Eighteen hours, sixteen minutes, and some-odd seconds had passed since they’d left Grimmauld Place. Harry knew because the large wall clock on the living room wall was hard to miss, and he’d been watching it for most of the day.

Still no Snape.

When he wasn’t watching the clock, he was watching out the wall of windows for Snape’s approaching figure or pretending to read his Herbology textbook while actually watching the clock or the windows.

The professor really should have arrived by now. Or at least sent word.

He felt eyes on him and looked up to see Kneader studying him from the opposite sofa. Harry quickly looked back down at his book, still feeling wary and self-conscious around the man. He hadn’t exchanged more than cordial pleasantries with their host over breakfast, though he’d listened as Hermione had engaged the man in a lively discussion about the pros and cons of a career in mediwizardry. She’d clearly impressed Kneader with her intelligence and curiosity, and right after breakfast he’d handed her a stack of books to leaf through. She had immediately sat on the floor at the coffee table with books spread out before her, and she’d barely moved since. Judging by her expression, she was in heaven.

Ginny and Mrs. Weasley were together in Ron’s room, and Moody, who had stayed the night, was somewhere outside “checking the perimeter.” Remus sat snoozing on the other side of Harry’s sofa. The poor man had woken up only long enough to yawn his way over to the sofa and fall asleep again after drinking a suspicious-looking draught from Kneader. Harry almost asked their host if it was really necessary to have given Remus such potent sleeping draughts, but he still was convinced that the man didn’t like him. It was just as well, as he wasn’t feeling very talkative anyway. But then, none of them had been except for Hermione. As soon as she’d realized that their host knew things that she wanted to know, she’d taken advantage of the opportunity to learn from him. And now from his books.

Harry’s gaze drifted to the clock and to the windows again. He saw the same scene as usual. A long, empty expanse of beach. No Snape.

“I’m certain he’s all right, Harry,” Hermione’s voice broke the silence, startling him in the process.

It was on the tip of Harry’s tongue to ask ‘who?’ but he figured there was no point feigning ignorance. Hermione was too perceptive to believe that Harry wasn’t worried about Snape. And he was worried about the professor. About Mr. Weasley and the others too. He needed to know that they were okay, that Voldemort hadn’t hurt any of them while trying to find Harry.

Of course, he was also eager to talk to Snape about Lily. But he wasn’t ready to confide in anyone else until he learned more from Snape himself. Not that he knew exactly how he was going to go about asking something like that of the closed book that was Snape…

Well, he’d cross that bridge when he got there. For now, he needed to know that Snape and the others were safe.

“I mean it, Harry,” said Hermione, and he realized that she’d taken his silence for doubt. “Professor Snape is more than capable of defending himself against Death Eaters. He probably knows all their tricks. And the Order had advance warning. Besides, they must know how to get a message to us here if anything had gone wrong.”

“Yeah. You’re right. I’m sure you’re right.” Harry nodded and smiled at Hermione to reassure her that she’d reassured him even though he didn’t feel at all reassured. This was Voldemort they were talking about. Snape and the Order were formidable, but…against Voldemort? Maybe the Order couldn’t get a message through because they’d been attacked so suddenly, so thoroughly that they couldn’t. Or maybe they wouldn’t try, in case Voldemort had a way to track messages.

Harry’s eyes wandered back to the windows and he ignored Hermione’s sigh.

“You’re both sixth years, eh?” asked Kneader. Harry looked at him but let Hermione answer. He figured he’d only been included in the question out of politeness anyway.

Hermione nodded proudly. “We’re starting our NEWT-levels this year.”

“Ah.” He smiled at her. “Tough year, that. You won’t be able to slack on your studies from here on out.”

Harry snorted, then flushed when Kneader’s hawk eyes darted to him. “Hermione’s the smartest witch in our year,” he rushed to explain. “I don’t think she knows how to slack.” He smiled to show that he meant it as a compliment, but his discomfort around the man probably made it look more like a grimace.

“Harry’s doing well too!” Hermione chimed in, her cheeks pink with pleasure at Harry’s praise. “And he does have more extracurriculars than I do, with Quidditch and leading our Defense club. Not to mention extra lessons with Professor Snape.”

“Severus is giving you extra lessons, is he?” Kneader raised his eyebrows in obvious surprise. Too much surprise. Yep, Harry thought, somewhere along the way, Snape had definitely confided what he thought about Harry to Kneader.

“Remedial Potions,” Harry said automatically even though he hated how stupid that made him sound. But word about the Occlumency lessons probably shouldn’t go beyond Harry’s immediate circle of friends, so it appeared that he was doomed to always be known as a Potions failure.

“Hmm,” was Kneader’s response. He looked as if he didn’t believe Harry. Come to think of it, if he knew Snape well, he probably would know that Snape wouldn’t give him extra Potions lessons if his life depended on it. Or unless he was forced to.

Now that he’d had time to process that Kneader didn’t like him, it helped to know that it was because the man had preconceived ideas. It meant that there was nothing that Harry could have done to prevent it and probably nothing he could do to change his mind. So maybe he shouldn’t worry about impressing the man. He threw caution to the wind and asked, “How well do you know Professor Snape?”

