The rest of the night passes in a blur for Harry. He remembers breaking away from Snape, and Snape gruffly telling him to go to bed, and then falling into his hammock. After the day he’d had, mindgames courtesy of the headmaster, his sleep is deep and undisturbed. He dreams only about his mother smiling at him. It is a nice dream.

When Harry opens his eyes the next morning, Lily is still gazing at him. She’s standing in the Mirror, Harry realizes with a pang as he puts on his glasses, as though she has been keeping vigil all night.

The idea bothers Harry. He waves his wand and casts a Covering Charm on the Mirror. A curtain of red and gold falls over Lily, obscuring her from sight. “Sorry, Mum.” Harry mutters. He gets up and begins to take breakfast items from the trunk.

Snape sweeps out of the washroom, robes billowing as usual. He stops with a start when he sees the curtains over the Mirror. Eyebrows raised, he joins Harry in what is quickly becoming the breakfast nook. He surveys Harry over his tea, cool black eyes calculating.

“So,” Harry says without preamble, as though answering a question Snape has just posed. “You saw my mum in the mirror.”

Snape merely nods, expression shuttered.

“Why did you see her?” Harry prompts.

“Why do you think?” Snape snaps. He puts down his tea with a clatter.

“You loved her?” Harry asks, unconsciously squaring his shoulders as though preparing for a blow.

His instinct is correct. Snape wordlessly hurls his cup to the ground, and shards of porcelain scatter at their feet. A puddle of hot tea inches towards Harry’s robes. Harry takes out his wand, but Snape puts out his hand.

“Leave it,” Snape says, curtains of hair obscuring his expression. “I will clean it up.”

Snape begins to pick up the shards. Harry watches him, acutely embarrassed for his professor, crawling around like a Muggle after the broken glass. Harry sees himself at six, cutting his ear after Aunt Marge threw a wine glass at his head.

Harry flicks his wand, Banishing the mess.

“I TOLD YOU TO LET IT ALONE!” Snape roars, all control gone, straightening like a shot. “BUT YOU NEVER DO, DO YOU?”

“I want to know about my mother!” Harry answers between clenched teeth. “I deserve to know what you did with her!”

Snape’s voice goes dangerously cold, sending a shiver through Harry. “I did not do anything with Lily Evans. And if you ever refer to her with such disrespect again, Potter, I will teach you a lesson you will not enjoy.”

“Well, it won’t involve magic,” Harry retorts. “And that’s not what I meant.” He takes a deep breath, trying to force his voice into politeness. “I want to know if you loved her, and if she loved you. That’s all.”

“As though that were nothing!” Snape spits, eyes flashing. “I am not the rest of the wizarding world, Potter, ready and willing to comply with your every request. You would do well to remember that. Let. It. Alone.”

Harry has been let alone himself too often to take this advice. “My mum would want you to tell me.”

“You don’t know what your mother would want,” Snape says viciously. “You never knew her.”

This cuts Harry like a knife. It probably would have shut him up, too, had they been anywhere else. But here, he has magic and Snape doesn’t, and it is this more than anything else that lets him stand his ground.

“I bet my mum never looked twice at you,” Harry taunts, determined to get a response out of Snape. “I bet she felt sorry for you, and she was nice to you because she was a good person. But she never wanted you. She wanted my dad, always, and I bet he knew it too, and they would all laugh at you behind your back—“

“SILENCE!” Snape roars. “As always, Potter, you are completely wrong!”

“Tell me the truth then,” Harry says at once. “Go on, you always wanted to rub my face in it, I know you did. Here’s your chance.”

Snape points a long bony finger at him. “Sit down,” he thunders. “Sit down, and be quiet. Perhaps you will learn something for once in your life.”

Harry immediately slides into the chair that had been used yesterday for the potions lesson. He looks up keenly, giving Snape far more attention than he ever gives him in class.

