Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Three Wizards and a Muggle

Harry was sitting with Sals curled around his neck as he watched Draco showing Dudley magic tricks. Dudley was nothing short of fascinated, his fear of magic continuing to diminish, but then again, Draco wasn't demonstrating anything terribly threatening. It had started off with floating feathers, and rapidly proceeded to Draco making some Every Flavor Beans waltz across the tabletop. Now he was seeing how many pairs he could make spin at once.

He'd even seen fit to warn Dudley that every flavour meant exactly that, and not to be surprised if the dark brown one ended up tasting like dirt--or worse--instead of chocolate.

Dudley had just shaken his head and said he was off sweets, anyway.

"So what about you, Harry?" Dudley asked when Draco finally let the beans fall. Harry noticed a greenish one that was sort of panting from exertion. He almost laughed.

"Me?"

"Yeah. What tricks can you do?"

"Magic isn't about silly tricks, Dudley," Harry sighed. "Remember the Dementors? For me, it's about survival."

"What he means to say," Draco lightly sneered, tossing jelly beans into his mouth in between words, "is that he's chicken. He can do all the silly tricks he likes, but they might mean someone expects him to do something real. And it's so much easier just to hide in here and let Severus protect him--"

"You stop talking about Harry that way!" Dudley shouted, lurching to his feet. "He's not chicken, he's not! Don't you know it takes a whole lot more guts sometimes to do nothing? Harry could have hexed me a whole bunch of times, and I'd've deserved it, too, but he was brave enough to restrain himself so he wouldn't get expelled from school! And then to protect me from those demon things, he did do some hex or something, and he almost did get expelled! And that was brave, it was!"

"I didn't think you knew about me getting in big trouble for that," Harry murmured, a little shocked by the impassioned defence.

"Mrs. Figg told me. When I said you must not l- l- love me after all, 'cause you didn't show after Dad died, and never even called me, but she said you almost got kicked out of school for me! And I know how year after year school is all you had to look forward to," Dudley cried, wiping his eyes. After a moment of blubbering, he rounded on Draco again, actually stepping forward and jabbing a pudgy finger into the Slytherin boy's chest. "So don't you dare call Harry a coward! Don't you dare, ever! He's not! He's just not!"

Horrified, Harry surged to his feet, yanked Dudley away from Draco, and planted himself between them. "Don't curse him!" he yelled.

Draco could say more with an eyebrow, Harry thought, than most people could say with an entire face. "Curse your cousin?" he scoffed. "When he's the only way of warding this place properly? You're either really stupid to assume I'd do a thing like that, or you truly do think I'm evil. In which case, I'd like to point out, you have to believe Severus is stupid for trusting me. And if you think Severus is stupid, then you definitely are."

"Don't you call Harry stupid!" Dudley shouted out, just as Harry was furiously erupting, "What are you angling for, Draco? It's like you're trying to provoke Dudley!"

"I'm trying to provoke you, you twit!" Draco grated, shoving Harry away with one hand. "Why do you think Severus insults his students? He's giving them a chance to prove him wrong!"

Harry stumbled, then righted himself and glared. "So you thought if you called me a coward, and in front of Dudley, too, I'd suddenly realise I could do magic after all?"

"I thought it was worth a try," Draco sneered. "Well, at least we know why the headmaster sorted your cousin into Hufflepuff. Loyalty personified. But if he hadn't jumped to your defence, you just might be hexing me by now!"

"And you were just going to stand there and let yourself get hexed!"

"Yes, I was!" Draco shouted, planting his feet more firmly.

"Really?" Harry blinked. It felt like the world had just flipped upside-down. Black is white, war is peace, enemies are friends . . .

"I think I can stand a little jelly-legs if it would help you get your confidence back," Draco stated, sounding completely sincere. "And anyway, I doubt you'd let me suffer for long, what with your cousin watching. But Harry . . ." He gave a deep sigh. "You didn't even think of magic. You jumped up and put yourself between us. A Muggle response."

"Well, you shoved me," Harry retorted. "What sort of response is that?"

"A restrained one," Draco pointed out. "I won't hex you even when I'm irritated as hell. But you, not even realizing magic is an option . . . it's very worrisome. Your instinct should be to go straight for your wand."

"It all happened so fast--"

"What about your snake then?" Draco inquired, his gaze going to Harry's neck where Sals still sat wrapped. He shook his head. "You needed an enervation spell, were obviously desperate for one. Did you even think once of trying one, yourself?"

"I knew it wouldn't work," Harry murmured.

"As long as you know that, it won't work, Harry," Draco insisted. "But the magic is still inside you. It's itching to get out, that's what all that wild magic is about, I think. And you're repressing it."

"Don't go psychological on me again," Harry told him, but there was no real heat in the words. He just felt tired. Tired of battling his magic, himself, Draco, even Snape. Everybody wanted things from him, expected things, and sometimes, Harry just wanted out.

