted to ask them for pudding. Children, honestly.

“I can’t believe I had no idea,” Hermione said faintly in the end. Ron looked like he had lost the ability to speak some time ago. “The moodiness, the lapses in memory, it’s practically a textbook case. You’re…Harry is – well, you all are, really…”

“What?” Ron asked, confused. Tom secretly agreed with the sentiment; Hermione could be incredibly confusing when she was thinking out loud.

“Harry has Multiple Personality Disorder, Ron,” Hermione answered. “Oh, I’ve read a bit about this, not much, but enough that I should have seen…but I just didn’t think. Oh, Harry – sorry, I mean, Tom – I think it’s a good thing that Professor Snape is helping you with this, and it won’t be too bad, having him in your head. And I think it was very responsible for you to leave the decision up to Harry in the end. He has to be able to trust Professor Snape as well for this to work.”

“Thank you, Hermione,” Tom said sincerely, feeling a good deal calmer. “Anything else you’d like to ask before we go to bed. We’re rather tired.”

“Yeah,” Ron spoke up. “Did you know you look a dead ringer for a black-haired Malfoy when you smirk like that?”

They laughed.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus waited, rather impatiently, for Potter to come down for detention. Scattered across his desk were muggle psychology textbooks he had bought when Dumbledore was teaching him Occlumency and the copious notes he had taken from them on MPD specifically. They weren’t exactly helpful, as muggles were still unsure if MPD was real or not, but the fact that he had studied helped soothe his nerves. At least, as much as his nerves could be soothed. He still jumped slightly when the door finally opened.

Potter walked in nervously and took his seat across the desk, staring at anything other than Severus.

Severus cleared his throat to begin. “Mr. Potter, I have a serious matter to discuss with you.”

“Figures,” Potter muttered, just barely loud enough for Severus to make out the words. “It’d probably kill you to make a joke once in a while.”

A warning sounded in Severus’ mind that something was off and he glared at the boy in front of him.

“Mike, I am not here to speak to you,” he said firmly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mike scoffed, “don’t get your git-pants in a bunch.”

Severus mentally rolled his eyes and waited. Potter slumped slightly, then blinked and sat up, giving a rather fake-looking yawn.

“Sorry professor,” he apologized, “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. Is detention over?”

“No, Mr. Potter.” Severus began again, “There is a serious matter we need to discuss.”

Potter sat up straighter, looking interested and a bit anxious.

“I believe I know the root of your lapses in memory, but I need access to your mind in order to find out for sure,” the potions master explained. “I will be delving into your subconscious, so you will have no memory of what I see, but I intend to place the memory in a pensieve for you to view.”

Potter looked at him, forehead wrinkled slightly in confusion. “Why…why are you telling me all this?” he asked hesitantly. “I mean, I’m not…I can’t stop you, can I? So why are you explaining it? Sir,” he added quickly.

“While you may not be able to keep me from your conscious mind,” Severus acknowledged, though he privately wondered if that was true, “access to the subconscious requires consent. True consent, and trust. I realize this is an area we are lacking, but I can–”

“It’s not,” Potter interrupted.

“What?”

“It’s not an ‘area we are lacking’,” Potter said quietly, looking down at his hands. “I…I do trust you, Professor Snape. And if you think it will help get rid of my Blank Outs, I’ll consent to you entering my subconscious.”

Severus leaned back, stunned. He knew Tom trusted him, and wasn’t that odd enough, but Harry himself trusted him? When had that happened?

Instead of asking these questions, though, Severus directed Harry to arrange himself most comfortably in the chair. He, himself, used his wand to move the desk out of the way and brought his own chair directly in front of Harry’s. Placing his hand’s gently on the boy’s temples, they locked eyes, and Severus dove into his mind.

Potter’s ribbon of memories flowed past, mostly meaningless, unimportant. Occasionally one with a bit of emotion, usually cheerfulness or a vague melancholy, flashed into life, but Severus ignored all these. The professor pushed past, trying to go further, deeper into the boy’s mind, but it was like trying to swim to the bottom of a lake with a lungful of air pushing the other way. Finally, the resistance seemed to crumble and he fell into the black depths of the unconscious.

Inky blackness filled Severus’ ‘sight’, but he was not fooled into thinking there was nothing there. No, somewhere there was a door into Harry Potter’s innermost mind, where the thoughts and feelings hidden even from him would reside. Severus was eager to see what the door was, as that was a large clue into the psyche of a person; the headmaster had once told him that Severus’ door was thick wood with iron bars, heavily locked and strong.

Something pale flashed in the thick night and the potions master quickly followed it, bringing himself closer. It was, indeed, the door to the subconscious, but he was a bit puzzled by its appearance. The door was thin wood painted white, but oblong, tapered toward one end as if under a slope or a set of stairs. Severus touched the handle and it opened, revealing a room that, by the size of the steps in the ceiling (he had been right, it was under the stairs) should have been too small to fit one grown man, let alone the group of a dozen or so people he saw inside, but it had obviously been enlarged. A child’s cot filled most of the space, yet was large enough to come up to Severus’ hip.

“What are you doing here?” one of the people demanded. He looked startlingly like James Potter, but was no older than Harry. “You’re not allowed in.”

“Back off, James,” another, Tom, said firmly. He was the same age, perhaps a touch younger, with calmer hair than Potter and slightly tanner skin. He reminded Severus vaguely of the pictures Lucius had shown him of the young Tom Riddle, which was more than a little disturbing. “You know the conditions we set, and you know the Professor would abide by them.”

“Besides,” Mike – obviously Mike, he looked so much like Potter had in fifth year, constantly hunched and griping – snapped, “it’s not like you’re in any position to object.”

James stood down instantly, letting Severus pass. He quickly identified Foster; the boy looked about six or seven, and had hair like a great black mane, flopping about with every slight movement. Not that many movements he made were slight, as he came bouncing up to Severus.

“You never got me a pudding,” he accused, glaring with his lower lip stuck out.

“I did,” Severus corrected, “but you weren’t there to eat it. It is still in my office under a preservation charm if you want to come out and eat it afterward.”

Foster nodded eagerly, tossing his hair back and forth like black grain in a storm.

Severus moved on, wanting to make sure they were all there before he began. Danny was reading a Quidditch book under the lamp, still in Potter’s Gryffindor Jersey. Another boy, one Severus couldn’t readily identify, sat next to him, reading a book on transfiguration that the professor recognized as a NEWT level text.

Amelia bounded up to him, giggling.

“Hello Profoessor!” she squealed, delighted. “It’s very good to see you here. Would you like me to introduce you?”

“Yes, thank you,” Severus accepted politely. She took his ‘hand’ and pulled him over to the reading boys.

“This is Danny, you’ve already met him, I believe,” she said, pointing. Severus nodded and she moved on to the other boy. “This is John, he,” she glared as reprovingly as any nine-year-old can, “apparated you to number 4.” John shrank back, hiding behind his book. “Tom, Mike, and James you also met already. Over here is Alex and Mummy.” She led him over to a darker corner of the cot where a tall woman with warm red hair and creamy skin sat stroking the hair of a pale, despondent boy who looked lost in thought.

“Nice to see you again, dear,” Mummy said softly before turning back to Alex.

“Boy is over there in the corner,” Amelia went on, motioning with a sort of pity at the shadows where the stairs met the floor where a whimpering could be heard. Severus noticed Mummy look up, concerned, but she stayed where she was.

“And finally, there’s Potter,” Amelia dragged him over to the cot again where a stronger-looking version of the boy he knew in real life lay sleeping. “He’s new,” the girl whispered, “so he doesn’t wake up much. He’ll come out if he’s needed though.”

“Thank you,” Severus said, releasing her hand and addressing the lot. “What I’d like to do here is make a sort of memory-recording to show to Po-Harry, so just come up and look at a spot slightly to my right, about the height of my shoulder, and tell him about yourself. Who’s first.”

There was a moment of silence. Everyone shifted anxiously.

“How about we do this logically?” John suggested. “Alphabetical order, Alex first.”

“Should we really let Alex speak?” James questioned. Tom shrugged.

“We’ll have Mummy with him, and hopefully hearing the rest of us will take away the hurt of whatever Alex says,” he proposed. “Come on, Alex”

Hearing his name, the pale, depressed boy stood and wandered over, Mummy holding him with one hand across his shoulders.

“Here?” he demanded, pointing to a spot in midair. Severus nodded. “Hello Harry, you little freak. I hope you do get better, get your memory back, so you can feel how much I hate you.” He turned and stalked back. Mummy sighed and followed a moment later.

“Amelia, you’re next,” Tom said with an aggravated sigh of his own.

“A…alright,” Amelia agreed. She walked up and stood where Severus had indicated and looked at the same spot. “Er…Hiya Harry. My name’s Amelia. D’you remember – well, no I don’t suppose you do…but sometimes Auntie Petunia would host big dinner parties and she wanted to seem fancy, so she’d dress us up like a servant and have us take care of the guests; do the cooking and the serving and all that. She even had us read these funny etiquette books. But U-Uncle Vernon didn’t like it, said they should hide us away and that it wasn’t possible to treat a freak proper manners, so he’d get really mad whenever he saw us reading the books or anything like that. So instead of letting you get into trouble, I read them for you, and cooked and served for you and did all that.” She giggled. “I’m such a good cook, Harry, that Auntie Petunia almost complimented me on it. Anyway, I do hope Professor Snape can help you get better. I know it hurts, but you really should eat like a proper gentleman.” Amelia curtseyed and smiled brightly before moving away.

“Boy would be next, but–” James began.

“Let him up, too,” Tom said softly. “Harry needs to know all of us.” James looked at him sharply, but Tom refused to elaborate.

“I’ll get him,” Mummy volunteered, apparently giving up on comforting Alex for the moment. She went into the shadows and fetched a little boy, smaller than Foster, so emaciated the shapes of his bones could be seen at the joints.

“Boy doesn’t want to go,” he moaned piteously. “Leave Boy alone.”

“Hush, dear, it’s alright,” Mummy said soothingly. “Just say a bit to Harry, tell him about yourself.”

“Boy doesn’t wanna talk to Harry. Harry gets Boy in trouble.” He whimpered. “It hurts, it hurts. Please don’t hurt me.”

“No one’s going to hurt you, dear,” Mummy continued. “Don’t you want to tell Harry to get better and remember?”

“Remember Boy?” the fragile being questioned, looking up at Mummy with bright eyes.

“Yes.”

“Shouldn’t remember Boy,” he declared sadly. “Boy was the first, the first to hurt and the first to go away. Boy breaks and hurts alone, so alone, till Mummy comes. Remember Mummy, don’t remember Boy.”

Severus closed his eyes briefly against the onslaught of feelings he’d rather not identify – it was always harder to control his emotions when in someone else’s mind – while Boy limped away.

“Danny, your turn,” James called softly after a long silence. The addressed boy plopped his book down and walked to Severus, looking at the same spot as the others.

“Hey Harry, mate. I, er, don’t really know what to say, ‘cept I hope you get better so we can fly more often. You used to be really good at flying, till Alex came along. You got scared of yourself, far as we can see it; locked him away and made me fly for you. Not that I mind, really, just that we’re better as a whole. Also, you’re missing all the great faces Malfoy makes when we win! So get us together, Harry, soon as you can. Bye!” He half-waved and returned to his book.

Foster was next.

“Hello Harry,” he called in singsong. “I hope Mr. Snape’s given us a pudding by the time you see this. I won one from him a while ago, but he said he’d never promised me one so it didn’t count and so I made him promise the next time he wanted something and he did but we haven’t gotten it yet.”

“Tell him about yourself, Foster,” Tom corrected dryly.

“Oh, right. I’m eight years old and I’m in Primary Three. You see, I was born right after Boy, ‘cause you couldn’t take away the bad and leave the good, it’s all sort of a package,” he snapped his fingers, “like an oreo! But anyway, you had to lose the good too, but you didn’t really lose it because I remember it and as soon as you get better you’ll remember it too. So hurry up, okay? Oh, and make sure to remind Mr. Snape of the pudding!”

There was a small pause after Foster skipped away to sit by Danny. Tom and James shared a long glance, then Tom sighed.

“Alright, James,” he said resignedly, “go on.”

James got in position, looking sort of anxious.

“Hi, Harry,” he said quietly. “I wish I could see you while I talk to you, but that’s not really possible, I guess. Look, I owe you an apology. I know you don’t know what for yet, but someday, when you remember – and you will remember – you’ll know, and I hope you’ll remember then that I am sorry. And…I’m proud of you for trusting Snape, even if I don’t like him much. I’ve tried to do my best by you over the years, and I know sometimes I haven’t succeeded, but I’ve tried, and I’d like to think your life has been better because of my efforts. Get better, Harry, and be happy. Whatever Alex says, you deserve happiness.” He smiled sadly and walked back to his seat next to Tom. John put his book away without being asked and took his turn.

“Hello, Harry,” he said, pushing his glasses further up on his face. “I’d like to say it’s nice to meet you, but I’ve known you all my life, I just hope it’s nice to meet me. I was born in Primary One, when we were punished for having better grades than Dudley. Believe it or not, Harry, we’re quite intelligent, almost as smart as Hermione, if I do say so myself. You love knowledge, so you kept me hidden away. I memorized pretty much every book we ever read, even though we couldn’t use it in class. When we work together, I’m sure we’ll be a really great wizard, just like Hermione said we are, because I’ll have the knowledge and you’ll have the magic. So, like the others, I’d like to extend my well-wishes to you. I won’t say goodbye, because even as you see this, I’m with you watching it, probably being teased as well.” He shrugged and quirked his lips into a tiny grin. “C’est la vie, non? In any case, good luck.” With a small wave, John returned to his book and fell again into it’s pages.

“Mike, go on,” James urged, “everyone needs a turn.”

“Fine,” Mike muttered, sulking into position. “Not like I have a choice. What am I supposed to say anyway? ‘Hi, Harry, you’re a great person and your life is great too’? Well you’re not. You’re just human and you’ve made a lot of costly mistakes, and things rarely go miraculously right for us. People keep secrets from us, and I hate it! I get so angry when I think of what Dumbledore didn’t tell us. But then, you don’t know about that, do you? Ah, well, s’not my place,” he rolled his eyes on the word ‘place’ and stalked off.

Charming young man, Severus thought sarcastically.

“Mummy!” James called eagerly. “Your turn.”

Mummy walked back from where she had been comforting Boy and Alex, taking her place and ‘looking’ fondly down at Potter.

“Harry, my young man, you’ve grown so well,” she said wistfully. “I remember when you and Boy were so little, and I’d hold you and make you better, dry your tears whenever you got hurt. Let you know you were alright, and loved. Always remember that Mummy loves you, okay sweetie?” She blew him a kiss and smiled a melancholy smile before walking away.

“Potter!” Tom called loudly. “Oi, Potter, wake up!”

Potter woke and stood, Severus almost gasped. He was strong, glowing with the vivacity of youth, but at the same time ancient and weary, like an old veteran. The cynical man wished he could brush off the power of that appearance as typical Potter arrogance, but he knew that the subconscious had no conceits; this was how Harry Potter could be, the charisma he could have, if he would let himself. To think that he had locked this away because of one mistake and a dead godfather.

Then again, he thought to himself bitterly, when it seems like a good deal of the world hates you or doesn’t want to know you, the one person who supports you unconditionally must become dear.

“Hello Harry,” Potter said with a slight sigh and a smile. “You don’t have to worry about Voldemort, alright? I’ll take care of everything, whether you get better or not. I’m here for you, I’m your strength, even if it’s a strength you wish you didn’t have.” He nodded respectfully and returned to his bed.

Tom was next, and last. He strode up to the spot in a way that made Severus sure he was acutely nervous about this experience.

“Harry,” he greeted with a short nod. “I know you don’t want to hear this, I know you’re an innocent who shouldn’t be made to heart his, but you have to know yourself. The reason there is a Slytherin side to you, Harry, is more than because you have a cunning and rebellious side. Oh, there is that, make no mistake; but it is also because there is a part of you that has learned to hate with such a passion that you would rather cut your mind to pieces than know that you felt that way. Harry, I hate. I hate Him for what he did to us. I hate Voldemort for killing Mum and Dad. I hate Wormtail for betraying them and framing Sirius. I hate Bellatrix; in fact, I tried to cast the Cruciatus curse on her. Potter interrupted, though, before it could work properly. I hate Aunt Petunia for being so bitter that she would let us suffer so. I hate Dudley for following so blindly in his father’s footsteps. I hate, Harry. We hate.

“But please, don’t think this makes us like Voldemort. He didn’t have such an aversion to the emotion, first of all. And second, even my hate is tempered by the knowledge of who did wrong us and who didn’t. Although I hate all the Dursleys, I don’t wish all muggles dead, for instance. You must accept me, and my hate, if you want to be whole and let me help you as best I can. Because I can help you. I guess that’s all I have to say. It was nice talking to you for once, Harry.”

“I guess that’s everyone,” James said brusquely, clapping his hands together before jumping up and shooing Severus out. “This was fun, let’s do it again sometime. Bye!”

With a shock that sounded suspiciously like the sound of a door slamming, Severus found himself once again in his office, staring at the torrential green eyes of his student.

Harry pulled back from Snape’s touch the moment he was released from the torrent of memories. It wasn’t that he found the professor disgusting, he simply found that being touched made him nervous. Hermione and Ron were generally the only ones who touched him on a regular basis, but even that was generally short hugs from the former or a pat on the back from the latter. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon never touched him and Dudley just punched or shoved him occasionally.

The professor didn’t seem to notice his quick withdrawal, though. If Harry didn’t know better, he’d say from Snape’s expression that the man was still stuck in his head.

“Professor?” Harry prodded hesitantly. Then a bit louder, “Professor?”

Snape blinked and his face reverted to its average glare as the lights turned on inside.

“Did everything go alright, sir?” Harry asked mildly.

“As expected, Potter,” Snape acknowledged. “You will return here on Saturday right after lunch. We will need time to discuss what I saw and will put in my pensieve.”

“Yes sir,” Harry nodded, hurrying out without being dismissed. Snape let him go and didn’t comment, which didn’t really ease the anxious knot in his stomach.

“Hey Harry, did it go alright?” Hermione asked as soon as he entered the common room. She had been dropping subtle – and not-so-subtle – hints about trust and Snape all week, and Harry suddenly realized that Snape must have already told him what he was to do during one of his Blank Outs, and Harry had then told Hermione. And Ron, probably, since the redhead was also looking at him with inordinate expectation.

“It...yeah,” he mumbled tiredly. “I think it went fine.”

“You think?” Hermione asked cleverly. Harry, too exhausted from spending almost an hour stuck in memories to explain fully, simply yawned and nodded, heading upstairs and to bed.

That night he had a nightmare, one that he hadn’t had since he came to Hogwarts. He was in the cupboard under the stairs, carefully watching the faint outline of light around the door so that he didn’t feel quite so suffocated by the darkness. But even as he watched, the door and wall melted together, gradually sealing the door shut.

“No! NO!” he cried, pounding on it with his fists, but it wouldn’t budge and felt hard as rock under his hands.

In his dream, Harry wished for light – any light – to show him that he existed, that he hadn’t been swallowed up by the inky blackness that filled his eyes. His wish was granted, in the form of a flash of green and a burst of painful heat in his scar, like Hell itself had reached out to touch him.

Harry woke in the comfortable, dim darkness of Gryffindor tower and went to the window, watching as the eastern sky lightened with the coming dawn.

All that week found Harry in a constant state of nervous excitement. He found it extremely difficult to sit still and pay attention in any of his classes, and got told off by McGonagall more than once for it. He was grateful he didn’t have potions again until next week, because he would most likely spend the whole period thinking about what Professor Snape saw in his head. As it was he had barely eaten all week because Snape was at each meal and, though he was careful not to stare, Harry hadn’t been able to stop the man’s presence from sending him into deep thought.

By Friday, Ron and Hermione both had come to the conclusion that it was better to just let him be during these introspective moments. They would give him a nudge if it was time to go to class and he wasn’t responding, but usually they just talked together, sharing hopes that everything would be alright and Snape wasn’t being too much of a git.

Draco Malfoy, however, had finally decided that Harry wasn’t going to kill him and used any opportunity he could get to insult the Gryffindor and his friends.

“Well if it isn’t Potty and his lackeys, the King of Weasels and the Know-It-All Mudblood,” as they walked out of Transfiguration on Tuesday.

“I think I just dropped a knut in the lake. Hey Weasel, if you fetch it you can have it, and maybe then you can afford a patch for those rangy clothes,” as they went to visit Hagrid during their free period on Wednesday.

“Hey Scar-Head, didn’t your mother ever tell you to wash your hands if you’re going to eat after touching a mudblood? Oh wait, I guess not,” as they came in for dinner on Thursday.

Then, on Friday, Harry was alone as he headed to the Quidditch pitch to do some flying, and hopefully work off some of his nervous energy. His Firebolt was clenched in one hand and in the other a practice snitch he (presumably) owl-ordered (it had shown up after a string of Blank Outs last year with his own signature on the order form). Harry had just turned exited the castle when he heard languid footsteps and spotted Malfoy – for once not flanked by his mountainous goons – walking along the grounds towards him.

Harry turned away, intent on ignoring the pale-faced prat, but was stopped by the Slytherin’s voice.

“You’re looking exceptionally grim, Potter,” Malfoy sneered delightedly. “What happen, your dog die?”

A surge of something rose in Harry, so powerful and fierce that it scared him, and he desperately didn’t want to be there anymore.

Everything went Blank.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Draco noticed Potter’s back stiffen with satisfaction. Getting no reaction three days in a row had been frustrating, but now he knew he’d struck gold. Potter turned slowly to face him then stopped, resting all his weight on one foot, and sneered.

Since when did Potter sneer?

“Yeah, what d’you think I ought to get as a new pet?” Potter asked, his hand hovering false-casually over his wand-pocket. “A ferret might be nice, so long as I kept it in a cage in the owelry; wouldn’t want it stinking up the dormitory after all.”

The Slytherin felt his face flush in embarrassment and he reached for his wand. By the time he felt the familiar ebony handle settle against his palm, Potter had drawn his own and had it pointed steadily at his heart.

“What are you going to do, Malfoy?” Potter asked quietly, with the same wondering drawl he’d used the night he’d threatened to use the killing curse. “Curse me? Going to draw your wand so we can get into a useless duel that will last until a teacher comes out and takes points, and all the while we’re shouting insults at each other? Do you really want to be that predictable?”

Draco cursed. How in Salazar’s name did Potter know rule on of Slytherin: don’t be predictable? In any case, he had no choice but to release his wand, even though he despised being unarmed almost as much as being predicted.

“So what do you suggest, Potter?” he spat. “I know you want a fight as much as I do.”

Potter’s eyes flashed dangerously and Draco was sure the boy was remember the stupid quip he’d made about his godfather. He suddenly wondered if this whole taunting practice had been such a great idea.

“Alright, Malfoy,” Potter smirked coldly, producing a good quality practice snitch, “are you agreeable to a game of seekers-only Quidditch?”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “And what penalty shall there be when you lose?” Potter mimicked his gesture. “I’m afraid I can no longer be satisfied simply by watching your face when you realize that you’ve lost to me. There must be something more…humiliating in store.”

Potter rolled his eyes, but smirked. “All right, how about the loser tells the winner a secret. A big one, too; nothing like pants size or toothbrush color. Do you agree?”

Draco nodded curtly and raised his wand, summoning his broomstick from its place in the Quidditch sheds. He and Potter walked to the center circle of the pitch, standing on opposite arcs with the inactivated snitch midway between them.

“Alright,” Potter called across the twenty-foot space, “I’ll cast the activation spell, then a ten second tempus countdown. We’ll push off when it reaches zero. Agreed?”

“How do I know you won’t cheat and push off early, Potter?” Draco demanded, expecting his opponent to get flustered and indignant at the very suggestion.

But this Potter just grinned mischievously and said, “Would I cheat?”

Draco didn’t know why but the answer itching to come out was a resounding ‘Yes’. Instead he just shook his head and mounted his broom, waiting for the game to begin.

Potter fired the activation spell and the practice snitch disappeared into the sky before the tempus spell even got down to 9. The Gryffindor swung one leg over the broom in an awkward gesture that seemed nothing like the seeker Draco knew, then seemed to fade into himself, before waking up again at the count of 4 and correcting his grip, the more familiar game-ready smile on his face.

Draco was so confused that he missed the chance to get a half-second head start, as the tempus spell beeped loudly and he and Potter pushed off together. The Slytherin moved automatically toward the green and silver colored stands to start circling, and turned to find his rival, expecting to see him over the red and gold. Instead, Potter had moved to the Ravenclaw side and was circling in the opposite direction! Even more outrageous, as Draco looked closer he realized that Potter was still on the inside of the pitch and was only at the level of the lowest goal.

This was ridiculous! Potter must be mocking him; no seeker stayed inside the pitch or flew low, how were you supposed to see the snitch that way? You needed a broader view, which could only be achieved on the outer edges and far above, which Draco would prove. He inclined sharply and flew a good fifty feet above his normal height, so that Potter looked no more significant than a quaffle as he circled clockwise – clockwise! – beneath him.

He snorted quietly to himself as he watched for the snitch, easily able to see each and every mistake Potter made. The idiot didn’t seem to be looking much of anywhere except where he was going, was speeding along at twice the speed advised in every seeker’s handbook ever made – a steady fifteen miles per hour during uninterrupted game flow – and even tried to pull a couple of Wronski Feints from his low altitude, both of which were easy to spot as feints because of the way Potter didn’t so much as twitch his head before he dived. Obviously, had he seen the snitch, the Gryffindor would have jerked his head around to follow it. It was pathetic, really, and he just couldn’t understand why Potter would play like this, when he played like a worthy opponent in actual games.

It wasn’t until he caught a flash of gold in the center of the pitch and also got a clear view of Potter diving after it as well that Draco thought he might have been wrong. The Gryffindor hadn’t moved a muscle in his head or neck as he tipped his broom down a third time, in fact, if it hadn’t been for the fact that Potter then leveled out and started skimming along just feet above the grass, Draco might have thought his opponent hadn’t seen the snitch at all and was trying the feint again. Because Potter was already so low and going so fast, Draco knew he would have lost then if the snitch hadn’t somehow shot straight for him, and directly away from Potter. As it was, the Gryffindor pulled up right beside him just as the little golden ball changed direction yet again, leading them toward the East goalposts.

