The False from the Real by WiCeBa

“So,” Ron started. “You’re staying in Germany? Living there, you mean.” He blinked dumbly at his friends from where they sat on the floor.

Of all the unbelievable problems they’d managed to stumble over in the last four years, this was the wildest. Harry truly believed that Snape had changed. It was hardly possible to imagine Harry having a decent conversation with the man, it was impossible to consider Harry living happily in Germany with Snape.

He tried to picture what Harry’s new bedroom looked like, but could only think of the dingy room with bars on the window and dusty, broken toys packed into the bookshelves.

Decent people didn’t put their family in bedrooms like that.

Decent people cared about their family and it was incredibly odd to consider Snape as a decent person who cared about Harry. He wasn’t. Ron knew he wasn’t decent because he was a slick, sodding git.

He swallowed heavily and tried to shove his hatred for Snape away.

Harry swore Snape was trustworthy and parts of his story had certainly made it seem that way.

He was glad to finally have a chance to talk with Harry about everything, though he wished they’d found more time to ask about what had happened as it had been happening. Instead he found himself listening as Harry tried to cram a week’s worth of events into a story while he and Hermione added bits and pieces of context from what they’d heard or seen.

He leaned against his bright orange bed covers and shut his eyes, trying to pretend they were back home. Things made more sense at home. Sirius’s crooked and dodgy house was still there when he reopened his eyes though.

“I think it’s a good change.” Hermione said.

“Right, it’s just, I thought that if you might not be stuck at the Dursley’s you would, erm.” Ron paused and picked at the frayed threads in the rug.

He’d never actually considered Harry living anywhere but at home with him. Mum had made it sound as if Harry would come straight to The Burrow after this mess was over. She’d always said that once Dumbledore finally saw the Dursleys for the awful sort of people they were, he’d see sense and send Harry along to them.

“Well, I just thought you’d come stay with us.” Ron finished lamely. An uncomfortable awkwardness washed over him as he spoke.

Ron knew Harry needed to have more people who actually cared about him. He didn’t love that Snape had been the one to step into that position though. He almost wanted to go find Snape and ask him if he was being genuine, but the thought of speaking one on one with Snape was awful and potentially terrifying.

To say nothing of how Harry would feel about it.

He considered how the three of them all converging on Snape at once would go. If they all questioned Snape at the same time, he probably wouldn’t be able to lie as easily. Especially if he was trying to keep up his ‘changed’ act in front of Harry.

A painful ache set out from Ron’s chest as he glanced at Harry. His small fingers were tightened around the hem of his shirt.

He wished the three of them could figure everything out now and get on to handling You-Know-Who.

Harry looked up at him and seemed to want to say something, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do so.

“Not that Germany isn’t wicked, I mean,” Ron said.

“It’s very good.” Hermione said as her eyes hardened and she looked at Ron. “And Snape’s mum sounds nice. She seems like she’d be very helpful when working on homework.”

Her eyes brightened suddenly, making Ron dread what might be her next comment. He’d had more homework related conversations with her over the summer than in the last four years combined. He knew she was only trying to prepare them for their O.W.L’s, but if he looked at another diagram or ingredient list he might drop out of Hogwarts and run away to live with Charlie.

“To say nothing of having Snape on hand for his essays. Has he given you any help on our last—”

“No!” Ron shouted, causing both Hermione and Harry to jerk backwards. “We promised we weren’t going to talk about homework until we all got caught up!”

Hermione scoffed but nodded. “Fine, but the study plans I drafted didn’t include Snape’s help and I’ll need to go over them again.” She added as she pillowed her chin in her palms. “There isn’t a lot of time left before the start of term and I really wanted to have them sorted out for us before then.”

Harry smiled weakly. “We still have most of August.”

“Most?” She asked with a wide eyed look before swinging around to look at the calendar. “It took me ages—”

“How do we even know Snape will help us?” Ron asked.

He wanted to ask how they were sure Snape would even acknowledge them, but he thought Harry wouldn’t like that question.

Harry blinked and crawled onto his knees. “Erm, he’s been pretty helpful so far.”

“In what way?” Hermione asked kindly.

Hermione’s voice echoed in the back of Ron’s mind, reminding him to pay better attention to Harry’s behaviour, but Ron still couldn’t see what she’d been so focused on. If Harry was behaving oddly, Ron couldn’t tell.

He knew when Harry was feeling truly off, like when he’d gone scary quiet in the kitchen and Snape had screamed at Sirius, but when Harry was talkative and calm, he seemed normal.

