Something was nudging his arm. Harry swatted at it irritatedly.

“Potter,” came a soft voice from above him. “Wake up.”

Was he sleeping? If so, he didn’t want to wake up just yet. He mumbled incoherently and burrowed his head into his arms. That made his neck hurt though, which drew him further away from sleep. Why did his neck hurt? He groaned.

“I’d ask why you are sleeping in the hallway when you have a perfectly decent bed of your own, but as I’d no doubt be treated to a long-winded adolescent tale of which I have no interest in hearing, I’ll direct you to return to that bed immediately.”

Harry tried to process the too-long sentence in his sleep-hazed mind, but he couldn’t make sense of it. He lifted his head and blearily blinked the world into fuzzy focus. He felt his glasses being nudged into his hand, and he obediently put them on. He blinked a few more times and looked up to see Snape kneeling in front of him.

“What’re you doin’ ‘ere?” he slurred and yawned. He stretched his arms out and then realized where he was. In the hallway outside the potions lab. Last night’s nightmare and early morning wandering came back to him in a rush, and he tried not to show his embarrassment. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep out here, just to sit for a few minutes to think.

He looked up at Snape through his fringe, trying to gauge the man’s mood. Irritated? Angry? Harry still didn’t know if he was forgiven for the other night, plus he didn’t imagine Snape would like him to be around after his Dark Mark confession.

But Snape didn’t look irritated or angry. He just looked a little confused, and something else…resigned, maybe? To what, Harry wasn’t sure. The professor sighed. “Go back to bed, Potter.” He rose to his feet, pulled an old-fashioned key from his pocket, and slid the key into the lock of the door to the laboratory.

“You weren’t in there already?” Harry asked, still trying to make sense of the waking world.

Snape glanced at him without opening the door. “Contrary to popular belief, professors do not live in their classrooms or laboratories. For future reference.”

Harry slowly stood, stretching out a twinge in his back at the movement. Sleeping like that really hadn’t been a good idea. Snape stared, and Harry shifted his feet when the man’s eyes lingered on him. Harry was still barefoot and in his pajamas, and he felt like a little kid under the professor’s gaze.

“Go to bed,” Snape finally repeated in a tired voice and turned back toward the door.

“I wanted to talk to you. Sir,” Harry said quickly, before he could lose his nerve. He didn’t have much to lose by taking Hermione’s advice to talk to Snape about last year. And who knew when he’d get the chance again, with the older wizard obviously getting set to avoid him again.

“Hmm. I suppose one might deduce that from the blatant loitering.” Snape half turned back to look at Harry. “I did tell you that Dobby could summon me if you had any true need, did I not?”

“Yes, sir,” he murmured, thinking that he’d rather the man would just answer the door when he knocked. He wondered if Snape would have talked to him sooner than last night if he’d enlisted Dobby’s help. Probably not.

“Have you had a vision?” Snape asked, eyes narrowed and watchful.

“What? Oh. No. No vision, not since…you know…” he trailed off, not wanting to think about the attack on the Burrow. “No dreams either,” he added, sure that was always going to be the next question.

Snape just watched him again with those dark eyes of his, and it was more effective than any interrogation technique.

“I had a nightmare,” Harry admitted reluctantly. “That’s all it was though. Nothing from him and nothing about the future or anything.”

“You are certain?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure.”

“Is the Dreamless Sleep no longer effective?”

Harry cleared his throat. “I…I didn’t take it last night. Didn’t want to take it unless I had to.”

“Not too proud to ask for the potion, just too proud to take it?” Snape turned to face him fully. He crossed his arms and leaned against the door, and Harry couldn’t tell whether the man meant the words, but he didn’t like how they sounded.

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Not too proud. But you mentioned it can be addictive, didn’t you? I didn’t want to overdo it.” He was trying to be responsible about using the potion, after all.

Still, Snape scoffed. “You can take it occasionally, Potter. If it weren’t safe, I wouldn’t have given it to you. Just don’t drink the entire bottle at once, and don’t use it every single night, and you’ll be fine.”

Harry ducked his head and fiddled with the hem of his too-large shirt. He wasn’t about to admit that he’d had reasons to want to take it every single night lately. But the professor was too perceptive for his own good and figured it out on his own.

