“No! Absolutely not!”

“But –” Harry tried in vain to interrupt.

“Why are you still speaking? I said no!”

Harry had a strong feeling of deja vu, sitting on a chair next to Dumbledore while Snape paced the headmaster’s office. Of course, the last time they had all three been together like this, with the professor adamantly rejecting Harry’s latest idea, had been back at Grimmauld Place. Harry hadn’t been quite so certain of himself that time. He also hadn’t been quite so certain that he could trust Snape.

He held in a grin at the thought of how completely things had changed. It occurred to him that he shouldn’t feel so light and happy in the midst of an argument - not to mention in the midst of a wicked withdrawal headache - but he couldn’t help himself. From the time he’d woken up that morning, Snape had made it clear that he wasn’t going anywhere this time. He’d been there with a nutritive potion, made certain Harry ate all his breakfast, and given him “precisely twenty minutes, Potter,” to chat with his friends before he and Snape were expected in the headmaster’s office. Harry supposed if he were in a worse mood, Snape’s hovering might feel overbearing, but today, it simply felt nice to be noticed again.

Unfortunately, the professor’s own mood was taking a downturn.

Harry knew that Snape had already told Dumbledore about Harry’s idea to help with the Dark Mark. He knew, because Snape had been nearly smug when he’d accompanied Harry here. It was apparent that this was meant to be an intervention, of sorts. Snape obviously knew Harry well enough by now to know that once he got an idea into his head, he wouldn’t simply let it go because he was told to. So Dumbledore, it seemed, was to be the one to tell him in no uncertain terms that purposely trying to Legilimize Voldemort was off the table.

Which he did. Sort of. But not really. “You must build up to something like that, Harry,” didn’t seem to be quite what Snape had in mind. He took it as the headmaster’s tacit agreement that Harry could do it if only he practiced first, and he had immediately ranted on about it being too dangerous, about Harry not having the control needed to do something like that, about what would happen if the Dark Lord realized what he was trying, and on and on. Harry hadn’t been able to get a word in edgewise, and Dumbledore hadn’t even tried.

“Really, Professor Snape, do sit,” said Dumbledore calmly when Snape finally paused for breath. He held out a bowl of lemon drops to Harry, who took one out of politeness.

Snape glared at them both. “I think I have the right to-”

“Sit, Severus,” ordered Dumbledore, that time with authority.

Snape sat. He was definitely pouting in his own way, with his lips pinched together and his arms crossed, but he sat. His eye was twitching as well, but Harry was fairly certain that was due to the pain from his arm, as his eye had been twitching all morning.

“Now that we can speak calmly,” Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, “I am in no way suggesting that Harry attempt something so dangerous right away.”

“You should not be suggesting that he do it at all!” Snape snapped.

“Yes. Well,” Dumbledore took a sip of tea. “Would that we lived in a perfect world.”

Snape glared at him as if personally betrayed. Which Harry thought might not be too far from the truth, since they had to have spoken about this beforehand, however briefly, and Snape had thought he knew the probable outcome going into the meeting.

Dumbledore sighed. Harry noted that he still looked as worn as he had the last time they spoke, but there was a new light in his eyes. It looked like hope. “Let us examine the facts of the matter.” The headmaster held up his fingers as he counted. “One, Harry has more access to power than he did before, and furthermore, that power may grow. There is no indication that he is currently at his fullest possible strength. Two, he will not be sitting idly by while this war is fought. A prophecy and the connection marked by his scar are evidence enough that he will actively participate, regardless what you or I might wish for him. Three,” his voice grew soft, “I have a personal desire to see you live, Severus.”

“Me too,” Harry chimed in.

“There, you see,” Dumbledore gestured at Harry with a smile. “There are plenty who would miss you, and you owe it to them to explore every avenue available to liberate yourself from the Mark’s hold.”

Harry hardly thought that the two of them equated to plenty, and apparently Snape agreed, for his glare turned to exasperation. “Not that I disagree with your assertion that I would be missed,” Snape said in a dry tone that made it very clear he was disagreeing with that assertion, “but if one’s life is measured by those who will mourn him, then I hardly think that sacrificing the Boy Who Lived will win you points with the masses.”

“I’m not going to be sacrificed,” Harry said with a slight eye roll. Geez, Snape was so dramatic sometimes. “I just want to try something I’ve already done before. Only, on purpose this time.”

“Oh, that simple, is it?” growled Snape.

“Probably not,” Harry admitted, then added with a smile, “That’s why I’ve got you to teach me!”

Snape shook his head and said shortly, “To teach the mental arts requires a disciplined and controlled mind. Until I can ascertain a method for easing the physical and mental strain that I am currently under, I am entirely unfit to attempt to guide your mind through any process whatsoever, much less one that could result in your mind being turned to mush!”

