Monday morning Harry was running late despite his goal to always be early for training. He crunched down a piece of toast and looked over a packet that had arrived by owl earlier that morning. He stopped to examine it even though he did not have the time.

Pulling open the string revealed a parcel of letters. Harry glanced at the top one. It was from Skeeter, explaining that these were the best of the essays they had received at Witch Weekly and would he please let her know which he preferred. Or instead, it further said, tell her when she could schedule an interview that week with her American colleague before he returned to the States.

Harry folded the letter into his pocket and set the packet aside. “Gotta run,” he mumbled to his guardian, after taking up another piece of toast. “See you this evening.”

“Have a productive day,” Snape intoned distractedly as he sipped his coffee while reading the Prophet.

Harry spent the day wondering what he should do about Skeeter. He thought of asking Tonks’ advice, but he didn’t see her that day during training except once down a corridor when she looked to be in a hurry. To get it over with Harry owled Skeeter on the back of her own letter, telling her he’d prefer the interview and gave her a date and time to show up in Shrewsthorpe for it.

It wasn’t just Tonks. The whole Magical Law Enforcement Department seemed to be in action about something, although no one explained to the apprentices what it was, and late that afternoon, Rodgers asked them to finish their last drills on their own. The apprentices agreed, and paired up as their trainer dashed off.

The workout room fell silent beyond the sizzle of spells. Harry concentrated on his modulation as Vineet ran through the sequences, randomizing occasionally from the normal order. They switched attackers and Harry ran the spell sequence back at his new friend. He always felt a little bad doing this as he could see the extreme effort the other man put into his Countering. Harry kept his attacks tempered for fear of injury when his blocks inevitably failed. At a break, Vineet was, as usual, breathing heavily from the effort. Harry bit his lip and gave his partner an encouraging nod.

“Beating up on your fellows?” a familiar voice said from the doorway.

Harry turned and smiled as Snape entered. “Hello, sir.”

Aaron eagerly joined them with Kerry Ann trailing reluctantly behind. “Hello, Professor,” he said in a friendly greeting.

“Mr. Wickem,” Snape said in surprise, giving him one of those close lookings over. “You must have had a major life turnaround to have reached this point,” Snape observed. “You didn’t even sit for any N.E.W.T.s at Hogwarts as I recall.”

Taken aback, Aaron said, “I did later.” He shrugged a little sheepishly. “My dad hired tutors for me…for a few years. Then I took them.”

“This is his fifth time applying,” Kerry Ann contributed with a sparkle of mischievousness.

Snape still peered suspiciously at Aaron. “Well, you are to be commended for your persistence, at least.”

Aaron, sounding put out, said, “Did they just let you walk in here, Professor?”

“The floor allows me access and no one is around at the moment in the outer offices to intercept. The only person in this office I’d truly be concerned about encountering is Mr. Moody, whom I am friendly with.” Dismissing Aaron, Snape said to Harry. “I received this late this morning.” He held out a folded over letter.

Harry turned away and opened it. It was a request from the Wizard Family Council for a one year interview to be conducted within two weeks. Harry folded it up again and handed it back.

Snape said, “In the interest of responsiveness, I made an appointment for this afternoon after your training. It appears you are finished here?”

“Yes, sir,” Harry replied. “Let me get my things.”

Hurrying, Harry simply pulled a cloak around his workout piece. When he passed by the room again, his fellows were gathered in a tight cluster, talking in low tones. He gave them a wave and said he would see them tomorrow.

On the fourth level, they checked in with a greetingwitch who directed them to the last office on the end. “Office” was a generous description for the cramped space. Harry figured it would be easier to Apparate to get behind the desk. A stout witch with long, black- and red-streaked hair looked up from copying notes onto a parchment form full of tiny boxes.

“Ah, the four-fifteen, then, right?” She looked between them there in the doorway and then beyond them, a little mystified. “I need to talk to the child…” she said.

Harry stepped into the small gap between the desk and the wall where a bench provided a seat. Faded pictures of laughing children on colorful broomsticks hung on the wall. A narrow shelf at desk level was lined with miniature rocking horses, except they were unicorns or centaurs, and a few dolls. “That would be me,” he admitted with a touch of embarrassment.

“Right, then,” she said slowly, opening the file on her desk without taking her eyes off him. She glanced inside the file with a look of consternation and, apparently recovering, said to Snape, “You’ll be called in in about a quarter of an hour.” She waved him off and Snape closed the door while backing into the corridor.

The casewitch clasped her black, neatly polished nails before her and said, “So, Ha—…Mr. Potter. I have a series of questions I need to ask you. Your answers won’t be shared with anyone outside this office or the council, including your adoptive parent, so you should be as honest as possible.”