Potter’s Firebolt was in top shape and, though Draco pushed his as fast as it would go to follow the speedy little snitch, the dark-haired boy pulled slowly ahead of him, not even bothering to match his prey’s twists and jerks. But Draco was a Slytherin. The blonde swung his legs off his broom and grabbed the back of Potter’s with one hand, just above the bristles, using his new momentum to swing his Nimbus – held in Draco’s other hand – around and ahead. He released the Firebolt and used his own broom as a pivot to remount as it started to fly on its own again. He was now about five feet to the right and slightly ahead of Potter, if a bit below, as the Gryffindor’s speed had severely decreased with Draco’s manhandling, and it was purely luck that the snitch veered down toward him. Potter seemed to anticipate it as he turned to follow the golden ball diagonally, but Draco just had to lean forward and stretch out his arm…

Just a bit…

Just a bit…

WHAM!

Draco’s fingers closed instinctively as he felt Potter slam into him at top speed, they went tumbling around wildly, seemingly unable to extricate themselves from the tangled mess they’d become. Finally, Draco managed to get his broom steady beneath him so he could count his limbs; two legs on either side of the broom, left arm holding the broom handle, right arm…

Holding the snitch and Potter’s fingers simultaneously.

He’d tied with the bloody Gryffindor! Now all he had to do was decide if this was bad or good. It was certainly better than he’d ever done, but it was clear Potter hadn’t been playing right.

Right?

“Potter,” Draco asked, once the wild-haired boy had gotten himself righted as well, “what was the matter with you, flying like you were? That’s not how you fly in games.”

“In games we use a real snitch, this was a practice snitch,” Potter answered simply. Draco sneered at him until he rolled his eyes and elaborated. “Look, the whole idea of a practice snitch is wonky because practice snitches have limitations that real snitches don’t.”

Draco’s eyes widened slightly as he realized he agreed, and that Potter had been flying very cleverly for a game with such a snitch. Practice snitches didn’t leave the pitch area, didn’t fly higher than the top goalpost, and flashed gold every ten minutes. Potter hadn’t been flying any further from the set area than he needed to, and could go so fast because he knew he just had to wait for the ten minutes to run out.

“But why do you have one in the first place if you know it’s not good practice?” Draco asked.

Potter grinned. “Keeps anyone from realizing that I’ve nicked the real one.”

The Slytherin could feel himself wanting to be impressed, so instead he released the snitch and flew back to the ground, waiting for Potter to follow.

Once they had both landed, Draco asked, “So what do we do about the wager? Did we both lose or both win?”

“I guess that’s up to you, really,” Potter said, resembling the boy Draco had made the original bet with not at all. “Do you want my secret badly enough to tell me one of your own, or would you rather we forget it all?”

Oh please, like he’d give up a chance at what must be some of the best secrets in Hogwarts. After all, he could just tell Potter some lie that sounded good in return; no risk, maximum profit.

“Don’t tell me you’re backing out, Potter,” Draco sneered. “Just for that, you have to tell me your secret first.”

Potter grinned and shook his head in amusement.

“Alright, come here, then,” the Gryffindor said, leaning closer. He made a shushing gesture with one finger across his lips, then whispered. “It’s hidden in a box under a cot in the cupboard. Don’t tell.”

“Potter!” Draco snapped. “What sort of nonsense was that? You agreed to tell me a secret, and a good one, not spout some gibberish!”

Potter looked away, offended. “Gibberish! I’ll have you know I just told you my biggest secret! It’s hardly my fault if you can’t understand it. In any case, we never said the secret had to make sense to the person being told, so it’s your turn anyway.”

“’Turn’, honestly,” Draco muttered, “what are you, eleven?” But he leaned in, just like Potter had done – though he refused to whisper – and said, “I enjoyed my summer.”

Potter blinked at him confusedly. Draco just smirked wider.

“Turnabout is fair play, Potter. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have business to attend to that doesn’t involve barmy Gryffindors.”

With no more acknowledgement of Potter than an arrogant toss of his head, Draco banished his broom to the shed and returned to the castle, feeling rather satisfied about the evening.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8- (a/n: This is the end of the stalling, I swear!)

Finally, Saturday had come. Harry could barely eat at breakfast, and he forwent lunch altogether, in favor of sitting in the dungeons under his invisibility cloak, watching the dot that was Severus (“Snivellus” according to the Marauders) Snape shift about in the Great Hall. Long before the lunch hour was actually over, that dot got up from the head table and left through a side door, wandering through the maze of hallways toward his office, outside which Harry sat. He pulled off the cloak just as Snape rounded the last corner.

“Potter,” the professor greeted blandly, his face inscrutable. “You didn’t come to lunch.”

“Yes sir, I mean, no sir,” Harry answered, wiping his hands on his trousers. “I don’t think I can eat. I’m more nervous than I ever remember being; it’s like parts of me I didn’t know were there are nervous, too.” He realized suddenly that he was gibbering and apologized hastily, but Snape just shook his head (probably in silent aggravation) and opened the door to his office for them to enter.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus shut the door behind the boy softly, his words still hanging in the air. Without knowing it, Potter had revealed quite a bit.

I’m more nervous than I ever remember being – he was likely on the edge of bringing one of the alters out.

Parts of me I didn’t even know I had are nervous – not only were the alters nervous as well, their feelings were affecting their host.

Severus wondered when he’d gotten so good at deciphering hidden messages in Potter’s words. He had tried to think of something he could say to perhaps ease their anxiety a bit, but there was nothing. No way of prettying it up. No way to lead gently up to it. He sat behind his desk and leveled Potter with his calmest, most approachable face, usually only shown to his Slytherins.

“Mr. Potter, have you ever heard of Multiple Personality Disorder?”

Harry kept tight hold of the professor as blackness suddenly filled his entire field of vision. The only other sights were the present Snape and the past Snape. Quickly, though, the darkness was broken by a familiar door looming ahead.

Harry cursed silently and forced himself not to struggle as he was dragged toward his bedroom of ten years. The door opened and the Gryffindor blinked in surprise. There were people inside – more people than the cupboard could hold, that’s for sure – and a good number of them looked like him! He watched curiously as memory-Snape had an argument with someone who looked like Harry’s dad, supported by a young-Riddle look-alike and a younger Harry who looked angry at the world. When the argument was over, a little boy walked over and started talking about pudding.

Snape brushed him off and a little girl took his place and led him off to make introductions. Harry and present-Snape followed so they could hear.

Danny was first, reading Quidditch Through the Ages in Harry’s Gryffindor Quidditch uniform. John sat next to him reading a book Harry recognized as one Hermione had left out, but that he didn’t think he could understand if he tried. The little girl called the three memory-Snape had been arguing with in turn, “Tom, Mike, and James.” Over in the corner where Harry had once stored a tiny first aid kit from school was a pale, unhealthy-looking Harry called “Alex” being cradled in the hands of a woman who looked vaguely like Harry’s mother. The girl said she was “Mummy”, which irked Harry; he had a mum!

Next the girl pointed into the impenetrable shadows near where the stairs met the floor and indicated someone named “Boy”. Harry heard a whimper that made his heart catch in his throat, though he didn’t know why.

Finally, they were led back to the oversized cot where Harry saw someone he desperately wished he could be, but was afraid of for some reason. He was glad this “Potter” was sleeping. Then the girl started to move away, but Harry caught present-Snape’s attention.

“Wait, what’s her name?” he asked urgently.

“Amelia,” Snape answered.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus let Potter drag him around to follow the girl as she made the introductions again. Then as it was decided how they should go about taking turns, Severus made sure he positioned Harry next to his memory self, so that the alters would be looking at him. Alex was first, and Severus discreetly moved closer to Potter for support.

“Hello Harry, you little freak. I hope you do get better, get your memory back, so you can feel how much I hate you,” the boy said again.

Potter trembled against him at the force of the words and the animosity.

“I thought these were parts of me?” he asked tremulously. Severus answered him in the affirmative, raising his wand to pause the memory. “But then, why does he hate me? Why would I hate myself?”

“Only Alex knows,” Severus told him quietly, resuming the recording.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

The girl, Amelia, was next. Harry felt himself flush as he realized that this meant there was a part of him who was a girl. As if that wasn’t humiliating enough, she apparently ‘saved’ him from getting in trouble. Harry frowned in confusion; that didn’t make sense, he was always in trouble, no matter what. And why was she scared of Uncle Vernon? None of it made any sense.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus watched Tom as he stated that Boy would be allowed to speak, that they should all be allowed to speak. James had shot him a clear warning at that point, and Severus could easily see this. While Mummy brought Boy up to talk, Severus inched away from Harry and closer to where Tom and James sat on the edge of the cot. Now that he was paying attention, he could hear them whispering.

“Not all,” James insisted.

“I think all,” Tom replied smoothly, “yes, even It.”

“We don’t even know if It can talk, or if It even understands speech!” hissed James. “No, It has to stay away.”

“We can’t keep It hidden forever,” Tom countered, but seemed to back down, leaving the argument for another day.

Interesting.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Harry felt his heart break as he watched the sad, hurting child in front of him. What had happened to Boy to make him so pitiful? What had happened to Harry? Why couldn’t he remember?

He wanted to remember, wanted to know so he could help these parts of himself. Wanted to make right what he had done to make Alex hate him, get over what had been done to him to make Boy hurt so much. With new determination, Harry focused firmly on what his ‘alters’ were telling him.

Danny was next, though, and he didn’t say much. Though his presence did answer the question of why Harry never remembered his Quidditch matches or practices, despite knowing for a fact he played the game. Harry would be willing to bet it was Danny who had ordered the practice snitch, too.

The little boy, Foster, came after Danny and started talking some more about pudding. Apparently, Snape had promised to give him one and hadn’t come through yet. Harry felt himself wanting to laugh at the thought of his inner child prompting him to eat pudding, but sobered as Foster continued. Apparently, the reason he couldn’t remember any of his childhood, was because Boy had taken the bad (whatever that was) and Foster had been forced to store the good, as well.

Harry only understood one thing from all this – those memories were intact somewhere, and he wanted them back.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

As Foster spoke again, Severus drew his attention back to Tom and James.

“Alphabetical order,” Tom muttered. “You know what should come next.”

“No,” James ordered. “Look, Harry is not ready to see It. I don’t think he’s even ready to see Boy or Alex. We should never have let Snape in, we should have just let things be.”

“We’ll have to disagree on that, I think,” Tom sighed. Foster finished and sat back down. James watched Tom closely as the Slytherin deliberated, until finally he said, “Alright, James, go on.”

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Harry listened, confused, as someone who looked like his father apologized solemnly for…something. He wouldn’t say what exactly he’d done that was wrong, but, looking at the other alters and how they all seemed sort of disgusted with James, he figured it must have been pretty bad. No one had said anything to Harry about bad things he’d done when he couldn’t remember, so he couldn’t fathom what might have been the problem.

But James promised he’d get better, and he’d remember, and Harry decided to believe him, and forgive the man/boy/alter when that time came.

When John came up and told him about being punished for better grades than Dudley, Harry thought he might remember that. The idea made him giddy, so he eagerly pursued it, but it flitted out of his grasp before he could recall so much as a vague impression that good grades were a bad thing and he shouldn’t tell the teacher right answers.

The thought that there was something in him that really did excel in schoolwork, though, was fantastic, and Harry hoped that he and John could…er…mind-meld, or whatever it was they needed to do to become one, soon. Wouldn’t Hermione be shocked? And was that French?

Mike stalked up next, and Harry was half-worried that this alter would spout self-hatred at him, too, but apparently he only needed Alex for that. This Mike just muttered a good bit about the unfairness of the world and the harshness of reality before wandering off, shoulders hunched angrily.

If it wasn’t so surreal, Harry thought he’d find Mike funny.

Then came Mummy, and Harry felt the annoyance rise again. He had a mother, Lily Potter, and he didn’t need this lady impersonating her, even if she was a part of his head. She spouted some pretty words and Harry felt his heart ache; what he wouldn’t give to have his real mother say that to him just once! “Mummy always loves you” indeed, how would she know! Harry felt himself shake his head disgustedly as she blew him a kiss.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus knew what came next, that lost charisma known as Potter, and he wasn’t going to miss it. Tom called for the boy to wake up, and Severus moved back to Harry Potter’s side to watch as the hero stood regally and walked over. His walk was calm, purposeful but not emotional. He heard Harry gasp as Potter looked slightly down at him and Severus paused the memory again.

“One wonders, Mr. Potter,” he said softly, “why you would give this up. Do you even know?”

“I don’t,” Harry choked. “I don’t understand. That’s me, that’s a better version of me, why am I sc…” he broke off.

“Hmmm?” Severus prompted.

“Why am I scared?” Harry whispered.

“Because part of you knows it,” Severus told him, “somewhere in you is the memory of why this Potter is separate from you, and that part doesn’t want you to know. It’s going to be difficult, but if you can remember, this is the strength you can have. Do you want it?”

Harry didn’t seem to hear him at first, and Severus was just beginning to raise his want to restart the memory when the boy spoke.

“I want it,” he said firmly.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Harry listened to what Potter told him, hearing the strength, confidence, and wisdom in his voice. That part of him that Snape had been talking about was still churning anxiously inside, but the rest of him yearned to be strong like that. And there would be no turning back.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus leaned even closer, as close as he could get, when right before Tom’s turn, he and James started whispering again.

“Don’t you tell him, Tom,” said James firmly. “He doesn’t need to know about It.”

“Alright,” Tom said easily.

“I mean it, Tom!” James hissed. “You will not tell Harry anything about It, swear it!”

Tom shut his eyes and took a deep breath, clearly meant to clear his growing irritation. When Severus saw his eyes again, he looked resigned. “I swear.”

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Finally, Tom came and faced him. Harry saw there his own face, his own hair, but something about him looked like Tom Riddle, and that worried him on a much more conscious level than Potter had.

As Tom spoke, calling him an innocent as if it would be the last time he could be named as such, Harry felt his fear grow, warping into a fear of himself. Hate? True, honest, deep hatred? This was not something Harry thought he felt, it was something he had always secretly been grateful for. People like Voldemort, Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange; they hated, not Harry Potter. But here in front of him was corporeal proof that he not only hated, he hated, enough to cast an unforgivable on someone.

It could not be denied, because even as he was horrified at the thought, Harry felt within him the stirrings of that same hatred, the frostbitten flame that her very name lit in his heart and soul. He had run from it before, denied it, lied to himself. But that wasn’t an option.

And still Tom spoke, offering him words of comfort the likes of which he’d never heard before. Telling him it was alright to hate, alright to feel that flame, because he hadn’t let it warp him. Even as the embodiment of all Harry’s ill will, Tom still had the capacity to support and help people. He was ruthless, yes, and he could carry a grudge and had a hard time forgiving, but Tom was still there to help him if he needed it.

And, Harry was forced to realize, he did need it.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

“I guess that’s everyone. This was fun, let’s do it again sometime. Bye!”

This time, as Severus felt himself and Harry being shooed out of the cupboard and the pensieve, he realized that there was much more hidden behind James’ abruptness than annoyance and distrust. There was another personality, one that the others were obviously not supposed to let out under any circumstances, one that the others knew little about and didn’t want to show to Harry.

“P…Professor,” he heard Harry gasp. Severus turned quickly to see his student sitting in his chair, his head between his legs. “Can I… have that… calming potion… now?”

“You don’t need it,” Severus coaxed in an approximation of gentleness. “If it’s too much, let one of the others take over, they’ll take care of you.”

Harry nodded to show he heard and gradually started to slow his breathing. Then, as if flipping a switch inside, his breathing returned to normal in one great gasp. The boy looked up, blinking furiously.

“Harry?” Severus asked hesitantly.

The boy shook his head. “Tom,” he said breathlessly.

Severus leaned back in his own chair and studied Tom’s face as he continued to relax all the muscles Harry had tensed.

“Tom,” he said quietly, “what is It?”

In the blink of an eye, Tom was out of the chair and at the door. Before Severus could quite bring his wand around to lock it or somehow restrain him, the boy was gone.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

On Sunday, Draco went to breakfast early so that he could have time in the morning to visit his favorite ‘old family friend’. His father had introduced him to many of these over the years, but this was the only one who didn’t give him chills or make him feel dirty through their very presence.

At barely 9:30, Draco knocked on the door of the potion’s professor’s office, then entered without being given permission – he’d never needed permission on a Sunday. However, as soon as he set foot within, he began to wonder if asking first might have been a good idea, as Severus was mid-rant.

“– stupid, idiot child! Foolish, prideful, arrogant, Gryffindor boy!” he muttered, crushing something with a mortar and pestle with each word. “Morning Draco,” he added, hearing his guest’s footsteps. “Lackadaisical, ignorant fool. Keeping secrets now, what is he thinking?”

“Potter again?” Draco asked.

Severus had told him that he was attempting, on Dumbledore’s orders (though that was, in Draco’s opinion, probably not true), to council Potter and help him deal with some of his problems. He’d already sat through a few rants this year on how Potter was making up stories to get attention (really, it didn’t take a Slytherin to see Potter hated being noticed or singled out), though those had stopped abruptly a few weeks ago.

Draco knew he would never have been privy to such emotional outbursts on Potter’s behalf had he not let Severus in on the same secret he’d told Potter the other day.

He’d enjoyed his summer.

His first summer ever without his father at home, with his father in jail no less, and he’d enjoyed it. His mother had been happier, livelier, and had spoiled him worse than ever. The house-elves weren’t so annoyingly stiff with the rules, allowing him privileges his father had long denied – riding horses outside lessons, practicing seeker-Quidditch with the real snitch, spending nights on the roof watching the stars come out even though he’d finished his Astronomy homework.

And, as an extra bonus, as the last legal male heir, the manor itself had granted Draco access to all the formerly locked and forbidden areas. Including a library full of both muggle and wizard books. He’d spent weeks in there, reading to his hearts content, everything from Merlin’s In Support of the Wand to Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, losing sight of what was wizard and what was muggle because it obviously didn’t affect writing ability.

He had most certainly enjoyed his summer break away from the Malfoy name.

When he’d come to school and realized he was still a Malfoy, still the son of a Death Eater, it had been quite a shock to his system, and he knew right away that he couldn’t keep up the façade forever. So he’d gone to the one adult who had never scorned him, never yelled at him, and always explained what he wanted to know rather than brushing off his concerns as ‘childish’. Severus had been amazingly understanding, and had, more importantly, believed him. Trusted him.

Draco was the only person outside of Dumbledore’s little club who knew that Severus was a spy.

Draco was probably the only person besides Dumbledore himself who knew that Severus worried a great deal about Potter’s mental and physical safety.

“Yes, Potter!” Severus snapped, slamming his pestle on the desk. “I’ve been trying to get him to open up for almost two months now, I finally think we’re making progress and I find out he’s keeping secrets from me that he refuses to tell. He just ran out, in the middle of a session! Just got up and bolted from his seat as if I’d asked him to – to test a potion with belladonna and oak leaves!”

Draco winced, whenever Severus was so stressed he could barely think, he resorted to potions analogies. Belladonna mixed with oak leaves made a basic solution so strong it would eat through your mouth into your brain before you got the chance to swallow it. So, translated to normal, it would be ‘as if death itself were chasing him’.

And people did not just run away from Professor Snape.

“It almost seems,” Severus said more sedately, as if yelling had gotten all the anger out of his system. “It almost seems as if he doesn’t know himself. As if he couldn’t answer me, and running were his only option.”

They sat in silence for a moment longer, before Severus posed the question that was truly bothering him, likely the one he’d asked Potter.

“Just what is ‘It’?”

Draco’s head shot up at the emphasis Severus had put on the word ‘It’, as it was the same emphasis Potter himself had used.

“It’s hidden in a box under a cot in the cupboard,” he said softly. “What do you know, he really did tell me his greatest secret.”

"It’s hidden in a box under a cot in the cupboard,” Draco said softly. “What do you know, he really did tell me his greatest secret.”

“What are you talking about?” Severus drawled, his heart thudding painfully loud in his chest. It was somewhat obvious at least who Draco was talking about. How else could he have heard about the cupboard? The more pertinent question was why Harry – or one of his alters – would tell something like that to Draco Malfoy?

“I caught Potter out on the pitch on Friday,” Draco explained. “We played a game of seeker-Quidditch, the loser having to tell a big secret to the winner. We had a draw, so we each told a secret, but Potter’s didn’t make any sense, he just said ‘It’s hidden in a box under a cot in the cupboard’. He put the same stress on ‘It’ that you did, so I’m pretty sure that was the same ‘It’. I have no idea what cupboard, though, or why there would be a cot in it at all.”

“Quidditch?” Severus frowned in thought. “Must’ve been Danny then. I wouldn’t have thought he’d be privy to Potter’s secrets, let alone inclined to spill them, no matter any agreements.”

“Danny?” Draco asked. “No, sir, I’m sure it was Potter.” He snorted. “Like anyone could miss the scar.”

Severus cursed his own slip of the tongue, he was getting far too loose lipped around the boy, letting his thoughts run free out of his mouth without thought to possible consequences. There had been little danger when Draco found out about his position as spy, since Severus had predicted since third year that the young Malfoy would not follow in his father’s footsteps. Oh, Draco had all Lucius’ pureblood pride, but while Draco was sound in mind, Lucius had always been a few twigs short of a broom.

Brilliant, undeniably, but completely barmy when it came right down to it.

However, Potter’s secrets were an entirely different manner, and he could not just go blurting them out to someone who despised all Gryffindor heroes with a passion.

Severus shook his head dismissively and said, “In any case, I will have to talk with him on Monday. Tomorrow.” He heaved an aggravated sigh, causing Draco to smirk in amusement.

As the conversation began to drift to other points, Severus’ last thought lingered on the Potter boy.

I wonder if his alters have told Harry’s secrets to anyone else?

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Hermione watched Harry with worried eyes. He had been switching between himself and Tom ever since meeting with Snape yesterday. Whenever he was Harry, he’d act normal for a bit, but if he was left alone he’d brood and brood, over what, she didn’t know; whenever someone tried to confront Harry about his preoccupied mind, Tom would come out and brush them off.

What really scared her was the way Tom always looked scared, and walked as if paranoid, checking over his shoulder every few steps. When she and Ron had first met Tom, he’d seemed casual, confident, and, well, cool. Now, though, even that side of Harry was jumpy and brooding at times.

She wondered if something bad had happened when Harry met his alters in the pensieve.

By late Sunday afternoon, she had practically worked herself frantic over it, turning every sigh of Harry’s into a sign of depression and every twitch of Tom’s into a terror-induced flinch. Oh she knew very well she was overreacting, but awareness alone didn’t stop it from happening, and she couldn’t help but fear her suspicions were correct.

Unsure what else to do, she made her way down to Professor Snape’s office after dinner, while Ron finished his homework and Harry took a walk around the lake, to talk, hoping the man would restrain himself from his usual vitriol. Her first knock was short and timid, so it was no great surprise when he didn’t open the door right away. She knocked again, and again, each time louder than the last.

After several minutes of waiting and knocking, Hermione had to admit that Snape probably wasn’t there.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

“My lord,” Severus intoned, bowing at the feet of the disfigured snake who called himself a man.

“Severus,” Voldemort hissed languidly, “how goes it at Hogwarts?”

“Well, my lord,” Severus almost hesitated. “The old fool Dumbledore has come to the conclusion that Potter is indeed in need of psychological help and has been sending him to a councilor once a week.”

“Indeed, and who is this councilor?” Voldemort asked eagerly.

“I have not been informed, I’m sorry my lord,” Severus bowed deeper, bracing himself for the painful punishment that was certain to be inflicted. When none came, Severus wondered if he should be worried.

“Severus, look at me,” Voldemort commanded.

Severus obediently raised his head and locked eyes with the beast, carefully occluding his memories of Potter’s detentions from his mind, pushing to the front his hatred of the Potter name. He expected the casual perusal of his thoughts that the Dark Lord regularly performed to ensure himself of his followers’ loyalty.

He was not prepared for a full on mental assault by the powerful wizard. The gathering around him faded away as Voldemort forced his way into Severus’ mind. Almost before he could react, the Dark Lord had slipped completely into his memories. The potions master forced himself to feel nothing and to forget all about the less-than-hostile time he had spent with Potter. Voldemort could feel his resistance and pushed harder, searching thoroughly for signs of treachery, but Severus slipped through his slimy grasp each time.

Voldemort started trying to weaken him, pulling out memories of humiliation from Hogwarts, of pain and betrayal. He even brought up the memory from when Severus was eight, watching his father dragged off to get the Dementor’s kiss while his mother sobbed hysterically and pleaded with the aurors. Still, Severus suppressed his emotions, feeling nothing as he relived again the horrible moment when his father lost his soul and his mother lost her mind.

The attack seemed to last for hours. Severus’ felt like his brain had been turned into mush by the time a loud thump and a cheer pulled Voldemort from his mind.

“My lord, we apologize for interrupting,” some faceless sycophant said smugly. “Our young friend came through and we have brought you a gift.”

Voldemort’s gaze turned from Severus to something behind him. The potions master turned as well, seeing a large bundle that didn’t look like much of anything. Moments later, however, the bundle moved and a scrap of fabric fell off, revealing wild jet black hair and wire frame glasses.

“Wonderful,” Voldemort congratulated, practically salivating. “This is the perfect opportunity. Severus!”

“Yes, my lord?” Severus asked, quickly returning his view to the ground in front of him.

“I have doubts about your loyalty.”

The crowd gasped. Severus was well known, and well feared, as one of Voldemort’s most loyal, and he was doubted? That was practically a death sentence in and of itself. Severus braced himself to run if Voldemort raised his wand, knowing that if he could just get to the Idiot Boy, he could activate his emergency portkey and take them back to Hogwarts. But Voldemort did not seem inclined to strike him down just yet.

“Here we have the pathetic brat who has plagued me since the day he was born, and one who calls himself my most loyal. If you wish to prove yourself, Severus, and maintain your place within my ranks, rid me of this pest for good.” Voldemort grinned coldly. “I won’t even mind if you do it because of your hatred of the boy’s father, rather than because of your loyalty to me.”

Severus nodded and rose, drawing his wand from within the folds of his robes. The portkey amulet felt like a lead weight against his chest as he stalked slowly over to where Harry lay, moaning quietly. The stunning spell the boy was undoubtedly under was wearing off, which in and of itself confirmed Severus’ suspicions that the ‘young friend’ was a student at Hogwarts – the stunning spell of a fully trained wizard could last for weeks. Just as the professor stopped and stood over his student, Harry’s eyes opened and locked with his, brilliant green boring into onyx, before shifting quickly around, taking in the entire situation within moments as he sat up.

“You bastard,” the boy hissed, returning his gaze to Severus with a look of such hatred and betrayal that it made him pause. “I knew you couldn’t be trusted, I knew all along. Ron was right, once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater.” Harry drew his lips back in a grimace that was half sneer and half snarl, spitting at his feet.

“Severus, complete your task,” Voldemort demanded, his sibilant voice dangerously low.