But there was no out, he knew that. Not until Voldemort was dead and gone, hopefully for good this time. Until then, Harry was stuck, whether he liked it or not.

"Ask Severus for the book, Harry," Draco said, and then leaning sideways, said, "Everything okay there, Dudley? You aren't still mad? I didn't really mean those things about Harry. See, he got sick lately and it messed up his magic, and I just thought that I could maybe goad him back to normal."

Dudley twisted his lips into a fat pout. "That's not very nice."

"Oh, I know," Draco admitted. "Sit down and I'll explain. See, Harry there's a Gryffindor, and you're an honorary Hufflepuff. I'll get to those later. But me--" His voice rang with pride. "I'm a Slytherin . . ."

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As soon as Dudley understood that Harry was missing class and Draco was supposed to be tutoring him to make up for it, he insisted on letting the other two boys study.

"After all, Harry," he said as he looked up from the deck of wizard cards he was looking through, "catching up to your classmates will probably help your magic come back. You work on your studies. I'll be fine over here."

Harry could have told him that there was a world of difference between dull, dry theory and actually using magic, but he didn't want Draco to start spouting words like avoidance and denial. Again. He went to sit at the dining table with Draco, and they began to go over the in-depth study of dragons that Hagrid was presenting to the sixth-years. From time to time Harry would glance at Dudley. It looked like he was trying to play a game of Patience, but was getting frustrated by the way the cards behaved. One face card--Harry couldn't tell which although by that time his vision was getting fairly good--kept jumping up and running around in circles, wailing that it didn't like its neighbours.

"Harry," Draco chided, so he returned his attention to the breeding patterns of Norwegian Ridgebacks, and gradually tuned out the noise of the cards who were by then beginning to argue amongst themselves.

His concentration was broken, however, when Dudley suddenly yelped out loud. Thinking a card had bitten him--they did that sometimes when you kept moving them to places they didn't want to be--Harry turned. What he saw, though, was Snape gliding through the door, and Dudley rearing back as far as he could into the edge of the couch, his eyes wide with terror, his fat jowls quivering with it.

"Dudley," Harry spoke calmly, going to his side and kneeling down next to him. "It's okay, Dudley. That's just Professor Snape. He lives here."

"H-- h-- h--" Incoherent with fright, Dudley couldn't even talk.

Harry gritted his teeth until they positively ached, and somehow, managed to lay a hand on top of Dudley's shaking shoulder. He squeezed gently, remembering as he did it how much sheer comfort Snape had given him in just this way. "Shh, it's okay. He helped me, Dudley. He saved me from the bad wizards who wanted me dead."

Dudley lifted a quaking arm, pointing, and screeched, "He's a vampire!"

Draco burst out laughing, but cut it short when Snape made a chopping motion with his hand. Without a word, the professor stepped past the terrified boy on the couch, and strode toward his own bedroom.

"Oh, of course he's not a vampire, Dudley," Harry was saying. With Dudley so horribly scared, it only seemed right to fold him into a hug and sort of rub his back. It seemed right, but it was awfully hard to do. Harry felt like needles were piercing him all over, but the sensation faded somewhat as he hung on, rocking his cousin. "We've seen him walk around in the daylight, okay? He eats regular food. He's . . . um . . ."

"I would have thought you could list three characteristics of the common vampire, Mr Potter," Snape drawled from behind him. "I believe the next point in your proof might be, He can endure the sight of a crucifix."

"Oh yeah, crucifix," Harry mumbled, pulling back from his cousin. He saw that Snape was holding one out, a large one wrought in delicate silver. Harry took it, and handed it to Dudley, who, eyes still wide, held it up before him as though to ward Snape off. Snape just stood there looking down at it, dark eyes unblinking.

After a moment Dudley gave it back to Harry. Still shuddering horribly, he said, "Ha-- Harry said there were g- g- ghosts here--"

Snape narrowed his eyes at Harry. "I'd think you'd use a bit better judgment about what you see fit to mention!"

Harry could have told him that Draco had actually been the one to bring up ghosts, but it seemed a pretty petty thing to mention.

"And there was this horrible creature in the fire, all green and wrinkledy-looking," Dudley was going on, wringing his fat hands as though he thought he was in trouble, "and . . . and . . . I didn't hear you come in, and then I looked up and you were just hovering there all black and m- m- m--"

"Menacing?" Snape inquired, his eyes glittering with sardonic light. Harry could tell, he liked the description. Well, all except the vampire part of it. "I'm afraid the students do find me so. But you needn't. I quite assure you, there are no vampires here at Hogwarts."

"I'm s- s- sorry."

"No, none of that. Perfectly understandable mistake," Snape told the quaking boy. He stepped forward quite slowly and extended a hand. "My name is Severus Snape."

