James Potter glared at the blank piece of parchment sitting in front of him. Only three words were written on the page, and they had yet to give him inspiration for the letter he was writing.

"Any luck with that, sweetheart?" Lily Potter asked, running one of her hands through his messy hair while her other arm supported their one year old son who looked exactly like his father.

"No," James groaned. "I just don’t know how to begin—what to explain."

Lily smiled sadly. "It’s a precaution, James," Lily said. "We can only hope that he won’t have to read this, that we’ll be there to explain everything to him."

James nodded slowly. "Has he been good this morning?"

Lily smiled at her son fondly. "When is this wonderful boy ever not good?" She asked.

"He takes after his father," James said.

Lily’s smile grew. "I’m so happy you can accept this so easily," She said.

James ran both his hands through his hair making the already messy hair messier, if that was possible. "How could I not, Lils, with this amazing boy for our son." James took Harry from his mother and set him down on his lap. Harry almost immediately reached for James’ glasses and took them off, waving them around before he threw them to the ground.

"What have we told you, Harry?" Lily asked as she retrieved the glasses. "No playing with your father’s glasses."

Harry chortled happily as if nothing had gone wrong and reached out for his mother. Lily’s kind green eyes looked at the parchment in front of James as she took Harry once more in her arms.

"Maybe telling him how much we love him," Lily said gently. "He’d want to know how much his father loved him if we were to die before he could understand our love for him."

"Always the smart one, Lily, it is why I married you," James told his wife and then he began writing once more, this time knowing just a little more of what he wanted to say.

-

-

-

"He just left as if the entire world made sense to him," Harry told Remus.

He had found the lycanthrope cleaning Sirius’ old room; mere moments after Snape had left.

"Ah, well," Remus said with a sigh. "I was going to have you help me with this stuff tomorrow before your lesson but we can very well start today. A lot of the stuff in here is from back before he even moved out of here to your father’s, he couldn’t very well take it all with him. He was surprised when he found most of it still here."

Harry nodded. He’d been in the room only a couple of times; both had been while Sirius was alive. He had believed that entering the house where Sirius had been practically imprisoned would be hard and hurt him, but it hadn’t been, instead, entering the house had almost given him more closure, but his room—even seeing it—drove a hole into his chest. He didn’t allow Remus to see this in his expression but continued into the room.

"Where are we putting all this stuff?" Harry asked, looking towards Remus.

"Up in the attic. I thought maybe you’d like to have his room," Remus said.

Harry shook his head. "I don’t think I could handle it, really, I rather stay in the room I shared with Ron."

Remus smiled gently. "Alright. I wasn’t sure, you know, if you wanted it or not. I was expecting something completely different from you. You’re even getting along with Severus."

Harry snorted. "No one but the headmaster could get along with him," He laughed. "But I did grow up this summer. After he died I spent a lot of my time alone brooding but then I realized he wouldn’t have wanted that, and then once deaths began to be reported on the Prophet I figured with a war going on out there that I could be next and if I was, I would have wasted a long time just away from my friends."

Remus was looking at him strangely and then he was hugging him, but before he could open his mouth to say anything a silky voice came from the doorway.

"Excuse me for interrupting such a sickeningly sweet moment, but I do believe we have work to do, Potter."

Harry flushed and couldn’t look at Remus as he walked to the potions professor.

"I really am proud of you," Harry heard Remus say before he followed Snape once more to the library.

-

-

-

Harry was nearly halfway through the book. Snape had finished two books and was starting on a third; he was also unusually quiet and kept giving Harry strange glances.

"What?" Harry asked when Snape had done this for the fifth time.

Snape considered him, opening his mouth to speak, but then he said nothing. Harry had found his both irritating and confusing.

They worked in silence until voices from the first floor drifted towards them.

"Is there an order meeting?" Harry asked.

"No, Potter, I do believe those are your friends," Snape said almost as if he hated the very idea of Harry’s friends being in the house. "No, matter, it is almost time for dinner, but I will like to impress upon you the importance of learning this. Has the book been helpful at all as to controlling your emotions? We will attempt something more practical tomorrow, I believe."

Harry nodded and after marking his page closed his book and stood up, he made to walk to the door but noticed the potions master remained seated with his book.

"Aren’t you going to eat, Professor?"

Snape shook his head. "Go greet your friends, Mr. Potter, I have no place with half the people that have arrived."

"Are you staying here, as in for the night?" Harry asked.

"Yes, Potter, it will make it that much easier to work with you that way. Now go before I decide you need to keep me company, terrible as your company may be, now go, you are welcome—in fact I encourage it—to read the book about memories and any other we pulled off the shelves."