Severus raised his right hand, holding the wand, until it pointed directly at the boy’s heart, all the while sneaking his left hand up to the chain at his throat.

“Avada –” he growled, then yanked on the chain, pulling the portkey out and into his grasp. The man lunged for Harry, trying to get skin on skin contact so he could speak the password, but a curse hit him from behind and the world went dark.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Tom sighed as he felt the professor’s weight settle completely on his arms. He’d tried, he’d done his best to keep Voldemort’s suspicions off of Snape, but apparently it hadn’t been enough. There might still be hope, though, if he played it right.

“Gee, Riddle,” said Tom blithely, “I’d say thank you, but I doubt you had saving my life in mind there.”

“You will not refer to me by that name, if you know what is good for you,” Voldemort growled. Tom shrugged. “And do not act as if you don’t know where Severus Snape’s loyalties lie. He has been lying to me, he said he didn’t know who you went to for weekly counseling, but my informant within the student body told me that the only weekly appointment you have kept is Monday detentions with Severus himself.”

Well, Tom thought, this is just great. Stupid git just had to get himself found out.

“Yes, well, aren’t you the smart one, Voldie,” he sneered, watching with no small delight as the fearsome dark wizard bristled and glared at the childish insult. “So what now, another duel? Or are you going to fail to possess me again?”

“Hardly, I have something more planned for you,” said Voldemort, nodding at someone behind Tom. The youth spun around just in time to see the wand pointed at him and hear the word Stupefy, before he fell unconscious beside his professor.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

The dark, dank smell of the cell was what Harry first noticed as he regained consciousness. It was oppressive, filling his nose and mouth, filling his lungs like thick fog. Eventually his eyes adjusted to the almost nonexistent light and he noticed other things as well – the thick door with one small, barred window, the faint signs of starlight filtering in through the mouse-sized hole near the ceiling, and the hunched figure of his potions professor watching him from the other side of the tiny room.

“Welcome back, Mr. Potter,” Snape said, sounding, of all things, relieved to see Harry awake.

“Professor Snape,” Harry blinked and shook his head to clear it. “What’s going on, where are we?”

“What is the last thing you remember, Potter?” Snape asked gruffly, but without his usual sneer.

“I was…taking a walk around the lake,” Harry said, frowning as he tried to recall what had happened. “I stopped on the far side to skip rocks so I could think about…stuff, then everything is blank.”

Snape sighed heavily. “It seems one, or many, of the students stunned you and dragged you off the grounds where a group of Death Eaters was waiting. They apparated you to a meeting with the Dark Lord. To make a long story short, he knows I’m a spy and we’re both in his dungeons, awaiting whatever nefarious fate he has in store.”

“Oh,” Harry said succinctly. “Well, that’s not good.”

Snape rolled his eyes. “Your power for understating the situation astounds me, Potter.”

Harry stifled a maniacal grin that threatened to break out on his face, and wondered idly if he was finally going insane or if the situation just hadn’t sunk in yet. The latter would probably be more useful to the situation, but he had a feeling the former would be more fun.

While he waited for the inevitable realization that the situation was hopeless, Harry sat up and looked around some more. He had been laying on cot made of thick wooden boards supported by two chains hooked to the wall. Odd; Harry doubted the Death Eaters had placed him there, which meant Snape had to have done it himself. It was almost impossible to imagine the austere, sneering, bitter potions master carrying Harry, unconscious, to the only seat/bedding available.

Maybe he has hemorrhoids and can’t sit on something hard, Harry thought, then sighed. His flippant attitude was starting to get on his own nerves. But he just had to face it: he didn’t think he could even begin to comprehend this new disaster until he understood the first. After all, finding out he had MPD had taken up the majority of his cognitive abilities.

“Sir?” Harry asked. Snape’s head shot up from where he’d been studying the dirt on the floor. “How many of my, er…personalities have you met?”

Snape quirked an eyebrow at the topic of conversation. “Most of them. Some more extensively than others. I haven’t had any interaction with Potter beyond what you saw in my memory, and there is one more personality that the others have been hiding from us, but I do not know what It is.”

Harry got a chill up his spine at the word It, and suddenly felt the familiar sensation of something rising within him, for a moment he felt as if he were drowning and panic made him push it back down.

“Sir…Professor,” he gasped. “Something’s coming…I can’t…I can’t breathe!”

In an instant, Snape was there in front of him, placing his hands on Harry’s shoulders and locking eyes with him.

“Let it come, Potter,” he said softly. “Whoever it is, they are there to help you. Let it come.”

Harry nodded, and stopped struggling. In the moment before he was overcome, something touched his awareness and a name filtered into his head…

James.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus watched Harry’s consciousness submerge with interest, and waited eagerly for the new personality. However, the moment the change was complete, he was forcefully pushed away.

“What do you think you’re doing, Snape,” the boy growled. “You think you can just barge into our mind and find out all our secrets. Maybe we don’t want you to know our secrets! Maybe we don’t want your help, alright? Like a greasy git such as yourself could help us anyway.”

“James, I presume?” Severus asked, ignoring the vicious words. The boy nodded curtly, glaring at him. “Out of exile already?”

“Look, I made one mistake, one. We all knew you had to be…disillusioned eventually as far as our childhood goes.” James shrugged. “We’re not stupid, we knew you thought we were faking, that Harry just wanted attention. Tom wanted to show you some of the memories we had locked away, but I think you did enough damage during Occlumency lessons last year, frankly. Maybe my idea wasn’t the best one, and maybe it did get Harry hurt, but he’s had worse, his body will heal.”

“And his mind?”

“There’s nothing wrong with his mind, we made sure of that!” James shouted. “We took the bad away, and Harry’s happy now! Can’t you see that? Can’t you see how much it would hurt him to know what they did?”

“Harry is not happy,” Severus insisted quietly. “He is terrified of you and the other alters, and he hates not having control of his own body.” James flushed and pursed his lips. “Besides, if Harry is able to take those memories, deal with them and put them behind him, he will be that much stronger. Don’t you want him to have that strength?”

James looked at the ground, his shoulders hunched stubbornly. “Harry needs us,” he insisted. “We’re the only ones who’ve ever looked out for him. If we go away, who will be there the next time He comes home drunk? Who’ll heal him afterwards? Who’ll take away the hurt of having his only living relatives hurt him?”

Severus sighed, mournful that anyone should ask such questions, and placed a hand on James’ back. “First of all, Harry will never go back to the Dursleys. I have informed Dumbledore that he shall lose both my services as potions master and professor, as well as knowledge of your whereabouts should he attempt to send you back. Secondly, Harry will be there for himself, he will have all of your strengths. And his friends will be there for him. And, much though I would rather wash my hands of the whole Potter line,” he teased, “I will be there for him. Harry is not alone outside anymore, James. You can let go.”

“I don’t want Harry hurt,” James whispered.

“I know,” said Severus. “And I know it will hurt, when he remembers what has happened, but he will survive, and he will be stronger.”

A door clanged open some distance away and footsteps were heard descending stairs toward them. The boy shifted slightly, his posture relaxing, his eyes drooping slightly, as if bored.

“This is hardly the time or place for this conversation, professor,” Tom drawled quietly. Severus nodded his agreement and moved back to his former place along the wall. The footsteps drew nearer, finally stopping in front of the door. Neither Severus nor Tom could see who was there from their vantage points, so they simply had to sit and listen as the lock clicked and the door creaked open, spilling in a cruel amount of light. The silhouette of two people could be seen, entering the cell and closing the door behind them.

In the dimmer light, both were easily distinguishable. Voldemort’s boney body, hidden within his opulent robes, was no more discernable than Bellatrix’s long, scraggly hair and wide, insane smile.

“Look at them, Bellatrix,” Voldemort boasted. “The traitor and the pest, both locked safely away for us to play with.”

“Oh, Master!” Bellatrix crowed. “They’re such delightful toys! I bet I can make Severus scream. May I try, Master, please?”

“You won’t lay a finger or a wand on him, Bellatrix Black Lestrange.”

Severus looked over to see Potter rising to his feet. Not Harry Potter, but Potter, the hero, the boy wonder. And a wonder he was. It was one thing to see his mental projection in Harry’s subconscious, but quite another to meet him face to face. Or rather, face to back-of-the-head, as Potter had moved to stand protectively in front of him.

“If you want to try, you have to go through me, first.”

Monday morning was pre-NEWT potions, a class made up of four Gryffindors – Potter, Weasley, Granger, and Longbottom (which surprised no one more than the poor squib himself), five Slytherins – Draco, Blaise, Pansy, Morag, and Theodore Nott, five Ravenclaws, and two Hufflepuffs. And Professor Snape. Who was absent for the first time in his teaching career.

Draco had a bad feeling as he glared at the empty desk in the front of the dungeon classroom. His right foot kept twitching, the only indicator of his increasing anxiety, and he stilled it with firm pressure from his left foot. He knew Severus had been called Sunday evening, had seen the man’s arm twitch, nearly knocking over his goblet, had watched him lean over and tell something to Dumbledore before hurrying out.

The Slytherin had spent the rest of that evening waiting in the man’s chambers for his return, a bottle of pain-relieving potion on hand, but he hadn’t returned before curfew. Finally, Draco had been forced to leave, knowing that it would be better to be well rested so he could help tomorrow than to stay up worrying tonight.

But morning had come, and Severus still wasn’t back. This was bad, he could feel it in his bones.

The Gryffindors seemed to have a different opinion of the circumstances, though, and Draco turned around to glare and sneer at Weasley who was, no doubt, joking with Potter and the Mudblood about the ‘evil’ professor. However, when he turned back he got his second, third, and fourth shocks of the day.

Weasel was joking with Longbottom, not Potter.

Potter wasn’t even in attendance.

Granger was watching him far too closely for his comfort.

Draco sneered at her, glanced at the Wonder Boy’s empty seat, and smirked. Granger lost her calculating look as she glared back. The Slytherin turned back to his contemplation of the front of the class. Was there some sort of connection between Potter’s absence and Severus’ disappearance? He sincerely hoped not, because, while it was bad enough that Severus had likely been exposed as a spy, Potter’s capture as well might be the proverbial straw that could break the hope of the light side.

The other students was starting to get restless, and there was talk among the lower life forms (Hufflepuff and Gryffindor) of just skiving off. Luckily, about halfway through the class the door opened and a man walked in. He had dark skin, a shaved head, and the bearing of an Auror.

“My name is Kingsley Shacklebolt,” the man said. “I will be your substitute potions professor from now until Professor Snape’s return. Do not worry about your professor, he had to take an unexpected leave of absence to visit an ill relative. Now, I’ll just take roll.”

He started reading names off a short scroll, starting with ‘Abbot, Hannah’ and moving down. Finally, he got to ‘Potter, Harry’ and paused when no one answered.

“Where is Mr. Potter?” Shacklebolt asked, looking at the Gryffindors.

“We…don’t know, sir,” Granger answered softly. “We haven’t seen him since dinner last night.

Shacklebolt’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly, but he just nodded and moved on. Now Draco was really worried. A missing Potter was never a good sign, and could mean Severus was in danger; he might have to talk to Dumbledore if this wasn’t resolved soon. With any luck, the ridiculous codger would actually give him a straight answer.

He snorted softly to himself. Yeah, right, and Voldemort will go into skin crème sales.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Bellatrix laughed at the boy’s foolish pronouncement, the sound high and cold, grating on Severus’ ears.

“And what do you propose to do about it, widdle baby Harry?” she cackled. “You have no wands, no means of escape. You are at our mercy. Or you would be, if we had any!” She shrieked at her own joke.

Potter stayed silent, posture stiff and proud, and Severus pulled himself up weakly to stand by him. He was tempted to use the wall for support – his ankle had been twisted at some point while he was stunned – but wouldn’t sacrifice his dignity to save himself a modicum of pain.

Placing one hand on his young companion’s shoulder, Severus said firmly, “It is not your job to protect me, Potter”

“Yes it is,” Potter responded, softly and sadly, but with absolute certainty, as if he were commenting on particularly dismal weather.

“Potter, as much as you would like to believe otherwise, the world does not revolve around you!” Severus snapped. “I am a fully grown adult wizard and perfectly capable of fighting my own battles. Now stand down.”

Potter didn’t spare him a glance. “No,” he declared softly, but with force and conviction.

“You should really follow your professor’s advice,” Voldemort hissed with amusement. “What are they teaching at Hogwarts these days? Obviously not respect for your betters. It is proper to bow when someone of my power graces the presence of lowly scum like you and the traitor.”

“You are not my better,” Potter stated calmly, “and I will not bow to you.”

“Haven’t two years’ time taught you anything, Harry?” Voldemort drawled. He waved his wand and Potter’s back arched back like a bow before snapping forward. Severus recognized the spell, though he hadn’t been placed under it since he was young and foolish.

Amazingly, though, Potter seemed to be fighting it, his jaw clenched so tight he was likely in danger of cracking his teeth. The boy’s spine seemed to writhe and ripple under the opposing forces of the dark spell and his own will. Voldemort showed no outward signs of agitation, but Severus could see his blood red eyes growing darker with anger, his slit-like nostrils flaring. The obeisance spell ended abruptly and Potter almost stumbled, but caught himself quickly, standing up and placing himself just in front of his professor again.

"Crucio!" Voldemort snapped.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Almost a full week had passed since Snape and Harry’s disappearance, and the whole school was on edge about it. Every time the portrait hole opened, Hermione found herself looking up eagerly, hoping it was the boy hero returning home. She never had such luck, though, as each time it was one of the Creevy bothers, or Alicia Spinnet, or Lavender Brown, or Ginny; never Harry Potter. She had taken almost twice her share in Prefect duties, walking the grounds nearly every night, hoping and praying to find some sign of the black-haired boy.

Meals in the Great Hall were, without exception, a dismal experience. Harry’s seat was still open next to Ron and across from Hermione, and it seemed more cold and empty than it ever had when Harry had simply been late or in the hospital wing, and whenever Hermione tried to avoid looking at it, she’d inevitably look at the staff table, notice Auror Shacklebolt sitting in Professor Snape’s seat and be reminded that the head of Slytherin was missing as well. And that was all disregarding the food; when the house elves served Harry’s favorite dish Ron refused to eat a bite of it.

“It’s not fair for us to eat it when Harry can’t,” he’d mumbled defensively when the other Gryffindors stared at him. After that, everyone in Godric’s house ate around it.

Hermione thought they wouldn’t be quite so worried if Professor Snape hadn’t gone missing as well. The general consensus was that Snape had turned traitor to Dumbledore and taken Harry to Voldemort; it was the only thing Ron agreed with the Slytherins on. Not a day went by that the redhead didn’t get into a fight because one of that house had taunted him about Harry being beaten by a Slytherin. Lately all it took was a:

“Hey Weasley, think Potter likes his new accommodations?” from that wheedy little Nott boy and Ron was throwing insults. Or curses. Or punches. He received a month of detention Thursday for biting and, thankfully, hadn’t tried it since.

Amazingly enough, Malfoy seemed reluctant to join in this vein of speculation, and was growing more and more worried by the day. Hermione was one hundred percent sure that the blonde wasn’t worried about Harry, so she figured he was worried about Snape. Of course, the fact that Malfoy was human enough to have feelings such as worry wasn’t something she could ever convince Ron of, so she didn’t have anyone to discuss her theories with. Except, perhaps, the headmaster.

So, that Saturday evening about a half hour after dinner (she had to put the finishing touches on her homework first) Hermione made her way up to the gargoyle that guarded the entrance to Dumbledore’s office.

She’d never actually been up there before, but Harry had once told her that the password was always some sort of sweet, so Hermione started guessing.

“Pumpkin pasty.” Nope. “Sugar quill.” Nothing. “Cockroach clusters.” No. “Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans?” No. “Maybe muggle sweets, then. Er…mars bars?” The gargoyle didn’t even blink. “Maltesers?”

With the grinding sound of stone on stone, the gargoyle leapt aside, revealing a twisting staircase. As Hermione watched, it began to move upward, and she hurried onto a step. Hermione stared at the central, stationary pillar in fascination, wondering what sorts of spells and construction would be needed to make a stairway turn and move upward. She was fairly certain it had to do with some form of screw, since most magical mechanics could be broken down into one or two simple machines, but there was certainly more to it than –

The stairs halted suddenly in front of an old, breaking Hermione’s train of thought. She raised her hand to knock, but before her hand could even touch the heavy wood, a voice inside called, “Please come in, Ms. Granger,” and the door opened by itself. Inside was a large, circular office with scores of knick-knacks lining the walls on shelves and inside glass cabinets. Dumbledore sat behind his desk, and in one of the unbelievably padded chairs in front of him sat none other than Draco Malfoy, glaring at the intruding girl.

“Have a seat, Ms. Granger,” Dumbledore said kindly, motioning to the armchair next to Malfoy. “I believe you both are here for the same reason.”

Malfoy whipped his head around at that to turn his glare on the headmaster.

“I believe you are mistaken, Professor Dumbledore,” the Slytherin objected coldly. “She-” he flicked a glance at Hermione, “- is here about Potter, no doubt. I am here about Professor Snape.”

“Well since they’re likely in the same place, it does amount to pretty much just one issue, doesn’t it?” Hermione snapped back. Malfoy rose quickly, attempting to tower over her despite his slight frame.

“Don’t tell me you believe those ridiculous rumors that Professor Snape killed your precious golden boy!” he snarled.

“Draco, my boy, please calm down a moment,” Dumbledore interjected. “I do not believe Hermione was referring to the rumors circling the school, but rather to the idea that Harry was somehow captured and Severus was forced to reveal his position as spy in an attempt to save him. An attempt which, if the fact that they have yet to return is any indication, did not succeed.”

“You don’t think they’re…” Hermione choked on the word.

“No, I do not believe they are dead,” the headmaster assured her.

“Of course not,” Malfoy added disdainfully. “If the Dark Lord killed the precious Boy Who Lived, do you really think he’d keep it a secret? And Severus would probably make a very good ‘demonstration’ do dissuade any from attempting to oppose him. Please, Headmaster, I’ve worked that much out on my own, and I did not come here to divulge my own information to Granger. Tell me what you know or suspect, or refuse outright to tell me anything so that I may stop wasting both our time.”

Hermione gasped slightly at the arrogant tone Malfoy took with the headmaster, but waited eagerly for Dumbledore’s answer. The old man sighed and seemed to age ten years before her eyes.

“Unfortunately, I do not know much more than you, Mr. Malfoy,” he admitted. “I know Harry crossed the wards alone at approximately eight o’clock Sunday evening, approximately half an hour after Severus was called, and that Severus’ emergency portkey is no longer on his person, but beyond that I can only guess. Rest assured, I am using all my power to find Harry and Severus so that they both may be returned safely as soon as possible.”

Hermione looked down at her hands as they rested in her lap and sighed, hearing Malfoy echo the sound. They both stood up and thanked the headmaster before leaving and returning to their separate common rooms.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Potter flinched and his muscles trembled under the first wave of pain, but Boy jumped in quickly to take the spell before retreating with it, locking the magic and the pain away.

“In crucio veritas, Voldemort,” Potter ground out. “And I am truth.”

“So you can take pain of the body now,” the shriveled, snake-like man sneered, lifting the spell. “Let us see how you take pain of the heart. Inecto.”

Thick chains sprung from Voldemort’s wand and wrapped around Potter before he could move, fastening themselves to the wall behind him and pulling him flat against it.

“Bellatrix, have your fun now; see if you can make our dear Severus scream,” Voldemort ordered. Potter struggled and snarled as the woman grinned and drew her wand, but there was nothing he could do against the restrictive chains.

Helplessness, he cried out silently, I hate helplessness! I don’t know what to do!

Don’t worry, I’ll take over, Tom said solemnly. Potter gratefully relinquished his hold, knowing he would be there when he could help again, waiting just beneath the surface for Voldemort’s voice to call him forth.

Tom calmed their lungs and forced their face from the furious snarl into a cold, hateful mask. There was nothing he could do for Professor Snape now, except to give Voldemort as small a victory as possible. Bellatrix’s eyes flicked to him and she pouted at the change, but he just glared back.

Snape had, apparently, noticed the slip in attention and lunged at Bellatrix, trying to get her wand from her hand. She shrieked and howled like a wounded kneazel, scratching at Snape’s eyes with the long, sharpened fingernails of her free hand, but the large man succeeded in pinning her against the wall.

“Ah ah ah, Severus,” Voldemort chided, smirking cruelly. “You wouldn’t want anything to happen to young Harry, would you?”

Snape paused, but didn’t release Bellatrix. Voldemort’s eyes narrowed and he flicked his wand slightly. Tom felt the chains around them constrict, starting at their solar plexus and forcing the air out of their lungs. The chains all up their torso started constricting as well, making it harder and harder to breathe. Then, finally, the one at their neck tightened, cutting off their air supply completely. Tom knew their eyes were bugging out and their mouth was open and gasping at air that would not come, knew that such a display would not help in the situation at all, but he was powerless to stop the body’s reflexes while he was busy fighting internally.

Boy, stay away, you can’t take away this pain! he insisted, trying to force the older, childish personality back.

Boy hurts, always Boy, only Boy, Boy countered sadly.

We need to stay strong for Snape, Tom said adamantly, looking at the others for support as Boy tried to push past him.

Always for Snape, James argued. What about Harry? He’s being hurt, and Boy takes over when Harry’s being hurt.

Not this time! Tom growled desperately, but his moment of distraction had cost him dearly. Boy, no!

Tom watched with horrified fascination as Boy took his place in Harry’s body.

“No, no, please no!” Boy mouthed, shutting their eyes tight. The chains loosened fractionally and they were suddenly able to breathe just enough.

“What was that?” Voldemort asked with relish. “What did you say, boy?”

“Please don’t hurt Boy,” Boy begged. “Please. Sorry, so sorry. Don’t hurt Boy Uncle!”

Tom cursed, loudly and fervently, wishing with all his might his words were coming out of Harry’s mouth instead of Boy. Boy couldn’t comprehend that someone other than Uncle Vernon would hurt them, so he automatically addressed any attacker as ‘Uncle’. That he had done so in front of Voldemort was the worst possible scenario. If this went on, Voldemort would taunt Harry about it, and that couldn’t be allowed.

It was time for drastic measures.

Tom strode up to James and grabbed him by his collar. “Release It,” he commanded.”

Severus cursed his predicament. He was quite firmly stuck. One hand kept Bellatrix’s wand from firing any curses at him, but one of the whore’s fingers had hooked over his thumb and sunk the nail into his flesh, preventing him from gaining any leverage on removing the wand. His other hand was even less lucky, as it had fully five cruel nails digging into it and holding his arm extended away from both himself and the woman he fought. Not that he was fighting just now, as Voldemort was holding Potter’s air hostage.

The Dark Lord was just a meter away, his attention focused firmly on Potter’s chained form. Severus knew if he could get himself balanced, he could possibly kick Voldemort’s wand hand, but that was highly impractical; one, it would accomplish little; two, he doubted he could get balanced; and three, that would open a particularly vulnerable…area to attack from Bellatrix. All he could really do was hope the situation didn’t get any worse.

His heart stopped cold when he heard Potter speak. “Please don’t hurt Boy,” he begged in a child’s voice. “Please. Sorry, so sorry. Don’t hurt Boy, Uncle!”

Oh, this could not be good.

Voldemort seemed stunned, and even Bellatrix stopped trying to reach Severus’ nose with her teeth. Clearly neither of them were expecting the ‘great Harry Potter’ to break down and plead for mercy. As he could do nothing else. Severus craned his neck around to get a better look.

Boy had his eyes shut tight and his face screwed up in a picture of agonized despair, but even as the child’s morbid audience watched his face relaxed and went slack, completely devoid of any thought. Any personality. Severus felt as if someone had made him swallow ice, and he knew that whatever was coming next would not be a pleasant experience. He just barely stopped himself from feeling glad Potter was restrained.

There was no slow transition this time, no gradual awakening of whatever new person was to take over the situation. One moment, nobody was home inside Potter’s head, the next, a scream like none other had split the air.

Severus had heard a banshee cry before. Once, the year after he graduated, when he’d gone traveling. It had taken him almost five seconds to regain his senses enough to cast the silencing spell that saved his life.

In so many ways, the sound coming out of Potter’s mouth was much worse.

The experienced potions master couldn’t describe it. It was the scream of a tiny infant in horrible pain, the audible projection of fifteen years of despair, humiliation, physical and emotional torture, of something worse than a hundred Cruciatuses. The scream of death; seeing death, tasting death, being death, hating death. It was every shout of pain, every shriek of terror, every cry of grief that Potter had never let loose before. The world swam before Severus’ eyes at the sheer force and he suddenly, dizzily realized he was on the floor, which no longer seemed a stable surface.

It was then he realized that sound was not the only thing being released.

Magic whipped through the air, rattling the chains and bindings, splintering the wood of the cot, making the metal of the door warp and groan. The stones of the floor, walls, and ceiling vibrated with Potter’s power, cracking and sending small shards and plumes of dust into the air. When a snitch-sized chunk of rock fell perilously close to him, Severus covered his head and scooted toward the corner with his good leg, trying to get as much protection as he could. Potter’s bindings danced and hissed like metal snakes before, with a sound that could almost be heard above Potter’s personal cacophony, they broke into a thousand pieces.

Voldemort dashed from the room, Bellatrix at his heels, and the door slammed shut behind him.

With the echoes of the scream and the door still singing in his head, it took a moment before Severus realized everything had gone still once more.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Draco held his wand up to the light and incanted, casting a spell that would keep anyone but himself from seeing it. After his father had refused to get him the Hand of Glory, Draco had spent a long time researching what spells would have a similar effect and had finally managed it in third year. Now, whenever he had Prefect rounds at night, he carried a small lantern with the Singula Luminess spell. Some of his fellow prefects had asked him why he always had a darkened lantern with him, but he never answered, and could be relatively sure that none, except perhaps Granger, had figured it out.

Now, however, he wasn’t using the lantern for any official duties. Donning his softest boots and darkest cloak (what he wouldn’t give to have an invisibility cloak!) the Slytherin slipped silently from his dormitory, heading toward the library. The trip was relatively uneventful, beyond having to hide behind a rather grotesquely fat statue of some otherwise forgotten wizard when Filch came stalking by, and in almost no time he was walking past darkened bookshelves to the restricted section.

Draco let his fingers drift along the spines of the many books as he perused the titles, looking for one that might help.

Error on Trial by J.P. Eldergon; dry yet graphic descriptions of what happened when mistakes were made in the more ‘potent’ spells. Not what he was looking for.

Penta Means Five by Tula Garner; a child’s guide to the pentagram. Didn’t have enough detail, but he could come back to it if he needed to.