Harry’s grin fell, even as he tried to hide his disappointment at Snape’s words. He’d assumed Snape would start to teach him again, but did that mean he wouldn’t? Or couldn’t? The man hadn’t outright said that he’d teach him, after all… Harry had simply assumed. Rather than dwell on that, he asked softly, “Is the pain from the Dark Mark really that bad?”

Snape watched him for a moment and said gruffly, “If I tell you no, will you desist in this foolish quest?”

“No,” he answered honestly. “Not as long as You-Know-Who can do this to you.”

Snape slumped back into his chair and tiredly rubbed the bridge of his nose. He looked at Dumbledore, then back to Harry, sighed heavily, and said, “At least promise me that you will not rush headlong into this as is your tendency. Build your mental strength, practice your Occlumency and Legilimency skills, and do not so much as think of attempting to breach the Dark Lord’s mind until the headmaster and I deem you ready.”

Harry pursed his lips, considering. He was certain that Snape, knowing he couldn’t win the argument now, was merely trying to put it off until…well, until never. But at Snape’s stern look, he figured he had little choice but to agree. He nodded slowly. “I promise.”

“There now,” said Dumbledore. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it? Lemon drop?” He offered the bowl to Snape, who looked at it and scowled. The headmaster smiled pleasantly and placed the bowl back on the desk. Turning to Harry, he said, “Professor McGonagall tells me that you have been progressing well in catching up to your classmates.”

Harry nodded slowly, caught off guard by the sudden change in topic. “Um, I mean, I still have a bit to go. I got a little distracted this weekend, for obvious reasons…but I’m almost there.” He almost asked how McGonagall knew. She had only checked in with him once the first week he’d been back, then she had simply trusted Hermione to keep him on track with his schoolwork. Not that he was complaining. It was nice to not be badgered by his Head of House, on top of everything else. Even if he’d felt more alone for it…

But again, it’s not that he was complaining.

“Very good, very good,” Dumbledore smiled and sipped his tea. “Perhaps it is time then to resume your Occlumency lessons in earnest.”

Harry nodded and darted a glance at Snape, who shifted but made no move to speak. He shot a questioning look at Dumbledore, who winked at him over the rim of his tea cup. He almost laughed at the headmaster’s unsubtle hint that the ball was in his court. Apparently - and with Dumbledore’s blessing - he was going to have to talk Snape into it.

“So who’s…um, are- are you going teach me again, professor?” he looked at Snape, trying not to let show quite how hopeful he was.

Snape returned his gaze for a few seconds, his fingers tapping on the arm of his chair, before he said hesitantly, “I don’t think-”

“We don’t have to mind meld or anything like that, not if you’re not feeling well,” he said quickly. “Just, maybe you could tell me what to do, guide me through it, that sort of thing. I won’t be much trouble, and I’ll practice as much as you tell me to. Promise.”

Snape’s fingers tapped out a cadence on the chair of his arm. “The headmaster really would be more equipped to teach you.” Harry couldn’t tell what he was thinking, if he was trying to get out of it because he didn’t want to or because he wasn’t sure it was best for Harry.

He took a chance on the latter and said, “He’s so busy though, with the Order and all.” He turned to Dumbledore. “Do you really think you’ll have time?” He looked at the headmaster expectantly and was met with an eye twinkle.

“I’m afraid young Harry is not wrong,” Dumbledore said easily. “I cannot fit in an Occlumency lesson until…oh, third week of October?”

Snape gave Dumbledore a look of exasperation at the obvious lie, but he either didn’t care for the odds of arguing two against one, or he wasn’t all that set against it. He cleared his throat and met Harry’s gaze. “Tuesday. Seven o’clock. My office. Don’t be late.”

Harry nodded eagerly, trying not to grin like an idiot.

Snape gave a short nod and stood. “With your permission, I will be taking my leave of you, headmaster. I have several potions to brew and lessons to plan before tomorrow.”

Dumbledore gave a polite nod. “Of course.”

“Um, me too?” Harry looked between the professors and perched on the edge of his chair. Now that Snape was talking to him again, he wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye.

“A few more minutes, if you don’t mind, Harry.” Dumbledore poured some more tea into both their cups.

Harry sank back down and watched as Snape’s robes billowed behind him as he left. He felt like he’d lose something important if he let Snape out of his sight for too long, and he wondered if that meant there was maybe something wrong with him. It was okay for a little kid to need a security blanket. It wasn’t okay for a teenager to need security blanket in the form of a cantankerous teacher. Was Madame Pomfrey right? Did he need a…a Mind Healer or something? He shook his head and reached for his cup of tea to distract from that depressing thought.

“I am happy to see you and Professor Snape getting along so well,” said Dumbledore conversationally.