"Dudley Dursley," the Muggle boy mumbled, obviously still deeply embarrassed as he pushed to his feet and shook the professor's hand.

"We've been looking forward to your visit, Mr Dursley," Snape replied softly, his whole attitude reminding Harry of Hagrid's gentle way with frightened creatures.

Dudley was in no shape to appreciate it. He promptly burst into tears. Not knowing what else to do, Harry folded him back into a hug as his cousin blubbered, "Mr Dursley was my f- f- father!"

"It's okay, Dudley," Harry whispered. "He didn't mean anything."

Dudley wiped at his face, pudgy fists furiously trying to erase all evidence of grief. "Stupid," Harry heard him say.

"No, it's not," Harry told him. Looking up, he realised that Snape and Draco had left. Thinking they were probably in the Potions lab, Harry urged Dudley to his feet and got him moving. "Come on and wash your face. And then we'll go introduce you properly, okay?"

"I can't believe I thought he was a vampire," Dudley was gasping. "Gah! Stupid, stupid!"

"No, it's not!" Harry said again. "Listen, we actually did have a teacher who was a werewolf once, Dudley, and we still have one who's a ghost, so it's not stupid at all." He wet a washcloth and handed it to him. "This place is really, really strange, and as if that isn't bad enough, you've been told for years how awful magic is, so of course you're jumping at shadows. Besides, Snape startled you! I'd have thought he was a vampire, too!"

"Dresses like Dracula," Dudley muttered. "Spooky. And his face is sort of scary, too. Well, mostly the eyes. Like he's giving you the evil eye."

"Yeah, imagine having him yell at you when you mess up in class," Harry joked. "It's sort of nerve-wracking. But it's true what I told you. He got me away from the evil wizard who was trying to kill me. Well, actually, he's saved my life a bunch of times, Dudley. He isn't going to hurt you."

And when Dudley still looked too scared to go meet Snape properly, Harry did the only thing he could think of to do. He told a story, about nice Professor Lupin, whom Dudley of course knew, and a boggart in a cabinet, and Professor Snape wearing old lady's clothes. He left out, though, any reference to Lupin actually being the werewolf Harry had mentioned earlier. By the time Harry had finished, Dudley was shaking with laughter instead of fear.

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Snape had been entirely himself during his dinner with the visiting Gryffindors, which was to say that he hadn't put himself out to be any less unpleasant than usual. Of course, he had probably figured that the students were perfectly capable of dealing with him on his own terms. In a way, it was an offhand compliment to them, Harry supposed.

The Potions Master definitely wasn't paying the same compliment to Dudley. There wasn't a trace of dark sarcasm or veiled insult as he dealt with Harry's cousin. Harry figured that after Dudley had assumed him a vampire and burst out crying--very Hufflepuff, that--within seconds of meeting him, Snape had decided that Dudley Dursley couldn't handle much more strain. And probably, Snape was right, though it made for an odd evening, watching the Potions Master speak so gently and patiently with a stuttering young Muggle.

Draco was amused by the whole thing, Harry could tell. But of course even Draco was playing into it, treating Dudley like a child much younger than himself when the Muggle boy was in fact a year older. Draco wasn't condescending about it, though. Just . . . carefully friendly and casual. If he was disgusted to be eating alongside a Muggle, he sure didn't let on.

After Harry had finished eating, Sals came slithering out of his shirt pocket and wound herself around his upper arm. Draco didn't hide his disgust at that. He actually pushed his food away, his perfect manners breaking beneath the distinctive gagging sound made. Harry just grinned, and urged Sals down toward his wrist so that he could play a little game he'd grown used to in Grimmauld Place. The snake began winding herself through his fingers, in and out, looping over and around them. It always gave Harry a shivery sensation he really liked. Draco grimaced and looked away.

"Harry," Snape chastised, shaking his head.

"But it gives Draco and Dudley something to talk about," Harry protested. "They both have a thing about snakes."

Draco gave him a sharp look at that, as though he suspected some hidden meaning. Just like a Slytherin, always suspecting a plot. To Harry's surprise, however, Draco appeared to have concluded not only that Harry was trying to tell him something, but also that he should listen. The blond boy turned to the pudgy one, who was eyeing the snake warily but was still eating the large salad he'd requested.

"So, Dudley," Draco smoothly began, "why do you dislike Harry's little pet?"

Uh-oh. Harry hardly wanted Dudley to become a source of endless information on one Harry Potter. "Oh, Dudley doesn't want to discuss snakes," he hurriedly put in.

"Oh, it's okay, Harry," Dudley countered that. "I forgave you a long time ago, you know."

No, Harry didn't know, but at that moment, neither did he care. Before he could figure out a way around it, though, Dudley was recounting, "I used to think snakes were pretty neat. Until Harry set a big ugly one on me, that is."

