Hadwyn crossed his arms and braced for the explosion he felt certain was coming.  “It seems,” he cleared his throat carefully, “that your friend was more like his father than anyone knew.”

Sirius’ eyes were incredibly wide.  “Who?” He whispered hoarsely, his hands clenched in the bedclothes.

“Harry.”

. . .

“Noooooo!!!”  Sirius howled at finding out what had happened to his best friend and his godson. 

Surprisingly for Hadwyn, the other man didn’t cause things to explode; he didn’t suddenly try to run away; he didn’t try to attack him.  He just . . . wept.

He watched for a while, somewhat dumbfounded over Black’s softly heaving sobs, until he wasn’t sure whether he should leave or try to say something.  He was a healer by trade, but with friends like Severus and the various dragons he worked with, it was hardly surprising that his people skills were a bit rusty.  Of course, Sirius Black wasn’t anything like a typical person, but that wasn’t really the point at all.

In the end, he opted to remain silent and wait it out; arms uncrossed and body language receptive to whatever it was that Black wished to deal at him. 

“How—when?” Black finally managed to choke out.

Hadwyn pulled out his handkerchief and pressed it into the other man’s hand before answering.  “After the holidays ended, I believe,” he stated slowly, watching Black carefully the entire while.

“O-Once?” 

Hadwyn wanted to do nothing more than lie to him.  He wanted to placate him and tell him what he wanted to hear, but he couldn’t.

He shook his head tiredly.  “More than once.”

In response, Black’s chin dropped to his thin chest and his arms flopped loosely at his sides.  His eyes were almost lifeless, and for a moment, Hadwyn feared the man would go into shock.  Touching him lightly on the arm, he tried to use his magic to sense Black’s status, but the only response he got in return was the feel of a full bodied throb of misery. 

“Sirius,” Hadwyn said, leaning him straight back and elevating his feet with a quick flick of his wand. 

While he waited on something to indicate that Black was once more back with him, he thought about his beloved dragons and tried to find correlations between their reactions.  Both creatures mourned, to be sure, but only man seemed fully capable of withdrawing into himself when faced with such overwhelming trouble. Dragons, by nature, were more action oriented creatures, and until just now, Hadwyn had thought the same to be true about the man in front of him. 

Of course, shock had a way of changing everything, but he had a feeling that this morbid silence wouldn’t last for very long once Sirius was given some time to process. 

. . .

“Three things, Harry.”

They had stopped next to one of the numerous beautiful lakes that populated the area around Hadwyn’s cabin.  Walking everyday was one of Severus’ new ideas for ways to help Harry, and as the boy had quickly discovered, their trips out were about more than just exercise. 

Harry crouched down and wrapped his arms around his legs, resting his head on his knees.  Severus knelt down beside him, his near presence both comforting and yet still slightly intimidating.

“Three things,” Harry dutifully repeated, looking out at the strangely clear water beside them.

“What are three things you know to be true?” Severus’ voice was soft and deep, barely audible over the gentle lapping of the water beside them.

Harry sighed and finally sat down, stretching his legs out in the direction of the water.  It wasn’t the first time that Severus had asked that question, but it was the first time that he had actually wanted Harry to give him a verbal answer.

He looked around at his surroundings as he tried to decide what to talk about.  His friends were his friends forever? 

But they’re not, his mind argued sadly.  Hermione isn’t.  And even if she was, how do I know that she will be forever?

“Try limiting your truths to what you see around you,” Severus’ voice was just barely audible as he prompted him.

“I’m Harry,” he answered with, not really feeling that sure that he knew what he was saying.

“What is Harry?”  Severus dark eyes glanced in his direction and he turned his head to stare back.

He pushed his fingers into the earth beside him, feeling the cool moistness of the dirt as it resisted his motions. 

“The Boy-Who-Lived,” he spat a little more bitterly than he had intended.

“What is Harry?”  Severus’ voice was still very calm, but there was a touch of challenge in it now. “You’re not simply what people want you to be, Harry.  At least,” Severus smirked lightly at him, “You don’t have to be.”

He frowned and pulled at a twig that was halfway sunk into the ground.  “What do you think I am?” This time he avoided his guardian’s eyes.  He wasn’t sure if this was cheating or not.

