Harry lay in bed that night staring at his dark ceiling, mulling over the details of the story Snape had told him that evening. It was like something out of a novel and at first Harry had been sure the man was lying, spinning a tale to keep Harry there listening for as long as he could, but the more of it he told the more haunted the man looked. Snape had known his mother, been friends with her even, but had hated Harry's father. Harry's father had almost killed him when a prank had gone wrong at school, and his father's best friend had tormented Severus for years afterwards, pushing him further and further away from Lily. It had in part led to Severus joining Voldemort, and had led to him telling Voldemort a prophecy he'd overheard in a pub. A prophecy he hadn't realized was about Harry and his parents. It was a prophecy that had led Voldemort to murder his parents and leave Harry an orphan.

Harry had stayed quiet throughout the tale, and at the end Snape had seemed... wary, like he expected Harry to try to curse him or hit him again. He hadn't expected Harry to keel over sideways and pass out because his head was throbbing horribly.

Severus had used a potion to wake Harry up and then given him a potion for the pain in his head, told him he had a concussion from the fight, and helped him to bed. Harry had stayed quiet throughout. He didn't know what he should say to a man that had caused the death of his parents. Had he really caused their deaths though? Harry didn't know how he felt about it at all. Voldemort would have killed his parents with or without the prophecy, that was one of the only things Harry was certain of as he lay in bed thinking it over.

Harry's mind was racing with all of the new information he'd been given about his parents and about Snape. With what James had done and how Jame's best friend Sirius had driven Snape and Lily apart, the way Snape had always treated him made a lot of sense in a way Harry and his friends never understood before. They'd talked for hours on end over the last couple years about why Snape hated Harry so much, and Harry had had a few dozen detentions to ponder on it. It wasn't just the way Snape had been treated though, it was what Snape had done. He believed he was the reason Harry's parents were dead... the reason Harry didn't have parents. Maybe Snape didn't hate Harry at all. Maybe he only hated himself. Those were some ghosts the man had to deal with. Harry only wished Snape would stop taking it out on him.

What had he said the night before? That Harry had been his son, even though he hadn't been a father? He'd also said Harry didn't deserve to be in the orphanage and that he deserved someone who would treat him nicely. Harry just wasn't sure if Snape really wanted to be that person. Harry closed his eyes and thought hard, trying to remember every word Snape had told him during the story before he'd passed out. Harry was sure he hadn't gotten all of it. Had the man said at the end he wasn't sure if Harry wanted to stay since Snape was the one responsible for his parents deaths? Did that mean he wanted Harry to stay? Did he want Harry to want to stay?

He fell asleep a few minutes later, head still hurting, and was chased around his dreams by confusing questions he didn't have answers to.

The next morning Harry came down to breakfast and found his favorite pastries waiting on the table. Snape was sitting there drinking coffee, but he looked different somehow. Harry couldn't put his finger on what it was, but the man was quiet and wouldn't look at Harry. He didn't say they had work to do that morning so Harry went back to his room for the day. The same scene replayed at lunch, where neither of them talked, and then again at dinner. Snape gave him another potion for his head without Harry asking, and then Harry climbed the stairs to go back to bed because he still wasn't feeling well. His eye was doing better and was a far lighter shade of purple thanks to the potion Snape had given him the night before. At least he was on the mend.

As Harry sat on the edge of his bed, he found himself staring into the wardrobe at the blue blanket. It wasn't fair that the blanket go to another boy when Harry had worked so hard in the last month and a half. He'd done everything he could to please Snape, to follow the rules, and to help the man keep his family business. Harry wanted that blanket and didn't want another boy to take it from him. And he didn't want to go back to the orphanage. He stood up and pulled Mrs Allan's quilt off the bed and unfolded the soft blue blanket, running his fingers over it. Snape was just going to have to deal with him. There could be no other boy because Harry was him.