Normal aside from being the size of a four year old.

Harry thought he was six, but Ron struggled to imagine a six year old as small as him. Ginny had probably been taller than Harry was now when she’d been four.

“He’s just helpful.” Harry smiled and shrugged. “With everything. Whenever I don’t understand something, he just explains it.”

Hermione nodded. “Like with homework.”

“Right.” Harry said. “And everything else too. He’s actually a pretty good teacher when he tries. He’s started teaching my Occlumency.”

“Oh!” Hermione brightened again. “I’ve heard that’s incredibly difficult magic.”

“I still don’t fully understand how it works, but we go over the complicated parts whenever I mess up.” Harry added. “When he wants to help, he’s great. He reminds me of Lupin actually.”

Ron blinked as shock bolted through him. “Lupin!?” He asked. “Professor Lupin? Lupin who we actually get on with?”

“Ron!” Hermione snapped and gave him a fierce look. “Just because you haven’t seen Snape—”

“It’s not that! We’re talking about Snape though! This is the bloke who spent years searching for any chance he could to give us detention, or nitpick our homework just to give us bad grades!” Ron argued back.

“That’s not true and you know it.” Hermione said as she sat up straight. “I’ve gotten several O’s and you’ve gotten good grades as well when you’ve tried! On top of that, if you’re talking about when you flew that car into the Whomping Willow—”

“He’s just—” Ron started, cutting Hermione off.

“He gets it now!” Harry said, silencing them both with a sharp nod. “He was awful before, but he’s been trying to do better.”

“What if he changes his mind? What if he decides you’re not worth his time and throws you back at the Dursleys?” Ron asked.

Hermione inhaled sharply. Harry looked as if he’d been slapped.

Ron bit back a groan as he hid his face behind his knees. He dreaded having put that expression on Harry’s face.

It was already nearly impossible to watch Harry when he was this small. Ron felt as if he wasn’t quite the Harry he knew, but rather a smaller, infinitely more fragile version of himself, despite how much Harry might argue against that opinion. He had never thought of Harry as fragile before, nor could he rationalize this smaller person with his normally stubborn and fierce friend.

It reminded him too much of seeing Harry in the Hospital Wing after he’d returned from the graveyard. It’d seemed as if Harry’s eyes had taken up his entire face. Nothing anyone said made him stop staring either.

“I just think that maybe my parents would be safer.” Ron’s said, his voice trailing off slowly at the end. “They already love you.”

He hadn’t realized until he’d said it aloud how truly worried about Snape’s trustworthiness he was. He didn’t know how Harry would handle having been given this new opportunity if it turned and hurt him. He’d seen how the Dursley’s left Harry and he didn’t know how to help. He never knew how to help. It wasn’t a great leap to know that giving Harry a good option and then taking it away was cruel though.

Ron couldn’t accept It.

He didn’t trust Snape and Harry might not be thinking all that clearly.

Before Harry arrived this afternoon, Hermione had mentioned seeing Harry act his physical age a bit, but not always. Neither of them could agree on how to handle Harry’s opinions though.

Now that Harry had relayed the entire story, Ron was doubly unsure about his new relationship with Snape.

What if Snape had just taken advantage of Harry, like Sirius had accused him of doing when they’d eavesdropped on their conversation. Once Sirius had mentioned Snape’s apparent friendship with Harry’s mum, Ron was worried.

Snape was vile to Harry for four years and somehow had been great friends with his mum.

Who turned on their friends like that?

An uncomfortable memory crept in the back of his mind and whispered the nasty insults he’d spat at Harry during the beginning of the Triwizard Tournament.

“I’m,” Ron started. “I’m just, you know, worried.” He said, feeling stupid for speaking up at all.

Harry’s eyes slid toward the rug and he seemed unwilling to look up again. His small hand clung tightly to the pendant on his mum’s necklace.

Ron wished he’d just kept his mouth shut, but a small piece of him was relieved to have gotten his worries off his chest. He almost wanted to go find his mum and sit with her for a while. She could usually point out where he’d messed up and where he was right to speak up.

He knew Harry deserved a person like that too.

Hermione nodded slowly and looked nervously between him and Harry.

“Will you give him another chance?” Harry asked softly.

He thought again of the conversation they’d eavesdropped on and how Harry’s mum had been too forgiving. Sirius was right, Harry was just like her.

“I will.” Hermione said firmly. “I’m not sure how Snape feels, but I’ll give him another chance.”

Ron cracked his knuckles and nodded. “I’ll try.”

