“Come on,” Harry urged, trying to ignore the pain in his left arm. “You have to get up… we have to go.” He pulled on Snape’s arm desperately, trying to get him to rise. Severus moaned and finally opened his eyes.

“What happened?” he asked, obviously still in pain, but more aware and less likely to slip into unconsciousness now.

“No time,” Harry said, urgency in his voice. “Get up, you have to get up!” Harry was almost begging him now.

Hearing Harry’s voice made Snape realize that they were not out of danger. With help he sat up and Harry pulled him to his feet. Severus’ midsection hurt like all hell, but on the upside, his nerves no longer seemed to be on fire.

“The curse-” he started, but Harry had his arm still and was dragging him away, the sword attached to his side still.

“It’s gone,” Harry said quickly, “we’re in Shadowland…”

The sky above them was clear, and it was becoming very easy for the pair to tell where the border to the no-magic zone was. A hundred yards off angry black clouds were still gathering on the edge of the Shadowland, but going no further.

After a few steps Harry let go of Snape’s wrist and lead off towards the nearest wood in front of them, which he hoped they could get lost in. It wouldn’t take Voldemort long to figure out that magic didn’t work here, and Harry knew that they would lose if he brought death eaters with him because of sheer numbers.

They ran as fast as Snape’s other injury would let them, and just as they disappeared behind the trees, lightning began striking down on the edge of the field they had dropped into. Harry and Snape stopped for a moment, and turned to see how many had come now that they were hidden in the trees behind thick tree trunks.

Thirty men had appeared, some of them bloody and battle worn. They looked around expectantly, clearly expecting to see Harry and Snape, but found only the empty field instead.

Voldemort was at the front of the group. He looked around with some curiosity, and said, “What is this?” His voice carried on the gentle breeze that floated through the field, and Harry heard it faintly.

“Where are they?” Lucius Malfoy said. Harry was pleased to see that Malfoy had a nasty gash on his head and that half of his white blond hair was stained blood red. His cloak and robes were also torn, and he no longer had his cane, only his wand.

Voldemort didn’t answer him, and instead walked the boundary of the Shadowland underneath where his storm clouds were. Conveniently enough, the clouds were not raining on him and his death eaters, as they had done at the castle.

“An odd barrier,” the Dark Lord pondered. He was silent as he tilted his head and stuck his hand out. It passed from under the cloud and into the light unharmed. He motioned with one hand and the nearest death eater moved forward. “Go into the light,” he told him quietly.

Voldemort studied what happened as the nervous man Harry had never seen before took a few steps forward and turned back to his master as nothing happened.

“What do you feel?” Voldemort asked him.

“N, nothing my lord,” the man stuttered.

Still Voldemort paced along the barrier though. “I see their brooms,” he said thoughtfully, and I am sure they are here, and yet, my magicks cannot pass.”

“Cast something,” Voldemort told the man standing in the lighted field.

“What shall I cast?” he asked him.

Voldemort turned and spied Lucius. “Kill him,” he told the man. “His son is a traitor and he is no good to us half dead. Finish what his son did not.”

Malfoy’s eyes grew big and he took a step back. “M, my lord… surely you do not-”

“Kill him!” Voldemort roared to the man in the field.

The death eater lifted his wand obediently and cried, “Avada Kedavra!” Nothing happened. Uncertain and scared that he would be punished for failing, the man shouted the curse even louder a second time, again to no avail.

Voldemort resumed his pacing. “Return to me,” he commanded softly. The man, certain he would be punished, walked back across the barrier and into shadow where the rest of his fellows stood, but there was no punishment issued.

“Curious,” Voldemort said, “that the boy would come to a place with no magic…” he seemed to be working the puzzle out.

“Perhaps my lord,” Lucius said, a small shake in his voice, “if I could venture so far as to guess… he might have known it would be like this.”

Voldemort nodded. “Yes Lucius, yes, and you,” he paused, and looked at the bloody man, “you are supposed to be dead, are you not?” Malfoy looked to the ground and averted his eyes suddenly. Voldemort had said it as if he had expected Lucius to fall to the ground right there and die on his command, or even play dead like a dog just to satisfy him. When he did not, Voldemort looked away again.

“Find them,” he said. “And whoever finds him will be spared his life and the life of his family.”

