Harry’s magic was back.

This was good news, of course, but somehow Harry couldn’t bring himself to care very much. He had felt the magic zooming into his wand, quite suddenly, and then warmth flooded into his body. He had done several cursory charms, just to test it, and then tried to open the door. The door had remained firmly shut, and the Room failed to yield to any of Harry’s requests to release them.

After that, Harry had lost interest. Perhaps the Room was rewarding him for allowing himself to be dosed with Veritaserum, perhaps not. What did it matter, really, if he still couldn’t get out of here?

Harry twirled his wand in his hands, and stared broodingly into space. His mother’s laugh. His father’s nickname. He repeated this miraculous information to himself, over and over again, as though he were trying to make it a part of himself. Bells. Fawn. Bells. Fawn.

“Learn anything interesting?”

Harry craned his neck at these familiar sounding words. Snape had rejoined the land of the living, it seemed. Well, as much as he ever did. Harry shrugged.

Snape was studying him intensely. “Your magic is back.”

“Yep.”

Snape wondered if this meant his was back as well. Somehow, he doubted it. He had not upheld his end of the Veritaserum bargain after all. Snape cast a Hover Charm and verified his suspicion. Damn. Snape slid his eyes over to Harry, wanting to see the boy’s reaction to his humiliation. But Harry was not paying attention to him in the slightest.

“You kept to your part of the agreement?” Snape probed, ignoring the boy’s clear reluctance to talk.

“Yes,” Harry said, adding, “I almost broke it, but I didn’t.”

Snape waited for Harry to throw the question back at him. Instead, Harry began Banishing the rubble away from the Room. His wandwork was jerky, and the results rather more violent than was strictly necessary. Snape said nothing, deciding it was in his best interest to drop the subject altogether. Instead, he tracked Harry with his eyes as the boy cleaned, a fierce expression on his thin face.

He had wasted a lot of time and energy, Snape thought to himself with no little bemusement. Here he had spent five years insulting the father to the son, with little effect. Clearly, the real way to wound the boy was by giving him memories of parents he would never remember.

And yet, Snape felt no pressing need to utilize this new weapon. He instead felt a shameful surge of empathy for this boy, who after all was the only other person in the world who missed Lily as much as he did. Maybe more.

Harry paused in his mad cleaning frenzy, wiping the sweat from his forehead. The Room looked pretty good now. Snape was looking at him, Harry noticed, with a surprisingly neutral expression. When Snape spoke, his words were unexpected.

“I propose a different drink is in order,” Snape said, fishing two firewhiskies out of the troublesomely magical trunk. “What do you say, Mr. Potter?”

Harry didn’t need asking twice. He snatched the offered drink and gulped it down. The amber liquid burned marvelously, so much so that it stung. Harry welcomed the sensation.

Snape raised his bottle in a sort of salute, and then drank the whiskey, his movements practiced.

The fierce edge of the alcohol relaxed Harry, and he felt the tense, strange mood that had enveloped him loosen.

“Better,” Snape said, looking at the boy appraisingly. “Now stop acting like a house-elf.”

This made little sense to Harry, who certainly didn’t expect Snape to care about his mental state. But the profound nature of his afternoon—Merlin, his father had called him Fawn—left him feeling drained and rather unable to mount his usual defenses.

“Have you ever had firewhisky before?” Snape continued.

“No.”

“It has a medicinal effect after Veritaserum,” Snape lectured, effortlessly falling into his teaching mode. “Much like chocolate combats Dementors, so Firewhisky neutralizes the effects of Veritaserum.”

Harry accepted this with a nod of his head. His churning emotions had less to do with taking Truth Serum and more to do with administering it, but that was alright. The liquor was welcome.

Snape cleared his throat. “I am pleased that your magic is back.”

Harry’s green eyes narrowed, and he looked at Snape closely as the implications of that hit him. “Why isn’t yours back? You took the Veritaserum too.”

“I do not think this Room intends to ever allow me access to magic,” Snape said after a pause. “Nonetheless, it is promising that your magic has been returned to you.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, unable to stir up much emotion about it either way. “I hope we get out of here soon. I don’t want to fall behind in my classes.”

“That’s never bothered you before,” Snape snapped. He tapped his long fingers against the empty firewhisky bottle, considering something. “There is no reason I cannot tutor you, Potter. It would help pass the time at least.”

“Really?” Harry said doubtfully.

“Yes,” Snape said, firmness entering into his tone as he solidified the decision in his own head. It would help pass the time, and it would probably also pacify the Room after the Veritaserum fiasco.

“Okay,” Harry said, his mind still more on his parents than his potions professor.