Kneader studied him with a pleasantly neutral expression before saying, “Well enough to call him Severus.”

Harry waited for more, but that was apparently all that the man intended to share. Harry considered trying to wheedle more information out of him but mentally shrugged. It was probably no use trying if the man didn’t want to share anything. Harry would just pester Snape about it later.

He looked at the clock. A few more minutes had gone by, and still no Snape.

“You lead a Defense club, eh?” Kneader asked. It took Harry a moment to realize the man was talking to him again, as most of his questions that day had been directed at Hermione.

“Um. Yes?” He cleared his throat. “I mean, yes. I did, last year. I don’t know that we’ll continue it, if we have a decent Defense professor this year.”

“Something wrong with your last one?” Kneader asked. Harry couldn’t help feeling as if the man were daring him to disrespect a professor, like that would prove that Harry Potter was a spoiled brat or something. He stretched his fingers and deliberately tried to lower his hackles, knowing he was feeling stressed and tense and was more than likely reading too much into the man’s innocent question.

But…well, some professors deserved to be disrespected, didn’t they? The thought of Umbridge made Harry not care about proving Kneader right, and he raised his chin and answered, “Yes. She wanted to keep us ignorant, thought there wasn’t any reason for kids to learn to defend themselves. But we’re at war, aren’t we? If we don’t learn now, when will we learn?”

“Maybe that’s for professors, not children, to decide,” Kneader pointed out. “That’s what they’re there for, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes professors are wrong,” Harry answered firmly, feeling his wariness of Kneader being replaced by stubbornness. He saw Hermione give him a warning glance out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t care. Kneader was as much as calling him a reckless, rebellious kid when all he’d wanted to do was teach his classmates what they should have been learning in class in the first place. Things that would keep them alive. “She got Dumbledore ousted from Hogwarts because she didn’t like how he insisted Voldemort was back. She made it hard for other professors to do their jobs. She decided propaganda was more important than preparing her students for their OWLs. She used a blood quill on her students in detention. Do you think she was right in doing all that just because she’s a professor?”

Kneader scratched his whiskers and studied Harry with those sharp, steady eyes. “No… No, I reckon those aren’t very professor-ish things to do.”

“Right…well, they aren’t.” Harry had kind of hoped the man would argue. He had a few more good points stored up about bad professors, including a Death Eater in disguise and the attempted use of memory charms on students and (sorry, Remus, he said silently) a werewolf run wild. As it was, he had to satisfy himself with Kneader agreeing with him far more easily than Snape ever would have done. With that point, anyway.

“So you took it upon yourself to rectify the situation, did you?” Kneader’s question put him on the defensive again, but this time Hermione chimed in.

“It really was quite complicated, Mr. Kneader. The ministry controlled the school, you see. Even the other professors couldn’t do much about it. We all did the best we could, Harry included. You can ask Professor Snape, if you like. He didn’t care for Professor Umbridge either, I’m certain of it.”

Harry breathed a huff in amusement at the thought that Hermione’s solution wouldn’t prove much, seeing as how Snape hated a great number of people. “Er, sorry,” he said when both faces turned toward him. “It was nothing. Just a random thought. Um…you know what? I’m going to take a walk,” he announced, actually done with this conversation. He was so on edge, he was in real danger of being irreparably rude to their host. And as much as he wasn’t sure whether he liked the man, he was aware enough of his own mood to know that the man hadn’t said or done anything to truly deserve it.

Kneader didn’t try to stop him, just dipped his head and said, “Stay on this side of the oak on the knoll.”

Harry waited until his back was to the room to roll his eyes. Of course he wasn’t going to go beyond the Apparition boundary, he thought moodily. He wasn’t an idiot. Not that anyone who was friends with Snape would think any differently, he frowned to himself.

He knew he shouldn’t be so bothered by the man’s benign questions. Kneader hadn’t been anything but polite, even when he’d been asking those leading questions. In fact, Harry was probably the only one who had even noticed the man’s semi-frosty attitude toward him. It was so subtle - a lack of smile here or an extra scrutinizing gaze there, an occasional question or comment that Harry couldn’t help but read into - but when all viewed together, betrayed what the man thought of Harry’s character and intellect.

He frowned. He certainly didn’t need to be liked by every stranger he met. He’d resigned himself to not being liked by plenty of people over the years. And it’s not like they would even be here for very long. Even if they weren’t moved to another location, fall term started in less than a week and a half.

He charged out of the front door, pausing long enough to close the door softly behind him. He didn’t need their host to have any evidence that he really was some spoiled brat, after all. He plodded through the grass until he was just shy of the oak tree and plopped himself down on the ground facing the house. Seeing the rundown hovel was amusing now that he knew what was inside. Well, it was amusing until he remembered everything else that was on his mind.

Did Voldemort attack? Was Snape safe? Were the Order and the rest of the Weasleys safe? Even if they were, what would Voldemort do next to find him? This was going to be a very stressful year if he had to watch his back for any Slytherin students who might want to impress their Death Eater parents by getting to Harry or his friends.

