That early July morning dawns clear and bright and by mid-afternoon, the air hangs heavy, suffusing the atmosphere with a lethargy that makes almost everyone in Surrey hide indoors like vampires. The buzzing of numerous fans can be heard through the open windows of Number Four Privet Drive, taunting the sweaty raven haired boy bent over the camellia shrubs by the shed.

Harry has been outside since early morning, trimming, pruning and weeding the garden in preparation for the Dursleys’ evening fiesta, where a number of Grunnings top-notch executives are to come over and discuss a “very important business proposition” that could considerably escalate Vernon’s salary. As it is, Harry has been scrubbing, cleaning and gardening for the better part of two days. Not that he minds much; in fact, he welcomes the hard menial jobs and complementary exhaustion that comes afterwards. If being worked and starved like a Malfoy house elf is what it takes to keep the thoughts of Sirius at bay, then so be it.

Harry is getting better at recognizing the memory triggers which send him into the all-familiar, stomach twisting guilt traps. So each time a memory wave comes, he just scrubs harder, washes the dishes in gradually more scalding water, and digs his fingers so hard into the soil that his fingernails bleed. Physical pain, he learns, is instrumental in keeping the other kind of pain at bay. Because once the other kind sets in, there are no distractions. Harry knows that sooner or later he will have to face the truth, the tears that constantly prick the inside of his face like sharp needles, the cavity in his chest that is larger than he is, eating away at him like corrosive poison. Because Harry deserves to feel that pain, that monumental guilt of having killed Sirius.

But not today, Harry tells himself as he laboriously digs his fingers into the soil until he can grab the crabgrass roots and pull them out, not even wincing when his knuckles graze over a sharp stone. He then takes the bottle of vinegar and sprinkles the earth with it, careful not to get too close to the camellia shrubs and unwittingly kill them off. Like he killed Sirius.

In the heat of the afternoon, the poignant acrid smell of vinegar reminds Harry just how dry his mouth is, but he knows better than to go into the kitchen when Uncle Vernon is sitting there. So he wipes his bleeding hand onto his oversized t-shirt and swallows down his thirst as he continues to angrily weed.

“Boy!” Vernon shouts half an hour later, wobbling into the garden, his face red and covered in beads of sweat. Harry notices that he is holding a tub of chocolate flavoured ice-cream underneath one arm, and a crumpled ball of pound notes in the other, which he is holding rather impatiently towards him. “Go to the corner shop at the end of Wisteria Walk and get two new tubs of ice cream. Vanilla and chocolate, and mind you they better be the Blue Ribbon ones, not those tasteless Soft Scoop ones that melt after two minutes.”

Harry stares blankly at his uncle for a moment and then says: “Uncle Vernon, you know I’m not allowed to leave the property. The blood wards--”

“Now listen here boy,” Vernon says, brandishing a meaty finger at Harry, “I will have none of your cheek today, is that clear? We took you in out of the goodness of our hearts, and I don’t believe it’s too much to ask that you do a few chores from time to time. Your aunt is busy enough as it is today!”

Harry doesn’t think that getting your manicure done is the same sort of busy as spending hours weeding and cleaning, but he is smart enough not to say so to his uncle. Still, Vernon cannot possibly expect him to leave the protection of the blood wards for some sodding ice cream, can he?

“But Professor Dumbledore--”

“Do I need to remind you what happens when you disobey me?” the corpulent man asks, his lips curling into a crooked sneer as his meaty fist begins to wiggle his belt.  

No, Harry did not need to be reminded. “I’ll need my wand,” he says after a moment, rationalizing that he can do without another beating. The old welts are still smarting.   

“Oh no, you won’t see that stupid stick until you go back to that freaky hocus pocus school of yours!” Vernon says as he wobbles some more towards Harry, his face becoming somewhat purple form the effort.

Harry grits his teeth but says nothing else. Ever since the Dementor incident the previous summer, Vernon insisted on confiscating Harry’s wand, trunk and magical books for the duration of the holidays, keeping them locked in the safe behind that hideous dog painting Aunt Petunia keeps on the wall.

“I’ll go change my t-shirt,” he says after a while, watching as Vernon gives his stained top a disapproving look, wrinkling his face in disgust.

“You do that,” he grunts, throwing the money at Harry before turning on his heels and wobbling back towards the kitchen door.

Picking the crumpled notes from the lawn, Harry places them inside his pocket and follows his uncle back inside the house, careful to leave his dirty shoes outside. The last thing he wants is having to explain mud stains on Aunt Petunia’s cream coloured carpet. For a moment, he watches Vernon deposit himself into an armchair, turning the TV on and beginning to button the remote until the fake laughs of a dumb comedy show fill the living room.  He probably wouldn’t hear if Harry were to slip into the bedroom in search for his wand, but even so, he would have no way of opening the safe. Not without magic.

Sighting in resignation, Harry makes his way up the stairs and disappears inside Dudley’s second bedroom, a strange idea suddenly popping in his mind.

As it turns out, there is one thing that Vernon Dursley didn’t confiscate, and that is Harry’s invisibility cloak. Turning it inside out and hiding it underneath a pile of Dudley’s old toys wasn’t a rotten idea after all, Harry muses as he walks down Privet Drive hidden underneath its silky folds, trying to ignore the droplets of sweat that begin to run down his back. Still, it is better than walking outside the wards with no cover at all. That way even if his presence is detected, at least he won’t be seen. Not straight away, at any rate.

Veering left, Harry hurries down towards the dark alleyway that connects Privet Drive to Wisteria Walk, noticing the way the heat quivers from the asphalt and gives the neighbouring houses an almost nimbus quality. It is quite a contrast to the foggy frost that enveloped the alleyway the previous summer when the Dementors glided over it with their despairing aura, and Harry is thankful that this time his skin is not prickling with the warning of anything suspicious. Everything is still and quiet and hot. Oppressively hot, he corrects himself as he slides his spectacles back up his nose and wipes his sweaty brows with the back of his hand.

But as he starts walking down that deserted alleyway, Harry suddenly realizes there is something deeply unsettling about the thick silence of the summer afternoon, and the eerie way the air is so still it seems to be holding its breath. Like the calm before a storm, a little voice inside his head suddenly adds before he can quell his weariness.

It is not long after that Harry finds himself unable to shake off the feeling of being watched. Studied, even, his movements assessed in an almost predatory way by a pair of eyes in the distance, as if whoever is watching him can see straight through his invisibility cloak and knows exactly where he is headed. Hurrying his steps, Harry’s breathing becomes increasingly shallow, the concrete walls closing in on him in a foreboding way. Suddenly feeling suffocated, he breaks into a run but, just before he is about to emerge from the other end of the alleyway, he knocks against an invisible barrier and falls hard to the floor as his cloak flies off his shoulders and ends up in a nearby bush.

It then all happens so fast that Harry hardly has time to blink. In quick succession, he hears the sound of three decisive apparition cracks not far behind him and just before he has a chance to stand up, thick ropes bind his legs and arms so tightly that he groans in pain.

He knows it’s pointless to fight against Incarcerous, but the conjuration is so powerful that he can’t even turn his head to look behind him. The sound of approaching steps makes his skin crawl, his heart beating so fast it threatens to come out of his chest, almost as if in tune with the clinking of boots on concrete.

“Well, well, well, M. Potter. You are a reckless lad, aren’t you?” a regal voice purrs from somewhere above Harry. “You thought we wouldn’t detect you under that tatty old thing?”

“Fuck off Malfoy!” Harry spits.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, such foul language,” Lucius chides, turning Harry around with a kick in his ribs. Harry doesn’t want to give the older man the satisfaction, so instead of groaning from the pain, he bites his bottom lip as hard as he can. He tries not to shudder as Lucius’ chiseled features come into view.    

“Though I suppose one cannot count on those filthy muggles to teach you proper manners. Or that felon your parents chose as your godfather. Such a pity you didn’t get to say goodbye, but then again, one would think you are accustomed to people dying around you,” Lucius says, his lips curling into a cold sneer. “Perhaps I ought to demonstrate what happens to little boys who don’t respect their elders,” he says, pointing his wand at the bush behind Harry. “Incendio!”

“No!” Harry exclaims as the bush erupts in flames, the smoke so pungent that it makes his eyes sting.

“Crying Harry? I don’t suppose that mangy old invisibility cloak belonged to your dear dead father. That’s right, I know of it. Even in his first year he was insufferably arrogant, brandishing it around Hogwarts as if it were a precious stone in a goblin-made chalice. A wonderful artefact really…such a pity it had to burn. But, as you know, sacrifices have to be made, and if that is wat it takes to teach you a lesson, then so be it.”

“You bastard!” Harry spits, his nostrils stinging from the smoke. He wants to wipe the sneer of Lucius’s perfectly sculpted face, but he can’t. Every time he tries to move, the ropes only wrap around him tighter, cutting off his circulation. From the corner of his eye, he sees the other two Death Eaters approach him, their cranium like masks plastered onto their faces, their black robes billowing behind them as they walk.

“Oh, Harry, you never learn, do you?” Lucius asks, as his cold grey eyes bore into Harry’s angry green orbs. “Crucio!”

This time, Harry can’t stop himself from screaming; the agony is so piercing that his body begins to convulse despite the tight ropes, his muscles pulling themselves into unnatural angles. And just when he thinks he will pass out from the pain, Lucius points his wand at him and calls off the incantation. “That will have to suffice for now. I can’t deny the Dark Lord the pleasure of torturing you himself, now can I?”

Harry doesn’t have time to say anything else, because in the next moment, Lucius unceremoniously grabs his arm and disapparates into thin air, followed by the other two Death Eaters.

Later that day, a curious stray cat uncertainly sniffles the remnants of a burned cloak before it wrinkles its nose and leaps away.

All is quiet on Wisteria Walk.

Three weeks later…

It is for the best, Snape tells himself, that the summer is predicted to be an unusually cold one. This way, the child standing before him is less at odds with his surroundings. Not that Cokeworth was ever prone to be particularly cheerful, regardless of the weather; in fact, quite the opposite can be said of the little industrial town with its polluted river, grey landscapes and grimy buildings, but at least now the boy’s mood blends in with his surroundings.

Snape watches as Potter scans his seemingly muggle dwelling, resting for a moment on his mother’s portrait, perhaps probing her dull eyes and dark hair for hints of hidden beauty. But then they glaze over once more, as he stands awkwardly in the hallway of Spinner’s End, short and skinny for his age, with his father’s wild hair and mother’s eyes, his scar swollen and blotched. He seems to be lost in his own world, his response to the change of environment hardly altered from when he stood in the Headmaster’s office, merely an hour earlier.

It is somewhat disconcerting, Snape thinks, how easily Potter accepted to spend the summer under his watch. Not that he had a choice in the matter, but he expected the insufferable brat to come out of his disturbing stupor long enough to make a scene, demand some other living arrangements, or at least protest at having to spend an entire six weeks with the dungeons bat. But Potter did neither of these things. In fact, he merely looked up at the headmaster to acknowledge he had heard him, before averring his gaze to his mangy trainers and sitting, for the duration of the meeting, insensate as a stone.

“This way,” he says after realizing Potter would be happy to stand there all day if he did not say anything. He even places a guiding hand on the boy’s bony shoulder in an attempt to steer him through the lounge doorway, but instead of the desired effect, the Potion Master watches, slightly taken aback, as the boy violently flinches and recoils until his back hits the wall. Once he is trapped, he lowers his head and throws his arm up in the air as though to deflect a blow.

Instinctual.

Snape knows this, but even so, he has not steeled himself for Potter’s vulnerable body language, or the way he stays hunched over for a moment, as if taking the time to process he is in no real danger. And even afterwards, when those big green eyes look at him started, there is something in the boy’s face that strikes painfully at the Potion Master’s memories.

“Calm yourself, Potter,” Snape intones after a moment, finding his throat is suddenly a little dry. It takes Harry a moment to regain his composure, and when he does, his head remains bowed, his eyes focusing on the wooden floor beneath his feet as though he is willing it to open up and swallow him whole. Snape does not touch him again, motioning instead for the boy to follow him into the lounge.

With a weary look towards the narrow dark staircase, Harry follows the Professor through a small doorway and into a room surrounded by books, his steps slow and uncertain.

“Sit,” Snape says, pointing at a worn out armchair by the window. For a moment it seems as if the boy doesn’t understand Snape’s direction, but then he sighs and does as instructed, his movements robotic and somewhat laconic. The minute he sits down, his shoulders slouch as though his body is suddenly alien and cumbersome. He lifts his eyes to give the tome packed shelves adorning the walls a cursory look before he avers his gaze towards the muggy window and watches as the drizzle transforms into unrelenting rain.

Save for the rhythmic pelting of rain against the window, there is no sound in Snape’s lounge that grey afternoon. And as he stands there, watching the skinny teenager, the Potions Master cannot help but wonder at what point in the past three weeks the defiant, reckless brat who has disturbed his peace at Hogwarts for six years, metamorphosed into an empty carcass reminiscent of a Dementor’s prey. He quells the immediate outrage this thought provokes within him, as another pair of green eyes enter his mind, watching him accusingly.

I have failed you, Lily, he thinks to himself, watching the still boy seated before him and finding himself unable to trace her in the vacant green eyes, for any boldness that Snape may have associated with Lily is long gone. And yet, so is the arrogance that once painfully reminded him of his bully. The child before him is as empty as a broken canvas.

“Your trunk will arrive tomorrow. I’m sure you can manage without it for one night,” Snape says in his familiar languid drawl, but the boy does not reply. Nor does he give any indication of having heard his professor. Instead, he continues to stare mindlessly out of the window at the falling rain, as though he is hypnotized by it.

It is not that Snape expects him to reply, but the silence is more deafening, somehow more disturbing now that he is alone with the boy, now that he is the only one to witness the damage that has been inflicted on him. Silence, Snape suddenly discovers, is something you can actually hear, and in Potter’s case, it is deafening.

Potter doesn’t touch his dinner that evening, but, to Snape’s relief, he takes the pond sludge resembling phalanx of medicinal potions without even wrinkling his nose in disgust. He drinks all three down like water, the fifteen drachms of Blood Replenishing Potion, the post Skele-Gro tonic, and Snape’s improved Dreamless Sleep concoction, after proving immune to Madam Pomfrey’s regular one. He then resumes to vacantly stare into thin air, his body propped against the pillows, looking somehow paler in the shrunken black pajamas Snape provided him with. The smears of tiredness underneath his eyes stand out even more than when he is dressed in his regular overlarge muggle clothing, and the eyes themselves are dulled beyond recognition. It is a strange sight, Harry Potter sitting in his old childhood bed, curled up underneath the same old grey blanket that had proved a sanctuary for him in those early mornings when the sound of broken plates and rising voices would wake him from his sleep.

It is stranger still that the boy seems to take no notice of him as he leans against the doorframe with folded arms, studying him as if he were a potion that wasn’t turning out the right shade. Once, Snape’s insistent gaze would have had the boy squirming, but now Potter seems so lost within his own world that his surroundings appear almost unhinged from reality. He is relieved when the Dreamless Sleep finally takes effect and Harry’s head drops against the pillows. It is not long after that that those haunted green eyes flutter and close behind the badly mended spectacles. Snape watches as the invisible weight on the boy’s conscious mind lifts whilst he is asleep, taking with it the crease in between his eyebrows. Asleep, he looks much younger than fifteen, much more vulnerable.

Cautiously, he walks over to the boy and seats himself on the edge of the bed, having already ascertained that tending to him would be easier for them both if he were asleep. Reaching out, he takes off Potter’s glasses and places them on the night stand, and before he quite knows what he is doing, long, pale fingers brush the fringe aside from his forehead, and gently trace the swollen scar. The boy does not stir, but a barely audible whimper escapes his lips, as though even whilst asleep he is unaccustomed to being touched unless he’s being struck.

What does it matter if his son is in pain? A sly voice at the back of Snape’s mind whispers. He spent years tormenting you, making fun of you. He almost killed you, for Merlin’s sake. Why should you give a shrivelfig if his son is suffering?

He is her child too, Dumbledore once reminded him. Lily. His best friend, his only defender. You owe her more than a half-hearted attempt to keep him alive.

Snape knows this, but whether or not he decides to acknowledge such an intolerable truth is a different matter altogether, and one he chooses, for the time being, to ignore. For years he has looked after the boy from a distance, staying close enough to make sure he was unharmed, but far enough away to be completely detached from the nuances of his emotions.

He also remembers, with more clarity than he wishes, how broken the boy looked when they brought him into the Hospital Wing a week ago, his body obstructed with a myriad of countless bruises and cuts, some of his limbs sticking out in unnatural angles. With the help of his potions and ointments, Pomfrey’s swift hands restored Potter’s body back to health within a day. But still, he would not wake until several days later. And when he did, he was different, changed in a morbid way.

Snape’s frown deepens as he remembers the sporadic shaking of the boy’s hands and the jaundiced tone of his skin, indicators that his body had been suffering from the aftershocks of extreme exposures to Cruciatus. His eyes then drift to Potter’s skinny arms, and he knows that underneath that shrunken black pajama shirt, the blotched scars have still not fully disappeared. And he also knows that there are others too, on his legs and torso, hinting at an almost fatal loss of blood from being repeatedly cursed with Sectumsempra. He feels a dangerous uptick to his anger upon remembering how Potter’s anemia remained life-threatening even seventy-two hours after Poppy administered a maximum dose of Blood Replenishing Potion.

Yet it is not the bodily signs of Potter’s inexorable torture that disturb the Potions Master the most. It is rather the apparent emptiness behind Potter’s eyes, as if his spirit has been sucked out of him and snapped in half. Gone is the foolish Gryffindor who always wore his heart on his sleeve, Snape thinks, as he watches Potter’s chest rise and fall with the rhythmic breathing of deep sleep. So is the intolerable teenager who always risked his neck without second thoughts, making him feel as though for the past six years he has arduously tried to prolong the life expectancy of a common house fly.

In his stead, Snape finds the empty carcass of a boy, any trace of emotion erased in such a disturbing manner that makes him feel uncomfortable with the silence he had once longed for. It is seeing him so broken, so entangled in a rictus of mental agony that shifts something within the Potions Master, making his chest contract with the unfamiliar weight of…caring. It is an uncomfortable feeling to acknowledge, albeit briefly, and because he does not know how else to make its oppressive presence dissipate, he does the only thing he can think of: he occludes.

One by one, the burdensome feelings of worry, outrage and uneasiness are quelled within the walls of a complexly constructed mental defense, one which has long ago strengthened his reputation as an emotionless, dry man. This, Snape realizes, is a much easier place to be in, compared to the alien one smeared by care and worry. This is familiar territory.

Once he is quite sure the conflicting feelings within him will not re-surface for the evening, he proceeds to take out from a pocket of his outer robe, a small tin container. Opening it, he smears a thick, pale ointment on his fingers, which he then applies on the sleeping boy’s scar, watching as the swelling visibly reduces. Potter does not stir, nor give any other indication that he feels Snape’s ministrations. Once satisfied with the results, the Potions Master swiftly stands and walks towards the door, diminishing the lights with a flick of his wand.

He decides not to dwell on the fact that he chooses to leave the boy’s door slightly ajar, just in case the Dreamless Sleep wears off and he wakes.