“Your mother and I met as children,” Snape says, managing to make even that sound like a threat. He plants his hands on the desk, leaning forward so their faces are a foot away. “I introduced her to magic. I told her she was a witch. I was her best friend, her first link to the wizarding world. And once we got to Hogwarts, it was no different. She hated your father from the first time she saw him on the train. She used to complain to me about how awful he was. And it was me who she studied with, me who she talked to. She told me, first year, that she’d rather be in Slytherin with me than in Gryffindor with him.”

Spit is flying onto Harry’s cheeks, but he doesn’t wipe it away. He sits stock still, afraid that any movement will break Snape’s concentration.

“Your mother and I spent every summer together after that. We played tricks on that awful sister of hers. We plotted how to put James Potter in his place, and we made potion after potion together in her attic. She was a marvel at Potions.” Snape shakes his head, sidetracked. “I am astounded that you did not inherit even one drop of her talent.”

Harry privately thinks this is up for debate. He might not be pants at Potions if Snape had ever given him a proper chance.

“And then,” Snape says, voice cracking, “then it went to pieces that day by the lake. I don’t have to tell you the one I mean. She wanted nothing to do with me after that, even though I apologized.”

Oh. So his father had been, at best, tangential to the real hurt of that day.

“She started to spend more time with James,” Snape says relentlessly, “and I became a Death Eater. Without her there was no reason not to. She never tried to stop me. Maybe she had expected me to go Dark. Everybody else did.” Snape leans even closer to Harry, so that their noses are almost touching. “But you remember this, Potter. She cared for me before she ever set eyes on your father. She loathed him. And you are him in miniature.”

Harry wipes the spit off his face, and it is almost like he wiping away tears. “Well,” he manages. “Not completely. I have her eyes.”

“I’ve never said you weren’t lucky,” Snape sneers, standing back and folding his arms. “Lucky you do have her eyes, or I wouldn’t have bothered protecting you all this time.”

Harry doubts that as he looks closely at his professor. Snape is the same age as Lupin, but has always seemed far older. Harry had attributed this to the trials of being a Death Eater, but it now seems far more likely that his mum is responsible for the lines around Snape’s eyes.

“So you have been protecting me?” Harry asks, almost shyly, looking at Snape through his fringe. “For her? And…you can’t be working for Voldemort, then. Not if you loved her. Not if you are protecting me.”

Snape says nothing, but his silence is evidence enough for Harry. Well. So the git is on his side after all.

“You apologized for calling her that,” Harry says, an unpleasant feeling settling in his gut. “And she never forgave you? She didn’t try to stop you from becoming a Death Eater? Ever?”

“DON’T YOU SAY A WORD AGAINST LILY!” Snape yells, slamming his hand against the desk. Harry flinches, and then flushes, embarrassed.

Snape doesn’t care. He thumps his hand down, again, seemingly for the pleasure of seeing Harry jump and jerk away.

“She died to protect you,” Snape hisses. “Don’t you ever forget that. You dare say a word against her? Do it again, Potter. Just try it.”

Harry glares at the desk mutinously.

“If not for your mother,” Snape continues, “I would have been the only 11-year old Death Eater ever to join Voldemort’s ranks. She was my--” Snape stops, voice catching. “I do not blame her for preferring a popular Quidditch hero to me in the end. And you will not blame her either.”

“So blame my dad instead?” Harry asks. “That’s what you’ve been doing, isn’t it? And blaming me because I look like him?”

Snape does not deny this. “I despised your father for many reasons, as well you know.”

“She still should have gone after you,” Harry says stubbornly. “Just because you lost your temper once and called her a Mud--”

“DO NOT SAY THAT WORD TO ME!” Snape shrieks, grabbing the front of Harry’s shirt and yanking Harry so hard that he rises halfway out of his seat. “And do not presume, boy, to talk of things you know nothing about!”

Snape lets Harry go, a disgusted expression on his face, and Harry falls backwards, landing heavily in the chair.

