In a perfect world
This could never happen
In a perfect world
You’d still be here
And it makes no sense
I could just pick up the pieces
But to you
This means nothing
Nothing at all

Perfect World~ Simple Plan

The rest of the month flew by fast for Harry. He was currently sitting in the common room, rewriting his transfiguration essay for the third time this week. Every time that he had rewritten it, he always seemed to find mistakes when he reread over it.

Now, it was becoming late and his friends had already went up to bed. He looked up at the clock. It was 2:00 in the morning. He let out a sigh. He knew that Trinti was going to say something about this at breakfast the next morning. She was worried about him and he knew that Ron was as well though he wasn’t as vocal about it. Her incessant questioning and his vague answers had become the norm during breakfast for the past month. He knew that they meant well but he couldn’t help but feel annoyed by her questioning and Ron’s worried looks. They just didn’t understand what it was like for him. They both were blessed with parents and families to go home to, Harry wasn’t.

As he finished the last line of his essay, Harry bit back a yawn and rubbed his tired eyes. He knew that he should go to bed but he didn’t see the point when he could be getting a little bit more reading in before he had to get ready for the day. He was going to be getting up soon anyway.

He reread his essay and smiled when he finally found it to be satisfactory. Ron had kept saying that he was becoming obsessive with his grades but Harry just started to tune him out. He felt that his grades was his business so it didn't matter what Ron had to say about them.

More often than not, he had been finding himself becoming irritable at the most trivial of things. Small noises, such as quills scratching or people breathing, would drive him absolutely barmy. Two weeks ago, he yelled at Seamus in class to stop writing his notes so loud. Seamus had just glared at him and moved on to a different table. After that incident, people stopped sitting by him and he still felt horrible about it. He wanted to make friends when he began at Hogwarts but he needed to keep his grades up so that his father wouldn’t find him to be a disappointment.

He snuck up to his dorm to obtain the book about Gringotts that he borrowed from the library. When he had read about the break- in at the wizarding bank one morning at breakfast, he wanted to know all he could about what the wizard or witch that had broke in had to go through. What had made this little inquiry of his even more interesting was the vault that the wizard or witch broke into was the one that Hagrid and him had visited earlier that very same day in Diagon Alley. He had wondered what was it that Hagrid had taken out of the vault and why did it seem to be so important? He figured that he should ask Hagrid about it but it was hard to find the time to. He had large amounts of class work that needed to be completed.

Two hours later, Harry put his book down and went up to his dorm to get his toiletry kit and robes for his shower. After he showered and dressed, he realized that it was still early so he decided that he could use this time to think.

He exited the portrait hole and ignored the complaining of the Fat Lady and made his way towards the Astronomy Tower. That was his favorite spot. He had discovered this sanctuary when he had taken a trip to clear his mind after a grueling Quidditch practice. As he entered the very top of the tower and felt the dewy morning air on his face, he smiled. He hadn’t smiled like this since the time when he had saved poor Neville’s Remembrall from Malfoy.

Oh how much he loathed that Malfoy prat.

Harry walked over to the edge and sat down looking at the astonishing colors of the early morning. He loved it up here. He felt that this was the only place at Hogwarts where nothing was expected of him. He could just be Harry here and no one would say anything against it.

He didn’t have very many times when he could be that way.

XXXX

Severus Snape was convulsing in his sleep. He was having the same dream he had been having ever since the night after the Welcoming Feast. As he tossed and turned in his bed, he started to occlude his mind but to no avail.

**He watched as Lily moved in front of a small crib.

“No, no! You can’t take him.”

“Dada, what happened to mummy?”**

Severus jolted awake. He quickly sat up and pressed the heels of hands into his eyes. Taking calming, meditative breaths, he shook the last of the horrifying dream away. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he gathered up his stuff to get ready for the day.

While he was getting ready, he thought about the dream that kept interrupting his sleep. Why did he keep dreaming this particular dream? Why did he keep dreaming about Lily’s death? And an even better, more pressing question, Why in the hell was he dreaming about the Potter boy being his son?

Turning these questions over in his mind, he walked out of his private quarters and went to go set up his classroom for the day.