Snape is not a heavy drinker, but on those rare occasions where his mind is racing with thoughts he does not particularly want to entertain, Firewhiskey is a welcome fortification. The evening finds him sitting in his armchair by the window, the latest Potions Quarterly open on the coffee table before him, but to his dismay, his usual academic curiosity is somewhat lacking. He has not even glanced over the pile of N.E.W.T. papers he has to mark over the summer, finding the prospect of insulting his students with a cascade of angry red writing suddenly unappealing.

Still, he welcomes the numbing effect of alcohol as it enters his bloodstream, making his shoulders relax, softening the scowl on his face.

But it is too quiet.

At Hogwarts, right before the start of term, he relishes in the clam, in the silence of the corridors and the Great Hall. But things are different now. He can’t quite pin down what it is that has changed, but ever since Potter set foot in his home, the silence he once found soothing has become oppressive.

He does not have much time to dwell on this thought, however, for in the next minute, the sound of someone knocking on his front door ripples through his silent dwelling. Scowling, he stands up, picks up his wand, and makes his way down the hallway, glancing briefly at the mantel clock: 11:45pm. With an expression sour enough to curdle milk, he unlocks the door and swiftly opens it.

“Good evening, Severus. I was just in the neighbourhood and thought I would stop by for a nightcap.”

Arching an eyebrow in disbelief, Snape moves out of the way in order to allow Dumbledore to come in, his eyes resting for a moment on the rather flamboyantly cut suit of plum velvet, and bow tie in yellow and brown polka dots.

“I haven’t dissected him for potions ingredients, if that’s what you are here to ascertain,” he says in mock annoyance as he leads the way towards the lounge, causing the older man behind him to chuckle. Once inside the lounge, Dumbledore lowers himself in the armchair by the fireplace, running a hand through his tangled beard.

“Firewhiskey?” Snape asks and the older man nods.

“I see that you have been indulging yourself, my friend,” Dumbledore says as his twinkling eyes rest on the empty glass on the coffee table.

“I am not immune to the appeal of alcohol’s psychoactive effects,” Snape says as he pours Dumbledore a tumbler of the amber liquid before refilling his own. He then sits down, crosses his legs and takes a sip of his drink. Seeing the man’s amused expression, he adds: “I needed to unwind.”

Snape is accustomed to the headmaster showing up on his doorstep unannounced, and despite the scowls and sour looks with which he often greets the man, he enjoys his mentor’s company. It is almost as though Dumbledore senses when the younger man is in need of some extra guidance, each time just happening to be in the vicinity and stopping by for a cup of tea, a trivial potion that would take him minutes to brew at Hogwarts, or a nightcap.

A highly sensitive man by nature, Dumbledore knows that it is best he does not show his concern; instead he broaches sensitive topics in carefully laid out pattern of trivialities. It is almost like conversing in a special code language. By the end of the conversation the topic is left undiscussed, and yet its essence is very much dissected, advice is being offered and Snape is left feeling more at ease. Not that he would ever admit such a thing.

This time, however, the matter at hand is suddenly too serious to evade.

“I should have found him sooner,” Snape suddenly confesses, the thought having weighted on him since they first brought Potter into the Hospital Wing, all bruised and battered. There is no emotion in his voice, but the declaration itself is enough to make Dumbledore’s eyes soften. “I am in the Dark Lord’s inner circle and yet I had no knowledge of the boy’s location for weeks,” Snape persists. “He does not trust me enough.”

“Perhaps,” Dumbledore agrees, a pensive look in his eyes. “But you did locate him. The boy is safe because you saved him. The Order would not have found him without your help. And you did so without compromising your position as a spy. Forgive me Severus, but I fear this time there is more to be celebrated than mourned.”

“I cannot do it Albus,” Snape says after a moment of silence. “He is too broken…I cannot fix him. Perhaps if Black were still alive he would get through to the boy. What chance do I have? He hates me, and for good reason too.”

“I beg your pardon Severus, but I think Harry is incapable of hating anyone,” Dumbledore says in a calm, almost detached voice. “For years, you have kept him safe because he is Lily’s son, and yet you kept your distance because he reminds you of James. But he is more than the child of two people you once knew. He is himself. He is a boy with a big heart who has lost more by the age of fifteen than most people do in a lifetime.”

“He never thinks!” Snape suddenly snaps, feeling a dangerous uptick to his anger. “He rushes into precarious situations without even stopping to consider the repercussions! He knew the blood wards wouldn’t protect him outside his relatives’ house, but that didn’t stop him! And look where his arrogance led him! He was captured and tortured for three weeks before I could locate him. Have you looked at him Albus? He acts as though he’s been kissed by a Dementor! I can mend his bones, heal his bruises, but bring his soul back? Thank I cannot do,” he thunders, taking another bitter sip of his Firewhiskey, the angry crease in between his eyebrows deepening.

“Perhaps he does not need to be fixed, as such. I believe he is merely hiding,” Dumbledore says by way of explanation, his eyes beginning to twinkle in a way that only makes Snape’s scowl deepen.

“Hiding,” Snape says flatly.  

“Accidental defensive magic,” Dumbledore intones. “It seems to me that just before Harry reached his breaking point, his magic lashed inwardly to protect him, trapping his conscious mind inside an unplanned, but nevertheless efficient mental defense. This quite possibly rendered him immune to the pain his body was enduring. A rare occurrence, but not unheard of, as I’m sure you know.”

“Unintentional Occlumency, Albus? Need I remind you how pathetically incompetent he was at the discipline a few months ago?” Snape snarls, his voice so dry it seems almost cutting.

“I think Harry’s inability to master Occlumency when you taught him had more to do with his refusal to apply himself as opposed to his lack of talent in the field. Besides, we are not discussing a conscious defense, but rather a raw, unfiltered show of magic. One which is as powerful as it is dangerous. We need to delve into the deepest recesses of his mind, break past his subconscious defense and bring him back.” Dumbledore’s voice remained soft, but by the end of his speech it had acquired an urgent tone.

“Your belief in my apparent omnipotence regarding this issue is somewhat disconcerting,” Snape says after a moment, his black eyes watching his mentor with annoyed resignation.

“Not at all, Severus, I am simply being logical. You are more in accord with Harry’s emotions than anyone else he knows.” At Snape’s disgusted grimace, Dumbledore adds, “How can it be otherwise? You have spent countless nights attempting to fortify his mind against Voldemort.”

“Yes, and in case it has escaped your notice, my attempts have been futile,” Snape says drily. 

“Perhaps you simply ought to change your methods, my friend. Sometimes we catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” Dumbledore says, his gaze somewhat intense behind the semi-lunar spectacles.

“I will not coddle him,” Snape coldly intones after a moment.

“Nor am I asking you to, Severus,” Dumbledore replies softly. “However, given Harry’s fragile state of mind, I believe you can make the effort of being slightly more approachable than a nestling dragon. I assure you, your reputation will not suffer.”

“Honestly Albus…”

“I have every faith in you my friend, that you will find a way to break past Harry’s mental defenses and help him. You are, after all, already familiar with the deepest recesses of his mind.”

“You are an equally accomplished Legilimens,” Snape protests.

“Absolutely,” Dumbledore agrees, taking a sip of his drink, “However, as a result of your lessons with Harry, you already established a mental connection with him. I believe a familiar anchor will prove crucial to his recovery.”

Snape can only reply with a resigned sigh. He knows there is no point in further arguing with the Headmaster. He thinks of the boy sleeping upstairs in his childhood bedroom, thinks of those vacant green eyes, and realizes, perhaps for the first time, that his reservations were disgorged long before Dumbledore came for his perfectly timed nightcap.

You owe her more than a half-hearted attempt to keep him alive.

When Harry wakes up, he feels rather disorientated, as though the world has tilted on its axis and his body has not yet adjusted to the change. There is an oppressive lump inside his chest, and he feels as if he swallowed a rain cloud whole. His palms feel sweaty and a million thoughts begin to run through his head, but before he can fully grasp them, his mind goes blank. Yet it is not a blissful kind of blankness, because although the details of his thoughts are hazy, the feelings associated with them are amalgamated into an oppressive ball of confusion. Pain, fear, anguish, they all stick out of his chest like the branches of a distorted tree. He doesn’t know how to feel them, or what to do with them, so he squeezes his eyes shut until they dissipate.

It is not hard for Harry to lock his feeling away. Ever since waking up in the Hospital Wing and suddenly finding his body free of pain, he feels as if he is less and less entangled in the tinges of reality. Sometimes, when his mind is particularly empty, he feels as though he is floating away from his own body.

Floating away like Sirius.

Was the veil a dream too? Was it all inside his head? He can’t tell anymore. He doesn’t feel anymore. Voldemort made sure of that. He has trouble distinguishing between what is factual and what is not. Is this bed real? Harry wonders as he grabs a fistful of the warm, grey blanket covering him. It feels real, he reasons as the soft fabric brushes against the skin of his palm. But then again, it could be a trick of my mind. I could open my eyes right now and find myself back in that cold, humid cell, waiting for Lucius Malfoy to come and get me and--

Harry frowns when he opens his eyes again, because the room has not shifted. He is still in bed, his body warm underneath the covers, his head resting against a soft pillow. The worn-out wooden wardrobe is still in the corner, the small desk has not shifted from the window, and nor have the dusty old tomes resting on top of it. Above the bed, the old Slytherin banner is still tangible, but the greens and greys are a different shade to the ones he remembers from school and the serpent is a different shape altogether. Probably an old design, he muses before his eyes fall on an old pewter cauldron collecting dust next to the wardrobe. It has a large hole in its base and Harry wonders for a second what sort of corrosive potion could have possibly created such damage.

Snape.

He is staying with Snape. He doesn’t really understand why he is staying with his Potions Professor, and he knows that under different circumstances this fact would repulse him. But, as he lays in bed, Harry realizes he does not feel anything about this either. Like he doesn’t feel anything when he thinks of Sirius, or the Dursleys, or Ron and Hermione. It is almost as though his compass has been knocked out of whack. Everything inside his head is scrambled, all emotions seemingly gone.

Through the grey muddled haze of his thoughts, Harry’s ears pick up the sound of plates being set on the table downstairs, a frying pan placed on the stove, and moments later, the smell of frying bacon wafting through the air. The groused sound his stomach makes reminds him that his body is asking for sustenance even though he does not feel particularly hungry.

Sluggishly swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Harry rubs his eyes, picks up his glasses and stands up. His legs, still weak after being mended, wobble a bit before they get used to his weight. For a moment, he forgets what it is that he has to do, so he just stands in the middle of the room, listening to the heavy rain outside his window. There is something captivating about the rain, Harry thinks, about the way in which each droplet falls from the sky and crushes when it reaches something solid. It is somehow metaphoric, he muses: the mechanism of the world is built on death and destruction.

What does it matter if Voldemort wants to kill me today, tomorrow or the day after? I’m going to die anyway, sooner or later. What’s the point in prolonging it? Sirius is dead because of me. Or was that a dream? I can’t seem to remember. Either way, he will die because of me. Everyone will die because of me.

They should have let him finish what he started. I’m already dead.

Snape is sitting at the kitchen table with his legs crossed. His eyes are scanning a copy of the Daily Prophet, a mug of black coffee steaming before him. He knows the boy is awake, the creaking floorboards directly above him have been a good indicator of this fact. But it has been fifteen minutes and there is still no sign of the brat. He’s got another thing coming if he expects breakfast in bed, the Potions Master thinks. He supposes he ought to create some sort of schedule for the child. After all, Dumbledore mentioned the importance of familiarity to his recovery.

But what sort of schedule does one create for a boy who seems to have forgotten that he is alive? Remember to breathe? Eat? Sleep? An unfamiliar helplessness washes over Snape as he muses over the damage that has been inflicted on Lily’s son. It is not, he thinks with a frown, the fact that his pre-conceived ideas of Harry Potter have been thrown out of the window the minute they brought him into the Hospital Wing. It is, rather, the complete helplessness concerning his ability to help him. How can he possibly fix a boy he never took the time to actually get to know?

When he looks up from the newspaper, Potter is standing uncertainly in the kitchen doorway. His hair is, if possible, even more disheveled than the day before, and his glasses stand a little crooked on his nose, as though he did not bother to adjust them properly. His eyes are cast on his empty feet and his hands stand lankily by his sides, instruments he seems to have forgotten how to use.

“I do not have all day, Potter. Sit down and eat!” he snaps, because he does not know how else to react to the deafening silence. The boy briefly flinches at the sudden sharpness, and then mechanically obeys the command. Sitting himself at the table, he picks up a fork and gives the fried egg on his plate a tentative poke. He allows the egg yolk to smear all over the plate before taking a cautious bite. It seems to Snape as if he hardly believes the food on his plate is real.

An inexplicable surge of anger washes over the Potions Master at this thought. He watches the boy with a look of absolute concentration that months ago would have had him squirming. This time, however, Potter is so far enclosed into the walls of his subconscious mind, that he gives no indication of having noticed.

When he is no longer certain he can contain his anger, Snape abruptly stands from the kitchen table and makes his way in long strides towards a door on his left. “I will be in my lab,” he says but Harry does not look up from his plate. A moment later, he opens the door and disappears down a flight of stairs leading to the basement.

Unlike the child in his kitchen, potions are predictable; he knows exactly how much heat to give them, how many times to stir and strain them in order to make them behave in a certain way. But now, for the first time in his life, he feels completely at a loss regarding what conditions he ought to create in order to help Potter heal. His usual obsession with order and propriety is suddenly challenged by an unprecedented emotional instability. He has no idea how to break past the wall the boy seems to have created around him. And, if by some miracle he does manage to do so, he is even less certain of what he would find on the other side.

Snape starts preparing the boy’s medicinal potions, just so that he can give himself something to do. With adroit hands, he reduces the Blood Replenishing Potion to thirteen drachms as instructed by Madam Pomfrey, adds an extra scarab beetle to the post Skele-Gro tonic, and prepares the ingredients for brewing a fresh batch of Dreamless Sleep potion to be ready by the time Potter goes to bed. He can hear the rain outside thickening and, a few minutes later, a thunder roars so loud the whole house shakes a little from its vibration. When he turns around from his cabinet of ingredients to prepare his work space, he notices, with some degree of surprise, that Potter is sitting on the steps outside his lab his back hunched, his hands covering his ears and his eyes wide and scared. When the second thunder resounds through the house, the boy squeezes his eyes shut as if in physical pain.

“It’s all right Potter, it’s just thunder,” he finds himself saying in an uncharacteristically soft voice. Harry’s eyes open and for the first time since his arrival at Spinner’s End he looks, really looks at Snape. It is a haunted, pleading look that deeply unsettles the Potions Master. When the third boom resonates through the house, the boy leaps to his feet and in three quick strides he is standing next to Snape, his shoulders hunched and his head bowed, shaking like a common street dog.

“What is it about the thunderstorm, Potter?” Snape asks, but the boy gives no indication of having heard him. The sound of the next thunder has him visibly attempt to make himself as small as possible, as if he is hiding from some invisible enemy who wishes to harm him. Before he is able to stop himself, Snape places a tentative hand on the boy’s bony shoulder.

Potter does not flinch and, to his surprise, the shaking visibly lessens. Scared green eyes look up at him from behind a messy black fringe, and for a moment, Snape cannot help but wonder if the teenager before him has been mentally de-aged to a young child. But then, there is a flash of mild recognition and outrage in the green eyes, one which makes the boy shake off the Potion Master’s hand from his shoulder and take a step back. A look resembling mild mortification creeps upon his features.

Ah, some of the old brat must still be in there, Snape muses with some degree of relief. The Harry Potter he knew would never voluntarily come this close to him.

With the next dramatic roar, however, the mild normalcy is suddenly gone and Harry’s green eyes gloss over once more with fear and confusion. He looks up at Snape, the animosity he felt towards his teacher seconds earlier seemingly evaporated, and his eyes plead for protection.

Drawing out his wand, Snape points it towards the ceiling. “Insulato,” he chants in a steady deep voice as a jet of warm light erupts from the tip of his wand and rapidly spreads across the entire dwelling like an exhalation of fresh air. Suddenly, the roaring thunder is muffled and then completely drowned by the spell, and Spinner’s End is silent once more.

“You are safe,” Snape intones after a moment. Potter bows his head down as if a part of him is ashamed of his display of weakness. “Do not do that,” Snape says flatly, making Harry look up at him in mild confusion. “Do not look embarrassed,” he clarifies, his hard eyes boring into Harry’s for a moment, probing them for some of that Gryffindor pride he found infuriating mere months earlier. But he finds nothing familiar behind those troubled green orbs. Once the trigger of his panic has been diminished, the boy is enveloped once more into the deafening comfort of his emotional detachment. 

Yet it is a self-imposed comfort, Snape realizes. Although outwardly detached from his emotions, Potter’s body is still weighted down by his grief, physically hunched over as if he is not strong enough to bear the air on his shoulders. And Snape also knows that preventing Potter from enduring the triggers of his trauma would not help him overcome his elective muteness. The only way out is through, he muses with resigned starkness.

“In one minute, I will lift the spell from this house, and you will listen to the thunder,” Snape orders in a hard voice, watching as Harry takes a step back from him, his eyes filling once more with uncensored fear. Terror, even. “You will not cover your ears, nor will you close your eyes. You will stand here with me and you will listen. And nothing is going to happen to you.” Throughout his speech, the Potion Master keeps his eyes on the boy’s paling face, his resolve not faltering even when Harry begins shaking his head. “Stand your ground,” he says remorselessly, choosing to ignore the way the boy’s lips have parted, the way his breathing has become more labored.

The first thunder does not resonate immediately after Insulato is lifted. But when it does, Harry automatically covers his ears, turns away from the Potions Master and squeezes his eyes shut as if expecting to be cursed. “No!” Snape harshly intones, walking up to the shaking boy in three long strides, grabbing his hands and yanking them down to his sides, where he holds them in a strong grip that Harry is unable to dislodge. He pulls the boy’s back close to his torso and holds him there as the next thunder reverberates through the house. “Listen,” he says from somewhere above Harry’s head, his iron grip not relaxing even when a small whimper escapes the boy’s lips. Harry shakes his head and bows his head.

“Open your eyes, Harry,” he commands in a soft, silky voice, ignoring the way he can feel the frantic beating of the boy’s heart. 

It is the utterance of his first name that does it.Harry.

Not spoken in jest as the Death Eaters had done. Not even uttered with the customary sneer that he always associated with that deep, silky voice.

Just Harry. Open your eyes, Harry.

And he does, because somehow, being held like that against the man’s chest, with his hands pinned down, is comforting. His nose can detect the faint scent of peppermint and nutmeg and then his ears pick up the sound of a softly bubbling cauldron to his right. 

His heart still beats against his ribs with tough, quick, dry strokes. His mouth is still dry, his cheeks still wet with the tears he is unware his eyes are crying. But that horrible cavernous emptiness inside his chest is suddenly less pronounced. Harry looks around and for the first time since coming down to Snape’s basement lab he scans his surroundings. Thick wooden shelves and worn out cabinets adorn every surface of the grey walls, on them resting numerous jars filled with animal parts, powders, strange liquids and herbs. A round work table stands to his left, and from the corner of his red rimmed eye, Harry notices a bicorn horn, half of which is already ground into thin powder. Next to it, black shimmering beetle carapaces glow black with a tinge of blood. Have I interrupted Snape mid-brewing? part of him wonders, but then the next thunder resounds so loudly through the lab that his breath hitches in his throat.

