In the evening of the following day Dumbledore was surprised and not at all pleased to see Harry waiting to speak to him alongside Severus. The headmaster didn’t look like his usual cheerful self, his face baring signs of extreme tiredness and strain.

‘Harry. Severus.’ He nodded his greeting briefly and then looked questioningly at the older wizard, raising his eyebrows at Harry’s presence. ‘I thought we discussed this yesterday?’

Harry opened his mouth to speak but a warning glance from Snape told him to be quiet. He quickly shut his mouth again. He was surprised that Snape was letting him speak to Dumbledore at all and he wasn’t going to push his luck.

‘Five minutes, Albus. The brat overheard our conversation yesterday and it seems that I will get no peace until he hears from you if there is any news.’

‘Ah.’ Dumbledore said looked very solemn at this and all traces of the usual twinkle in his eyes were missing.

‘I am afraid I don’t have good news for you Harry.’ He said quietly without preamble. ‘We have had word from Ireland. Two reports have confirmed that there was an incident involving Sirius.’

Harry couldn’t breath. An incident. What did that mean?

‘Is he...?’ His voice faltered and he didn’t manage to finish his question.

Dumbledore’s eyes were filled with sorrow as he replied. ‘We just don’t know, Harry. What reports we have our confused and incomplete. Our man in the IMG tells us that they have definitely found traces of a skirmish but that no one was left at the scene.’

It wasn’t lost on the Headmaster that Harry glanced to Severus automatically for an explanation of the unfamiliar acronyms, nor that his professor responded to his questioningly look automatically murmuring ‘Irish Magical Guarda, like our MLE.’

‘...so he could be alright?’ Harry asked hopefully.

Dumbledore seemed to pause momentarily to gather strength before replying.

‘I don’t want to give you false hope Harry. All our reports say that Sirius was trying to fight off a group of at least six or seven wizards. It is still possible that he managed to get away and will contact us shortly, but we have been monitoring all the local healers and hospitals and so far we have heard nothing...’

Harry couldn’t take it in. Sirius had been attacked by a large group... Now he was missing and he wasn’t being healed...suddenly the memories of the scene he’d imagined yesterday crowded into his mind again.

‘Do they know he’s an animagous?’ He asked suddenly. ‘What if he’s wounded as Padfoot? Would they know it’s him?’

Dumbledore nodded. ‘They have been told to look out for any dog’s bodies they might come across.’

Bodies. Dumbledore had said bodies.

Sweet Merlin, he thinks he’s dead, Harry thought numbly.

He stumbled to his feet reeling from the shock and horror desperate to get away to his room where he could think things through.

The two older wizards watched as Harry left the room.

‘When did this happen?’ Severus asked his face unreadable.

‘At some point yesterday afternoon.’

‘There may still be hope then.’

Dumbledore shook his head bleakly.

‘If he was injured we would have found him or heard something by now. If they took him captive...’

He left the last part of the sentence unfinished. They both knew what that would mean.

‘I’d better...’

Dumbledore nodded.

‘Go after him.’
***

As Dumbledore’s face vanished in the floo and Severus turned towards the door he was startled by a loud crash and hurried out into the hall way to find scattered debris with pieces of a vase and fragments from the mirror covering the hall way. Harry was nowhere to be seen but a shocked Leenie stood frozen a few foot away. Sighing Severus quickly headed into his lab and pocketed some dreamless sleep and calming potion before heading after Harry.
***

Harry had stumbled out of the study into the hallway and paused outside the door; closing his eyes and letting his head roll forward to lean against the cool surface of the mirror.

‘Is Master Harry ill?’ Leenie asked sounding concerned.

Harry didn’t even hear her, he was so absorbed in his own thoughts.

He was dead.

Somewhere his godfather’s body was buried deep in the earth, or perhaps left to rot out in the cold.

It was all because of him. Sirius knew, what Harry had always felt deep down, that he would never be able to defeat Voldermort. Everyone seemed so trusting that he would one day evolve into some kind of saviour and conquer a wizard who held a power so evil that the world had never seen the like of it before. It was ridiculous to think that he would ever be capable to succeed. He wasn’t that special. Yes he was good at defence and had now mastered the essential of occlumency but however hard he worked it would never be enough. Sirius knew this.

So Sirius had gone to Ireland to gather support for the battle and to lighten the burden for Harry whilst the rest of the Order seemed prepared to blindly trust that if they could protect Harry until he came of age somehow he would transform into their hero.

He’d done it all for him, Harry realised. And worst of all he’d let him go when Sirius had made it plain that one word from him and he’d have stayed.

It was all his fault.