Draco's voice went deep with interest. "Oh, really? Do tell."

"We were at the zoo for my birthday, and Harry here made a boa constrictor nearly bite off my leg--"

"It only nipped at your heels as it slithered past!" Harry objected.

"Piers always did swear that he saw you talking to it. I guess you were, huh? Is that why it attacked me?"

"Harry," Draco drawled, "that was very, very naughty. I'm surprised at you."

"Harry made the glass front of its pen disappear, and it escaped," Dudley added, shuddering. He stabbed at a bit of radish, the action almost vicious. "He had to stay locked in his cupboard until summer, that time."

"Locked in his cupboard," Draco repeated with an assessing gaze toward Harry.

"Oh yeah," Dudley babbled on. "I used to think he was getting his just deserts. Serve him right, cause he'd make the strangest things happen even though he knew Mum and Dad couldn't stand magic. Did you know one time the engine disappeared from the car?" Suddenly remembering more of that incident, Dudley gave Harry an apologetic look. "I feel really bad now that I didn't at least sneak you some food when they would lock you in for days and days. You must have got really hungry in there, sometimes."

Harry felt himself flushing. "It's okay," he muttered. "Er, water under the bridge."

Draco had put his brass goblet of mead down and looked as though he were trying to figure out something to say. Actually, he looked a bit as though he regretted starting Dudley talking. Then he put in, "Harry, if you could make parts of the car vanish, why couldn't you make food appear in your . . . er, cupboard?"

Either he was a pretty good actor, Harry thought, or Lucius Malfoy hadn't told his son all he'd learned from Legilimizing Uncle Vernon. "It's called accidental magic for a reason," Harry pointed out. "Besides, I didn't even know I was doing it! I didn't know I was a wizard, remember?"

Snape's brows went up at that. "When did you tell Draco that much?"

"Oh, it was in the letter to Dudley," Draco absently murmured.

"I didn't get any letter," Dudley protested, while Harry exclaimed in dismay, "Draco!"

Draco gave a slow smile, and in one heart-stopping moment, Harry realised with horror that the other boy might know how to spell a burned letter back together using Reconstitutio. He did know some pretty advanced magic, in part due to intensive private tutoring he got every summer. Nothing but the best for Lucius Malfoy's son, Harry had thought when Draco had let on about it.

The smile, though, didn't end up meaning Draco was about to whip out the letter and hand it over. It just meant he was being a Slytherin and figuring out how to play the scene.

"Oh yeah, Harry wrote you a letter," Draco drawled. "Actually, that was back when he was completely blind, so he dictated it to me and I wrote it out. And I meant to send it, too, but then I realised I'd written it out in disappearing ink! Harry was so mad. I'm surprised he didn't set a boa constrictor on me. And . . . and then he got sicker for a while so there was no question of rewriting it, er, and . . . oh yeah, by the time he was well enough he knew you were coming to visit anyway, so . . ."

Pretty transparent set of lies, Harry thought, though he didn't much like the idea that Draco was a bad liar. He'd called him that once, back in the hospital wing, but he hadn't really meant it. Now it seemed like it might actually be accurate, and that had implications Harry just didn't want to consider. At all.

"What did the letter say?" Dudley asked, his jowls quivering a bit.

"Just that I was really, really sorry about your Dad," Harry murmured.

"Yeah," Dudley mumbled, blinking a few times. It seemed like he was trying to get his mind off it when he turned to Draco and said, "Um, so how come you don't much like Sals, either?"

Harry didn't really expect the other boy to answer that, figured Draco would fob Dudley off with something vague like I just don't, or She's ugly, Gryffindor colours, you know . . .

Instead, he offered a quiet, "I had a relative of mine set a snake on me, too. I couldn't learn a spell that conjured one. Think I was about oh, nine or ten, and my tutor had complained about it. I had to stand in a full body bind while a cobra crawled all over me. You know what they say, familiarity breeds contempt. Anyway, after that I did learn the spell." Draco stood, then, his hands shaking slightly. "If you'll excuse me, I have some things to take care of." He went into his bedroom and closed the door; a moment later, Harry heard the shower begin running.

"Perhaps you shouldn't taunt him quite so much," Snape broke the silence to say.

Harry nodded, feeling pretty bad by then. He quickly slipped Sals into his pocket.

"You don't have to be an orphan to face a trying childhood," his teacher went on.

"Yeah, okay, I got it," Harry told him.

"Have you? Lucius punished him like that more than once."

"Yeah, well Lucius likes to go for the jugular," Harry muttered, thinking of the needles. It only made sense. Malfoy was an evil, evil man. Whatever your weakness was, that's what he'd use against you, and not even his own son was exempt. It surprised Harry, as he'd always thought Draco was so spoiled. Well, he was, no doubt about it, but Harry figured that he'd also had his share of problems. "Can we not discuss Lucius?"