Suddenly his wide eyes see too many details, too many colours. It is all white noise, turned up full volume as if his mind can no longer tune out what is irrelevant. Everything is relevant and everything is oppressive.

“Breathe, Harry,” the silky voice reminds him.

But it is not enough this time.

He starts struggling, trying, in vain to break free from the Potion Master’s iron grip. Everything is suddenly dangerous, everything swirls. He doesn’t know if the danger is real or imagined, but he doesn’t care. The fight of flight response has already set in, taking over him like Imperius. 

“Calm yourself!” the silky voice intones, this time the tone sharper. But it doesn’t matter, his mind no longer has control over is body as his legs continue to struggle.

Too many details.

His lungs feel suddenly deprived of air, they hurt with the effort of breathing; that terrible cavernous space inside his chest is back, spreading though him like corrosive acid. He cries out…and then his left arm is suddenly freed, but before he has time to lash it out, a warm, calloused palm comes over his eyes.

Everything goes black, there are no more details, no more colours. The thunder fades away, even the sound of his frantically beating heart is drowned by the sudden blackness.

“Breathe,” the silky voice urges, a steady anchor in the darkness.

And Harry does, because somehow he trusts that voice, trusts the large hand covering his eyes, the firm, darkly clad chest supporting his trembling body.

Somehow, he trusts Snape. 

The mugginess of the afternoon is oppressive with the promise of another storm as if Cokeworth has been snatched off the map and placed inside a looped Atmospheric Charm.  It is dark too, Snape thinks with irritation, as he spells the lights on with a flick of his wand before averting his gaze back to the N.E.W.T. papers he started marking an hour earlier. It is a welcome routine, sitting at the desk in his tome-packed lounge, filling in the margins of some unlucky Hufflepuff with a cascade of angry red writing. And under different circumstances, the pile of marked papers would have been somewhat larger by now.

As it is, he finds himself unable to stop thinking of the raven haired teenager sleeping upstairs. After the incident in his basement lab, the Potions Master laced the boy’s Calming Draught with a mild dose of Dreamless Sleep, partly because Potter seemed mentally exhausted after the ordeal, but also because Snape needed time to think. Yet the more his mind nitpicks the details of Potter’s behaviour, the more disconcerting he finds the realities of the boy’s trauma. Because Snape knows what Voldemort is capable of. He has seen the disturbing aftermath of the Dark Lord’s torture sprees, the hollowness within his victim’s faces after Cruciatus has liquefied their minds and tousled their limbs. And he can clearly picture the acquiescent relief behind their eyes when the jet green light of Avada Kedavra ends it all in a flash. It is always relief.

But not Potter. The boy will not suffer the same fate as Voldemort’s nameless victims, no matter how broken he is and how impossible the job of bringing him out of his trauma suddenly seems to him. Because Harry Potter is not just a strategic asset in the war, regardless of how many people discount his worth except as it relates to helping others. He is a child, made of bone and muscle and annoying, dishevelled hair. He is her child. The child she gave her life to protect.

Yet he is also a child he never took the time to really know. The most he ever saw in him, through eyes perpetually pointed in aversion, was that his resemblance to James Potter only sharpened as the years passed. After that, it was solely the perfunctory looks he gave him in class. And even when he had Potter in detention, it was his father he saw when he sneered at him. Not that the boy ever made much effort to look at him. Perhaps if he had done so, Lily’s eyes would have softened his taunts and insults.  

How easily his bitterness had grown as the years passed. How easily he reclined in his ignorance and allowed his resentment at the boy’s father to cloud his better judgement. And every time Potter crossed his path, he simply allowed himself to indulge in his frustration, picking on him every chance he got, feeling his satisfaction grow every time the boy’s face contracted in hurt, confusion and then, in later years hate and defiance.  

But they are not at Hogwarts now, and Snape cannot placate his conscience by thinking that his prejudice towards the boy simply solidifies his cover. Because it has never been just a cover. His dislike of the boy has never been just superficial. And yet now that he is away from the eyes of Hogwarts, Snape has to face this intolerable truth, this huge paradigm shift that seems to have crept upon him when he least expected it. Because loath as he is to admit it, the boy is not his father.

Sighting, Snape drifts his eyes to the muggle hardback protruding from underneath a pile of third-year essays, and he finds the sight of its bright yellow title already galls him: Treating Traumatic Stress in Children and Adolescents. As if the old coot’s intentions were not obvious enough during his visit the previous night, Snape thinks with burgeoning distaste.

Bonding.

He sneers at the word as if it personally wronged him because the prospect of delving even deeper into the haze of Potter’s dented psyche does not fill him with enthusiasm. Nevertheless, he feels a sense of responsibility he cannot ignore as his eyes drift somewhat ominously towards Potter’s school trunk which sits incongruously next to the fireplace. Dumbledore had sent it through the floo earlier that day together with that blasted psychology book and a bag of sherbet lemons. Drawing his eyebrows together in unmasked irritation, Snape abruptly puts his self-inking quill away and stands from his chair.

Stepping around his desk, he walks up to the offending item, bends down and brusquely opens its lid. He doesn’t exactly know what he is trying to find, but as he starts rummaging through the contents, his lips purse in distaste at the colossal mess of old socks, crumpled pieces of parchment, oversized clothes and empty candy wrappers. There are a couple of old school books piled up in one corner, a number of broken quills and empty inkwells, an old Gryffindor tie and a number of plastic toy soldiers which make Snape’s eyebrow arch inquisitively. Why would Potter want to keep such inane pieces of plastic?

Narrowly avoiding cutting his hand on a piece of broken mirror, Snape delves further into the trunk and snatches out a large leather-bound book which turns out to be a photo album. Intrigued despite himself, he begins flicking through it, quickly turning the pages dedicated to the boy’s obnoxious friends until he finds one of Lily and Potter senior on their wedding day. A deeply buried bitterness washes over Snape as he watches her smile and wave at the camera before Potter swirls her away towards the dance floor, her ivory coloured dress floating in the mild summer breeze.

The naïve fool. If befriending the likes of Pettigrew in school had been thoughtless enough, trusting him with their lives had been downright idiotic. Loath as he is to admit it, at least the flea-bitten mongrel they chose to be the boy’s godfather would have been a loyal Secret Keeper.

And Lily might have been alive.

Yet she is not. She died as much because of the rat as she did because of him. And every day since, Snape wakes up wishing he were dead instead.

He abruptly closes the album because the knowledge that he knew her more than her child ever would makes his chest contract with a tightness he has not allowed himself to feel in years. Because Snape can remember the exact shade of her hair in the sunlight and the way her brows furrowed when she concentrated on a particularly complicated charm.

But Potter will never truly know such details. The most the boy remembers of his mother is her body falling to the floor in perpetual lifelessness. That and her piercing scream beforehand, a detail Dumbledore did not fail to mention during one of their meetings a couple of years ago.

Suddenly, a spectral idea begins to take from within the Potions Master’s head, steadily growing in strength and boldness.

Perhaps there is a way to help the boy.

At an unspecified time in the afternoon of July fourteenth, 1996, the Dreamless Sleep administered to Harry Potter by Severus Snape earlier that day loses its potency and is fully absorbed by the former’s magical core. Slowly, as the indistinctive fog lifts, hues, forms, and shapes begin to stand out inside Harry’s head, growing in strength until his surroundings are as bold and detailed as a scene from reality.

An inexplicable sense of danger takes over his body as his anxiety suddenly surges to life and hits him full force. The grey blanket covering his body is tight, too tight and he begins thrashing about until he manages to liberate himself from its folds. Even then, however, he does not wake up.  

Once the clicking of boots on stone becomes audible, Harry begins to tremble with such intensity that the cluttering of his teeth is almost painful. He forgets about the cold, about the gruelling thirst and the dull pain in his stomach from not having eaten in days. All he can focus on is the regal silhouette of Lucius Malfoy as he steadily approaches from the distance. He nearly trips over the heavy chains spelled around his ankles in a futile effort to get as far away from the bars of his damp cell as possible. But, like the day before and the day before that, what comes next is inevitable. And on some level, Harry knows it too. Because the stoicism with which he prided himself upon first meeting Voldemort is almost fully gone, and he has screamed out in pain far too many times to still care about his dignity.

Still, Malfoy’s torture is of a somewhat different calibre to Voldemort’s, and not necessarily in terms of sadism and intensity, but rather in terms of creativity. Voldemort does not experiment on Harry, he is far too busy nitpicking answers out of him to devise new ways of shattering his bones or peeling his skin and then re-attaching it to his muscles.

No…a simple Cruciatus here, a carefully controlled Transmogrifian there...that is the extent of the Dark Lord’s patience with Harry’s bodily torture. It is Malfoy who has the time and forbearance to inflict his morbid cruelty upon Harry. And as long as by the end of each session he is still in one piece and relatively sane, Voldemort does not object.  

Harry is suddenly jolted out of his thoughts by the sound of the iron-barred door abruptly opening, its screeching noise bringing a chill to his spine. It sounds almost like a dying animal, crying out its pain and sorrow with its last breath. Through the mop of messy black hair, Harry gives Lucius Malfoy a quick, apprehensive glance, already deducing that the man is not in a good mood. Everything from his stiff posture to the rigid way he holds his cane suggests it and Harry winces, already anticipating a great amount of pain coming his way. As soon as Lucius is fully inside the cell, his frozen eyes begin glinting venomously at Harry and a lopsided grin appears on his face.

“Up boy!” he suddenly commands and Harry tries to comply because he doesn’t want to be cursed just yet. He is unable to fully stand, however, the toll on his body having already caught up with him, and his legs wobble a little before his knees give way and he falls to the ground. The room, together with Malfoy’s sneering face begins to swirl around him, but then a vicious kick to his ribs brings the dark cell back into focus. He hears a decisive crack and a muffled sob escapes his dry lips. “Do not make me hurt you again, Harry. The Dark Lord has requested to see you. You mustn’t make him wait. Now do as I say. Stand!” he orders, his voice deceptively soft.

“Voldemort can go fuck himself,” he suddenly says, not quite knowing where the defiance come from.

“Really Harry, such foul language ill becomes you. There is no need to be so reticent. Have you already forgotten our little lesson on proper manners?” Lucius seethes, pointing his wand at Harry. “Perhaps you simply need a reminder. Crucio!”

Harry screams, loudly, his body convulsing with the sensation of a thousand hot knives stabbing his body. The pain is blinding...he can taste the bile in his throat, and every breath he takes intensifies the agony that seems to be spreading all over his body. And then, just like that, it is all over. 

“Now look what you made me do,” Lucius intones rather distastefully. “Stand up!”

Harry begins thrashing about in bed as if his body wishes to wake him, but the efforts are futile and his nightmare persists.

He notices the smell of rotting flesh even before his knees graze from the impact of being pushed to the floor. The damp, circular room he finds himself in spins slightly and the stone pillars encircling it remind him of the bars from his cell. When his stinging eyes manage to regain focus, Harry realises two things: the first, is that Voldemort’s red orbs are regarding him closely, his lips curling into a bone-chilling smile the minute Harry looks at him. The second thing is that save for the two of them, there is no one else in that grand room, not even Malfoy who seems to have simply delivered Harry and left.

It is strange, Harry thinks. Usually, Voldemort likes having a grand audience when he tortures him.

“Harry, how good of you to join me so promptly,” Voldemort suddenly says, his voice clear and cold. “Please, do stand.”

Harry feels a huge force swirling him to his feet as Voldemort holds a blue-tinted hand towards him. He is relieved his knees do not buckle this time and wonders for a moment if Voldemort’s magic is holding him up. “Just kill me already, Tom,” he finds himself saying in a hoarse voice and is surprised when Voldemort’s laugh echoes through the room.

“Oh, I will, Harry. But first, a gift,” he intones, his voice suddenly serious as he motions for Harry to come closer. For a moment, the anticipating glint in his red eyes reminds Harry strangely of Dumbledore and he can’t help feeling foolish for having been so angry at the headmaster the last time he had seen him. A grief-stricken longing fills Harry and he can’t help wishing he could see his mentor’s kind blue eyes one more time before dying. “Come, Harry,” Voldemort’s voice hisses, bringing Harry out of his reverie as his legs begin talking him of their own accord to where the Dark Lord is standing.

He doesn’t fight it, he knows he can’t fight against Voldemort’s spell. His scar begins throbbing and then burning as the space between him and his parents’ murderer is slowly reduced. By the time he is standing next to Voldemort’s tall frame, it takes all of his resolve not to clutch his forehead and cry out in pain. The smell of rotting flesh becomes more prominent and Harry is finally able to locate its source: somewhere behind Voldemort, Nagini’s coiling body feeds on what appears to be a partially decomposed human body. Even so, Harry is able to make out that the victim is a young, red-headed female. His stomach drops to the floor as an image of Ginny comes to the forefront of his mind. Ginny, who has always been so full of life. It can’t be, can it?

Following Harry’s gaze, Voldemort’s lips curl into a disturbing smile as he says, “Muggles. Yes, Nagini seems to have developed a taste for them.”

“You’re sick!” Harry exclaims but is nevertheless relieved. Not Ginny, he repeats inside his mind. Not Ginny. He attempts to step back as the pungent smell infests his nose, but he is unable to dislodge the spell Voldemort placed on his body.

“No, Harry, I am extraordinary. My vision will soon perfect the defective world in which we live and muggles will finally be put in their rightful place. It is a shame you will not live to see the results. Had your fate been different, you might have had the potential to be a most loyal servant.”

“I’d rather die than be your slave,” Harry says through gritted teeth.

“All in good time. But, like I said before, I am offering you a most valuable gift,” Voldemort says, drawing out his wand and summoning, from seemingly nowhere, what Harry immediately recognises as a Pensieve. “Come, I want to share one of my most beloved memories with you. I have taken the liberty of...somewhat altering the experience. I’m sure you will find it most illuminating.”

In that moment, Harry knows that what Voldemort’s gift will be much, much worse than any bodily torture he has endured so far. “No!” he exclaims as Voldemort’s spell presses on his back and forces him to lower his face inside the familiar silver mist.

“Hush, now Harry. This is not the way to accept a gift,” Voldemort intones from somewhere above him and Harry is unable to fight the cold hand that suddenly descends on the back of his neck and forces his face deeper inside the vaporous liquid. He feels a nauseating sensation as he is tagged downwards and he falls and falls and he knows it is all over. He knows Voldemort has won.

“Breathe, Harry,” a deep voice urges from seemingly nowhere. 

He awakes with a violent jolt, feeling suffocated by his t-shirt, but the room, even by the muggy afternoon air. With every frantic blink of his eyes, the nightmare loses its potency until it finally releases him from its gripping clutches. He sits up in bed, lost for a moment in the vague interspace between his nightmare and the reality of the room in which he finds himself.

Because he can still smell the rotting flesh, he can still feel Voldemort’s reptilian hand on the back of his neck. And he also knows that his nightmare was not a fictitious construction of his troubled mind and that every part of it is deeply hinged in reality. Because Harry has lived through it. All of it.

Rubbing his eyes, he suddenly realises he feels more awake than he has done in days, the fogginess of his mind having lifted enough for him to distinguish what is real from what is not. A million thoughts begin swirling through his head as his scrambled emotions begin to disentangle and grow in strength. Harry slowly breathes out and closes his eyes. He can do this. He is stronger than this. If he opens his mouth, he will start speaking, he will pick up the fragmented pieces of his life and go on like he always had. He is Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived, the chosen one. He has to be strong.

But when he does open his eyes, the amalgamation of colours and shapes are suddenly overwhelming and his breath hitches in his throat. Any previous conviction that he could face his fears shatters almost completely as his chest contracts painfully, first with the memory of Sirius falling through the veil and then with flashbacks of Lucius Malfoy’s torture sessions, all amalgamated into one big wave of pain and horror.

The skin on his arms starts prickling and Harry begins scratching himself, hard, until his nails draw blood. He doesn’t fully register what he is doing, but equally, he doesn’t mind the pain. Not so long as he controls it. He can put an end to it whenever he wants to. He isn’t anyone’s victim this time.

One by one, his memories, feelings and worries are swallowed up until Harry feels once more empty and muddled until that line between what is real and what is imagined is conveniently blurred. He stops scratching his arms; there is no need for it now that he thinks of nothing. Now that he feels nothing.

Because Harry would rather be insentient for the rest of his life than spend even one minute remembering what he saw inside Voldemort’s Pensieve.

It is early evening by the time Harry creeps out of his room and uncertainly makes his way into Snape’s tome-packed parlour. He can hear the sound of soft, unrelenting rain pelting against the window and the smell of stew wafts through the air, making his stomach rumble rather loudly. He doesn’t take much notice of his hunger, however, as he walks through the parlour and into the doorway of Snape’s hoary kitchen where various utensils are chopping, stirring, and mixing of their own accord. A levitated chopping board is lowering finely sliced onions into a sizzling pan, while a small knife is swiftly peeling the potatoes and carrots.

The precision of this household spell captures Harry’s attention for a moment and as he stands watching it unfold from the kitchen doorway, vague memories of a plump red-haired woman start creeping across his mind. Mrs Weasley. Yes, that was her name. She used a similar sort of spell before when I was staying in a different place. Ron’s house…what do they call it again?

“Mr Potter,” says a familiar languid drawl from behind him. Harry abruptly turns around and takes a step back from the tall, dark man, whose eyes make no effort to hide their studiousness. “How good to see you have graced the living with your presence. I was beginning to think my old bed must have consumed you.”  Part of Harry notices that the man’s voice is not nearly as caustic as it normally is, but he doesn’t respond. He doesn’t think the man expects him to either, for in the next instance, with a gesture of his head, Snape motions for Harry to step fully into the kitchen and sit at the table.

He does so, somewhat laconically, occupying the same seat he did at breakfast. Snape walks in after him, but instead of seating himself, he leans against the kitchen counter and crosses his arms, all the while his dark gaze not leaving Harry’s face. After a moment, he speaks again. “There are a few things we ought to discuss, Mr Potter. I know your…elective muteness will not be easily dislodged, but you will do well to listen.” The tone is strict, not dissimilar from the one he employs when teaching and Harry sits up in his chair, wearily watching the Potions Master from underneath a mop of messy black fringe. Content that he has the boy’s attention, Snape continues. “It is Professor Dumbledore’s wish that I help you overcome the predicament you appear to be currently entangled in. Due to the nature of our Occlumency lessons last year, I seem to be the most familiar with the meandering pathways of your mind. Whilst I am aware that under different circumstances the mere thought of spending an entire summer under my guardianship would fill you up with that obnoxious teenage angst you seem to relish in at school, you no longer have the luxury of such antics. As such,” Snape continues in a low voice, “I expect your full cooperation.”

Throughout his speech, Harry keeps his gaze on the man’s face without actually looking at him. It’s not so much that he is not paying attention to what Snape is saying; it is more that he doesn’t know how to react to the Professor’s instructions. Part of him is aware that he ought to be nauseated by the mere thought of Snape picking apart his mind, completely disregarding his privacy and having access to his most intimate memories. But that fragment is buried too deeply within Harry, and the reactions that would have otherwise accompanied such strong sentiments are fully repressed.

“Potter, do you understand what I am saying?” Snape asks, his tone taking a sharper turn.

It takes a moment or two, but Harry manages a small nod. Seemingly satisfied, Snape regards him closely for a second before crossing the small distance between himself and the table and lowering himself into a chair. “We will begin after dinner,” he informs Harry and soon enough, two bowls of stew promptly levitate themselves onto the table.

