It would take weeks to repair the castle after Voldemort’s attack. A determined silence fell over the castle and grounds, and all of its residents as they mourned the loss of friends and colleagues. Students were still restricted to the inside of the castle unless accompanied by a Professor for purposes of repairing the castle and grounds.

Instead of classes resuming as normal, Professors took their older students around the castle each day with newly learned enchantments and spells and gained their help in reinforcing the school’s protective barriers. Younger students were put on repair duty, because sealing and repairing spells were the easiest ones in need.

An entire team of aurors was placed on permanent duty at the school in the likelihood of another attack. Aurors, staff, and students alike were on edge. A number of parents had even pulled their students out of school… mainly first, second, and third years, afraid that they would get caught in another angry attack and die.

Harry James Potter was not worried about crossing paths with Severus Snape as he walked down the corridors on his way to McGonagall and Flitwick’s joint class one rainy afternoon. It seemed that the man had taken his order up with full heart to stay the hell away from him. In fact, he had not seen a trace of him since he had landed on the front lawn with Draco’s broom a week ago.

As the weeks wore on and there was less and less to do around the castle, Harry began to feel more and more lost without something to keep his mind off the man who had betrayed him in so many ways. He wondered why Snape had not come to find him… had not come to make amends, but at the same time did not want to see him. The fact that he had not come to find him meant that he really had not cared about him at all. He had only helped him with Occlumency lessons and looked out for him because of a stupid promise that made him feel better about himself for betraying his mother and father.

Occasionally Professors still took their classes to another part of the castle to make final repairs or new protective enchantments, but for the most part things had returned to normal. Some of the edge people had felt had worn off now that there were no new signs or news of Voldemort. As Harry sat next to his friends in class he felt emptier than ever. Things would not be the same, he told himself. Whatever hopes he had had for having somebody to look up to were gone. He would not go looking for that kind of friendship again. Harry had begun to accept the fact that he was going to end up alone.

Draco seemed to be in slightly higher spirits than Harry. He no longer spoke to any of the Slytherins, or any other students for that matter, but still Harry felt that something other than that about him had changed. Suddenly he seemed more… interested in things. The usual sneer that had found a home on his face had been replaced with curiosity. Harry wasn’t the only one to seem to notice this. In most of their shared classes, Harry noticed Draco sitting off by himself, listening attentively to the Professor as other Slytherins glared and jeered at him.

The first snow fell early that year. Care of Magical creatures had already been moved inside to one of the larger first floor classrooms for security purposes, so none of the students seemed to mind the cold weather arriving early.

In his free time Harry had taken to roaming the corridors over the last few weeks, feeling oddly out of place amongst his friends in Gryffindor tower. Ron had gained some new kind of power it seemed… Harry didn’t know how to explain it, but suddenly his best friend had more confidence. Suddenly he seemed more independent. Harry didn’t mind the change. In fact, he thought it was a good one, and was glad to see that Ron had gained some more popularity, but it still made him feel out of place. To Harry the weeks seemed like only a day… it was as if things in his life were normal, and as he knew them one day, and then the next he was flying off to Shadowland, and everything he had known and come to treasure as normal had fallen away, like the ground had been taken from under his feet, and he had come back to find things mostly the same, but still altogether different.

Harry walked slowly down the hall, light filtering in through the newly repaired windows as a light snow fell. He wished he had someone to confide his thoughts to, but again didn’t feel like Ron and Hermione would understand.

“He cannot know.”

Harry paused at the sound of Snape’s voice coming from a room a little way down the hall, the door cracked open. He didn’t know why, but he was drawn to the conversation… he felt somewhere deep inside that he was being talked about, and was not surprised to find that he was right.

“Severus, it cannot hurt him to know the truth,” Dumbledore said calmly.

Harry frowned. Why were they all the way up on second floor? Dumbledore’s office was higher up and Snape’s was down in the dungeons.

“He cannot know,” Snape insisted again. “It will only place him in more turmoil than I have put him in.”

From the corridor Harry heard the Headmaster sigh. “Why?”