Harry looked askance at the headmaster. “You know we were arguing almost the whole time we were here, right?”

Dumbledore smiled. “Even close friends and family argue, Harry. Adversaries do not have a corner on the market. I do, however, find a marked difference in the way I approach arguments with those with whom I share a certain level of closeness. Do you not?”

Harry frowned in thought. Yes, he could see that. He’d argued with Ron loads of times. It hurt worse to fight with Ron than with, say, Draco, because in the end, he still cared deeply about Ron. Yet, they also bickered a lot over little things because they knew their friendship was strong enough to weather it. Sometime over the course of the summer, he had grown more comfortable with arguing and bickering with Snape in a way that didn’t make him want to run for cover. The contempt that had driven their arguments in previous years had given way to a grudging respect…and maybe it wasn’t even quite so grudging anymore. He found that he quite liked that thought.

He sipped his tea and asked, “Professor…you were upset about something when we spoke last week. Was it about Snape? When you said he couldn’t teach me, was it because of the Dark Mark?”

The familiar sadness flickered in Dumbledore’s eyes as he nodded. “It is perhaps slightly more complicated than that,” he said gently. “But yes, I was deeply grieved by Professor Snape’s situation. As for his instructing you…suffice it to say, when someone we care for is in pain, particularly a pain for which there is no known end or cure, it does not do to push them toward a path that may only lead to more pain.”

Harry frowned. “You think I’d hurt him?”

Dumbledore said gently, “My concern was rather the other way around.”

“Oh.”

“My dear boy,” said Dumbledore, leaning forward in his chair. “You know Professor Snape well enough by now for me to have some latitude in speaking plainly. He does not need someone else to hurt him. He is perfectly capable of doing so to himself, and also of transferring his pain to those around him.”

Harry nodded. He did know that. “You’re not still worried about him teaching me?”

“Oh, I worry about a great many things,” said Dumbledore. “In this instance, however, I am satisfied.”

“You’re sure? Because I want him to teach me, but I guess it’s selfish, isn’t it, if he’s not feeling up to it. Maybe I should-”

Dumbledore stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Do not underestimate the power of purpose, Harry. There is much outside Professor Snape’s control at the moment, and in the midst of that, he has made the conscious choice to come to your aid. That choice gives him purpose. I have seen a marked improvement in his demeanor over the weekend, and I am not so blind as to think that has little to do with you. You help him in allowing him to help you. Do not lose sight of that, and do not confuse having your needs met with selfishness.”

Harry bit his lip. His dream self had said something similar to him once, something about Snape needing to find purpose and hope again. He felt humbled at the thought that he could be a part of Snape’s rediscovering his purpose, though he didn’t really understand how teaching Harry could help Snape all that much.

Dumbledore squeezed his arm and let go. “I would ask that you be cognizant of his current limitations. Regardless how unaffected he is determined to appear in your presence, he is in pain. He may require more patience or understanding from you than is usual. And if what he requires is time or space, I request that you give it to him.”

“Yes, sir. Of course,” he nodded gravely.

“Thank you, Harry.” Dumbledore smiled fondly at him, and Harry basked in the attention. He hadn’t wondered in a long while what it would have been like to have a grandparent, though as a child he’d imagined all sorts of alternate lives he could be living, complete with loving parents, siblings, and grandparents. But he thought that if he had had a grandfather, he might not have minded if he’d been a little bit like Dumbledore. Maybe not completely like him. His ideal grandfather would be less secretive. Perhaps with a touch more Hufflepuff and a touch less Slytherin in him. But Dumbledore made for a nice grandparent template to start out with.

Which led him to wonder if Snape had ever met Harry’s real grandparents, when he was friends with Lily. And since he couldn’t ask all of his questions right away without overwhelming Snape with his curiosity, he decided he had better write down all his “questions for Snape” in a notebook. He might even get through a small fraction of them by the time he graduated Hogwarts.

“Let me get this straight.” Ron’s eyebrows squished together. “Snape was annoying at first, but not as annoying as you thought he’d be. And he made you work in his lab but you didn’t kill each other. And then he, um, agreed to teach you. Without being forced. And it went…” he wrinkled his nose to show his skepticism, “not horrible.”

Harry nodded patiently, even though they’d been over this several times already. He adjusted himself on his cushion on the floor of the Room of Requirement, where he and his friends had gone in order to avoid being overheard.

“And then you got captured, and so did he-”

“Because he was trying to save me.”

“Uh, yeah... And then you got out.”

“Because he saved me.”

“Okay.” Ron scratched his nose. “And now you think he’s…er, not horrible. And he doesn’t, um…”

“He doesn’t hate me anymore either,” filled in Harry, because that’s where Ron kept getting tripped up.

“He really was friends with your mum?” asked Hermione excitedly.