And thinking of next year…was there even the slightest chance that Snape might allow him to use the laboratory outside of class? If he didn’t, was it worth it to still try for the NEWT? What if he studied everything he possibly could for two years and then failed anyway because it wasn’t enough? It sounded like an utterly exhausting waste of time and effort.

And then there was Snape’s apparent friendship with Lily. Now that he’d had time to think about it, he was a little weirded out. He’d kind of imagined before that child Snape was simply a younger version of his adult self - an oily, snarky Death Eater in training with serious personality issues. But then why was his mum laughing with him? And if Harry was right about the letter being written to Snape, then they’d been close enough to see each other fairly regularly during their school holidays. Close enough even for him to have been invited to vacation with her family! Harry barely even got to see his own friends during the summer, at least when he was holed up at the Dursleys. Only his best friend ever invited him to spend holidays with him. Were Snape and Lily best friends?

The thought was so weird.

What in the world did Snape and Lily have to talk about? How had two such different people become friends?

Or had they really been that different? Harry had been told that Lily was intelligent. Snape certainly was. They apparently shared a love of school in general and Hogwarts in particular. Maybe they had more in common? Lily was a Muggle-born. Harry had assumed that Snape was a pure-blood, but he didn’t have any real knowledge to back that up. But if they lived near each other, presumably in a Muggle area, might Snape have been raised by Muggle parents as well?

Wait, no. Snape had told him that his mother was a witch. There went that idea. Though…he could have been a half-blood. It didn’t fit with his image of Snape, but it was a possibility to consider. Finding out you were a witch or wizard or that you were different than one or both of your parents was definitely something to bond over.

And that’s where his ideas stopped. He couldn’t think of a single other thing that Snape and Lily might have in common. Admittedly, that was in large part due to the fact that he knew next to nothing about his mum. How could he understand her friendships if he didn’t even know her? Maybe unlike everything Harry had been told, she had been drawn to the Dark Arts. Or had some dark sardonic view of the world that matched Snape’s.

Or maybe Snape hadn’t always been so jaded himself.

How was he even to know if anything he’d imagined about his mother was true if she had been friends with the last person in the world Harry would have imagined?

He lay back in the grass, careful to avoid the rocks, and sighed.

Back to Kneader…

Oh, why fool himself? He knew that he was only bothered about Kneader because of his link to Snape. He was hardly surprised that Snape had unloaded his hatred of Harry Potter onto someone he trusted, but it wasn’t supposed to sting. It wouldn’t have, mere weeks ago. Snape had obviously hated Harry, had thought all those horrible things about him. Even if he had changed his mind about some things, Harry knew that his past hatred was a force to be reckoned with. Knowing that everything Kneader knew about him was from Snape’s past hatred though, somehow made it now seem…not past.

His feelings were all jumbled up. Lily and Snape, Snape and Kneader, Voldemort and Grimmauld Place, Hogwarts and Potions, all mixing up in his brain like a noisy stew. So many things were bothering him, he hardly knew where one worry stopped and the next one started.

He closed his eyes and breathed in and out slowly, trying to focus his senses on the world around him like Snape had taught him. He could smell the sweetness of the grass, the earthy tang of the dirt, the salt of the sea. His fingers burrowed themselves into the dirt and grass. His elbow rested on a smooth rock. He listened to the breeze, the chatter of birds, the whisper of insects going about their daily routines, the slithering of something approaching-

His eyes shot open and he turned his head to the side in time to see a snake poised to strike. He froze for a second, then said quickly, “I mean you no harm!” He hoped to Merlin that had been in Parseltongue. He still couldn’t tell most of the time whether he was speaking in English or in the snake language.

Thankfully, it worked, as the snake drew its head back and up, relaxing into a watchful pose. It didn’t say anything though, and Harry wasn’t about to move until he figured out if the snake was going to bite him.

“Can you understand me?”

“Yesssss,” answered the snake. “I have never been ssspoken to by a human. Are you a ssssnake-human?”

Harry grinned at the funny question. “Are you going to bite me? If you don’t mean me harm, I’ll sit up and we can talk.” He didn’t add that if the snake did mean him harm, he was going to do his best to kick it away and make a run for it.

“I will not harm you, ssssnake-human.”

Harry sat up slowly just in case the snake was startled easily, but it calmly watched him, its head swaying gently from side to side.

“I am not a snake-human,” he said. “I am a wizard. Some wizards - not very many - know the snake language.”

The snake bobbed its head up and down once as if to nod, and Harry was mesmerized by its smooth scales running in a white and black pattern along its body. He never thought of snakes as beautiful, but that’s the only word he could use to describe this one.

“I have not sssseen you here before,” said the snake. It lowered its head and slowly coiled itself up, apparently getting comfortable.

“I have never been here before.” Harry followed suit, crossing his legs and leaning back on his hands. “Do you live near here?”

“Yesssss.”

“It’s beautiful.”

