Severus knew that even though he had said they were going to leave after lunch he had finished all the potions for the infirmary, thanks to Harry making the calming draught. He still needed to talk to him but at the moment the child was asleep from all the excitement and there really was no point of staying. Not to mention he was a little wary of Black, if he really wanted Harry to live with him he would probably get custody, after all he was the first choice. He shook his head; he would discuss all this with Harry when he woke up.

“Have fun with your mutt Lupin, I’m going to take Harry home.”

“Oy, I told you I was taking him Snape.

”Severus opened his mouth to reply but thankfully Remus spoke up.

“Sirius I don’t think that’s a good idea, you just got released from Azkaban 3 hours ago. And I know you remember what Amelia said about St. Mungos.”

“How did you know about that Moony?”

“She floo called me.”

“Fine but I still want to see Harry; he can’t ban him from seeing me.”

“Don’t worry Lupin, after Harry gets settled in he’ll be spending a week or so with Black, just as long are you are going to be there.”

“Of course I will be Severus, otherwise whose going to be the adult?

”“Harry will send you an owl for when it will be. Good day gentlemen, Albus.”           

Severus strode out the door and to his quarters placing Harry on the couch he gathered his things. He mused that they would need to go clothes shopping for Harry because the child had nothing. He picked up Harry and stepped in the fireplace and flooed to Prince Cottage. Even though it was just a few minutes after noon he didn’t have it in him to wake Harry up for lunch. He laid him on the bed in the room he had chosen for the boy and walked out to start lunch. He was just finishing up his lunch when he heard this ear piercing shriek.          

  Harry woke up in a dark room, his entire body covered with sweat. Clearly occluding at this age before bed was a must; it had been a while since he had dreamed about the Dursely hurting him. He shivered violently as he thought about the dream and was just making his way off the bed when the door suddenly opened. He screamed again Damn his childish reactions he thought. Any other time and that person would have a wand aimed at his throat, but it was only Snape.

“What’s wrong Harry, why did you scream??”       

     Harry blushed crimson, glad that he knew silencing charms because this time around they were a must; he had no desire for anyone to know what he was dreaming about.

“Sorry sir, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“That’s not what I asked Harry, why did you scream?”

“I had a nightmare.”

“Do you have them often?”

“I don’t know”

“The truth Harry, what did I say about lying?”         

   Harry said nothing even though he and Snape were on good terms he was still wary of the man. What if he got so angry with Harry that he used his nightmares against him? His adult logic fought against his child logic to trust the man wholly in front of him, but he couldn’t so he just kept silent.

“That’s alright Harry you don’t have to tell me now, could you tell me what you usually dream about?”        

    Your death, Albus’s death, Sirius’s death, Cedric, Fred, Tonks, and Remus, The Battle of Hogwarts, Dementers and nearly getting kissed, his mother’s last words, and always maniac laughter. He couldn’t tell the man that so he told him something that was mostly true, at least in another sense, at least in his 11 year old mind.

“Being locked in my cupboard after Uncle Vernon threw me in there. Uncle Vernon coming and taking me away from you, and hurting me or trying to hurt you”

“Harry I will never let him hurt you again. Listen to me real good lad, he’s a muggle and I’m a wizard. I have magic and he doesn’t, enough said ok child?”          

  Harry nodded and felt how sticky his clothes were, he didn’t mind transfiguring them but he wanted real ones of his own.

“Uncle Severus, I don’t have any more clothes.”

“I know Harry; I was thinking we could get you a few today. There is a muggle town not too far from the cottage.”

“Good because my clothes are all wet and cold.”

“What do you mean wet? Did you have an accident Harry?”

“No! It’s sweat from the dream.”

“Sorry child I was only asking, go take a shower and when you get out there will be a set of clothes on your bed. By the way if you haven’t already figured it out this is your room, and the toilet is located 2 doors down to the left.”

“Thanks Uncle Severus, when are we going to have lunch?”

“Well I already ate but…” he trailed off as he was interrupted.

“Oh, I guess I missed it then that’s fine I don’t have to eat, I’m still full from breakfast anyway. What time is dinner?” Harry asked hastily.

“You didn’t miss lunch Harry I wrapped yours up. When you get out the shower and are dressed, come downstairs.”