They eat in silence, Harry taking occasional drinks of his water, and Snape sipping his wine.

Afterwards, as the table clears and the dishes begin washing, the Potions Master guides Harry back into the parlour. “Sit,” he orders, pointing towards the armchair next to the fireplace. Harry does as instructed, enjoying the mild heat radiating from the flames. Snape occupies the other armchair which is separated from Harry’s by a small coffee table. He crosses his legs and laces his fingers together in his lap, a deliberate gesture on his part designed to make him appear more approachable.

“Nobody in this world wants to destroy you as absolutely as the Dark Lord does,” he begins after a moment, looking at the boy’s pallid features with more intensity than absolutely necessary. “Yet in the past five years, he has failed to do so on numerous occasions. Have you ever stopped to consider—truly consider—why this is?” he asks, deliberately lowering his voice at the end to emphasise the point of the question.

He doesn’t expect the boy to answer. Observing him closely as he has in the past day has made it clear that nothing short of a shock would make him speak again. But he lets the question sink in.

Because Snape knows—has known, even before he sat the boy down—that the cognitive wall Potter has constructed around himself cannot be broken with the brute force of one single blow. He also knows that forcing him to suddenly articulate his feelings will not yield any results; in fact, it could make the boy imprison himself even further into his mind. Any success has to be achieved through small, calculated steps. The conditions have to be perfected. Because Potter’s mind is suddenly a complicated, volatile potion. The wrong measurement, the wrong ingredient or temperature could create a dangerous catalyst that would quite possibly render him inert. He does not have much hope of succeeding, but he must try—cannot do otherwise.

“There is no doubt that your sheer dumb luck has kept you alive long enough for the Order to interfere, and at other times the Dark Lord’s verbal exultations prevented him from killing you when he had the chance. But that is not what I am getting at,” Snape continues after a moment, averting his gaze away from the boy because somehow seeing those empty green eyes makes his next sentence even harder to utter. “Your mother sacrificed herself so that you may live.”

There is suddenly a hint of emotion behind the boy’s glossy eyes and Snape takes it as a cue to continue. “You cannot let it all be in vain. Fight it, Potter. Whatever it is the Dark Lord has done to you, you can overcome it. Do it with the magic she has stored within you if you cannot do it of your own accord.” He doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t need to elaborate. Because if this does not create a crack in Potter’s wall, then he doesn’t know what else would.

From a pocket of his robe, Snape takes out a photograph of a red-haired girl with emerald green eyes. It is not a photograph from the boy’s album, but rather his own, taken in the summer before their fifth year at Hogwarts. He hopes the boy will pick up on this, wonder why his hateful Potions Master would have a picture of his mother. Placing it on the coffee table between them, Snape sits back in his armchair and rests his hands on his legs, waiting for the boy to take it.

He doesn’t though. He doesn’t even look at it, and to Snape’s surprise, his body language considerably stiffens. Interesting.

“Take it.”

But Harry does not move. There is a painful lump within his chest and the room is suddenly too hot, the flames in the fireplace too oppressive. Snape is too oppressive. He doesn’t look irked by his inactivity, but the intensity of his obsidian eyes is somewhat frightening and Harry lowers his head in an attempt to shut it all out. He then hears a rustling noise and looks up to find that Snape has stood up from his armchair and is standing just before him, watching him from his imposing height. In one swift movement, he grabs the photograph and places it in his hands. “Look at her,” he orders, his voice tight.

But Harry turns his head away.

“Damn it Potter, look at her!” he suddenly snaps, leaning down towards the boy until his hands fall on either arm of the armchair, his face inches away from Harry’s, his eyebrows lowered rather menacingly.

Gulping, Harry glances at the picture in his hand, his heart threatening to beat out of his chest. All his instinct scream danger, his mouth is dry, his arms are suddenly prickly and he cannot blink away the white spots in the side of his vision.

But he does look.

And when his mind finally registers the implications of that long red hair, that witty smile and kind eyes, all hell breaks loose.

In one swift movement, Harry jumps from the armchair, pushing past Snape as he leaps to the other side of the parlour, where he plasters his back against the wall and slowly lowers himself to the floor, bringing his knees to his chest. To Snape’s shock, indecipherable whimpers seem to escape from the boy’s parted lips and his eyes are wide and unblinking as though he mind is somewhere else completely. “Potter,” he says, taking a tentative step towards him.

“NO!” Harry suddenly screams, squeezing his eyes shut and, to Snape’s horror, he begins to viciously scratch his arms.

The Potions Master is kneeling before the boy in less than a second. He grabs his skinny arms and is surprised by the sheer force of Potter’s resistance as if the child is suddenly wrestling for his life with a vicious Hippogriff. Still, he easily manages to hold his arms in place. “Calm yourself!” he intones, but Harry gives no indication of having heard him. He begins thrashing about so violently that Snape very narrowly misses a knee to his ribs. “Stop it!” he orders as his grip on the boy’s arms tightens. “Potter, look at me!”

But Harry does not open his eyes.

“Whatever you’re imagining, it’s not real!” Snape says, making his voice as calm as possible. “You are having visions Potter—Harry. Look at me. We are the only people in this room. There is no danger.”

Harry opens his eyes, and for a moment the look on his face freezes Snape’s blood. The roughness in those green orbs, the sheer terror, renders the Potions Master almost speechless. He recovers quickly though as the grip on the boy’s arm becomes slightly less tight.

Harry seems suddenly confused, looking around the parlour as though he doesn’t quite know where he is.

“Dad?” he asks, his voice ragged.

Snape feels the breath hitching in his throat. “No, Potter.”

“Dad, please. Please make him stop,” Harry persists, his eyes welling up with tears. “Dad, it hurts,” he pleads.

“What hurts?”

“My head. Please, make him stop, get her out of my head!” Harry cries, his voice becoming more agitated. “I don’t want to see it anymore!”

“Then let me in,” he says in a soft yet urgent tone, holding on to the boy’s arms as Harry squeezes his eyes shut and starts shaking his head.

“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” Harry whimpers, trying to fight off the hands holding him. But the grip tightens and no matter how hard he thrashes, Harry cannot liberate himself from the Potion Master’s iron hold. 

“Look at me!” Snape suddenly roars, jerking Harry’s arms until the boy opens his eyes.

 And when Harry’s startled green orbs look at him, Snape does not hesitate. 

Fragments of sharp, broken glass stand out against the fathomless, dark abyss encompassing them. Their surfaces glisten with distorted scenes of people, landscapes and objects. A deep mist swirls around each of them—feelings that are felt for mere seconds before they are quelled by a powerful thrust of wild magic. Sounds are inconsistent too, coming from strata of the mind that are at odds with the retention of memory. Voices, melodies, even the gushing of the wind and the pelting of rain are amalgamated into one huge, indecipherable vibration that is devoid of comprehension yet not of meaning.

Snape treads carefully amongst these broken fragments of Harry’s memories, which seem in that moment chaotic beyond repair. He doesn’t want to cause even more damage, but he is determined to find the cause of the boy’s distress.

Suddenly, a powerful gush of wind attacks him from all directions and he feels an undeniable surge of anguish. It is not his own, though.

Do not fight me, Harry.

The deep voice is soothing and soon enough the gushing wind ceases and Snape is able to navigate further into Harry’s psyche. Yet as soon as he tries to approach the fragments of broken glass, they crack and disintegrate into several new pieces, rendering the moving images within them indecipherable. Frowning, Snape tries to quell his irritation as he kneels down and picks up a particularly sharp piece of glass. Before he can distinguish the pattern of the memory, however, the glass fragment starts to crumble until he is holding nothing more than sand.  

Let me in, Harry.

This time it is weariness he feels. Again, not his own. But he doesn’t force his way through as he would have done a few months ago when the boy’s countless failures to shield his mind would have only heightened his scorn.

And for once, his patience bears fruit. Slowly, the fragments of glass start wiggling, levitating and then coming together to from a large, cracked mirror. With an inquiring arch of the eyebrow, Snape walks up to it and gently lays his palm on its surface, his dark eyes resting for a moment on the distorted man looking back at him.

At first, nothing happens, but then the surface of the mirror starts vibrating, then undulating until it is no longer solid and Snape is able to walk through it as easily as if he would through a curtain.

Suddenly, he finds himself inside a dark, circular room surrounded by tall stone pillars. The first thing he notices is the pungent smell of rotting flesh. It is almost overbearing in its intensity, and yet there is nothing in sight to point to its source.

The second is the rune-engraved stone Pensieve resting in the centre of the room. Frowning, Snape walks towards it, his boots clicking on the granite, and once he finds himself before it, he does not hesitate to lower his face in its misty vapours and be dragged down to witness Harry Potter’s worst memory.

The cemetery he finds himself in is too familiar for comfort. Even in the all-encompassing darkness, he knows exactly where to find her grave. But tonight, another visitor has taken his place, so Snape remains in the shadows, studying the scrawny teenager kneeling before his parents’ grave, his eyebrows ominously drawn together as he registers the countless injuries obstructing the boy’s usually pallid and emaciated body.

Behind him, a tall hooded figure digs his claw-like hand in his bony shoulder, like a master pulling the strings of his puppet with the aim of causing pain. Yet even from the distance, Snape can see Harry attempting to shake the hand off, to resist the sadistic game Voldemort seems to have instigated.

It is all in vain, though.

With a gesture of his hand, the hooded figure makes the entire graveyard shake from its foundations. It is a debilitating, portentous vibration that makes Harry cover his ears and gnash his teeth.

“My gift to you, Harry Potter,” Voldemort hisses, the cold wind carrying his voice around the cemetery in a menacing way. Without another word, the hooded figure disappears into thin air, leaving Harry alone with his silent, unseen observer.

The vibration ceases almost immediately after, but the stillness that follows is almost worse, the silence foreboding, and the twisted branches of the bare trees sinister in the sudden listlessness.

Harry stands up on uncertain legs, looking around his surroundings with guarded weariness. His face is not devoid of fear, but Snape observes resignation in the piercing green eyes. The boy knows there is no way out, knows that he must endure whatever sadistic scheme Voldemort has concocted. And yet he is not crying or screaming, and nor is he trying to hide. He is simply waiting. The uncomfortable respect he started feeling for the boy is abruptly magnified and Snape feels suddenly angry at his powerlessness within Harry’s mind, at being able to do nothing but observe his torment.

Just then, a rumbling noise becomes audible from the ground and the Potions Master watches aghast as the soil on top of the Potter’s grave begins moving. It is subtle at first, and then suddenly turns so violent that the entire vicinity seems to shake and moan. His eyes widen in shock as a pale hand emerges from the soil, grabbing at the earth in an attempt to crawl out.

Harry’s legs buckle and he falls straight down to the floor. The impact rocks through his knees, but he feels hardly any pain. Not in his legs, at least. His heart is another matter altogether; it pounds so harshly against his ribcage that for a moment he wonders if the pale hand creeping out of the soil has somehow latched on to his chest in an attempt to tear his heart out.

This is not real, he tries to remind himself. This can’t be real. He’s just playing with my mind. This is not real.

Yet he cannot move; he doesn’t even blink as he watches the mother he only got to know from photographs crawl out of her grave and look straight at him, her green eyes hard and cold. He tries to blink his surprise away, but his whole body feels like it has been set in stone. He is unable to do anything but stare at her as she stands and walks to him, her footsteps steady, her dark blue robes bearing no crease or stain.

She is perfect.

Her red hair glistens in the darkness, her skin is pale and healthy and youthful and Harry can’t help it when he whispers: “Mum?”

Lily kneels before Harry and cups his face, a gesture that is at odds with the harshness of her face. “Look at me,” she eventually says, her voice so punitive that it makes Harry wince. “Look at what you did to me!”

“Mum—“

“I SAID LOOK AT ME!” she screams, her eyes pointing in sudden rage, her hands clutching onto Harry’s face so tight it hurts.

And he does look, partly because he wants to see her, to drink in every last detail before dying, but also because he doesn’t understand her rage. He takes in the auburn eyebrows drawn in aversion, the tumultuous green eyes, and the freckles on her face.

And then it all begins to disintegrate; her skin sinks in, her hair starts falling, her eyes turn completely black and begin shrinking until they disappear altogether, leaving behind empty eye sockets covered by scabs. She lets go of him as she suddenly levitates into the air, her skin abruptly turning a ghoulish shade of grey, her petite stature growing in length until she is at least three meters tall.

Yet it is the morphing of her mouth that freezes the blood in Harry’s veins. The plump, rosy lips whither and fall like the petals of a dying flower, leaving behind a ghoulish, gaping hole. Her breathing suddenly sounds rattling and the smell of decomposing flesh hits Harry full force. He has no time to run because, in the next instance, she swoops down like a bird of prey, her bony fingers emerging from the folds of her ragged robe, and fiercely curling around his shoulders.

From the shadows, Snape can do nothing but watch in unmasked horror as Lily morphs into a Dementor who is ready to devour her own son’s soul. He knows it is not real, that it is merely a twisted display Voldemort has concocted in order to break Harry’s resolve, but this does not stop him from drawing his wand out in an involuntary gesture to conjure his Patronus.

He knows it is futile, though, so he quells his outrage as he continues watching the macabre scene unfolding in the graveyard.

Harry goes slack in his mother’s arms as his feet start twitching spasmodically. The Dementor begins caressing his face with tenderness akin to that of a lover before the claws grab onto his face once more and the terrible, gaping mouth goes wider still. Snape is surprised to see that its slurping lips are not drawing the familiar white wisps of Harry’s soul—indeed, it appears to suck nothing out of the boy at all. Instead, the wraith-like creature starts regurgitating a dark, vaporous sludge straight into Harry’s mouth.

All of a sudden, the entire memory freezes over. Harry remains trapped in the Dementor’s relentless arms, but he’s not moving at all, not even breathing. The trees stop swishing in the wind, and the air itself becomes seemingly solid as if the entire scene has been captured by a muggle camera. Intrigued, Snape begins treading towards Harry.

The first thing he notices, upon reaching the boy, is that his eyes are completely black, almost resembling finely polished obsidian mirrors. The veins around Harry’s eyes are swollen and purple, making him resemble a freshly made Inferius. Snape also notices that the boy is not as bruised and bloody as he remembers him being in the Hospital Wing, and wonders how much more bodily torture he had to endure after Voldemort’s pensieve broke his resolve.

As if the living nightmare of Lily turning into a Dementor wasn’t enough for the boy to surmount, Snape bitterly thinks.

He is weary to further legilimize Harry, but he knows whatever else he endured took place inside his head. With a disgusted look towards the black sludge coming out of the Dementor’s frozen mouth, Snape pierces Harry’s eyes with a steady, fathomless gaze that instantly transports him deeper in the boy’s damaged psyche.

The cottage is just as he remembers it, only the roof is not yet blasted.

And she is still alive.

It is a detail that freezes the blood in his veins because he has not steeled himself for this.

Yet he must.

The Potions Master follows the hooded figure further up the stairs, giving James Potter’s dead body sprawled on the floor a cursory look before stepping over him and continuing down a darkened hallway. He can hear the murmurs of a soft voice coming from behind the closed door at the end. Harry’s room, the wooden plaque says in colourful writing as a painted snitch playfully weaves in and out of the letters in a continuous loop.

Snape nearly stops, then, the prospect of withdrawing from the boy’s mind becoming suddenly appealing. Because he doesn’t want to see this, he doesn’t want to see her die. The dire consequence of his past mistakes is suddenly more real than ever, more real even than the heart frantically beating against his ribcage.

The scene is hardly altered from when he crept into the same cottage fourteen years ago and held her dead body to his chest while her baby wept, ignored in his cot.

But he goes on, his footsteps steady, his features schooled into a hard, stone mask that is at odds with the tumultuous storm inside his chest. Because this time, he cannot ignore her child, he cannot allow another chance at redemption to pass him by. 

So when the door is blasted open, Snape forces himself to follow the hooded figure inside the nursery.

Harry feels trapped. His body is moving up the stairs inside a cottage he does not recognise, but the more he thinks about it, the more he starts doubting it is his body at all. The limbs are too long, the height is not right. He has no control over it as if he is merely a non-corporeal entity trapped within somebody else’s form.

But then he sees him and his breath hitches in his throat.

His father sprawled dead on the stairs, his eyed wide, his mouth slightly ajar. Wearing his night robes. Harry imagines how minutes before he was merely getting ready for bed and now…now he’s dead. He feels like screaming, but the mouth he feels does not respond to his mental command.

No control.

He steps over his father’s corpse as though he is merely an inconsequential dead fly, and walks up the creaking stairs and down a semi-dark hallway. He stops before a pale locked door with a colourful sign hanging in its centre. Harry’s room. A lopsided grin he cannot control spreads over his face, happiness, elation, anger that is not his own.

Suddenly, his wand is pointed and the door gets blasted off its hinges. He does not hesitate to go inside.

A red haired girl is cradling a baby in her arms, her eyes wet with tears but wild with the resolve to protect him. She places him inside the crib, tries to shield him with her body. She turns to face Voldemort, hurt, fear and wrath radiating from her every pore.

All in vain.

“Stand aside,” he says, but the voice is not his own. His heart bleeds with the look on her face. The hatred, not directed at Voldemort, but directed at him. (*)

Murderer.

“Not Harry,” she pleads, her voice barely above a whisper at all. “Please, not Harry. I’ll do anything, just leave my baby alone.” (8)

“Stand aside, you stupid girl, or you will die!” he says, the rage within spreading even further, Voldemort’s anger making him gnash his teeth in an attempt to fight it. (*)

All in vain.

From deep within him, a malevolent voice slithers through is mind as it commands: “do it, Harry. Kill her.”

And just like that, he is filled with mad rage at the red haired mudblood before him. He wants to obliterate her, he relishes in the hate within her eyes, in her fear. He can’t stop himself from laughing.

A bone-chilling, sadistic sound. It is a natural motion when he raises his wand and shouts “Avada Kedavra!”

And the satisfaction of seeing her lifeless body fall to the floor surmounts the gut-twisting guilt and horror he feels within.

Murderer.

He closes his eyes in an attempt to block the scene out, and as soon as he does so, everything around him disintegrates into a black mist as he begins swirling upwards, higher and higher until he feels his feet hitting the solid ground once more. He opens his eyes, expecting to be back inside the circular room, with Nagini feeding in the corner and Voldemort towering over him.  

But he doesn’t find himself there, and when he registers the implications of his location, his blood freezes in his veins and he suddenly longs to be in his damp cell, he longs for Lucius Malfoy to curse and torture him into unconsciousness.

He yearns to die, he wills it all to be over.

Anything but this.

Voldemort’s laugh echoes through his mind, an eerie sound that sets everything in motion like a machine fueled by hatred and blood.

And Harry begins climbing the rickety staircase once more, stepping over the inconsequential corpse of his father, making his way down the dark corridor towards the nursery.

Ready to murder her again. And again.

And again.

And again.

Trapped inside Voldemort’s Pensieve, a looped oubliette of death and torture aimed at breaking him with the knowledge that their death was precipitated by his birth.

Making him understand that he is a murderer.

That he, alone, has their blood on his hands.  

By the time Snape withdraws from his mind, Harry has already embraced the sweet arms of unconsciousness, remaining dimly aware of the throbbing pain growing in his head.