The death eaters stood there momentarily, taking in what he had said, and then took off running into the field and towards the trees, Lucius limping off after them. Voldemort followed at a casual pace. Harry and Snape took off in the opposite direction as fast as they could. They had only a small lead on the other men.

“I was hoping to get back to the brooms,” Harry said breathlessly minutes later. “I only brought you here to cure you and lead them away from the school…”

Snape clutched his side, and they had to stop for a breather. Harry looked toward him and saw him clutching his midsection.

“How bad?” Harry asked. “I thought you would be cured.”

Severus shook his head and removed his hand. It was covered in thick sticky blood.

“It has removed all traces of the curse, but this is the result of a blasting spell… the damage was done before we arrived.”

Harry again had the sinking feeling of not knowing what to do. They heard the shouts of men in the distance, and Harry said, “This place is huge… we could lose them in here and they wouldn’t find us for ages… but you wouldn’t live to see us get out…”

Snape nodded. “I believe it is a flesh wound. Lead on. Get us lost.”

Harry nodded and pulled Snape to his feet from the fallen log he had been sitting on.

Fortunately for Harry and Severus, the death eaters following them had no experience tracking somebody without the use of magic.

After they continued on for a half an hour more, Harry turned right and began to double back in a very round about way. Every once in a while they heard a shout in the distance, but they saw no one.

“Do you believe it wise to return to the brooms?” Snape asked, knowing Harry’s plan without him having to say it.

“No,” Harry said, “but I’m not very wise.”

Severus snorted, but refrained from saying anything demeaning to the man who had just saved his life.

The sky was starting to get dark now of its own accord, and Harry thanked the heavens that it was almost nightfall. It would be easier to escape unseen in the darkness. The heavy tree canopy made the forest floor even darker than it already was.

Several times they stopped to rest. Harry was afraid of overexerting Snape with his wound, and the Professor didn’t complain about the rest breaks.

Sitting on the leaf covered ground, shielded from view by several fallen trees, Severus said quietly, “Tell me something.”

Harry looked at him for a moment, and then away, back to the surrounding forest. His eyes were just beginning to adjust to the darkness, and he wanted to see if anybody was coming.

“Ok,” he said quietly.

Severus thought for a moment, and then said, “Why did you follow Draco? The grounds were off limits.”

Harry laughed once very quietly. The darkest wizard of all time was hunting them like wild animals, and Snape wanted to know why he broke the rules?

“He was acting weird,” Harry said quietly. “Ron and Hermione noticed it too. I saw him alone leaving the castle through the window and I wanted to know where he was going.”

“You thought he was going to meet the Dark Lord?” he asked curiously.

“No,” Harry shook his head.

Snape sighed. “Your logic is beyond me most days Potter.”

Harry laughed again. “That’s ok, I never had a clear grasp of why you do things either.”

“What do you mean?” Snape asked.

Harry took his eyes from the surrounding woods, and looked at the man sitting across from him. “Why did you put me on a cot and cover me with a blanket? You hate me… that was just being nice.”

“I do not hate you Potter,” he said, exasperated. He thought for a moment, and then said, “I used to… very much. You reminded me of your father in every thing you did… every potion you made in class… every rule you broke… every friend you made. To me you were him.”

Harry was surprised. He hadn’t expected an answer that meant so much.

“I’m not my father,” he said quietly, watching the trees again.

“No,” Severus agreed quietly. “I can see that now. James Potter would never have gone to the lengths you have to save me. Nor would he have agreed to grade papers, even for money, or to receive tutoring he did not need to spare a friend’s feelings.”

Harry was silent for a long while. Finally he said, “I didn’t agree to grade for the money.”

“Why then?”

He didn’t answer, because he did not know the answer. All he knew was that he didn’t do it for the money. For long moments they sat there, listening to the breeze rustle through what leaves remained on the trees above them. It was November now, and Harry was surprised there wasn’t snow already this far out into the wilderness. Before long though, it began to get colder than Harry would have liked, considering he had no jacket and his shirt was torn in places.

“We are far from the brooms,” Snape said, thinking along the same lines as Harry. “We may need to stay for the night.”

The last time they had been there, it had been the end of summer, and the nights were still reasonably warm. They would probably freeze before morning.