The snake bobbed in answer, and Harry smiled. This was just what he needed: a mindless, pleasant conversation with someone wholly unconnected with the war or Voldemort or the Order or the wizarding world in general. And so he lost himself in chatter with his new friend, conversing about everything from tasty field mice to why so few wizards could speak Parseltongue.

He was so immersed in the conversation that he didn’t realize that more than an hour had gone by or that they weren’t alone until a long shadow blocked out the sun and the snake drew back, hissing something unintelligible.

Harry looked up, and it took a moment through his squinted eyes to register Snape’s tall form and wary black eyes. He was so surprised at his sudden appearance that all his worries and anticipation gave way to a simple sense of shock. “You’re back!” he said dumbly, then cringed, waiting for some comment about stating the obvious.

But Snape didn’t answer, his attention on the snake.

“Ssshould I bite him?” the snake asked, beginning to uncoil.

“No!” Harry said quickly, turning back to the snake. “He won’t hurt you. Or me. He’s a friend.”

“Friend…” the snake repeated slowly, and Harry wondered if he had said it right. Snakes understood the concept of friends, right? “Is this your sssnake-human father?” Maybe not.

Harry reddened. He was never so glad as right now that Parseltongue was rare. Snape would probably have a conniption if he knew that anybody - even a reptile - had mistaken him for Harry’s father. “No. I don’t have a father. He is my teacher. And a wizard. He doesn’t know snake language,” he felt the need to clarify.

The snake appeared to understand ‘teacher’ better than ‘friend.’ He relaxed a bit, though he was on alert more than he had been when Harry had been the only wizard present.

Snape cleared his throat and finally spoke. “What were you talking to it about?”

“Just…um, random stuff,” Harry answered. “He wanted to know if you were a friend.” He shot a look at Snape. “Don’t hurt him, okay? He’s not going to do anything.”

“Of course not,” Snape murmured. He looked a bit dazed, maybe even awed, and Harry looked back at the snake in some discomfort. Talking to snakes came so naturally to him that until he did it in front of someone, it never occurred to him how odd it must appear to others. Or how it could seem dark. Parseltongue was associated with the Dark Arts, after all. It didn’t seem that way to Harry, but most other wizards looked on it with trepidation. It didn’t help that they couldn’t hear what Harry and the snake were saying.

“He was telling me about his home,” Harry volunteered. Maybe if he explained, it would sound less like a dark power. “How sometimes it storms, but right after it storms is his favorite time to hunt. A lot of the smells are washed away, but the mice and frogs taste better.”

Snape stared at him, and Harry wondered if maybe he should have kept his mouth shut. But he wasn’t always very good at doing that.

“He stays away from the house. Kneader gives him the creeps.” Harry grinned. He’d felt a bit vindicated when he’d heard that. “The man does have eyes like a hawk. I bet that’s why you’re friends with him, huh? Because he notices everything?” Harry couldn’t resist digging for information.

“I never said the man was my friend,” Snape corrected. “Only that I trust him.”

“Hmm.” Harry guessed he could believe that. Snape didn’t exactly scream best friend material.

…unless he been best friends with Lily? Not that he had proof that they were more than school acquaintances, but…they might have been best friends.

Harry carefully averted his eyes. He’d figure out how to broach that subject later. Now wasn’t the right time. Now wasn’t really the time to talk about Kneader either.

“How…how’s Grimmauld Place?” he asked.

Snape waved a hand at the snake. “I don’t suppose you could send away your little friend. I have little interest in conversing so near a pair of venomous fangs.”

“Is he venomous?” Harry asked, curiously turning to study his new friend. “I wasn’t sure.”

“Yes. It - he - is.”

“Oh. I wasn’t sure,” Harry cocked his head at the snake. “I don’t really know if it’s a he either, by the way. I just got tired of thinking of him as an it. And he’s all right. He won’t hurt you, I promise.”

“As much as I trust your word…” Snape gestured again at the snake, his expression telling Harry that he wasn’t asking this time.

“Don’t Slytherins like snakes?” Harry asked with a grin.

Snape gave Harry a longsuffering look. “We admire their qualities of stealth and cunning. We would hardly be displaying cunning ourselves if we enjoyed lounging around within striking distance of one.”

“Only because you can’t talk to them.”

“You do realize how unsettling it is to hear you converse so casually in Parseltongue, don’t you?”

Harry opened his mouth to reply, then shut it. No, he didn’t understand, not really, but he did know objectively from others’ reactions whenever it happened. “It doesn’t feel weird to me,” he finally said quietly. He reached out a hand toward his snake friend, pausing when Snape drew in a sharp breath.

“He won’t hurt me,” Harry promised, looking up at the professor before turning his attention back to the snake, who had come closer when Harry reached out. It flicked Harry’s fingers with its tongue and nudged his palm with its head. Harry smiled as he ran his fingers over the smooth scales.

“My teacher needs to talk to me,” he said to the snake. “You can go hunting now.”

“Will you be back, ssssnake-human?”

Harry smirked. So much for trying to explain that he wasn’t part snake. “I will if I can. I don’t know how long I will be staying here.”