Harry nodded with a grin. That was one thing he’d decided Snape would be okay with him sharing with his friends. It wasn’t an Order secret, after all, or something Snape had to be ashamed of. If they asked any of Snape’s and Lily’s past schoolmates who their friends had been, they’d find out easily enough. “But don’t tell anyone else, okay?” he added, certain that Snape would mind if it became Hogwarts gossip. “I mean it. No one else. He’s really private about his past. He’d hate being asked about it or thinking everybody was talking about it.”

“Not a word, promise,” said Ginny with a reassuring smile, and he was glad he’d invited her to join them. She’d been there, at Grimmauld Place and at Kneader’s, and she’d seen what things were like between Harry and Snape before school started. He figured it might help Ron to believe him if he heard it from his own sister. Even if so far, Ron was looking at all three of them as if they were pod people.

“Did Professor Snape tell you about her?” asked Hermione.

“A little. Not much,” he admitted. “But some.” He almost told them about the stone and the letter, but they seemed too personal to Snape. Besides, he no longer had the stone. He felt a familiar pang of loss at the thought.

“Yeah, but back to the, um, not hating you part…” said Ron with a shake of his head. “You’re positive Snape isn’t under a spell?”

“Ron,” scolded Hermione. They’d been over this several times already also.

“I’m just saying!” Ron held out his hands. “Or he could have a twin. Everybody has an evil twin, right? Well, maybe Snape was the evil twin, and now he’s been replaced by the, you know, less-evil twin.”

“Snape doesn’t have a twin,” said Harry, and at the same time Ginny pointed out that, “Well, Snape is still evil in class.”

“Hmm,” Ron looked them over as if considering their arguments.

“You know, he saved you too,” Harry pointed out. “When I found out what curses were used against you, and I told Snape, he didn’t have to get a message to Dumbledore, but he did, right away. And then Kneader was able to figure out the counter-curse. All because of Snape.”

Ron pulled a face. “Great. That’s all I need, being in the big git’s debt.”

“He won’t collect on it,” Harry snapped and then took a slow breath. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t be irritated at Ron. After all, his friend hadn’t been there, day after day, as he and Snape had had to learn to get along and to rely on each other. He’d have reacted the same way, he knew, if Ron had come to him last year with a tale like this. More kindly, he said, “Snape can still be a git sometimes, alright? I know that. I’m not saying he’s a saint now. I’m only saying that we’ve managed to patch things up. Bury the hatchet. Start over. That sort of thing.”

“And that you…” Ron pulled his I-can’t-believe-I’m-about-to-say-this face. “You trust him.”

“Yes.”

Ron was quiet for several minutes, which was not at all like Ron, and the girls seemed content to stay in the background of this part of the conversation. Harry shifted nervously. “I’m not saying you have to like him too, you know,” he rushed to fill the silence. “Or that you have to trust him. Just…just trust me. Trust that I’m not nutters, and that I know what I’m doing. Him teaching me…it helped. Like, really, really helped.”

“Which you think you need,” Ron said slowly, “because you’re, like, Merlin-level powerful now.”

“I’m not- I mean, I don’t really know how powerful I am,” Harry admitted. They’d talked about his magic too, though he wasn’t sure he had explained it very well. “It’s new. I’m not really sure what I can do yet or how.”

“But you think you need Snape to help.” Ron was still eyeing him skeptically, but Harry was gratified to note that he was no longer looking at him like a head case they needed to immediately transport to the mental ward at St Mungo’s.

“Yeah. I do.”

“But why not McGonagall or Dumbledore? Or, you know…anybody else but Snape?”

“Snape’s smart, Ron. Like, genius-level smart. He knows strategy, and he knows all about Voldemort, and he’s probably the best Occlumens Dumbledore even knows. If he can’t help me figure out how to navigate this connection with Voldemort or to keep my magic under control, nobody can.”

“But you still think he’s a git…” he said as if holding on to some reason to believe Harry hadn’t completely lost it.

Harry sighed. “Sometimes, yeah.” It’s not like Snape needed him to defend him as if he were some white knight hero. Snape would probably cart him off to St Mungo’s himself if he tried to paint him like that.

Ron made a noise halfway between a grunt and a hum, probably getting caught up on the “sometimes” qualification. He shook his head as if to clear it and said, “Well…as long as you still think he’s a git…”

“You’re okay with it?” Harry perked up.

Ron’s face gave a pained expression. “’Course not. He’s a git.”

“I didn’t catch that,” said Ginny with a roll of her eyes. “What is he again? One more time, Ron.”

“He is!” Ron insisted.