“Let’s walk a little while longer at least,” Harry told him. “It’s dark and we can move better without being seen.”

“It would also be harder for us to see those lying in wait for us,” Severus told him.

Harry stopped trying to get up from his spot on the hard leafy ground, and thought about it. It would be easy for them to walk into an ambush in such a densely wooded area. He sat back down, and said, “Right.”

He looked over to Snape, and asked, “How’s your side doing?”

Severus lifted his hand from his wound, and said, “Better… it has stopped bleeding.”

Harry nodded. That was good. It would take some worry from his mind knowing that Snape might make it through the night, and that if he did, it was likely he would make it back to the castle alive, where they could treat his wounds. Harry had been trying to ignore his own broken wrist. Luckily it was his left. Because his wand hand was his right, he assumed that his sword hand would also be the same.

“We’ll need to take watch,” Severus said, and Harry nodded again.

“You sleep,” Harry told him. “I’ll wake you in a while.” He paused, and then added, “If you lay right next to the tree you’ll be warmer.” He remembered reading that in one of the books Hermione had found for him on wilderness survival. If it wouldn’t have been dangerous to do so, he would have lit a fire or took care to move around and make a bed of the leaves. As it was, the stiller they sat, the more likely it was that if someone came along, they would go unnoticed.

A few hours later, Harry shook Severus’ shoulder. He had only been asleep for the past half hour, and woke immediately.

“Your watch,” he said, and leaned back to rest his head against the fallen tree he had been sitting against next to Snape. “Are you up for it?”

“Yes,” Severus told him.

Despite it being Snape’s turn to keep an eye out for death eaters, Harry could not sleep. He listened as the now cold breeze blew around them, and shivered several times. Even with his eyes closed, he could not drift off.

From the darkness, he said, “I guess I liked that you thought I could do something.”

Snape did not turn to him. “What are you talking about Potter?”

Harry shrugged. “Why I started grading for you… the way you asked me… you never trusted me to do anything before. You always thought I was just a screw up. It was nice that somebody believed in me.”

“Hm…” he hadn’t thought of it like that before. Severus had always believed that if students did well they would have confidence in themselves. He had never thought that lack of confidence from a teacher they didn’t like would bring a student down in grades so much.

“That’s why Neville does so bad,” Harry continued in thought out loud. “You scare the guy half to death… Professor Sprout loves him so he started to work extra hard to please her I think…”

“You are certain it is not lack of talent?” Snape asked, “Or effort?”

“He tries,” Harry said. “He’s always studying… even before Hermione started to help him.” Harry shivered again, and his teeth chattered just badly enough to be heard as the temperature rapidly dropped.

Severus turned to him, and said, “You are cold.” It was not a question.

“No,” Harry lied.

Snape laughed. “I know you are cold because I am cold.”

“Sorry,” Harry said. “I don’t know why I said no.”

Thinking for a moment, Severus said, “Because you are afraid for me to know the truth about you.”

Harry frowned. “Where do you get that from?”

“You avoided me for almost a week because you did not want me to know you secretly thought of me as… a parent figure.” It was hard for Severus to make the words he was thinking come out of his mouth.

Heavy silence hung between them as Harry shivered. He wrapped his arms around himself, more for comfort than warmth. “It doesn’t matter,” he finally said. “You don’t think of me that way.”

When Snape didn’t answer, Harry’s suspicions were confirmed. It made him uncomfortable to know that Harry looked up to him.

“You do not want me as a parent Potter,” he said quietly after a long pause. “You spent five years hating me… what would make you like me enough to think of me like that all of a sudden?”

Harry didn’t have an answer to give him right away. He hadn’t thought about it really. Before he had called out the “D” word in his sleep when only Snape was in his dream, he hadn’t even realized the way he had begun to think of the man.

“You decided you didn’t hate me all of a sudden,” Harry said. “Why can’t I do the same? I guess… I guess…” he didn’t know how to say what he wanted. It was like he didn’t have the right words in his vocabulary and he needed to make up some whole new ones. “You made it so I didn’t have to live with my relatives,” he finally finished. It made perfect sense to him, but he knew Snape would not understand this time.

“You were obviously being mistreated,” Severus said after a moment, trying to understand how him making sure Harry lived in a safe place made him stop hating him.

