~~~~HP~~~~

Dear Harry,

It's Hermione again, but I'm guessing you knew that before you opened this. I'm not sure if you received my last letter or not, we haven't heard from you at all so far this summer. If you did, I really hope everything is alright and that you're just taking the time to adjust to living with Professor Snape or have gone on holiday. I've been staying with my parents this summer, which is why this letter is arriving by muggle post (and we've taken a short trip to the beach, which was quite lovely) but I'll be heading to the Burrow for your birthday and staying there the rest of the summer, or at least until Bill and Fleur's wedding. Needless to say, I don't think Lavender is very happy about it, but I really couldn't care less.

I'm sure you understand this more than any of us, but it seems odd to have such a normal summer, without the Order or Voldemort hanging over our heads, you know? The only thing I have to focus on now is the N.E. this year and… well, things with Draco. You haven't heard from him have you? I hate to ask because if you're not getting these (or worse, not responding) it sounds awful to bring it up, but I'm worried about him too. If only we had more time at school before the end of term, it seemed like you'd just gotten back from the hospital wing and then we were back on the Hogwarts Express, well, us anyways. There was still so much left unsaid between us… I mean all of us, not just me and Draco.

Anyway, if you get this please write back to me so I know you're ok. I'm probably just making things more complicated in my head and, it's just that, for once, you're having a great summer.

Love you, Harry

Hermione

While waiting for Snape to return from his errands, hopefully with Dudley in tow, Harry decided to take another big step and start reading the letters from his friends. To get into the right mindset, he pulled all seven letters out - three from Ron, two from Hermione, and two from Draco - and placed them across his bed, seating himself at the top staring down at them as if they could attack him at any moment. Why did he feel this way? What did he really think his friends would say that made him feel like he couldn't hear from them?

After delaying all he could, most of which was spent staring down at the river wondering where it would take him should he decide to follow it, he finally picked up the first letter. Somehow he convinced himself starting with Hermione's letter would be the easiest on him, completely forgetting how emotional she could be and afterwards he was worse than before. The reason she felt like their time had been short at the end of term was because by the time he had recovered enough for Madam Pomfrey to release him from the hospital wing - and then from his monthly chemotherapy - he didn't really want to spend it with his friends. He mostly kept to his room in the dungeons, sketching, or studying as if he had to catch-up on the time lost even though he knew he wouldn't be going back next year.

That was another depressing realization: there would be no last Hogwarts letter coming to him with this year's supplies and information on taking his N.E. . In fact, since he and Snape really had yet to talk about anything relating to his magic, he had no idea what would be happening to him come the 1st of September. Naturally, he assumed the professor would go back to teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, though the more he thought about it, maybe he'd go back to Potions now; the little bit of class he had with Slughorn was enough to know the older wizard was nowhere near as competent as Snape, after all. I wonder how I was at Potions in the other world? He randomly thought to himself. Given that Snape could actually be a decent instructor when he wasn't so angry and sarcastic, he imagined his counterpart in the professor's old reality was probably pretty good at the class. He probably didn't have to worry about the marks to become an auror… yet in the end, it didn't matter; neither of them would get to live that dream.

"Harry?"

The young wizard was brought from his sullen thoughts back into his own bedroom - where he tried not to think about how the other Harry might have had it decorated - by the sound of his name being called on the other side of his door. Grabbing the letters into a pile, he squished them back into the top drawer of his desk, without caring about how wrinkled and possibly difficult to read they would be later on, and went to open his wooden door knowing Dudley was on the other side. Snape had come through after all and brought the other teen to their muggle neighborhood.

"Hey, Dudley," the young wizard greeted, legitimately excited to see his cousin, but at the same time completely unsure what to do next. He'd never had a home of his own to have someone visit and this was such a reversal of their roles, it put him immediately on edge. Doing what seemed natural, he swung the door open and gestured for Dudley to enter, as he apologized, "I'm sorry about missing your letter. I didn't read it until… well, it was too late."