She gave him a patent smile as she took out a quill and opened her ink bottle. From one of the drawers she took out some child’s blocks and placed them on opposite ends of a line marked on the desk. One had a yellow smiley face and the other one had a pink sad face with a small tear. She held out a small white pyramid to him.

Harry noticed the numbers along the line upside-down to him. “I can give you one to seven without those,” he said.

She chuckled to herself. “Oh yes, probably you can.” She scooped them off and put them away, for which Harry was grateful. She looked at her sheet and asked in an ultra-friendly voice, “From one to seven then, where seven is very happy, how happy are you to be living with your adoptive family?”

“Seven.”

She noted that. “Give me an example of something in the last year that made you happy.” She waited with quill poised as Harry hesitated, thinking. In a prompting voice, she said, “Seven is a very strong response.”

“Yep,” Harry agreed, holding himself from fidgeting. He was very happy, but “why” was a harder question to answer than he imagined. “It’s a lot of little things,” he said, mostly to stall.

“Such as?”

Parties with my friends and pink stomach medicine, Harry almost said, since that came to mind. Sleeping potion at night when he had problems with dark dreams sounded like an even worse answer as well as did having someone to come fetch him when he got frustrated enough to fly off and crash. Frantically generalizing that, he said, “Having someone to take care of me.”

She looked more than a little doubtful, but made a note of that. Feeling defensive, Harry added, “I’ve never before had someone I could go to who I knew wasn’t going to turn me away.”

“That is the main reason for answering seven?”

“That and having someone to talk to,” Harry insisted. At her more doubtful look, he explained, “Not many people are willing to discuss Voldemort in detail.”

She moved on quickly to the next question. “Do you have a room of your own?” When he nodded, she asked, “How do you like it?”

“Six.”

“Not seven?”

“The window is small, but that is normal for the house.” And, Harry thought, ‘seven’ would bring on more questions.

“Are you kept to a regular bedtime?”

“Yes,” Harry confirmed. “Mostly.”

“How much work are you given around the house?”

“None. I get scolded when I do any,” he said. At her look of surprise, he explained, “I’m informed, repeatedly, that the house-elf is supposed to do most things. I do the gardening because I like to get outside sometimes. I don’t get scolded for that anymore.”

“Ah,” she said knowingly. “Never lived with an elf myself,” she said flatly. Harry could not interpret her tone. She moved on before he could decode her reaction. “Think of the most severe time you were punished in the last year. Got it?”

“Uh, yep.”

“How happy are you with the fairness of it?”

Harry thought about coming home drunk and Snape’s reaction to that. He also thought of the day after the four Death Eaters attacked and only now realized that, earlier, Snape had backed down from what had initially been high running anger. Harry recalled the incident starkly: the disappointment, frustration, and even distress he had caused his guardian had itself felt like punishment at the time. Harry hadn’t felt that same regret from the drinking incident and Snape had been unhesitatingly harsh, but Harry should not have gotten into such a state.

“Six,” he finally replied, then remembered how unfair the false accusation about the prank had felt, but he didn’t amend his answer.

“What was the punishment?” she asked.

“Uh, a very stern talking to,” Harry supplied. “And not letting me argue my way out of being responsible.”

“What did you do to deserve it?”

Harry didn’t feel like admitting he had come home pissed. He chose to consider the previous incident last summer. He looked down at her notes. “How confidential is that?”

“Very.”

“Inside the Ministry even?” Harry queried.

“They are reviewed by my superior and by the council if there is an issue that may require action.”

“Just put down that I disobeyed, then,” Harry said.

“Does that happen often?” she asked with a sour expression.

“No, not at all,” he replied and immediately wondered at that. Harry did not consider himself the obedient sort.

She scratched out a note and read it over. Harry had grown warm in the cramped office so he pushed his cloak off one shoulder.

“Are you that obedient the rest of the time?” she asked a little sarcastically.

“I don’t think so. I agree that I messed up, and things could have gone very badly because I acted the way I did. That’s why I think it fair. I agree I should have done better.”

She was looking him over now, frowning at his outfit. “Just out of curiosity, what is that you’re wearing.”

Harry glanced down and frowned at his odd tight fuzzy outfit. “I came straight from training,” he explained. He flipped the cloak off his other shoulder, exposing the department patch on the upper breast of a glowing wand across a broken, black pentagram.

She blinked at it. “You’re an Auror’s apprentice?” At his nod, she said. “One could assume you could take care of yourself, then.”

“I like having a family and a home,” Harry retorted.

She smiled lightly. “That wasn’t what I meant,” she said gently. “I meant it with regard to this interview which is in part intended to assure that the council has not made a placement in error.” She turned the parchment over. “The next few questions are a little more difficult. Has anyone in your adoptive family ever asked you to lie about something that happened?”