Harry nodded slowly, but frowned as he was leaving the room. Severus Snape was something. He had always appeared to be an evil bastard—to put it plainly—but then there was another side to him. The sarcastic funny side that while still harsh at times was easier to understand and deal with, and yet he seemed to hate anything social. Harry found himself almost pitying him, but he couldn’t quite allow himself to, not when he knew Snape didn’t need anyone’s pity.

Harry’s thoughts went astray when Hermione shouted his name and then he was lying on his back and he heard Hermione groan an, "I’m sorry" while in the background Ron was laughing with Ginny.

"Sorry, Harry," Hermione said once she was standing and holding out a hand for him.

Harry took her hand and brushed himself off. "You’re not allowed to hug me, anymore," He told Hermione. "I fear you’ll kill me that way."

They all laughed.

"It’s just so good to see you, Harry, really," Hermione said. "So early in the summer too, what’s happened? We were all really surprised Dumbledore had sent Lupin to get you."

"Something about my mother’s protection no longer working. Snape said it may be about how Sirius got around the spells that would make this house Bellatrix’s in favor of it becoming mine as according to his will. It could have messed around with how I see the place, but I don’t see how, either way I had to come here. So, how about you three? Are you staying here for the rest of the summer?"

"Nah," Ron said. "Mom doesn’t want us to distract you, apparently you’ll be quite busy this summer. Anyway, we’re only here for dinner tonight, we’re staying until tomorrow night."

Ginny spoke next, coming to stand next to Harry. "Do you know what you’ll be working on?"

Harry considered telling them, but talking about occlumency would lead Hermione to bring up Sirius and the letter of earlier in the summer that he wished to put behind them. So instead of telling them he would be working on his occlumency with Snape he shook his head.

"You’ll find out soon enough," Hermione said. "But come on, we should go to the kitchen I promised to help Lupin."

Harry grinned. "You know how to cook?"

Hermione said nothing but lead the others to the kitchen.

Harry was appreciative of his friends, he really was, and truth be told he was glad for everything they had ever helped him with throughout his years at Hogwarts, but he was still trying to figure out if telling them about the prophecy would be a good idea. So far only he and Dumbledore knew about it unless the order had been informed and he doubted Dumbledore had told them.

-

-

-

"Is Severus coming down, Harry? Merlin knows when the man eats." Remus asked half an hour later, after the meal had been completed.

"No, I don’t think so, he was pretty engrossed in some book," Harry said. "I pointed out earlier that he was almost as bad as Hermione when it came to researching and he was completely offended," Harry replied in an undertone. "Oh, Remus, I don’t want to bring the subject of occlumency back up with them, could we not talk about it. It’s just—"

Remus lifted a hand. "Don’t worry about it, Harry."

Harry smiled and went to take his seat next to Ron. "Are we expecting anyone else?" He asked.

"Tonks and Kingsley said they might come by, but seeing as Kingsley took over for Scrimgeour as head of the Auror office in the department of MLE he’s been kept busy, not as busy as Scrimgeour—mind—he is trying to rectify Fudge’s mistakes and is doing as good as job as any, but they might not make it."

"MLE?" Hermione asked.

"Magical Law Enforcement," Ron told her.

Dinner was more fun than anything Harry had done since the beginning of the summer. Ron had told stories about Fred and George’s new products and the shop they had obtained in Diagon Alley, which he had yet to visit but knew would be great regardless. Ginny brought up quidditch which served for conversation for the better part of an hour, at least between the two Weasley siblings and occasionally Harry whom had also become interested in Hermione’s and Remus’ discussion on werewolf rights and how the narrow-mindedness of the ministry was giving Voldemort more and more allies this way.

"It’s preposterous!" Hermione exclaimed. "With the use of the wolfsbane, which the ministry could easily distribute to the werewolves on every full moon they wouldn’t have to worry about anything."

Remus chuckled. "Ah, but that is the thing, Hermione," Remus said. "Even if the ministry managed to have wolfsbane for every werewolf in Britain, not many would go for it. They’d be telling the ministry who they are and they would be the first blamed for any attack despite the wolfsbane. The thing is, the ministry is scared and werewolves are dark creatures for the most part, that many join Voldemort isn’t even questioned and now they have a leader."

"A leader?" Harry asked. "But I thought most of them just roamed free."

Hermione turned to him, "For the most part yes, sometimes werewolves mate with other werewolves but it isn’t very common, and then there are occasions where some live together because of what they are, but most like to live life as normal as possible."

Remus smiled at Hermione. "Hermione’s completely correct. As for their leader, Grayback is not a death eater but he’s good as. He works with Voldemort at least but werewolves, while they are promised freedom in this new world he is building, are not good enough to receive his mark."

