Draco arrived home by Apparating into his own foyer. He felt disgusted, both by Guilderchild’s simpering highbrow attitude, unearned and pathetic, but also by the state Potter had been reduced to. It was one thing to plot and attack a rival regularly, but to capture and work upon them with no chance for their recovery lacked all sport.

“Hello, dear,” Pansy said as she crossed through the hall in a flowery Japanese-inspired dressing gown. Draco’s mother had insisted Pansy move in as a companion for her with the expectation that her son would marry her in due time. Draco himself remained undecided, although the situation had grown on him far faster than he would have imagined, perhaps because not only did he have regular companionship, but he now lacked most of his mother’s.

“Interesting errand?” Pansy asked from the door to the sitting room where she had paused, posing just so. Draco had apparently spent the last long minutes simply standing there, deeply in thought.

“Yes. And I have another I must run before lunching.”

“Must you?” she asked in an almost simpering disappointment.

He nodded distractedly and Disapparated on the spot.

The door-knocker sounded at the house in Shrewsthorpe. Snape, assuming Harry’s friends were again congregating for the day, was surprised to find his former Slytherin student in the garden instead.

“Professor,” Draco muttered grouchily.

“Mr. Malfoy.”

“You look like hell, sir, if I may say so,” Draco said after looking him up and down.

Snidely, Snape asked, “Something I can do for you?”

“Most likely not,” Draco said. “But you look in need of assistance… Aren’t you going to invite me in?” He sounded properly offended. Snape stepped back and let the haughty boy into the entryway and then the hall. Draco looked around. “Humble but acceptable in the Old Way.”

Snape rolled his eyes. “If you are here to insult me, I do hope you can manage better than that.”

“Potter means that much to you then?” Draco asked, sounding honestly mystified, if not a little nauseated.

Snape didn’t reply, just stared down his nose at the young man.

“I have to say, it’s a struggle, but pathetic wizardry steeped in Muggle money rather than grand magical tradition galls me more than wrongheaded, raw magical power.”

“What are you on about?” Snape said impatiently.

Draco sighed. “I know where Potter is.”

“You what?” Snape asked sharply.

Speaking slowly and clearly, Draco said, “I don’t intend to be involved beyond telling you what I know. Suffice to say, I wasn’t involved. I may hate the sniveling little hero but I would express it by flattening him with a well-timed spell and letting someone scrap him up to haul to St. Mungo’s where he could nurse his fatally wounded ego for a time, not the continuous beating down he is presently receiving. Pathetic, really.”

With a voice of deep, dark danger Snape asked, “Where is he?”

Draco explained about his odd morning, the invitation by owl, his visit to an outlying area of London. As he turned to leave, he added, “Oh, and the Torq is a fatal one beyond its safe zone. I suggest you approach very carefully if you wish to have anything left to take to anywhere, let alone St. Mungo’s.”

Four Aurors and one very insistent Snape Apparated onto the property beside the Guilderchild house. Rodgers had only grudgingly spoken to Snape during their hurried meeting at the Ministry, and was favoring him with baleful looks as they assembled. Their little assault group was hidden from the view of the elderly witch who lived there by two massive, untrimmed willows. Moody hobbled up to the tall hedge separating the lawns and stuck his head into a gap.

Snape stood with his wand out, held back only tenuously by a fast-weakening presence of mind. Rodgers stepped up beside him, severely testing Snape’s limits, although Snape gave no indication of this. Moody was taking his time, it seemed.

Quietly, Rodgers said, “I suppose you think you could train Harry better.”

“Reggie,” Tonks hissed.

As though speaking to a simpleton, Snape stated in an even more hushed voice, “If I believed I could better train Harry, I would be training Harry.”

“Hmf.” Rodgers’ eyes narrowed as though looking for the trap in that. Moody continued to show them his cloaked backside.

