-Severus-

Late Tuesday night. Tonight he'd spent more than two hours in the Slytherin common room as he did on the first of each month. He always started with an all-hands meeting, pointing out who had won (and lost) the house the most points, and gave the Quidditch team a pep talk. He then met individually which each form and ended with one-on-one meetings with specific students to discuss issues with academic performance or behavior. He was worried in particular because Draco's marks were dropping and along with his, Crabbe and Goyle's (and they didn't have a lot of space left to drop much further).

Back in his quarters, he re-read Harry's letter. His eyes kept returning to the line about Draco Malfoy. He had to keep Harry focused on his work, his friends and his task with the Headmaster and not on Malfoy. An almost unachievable task, more difficult in a way than his current role as Dumbledore's spy among the Death Eaters. If Harry didn't show signs soon of letting the matter go, he was going to have to risk a meeting with the boy.

Before he picked up his quill to write a return letter to Harry, he made tea. Strong tea.

/

1 October, 1996

Tuesday

Dear Harry:

Since reading your letter last night, I have had the catchy tune and words "His bum it looks all speckled" running through my brain. I had finally convinced my brain to let the lyrics go after hearing it repeatedly while I witnessed the end of the Gryffindor Quidditch practice on Saturday. Thank you. And remember—paybacks are hell.

I caught the last 15 minutes of your Saturday practice—the part just before Slytherin took the pitch. How you manage to stay on your broom or catch the snitch when you have your eyes glued on Ms. Weasley is a mystery to me. While I do admit that she is quite adept on the broom, I do not think it is her skills on the Quidditch pitch that are foremost in your thoughts. My advice to you here—and for the record, I am not the one to go to for advice on matters of the heart—is to decide what you want and then plan how to get it. If it turns out that you cannot have what you want, move on. Going on as you currently are will likely result in broken bones as well as broken hearts.

I did notice the guard you posted outside the showers. Merlin help us if Mr. Creevy manages to get in there with a camera.

On to your questions. My mother's family had a penchant for Latin names. Severus is not a family name—it was chosen because of my "severe" attitude as an infant. I suppose it could have been worse. They could have named me Cyrano (look it up) for my extraordinarily large nose. My middle name is my father's—Tobias. You are not to give that piece of information to anyone, even though it is an ordinary enough name and less distinctive, for sure, than "Severus." In answer to your other questions, it is quite common for Wizarding families to name their children after deceased family members, but it is also common to use thematic names or name denoting character (hence, my own). You will find this in old, pureblood families particularly. Think of your godfather and his family—the Blacks were given to use stellar names. As for the origins of your own name, my suggestion is to consult a wizarding family genealogy book to trace the Potter bloodline and to ask Remus Lupin. He may know more about your father's family than I do. Since Harry is often a derivative of Henry, so do not overlook that name in your research. I did not know of any Harrys or Henrys in your mother's family.

I do not know Argus Filch's age. I suggest you ask him at your next detention. While you are at it, and since you will already be marked for death, offer to put Mrs. Norris out of her misery.

As for Draco Malfoy, please do not concern yourself with him. I am well aware of his distraction and am monitoring him closely. Please, Harry, chase after Ms. Weasley, play Quidditch, learn to be an Animagus, go on adventures with the Headmaster, do your homework and be Slughorn's golden boy. You have quite enough to go about doing without obsessing on Draco. You must trust me on this.

Now, your challenge. I am going to guess that the two animal forms that do not hold long are the insect form and the rodent form. I am basing this guess on my knowledge of your character and your experience with other Animagi with these forms. They would not hold, would they, if cast on a strong-willed wizard who did not want to be that specific animal. While your penchant for sneaking around under that invisibility cloak would seem to point to an Animagus form that was small and stealthy, you also are known to charge in like a herd of rampaging rhinoceroses (the plural form is NOT rinoceri) when in foolish Gryffindor mode. For the animal that doesn't transform the way Minerva had intended I will guess the forest creature. Minerva is undoubtedly thinking of your father in his Animagus form instead of the animal itself. Well, that guess is as good as any. I am curious to hear how right—or wrong—I am in your next letter.

I have made my second move on the enclosed parchment chess board. It is quite fulfilling to play a game that lasts more than 30 minutes, though I suppose to be fair we should be counting number of moves instead of elapsed time playing.