-

-

-

"Love you, mum," Harry Potter whispered, wishing—not for the first time—that he could actually express the sentiment to his mom, than that of her picture, even though that was—he knew—an impossible feat considering that both his parents were dead. Harry closed the leather bound book—a gift from Hagrid at the end of his first year—and placed it on the table in front of him before glancing at the muggle digital clock he had found in Sirius’ room while cleaning, that would tell him in the matter of minutes that it was his sixteenth birthday.

He’d been a bit thoughtful lately concerning the whole birthday thing and everything that this particular birthday meant—that the last year was over and he could move on. He stared at the clock for longer than necessary and sighed at the slow movement of time.

It was strange, he realized, how slow two minutes seemed in comparison to two weeks, even with spending most of his time in the library with Snape whom he had come to trust more. It had begun on the first day they had begun using occlumency.

"So, how are we going to do this?" Harry asked.

Snape had taken a long look at him before answering, "As you read in the book I gave you last night, the best way is to have a meeting of our minds. So, what you will do first is remove any memories that you do not wish for me to witness."

Harry shook his head. They hadn’t brought the topic of the last time they had attempted occlumency up since Harry had apologized the first day, so Harry didn’t feel particularly good at bringing the subject up.

"What have you not seen in my mind? The last few months after we stopped the last time? There’s no point."

"There isn’t anything you rather not replay in your mind tonight?"

Harry’s first thought was the prophecy, and his eyes widened. Snape surely didn’t know about that. He nodded slowly, no other memory coming to mind.

"Just the one memory," Harry said.

Snape nodded, and pulled out his wand. "I’ll just put it in this phial for the time being. The way this works is that you won’t know what the memory is, but you’ll realize it’s missing, as if you forgot it. Just think about that memory now and nothing else."

Harry did as he was told and felt Snape press his wand against his temple and then the memory was pulled away and he found himself wondering what he had just been thinking about before coming to his senses and remembering that he had done this to protect his knowledge of the prophecy.

"Is there nothing else you do not wish me to see?"

Harry shook his head. He was sure Snape had already seen everything anyhow.

"Alright." Snape seemed almost nervous.

Harry looked up into Snape’s black eyes. "How—" Harry began but stopped when he felt Snape’s hands come to his face, touching the sides of his face gently.

"Relax," Snape said. "Just allow everything to flow through your mind normally. Allow yourself to calm down. Keep your eyes open. Don’t think just be."

It was his voice that finally made him relax, the silky, calm undertone that he had never heard in his potions class; the almost comforting tone of his voice that seemed nearly meant for him.

"Legilimens," Snape muttered.

Harry felt memories drift between them. Some were his; the others were Snape’s. He saw a pale scared woman standing in front of a sallow skinned, thin boy with overly large clothes, with a bloody nose. Then in a flash Harry was seeing a younger version of himself, five—maybe four—years old crying, crouched in his cupboard. Another number of memories flashed between them and then they were in the department of mysteries. Bella and Sirius were fighting and then Sirius was falling back.

"NO!"

Sirius dead. Bella laughing. Pain.

"Potter, Potter."

Someone was calling his name.

He couldn’t cast the cruciatus.

"Potter! Harry!"

Harry blinked. He was gasping and until he reached up to right his glasses he hadn’t even noticed the tears that rolled down his cheeks.

"I thought that was the memory I took out," Snape said from somewhere next to him.

Harry didn’t trust himself to be able to say anything, specially considering what had just happened, what Snape had seen him do—crying of all things.

"Now I wonder what you did take out of your mind," Snape said. "Clearly it had to be important."

Harry wiped his eyes a final time with the sleeve of his shirt. "I wasn’t thinking about him. I forgot about that memory, the possibility of…of it coming up."

Harry glared at the clock; there was still a minute left. He was still thinking about Sirius now, after bringing the memory forth in his mind that day. It had been his fault. That much no one would admit, but it wasn’t as if he didn’t know—didn’t expect that they didn’t think so, not even Snape held him at fault.

Harry stood up and stretched, walking from one side of the room to the other. He sighed. It would be the beginning after midnight. He would grow up. He would change for the better even if it meant going to someone for help when he needed it, like he had needed it the year before. If he had just gone to Snape, or remembered the mirror, or…done a number of other things everything could have been different.

Snape. Harry sighed. He didn’t know what to think about the man anymore. He was better, now, probably on Dumbledore’s orders but he had begun to see him not in any new particular way, but he’d seen something different about the man.

He took another glance at the clock, and smiled—it was midnight. Officially—or maybe still unofficially—he was sixteen.