“Farewell then.” The snake bobbed its head and Harry withdrew his hand.

“Farewell,” Harry said, the word sliding easily off his tongue. He watched as the snake uncoiled itself and slowly slithered away into the grass.

Snape waited until it was a good distance away before lowering himself to sit on a rock near Harry. “I’ve heard the Dark Lord speak in Parseltongue many times,” he volunteered. “It sounds different from your lips.”

“Really?” Harry looked up at him in genuine curiosity. “How so?”

“Same sounds. Something different in the tone.” He tilted his head, watching Harry with those steady black eyes. “Snakes are tools to him, as are all of his allies. He wouldn’t think to have a casual conversation with a snake, much less chat it up about its life and preferences.” Snape shot him a look as if to say that most other wizards wouldn’t be crazy enough to do that either, which made Harry feel somewhat defensive.

“Yeah, well… Just because it’s a snake doesn’t mean it doesn’t get lonely. We all need somebody to talk to sometimes.”

Snape shook his head, still looking at him like he was crazy.

“Look, I didn’t ask for this power, okay? But since I have it, what’s so wrong with making a new friend?”

“Nothing,” murmured Snape in reply. “Nothing whatsoever. You merely…continue to surprise me.”

Harry fidgeted with a blade of grass under Snape’s prolonged stare. From the way Snape seemed contemplative rather than upset, he guessed that surprising him in this instance wasn’t a bad thing. Still, he didn’t like to be studied like a bug under a microscope. “Headquarters?” he prompted. “How is it? Is everyone all right?”

“Headquarters is fine. The Dark Lord never attacked.”

“What?” Harry swallowed past a tightness in his throat. “But…why not? He knew where we were. He couldn’t have made that up. He knew we were at Grimmauld Place, I know he did!”

“All that we know, at most, is that he managed to find your approximate location within London,” said Snape. “How, we do not know. But there are ways.”

“Ways to get around a Secret-Keeper?” Harry asked, startled. He’d thought the Fidelius Charm was foolproof. If it wasn’t, then why-?

“No,” Snape cut off that line of thinking. “There is no way to find out the exact location of headquarters or to gain access to it unless the headmaster reveals it. Which he most certainly has not. However, there are ways of narrowing down the general vicinity of people protected by the Fidelius Charm. The simple way would involve carelessness on the part of the Order, allowing the Dark Lord or his followers to notice a pattern around the comings and goings of headquarters. The complex way would involve difficult and advanced magic, the kind few are capable of producing. But the Dark Lord does have one or two followers who might be capable of such a thing, if given the right set of circumstances. We do not believe they have such necessary circumstances in place, but it is nonetheless a possibility that we are exploring.”

Harry mulled that over. “Then…why would he plan an attack if he didn’t have an exact location? Wait. Did he attack somewhere? Anywhere, at all?”

“No,” answered Snape, watching him shrewdly. Harry couldn’t help but think that Snape wanted him to work some puzzle out for himself…

Oh. Oh.

He bit his lip, then said carefully, “You think he sent me the vision on purpose, don’t you? To fool me somehow.”

“It is a distinct possibility,” Snape confirmed.

“But why?” he cried, frustrated. “It doesn’t make sense why he would do that. It’s not as if the vision gained him anything. I wasn’t going to go charging out into the street where he could Apparate away with me. It didn’t get him anything. It couldn’t have been a ruse, because there was no point.”

Snape held up his fingers and started listing the possibilities. “He could have wanted you to relocate to a place more traceable. He may have thought we would show our hand if we were convinced he already knew where we were. He may have counted on your early return to Hogwarts, where he would know your exact location and not all school year defenses would be in place yet. At the very least, it could have thrown the Order into a panic and caused us to slip up in some way. He hadn’t had any concrete leads since you left your relatives’ home. Shaking things up could cause us to make a mistake. And he knows that he is much more likely to capture you now than after the term starts, when you will be under Dumbledore’s constant protection and the watchful eye of a dozen professors. He is running out of time, and he knows it.”

“Okay. I get it,” Harry said meekly. “There are reasons.” But the idea that Voldemort might still send him false visions after the fiasco of last year scared Harry. He had meant to question Snape about why he should even bother to break away from Voldemort’s mind, maybe even whether he should welcome it. Maybe if he’d stayed longer, they would have gleaned more information to help them face the attack…

Now he had his answer. Even if it turned out that Voldemort hadn’t sent the vision on purpose, Harry still would always wonder, would always second guess his glimpses into Voldemort’s mind and eye them with fear and suspicion. One wrong step, and they could do far more harm than good.

Harry sighed. “I know I’m learning Occlumency for a reason…but I guess I still thought we could use what I see to our advantage.”

“It is in your best interest to never ignore them,” said Snape. “But they should always be approached with suspicion. He has shown himself quite capable of feeding you lies with the intent to compromise you.”

“I have no choice then,” Harry said, subdued. “I have to block him. I mean, I knew I should, that’s what I’ve been working on, but… I dunno, I thought…” He took a deep breath. “What I mean is, how do I make the leap from clearing and focusing my mind to actively blocking him all the time?”