“Yes.” At her concerned expression, he added, “But only so the previous Minister of Magic could take credit for it.” He added a little smile. “And we are back to the unstated reason that I got punished.”

“I see,” she said a little quietly. She scratched her cheek thoughtfully and said, “Has your adoptive parent ever physically harmed or threatened to harm you?”

“No.” Not since he has been my adoptive parent, Harry silently amended.

She gestured at the door. “Ask him to come in, then.”

Harry stood with effort from the low bench and opened the door. Snape was leaning against the far wall, looking withdrawn. Harry wondered at that but merely said, “She wants to see you,” while shooting him a questioning look.

But Snape didn’t meet Harry’s gaze as he joined him in the doorway. They sat side by side on the bench, with Harry having to consciously avoid looking at his guardian in concern over his mood. He wished he had some clue as to what was bothering him now of all moments.

“Mr. Snape,” the casewitch said. “You fall into our ‘D’ category of adopting adults because you have no other children, you are single, and you are male. The only category lower would involve non-human heritage.”

Harry held his tongue with effort. If it had been Hagrid adopting him, he would have given them hell for that. Snape seemed to withdraw farther as she spoke. Harry heard something in her tone now that had been absent before and it spoke of knowing far more than she wished to.

When Snape looked over at Harry finally, she interjected in a formal tone, “We can send Mr. Potter out for this conversation if you wish.”

Snape hesitated an awkwardly long gap before replying, “It is not necessary.”

“As you wish,” she said. “How would you describe the quality of your own home life as a child?”

Snape stared at his fingers and answered stiffly, “Poor.”

Harry closed his eyes, wishing this were not happening, and realizing that Snape had seen this coming.

The casewitch went on, “That is another significant mark against you, I’m afraid. Next question. Do you typically have a long-term, stable couples relationship in your life, and do you have one currently?”

Snape continued to find his fingernails interesting. “No.”

Harry silently congratulated himself on at least temporarily repairing things in that regard. He bit his lips to avoid speaking out of turn, fearing how many more questions there would be and wanting it over with as quickly as possible.

The casewitch scratched out a pair of sharp checkmarks and tilted her head as if listening already to the next answer knowing what it would be. “The next questions are about your personal support network. How friendly are you with your neighbors? Do you feel you can rely on them?”

Snape seemed to consider that one, but Harry knew that pride was going to get in the way of a better answer.

Snape said, “Not terribly and no. My work colleagues on the other hand. I do rely on when it’s merited.”

She made another set of checkmarks. “I assume you would not rely on your own relations in this way, given your own childhood.”

“Correct.”

Another scratch on parchment. “Friend network?”

Harry looked at his fingers this time.

“There are only a handful of people I trust, really. They are mostly colleagues.”

The casewitch made another grating scratch and a few notes, then changed pages. “And how would you describe your own abilities as a parent?”

Quietly, Snape said, “I am usually out of my depth.”

Harry turned to stare at him, stunned. The casewitch wore a yet more self-satisfied expression.

“That’s not true,” Harry argued.

“You are hardly the best judge of quality parenting, Potter,” Snape pointed out quietly.

Harry yearned to shout at him, at both of them. Low and alarmed, Harry said, “What difference does it make, as long as I’m getting what I need?”

“Are you?” the casewitch asked.

“Yes,” Harry insisted too loudly then wondered again where the obnoxiously overbearing, willfully lying wizard he knew so well had gone off to.

Snape straightened and crossed his arms. “Although confident I can do better than your relatives…” he said with an unexpected, deep-seated anger. “…I am rarely certain I am doing the right thing for you.”

“Like when?” Harry demanded.

“A hundred times a day, Harry,” Snape insisted evenly, coldly.

Harry put his hand on his forehead, thoughts frantic. “I have no sense of that.”

The casewitch cleared her throat. “Constantly questioning your decisions is not a sign of bad parenting, quite the opposite.”

Shaken, Harry said stridently, “Severus, you are the only reason I’m in one piece right now.” He gestured at the wall beside him and the rest of the Ministry beyond. “I found out last week that Sirius never got off the Ministry wanted list. A year ago that would have sent me over the edge.”

“Part of that is simply maturing, Potter.”

“And you don’t think you had anything to do with that?” Harry asked loudly, sarcastically, voice booming in the tiny room.

Snape’s voice, by contrast was calm. “It would have happened on its own, Harry. You are highly resilient.”

“I’m resilient because I have you to count on!”

“Hey there!” the casewitch cut in sharply. They both fell silent and Snape closed his mouth on whatever retort he was preparing. She gave them a smile. “You are clearly doing fine,” she said as she made a flourishing note on the bottom of the parchment before her. “Both of you.”

Snape straightened and looked away.

