Severus let Harry lead the way in. "The first thing we must do today." He told Harry, as Toker took off with their outer cloaks. "Is to secure the Manor. I know you read the book on ancient magical houses, so you know that this house can raise protections of its own. I would like for you to ask it to do so. At that point, the floo will be the only point of entry for anyone not a Potter or not in possession of a portkey you have created for them, or otherwise allowed entrance by you. As you don't know how to secure a floo, I will do that for you, if you are amenable."

"Sounds like a plan to me, Severus." Harry agreed, and watched as the man stalked off to deal with the floo. Once he was gone, Harry reached out and put a hand on the nearby stone wall, shivering a bit at the wash of joyful welcome. "Hello, girl." He said softly, not quite realizing he was talking out loud. "Good to be back again. Listen, I need your help." He'd half expected for nothing to happen after he said that ... after all, the book had been really unclear as to how the Lord or Heir could 'talk' to the house, and he'd figured there must be some sort of really esoteric spell or something.

The Manor proved him wrong, as a flash of emotion that more or less translated to 'anything you ask!' washed over Harry ... and how he knew that was the translation, he couldn't figure. "I need you to raise your wards, girl. Everything you've got. There's some very not-nice people out there who want to hurt me, and I'd rather not let them." Harry did a triple-take at the wash of protective anger that hit him ... and, evidently, every other bit of furniture in the room, as everything quivered for a second. It took a moment for Harry to remember the bit about the house being able to animate the furniture as a line of defense.

There was a second flash of emotion, a worried sort of whine, as Harry got the sense the Manor was aware of the presence of a not-Potter in the house. "It's ok, girl. He's a good one. He saved me from some bad people a while back. Him and the woman I had with me the last time ... remember her?" There was a sort of shimmy that let Harry know the house did remember. "Those two are welcome here, always. Oh! I don't know if you recognize the names, but Remus Lupin and Sirius Black will be coming here soon."

And that proved to be the limit of the manor's abilities, because all he got back was a sense of confusion. "Don't worry about it, girl. I'll let you know when they get here." He got another happy little shimmy before he patted the wall and headed off to find Severus in the main parlor, which had the floo. "Well, that was more than a bit interesting."

Severus glanced up from his work on the floo. "How so?"

"Didn't really know what to do or what to expect. The Manor's pretty much a step shy from being fully sentient, I think. Didn't seem to recognize names when I mentioned Remus and Sirius, but remembered Professor McGonagall from the time we came here together."

"The Manor probably recognizes people by their magical signatures, then." Severus said.

"Yeah, that's kind of what I figured. An it just makes me wonder how ... aware ... Hogwarts is, if it's even more magical than this place."

"Most of the staff strongly suspect the Sorting Hat of being Hogwarts' voice, if that answers your question." Severus said.

Harry laughed. "Yeah, it does."

"Minerva will be here tomorrow to take you to your family vault." Severus told him. "And we will be talking things over tonight, in order to agree on a schedule. I do not plan to make your summer entirely about learning, but the more prepared you are, the better."

Harry nodded. "Yeah, I really don't much fancy the idea of Lucius or anybody like him pulling something on me, and me not being able to defend myself."

"Indeed. So you will be beginning to learn offensive spells this summer, Madame Longbottom has agreed to begin your training related to your rank, and I would like to begin teaching you the rudiments of Occlumency."

"What's Occlumency?" Harry asked.

"It's one of a pair of skills. Its partner is Legilimency. Legilimency is the art of reading a person's mind. It requires eye contact to work. A skilled Legilimens can pull every secret out of your mind, if it is not defended, and use it against you."

Harry made a horrified face. "Eugh. And Occlumency is ... a way to defend the mind?"

"Precisely. It's vital you learn the skill, as Voldemort is an accomplished Legilimens."

"And since he'll be after me the moment he comes back, being caught with my knickers around my ankles is not a good idea." Harry agreed.

"You should be able to do fairly well at it." Severus said. "As the greatest difficulty people have with Occlumency is the need to mentally picture things, in detail."

"Things? Like what?" Harry wanted to know.

"It varies from person to person." Severus said. "Some people use a library, or a forest. Others picture walls of various materials ... really, the choices are nearly endless, but they are ways to both hide and defend your thoughts."

"So, if someone pictured a forest, they'd have, oh, centaurs in there, to shoot anybody that gets close? While their actual thoughts are way deep in the woods somehow?"

Severus got a pleased expression on his face. "Precisely. The actual accomplishing of the defenses is a good deal more complicated than can be put to words, but you've got the essence of it."