“Ah,” said Snape, and Harry avoided his eyes, not wanting to discuss his increasingly frequent nightmares. Snape cleared his throat. “Well. A few nights in a row should not present a problem. No more than three, to be safe. Take it for the next three evenings, then skip one. Perhaps you’ll find that you don’t need it quite so often once you are better rested.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you,” Harry said quietly and nodded. At the thought of three nightmare-free nights in a row without worrying about any side effects, he let out a small breath of relief. Then he had a thought and chanced a glance at Snape. “Do you use it?”

“What?” Snape was obviously taken off guard.

“Do you ever take Dreamless Sleep potion?” Harry repeated, not sure why it mattered to him. Maybe it was because Snape seemed more human to him now than he had in years past. He may always be a git with a horrible temper and a nasty sarcastic streak, but he had to have his own thoughts and emotions and struggles. Probably nightmares too, after so many years in Voldemort’s service. Harry felt a twinge of sympathy for Snape at the thought. Nightmares, especially ones involving Voldemort, really were the worst.

Harry tensed at the sneer he saw forming on Snape’s face, but surprisingly, the man hesitated another moment before wiping the sneer from his face and admitting, “Yes.” But it was clear that he didn’t intend to share more than that. “You wanted to speak with me about something? Something else, I presume?” Snape raised his eyebrows, obviously waiting for Harry to get on with it.

“Um, yeah. So…” he stifled a yawn and searched for something to say. He nearly cringed as soon as he heard the words, “You probably read a lot,” come out of his mouth.

Snape stared at him for a moment. “You wished to speak with me about my reading habits.”

“No,” said Harry quickly. “Well…I mean, it just occurred to me that you’re right, what you said before. I’ve never really thought too much about what my professors do when they’re not in their classrooms. I was just thinking…I bet you like to read a lot. When you’re not making potions, I mean.”

Harry thought he might have made Snape speechless, as the man continued to stare at him, lips slightly parted. He probably should have known better than to keep talking, but he was too nervous to stand in silence. “Do you read fiction? Like, novels and such? Or just magical nonfiction. Or history, maybe? Aunt Petunia likes novels, but she likes the frilly kind. I tried to read one once, but nothing even happened except this crazy flower lady going on and on about wanting to snog some boring bloke. I bet you’d be more the Dickens type.”

“Who?” Snape asked, his brows lowered.

Okay, maybe not.

“What do you want, Potter?” Snape demanded, clearly confused as to why Harry Potter had sought him out in order to ask if he had nightmares and what novels he’d read lately.

“I wanted to speak with you, sir,” he repeated, though he was starting to wonder if he should abandon his plan before he made more of a fool of himself.

“I believe we covered that. Did you have a particular topic in mind, or was it your intent to prattle on about my personal life at some length?”

“I…um, had a particular topic in mind, sir.” Harry felt his cheeks grow hot. He was making a right mess of things, and he hadn’t even started yet.

Snape motioned for him to get on with it.

“Maybe…in your lab? Sir?” Harry glanced sidelong down the hallway. He could hear the telltale sounds of a household beginning to stir. People generally avoided this hallway, but he didn’t fancy being overheard just the same. He must have succeeded in arousing Snape’s curiosity at least, for after a brief hesitation, the man opened the laboratory door and motioned Harry to follow him inside.

Harry closed the door with shaking hands. He put them behind his back so Snape wouldn’t see how nervous he was, but he supposed he was rarely successful at hiding his emotional state from the observant professor.

Snape turned on the lights with a flick of his wand and leaned his back against the counter, arms crossed. His steady gaze settled on Harry, and he waited.

Harry swallowed. Now that he was here, all the words he’d haphazardly rehearsed yesterday fled his mind, and all he could think about was Snape’s inevitable explosion once he dared bring up the events of last year. Ugh. Well, he’d gotten this far. Better just dive in.

“Iwantedtopolgize,” he blurted out.

Snape’s forehead creased in confusion. “Pardon?”

Harry took a breath and forced himself to say in as normal a voice as possible, “I wanted to apologize.”

“You already did.” Snape pointed out, adding a frown to his forehead crease. Harry took a deep breath of fortification. Great. He’d barely started, and already the man’s face was crinkled up with lines. As soon as the man added a squint or sneer to the mix, Harry would be done for.

“Yeah - I mean no. I did, but I didn’t mean about the other night.”

“Then what for exactly?” Snape’s face took on a guarded look, which at least smoothed out some of those worrisome frown lines.

Harry cleared his throat. “About last year-”

“Think twice before bringing up the events of last year, Mr. Potter,” Snape cut him off in a low voice, and Harry shuddered at the dangerous undertone. “Some things are better left in the past.”