Back in their own dining room, Harry, his voice pained, asked, “Why didn’t you say something before?”

“I assumed it was obvious” Snape replied as he put his gloves into the pocket of his cloak. Harry watched him unhook it and swing it off to fold it over his arm.

“I’m very happy here with you,” Harry said. “I thought that was obvious.”

Snape considered him before challenging, “There is nothing you would change?”

Harry’s shoulders fell. Hesitantly, he replied, “I wish you weren’t going back to Hogwarts in September, but I understand you have to.”

Snape stared at him. “That is all? Your complaint is that you wish me to be around more?” His tone of disbelief had a bit of his normal sneer to it. Harry was happy to hear it.

“Yes,” Harry insisted defensively.

Snape shook his head as though to clear it. In a more normal tone of impatience he said, “Your birthday is at the end of the week. I keep expecting you to ask if you can hold a party.”

“I just had one for getting into the Auror’s program,” Harry pointed out.

“You are turning eighteen, Potter. Multiple parties in one month should hardly be viewed as excessive by one your age. The alternative is a nice dinner out, just Candide and one of your companions, whichever is in favor at the moment.”

Harry wanted to argue that last comment, but held back because the combative atmosphere had just faded. “That would be fine.”

Snape said, “I admit to preferring something quiet myself, but it is truly your choice. Especially since my father wishes to visit and I told him Thursday.”

“A nice dinner out would be great. The last one was very nice,” said Harry primly.

Snape nodded a bit formally and left the room, leaving Harry feeling strangely disconnected given how much had finally been said.

The evening stretched long. Harry tried to garden but the stream of rush hour cars ruined the peaceableness of it. He paced around the main hall revisiting the interview with the casewitch far more times than was useful. He needed a real distraction. And worrying about the worst curses he might face as an Auror not knowledgable enough to deal with them properly was the best he could cobble together for focussed motivation.

There were at least two large compendiums of curses among Snape’s books. Harry stepped into the library. The worst books were on the lower shelves. For one thing they tended to be heavier, and for another, they sometimes leeched substances one didn’t want staining the other books.

Harry lowered himself to sit on the floor and began pulling lightly cursed and blood-inked books out and stacking them as he glanced at the title pages of each.

Winky brought in hot cocoa, peered at him through two long blinks, then disappeared again.

Harry sighed and assumed that if he was disturbing her, it wasn’t by too much. He propped Vexacious Hexes: A Practikal Treatise on the top of the stack he’d formed and began paging through it because it had a lot of horrible woodcuts to keep things interesting.

Snape came to the doorway of the library and found Harry sitting on the floor, chin resting on his knees, flipping through a lead-bound book with blood edged pages that glistened with staticky magic each time a page was turned.

“Comfortable?”

Harry looked up, looked down at himself. Shrugged. “I grew up in a cupboard. I’m used to sitting scrunched up like this.” He flipped forward a page.

“That is how I am confident that I can at least exceed your previous situation,” Snape said.

Harry rested his hand on the book and breathed in and out. His jaw worked before he asked, “What happened today?” He shut the book and looked up, eyes Occluded.

Snape hesitated, then stepped over and lowered himself beside Harry, rested his back against the bookcase, intentionally copying Harry’s lack of care about which books were behind him.

Harry turned to him, arms around his knees. “What happened to obnoxious Professor Snape? I needed him there today.”

Snape leaned his head back against the sharp edge of the bookshelf. He shook his head once.

Harry continued more warmly, “It was like you didn’t even want to defend what we have. It felt almost disloyal.”

“That is not at all the case. I simply did not know how to defend it, and was most concerned with making things worse than they already were.”

Harry huffed. “Why didn’t we wait a bit? Prepare a bit? Rehearse?”

“That would have been disastrous. Such a thing would red flag the interview. And rightfully so.”

Harry exhaled. “Yeah, I supposed I agree with that.” He tugged on a broken trainer lace. “If I were interviewing someone as an Auror and they gave me rehearsed answers I’d be pretty suspicious. But still there wasn’t any warning.”

“I very much did not want the paperwork to linger on any desk anywhere in the Ministry even for a few hours. Best to have the interview report quickly and quietly generated. The paperwork quietly refiled.”

Harry stared. “That sounds far less than confident.”

Snape looked over the shelves on the other side of the room, at the rows and rows of thin old school books. “If the adoption were filed now I am certain it would be denied. It only succeeded because, at the time, everyone was deathly tired of the Dark Lord and wished to avoid dwelling on anything related to him. Allowing it to go through absolved them of concern about recent events they dearly wished were already far in the past.”

“But…it’s been a year already,” Harry said. “And I’d insist on it again.” He pointed at his chest.