Harry nodded his understanding. "Plus, I gotta get my regular homework done." He sighed. "I just wish I didn't have to do essays."

"You'll get better at them as you go, Harry." Severus said. "Part of your problem is that you've only recently learned how to write an essay, so you're still not used to it."

Harry smiled a bit. "I hope it'll get better." Essays were the bane of his existence. Ask him to perform a spell, and he did splendidly ... usually getting the spell right only seconds behind Hermione, who had probably spent the week prior to the lesson studying the spell in question in detail. Ask him to write an essay, and he only barely scraped by.

Harry headed to his room to unpack his things, only to meet Toker doing just that. "Hello, Toker."

The elderly elf smiled at him happily. "Master Harry! I's happy to see you again. Yous will be staying at the Manor this summer?"

Harry nodded. "Yep, though I may be doing day trips to the Weasleys, the Longbottoms, and maybe the Grangers." He wasn't as sure about the Grangers as he was about the others, not because he liked Hermione less, but because the Grangers were muggles, and wouldn't have any wards around their house for protection. Which ... maybe he ought to bring that up with Severus? He headed back out and tracked Severus to what had once been the dungeons, but had long since been refitted to storage, a big, empty room, and what looked like ... of course. A place like this had to have a potions lab, didn't it? And where else would Severus go? "Severus? Do you know if the Grangers have wards on their house?"

Severus glanced up from where he was inventorying the existing potions supplies. "I don't believe they would, Harry." He said. "You're worried for their safety?"

"She's my friend, Severus ... and a muggleborn. That's going to make for trouble, isn't it?" Harry asked.

"Unfortunately, you're correct. I'll visit them tomorrow while you're dealing with your vault, and speak to them about getting their home protected." Severus told him.

"Thanks, Severus!"

"You're welcome, Harry. Remus should be here just before dinner. You'll have to tap the fireplace with your wand in order to allow him through."

"Oh, ok. Thanks!" Harry said, and darted off, back to the parlor and the floo. He knew Severus wasn't all that comfortable around Remus. Needing to sort out the potions lab was just a convenient excuse to not have to pal around until absolutely necessary.

About fifteen minutes later, the floo flared bright green, and Remus' face appeared. "Severus? Oh! Hello, Harry. Would you mind allowing me through?"

"Just a second, Remus!" Harry said, darting forward to tap the fireplace with his wand. Remus' head disappeared the moment he started moving, and then a few moments later, Remus stepped through. "Already have the security procedures in place? That's good."

"Yeah. Severus is downstairs fussing with the potions lab. He said he'd join us for dinner, but I'll probably have to send Toker after him. It was kind of a mess down there."

"It would be, after so long." Remus agreed.

"How's Sirius?" Harry wanted to know, having not seen him in the last few days.

"Doing incredibly well. Madame Pomphrey has promised to let him out of her clutches later this week, so long as he finishes his convalescence here. Sirius, of course, is going more than a bit stir crazy, but it's as well Pomphrey is being so insistent. Azkaban took a lot out of him."

Harry nodded. "He didn't look so good even the last time I saw him, and it's been over a month now since he got out. That place must be really awful."

"It is, Harry, it is." Remus agreed.

They talked quietly for about a half hour before Mallie appeared. "Dinner is being ready, Master and sir!" She told them.

"Thanks, Mallie. Would you make sure Severus comes up? You might have to get insistent."

Mallie nodded and popped out, while Harry and Remus headed for the small family dining room. Small being a relative term, as the table in there could easily seat twelve. Severus arrived a couple minutes later, looking somewhat less than pleased to have been interrupted in his work, but the expression cleared when the food appeared on the table and the aroma reminded him that he hadn't eaten for a while.

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The next morning, McGonagall arrived, and she and Harry headed for Gringotts. Harry wasn't quite able to suppress a grin when he realized that McGonagall, for all her strict and severe air, enjoyed the cart ride as much as he did. When she saw his somewhat surprised expression, she just smiled at him. "I was a Chaser for Gryffindor when I was a student, Harry." She explained, which made Harry grin.

"Really? Wicked!" Harry wondered if anyone else in Gryffindor knew, and finally decided that they probably didn't. Eventually, after a very long cart ride, they stopped in front of a massive vault door. It had the same crest on it that Toker and Mallie's uniforms did.