XXXX

Harry had watched the sun until it had fully risen over the dark forest. Looking at his watch, he sighed and wished to stay atop the tower but he knew he would have to face reality.

A cold, harsh reality.

As he climbed down the steps, he felt a familiar nervous feeling that he usually felt when he walked the halls at Hogwarts. He supposed that he was to feel secure and carefree within these walls but he didn’t. He felt like someone or something constantly watched him and followed every move he made. He wondered if maybe he was going insane or if there was someone that watched him.

He was about the turn the corner towards the main hallway when he heard something. Whipping around, he looked around frantically for the source of the noise. Then he heard it again. This time it wasn’t behind him but all around him. It sounded like the rumbling of millions of voices. He held his hands to his ears, he whimpered, and backed up until he hit the wall.

“Potter?”

XXXX

Severus was walking down the hallway on the way to the Great Hall for breakfast. He mulled over the dream that he had had. The thing that bothered him most was not Lily dying, even though it had troubled him greatly, but the little boy that had looked at him. Those eyes is what had bothered him. He had never seen eyes like that before. The eyes seemed to draw you in and hold you prisoner. Severus felt a pang of uneasiness. What was it about the Potter boy that bothered him so? What is--

He stopped dead when his eyes became set upon the very boy he had been thinking about. The boy was whimpering like a wounded animal and cringing.

“Potter?”

As the boy’s head was turning around, Severus felt the familiar hateful feeling welling up inside of him.

“What are you whinging about? Lost your way again? Even you should know your way around by now.” Severus snubbed.

“Nothing, sir. It is just a headache. Thank you for your concern.” The boy looked down at his feet and spoke with such deference that Severus felt bile rise in his throat.

Potter, The Noble Gryffindor. Albus would be proud.

Severus moved forward and snapped, “Five points from Gryffindor for blocking the hallway and wasting my time.”

XXXX

Harry gritted his teeth as he walked behind his father to the Great Hall. When they arrived, Harry sat down and poured himself some pumpkin juice. Right now, he didn’t care about his father’s snide attitude, he had bigger problems to worry about.

What was that?

He wondered as he sipped his juice. It had felt like his head was going to explode. He had heard so many voices all at once and he couldn’t work out what they had been saying.

Harry stared at a spot on the far wall above the Slytherin table as he set his goblet down. He contemplated his problem but shook his head. It was an unproductive way to spend his valuable time. With that thought, he rose from his seat and wandered from the Great Hall towards his first lesson in History of Magic. He hoped he grabbed a good seat in the back so that he could maybe catch a little sleep. He was already three chapters ahead of the class and felt he needed a break.

As Harry left, he didn’t realize that two sets of eyes followed him out the Great Hall, wondering and trying to figure the peculiar boy out.

XXXX

Harry frowned. He couldn’t think of any reason that would make someone hate him. He had his faults but he tried his hardest to stay out of crowds and keep to himself. He didn’t burden people with his opinions or troubles. He felt that he could handle every situation by himself. Growing up at the Dursley’s, he had to learn to be self-sufficient or he wouldn’t have been able to survive.

Harry pushed back the memories of his childhood that threatened to overwhelm him. He needed to focus on the present and couldn’t let himself be overtaken by the past. He took deep breaths and calmed down. He couldn’t let people see his pain or they will ask questions. At the moment, he didn’t feel like making up flimsy lies that would cover the truth.

He walked into History of Magic and he cleared his mind. As he did so, he put on his usual impassive mask. He sat in the back and took out his text, positioning it accordingly. He was determined to get a nap. He watched the rest of the class shuffle in and laid his head down. Harry fell asleep the instant his head hit the desk.

XXXX

“Harry?”

“What?”

“Are you studying again?”

“Yea….”

“But Harry…”

“Merlin Trinti! What is this?! 20 questions?”

Harry sat at the lunch table and revised his potions essay for the fifth time. Trinti and Ron were both looking at him with exasperated expressions. He didn’t want to deal with their questions, he simply wanted to finish his homework.

“Shud. UP. Harry. All I am doing is asking you a question.”

“Fine, since I can’t do any work in here, I’ll go outside.”