Blood and Fortune by Cain Gorgon; no, he wasn’t looking for money. Had plenty of that already, thanks.

Star Rituals by Aster Helixus. Perfect! Carefully casting a silencing sphere around himself and the bookcase, Draco pulled the dusty, leather bound tome from its place and opened it, scanning the contents.

If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a pentagram ritual for advanced scrying that would show much more than just the physical appearance of the object desired. He could potentially get sound as well, and get as distant a view as he needed in order to know where Severus was.

Aha! Draco exclaimed silently. The View From Heaven ritual, page 198.

“The View From Heaven ritual, unlike its cousin the Hellsight ritual, does not use blood, and so is one of the only pentagram rituals that is not considered dark.” The ministry had changed that classification two hundred years ago to include all ritual spells except the naming and hand fasting rituals. Of course, it had been obvious at first sight that the book predated the 1800’s. “The pentagram is drawn, top facing east, using the Scrying Potion (Moste Potente Potions, page 234).”

Draco mouthed a curse as he set Star Rituals on a nearby table and looked for Moste Potente Potions. He hadn’t counted on having to make a potions, that would make this take longer than he wanted, the sooner he found Severus the better. At least it was a book he was familiar with. The cloaked Slytherin moved around a set of shelves to the ‘I’ section and reached for the text’s usual spot, only to find himself holding a book on possession instead. Confused, he searched around and realized that Moste Potente Potions was gone. Someone must have checked it out; but who?

A chair scraped against the floor in the main part of the library.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Harry woke to the feeling of hard stone against some very tender limbs. It wasn’t pleasant. His throat hurt, his chest hurt, his stomach hurt, his head hurt…actually, pretty much everything hurt. It took a moment for what little he remembered of the previous evening to filter in, but when it did he quickly lifted his head (owowow ow!) and looked around. There, still hunched in the same corner, was Snape, apparently asleep. By the door, which seemed oddly warped, but still unfortunately solid, there was a bucket of what smelled like water.

Licking his dry lips with a papery tongue, the Gryffindor lifted himself slowly onto his hands and knees and crawled painfully to the bucket. It was no more than fifteen feet away, but it seemed like an eternity before his aching knees were allowed to rest again. The water in the bucket was by no means the cleanest he’d ever seen, but it couldn’t possibly cause him more problems than not drinking anything, so he gratefully dipped one cupped hand in and brought it to his lips. The cool liquid tasted divine as it washed over his parched tongue and down his aching throat with each handful. He probably could have drunk the whole container, but stopped himself when he figured he had drunk about a quarter of what was there, leaving the rest for Snape and to save for later.

A groan from nearby alerted Harry to the fact that his professor was starting to wake up. Muscles groaning in protest, the Gryffindor carefully picked up the bucket and took it over to Snape, setting it down by his side without spilling a drop. Harry gently tapped him on the shoulder, and then got the shock of his life when Snape’s eyes jerked open and lit on him; the spy leaned back as far from Harry as he could go, eyeing him warily.

The boy swallowed at the look of disgust Snape was giving him and stood, backing away a step.

“Er…I brought you…some water, professor,” he said uneasily, continuing to back away as the pale man’s eyes narrowed. The reaction baffled him; the last Harry remembered, he and Snape had been having a civil conversation (for once), and now the man was looking at him like he was an unpleasantly hairy spider.

What had happened?

“Potter!” Snape’s sharp voice cut through his thoughts and Harry jumped.

“Yes, sir?”

“Did you drink out of this already?” Snape motioned disdainfully at the bucket.

“Er…yes, sir,” Harry confirmed. Snape sneered viciously and Harry braced himself.

“Idiot boy!” the professor snapped. “It could have been poisoned, it is most certainly unsanitary, and you left hardly any for me. What gave you the right to drink first? Do you never think about anyone besides yourself, Potter?”

“But…I…” Harry stammered, swallowing the panic brought by his confusion lest he blank out. “I didn’t drink all that much – it wasn’t very full to begin with, and if they wanted to kill us, wouldn’t they have done it already? And…and I’m sorry I drank first but you weren’t awake yet, and I was really thirsty, and I know it wasn’t clean but better to get a little sick than to die of thirst. Right?”

He wasn’t being very successful at holding down the panic and was on the verge of hyperventilating. It wasn’t making any sense, why was Snape treating him like this? He hadn’t been this nasty since the start of the year! It was al so confusing and he knew if he could just remember than maybe he could understand but he couldn’t remember because it just wasn’t there and he didn’t know what had happened to make Snape hate him again –

“Potter,” the potions master sighed in frustration, pinching the bridge of his crooked nose. “Calm down. I am not angry at you, merely at our situation.”

It was as close to an apology as Harry had ever heard come out of Snape’s mouth, and the shock of it was enough that the Gryffindor’s frantic train of thought was entirely cut off.

“Oh,” he said dumbly. “Okay, then.”

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus grimaced as he felt the sludge Potter called water slide down his throat and settle most unpleasantly in his stomach. Of course, it probably wasn’t helped by the emotion, which shall hereafter remain nameless, that had made his stomach clench tightly when he had seen Potter’s frantically confused expression. Merlin, he hadn’t meant to snap at the boy, but he despised not being in control of his basic needs like eating and drinking, and criticizing an offering brought by someone else was the closest he could come to regaining that lost control. Not that it had worked very well.

At least the boy wasn’t hyperventilating anymore. There was little to be done about the rest of it.

As he wiped stray drops from his chin with one thumb and sucked them into his mouth, Severus wondered when Potter would ask about the events of the previous night. Having succumb to an alter long before Voldemort and Bellatrix had entered, the boy must be wondering why the door was warped and the cot was splintered and the floor was littered with rubble. So far, though, the Gryffindor had done nothing but stare at him, as if he were the enigma.

“Solve your own mysteries before you start on mine, Potter,” Severus muttered, not intending himself to be heard.

However, Potter’s answering, “Yes, sir,” revealed he hadn’t succeeded. At least it had gotten the boy to stop staring at him, though! It also provided an answer to his earlier question as, not two minutes later, Potter asked, “Professor, what…what happened while I…was gone?”

Severus sighed, suddenly realizing he had been dreading this moment. He didn’t know exactly what had happened after Boy, but he was sure it wasn’t something Harry would want to listen to. Nevertheless, the potions master tried to put himself in his student’s place (a technique Dumbledore had suggested when he’d first started teaching and nearly sent the whole first year class to Madam Pomfrey in hysterics). If he were missing a part of his memory, no matter how dismal, grim, frightening, or disappointing, he would want to know what was supposed to fill that gap.

So, pushing the unappetizing water away with one hand, Severus recounted the events from when James started yelling at him to when Severus himself had fallen asleep amid the wreckage.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Draco picked up Star Rituals and slowly, silently, crept toward the main area of the library where he’d heard the unmistakable sound. He could just make out a dark lump on one of the chairs and wondered what someone would be doing in a library without a light. But as he got closer, he realized that, just like himself, the person had a darkened lantern. This answered two questions at once.

The person did have a light, it was just under the same charm as his own. Therefore, the person could only be Granger.

Still stepping silently, Draco worked his way around so that he was directly behind the frizzy-haired Gryffindor and inched closer. He just barely stopped himself from gasping as he realized she was reading Moste Potente Potions; he needed that book! He leaned in a touch farther to see what she could possibly be working on that would inspire Granger, of all people, to break the rules and take a book from the restricted section without permission.

Suddenly, she spun around and pointed her wand at his head.

“Malfoy,” she hissed in disgust. “What do you want.”

“Why Granger, I should be asking that of you, being that I am a prefect and you are out of bounds,” Draco shot back automatically.

“Malfoy,” Granger had the audacity to look amused, “I’m a prefect as well. I have just as much right to turn you in as you do me. So why don’t we just go our separate ways and forget we saw each other.”

Draco glared at her, hating that she was right and had made a point. However, she had overlooked one thing.

“I need that book,” he stated. “Give it to me and I’ll leave.”

Granger didn’t even glance back. “I need it, and I had it first. Why should I give it to you?”

“I’m sure I’ll make better use of it than some filthy mudblood,” Draco snapped. In an instant, the girl’s wand was in his face again.

“Watch it, Malfoy,” she warned. “Now, you either tell me why you want this book, or leave.”

“Or else?” Draco taunted, though he knew full well what ‘else’. Granger knew he knew as well, and she just wiggled her wand slightly, unfairly enjoying the way his eyes followed its movement warily.

The Slytherin wanted that book, but could tell Granger wouldn’t let him have it without revealing why he was there, but there was no way he was giving her the advantage, nor was leaving without the book acceptable. The solution that came to mind was revolting, but he had to admit, it would likely work as it appealed to the insufferably Gryffindor idea of fairness.

“I suggest we compromise,” offered Draco. “We both tell the other what potion we need, that way neither of us has any advantage over the other.”

Granger narrowed her eyes and gave him a searching look before nodding. They each took a deep breath.

“Scrying potion,” they said simultaneously.

“You’re looking for Potter,” Draco observed. Granger nodded, not trying to deny it.

“You’re looking for Snape,” she answered. The Slytherin nodded. “Then we’re in the same boat.”

“Not quite, Granger,” Draco smirked. “You see, I’m actually going to find Snape. A regular scrying potion would be far too weak to get past whatever wards the Dark Lord has set up.”

“And you have a better idea,” the Gryffindor looked at him skeptically. “That’s why you were standing there reading over my shoulder. Right.”

Draco’s smirk grew and he looked down his nose at her – relishing the fact that she, at least, was shorter than him – bringing Star Rituals out into what must have been the light of her lantern and opening it to the correct page.

“Rituals,” Granger gasped. “But that’s Dark Magic!”

“Only according to ministry guidelines,” Draco scoffed. “View From Heaven doesn’t even require blood or pain, just the scrying potion. So you see, I have far greater use for that book, why don’t you just give it here.”

Granger seemed to size him up again, making him want to squirm under her measuring gaze. Not that he actually did, mind you; Malfoy’s never squirmed.

“Instead, how about we do the smart thing for once?” the girl suggested haughtily. “You’ve got a better head for potions theory, so if you make the scrying potion, it’ll probably turn out better. I’m better at charms and getting things right the first time. So, I suggest you make the potion, I’ll draw the pentagram, then we both perform the spell. That’ll increase our chances at finding both our targets. All we need to do is figure out where and when; and trade books, of course.”

“The View From Heaven ritual can only be used on one target,” Draco pointed out. “I’m not making any potions or doing any spells to find your precious Potter.”

Granger made an aggravated sound in her throat. “Fine, we’ll focus it on Snape. Like I told you before, they’re likely in the same place, so it doesn’t matter! Are we agreed or not?”

Feeling his skin crawl at the very notion, Draco stuck his hand out and let Granger grasp it. “Agreed.”

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Harry sat back against the stone wall and tried to absorb all that Snape had told him. A lot of it didn’t make sense, like why (whywhyWHY) Boy would call Voldemort ‘Uncle’. What could possibly bring a part of him to associate being strangled by chains under the control of a skeletal megalomaniac with the rather obese Uncle Vernon? He had a feeling Snape knew some part of the reason, but the man just wasn’t talking anymore.

“If I understand correctly,” Harry began, “I basically completely embarrassed myself, then started screaming and doing accidental magic, which somehow scared Voldemort,” Snape flinched but didn’t comment, “into leaving, and now he’s likely both very peeved with us and leery of coming back down.”

Snape nodded.

“So…what do we do now?”

“Now, Mr. Potter,” Snape sighed. “Now we wait.”

“The wart of hebridean lipsipsip goes after the diricawl eye,” Hermione pointed out helpfully, just as Malfoy was about to add the disgusting growth. The Slytherin’s jaw tensed.

“Before,” he insisted, reaching toward the cauldron again. Hermione held his arm back.

“No, after; look,” she pointed at the directions with one hand, even as the other continued powdering alihotsy root. It took a lot less time to ready the Room of Requirement (she’d never, ever tell Ron she took Malfoy there) for the scrying ritual than it would to brew the potion, so Hermione had volunteered her services in preparing the ingredients. And a good thing, too; the blonde had almost ruined several hours of hard work!

“Thank you, Granger,” Malfoy ground out, “I know what the book says, but I also know that if we put one lipsipsip wart in first in softens the reaction of the diricawl eye and makes the cauldron rather less likely to explode, while having no negative effect on the resulting potion. Now kindly remove your filthy hand from my person.” Hermione glared at him for the slur, but the arrogant Slytherin just stared coolly back. “You’re getting alihotsy powder on my robes.”

The girl jerked her hand back, and sure enough a chalk-like handprint was left on the black cloth.

“Now, will you allow me to go on with the potion in the way I know is best, being that I, in your own words, am better at potions theory than you,” Malfoy asked primly.

Hermione felt her face flush in embarrassment. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Why wouldn’t they put something like that in the directions?”

“Because whoever invented the potion stopped dithering around as soon as he got it right,” Malfoy said while carefully adding the one wart, enunciating clearly as if speaking to a child. “It was only after the potion was invented that advancements were made.”

Hermione stayed silent after that, watching Malfoy carefully as he followed the directions from then on. Finally, all the ingredients had been added; once the potion had sat overnight to cool and thicken, it would be ready and they could find Professor Snape. She hoped her instinct that Snape and Harry were together was correct.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus tossed and turned in his sleep

In his dream, he was back at the Dursley residence watching Potter faint from pain. He had seen such abuse before, in the memories of people now in Azkaban or serving the Dark Lord.

What if Potter had followed the same route? What if the Boy-Who-Lived had become hardened by the abuse and turned dark? It would have been a disaster of monumental proportions and that horrid muggle Vernon Dursley was behind it.

Severus took hold of the fat man’s cane and ripped it from his hands.

“Monster,” he declared softly, bringing the stick down on Dursley’s arm. “Fiend, demon, slime, cur.” With each word, he brought the stick down again and again.

“You have no idea what you could have brought down upon us all.” He slammed the stick against the wall behind him and heard a latch pop open and the creak of a door. Glancing backward, Severus saw a small cupboard with an old cot inside, the fabric stained an ominous dark brown in places.

“I would kill you for this, you know,” he told the muggle casually. “I would kill you and wouldn’t even consider it murder, since I don’t consider you worthy of the title of human. But I won’t; yet. I suggest you pray to your last breath that what you have broken can be fixed.”

He hit the man one last time, hard, on the crown of his head, knocking him unconscious. Severus then gently lifted Potter and, pausing only long enough to spit on Dursley’s great lumpy form, left number 4.

The entire walk back to the edge of the anti-apparition wards and then from Hogwarts’ gate to the infirmary, the professor’s mind had been in a whirlwind. The memories returned; memories of small, twitchy students, unnaturally wary and quiet; the ones who had rarely left for home during the holidays.

Jacob Headrow, two years below Severus in school – joined Voldemort at age 17.

Melissa Yeats, a year younger than Jacob – received the Dark Mark as soon as she got out of St. Mungo’s right before sixth year.

Cassius Benton, a seventh year when Severus had first started teaching – sent to Azkaban on two counts of torture curses on unarmed victims and fourteen counts of muggle baiting.

And more, so many more, just like them. All but a very few turned Dark and either went to Voldemort for revenge or, after his temporary defeat, sought it themselves.

In every case, though, those that hadn’t turned Dark had at least one parent, besides the abuser, who honestly cared for them. Harry had nothing but the firm conviction that his parents must have loved him – not even the memory of that love was left to him. Severus knew what Voldemort had offered the boy in his first year, the chance to be with his parents again, to be away from the Dursleys. And all it would have taken would be giving up one small stone. The former spy couldn’t honestly say that, if he had been in the same position, he would have hesitated even a moment before giving the Dark Lord what he desired, just for the chance to feel a parent’s love.

The thought that Harry Potter was that much stronger than him was…unsettling.

In the dark cell of Voldemort’s dungeon, Severus tossed and turned in his sleep.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Draco waited impatiently in an alcove just outside the Great Hall. He was to help Granger draw the pentagram and set up for the ritual in the Room of Requirement today, and they had agreed to eat early breakfasts so they wouldn’t be missed. Unfortunately, just as Draco had gotten up to leave, Weasley had sauntered groggily into the Hall and plopped down next to Granger, engaging her in muffled, sleep-addled conversation.

Finally, a quarter of an hour late, Granger slipped out of the immense double doors and looked around surreptitiously. She must have seen Draco, because a moment later she turned and walked up the steps. The Slytherin followed a minute later, following her rout from memory up to that fascinating seventh floor room. Draco had thought all potion labs were in the dungeons, but he supposed Rowena Ravenclaw might have wanted one nearer her aerie.

Inside, Draco found Granger carefully testing the consistency of the potion with Draco’s own stirring spoon – one that had cost him twenty-six galleons at the apothecary because it was guaranteed to be completely non-reactive with any and all potions. A spike of annoyance went through him, but he reminded himself that Ganger would be useful to help him find his mentor and get him back, and therefore he couldn’t chop her up for ingredients just yet. He settled for mentally calling her several (admittedly rather childish) names.

“Is it ready?” he asked, keeping the scorn in his voice to a minimum.

“Almost, from what I can see,” she said, grimacing slightly as if unsure. “What do you think?”

Draco took the spoon and gently dipped it into the center of the cauldron, pulling it up and watching the potion drip off the end. “Still just a little too thin – it needs to be about the consistency of fresh blood to work. Have you found a place for us to do the ritual?”

Granger nodded, bushy hair bouncing slightly. “It’s just off the castle grounds, so there won’t be as much interference from the wards,” ‘or as much chance of getting caught’ was left unsaid. “The book said the ritual is strongest when done just before dawn, so will you meet me here at five-o’clock tomorrow morning?”

“I’ll be here Granger,” Draco promised, “don’t let me down.”

The Gryffindor rolled her eyes and set the lid back on the cauldron.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

As large as the bucket of water had seemed at first, it certainly hadn’t lasted long. Harry and Snape had been left completely alone since they had first woken after the encounter with Voldemort – not even a house-elf had arrived to remove the empty container. Almost as bad as the hunger and thirst – at least in Harry’s mind – was the tense monotony of having only Snape for company. The man was clearly frustrated with their predicament, and, though he seemed to be making an effort not to, often fell into his old habit of taking his frustrations out on Harry. Verbally, of course.

They had started the day with an impromptu counseling session.

“So, Mr. Potter, what do you think of your alternate personalities?” Snape had asked.

Harry had told him about his first impressions of each of them, and how mostly he was just confused, because he couldn’t think of anything in his past that would require him to have reinforcements inside his head.

“Is your memory so poor you cannot even recall information you, yourself, were told, Potter?” the professor had sneered. “I told you before that you can’t remember because the alters themselves have taken your memories, leaving you without a single worry in your empty, famous head.”

The boy had bitten back a sharp retort that was sure to get him nowhere and started counting the stones in the wall opposite him. Snape was silent for a while, then tried to coax more information out of him, asking him if he had noticed anything else. Harry ignored him, not feeling up to being ridiculed for answering questions, but that had just angered the potions master further. The whole ‘session’ had dissolved into a shouting match unfortunately quickly and neither had attempted to start a conversation again, leaving them in aggravatingly stiff silence.

As the day wore on, the situation wore on Harry more and more. He was very hungry, the pain of it gnawing in his stomach; he was desperately thirsty, his tongue felt parched and swollen; and worst of all was the all-encompassing fear that had only recently descended as the reality of his situation sank in. He had been captured by Voldemort and was being held with no apparent chance for escape until the snake-faced, murdering megalomaniac decided what to do with them.

At random times it would be too much and he would Blank Out, waking up seconds (or maybe minutes) later, always with Snape’s eyes on him. It was aggravating, annoying, and wreaking havoc on what little peace of mind he had left.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus watched Potter carefully throughout the day. The situation was clearly outside the boy’s comfort zone, and he seemed to be wearing down rather quickly. The physical pain couldn’t be helping with that either.

Gradually, the little spot of sun that made it through their pitiful excuse for a window moved across the floor, and the professor noticed something interesting. As he watched out of the corner of his eye, Potter would put a hand on his undoubtedly aching stomach, cast his eyes around wildly, take short, gasping breaths, then switch to an alter. More often than not it was Boy who popped out, whimpering and muttering pleas for food (all of which only made Severus’ hatred of the boy’s uncle grow). Occasionally one of the others would emerge – he’d been on the receiving end of some fierce glares from ether Mike or James (he was relatively certain they both held him in the same esteem), and Foster had wished for pudding once or twice.

The more this happened, the more clear it became to Severus that the Boy-Who-Lived would not be able to fulfill his destiny without integrating his personalities.

At a time Severus guessed to be shortly after noon, he decided to break the silence.

“Potter,” he began, the boy’s head shot up and he made eye contact warily. “I have already told this to Tom, but I believe you should know it as well. You know of Trelawney’s prophecy, correct?”

“Um…yes,” Potter answered unsurely.

“Good, that makes this easier,” Severus muttered to himself. “I believe that your alternate personalities do not fall under the description in the prophecy, only you yourself do.”

Potter’s forehead creased with confusion. “Description? Description of what? All it said was that Pettigrew would go back to Voldemort, unless I completely missed a part of it.”

Severus wanted to hit his head against the wall. Or, failing that, Potter’s head. The idiot boy was, of course, referring to the prophecy made just over two years ago. When Dumbledore had first told him about it, he’d been sure it referred to Black, but later evidence showed that Pettigrew was, indeed, that ‘servant of the Dark Lord’.

“Potter,” he growled, aggravated, then rubbed his forehead in an effort to calm down. “There was another prophecy, made shortly before you were born. Dumbledore told you about it after the unfortunate events at the end of last year, but I suspect you were…not yourself at the time.”

Potter nodded thoughtfully, shuddering slightly.

“As far as I know, it says that, in the end, either you must kill the Dark Lord, or he will kill you,” Severus explained. “The description of the person in the prophecy includes your birth at the end of July, some…qualities of your parents, and being marked by the Dark Lord. Because of the specificity within the prophecy, I do not believe any of your alters would be able to fulfill it; however, as you are now, you cannot stand as yourself within the Dark Lord’s presence. It would be…fortuitous if we were to find a way to put you back together before the time comes to accomplish your destiny.”

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Harry listened as Snape explained, glad that the teacher seemed to be in a slightly calmer mood, though there had been a worrisome moment where the man had seemed about to say something harsh. He had only patchy memories of the last month or so of school, an none whatsoever of the last week, and whenever he tried to think about the sense of horror, guilt, and despair he got was almost enough to send him into a Blank Out all on its own. As the professor told him about the prophecy, he got a flash of memory: a pensieve and a ghostly voice saying “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…”

He almost didn’t hear the reasons Snape gave, but his mind focused instantly on the idea of being ‘put back together’.

“W…would I get my memories back?” he asked hesitantly, hopefully.

If he had to pick one thing he hated more than anything else about his Blank Outs – more than waking up and not knowing where he was or what he was doing, more than the panicky, drowning feeling as they came on – it was the feeling that he’d been cheated out of a good portion of his life. Harry hoped he was never obliviated, hated the whole idea of obliviation in fact, because he believed with all his heart that memories were a person’s dearest possession, and even if a memory only brought confusion or pain, it was still wrong to take it away. A part of him (his own part) hated his ‘alters’ for that, for taking away something that was meant to be his alone.

“The research I have done leads me to believe so,” Snape agreed stiffly. “Though I doubt you will enjoy the process of getting them back.”

“Well I don’t exactly enjoy not having them, either,” Harry said shortly. “They’re my memories.”

Snape sneered, and Harry fought to not shrink away from the sudden vitriol he saw in the man’s eyes.

“Where was this respect for memory last year, Potter?” he asked with deceptive calm. “I find it hard to believe you are so passionate on the personal nature of one’s recollections, based on your deplorable violation of my pensieve.”

Harry felt the blood drain from his face. The anger of the potions master was frightening enough, but the accusations he had leveled…Harry didn’t know how he had gotten into the pensieve, one moment Draco Malfoy was talking to Professor Snape, the next he was watching his father be unconscionably cruel, but the professor had appeared before he’d got his bearings and started shouting at him and shaking him. If Harry hadn’t been so dazed at the time, he had little doubt he would have Blanked Out.

After a day or so he had rationalized it away as something Snape had done voluntarily, but apparently that wasn’t true. The realization that he had wronged the man so badly tipped the precarious balance within he had been clinging to, and everything went Blank.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus glared at Potter as the boy went pale under his gaze. Confusion and horror warred on the young face for a moment before both emotions were wiped away. Potter slouched slightly, sighed, and turned Slytherin eyes on his professor.

“Look, Professor Snape,” Tom said quietly. “Harry was quite sincere in what he told you. He would never have gone into your pensieve. It was me.”

Severus felt his eyebrows shoot up in surprise, though in retrospect he supposed it should have been obvious – Tom being the one who did the ‘bad stuff’.

“In our fourth year, Harry went into Dumbledore’s pensieve before he knew what it was, and the Headmaster brushed it off, saying it was natural to be curious, so it didn’t seem like a very big deal. Also, I think we were all a little angry during fifth year that Dumbledore had seen fit to give you a pensieve, somewhere to hide what you didn’t want seen, when we were left unprotected. I guess I just wanted to see what was so bad that Dumbledore would offer you that courtesy, despite the fact that it was our mind that would be routinely broken into.” The boy rubbed the back of his neck. “I know that’s no excuse, but I hope it’s proof enough that Harry didn’t – wouldn’t – do something like that, and he’ll likely apologize for it, even though he doesn’t remember it, the moment he wakes up. Please don’t blame him for it.”

What Tom said made sense, in a way. There was still a good amount of anger at the memory, but at least Severus now knew where to direct it. Pity, really, he had actually liked Tom. Also, he and Dumbledore would be having a talk when – and if – Severus returned to school. He’d had no idea the man hadn’t given Potter a pensieve, what was he thinking? Sending the boy into private Occlumency lessons with a man who hated him and no protection for his privacy whatsoever…nothing could excuse that, especially not selfish motives like ‘protecting’ Potter by keeping him ignorant. He had been rather blunt with the headmaster on the topic of protecting the boy by keeping him ignorant, but Albus had been too emotionally tied up in the problem to see the truth: that he was only trying to protect himself from having to be the one who took away Potter’s illusions.

Tom seemed to take Severus’ silence as a reason to keep talking.

“For what it’s worth, Harry woke up about midway through the memory, and was devastated by what he saw. He lectured Sirius and Professor Lupin about it afterward, wanting some sort of explanation for what they thought they were doing, but all they said was that Dad had been fifteen at the time, and everyone was idiots at fifteen. It wasn’t then, and never will be, enough of an explanation for us, and I doubt we’ll ever again be able to think fondly of our father. The only consolation we have is that Mum tried to stop them.”