Still quiet and a tad malevolent, Snape said, “I could have revealed your presence. I had no reason not to other than pity. Lestrange would have used you for torture practice…if you were lucky.”

Tonks glared at Snape. Shacklebolt whispered, “I know a really good muting charm.”

“We may need it,” Tonks threatened, hands on hips as she looked severely between the two of them.

Fortunately, Moody returned at that moment. “Loaded all right that house is. Layered alarms and traps. Looks like the work of at least four skilled wizards, some of whom didn’t like each other I’d guess by the looks of it. The charms are almost at odds. Kind of like these two,” he added with his usual distorted grin.

Snape held out, just barely, as the Aurors argued about the best approach, aggravating him into a madness of inaction.

Moody said, “It’s buttoned up tight with physical bars. And it doesn’t matter because no one is getting close anyway without setting off the spell alarms. They’d catch an illusioned warlock, a babe even they are so sensitive. Any person even crossing that hedge—”

“Any person?” Snape interrupted.

With his finger Harry traced and retraced the bright, gemlike quartz vein in the stone beneath his hand. His utterly bored mind had grown capable of latching fiercely onto anything of even vague interest. The air grew danker. The candles from that morning had gutted out, leaving the air without their warm honey scent. Achy beyond memory, Harry shifted yet again to try in vain to find a comfortable position to sit in.

Across the room something fell to the floor, slapping lightly. Harry blinked and tried to see into the dim corner beyond the dusty air flowing in the ray of light from the high window. A held breath later, a faint scuffing sound emanated from the left of the stairs and a sleek dark serpent slithered into view. It moved with purpose, straight for Harry, who gaped at it in shock. It passed between the bars of the cage and stopped.

They eyed each other, black eyes on green. “Severus?” Harry whispered.

The snake cruised effortlessly over to him, lifting its head to eye level, revealing a tan throat, tongue flicking out. “Good to ssssee you,” the snake hissed.

Harry reached out to brush the smooth scales by the second band, unsure if he were hallucinating. The snake bumped his arm awkwardly.

After checking that there was no immediate sign of Rick, Harry said, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

The snake hissed like a laugh, “Sssstrange to understand you this way. I assssume you would like to go home?”

Harry’s eyes burned at the very notion and he only risked nodding. His mind was working again, though, despite the pounding headache. Harry stood and scooped the weighty snake up in his hands, and released it near the bars. “Hide beside the steps over there. I’ll bring him down here,” Harry said.

Released, Snape slithered over to the shadow of the staircase.

“Hey, Ricky Ticky Tacky!” Harry shouted at the darkened steps.

After a pause a voice from the doorway at the top said, “God I hate that nickname. What do you want, Potter?”

Harry studied the dark outline of the snake turning and coiling in the shadows. Sounding offended and hurt, Harry said, “I’ve been thinking about family and being an orphan.”

Slow footsteps descended into the cellar. “Have you now? Getting that weak already?” Rick drawled in a toying manner. He walked right up to the bars, smirk firmly intact. “And?”

“I’d like you to meet someone.”

Rick glanced around the cellar, almost startled. Not seeing anyone, he scoffed. “Fooled me, you did.” He propped his hands on his hips. “So…Who?”

“My dad.” Harry gestured with his chin for Rick to turn around again.

With another scoff and a mocking face Rick did so, but then leapt backward into the cage bars at the sight of an eight-foot, banded Egyptian cobra, hood wide and mouth hissing. “Yah!” he exclaimed and tried to scramble away, but like a sprung arrow, the snake lashed out. Harry, who had not imagined Snape would actually do that, had to replay the lightening-fast strike in his memory.

Rick grabbed his wounded thigh and fell, writhing, onto the floor. An instant later Snape had morphed above him, wand extended. Harry considered that he should definitely ask later how he had managed that.

“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Guilderchild,” Snape sneered. “You have fifteen minutes to live, give or take.”

It was not clear whether Rick had heard any of this over his piteous whimpering and groaning. Snape felt around in Rick’s pockets, taking his wand.