"Certainly." Snape stood, and said the usual, "I'll be in my office if you need me."

Dudley turned and watched him go. "He's really not much like a vampire at all. Still looks like one, though."

Harry nodded, sighing as Sals shifted in his pocket. How was he to know that Draco had such a good reason to be afraid of snakes?

Dudley finished his salad then, while Harry thought in silence. After a few moments, he went into the bedroom. The shower was still running, but he didn't think he was ready to talk to Draco in any case. He got the wooden box Remus had shipped Sals in, and slipped the little snake inside, then took it back out to the living room and put it on a table in an out-of-the-way corner.

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Later that night, Draco seemed recovered. He was showing off for Dudley again, this time demonstrating how to transfigure the couch into a bed. Dudley was rapt and full of amazement, which of course only made Draco get more and more extravagant with his wandwork and incantations.

"Now, if we want a canopy," Draco was saying, "we really ought to first change the wood to something a bit more stout."

"Oak," Dudley suggested, oohing and aahing as the dark wood faded to a golden hue.

Seeing that the other boys would likely keep busy for quite a while, Harry took his chance to go talk to Snape alone. Although Snape had, almost every night, issued that casual invitation for Harry to join him in his office, he'd never gone before. Sometimes he'd wanted to talk, but the idea of seeing Snape behind a desk had always put him off. It was like . . . Snape would go back to being his teacher if he went in there. Of course Snape still was his teacher, but he was something more now, too. Something Harry didn't really even know how to name. Or maybe he did, but he was choosing not to. He felt shaky and vulnerable just thinking about it, afraid that if he looked too closely, it would go away.

But tonight, he needed to talk enough to fight his way past the feeling.

He stopped at the open door of the office and looked in to see Snape bent over parchments, a quill scratching out comments in red ink as he read. When the man didn't notice him, he tentatively reached inside the room to rap his knuckles against the door.

"Come in, Harry," Snape beckoned, waving him into one of the two chairs that faced his desk. "Your cousin seems to be settling in well. Better than I would have expected."

Harry nodded. "I'm starting to think that he's not really afraid of magic. It was drummed into him, but it was never something that came from inside himself, if that makes sense."

"Quite possibly," Snape agreed.

They fell into a silence then, broken only by the crackling of the fire dancing in the small hearth that kept the office warm. Finally, Snape spoke again. "Did you need me for something in particular?"

"No . . . yes . . ." Feeling utterly defeated, Harry hung his head in his hands and rubbed his temples. "Maybe a headache potion."

"Certainly," Snape said, reaching into a drawer for a small phial. "Drink it all."

Harry downed it, then wondered, "You keep potions in your office, too? Are you ever without?"

"I try not to be," Snape told him in all seriousness, then allowed a smirk to soften his features. "I often mark student work in here, and so I stock my desk with, at a minimum, Headache Calming Draught and Boredom Balm."

"That bad?" Harry asked.

"You tell me." Snape passed him the topmost essay, something from a second-year. Harry didn't really read it; he didn't care what Holly Hornbrown had to say about yeast spores. Snape's comments were what interested him. Is this an essay or a rumination on bread and muffins? his teacher had written. If you are hungry, adjourn to the Great Hall and then resume your homework.

"Draco says you insult the students to prod them into working harder," Harry remarked, looking up. "Is that true?"

Snape set his quill aside and leaned both his arms on the desk as he blandly met Harry's gaze. "In some measure. I haven't given the matter extensive thought, but I did notice early in my career here that a well-placed insult often had a salutary effect."

"But you don't insult the Slytherins," Harry pointed out. "Don't you want them to work as hard as the rest of us?"

Snape's gaze hardened perceptively. "I don't insult them publicly, certainly. There is such a thing as house loyalty. And too, Slytherins don't respond well to being shamed. You might consider that in your dealings with Draco."

When Harry didn't reply, the Potions Master shuffled the parchments meaningfully. "Well. If all you needed was to rid yourself of a headache and critique my instruction, I think we've covered that, so if you don't mind--"

"I didn't have a headache," Harry interrupted. "Well, not enough of one to need help. And I didn't come in here to criticize."

Snape stared at him. "No?"

"No. I just . . . I don't know. I wanted to talk to you."

Snape waited for him to go on, but Harry didn't really know what to say. He didn't even know why he'd come in, really. He'd just known he needed to talk, but not about anything in particular. His mind felt stuffed with conflicting needs and impressions.

"For someone who wishes to talk, you aren't saying much," Snape finally pointed out. Harry nodded wearily and got up to go, but Snape waved him back into his chair, and after a moment longer, softly inquired, "Have I done something to upset you?"

Harry glanced up from his contemplation of his hands. "No, it's just . . . well, maybe you have, actually. Did you tell Professor McGonagall to not let my friends down here very often?"