I cannot argue that you do not have moments of "great depth and enlightenment." Your statement in your previous letter, that you must honor your parents' sacrifice with how you live your life, is not the first time you have proven that. Since you have begun again to focus on the end of their lives, I will distract you with something about your mother when she was a girl. While she was a bright pupil was academically gifted, she had a playful side as well. She was incredibly talented with a Muggle toy called the Hula Hoop. If you are not familiar with this contraption, imagine a Quidditch goal, made of hollow plastic like a garden hose, with small balls inside that rattle as it spins. The hoop was not as large as a Quidditch goal of course. The objective was to use your abdominal muscles to twirl the hoop around your midsection, keeping it in motion and not allowing it to drop to the ground. When we were seven or eight, both Lily and Petunia received hula hoops at the beginning of the summer holiday. They would bring them to the park where we often played. Petunia was stiff and uncompromising even then, never really managing more than a five or six awkward rotations before the hoop would clatter to the pavement. Lily, however, could spin like at exotic dancer. As hula hoops were still quite the rage that summer, there were many at the park at any given time, and Lily learned to keep as many as a dozen going at once, from her neck down to her knees. I can still picture her spinning and laughing and I thought, at the time, that it must be magic. I have since realized that indeed it was—but not the kind of magic that was already in my life.

Regards,

Severus

/

Writing about Lily always made him melancholic. He rolled up the letter, placed it with the other sixth-year essays and took his tea tray to the kitchen. When he sat back down by the fire, his eyes drifted to the Beatles anthology on the coffee table. He picked it up and opened it up on his lap but his eyes were far away, at the playground near Spinner's End, watching the red-headed girl with the green and orange hula hoops spinning, spinning, spinning…

-Harry-

The common room was a disaster. It had been raining for several days and nearly everyone had cabin fever. It was too loud to study and almost too loud to talk. Harry, Ron and Hermione's spot near the fire had been taken over by a group of about fifteen girls who apparently were starting a new club organized by Lavender. The girls were giggling and Ginny, who had plopped down next to Harry, looked over at them, annoyed.

"They call it a Quidditch fan club!" she protested. "But they're not fans of me and Katie and Demelza." Ron and Harry's heads swiveled over to the girls. Two of them were holding up a poster-sized picture of Ron. Harry grinned, until Ginny elbowed him and he saw, to his complete dismay, a photo of himself blown up to life-sized proportions.

"I almost wish we still had that ban on clubs," said Harry. "This is getting out of control."

/

3 October, 1996

Thursday

Dear Severus:

Hope you can read this through the blotches. I'm trying to write this tonight from my bed. The third through fifth year girls took over the common room tonight with their Quidditch fan club. There's never been a Quidditch fan club before! They had all these photographs that you know who (no, not THAT You Know Who!) took of us yesterday at practice so of course Ron and I bailed and came up here. Well—we came up here AFTER they enlarged a picture of Ron's face and connected the freckles across his face to spell "Sexy." I won't even TELL you what they did with my scar! Believe it or not, one of the sixth-year girls, Lavender Brown, seemed to be organizing them. Anyway, I finally managed the waterbed transformation tonight, but the bed feels more like a boat than a bed now—like I'm on a raft in the water instead of on a solid mattress made of water. I tried making it harder—Ron helped me with that spell. I should have asked Hermione because I ended up with an ice bed instead of a waterbed. Anyway, I managed to melt it again but I'm freezing (because now it's ICE water) AND I'm seasick.

Well, you were pretty close on your guesses about the Animagus forms. The transformations that don't stick well are the insect and the rodent. You were right on both of those. Minerva thinks she'll go ahead and eliminate those two starting next week. The one that often doesn't transform the way she intends is the bird, not the forest creature. The first time, when she went through all the animals really quickly, she tried for an Eagle Owl and got the Tawny. The next time, when she did just the wing, it turned white like Hedwig's. When she did the head only, she got an eagle instead of an Eagle Owl. I think she hasn't gotten close enough to the kind of bird I'd likely be. I told her she should go with something more ordinary, perhaps a robin or a starling, and not such a large and showy bird. She thinks she'll just eliminate the birds too. When I meditate, I always get the feeling that I'm not in a small body and I have never imagined feathers at all. Next week we are going out with Hagrid in the Forbidden forest to do another experiment. I'm not sure what it is—she doesn't like to give me too much information in advance—just enough to keep me on my best behavior the next week. Did you know that she's threatened to cut off our lessons if I don't keep my grades up and my behavior to par? I'm expected to get all Es or above and have no more than two detentions this term. Two! I'll probably have two before half-term. Good thing she didn't threaten to take away Quidditch. I'm beginning to realize that she's so competitive about her house that I could probably get ten detentions and still play for Gryffindor.