Harry grabbed his book and put the clock back in its place. He left the kitchen and walked down the hall to stairs. He did not get far before the door to the house was opened and Harry saw the outline that couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else stumble into the foyer.

"Professor!" Harry gasped and rushed forward.

Snape grasped his shoulder. "Harry?" He questioned.

"Sh-should I get Remus?" Harry asked, dropping his photo album on the floor, as he led the obviously hurt potions master to the drawing room.

Harry gently put his professor on the couch.

"What should I do?" Harry asked quickly.

"Get Lupin, then floo Dumbledore," Snape said, shakily.

Harry nodded. "Right." And then he was running up the stairs to Remus’ room.

The door was closed but Harry didn’t knock instead he rushed into the room and to the bed against the wall. "Remus, wake up!" Harry said, shaking the last remaining marauder.

"Wh-what is it? Harry, what’s wrong?" Remus rubbed his eyes and sat up in bed.

"Snape. He’s hurt or something, he was shaking terribly. Anyway he told me to call you and that I should floo the headmaster afterwards. He’s in the drawing room."

Remus stood up quickly and put on his shoes before grabbing his robes and throwing them on. "Quickly, Harry, something is going on no doubt and it must be important. Go floo Dumbledore, I’ll be down in a minute."

Harry nodded, watching Remus walk to another room down the hall before he once more headed to the kitchen, grabbing floo powder from a colorful jar next to the fire.

"Dumbledore’s office!" Harry shouted and stuck his head in the fire.

In mere moments he was looking at the floor of the headmaster’s office. He couldn’t help but remember the last time he had been there, but pushed the thoughts away.

"Professor Dumbledore! Headmaster!"

A minute after he had called for him, Dumbledore was kneeling before him.

"Harry?" Dumbledore asked concerned.

"Professor Snape told me to call for you, he’s hurt, I think, Remus is with him," Harry said quickly.

"I shall be there shortly, Harry," Dumbledore said. "And, Harry, happy birthday."

Harry nodded but pulled back out of the fire, shaking himself slightly before he walked back to the drawing room.

Snape was drowning a purple potion when Harry entered. "He said he’d be here shortly. Are you alright, Professor."

Snape merely glared at him but nodded slightly.

"That’s all I can do, Severus," Remus told him.

Snape nodded and opened his mouth to say something but there was a loud crack suddenly, followed by the sound of something falling on the floor above.

"What was that?" Snape asked.

Remus shrugged. "I’ll go check it out," He offered, leaving Harry alone with Snape.

"It was Voldemort, wasn’t it? You went to a meeting with him, that’s how this happened. He tortured you."

Snape nodded. "He wasn’t happy with the lack of information on when you left your muggle relatives. Needless to say, the wards fell completely tonight and Voldemort thought to attack the house."

Harry gasped. "Are—what about my aunt and uncle?"

Snape closed his eyes. "I’m sorry to say that the whole house was destroyed, including everyone living inside it."

Harry nodded slowly. He couldn’t believe it. The Dursleys were dead, just because of him, and yet he couldn’t feel bad about it, not like how he had felt when Sirius had died or even when Cedric had died. But there was a feeling, he just couldn’t identify it, and then it hit him. It was relief.

"I’m sorry for your loss, I did not know you felt anything akin to caring for them."

Harry laughed. "It’s not that I feel bad, I mean I do, but it’s just I can’t help but feel relief, and maybe that isn’t a good thing to feel when you hear someone you knew had died."

Harry had been looking at the wall while he spoke but he looked at his potions professor when he was finished.

"You forget that I know how they treated you," Snape said. "I can understand your relief. My father, when he died, it could have been one of the best days of my life."

Harry made to reply but Remus had come back. "A birthday present for Harry," Remus said. "I imagine Sirius arranged it,"—he frowned, looking at Harry—"Something left by your parents. There was nothing dangerous about it, as far as I could tell but Dumbledore should take a look at it first."

Harry was shocked more than anything but he said nothing, and then Dumbledore was entering the room.

"What has happened, Severus?" He asked. "I suspect this is urgent."

Snape nodded and begun, "I was called for the meeting at—" Dumbledore cut him off.

"Harry, this is order business, I do believe you should be in bed."

Remus taking a cue from that took Harry’s shoulder and steered him towards the door but stopped when Snape spoke.

"No, Lupin, let the boy stay. This is as much his business as it is anyone else. Have we learnt nothing from what happened last year? If he is to be involved"—He shot Dumbledore a glare—"then he should have as much information as possible. He works better knowing things than not." He and the headmaster shared one more look and then Dumbledore nodded.

Harry found the entire exchange strange enough. Why did Snape want him to stay? Why did he care enough that he have information that was supposed to be for order members only?