Severus’ warm hand enclosed around his and squeezed lightly.  “You are a boy.  You are a Gryffindor.  You wear glasses and have green eyes.”

“But that’s not all I am,” Harry pointed out, his mind involuntarily drifting in the direction of other, less pleasant things.

Another squeeze of his hand. “It isn’t who you are, but details that can describe you.  They are truths about you that are unlikely to change in the face of adversity.”

He didn’t like that Severus wouldn’t mention the “adversity” by name. 

“Freak,” he growled out.  “Whore,” he added in a choked voice, looking away quickly before Severus could see his tears.

“Victim,” Severus countered; his voice a low rumble against Harry’s chest. “Child.  Innocent.”

“Broken.  Dirty,” Harry hissed back, wrenching his hand away and running it through his hair, making it stand up worse than before.

“Mistreated, hurt,” Severus answered; his intense gaze unblinking as he stared back at him.

“Stupid,” Harry shook his head, his lower lip trembling.  “Blind.”

“Betrayed,” was Severus’ soft response.

Something caught in Harry’s throat at that.  He wanted to add on another idea, but suddenly he couldn’t say anymore without fear that he would cry.  Instead, he nodded his head and hastily wiped a hand under his glasses. 

“Betrayed,” he managed in a whisper a few moments later.

“He broke your trust,” Severus sounded angry, but Harry knew it was not an emotion directed at him.  “He was the monster, not you.”

“I should have . . .” Harry trailed off, his hand creeping back toward Severus’ own.

“Should have, could have, would have,” Severus shot back, reaching out and taking Harry’s hand in his own once more.  The man barked a bitter laugh.  “I despise the discussion of should haves.  The past is the past, and we are here, in the now.”

“Still happened,” Harry argued stubbornly.

“Of course it did, silly boy,” Severus’ eyes were searching as they moved across his face.  His other hand reached out and took hold of Harry’s free one, forcing them to turn to look directly at one another.  “But we don’t give up just because we want to.”

“We?”  Harry cocked his head to the side. 

“We’re in this together,” Severus answered, his words sounding more like a promise than anything else.

“This?”

“Life, Harry.  The good, the bad, the struggle,” Severus said. “I’ll help you to live and you’ll help me. And you do.  And I will.”

Harry’s mouth quirked upwards into an almost smile.  The idea of helping Severus Snape with anything was ludicrous, and yet . . .

“I get to help you?”

“Should we clean out your ears?” Severus’ tone was chiding, but there was warmth in his eyes, just like there had been since he had come to live with the man.

. . .

“Going somewhere?”  A child’s voice broke his concentration.

“None of your concern,” Sirius growled, moving through the maze of dungeons as quickly as he dared. 

He was currently stopped at an intersection with two hallways on either side of him to choose from.  He had no idea where the little girl had appeared from.  He recognized her as one of the snakes that had seen him while he was disillusioned, but surely that had just been Long’s fault for miscasting the spell?

Valerie Hobbs looked up at the strange man and smiled.  This could be fun.

“I wouldn’t go that way if I were you,” she suggested in a sing-song voice as he started down one hallway.

“And what would you know about it?” Sirius sneered, jerking his head over his shoulder to look imperiously back at her.

“Oh nothing . . .” she grinned and wandered off.  It wasn’t her fault that the wards down in the dungeons were so much fun to play with. 

. . .

Hadwyn was only slightly miffed when he finally caught up with Sirius. The man had managed to escape from his rooms while he had been in class, but luckily had not yet disengaged the tracking spell that Hadwyn had secretly stuck to his left elbow. 

He found Black sitting in the middle of the floor of the dungeons staring at a wall with a bewildered expression on his face.

“Something the matter?”  Hadwyn asked in a mild voice, his wand already in his hand.

Black jerked at the sound of his voice and jumped to his feet.  However, instead of running, he turned to Hadwyn and pointed his finger at the wall angrily.  “That was not there before!”

“Before?” Hadwyn halfway expected the other man to stomp his foot on the ground.

“Earlier today!” Sirius growled, his dark eyes narrowed with frustration.

Hadwyn pursed his lips and took a step closer.  According to the reports he had gotten from various portraits and Snakes, Black had been wandering back and forth on this hallway for the better part of two hours.

“What was there before?”

“The way out!” Black retorted, crossing his arms defensively and stepping right up to Hadwyn. 