“I know…” Harry walked closer to him and pleaded with his eyes. “Just…please? Please let me explain, and if you want to get angry and throw me out, I won’t blame you this time, but first just let me get it out. Please?” Snape’s lips were clenched, which Harry took as a very, very bad sign, so he rushed on without thinking of the consequences. “Things have changed between us this summer, professor. They have, and we both know it. Don’t worry, it’s not like I think you…you know, care about me or anything…but maybe now you know I’m not some brat always trying to make your life miserable or get into trouble just to show off. I’m just a kid, Professor Snape. Really. And sometimes kids do stupid stuff. But…but that doesn’t mean I go around trying to hurt people or that I don’t regret it when I do.”

Snape’s lips were turning white, but he hadn’t cut him off, so Harry charged on. “I’m just asking…please let me explain why I did what I did last year, and apologize because I know it was wrong, and then if you want, you can kick me out and tell me to never knock on your door again, and I promise I won’t. Not here, not at Hogwarts.”

Waiting for Snape to answer was the hardest part of this whole ordeal, but Harry forced himself to be quiet and let Snape take measure of him through narrowed eyes. Finally, Snape said, “Speak. Be concise. You have five minutes.”

“Okay,” Harry breathed and backed up a step. “Okay.” He didn’t know if Snape would literally kick him out after exactly five minutes, but he wasn’t going to chance it by taking his time. “Last year wasn’t a…um, good year. Nobody believed me about Vol- him returning, and Professor Dumbledore and the Order weren’t telling me anything, and I kept having those dreams.” Harry looked at Snape, but the man seemed made of stone, listening but not reacting. Harry could see right away that this was going to be a five-minute monologue.

“I know it sounds like I’m whining,” he said, “but I’m not trying to. I just…wasn’t in a good spot, you know? I was frustrated, and he was always there, in my head, and I was just supposed to go to classes and put up with what the papers were saying about me, and be content not knowing anything even though he might reach out at any moment and grab me or kill my friends or-” Harry cut himself off. Five minutes, he reminded himself. He only had five minutes. “I wanted to know what you all were so keen to hide from me about the Department of Mysteries. That’s why I looked into your Pensieve.”

Snape flinched almost imperceptibly but otherwise made no reaction to Harry’s confession.

“I know it’s not an excuse. I know I shouldn’t have looked no matter what, but I swear I wasn’t trying to pry into your personal memories, professor. Even though we never got on, I wouldn’t have taken a look if I hadn’t thought it was about the Department of Mysteries, about him. And…I wouldn’t have stayed, except I saw my dad. He was my age, and I wanted…” he trailed off, gesturing feebly. “I just wanted to see what my parents were really like, for once. Have one memory of them outside of photographs. I don’t even have anything that belonged to them except my dad’s-” he cut himself off, certain that he’d regret it later if he brought up his dad’s invisibility cloak.

He took a breath for courage and got back to the point. “I’m sorry, Professor Snape. I’m so sorry for looking at your memories without your permission. And…I just wanted you to know that I never told anybody what I saw except for asking Remus and Sirius why my dad was so awful to you.”

Harry had known that apologizing was going to be difficult, but he hadn’t imagined how difficult it would be to apologize to a stone wall. Snape’s features were unchanged, and he hadn’t looked at Harry once since he’d started talking. Not knowing how Snape was taking his words made Harry ten times more nervous than if he’d been faced with an angry, unforgiving Snape. He wiped his damp hands on his pajama bottoms.

“I’m sorry for what my dad did, too,” Harry said softly. Snape hadn’t thrown him out yet; he may as well go for broke. “I don’t care what rivalry you two had or how young he was, he had no right to treat you that way. Sirius too. I…I don’t like bullies. And I’m sorry my father and godfather bullied you.”

He stopped talking and stood expectantly for a few seconds before saying, “That’s…uh, that’s it. I’m done.”

Snape finally unfolded his arms and stood up straight. His face was still made of stone. “Then get out,” he said without emotion.

Harry’s face fell. “You mean, like…get out, get out?”

Snape didn’t say a word, but he didn’t have to. He shot Harry a glare that spoke volumes. Harry didn’t have to be told again, and as he left and closed the laboratory door behind him, he saw Snape turn around and grip the table, his back rigid, his head bowed.

The rest of the house was stirring when Harry left the lab, and as soon as he saw the twins leave their bedroom, he went in and threw himself onto his bed. He skipped breakfast, trying to clear his mind by staring at the ceiling. It didn’t work.