The first thing Harry becomes aware of is the smell of nutmeg, close alongside him. It is a faint, muted scent that is overlaid with other things, but it still manages to evoke vague feelings of safety and familiarity. Sometimes, the scent grows stronger and at other times it fades until Harry begins twisting and turning in bed just to find it. That is when he realises how much his head hurts; a throbbing, dull ache concentrated in his temples and radiating throughout his entire body as he moves. The longer he focuses on it, the worse it hurts until finally, he lets out a soft whimper.

The scent of nutmeg comes closer then, and his lips are parted by the feel of smooth, cold glass. “Drink,” a deep voice urges and Harry obeys because somehow he trusts that it is safe to do so.  His eyelids flicker for a moment, but he is too drained, too exhausted to open them fully. A warm hand touches his forehead for a moment and it is all it takes for him to sink back into deep sleep.

His peacefulness does not last.

He wakes several hours later, his whole body feeling as if it is on fire. He begins tossing and turning until a heavy hand descends on his forehead. Harry panics and opens his eyes in a frantic attempt to make something—anything—out, but his vision is dark and blurred. Images of Lucius Malfoy raising his wand suddenly send his body into fight-or-flight mode and he recoils, thrashes, attempts to strike out at the dark, looming figure before him, until strong hands catch his wrists, holding him in place, telling him to calm himself.

He feels a cool, minty liquid running down his throat. It is strange, for he does not remember drinking it, but suddenly, magic seems to pour through him, the feel of it sweet and numbing. A tingling sensation begins at the top of his head and by the time it spreads to his toes, he is asleep once more.

“You didn’t knead your lacewing larvae enough,” Snape says and Harry nods before beginning to dig his hands more ferociously into the green sludge. It is not long until it starts looking more like a fine paste and less like clumps of clay; he chances a quick look at the Potions Master and is satisfied to see him give a curt, approbatory nod before averting his eyes back to his own brewing.

Harry slowly lowers the green paste into his cauldron and starts stirring, three times clockwise and once anticlockwise as instructed. Soon enough, the colour of his potion transforms from faded yellow to orange, and then finally, to the rusty, reddish colour, indicative of the desired potency. Extinguishing the fire, Harry allows his potion to cool for a moment or two before placing it in the appropriate flask for short term storage. With adroit hands, he clears his workspace before beginning to gather the ingredient needed for the next brew on the list, completely unaware of Snape’s probing gaze as he does so.

Snape supposes he ought not to be surprised at the boy’s sudden proclivity for potion making. After all, his mother had had a natural talent from the onset. Yet it is still somewhat strange to witness Potter being so attentive to the written instructions before him, measuring each ingredient with exactness akin to that of a devoted Potions apprentice. There is no trace of the obnoxious child who used to copy Granger’s steps when he thought Snape wasn’t looking, and he doesn’t quite know how to react to a Harry Potter who is not only willing to brew but also manages to successfully complete rather advanced potions.

It was a few days after the boy’s recovery from his Legilimency-induced convalescence that Snape realised Harry could not stand to be alone. At first, he lingered on the stairs leading to his basement lab, pretending to be reading some book or another. But Snape could feel those blasted green eyes on him when he brewed and one day he chanced to demand the boy’s assistance with the kneading, pressing and cutting of ingredients.

Harry, happy to keep his mind occupied from the troubling thoughts that kept surfacing when he least expected, readily agreed, the need for methodical concentration suddenly becoming exceedingly appealing to him. And soon enough, the brewing routine in which they fell grew increasingly long with each passing day, and Harry readily advanced from preparing ingredients to brewing potions of his own. From morning until mid-afternoon, save for the soft simmering of cauldrons and the chopping of ingredients, not much could be heard from either of them.

From time to time, Snape observes how the boy’s face enchants vivid pantomimes of the memories that run through his head and his face contracts in a paroxysm of fear, pain, sometimes even disbelief. But then he closes his eyes for a moment and when he opens them again, they are once more glossed over with taciturnity. It is like this every day: a constant battle with his own mind, the monumental effort it takes to remain in the present moment, to not give in to his wild magic. And it is only during brewing that Harry is able and willing to do so.

Potter’s unwitting aptitude in Occlumency is a strange thing to behold and as far as twists of fate go, this development does not lack in irony. Especially when he thinks back to the debacle that was Potter’s study of mind magic a few months earlier.   

Sometimes Snape gets the impression that the boy hardly knows he is occluding, that even the most innocent of memories are suppressed by his wild magic: he forgets the names of his friends as easily as he suppresses recollections of Lucius Malfoy’s torture sessions. It is almost as if the boy’s compass for filtering pleasant from unpleasant memories has been completely knocked out of whack. When he is unable to deal with the contents of his mind, everything is suppressed because everything is dangerous, and even the most inane recollection can morph into a minefield of triggers.

It is a somewhat paradoxical development, Snape thinks, that the more the boy represses, the more functional he becomes. His speech comes back, ragged at first, but then stronger every day, until he no longer gives solely non-verbatim answers. Not that he ever speaks unless he’s ever spoken to, but it still a marked improvement from the silence that plagued Spinner’s End when the boy first arrived. Nevertheless, Snape senses a void behind Potter’s words, as if his speech is simply a reflex action, like the beating of his heart, or the expansion of his lungs when breathing.

As a short-term solution, Potter’s involuntary Occlumency has its advantages. The boy’s physical injuries are given the time they need to fully heal; the scars on his arm become faint lines, the dark circles underneath his eyes recede, and his legs no longer wobble from the weight of his body.

There have been no more triggers either; the Potions Master swiftly removed anything that might prove a mental hazard for Harry, wishing to instigate feelings of safety within him. And as he becomes less threatened by his surroundings, Snape observes that the boy’s disposition becomes less and less skittish, until he grows confident enough rummage the kitchen for midnight snacks, like any other normal teenage boy.

But as Harry grows stronger, his resolve to overcome his trauma grows weaker and then falters altogether. He is happy in his blissful ignorance, having constructed a completely new world inside his head, one in which Voldemort does not exist and in which he is not suffering.

Yet it is also a world that is not real. And, like the Mirror of Erised, its blissfulness becomes increasingly dangerous with each passing day.

Snape watches as Harry hunches over his work-desk in absolute concentration, from time to time pushing his sliding spectacles up his nose. He seems to be quickly scribbling something on a label in that abysmal handwriting of his, before sticking it onto a small jar.

“That will be enough brewing for today, Mr Potter,” says Snape after a moment, noticing how the suddenness of his words makes him jump a little. The boy looks up at him confusedly for a moment. “But it’s only four o’clock, sir,” he quietly says.

“There are a few things we have to discuss.”

“What things?” Harry asks as he turns away from Snape and begins placing beetle carapaces into a medium-sized pestle.

“I think you know,” Snape says simply as he leans against his desk and folds his arms, his dark eyes not leaving the back of Harry’s head. He does not expect this to be easy.

For his part, Harry gives no indication of having heard him; he even begins to crush the glimmering carapaces with the mortar, in preparation for the base of the next potion on his list. “I’d rather do this, sir,” he says after a moment.

“That is not an option,” Snape intones, his lips momentarily twitching with burgeoning amusement at the boy’s sudden show of affection for potion making. “Stop mortaring.”

“If I don’t add these in the next few minutes, the entire base will scorch,” Harry says, his hands suddenly grouting the carapaces with more force than absolutely necessary.

“Be that as it may, you will have to start over tomorrow.”

“Sir, I can’t, the carapaces—“

“Will surely survive another night in storage. The successful completion of you Muffling Draught is not exactly the most salient point at issue this summer.” Snape’s voice contains deliberate hints of irritation, but still, Harry does not turn to face him. Nor does he stop mortaring.

“Potter!”

“No!” Harry snaps after a moment, slamming the pestle on his desk and turning to face the Potions Master, his face contracted in sudden anger. “I won’t talk about it, okay?! Not today. Not ever!”

Snape looks at him appraisingly, one eyebrow raised in question. After a moment he sighs and when he next speaks, his words are no longer laced with irritation. “Ignorance may be bliss, but it is hardly conducive to true recovery.”

“I don’t want to recover,” Harry says coolly.

“No? And why is that?”

“You wouldn’t get it,” Harry says dejectedly as he turns towards his desk once more. He picks up his pestle and begins grinding so ferociously that several bits of black, glimmering shell are propelled from his mortar.

“On the contrary, Mr Potter.”

Harry doesn’t know why he finds it so easy to explain. Especially to Snape. Perhaps it is the undercurrents behind the Potions Master’s seemingly simple words that make him speak. Or maybe, it is the deeply buried longing within him to be understood by another human being. Either way by the time his lips are moving, he is only partially aware of the words that come out: “It’s easier to be like this…to choose to forget why I am who I am. I don’t feel guilty anymore, or responsible. I don’t think about the war…about him. I’m just…Harry.”

Throughout his speech, he keeps his face turned away from the Potions Master because admitting such weakness to another human being, and especially to one who previously relished in picking on him at every opportunity, is embarrassing. He feels his cheeks flush at the thought.

“You wish to divest yourself of the connotations of your name,” Snape intones after a moment of studying the boy. Harry gives a small nod but no further indication of wishing to continue the conversation. “Turn around and look at me,” Snape suddenly commands, his voice hard.  

“Why?” Harry asks, his gait suddenly defensive.

“Because you need to understand that you are labouring under a misapprehension.”

“No offence, sir, but I really don’t want to talk about it,” Harry says curtly.

“Nevertheless, you will turn around and treat me with respect, Mr Potter. If you do not wish to talk, that is your prerogative. You will, however, listen to what I have to say,” Snape orders in a tone that brooks no disobedience. 

With a huge force of will, Harry lays down the heavy stone pestle and turns to face the Potions Master, his face weary, his eyes hiding a hint defiance. If Snape notices it, he gives no indication. “You seem to be under the impression that you are merely a strategic asset in the war. But Potter, however unpalatable this may be for you, you cannot continue to discount your worth except as it relates to helping the Order. Your…mother did not die for this.”

“Don’t!”

“You are not responsible for their deaths,” Snape intones, taking a step towards the boy to reinforce his statement. “That is what he wants you to think!”

“Well he’s bloody right, isn’t he?!” Harry suddenly snaps, his eyes so frenzied that Snape is momentarily taken aback. “I told you I don’t want to talk about this! So leave me the hell alone!” Harry says, fighting the urge to throw something at the Potions Master.

Snape’s gaze abruptly sharpens. “No, Potter, he is most certainly not. Assigning yourself unwarranted blame is a weakness you can ill afford. And I will not, as you put it, leave you alone.”

“Why?” Harry asks, his voice suddenly frenzied. “You’ve always sort of hated me.”

“I did not sort-of-anything, Potter! Whilst it is true that you often infuriate me to the point of madness, I reserve my hatred for those who truly deserve it.”

“Like Sirius,” Harry says after a moment, his voice suddenly quiet.  

“Yes,” Snape admits remorselessly, his black gaze boring into him. Without meaning to, Harry shivers. “Unlike your father who grew out of his…penchant for picking on those he deemed uninteresting, Black relished in his hounding of others even after leaving Hogwarts.”

Harry did not need to be reminded of what he saw in Snape’s pensieve; how his father and Sirius bullied a young Snape without much cause. Not unlike Dudley, a little voice inside his head offers. Mortified at the comparison, Harry quickly adds: “But Sirius grew out of it! He was a good man in the end!” Harry isn’t completely sure if he is trying to convince Snape or himself.

To his surprise, Snape snorts; he doesn’t offer anything else on the topic, though, and Harry suddenly gets a sense of his own fragility. The Potions Master, he realises, is weary of besmirching his memory of Sirius. Like Voldemort tarnished that of his mother. Because there is something else hidden within the folds of his hesitancy, and Harry is suddenly hit by a monumental wave of guilt; all of his senses are flooded with it until Harry’s insides are twisted like pretzels. Sirius will never get the chance to make amends with Snape. Like he will never get the chance to eat, sleep, or laugh. Because Sirius is dead. Dead like his mother. Dead because of him.  

“I killed him,” Harry suddenly says to no one in particular. His shoulders slouch, his eyes glaze over. The momentary spark of anger he felt earlier is completely gone, only to be replaced by a gut-twisting, acidic, bitterness.

“Bellatrix Lestrange killed Black. Not you,” Snape’s deep voice is not enough to break through Harry’s reverie. Over and over and over again, Sirius falls through the veil; a sadistic replay of what Harry’s precipitous rush to the Ministry reaped.

“If it weren’t for me…if I hadn’t rushed off to the Ministry—“

“Voldemort would have found another way to lure you into his trap. Black’s actions were his alone. You meant to do only good towards him.”

“I killed him,” Harry persists, shaking his head. “I killed Sirius. Like I killed mum. I killed her…I’m a murderer…I killed her, I was there, she was looking at me and I didn’t lower my wand, I didn’t…”

Suddenly, Snape’s hands descend to grab Harry’s narrow shoulders, and startled green eyes look up at him in confusion. “You are not a murderer! Voldemort killed Lily, not you.”

“Don’t—don’t say her name! I can’t bear it,” Harry cries, becoming more and more agitated until Snape’s grip turns almost painful on his shoulders. He can’t feel the pain, though, and he falls deeper and deeper into his own mind, the walls of wild magic coming up full force until he can no longer distinguish between what is real and what is not. The fragile sense of normalcy with which he enveloped himself in the past few days shatters around him and a million memories start whirling through his head.

“You can bear it, Harry.”

“She’s there, she’s there! She has come to kill me! Let me go!” He tries to shake out of the Potions Master’s grip, his eyes glossed over and focusing on a spot in the far corner of Snape’s lab.

“It’s not real!” Snape harshly whispers, his grip on the boy’s shoulders implacable. “She’s not here, you’re imagining things!”  

Harry blinks a few times and then goes suddenly still; he looks up at Snape and for a moment, his eyes blank over completely. Then, a small glint of recognition appears deep within the pupil, growing in intensity until a small grin spreads on Harry’s face. “Padfoot!” he says, taking momentary advantage of Snape’s loosened grip on his shoulders to latch onto the man’s torso and squeeze him into a bone crushing hug. “You’re alive!” he says, his voice muffled by the soft black fabric pressed against his face. “I thought I killed you! But it was just a nightmare! I know that now,” says Harry emphatically before un-plastering his face from the man’s chest and looking up at him. He doesn’t register the surprise that splashes across the usually stoic features.

But then, just as suddenly, his face falls. The grin falters, then dies altogether, the eyes gloss over with confusion and then widen with recognition. He abruptly lets go of Snape and takes a few steps away from him, bowing his head almost as if he expects to be struck. “Sorry Uncle Vernon.”

A flash of something Harry has never seen before filters across Snape’s face, but before he can verify it is concern, the Professor’s body stiffens and his face regains its customary stoicism. “I’m not your uncle, Harry.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t finish weeding the garden…please don’t lock me in my cupboard, sir.”

“Lock you in your cupboard.”

An abstract image of a small niche underneath the stairs suddenly flashes across Snape’s mind; he remembers seeing it during their Occlumency lessons the previous year and he curses himself for not having paid attention to the boy’s inexplicable fear of it. It all makes sense now. A surge of anger starts coursing through his veins at the thought of Lily’s child being locked away by his oafish uncle and his horse-faced wife. Because now that he thinks back, there had been other signs too; he never once stopped to consider why Potter returned to school each year looking thinner, or why his body language had always been so defensive. He relished in his vindictiveness, keeping his distance from the boy because it was somehow simpler that way. And his selective indifference ensured that the boy returned to an abusive home each summer.

By the time Snape realises that his anger is seeping through his usually placid demeanour, he finally registers that Harry is standing timidly next to his work-table, his messy black fringe obscuring frightened green eyes. He isn’t crying, but his skittish body language suggests that he has been in this position before—possibly on numerous occasions. There is nothing cerebral in his reaction; the instinct to protect his core by ducking having been inculcated in him from an early age.

Snape lowers his arms to his side and schools his features into perfect passivity, a deliberate gesture on his part, one which is modulated for maximum impact. “I’m not going to hurt you, Harry.”

The green eyes gloss over once more.

“I know, Sirius.” Harry’s body language changes once more, from skittish and submissive to laconic. He straightens up, slowly and then looks Snape in the eye. “I’m sorry I killed you. But at least now I’m dead too,” he says sadly. “Everyone’s dead because of me. Now I can finally rest.”

“You are not dead,” Snape says, taking a step towards the boy and placing a tentative hand on his shoulder. He is pleased to see that Harry doesn’t flinch. “Black—I didn’t die because of you. You must not blame yourself.”

Harry doesn’t have time to respond. In the next instance, he looks behind Snape and his eyes widen and he pales beyond recognition as his face contracts in complete and utter terror. “She’s here,” he says, his voice ragged and barely above a whisper. “Sirius, please…don’t let her get me…”

“There is no one else here. You are safe,” Snape insists, his eyes gleaming, his expression rapt. He resists the urge to shake him.

Harry’s breathing turns shallow, beads of sweat begin to glisten on his forehead. And then all hell breaks loose. Abruptly, various jars, cauldrons, boxes and chopping utensils start levitating in midair, held in place by an abrupt burst of wild magic.

“I’m sorry…mum please, I didn’t mean to kill you, he made me…please don’t…NO!” Jars begin to burst, others begin to rattle until Snape’s entire lab is animated to life by a myriad of countless sounds, movements and explosions.

“No!” Snape harshly whispers, grabbing Harry and pressing his face against his chest in a fierce embrace that Harry is unable to shake off no matter how hard he begins trashing. “It isn’t real,” he intones in a soothing, firm voice from somewhere above him. “It isn’t her! Do not give him the satisfaction….don’t renege a mother who died loving you! Calm yourself, Harry.”

It doesn’t happen straight away, but after a while, Harry stops fighting and goes still in Snape’s embrace; the jars, utensils, and cauldrons cease levitating and fall to the stone floor. Some shatter on impact, sending glass, seeds and powders flying across the room, whilst others make loud clanking noises that reverberate through the entire lab, rolling away until they bump into something and stop. Through it all, Snape does not move. He keeps Harry firmly in his arms until the vibrations radiating from the boy’s magical core lessen and then cease altogether. Only when he is certain that Harry will not lash out again, does he let go.

Harry feels drained. His limbs feel suddenly twice as big and heavy and his knees begin to shake with the weight of his body. Snape is saying something to him, but his mind cannot match the sounds coming out of the man’s mouth with actual words. Everything around him is a haze, the whole lab seems to have a sinister aura of light that radiates from every surface and hurts his head. He quickly drifts his eyes to the far right corner where only a moment ago his dead mother stood, looking at him with such intense hatred that Harry felt his insides crumble to pieces. He then looks up at the darkly clad man before him, half expecting to find Sirius, but in his stead he finds Snape. He doesn’t have the energy to be disappointed anymore.

His knees finally buckle and he starts falling, but he doesn’t reach the floor; strong arms suddenly catch him and in the next moment Harry finds himself up in Snape’s arms. Part of him is deeply embarrassed to find himself in this predicament, but it doesn’t matter anymore, not when he’s struggling to keep his eyes open. He hardly registers when he leans his head against the man’s chest. “I’m tired,” he says, his voice raspy, not quite certain why he felt the need to say it out loud.

“Close your eyes,” the silky voice orders and Harry is only too happy to obey.

