"Tell me, Mr Potter, when they sent you back, was it a punishment or a reward?" Snape's voice was distant and brittle.

Another dream.

Harry blinked. He was sitting with his back up against the headboard in Sirius' old bedroom. The room that he and Ginny now slept in, it having been the room Harry had always slept in, ever since he and Ron and Hermione had hidden from Voldemort here.

But this was Sirius' room, not Harry and Ginny's. The old posters were there. As was the old bureau which Snape was rummaging around. The room looked as it had done the day Harry, Ron and Hermione had sought it out as a hideout from Voldemort.

Snape apparently found what he was looking for. He sat down on the end of the bed with a photograph in his hand. Harry could only see him in profile, but from what he could see, the man looked dreadful.

Snape looked younger again, perhaps, twenty five. It was hard to tell, really, because he looked so distraught. Definitely no older than thirty. Younger than Harry in years, but his face was lined with pain, and tears trickled from his eyes. The man didn't seem to notice

"Come again?" asked Harry, confused. Why on earth were they here?, "You look terrible, Professor." he blurted out.

"Have you looked in a mirror today, Potter?" snapped the younger man, coldly "I asked you a question. When they sent you back. Was it a punishment or a reward?"

"When who sent me back from where?" asked Harry, still befuddled.

"When whatever power sent you back from Death." Snape wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and glared at Harry, as if challenging him to ask what had moved the man to tears.

"I...no one sent me back...I...wanted to come back...I had things to finish" Harry stammered.

Snape snarled, "Of course, things would be different with you, Potter. Of course you could choose to come back." the man said bitterly, "Everyone has things to finish. Lily had..." the sentence was unfinished as Snape stopped with what sounded like a sob. He looked away, trying to master himself.

"I've had dreams where that happened." said Harry softly, remembering the odd dreams that he'd had for years after the War "Sometimes my mother raises me alone. Sometimes my father died and you married my mother. Sometimes you were my father. Phoebe said they were all a kind of wish fulfillment dream. Even the nightmares." Harry paused considering, "I suppose it would be easier for me if the Dursleys hadn't been part of the equation."

"Did they harm you so much, Potter?" Snape asked quietly. "Did being raised by those muggles damage you so much?" he turned back and met Harry's eyes. Snape's eyes were somehow deeper than Harry remembered.

Harry stared at the man's face, looking for signs that he was being mocked. Snape's expression was guarded, and his eyes were serious. Harry search for the man's usual sarcasm, not finding it.

"Yeah. They did." Harry said honestly, "You know they did." he said with a little more heat.

Snape's expression did not change, and he said nothing.

Harry continued "I've thought about the damned prophecy over the years, too. I sometimes wonder if 'Mark him as his equal' meant I was marked for the kind of childhood I had. Did Dumbledore know, do you think? What he did? What he sent me to? What he kept sending me back to?" Harry had pondered that question for years. He hardy ever thought about it anymore.

Tim and Dudley had apparently brought it back up again.

"Minerva knew something was wrong." replied Snape quietly, "And Molly Weasley regularly sent the Headmaster a howler, when you arrived at her house, bruised and underfed. But she never had any proof and Dumbledore wouldn't hear of it. He thought that the wards were the best chance of keeping you alive. No one could do anything, because you never mentioned it. In those days it was even harder to get a child removed from their family. The Ministry would have wanted proof."

"Why are we talking about this?" Harry snapped, standing up irritably. It was ridiculous to be discussing this with a dream. "Here of all places?" Harry gestured around the room littered with the paraphenalia from Sirius' youth. The Gryffindor banners that had been held with permanent sticking charms. The pictures from muggle magazines of motorcycles and bikini clad women that Sirius put up to drive his parents mad.

"Your mind supplies the setting. Do you think I enjoy hanging about here?" The young potion master stood too, crossing his arms across his chest.

"Come on, then." sighed Harry. This place was such a jumble of memories and he felt too vulnurable. Whatever he was trying to tell himself, it didn't need to be done here.

He opened the door and led Snape to his study. Fortunately it was his study and not the crowded junk room it had been before Harry and Kreacher had renovated the house, "Sit down." Harry waved vaguely at the small settee. Firewhiskey and two glasses sat on the desk so he poured them each a bit. At this point, imaginary firewhiskey was just the thing.

Snape sat down on the settee and Harry pulled over his comfortable wing chair, "What's on my mind then?" he asked, smiling a little.

Snape took a sip of his drink, "The little boy, of course." replied Snape, cutting right to the heart of the matter.

"What about him?" asked Harry, curiously. Interesting that Dream-Snape was always the one who came to talk about him. It made some twisted kind of sense to his subconscious, Harry supposed. Especially given that Harry had been reading through Snape's old notes with every moment he could spare.

"How comes the research?" asked Snape.

Harry snorted, "You should know. I'm finding things that are fascinating, useful, amazingly insightful and not at all what I'm looking for. I finally found a few books that are warded, but every password I try, the things just remain recipes for eggs Benedict."