"S'ok, Harry," Dudley brushed off the concern, but Harry could tell he was feeling down about it. "Even before Professor Snape explained the situation to me -" Harry furrowed his brows thinking about what Snape had given as an excuse, "- I knew you had a lot going on. Thanks for letting me stay here, it's loads better than Aunt Marge's!"

"I dunno about that," Harry turned towards the window overlooking the broken down neighborhood he oddly loved living in. "Doesn't Marge live on, like, a thousand acres or something?"

"Something like that," Dudley chuckled, taking a seat on the desk chair while Harry sat cross-legged on the bed, "I will say watching Professor Snape try to explain to Aunt Marge and my coming here to stay with you was pretty entertaining."

Harry laughed imagining what that must have looked like and wishing he'd been there to see it. But not Aunt Marge; he had no doubt in his mind that she would probably try to kill him if he showed up there. The instant the laugh radiated through his core, the Gryffindor felt a piece of anxiety he had building up inside of him break free, and he could almost breathe a microscopic bit better. Had things gotten so bad lately that the single laugh - alongside the sight of his cousin - could feel so polarizing?

"Was he at least wearing muggle clothes?" Harry asked, remembering the nicer set of robes the professor had left in that morning.

"Yeah," the other boy confirmed, "but I would have loved to see him show up in his teaching robes. He's not nearly as intimidating looking like a Pastor in his black button down and black trousers."

Again, Harry relaxed at the laugh that he belted out in with. He was far too familiar with Snape's intimidating, billowing robes and it was odd to think about how much that had changed - so slowly it happened almost without him noticing it - to get them to the point where he'd voluntarily live with the man… or even more, choose to die for him. Harry wanted to know what happened after he jumped in front of the Killing Curse, but it never seemed like the right time to ask Snape - and realistically, that time might be never - and he wasn't exactly talking to Draco lately. There were others in the Drawing Room that morning he could ask, Remus and McGonagall the most likely, but he hadn't seen the former and his guardian gave him such sympathetic eyes whenever he talked about the event that he never risked flat out asking. Ultimately, if he wanted to know what happened he needed to speak to the two Slytherins. The change of mood hit him by surprise; how such a drastic change could happen so quickly and it suddenly felt like he couldn't breathe. If he didn't know any better, he was certain there were pins sticking him all over his chest, piercing his insides with every breath he attempted to take.

"You.. 'k… ry?"

Dudley's voice sounded muffled and distant, bringing him back to when he was laying beneath the rubble of his bedroom ceiling after the attack on Privet Drive a year ago… almost exactly a year ago and that was why Dudley was here. He looked over at his cousin and he barely recognized the teen. Born only a month before Harry and yet growing up together they couldn't look any further apart. That wasn't the case anymore though. While Dudley's hair and eyes were a vastly different color than the Gryffindor's - to which Harry was grateful his hair hadn't grown back blonde - they both now had a haunted aura surrounding them. He appeared as broken on the outside as the young wizard felt inside.

"Harry!" He snapped out of his turmoiled thoughts when Dudley called his name while simultaneously placing his hand on Harry's forearm causing him to jump.

"Sorry," the Gryffindor apologized, "I was… thinking about something."

The other teen's blue eyes watched him intently and Harry's face started to flush at the obvious attention he was drawing. This would have been the perfect time to ask about what had happened at the school while he was stuck - or imprisoned - at the Manor; it could have started the long road to healing the wound he kept hiding away in his Occlumency Forest.

Instead of asking the question he needed to know, he lamely went with, "So, how long are you staying?"

"Erm, until the 2nd, I think," Dudley nervously answered, wanting to ask Harry what had happened in his head. "At least that's what Professor Snape told Aunt Marge. Which reminds me, can he like… make people do things? Because I'm pretty sure Aunt Marge was about to deck him then changed her mind and told him to take me."

To take me. The phrase reminded Harry of how his Aunt and Uncle used to talk about him; like he was rubbish having to be dealt with. Dudley certainly wasn't in his position - Aunt Marge legitimately loved him - however between the two of them, Harry was now in the better place. Against all odds, Snape did love him and he did finally have a place to call home.

"I mean," Harry started with a small grin, realizing he had yet to answer Dudley, "there are spells out there to do stuff like that, but he shouldn't have used any of them."

"Somehow I doubt Professor Snape is one to care about what he should and shouldn't be doing."

The jested comment threw both boys into another fit of laughter and one that didn't even make much sense. For Harry - and he assumed Dudley as well - it was nice to have someone else there with him, someone who might understand what he was going through.