Harry rubbed his temples. He’d had a headache all day, and he was started to feel chills coming on. But there wasn’t anything to be done. Snape had told him he’d have to deal with it. Now that his magic was stable, his punishment was apparently to be in pain. Okay, so Snape had called it a “natural consequence for abusing a potion, and hopefully you will think twice about doing it again,” but Harry thought that was the same thing as a punishment.

“You okay, Harry?” Ron asked, and he looked up to see his friend eyeing him with concern. He’d been watching him all day as if he were about to explode, and Harry couldn’t blame him. It must have been pretty frightening to be on the Quidditch pitch when Harry had almost lost control like that.

“I’m fine,” he huffed. “Look. I’m going to have lessons with Snape, don’t know how often yet, but I’m doing it. Just don’t hate me for it, alright?”

“It’s not you I hate,” growled Ron.

“Yeah. I know.” He sighed. “Just. If you could pretend around me like you hate him a little bit less than you do, that would be nice.”

Ron pursed his lips but finally nodded, and Harry answered with a relieved smile. He knew he hadn’t changed Ron’s mind about Snape, but he felt loads better having at least told him about his changed relationship with his teacher. Even though Ron would probably still have to be reined in if Snape so much as sneered at him or his friends, it was a huge step in the right direction that he wasn’t ranting and raving about it right at this moment.

And even if he did at some later time, they were friends. Like brothers, really. They were strong enough to weather it.

Tuesday evening was only two days away, but it took ages to arrive. Maybe Harry’s headaches had something to do with it, which probably weren’t even due to withdrawal from the potion anymore so much as his determination to get through long, sleepless nights without any help. Or maybe the weather had something to do with it, as it had rained almost nonstop since Sunday afternoon. Come to think of it, the rain matched his mood: dark, drowsy, nervous, with a side of hope for the possibility of a sunny day.

And now he was so tired that he was waxing poetic. Great. Just great.

He groaned and pillowed his head into his crossed arms on the dinner table. The light was killing his eyes.

“I hear you,” said Ron. “Herbology was brutal. Which is ridiculous, yeah? Herbology is supposed to be this nice, easy subject, and then Professor Sprout decides to go and grade us on our ability to catch man-eating plants before they make plant food out of us.”

“Herbology isn’t supposed to be easy,” corrected Hermione’s voice from across the table. She must have just arrived, as she hadn’t been there when Harry buried his head in his arms less than a minute ago. “To be a true proficient in the study of Herbology requires years of advanced study. And Leaping Toadstools are hardly carnivorous, Ron.”

“No, but bloody annoying, they are,” groused Ron. After another second, he asked quietly, “Alright, mate?”

“Yeah, fine,” Harry mumbled into his sleeve, ignoring that his friends had been asking that a lot lately. “Never better.” He peeked out from the crook of his arm long enough to verify that Snape still wasn’t at the head table before burrowing back down.

He’d had a couple days to look forward to resuming lessons with Snape, and he had already thought of so many things to add to his “questions for Snape” list. He wanted to know more about Legilimency, and the Death Eaters, and Snape himself…and he really, really wanted to know more about his mum. The main question he kept coming back to, however, was one that he wasn’t about to ask out loud: Was Snape back for good this time, or only until Harry screwed up again?

Because Harry screwing up was basically inevitable. He was a teenager, and not only was his impulse control not always at full operational capacity, sometimes he did or said things that he didn’t even know would get him into trouble until after they were done or said. He decided to blame the Dursleys for that, at least in part. How was he supposed to know every possible way in which he could mess this up when nobody had bothered to sit him down as a child and teach him how to be a normal human being? And then there was his stubborn self-reliance - another gift from the Dursleys - that got him into trouble almost as often as it helped him.

This time, he and his stubborn self-reliance decided that Snape would be far more likely to stick around if Harry kept the complaints about his nightmares to a minimum. Sure, Snape had said he’d help, had even asked him during each of the past two days if he needed help, but what did that really mean? A potion was out of the question, and the professor couldn’t wish the dreams away. The way Harry saw it, whining about things like being scared of the dark would only serve to make the man tire of him more quickly than he otherwise would. He already was pretty sure he was about to be lulled into a false sense of security, and that Snape would decide after a month or two that Harry was too tiresome to have around any longer. So he at the very least was going to do all he could to drag out this thing with Snape for as long as possible.

Step one: don’t be an annoying, whiny little kid. That was as far as he’d gotten in his Plan to Keep Snape Around, and it seemed like a good start.

He felt something small and cool press against his arm and he raised his head. Hermione was holding out a small potion vial. “Headache draft,” she explained at the question in his face. “Never leave home without it,” she added with a smile that didn’t quite hide her concern.

“Thanks, Hermione,” he murmured as he took another peek at the head table. Still no Snape. He wasn’t sure how serious the professor had been about monitoring every potion Harry consumed, so he wasn’t about to blatantly take one in his presence. He downed the potion and felt its effects immediately. He still felt tired, but the light wasn’t so bright now, and the pounding in his head dulled to a faint ache.