By the time he changed and climbed up to the attic, he didn’t see how he’d have any emotional energy left to clear his mind of emotions. That didn’t even make sense, he supposed, but it was true. Not only had he put his heart into apologizing to Snape, he’d been ousted without a word of acknowledgment. He miserably realized that asking for any more Occlumency help from the professor was most definitely going to be out of the question

When he walked into the small, dusty room, however, he was met with a surprise. Not one, but two girls were seated on the floor before his Occlumency book, poring over a page.

He cleared his throat.

“Oh, Harry!” Ginny turned around, her red ponytail whipping over her shoulder. “We wondered where you’d gone.”

Hermione gave him a slightly apologetic look. “I asked Ginny to help us with the exercises in chapter nineteen. Of course, it would be easier if we could perform magic during holiday…but as that isn’t an option, a helper is the next best thing. I hope you don’t mind. The twins said you weren’t in your room, and I wasn’t sure where you’d gone, or I’d have asked first…”

Harry paused, uncertain, but took in Hermione’s hesitant demeanor and Ginny’s hopeful look, and nodded. “Of course she can help.” Ginny beamed, and Harry felt a little bad for not asking her to help earlier. Maybe it would have taken her mind off Ron to be away from her family’s grief more, and focused on a project. Even if that project was Harry.

“So. What did you come up with?” He sat on the floor across from the girls. He peered at the page but couldn’t make much out upside down.

“Well,” Hermione began, “I was thinking last night about how the mind clearing and mind strengthening exercises are probably too similar to one another. So it follows that if you’re having trouble with one, you’d of course have trouble with the other.” She sounded as if she was berating herself for not realizing it sooner. “Maybe what we need to do is to go in a different direction altogether.”

“A different direction, like what?” Harry asked. He was trying to remember what chapter nineteen had been about. He’d read it, but he’d read too many chapters by now to remember which one was which without looking it up.

“The senses. I thought about what you said, about how Snape figured out your dominant sense, and since you’re more of a tangible person, a sensory learner, I thought we’d go back to that and work on some focus exercises.”

Harry looked away, hoping that his discomfort wasn’t showing on his face. He’d told Hermione about his conversation with Snape, but he’d made it sound like a talk they’d had in the lab or over the dinner table. He’d been too embarrassed to admit that Snape had all but tucked him in to bed. A sixteen-year old boy had to have his pride, after all.

“Okay…so what did you have in mind?” Harry asked, suddenly wary and embarrassed all at once to be discussing with two teenage girls how to use his sense of touch to occlude. He’d already had enough awkwardness for one day.

Hermione slid the book so that it was in front of just her and motioned Harry to scoot himself to sit directly across from Ginny. “Put out your hands, like so,” she directed, demonstrating with her hands out in front of her, palms up.

Harry did so, and Ginny lightly placed her hands over his. He tried not to fidget at the almost-intimacy. Not that Ginny was unattractive, but he didn’t really want to essentially hold hands with her while her brother, his best friend, was comatose downstairs. He almost took back his hands, the thought made him so uncomfortable. Looking at her face though, he changed his mind. She seemed happy to be helping him, and she wasn’t being at all giggly or girlish like some of the girls back at school would have been. She was being…a friend.

He took a settling breath. “Okay, what next?”

“Close your eyes,” directed Hermione, her eyes flitting across the page in front of her. “It’s not a complicated one to start. Just try your best to filter out all of your other senses and focus on your sense of touch. It says here we could use anything, really, to focus your touch on…the floor, a ball, a chair…but human or animal touch works best for beginners. Reminds one to focus on a living, breathing body rather than on the multitude of other things your skin is in contact with, which is quite a lot when you think about it…” She trailed off as she looked up to find both Harry and Ginny staring at her with a mixture of amusement and impatience. “Oh. Right. Sorry, on to the exercise. Close your eyes, Harry, and try to focus your thoughts on your hands alone.”

He closed his eyes obediently and tried to focus his mind on the feel of hands on his. He thought about their warmth, about the fact that he could feel them moving slightly as they balanced atop his own. He could hear all three of them breathing, too. He smelled the mustiness in the air mixed with soap and some kind of fruity shampoo. He worked to block out those thoughts, focusing in only on the hands. Just the hands.

A few minutes later, Hermione told him he could stop. “Did it work?” she asked hopefully.