~~~~SS~~~~

Having woken up that morning with no intentions of inviting a guest in his home, Severus was oddly calm with the addition of Dudley. Not only did Harry physically seem to improve, the sound of both boys' laughter throughout the afternoon calmed his own nerves about Harry being able to connect with someone again as well as the information he gathered from the meeting with Lucius earlier that day. What started as a way to ease Harry's guilty conscience about forgetting his relatives' death, might actually have turned out to help the young wizard more than either of them could have anticipated in the long run. Severus reminded himself he needed to be patient and not push Harry too hard, knowing full well that it would only backfire in the end, and at the same time he eventually needed to be honest with Harry about what was going on with the potential Death Eater threat; this way the young wizard wouldn't feel like the person he was supposed to depend on couldn't trust him. No, Severus was determined to learn from the mistakes of last year and bring Harry into what was going on, he only needed to find the right time to do it.

Given that floor space in their home was at a premium and Harry's bedroom could not fit two beds, whenever the Gryffindor had friends stay over in his old reality, Severus simply transfigured Harry's single bed into a set of bunk beds for the duration of the visit. While he really wished he could do that with Dudley's visit - since he thought someone staying with the young wizard would do him well - he didn't think the boys would agree to the arrangement. It was one thing to 'bury the hatchet', so to say, about their rocky past in an effort to forge a new friendship, and another to forcibly live in such tight quarters together. That was how he'd come to the decision to put Dudley in the sitting room, transfiguring the sofa to a bed and making sure to ward off the door to his private potions laboratory; he didn't think Dudley would wander into the dark and damp cellar, but he wasn't exactly prepared to face the consequences should the muggle make that unwise choice.

Dinner with the two teens went surprisingly smooth and quite reminiscent of their time spent together at Shell Cottage over Christmas holiday. Looking back at their time at the seaside cottage, things really had been perfect - at least up until New Years - and those were the times the former spy often thought about when life seemed to want to drag him down. In the back of his mind, he hoped this would seem similar to Harry, allowing him to start feeling a bit more comfortable to talk. The young wizard needed to be surrounded by people who would support him through this tough time, and even having someone here, the professor would probably still contact one - or quite possibly both as it would be remiss to overlook a recommendation from Lucius Malfoy - of the mind doctors provided to him.

"So what are we doing for your birthday?" Dudley questioned across the tiny kitchen table when most of their other innocuous conversations had been exhausted.

"I really don't wanna do anything," Harry not-so-surprisingly announced. His attitude throughout dinner had vastly improved from only the afternoon with his cousin - Severus even took note of his increased eating - however he apparently was refusing giving in on his birthday plans. "Why does everyone care so much about the day I was born?"

Dudley's face flushed and mumbled, "This'll be your first real time celebrating it."

Severus carefully watched the two teens, the raven-haired to his left and blonde straight across the table from him, waiting to see how this would play out. Harry hadn't lifted his head at the comment, and instead pushed the remainder of his fish and chips across his dinner plate. Around him, the professor could once again feel the buildup of magic coming from his left side with Dudley none the wiser.

"Fine," Harry conceded seconds before Severus was going to get involved, not trusting the Gryffindor's raw magic not to lash out at his cousin. "Hermione already seems to think we're doing something at the Burrow anyway, so just please keep it small."

Relief poured through Severus's body and he released the breath he'd been holding, "Of course, Harry," he reassured the teen, "you're still-"

"Immunocompromised," Harry aggressively interrupted, pinching his eyes closed as he said it, "yeah, I got that."

And in that quick exchange, all of the good progress Harry seemed to make dissipated right before his very eyes. The former spy watched Harry from his peripheral vision, the Gryffindor's lips pursed in anger and frustration from the comments both himself and Dudley had made.

Dudley was the first to break the deafening silence, "No offense to Ron or anything, but aren't the Weasleys like… half of the school or something?"