“We’ll start with Potions,” Snape said briskly. “Go fetch your books and parchment.”

“Now?” Harry said, surprised.

“Yes. I imagine the alcohol will remove the manual dexterity required for one of us to kill the other.”

Harry nearly cracked a smile at that as he gathered up his materials.

“Now,” Snape said. “Transfigure something into a desk.”

Harry flicked his wand and transfigured his empty bottle into a quite serviceable desk and chair. Perhaps his break from magic had been good for him, Harry mused. He felt a little more…powerful now.

“Sit.”

Harry rolled his eyes but did so.

“Today we will be covering the class of potions that works on House Elves as well as on witches and wizards,” Snape said, his voice confident and clear as it rang through the room. “This type of potion is known as a Cross Species Substance. Now, Potter, tell me what law these potions break.”

“Err….”

“Look it up,” Snape commanded. “You should know this.”

Harry paged through his text. “Oh, the Law of Better Blood.” Harry snorted. “Hermione is going to have kittens when she reads that.”

“We covered that law your third year,” Snape said snidely. “So undoubtedly Ms. Granger is already familiar with it. You, however…”

Harry tried his best to look abashed.

“House-elves and wizards share the ability to do magic, but this magic manifests itself in different ways. It is not unsurprising, then, that only a few of our potions work on them. Potter, tell me two ways that house elves’ magic differs from ours.”

Harry brightened. “They can Apparate into places we can’t, like Hogwarts. And they don’t carry wands, and we do.”

Harry’s knowledge of house-elves, via Dobby, carried him through most of the lesson. Snape continued to pepper him with questions, never praising him when he got one right, but always ready with a snide comment when Harry didn’t know the answer. The alcohol kept Harry from losing his head, however, and he allowed most of the insults to slide off of him.

Snape began to wrap things up. “…And that is why house-elves have such a strong reaction to butterbeer. Any questions, Potter?”

Harry shook his head. He had actually understood everything, a rare and momentous moment in his Potions career.

“For next class, one foot comparing Cross Species Substances and Multi-Use Salves. Dismissed.”

Harry snorted. “I wish.” He did not stand up, however, oddly comforted by this familiar version of Snape looming over him with his arms crossed. Snape, too, looked more relaxed after giving a class and setting an essay.

Or maybe it was just the alcohol.

----

Harry, driven by boredom, had started in on his homework right away. Snape had let this pass without comment, and was prowling around the Room rather like a bloodhound looking for a dropped scent.

Snape was bent over, inspecting the sealant between the floor and walls, when a cry from Harry startled him. Snape whirled around, pulling out his wand out of sheer habit. His eyes widened slightly at what he saw.

“Potter,” Snape said harshly, crossing the Room in one stride. “Did you conjure this?”

“No,” Harry said. His parchment and quill slid to the ground unnoticed as he jumped to his feet and joined Snape.

The mirror looked a bit smaller to Harry. Well, it had been four years since he had seen it last. The same incomprehensible writing was swirled around the edges in delicate ink, and the same golden claws supported it. Before Harry could even begin to deal with the return of this rogue mirror, the glass began to shake.

There was a sputter, and then a pop, and then something flew out of the mirror, smacking Harry on the nose. He uncurled the piece of parchment, heart thumping. Dumbledore’s slanted writing stared back at him, and Harry felt a stab of dread.

“What does it say?” Snape demanded.

“Desire is a battle,” Harry said, frowning.

“That’s all?” Snape snatched the parchment away and studied it for himself. He growled and threw the paper to the ground, annoyed. “I do not like this.”

Harry was annoyed, too. “Why can’t he at least show his face?” he complained. “This is getting ridiculous.”

“A place for warriors,” was Snape’s reply. “Tap your weapons. Desire is a battle.”

Harry looked at him blankly. Then his gaze hardened. “When I started Dumbledore’s Army, this isn’t quite what I had in mind.”

Snape eyed the mirror warily. “I do not know what the headmaster has in mind, either, leaving the Mirror of Erised here. It seems a type of torture.”

“It’s odd,” Harry agreed, careful not to look into the glass. If he looked at it once, he wasn’t sure he would ever look away. “Dumbledore told me that men have gone mad before this thing. And we can’t really escape from it, can we?”

“Perhaps it is another test,” Snape said, his nose crinkling at the mere suggestion. He had not recovered from the Veritaserum, and the boy had not either. It was cruel of Dumbledore to present them with another emotionally fraught task so soon after the last one.

“Do you think we are supposed to look in it or not?”