“I think so.” He grinned at her excited smile. “It wasn’t perfect, but…I think having something tangible to focus on was easier than just trying to clear my mind, full stop.”

“Okay, let’s try again,” she directed with more enthusiasm than before.

Harry tried variations of the simple exercise over and over for the next hour, with Ginny’s help, while Hermione looked up sensory focus exercises to work on next.

“Here’s one,” she said while he and Ginny were taking a break. “The book says to prepare yourself mentally by focusing on a particular emotion. An emotion tied to a memory is best - stronger, so easier to hold on to. Then, when you focus your mind in on the hands, try to focus on both at once - the emotion and the touch. Try to meld the two together.”

Harry stared at her. “Meld the two together? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well…maybe it’s about where you mentally place the emotion?” she thought aloud. “Like, when you’re angry, you probably feel it almost like a tangible weight in your chest, right? But when people lash out, sometimes they push that rage into their extremities. Not like when they simply hit things,” she rushed to explain, “but almost physically, they can feel the anger curling their fingers and their hands shaking with it. Maybe it’s something like that? Try to feel the emotion leaving your heart and residing in your hands, maybe?”

“How am I supposed to feel an emotion in my hands?” he asked incredulously. He held up both hands as if to prove a point. “They’re hands!”

Ginny coughed, and Harry shot her a good-natured glare. He was sure she’d coughed to cover up a laugh.

“Well I don’t know, Harry!” Hermione threw up her own hands. “I’m not an Occlumens, you know. It’s the best I can come up with to explain what I think the book means.”

Harry knew she was doing her best and told her as much in an apologetic tone, but when he tried the exercise, he couldn’t quite understand how to channel emotion into a physical place in his body. And the longer he tried to focus on his sense of touch, the more the fruity scent of shampoo invaded his senses and threw off his concentration.

After working all day and only breaking for lunch, the three of them were mentally exhausted by mid-afternoon. Even Ginny, who only had to hold her hands in place for Harry or be a sounding board as Hermione sifted through sensory focus theories, looked ready to curl up for an afternoon nap. When Hermione suggested they all pack it away and relax in the drawing room until dinner, even Harry agreed. As focused as he’d been on studying and practicing over the past few days, he wasn’t sure how much more his mind could take without breaking into a million pieces.

He was starting to feel a bit dramatic too, apparently. Focusing on one emotion after another for three hours straight could do that to a person.

“Exploding Snap?” Ginny asked hopefully on their way down the stairs, and for the first time in days, Harry felt as if he’d earned himself a guilt-free break.

And it did feel nice to relax for once, Harry thought as he lay on the sofa an hour later. He’d bowed out of the latest game of Exploding Snap, but Fred, George, and Ginny were still playing. Hermione was curled up in a chair across from him with a book across her lap. He smiled a bittersweet smile at the sight. Nobody was exuberantly happy - sadness still shone through every laugh and every bout of good-natured teasing - but all of them being here together, enjoying each other’s company, was about the best feeling he’d had in days.

A card exploded to a round of laughter from the twins, and Harry closed his eyes with a small smile, blocking out the light with an arm flung across his face.

He barely registered the sound of the door to the drawing room opening, but he opened his eyes when all sounds of exploding cards and laughter stopped.

Snape was standing in the doorway, his imposing presence causing even the twins to stare in awkward silence.

“Potter. A word,” Snape said and then was gone, the door open in a clear order to follow him.

Hermione gave him a look of encouragement as he stood uncertainly, but it didn’t help that all three Weasleys watched him with sympathy as if he were headed to his own execution.

Snape was waiting for him at the foot of the stairs and didn’t look at Harry as he gestured for him to follow. They silently made their way to the potions lab, and Harry couldn’t help but wonder if an execution might actually be preferable to the uncertainty of what awaited him after his fiasco of an apology that morning. Snape wasn’t giving him a clue what to expect. He held himself stiffly, but that was how the man usually held himself when he was around people. The only time Harry had seen him let down his guard and truly relax had been when he was so wrapped up in his potions making that he wondered if Snape had forgotten Harry was even in there with him.

Snape motioned for him to enter the lab first, and he jumped slightly when the man closed the door behind them.

Harry shifted nervously on his feet as Snape walked over to the counter, picked up what looked to be an old envelope, turned it over in his hands a few times, and abruptly put it back down. He turned to face Harry, watching him for a moment in silence.

Harry was so nervous, he halfheartedly thought about asking Snape if he was more of a Shakespeare fan, just to break the silence. He bit down on his tongue. That didn’t seem like something that would go over well under the circumstances.