Severus winced internally. He remembered that; Lily had been a kind person, and had yelled at James Potter loudly and often for the things they did, but he had never been able to see past the added humiliation of being protected by a Mudblood. If he hadn’t been so blind during his youth, he suspected he and Potter’s mother might have become friends, as odd as that thought might be.

“Is Potter likely to wake up soon?” Severus asked shortly, dismissing the conversation for later thought, as it would take more energy and concentration than he could conjure up in a dungeon.

“I would doubt it,” Tom admitted. “With the combination of physical and emotional stress he’s under, even if he did come out, he’d probably just Blank Out again in a few minutes.”

They both fell silent again, falling into their own contemplations. Severus, morbid as always, contemplated his impending reminder of mortality. Knowing Voldemort, it would not be something painless or quick like the killing curse, but just how long it would take depended on what Voldemort decided to do with Potter. The most obvious choice would be to use Severus’ death to torture Potter further, which meant it wouldn’t drag on over days, since Voldemort would want to get to Potter’s death as quickly as possible. However, he could also be impatient enough – or worried enough about Potter’s abilities – to kill Potter first, in which case the Death Eaters would likely be given all the time in the world to torture him into insanity and eventual death.

Maybe he could convince Tom to kill him. Severus sighed heavily, breath ghosting over parched lips. Not likely.

Tom sighed with relief as Snape let the conversation drop. He despised apologizing, he really did. Amelia generally did the apologizing, but Snape would need something more sincere, and Amelia had been one of the most adamant voices against peeking into the pensieve. Still, Harry would be getting their memories back someday, Tom could feel it, and he wanted the boy to know that things had been smoothed over. At least Snape had been rather gracious about it – the situation was uncomfortable enough without further humbling.

The Slytherin wondered, glancing at the professor, what the man was thinking about. Judging from his expression, it was nothing pleasant. But then, given that they were trapped in Voldemort’s dungeon, only someone with serious psychological problems would be thinking pleasant things. For his part, Tom figured it might be best to think about possible escape plans.

The window, being ten feet off the ground, but only six inches tall, was not a viable option. Though perhaps something else could go through it, some small animal or something. Rather unfortunate they’d yet to manage the animagus transformation, despite John’s fervent research.

On the other side of the cell, however, was the door. It really had taken quite the beating when It had been released – although it was intact enough to hang on the wall and lock securely, there wasn’t much more that could be said. The upper right corner had been bent inward to the point where one could see small glimpses of the corridor outside. Quite an impressive feat when the fact that the door itself was three inches thick and solid steel was taken into account.

Tom shifted against the wall to get a better look at the bent corner and had to stifle a groan. It felt like every muscle in their body ached – it was almost worse than a beating! They had only felt anything close to this once before, and that was when It had been released to stop them from dying when Harry passed out in third year. Slowing a fall of several hundred feet had severely taxed their magic, but this time was worse. The cell must have had some powerful structural wards, since it hadn’t fallen down around their ears when It came out.

Another shift – this time to get off of a rock that was pressing into their hip – and the groan couldn’t be suppressed. The noise caught Snape’s attention, and for a moment Tom was afraid the potions master would start harping about the bloody pensieve again. But no, the professor seemed destined to surprise him at every turn.

“What, exactly, is It, Tom?” Snape asked wearily.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Hermione left the Room several minutes after Malfoy, so as to avoid suspicion. She just barely made it down to the fourth floor stairs when Ron joined her from a side corridor.

“Where’d you go after breakfast?” he asked petulantly. “I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

“I…er…” Hermione hesitated, hating lying to her friend, but unwilling to be yelled at for helping to find Harry. “I had to grab my extra quill.”

“I didn’t see you in the tower,” Ron pointed out, frowning.

“We must have just missed each other,” Hermione said quickly. “I, er, had to go to the loo as well. Why so interested, anyway?” He seemed to be keeping watch on her a lot these days.

“I just…worry I guess,” said Ron, sadly. His normally lively air was almost completely gone. “Ever since Snape took Harry...” Hermione bit her tongue. “I don’t want that to happen to you, too.”

“Oh, Ron,” Hermione patted him on the shoulder. “It’s alright, don’t worry. Harry will come back, he always does.”

“Yeah,” Ron groused.

Hermione sighed – talking about Harry’s disappearance always put the redhead in a foul mood. Not that she couldn’t understand it, but it was so hard to keep up with everything and still hold out hope when Ron was sitting next to her, acting like the world was coming to an end.

They made it to Transfiguration just minutes before the bell rang, seating themselves, as usual, next to the empty window seat that belonged to Harry. She hoped her and Malfoy’s plan worked, because she wasn’t sure how much more any of them could take.

Ron, even in his depression, was stuck to her like spell-o’-tape all day. Hermione had planned to hurry up to the seventh floor during lunch and check on the potion again, but the redhead looked at her with big sad eyes whenever she started to stand, and she just couldn’t leave him. The only other opportunity she might have had was after dinner, when Ron was playing chess with Dean, but when the girl excused herself to go to the library, her friend volunteered to come with her, and she just didn’t have the heart to refuse. All she could do was offer a silent hope that Malfoy would be able to check in at some point and make sure the potion was doing alright.

The last thing they needed was for all their hard work to be ruined before they even had a chance to find Harry.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Tom shrank back, but this time there was nowhere to run. This was precisely why he had held off releasing It for so long, this exact question. James would normally be most suited to this situation, brushing off the question as best he could, but the git was rather unlikely to be able to deal wisely with such a delicate topic around Snape. He was unlikely to even appear again around Snape.

“We…don’t know,” he said eventually, sighing.

“Well, when did It appear?” the professor asked.

“It was already there when Foster and Mummy were created. Only Boy could really say whether or not It are oldest, but he doesn’t even acknowledge that It exists, and maintains always that he was the first to break off. Most of us believe It was first, but we don’t know.” Tom clamped his mouth shut. He knew he was babbling, but he’d never before had to put into words anything about It, and It wasn’t exactly something simple to define.

“Continue,” Snape prompted.

“We don’t have access to any of It’s memories,” Tom explained. “And really, none of us want to know. Whatever happened to create It was certainly worse than the…what Uncle Vernon has done, because Boy takes that pain and is still better off than It.

“In our cupboard – inside Harry’s subconscious?” Tom queried, looking to the professor for confirmation; Snape nodded, “ – It is a distorted vision of humanity. We can’t tell It’s age by looking at It, because it shifts form. Sometimes It looks almost like a baby, a twisted and mangled infant tinted green as if sick, but other times It almost seems to be an old man, with dry scaly skin and world-weary, ruined joints. It can look like almost anything, depending on who’s looking at It and when, but none of us look at It very often. The only thing constant are the screams. Only when we hide It away in a box under the cot will It shut up, the rest of the time It screams like…like nothing I’ve ever heard before or would want to hear again”

Snape nodded his agreement of that assessment and his face turned thoughtful.

“Could It have been created the night Potter survived the killing curse?” he asked.

Tom shrugged. “It’s possible, but I think…there must be more to it than that. Some of Harry’s earliest memories – the ones that he can remember on his own – are of a bright green light and a pain in his forehead. If It had been created at that moment, then those memories would have been taken from him.” Wouldn’t they?

That makes sense, and none of us have a better theory, John said

Tom shook their head in frustration. “Everything’s all muddled until we’re four or five. What few memories Boy and Foster keep of that time are distorted and choppy, like watching the telly during a thunderstorm.”

Snape raised an eyebrow, and Tom searched for a better analogy, one a wizard would understand.

“Like…like listening to the WWN while levitating the set, I suppose.” John had once read that wizarding wireless sets ran on magic and a special type of magical wave, just like muggle sets ran on electricity and radio waves. Because of this, any magic performed on the set itself would interfere with the sound, just like electricity in the atmosphere interfered with the television. Snape, apparently, knew this as well, as he nodded slightly in comprehension.

I guess I am best for this, Tom thought with a little mental laugh. No one else can tell Snape’s nods apart.

No one else would want to, Danny pointed out, amused.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus listened patiently as Tom expounded on his description of It. He shuddered, unnoticeably, when the boy described Potter’s earliest memory as being hit with the killing curse. The telly analogy had thrown him for a loop, despite the fact that he knew what television was (in general terms, anyway) he couldn’t think just how an electrical storm would affect the little moving pictures. Tom, subtle and Slytherin as he was, caught on to his momentary confusion and explained in proper terms what he meant.

When he was a student, Severus had owned a WWN set, and a dorm-mate had levitated it after the first year charms students had learned the spell. The signal had gone absolutely berserk, shrieking and whistling and crackling so badly that the music could barely be heard over the interference.

“When we try to remember those earlier years,” Tom continued, “it’s very hard to tell what’s going on, and pretty often an adult or someone will use a word that we didn’t understand then, and it’ll show up as nonsense. And like I said, those memories, even as garbled as they are, aren’t very plentiful. We’ll maybe remember a moment or two of watching Dudley in his playpen in November when we were two, then Mrs. Figg’s cats on Dudley’s third birthday the next May.”

The boy took a deep breath and let it out in a heavy, exhausted sigh.

“All we really know is that, every time Harry gets hurt really badly, usually during his encounters with Voldemort, It gets bigger.”

“But Harry doesn’t lose memories when this happens?” Severus asked sharply.

“No,” Tom answered heavily. “It just…gets bigger. And louder.” The boy shifted, winced, then bit his lip. “Much more, and I doubt It’s box will hold it.”

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

An unconscionably loud tempus alarm blared, bouncing off the silencing spells at the edge of Draco’s bed. He opened his eyes halfway, fumbled for his wand and cancelled the spell, then dropped his head back to his pillow, compressing the swan feathers with a loud fwump. He didn’t quite fall back asleep, but it was a very near thing. In the end, it took him a good half hour to drag himself out of bed and into a decent set of robes, which was precisely why he had set the alarm so early. It was a vicious cycle, really: if he didn’t take so long to get up, he wouldn’t have to wake up so early, but if he got more sleep, he wouldn’t take so long to get up.

The Slytherin didn’t have time to ponder it now, though, as he’d set himself a strict schedule. Half an hour to get up and get dressed, ten minutes to get to the kitchens and nick a quick breakfast, then fifteen minutes to walk slowly up to the seventh floor. No time for pondering such mentally taking things as vicious cycles at all. And so, with his perfect sense of timing, Draco arrived at the Room of Requirement at precisely five in the morning, chewing on the last bite of his scone.

Granger was, of course, already there and tapping her foot impatiently, as if he were the one who had misjudged the time.

“Morning,” he drawled cheerfully. Granger rolled her eyes at him.

“Let’s just get this outside, alright?” she said, resignedly.

“Outside?” Draco sneered. “I thought the point was to find somewhere inconspicuous, Granger, not go strolling around where any plebian Hufflepuff can gawk at us.”

She bit her lip, as if convincing herself of something. Finally, she brought her hand out, revealing a silvery cloth that caught the light like liquid mercury.

“That’s why I brought this,” she said.

Draco glared at her incredulously. “Where in Salazar’s dungeon did you get an invisibility cloak!” he demanded.

“It’s Harry’s,” Granger whispered. “I figure it’s worth it letting you use it if it helps save his life.”

Draco bit his lip to keep himself from whistling in admiration, but couldn’t bring himself to treat the rare cloth with anything other than respect as he draped it over himself and the cauldron. Granger was a prefect, and well-known for being up early, so no one would think twice at seeing her out on the grounds at this time of day, even if there was anyone else awake.

Invisible, he followed the Gryffindor through the winding maze of the castle and out onto the grounds, carrying the potion carefully so that it wouldn’t spill. After over five years, he knew Hogwarts relatively well, so he only needed to look up every now and then to make sure he kept Granger in sight, but when he looked up and realized they were heading directly for the Whomping Willow, Draco had to stop and stare.

“Granger,” he hissed, hastening his steps to try and get close enough for the girl to hear him without having to get within reach of the violent tree. “Granger!”

Finally, Granger stopped, evidently deciding to listen to reason instead of whatever stupidity her Gryffindor instincts inflicted upon her. But when she turned to look for him, Draco was shocked to see a smug-looking smirk on her face!

“No worries, Malfoy,” she murmured, levitating a stick about the length of Draco’s arm. Granger guided the branch toward the trunk of the Willow, tapping it on a certain knot. Immediately, all the waving limbs of the possessed creation of demonic topiary froze, leaving Granger free to walk right up to the base of the roots, which she promptly did.

Draco followed somewhat more cautiously, but fast enough to reach the girl before whatever she had done to the tree wore off. There, at the Gryffindor’s feet, was a tunnel, and a large one at that.

“We’re going in there?” he asked, purely for confirmation and without the slightest hint of hesitation.

Granger nodded, still smirking slightly, and climbed swiftly down the hole.

“Hand me the potion,” she directed, pale hands showing up sharply against her dark robes and the black of the tunnel, as if they existed on their own. Draco removed Potter’s cloak, crouched down, and slowly lowered the cauldron to them. Something behind him creaked ominously, like groaning wood, and the wind seemed to rustle a bit in the leaves.

Leaves!

Granger cursed (in and of itself enough to shock Draco) and shouted, “Malfoy, either tap the knot or get down here now!”

Of course, with the background noise, the blood rushing in his ears, and the surge of adrenaline, what Draco heard was: “MALFOY, ether tap with Nott or GET DOWN HERE NOW!”

So he did, nearly jumping directly into Granger’s arms in the process. She had, thankfully, set the cauldron down on the ground a few feet away, so that it was out of danger of being knocked over by a stray foot while he and Granger righted themselves, with far more exaggerated motions than were strictly necessary.

“Granger,” Draco sneered to cover his blundering and panic, “what made you think tapping with Nott would be a feasible solution?”

The Gryffindor looked at him as if he’d grown two heads, then seemed to be biting back laughter.

“Tap the knot, Malfoy,” she said, sounding unduly amused. “K-N-O-T, knot.”

Unable to think of an appropriately witty comeback, Draco sneered his way to the cauldron and picked it up, noticing as he did so that it was considerably easier without a load of fabric clinging to his every move.

Wait…where was Potter’s –

“Accio cloak,” Granger said behind him, catching the silvery cloth as it slipped through the entrance to the tunnel. “Not going to make the same mistake twice,” she muttered, moving ahead of him into the darkness ahead. Granger lit her wand and led the way while Draco was left to carry the potion.

The passage was long, dank, dark, musty, dirty, wet, and altogether unpleasant. Draco wished he had worn a better cloak, and perhaps his dragonhide boots, and that he had a house elf or two to carry the heavy cauldron for him, as his arms felt like they were going to fall off. For the first half of the journey, the ground beneath them sloped down, but eventually the gradient turned upward again, though it seemed like they must already be far from Hogwarts.

“Granger,” Draco asked irritably, “where does this lead?”

“Hmm? Oh, the Shrieking Shack,” answered the Gryffindor absently. Draco almost dropped his load.

“Where?” he demanded. “Excuse me, I could have sworn I heard you say this led to that dilapidated pile of driftwood haunted by worse ghosts than the Bloody Baron and Peeves combined.”

Granger waved one arm dismissively. “Those are just rumors and legends, Malfoy,” she said disdainfully. “The truth is, the shack, the willow and the tunnel were all built for Remus Lupin’s use when he was here as a student, he came to the shack every full moon to transform; the whole Shrieking Shack legend was fabricated by the villagers based on his howls, and Dumbledore propagated it to keep people away.”

There was a pause while Draco let this sink in. Then:

“How on Earth do you know these things, Granger?” he asked incredulously.

She smirked back at him – an expression that held not a little sadness. “It’s just…one of those perks of being friends with Harry Potter – you learn things no one else would ever know.”

Draco shook his head in amazement. He’d never really stopped to think that, because of all the trouble the Golden Trio got into, they probably knew the school better than anyone, what with forays into the third floor corridor, the chamber of secrets, the forbidden forest, and (apparently) the shrieking shack. He was almost jealous.

Almost. The multiple near-death experiences were rather off-putting.

Finally, they reached an old, beaten up door that opened into an area that might – if one were to give it proper decoration and furnishings – be called a parlor. On the floor, Draco could see piles of paper with arithmancy equations and a penciled sketch of a pentagram drawn on the wood.

“Alright, here we are,” Granger announced proudly, moving a table to her side. “Just set the potion here, please.”

Draco, too busy looking around to be indignant, did as he was told and relieved himself of his burden. The old shack was actually rather nice, if one ignored the ghoul (or rather, if Granger was to be believed, werewolf) damage and only looked at potential. With the right interior decorator and structural contractor, it might even make a livable summer cottage. Nowhere near as nice as the Malfoy cottage in Brittany, mind, but livable.

“I left candles in here, pure white like the book suggests,” Granger spoke incessantly, explaining her actions even as she performed them – pulling the five candles, along with a brazier, out of a nearby cupboard. The girl used a Point Me spell to find North, and started arranging things while Draco watched, checking the pages around her occasionally for reference.

Draco found North himself, just to make sure Granger was right, and checked the direction against the sketched pentagram. The pentagram is drawn top facing east… Wait a minute.

“Granger,” Draco drawled scornfully. “You’ve drawn it completely backward. The top of the pentagram needs to be facing East, not West.”

“Malfoy, if you had read the introduction of Star Rituals you would have learned that the pentagram represents the mother goddess, lying spread-eagle on her back; as such, in order to face East, and the sunrise, the top must be pointing away from East,” she demonstrated with a stick-figure illusion spell of a woman lying down on the pentagram, then raising her head to face East.

“Oh,” Draco muttered, scowling.

Granger smiled slightly.

As soon as Tom fell silent, Mike took over, leaving the Slytherin to be yelled at by James.

The rant was much the same as many others Tom had been forced to endure since first opening up to Snape. ‘How dare you tell Harry’s secrets?’ ‘We agreed not to say anything about that’ and so on and so forth. After about half an hour of continual yelling, James finally ran himself out.

“Are you done now?” Tom asked, just to make sure. James glared at him fiercely, but gave a curt nod. “Good, then maybe you’ll listen. Did you see It when It was released? Have you noticed how much It has grown?” Tom stalked over to the side of the cot and jabbed a finger at the underside. “Look at it!”

Beneath the taut cloth of the cot, the cardboard shoebox that held It rattled and a fleshy protuberance bearing a vague resemblance to a finger pushed the lid up enough to poke out.

“I’ve seen It before, thanks,” James said stubbornly.

“You ignorant, naïve bastard,” Tom hissed. “Don’t you understand how incredibly bad it would be if It broke out of It’s box and we couldn’t keep control of it anymore? It is getting more powerful as It grows, It almost completely depleted Harry’s magic in less than two minutes! If It gets out and we can’t put It back, It might render Harry a squib, if It doesn’t kill him outright! ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING!”

“YES!” James shouted back. “Yes, I’m listening. What do you want me to do about it! Do you have a bigger box? Do you know how to keep It from growing? Do you know how to calm It down? Because I sure don’t. I know It is a problem, and I know we should do something before It causes a disaster, but I don’t know what, or how. Okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Tom took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his nose.

“No, James,” he said softly, hanging his head. “I am sorry I got so worked up, but don’t you see?” he pleaded. “If we don’t know what to do, maybe Snape –”

“Professor Snape,” Amelia corrected. Tom spared a moment to sneer at her.

“Maybe Professor Snape can come up with an idea or two that could help us.”

“Why would that greasy git do anything for us?” James demanded. “He hates us. Even now, the only reason he’s even talking to us is because of his professional curiosity. He just can’t accept that there’s something about Harry he doesn’t know, a puzzle he can’t solve, so he’s trying to figure us out. The most you can say for the man is that he wants to defeat Voldemort. Ask anyone – Foster, Mike, John; even Mummy knows it – you’re the only one who refuses to see that Snape does not, and never has, wanted to help us.”

Tom rolled his eyes. “Oh please, you think I don’t know that? What do you take me for, a Hufflepuff? I know very well he’s only helping us to satisfy his own curiosity and to help win the war, but who cares what his motives are. He is helping us, he’s helping Harry, the reasons why don’t matter. Even if he doesn’t care about us as a person, he’s still doing what’s best: he’s listening when any of us need to talk, he stopped Him, he’s made sure Harry won’t go back to the Dursleys’; and all that out of curiosity and responsibility.” He snorted. “That’s good enough for me.”

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus watched with feigned disinterest as Tom retreated and the sullen, testy Mike emerged. Mike didn’t say anything, though, and glared instead at the floor of the cell, as if lost in thought. The professor couldn’t help but wonder what went on inside the head of someone with MPD. Was Tom perhaps having an argument? Did Boy need to be consoled? Or were they all just waiting for something to happen, leaving Mike as the placeholder until they knew which alter would be needed?

It was so frustrating to be sitting in silence, when he just knew his only companion was having a conversation without him. Well, Severus might not have other people in his head, but he could certainly keep himself occupied. After all, it had been months since he last recited to himself the entire alphabetical list of potions ingredients, starting with aardvark tongue and ending with zub-zub juice.

However, such an enterprising venture was, unfortunately, doomed to failure. The potions master had just made it to Nordic ice crystals, long after night had fallen, when he heard loud, raucous footsteps coming closer. From the sounds, Severus estimated there were about six in the party, but it was difficult to determine, as any sound in the thrice-damned dungeon echoed off of every wall and bar, multiplying like rabbits on Aphrodite’s Elixer.

“Potter,” he hissed, making his voice as loud as he dared. Mike’s head lifted slightly to glare at him. “We have company.”

In an instant, Mike was gone and Tom had taken his place. For just a moment, Severus allowed himself to marvel that he had become so skilled at seeing the shift between alters and identifying who he was facing, but then the footsteps were upon them and the bent door was being unlocked.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Hermione finished the last line of the pentagram delicately, holding her transfigured paintbrush between thumb and forefinger. Every part of the shape – every line, point, and face – had to be perfect for the ritual to work. At first, she had felt so guilty that she was working on illegal and supposedly Dark magic, but once she had gotten into it, pentagram rituals were fascinating. It was a good thing she had paid attention in arithmancy, so that she could figure out the exact angle the point of the star had to be in order to face the rising sun. It had been a long, tedious, and absolutely wonderful process, but finally she was finished – the pentagram was painted with the Scrying Potion on the floor of the Shrieking Shack.

Malfoy had followed her around as she worked, putting a candle on a candlestick at each point of the star, and now he carefully set the brazier in the middle.

“Ready, Granger?” he asked, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

Hermione nodded and began lighting the candles, one by one, naming each with the ancient words required for the View From Heaven ritual. She didn’t know what the words meant, or even what language they were in, but they sounded impressive. Then again, knowing the wizarding world and its history, she would hardly be surprised if they translated to “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”.

The Slytherin stayed in the center, chanting along with her and sending small flame spells at the brazier each time Hermione lit a candle. So far, none of them had taken, but she wasn’t worried; that was part of the ritual. Finally, at the moment the last candle was lit, the flame in the bowl roared to life. Hermione moved to the side and took out her magically enhanced map of Europe (See from Ireland to Russia at once, or gaze at the Ruins in Greece! The Enchanter’s Map can look as close as you need or as wide as you want. © Omni-Magic Inc.) and laid it out on the mauled table, ready to focus in wherever she might need to.

Malfoy raised both hands, his left still holding his wand, and started chanting the many, many lines that made up the core of the ritual. From what she had read, the ritual could theoretically be performed with the core alone, but it was much more powerful and accurate with the pentagram. As soon as the incantation took hold, Malfoy’s vision would be propelled into space, then fall toward the scrying target. They would only get that one chance to find an exact location before the spell would be too focused. However, once the target was found, Malfoy’s sight would be returned to the Shack and the scrying image would appear, for both of them to see, in the flames of the brazier.

Indeed, that seemed to be how it happened, from the Gryffindor’s point of view. There was a flash of magic as the spell took hold, then Malfoy went rigid, eyes wide and a little green. Moments later, he started calling out directions.

“West Europe,” he shouted, Hermione focused the map a bit to the left half. “Northwest Europe, British Isles, Britain, Wales, Anglesey, Caer y Twr. He’s at Caer y Twr Castle, Angelesey Island, Wales!”

Hermione circled and starred that location on her map, wrote a quick note to Dumbledore, and sent it with Hedwig, whom she had brought to the shack two nights ago. As soon as that was done, she joined Malfoy, who was shaking his head dizzily, by the brazier.

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Tom and Snape stood and waited grimly as the door opened. As their eyes adjusted to the light, they found themselves looking straight into the red eyes of Voldemort, with six masked Death Eaters at his back. The dark wizard’s snake-like mouth was smiling.

“Hello Harry, Severus,” he hissed. “I have returned to deliver your punishment. I trust you have eagerly awaited my arrival.”

“About as eagerly as might I might await being locked in a bathroom with Pansy, Mr. Riddle.” Tom shot back pleasantly. Snape glared at him, but he thought he saw the man’s mouth twitch in what might have been amusement.

“How dare you, insolent boy,” Voldemort growled. “You will address me properly!”

“Of course, I apologize,” said Tom, faking remorse. Snape’s eyes widened. “I suppose I just forgot who I was talking to; I must pay proper respect to your lineage.” He paused, watching with morbid glee as Voldemort seemed to preen (as much as a disgusting snake-man can, anyway). “After all,” he said, “Mr. Riddle was your father, you’re Tommy Riddle Junior!”

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Draco gasped, horrified. What in Merlin’s name did Potter think he was doing, taunting the Dark Lord? Anyone who was anyone knew better than to draw attention to Voldemort’s father. The idiot Gryffindor was acting like he was in a petty squabble with, well, with Draco, not facing painful death by torture at the hands of a madman. Then again, he supposed desperation did odd things to a person’s mind; it seemed to have turned Potter into a Slytherin.

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Severus narrowed his eyes at the boy; what was Tom thinking? Taunting the Dark Lord was one of those things you could file easily under Bad Ideas. At the same time, though, he couldn’t find it in him to be too angry – they were already facing horribly torturous deaths already; if anything, angering the Dark Lord might hasten death along, so that it would be less painful. Besides, he couldn’t say the boy wasn’t the slightest bit amusing.

And it was a game two could play.

“Mr. Potter,” Severus chided. “Surely you must know that such childish shortenings are only appropriate before a wizard becomes of age. To be completely accurate, he is Thomas Riddle Junior.”

“Ah, my further apologies, then,” Tom mock-bowed. “To return to the topic, I believe my last comment should be amended: I awaited your arrival as eagerly as I would await being locked in a bathroom with Pansy Parkinson, Thomas Riddle Junior.”

“You are signing your own death warrant, boy,” Voldemort hissed. The wizard’s voice sounded calm, but his eyes were narrowed to glowing red slits and the hand on his wand clenched and unclenched at his side, as if itching to wring Potter’s neck.