"It seemed prudent, as they have been known in the past to provoke Draco."

"He's the one who provokes them!"

"I don't believe it was Draco who tried to hex another student into eating slugs," Snape quietly returned, his fingers lightly tapping on his desk.

"He called Hermione a Mudblood!"

"Has he used the word since Samhain?"

"Not that I've heard," Harry grudgingly admitted. "But it's not just my friends from the Tower. You won't let me see Remus, either."

Snape's voice went cold. "He should be strangled for what he did to you."

"No, Lucius Malfoy should!" Harry retorted. "But instead, you arrange things so I have play nice with his son!"

Snape abruptly surged to his feet, the door slamming closed as he waved his wand. "It's warded now," he announced. "What happened to decorum, Harry? Draco is just down the hall!"

Harry felt his lip curl. "That's why I can't talk to you any longer," he cried, jumping up from his chair. "Everything ends up being about Draco!"

"Do not be absurd," Snape rebuked. "I have known him all his life, and I understand the pressure he is under as few can, but he is not my sole concern."

"Could've fooled me," Harry muttered.

Snape shook his head. "Harry. This childishness ill becomes you. I care about you both."

Harry abruptly dropped back into his chair and stared at his teacher with wide eyes.

Sighing, Snape walked from behind his desk and took the chair facing Harry, pulling it so close that their knees almost touched. "Harry. You cannot tell me you didn't realise this. Do you think it my practice to invite Gryffindors to live with me?"

"No, but that was circumstance," Harry murmured. "And duty too, considering that stuff Trelawney blathered out about me."

"The prophecy makes you significant," Snape levelly agreed. "It is not, however, what makes you important to me. I was not thinking of duty when I opened my home to you."

"No?" Harry knew it was bad of him to fish for more, but he felt scrubbed raw inside. He needed more, needed to hear it.

"I am pleased to help you," Snape elaborated, tilting his head to study the boy. "You look . . . distressed that I would say as much."

More silence, Harry hanging his head again, rubbing his temples even though the splendid potion had erased all trace of pain. Snape drew in a deep breath and reached for Harry's hands, pulling them away from his skull to clasp them loosely. "Harry, talk. I still don't even know why you came in tonight. You trusted me at Samhain, can you not trust me with this, too? Whatever it is?"

"I don't know what it is," Harry groaned, clenching his eyes. "I just . . . wanted to see you, without Draco listening to my every word."

"I have wanted that too," Snape returned. "And now we have it. So what is troubling you?"

Harry just shrugged.

"Then I will tell you what begins to trouble me," Snape pronounced, squeezing his hands lightly and then letting go. "You, looking so . . . upset, ever since I mentioned caring."

Harry realised then that just as when he hadn't jumped at the chance to live here, he was in danger of hurting Snape. And Harry didn't want that, even if he didn't really understand how he felt inside himself. "I'm not upset, I don't think," he tried to explain, biting his lips in agitation. "It's more . . . I don't trust it. Oh, not because I don't trust you," he rushed to say. "I don't trust adults, that's more what I meant. I mean, adults who are supposed to care for you. Because . . . well, too many times they just don't."

"Your relatives would certainly bear that out," Snape said, his tones disgusted. Then his voice became more meditative. "But Harry. Black loved you dearly, through all those years of Azkaban, and right up until his death."

"He was never around very much," Harry sighed. "I don't blame him, but the fact remains. And Remus was even worse, in a way. He wasn't on the run, forced to hide. I thought he really cared about me, you know, really cared, not just like I was some promising student or his best friend's son, but cared about me. But I never heard from him, not once through that whole horrid year when I had to compete in that awful tournament."

Snape's dark eyes went even darker than usual. "Lupin really does care about you, idiot though he is, running off for ice cream like that."

Harry had a feeling it had cost Snape something to say that. "I know he cares, but he's not as dependable as . . ." He looked away, changing what he had been going to say. "As I'd like."

"You've never had an adult be dependable for you," Snape murmured. "Or, at least you don't believe you've ever had that. The headmaster cares about you too, you know. Last year he had his reasons for pulling away--"

"Well, that's just it then, isn't it?" Harry crossly erupted. "There are always reasons! Either you're a little freak nobody could love, or your godfather's in Azkaban, or there's Order business that just has to be seen to, or Voldemort might surge up inside you and hurt somebody! All that means is I've learned the hard way not to depend on anybody!" He didn't say the rest, though it was fairly clear by then.

Even you.

Harry waved a hand, wanting to get away from that. "Anyway, I guess I'm so used to having to take care of myself that it's a little unnerving living here like this, with you in charge. And . . . well, I know you don't appreciate my attitude with Draco, and I guess I wonder if sooner or later you'll get fed up with me and decide you can't stand me, after all. Not that I think you'd make me go live in the Tower if it wasn't safe, but . . . listen, I didn't set that snake on Dudley on purpose, okay? And I didn't know that Sals bothered Draco all that much."