* * *

Severus stared quietly into his coffee, waiting for Harry to come downstairs. It had been two entire days since he'd told the child about his part in his parent's deaths, and it had been two entire days since Harry had spoken to him. If the boy never said another word to him, he would be right to do so and there wasn't a thing Severus could do about it. He was surprised Harry hadn't demanded he take him back to the orphanage as soon as possible. Then again, he did have a concussion. Maybe he didn't remember everything he'd been told the other night, or perhaps he had not understood all of it. Whatever the case, Severus had been waiting for two straight days for the child to yell himself hoarse at him. What he had not expected was for the child to come down the stairs that morning with a list of demands.

Harry came into the kitchen with a piece of paper and sat down at the table. He pulled a pastry off the plate in the center of the table and began to eat, and didn't say anything about the paper until he'd finished.

"You have to take me hiking before school starts," Harry said.

"What?" Severus asked. It was the last thing he'd expected the boy to say.

"At least once every holiday. And you have to take me fishing before school starts too, and play chess with me."

"Why is that?"

"You're stuck with me. I'm staying and you're not giving my room or stuff away to another boy. I told Draco you take me hiking and fishing and we play chess."

"I see. Is that what is on the piece of paper?"

"Some of it."

"What else?"

"I need things like clothes and shoes that fit. I don't wanna wear them until they're so tight they hurt my feet and are falling apart. And you have to ask my side of the story before you decide to punish me. I'm not James and it's not fair that you treat me like I'm always up to no good."

"I will try not to treat you as I have before."

Harry was quiet for a moment and Severus asked, "Is that all?"

"I can't work in the mines every time you wanna go down there... the stairwell freaks me out sometimes."

"Is there a reason for that?"

Harry looked away and Severus said, "If you are having difficulties you need only tell me."

"And there's one more thing."

"Yes?"

"You have to get my shoes back from Jasper."

"Is he the one who beat you up?"

Harry told him the story and finished with, "He wasn't scared of you at all. He said he rarely ever sees you come out even."

"Is that so?" Severus said, and Harry was glad that for once the frightening smile that played across the man's face was a nefarious plot not aimed at him.

* * *

Harry, as it turned out, had ghosts of his own he'd never told anyone about. Perhaps it was only that he'd had no one to tell before, Severus thought.

Severus had retrieved the shoes from Jasper and dragged the teen by his ear, whimpering and crying all the way down the lane to apologize to Harry (in front of several neighbors no less). He'd taken Harry hiking one day, and played chess with him every evening for a week. And Arran had come over one evening to teach them both to fish in the river behind the house. But still when they returned to work in the mines two weeks after Harry had first run away, Harry couldn't force himself to go into the mines each day.

Several times he'd stopped on the threshold of the stairwel leading down and shook his head no, hands shaking and palms sweaty. There was never a repeat of the moment he'd run into the yard and buried his face in the grass, but he appeared shaken each time he'd been overwhelmed at the entrance to the stairs leading to the mines. It didn't happen every time they had to work, but it happened often enough that Severus really began to question what had happened to the child to make him dislike dark enclosed spaces like the stairwell and the cupboard under the stairs.

"Do you wish to talk about it?" he asked, just as he did every time it happened, and like always Harry told him no.

One evening after playing chess, where Harry almost beat him after so many failures to so, Harry asked if they could try fishing on their own before it got dark. Severus agreed and retrieved the fishing poles and tackle he had borrowed from Arran from the closet under the stairs. When he turned with the poles he spied Harry staring into the closet.

"Would you prefer to wait outside when I open the closet?"

"I'd prefer if there wasn't a closet."

Severus handed him a pole and they headed into the backyard to the little river and sat down on the grass. They were quiet as they baited their hooks and sent their lines into the water, and then as they waited as the sky grew darker and crickets chirped and birds sang around them.

"We do not need a closet in that space. We can remove one wall and turn the space into a bookshelf under the stairs. There is never enough space for books."

"You would do that?"

"If you wish."

After a few moments of silence Harry said quietly, "My relatives didn't like me. My cousin got a bedroom to himself, and an extra bedroom for all his toys upstairs, so there was no room for me. I slept on a cot in a closet under the stairs."