“Indeed. But Hero of Wizardry you may be…you are not Albus Dumbledore. You cannot provide his reassurances…about certain things…” Snape didn’t finish.

“Oh,” Harry said, scrubbing his hair around his head. “But he did very much want this when he was alive. That should still count. For a lot.”

Snape reviewed Dumbledore’s last request with the advantage of time and wondered now if he hadn’t missed something critical about it. This made him feel a lot like he had many times in the past when things were far more dire and he knew very little of the meaning behind his instructions.

Harry noticed his hesitation and asked with clear strain in his voice, “Severus?”

Snape patted Harry’s arm to gain space to think. He wondered if he could be failing in ways that he hadn’t even considered. Wondered at himself too, that at times he seemed to forget it was impossible to do enough to make up for the past.

He took firm hold of Harry’s arm and looked him over while he had his full attention. “I regret… I deeply regret if you felt I was disloyal, Harry. I certainly do not want that.”

With a sigh, Harry leaned sideways against him and straightened his legs. “And I’m sorry I accused you. It’s disloyal of me to do that to you.” Harry hunched forward and held up his hands before himself in a helpless gesture. “But I guess it worked out. Arguing at cross-purposes in front of the casewitch about whether we were doing okay…” He snorted. “But I didn’t see any of it coming. I don’t know what you’re thinking most of the time.”

The candelabra out in the hall came up in brightness on its own. Snape waved up the flame in the lamp beside the writing desk and stowed his wand back away.

Snape released Harry’s arm and clasped his hands together. “I assumed you most craved what the students in my house crave: absolute confidence in your guardianship. That does not leave me much room.”

“You’re allowed to be uncertain,” Harry said with a shrug, looking up at him from his hunched position. “Just like everyone else.”

Snape drew in a breath and sat straighter. He spoke slowly and quietly. “It is not how I wish to be. My true motivation and intent are things I work hard to hide. It kept me alive too many years to do so. Now, it gives me the most freedom to act as I see fit.”

Harry nodded, murmured something about understanding that.

Snape went on, “The Ministry casewitch today, though. She immediately saw through it all. It would have been disastrously revealing of weakness to try and bluster or bully through. And I very much did not want to make things worse and risk having the review elevated.”

“It hurt to watch. You could have sent me out.”

“You would have preferred that?”

“No. I preferred to be there to try and support you.” Harry bit his lip.

“I had hoped she would temper her words with you there. That is the only reason I said you could stay.”

Harry laughed sadly. “Do you think she did?”

Snape nodded. “Yes. Quite a bit, actually.”

“Good thing I was there then.”

“Indeed. If she had been a fellow Death Eater I’d have been dead long ago.” He patted Harry’s arm again.

“Well. She thought she knew me, but she was way off the mark,” Harry said. “I kept confusing her.”

“I’m pleased to hear that.” Snape considered his hands again, how less stained they were than during the school year. “Do you need anything, Harry?”

Harry sighed and his shoulders fell. “I do have a question I didn’t risk asking the other day. But it might not be kind to ask it.”

Snape sat back against the shelf again. “Go ahead anyway.”

“Have you ever regretted this?”

Snape sat in stillness studying his charge's worn trainers, the tattered denim edge half concealing them. “I am most concerned that you feel uncertain enough to need to ask that.”

“I didn’t realize how fraught this all was.”

“For what it’s worth, I expect it is settled now. You will have aged out of the process by next year’s interview. We could possibly have stalled and insisted you had aged out this time, despite the requirement for at least one review of every placement, but that would have necessitated the paperwork be revisited by far more people. But in answer to your question: other than a total of three or four seconds when I wondered why I had a Gryffindor in my house…no, I have not.” Harry smiled painfully and Snape went on, voice low and mechanical, “I was instead rather surprised how quickly I could not imagine things differently”

Snape paused and watched Harry consider that. The interview threatened to reset Harry back in time emotionally. And Snape hoped his charge could resettle back into the present before there was real damage.

“Anything else? You may ask me anything.” Snape adopted an overly haughty tone as he added, “You may ask, of course…I may not answer.”

“No. I’m good now. Thanks.” He smiled at Snape’s mode switch, as intended.

Snape leaned on a stout shelf to lever himself to his feet. None of the books had so much as rustled.

Harry said quietly, “Thanks for talking. Things were hanging in a way that was far harder than if nothing had happened.”

Snape turned and looked down at Harry while shaking out his robe. “Indeed. Either nothing should be said. Or everything should be. That has been my experience.”

Harry nodded and opened the lead bound book again at page one. Snape resisted just barely telling him to be careful with it.