All these thoughts flew through Harry’s mind in a flash. He opened his eyes and stared back at his reflection for a brief moment- taking in the white face, glistening green orbs and quivering lips. In that instance his grief suddenly turned to rage and before he thought about what he was doing he’d smashed the vase into the mirror; killing the reflection staring back at him.

Seconds later Harry found himself in his room, although he had no memory of getting there. He rifled through his things systematically tearing things out of his trunk. His hand was bleeding, he must have caught it on fragments of mirror or the vase, and the blood smeared onto his clothes as scrunched them up, tearing them and casting them aside. Sirius had bought him these things and he didn’t deserve any of them.

It was at that moment that Snape entered the room, he looked down with an unreadable expression at Harry who was kneeling beside his trunk.

‘Harry.’

‘What?!’ Harry shouted back, not registering that Snape had called him by his first name. He’d never felt this angry before, with himself, with Snape, with everyone and everything. He felt like he wanted to lash out at the world and smash things apart. But the anger was good. He needed the anger. It hid all the other feelings that were deep inside of him, which he couldn’t possibly face.

‘I’m so...’

‘DON’T YOU DARE SAY YOU’RE SORRY! Don’t you dare disrespect Sirius like that. I know what you thought of him. You’re glad he’s dead.’

‘I’m not glad he’s dead.’ Severus said sharply. ‘He was in the order, why would I be glad that the order has lost one of it’s members?’

‘Because you hated him. I heard you. You said it would serve him right if he got himself killed. WELL I SUPPOSE YOU’RE HAPPY NOW.’ Harry had emptied his trunk now and stood up grabbing the next thing close to hand, a picture hanging from the wall, and hurled it to the floor. It gave a satisfying crack.

‘Harry, calm down!’ Severus’ voice was beginning to raise.

‘Oh I’m sorry, am I making a drama again?’ Harry said bitterly lashing out with his arm scattering books and an ink pot off a shelf. ‘Should I calm down and accept that Sirius’ death was necessary?’

Harry reached towards the second shelf but Severus darted forward to stop him destroying anything else. Seeing his professor moved forward Harry panicked and pulled out his wand at which point Snape’s materialised immediately from where it was tucked in his robe.

For a second they stared at each other tensely, Harry cracked first under the pressure hurtling a blasting hex at Snape who responded instantly with a shield before promptly disarming his student.

Harry had collapsed to his knees, emotions overtaking him. How had everything gone so wrong so suddenly? A couple days ago he’d been relatively happy and carefree. He couldn’t cry, somehow his eyes were stone cold dry as he knelt defeated on the floor shaking.

Severus, having pocketed Harry’s wand, moved towards him with his own wand still pointing at him. Harry realised he was completely defenceless now that he’d lost his wand and he no longer had the threat of Sirius retribution to keep Snape from harming him.

Severus was right next to him now and reached out grabbing Harry’s forearm in a vice-like grip. Harry shrank back from him, his eyes huge and terrified.

Severus’ wand was pointing directly at Harry who braced himself for what would come next, but instead of a jolt of pain he felt a tingling sensation in his hand and realised that he was healing the cut on his hand. Severus reached into a pocket of his robes and withdrew and opened two potions. Harry was so shaken he drank both of them without any protests.

‘Lie down on the bed.’ Severus ordered.

Shakily Harry stood up, his eye lids already feeling heavy with approaching sleep. He sat on the edge of the bed and then allowed himself to fall backwards into a lying position, barely noticing as Severus transfigured his clothes into pyjamas.

Within minutes Harry was in a deep sleep and Severus stood watching him carefully for some time before turning to deal with all the surrounding mess. He could repair some of it. The cracked mirror and shattered ink pot were easy enough, but Harry’d done a more thorough job on some of his own possessions. Some of his clothes looked like he must have torn at the material with his teeth from the jagged tears. Even if he repaired those they would never be the same and then there was the blood stains to also consider. Severus did his best and banished the bare minimum of items before glancing once more at the boy before closing the door behind him.

The next morning Harry woke up from a night of blank, dreamless sleep and there was a terrible moment before everything from yesterday sunk into his mind.

Sirius was gone. His godfather was dead. He was alone again.

Harry knew it was selfish to feel sorry for himself- to concentrate on the impact on him- when it was Sirius who had to endure the attack and it was Sirius’ body which lay cold somewhere...But he couldn’t think about this now. He would break down if he did.

Harry started to shake again when he remembered how he’d tried to blast Snape last night. He’d been so sure the man’s temper was going to snap, but in the end he hadn’t hit him or hexed him, he’d healed him instead. One thing was certain however Harry knew he couldn’t rely on Snape to continue to be patient. It hadn’t been too bad living with Snape when they’d both known it was only temporary till Sirius returned but what would happen to him now? Sirius was gone leaving him to look after himself once more. The first step to this was in getting his wand back.