Aware that he was rambling, Harry shut his mouth.

"You seem to be under the misapprehension that I merely tolerate your presence here and am eager to be rid of it," Snape quietly said. "Perhaps I gave you that impression when I said Albus had insisted you live with me. But Harry, it was my suggestion in the first place. He was insisting on the plan to Minerva, who did not approve."

"What's her problem?" Harry had to ask.

"Apart from her fear that you and Draco would kill each other inside of a day," Snape explained, "and her mistaken conviction that I still viewed you as another James, she took offence at the idea that House Gryffindor could not take care of its own. I told her the Sorting Hat had wanted you in Slytherin," he added conversationally.

Harry laughed. "Oh, no. Maybe that's why she was so snooty to Ron and Hermione." Another thought chased his smile away. "You don't think she'll tell my friends about that, do you?"

Snape narrowed his eyes. "You are ashamed?"

"No, I just don't think they'd understand." Shaking his head to clear it, Harry went back to their earlier topic. "Um, well I didn't know what I wanted to talk about when I came in; I just felt like I wanted to talk to you. But now I'm wondering if I wasn't realizing I ought to tell you that, um, even with Draco here and all, living here hasn't been er . . . half-bad, though I am starting to go a little stir crazy, I think. Isn't there any way you could let me outside for a while? Oh, but that's not what I wanted to tell you. I just wanted you to know that I really appreciate how you've been."

"Ah, your thanking-people thing," Snape mused. He didn't seem offended, though he did remind Harry, "I don't need to be thanked, or desire it."

"I know, but you've been good about everything, and you've been taking really good care of me--"

"By feeding you and not locking you in a cupboard, I presume you mean?" Snape softly snarled, though the anger wasn't directed at Harry. "I don't know what Albus thought he was doing, leaving you to grow up like that."

"Well, I might have had it bad in a wizarding family too," Harry tried to pass it off. "Like Draco, his father punishing him that way."

Snape gave him a sharp look, as though he suspected sarcasm, but relaxed when he found none. "In some ways," he revealed, "Draco has had worse to deal with than even you. Your relatives expected virtually nothing of you, I suspect, which is wounding in its own way, but he has always been expected to excel beyond what is possible. Serpensortia, not taught here until the upper levels, and for good reason, but he was forced to learn it years before he came. His great animosity for Granger isn't so much because she is a Muggleborn--"

"Oh, yes it is!" Harry hotly disputed.

"He has Muggleborn friends in Slytherin, Harry. Or did, until they feared for their lives if they associated with him. But let me finish. His great animosity for Granger is primarily rooted in the way she outperforms him on test after test. Draco has gone home at the end of each term only to be reviled when his marks weren't first in his year. I believe Lucius has had rather a lot to say on the subject of his son and heir not even measuring up to a Muggleborn, and a girl at that."

"That's just some story he made up," Harry disagreed. "It's ridiculous. How would Lucius Malfoy even know what marks Hermione got?"

"Sitting on the Board of Governors does have its perquisites."

"Doesn't mean it's not a lie."

Snape gave him a hard look. "Draco never has been able to lie well. Disappearing ink, Harry? I don't know what the truth about that letter is, nor do I wish to know, but I am positive Draco did not do something as idiotic as use disappearing ink!"

"Uh, no," Harry quietly admitted.

"Draco has his faults, I will not dispute that," Snape admitted. "He has antagonized you for years, and particularly in the last year, done things that may well be unforgivable. I am not ignorant of his failings. But you do not know as much about him as you think, Harry. He called Miss Granger Mudblood so frequently because he hoped that embroiling her in emotion would make her perform less well in class."

"Still wasn't a nice thing to do."

"No, but he was facing a wizard's wrath if he didn't find some way to rein her in." Snape clenched his fingers into fists. "I don't know all Lucius may have done to punish him, but knowing him as I do, I seriously doubt the cobra was the worst of it."

Harry let out a breath he'd been holding and met Snape's eyes. "Aren't you breaking his confidence, telling me these things? I mean, if his biggest problem with Hermione is his grades, why doesn't he just say so himself?"

"Draco knows you are more likely to listen to me than him." Snape shrugged. "He told me to proceed accordingly."

"Why would he want my trust that badly?"

"You really aren't arrogant in the least, if you have to ask that," Snape sighed. "He's in an enormous amount of danger, Harry. He's been marked for death, which is no small matter in the circles in which he was raised, but he's thrown himself into our camp. He sees you as the leader of the light, perhaps not in a tactical or literal sense, but--"

"He called me the vanguard," Harry remembered.

"Ah. Yes, the vanguard. He is quite literally terrified, I think, that if you do not come to believe in his sincerity, he could summarily find himself thrown back to the lions."