“Wish I could leave the castle,” Ron moaned. “If this rain doesn’t let up by tomorrow, I’m going to fly my broom through the hallways, just see if I don’t.”

“You can’t,” said Harry as he reached for a dinner roll. Now that his head wasn’t pounding, he realized he was starving. “If you get in trouble, we don’t have a decent backup Keeper this year.”

“Hmm,” his friend frowned. “Too right, Harry. I suppose I can wait another day, see if it clears up.”

Hermione shook her head good naturedly, and they soon were eating their fill and talking of rain and Quidditch and their upcoming Transfiguration assignment. Before he knew it, it was almost seven o’clock, and Ron was giving him a pinched look as he headed for his Occlumency lesson.

The Occlumency lesson went well. Snape didn’t introduce anything new, simply reviewed what Harry had learned over the summer and told him to sit down and practice while the professor set to work brewing a potion on a desk nearby. That was alright with Harry. Practicing Occlumency with his professor nearby was more calming than when he practiced in his dorm, where he was often only a few minutes away from being interrupted by one of his friends.

It was a little difficult to concentrate at first, as it was evening and bedtime was drawing nearer - he really hated bedtime these days - but it was an improvement over his most recent attempts. Before he knew it, Snape’s voice was breaking through his concentration. “That will do for tonight. Did you manage to construct a shield and hold it?”

Harry breathed deeply like Snape had taught him, slowly disengaging his mind from the exercise. After almost a full minute, he opened his eyes and grinned. “Yep. I think it’s getting stronger!”

Snape nodded once. “Good. Next time we will work on fortifying your mind against external distraction.”

“When will we move on to Legilimency?” he asked. Snape’s face tightened, but Harry couldn’t regret asking. The Dark Mark wasn’t going anywhere. The sooner Harry learned, the better.

“Legilimency requires more focus,” Snape answered tightly, “as well as the ability to direct the threads of your mind in multiple directions. We will work on those skills through Occlumency first. Once you have managed to display an appropriate level of control, we will progress to the study of Legilimency.”

Harry pursed his lips. That sounded like an excuse to keep him studying Occlumency for forever, not ever moving on to Legilimency, but he wouldn’t argue. Not yet. First, he’d work hard and try to show Snape that he could do it.

“You have a full hour until curfew,” Snape dismissed him. “Best head back to your dorm and get to work on your remaining schoolwork.”

Harry scrunched up his face. “You know there are these things called ‘fun’ and ‘friends’ too, right? Life doesn’t revolve around school.”

Snape shot him a mild glare. “You are at school. Whatever fun and friends you may engage in on the side, your life does and should revolve around your studies.”

Harry silently disagreed, but he merely harrumphed and swung his legs, making no move to get up. “Do you need help?”

“You are quite attached to the concept of ‘helping,’ aren’t you?” Snape added a pinch of something powdery to his cauldron.

Harry shrugged. “I can chop ingredients.”

“My ingredients are already prepared.”

“I can-”

“Were you or were you not obsessing only seconds ago about having fun with your friends?”

“Staying here is fun too.” He made his way over and peered into the cauldron. “Is it supposed to be so bubbly?” Snape gave him a look that fully communicated that he was a Potions master, for Merlin’s sake, so of course it was supposed to be bubbly, which made Harry grin. “Why did you decide to become a Potions master, anyway?” he asked curiously. “Was it because it came so easily to you, or did you look at a book of wizard careers and think, ‘oh hey, Potions master sounds important’?”

Snape snorted as he added several drops of a bright pink liquid and then stirred the potion precisely three times clockwise. “I have always enjoyed potions. It was a natural and logical path for me to take.”

“Did you ever regret it? Maybe wish you’d picked something else to do?”

“I have many regrets,” said Snape without looking up. “Mastering Potions is not one of them.”

“So what do you-”

“If you are so desperate to help,” Snape speared him with a long-suffering look, “you may assist me in retrieving the ingredients for my next potion.”

Harry grinned. “What do you need?”

With a wave of his wand, a list appeared on the board in front of the classroom. “One jar of each will suffice. You may retrieve them from my private stores. The door to my office is unlocked.”

Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise. Snape was trusting him to raid his office for potions ingredients? Alone? He supposed so, as Snape’s attention was already back on his potion. He tried not to feel proud of the fact that Snape probably could count on one hand the number of students that he trusted to do that, and Harry had made the list. He took note of the ingredients - aconite, mint, sage, borage, firefly, salt water - and jumped up and over to the office, muttering the list over and over to himself. “Aconite, mint, sage, borage, firefly, salt water. Aconite, mint, sage, borage, firefly, salt water.” Thankfully, Snape’s potions shelves were meticulously kept up and labeled. It only took him a few minutes to find all of the items and then to decide that carrying them out in two trips was definitely preferable to dropping any from his too-full hands.