There was a long silence, and Harry wondered if they had heard him. Finally Snape said, “Because it pains me every day to remember. I wish I did not know… why would I wish that dreadful knowledge on him?”

“I do not think it is as bad as you believe-” Dumbledore started, but Severus cut him off.

“Did you love her!?” he asked him hotly. “Did you have to deal with the pain of being her best friend and seeing her pass by every day, falling in love with the man who tormented you on a daily basis!? Did you betray her and her son? Are you responsible for her murder? Are you the coward that went to the Dark Lord with the information because you hated her husband and all he stood for?”

Dumbledore sighed again. “Severus-”

Snape cut him off again. “Yes or no.”

“No.”

Harry was torn. They weren’t talking about him… they couldn’t be. If they were, it meant something that Harry didn’t want to admit.

“Well I am that man… that coward,” Snape continued, his anger boiling down to some kind of hatred for himself. “I am the one that caused him to be without mother and father. I am the one who caused him so much pain! I am the coward who does not deserve to be here, but is because of some force you claim that rules the universe.”

Harry swallowed and a brick fell into the pit of his stomach. He had been walking around for the last four weeks feeling numb… wishing he felt any other emotion aside from numbness, and here Snape had found enough anger and hatred and pain for the both of them. How could a man who had done so much to ruin his life feel so much sorrow over the fact that he had done so?

There was a scrape of a chair and Harry’s stomach did a somersault in panic as he took several steps backwards very quickly. Somebody, probably Snape, was about to leave the room, and walk out to find Harry eaves dropping on his tirade. Harry turned and ran down the corridor as the door opened and Snape stormed out. Luckily he went down the corridor in the opposite direction than Harry was going.

Harry stopped and leaned against a stone wall when he did not hear footsteps coming in his direction. He let his head fall back to rest on the wall and sighed. Every time he thought he knew something about somebody, he found out that he was wrong. First Snape was an evil man who had it out for him, then he was the tormented boy in a memory being picked on by his father and his father’s friends, then he was the only person he thought really understood him, and then he was back to being an evil man. Harry didn’t know what to think of him now. Now he was just a man. Just another somebody who had made a mistake and was haunted by it daily. Harry knew all about being haunted. If it wasn’t for him not practicing his Occlumency lessons, Sirius would still be alive…

Again he felt lost and uncertain. It seemed to be a reoccurring theme for him that week. Why did things always have to be so difficult for him? At least he wasn’t having nightmares with Voldemort in them anymore, he told himself as he continued to rest against the wall. Another brick fell into the pit of his stomach as he was also reminded of the fact that that was thanks to Snape that he did not die in his sleep every night.

Harry so desperately wanted to go and talk to him, to tell him all he had been thinking and feeling since the battle, to tell him about Ron and Draco and the dreams staying away… but how could he? The last thing he had said to him was to stay the hell away from him. What was he supposed to do now, walk into his office and say, hey, how’s life treating you? Harry shook his head, disgusted with himself. This was his fault… it always was. Somehow his temper always got the better of him and he always ended up alienating those who cared about him or that he cared about. He was surprised Dumbledore still talked to him after he trashed his office the night that Sirius had died.

He ran a hand through his messy hair and closed his eyes. He felt stupid for doing it, but in his mind, he asked, mum… dad… what would you do?

Severus Snape sat behind his desk, head in hands, door closed most of the way so that nobody could see in, but not completely. He had left it that way since he had returned, half hoping that Harry would walk in and sit down as he would normally have done before the battle, even though he knew the boy had every intent on never seeing him again. This was a misery that some higher being had reserved all for him, he thought to himself wryly. No matter how Dumbledore said it or how much he insisted that there was a higher being and that it was good, there were too many things wrong with him, and wrong with his life to let him believe that.

Your stupidity has cost you so many things Severus, he told himself silently. Your best friend, your humanity, and now a son. He still had Draco, he thought to himself, knowing how the boy thought of him, and knowing how he had come to think of the boy recently, but still something ate at him… something gnawed at his insides every day knowing that Harry would hate him forevermore for the same reason he hated himself everyday. He knew he could never atone for his sins against Lily. He would never see her again, and she had died knowing the kind of horrible person he had turned out to be. She had died because of him.