“Ok”           

 After his relaxing shower Harry headed downstairs and following his nose he ended up in the kitchen. There on the table was his potions and lunch but where was Severus? Oh well he drank the potions and dug in his food. He finished half of it before he was full and wrapped the leftovers up. Not knowing what else to do he walked through the house and gave himself a tour. He ended up looking out at the backyard and a part of him longed to run free. He stood up with a start and wondered if he could play outside, he want to make sure he could still transform into at least one of his animagus forms.

“Uncle Severus, where are you?”

“In my lab Harry, what did you need?”

“Can I go outside please?”

“Yes you can, the areas you aren’t allowed in won’t let you pass because of the wards. Have fun child.”

“I will and thanks”

“Oh and Harry try not to get dirty, were going into town in an hour.”

“Ok I won’t.”          

  Harry raced towards the forest and once he was in the cover of the trees he transformed, and yipped softly he was a wolf cub. He ran through the forest enjoying the feeling of being free and mindful of the time. He had really missed this; he turned back around and headed back to the house. Transforming only when he heard his godfather’s voice he ran to him beaming.

“I can see that you had fun but it’s time to go Harry. Are you ready?”

“Yes sir”         

 Harry held onto Severus as he apparated them closer to town. They walked around the small town where they stopped at a children’s clothing store. Harry was for his part, pretending to be shy so he could scan his surrounding for dangers after all old habits die hard, and this could one day save his life. The sales lady took him by surprise because she reminded Harry instantly of Aunt Marge and he found himself instinctively cowering behind Severus.“

Sorry, he’s a little shy,” Severus explained to her.“

No worries, his section is over there to the right,” she replied.     

       Harry allowed Severus to pick out his clothes occasionally putting in his own input. When they were done Harry expecting to go back to the cottage was confused when Severus grabbed his hand and led him into a toy store.

“Go on, pick out a few things.”          

  Harry turned to gape at him; he had never thought that Snape would do something like this. He mused to himself that this was probably the side of him that only his mum would see. The actual 11 year old in him was excited about getting toys, and quickly grabbed Severus’s hand again and picked out a remote control car (he had always wanted one of those), a bicycle, and a stuffed dog that reminded him of Sirius. Severus had a few books, coloring books and crayons, and some puzzles in his hands. They headed up to the counter and paid for their items. Making sure that they were alone Severus shrunk everything but the bike which Harry rode home.

After dinner that night Harry went to his room, and he was in the middle of a puzzle when Severus came in to tell him goodnight. After he left Harry spelled a silencing charm around his room and went to sleep. He woke up a few hours later, and didn’t sleep anymore that night, not that he expected too. Harry’s nightmares had come back with a vengeance because his 11 year old mind wasn’t mature enough and he couldn’t occlude everything. He didn’t sleep more than 4 hours a night for the next 2 weeks, and the only reason Severus didn’t notice how tired he was because of his glamour but that changed one night.          

  Severus woke up early Friday morning with a start, looking around his room he tried to locate the source that woke him up. His clock read 2:00am and something in him urged him to check on Harry. The child’s door was closed and he couldn’t hear a sound coming from his room, not even him breathing. When he opened it the boy was thrashing wildly in his bed with tears running down his face. His mouth was open in a silent scream, taking out his wand he whispered finite. He winced as Harry’s terror filled cry enclosed the room. He shook Harry’s shoulder to wake him up, the boy was soaked to the bone with sweat but he woke up with a start.

“Harry child are you ok?”

“Yes sir, it was just a dream.”

“That must have been some dream Harry.”

“Did I wake you up Uncle Severus? I could have sworn I set the charm, guess I didn’t. I’m sorry for disturbing your sleep.”

“No you didn’t wake, wait why did you set a silencing spell? How do you even know how to do it?”

“I didn’t want to wake you up with my screams. I read it in a book.”

“Harry you are the child and I am the adult. How can I ever help you if you won’t let me?”         

   In response to that question Harry said nothing, he couldn’t figure out why Snape was getting so furious.  He was only worried about not interrupting his teacher’s sleep, that’s common courtesy isn’t it?

“You are not allowed to set anymore silencing charms around your bed, believe when I say I will know if you do, and there will be consequences. Do you hear me Harry James Potter?”

“Yes sir,” Harry replied through gritted teeth.

Severus ignored Harry’s attitude answer in favor of trying to get to the bottom of this.

“How long has this been going on? And you’d better answer me truthfully or you won’t like what I’ll do.”          

  Harry glared at the ground and couldn’t help growling softly to himself and for the first time he wondered if he made a mistake by choosing Snape as his guardian instead of Sirius. Would Sirius treat him like he was little kid? No he mused but Remus would, and in a way he can be scarier than Snape.