“Of the dungeons?”

“The way out is right here! I saw the path to the lake!” Black screamed back at him, his pale face flecked with drops of sweat, despite the cool temperatures.

Raising his eyebrows, Hadwyn desperately sought to keep a smile from spilling across his lips.  This had all the trademark signs of being engineered by one of his Snakes, the little imp by the name of Hobbs.

“Did you know,” Hadwyn said instead, grabbing a hold of Sirius’ thin arm and pulling him alongside as he began to walk back to his quarters. “That the Slytherin dungeons have long been warded against letting intruders travel without trouble?”

“We never had trouble like this when I was a student!” Was Sirius’ stubborn response.

“Ah,” Hadwyn gave into the urge to smile slightly.  “That was before Hobbs became a student here.”

Sirius’ face twitched and he jerked in Hadwyn’s hold.  “That little girl!  I saw her!”

Hadwyn’s smile grew.  “It seems that you have managed to land on her bad side.  I’ll be surprised if she ever lets you leave Hogwarts again, let alone the Slytherin dungeons.”

“You can’t keep me here forever,” Sirius disagreed as Hadwyn shoved him back into his quarters, shutting the portrait door behind them with a soft thump.

“No?”

“Harry needs me,” Sirius said, throwing himself into one of Severus’ armchairs as though it were his own.

“Harry has what he needs now,” Hadwyn answered idly, already casting new wards to cover the ones that Sirius had managed to work around.

“What?  Snivellous?  Snivellous can hardly walk outside in the daylight without burning,” Sirius sneered, seemingly unaware of Hadwyn’s warning glare.  “He’s an overgrown bat with the people skills of a broken windup toy.  Harry should be with me, and I don’t care if you agree or not, Hadwyn.”

Hadwyn licked his lips and watched the cruelly smiling man in front of him for a moment before stalking forward and grabbing him by the front of his borrowed shirt. Shoving Black not so lightly into a nearby wall, Hadwyn lifted him off his feet easily and leaned in close enough to cause them both mono vision. 

“You are a Gryffindor, aren’t you,” he hissed, leaning a little more on Black’s still sunken chest.

Able to twitch against him now that his shock had worn off, Black wheezed back, “Better than a slime ball!”

“The only slime ball was Lupin, so try again Black,” Hadwyn retorted, pulling the man away from the wall and bodily throwing him backward a few feet.

“Harry is mine!  You and Dumbledore can’t keep him from me!” Sirius responded, growling at the end of his tirade.

It was Hadwyn’s turn to narrow his eyes.  “You gave up that right when you tore foolhardily after Peter Pettigrew that night.  You were supposed to be there for Harry, but you picked revenge instead of responsibility.”

“THAT WAS MY RESPONSIBILITY!!!” Sirius howled, throwing himself forward with his fists.

Hadwyn dodged the wildly flying fists easily and grabbed Sirius by an ear, causing the man to stop and grab futilely at his hand.  

“No,” Hadwyn answered, staring down into the demented man’s eyes with the sort of intensity he reserved for working with the less stable of the dragons.  Sirius flopped in his hold but didn’t break his eye contact.  “Harry needed you and you ignored that need.”  He let go of Sirius and the other man fell to the floor panting.  “You will cease from insulting Severus in my presence, or you will regret it.”

“You gonna rough me up, Long?  Just like a bloody Snake, can’t believe you’re supposed to be a healer,” Sirius said, dark eyes staring up accusingly.

Hadwyn grimaced and said, “Just like a fool to accuse first without further evidence.” 

Sirius clambered to his feet and poked his finger into Hadwyn’s chest.  “Say that again.”

“Fool,” Hadwyn said, whispering a spell that made Sirius squawk.

Hadwyn looked over his creation with some satisfaction.  Sirius’ long hair was now done up in curlers and his clothes had changed to a lacy dress with many pink bows.  There was a camera floating in the air beside him that began snapping pictures as soon as the spell was complete and Hadwyn watched in great amusement as Sirius began chasing it around the room spewing curses the entire time. 

With a sigh, he dropped into an armchair and put his feet up.  At least he’d have blackmail to work with now.

. . .

Harry dreamed that night of the lake once more.  The lake with the singing plant and the creeping vine, and then, just before he awoke, he saw something ripple near the middle of the water.