Snape demanded, “Where is the key to the cage?”

Rick sobbed once in extreme pain and gestured up the stairs. “Mantel, in the silver chest… please…” he pleaded as Snape dashed away. He put his head down on the stones in abject agony to wait.

Snape returned in less than a minute with a miniature set of silver rods set on a crosspiece. He tapped this against one of the bars, setting up a musical vibration in the key. A section of bars swung loose. Snape immediately returned to his victim. Harry started to come around to assist.

“Don’t!” Snape ordered him frantically, holding up his hand, palm out.

Startled, Harry stopped just inside the door.

“Release the protective spells on the property,” Snape snarled at Rick. Then glanced back in alarm at Harry, glanced at his feet. “Back up. Center of the cage,” he commanded viciously, pointing. “And don’t move from that spot.”

Harry shuffled back and waited.

“The barrier spells. Now.”

When Rick ignored Snape in favor of harsh gasping, Snape impatiently fished a tiny bottle from his pocket and forced a droplet between Rick’s lips. The effect was immediate. Snape handed Rick his wand, while pressing his own against Rick’s heart. Snape said, “You’ve been given enough remedy to survive an extra ten minutes, or worse, a whole extra hour of flesh consuming misery.”

Rick, appearing defeated and angry, waved and muttered a series of cancellations. From upstairs came the sounds of the front door opening and many footsteps scurrying. Snape grabbed Rick’s wand back away and gave him the bottle of remedy, which the man frantically tipped into his mouth while uttering mewling noises.

“Harry!” Tonks greeted him and rushed forward to restrain Harry from stepping up to meet her. “Stay there, kiddo,” she said with worrisome uneasiness. “Whegh. Well. Good to see you.”

“Sorry, somehow skipped the bath,” Harry said tiredly and got a pat on the arm.

The other Aurors were taking things out of a small trunk they had brought down with them. “Get him a chair,” Moody growled and Rodgers went to fetch one.

When Rodgers returned with an exotically carved one, Harry was made to sit, still in the center of the cage. Moody leaned his scarred face close to examine the chain with his roving glass eye. “Hmf,” he muttered. “Letting it burn itself out’s the best, I think.”

“What?” Harry asked in alarm.

“Get the collar out,” Moody ordered, ignoring Harry’s question.

Too many people were moving around Harry for him to keep track of, and they were all talking about him in the third person. Someone held out a padded flame-proof collar from a dragon training suit which was slipped under the chain and fastened around his neck.

“Just peachy, Harry,” Tonks said reassuringly. “What do you think?” she asked Moody, “Just clip it?” Murmurs of debate went around.

“That will take care of it,” Moody said with a grunt that spoke of inherent undesirability.

“Better idea anyone?” Someone asked. Harry just wanted to go home. To be stuck at the threshold to freedom like this strained his frayed nerves near to breaking down entirely.

“This might hurt a bit,” Tonks said. “Hold yourself.”

Fingers touched Harry’s left hand and he moved his eyes—all he could move—to see that Snape had crouched down to reach him through the mob. Harry gripped his hand as everyone braced for the chain’s reaction to being attacked. The ignition was rather spectacular for something so small. A blinding light and heat flared against Harry’s face and the collar jumped chokingly tight for three heartbeats before the chain broke into pieces.

The remainder of the chain floundered on the floor, sizzling like a firework until Tonks stamped it out and hovered it into an evidence sack.

“Would’ve taken his head off for certain,” Moody stated darkly and gave Rick, who was bound against the wall, a look of disdain.

Tonks handed the sack to Rodgers and stalked over to her former boyfriend. “Well, this about tops it,” she growled at him disgustedly.

Harry did not care one ounce for the man at this point, perhaps because Snape had gotten even for him, at least partially.

“Can you take him in?” Tonks asked Moody. “I might kill him just for the clumsy heck of it.” Moody hesitated in case she might change her mind, before hauling Rick to his feet and growling at him.