The moment Harry had been dreading finally arrived with the tapping of the door knocker the next evening. Moving reluctantly, Harry went downstairs to let Skeeter and Olsen in. Skeeter was wearing a violet robe, but Olsen was in khakis and a pale blue button-down shirt. He looked around keenly at the house as Harry led them into the drawing room. Snape appeared immediately as they took seats.

“Do you want me in the room for this?” he asked Harry.

“No, that’s all right,” Harry said easily.

Snape looked the two reporters over with mild suspicion.

Olsen said, “Your guardian, Mr. Potter?” He stood up and held a hand out to Snape who accepted it with clear doubt about him.

“Yes,” Harry replied.

“Would it be all right to ask you a few questions at the end?” he asked Snape.

“Unless they were very good questions, no,” Snape sneered and actually managed to startle the man slightly.

Olsen recovered quickly and said confidently, “I’ll think of some,” as though making a promise.

Snape departed with a last glance at each of them. Olsen pulled out his pad and started to ask something, only to stop as Winky brought in tea. “Is that a house-elf?” he asked in amazement.

“Yes,” Harry replied. “You’ve never seen one?”

“There aren’t many in the U.S., so no.” Winky bowed and departed after pouring. “I thought only old wizarding families had them?”

“That’s mostly true,” Skeeter replied, pushing her hair back with her long painted nails.

“This is an old wizarding family,” Harry pointed out.

“Aren’t you an orphan?” Olsen countered, sounding concerned.

“I’ve been adopted into an old family.”

Olsen still looked concerned. “Yes, but hasn’t part of this fight been about the difference between pureblooded wizardry and mixed wizardry?”

“You mean the lack of difference?” Harry asked.

Olsen waved his hand, “Well… yes.” He jotted something down on his notepad, looking confused. He read over some pages of his notes and finally said, “But moving on, what I really want to get at for my article series is, who is Harry Potter?”

Skeeter, sitting with pen poised as well, didn’t seem to think this odd.

“Who did Rita Skeeter tell you I was?” Harry asked. He pushed the plate over to the other side of the small table. “Want a biscuit?”

“Oh, sure,” Olsen said. He held one up. “Looks like a cookie. Good though,” he said munching as he talked. “What did Rita say? Well, nothing I can pull together easily into a coherent piece. It’s a good story though: the orphan left on a doorstep, doesn’t know he’s a wizard but it turns out not only is he a pretty darn good one and he is supposed to save the world from evil.” He flipped through his notebook yet again. “But everyone knows the comic book origin story and it doesn’t say much about you except you have a lot of dumb luck. And bad luck. Where I come from, we don’t put much stock in prophecies.” His derisive look was back again.

Harry sat thoughtfully before saying, “I did what I was supposed to do. I didn’t have any choice.”

“Your duty,” Olsen said almost playfully. “Like a Gilbert and Sullivan character.”

Harry’s eyes narrowed. Something about that had struck an exposed nerve. “I’m real,” he insisted.

“That’s good,” Olsen said. “What do you value?” he shot out quickly.

Harry thought that over. “Not being hunted down by dark wizards.”

Olsen tilted his head. “That wasn’t what I meant. What motivates you every day? What drives you to take action?”

“I want to learn more magic, powerful magic. That’s why I’m in the Aurors program.”

“For what use?” Olsen returned, sounding diligent.

“So evil can’t rise again,” Harry replied a little snappishly.

Olsen bent over his notepad and breathed, “Now we are getting somewhere.”

The interview went on in this vein, with Harry eventually finding the right way to answer the questions, but only after having most rephrased or having his answers chased like a Snitch one question after another. It was a little exhausting, although Olsen didn’t show it at all.

“…and speaking of your guardian,” Olsen said as Snape came to hover in the doorway some time later. “Willing to answer a few questions, Mr. Snape?”

“Professor,” Skeeter corrected him.

Olsen turned to her. “I thought he taught high school?”

“Still ‘professor’,” Skeeter said.

“Sorry ’bout that, Professor. Please,” he indicated the chair.

“What is your question?” Snape asked, not moving except to cross his arms and stare more fiercely down his nose.

“I’ve been trying to figure out this unrealistically altruistic young man here that we all owe so much to. I guess I would ask you why you waited so long to adopt him and why you finally did.”

“There is no simple answer to that,” Snape said, dismissing it.

Undeterred, Olsen insistently went on, “But, in talking to Harry, it is clear he values this admittedly late family very highly.”

Snape looked the man over. “Harry’s situation changed drastically after Voldemort’s defeat. I adopted him as soon as it was realistic to do so, from many perspectives.”

“Not sorry you couldn’t do so sooner?” Olsen returned.

Soberly, Snape replied, “It would not have worked out sooner.”

“And you don’t care to tell me why…” Olsen prodded.

“Hardly.” Snape stated. To Harry he said, “Almost finished here?”

Olsen interjected, “What do you think motivates Harry?”