Harry smiled and nodded a ‘thank you’.

——

He’d expected an opportunity to test Snape’s true loyalties would come when they all ate dinner, but Snape hardly spent five minutes in the kitchen with them. He’d made sure to check that Harry was alright and glared a bit at Sirius and Lupin, but didn’t bother much with either Ron or Hermione.

It made Ron want to create a problem just so Snape could come solve it.

If he thought Harry’d have gone for it, he would’ve started planning immediately. Harry didn’t seem like he wanted to get up to trouble though, which was odd in its own way.

Ron supposed it wasn’t wildly out of character, but Harry liked to explore as much as Ron and Hermione, and usually an old house like Grimmauld Place would’ve been the perfect setting for a good adventure. It was perfect in Ron’s head.

It was easily something Snape could’ve gotten angry about.

He’d tried to rope Sirius into starting something to really put Snape on the spot, but Sirius seemed as disinclined to get up to trouble as Harry. He was far more interested in telling old stories about the Marauders.

It made the evening remarkably calm.

So much so that when it came time to go to bed, Harry and Ron had each fallen into their respective beds and hummed a good night without a single unexpected moment despite Snape still being in the house. It almost seemed normal.

They were all safe in Sirius’s dodgy house.

Mum and Dad were a few floors below and Sirius was one above. Hermione was across the hall and she’d made them swear to begin their study plan in the morning before they’d said ‘goodnight’.

Snape was on the same level as Sirius and made a point to tell Harry, in case he needed to find him.

Ron felt that was a little odd, but not odd enough to capitalize on.

His last waking thought was whether or not he’d need to wait until the start of term to uncover the truth. If anyone would show them Snape’s true colours, it’d be Malfoy. Ron was positive he could get Malfoy going easily.

The pale blonde ferret scuttled through his dreams, snidely remarking about the state of Ron’s robes and Hermione’s hair. He transfigured himself back into a boy in the blink of an eye and spat something particularly horrible at Harry, though Harry neglected to say anything back.

They chased him down a corridor and out into the courtyard near the Charms classroom.

Ron twisted and tried to ask if Harry wanted Ron to tackle Malfoy or just kick him. Hermione flicked her wand in a clever twirl and stuck Malfoy’s feet to the grass before disarming him with another wave.

Harry neglected to answer again.

He looked straight at Ron instead and his mouth opened wide as he screamed.

Ron shot upwards as he woke and Harry’s screaming tore through the room a second time. He jumped from the bed and slipped on a pair of trousers, landing solidly on his bottom as Harry continued to cry.

“Cedric!” He whinged. “Stop-STOP!”

Ron climbed to his feet and tried to shake Harry awake. He wanted to tug the blankets off of him but Harry’s grip was too tight.

His eyes pinched shut and moaned a pained sound before twisting farther in the sheets.

“Harry!” Ron said, shaking him again. “Come on, it’s just a—”

Harry’s jaw opened as widely as it had in Ron’s dream and he let out another ear splitting scream.

Ron wrenched the sheets from him and shook him as roughly as he dared. A very real worry of hurting Harry flashed across his mind when he sat up so fast he nearly collided with Ron.

Heavy, panicked breathing rang loudly in the bedroom. Harry’s sweaty hair looked uncomfortably sticky on his forehead and his too large eyes seemed to take up his entire face.

Ron was unsure if Harry was even awake. His glassy eyes slid over the room, unseeing.

He reached out nervously, trying to remember what his mum said whenever he’d had a nightmare, but nothing helpful came to mind.

“You’re alright. We’re in Sirius’s house.” Ron croaked. “The less dodgy one.” He clarified after remembering Harry’s story about the dark safe house Sirius had tried to hide him in. “Erm, the one with Hermione. And Ginny. We played chess this afternoon.”

Harry nodded and sniffled wetly. “Right.” He said in a dull tone. The glassy look in his eyes refused to fade and he rubbed his pyjama sleeve under his nose before curling his arms around his knees.

Ron rocked on his heels as he looked over the room for lack of anything else to do.

“Do you want water?” He asked after spying an empty glass. “Or maybe, erm, milk?” He added before cursing himself silently for being awkward. He tried to push his own feelings away and pretend that Harry was still half asleep and unlikely to notice any awkwardness.

He should probably go get Mum. She’d be far more helpful.

She’d helped Ginny every time she’d had nightmares after her first year.

“Do you want me to go get—”

His voice died in his throat as Harry blinked nervously up at him. Ron had never been fantastic at guessing another person’s thoughts, but at that moment he could almost hear Harry’s.