Snape studied him for a moment. “You should know that the ultimate goal is not about blocking him,” he said slowly. “It is about learning to control your mind so that he cannot manipulate or harm you through your connection. Until you have enough control or discernment to differentiate between useful information and deceit, then yes, it is in your best interest to block him. For now. And we will work on that. But do not mistake that as the end goal.”

Harry widened his eyes. “You want me to use the connection eventually?”

“What I want - and what the headmaster wants - is for you to have the skills needed for such an undertaking if and only if it should be absolutely necessary,” Snape clarified. “Your immediate objective in learning Occlumency should not be to wield a weapon, but rather to prevent a weapon from being wielded against you…or, worse, from you yourself being used as a weapon.”

They were both silent for a minute as Harry let that sink in.

“If you continue on this path,” Snape said softly, “of focusing on the study of Occlumency, then eventually your skills may allow you to utilize this connection with the Dark Lord to your advantage. Until then, you are not to trust it. Do you understand?”

Harry nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“We will discuss Occlumency more tomorrow,” said Snape, indicating an end to their conversation. “We should head to the house. The others will want an update.”

“You haven’t been inside yet?”

“I only just arrived. I was headed that direction, but I saw you here, talking to your…little friend,” Snape said, his face still showing his doubt about the wisdom of having a friend with venomous fangs.

Harry smiled. He knew it made sense for a non-Parselmouth to be wary of snakes, but he still found it funny that the Head of Slytherin was. “You know, I was thinking about inviting him over for dinner tomorrow. Meet my other friends. Show a bit of hospitality. Don’t you think that would be nice?”

Snape gave him a unimpressed look as he stood, which only made Harry want to smile more. Instead, he added in a fake-serious voice, as if he were seriously considering it, “It’s not a bad idea, you know. If any Death Eaters find us here, he’d be a great security system.”

“You are not going to knowingly invite a deadly creature to take up residence on Mr. Kneader’s front porch,” Snape drawled. It was obvious by the way he seemed unconcerned that he knew he was being teased, and Harry grinned.

“Well,” he said as he stood and brushed bits of grass from his clothing, “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind, if you change your mind.”

Snape raised his eyebrows in a way that Harry took to mean not in this lifetime and led the way toward the house.

Harry fell in line with him. Dropping the topic of the snake, he thought of something else he wanted to know. “Are we going back to headquarters, now that you think it’s safe?”

Snape shook his head. “We will not chance it quite yet. Kneader’s Point is well warded, and you will have the protection of multiple Order members so long as we are here.”

“And Mr. Weasley? Fred and George? Will they be coming here too?”

“Soon. Not yet. There are other matters that need to be seen to. For now, the only Order presence will be me, Mrs. Weasley, Lupin, and Mr. Kneader.”

“Not Moody?”

“He will no doubt leave now that I am here to see to certain things.”

“What things?”

“Order things.”

“Like what?”

Snape gave him his stop talking look.

Harry pretended to interpret it as a request to change the topic. “Kneader said he gave Remus a sleeping draught last night, but I think he might have given him more than one. He’s been sleeping ever since we got here. Don’t you think that’s maybe overkill? He didn’t look that injured.”

“I asked him to keep Lupin sedated,” Snape said casually. “And it would not be remiss of you to call him ‘Mr. Kneader,’ seeing as he is your elder and an esteemed member of the Order.”

Harry stopped walking, caught on the first bit. “You asked Kneader to drug Remus?” he asked, scandalized. At a stern look from Snape, he hastily amended, “Mr. Kneader,” but crossed his arms to emphasize how appalled he was.

“As we could not ascertain all that was done to Lupin during his captivity,” Snape explained, turning in place, “I thought it best to keep him sedated for the time being.”

Harry shook his head, offended on behalf of his dad’s friend. “It’s not his fault he was captured! Why not just perform some diagnostic spells, make sure he’s all right, and lay off him? What good does sedating him do?”

“Not all curses are easy to detect,” answered Snape in his professor voice.

“So you think he’s cursed now?”

“I certainly hope not,” Snape answered calmly. “But the fact remains that the Dark Lord not only allowed him to be recovered, he sent you directly to him. He then sent you a vision, most likely on purpose, that headquarters was compromised. The first thing your Lupin did when he returned was to argue that you be sent to one of our weakest safe houses. I would not be doing my job if I did not ascertain for certain that he presents no threat.”

“Just because he trusts his friend - a friend who is an Order member, by the way - doesn’t mean he’s trying to put anyone in danger!” he insisted stubbornly. “Remus would never try to hurt me.”

“Says the boy he nearly mauled to death little over two years ago.”

“He wasn’t in his right mind, and you know it.”

“And your dear Lupin will remain sedated until we can ascertain that he is in his right mind now,” Snape clipped.

“You’re such a Slytherin!” he accused. “You can’t just relax and stop seeing plots and plans everywhere, even where there are none!” At Snape’s stern look, he tacked on, “sir.”