The goblin with them wordlessly stroked the door with a long finger, then stepped back. The doors creaked open, and Harry's jaw dropped. The room was huge! There was a massive pile of galleons (with a handful of sickles and knuts near the front) in the center of the huge room, but the sides of the room were cluttered with all manner of objects ... everything from furniture to jewelry and beyond.

"Whoah!" Harry squeaked.

He had no idea where to look first. For a little bit, he entirely forgot why they were really there as he poked about in the various items. It wasn't until he'd worked his way around to the back of the pile of galleons that he was rather sharply reminded of why they'd come here. For there, leaning against an old wardrobe, was a portrait of two people in a surprisingly simple wooden frame, dressed in what was apparently wizarding wedding finery. The portrait was about four feet tall and maybe half that wide. The man looked so much like what Harry saw in the mirror every morning it was a bit spooky, while the woman had red hair. Both were asleep at the moment, which at least afforded Harry a chance to stare at them and come to terms with the fact that these were his parents before they started talking.

After a minute, he called out. "Professor? I ... found it. It's back here."

"That's excellent, Harry." There was a distinct wobble in McGonagall's voice when she answered, and Harry blinked when he realized she hadn't followed him into the vault.

That thought abandoned him, though, when the portraits, responding to the sound of voices, began to stir. For a long moment, Harry forgot to breathe as the two shifted around and opened their eyes, peering around to find the source of the voices. It was Lily that spotted Harry first, her eyes going wide.

"Oh! Oh! James, look! Harry, is that you, sweetie?"

That was all it took. Harry collapsed to his knees, fruitlessly trying to fight the tears that started pouring down his face.

"Oh, sweetheart." Lily said sadly.

James finally spoke up, his voice nearly as gentle as Lily's. "None of that, now, Prongslet. You've still got us. It won't be quite the same as us actually being there, but better than it could be."

It took Harry several minutes to get himself back under control, but he finally was able to wipe away the remaining tears. "It's not that, so much as I didn't think you'd know me. They said it was a wedding portrait." Ok, so that was more than a bit of a lie, as a great deal of his reaction was indeed the whole 'getting to see/talk to some version of my parents' thing, but he wasn't quite ready to admit to that.

"Oh, sweetie. Of course we would!" Lily said. "We updated the painting's memory and knowledge the day after your first birthday."

Just three months before they'd died.

"How long have we been down here? Sirius should have pulled us out shortly after ... well, after." James said.

That made Harry give a rusty, shaky, bitter chuckle. "Things kind of got messed up, pretty badly, dad. I'll be twelve in two months. You guys were k-killed ... " He had to suck in a steadying breath. "About three months after you updated the painting."

"Oh dear." Lily said, looking rather upset.

James, on the other hand, looked murderously angry. "Pettigrew." He snarled.

Harry nodded. "Got it in one, dad, though he wasn't the only one who managed to get things screwed up. He s-sold you guys out, and Sirius went after him. He managed to make it look like Sirius killed him, and Sirius got thrown into Azkaban without a trial."

That got an outraged yell from James, and a look from Lily that said she was contemplating ways to escape the painting and exact revenge.

"I got left with Petunia." Harry told them.

"WHAT!" Lily fairly shrieked. "Where is that manipulative old goat? I'll hex him to within an inch of his life, painting be damned! You were to have gone to Alice and Frank if Sirius wasn't available!"

"The Longbottoms?" Harry clarified, having never heard their first names before.

"Yes." Lily's tone was still murderous.

"They, uh ... couldn't. I don't know what happened, but Neville, their son, grew up with his gran."

"They were tortured into insanity via the Cruciatus curse." McGonagall's voice floated through the vault, sounding more than a bit shaky.

"Minerva? Is that you? Get in here, woman, where I can see you!" James demanded.

"It might be better if Harry brought your portrait out of the vault." Minerva pointed out.

"Oh, right. Umm, hang on a second." Harry got a good grip on the frame and then carefully carried it to the vault door.

McGonagall's eyes were red, but she was giving the portrait a shaky smile. "It's good to hear your voices again, both of you." She said.

"Tell us everything." James demanded.

And so they did, Minerva and Harry trading off as they explained things. It was hard to tell who of the two was angrier at how things had turned out, though Lily did seem oddly pleased when Harry told her about Severus. James just quirked an eyebrow at that particular discovery.

"And he found Remus, and they found Pettigrew, and got Sirius cleared, about ... what, two months ago now, or thereabouts? Sirius is still at the school right now, in Madame Pomphrey's clutches, but he'll be at the Manor later in the week." Harry said, then giggled. "He even gave the twins the map back, and told them to give it to the 'son of Prongs', who was at school, if they could figure out who that was. It's been driving them nuts, since they kind of hero-worship the Marauders. I haven't said a word to them."