Harry wanted Ron to try accepting Snape. Now would be as good a chance as any.

“Snape?” He asked, his voice cracking over the name.

Harry blinked again and shivered beneath his sweaty shirt.

Ron tried to imagine what it felt like to have been surrounded by Death Eaters while tied to a tombstone before suddenly waking up and discovering that it was all a dream.

Only to then remember that it wasn’t really just a dream, as it’d already happened.

Harry seemed to be heavily considering whether he should get Snape or not. His eyes flashed back and forth as he silently debated.

Ron shuddered at the thought of waking Snape up this late at night. He’d wanted to know if Snape was actually good, but not at the cost of his life. Who knew what Snape would do to him at this hour?

He might poison them, or hex them. Murder wasn’t entirely off the table. He might just not answer the door and frankly, Ron felt that was the safest and best outcome.

If he brought Harry with him though, Snape might not be so willing to commit murder.

If he truly had changed sides like Harry believed.

“Come on.” Ron said, feeling courage welling up from deep inside himself. “I think he might, erm, be helpful.” He added as he held his hand out. He’d seen Harry hold Snape’s hand before and it didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that Harry would want to hold Ron’s.

It was an uncomfortable thought no less.

He wanted Harry to go back to being impossible to crack. He missed his unshakeable friend. Ron could be unshakeable for a while though, if Harry needed it.

Harry’s small hand slipped neatly into Ron’s and they slid off of the bed. Ron wondered idly if he should plan on living long enough to make a study plan in the morning or if he should quickly let someone know that he’d be dying in the next ten minutes.

When they reached the landing, it occurred to him that he wasn’t sure which bedroom was Snape’s.

Harry led them to an innocuous door on their right before he could ask, but stopped moving a little ways before.

Ron hoped Harry was right about Snape. Harry had seemed genuine, as genuine as he had about Sirius once they’d had a bit of time to get to know one another. Ron liked Sirius.

He just really didn’t fancy facing an irate Snape in the middle of the night.

“Erm,” Ron stammered. “I’ve never knocked on Snape’s door.” He said. “I don’t—” He looked down and was about to ask if Harry had, but Harry’s watery eyes seemed to magnify on his face again and he shivered beneath his sweaty top.

Ron turned back to the door and tried to search himself for the small spring of courage that had championed this midnight adventure, but he came up dry. He was going to die. He desperately didn’t want to knock on Snape’s door, but he didn’t think Harry could.

It felt cruel to make Harry knock, given that he was still nervously eyeing the shadows that criss-crossed over the walls.

Ron raised his hand and swallowed heavily before knocking.

The urge to grab Harry and bolt down the hallway exploded in him, but his hand remained firmly around Harry’s, which in turn kept his feet stuck to the floor. His heart pounded as they waited. What if Snape didn’t answer the door? That was the best outcome moments ago, but what would that do to Harry? Would Harry be able to handle it?

The door opened all too quickly and Snape’s terrifying, pale face crept out from the darkness.

Ron wasn’t sure what kept him standing, as it seemed as if all the life drained away from him as Snape opened the door a little wider and his dark eyes narrowed on Ron before dropping to Harry. Ron didn’t think he could feel his hands and he was positive his feet had gone numb.

He didn’t seem as angry to see Harry as Ron feared.

“Nightmare?” Snape asked as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

Ron tried to speak but he couldn’t seem to make any noise. He wondered if Harry should say something, and he almost looked down to check, but he couldn’t actually bring himself to take his eyes off of Snape. He wasn’t sure what the man might do if he did.

Snape leant down and gently picked Harry up before cradling him against his chest.

Harry shoved his face into the crook of Snape’s neck. He didn’t seem worried in the least.

“Thank you, Mr Weasley.” Snape said, carding a hand through Harry’s hair before turning slowly and sliding the bedroom door shut with a quiet hum.

Maybe this was a more regular occurrence than Ron initially believed it to be?

Should he stay standing here? Harry might need him still, or what if Snape—

He shook his head and retraced his steps back to the bedroom. Snape had been kind. Ron disliked believing it, but he’d been kind, in his own very strange way. He hadn’t poisoned, hexed, or murdered either of them. He’d behaved similarly to how Mum handled Ginny’s nightmares, though with less tea.

He debated disappearing and making himself a cuppa, but decided that he was too tired for that.

He could make a one in the morning. He’d probably ask Snape sneaky questions if he could, but at the moment, he felt safe enough to leave him alone with Harry.