"Are you sure they're warded, and not merely my cookbooks?" said Snape sardonically.

Harry grinned a little, "I had Ginny look at them too. There's too many errors in the recipes to be a real cookbook. As if you wanted to hide it from a cursory inspection, but tip off someone who was doing real research."

"But, no luck getting into them?" said the Potions Master, heavily.

"Don't suppose you could tell me how to get into them?" asked Harry hopefully

"It doesn't work that way, Potter." Snape snarled, "There are rules. Anyway, I'm just a figment of your imagination, am I not?"

"I suppose so. I was just hoping...I don't know." Harry shrugged.

"You might find out what else I left to Hogwarts in my will. Apart from my notes, I mean. I would have wanted credit for this potion, you know." said Snape calmly.

"Huh. That's a thought." replied Harry.

There was a little silence as both men sipped their whiskeys.

"What will you do with the boy if you can't cure him?" Snape asked suddenly, "Will you take him to St Mungo's to live out his life like Frank and Alice Longbottom?"

"No." said Harry firmly, "That won't happen."

"He'll never be right, you know." Snape said in a harsh voice, "You'll spend you're life looking after him and then you'll die, leaving him to the mercies of his adoptive siblings. Given how Lily's sister treated you, are you willing to hope your grown children will take pity on this interloper?"

"Ginny and I already discussed this. We'll set up a trust at Gringott's for his care, when we're gone. If..if the worst happens and he deteriorates and he can't care for himself. Hermione said that there's quite a few facilities that provide a better environment than St Mungo's...should he need it." Harry swallowed.

"So you take the boy in, planning to get rid of him if your miracle cure doesn't materialize?" sneered Snape.

"Don't be stupid," snarled Harry back, "Tim stays with us. He's family now. In six months he'll officially be my son. What he needs, he'll get. End of story." Harry poured himself another whiskey.

Snape helped himself too, "He'll never be like your other boys, you know. Even if you cure him, he'll be different. He won't be one of those noisy, dunderheaded, daredevils you call sons." he said through gritted teeth, "He'll be the quiet one, the forgotten one. Always last to be thought of..."

"I don't treat the people I love like that." growled Harry.

Snape peered into Harry's eyes, "Do you love the boy, then?" he asked quietly, "Are you sure it's not your love of playing the hero?"

"Fuck you, Snape" So angry that he forgot where he was, Harry stood up and pulled his wand on the man.

Snape didn't move, "Don't be so dramatic, Potter. I'm already dead, in case you've forgotten." he took another sip of his whiskey, "Funny how easy it is to fall into this, isn't it." he said, staring at his whiskey glass.

Harry realized he was breathing hard. He sat down, feeling a little foolish.

"So why do you love the boy, if it's not pity?" asked Snape in a low voice.

Harry shrugged, "Why does anyone love anyone? There's just something about him that makes me feel the same way about him as I do about the rest of them."

"He's not your blood." Snape said firmly.

Harry smiled slightly, "As if that really mattered. My family's always been Ron and Hermione. And Luna and Neville. And then there's Teddy and Andromeda. All the Weasleys. People like me have to take their family where they can find them."

"And your lovely wife. You're foisting this damaged child off on her too."

"If you don't stop talking that way about Tim, I will see if you can die twice. " growled Harry.

"He won't be like James." said Snape again, but less confrontationally

"God forbid. All my grey hairs are from him." said Harry, "Look, I know that Tim's possible worst case is that he could deteriorate to a state like Alice Longbottom's, but I don't think so. He's tough, Tim is. If he was going to go completely mad, he would have done it by now."

Snape gave Harry a long searching look, "Are you really going to take the boy to see his mother's body?"

That felt like a question out of the sky, "Yes, I said I would. I already made the arrangements." replied Harry a little non plussed by the sudden change.

Snape nodded, "Good. I feared it might be something you'd promise but not keep to."

"Don't be stupid. I don't say things I don't mean." Harry replied

"No. You never did, did you? Like your mother that way. Once she said something..." Snape trailed off and sighed, "I never saw it, until the end. How much you were like her. And you were to be sacrificed to the greater good...The last thing of Lily left..." there were tears in his black eyes again, "It was like losing her all over again. All that was left was finishing the task."

"I'm sorry." Harry said quietly.

"Yes, well..." Snape seemed to shake himself, "It is an unfair world." he leveled a serious gaze at Harry, "I hope you realize, I am only interested in knowing what your level of commitment to the boy is. One needs to know these things about oneself."

"So, what? You're my internal devil's advocate?" asked Harry. That almost made sense.

Snape smiled slightly and lifted an eyebrow, "Perhaps." he put down his glass and stood, "I have to go. Thank you for the hospitality." he turned to leave the study, then turned back to Harry, "You might ask Longbottom why it is that his work and his magical abilities improved so in his seventh year.