He remains dimly aware of being carried up the stairs and then gently deposited on top of a bed. A mere moment later, his lips are parted by the feel of cold glass and a deep voice urges him to drink. He does so because he has learned to trust that voice and the strange tasting liquids that usually accompany its silky commands. As the familiar tang of Dreamless Sleep begins flowing through him, the corrosive hole within his chest suddenly disappears, taking with it the angry face of his mother and the paralysing guilt that such a sight induces. Harry falls deeper and deeper into a solid, undisturbed sleep, remaining completely insensate to the piercing pain that precipitously erupts in his scar.

He is also completely unaware that at the same time, Snape clutches his left arm and hisses in pain. 

Harry wakes to the sound of heavy rain assailing the window. The drops are wild and indiscriminate, missiles of cold water that splatter rhythmically against the glass. As the lethargy encumbering his body begins to lift, Harry opens his eyes, hardly aware of the dull ache pulsating in his forehead. He blinks a few times, expecting the room to come into focus with the light, but he soon realises that it is still the middle of the night and the room is dark and foreboding. Outside the window, the sky is a fathomless black, the night oppressive and uninviting. Even the wind seems to whistle in a sinister way. It is cold too. Harry shivers underneath the grey blanket and pulls the sleeves of his oversized sweater down, willing his body to go back to sleep. But after tossing and turning a few times, the dull ache in his forehead turns into sharp pain; his entire skull feels as if it has been split open and his sinuses are on fire. It doesn’t last long, however, and a few short moments later, the sharp pain recedes once more to a dull, inconsistent ache.

Frowning, Harry sits up in bed and softly traces the outline of his scar; it feels blotched and swollen, tingling slightly under the pressure of his finger.

The iron-barred door swings open and Lucius Malfoy strides in, his features melting into a skewed grin the minute he lays eyes on Harry. Dragonhide boots clink ominously on the stone floor and the damp air shifts uncomfortably with his movements. Harry’s nose picks up the familiar musky scent of the fougère cologne and is stomach drops with anxiety. He has become exceedingly familiar with the pain that usually accompanies that smell and braces himself for another day of—

No! It isn’t real! I’m imagining this, Harry desperately tells himself as he squeezes his eyes shut. When he opens them again, Lucius Malfoy is still forging ahead. 

“This is not the proper way to greet me, boy,” he seethes, his grey eyes narrowing to predatory slits. “Must we have another talk about manners?” He stops right in front of Harry’s bed and takes his wand out of his robe, the movement sharp and taunting. His frozen eyes glint in pleasure as he points it at Harry and—

“NO!” Harry squeezes his eyes shut once more, focusing on nothing other than the frantic beating of his heart against his sternum. It isn’t real, it isn’t real, it isn’t real…

Breathe, Harry, a familiar deep voice urges.

Harry inhales and exhales and inhales again, and with each breath, the scent of fougère fades further and further away, until it is no longer distinguishable. Raw magic rises up around Harry’s mind like an impenetrable wall and everything is blocked out; his mood morphs into dodged indifference until at length he is looking on his own existence with the passive interest of an outsider. The pain in his forehead is completely blocked out, his limbs become nothing more than instruments for movement and balance, his heart, a simple mechanism that pumps blood around his body. And when he opens his eyes again, Lucius Malfoy is gone and the room is as it was before.

He suddenly becomes aware of all that was repressed by his feverish psyche. His stomach makes a loud, groused sound, reminding him that he has not eaten since lunch, and the relentless rain begins to make his bladder feel exceedingly uncomfortable. Without further ado, he swings his legs over the bed and stands up, wincing a little when his bare feet touch the cold wooden floor. Picking up his glasses from the nightstand, he puts them on and heads out of the room.

The corridor is cold and dark, but the sound of rain is muted by the absence of windows. Harry treads carefully past Snape’s room, and realises that his door is wide open; the curtains are seemingly drawn, though, because the darkness inside is almost solid in its intensity. Harry knows that Snape is not inside, almost as if he has grown sensitive to the man’s presence when nearby, and is surprised to realise that the professor’s absence in the middle of the night makes him feel somewhat uncomfortable. But he shakes the feeling aside, thinking that Snape is probably doing some late-night brewing in his lab, or reading in his tome-packed lounge.

The water almost scalding and his skin turn red underneath the jet, but he doesn’t register the burning. However, he does notice that the scars that used to run down his forearms are barely visible now, and images of Snape smearing ointment over them every evening flash across his mind for a second. But they don’t linger. Nothing lingers, not even core memories, and when he raises his head to look into the mirror, the green-eyed boy staring back at him is as familiar as a stranger. The lighting-bolt scar is red and blotched and somewhat enlarged and Harry knows that under different circumstances he would have felt quite self-conscious about it; he would have probably even tried to hide it underneath his messy black fringe.

But now he doesn’t care and after another cursory look at his appearance, Harry switches the light off and heads out of the bathroom. He walks back down the corridor, past Snape’s desolate bedroom, and makes his way down the stairs, plunging into the darkness of the small hallway. The rickety stairs creak under his weight and at once he is reminded of a small, green-eyed boy who used to sneak out of his cupboard at night to rummage for (and steal) inconsequential leftovers. Uncle Vernon’s vindictiveness together with Aunt Petunia’s indifference meant that young Harry was often reduced to stealing his dinners in the early hours of the morning when Number Four Privet Drive was as quiet as a grave. 

This doesn’t feel like stealing, though. It is strange to think that Snape does not seem to mind him rummaging through his old fridge in the middle of the night. But then again, Spinner’s End is not like Privet Drive. And Snape, loath as he is to admit it, is not like Vernon Dursley.

Harry slides open the doors to the lounge and steps in, feeling somewhat surprised at finding no sign of the potions master. He half expected to find him reading or marking papers at his desk, but the room is desolate and strangely cold. Frowning, he ventures into the kitchen and immediately searches for the familiar light underneath the basement door. There is none. A terrible sense of dread washes over Harry, but after a moment, his wild magic obliterates it completely until he can focus only on the task of making himself a sandwich.

Harry takes the plate back to the tome-packed lounge where he turns on a solitary corner lamp and lowering himself in the armchair usually occupied by Snape, remaining completely insensate to the feeling of safety that spreads through his chest. It doesn’t take him long to finish his snack, and soon enough, a postprandial lethargy makes it suddenly challenging to keep his eyes open. Harry rests his head against the soft fabric of the armchair and it isn’t long before he falls asleep.

He is jolted awake several hours later by the sound of the front door banging open. He is confused by his surroundings and by the dull ache in his neck from having fallen asleep whilst sitting up, but then his eyes rest on the crumb-filled plate and the memory of his late night snack comes back to him. He doesn’t have much time to dwell on this, however, because in the next moment the parlour doors slide open and Harry’s blood freezes in his veins; his mouth goes dry, his fingers prickle all over and his heart plummets to the ground.

Lucius Malfoy has found him.

Lucius Malfoy is standing in the doorway, the holes of his cranium-white mask staring straight at him, black robes hanging menacingly over his wide shoulders.

In the next moment, a wild thrust of wild magic bursts from within his chest and several objects begins smashing; the crumb-filled plate shatters to pieces, sending shards of broken glass all over the room; several books fly off their shelves and rip themselves apart, their pages flying through the lounge as if caught in a tornado. But Harry doesn’t notice any of these things. His wild magic wraps around him like a cocoon, sheltering him from reality, from the Death Eater hurriedly coming towards him.

“No!” a deep voice says, but Harry doesn’t hear it.

Suddenly, strong hands grab his shoulders, forcing him to snap out of his self-imposed trance. Harry attempts to fight them off, to get as far away from Lucius as possible, but the hands are relentless. When he doesn’t calm down, they shake him. Harry blinks a few times and looks straight at Snape’s hard features. The man is kneeling before Harry, his hands still holding onto his skinny shoulders. A discarded white mask lays ominously at his feet.

“Professor?”

The levitating objects fall to the floor as the flames of Harry’s wild magic burn down to embers and a wave of relief washes over Snape’s face.

“I thought you were…him”

“I know,” says Snape, his voice sounding raspy and tired. He doesn’t let go of Harry’s shoulders and for a moment or two, his black eyes study him in consternation. “The potion I gave you…you should not have been awake to witness this” Snape slowly intones, looking at Harry as if he might break.

“I’m fine,” Harry quickly responds, too quickly to actually mean it; the Potion Master’s obvious concern makes him feel uncomfortable, as does the dark gaze closely studying him. He looks down at his feet. As if registering his discomfort, Snape abruptly lets go of his shoulders and stands up. Harry doesn’t miss the sight of his knees buckling a little as he does so and for a fraction of a second, the professor’s face contracts in unmasked pain. This unfiltered show of emotion doesn’t last, though, and the stiff, insensate expression is back before Harry can blink. With some degree of effort, Snape walks over to the opposite armchair and lowers himself in it, resting his head against its back and closing his eyes as his body suddenly palsies in violent jolts. This, he cannot hide.

“Sir…are you alright?”

Black eyes snap open in irritation. “I’m fine, Potter.”

“He crucioed you, didn’t he?”

“You need not concern yourself with this,” Snape says, closing his eyes, a gesture meant to be dismissive.

“I could bring you a tonic?” Harry offers. “Or perhaps—“

Snape’s lips turn into a thin, compressed line. He parts them just enough to speak. “I said I’m fine. Since it is still early morning and you just suffered a shock, I suggest you take yourself upstairs and rest.” The tone is not exactly contemptuous, but it is not very encouraging either.

“No offence, sir, but I think you’re the one who needs to rest. You look like you’ve been trampled by a Hippogriff,” says Harry feeling somewhat put out at having been sent to bed like a toddler. “I could—“

“Potter!”

“What?! I’m just trying to help!”

Snape grits his teeth, his eyes flashing with unmasked annoyance. “Then go upstairs so that I may have a modicum of peace in my own home!” he seethes, his temples at once pulsating with pain.

“Fine! But you know, you don’t have to be such an absolute bastard all the bloody time,” Harry suddenly explodes, glaring at Snape and storming out of the lounge before the man has a chance to reply. A few moments later, the sound of a bedroom door slamming shut reverberates throughout the house.

Snape closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath, his expression calming by what looks like sheer will. He is annoyed at himself for lashing out at the boy, for losing control like that, but he finds that the dull pain pulsating all over his body renders his patience suddenly inert.

He cannot deal with Harry right now, cannot have those wide green eyes look at him with innocent concern. He is not deserving of such consideration, especially not from a boy whose mother died because of him. Of all the reminders he had ever received of her absence, there is none as forcible as the look of concern in Harry’s eyes. It is the same look that she often gave him when they’d meet by the park across the street, during summers when Tobias’ viciousness left painful marks on his face and scars on his heart.

Sighting, Snape occludes the memories away and summons a flask of amber liquid. He drowns it in one go and closes his eyes, mentally preparing his body for the inevitable epileptic convulsions that he knows are inevitable.

Harry creeps tentatively out of his room, his steps sheepish and light as if he is afraid of making too much noise. He knows that Snape is probably asleep in his bedroom; the sound of heavy footsteps coming up the stairs a few hours earlier, the loud closing of a door and the subsequent silence that followed, have been good indicators of this fact.

But now Harry finds himself unable to spend another minute laying on his back, staring at the ceiling. His efforts of cajoling his body back to sleep have been futile, to say the least and a multitude of conflicting thoughts are whirling through his mind. 

The irritation he felt towards Snape earlier that morning is gone and Harry feels ashamed for lashing out at the man in the first place. And the more he replays the scene in his head, the more annoyed he becomes at himself. Really, what was he thinking?

He needs a distraction. Or rather, his body needs a distraction so that his mind can successfully occlude. His hands are itching to brew, but he knows that Snape would never allow him in his private lab unsupervised and he certainly does not want to incur any further wrath from the man.

Instead, he timidly makes his way down the stairs and creeps back into the lounge where he scans the damage made by his burst of accidental magic. Several books lay crooked on the floor amidst torn pages, broken quills and shattered glass. The coffee table is overturned next to the fireplace and the small painting of a dark landscape has somehow ended up in the middle of the room—it is not damaged, though, and Harry breathes a small sigh of relief as he picks it up and hangs it back onto the wall. It is hard to imagine Snape sitting unfazed in his armchair, surrounded by a sea of debris, and Harry begins to wonder just how much pain was hidden beneath the man’s stoic demeanour.

A wave of guilt suddenly begins to spread over Harry, starting at the sole of his feet and making its way all the way up to the top of his head; it lies heavy on his stomach, making his chest contract painfully every time he draws in a new breath and for a moment, he just stands in the middle of the room, feeling suffocated by the myriad of broken objects.

Perhaps a month ago, the idea of thrashing Snape’s home would have brought him satisfaction. But now, Harry doesn’t quite know how he feels about his draconian Potions Master. It is a strange thing to acknowledge, the care with which Snape tended to his physical and mental injuries. Nobody had ever cared for him like that before, and although Harry finds the thought disconcerting, he also begins to recall, albeit dimly, the feelings of warmth that always accompanied such ministrations.

But Harry doesn’t want to think about it, because it is far easier to turn a blind eye to these developments and go on like he always had, without expecting to depend on any sort of parental figure. And anyway, Snape’s earlier short-temper towards him has made it pretty clear that Harry’s presence in his home is inconvenient to say the least and for his part, Harry does not want to indulge in another fantasy.

Because Harry has always looked after himself. It’s not like he suddenly needs a father figure.

Oh, God.

Is that what Snape had become? A father figure?  

He has been foolish enough as it is, thinking that just because they brewed a few potions together things between them must have changed. Dumbledore probably assigned Snape the task of looking after Harry and it would certainly be irrational of him to assume that the Potions Master had been doing anything more than that. So Harry fights the bitterness growing in his mouth and shuts out the memories of Snape holding him through his panic attacks, telling him to breathe, making him feel safe.

It isn’t real. None of it is real. He’s just playing a part. He doesn’t really care…stop fooling yourself.

With these thoughts whirling through his mind, Harry begins tidying up. He picks the books up and piles them back on the shelf, careful to tuck in the pages that have come loose. He then kneels on the floor and begins gathering the shards of broken glass and torn parchment that have haphazardly dispersed through the room, willing his mind to focus on nothing but the movement of his hands.

By the time Snape returns downstairs, an hour or so later, Harry has finished re-assembling the lounge and is sweeping the floor. He seems wholly absorbed in his menial task and does not notice the professor until the lounge doors are swiftly slid open.

Even then, he only chances a small look at him before averting his attention back to his sweeping, which turns suddenly more rigid.

“Stop that,” Snape says after a moment, the silky baritone of his voice filling the room as he steps fully into the lounge.

“I have to finish this, sir.”

“You do not,” he intones, taking another step towards the boy. He is surprised to see him visibly shrink. Even then, however, he does not stop sweeping. The brat’s unhealthy affection for brooms during Quidditch he can understand. This, not so much. It seems almost as if his life depends on the jerky movements of the sweeper, to and fro, breathing in and out. The boy looks miserable.

“Allow me, Mr Potter,” Snape says a moment later and with a flick of his wand, any remnant of debris vanishes and the modest lounge is spotless once more. Harry, on the other hand, looks somewhat put out.

“You shouldn’t have…” he begins, but then presses his lips firmly together without saying anything else.

“I was not aware that the state of my living room floor could precipitate such potent angst.” Snape arches an eyebrow as Harry flushes and turns away.

“It’s not that,” he says quietly.

“Care to elucidate?”

“No.”

“Harry.”

Sighing, Harry turns around to face Snape, his eyes at once wary. He doesn’t look up, he doesn’t want to see the anger with which the man greeted him earlier that morning, so he keeps his eyes firmly affixed on Snape’s feet. “It was my mess. I should have been the one to clean it.”

“You are not responsible for what happened.”

“I am responsible. If it weren’t for my magical outburst, your lounge—“

“Idiot boy!” Snape suddenly snaps, walking up to Harry in three long strides and grabbing his shoulders. Harry looks up at him with startled green eyes, noticing that the anger is discernable once more in the harsh features, but strangely enough, he does not feel it is directed at him. “I was not referring to my sitting room. Can you not see that?”

Harry cannot. What he can see, however, is that Snape’s face is etched with lines that seem deeper than they were the day before, and his hair lies limply by the side of his face. Even though his limbs no longer tremor, he still looks exhausted. Harry’s throat feels suddenly dry and he struggles with the guilt that flares up in his throat and plummets to his stomach, leaving behind a trail of anxiety. I did this to him.

“But I am responsible,” he says, as if repeating the words would somehow make the Potions Master understand.

Snape sighs and lets go of Harry’s shoulders. “I think I’ve had as much as I can take of your unwarranted remorse for one day,” he drawls, but his voice lacks the caustic tone that usually accompanies such comments. “Nevertheless, I ought to mention that you are labouring under a misapprehension.”

“I’m not!” Harry persists, feeling suddenly angry that Snape doesn’t seem to understand. How can he not see? “You got tortured because of me! You must have. There’s nothing that angers Voldemort more than his followers not being able to bring me to him.”

“I am not, his follower,” Snape seethes, his dark eyes looking suddenly so ominous that Harry fights the urge to take a step back.

“I didn’t mean that,” Harry quickly says.

“Then what did you mean, pray tell?” Snape inquires in a snide voice.

“I…I only meant that he thinks you are his follower. He doesn’t know you are playing a part…” Harry stammers, feeling his face flushing in embarrassment.

“Then I suggest you pay me the courtesy of remembering this distinction,” he growls, his eyes boring into Harry like sharp knives. After a moment, however, the anger seems to leave him and when he next speaks, his tone lacks its previous sharpness. “The meeting was not about you, Potter. The source of the Dark Lord’s displeasure lies elsewhere.”

“But he must have been angrier than usual anyway because I got away...”

“I do believe you know my opinion of your penchant for assigning yourself unnecessary blame.”

“But—“

“Stop!” Snape says, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “You are not responsible for the actions of a psychopath. You will learn this if it’s the last thing I do, Potter.”

“I don’t know how to stop feeling this way,” Harry says after a while, looking up at Snape. “I don’t know where to start.”

The Potions Master regards Harry closely for a moment. “We start with breakfast,” he says, turning around and disappearing into the kitchen, gesturing for Harry to follow him.

Harry fights the urge to throw his Arithmancy textbook out of the window. He has been trying to make sense of isospheric* chart for the better half of the afternoon, and yet his results come out differently each time he applies Professor Vector’s formula to his numerical chart. Sighing, he slams the book shut, removes his glasses and rubs his eyes. He and Ron always started their Arithmancy summer homework on the Hogwarts Express where they could pester Hermione for help.

This summer, however, things are different and Harry is certainly not thrilled with having been sent upstairs by Snape to work on his assignments. Something to do with embracing a normal, teenage lifestyle. He has deadlines too; two days to finish his Arithmancy essay and then three days to start researching for his Herbology homework.

And Snape wants to look over his work too. Harry grimaces, his features suddenly melting into a particularly deep scowl. The man will probably shred the contents of his essays to pieces until Harry is left feeling like a complete imbecile for even attempting to write them in the first place. The prospect of completing numerous drafts until they are deemed well-written enough by the Potions Master does not fill him with enthusiasm and he cannot help but resent the professor’s insistence that Harry start his assignments early.

Is this what having a parent would be like?

Harry mulls that over, wondering if Snape would be less harsh if he were somebody’s father. Ha, unlikely. The man is as snarky as they come, he thinks. Irritable, mean, and a bully. Better alone than with a dad like Snape.

Liar.