I was really looking forward to looking up the Potters in a wizarding genealogy book. I asked Madam Pince and she said that these books are mainly owned by old wizarding families and Hogwarts doesn't have one. She suggested a family's personal library…which made me think of Sirius' library at Grimmauld Place. I hope the Potter line is in a book and you don't have to bring a giant wall-sized family tree tapestry back to Hogwarts for me. You DO get over there for Order meetings, don't you?

By the way, I don't really think it's a bright idea to name a person after how they act when they're an infant. What's the guarantee that you'll still act that way when you're an adult? What if you were all happy and giggly as a baby and your parents had named you Euphoria? (Yes, I looked it up.) And what if they HAD named you Cyrano and you had grown into that nose? If more families were like yours we'd probably have kids here named Noisome, Soporific and Flatulencia. (Yes, I looked those up too. Since I was in the library bothering Madam Pince, I borrowed a nifty little thesaurus. That's a book of synonyms, in case you didn't know.)

I think that if I ever have kids I'll name them after important people in my life, people that I loved or that loved me. Not that it's likely I'll ever have any, but if I do make it through all of this, I'd like a couple of messy-headed kids with green eyes and glasses that can take my place and annoy you here for years to come.

I don't stare at Ginny Weasley, by the way. I watch ALL of the team—it's my job as captain. But she is a great flyer, isn't she? See—even YOU noticed. You may have also noticed that she already has a boyfriend—she and Dean Thomas have been going out since the end of last year. So I'm not going to set myself up for a broken heart. Besides, she's really like a sister to me—all the Weasleys are like family. With all that red hair and freckles it's hard to tell them apart.

I asked Hermione about hula hoops and she knew all about them. She managed to transform one of my belts into one and we all gave it a try. I never laughed so hard in my life as when Neville tried it! It would just go around about two times then clatter to the ground and he'd look all embarrassed and apologetic about it. The one time he got it going he gyrated so hard that his pants fell down. Ginny was the best at it, though. She can make it go up and down her stomach and hips and keep it going forever. Hermione called it "undulating" and Ron decided he didn't much like his sister "undulating." I guess it didn't help that she was wearing the t-shirt that I gave her from Liverpool. It was perfect for the job—not a lot of extra fabric getting all clumped up and in the way. When Ron tried it out (because we made him, of course), Colin showed up with the camera and got a couple shots of Ron looking seriously stupid before Ron realized it. Do you think it's possible that Colin's got a crush on Ron? I suggested it to Ron and only just avoided a black eye.

I just reread your letter to make sure I had responded to everything and hadn't let you get away with one of your snide little comments without a reaction. So…NEXT detention with Filch? Doesn't that imply I've already had one? I guess the physical with Madam Pomfrey could count. It was both painful and humiliating—like Defense class is getting. OK, I have to get this off my chest. I had decided to let it go but it's eating me up and I can't. What the hell is Malfoy playing at in class? Hitting me with a "stray" Stupefy when I wasn't even dueling with him? My head still hurts where I hit it against the desk on the way down. I'd probably have a concussion if I hadn't fallen on top of Seamus who was already on the floor after Hermione's jelly legs jinx got him. I get it that you have to blame me for getting in his line of fire but the fact is that I didn't! You know it too! I don't care about how you treated me—I just want to know why he's targeting me like that right out in the open. You tell me to stop worrying about him and to trust you but then something like this happens. If he's willing to attack me in front of an entire class and a Hogwarts Professor, don't you think I should be worried about walking through the halls or being out on the grounds between classes or on the weekends?

OK, I'm letting it go. Riiiiiight.

My next chess move was rather obvious. I have a feeling this game won't last through October.

One more thing—I was walking down the hall yesterday and heard the Beatles! Turns out the Muggle Studies Professor is doing a unit on Muggle Music. I saw her in the Great Hall last night and told her that you're a big fan and have some great memorabilia. Enjoy sharing!

Regards,

Harry

/

Harry waved his wand over the parchment, attempting to turn it blank non-verbally. Five tries and no dice. He finally muttered the spell out loud and sighed. Why were non-verbal spells so difficult for him? He picked up other things a lot more easily. The mattress underneath him rolled as he shifted his weight and he toppled back, hitting his already sore head on the headboard.