“I’m waiting Harry.”

Harry stubbornly stayed silent, he was 153 years old he wasn’t an actual kid and Snape couldn’t treat him like this. He struggled to stay silent because he knew his temper would get in him trouble if he spoke. He balled up his fists in anger, here he was trying to do a nice thing and he was getting in trouble for it. And here Snape was telling him this wasn’t going to be like the Dursleys, yea right.

“Are you going to answer me or not Mr. Potter?”

“Since the first day we got here ok, are you happy now? So I get in trouble for trying to do a nice thing, this is exactly like the Dursleys, you lied to me,” Harry replied gnashing his teeth together to stop more angry words from pouring out.           

 Harry watched as Snape silently stared at him before walking out of the room without saying anything to him. He stared at the spot Snape was just standing at without blinking, was that it then? Was Severus just giving up on him like that? His anger deflated at that thought; guess he really did make a mistake choosing him. Harry was feeling miserable he was used to looking out for himself alone. He didn’t know how to act around this new Snape and since when did Harry care about how Snape felt? He sat there feeling depressed and wretched trying to figure out how to fix this. He wrapped his arms around himself in a self hug as he stared at the ceiling and shook his head trying to stop the tears from falling. Mashing the heels of his hands in his eyes, damn this child body he thought it was so damn emotional.        

    Severus had left the room to grab the child a potion and before he said something he would regret in the morning. He returned to Harry room with a glass of warm milk and the dreamless sleep. He stopped in the doorway to look at the child on the bed, right now the boy seemed to be close to tears if he wasn’t already crying. As he looked closely he saw that Harry looked exhausted, why didn’t he see this before?

“Did you use glamour to hide how tired you really were from me Harry?”           

 Harry looked up startled he didn’t even know that Snape had come back, so caught up in his grief. He knew answering yes was guaranteed he would be in a lot more trouble and he refrained from answering. Perhaps he could blame this one on accidental magic.

“What’s glamour Uncle Severus?” Harry asked innocently with confusion filling his tone.           

 Harry smiled inwardly when he heard Snape mutter accidental magic under his breath, it had worked.

“Never mind that Harry, but on Monday, I was planning on letting you stay with Black and Lupin for 2 weeks but due to this recent development I don’t that I should. What do you think?”      

      Harry thought that was a brilliant idea, besides spending time with Moony and Padfoot he could get the locket Horcrux, he only hoped Snape would let him go. Time to play the abused child card and prove to Snape, why the hat originally wanted to put him in Slytherin.

“I don’t think I should go Uncle Severus, I hate that my freakishness messed everything up. I’m sorry I spelled the charms, it’s just at the Dursleys I would get hit when I woke them up from my nightmares, and even though you said you wouldn’t treat me like them, I can’t fully believe it. This is like a dream being rescued from there, and I don’t want to do something to make you bring me back. I don’t deserve to visit Sirius, freaks don’t deserve anything.”         

    Harry had spoken all this while looking at the floor tears blurring his vision he risked a glance up to see that his godfather’s face was enraged, with his narrowed eyes. In all honesty Snape looked downright dangerous, and his voice was very quiet and it made Harry’s neck hairs stand up in fright.

“We’ll talk about this at a more appropriate time, drink your milk first then take your potion.”           

 Harry smelled the dreamless sleep; he would need to make some of this until he got his nightmares under control. He drank his milk and swallowed the potion, and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.          

  Severus spelled the child’s pajamas dry and tucked him in before putting his own spells around the room. He needed to get to the bottom of this, and he and Harry were due for a talk anyways. Some of the things the child said or did were a bit suspicious like how did Harry know his past and about the marauders? And the things he said about his self worth, he would make sure that Harry knew and understood that he mattered, and he wasn’t a freak. Who in their right minds would call an innocent child that? He acted either too mature for his age or downright immature; Severus figured that into another bad parenting on the Dursleys part. He did have to grow up early, so that was probably the reason.  He looked at the sleeping child and even though he knew it was there he couldn’t see the pouch around his neck. Reaching for it anyways he was rewarded with a shock of electricity, what the hell? He would figure that out another time, and he went back to bed.          

  Harry woke up at 9:00am the next morning feeling refreshed and well rested from his sleep. Looking at his clock he was surprised to see what time it was, he had programmed his body to wake up every day at 6:00am, guess the dreamless sleep threw it off. He shrugged and then walked down the hall to the toilet and took care of his business before getting dressed and going downstairs. As he started to walk pass the living room he could hear Severus talking to someone from the floo, and he stopped to listen.