He was almost out of the office when he saw a familiar-looking name on the label of a medium-sized jar.

Adder’s fork.

He stopped in his tracks. The missing ingredient to brewing more Dreamless Sleep Potion. His key to dreamless nights, headache-free days, a chance to feel rested and not jumpy… It was practically beckoning him closer, glaring out at him from its position on a nearby shelf.

No. No, he couldn’t do that, couldn’t betray Snape like that. And besides, he could easily become addicted again, way worse than before, and Snape had lectured him about letting that happen.

But just think…no more nightmares…

No. He slammed the door on his thoughts and resolutely carried the potions ingredients to Snape’s table. On the second trip into the office, he didn’t even glance in the direction of the jar, though he could feel its presence as if it were a living, breathing creature waiting to pounce.

No sooner had he placed the second set of bottles on the desk, than Snape handed one back to him. “I don’t need firefly wings.”

“Then why’d you put it on the list?”

Snape waved at the front of the classroom and said, “I didn’t.”

Harry frowned. “Aconite, mint, sage, borage, firefly,” he stressed, “salt water. See? It’s there. And there wasn’t any other firefly jar on the shelf. Just the wings.”

“Look closer,” the professor said impatiently, and Harry scratched his head, not sure what he was missing. He examined the jar.

“The board, not the jar,” said Snape, frowning.

He looked up, squinted, and walked closer. “Oh,” he said when he reached the professor’s desk and read a clearly printed flitterby. And really, whose ridiculous idea was it to name two potions ingredients so similarly? “Sorry…I’ll get it. One sec.” He studiously ignored the adder’s fork that time too.

Snape barely glanced at the small jar that he placed on the desk. Instead, he looked at Harry appraisingly. His impatience was gone, replaced by his puzzle-solving face. He pointed to his left and up two rows. “Sit.”

Harry frowned in confusion. “What-”

“In your old seat. Now.” He didn’t appear upset, but his tone brooked no argument, so Harry obeyed, thoroughly confused. Snape followed, conjured a quill and a piece of parchment, and set them on the desk in front of Harry. He then waved his wand so that a potion recipe appeared on the board. “Stay seated and copy down those instructions. Inform me when you are done.”

He wordlessly began to write, though he shot a few questioning glances over at Snape as he did so. The man was paying him no mind, adding another ingredient to his bubbly potion.

“Done,” Harry said after a few minutes.

Snape approached his desk and snatched up the parchment. He studied it, and Harry shifted nervously. He felt as if he’d sat an exam without being told what he was supposed to study. When Snape finally lowered the parchment, he gave Harry a long searching look, with a side of accusation. “Why did you never inform me that you could not properly see the board?”

He shifted nervously. “I can. I copied it out, didn’t I?” Seriously. Anybody could have gotten firefly out of flitterby!

Snape set the parchment in front of Harry and pointed at each line in turn. “One-fourth is not three-fourths. If you added that little castor oil to this potion, it would not be nearly so potent. Chicken lips and chicken legs are not remotely the same ingredient. You may as well toss the potion in the lake for all the good the substitution will do you. Hopefully before you add five, not three, drops of exploding fluid. Doxin is not even a valid ingredient. You may feel free to search my stores for such a thing, but it will be a long and fruitless search.”

Harry squinted at the board. “Oh. Well…I got most of it right, didn’t I?”

“No doubt because you have learned to compensate for your poor eyesight by a combination of sight reading and guesswork.” He waved his wand and a new set of instructions appeared on the board. “Copy.”

Harry fidgeted but grasped his quill as instructed. Only, the instructions made no sense. He looked at Snape in confusion.

“It is a string of unrelated numbers and letters. Copy. Now.”

He hated this. He could see well enough in general, but no matter how he squinted, he couldn’t decide if that was a “D” or an “O”…or maybe a “B” or a “C.” And whose idea was it to make “V” and “Y” almost the same? Or was it a “T”? Ugh. He couldn’t help but feel thoroughly frustrated that he was failing Snape’s test. He scratched out one of the strings of letters and started over, and he was so annoyed by the third time he did this that the quill tore a hole in the parchment and he threw it down on the desk.

“Can I go now? Since my lesson’s over?”

“You wished to stay,” said Snape as he picked up the parchment. “So now you will stay.” He looked over the nonsense words for long enough that Harry crossed his arms and sank into his seat in mortification. Having someone like Snape see his failure like that made him feel totally, unbelievably stupid. The man was quiet for far longer than it should have taken him to look over the small amount of writing. He finally set the parchment down, took a seat next to Harry, and without looking at him, asked, “Exactly how old are your glasses?”