Harry gathered up his many things and headed outside into the bright sunshine, hoping to finish this blasted potions essay. He picked his favorite spot underneath the old tree that sat next to the lake.

“Can I sit down next to you?”

He squinted up and who should be there? None other than, Trinti.

“Are you going to pester me?"

“No.”

“Then, I guess so.”

They sat that way for a moment. Until Trinti started to talk to him about something. Harry decided that he should just listen and hopefully she would go away.

“…I am just worried about you Harry. I wanted to help you by getting those potions books but I didn’t know that I would have to be talking to their covers all the time. What’s bugging you?”

Harry sat down his quill and sighed, “Its complicated, Trin….You wouldn’t understand….”

“Then make me. I would leave you alone if you told me the truth. I want to do well in Potions just as much as you do but I am not losing sleep and not eating because of it.”

Harry debated about telling her the truth or not. He trusted her but this secret was enormous. You just don’t go spouting random nonsense like Professor Snape happens to be my real dad. Besides, how would you even say that without looking bloody mad?

“Fine. You see…the thing is….Well…”

After she watched him try to open up to her, Trinti sighed and figured that maybe he would need more time. “Harry, I would love for you to tell me what the problem is but I don’t want you to feel like you have too. I’m not like that. If it’s this big a' deal then you don’t need to say anything. Honestly, we haven’t known each other for long. Me mum would always tell me that ‘you may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough.’ I never understood why she would say that to me. She was always drunk at the time…Me mum is almost never sober really….”

Trinti looked out over the lake and smiled a sad smile. Harry felt his heart clench. Trinti didn't have a perfect family after all. Maybe she would understand. Maybe she would know what it is like to have no one….Maybe.

“What ‘bout your dad? Is he around?”

Suddenly, Trinti stiffened almost as if Harry cursed her. “My dad is never around. Me mum says that he drove her to drink. He got himself locked up, after I was just born, for killin’ loads a’ people. She just told me that he was a ‘good for-nothing bastard who left her with a good-for-nothing child.’ He cast shame upon my family name. So, my mom had to change my name and take herself out of society to avoid the ridicule. He ruined our lives for his own selfish motives.”

She smiled a deranged -looking smile and looked at Harry. She continued, “We used to be rich, or so my mom says. When my dad got locked up, we weren’t able to access his money and my mom just gave up on life, I guess. I grew up with my grandmother but when she died when I was 7, my mom and me moved from place to place until I came to Hogwarts.”

Harry didn’t know what he could say. He figured it would be only fair to tell her about Snape but, in reality, he was scared. To say out loud that your dad hated you, makes it seem so much more real.

“I would say I’m sorry Trinti but I know that you wouldn’t want pity. That makes things seem worse in a way. I guess I could tell you but you have to promise never ever to tell anyone. Never.”

Trinti looked at him and just stared, silently asking him to go on. “All right.”

“After I had gotten my Hogwarts letter, another came for me. It was from James. My adoptive father.”

Harry gulped and quietly mumbled the rest of the story, praying for Trinti to not think of him as a freak.

“Wow. Harry. I see why you want the potion books….I guess it sucks that your father hates you…”

“Thanks, Trinti. You make me feel so much better.”

“No no. That’s not what I meant. I meant that I understand what you are doing. But Harry…How will he know if you never tell him? I mean….I don’t have a father who is there. I wish every day for him to come home but I know that will never happen. I can never have a father, Harry. But you can. He is right here. All you have to do is to reach out to him. Don’t let fear rule you. You will regret one day not telling him.”

“I don’t know. It’s not that easy. Sometimes, I get all worked up to tell him the truth and then poof! I freeze up. Besides, I am not what he wants. I am nothing but a freak.”

“What? You are not a freak. Where did you hear a silly thing like that? I bet you anything that Snape would love to know the truth. That’s what I think that he values above anything else. Me mum would say to me that ‘truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.’ Harry, I’m not saying that you should tell him right now. But I do think that you should tell him. My mum, though drunk, is almost always right.”

“I don’t know.”

“Just think ‘bout it. Besides we are going to be so late if we don’t hurry our arses up for class.”