Severus wanted to say something about what he'd been told, but didn't know what. Instead Harry filled the quiet for himself. "When I didn't do all my chores, or I was too much to bother with, they locked me in. Sometimes for days. They didn't open the door to give me meals even. I was just in there, and they were out there. There was nothing I could do."

After a long moment Severus' fingers and knuckles were starting to hurt and he realized it was because he was gripping his fishing pole tightly in anger. To hear that it had happened to any child was appalling and it made Severus want to destroy something. In his silence, Harry spoke once again.

"I- forgot about it until I accidentally got locked in the closet under the stairs. I know Arran didn't mean to, it was only an accident, but it was like I was right back there again, trapped in the closet and forgotten about. And then I tried to go into the mines and the stairwell is so narrow and dark, it was the same. I- it wasn't as bad the first time it happened because I knew you were down there waiting for me but then you did something that made me remember I didn't belong here at all. It made me feel like I was still there with my relatives. Then I really couldn't go down the stairs, even when you were down there. I see the dark space and I can't breath. I can't see anything but the inside of the cupboard."

Over the last two years that he'd known the boy he'd believed the child had just run away from home because he was spoiled and wasn't getting pampered enough. It had never crossed his mind that Harry had had good reason to leave... that he could be happier living at an orphanage than with his aunt and uncle.

"You will always belong here," Severus said, when he realized he'd been quiet for far too long. "With me."

"I know," Harry said, "you're stuck with me," and he gave him a lopsided grin that didn't reach his eyes.

"No," Severus said, "because I want you here. I will not let them hurt you again."

"Are you gonna drag them by their ear down the lane to apologize to me?" Harry's smile reached his eyes this time.

"If that is what you wish." With their entrails hanging out, Severus thought angrily.

"No," Harry said.

Harry stiffened in the next moment when he found Severus' arms around him. Was this what being hugged felt like? He didn't know, he'd never been hugged before. He relaxed after a moment and leaned into the contact.

"We will remove the closet tomorrow morning. I am certain Mr. Mayer has the tools required to rebuild it."

"He can show us how," Harry said as Severus let go of him. "I know how to build lots of things now."

"Then you can show me."

As they sat there and fished, not even getting a bite as the sun faded and the stars came out, Severus wondered what other ghosts Harry had hiding in his past, and hoped some day the boy would feel comfortable enough to tell him.

* * *

Severus and Harry ripped out both sides of the cupboard under the stairs with hammers borrowed from Arran the next morning, and Severus banished the debris with his wand. Arran came with lumber and paint at lunch and they began building a double sided bookshelf that could be accessed from the short hall on one side of the stairs and the hall leading to the mines on the other side of the stairs. It took them all day to finish it and paint it. Severus dried the white paint with a flick of his wand and the three of them stood back to admire their handiwork.

"What books are we going to put here?" Harry asked. He knew Severus had a library full of them.

"Your old school books," Severus said, "and the other books you accumulate. Perhaps we should take a trip to Flourish And Blotts to fill up some of the shelves."

"Your own library Master Harry," Arran said, tousling Harry's hair.

Harry raced up the stairs and came down with his old school books and put them on one of the shelves. It barely filled half a shelf and there were a dozen to fill.

"Flourish And Blotts it is," Severus said, and it was barely a week before they had filled in one side of the shelves with all manner of books that interested Harry. The books ranged from spell books, to history books and novels. Some of them were even Muggle and had been bought on a trip to the bookstore in Hawes. Harry told Severus he would read them all.

The cupboard under the stairs no longer being a cupboard and no longer a threat to Harry, Severus set to casting lighting charms on the stairway leading down to the mines. The charms would have to be renewed every few years, but it was well worth the effort given how brightly lit the stairwell now was. It was still narrow and winding, but if Harry could never bring himself to go down there again Severus wouldn't complain. Harry deserved to feel safe and wanted, and Severus was determined to make that a reality for the child he had brought to Bainbridge from the orphanage. For the child that had spent a summer becoming his son.