"In my experience-" Severus started to lecture the muggle on his absolute hatred of 'no offense' - which in his experience always meant offense - but he was stopped by the sound of Harry laughing; another full laughter at something seemingly small and yet it was one of the best sounds his ears could pick up. The laugh was contagious and suddenly Dudley started laughing for no other reason than Harry was, followed by himself giving a single chuckle at the ridiculousness of it all.

"He has a point, Severus," Harry finally added once he'd caught his breath enough to speak. "Their family alone is like a Quidditch team. At that point, does it really matter who I'm around?"

"Whom," Severus corrected, "and as a matter of fact, yes, it still does. Pardon me if I love you enough to want to keep you safe."

The sentence was out of his mouth before he had time to process it. In the past two months - the last time either of them had said those words - Severus and Harry had both been pretty explicit about where they stood. Harry knew Severus thought of him as his son and vice versa, even if nothing was officially on paper. The Gryffindor still had Minerva as his guardian and while he'd considered filing his own paperwork to make things be more official, with Harry's coming of age birthday only ten days away he did not need a legal parent any longer. Sometimes, though, he found himself reconsidering it, even if it would be only for the gesture and message it would send to the insecure teen.

Time practically stood still, but in reality it was only several seconds before Harry nonchalantly answered, "And I do appreciate it, thank you."

The rest of the dinner passed by with very little fanfare. Dudley relentlessly asked the former spy to tell him how he'd managed to convince his sorry excuse for an Aunt to let him visit, insisting he had somehow controlled her mind, and his non-committal answer either way did very little to refute the accusation. Notably, Harry did not at all mention that the magic his cousin was suggesting was highly illegal and could instantly land him in Azkaban; not to mention he'd be breaking the Statue of Secrecy. The truth was if one knew the right way to speak, one could become extremely convincing regardless of whom they were speaking to and luckily, Severus knew - and frequently practiced - such skills.

The three of them also discussed Dudley's return to Hogwarts to continue assisting Professor Burbage with Muggle Studies, though what he told his guardian Severus had no clue. Somewhere in all of the events from the previous year, he never questioned how the muggle teen had managed not to complete his year of school. He imagined Albus had a great deal to do with it - and likely used the boy's safety from Voldemort as an excuse - and while the dark wizard was no longer a threat, it no longer mattered to him either. The chances of Severus and Harry returning to the school were becoming greater each day of the summer holiday, and having Dudley there, someone his age who also was not a student, as Harry wouldn't be, would make the transition for the Gryffindor infinitely easier to bear. Ironically, after discussing Dudley's plans for the following September, the conversation had taken an expected turn to the group of friends and what they were doing this summer. While Dudley went on about the letter he'd received from Hermione, and how grateful he was that it came by muggle post so he wouldn't have to explain an owl's appearance in the middle of the day, Harry once again became withdrawn from the conversation and it didn't take a master Legilimens like Severus to know the young wizard was thinking about the letters in his bedroom desk drawer.

"Dudley," the professor interrupted what was sure to be a riveting story about his suspicion of magical people being around him whenever he saw an owl in the daytime, "can you give Harry and I a minute, please?"

He wasn't sure if it was his request alone or his choice of adverb at the end, but Harry's head shot straight up from his meal for the first time since Dudley asked about their friends.

Giving a quick glance between the two wizards, Dudley replied, "Yeah… of course. Is it alright if I take a shower?"

Severus inclined his head just enough to get his point across. "There are towels on the shelf, you can't miss them," he directed, all while keeping his eyes focused on Harry. He waited until the other teen had taken his plate to the sink - rinsing it off in the process - and heard the telltale creak of the stairs signalling Dudley heading up to the second floor.

"I think I'll just-" Harry stood to leave, but Severus grabbed his arm, not roughly, but enough to demonstrate he wouldn't let the young wizard off that easily.

"Sit," was the only directive the older wizard gave. Luckily, Harry obeyed and returned to his seat where Severus waved his wand, vanishing the dishes to the sink. Now that they were sitting across from one another, Severus's heart was practically beating from his chest from nerves about what he wanted to tell the Gryffindor. In the end, he started talking from his heart and hoped something he said would resonate with Harry, "I went to see Lucius today, at the manor. I was nervous to be back there, which seems… a bit foolish as I'd been there plenty of times. But you know what? I felt better after leaving. Not right away. I didn't notice until sometime after arriving back home."