He closed his eyes and thought about his bed at Shell Cottage, about the sound of the ocean beating against the shore, about the smell of the salty air and cooking potatoes in the fire. He remembered his fear and hatred of Snape gradually turning into something else, something that involved trust and understanding.

Now, though they saw each other nearly every day and lived under the same roof, he missed the man. Harry Potter missed Severus Snape. Harry looked up at the canopy of his bed but miraculously, the sky was not falling.

-Severus-

Severus woke up Sunday morning with a headache. He made coffee instead of tea and decided to forgo breakfast in the Great Hall in favor of jam and toast in his quarters. He had tried again yesterday to talk with Draco, to grain his trust and confidence, but the boy was having none of it. What he could see, and Harry could not, was that Draco was just as much a product of events outside of his control as was Harry. Draco could no more easily choose to go against the wishes of his family—and of the Dark Lord—as Harry could elect to ignore the Prophecy. Still, Severus knew that the task ahead of Draco, heinous as it was, was nothing compared to the task looming for Harry. The two boys would likely never realize that they were both pawns on someone else's chessboard. A kinder hand was moving Harry's piece, but the goals were the same, and in any game of chess, the pawns were the first to be sacrificed.

/

6 October, 1996

Sunday

Dear Harry:

Your letter did, as usual, cause me to smile in places, frown in others and in one or two places, laugh out loud. First of all, the matter of your bed. It is simply a matter of finesse, so to speak. You do not have the experience in transfiguration to deal with all the nuances of this complex of a change. You must change the contents of the mattress to water without losing the structure of the mattress itself, but you must also make it waterproof so that the water does not leak out on the floor. I suggest that you work directly with Minerva. She IS the Transfiguration Professor, your Head of House AND your guardian. I do realize you challenged you on this, but perhaps it is better to admit defeat and learn something from her in the process.

I suppose that, after the events of Saturday, I will not be hearing too much about your Quidditch fan club. The entire school is talking about your practice on Saturday morning and even I cannot ignore it any longer. I do not know who taught those young girls the Denudo spell, but as it is banned at Hogwarts, the entire membership is being punished and the club officially disbanded. I congratulate you on a perfect shield spell, by the way. I am sure that the gathered girls did not expect you to throw up a shield so quickly when they hit your team with multiple "Undressing" spells and furthermore could not have anticipated that their spells would bounce off your shield and reflect back on themselves. Your beaters should be out of the hospital wing by tomorrow—I suppose they had never seen naked girls before and that was the cause of their unfortunate midair collision. As for Mr. Weasley, Poppy has managed to get his eyes back in his head.

I remain very interested in your studies with Minerva. You have actually given me cause on more than one occasion of late to wonder if it is too late to pursue the art myself. Frankly, I did not ever before feel a desire to be an Animagus. The thought of existing in animal form was a bit daunting to me; the thought of being stuck in animal form terrifying. What are your thoughts on this, Harry? Are we ever too old to learn something new? I am not sure that a trip to the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid is a good idea. I cannot think of a single occasion where you have ventured into that place that did not result in some major heart-stopping event. Wild creatures live there, Harry, and I swear I once saw a rogue Muggle automobile sneak by while I was collecting potions ingredients.

Fine. I will search the Black Library for a book on wizarding genealogy. If I find other books that I believe will interest you, should I bring them back as well? I am sure there are many on proper wizarding courtship etiquette as well as correct deportment for young witches and wizards. I am curious myself if "undulating" is allowed in wizarding society. I think not.

Speaking of undulating, I am quite impressed by your use of the thesaurus. However, if you ever call me Euphoria (or Noisome, of Flatulencia) you will quickly have more than two detentions and can kiss Animagus studies goodbye. At least Severus is an honest name, one that suits my personality quite well.

Hard to tell the Weasleys apart, is it? All of them with the same red hair and freckles? Harry, quit kidding yourself! As I said, I am NOT the one to come to over matters of the heart, but anyone can see you are pining after her and NOT after her brother (we will leave him to Mr. Creevey) so you must be able to tell who is who.

You did not say, by the way, if you yourself were adept at the hula hoop during your session with your friends. Perhaps you can show me over Christmas? If your guardian will agree to stop by, I will let you teach her as well. I am sure they make hula hoops in her tartan.

I regret that I am not able to leave you with another story about your mother, Harry. I was well within my right to criticize Mr. Longbottom as I did. You rising to his defense so vocally was not called for, no matter how hurt his feelings were and how much it damaged his "spirit." Perhaps your energy would be of better use helping him learn these required spells and practice them outside of class. This, indeed, will allow you to take even more focus off Mr. Malfoy. I do hope you are fully recovered from your altercation with him last week.