“You knew,” Harry said, trying to clarify what he had meant. “You knew that, and you didn’t tell anybody else…” again he was lacking the words he wanted. “Some days, your office felt like the only safe place… sometimes it felt like you were the only one that understood me. Ron and Hermione… they mean well, but they don’t understand what it is to have Voldemort inside your head… they don’t understand what it is to be stuck under a prophecy where you’re forced to become a murderer or be murdered. They don’t understand…” Harry trailed away. “They can’t understand what it is to not be fed or be hit, or not get any presents on holidays because their family hates them.”

“And you believe I understand all of these things?”

Harry thought on that. “Maybe not… but you try.”

A forceful gust of wind blew their hair around, and gave Harry goosebumps all up and down his spine.

Snape sighed after a long while, and finally said, “I have come to enjoy your company while grading, and I also value the trust you have come to place in me Harry. I do not know what it is to feel for a son… but I have certainly come to value you as a friend. If that is what a father feels…” he trailed away and Harry’s chest tightened uncomfortably again.

Sirius was the closest thing he had had to a father, and that had ended quickly enough. Just when Harry had come to feel that he had some kind of parent, Sirius had been snatched away from him. Now he was feeling the pain of that all over again. He had felt the same wave of emotions when Voldemort had told him that the curse Severus had been hit with was fatal.

“Everybody around me dies,” Harry felt the need to suddenly inform him. “They take everything I value.”

“Come here,” Snape said, half an order, half a request. Harry scooted over to him the three feet that they were sitting apart, and Severus put his arm around Harry’s shoulder.

“It is not your fault that people die. The Dark Lord is a murderer, you are not.”

“I will be,” Harry said.

“Perhaps, but until that day, regret for lost friends and family should not be on your heart, and even then, it should not be. I am alive now because of you.”

“You almost died because of me… if I hadn’t gone after Draco you wouldn’t have followed me.”

“If you hadn’t gone after Draco, I would still have ended up out on the grounds fighting with the other Professors. It is not up to you to assign such guilt… the world and its tragedies do not revolve around you.”

Some of Snape’s old, harsh tone came through in his last statement, but Harry brushed it off. “Sure seems like it sometimes though.”

They were silent, and Harry was enjoying some of the warmth he was getting from the arm placed around his shoulder. It took some of the chill from the wind and cold night air.

“Sometimes, the world is not as it seems,” Severus told him quietly after a few moments. “Things change.”

* * *

“No sign of them my lord.” The short man that brought Voldemort the news bowed down and shook, not only with the cold, but with fear.

“I did not ask of news of not capturing them,” Voldemort said testily. He reached over and struck the man across the face with the back of his hand. “Return to me when you have found them! While you stand here they run deeper into the depths of this… this wood.” As he said this last bit, he stopped and thought. He didn’t know how far the expanse stretched, but he was betting they didn’t want to be there just as much as he didn’t. Eventually, they would crawl from their hiding places and try to reach the edge again.

“Leave me,” he told the man still bowing before him. “Search through the night. If I catch you sleeping, you will die by my bare hands.” The man hurried off, shouting something to other death eaters nearby that were coming back to report the same news he had.

Voldemort began to chuckle. Yes, he thought… they will return, and then, I will kill them both.

* * *

In the morning, Harry was quick to rise and suggest that they move off. He was uncomfortably aware that he had spent the night sleeping with his head on Snape’s shoulder. Even if Snape were his real father, he was quite sure that was not something sixteen year old children did… not guys anyway.”

It took them two hours to reach the edge of the wood and field in the gathering light. Light from the sunrise was turning the golden field a beautiful shade of pink. There were no storm clouds on the boundary now, and no signs of any other humans.

“I don’t like it,” Severus said quietly from their hiding spot. Harry shook his head. “Me either.”

From the corner of his eye, Harry caught a flash of movement from across the field. It was only a glimpse, but Harry was sure he had seen an arm from the trees on the other side of the border.

“I saw something,” Harry said.

Snape nodded. “As did I.” Harry scanned the field, and spotted their brooms lying nearly on the other side of it.

“I think they moved the brooms to the other side of the boundary… they’re trying to draw us out.”

They continued to watch, but did not see any more movement.