Snape appeared to consider this. “His sense of fairness.” As Olsen jotted this down, Snape demanded, “Are you finished now?”

“I just need a picture or two. Or Rita, you said you had some stock shots?”

Coyly, she said, “I have some recent ones of Harry in a smashing little outfit…”

Harry groaned.

As they departed, Olsen said, “Very pleased to meet you, Harry. I’ll owl you my drafts for your comments in a few days.”

“All right,” Harry replied, trying not to sound surprised. Skeeter waved a vigorous goodbye as she opened the garden gate. Harry shut the door and said to Snape, “You think he’ll really send a draft? Skeeter never does that.”

“I don’t know why he would state that otherwise.”

Back in the main hall, Harry asked, “Do you think agreeing to that was a really bad idea?”

Snape sighed. “I did not particularly like the interviewer, but he did not seem to harbor any ill will toward you.”

“And he paid seventy-five Galleons for it.”

Snape looked taken aback, but said, “And you refer to me as Lockhart.” After more thought, he said, “I’m afraid in this you will have to find your own path as I have little experience with it. I trust you have enough sense now to not get taken advantage of. Or if you do, it will be a lesson well-learned that you can put to use later.”

Thursday evening, Harry put on his new dress robes and tried to comb his hair down. It needed to be cut, he realized, but that would have to wait. He tried to put on an optimistic mind for their guests but after the Wizard Family Council casewitch interview, it was a struggle. There was a straight line to be drawn between the wizard coming to dinner and Snape’s damaged demeanor in the interview.

To distract himself, Harry stepped into the library and pulled out a different book of curses to pass the minutes until Shazor and his second wife, Gretta, arrived for dinner.

Snape stepped into the doorway a minute later, looked Harry over quickly, and appeared to relax marginally. “Fortunately, they only visit once a year,” he muttered. After a moment’s thought and an uneasy glance around the room, he quickly asked, “You don’t consider them to be any kind of grandparent figures, do you?”

“No,” Harry insisted, seeing Snape’s vaguely distasteful expression.

“Good,” Snape breathed.

“Candide isn’t coming to dinner?” Harry asked.

“I wasn’t considering subjecting her to them,” Snape explained. “She would undoubtedly feel differently, just so you understand.” The door-knocker sounded, drawing him away.

Harry got up but waited in the hall. Shazor came in, looking greyer and more imposing than Harry had remembered. Gretta was all smiles behind him.

“Harry!” she nearly wailed in greeting and surged upon him, bracelets jangling. Harry resisted backing up as his cheeks were patted. “My, my, my, my, my,” she marveled. “Look at you. You have grown into something…else.” She turned him bodily as though to show him off. “Hasn’t he, dear?”

Shazor stepped over and gave Harry a looking over. “He’s a bit taller,” he said dismissively.

“Don’t listen to that,” Gretta whispered. “You are something to see, my dear. And that picture on the cover of Witch Weekly didn’t do you an ounce of justice, which I wouldn’t have imagined.” She continued on as they moved to the drawing room for drinks, “And they had more letters from that little essay contest. Have you chosen one yet?” she asked eagerly. “Can you tell little ol’ Gretta which won?”

“I haven’t seen them,” Harry said, uncertain how to explain that he was strong-armed into a full interview and the payout was not having to read them. Skeeter assured him that she would pick a winner and only needed to have a thing or two autographed for prizes.

Gretta accepted a glass of something smoky over ice and sipped it. “Oh, did we remember the gift?” she asked her husband.

Shazor, with a flat expression, removed a small box from his pocket. Gretta grabbed it up and handed it to Harry with a “Happy birthday!” and a doting smile. Harry hesitated before opening it right then but did so. Inside was a mechanical cricket in an oversized painted matchbox. Holding it gingerly, Harry held it up to the lamp.

“What is it?” he asked curiously.

“It predicts the weather,” Shazor explained.

Gretta added, “There are instructions on the bottom of the box.”

Harry turned the box over and peered at the tiny diagrams on the bottom. While the others talked about the vote and Bones’ expected policy changes, Harry followed the instruction for determining the wind the next day at noon. He placed the little metal insect down on the table beside him and faced it north, then when it chirped once, he tapped it with his finger. It chirped six times and hopped northwest.

Harry, thinking of planning trips on broomstick, waited for a break in the conversation to ask how accurate the cricket was.

“Very accurate,” Gretta assured him. “Especially about rain.”

“That is because it always rains,” Shazor pointed out snidely before turning back to Severus and continuing on about some obscure Muggle Obliviating policy.

Harry tried out a few more predictions about temperature and precipitation before putting the cricket back away. It was rather beautifully painted with glassy onyx bead eyes.