“Oh, shut up!” he says out loud, wishing that the sound of his voice could be enough to disperse the twisted thoughts whirling through his mind.

You’re being unfair, the little voice inside Harry’s mind persists. He knows what Snape is trying to do; he almost appreciates it too, but the truth of the matter is that he can’t stay focused on anything for too long. Sooner or later, his mind wanders back to Lucius, or Voldemort, or his dead parents. And when he doesn’t have flashbacks, the guilt inside his stomach gnaws at him until his skin crawls.

Because it doesn’t matter that the meeting wasn’t about him. Sooner or later, Voldemort will get angry on his account and then Harry will be responsible for another death. Inadvertently, but still. The fact remains that Voldemort will never stop hurting other people to get to Harry.

Neither can live while the other survives.

Harry doesn’t know how to kill Voldemort. He doesn’t even know where to begin. So really, it is far likelier that he will be the one to die. His own finitude does not bother him; indeed, he has been made aware of it at an age where other children think themselves invincible. But this background awareness of his own mortality and that of those around him has flared to the forefront in moments of loss when grief sank its insatiate claws into his flesh.

Cedric being murdered taught him that death springs up on you from behind, sucking the life out of you before you get the chance to actually live it. No one is immune. No one is ready. It always outsmarts you.

Sirius’s death then tore Harry apart so profusely that his guilt became a separate entity altogether, controlling his thoughts and his actions. His friends, his teachers, everyone in close proximity to him became, in his mind, faceless victims of his future faults.

Like a plague, Harry promises almost certain death to those unlucky enough to be embroiled in his life. And each day, his guilt grows steadily more monstrous, a weighty parasite that infests his mind when he least expects it until, at length, he looks upon his own life as a burdensome curse.

Sighing, Harry places his glasses back onto his face and reaches once more for his Arithmancy textbook, determined to disperse these thoughts out of his mind. Before he has the chance to open the book, however, he winces and raises a hand against the sharp pain that suddenly spreads through his temples, pain so searing and vicious, that his eyes begin to water and his mouth goes dry.

Harry Potter, a hissing voice slithers through him, making his skin crawl. At last, I was beginning to think you were unreachable. I am pleased to see our rapport is not broken.

Harry grits his teeth and catches his head in his hands, willing his raw magic to flare up and outs Voldemort from his mind. It is all in vain, though; the pain in his head slowly grows and the Dark Lord’s voice becomes steadier and louder. After a moment, Harry is almost certain that he is in the room with him.

Do not fight me, Harry, it is futile. This does not need to be painful.

Suddenly his head feels light and the pain is gone. What do you say, Harry?

“Fuck you!”

Such a shame. No matter, there are other ways, I’m sure you know. Intense burning erupts in his scar and Harry whimpers as he slips from his chair and collapses on his knees, hunching over until his forehead hits the cool wooden floor. He grits his teeth and struggles not to cry out loud.

You are right, Harry. I will kill every single person that you care about. I will torture them into madness, I will relish in their screams before I watch the life leave their eyes. And I will send each and every one of them back to you so that you can see what you have done to them. 

“Get out!” Harry whispers because he talking any louder hurts his head. Even the whisper resonates through his mind like a sharp razor, shredding everything it touches, leaving behind bloody trails of open wounds.

Perhaps I shall start with your mudblood friend. Yes, that would go down nicely, would it not? After all, her kind has to be eradicated first. Just like your mother. Do you remember the look on her face that night, Harry? Do you remember the way she looked at you when you pointed your wand at her?

“Stop it!”

I cannot. Only you can stop it. Right now, you have the power put an end to it all. I know you are tired. You cannot win, you know this. It is only a question of time. But ask yourself this: how many more are you willing to sacrifice with your selfish fixation to remain amongst the living? There is nothing left for you here, Harry. Only death. Embrace it and I will spare them.

The pain in his head suddenly vanishes and Harry feels light and strangely inconsequential as if he could float away and vanish into thin air. His mind is numb and his limbs tingle with an odd sensation that courses up and down, not dissimilar from the uncomfortable prickling that usually accompanies pins-and-needles.

He stands on his feet without knowing that he has done so, and starts walking towards his school trunk. Kneeling, he opens the lid and begins rummaging through its meagre contents until he pulls out a shard of broken mirror. Sirius’ mirror. He cradles it in his hands, feeling the faint pulse of a beating heart. A swirl of mad longing flows through him then, and his heart plummets with images of Sirius falling through the veil, dying before his time.

You can see him again, Harry. Wouldn’t you like to spend eternity with your godfather, with your parents? They miss you as much as you miss them. But you can see them again, Harry. The veil that separates the living from the dead is thin, easily shredded. All you have to do is cut through it and you will be back with your mother and father. I can take the pain away if you like.  

“I want the pain,” Harry says, his voice almost robotic; the breath hitches in his throat as he presses the sharp edge of the mirror against the pale flesh of his inner arm. It does not take him long to draw blood and there is something eerily comforting about the sharp pain that accompanies the first cut.

That’s it, Harry, well done. The veil is thinning. Do it deeper, Harry. You are almost there.

And Harry does, because somehow, that cold, slithering voice holds the promise of respite. Harry wants to sleep, wants it all to end.

Deeper, the voice orders and Harry obeys, becoming vaguely aware of a strange sounding alarm going off in the distance, but its sound is muted by his perfunctory determination to cut deeper and deeper.

Suddenly, however, the bedroom door blasts open and the mirror is snatched from his grip. Strong hands grab his arms, hold him, apply pressure to the cut on his arm. A deep, silky voice says something, but Harry can’t hear it. For a moment, everything is blurry and hazy, but then a sharp pain suddenly erupts in his head and Harry groans out loud.

It all comes back to him then, the hissing voice, his lack of control over his own body, the urge to end it all, an urge that isn’t his.

“Voldemort,” is all he manages to croak before a strong presence suddenly penetrates his mind and a tumultuous cool ocean washes the pain away in an instant, splashing Harry with its caring, strong waves, until it covers him completely and he plunges underneath its surface and deeper into blissful unconsciousness.

The last thing he is aware of is the comforting scent of nutmeg and mint.

Harry drifts in and out of deep sleep. Every time he opens his eyes, his vision is blurry and hazy. Sometimes, the sound of his breathing is the only clue that he is still alive. At other times, his senses are overcharged and he is aware of everything around him: the warm blanket covering his body, the soft pillow underneath his head, the sound of pages being methodically turned somewhere in the corner, the noise regular and somewhat crisp. He doesn’t have a hard time guessing who is in the room with him and is strangely comforted by the idea of Snape watching over his sleep.

The soothing, cold ocean that infiltrated his mind and put out the burning pain has calmed and it now resembles a lake. Its shiny, still surface glimmers against the walls of his psyche, a steady defence against outside threats. Sometimes, feelings that are not his own make their way up from the depths of the lake, rippling the surface, the undulations measured and controlled. Guilt, worry and anger seep through his veins and Harry feels each of them as if they are his own until they finally dissipate, leaving him feeling empty and light once more.

He falls into a deep sleep to the sound of Snape flicking through the pages of what is probably an academic journal.

There are no crimson stains in the room and there are no scars on his arm. His skin is pale and smooth as if nothing happened and the blood in his veins flows uninterrupted. It could have all been a bad dream. It’s not like he didn’t have trouble distinguishing between reality and the fictitious construction of his mind before.

Harry traces a finger over his forearm, for once wishing that his trauma-induced Occlumency could drown reality. But no matter how many times he closes his eyes and tries to focus on nothing but his beating heart, Voldemort’s slithering voice anchors him more firmly into reality.

He remembers everything with astute clarity; how it made so much sense to end it all, how the cold, slinking voice with its shrill like tone sounded soothing, almost caring. It felt only natural to obey its commands and he did, because in that moment he wanted nothing more than to be with Sirius and his parents. Death in the guise of salvation. It was a paradox that had made utmost sense to him in that trance-like instant when obeying Voldemort had seemed as natural as breathing in.

Harry’s eyes drift back to his immaculate skin. Outside, the morning dawns clear and bright and rays of sunlight penetrate through the window and illuminate his entire arm in a bright, yellow light. He feels sick. He doesn’t know how long he has been sitting up in bed, staring at his arm. His first conscious thought was that somebody changed his body. It just didn’t add up; he was supposed to be scared and bloodied and the fact that he is not, angers him. Ironically his unblemished skin is an oppressive reminder of his own fragility. The scars haven’t been removed, they have just been buried deep within him where they fester without corrupting the surface.

Lifting a hand to his mouth, Harry begins biting his nails until they are no longer smooth. He then draws them over his untarnished forearm, creating long, pink lines. He doesn’t do it with enough force to scratch through the skin and draw blood, but nevertheless, the oppressive faultlessness is gone after a few minutes and Harry is able to breathe once more.

It is in this seemingly tranquil state that Snape finds him half an hour later when he opens the door and walks into the bedroom. At first, Harry doesn’t acknowledge the Potions Master’s presence, continuing to stare mindlessly at the ceiling.

Snape doesn’t say anything to him as he summons a chair from the desk in the corner, places it next to Harry’s bed, and sits in it, crossing his legs and lacing his hands together. He then pierces Harry with a look that is almost solid in its intensity and after a moment or so, Harry gets so squeamish that he has no choice but to look at the man.

“I take it your mood for the day is pensive as opposed to self-destructive,” Snape says in a dry voice.

“I didn’t mean to…” Harry trails off, suddenly finding himself unable to continue.

Snape, apparently, doesn’t have a problem with wording Harry’s reticence, and he does so in a rather pointed tone, one which makes Harry feel very small. “Kill yourself? How remiss of me not to remind you that you effectively sliced both your ulnar and radial arteries, losing approximately fifteen percent of your blood volume before I could reach you.”

“That’s not what I—“

“Spare me your insipid ramblings, Potter!” Snape suddenly snaps, anger oozing from every pore. He leans forward in his chair, his dark eyes boring into Harry like hot knives. “Have you lost what little brain you used to possess? A first year Hufflepuff would be able to tell the difference between self-harm and attempted suicide!”

“I didn’t attempt to commit suicide!” Harry exclaims, sitting up in bed and eying Snape with re-awakened contempt.

“Then pray tell, what exactly was it that you were attempting to do?” Snape asks in what is possibly his snidest tone yet.

“He made me do it,” Harry says, feeling uncomfortably childish.  

“Nobody can make you do anything you do not want to do, Potter. Not even the Dark Lord.” Snape’s dark gaze is almost burning in its intensity and after a moment or two, Harry bows his head until his fringe covers his eyes.

“He made me want to do it,” he eventually mutters. He looks down at his hands but then closes his eyes because he feels suddenly ashamed of these instruments, of their capability for self-destruction.

For a while, the Potions Master says nothing and Harry opens his eyes against the suffocating silence in the room. Part of him wants to scream, to run and hide from those dark, calculating orbs and their unfaltering scrutiny. He doesn’t want to be seen in such a profound way, doesn’t want to feel so completely vulnerable before Snape. Yet he also longs to be cared for. It is an alien feeling for Harry and one he never fully acknowledged before. Because he always took care of himself. He doesn’t know any other way.

“Do you wish to die, Potter?” Snape suddenly asks, the silky baritone of his voice filling the room and snapping Harry out of his silent musings.

“I want it to be over,” he says, after a moment.

“You did not answer my question.”

“I…I don’t know.”

“You do know.”

“I don’t want anyone else to die for me.”

“Idiot boy! Do you think that the Dark Lord would honour your sacrifice? That Weasley and Granger would be spared should he be victorious?” Snape seethes, his eyebrows narrowing as he pierces Harry with a particularly fierce glare.

“No,” Harry admits. “It’s…it’s a more selfish motive than that.”

Snape raises an eyebrow for Harry to continue. “I suppose if I am dead, I won’t feel any guilt for having precipitated their deaths. I would have paid for it…it would all come full circle. It would be the right thing, for having killed Sirius and my mum and Cedric.”

“You did not kill your mother,” Snape says as Harry frowns in confusion. “Nor did you kill your father or Sirius Black. We’ve been over this.”

“But I did. I…wanted to kill her. I enjoyed killing her!” Harry cries, the conviction feeling suddenly suffocating. He looks at Snape with wide eyes, not understanding how the man cannot see.

“Voldemort killed your parents, Potter. Bellatrix Lestrange killed Black and Peter Pettigrew murdered Diggory. Not you. The memory in which you murder your mother is fabricated. You know this,” Snape persists in a hard voice.

Harry closes his eyes against the man’s words and focuses on his breathing. After a moment, he says: “It feels so real.”

“You need to fight it.”

 Harry nods, but he isn’t so sure he can. 

Snape places Harry’s glass of milk onto the kitchen table with more force than absolutely necessary. He chooses to ignore the way the boy flinches at his display of anger and disregards the look of confusion that spreads upon his features. Because he only has one chance of getting this right.

Turing his back onto the boy, he resumes his preparation of breakfast. Today he chooses to use his hands instead of his wand. Sleeves rolled up, fingers elegantly curled on the knife handle, he chops the onions with the same precision he uses when brewing complicated potions. He can feel Harry’s eyes boring into his back, but he is not yet prepared to acknowledge his silent questions. He still needs some time to think.

Because he had not steeled himself for finding him the way he did, lying in a puddle of his own blood, slicing his arm as though it were an inanimate object. And not long after that, when he tended to his injuries Snape realised that Harry’s guilt is visceral, completely embroiled into his magic and needing a physical release. And, with Voldemort’s input, the boy has made himself the target of his anguish.

Slowly but surely, Harry Potter is killing himself. It is not a figure of speech or an anecdote. It is a fact. It is happening right now, as he is sitting quietly at the table. It has been happening for a while.

Snape ponders on that for a moment as he lowers the omelette base into the frying pan. The way the boy’s hands shake when he is holding something, the purple circles that continue to grow underneath his eyes irrespective of how much sleep he gets, the trance-like state which fogs his mind and numbs his senses; these signs had been there since the start and yet he failed to decipher them. Like he failed to see the dire reality of the boy’s home life. Like he failed to see him.

He cannot fail again.

They eat in silence, Harry glancing tentatively in Snape’s direction from time to time. There is a deep scowl etched into his forehead as he cuts bits of omelette, or takes occasional sips of his coffee. He doesn’t once look at Harry and the more Harry tries to quell the anxiety in his stomach, the larger it seems to grow. He knows that something is wrong; that much is obvious from the waves of tension radiating off the man’s shoulders every time he moves or takes a bite of his food. As his unease grows, Harry finds it harder and harder to swallow down his breakfast, until he sighs loudly and places his fork on the table with finality. Even then, Snape doesn’t look at him.

“Are you angry with me?” Harry suddenly asks, inwardly cringing at how much the anxiety shows in his voice.

Snape lifts his face and looks at Harry somewhat blankly. “No,” he says after a moment.

“But you are angry. I mean…more than usual…”

Snape puts his fork down and regards Harry with a calculating expression as if trying to decide how much information he can share. “There has been a change in circumstances since the last meeting I attended,” he eventually says in a matter-of-fact voice.  

“Order meeting?” Harry asks with a frown.

“No.”

“Oh. Death Eater meeting.”

Snape gives a curt nod and continues to watch Harry intently.  After a moment, he says: “I will no longer be able to provide the Order with information regarding the Dark Lord’s activities.”

“Why?”

“Certain events have enabled him to discern where my true loyalties lie. I hear the price on my head is quite generous,” Snape says, his tone not lacking in hints of resigned bitterness.

For a while, Harry mulls over this information. Then, his eyes widen in comprehension and he looks at Snape with a startled expression. “It’s my fault, isn’t it?”

“No,” Snape says almost immediately, his tone hard. “It is not your fault.”

“But it has to do with you occluding for me?” Harry asks, his eyebrows descending in confusion.

“He recognised my magical signature inside your mind, yes. But Potter, despite what your overwrought mind may choose to believe, my exposure to the Dark Lord is not something to warrant the debilitating sense of guilt you seem to be wallowing in. If you are truly desperate to lament for something, you should start by feeling sorry for what you have been doing to yourself,” Snape says remorselessly.

“My scar had been hurting for days before the attack and I didn’t tell you…I should have told you…I…”

“You are not yourself, Potter. Most days I am relieved you remember how to breathe. Anything else is an added bonus,” Snape says simply before taking a sip of his coffee, the action so mundane that Harry feels as if they are merely discussing the weather.

“But you could die because of me. If he catches you…”

Dark eyebrows snap down in irritation. “If I die, I will do so as a result of my own actions, not yours.”

“I don’t want you to die,” Harry says in a small voice.

“I am not planning on dying just yet. In any case, by the time I do, if it should come to that, your penchant for mental self-flagellation would have waned. That, I promise you,” Snape says, a look of unfaltering determination momentarily flashing over his features.

“That’s not why…” Harry beings but then trails off because he can’t quite bring himself to admit this to Snape. Or to himself, for that matter. It is not supposed to be this way. He was never supposed to look at Snape as some sort of father figure, he just wasn’t. And it’s not the overwhelming feeling of guilt that he fears—it is the idea of no longer having Snape around.

The anxiety must have shown on his face because when Snape next speaks, his tone is almost soothing. “I’m not going anywhere, Harry.”

Harry nods, once, before averting his eyes to his plate. His omelette is now cold and he has no desire to eat it. But he doesn’t want to offend the Potions Master, so he grabs his fork up and starts picking at his breakfast. Suddenly, a red droplet descends onto his plate. It is soon followed by another one. Confused, Harry lifts his hand to his face, but when he looks at his fingers, they are clean. Looking at his plate once more, he realises that it is now almost entirely covered in blood; it begins to slowly spread onto the rest of the table in messy rivulets, momentarily stopping against the edge of his glass of milk before completely surrounding it and continuing towards Snape’s plate.  

Part of him questions if this is all a fabrication of his troubled mind; after all, Snape seems to be completely oblivious to it all. Having finished his breakfast, he is now sipping his coffee and scanning headlines of the Daily Prophet. The newspaper is flat on the table and its edges begin to soak in crimson, but Snape doesn’t seem to notice.

From the corner of his eye, Harry begins to see a figure moving towards him from near the sink. He doesn’t want to turn his head around, doesn’t want to see who it is. An ice like chill begins spreading over his body and before he has time to shiver, a heavy, clawed hand descends onto his shoulder.

Gasping, Harry leaps out of his chair and plasters his back against the wall, swinging an arm up in front of his face to protect himself from the clawed entity. He squeezes his eyes shut and after a moment everything goes still. When he opens them again, green eyes stare back at him from a face contracted in pure hatred.

“Look at what you did to me, Harry! Look!” Lily whispers close to his face, and Harry thinks her breath smells like death. “I said look!” she seethes and as he does, she starts bleeding. The blood first flows from her nose, then her mouth and finally, her eyes, until, at length, she is no longer his mother, but a bloody creature from the depths of his nightmares, clutching onto him like a Dementor ready to devour its prey. “You enjoyed it, didn’t you, Harry? Look! Look at the results of your handy work!”

Harry squeezes his eyes shut.  “No! I didn’t kill you, I didn’t kill you, I didn’t mean to! He made me—“

“POTTER!”

He is shaken so roughly that his eyes pop open. Expecting to see his nightmarish mother, he attempts to flee, but strong hands hold him in place, anchor him into reality. “Look at me!” Snape shouts, his hold on the boy’s shoulders hard and unrelenting. Only when he is sure that Harry can see him—actually see him—does his iron grip relax.