Snape shrugged with the air of someone who has little to lose and strode up to the mirror. Snape’s demeanor changed completely once he gazed into it. The tension left his body, leaving him unguarded. And—it happened so quickly, but Harry could never after shake this impression—Snape looked for a moment like he knew somebody loved him. A small, secret smile stole over his features, as though he had a lovely secret, for once, instead of a horrible one. Then, impossibly, Snape’s flinty black eyes began to look darker, as though they had been smeared with something wet. He put his hand up to the mirror. Harry suddenly felt as if he were intruding on something very private, and looked at his feet.

Harry thought that Snape would remain there for quite awhile—he certainly had his first year-- but to his surprise Snape broke away seconds later with the dazed air of someone who has gotten too close to chaos. He stumbled away, a man lost in a dream.

Harry spared his professor only a glance before he walked up to the mirror, feeling its siren call tugging at his spirit. He would only look for a second, he told himself. Just to see if his heart’s desire had changed.

It had not. Harry stared at his mum and dad, looking the same as they had the last time, immensely proud but sad as well. The love in their eyes was profound, radiant even. Harry thought he heard a faint tinkling in his ears. Like bells. His father looked at him, the adoration clear in his face, and Harry thought how fiercely this man had both loved and left him.

Harry echoed his professor and put his hand up to the glass. His parents put theirs up as well, and for a moment it was like they were all touching each other. But the glass was cold, and hard, and unyielding, and after a second Harry let his hand fall to his side. Father and son shoved their hands into their pockets in the exact same way. Lily kept hers up in a kind of wave. Harry rocked back on his heels, feeling with sudden clarity how little he knew about her. He looked like his dad; he shared gestures and quirks with his dad. But Lily? She was a mystery, mostly.

A mum shouldn’t be a mystery.

Harry understood now why Snape had not lingered. This mirror showed intensely private things, and it didn’t feel right to have such an experience in front of another. Harry broke away, promising to himself that he would return when Snape was asleep.

Snape was a few feet to the side of the mirror, head bowed, as though he couldn’t bear to part with it. Harry studied him, and felt something niggling at the back of his mind. Harry grabbed onto it, feeling unable to cope with his parents and desperate for a distraction.

“First year,” Harry said, and then stopped, surprised at how weak his voice was. He cleared his throat. “First year, this mirror showed me the Sorcerer’s Stone. I wonder if it would show us a key or the way out of here.”

“If that is what your heart desires the most right now,” Snape said, his voice hallow. “I am not certain mine does.”

“Let’s both look,” Harry urged. “I bet Dumbledore would want us to work together. Let’s both look and think of how badly we want to get out of here.”

Snape nodded carelessly, his sharp edges dulled by whatever he had seen in the mirror.

Harry faced the mirror once again, and felt that Dumbledore’s stupid note wasn’t far off the mark. Desire was a battle. At the moment, he couldn’t find it in himself to care about getting out of here. He didn’t want to get away from this mirror and away from his parents. Especially, at this moment, from his mum.

Lily swam into view, alone this time. Harry felt a sharp intake of breath behind him, and felt, rather than saw, that Snape had joined him. Lily seemed to see them both. She looked at Severus, her eyes filled with love and what looked like forgiveness to Harry.

“Oh, Lily,” Snape said, pain and regret wrenching his voice into knots as he saw her again.

This mirror had never shown him anything but her.

Then Lily looked at Harry. Something in her eyes changed. Harry still saw love there, so much that it hurt, but he also saw, not forgiveness, but a sort of apology in her eyes. Almost as though she were asking for forgiveness this time, rather than granting it.

“It’s okay, Mum,” Harry said softly. “I know you didn’t want to leave me.”

Lily stood there, dark red hair around her pale face, looking at both of them. Harry and Snape remained as they were, utterly entranced by her. Snape broke away first. “Come,” he said to Harry in the gentlest voice he had ever used with him. Harry didn’t know he was capable of such a tone. “We shouldn’t linger, lest we fall into madness.”

Harry didn’t move. Snape lightly touched the boy’s shoulder, as though Harry were made of glass and not the mirror, and turned him around. Harry looked up at Snape, the same sort of aching plea in his eyes that had tumbled out of his mouth earlier.

This time, Snape did something about it. It wasn’t much, but it was all he knew how to do. He squeezed the boy’s shoulder, hard enough to hurt, and left his hand there in what he hoped was a bracing sort of way.

It wasn’t much, but for Harry it was enough. He had nobody else here, and nobody outside of the mirror, and Snape would just have to damn well suffice. Harry allowed the hand to remain on his shoulder, and for Snape that was enough, too.