Harry scoffed, "You wouldn't do that to him."

"Of course not, but he is nothing if not a Slytherin. He is looking ahead to a day when your influence with Albus may outrank mine. In all honesty, I think he believes such a day may come quite soon."

"Do you?"

Snape softly laughed. "No. Draco cannot possibly appreciate how very young the both of you seem to Albus. The idea is absurd." He gave Harry a wry look. "I see what you mean. The conversation has wound its way back to Draco as you predicted. Was there anything else on your mind?"

Harry wrinkled his forehead. "Well, it's no big deal, but I was a little surprised you had a crucifix."

"Do not mention this to your cousin," Snape sternly instructed, "but there have been vampire sightings in the Forbidden Forest from time to time. When I used to answer the Dark Mark's call, it was prudent to travel prepared."

The Dark Mark . . . Harry grimaced. Draco had said not to ask, but he felt like he had to. "Do you still get those calls? My own scar hasn't been burning at all."

Snape stiffened and sat back in his chair. "I think your scar will behave as always once your magical abilities have sorted themselves out. As for me, I have found a way to deal with the call. You don't need to worry yourself about it."

"But . . ." Harry hesitated. "Um, are you in a lot of pain?"

"Do I seem so?" Snape haughtily inquired, looking down his nose at Harry.

"No," Harry admitted.

"Then whatever the case may be, I am managing adequately," Snape pronounced. "You are sixteen, Harry, and have spent these past years assuming burdens no one your age should have to bear. This one is mine. I do not wish to inflict it on you."

"All right," Harry slowly said, not because he didn't want to be burdened, but because Snape obviously wished to dismiss the topic. "Um, one more thing."

Snape merely waited while Harry hesitated.

"Draco said you had a book I should read," Harry finally admitted.

"About anything in particular?" And then when Harry looked away, Snape murmured, "Ah, that book."

"He thinks you left it out on purpose," Harry blurted, "so he'd read it and could kind of . . . I don't know, beat me over the head with words like denial and overcompensation and guilt complex. Not that I think he knows what he's talking about, but . . . did you mean for him to read it?"

"No. I was simply tired and laid it to the side without thinking, late one evening." Snape shook his head. "If you spend enough time with Draco, you will quickly understand that he sees plots literally everywhere. A consequence of his upbringing, I suspect."

"Uh, okay," Harry said. He'd have to think about that one, later. "So, can I borrow it?"

Snape assessed him for a long moment, then wordlessly rose and fetched it from a drawer in his desk. Harry turned it over in his hands, feeling more insecure than ever.

"Um, do you think I'm . . ." Harry cleared his throat. "Sort of mental, after Samhain?"

"No. That's not what the book is about, Harry. If Draco has implied as much--"

"No, he didn't," Harry admitted. "He acts like he really wants to help."

"My impression as well. As for the effect Samhain had on you, I would say you're coping admirably." A small smile curled his lips. "Ah, but I remember. You don't read between the lines quite like a Slytherin would. You need to hear me say well done, as I recall. It was good to see you able to embrace your cousin, Harry. That was well done, indeed."

"You were really great with Dudley, too," Harry murmured. "He'll never believe me that you yell in class, I don't think."

"I do not yell. I lecture," Snape elucidated in a carefully bland tone. "And, I will admit, I try to guarantee that students with no facility for Potions are thoroughly discouraged from dabbling on their own. I am thinking purely of their future safety, of course."

"Oh, of course," Harry agreed, just as blandly. "Well, I'll leave you to mark your essays, I think. Thank you, Professor."

Snape stood up when he did, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You are always welcome to come talk with me, I hope you know. It is a bit awkward at times, with Draco, but the office door does ward itself with silencing spells the moment it closes. We can speak of anything, in here."

Harry nodded, and tried to pull open the door, only to find that it needed magic to open. Thinking of Draco's complaints, he pulled out his own wand and tried, before appealing to Snape.

"It will all come back, Harry," his teacher assured him as he performed the required spell.

The hall and living room were dark as Harry sneaked through them, past the ostentatious four-poster that had replaced the couch. He slipped into his own room, and found his pyjamas in the dark, slipping into bed a moment later. He'd thought Dudley was asleep, but the other boy murmured, "That you, Harry?"

"Yeah."

"Do the ghosts come out at night?" Dudley sounded worried, Harry realised.

"They won't come in here at all," Harry assured his cousin. "Professor Snape's a really great wizard. He has protection spells all over his rooms. They can't cross them."

"Glad you're in here, then," Dudley murmured, rolling over to go back to sleep.

Yeah, so am I, Harry thought.

Chapter End Notes:

Coming Soon in A Year Like None Other:

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Sometimes It Just Takes a Muggle

~

Comments very welcome,

Aspen in the Sunlight


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