Severus hadn’t spent the last few weeks completely alone… Draco had come to see him on quite a few occasions, taking advantage of his open door. But still he felt alone. He felt just as alone as he had before the beginning of the year, if not more so now. There was no thing he could say to himself or do to make him feel less alone. The burden that had been removed from his shoulders by telling Harry that it was he, Severus Snape who had caused the death of his parents, had been replaced by one of some deeper turmoil within himself. He had not previously thought it possible to feel worse about himself as a human being than he had before, but now found himself mistaken.

There was a gentle knock on the door as Severus sat musing the situation he was in, which he had caused in every way. Thinking it most likely Draco on the other side of the door, or some other student, he did not get his hopes up as he had for the first three weeks that it was the one person he most wanted to talk to.

“Come,” he said, lifting his head from his hands and lifting a quill to parchment so that he could pretend to write.

The door was pushed open and somebody entered, and still Snape did not look up, scratching out furious words that meant nothing to him on the parchment. “Yes?” he asked calmly.

There was silence, and he stopped writing, but did not look up. He was afraid to see who was standing in his doorway.

Harry looked to the ground, suddenly feeling ashamed of himself. “I uh…” he paused, and Severus looked up at him, amazed to find him standing there. Severus stood, and Harry fidgeted, knowing he was being watched now.

“We had a deal…” he started, not knowing where to go from there. “You said you would teach me Occlumency if I graded… I… I’m not having dreams anymore so…” Harry was uncomfortable under the black gaze coming his way. Inside it felt as if all the little shattered pieces of himself were trying to fit themselves back into place, but weren’t coming together right. He felt so lost and hurt that he didn’t think he’d ever be right again.

Harry refrained from looking up at Severus because he knew if he did that the thin wall he had placed around himself would break and he would be in a world of hurt.

“I’ll grade,” he finally said after long moments of uncomfortable silence, “if… if you’ll have me.”

Harry looked up and Severus met his eyes for a moment. There was a kind of hurt there that he didn’t know if he could handle on top of his own. He nodded wordlessly and motioned with a hand to the visitor’s chair. Harry didn’t move though. He remained rooted to the spot. A question burned inside him that he needed to know the answer to.

“Did… did you only help me because of the promise?” he had difficulty getting the words out.

Severus bit his lip and looked down. When he looked back up Harry’s eyes were waiting. He shook his head. “I helped you, because you trusted me to do so… and because I liked having you around.”

Something inside Harry’s stomach jumped, like a butterfly, and he had to look away. Severus walked slowly around the desk to face Harry, even though he didn’t look up at him. Harry leaned forward and put his head on Severus’ chest, eyes closed trying to hold back the hurt that wanted to escape them. Severus put an arm around his back and held the back of his head tight in the other. “I’m sorry,” he told him quietly. “You have no idea what it does to me everyday to know I caused you such pain.”

Harry inhaled deeply with these words. He no longer felt so desperately alone. They stood there for long minutes, Harry no longer holding back the tears that wanted to escape. Finally he said, “That’s ok… I’m ok so long as you’re here…dad.”

Harry waited patiently for Snape to push him away, to tell him to leave, that he didn’t think of him like that, that he couldn’t, but no such thing happened. Severus gripped Harry more tightly, and sighed. Quietly, he said, “Thank you son… thank you.”

That night Harry sat and told Snape every detail of his last few weeks without him. He told him of Draco being outcasted by the other Slytherins, of Ron suddenly becoming more popular, of Madam Pomfrey hunting him down two days after they had returned and scolding him for an hour about not coming to her with his broken wrist… as they talked and laughed into the night, both men felt a burden lift from their hearts and souls that they did not think possible to remove.

In the early hours of the morning, a wizened old wizard stopped outside of his Potion Master’s door, and listened to laughter coming from inside the office. A smile crept across his face as he listened, and he knew that the pieces had fallen as they finally should. In such a dark, and dangerous world, all was right for a time. He knew that the bond formed between the two men inside the office on this night was one that they would both need desperately in coming months. He also knew that it was the type of bond that would be with them forever.