“Not possible,” the Gryffindor said, shaking his head pompously. Severus realized Tom was gone, and thought he recognized John’s slightly voice, with it’s slightly more nasal quality. “As a Death Warrant can only be signed by a member of the Wizengamut upon conviction of a crime punishable by death, and as conviction of a felony – the only crimes punishable by death – is grounds for automatic dismissal from the Wizengamut, no one can sign their own Death Warrant.”

“Yet again, you show astounding lack of imagination, Potter,” Severus sneered, beginning to enjoy shoving his betrayal in the face of the man he once called ‘master’. “There was one case in 1643 wherein Reginald Baker, a member of the Wizengamut, was convicted of 407 misdemeanors. The punishments would have added up to over 200 years in jail. Baker opted instead for the death sentence and, as he was still a member of the Wizengamut at the time of his sentencing, signed his own Death Warrant.”

Severus didn’t quite know what was happening. Either the surrealism of the moment had driven away the hunger, thirst, and pain (both physical and mental), leaving him with a sharp clarity he hadn’t known in years…or the hunger, thirst, and physical and mental pain had driven him insane and he only thought that insanity was clarity. Both were distinct options at the moment.

However, it was a moot point, because the next word out of the Dark Lord’s mouth was “Silencio!”, leaving both Severus and Potter mute.

“I grow infinitely weary of your blathering,” Voldemort explained. “Now, I have been carefully monitoring the magic in this room since you both arrived, and what I found was quite interesting. Before my first visit, the magic of the room was constant; however, after the…incident, the level dropped sharply. In fact, it fell by far more than half – so Severus, I’m afraid you’re rather a lightweight compared to our Mr. Potter here – and though the level has been steadily rising since that time, it is slow going, and you, Harry, are still severely depleted. I take no pride in killing an unarmed and magically deficient opponent,” Voldemort sneered, “but I find I have no qualms about torturing one. Crucio!”

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Hermione had been so glad to find Harry with Professor Snape that, when a tall, pale man with rather snake-like features walked into the room, she hadn’t paid him much mind, preferring to stare at the friend she hadn’t seen in over a week. However, it soon became clear just who that hideous face belonged to, and she had felt her heart drop all the way down to her feet.

It was clear Malfoy recognized him as well, because the Slytherin’s look of horror was growing with each word Harry said. Except, Hermione didn’t really think it was Harry talking; more likely to be Tom, or even some other personality. But whoever he was, he wasn’t handling the situation sanely, and he was going to get Harry killed!

Nothing could have shocked her more, at that moment, than to hear Snape go along with what not-Harry was doing. Hermione had never seen Voldemort face to face before, but she had little doubt that, if she were in that dungeon, she would be bawling, pleading for her life. She never felt less like a Gryffindor than right then, knees shaking and heart thumping in fear at an image.

When Voldemort cast that awful spell – one she’d only ever heard once before in her life – her own cry rang out with Harry’s. The Gryffindor, who had before stood straight and tall, practically threw himself to the floor with convulsions, his mouth open wider than she would have thought possible, screams of unimaginable pain and torture issuing forth like emotional vomit, breaking right through the silencing charm. His body jerked and contorted on the stone floor, hands like claws grasped at cracks and fissures, desperate to hold on to something, and his eyes rolled around in their sockets, showing mostly white. For an eternity, the spell was held, until the scream died out into a soundless contortion of the jaw, and Hermione could finally hear her own sobs. Unable to watch anymore, she shifted her gaze to Malfoy, who was watching the scene in pale, wide-eyed horror.

“By all that has magic,” the Slytherin choked; out of the corner of her eye, Hermione saw Voldemort lift his wand and end the spell, leaving Harry limp on the ground, blood beginning to ooze from his nose.

Malfoy ran to a corner of the room and emptied his stomach, cursing and gagging sounding equally loud in the empty room. Hermione felt she would have joined him if she could have moved, but her legs were frozen. Slowly, her eyes returned to the fire and the horror unfolding within.

She knew it would only get worse.

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“Look,” James said in an awed, hushed voice.

Tom looked where he pointed. They had blacked out – mercifully – during the last moments of the curse, and made an important discovery. Under the cot, as always, was the worn shoebox and the fleshy mass inside, but something was different.

“It’s growing again,” James whispered. “And getting stronger. It was actually pretty sedate, until the curse was cast; then It went berserk, started flailing and swelling and screaming.”

“Sounds like normal,” Tom muttered.

“That’s why I stopped Boy from taking away the pain,” continued James, heedless of the interruption, “It is regenerating itself on the malevolent magic.”

“So…what does that mean?” asked the Slytherin.

“That means,” said James, “that we need to get cursed a few more times.”

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“Enervate,” Voldemort cast the spell with malicious ease. “No fun having your victims sleep through their own torture. Isn’t that right, Severus?”

The potions master just glared back from where he was held fast by the arms of his former (very former) comrades. He had, again, attempted to stop Potter from getting hurt by a largely ineffective lunge at the Dark Lord, but he hadn’t taken more than a step before the other Death Eaters stepped in and grabbed him. Now he could do no more than watch as the malformed sadist tortured his student.

Potter jerked back to wakefulness, breathing so hard and fast Severus wondered if he might hyperventilate. The boy checked his surrounding in a glance, then smiled the smile of one who has nothing left to lose, and refuses to go out without the last word.

“Still insolent, Potter?” Voldemort tsked. “We’ll have to train you out of that, won’t we?”

“Wow, you’re really delusional,” said Potter, with awe. “Now you think you’re a lion tamer?”

“CRUCIO!” Voldemort shouted.

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Draco took several deep, steadying breaths behind a battered armchair. He had only seen the Cruciatus curse once before – when Moody had used it on that spider. It had seemed funny at the time, how the arachnid twisted and shuddered. But the spider hadn’t had a voice, and now he finally understood what had made Potter and the other Gryffindors pale when they saw the curse. Because if the spider had been able to cry out, it would have sounded just like Potter.

He had never heard a sound so full of pain and he never wanted to again, it made his insides writhe, made him want to beg for Potter’s pain to stop, just so he wouldn’t have to hear it anymore. Nothing could excuse causing such pain on another human.

Draco finally understood why it was called Unforgivable.

The Slytherin wiped his mouth on his dozen-galleon sleeve, for once uncaring about fashion or decorum, and started to move back toward Granger, only to hear that fateful word again. He cringed, bracing himself for the bloodcurdling scream that was sure to follow.

But it did not come.

Oh, Potter screamed, sure enough, but it was softer this time, and held a subtle edge of triumph that made Draco’s ears ring with hope. He knew Severus would have noticed the almost unnoticeable change as well, and that would make all the difference in the end.

That Potter didn’t pass out this time was the first thing Severus noticed. The second was that the boy seemed to be the one in control of the situation, as if he were trying to get cursed. Which, to anyone who had ever felt the Cruciatus curse before, was sheer insanity. Yet, Potter didn’t look insane – or rather, any more insane. In fact, he seemed almost…victorious.

Severus couldn’t help but wonder what Potter knew that the rest of them didn’t.

Finally, the curse ended and Potter was allowed to lie limp, gasping for air. The boy had his eyes closed over damp cheeks, and anyone who didn’t know Potter very well would say he was breaking. But Severus had, over the past several weeks, come to know Potter’s face almost better than his own, and it seemed to him that the youth had never seemed so strong.

“I trust you will answer me with more respect now, Harry,” Voldemort drawled arrogantly. “Tell me what I wish to know, tell me about your destiny, or I will push you to the brink of insanity before I let you die.”

“Alright, alright!” Potter sobbed, his voice painfully hoarse. “I give up. I’m the….I…I’m the one.” His voice started to trail off and Voldemort leaned in eagerly. Suddenly, Potter’s hand shot out and grabbed the Dark Lord’s robe as the boy pulled himself up a bit off the floor. “I stole the cookies from the cookie jar!” he declared, then laughed maniacally. Severus felt an answering laugh wanting to bubble up, but swallowed it firmly.

“Hateful worm!” Voldemort spat, snapping his foot out to catch Potter on the jaw. The boy rolled onto his side, back to the Dark lord, curled protectively to protect his organs and head – obviously a well-practiced move – but Voldemort had more weapons than Potter’s usual attackers. “If you will not tell me yourself, then I will make you tell me. Imperio!”

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James, who had been watching avidly as It grew, feeding off the Dark nature of the curse, was quite startled to find himself in the black void of the unconscious. As he looked around, he realized that his brothers and sisters were also outside the cupboard, which had itself become a boundless inconsistency. Suddenly, he realized what was happening; it was something they had only experienced a few times before, over a year ago.

The Imperius curse.

While watching the Imperius from the sidelines could be amusing, and being afflicted with it was unsettling, there was nothing quite as fearful as the true understanding of the curse one got from the subconscious.

The human mind was separated into three areas, or fields. The conscious, which held active thoughts and impressions, emotions, and the ribbon of memory; the unconscious, which was a black void providing a refuge from thought and a barrier for the subconscious; and the subconscious, a room at the heart of the mind that held all forgotten memories and the deepest truths of a person’s heart. When under the curse, the barriers between the fields were ripped away and muddled until they were almost unrecognizable. The entire ribbon of memory became the subconscious, inaccessible to the mind, the room of the subconscious and the rest of the conscious were isolated in the unconscious, leaving control securely in the hands of the caster.

Unless, of course, someone had other people in their head ready to take that control back.

“Tell me the prophecy,” Voldemort’s voice echoed persuasively in the void, his very presence putrid and obtrusive.

“No,” James shouted back.

“Tell me!” Voldemort commanded again.

James moved toward what he hoped was the conscious, trying to find the source of the spell.

“No grassing!” Foster shouted, taking up the charge.

It had to be somewhere in the void, James just had to look in the right direction.

“Not going to tell you anything,” Mike added bitterly.

There! A spot of blue-white, like a cloud of poisonous vapor. James gathered it together, pulling it’s influence from Harry’s mind tendril by creeping tendril.

“You will tell me the prophecy, now!” Voldemort ordered angrily, his voice pounding harshly against James’ ears from the pool of condensed magic in his arms. He grit his teeth and continued to pull.

“Never!” John asserted.

“I will not be denied,” the Dark Lord’s voice came again, rattling the whole Mind.

James felt his grip slipping on the offensive substance and hurried back to where his fellows waited, finding quickly the battered shoebox – the only boundary that resisted the Imperius’ mangling influence – and shoving the spell inside. Immediately, the cupboard reformed around them and the ribbon of memory righted itself. The Mind gave a collective sigh of relief.

Contrary to popular belief, the Imperius wasn’t an unforgivable just because of the violation of the victim’s free will – that was relatively easy to overcome with any amount of training – but because of the absolute havoc it wreaked on the victim’s entire mind. Imperius could bring about an insanity deeper and more comprehensive than any caused by Cruciatus.

Unnoticed by the others, the shoebox bulged and it’s lid tipped up.

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Harry found himself quite suddenly on the rock floor of the dungeon, staring up at Voldemort. He had woken up from his Blank Out during the Imperius curse, and was quite surprised he had been able to throw it off, considering how disoriented he was. He almost (but not really) wished he were still under the curse, as the falsely-peaceful environment was probably preferable to whatever Voldemort had in store for him.

Luckily, whatever the Dark Lord was about to say was cut off by the sound of crashing from above. Shouts of alarm echoed down the corridors and Harry’s, Severus’, the Death Eaters’ and Voldemort’s heads turned as one toward the commotion. Silence fell over the small group as they listened to the muddle of sounds. Finally, one voice was distinguishable.

“Harry, Snape, are you down there?” Harry recognized Shacklebolt’s deep voice.

“Here!” Snape boomed out before anyone else could react. He was immediately thrown to the floor, magically bound and silenced, but it was too late, the call had been made.

“So, your rescue party is here,” Voldemort sneered. “How wonderful; you will all die together.”

As a chorus of footsteps rang out in the approaching hallway, the Dark Lord turned, wand raised and ready to attack.

“No!” Harry shouted, and before any figment of rational caused him to rethink what he was doing, the Gryffindor had launched himself off the floor at the spindly wizard, rugby-tackling him and forcing him against the wall. A familiar, cleaner magic tingled under his fingertips as Harry’s left hand found Voldemort’s pocket, and he pulled out his own, 11½ inch holly-and-phoenix-feather wand.

“Now it’s a fair fight,” the boy growled, pointing the wand at his captor.

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Hermione almost hyperventilated when the curse was put on Harry again. It was beyond torture to watch her friend in such pain and be unable to aid him at all. She wished so hard that she was there with him, she would – well, she didn’t know what she would do, but it would certainly be a whole lot more productive than standing miles away in an old shack with nothing but an image. The girl had to close her eyes and forcefully control her breathing so she didn’t pass out – if watching what happened was all she could do for Harry, then she would see it until the end.

As soon as the screaming stopped and Hermione felt she could breathe properly, she opened her eyes, just in time to see the Imperius curse cast. Voldemort was tying to force Harry to reveal the prophecy, that much was clear.

But the prophecy was lost! Hermione thought frantically. What did the Imperius Curse do to it’s victim if the order was left unfulfilled?

However, she needn’t have worried. Within moments, the curse was broken, with Harry apparently none the worse for wear, even if he did look a little dazed. From what she had experienced of the Imperius in fourth year, that was justifiable.

When Shacklebolt called out, Hermione almost fainted with relief. She clenched her eyes shut and let out a silent thanks to whatever angel must be watching out for them, and by the time she had opened them, Harry had gotten his wand back from Voldemort and was facing him one-on-one. The other Death Eaters were occupied fighting members of the Order.

Finally, finally! She thought. Victory is near!

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Draco felt a great sense of satisfaction when he first heard the commotion begin through the scrying flame. In his mind, there was nothing that felt better than the knowledge that one of his plans was successful. Surely all of Dumbledore’s little army would be able to get Snape out alive. And Potter too, of course. But mostly Snape.

However, that feeling of satisfaction lasted only so long as it took for that bloke to call out for the prisoners. The man was an obvious moron, and Draco felt his hope plummet.

This is what I get for placing my bets on a team of Gryffindors, he thought snidely. No Slytherin would, in the middle of a rescue mission, yell out something to the effect of ‘I’m coming in, please lay an ambush so that I die a horrible death of failure’.

Sure enough, no sooner were footsteps sounding in the corridor beyond the cell than the Dark Lord himself was readying the trap.

Luckily, the only cure for Gryffindor stupidity was, apparently, more Gryffindor stupidity, as proven by Potters next course of action. Nobody with an ounce of sense – common or fashion – would attempt to body-slam a wizard so powerful he could cast Unforgivables in his sleep. Not that Draco had ever considered accusing Potter of sense. Still, Draco couldn’t fault the results – the boy now had his wand and the ambush had been foiled. Not a moment later, Dumbledore’s group arrived, fighting off the Death Eaters. Not counting the wounded and wandless potions master, the two sides were evenly matched in numbers.

Which meant that now the entire plan hinged on one sixteen-year-old mental case defeating the strongest Dark wizard in a century.

Huzzah.

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When Shacklebolt, Tonks, Moody, Lupin and Vance dashed through the doorway, the Death Eaters holding Severus threw him to the ground and turned to fight. Unfortunately, being thrown to the ground is not proper healing procedure for a twisted ankle. The professor felt more than heard the sickening crack as a bone broke. Daggers of pain shot up his leg, making him nauseous, but he knew it was pittance compared to what the boy had suffered already, and refused to even flinch as he kept his eyes fixed solidly on the fight unfolding before him.

Potter faced the Dark Lord like a man, pale and trembling from the effects of the dark curses he had been under, but unshaken emotionally. That was odd as, by all accounts, the personality ‘Potter’ should be the one facing the Dark Lord, not the host Potter.

Severus couldn’t decide if this was a sign of progress or of impending doom, but he knew which to hope for. Though the man had long ago decided that hope was just a false pedestal from which a fall was made that much worse, for now, he let that hope fill him, not for his own sake, but for the sake of a young man who faced his demons so often they became part of him; a boy with more pain inside him than his mind could take, and more life than seemed possible despite it; a child who should have been hailed as a hero, but instead had been treated as worse than garbage by those charged with his care.

There was a reason Severus had always assumed Potter had been pampered at home – it was because, had Potter been placed in his care, that was what he would have done.

So, forgetting for once his own life of disappointment and remorse, Severus Snape hoped, for Potter’s sake.

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For those in the thick of it, the battle was nothing more than a confused muddle of curses, dust, noise, and shadows cast into relief by the frequent brightness of a cast spell. However, to those watching from above, time seemed to slow until every move of every duelist could be seen clearly.

Hermione watched, cataloguing in her head the chronological order of events, as Harry lifted his wand to cast a spell. Voldemort was quicker, shooting a curse at him before Harry could finish his spell. Luckily, Harry’s spell was the shield charm and he finished it just before the curse would have connected. Still, the sheer force of the magic pushed him back several feet, almost pushing him into a dueling Death Eater.

Harry recovered quickly and sent a reductor curse at the Dark Lord, but Voldemort conjured a shield and the spell shattered against it. From behind his shield, the scaly wizard sent another curse at the Gryffindor, but Harry ducked and the curse hit the Death Eater he had almost bumped into, sending the man to the floor howling in pain. Not even flinching, Harry cast a flame spell at his opponent, but Voldemort transfigured the spell into a snake and sent it back at him, hissing in Parseltongue.

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“Go! Kill!” Voldemort commanded the snake as it hurtled toward him. Harry thought he should be shocked that he could understand the words, but memory seeped in of him chatting happily with a boa constrictor in a zoo, and he realized what he had to do.

“Stop! I command you to stop!” Harry shouted, the words coming out as strange hissing. Amazingly, the snake stopped, and the Gryffindor cast around him for some task to set the snake to. His eyes met Snape’s as the professor sat on the ground, unarmed and apparently unable to move. “Protect that man on the ground,” ordered Harry, and the snake turned and left, curling up protectively in front of Snape.

Harry didn’t have time to ponder Snape’s shocked and wary expression, because, in his moment of distraction, Voldemort had sent another curse at him.

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Draco held his breath (against the smell of the scrying flames, of course; not out of any anxiety) as Potter threw himself to the side, away from the curse. The last one had hit a Death Eater, but this one was now headed straight for the werewolf teacher from third year. Potter saw this and, apparently taking a page from their impromptu duel in fourth year, sent a spell at the curse, causing it to ricochet and hit the wall harmlessly. With a speed Draco had only seen Potter achieve on the Quidditch pitch, the Gryffindor jumped to his feet and threw three curses in quick succession at the Dark Lord – one to the left, the second to the right, and the third straight on.

Either Potter was secretly a master strategist or he got incredibly lucky. Voldemort stood there and laughed as the spells came at him, seeing only the first two that were off their marks. The third curse was hidden in a blind spot created by the light of the first two spells, and it hit Voldemort dead on, causing his face to start sprouting tentacles. The Dark Lord stopped laughing.

Clutching his writhing face with one hand, Voldemort waved his wand at himself, trying to vanish the tentacles. Draco knew from unfortunate experience that only the combined counter-curses to the Furunculous hex and the Jelly Legs jinx would rid him of the spell. Seeing his vulnerability, the Dark Lord turned and ran, dodging quickly out the door. Potter followed without hesitation and soon both were out of range of the spell.

Granger groaned piteously beside him before falling to the floor in a dead faint. Wait, Granger never fainted in her life…

“Well, well, well. Conspiring with mudbloods, Malfoy?”

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At some point, perhaps during the Blank Out, perhaps during the Imperius, something at the core of Harry had hardened. He had made the decision, and now he would not let Voldemort get away. According to the prophecy, he had to kill the Dark Lord, because he was the only one who could, and now was the time. There would be no more hesitation, no more hoping for someone else to come in and save him; and no more fear.

For a withered old skeleton, though, Voldemort was surprisingly fast, and Harry found himself charging down the hallway, up a flight of stairs, down another hallway and into a small courtyard before he finally got close enough to cast a spell accurately.

“Colloportus,” Harry incanted softly, then shouted, without raising his wand. “Stupefy!”

Voldemort spun around and jumped out of the way of the spell, leaving it free to lock the Dark Lord’s only escape.

Furious, Voldemort touched his wand to his face and muttered something. There was a flash of magic that Harry could feel all the way from where he stood, it was obviously a Dark spell, and just the barest touch of it sent chills down Harry’s spine. But, whatever it was, it was successful in removing the tentacles.

“You, boy, are going to die tonight,” Voldemort declared coldly.

“One of us will,” Harry responded with a shrug, keeping his wand pointed at his enemy. “Frankly I have the better record for staying alive.”

Despite his taunting words, Harry felt frozen inside. He wasn’t afraid, he was far beyond fear now, but the usual fire of anger and the heat of the battle were missing. This was no quick battle where Harry was only trying to escape; no, this was a duel to the death, and anger had no place in it.

“Avada Kedavra!” Voldemort cast the first spell, going right for the heart of the matter, but Harry quickly raised a barrier of earth in front of him, using a spell they had learnt just this year in Herbology. The killing curse scorched the grass, but did not pass through, and the barrier fell.

Ever the Slytherin, the Dark Lord had cast again while Harry couldn’t see, and now a jet of bright green was sailing straight for him. His scar flared up and something within Harry burst. He raised his wand and opened his mouth.

“AVADA KEDAVRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

Draco froze at the sound of such familiar words spat in a voice that made them sound foreign. Surely it couldn’t be…not him… The Slytherin turned slowly and narrowed his eyes at the boy before him.

“Weasley,” he sneered.

The redheaded Gryffindor attempted to smirk at him, barely managing a lopsided maniacal grin.

“How the mighty have fallen,” Weasley replied. “What will Daddy say when he hears who you’ve been conspiring with?”

“I wouldn’t talk about paternal respect if I were you, Weasel,” Draco shot back. “After all, I can’t imagine dear Arthur being terribly pleased by his son’s choices of late. Then again, with five others, maybe he won’t even notice.”

The barb hit its mark, as Draco had intended, and Weasley’s grip on his wand tightened.

“Shut up, Malfoy,” the Gryffindor snarled. “You’re hardly in the position to be throwing insults. Now, tell me what you and Hermione have been up to.”

Draco raised an eyebrow. Surely even a mental deficient like Weasley could recognize a scrying flame when he saw it. However, as he turned slightly, the blonde realized that, with one of the casters unconscious, the spell had ended and all the evidence that was left was a brazier and five burnt-out candles.

“Nothing that concerns you, Weasel,” he sneered, turning back to the angry boy. “Why don’t you tell me how long you’ve worked for the Dark Lord?”

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Severus watched Harry run out after the Voldemort with a sinking feeling in his gut. There was no way the boy was ready to face his destiny; he couldn’t even face his own memory yet! With an agonizing amount of pain – but nothing that matched up to the Cruciatus – the professor straightened himself out. The snake that Potter had sent at him turned its head toward him curiously, but he ignored it. Somehow he had to get rid of the magical bonds. However, the Order members around him were all occupied and there wasn’t a wand available, let alone one he was sure he was compatible with. He pushed ineffectually at the one constricting his upper arms and looked desperately at the door where Harry and Voldemort had disappeared.

Suddenly, the snake burst into motion, appearing to draw itself up for a strike. Severus watched helplessly as the serpent shot forward – and disappeared into the bindings. Everywhere he was trussed flared with a sudden heat, and then he was free, his hands springing automatically before his face.

Of course! the professor thought exultantly. A snake made of transfigured magic put to a new purpose would have enough will to change itself into an unbinding charm if it agreed with its orders. Perfect!

He pushed himself up on his good leg and left the room at an unsteady hobble, gritting his teeth against the pain that threatened to send him crashing to the floor again. It wasn’t exactly difficult to track the two wizards – Potter’s magic was out of control and there were significant cracks in the walls where he had passed by – but it did take much longer than Severus would have liked. The professor wished valiantly for a wand, but as fate didn’t seem particularly pleased with him at the moment, none appeared for his use.

Finally, he rounded the corner just in time to hear first Voldemort, and then Potter, cast the Killing Curse.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Weasley snorted, wand still raised. “What do you care?”

“I’m stalling,” Draco said sarcastically, despite the fact that it was the truth. No one knew he and Granger were there, but if Weasley had found them, help might find them as well, if given enough time. Luckily, Weasley was as moronic as Draco had always assumed and heard only the tone, not the words.

“I got the mark over the summer,” Weasley said proudly, “but I’ve been on the Dark Lord’s side since about the middle of last year. I’ve been dead useful, you know; the best friend of Harry Potter and all that.”

Draco felt hatred well up inside such as he had never felt for Potter.

“You!” he accused. “You were the one who told the Dark Lord that Professor Snape was a spy!”

“Possible,” Weasley shrugged, obviously enjoying getting his long-time nemesis riled up. “I’ve told him a lot of things. Oh, but I can’t wait to tell him about this. Imagine how Our Lord will react when I tell him the son of his most faithful follower is a traitor,” he looked disgusted, “and friends with a mudblood, too. I thought you had more sense.”

“Granger, despite her blood,” Draco drawled, taking two steps to his right as Weasley mimicked the action, “is a better person, and better witch, than you’ll ever be, Weasel. Though I am curious, what brought about this great change of heart. Last year I’d have said you and she were practically on the marriage track.”

Keep him talking, Draco thought to himself, get him distracted, then go for your wand.

When Potter had gone under the Cruciatus that first time, Draco had, foolishly, dropped his wand on the way to the corner. Now his only defense lay on the floor, getting ever closer as Draco slowly maneuvered he and Weasley around.

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“AVADA KEDAVRAAAAAAAAAA”

What started as a curse ended in a scream. Severus recognized Harry’s own voice, even as it was drowned out by the sound of It. The potions master clamped his hands over his ears to drown out the noise, but only succeeded in muffling it, bringing it at least down to a manageable level. In a moment that seemed to stretch on to eternity, It’s magic froze Voldemort’s spell in mid-air, a spinning, raging sphere of aggravated magic.

Potter’s scream grew as Severus heard Boy’s voice overlay on top of It, then a wailing cry that could only be Mummy. With each passing second, the scream grew, with another voice adding it’s pain to the cacophony; Foster, James, Amelia, John, Tom, Alex, Danny, Mike, and finally, Potter. The sound continued, long past filling the courtyard, until Severus imagined it must span the countryside, alerting those at Hogwarts to their distress. It pounded on his ears until he felt his very head would rupture from the pressure.

Then, it stopped.

Potter drew in a shuddering breath, before repeating in a voice that was half choked sob, “Avada Kedavra.”

Green light spilled from the boy’s wand, shaping itself into something that might, were one disturbed enough, be called vaguely human. The shape, whatever It was, burst forth, splitting Voldemort’s spell and diving straight for the chest of the Dark wizard himself.