James had to grin at that. "You might have to end up telling them, kiddo. Doubt they'd figure it out."

"Oh, they will, soon enough. They'll be over at some point this summer, and Remus and Sirius call each other Moony and Padfoot all the time."

James laughed. "That'd do it, all right." He admitted. "Now, I think we've tried yon goblin's patience long enough. Better pack off home now."

Harry nodded. "Right ... can the portrait be shrunk down?" He asked this of Lily and James as much as he did McGonagall.

McGonagall nodded. "Yes, it can." She told him, and proceeded to shrink the portrait down. Harry then slipped it carefully in his pocket, patting it gently before they shut the vault door and climbed into the cart to return to the surface.

HPHPHP

James and Lily's portrait took pride of place in the parlor, above the floo, where they could see and hear most of the activity in the Manor without having to run all over the place. Remus and Minerva spent most of that evening talking to the pair. Severus, on the other hand, had disappeared into the potions lab again.

The next couple of days were rather quiet. Severus was impossible to find, and Harry eventually figured out he was hiding from James and Lily, since they could come and go through any portrait in the Manor.

The quiet was broken when Sirius was finally allowed to come to the Manor. The reunion (of sorts) between Padfoot and Prongs was a very tearful one (on Sirius' side). It took both James and Lily giving him a bit of a bollicking before he seemed to finally accept that what had happened was not his fault, despite what he thought.

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Lily, exasperated with Severus, finally cornered him almost a week after the portrait had been set up in the parlor, sliding into a portrait just outside his room in the morning, before he headed back down to his lab.

"Severus Snape! You are the living end, do you know that?" She said, giving him a dire look. "I never thought to see you hiding! Least of all from me!"

Severus went totally rigid, staring at some indefinable point far down the corridor for a long moment before he finally, reluctantly, turned to face Lily, his face an expressionless mask as he stared at the wall just to the side of the portrait. "This conversation is best left for another time."

"I don't think so, Sev." Lily disagreed. "You'd put it off forever if you could. I know you."

Severus winced. "Very well. Somewhere a bit more private, then."

"The library. No one's in there just now." Lily agreed.

"Very well." Severus stalked towards the library, his posture absolutely rigid. He really, really, really didn't want to have this 'talk'. He was entirely too sure what it would contain, and he was not much in the mood to face Lily's ire from beyond the grave. The ending of their friendship had been painful enough while she was alive. He stalked into the library and made sure the doors locked.

Lily watched him from her portrait. Even as a painting, she knew this man well enough to realize that he fully expected to get ripped to shreds verbally. "Oh, Sev. Still? After all this time? I thought you would have realized ... " She sighed. "Severus, I would never have asked someone I hated and distrusted to watch over my son." She pointed out. "I forgave you long before I asked that of you."

Severus fought to keep his face expressionless, still refusing to look directly at Lily. "You should not have." He rasped. "It was I that ... " He swallowed painfully. "That brought the prophecy to ... him."

"An incomplete shred of it, yes." Lily said. "Dumbledore told me, before we went into hiding. He didn't say who, but I was able to figure out who it was. The clues were there ... who else, that I knew had taken the mark! ... would be so worried for my safety when they realized the prophecy would make me and my son a target? Oh, Severus. I may not have liked what you had done, what you had become, but I understood why it happened. And I knew that you'd not been completely corrupted, no matter what anyone else said, when I realized you'd risked everything to become Dumbledore's spy. That is not the act of an evil man, Severus. That was the act of a man who realized he'd made a godawful mistake and wanted to atone for it. That's when I forgave you. That's why I was willing to ask you to watch over Harry, if the worst happened."

Severus sank into a chair, dimly aware he was trembling slightly, and that his vision had gone funny. He didn't even realize he was crying until he brought a hand up to brush aside what he thought was a strand of hair tickling his cheek and his fingers came away wet. Horrified, he immediately fought to bring himself back under control. When he had regained his equilibrium, he wordlessly reached over to touch the frame of the portrait that Lily was in, finally looking right at her for the first time, if only briefly before he swept out of the room.

They say that forgiveness is good for the soul, meaning that forgiving someone for their wrongdoings is good for you. What few people realize is that honest forgiveness is as good for the forgivee as for the forgiver. After over a decade of castigating himself for what he had been, what he had done, Severus felt oddly lighter as he stalked down the corridor and headed for the basement.