Snape shook his head, probably at his pitiful show of respect. “I see plots and plans because it is my job to do so. You would do well to take note and never take things at face value.”

“I’m not going to live my life trusting nothing and no one,” Harry insisted.

“Then it is an exceedingly good thing I am here to distrust them for you,” Snape snapped right back. His eyes flashed, Harry cue that they were on the precipice of a real fight. And really, Harry didn’t want to fight.

So he took a deep breath, mentally backed down, and said evenly, “Just tell me you don’t think he’s an impostor or anything.”

“No,” Snape answered. He took a breath as well, eyes returning to normal. “He most certainly is Remus Lupin. We made certain of that before he was brought to the first safe house. Even had we been mistaken, he never could have flooed to Grimmauld Place if he were an impostor. Only a person told the location of headquarters directly from Professor Dumbledore can step foot there.”

Harry let out a breath. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. So then why-”

“As I said,” Snape said slowly, “not all curses can be detected. The most dangerous and least detectable curses require the caster to maintain a hold over the cursed individual from a distance. Mr. Kneader has extensive, intricate wards around this property, some of which make it impossible for such curses to be maintained for very long on an individual residing within its bounds. Lupin may very well be perfectly fine, but as I will not be taking chances with the safety of anyone here, he will remain incapacitated for at least another day.” Snape tone brooked no argument, and Harry didn’t know how to argue his way around that anyway.

“Fine,” he huffed. “Like a quarantine or whatever. I got it. Only one more day?”

“Maybe two,” Snape said as he whipped around and continued leisurely toward the house.

Harry shot a glare at the man’s back as he took a few quick steps to catch up. He grumbled about that for only a second before he decided they’d beat that conversation to death and there was one more thing he needed to say before they were surrounded by people. “You’ve talked to Mr. Kneader about me before, haven’t you?” He probably shouldn’t ask that, but it seemed quite tame in comparison to the questions about his mum and Potions that he really wanted to ask.

Snape shot him a sideways glance. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Harry groused. “Just the Snape-colored glasses I can see him wearing whenever he looks at me.”

Snape smirked but didn’t answer. He didn’t even offer any excuses or apologies for maybe having vented to Kneader about him. But then, Harry hadn’t expected him to.

“How do you know him, anyway?”

“We are both members of the Order.”

“Is that how you met him?”

“Yes.”

“How long ago?”

“I do not believe I gave you license to interrogate me, Mr. Potter.”

“Well, if you’d give longer answers, it would be more of a conversation than an interrogation, wouldn’t it? I mean, honestly, even the snake was more forthcoming than you are!” Harry threw up his hands.

“I’d imagine the snake has not been entrusted with sensitive Order information.”

“Is how you met Mr. Kneader an Order secret?” he prodded.

“No. It is simply none of your business.”

Is your friendship with my mum my business? he desperately wanted to ask but knew better than to do so right then. Snape was so private, so guarded. How was he ever going to get the man’s walls down enough to ask about something so personal? He held in a sigh, knowing that it wouldn’t be in his best interest for the Legilimens to know he had something weighing on his mind that he wasn’t sharing out loud.

“So what are we going to do about You-Know-Who?” he asked instead.

Snape shot him a look as they climbed the porch. “Have you always been this loquacious?”

“I don’t know,” Harry frowned. “Is loquacious a good thing?”

Snape stopped in front of the door and looked down his nose at Harry. “Talkative. Garrulous. Inclined to inane chatter.”

“It’s not inane to want to know what’s to be done about You-Know-Who.” Harry tried to look down his nose at Snape but gave up. The man was too tall for it to work.

“The Order will decide our next move.”

“Well, I think-”

“I know very well what you think, Mr. Potter,” Snape shook his head and reached for the door. “Which is why the Order, not you, will decide.”

“But-”

“On second thought, sit,” Snape abruptly removed his hand from the door and pointed to one of the comfortable-looking chairs on the porch. “I believe that we are overdue for a chat.”

Harry bit his lip, eyeing the chair. “I thought you were tired of, er…inane chatter.” Talking didn’t sound as appealing when Snape looked ready to deliver a lecture.

“I have allowed you to linger under a misapprehension for long enough, I think.” Snape again gestured toward the chair, and seeing no alternative, Harry reluctantly sat. Snape followed suit in the chair next to his, saying before he’d fully settled in, “Tell me again what your dream self told you.”

“Um, which one?” Harry shifted, trying to get comfortable.

“The last one. The one that has you all in a tizzy to sacrifice yourself to the Dark Lord.”

“Tizzy?” Harry asked with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t get in ‘tizzies,’ professor.”

“Tell me again what the vision told you,” Snape repeated. “Exactly what it told you.”

Harry leaned back into the chair, figuring he might as well get comfortable. He savored the fresh sea breeze on his face as he thought back to his dream. “He said I had to stay ahead of Vol- You-Know-Who, that-”

“Those were not the words you repeated to Professor Dumbledore and me. I don’t want your interpretation of his words. Tell me his exact words.”