Finally, when the sun was well into the sky, Harry said, “I have an idea.” He pointed off to his left and said, “Go a couple hundred yards into the trees.”

“What will you do?” Severus asked him, eyeing him carefully.

“Draw them out.” He unlashed the hilt and sword from his belt and handed it to Severus. “Take this and I’ll draw them out… they can’t hit me with anything from where they are anyway, and if there are still some on this side, you can chop them to pieces.”

“This is not a good plan,” Snape told him.

Harry shrugged, “I’m not very wise,” he told him, “remember?”

Before Severus could do anything, Harry jumped up and ran ten or fifteen steps out into the open field. As predicted, a red jet of light came from an unthinking death eater’s wand, and fizzled into non-existence at the boundary. Feeling cheeky, Harry stuck his tongue out at the trees across the field, and ran back into the wood.

“That was pure idiocy!” Snape scolded him. Harry suddenly lunged for the sword Severus still held though, and pulled it from its sheath. He pushed Snape down to the ground and leapt over him. There was a cry of pain, and Severus turned in time to see Harry pull the bloody sword of Godric Gryffindor out Gregory Goyle’s father. The man fell to his knees, and then down to the ground on his face. Harry turned wildly on the spot, adrenaline pumping through him, but saw no one else.

Severus turned also so that he and Harry were now back to back, turning slowly.

“Too bad Slytherin didn’t have a sword,” Harry said, still feeling cheeky, “or Hermione might have grabbed that one too…”

Severus picked up a large branch the size of a baseball bat and readied himself to fight. “He did,” he told him. “Voldemort found and stole it.”

Harry didn’t like the sound of that at all. He knew that there was magic that could pull objects from long distances, or even from thin air. Voldemort was the type to know those kinds of magik’s.

They stood there, ready for battle for long, silent moments, and no one else came. Harry was betting that any other death eaters around had seen Goyle’s death and decided not to attack.

“What next?” Harry finally asked. Severus shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Death eaters could have been behind any tree, and so could Voldemort have been. There was a sudden rasping noise that made Harry shudder from near his left foot. He looked down, and saw Goyle’s back heaving as he regained consciousness and tried to breath. A moment later a gurgling noise accompanied the rasping.

“Remain alert,” Severus ordered Harry as he kneeled next to Goyle. He rolled the dying man onto his back. Harry took a deep breath and held it there as he saw the pool of blood on the ground under where he had been laying, and the blood soaked robes of the man. He was responsible for such damage.

“Where are the others?” Snape asked him harshly.

Goyle opened his eyes and grinned stupidly. With much effort he found words, and said, “You’re on the top of his list Sev… he wants to kill you more than the kid… isn’t that something?” He seemed to find this information amusing, although Snape and Harry did not.

“Where are the others?” he repeated, a little more softly this time. “What is their plan?”

Goyle shook his head. “Throughout the forest. Only me and Avery guarding the field… brooms on other side of border.”

“Where is the Dark Lord?” Severus asked him.

The dying man shook his head again. “Somewhere- not here. He vowed to kill us all if we didn’t find you and bring you to him dead. Others called him back… had to retreat.”

“Hm…” Snape stared into the other man’s eyes, and Harry was sure he was searching his mind for the truth.

Goyle took another rasping breath, this one long, labored, and deep, and Harry was sure it was one of his last. “He’s furious with you,” he told Severus. “He swears to see his most loyal traitor dead… after the prophecy… he never thought you’d betray him after you told him of the prophecy…” Snape paled visibly. This was something that weighed on his conscious every day… he did not need to be reminded.

There was a slow gurgling noise, and finally Goyle lay still and silent. Harry’s heart was beating rapidly. He had killed a man, and not by magic either… he had driven a sword through his stomach. He was now as bad as Voldemort.

“Sileo in pacis filius obscurum,” Snape said quietly, still kneeling next to him.

Harry shivered. “What was that?” he asked.

“When a wizard dies,” Snape said quietly, rising, “it is tradition to offer a final spell to guide their entrance to whatever afterlife they seek. It meant, rest in peace, son of darkness. He served in darkness, and into darkness he will most likely go.”

“No,” Harry said, trying not to grit his teeth. “About the prophecy… he said, he never thought you’d betray him after you told him of the prophecy. What prophecy?”