Harry searched in every room he could access but couldn’t find it. Eventually Harry came to the dining room where Severus was having breakfast.

‘I want my wand back.’ Harry stood in the doorway looking wary but defiant. He’d only been awake for twenty minutes but already his eyes were red and swollen from crying. He knew it was playing with fire to even ask for his wand after yesterday, but he didn’t care.

‘You cannot be serious.’ Snape said flatly.

Harry breathed deeply. What would Sirius do in his situation? He decided to emulate his godfather’s fiery temper.

Harry approached the table and suddenly flung it on its side scattering the breakfast items on top of it. The table was pretty heavy and it took quite a lot of energy to knock it over. It felt good like letting some of the anger within him escape.

Snape drew his wand pointing it at Harry.

‘Pick that up.’ He said in a quiet, deadly voice. Motioning with his head at the table and spilled items. ‘Now.’

‘Give me my wand first.’ Harry said recklessly.

Suddenly sparks flew out of Snape’s wand and flung Harry abruptly to the other side of the room, pining him against the wall.

Striding quickly towards him Snape gave an almost imperceptible wave of his wand and Harry was lifted higher so his feet dangled off the floor making it even more obvious that he was completely at Snape’s mercy.

Snape stood glaring at him for a moment before yelling in his face. ‘I will not have you destroying my home. Do you understand? I have made allowances for your grief but YOU HAVE REACHED MY LIMITS.’ Harry couldn’t stop himself from cringing back into the wall.

Snape breathed deeply and gave a quick wave of his wand and Harry stumbled to his feet.

‘Pick up the table or I will jinx you. You can spend the whole day in a bodybind if you would like to. ’

Harry look mutinously at the table sniffing and picking it up. He dumped it back on its feet whilst glowering at Snape.

Snape glared back at him in silence for a few seconds. ‘Right.’

A quick wave of his wand and all the scattered plates, glasses, cutlery were mended and replaced. Harry watched as Snape floo’d for Leenie who appeared with a large jug of fresh milk and plate heaped with toast.

‘Sit down.’

Harry sat folding his arms in front of him.

‘Eat.’

‘Not hungry.’ He replied stubbornly. Sirius would never be able to eat again after all.

A quick flick of his wand and Severus made a piece of toast fly suddenly at Harry’s mouth.
Harry caught hold of it with his hand and flung it towards Snape. Then a moment later sent the plate with the other pieces flying after it. Snape hastily stepped out of the way of the flying plate with his usual agility, leaving Harry frozen. He hadn’t meant to actually fling the plate at Snape, not to actually hit him. But it had gone closer to him than he’d actually meant. Snape definitely wouldn’t believe that though – not after the book incident the other day.... Harry’s heart was thudding as he waited for the inevitable explosion.

Instead Snape just looked exasperated and waved his wand causing Harry to gasped as the icy milk tipped over his head, the jug clattering to the floor. The milk ran through his hair, over his face and soaked his jumper.

‘Fine starve yourself then, you foolish child.’ Severus spat out angrily. Then he seemed to recollect himself, becoming aware that instead of taking the moral high ground as the adult he was regressing to Harry’s level.

‘You need to eat, or you will make yourself ill. I hardly think that Sirius would want you to be acting like this. He would want you to try to get on with life as normal.’

Harry was gobsmacked by the sheer absurdity of this comment. Sirius had been killed and Snape expected him to carry on as normal?

‘Don’t pretend you have any idea what Sirius would think!’ He said furiously.

‘I would never presume to understand most of the workings of that mutt’s mind but I am sure I can be confident in assuming he would want you to look after yourself...’ Severus replied sneeringly.

Harry didn’t register the point his Professor was making. He couldn’t see past the implicit insult in those hateful, scornful tones. Snape would never presume to understand most of the workings of that mutt’s mind. Right, that’s because Sirius was stupid enough to get himself killed was it? Dumb enough to be prepared to risk everything for him.

‘You bastard. I hate you. He was a hundred times the wizard you’ll ever be. I wish he was here right now to hex you into oblivion. I wish ... I wish it was you who was dead and not him.’

Harry stopped abruptly, he’d managed to even shock himself. Where had that come from? Yes it was Snape but the man had actually been pretty decent to him whilst he’d been here. He certainly didn’t deserve him saying something so awful and for a split second Snape himself actually looked stricken before his usual cold, angry expression reasserted itself. Before Harry could apologise, he found his tongue jinxed so it was stuck to the roof of his mouth and Snape was saying to him in a low but ominous tone, ‘I suggest you go to your room, now.’