Snape finally spoke in his most formal tone of voice: “It has become increasingly apparent to me of late that for some years now, I have been operating under a misapprehension.” He paused, looking away from Harry briefly before crossing his arms and looking him full in the eyes, as if resolving to do so.

Harry frowned in confusion. That didn’t sound like a response to his apology. He had no idea where Snape was headed with this.

Snape lifted his chin slightly and said, “As you bear James Potter’s name and likeness, not to mention his penchant for mischief, I presupposed that you likewise shared the same character and disposition. My assumptions were based on faulty and incomplete information, not to mention personal bias to that effect, and as such, I shall endeavor to rectify the situation and henceforth form conclusions based on my observations of your words and deeds and not upon my memories of your father’s.” He stopped and held himself even more stiffly, apparently waiting for some sort of acknowledgment.

Harry stared. It took him a full minute to work out what Snape had said. Unless he was mistaken, Snape had just full-out admitted to Harry that he was wrong about him, that he wasn’t a carbon copy of his father. That alone made Harry feel like his feet had been knocked out from under him. It was the last thing he’d ever expected Snape to admit out loud. Even though they’d been getting along marginally better, for the professor to admit that, not only to himself, but to Harry, was huge. Like, Voldemort-wanting-to-be-friends-with-Harry sort of huge.

But…was that overly formal speech supposed to be an apology? Like the day before, Harry couldn’t tell, but he kind of thought that it was. And if it was, then Snape was really, really bad at apologies. It sounded like he’d rehearsed it beforehand, too, and Harry would have found the image amusing under less shocking circumstances.

On the other hand…Snape didn’t seem like the sort to make apologies…to anyone…ever. In which case, all things considered, maybe it actually was a very good apology.

Harry cleared his throat. “Uh…” he began ineloquently, then stopped when he realized that was all he could think to say. He had a little bit of sympathy now for Snape’s rude dismissal earlier. He felt like he needed a week, at least, to think over what Snape had said and to come up with an appropriate response.

Snape didn’t show any sign of speaking first though, and Harry knew from experience that the man was far better at waiting out uncomfortable silences than he was.

“I…uh, thank you, sir,” Harry finally said, hoping that was adequate, at least for now.

Snape briskly nodded and, after a brief hesitation, snatched up the old envelope off the counter. He surveyed Harry for a few seconds with an unreadable expression. “I found this. Don’t read anything into it; I just thought you’d want to have it. And don’t ask me where I found it. I don’t remember.” Snape thrust it into his hands, then ushered him out of the lab and clicked the door shut behind him.

Harry stood alone in the hallway for several seconds, stunned by the quick succession of an unusual apology, a mysterious gift, and his hurried dismissal. He realized his jaw was hanging open and he snapped it shut. Now that he was out from under the watchful eyes of the professor, he thought of all sorts of questions he wanted to ask him. Not least of which…did this mean that Snape accepted his own apology?

It seemed that Harry’s confession had prodded Snape in some way to reciprocate. Harry’d had no idea that his words would have such an effect, and he wasn’t sure what to think of it. Of course, he supposed that Snape hadn’t come to his conclusions about Harry overnight. But even if Snape had come to realize he was wrong, and even if he was able to overcome his pride, Harry couldn’t ever have imagined Snape wanting to - how did he put it? - rectify the situation. The man never seemed to care what people, least of all students, thought of him. He’d certainly never worried over what Harry thought of him. Or shown any regard for Harry’s feelings. Why then was it suddenly important enough to Snape to formally confess to his past mistakes and…well, essentially promise to do better?

Why would he even care enough to do so?

Harry had felt a lot of confusion over the past several weeks, but he’d never felt as overwhelmingly confused as he did right now.

In an effort to distract himself from his thoughts, he turned the envelope over in his hands. It was folded, wrinkled, and slightly browned with age. It was also lumpy.

He couldn’t contain his curiosity. He opened the envelope and shook a piece of paper and a small heart-shaped stone into his hand. He rolled the stone over between his fingers. There was nothing special about it, apart from its shape. It looked like any other stone one might find on the ground, though it was smooth and well-worn, as if handled many times over the years.

The letter was written in an unfamiliar girlish script, but the first page appeared to be missing; the words started in the middle of a sentence. Scanning to the bottom of the page, he blinked a sudden wetness from his eyes and traced the signature with a shaky finger.

It was signed Lily.