Harry smoothes his rumpled front, taking a couple of fortifying breaths. He reaches into his robe pocket and pulls out his wand. Something registers in Snape’s eyes then, and his lip curls unpleasantly. Harry clutches the wand, comforted by the cool wood.

“Well,” Harry says, still rearranging his shirt, even though the wrinkles are gone. “Well. You still haven’t said it, but I have the answer to my question. You did love her, and she—she cared for you, once. That’s—that’s all I wanted to know.”

“It was more complicated than that,” Snape says coldly. “But of course, such complexities are beyond you.”

“Love isn’t complicated,” Harry says. “Hate is, but not love.” He starts to say something else, but then his eyes dart to the covered Mirror. He gets up and heads for the washroom.

“I knew you couldn’t handle the truth,” Snape tosses over his shoulder, hands still planted on the desk as though scolding an invisible student.

“A lot of people think that,” Harry says shortly. “But they’re wrong.”

He strides into the washroom, slamming the door behind him.

Snape flinches.
----
Harry sits on the edge of the bathtub, head in his hands. Merlin, he needs to talk to Ron and Hermione. He can just see Ron’s freckly hand slapping him on the back, and Hermione tossing her bushy hair and assuring him they’ll get him through this. The thought of his friends puts a lump in Harry’s throat. Are they worried about him? Has Dumbledore told them not to interfere? Are they ignoring the headmaster and trying to get him the hell out of here?

He can’t imagine allowing one of them to become a Death Eater. Ever. He’d die before he let it happen. And yet Lily hadn’t stopped Snape. She must have seen what was happening to him, she must have known the influence she wielded over him. And yet she just let him turn Dark! What kind of friend was she?

Harry stands and looks in the mirror. He sees his father’s hair and his mother’s eyes. These familiarities have been a source of comfort to him for a long time. But now he is only confused, not the least because he now feels a sort of kinship with Snape rather than with his parents.

After all, Lily and James had been normal. They had been normal kids with loving families. They had been normal kids with loving families who had chosen each other over a difficult, weird outsider.

Harry hates them for it.

Sometimes hatred is simple, too.
---
Snape thinks about going after the boy. But, really, what more can he say to him? He’d wanted the truth, and Snape gave it to him. If Potter wants to pout and wallow in his misery, well, that is his business.

But when Potter marches out of the washroom some time later, his green eyes are snapping like fireworks.

“Done sulking, Potter?” Snape says, covering his surprise.

“How are we going to fix this?” Potter demands.

“If your mind cannot handle the thought of your mother preferring me over your father--when we were children, Potter--then you are even weaker than I presumed.”

“Not that,” the boy says impatiently. “How are we going to stop Voldemort from finding out that you love my mum and have been protecting me? And that you really aren’t on his side?”

Snape adjusts his expectations for this conversation. “I’m certainly not planning on telling him, Potter. I am an Occlumens.”

“Well, I’m not,” Potter says. “But you’re going to teach me to be one, for real this time. I have no intention of giving Voldemort a reason to kill you.”

“How touching, Potter, but I assure you that I can fend for myself.”

“It has nothing to do with you. I just don’t want to feel guilty for another death. So are you going to teach me or not?”

Snape files away the guilt comment for future use. “Only you would think that is an adequate way to ask a professor to give you lessons, Potter.”

Potter scowls. “Excuse me, sir, but I would be much obliged if you would give me lessons so that I can prevent your death.”

“I’m not interested in your hero complex, Potter. Save it for The Prophet. I don’t need saving, especially not by you.”

“Someone’s got to do it,” the boy says harshly. “We both know what will happen if he finds out from reading my mind. He’ll kill you once we get out of here.”

“And how, exactly, do you propose I teach you Occlumency?” Snape points out. “I cannot Legilimize you here.”

“Try it.”

“Try it, what?” Snape growls.

“Try it, sir.”