“Watch out for his nightmares, and make sure he doesn’t spell the room. When are you bringing him?”

“I’ll floo over there with him on Monday; I decided to let him come. Lupin he thinks of himself as a freak, I don’t know what to do. He thinks he doesn’t deserve anything could you see if you can figure out why he constantly refers to himself as that, no matter how much I tell him it’s not true.”

“I will Severus, don’t you worry we’ll take care of him. Anything else I should know about him?”

“Yea this is important; he constantly switches maturity levels without question. And I mean that sometimes he acts older than his 11 years, like he’s seen horrible things like you and I have, and other times he acts like he about 5 or 6 especially when it comes to the toilet.”

“What do you mean Severus?”

 “You will see, but when he needs to use the toilet he waits until the last minute to tell you.”

“He’s 11 Severus; surely he knows when to go?”

“Just watch him, and see for yourself, I believe that part of his immaturity is contributed from the Dursleys. One last thing, don’t try to force feed him when he says he’s full I learned that the hard way; and don’t comment on his intake of food. His stomach is very small from all those years with the Dursleys and its slowly stretching.”

“Thanks Severus, I don’t need to tell you that you sound like an overprotective parent now do I?”

“Oh shut up wolf, I’ll bring him over around 10:00am Monday morning.”

“Alright, we will be here. Bye Severus.”

Harry quietly ran back up the stairs then loudly came back down so Severus would know he was here, he mused at the conversation he had heard. They were working together to ‘help’ him, in a way this would work. He couldn’t help the way he acted all the time, and he was glad they contributed his maturity to the Dursleys. In all truth it was his child mind fighting over his adult mind, and they varied on the day who won control of his mind, but they didn’t need to know that. He sat down at the breakfast table and was in the middle of eating his cereal when Severus walked in and sat across from him. He prepared himself for a talk and he was right when Snape opened his mouth.

“Harry, you are still going to visit Black for 2 weeks. And I want you to know that you do deserve this trip and you are not a freak do you understand me?”

“Yes Uncle Severus”

“I’m not doing this to be mean Harry but the next time you refer to yourself as a freak, you are going to be tasting soap do you hear me?”

“Yes sir”

“I want to let you know why I was so angry about you setting the charms because I am your guardian and I am supposed to look after you. Did you ever stop to think that if something happened in the middle of the night to you I would not be able to help you because I couldn’t hear you?”

Harry shook his head, he didn’t think about that. He sighed he guessed he could now see what Snape was always saying about Gryffindor impulsiveness.

“I know you thought you were doing it so you wouldn’t interrupt my sleep, because you didn’t know how I would react to waking up by a scream. But I will tell you this over and over again until you believe me, I will never beat or starve you Harry Potter nor will I allow anyone to hurt you when I can prevent it. And I know that Lupin and Black will protect you at all costs as well.”

“Yes sir, I’m sorry sir.”

“It’s alright Harry, I won’t punish you for it this time because you didn’t know, but the next time you will be. Harry you said you read the charm out of a book, how long did it take for you to master the spell?”

“I don’t know, a few minutes I guess.”

“That wasn’t a first year spell and it took you only a few minutes you say? I wanted to ask you a question about the calming draught, what else did you add to it? It was much more potent then when I usually make it.”

“Oh, phoenix tears they can change even the weakest potions to make them work much more than they should,” Harry replied without thinking.

“And you read all that in that book you I had? Funny I don’t remember it saying anything about adding phoenix tears; perhaps you could show me the page when we get back to Hogwarts?”           

 Harry froze; he knew he had said too much. Fawkes had told him when he got into his potion making days that phoenix tears while rare could heal anything, and they made any potions almost 50% better. That calming potion he made, only a half of teaspoon was needed unlike the whole bottle. He didn’t know what to say to Snape though, the man could spot a lie a mile away, maybe he could sort of tell the truth.

“I didn’t read it in that book, or any book. Fawkes told me what to do, and that’s who I got the tears from.”

Harry breathed a quiet sigh of relief at Snape nodded his head and let the question go, he had seen Harry trill to Fawkes so he had no reason to doubt him.“

So what are you going to do the rest of the weekend Uncle Sev?”

“I was thinking we could spend some time together, would you like that Harry?”

“Yea I would.”