The world ended.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

“It was all Harry’s fault,” Weasley snapped defensively. Draco raised an eyebrow, continuing his subtle progress to his wand by leaning to the right. “That bloody git. Do you know how much money he has? Do you know how much he’s given me over the years? None! That one insignificant, stupid orphan has enough Galleons to buy Hogwarts, and he hasn’t given me one Knut!

“It finally hit me last year when I learned he gave Fred and George enough money to start a joke shop – he’s nothing but a great selfish prat! He’ll spend a thousand galleons on something for his own amusement, but won’t give me his supposed best friend enough to buy her,” the Gryffindor jabbed his wand at the unconscious girl, “a birthday present that would make her fall for me. And then, because of that, when I asked her out this year, she said no! To me! Said I wasn’t what she wanted in a boyfriend, and she’d really just rather be friends. Stupid bitch!”

Weasley was on a roll now, Draco could tell. He’d obviously been just waiting for a chance to spill all this to a captive audience. The redhead was now, in fact, ignoring Draco completely, yelling instead in apostrophe at Granger.

“Excuse me!” Weasley shouted sarcastically. “I can’t help it if my family is poor. I can’t help it if you’re so hung up over money that you’d throw away your only chance at love.”

Draco personally thought Granger had been referring to intelligence and conversation ability when she’d claimed Weasley ‘wasn’t what she was looking for’. But, far be it for him to correct insane Gryffindors. The Slytherin took two more steps toward his wand – it was just three feet away now – when Weasley turned back to him.

“I really don’t see how I missed what a superficial harlot she is,” the boy growled, “I mean, really, dumping me…for you?”

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

The apocalypse, Armageddon, Ragnarok, whatever one wished to call it, it felt like the end of the world to Severus. Dark, putrid, rotting magic filled the courtyard, the entire castle, until it felt like every inch of his skin was burning. He felt as though someone had skinned him, skewered him, and was roasting him over an open flame. He thought he may have thrown up what little bile he had produced, but couldn’t be sure – it was just one small feeling among a massive sensory overload.

Eventually, the white in front of his eyes dimmed and the screaming pain that wracked his body and soul died down. Severus groaned and pushed himself up to his hands and knees, wondering just when he’d fallen face down in the grass, anyway. Not that there was grass anymore.

As the professor looked around, he realized that everything had been scorched. What was once a lovely little grassy courtyard was now bare, blackened sand. Bare, except for two bodies lying very still.

Unable to gather the strength to stand on his one good leg yet again, Severus crawled to the nearest body. The…person…was burnt so badly that he couldn’t tell at first if it was on it’s back or front, but eventually he found the wand clutched in one charred hand.

Thirteen and a half inches. Yew.

Voldemort was dead.

Far from leaping for joy, Severus felt his breath quicken as he turned to the other body.

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Draco, despite his many hours of practice at social events, regardless of his years of mimicking his father’s stoic posture, found himself gaping like a fish.

“Dumped you for…” he stammered. “You think Granger and I are dating!”

“Don’t sound so horrified,” Weasley grinned malevolently. “I think it’s quite…romantic,” he spat the word, indicating he thought ‘it’ was anything but. “The icy prince of Slytherin, poster-boy of all that is Dark, falls for plain, bookish, muggleborn Hermione Granger and leaves his family and his beliefs behind for this new love.”

“WHAT!” Draco shouted. Wand forgotten at this new outrage, he took a step forward, fully intending to pound that sniveling weasel with his bare fists. The Gryffindor brought his own wand to bear again, though, and Draco stopped short.

“Methinks you protest a bit much,” the redhead grinned again.

“First of all,” Draco pointed out, shuddering, “if you’re trying to quote Shakespeare, it’s ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much’. Second of all, no I do not protest too much, there is no protesting too much when it comes to your ridiculous, Gryffindor idea of me in love with her!”

“Oh, poor Slytherin, did I strike a nerve?” Weasley glared. “Good. I hope you die for taking her away from me. In fact, I think I’d like to kill you myself.”

The Gryffindor-turned-traitor lifted his wand slightly and brought his other hand up to steady it, words of a curse already forming on his lips. Draco didn’t know if Weasley could actually, successfully cast the Killing Curse yet, but decided he didn’t really want to find out.

As a weak green light flashed in the dim shack, Draco dove for his wand.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

With every part of his body aching and groaning in protest, it took Severus longer than he would have liked to crawl over to what was presumably Potter’s body. He had to stop three times over the length of the courtyard to let his arms rest and his aching knees recover. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, and his bones could no longer take such prolonged abuse without respite.

In the end, though, he did make it to the second body. And it was Potter’s.

The boy was face down, as Severus had been, and the professor was able to roll him over onto his back. He was immediately relieved when the boy’s chest rose and fell with a deep breath.

“Potter,” Severus croaked, shaking the boy’s shoulder. “Potter, wake up.”

The Gryffindor coughed and groaned, but didn’t open his eyes.

“Come on,” Severus coaxed, “you need to wake up, Potter.” Still there was no reaction. “Potter! Get up you lazy Gryffindor!” Severus snapped finally.

Potter’s eyes snapped open and he looked around with glazed eyes. Severus remembered that the boy couldn’t see a thing without his glasses, but apparently he had recognized him well enough by his voice.

“Professor Snape?” he asked dazedly, his voice small and confused. Then Potter shook his head slightly and gasped, locking eyes with Severus. “I remember.”

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Harry’s head spun, unfamiliar memories flooding his senses. He was three and Aunt Petunia was spraying his naked body with the hose for messing himself. He was seven and memorizing the times tables during after-school detention. He was six and his Uncle was kicking him down the hall for putting too much salt in the soup.

“Potter. Potter, wake up.”

He was eight, locked in the cupboard with a book on horticulture – the only book he’d managed to snitch – and reading it slowly, savoring the release from reality.

He was four and Aunt Petunia was threatening to cut off his fingers if he didn’t chop the lettuce right.

He was ten and Uncle Vernon was using him as a stool to reach the top shelf of the closet, stepping on his fingers on his way down.

“Come on, you need to wake up Potter.”

He was thirteen and stealing food from the pantry so he didn’t starve – if they noticed anything was missing, they’d just think it was Dudley.

He was eleven and Aunt Petunia was hosting a party; he had to stand there and smile, holding the tea tray, as all the neighbor ladies told his aunt how horrible a child he was, and how gracious she was for taking him in.

“Potter! Get up you lazy Gryffindor!”

The familiar voice snapped him out of the memories and Harry woke up. His surroundings and his memory of what had happened recently resolved slowly, but eventually he locked eyes with the injured man next to him.

“I remember,” he informed him, as his mind submerged again.

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He was sitting by the lake, skipping rocks for lack of anything better to take his mind off things. Why did Snape have to find out about that

“Hey Harry,” someone called from behind him. He whipped his head around and sighed in relief.

“Hello, Ron. What are you doing out here?”

“I’m looking for my cloak, I think I left it out here somewhere. Would you help me?”

“Yeah, sure.” He needed something else to do, anyway. Ron directed him to where he’d last seen the article of clothing and they split up, searching in different directions.

“Oh! There it is!” Ron shouted suddenly, pointing.

“Where?”

“Over there! You probably can’t see it behind that bush, but it’s closer to you. Would you grab it for me?”

He still didn’t see it, but he saw the bush, so he hurried over to where his friend was pointing, feeling the brush of magic as he crossed the wards. He reached the bush and looked all around it but there was no cloak.

“I still don’t see it,” he called back to Ron. The redhead was grinning in a way he didn’t recognize.

“Oops,” said Ron, shrugging. There were three loud pops and suddenly he was surrounded by men in black cloaks and white masks. “See you later Harry! Don’t worry, I’m sure Hermione will be joining you real soon!”

“RON!”

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“I remember.”

With those puzzling words, Potter suddenly went limp in Severus’ arms. There was a soft clatter as the wand slipped out of Potter’s nerveless fingers and fell onto the hard ground. Severus reached over to pick it up, startling as his fingers wrapped around the handle.

This was the professor’s wand!

It was the same size, shape, and core as Potter’s wand – he remembered that from one of his discussions with Dumbledore during Potter’s first year – but the phoenix feather of Severus’ own wand didn’t come from Fawkes, and was not a brother to Voldemort’s. How odd that Potter would think it his own.

However, despite the strangeness of the situation – after all, what of the previous few weeks hadn’t been strange? – this turn of fate was definitely in their favor. With what little strength he had left, Severus conjured a splint for his leg, then raised his wand and apparated himself and Potter to the center of Hogsmead.

As if jolted awake by the use of magic, Potter suddenly sat bold upright in his arms.

“RON!” he shouted.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Harry struggled to his feet, grabbing the wand out of Snape’s hand.

“Point Me Ron Weasley!” he incanted frantically. The wand spun, then pointed straight for the Shrieking Shack.

“Potter, stop!” Snape ordered, gripping Harry’s arm and using it to haul himself upright. Harry pulled against him, inadvertently giving the man more leverage.

“I have to get to Ron!” he pleaded. “He’s the traitor, and he’s going to kill Hermione! He’s in the Shack, I’ve got to go!”

“Potter!” Snape tightened his grip on Harry’s arm, but Harry just pulled harder, fraught with panic over what Ron might do. “HARRY!”

That cut through his panic. He could count the number of times Snape had called him by his first name on one hand. One finger in fact.

“S-sir?” he stammered, shocked.

Snape took a deep breathe. “That’s better. Never take action before you can think it through, Potter. Now, what’s wrong?”

“Ron is the traitor,” Harry explained, getting his own breathing under control. “He’s the one who sent me to Voldemort. I couldn’t remember because one of my alters was in control then, but when we cast the-the Killing Curse at Voldemort, we merged, and I remembered. I think he might be planning on attacking Hermione, and he’s in the Shrieking Shack right now.”

Snape nodded thoughtfully. “Very well. Lead on, Mr. Potter.”

Severus followed his student slowly through the field that surrounded the shack. He couldn’t help but wonder if the boy even realized the wand wasn’t his own, and how he could use it effectively. A wizard couldn’t help but become attached to his wand, to the point of instant recognition. Then again, perhaps with his…affliction, Potter rarely used his wand.

Merlin, Severus stopped in shock, if one of the alters was the one to pick the wand, Potter would have spent the last seven years using a mismatched wand!

The professor would have liked to think that over a good deal more, but at that moment, Potter sent a blasting curse at the door of the shack, splintering the wood. Severus stared at the result – though the doors still stood, there was significant damage and the beginnings of a hole in the middle of the blast area. Considering the structural wards on the building were done by Dumbledore himself, that was quite an accomplishment.

Potter didn’t seem to think so, though. He huffed in frustration and cast the spell again at the same spot, focusing even harder. This time, the doors broke completely, leaving only dust and smoke as a barrier.

Head and leg throbbing, whole body protesting the act of staying upright, Severus could only follow as Potter walked into the shack. Just beyond the rubble heap that had been the doors they found a small entryway with openings leading to either side. Potter cast the tracking spell again and marched to the left, which opened into a parlor of sorts.

Injured, emotionally and physically exhausted, and only one wand between them, Severus and Potter found themselves facing a smug Ron Weasley standing over two still forms.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Harry watched his once best-friend raise his wand and swallowed bile. He had been running on adrenaline after the Imperius curse, but what little energy that had given him ran out when he confronted Voldemort. Since then, he’d been using only energy derived from the convergence of his selves.

He had been running on magic alone, fueled by panic and anger and the need to protect those around him, as all his magic seemed to be. But now, facing that familiar wand – Ron’s first Ollivander wand, received after his hand-me-down snapped in second year – his heart dropped into his stomach and the magic settled with it.

“R-Ron,” he said, voice shaking like the rest of his body. “W-what have you done?”

“I’ve finally taken the power you didn’t see fit to give me,” Ron growled. “You never gave me anything but the bare scraps of what you received.”

“I…w-what?” Harry asked, eyes wide in shock and a terrifying possibility arose in his mind – what if he had done this? What if, during a Blank Out, one of his alters had driven Ron from him? But there was no time to sort through his memories now, he would just have to trust himself – ironically one of the hardest places for Harry to place his trust.

“You heard me,” Ron continued loudly. “First year, you leave me behind at the chess game, second year you left me behind with Lockhart, third year you left me behind in the hospital wing. Fifth year you left me behind even once we were at the Department of Mysteries! You thought I’d be happy just riding your coat-tails forever, did you? And let’s not even touch on the subject of your massive riches. Git.”

Harry felt his heart slam back into his chest and start pumping loudly at these angry, spiteful words – how long had Ron been nursing this grudge? He recognized the sensation as what would normally happen right before a Blank Out, but now he had no one to come to his rescue. But inside, something had hardened, and he knew he wouldn’t need it.

“Ron,” he growled, voice steady. “You’re the git. If it wasn’t for your stupid pride, I’d have given you and your family half my vault at Gringott’s. I’d have given you the shirt off my back and everything else I owned if you’d just asked. But, you have officially forfeited that chance. Now, you are nothing but another faceless Death Eater who needs to be taken down.”

He raised the wand – Snape’s wand, he suddenly realized – but Ron was just that much faster, in his non-tortured state.

“Expelliarmus!” the redhead commanded. The holly shaft leapt obediently to him as Harry received a rough magical shove in the chest, almost sending him to the ground. As it was he tottered slightly before standing straight again.

“Look at you,” the traitor taunted. “Faltering at the slightest spell. Who has the power now, Harry Potter?” Harry felt anger flare within him, lighting a fire that had no vent. A surge of magic rose in him, spilling out into the room, unnoticed by the ever-oblivious Ron. “You, weak as the child you are; or me, with spells that can bring the ‘smartest witch in Hogwarts’ to the floor?”

There was a sudden flash of red light, and Ron Weasley toppled to the ground.

“His stunning spells never were very strong,” said Hermione.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus stayed a step behind Potter as he traded words with Weasley, keeping hidden in the shadows. The arrogant Gryffindor had never been any good at observing his surroundings, so this was not a difficult task. The difficult task, however, was maneuvering through the shadows to get to Draco, who’s Slytherin crest he could see on the robes of the nearest body.

The professor shuddered at the thought of Draco lying dead. And at the hand of Ron Weasley no less, how ignoble.

As he inched closer, Severus’ nose twitched and he caught the bitter, charged scent of ozone that only lingered after certain curses. The Killing Curse among them. He began to worry if that nightmarish thought might actually be a reality.

Finally, he reached the Slytherin child, just as he felt a strong flow of magic, flickering unpredictably throughout the room, like a third year after their first visit to Hogsmead. It woke Granger and she stunned Weasley.

Then Draco coughed, and Severus sighed audibly in relief before succumbing to the dark blankness of the unconscious.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Harry opened his eyes, the shiny, sterile whiteness of the Hospital Wing ceiling a rather familiar sight. As, actually, was the black-robed professor sitting to his left.

“Mr. Potter,” Snape acknowledged with a nod. Harry half-expected him to leave then, as he had before, and felt slightly awkward when the man stayed.

“What happened?” he finally asked. “The last I remember from last night was Hermione waking up.”

“Then it appears we will have to await Ms. Granger’s explanation,” Snape said curtly, sounding like he was forcing annoyance, “as you apparently passed out moments before myself.” The professor looked slightly smug at the fact that he had, at least, outlasted Harry.

The two sat in uncomfortable silence – both quite relieved they were no longer in Voldemort’s dungeon, but neither quite willing to share that relief with the other – for ten long minutes before Hermione finally burst into the infirmary.

“Harry! You’re up!” she exclaimed happily, smile only faltering slightly at the sight of Professor Snape looming by his side. But he greeted her with a polite, if curt, nod and she relaxed, sitting in the chair to Harry’s right.

“Mr. Potter and I are both curious about what happened last night at the Shrieking Shack,” the professor glared, “as well as why you and Draco were there in the first place.”

Hermione flushed but forged ahead. “You’re not the only curious ones,” she said. “Everybody is wondering what happened last night at the castle – even Dumbledore doesn’t know.

“But, as for my part, well –”

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Hermione explained about the scrying ritual slowly, expecting Harry to interrupt any moment asking for an explanation about the View From Heaven ritual, or rituals in general, or for Professor Snape to interrupt with his usual disapproval for rule breaking. However, they both listened patiently, Snape glowered no more than normal, and Harry looked like he understood every word, which was odd.

She decided to gloss over what they had seen in the scrying flame, not wanting to relive it or bring it up for Harry. Instead, she explained how she had heard footsteps behind her and turned, just in time to see Ron cast the stunning spell at her. The next she knew, she was waking up to Ron taunting Harry horribly, and she just reacted.

“I almost thought I’d done it wrong,” Hermione said with self-deprecating amusement. “Right after Ron went down, both of you collapsed as well, but then Draco woke up with nothing but a headache and a bloody nose. Together we determined that you’d just fainted from exhaustion and levitated you back here, along with a very much bound Ron. Once Dumbledore and the others came back, we explained what had happened and he took Ron to his office. That was about,” she checked her watch, “nine and a half hours ago. It’s dinnertime now.”

Harry nodded thoughtfully and rested his head back against the pillow, sighing deeply.

“I can’t believe some of the things he said,” he muttered, voice still hoarse. “It was like he’d always hated me, and I just never noticed.”

This was not a good topic, Hermione could tell. Even Professor Snape looked uncomfortable. Not that he was ever exactly comfortable, but still, he looked like he’d rather the topic were changed. So Hermione obliged.

“But really, Harry,” she cut in hurriedly, curiosity buzzing, “what happened with you? The scrying ritual was focused on Professor Snape and Draco said it cut off after I was stunned, so neither of us saw what happened after you ran out after V-Voldemort.”

“I…I follo-…I didn’t,” Harry cut off, brow creasing and eyes going distant. His breath sped up and he blinked rapidly, but still seemed to be off in another world.

Hermione looked up at Professor Snape, only to see him staring focused at Harry.

“Professor...?” she asked hesitantly.

“Go back down to dinner, Ms. Granger,” Professor Snape ordered curtly. She hesitated and he snapped, “Leave!”

“It is best that you let us deal with Mr. Potter, Ms. Granger,” said a wise old voice from the door. Hermione spun in her seat and saw that Dumbledore had finally arrived. She nodded and walked past him, fighting tears as she hurried to the dorm.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus watched, intrigued, as the very act of remembering took Potter into a sort of trance. After sending the Granger girl out and acknowledging the headmaster’s presence, he gently drew the boy’s face up so that he could see his eyes. They were vacant, glassy, and dilated in panic.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Severus reached out with his mind, touching just the front of Potter’s conscious. It was immediately apparent why the boy was in such a state.

The Ribbon of Memory, formerly a relatively docile, simple strand, was now many times longer and infinitely more active, spinning around and around like a vortex, even now attempting to draw Severus in. Cacophonic noise, combinations of audio memory, echoed in the cavernous space.

“3 x 3 is 9; 3 x 4 is 12; 3 x 5 is 15…”

“Useless freak, worthless lay-about, just like his parents…”

“Someday they’ll see, we’ll get them back, we’ll make them see just how ‘worthless’ we are…”

“Goodness, Petunia, however did you manage to keep such an orderly house with that in it…”

“Aardvark tongue, Aconite, Alabaster, Basil, Bicorn horn, Burrowroot…”

The potions master pulled out quickly, before he could get caught up in the memories. He shook his head, dispelling the last echoes. The headmaster looked at him in concern.

“Are you alright, Severus?” the old man asked.

Severus nodded. “I am well, Albus. Potter, however, is caught in an overload of memory. I doubt he will come out anytime soon, as there is much he needs to process.”

“I believe,” the headmaster said slowly, “it is time you and I had a little chat. Would you rather come to my office or stay here?”

“It is best that we stay here, Albus,” Severus said firmly, nodding to Potter, who was starting to show signs of strain. “He should not be left alone, lest the idiot Gryffindor hurt himself.”

Dumbledore, showing no sign of concern that his dear Golden Boy had just been referred to as an idiot Gryffindor, nodded cheerfully and conjured up a tea service. As Severus sipped from his cup, he debated with himself on how much to tell the headmaster. He was quite certain the boy wanted as few people as possible to know his secret, and he had observed that the boy was…less than fond of Dumbledore lately. Still, now that the boy was ‘together’ and Voldemort was dead, what did he need Potter’s trust for?

“You must realize he would not wish me to tell you this,” he stated, just in case. Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled as he responded.

“I only ask so that I know what to tell the ministry.”

“I’m sure,” Severus answered dryly. “What do you know about Multiple Personality Disorder?”

“I believe it is actually called Dissociative Identity Disorder these days,” said Dumbledore. “Why do you ask?”

So Severus told the tale of that potions lesson, where he had drunk a potion to see through glamour and discovered Harry Potter was severely injured. When questioned about his injuries, Potter reverted to a toddler-like personality; just for a moment, but long enough to arouse Severus’ suspicions and cause him to pursue the matter.

“But where did Mr. Potter receive his injuries?” Dumbledore asked. “Arabella reported him quite healthy when he left for King’s Cross.”

“Albus,” Severus growled, “the boy was subconsciously using glamour to make himself look healthy. He’s likely been doing so for years, even before he came to Hogwarts. As for the source of his injuries; Potter’s uncle, aunt and cousin are rather fond of causing him pain.”

“Now Severus,” Dumbledore chided, “I know they are not the best of guardians, but they have never physically harmed Mr. Potter. Arabella always kept a close watch on him, and I legilimized him at the beginning of every year; neither of us have seen any evidence of the abuse you are suggesting.”

Severus glared at him, then related in soft, terse tones the encounter he himself had with Vernon Dursley. He left out the part where he beat Dursley over the head with his own cane, as that was hardly necessary to his point. Dumbledore listened patiently, the twinkle in his eyes dimming as Severus explained why a squib’s nosiness and Legilimency would not be enough to uncover the truth.

The professor went on, ignoring how the headmaster had seemed to age a decade in front of his very eyes. He gave a general description of each of Potter’s 12 personalities, in the order he had met them. Severus wasn’t even going to touch on It until the very end, unsure how to describe what he didn’t even understand.

When the order of events led him to Potter’s capture outing as a spy, Severus was careful to go into more detail, trying to relate verbatim the various conversations that had occurred between him and Potter’s alters. Here his experience in espionage came in handy, as he was quite good at remembering the exact words that had been used. Finally, he came to the confrontation in the courtyard. For once in his life, Severus’ vocabulary failed him; he couldn’t think of words to describe the monstrosity that left Potter’s wand.

“It was an Avada Kedavra spell, of that I am sure,” he told the headmaster. “But it was as though it had taken on physical form. It was a writhing mass of perverted human flesh, amorphous and shifting. At least, from what little I could see before it hit the Dark Lord.” He took a deep breath before continuing his narration.

“After that, Potter and I both passed out. I regained consciousness first, assured myself of the Dark Lord’s death, then checked on Potter. He was still breathing, but I believe he was trapped in memory then, as he is now. I managed to rouse him long enough for him to say ‘I remember’, but then he was under again. Using my wand – which Potter had been using, mistaking it for his own – I apparated us to Hogsmead. It is my belief that the use of magic woke Potter again. He had apparently remembered the incident which led to his capture and told me it was Mr. Weasley who was the traitor and that he was going after Ms. Granger.

“I allowed him to lead the way, and to use the wand, because I was in no state to be of much aid to anyone. How Potter still had the energy to move after being starved, tortured, and then using a very powerful spell is beyond me. In any case, after that we had the altercation with Weasley. What have you learned from him?”

Dumbledore sighed and spared a glance at Potter, who was still shifting restlessly, but quite clearly not conscious.

“He knows nothing, Voldemort never confided in him any plans or information. However, I did learn that his treachery was not without outside influence.”

Severus turned his head sharply at that, examining the headmaster’s face. Albus looked as tired as he ever had, though, se this could not be good news.

“I found traces of the Questus Exulcero potion in his blood,” Dumbledore explained. The potions master’s eyes widened.

Besides being a very expensive and complicated potion, the Questus Exulcero was highly restricted, and for good reason. It could take the slightest feeling of resentment, buried so deep that a person did not even realize it was there, and exacerbate it to the point of blind hatred. Even though traces of the potion lingered in the bloodstream for months after ingestion, though, it was only the first ingestion that mattered. Once it was taken, the perception of those grudges was changed forever.

If Potter wanted his friend back, it would take serious counseling and a great deal of maturity on Ron Weasley’s part. Maturity Severus doubted he had. And it would certainly not help Potter’s mental stability to learn that his new friend had been resentful, even unconsciously, for a long time.

Still, his mind offered, Potter can be as mentally unstable as he wants, Voldemort is dead.

This had happened several times since he’d woken. Every time he would begin to worry about Potter, a little voice would remind him that, with Voldemort’s demise, Severus had no more responsibility for the boy’s welfare. He couldn’t decide if this voice was trying to get him to stop worrying about Potter at all, or to get him to admit that his worry for Potter wasn’t based entirely on the goal of ending the war. He shook the thoughts off and returned to the conversation.

“Albus,” he said, “now that you know the events, what do you think happened. What was this ‘It’ personality?”

Dumbledore stroked his long white beard as he thought, the twinkle shining bright and annoying again.

“I am not sure, Severus,” the old man answered. “I must have time to think on this. As soon as Harry is able, please accompany him to my office and we will have a nice long talk over tea and biscuits. How’s that?”

“Very well, Albus,” Severus sighed. That was clearly all he was going to get at this time.

Dumbledore stood and walked serenely out of the hospital wing, leaving Severus to watch over the lost Golden Boy.

“Harry, are you happy living with your aunt and uncle?” asked Mrs. Spencer, his primary four teacher.

She had followed him after school let out and spoke to him now as he waited for Aunt Petunia to come pick him and Dudley up. Harry opened his mouth to speak just as Petunia’s car pulled up. She locked eyes with him and he saw the threat there clearly.

“It’s great, I love it!” Harry told the teacher with false enthusiasm. “Bye, Mrs. Spencer!”

“Bye, Harry,” she said with a worried frown.

Harry ran to the car and jumped in the backseat. As soon as the doors were closed, Petunia whirled around and glared at him.

“What were you talking about?” she demanded. “Were you gossiping about us with your teacher?”

“No! I swear!” Harry pleaded. “I didn’t tell her anything!”

“Don’t you lie to me, boy,” Petunia snapped. “You just wait until your Uncle gets home. He’ll teach you to tell tales about us to teachers.”

Sure enough, that night Vernon had come home and heard all about how the ‘little freak’ had been talking to a teacher. It was one of the greatest offenses – talking to an adult, especially one in a position of authority, without a Dursley chaperone. And he had deliberately avoided being anywhere near Dudley while waiting in the parking lot. He got ten lashes of the belt on his back for it and no dinner that night or meals the next day. Harry was just glad it wasn’t the weekend, then Vernon wouldn’t be so lax.