Again, I must reiterate that you must trust me with him, Harry. If you only knew what it did to me to see that spell hit you and to hear your head crack against the desk. It is NOT easy for me at all to watch this play out as it must. All I can tell you that the situation with Mr. Malfoy is complicated, as complicated as your own situation. I must watch him very closely. You know who his father is, Harry. You know with whom he associates. Do not think me—or the Headmaster—so naïve that we need to be told he is up to something. That being said, I have been remiss in allowing the situation with Mr. Malfoy to endanger you. You indeed have a point about your safety outside my classroom. I have spoken with the Headmaster and we have put a plan into action to further protect you. We refer to this as "Plan D" for "Dobby."

Professor Burbage approached me even before I read your letter, by the way. She asked me to be a guest speaker in her Muggle Studies class. Naturally, I had to decline. However, I did loan her my Beatle's anthology book and told her that I had seen you and Weasley wearing Beatles t-shirts and perhaps she could ask you to come in to sing your favorite Beatles' songs to her class. I told her that you had a melodious voice and Mr. Weasley a rich baritone. I would be happy to grant you and Mr. Weasley a pass to miss Defense one day in order to help out in her class.

Touché.

Regards,

Severus

/

He finished the letter, signing his name with a flourish. Though it had ended on a light-hearted and teasing note, Severus worried that his assurances to Harry about Draco would not be enough. The boy, despite how far he had come this summer in learning to trust, despite his own influence and the presence of a new guardian, was far too accustomed to terrifying leaps of faith, to taking matters into his own too-young and inexperienced hands.

Severus knew it was time. Time to talk to Minerva.

-Harry-

He was cold, wet and tired. It had rained during the entire Quidditch practice. He was behind on his homework. His legs and back hurt from the spill he had taken from his broom. He wanted to sleep but he needed to write a quick letter to Snape. He still couldn't believe that last night, during his weekly Animagus Studies lesson with Minerva, he had gotten to talk to Snape outside of class, away from the castle, just the two of them with Minerva. It was like a healing balm; no—more like a drug, a Snape fix. He knew now that he'd need more of these to get through the year, and the next sure one at Christmas holiday was still two and a half months away.

He was still suffused with the comforting feelings of relief and peace Snape's visit had given him when he went to bed a short half hour later.

/

9 October, 1996

Wednesday

Dear Severus:

I can't believe you were there with us last night! I was already a bit on edge in the forest with Minerva and then you about gave me a heart attack when you stepped out from behind those trees like Count Dracula. I really needed to see you, you know—acting like yourself and not like you do in Defense class. When Minerva told me Hagrid wasn't coming with us I was a little bit worried. I wasn't sure what kind of relationship she had with the centaurs and the spiders and the thestrals and such but I pretty much trusted her not to get us killed or mained or anything, and figured her wand was as good of a weapon as Hagrid's crossbow. Still, having you there in that glade with us made all the difference. I felt safe with you there, too, at home even though I'd never been to that place before. I can't believe how easy it was to meditate, to slip into that altered state she talks about all the time, when we sat in that tight circle. I know we're miles from the sea but somehow it felt we are on our porch at Shell Cottage and the ocean was just a stone's throw away.

I couldn't believe how many different animals came out once she evoked the spell. The hares, the foxes, the deer, the wild boar, badgers, wild cats, squirrels, wolves, raccoons, skunks and all the birds! We learned in Primary that wolves are extinct in the UK—I suppose they didn't know about the population in the Forbidden Forest. For next week, I have to list each and every animal we saw and give two adjectives for each describing how that animal made me feel. I know I'll get tripped up on the squirrel as I'll only remember the moment it ran up your arm and sat on your shoulder, batting its eyes at me and sniffing your ear.

Last night, it was like a hole somewhere inside me started to fill up and close, like the holes we dug in the sand on the beach that would gradually fill in as the waves came in, smoothing over, leaving no sign there was ever a hole there to begin with.

Thanks again for coming last night. I know there's always the risk you'll be seen. Thanks for thinking I was worth it.

Regards,

Harry

/

That night, Harry dreamed again. He was on the beach, digging holes. The gentle waves washed in, filling up each hole in turn.

He knew then, looking out to sea, that there would always be enough sand to fill up the holes, and always more holes to fill in.

But at least there was the sand, and the sea to stir it up.