Harry tapped his fingers on his leg, thinking. “Well… He said that I had to be captured by You-Know-Who. That his plan to get my blood was flawed somehow, but he didn't say how, and he said I had to be captured if we were going to win the war.”

“What else?”

“He said I need to do it my way-”

“Is that precisely what he said?”

“No,” Harry huffed. “On my own terms. Those are the words he said. He said I needed it to happen on my own terms. That if I let it play out on You-Know-Who’s terms, I wouldn't be able to escape.”

"Your own terms being what?"

"Well, I think-"

"Not what you think,” Snape interrupted. “What he said."

"He said I need to trust you because you're the only one who can get me out of there.”

“And did he say anything about me getting you in there in the first place?”

“Well, no, but-”

“And did he say specifically that ‘your own terms’ means that you are to surrender?”

“No. But-”

“Think, Potter,” Snape snapped. “You have a theory, and it isn’t a completely terrible theory from a logical standpoint, but it is not the only valid theory that can be deduced from the information available to you. There are multiple ways in which your vision can be interpreted. Rather than focusing in on your first and only interpretation, learn to consider all possibilities. Read between the lines. See it from different angles. What other meanings could you assign to what your vision told you?”

“What are you getting at?”

“I want for you to get at it,” Snape said testily. “Analyze what you just told me. Begin by considering another meaning your vision’s words could have other than your willing surrender or my turning you over to a murderous Dark Lord. One reason. Any reason.”

Harry was silent as he considered Snape’s words, really considered them. Maybe he had focused in on his surrender idea to the extent that he’d thought that was what his vision self was telling him to do. He hadn’t actually said to give himself up…but if those weren’t his own terms, then how was Snape supposed to get him out of there? Snape had to be there if he was going to get him out of there.

“Have a way to call for help?” Harry lifted his hand with the ring on it, and Snape glanced at it before gesturing for him to keep talking. “Or maybe…” he thought aloud, reaching for any idea at all, “my own terms means that I’ve got to be ready? Like Occlumency, defensive skills, that sort of thing? I guess he could have meant that I needed to be ready for the day when it happens, not that I need to rush it along..?”

“Good,” Snape nodded, and Harry was caught off guard by the man directing an honest to goodness word of praise his way that he momentarily lost his train of thought.

He regained it quickly. “So you think that’s it?”

“I didn’t say that. You’ve learned to see one or two possible alternate interpretations. Can you think of any others?”

“Um…he said trusting you was the main thing. So maybe my own terms just have to do with me remembering that and not doing anything stupid?”

“A feat in and of itself,” Snape muttered, and Harry had the childish urge to stick out his tongue at the man. He refrained.

“He said it would happen soon,” he felt the need to add. “If it’s not about us deciding when it happens, how soon do you think is soon?”

“You are young,” said Snape. “You see things in days and weeks. ‘Soon’ could as easily mean next month or next year. Or the vision could be wrong and it will never happen. And,” he emphasized as he saw Harry about to argue, “I know that you believe the vision. I am not discounting the possibility of its truth. My primary concern is that you do not go on some misguided suicide mission based on a misconstrued interpretation of its warnings that has no basis in factual reality.”

“So we do nothing,” Harry said dejectedly. At Snape’s sideways glare, he added, “Okay, not nothing. Practice Occlumency. Do my homework. Stay safe.” He felt like he was parroting a mantra that had been shoved down his throat. Not that he necessarily wanted to take action…but this not knowing what the future had in store made worrying about the mundane things extra difficult.

Or, he thought, he could take advantage of the next week to focus on the not-so-mundane details that were on his mind lately. But was Snape himself prepared to deal with a Harry who shifted his focus from Voldemort to his teacher’s friendships, childhood or otherwise? If the professor knew all that was on Harry’s mind, Harry thought he might actually prefer for him to focus back on Voldemort.

“We are agreed then,” Snape said, rising to his feet. He didn’t wait for Harry to argue or ask any more questions before he was opening the door and gesturing for Harry to precede him into the house. That effectively ended the conversation, for as soon as they were inside, Snape’s attention was on greeting Kneader, and Harry’s attention was on studying the two to determine how well they knew each other. He couldn’t tell much from their reserved greetings or their brief handshake, but he thought he detected the slightest relaxing of Snape’s shoulders when he looked out of the large ocean view windows, as if to betray that the professor felt comfortable here. It certainly wasn’t much to go on, but it was something.

He continued watching the men interact through the evening until he realized over dinner that he was watching Kneader watch him watch them, and he refocused his attention on his bowl of stew.

His attention was still on his professor though, even if he tried harder not to be obvious about it. He didn’t notice anything that would help him unravel the mysteries surrounding his mum’s childhood friend, but he did take note that the professor didn’t sneer at him even once for the rest of the day, even though he did spare some sneers for a departing Moody and the sleeping Remus. He even asked Harry if he needed any potions before he went to bed.

And as Harry lay in bed that night preparing to clear his mind, he came to the realization that Kneader wasn’t the one whose good opinion he cared about earning, not even a little bit, not even at all.