Memory flashed through Harry’s mind, forcing him to relive those moments, the ones he hadn’t been present for. The memories came in snippets, showing just the important parts, and were connected to each other by the barest conscious thought. As Harry was forced to recall the punishment for talking to an adult while alone, he wondered why there hadn’t been a punishment for talking to Hagrid, with whom he’d been alone for most of a day.

He got off the train and walked back to Number Four after leaving the giant, amazed at all the wondrous things that had happened. Inside the house, his relatives were sitting stiffly in front of the telly and barely acknowledged his arrival, allowing him the chance to deposit his new things in his new room – under the bed so it didn’t get mixed up with Dudley’s broken toys. His stomach rumbled and he walked back downstairs to get started on dinner.

Vernon was waiting for him.

“If you think we’re going to let you off your punishment just because that freak told you a nice fairy tale, you’ve got another thing coming. Strip.”

Twenty lashes all up and down his back, including his bum and thighs, then ten on his chest. No meals except breakfast for the rest of the summer. No talking.

It had been his worst punishment yet.

-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Severus watched, frowning deeply, as Potter whimpered. He had been lost in memory for almost twelve hours now – it was obviously something that had been waiting to happen since the killing curse, and it was admirable Potter had been able to hold it off long enough to get to Weasley. The man felt bad for Potter; casting the killing curse, finding out his best friend is a traitor, reliving all his worst memories, then having to wake up and face whatever news Dumbledore had.

If it were up to him, Severus would have given the boy a break after that first one.

The Killing Curse, even compared to the other Unforgivables, was insidious. In order to cast a spell of such power, a spell of death, the caster had to give up a part of himself, a part of his soul, his humanity. The stronger the spell, the greater the sacrifice, and it would take a very great sacrifice to get rid of Voldemort. Potter had just lost a rather large piece of himself.

The boy twitched on the bed, jumping in a way that reminded Severus of someone struck in the back. His curiosity getting the better of him, Severus took Potter’s face in his hands and turned it to him so he could look in his eyes without leaving the chair. Taking a deep breath, he let himself sink into and past curse-green eyes.

Again, he found himself facing the mad, whirling ribbon of memory, with echoes of violence, pain, anguish, hurt, hate, and loss pounding against his ears. Unbelievably, it was louder, stronger this time, so strong that, before he knew it, Severus found himself unable to keep his hold on the outside world. Before he knew it, he’d been sucked in to the vortex, surrounded entirely in the Potter’s least pleasant memories.

Lovely.

As it was his curiosity that got him into this mess, he decided to satisfy it. What secrets would Potter’s hidden thoughts and memories reveal?

After the second scalding (by water Potter had boiled himself), third attempted strangulation and tenth beating, Severus couldn’t stand it anymore. If he'd had a body, he would have thrown up by now. He had to get out, but the whirlwind wasn’t showing any sign of letting him go back to the real world. So he only had one choice. Gathering his energies from where they oscillated wildly around him – in tune with his emotions – Severus pushed, as he had done before, going deeper. The conscious was in too much turmoil to even attempt to expel him, and he dove easily into the unconscious.

It was so peaceful, comparatively, that the legilimens almost stopped there. But he knew better; the unconscious was treacherous, because there were no points of reference, neither for the invading mind or the host mind. This meant that a legilimens could easily get lost, unable to find his way back, while the host mind would be unable to expel him – unable, in fact, even to detect he was there. So, Severus searched purposefully, looking for that dratted cupboard door.

Finally, a tiny spot of white became apparent in its contrast to the ubiquitous blank darkness.

‘Any port in a storm,’ he thought cynically, swimming toward it. The door swung open at his barest touch and he closed it again behind him.

“What are you doing here?”

-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Aunt Petunia was mad- No, she was beyond mad, she was livid. Harry had been told to prepare triangle sandwiches for the tea party that afternoon. He had forgotten that he wasn’t to waste the good butter on anyone but family and business guests. Now there wasn’t enough left over to make both Dudley's two ham sandwiches as well as dinner.

“Boil water for the tea,” she ordered, her mouth taut, lips pressed into a line, nostrils flaring with each pinched breath.

Harry, five years old, hastily complied, filling the kettle and placing it on the stove to heat while he tended to the biscuits. He was on the other side of the kitchen when the water reached a boil, and Aunt Petunia nonchalantly lifted it from the burner and walked over to Harry with unnerving calm. The child waited, hardly daring to breathe, as he instinctively knew this was not going to be good. Aunt Petunia held the kettle out to him and he reached to take it.

She tipped the kettle, pouring boiling water on his hands.

That evening, Uncle Vernon gave him five lashes for screaming.

-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

“James?” Severus asked incredulously, raising an eyebrow at the lone boy lounging on the cot.

“The one and,” he motioned to the otherwise empty cupboard, “only. Now, I’ll ask again: what are you doing here? Seeing if you can find some weakness of Harry’s to exploit?”

Severus considered his situation. He wanted out of Potter’s mind, James wanted him out of Potter’s mind, and James actually had the power to expel him.

“I suggest a compromise,” he said silkily, “if you tell me why you did not merge like the others, I will leave quietly.”

“And if I don’t?” James demanded. “What’s to stop me from just forcing you out?”

“Well, trying to force me out when I am unwilling may disrupt Harry’s conscious, may even permanently damage his Memory,” Severus bluffed. “However, you answer that one question and I will go quite willingly.”

James rolled his eyes, but his exasperation seemed tired and false to the professor.

“Someone has to make sure things go as smooth as possible,” the boy replied.

“You can’t stay here forever, James,” Severus pointed out.

“I know that!” snapped James. “I’ll go when Harry’s ready. If I went right now, I’d just make things worse.”

The professor considered him for a moment. James was afraid, that much was easy to see; Severus didn’t blame him, either. Who knew what sort of an experience it must be for an alter to merge with its host? But as he locked eyes with the boy, who raised his chin in challenge, he knew James wasn’t lying. As soon as Harry was ready, James would abandon his post and give up his closely-guarded portion of Harry’s memories. He nodded in acknowledgment, and James nodded back.

The next Severus knew, he was back in the hospital wing chair.

It was another day and a half before Potter finally ran out of memories. Severus pointedly did not spend every waking moment with the boy during that time, but instead organized a series of shifts with Granger, Molly Weasley, Minerva, and Lupin – all of whom were quite willing, even if they did look at him as though he’d grown another head when he suggested it. Among the five of them, they managed to always have someone there in case he should wake up. It was purely by chance that Severus was the one on duty when it happened.

The event was disappointingly anticlimactic.

After three days solid of groaning, fidgeting, sweating. Of eyes rolling sightlessly, of cringing from phantoms. After three days of this, Potter blinked, sighed, turned over and went to sleep.

Severus dearly wanted to throttle him.

On the positive side, though, at least now they could safely leave him alone in Madam Pomfrey’s tender care. He had a pile of unmarked essays that required his attention.

-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Harry woke slowly, blinking the vestiges of sleep from his eyes. The Hospital Wing was blurry and dim with early evening. A dark shadow sat near him, hunched over the bedside table as though reading something on it. As he shifted and squinted to see better who was with him, the shadow jerked sharply, apparently surprised to find him awake. A hand reached for Harry’s face, and caused such a sudden surge of adrenaline and a strong desire to flee that the boy flinched twice – once from the adrenaline itself, and then again in surprise that he’d even had that reaction.

“Mr. Potter, do contain your revulsion at least until you have taken your glasses back,” said a familiar sneer. Harry flushed when he realized who was with him.

The Gryffindor swallowed his earlier reaction and took his specs from the outstretched hand, returning them to his face. Rather than look his Potions Professor in the eye, Harry examined the tabletop as he had been intending to do in the first place. It appeared, from the long rolls of parchment with many red marks, that Snape was grading essays.

This was such an odd sight to see that Harry momentarily wondered if he had simply imagined himself waking up, and in truth he was still dreaming. Then his entire body twinged with momentary pain and that theory went out the window.

“Are you well, Potter?” Snape asked with a sharp look.

“Just a few aches,” Harry answered quietly.

“Undoubtedly from the multiple Cruciatus curses you suffered and the various other mindless stunts you pulled,” growled the professor, reached into his robes and pulling out two vials. “Take these, they should take away any nerve damage and help with the passing moments of pain. Any muscle aches you have will be taken care of with a day of bed rest and a week of light activity.”

Harry nodded vaguely as he downed the vials of potion. Both were horrid, but not as bad as Polyjuice or Skele-Gro, which he now vividly remembered taking.

“Now, the headmaster requires our presence in his office,” Snape continued, standing.

“I thought I was supposed to stay in bed,” Harry cheeked. Snape glared at him, but Harry thought he could see a faint glimmer of amusement in the man’s eyes.

“If you do not feel up to walking, Potter,” Snape drawled softly, “I would be quite glad to levitate you through the halls.”

“No! Thank you, sir, that’s quite alright,” Harry stammered hurriedly, stifling a grin of his own at the satisfied smirk Snape shot at him.

His legs were a bit unsteady, but Harry would have died before he let himself be levitated around the school. Luckily, ahead of him, Snape kept their pace slow enough that Harry didn’t have to worry about tripping over his own shaky feet. The revolving staircase was quite welcome, in Harry’s opinion, as he wasn’t entirely sure he could have lifted his legs that many times without help.

The door to Dumbledore’s office was open when they arrived, and the aged wizard was sitting behind his desk, playing with a piece of string. Harry thought he remembered girls from his primary school enjoying something similar.

“Hello Harry, Severus,” the headmaster said cheerfully. “It is wonderful to see the both of you up and about.”

“Albus,” Snape acknowledged with a nod, eyes never leaving the string. Finally the professor’s shoulders seemed to twitch as he resigned himself to an unpleasant task. “What, may I ask, is that?”

“This?” Dumbledore held up the colorful circle suspended by both hands. “Why it is a strand of yarn with the ends tied together.” Snape’s lips pressed into a thin line at this highly unsatisfactory answer, but the headmaster continued without prompting. “Muggles have invented a number of ingenious ways to manipulate sting for entertainment. Look!” Dumbledore maneuvered his fingers through the string deftly, then held up the new geometric tangle. “I made a teacup!”

Snape twitched again, and Harry found himself shaking with silent laughter, even as he took a seat in one of the many overstuffed chairs.

“Now,” the aged wizard began again, vanishing the string with a casual wave of his hand, “I believe we have some matters to discuss.”

The potions professor finally seated himself, regarding the headmaster with blank attentiveness. Harry wondered what this could be about. He had defeated Voldemort, what more could there be? Was there yet another shoe waiting to drop? He dearly hoped not. All he wanted now was to finish his sixth year and enjoy his summer break – hopefully away from the…them.

“The first bit of business to get out of the way is filling you in, Harry, on what you have missed,” Dumbledore said, leaning back in his chair and looking more relaxed than Harry ever remembered seeing him. “On the morning of the…I hesitate to say ‘rescue’…perhaps ‘fracas’, yes. On the morning of the fracas, approximately fifteen minutes past dawn, I received an owl. Your snowy – Hedwig, I believe – had flown here from the Shrieking Shack with a message written by one Hermione Granger.” The headmaster pulled a small scrap of paper out of thin air and passed it to Harry.

There, in Hermione’s familiar, obsessively neat scrawl, was written ‘Harry and Professor Snape are being held in the dungeons of Caer y Twr castle in Wales. Please hurry. – Hermione Granger’ He almost laughed. The average person in a rush would have written something along the lines of ‘Harry & Snape – Caer y Twr castle Wales’, not caring about grammar or fragmented sentences; the average person, but not Hermione.

“Curious as I may have been as to where she got her information, I nevertheless aligned my priorities and called as many members of the Order who could be spared. They, in turn, helped gather the Auror division for an attack, saying the Dark Mark had been seen on Angelesey Island. Caer y Twr castle was a known Death Eater stronghold during the first war, so it took little convincing to get two Auror squadrons to join with us in the attack. Four portkeys were authorized, but I had to make one more so that everyone fit – the Ministry is constantly overestimating the number of people who can crowd around one small object.

“While I would have wished to have come there straightaway myself, I could not leave the school without transferring authority to Professor McGonagall, which held me back for almost half of an hour. By the time I arrived at the castle, the battle was well under way. The Death Eaters had been caught completely by surprise, giving our side a huge advantage, and I made my way quickly down to the dungeons. By the time I arrived, all the Death Eaters were incapacitated, but you, Severus, and Voldemort were long absent.

“I managed to track you magically to the courtyard, where the body of Voldemort lay, but was quite distressed when I found neither of you there, but could only hope you had returned safely to Hogwarts.”

Harry looked down, remembering the sheer panic of those moments when he had realized that Ron was going after Hermione, and he was the only one who knew where the redhead’s loyalty lay. He had acted without thinking, and put both himself and professor Snape in danger.

A firm hand on his shoulder halted Harry’s self-remonstrations. He looked up to see Snape glowering at him.

“Any man with half a soul would have done the same were his family threatened,” the professor growled stiffly.

Harry blinked, confused at the unexpected source of praise, then nodded and turned back to Dumbledore, feeling a little better. The headmaster’s eyes sparkled mysteriously at him.

“I spent the next quarter of an hour helping the Aurors and Order members bind the last of the Death Eaters and prepare transport to the ministry, but as soon as possible I found a floo-connected fireplace and transported myself here, only to get a call a moment later from a frantic Poppy requesting my presence in the hospital wing. At the time of my arrival, you and Severus were both still unconscious, so I retrieved Mr. Weasley and took him to my office for questioning.”

“What did you find?” Harry asked, sitting up straight in his seat.

“It took quite a bit of prodding, but I managed to discover that Mr. Weasley was fed a dose of the Questus Exulcero potion – do you know what that does?”

Harry thought a moment, then nodded, feeling his heart sink a little at the implications.

“Do you know when?” he croaked.

“Alas, I am afraid that he was confunded soon after taking the potion,” Dumbledore admitted sadly. “His own story of how he came to wear the Dark Mark is contradictory of events as they actually happened.”

“I think…I think it was at the beginning of the summer,” Harry said hesitantly. “He sent me a couple of letters that had parts scribbled out, but I could still make out the words, and they…weren’t friendly. I bet he spent most of the summer learning how to hide his…newfound hatred for me. We’ve had a couple arguments since term began, but he’d always back off the next day. He never used to do that.”

“That fits with what I learned,” Dumbledore said with a sigh. “Apparently, Mr. Weasley was having regular contact with Pettigrew, and it is likely he who kept Ronald from betraying himself.”

Harry started to tremble with anger. That rat! he thought fiercely. How many people must he take from me? After having his memory stirred up, the loss of Sirius and the pain of knowing his parents were betrayed by a close friend both felt new, raw, like fresh stab wounds.

The adults allowed him a few moments of silence to pull himself together, sensing clearly how unbalanced the news had made him. It took several deep breaths, and likely a few crescent-shaped cuts in his palms, but he finally managed to push back the blinding hatred that had coursed through him at the very mention of his family’s betrayer.

“Now that we have that out of the way,” said Dumbledore, sounding considerably more subdued than he had when Harry and Snape had first entered, “Severus here asked me a question the night you fell into memory, and I feel I should answer it as best I can. Severus told me what he had learned about your mental state, but please understand it was only for the best of intentions.”

Harry nodded, unconcerned, then started when Snape and Dumbledore both blinked at him in surprise. “I never actually thought he’d keep it from you,” he admitted with a shrug.

Dumbledore took this in stride and returned to his oration; Harry didn’t dare look at Snape. He supposed the man must be rather put out that he had kept Harry’s past secret for so long without needing to, but in truth, Harry felt deeply strengthened by the knowledge that he could trust Snape, even to the point of keeping things from the headmaster.

“Yes, well,” Dumbledore went on, “after Severus informed me of the circumstances and filled me in on what occurred when you cast the killing curse at Voldemort, he asked me if I knew what had happened; specifically, he asked me what ‘It’ might be.”

Harry almost leapt to his feet in shock. The old professor before him sounded very much like he had an answer, something Harry himself had desired for years.

“It is my belief that It was created when Voldemort’s killing curse hit you when you were a baby. Your mother’s protection defied the curse’s intent, preventing it from taking your life, but the curse’s natural darkness and destructive nature would not be turned aside. Instead the curse tore off a part of your soul and merged with it, deep inside your subconscious mind. This initial fragmentation could be what weakened the cohesiveness of your mind enough for the later alters to appear in times of stress.”

“So all this time, I’ve had the Avada Kedavra…hidden inside me?” Harry asked, feeling nauseous at the thought.

Dumbledore nodded; Harry felt like he might throw up. “However,” the old man cut in quickly, “when you cast the curse at Voldemort, what came out of your wand was not just magic, but also a part of your soul. It was, I believe, that same curse that Voldemort cast upon you, made of his own magic and part of your infant soul, fed by pain, suffering, and dark magic until it was strong enough to overcome its maker.”

The Gryffindor’s head shook slowly as he took in this new information, then a bight smile spread across his face; the first he had worn in a very long time.

“I remember…how it felt to have It inside,” he said softly. “I have felt so much lighter since waking, which I thought was odd, because of Ron. But it turns out I feel lighter because It is gone, pulled out by its very roots, like a festering weed in a garden. I don’t know how much longer I could have survived with It – or how long I would have wanted to – but without it, life seems good and long.”

Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled brightly and Snape gave a satisfied sigh as they stood to leave. Harry knew he was far from whole, his emotions were in turmoil, Ron still hated him and bore the Mark with pride, and there were several things left unfinished.

But for once, he felt sure that everything in the world would eventually turn out alright. And that was a new and refreshing idea.

Harry woke slowly, stretching his arms out wide to grip the edges of his senselessly large bed. Much wider than his bed at Hogwarts or either of the beds at the Dursleys’, it was one of those ridiculous luxuries that Harry adamantly refused not to relish. What little morning light made it through his west-facing window splashed cheerfully over the soft, sky-blue coverlet and the pile of presents at the foot of his bed. The sight of the latter woke Harry completely with the unexpected reminder that it was his birthday! Without counting down to it as he had during previous summers, he had almost missed the event altogether.

Sighing contentedly, the boy relaxed back onto his pillows and thought of the incredible events of the past year that had brought him to this point.

After Voldemort’s defeat, Harry became an even bigger celebrity. People he’d known for years suddenly wanted his autograph. It seemed like the entire world was celebrating; except Harry. As much as he could, he tried to avoid public gatherings, including the nightly parties in the Gryffindor common room. This led to him wandering around in the halls after curfew and, inevitably, running into Snape.

“Tired of your fawning public already, Potter?” the Professor sneered. Harry watched his reflection in the window he’d been looking out of.

“I need quiet,” Harry explained, not rising to the bait. “I need to think.”

Snape cocked his head. “You are not still having lapses in memory?”

“No,” sighed Harry, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “But I haven’t had a chance to sift through all I learned after Voldemort died; to figure out who the bloody hell I am now!”

Snape had disappeared while his eyes had been closed, but the very next day Harry received a detention from him (much of the student body volunteered to hold a hunger strike in protest, but Harry declined). The spent two hours that evening, and two evenings every week afterward, working together to sort through the muddle Harry’s mind had become.

That hadn’t been the only surprise, however. The first Saturday after Harry got out of the hospital wing, Dumbledore had taken him to Ollivander’s to choose a new wand. He now used a beautifully responsive 11 inch Beech with a phoenix tail feather core (this time from a young Arabian phoenix named Jubilance). The wand led into the next big surprise – the only problem he had in classes was toning down his power enough to get only the effect he wanted. Homework suddenly took no time at all and he even knew many of the answers in class, without having to read the chapter beforehand.

Of course he still read. In fact, now that he found himself enjoying reading, he and Hermione spent a good deal of time in the library together. To Harry’s further surprise, Draco Malfoy joined them on the odd occasion they researched potions or anything Dark. Harry didn’t question the Slytherin’s presence, though he got the sense Draco expected him to. When Hermione had told him the story of how she and he had ended up working together, Harry couldn’t help but chuckle. It seemed a very Malfoy thing to do, to adamantly deny that he was attempting to save Harry Potter, even though he knew just as well as anyone that Harry and Snape had been in the same spot.

After one term had passed, the Gryffindor had fallen into a comfortable routine – counseling sessions with Snape twice a week, studying with Hermione and occasionally Draco, and, whenever he needed a break, he found that Malfoy was almost as good as Ron for Quidditch discussions and just recreational flying.

Indeed, the entire rest of the school year was full of surprises, but none so large as the one he’d gotten a week before the end of the school year. Dumbledore had called him up to his office for a talk, and when he arrived, Snape was there too.

“What’s this about?” he asked, only slightly wary. These were two of the men he trusted most in the world, after all.

“Well, Harry, we need to discuss where you will go for the summer,” Dumbledore answered, twinkling brightly. “As Severus has made it quite clear that the Dursleys’ is no longer an option, we must come up with something else.”

Harry nodded thoughtfully. Any other year, he’d have opted for the Burrow, but Ron was staying there now, under house arrest, so that wasn’t really viable either.

“If you have no objections, Potter,” Snape drawled casually, “perhaps my own house would suffice.”

As much as he would deny it later, Harry’s jaw dropped open at the offer. He knew he and Snape didn’t hate each other anymore, and actually suspected the man had developed a bit of a soft spot toward him (at least, as soft as Snape got), but to offer up his own home for Harry’s use?

The silence lasted just a bit too long and Snape sneered.

“Of course, I doubt my humble abode would be considered habitable by one so used to lavish comforts as the Great Harry Potter,” he snapped.

Harry cringed; Snape only reverted like that when Harry was being rude and nasty. The man must have thought Harry was horrified if he had lashed out like that.

“No!” he denied hastily. “I – I’d love to stay at your house, Professor!”

Snape nodded once, curtly, then swept out of the room.

Harry stifled a chuckle at the memory. Being generous seemed to give the potions master aneurisms. But in any case, that was how he happened to be where he was now – lounging about in one of the most decadent beds he’d ever seen in one of the guest rooms of Snape’s (whatever he said about ‘humble) opulent manor on his birthday.

And speak of the devil; three sharp knocks on the door indicated the professor’s presence outside, and Harry quickly jumped out of bed to let him in.

“Still in your night clothes at this hour?” Snape sneered teasingly. “Well, you’d best dress yourself quickly, we have much to do today. Much to do indeed.”

The almost manic glint in Snape’s eyes made a thrill of excitement run through Harry. Whatever his temporary guardian had planned, it was going to be good. The boy hurriedly closed his door, slipped on a pair of denim trousers (ones that fit) and a red T-shirt that was just comfortably loose, rather than overly baggy. Muggle clothes, he knew, but muggle clothes weren’t that uncommon in the wizarding world anymore, and if they were going into the muggle world he wanted to be prepared. As soon as he was dressed, he practically ran down to the dining room.

Snape took one look at Harry’s attire and ordered him back upstairs to change, this time into the outfit Snape had place in his wardrobe the day before.

Harry asked him why he hadn’t just told him what he wanted Harry to wear.

Snape responded that Harry had slammed the door in his face before he could.

With a shrug, Harry retreated to his room to find this mysterious new outfit, and returned wearing a proud set of storm-grey, black-lined, Auror-quality dueling robes. With small slits in the sides and an open front, they allowed full range of motion for any sort of scuffle, and came complete with dark grey trousers with specialized pockets and a black shirt made of special fiber that was as good as any armor and breathed like cotton. The whole effect was really quite spectacular.

“Where are we going in this?” Harry asked, picking at the stiff fabric of the robes. It all seemed terribly expensive for just a birthday present.

“We are going for a little visit,” Snape answered enigmatically. “Take hold of my arm; I will apparate us, as you don’t technically have your license yet. You have your wand?”

Harry nodded and grabbed Snape’s arm, wondering who they were planning to visit and why he had to have a wand – all the Death Eaters had been captured in the raid on Caer y Twr or shortly afterward. Not that he would go anywhere unarmed, but Snape seemed suspicious in his insistence. However, the boy didn’t have much time to wonder as he was shortly squeezed through a tight tube, popping out on a familiar street, in front of a familiar house. Harry gasped as he recognized the font façade of Number Four Privet Drive. His grip tightened on his wand.

“I managed to get Dumbledore to postpone filing an official complaint against them with the muggle authorities until you are of age,” Snape hissed in his ear. “Though he requests we not do anything…permanent, we have four hours until the muggle police will arrive.”

He held out a canvas bag, which Harry took. Looking inside, he found dozens of various pranks from Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, topped with a glittery note saying ‘Harry Birthday, Happy! – from, Gred and Forge’.

Harry laughed, a short, harsh sound, covering up a wellspring of emotions suddenly finding their way to the surface after so long ignored. Snape placed a firm, steady hand on his shoulder.

“I will help you with this, Mr. Potter, if you wish for it,” the man said quietly. “But now is the time to take your revenge, if you are ever going to take it.”

Harry nodded shakily, identifying those feelings that caught in his throat; pain, anger, bitterness, hatred, and even a certain lust for the fear he would instill in his relatives today. He laughed again, dropped the pouch of Wheezes in his robe pocket, and strolled up the first step, mouth already setting into a familiar sneer.

Four hours of very satisfying yelling, accusing, intimidating, pranking, and hexing later, Harry and Snape walked back out the front door, discreetly vanishing the multi-colored liquids that covered the front of their robes. Harry felt hundreds of times better, satisfied that at least a fraction of the misery the Dursleys had caused had been visited back upon them.

And, he thought, as he caught sight of the clearly marked police cars turning onto Privet Drive, it is about to get even better.

Snape pulled out Harry’s invisibility cloak and hid them under it so they could watch the spectacle. They weren’t alone though; the entire neighborhood came out of their houses to spy on which of their neighbors was the ‘scoundrel’ they all suspected. Harry wondered how many of them thought the police were there for him, especially once the three police cars parked in front of Number Four. However, the numerous policemen who burst through the front door returned, not with ‘that little Potter criminal’, but with Vernon, Petunia and Dudley. Dudley, Harry supposed, wasn’t being arrested but ‘taken into custody’, since he wasn’t a legal adult yet.

Under any other circumstances, Harry had no doubt that Vernon would be raising a ruckus and trying to discredit the police for arresting him, but he and Petunia were both so shaken up that they went quit meekly. Harry hoped that wouldn’t help his relative’s case.

Snape apparated them back to the manor and Harry regarded his undoubtedly un-Dursley-ish surroundings with a sigh of satisfaction.

In the back of his mind, a sheepish voice said, “Happy birthday, Harry,” and opened the last door, the end of the end.