Harry shrugged.

“That is not an answer.”

Harry let out a breath. Deciding to be honest, he admitted, “I don’t remember exactly. The Dursleys had to take me to the doctor after my primary school did a physical exam…I think I was eight or nine, maybe? And they took me once more sometime after I started Hogwarts. But after they realized nobody here was going to make them…” he trailed off and shrugged again.

Snape gave him a sharp look. “And other medical appointments? Doctor? Dentist?”

“I didn’t get sick much. And I wasn’t allowed sweets anyway, so…” He swallowed at the anger in Snape’s eyes, even though he was smart enough to know it wasn’t directed at him. “I managed okay though…” he trailed off weakly.

“How often does your eyesight interfere with your lessons?”

“Not a lot,” he insisted. “Really. I sit near the front in Transfiguration and Charms, and Hermione’s great about sharing her History of Magic notes. And not everybody uses the board as often as you do, so…so it’s not a big deal,” he said, wishing for the conversation to be over. Or for the floor to swallow him up. That might work too.

Snape was silent for a moment, then said, “You should have asked to sit in the front row.”

“Yeah, and you wouldn’t have made fun of me for that at all,” Harry retorted sarcastically.

He supposed Snape must not be able to refute that, as he was silent for a long moment before he deflected, “Well, you should have told someone.” Harry bristled at that, but before he could defend himself, Snape huffed and said sharply, “No. Who am I kidding? Of course you wouldn’t. I was you, and I certainly didn’t.”

Harry snapped his mouth shut at that. It wasn’t often that Snape mentioned his past, and he silently willed him to go on. When he didn’t, Harry prodded, “Did you… You didn’t have glasses, did you?”

“No.” Snape sighed. “No, I was not being quite so literal.”

“Oh.” He wondered if Snape had had any sort of handicap to deal with as a child. He supposed his lack of social skills probably qualified, if nothing else. After a minute of silence, Harry tentatively said, “You, um, you can tell me about it, if you want to.” At Snape’s startled look, he clarified, “I mean, you know, if you ever need somebody to talk to. I don’t know all of what your childhood or your parents were like, but I bet I can understand it better than lots of people could.”

Snape’s eyes looked haunted in the instant before he turned away. He asked woodenly, “Did your uncle drink?”

Harry shook his head before he remembered Snape wasn’t looking at him. “No, not really. I mean, he did a few times, but it only made him…worse. I stayed out of his way.”

“You hid.”

Harry hesitated, then admitted, “Yeah. I hid.” They sat in silence for a few minutes, and Harry didn’t need to be a genius to know that Snape had just confided in him that his father had been a drunk. And judging by what Harry had seen in his head during their Occlumency lessons, he had been a mean drunk. But Snape didn’t appear ready to say anything more about it, and Harry figured he could respect that.

Snape cleared his throat and looked at Harry closely, as if he were really seeing him, and said, “You should not have been made to compensate for your poor eyesight merely because your family is cruelly neglectful and your professors are inexcusably oblivious.”

Harry squinted, not to see better, but to hide how the words affected him. He was still embarrassed, but at the same time, it felt weird - a nice, welling up in his throat kind of weird - to be noticed, and to be told that maybe it was okay to want some things to be better.

Snape stood and straightened his robes. “If you wish to stay, you may prepare the ingredients for my next potion. Or you may return to your dormitory. Either choice is acceptable.” He walked back to the table where his cauldron was set up and carefully stirred the lightly bubbling potion once clockwise and twice counterclockwise.

Harry slowly stood and walked over to join Snape. “I’ll stay,” he said, watching the professor to see if that was truly okay. With a wave of Snape’s wand, a parchment appeared on the desk in front of him with the instructions for the potion clearly listed.

“Thanks,” Harry murmured and reached for the jar of mint.

They fell into an easy silence, and when Harry broke it to tentatively ask a few of the questions he’d been storing up - like whether Snape owned any house-elves (no); what he really, truly liked to read in his spare time (Dickens made the list); when was his birthday (January 9); and so on - Snape didn’t seem to mind. He answered, and even asked a few questions of his own. It was nice, simply talking, and not about their awful families or Voldemort or what difficult task lay ahead for either one of them. If not for curfew, he’d have been content to stay in the Potions classroom and crush sage all night long.

It made the nightmares even more stark that night, juxtaposed against the peace of the lab, but it gave him respite too, because in between the nightmares were brief moments when the sun shined through the darkness, and he dreamed of nice things like Dickens and fireflies and soft bubbly potions and was happy. Dreams were lot like life, he figured. Happiness didn’t last, so often brushed away by tragedy and pain, but that made it all the more precious to hold onto for as long as he could.