“Thanks,” Harry mouthed to Gretta as he set it aside on the table and opened a butterbeer for himself. She smiled broadly back before listening in politely to the conversation.

By the time dinner arrived, Harry was quite hungry. Winky had outdone herself in making a roast duck with a crispy brown skin surrounded by a ring of colorful vegetables.

“You managed to find a rather fine replacement for your other elf,” Shazor said, sounding jealous.

“Harry did that,” Severus explained.

“Ah,” Shazor muttered, almost dismissively. Harry pondered as he ate, whether the man assumed Harry could do that easily, whether Harry had just been lucky, or whether it meant something else. Harry eventually served himself the other duck leg and decided he didn’t care.

After dinner, Harry really wanted to excuse himself to do some reading. This being his birthday weekend, he was not going to get much reading done later. He bit his lip and wondered how to go about that. Severus’ eyes flickered over to Harry after the coffee materialized. “Do you have studies to attend to?”

Harry nodded gratefully and stood up. Gretta made a disappointed sound, but Snape explained that Harry had quite a lot of reading for each session of his training. Harry said goodnight and after fetching his books from the library headed to his room where he very gently closed the door. With relief he spread out everything on the bed, sat back propped up on a pile of pillows, and continued the chapter he had started earlier on basic Muggle police procedure.

Down in the dining room, Severus was considering having another glass of sherry as a means of easing the evening along.

Shazor set his coffee down and smoothed the tablecloth out with his long hand. “How is the boy’s training progressing?”

Severus almost snapped that Harry was not a boy, but held back by reminding himself that he still referred to Harry that way with his fellow teachers at Hogwarts. “He is doing startlingly well, even given that I am quite familiar with his ability to learn new magics. His trainer, fortunately, works him very hard, according to Harry, harder than his peers, which I am quite pleased to know.”

A little airily Shazor asked, “It is all inherited, though, correct, this easy magic?”

Severus refused to be baited. Casually, he replied, “I assume. His parents both were rather good at magic or they would not have survived to have him.”

Shazor set his empty cup down with a light clatter in the saucer. Winky appeared in a sparkle, pot in hand, to pour him another steaming cup before sparkling away again. Severus had to work hard not to grin crookedly at his father’s taken-back, unwillingly impressed expression.

“The rest of the Wizarding community does think the world of him. He is starting to finally at least appear to deserve it,” Shazor commented when he had recovered.

Severus found himself looking into a mirror, a distorted one. The memory of his own jealous reaction to Harry felt like a poison he had swallowed that was still working on him, albeit slowly. “If you are wondering if I take credit for it, I will inform you that I do not. To my mind he is merely an ordinary teenager.” Severus silently considered that that in itself was a triumph.

“Unusually humble of you, Severus,” Shazor stated, sounding as though he were trying for sarcastic. With his coffee at his mouth, he muttered, “Does seem unlikely to be your doing.”

Gretta filled in the ensuing silence. “He is a lovely young man. It is a wonder the house isn’t filled with lovely young things seeking his attention,” she marveled.

Severus did pour himself more sherry. “A few intrepid ones do brave their way in. I don’t believe Harry wishes to be distracted from his training, although given time he may change his mind about that.”

Much later in Harry’s room, a light knock sounded on the door before Snape opened it and leaned in.

“Do you want me to come down to say goodbye?” Harry asked.

“Yes. If you would.”

Down in the hall, Harry tolerated a pinch on the cheek and a hug from Gretta, followed by a perfunctory shake of the hand from Shazor. “Good luck with your training, Mr. Potter,” Shazor intoned.

“Thank you, sir,” replied Harry while wondering why the man had gone so formal.

The pair departed and Snape returned from showing them out. He passed Harry with a strange expression on the way to the drawing room.

“Everything all right?” Harry asked his back.

“Yes, quite,” Snape replied dismissively without turning around.

Harry started to accept that, but then followed into the room. “You’re certain?”

Snape stood from arranging files on the side table where he usually piled them to clear the surfaces for guests. He seemed surprised to find Harry still there. He looked Harry over more appraisingly, which Harry had grown unused to. It made him feel uneasy as well as curious about what he had missed.

“Quite certain,” Snape stated dismissively, eyes narrowing momentarily as he continued to study Harry, although his gaze didn’t look disapproving, more oddly attentive. “You should return to your studies as you will not have much time this weekend, I believe.”

Harry could spot a diversion that obvious, but shrugged. He picked up the box containing his painted cricket before he moved to the doorway and turned back. Brushing a bit of fuzz from his dress robes, he asked, “I didn’t displease your dad or something, did I? Since I didn’t mean to do that if I did.”

“By. No. Means,” Snape stated. “Go back to your studies, Harry,” he repeated.

“All right,” Harry breathed, giving in.