Harry looks up at Snape with scared, feverish eyes, but then recognition flashes across his face and he is able to blink away the terror. “She wasn’t real?” he manages to ask in a small voice.

“No,” Snape replies, his tone taut, his dark eyes looking at him in unmasked consternation. He picks up a napkin from the table and presses it against Harry’s face. “Hold that there for a moment, your nose is bleeding.”

With a shaking hand, Harry holds the napkin to his face as Snape clutches his arm and guides him back into his seat. Once he is certain Harry won’t have another episode, he swiftly opens the door to his basement lab and disappears down the stairs, returning what seems like seconds later with a small phial of amber liquid. Pushing his lank hair out of his face, he holds it towards Harry and says: “Drink.”

Harry does as instructed and it doesn’t take long for the shaking of his hands to cease and for his breathing to become more regular. His nosebleed stops almost instantly and Harry places the bloodied napkin onto the table, glancing at the Potion Master’s discarded newspaper and coffee.  He then chances a quick look at the man himself.

Snape hasn’t moved from his place near the sink. He continues to watch Harry with a mixture of consternation and intrigue as if his mind is weighted down by contrasting possibilities, each as complicated as the other. Then, he lifts his hand, rubs his eyes and leans back against the sink, crossing his arms and looking out of the kitchen window, directly above Harry’s head. When he next speaks, his tone holds hints of bitter resignation. “Her favourite colour was celadon.”

Harry frowns in confusion at the man’s words, but Snape seems so deeply embroiled into his own memories, that he doesn’t dare to interrupt him. “She was wearing a celadon coloured jumper when I met her,” Snape continues, dropping his eyes to stare directly at Harry. “We were both nine.”

“Who are you talking about?” Harry asks.

“Your mother,” Snape says simply.

All blood seems to leave Harry’s face; his mouth goes dry, his eyes widen, and the air in the room seems oppressive. Each time he breathes in, it is like he is inhaling sawdust. “Don’t…I can’t bear to listen…I can’t…”

“You can and you will,” Snape says in a hard voice, piercing Harry with a warning glare.

“You can’t make me!” Harry exclaims, the urge to get as far away from Snape as possible becoming almost animalistic in its intensity. In one swift movement, he leaps from the chair in an attempt to flee the kitchen, but Snape is faster. With a flick of his wand, Harry is briskly levitated in mid-air and propelled back into his chair where he is held in place by a rather potent sticking charm.

“There is no point in struggling, Mr Potter. You will listen to what I have to say,” Snape says, as Harry continues to fight against his restraints.

“You’re a sadistic fucking bastard!” Harry seethes, piercing Snape with a particularly fierce glare. He almost regrets his choice of words when the man suddenly descends upon him like some apocalyptic angel of death, one hand clutching each armrest, his face inches apart from Harry’s. He speaks with his teeth bared and even in his anger, Harry fights the urge to gulp. “Insult me all you like, Potter, it will not change anything. You need to hear this.”

“No!” Harry protests, but Snape pays no notice to him as he straightens himself and backs away, leaning once more on the kitchen counter and crossing his arms as if in preparation for a lugubrious lecture. After a moment, he says: “Your mother and I became friends before Hogwarts. I was, in fact, the one who told her she was a witch.”

“Stop it!”

“Despite being sorted in different houses, we remained good friends. Lily was not only an exceedingly talented witch but also a very kind one. She was popular, but in a different way from your father. Whilst she was admired by many—“

“I can’t listen to this!” Harry cries as mugs and plates begin to shatter, showering the kitchen floor with shards of broken glass. Snape, however, remains completely unfazed by his magical outburst and continues speaking as if Harry hadn’t interrupted him at all. His black gaze pierces Harry as he offers details about a mother he never really knew.

“She never sought the attention or accolades of her peers. She was often sought after, but though she had the occasional lunch with her admirers, she never got too close to any of them. We spent the first four years of our Hogwarts education mostly reading in the library, or brewing together. Lily’s aptitude for Potions was not dissimilar to Miss Granger’s, but unlike the latter, she never flaunted her talent.”

“I murdered her…,” Harry whispers miserably as plates, mugs and bowls continue to shatter around him. He closes his eyes against this intolerable truth, but, moments later, warm large hands cup his face and he opens his eyes to see Snape kneeling before him, his expression pained.

“You did not,” he says in an uncharacteristically soft voice. “She would not want you to remember a lie. Listen to me, Harry. The Lily I speak of is nothing like Voldemort’s fiendish construction. You have to be able to distinguish between them. Just breathe and listen to me.” Snape lets go of Harry’s face then, grabs a nearby chair and lowers himself in it, before continuing to recount his memories of Harry’s mother.

“In our fifth year at Hogwarts, I started mixing with the wrong sorts of people. I was drawn to the Dark Arts and the acclaim they promised. Your mother did not like this, and many times she tried to warn me, but I was too deeply embroiled in my own bitterness to listen to her.”

“You called her a mudblood…” Harry says with a frown, feeling drawn into Snape’s recollection without meaning to. The intrinsic curiosity develops despite the heavy pain growing in his chest. The corners of his vision continue to burn white and part of him screams danger at hearing anything to do with his mother…but the levitating kitchen utensils shattering against one another don’t stop Snape from speaking of Lily. “I can’t…please stop.”

Snape continues, ignoring Harry’s plea for him to stop, “She never forgave me, not that I expected her to, and that effectively ended our friendship. By seventh year she and your father’s romantic dalliance grew serious and they married soon after graduating from Hogwarts.”

“I don’t want to know! I can’t!”

“You have to,” Snape says, fixing Harry with a hard look.

Harry begins earnestly shaking his head and as he does so, plates begin flying out of cupboards and shattering against the walls. Snape swiftly casts a Protego around them as he continues sharing with Harry information about his mother. The shards of broken glass hit the invisible barrier and fall, almost noiselessly, to the ground.

“A few years later,” he continues and Harry notices how strained his voice begins to sound, “I was a Death Eater and blinded by the Dark Lord’s hollow promises. I longed to prove myself, to elevate my status in his eyes. One night, I was in Hogsmeade and overheard part of a prophecy about a boy with the ability to vanquish Voldemort, born at the end of July to those who have thrice defied him.”

Suddenly, the plates stop their self-destructive dance and simply fall to the floor. Everything goes still and quiet, as Harry looks at Snape with newfound understanding.

“You told Voldemort the prophecy,” Harry says after a moment, his voice as dull as he has ever heard it.

“Yes,” Snape rasps, his dark eyes not once leaving Harry’s face.

“So…you’re the reason he came after my mum and dad. You’re the reason they are dead…the reason I grew up with the Dursleys.”

“Yes,” Snape repeats. “I did this to you…to Lily. I am the reason they are dead, Harry. Not you. You did not kill your mother,” Snape says, running a hand through his lank hair, a gesture that betrays his own anxiety. “The guilt you are feeling…it is mine.”

“But she was your friend,” Harry says after a moment. “How could you…sentence her to death like that?”

“I did not stop to consider how the Dark Lord would interpret the prophecy,” Snape says bitterly. “When it became clear that he thought it referred to Lily, I went to Dumbledore in a desperate attempt to protect her. But it was too little, too late.”

“You became a double agent because of my mum?” Harry asks.

Snape gives a curt nod, but says nothing else, averting his gaze out of the window once more, as if looking at the boy seated before him is suddenly too hard. When he next speaks, his voice sounds like it is miles away. “The guilt that you are drowning in is misplaced. Whatever the Dark Lord may want you to believe, you did nothing to precipitate the death of your parents. If you need to channel your blame at someone, channel it at me. It would not be misdirected.”

Harry says nothing as the Potion Master’s confession sinks in. Then, a dull ache begins to spread over his chest and he feels sick. To think that barely an hour earlier he looked to Snape as some sort of father figure…it almost feels intolerable now. He closes his eyes against the poisonous thoughts that begin to form inside his head—things he would like to do to Snape to make him pay. When he opens them again, he realises that his face is wet and his breathing is laboured and Snape is watching him with such intensity that he shudders. He needs to go, needs get away from him, and away from the truth that is now suffocating him.

“Let me out…I can’t breathe…” Harry rasps, feeling strangely detached from his own body. His breathing becomes increasingly harsh as he pierces Snape with a look of pure loathing. Within seconds, the Potions Master lifts the sticking charm and Harry leaps out of the chair and runs from the kitchen, mildly aware of his name being called out. He doesn’t stop to look behind him, he doesn’t care about anything as he reaches the hallway and opens the front door, running out into the clear day, determined to put as much distance as possible between himself and Spinner’s End.

Harry doesn’t know how long he has been running for, but he is painfully aware of the stitch in his side, the pain in his legs and the breathlessness in his chest. Stopping for a moment to catch his breath, he slowly becomes conscious of the fact that he does not know where he is. The houses are scarcer now, and the polluted river is so far off in the distance that it is barely visible. Looking around himself, Harry realises that he has been running uphill and rationalises that he must now be on the outskirts of town, where unkempt nature meets the occasional erection of dirty concrete buildings. Pushing his spectacles back up his nose, he walks off the tarmac road and into the unkempt field to his side, where an old playground stands deserted in the summer morning.

Dragging his feet over to the swing set, Harry deposits himself into one of the rusty swings, angrily kicking an empty beer can off in the distance. He then closes his eyes and catches his head in his hands, feeling the twitching hands of a small headache pulling at his temples. He holds his breath and keeps his eyes closed, fully expecting that, if he were to stay like this long enough, he would simply evaporate into nothingness. How easy it seems now to objectify all his senses, to flatten his consciousness and feel absolutely nothing, to fuse his being with the scene around him, to become part of something inane like the empty beer can now resting against the bark of a tree.

But try as he might to suppress his own presence, Harry finds himself unable to be nothing—to feel nothing. Of its own accord, his mind rushes back to Snape, to the truth that has been divulged. A strange feeling courses through him and Harry doesn’t know how to deal with it. Part of him is angry at Snape for his involuntary implication in his parents’ death. He should have known better, he should have done better. How could he have been so careless? Yet, strangely enough, Harry also feels light, as if a heavy weight has been lifted off is shoulders and for the first time in weeks, he is able to breathe more easily. He feels more attuned to the reality around him than ever before; the ground beneath his feet, the trash around the playground, the swing in which he is seated; these are no longer oppressive reminders of his own fragility. They are simply there.

But they mock him. Everything mocks him for having been so utterly naïve, for having trusted Snape, for having needed him. Harry feels sick and restless even thinking about it. In one swift movement, he stands from the swing and starts pacing around the playground, running a hand through his messy hair. Glancing towards a nearby tree, he suddenly feels an inexplicable urge to go to it, to lay his hand on its chunky bark.

Harry does so, and as he walks around it, he realises that the tree is hollow on the inside and big enough to allow a small person to fit in. For lack of anything better to do, Harry crouches crawls inside and sits on the dirty ground. Almost immediately, his eyes fall on the writing engraved on the inside of the bark and his breath hitches in his throat when he reads the names: Sev and Lily. Petunia smells. Slytherin. Gryffindor. Hogwarts. Home.

An inexplicable feeling of loneliness spreads over him. Tracing his mother’s name with his index finger, Harry’s entire chest begins to tingle with an unfamiliar feeling. He knows it is not his own, and his magical core tremors in recognition.

“Mum?” he croaks.

Nothing happens. Not that he expects anything to happen, but he suddenly feels her there with him. At once, he realises the travesty of Voldemort’s creation. How could he have believed with such conviction, that the Lily in his pensieve was his mother? The real Lily could never be so full of hate, so full of dark magic, so vengeful. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, completely unaware of the wetness around his eyes. “I believed him…I was sure she was you. I’m so sorry,” Harry cries, his palm now completely covering his mother’s name, desperate to be near her, to feel her.

And for a split second, Harry feels comforted by everything around him; the old bark encloses him in a safe cocoon, the summer breeze caresses his face, the ground beneath him pulsates with unconditional love.

After a while, another alien feeling starts growing in his chest and as Harry starts to understand it, it becomes embroiled with his own emotions, until it is no longer so alien. And Harry knows in that moment that his mother would have forgiven Snape. Tracing the professor’s name with his finger, Harry realises that all the anger he had previously felt towards the man is gone. He feels strangely at peace with everything, and as he closes his eyes, he is dimly aware of a soft voice whispering in his ear. It is an indistinctive voice, and he cannot place it, but he knows that it means no harm, and it holds a familiarity he remembers on a subconscious level. He is atoning. He has been saving your life every day. Do not feel ashamed for needing him. He cares about you too, do not be afraid, darling. You can trust him.

When he open his eyes again, Harry knows that it is time to go back. Looking outside, the morning has morphed into early afternoon and sun rays have a calming orange hue. It is the first day without rain since his arrival in Cokeworth. Emerging from the tree, Harry’s feet begin taking him back towards the tarmac road as if they know the way back towards Spinner’s End even though his mind cannot actually remember.

Harry finds Snape seated at the kitchen table, with an empty tumbler before him. A bottle of Firewhiskey stands incongruously next to his ebony-coloured wand which rests on top of his discarded newspaper. Stepping fully into the room, Harry rests his hands on the back of his empty chair, feeling suddenly squeamish. Even in his most tranquil state, the Potion Master’s presence is as imposing as ever. When he turns his head to look at Harry, the room is suddenly full of him. He looks tired.

“You didn’t come after me,” says Harry, trying his best to make his voice sound neutral. The nervousness shows, however, and Snape sighs before he speaks. “I placed a tracking charm on you. I knew where you were the whole time.”

“Right,” Harry says, starting to feel somewhat queasy at the thought of Snape knowing that he lurked inside his childhood sanctuary. “I…I needed time to think.”

“So you did,” Snape replies, his deep voice cutting through the solidifying silence.

For a while, neither of them speak. Harry continues looking at the Potions Master, not quite sure how to brace the subject that needs discussing. For his part, Snape averts his eyes towards the sink and Harry gets the feeling that the professor is giving him time to find his words.

“I…I don’t know where to start.”

“You do not need to say anything. I have written to the headmaster; he will pick you up this evening,” Snape says in a flat voice.

“What?! Why?”

Snape pierces him with a strange look that Harry can’t decipher. “What do you mean, why? Do you not remember anything I recounted to you before you fled the house?”

“Yeah, of course I do. It’s just that…I don’t want to go anywhere else. Sir.”

Snape blinks in momentary surprise before his eyebrows draw together ominously. “Potter,” he begins, “I just confessed to you that I am responsible for the death of your parents. Surely you—“

“But you’re not! Not really. Voldemort killed my parents, sir. Like Peter Pettigrew killed Cedric and--” Harry closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath before continuing, “and like Bellatrix Lestrange killed Sirius.”

“Idiot boy!” Snape suddenly seethes. “It is not the same thing! You cannot compare yourself to me! The things I have done…you have no idea what I was capable of, what I did for him without once questioning my actions.”

“But you’re not the same man anymore. Did you mean for him to kill my mum when you overheard the prophecy?” Harry asks.

“No, but that does not justify or atone my actions!”

“Perhaps is doesn’t justify them,” Harry admits, frowning as the queasiness in his stomach grows.  “But you have been atoning…every day since she died. I know you have. How many times did you save my life since I started at Hogwarts? It’s not as if this is easy for me to admit. I mean, I used to hate you, surely you remember. But I know that she would have forgiven you. And so I do too, Professor. I forgive you.”

Snape stares at the scrawny boy before him for a moment before looking away and saying: “You know nothing, Potter. Save your forgiveness for those who deserve it.”

“Will you stop?!” Harry suddenly shouts, clutching his stomach and trying to ignore the sudden sharp pain that erupts there. “Why is it so hard for you to accept that…that…you can atone for your past mistakes? You risk your life every day for the Order, for me…she would have forgiven you. I know she would have!”

“Harry,” Snape says, standing up from his chair and striding towards him until they are mere inches apart. Placing his hands on the boy’s shoulders, he continues: “there is no doubt in me that you are your mother’s son. She too was kind to those who did not deserve it. And whilst I am touched by your ability to forgive…you must understand that I cannot show the same consideration to myself.”

“I don’t care!” Harry exclaims. “I don’t care how you do it, but you’re going to bloody well get over it and...and accept that I don’t hold it against you!”

“Harry—“

“I need you, okay!” he snaps and immediately flushes at his confession and at the dampness in his eyes. His stomach contracts painfully, but he ignores it. “I can’t defeat him without you! You are the only one who bloody understands what it’s like to be me! So stop wallowing in self-pity and just be here…my mum and dad…this is what they would have wanted. Just be here!” he pleads as the grip on his shoulders tightens.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Snape promises, and Harry draws reassurance from the silky familiarity of his voice.

The feeling of reassurance, however, doesn’t last long, for in the next moment, the sharp pain in Harry’s stomach erupts in fully-fledged agony and he groans, collapsing onto his knees and clutching onto his torso. It only takes a second for Snape to kneel next to him, and he starts saying something, but Harry is unable to make out what it is. There is an ominous ringing in his ears that drowns out everything else and he squeezes his eyes shut against the pulsating ache that continues to grow inside him. 

“I think I’m going to be sick,” he manages to croak before the bile rises up his throat and he retches. The substance that comes out of his heaving mouth is black and cold and through his tearing eyes, Harry can see it trying freezing the portion of the ground it covers. He feels cold and drained and empty as if all the happiness in the world has been absorbed by the black bile coming out of him.

Through it all, Snape’s grip on him doesn’t falter and when there is nothing left in Harry to eject, an overwhelming weakness spreads over his body and he wants nothing more than to sleep for a week.

With a flick of his wand, Snape banishes the strange substance from his kitchen floor and then helps Harry to his feet. “What was that?” Harry manages to ask after a moment, his voice raw and raspy.

“Your magical core expelled Voldemort’s poison out of your system,” Snape simply says as he guides Harry out of the kitchen. “You will be fine.”

“I think I need to sleep,” Harry croaks, feeling the numbing weakness spreading from his stomach to his limbs. Snape’s grip on his arm tightens and before Harry can blink, he is side-along apparated into Snape’s childhood bedroom. Harry’s eyes rest for a moment on the broken pewter cauldron next to the wardrobe, but as he makes his way across the room, every detail is drowned by an overwhelming urge to sleep.

“To bed with you, Mr Potter,” Snape says as Harry lies down and somehow managed to drape the grey blanket over himself. He falls asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow, but, with a huge force of will, he opens his eyes just in time to see Snape heading out of the room. “Wait!” he cries, his voice barely audible.  

Snape halts halfway to the door and turns his head to look at him over his shoulder. “Sleep, Potter. We can speak later.”

“I just want to know if I can stay,” Harry mumbles, his eyelids fluttering with the strain of staying awake.

Snape skewers him with his dark, calculating gaze, and Harry feels as though the man is searching for something. He doesn’t mind Snape seeing what he experienced in the deserted park, but finds that his eyes are struggling to stay awake. After a moment, however, Snape seems to have found what he had been searching for, and he offers Harry a small, definitive nod.

Harry feels relief, and the sensation is strangely overwhelming. There is a flutter in his chest as if his heart skipped a beat and tried to make up for it with five quick ones. Finally, his vision grows foggy and somewhat dim with exhaustion; his eyelids flutter a few times and then close with finality. He falls into a deep sleep almost immediately and for once, he is not afraid of the dreams lurking underneath his pillows.

For the first time in a long while, he knows that everything will be fine.

He knows that he is not alone.