Harry's emerald eyes watched him intently, almost as if they didn't believe he was telling the truth.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want you to know you're not alone," Severus replied without any hesitation. Embarrassed, Harry looked away and they both sat in the suffocating silence until Severus asked, "Did you get a letter from Draco?"

"I got two," Harry murmured, not even attempting to hide his knowledge of the significance behind the question. It didn't necessarily matter what was in the correspondence he received from the other wizard imprisoned with him, what mattered was his inability to read it when Draco had taken the leap to reach out. Maybe there was more merit to the therapy Lucius was sending his own son to.

"And did you read them?"

With another firm pursing of his lips, Harry swiftly shook his head. They were at an impasse and Severus was helpless trying to figure out which way to turn.

"Do you feel comfortable here?" He asked; his hope was that in moving away from the subject Harry didn't want to talk about and onto one equally as important, but possibly easier to discuss would help. "It's a big step to go from living together in the neutral castle to moving in here. I would certainly understand if you had reservations or regrets regarding the decision."

"I love it here," Harry replied so quickly, the professor had no choice but to believe him.

"Your treatments, then?" Severus laid his hands on the table in front of him and intertwined his fingers in a position he hoped would appear less threatening. "Do you feel uncertain about what's coming up?"

"Why does it matter if I read the bloody letters?" Harry exasperatedly pleaded, yet Severus wasn't letting this go; not this time.

"Watch your language," he admonished the teen, "I couldn't care less if you read or respond to your friends, however it's a testament to your coping… or lack thereof… and I want to help you. I know you're not sleeping well - you've kept to yourself most of the time, and I don't feel you're eating nearly enough. So in reality, the letters are a minuscule part of the bigger picture I'm starting to see in front of me."

He could see the wheels turning in Harry's head, connecting the dots to what he had noticed in himself and what Severus was pointing out.

"I can do better," Harry whispered, mirroring the response the young wizard had given during a similar conversation about his lack of eating last year; before the feeding tube was required to get him back to a semi-healthy weight. Their situation was supposed to be getting easier in Maintenance and yet that couldn't be any further from the truth.

"Lucius gave me the name of a doctor they're seeing to help cope with what's happened," Severus wasn't sure why he was telling this to Harry or where he was going with it, he was simply reacting purely off his instincts, "I've also been given a name from Dr Swanson, whom she wants you to see… well, both of us to see."

The windows in the room started to rattle, but Harry didn't even lift his head, "You think I'm crazy?"

"No," he instantly answered, "I think starting at the end of your fourth year, you've had more things piled on top of you than anyone can be expected to handle alone. Not to mention Dr Swanson said most of her patients seek help early on in their treatment. And to give you some perspective, those patients haven't had their parents murdered, left to grow up in an abusive household-" he held hand up to stop Harry's anticipated argument to his childhood, "- watched their murderer get resurrected, watch their classmate then their Godfather get killed, get kidnapped, and now moved into their previously most hated professor's house."

"Obviously I don't hate you anymore."

"That's not the point, Harry, and you know that," he flatly replied, "what would you do if it were Ron or Hermione going through this?"

It had been a calculated risk to list the stresses Harry had to deal with on top of fighting the cancer that might have been trying to overcome his blood cells once again, but one which thankfully paid off when the air in the room started to settle.

"When you put it like that, it does sound like kind of a lot," the Gryffindor finally admitted. His green eyes were shifting across the empty table in front of him before he lifted them to meet Severus's, and the professor breathed a sigh of relief to see a spark back within them that had been gone for far too long. "Can you give me some time to work through it? I'm not saying I won't see one of those doctors, but I want to give myself a chance first."

"That's fair," Severus agreed, knowing he could keep a closer eye on Harry in the meantime. "But do expect me to check in with you."

"That's fair," Harry gave a small smile, because he repeated Severus's own sentiment or because he truly felt satisfied to have someone looking out for him, the professor couldn't tell. On the surface, he hoped it was the latter and that this would be the start to what would be a summer of healing for them all, but in the back of his mind the fact that Harry hadn't really answered any of his questions had not gone unnoticed.