Snape takes out his wand. It feels warm to the touch, and a jolt of hope surges through him. He points his wand, but instead of Legilimizing the boy, he attempts to send a Blasting Curse at the closed door. Nothing happens, and Snape frowns. The magic is in his wand. Pulsing. He can feel it. But how to unlock it?

Snape turns to the boy and meets his stony eyes. He raises his wand. “Legilimens!”

Snape staggers at the force of emotion he finds within Potter. Rage, hurt, sadness, disappointment. The last puzzles Snape, so he delves further. As usual, the boy puts up no resistance. Snape finds an image of himself and Lily as teenagers. Lily has her nose up in the air as Snape, a bruised and bewildered Snape with oddly untidy hair, pleads with her. But this never happened, not in this way, and so Snape prods the thought, demanding it to explain.

The teenaged Snape appears again in Harry’s mind, and people are jeering at him. He flails on the ground, alone, friendless, neglected. Lily watches him silently and turns away. The younger Snape watches her leave, and it seems his last hope is going with her. An arm with a Dark Mark on it appears, and Snape takes it, heaving himself to his feet. He seems resigned.

The child Snape is replaced by a child Harry, pleading with his teacher to believe him about his black eye. The teacher, who has dark red hair, tells him not to make up stories about his family. Harry watches her leave, and it seems his last hope is going with her. He looks out the window and Dudley waves at him, grinning wickedly. Harry resigns himself and trudges outside.

And then a roar of hurt overcomes Snape, pain so strong Snape cannot stand it. He stumbles back, thrown out of Potter’s head by the force of the emotion. He pants, staring at Potter, at this stupid, stupid boy who has gotten it all wrong once again.

Potter is clutching his head, groaning in distress.

“Mum,” the boy is croaking. “You shouldn’t…he needed…you were all he had…not decent…”

“Stop it!” Snape says, aghast at what he sees, and understands. “Potter, look at me.” The boy continues to writhe, so Snape strides over to him, and roughly lifts the boy’s chin up so they are looking at each other. The panic slowly recedes out of the boy’s green eyes, but the anguish remains.

“Correct me if I am mistaken,” Snape says, “but you appear to be laboring under the misapprehension that your situation and mine are similar.”

The boy looks at him miserably.

“Just to clarify,” Snape continues. “You were a child and all the adults around you failed you. And, in the same fashion, you think Lily failed me?”

“Yes,” the boy mutters, but he seems unwilling to elaborate. Perhaps unsurprising, given Snape’s earlier reaction.

“She was not responsible for my choices,” Snape says firmly. “I was almost an adult. She was not my keeper, and she did not fail me. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“She could have stopped you,” the boy says, terrible in his sadness. “I would have. If you had been my best friend, I would have stopped you. I would have at least tried.”

“Sometimes, Potter,” Snape says quietly, “sometimes I wish she had tried, too.” Snape looks furtively at the Mirror as the shame of this admission washes over him.

This, if anything, only makes Potter more agitated. “I would do anything for Ron and Hermione,” he says, almost panting with angry sincerity. “And she just didn’t bother with you anymore because you were too difficult.”

“Just as your teacher didn’t bother with you?” Snape prods. He realizes something else, then, and pales at the implications. “Your parents didn’t fail you, Potter. They died to save your life.”

“They left me with them,” Potter says heatedly, and then blinks in surprise, as though he has never voiced this hurt before. He casts his eyes downward.

Snape taps him under the chin again, making him look up. “I never thought I would see the day, Potter, that you would find similarities between us.”

“Well, what did I ever have in common with my parents?” Potter asks furiously. “They had happy homes—loving parents—and me—I had—“

“Nothing,” Snape finishes. They look grimly at each other.

The boy shoves his hands in his pockets. Snape, amazingly, smiles. “Congratulations, Mr. Potter.”

Potter looks at him blankly. “Huh?”

“You threw me out of your mind.”

A crooked grin washes over the boy’s face.