Harry had to hold back a grin at Rick’s alarm as he got a proper look at the old Auror. “What makes you think I won’t?” Moody asked.

“We need a debriefing, Harry,” Tonks began, “down at the Ministry.”

“He needs a Healer…” Snape began.

Harry held up a hand to stop him. “It’s all right. I’m okay,” he insisted, although his head still pounded from the hallucinogenic potion and lack of water. He felt obliged to give it a good show in front of his future colleagues and stood unsteadily with his guardian’s steady hand on his arm.

“We’ll keep it quick,” Tonks assured him.

Even though coming up with his version of events should have been easy, lining up his thoughts felt like torture to the utterly exhausted Harry. Snape paced in the background in the Auror meeting room, looking ready to pounce on anyone, even Harry himself. Moody frequently grunted in doubt as Harry tried to explain what had happened.

“I was thinking about other things. I think I heard a boot scuff on the pavement and I was starting to turn and put my hand on my wand just in case, and then I couldn’t move. Or it hurt to move and something was around my neck.”

As he drank yet another glass of water, Harry considered that Vineet for all his meager spell power, would not have bothered with the wand, and would have left Rick as a heap on the ground without even breaking a sweat. Tonks lifted the evidence sack and dropped it on the table. Harry couldn’t manage a look at the necklace when it was on him. It hadn’t been long enough to pull into full view. The few remaining tiny blackened links were odd hoops with a crosspiece fitting into the next hoop.

“I don’t want to go around…” He was going to say that he didn’t want to go around as paranoid as Moody himself, but he changed his mind and closed with, “…always worried I’ll be attacked. It was Muggle London.”

Moody grunted again more disapprovingly. Harry bolstered his pride as best he could and listed what had transpired during his four days of captivity. It worked best to isolate himself from the memories as though speaking of someone else’s experience. He skipped his experimentations with pentagrams and found himself downplaying the horror of the hallucinogens to save face. He finally arrived in his telling at the moment Snape had appeared, and gave his parent, who was still hovering impatiently behind Tonks, a grateful look.

“You’re a mess, Harry,” Tonks finally said. “We have enough for now and you really need a bath,” she complained.

“I can’t help it,” Harry retorted.

“Ah, there’s that temper,” Tonks playfully pointed out. “Severus, why don’t you take him home.”

Those words could not have been more welcome. After repeated reinforcement from everyone about how good it was to have him back, Snape led him to the lifts and up to the quiet Atrium. The few people they met along the way gave him extensive greetings and asked where he had been. He waved them off and waited for Snape to disappear in the Floo.

Snape appeared in his dining room, which was again full to the brim with all manner of guests. They all looked up with sad hopefulness at his appearance. Snape did not speak, just reached back when the hearth flared again to offer Harry a hand ducking under the mantel.

Harry accepted the offered hand gratefully as he was feeling woozy from the journey. When he straightened up, he gaped at the room, filled with his former housemates, some neighbors, many Weasleys, and Hagrid, who was using a large trunk as a seat.

“Harry!” the room erupted, setting his worn out emotions on edge. Hermione ran around the crowded table and gave him a hug. “Sheew.” Her happy face wrinkled.

“Let me get a bath,” Harry insisted, fending off the others who descended on him. Snape cleared a path to the hall for him and he gratefully followed.

Safely in the toilet, Harry peeled off his clothes, kicked them into a corner, and suggested that they be burned. Snape was adjusting the taps and when he turned, noticed the blistering burn below Harry’s collarbone. “I’ll get you a poultice for that or the water will be quite painful.”

Harry lowered himself into the blessed bath while Snape pawed through the cabinet and began quickly putting something together at the sink.

Harry added copious bubble bath to the water and started to wash up. “It’s all right, Severus,” Harry said, although as he did, a wave of water splashed the flaming line and he changed his mind. “I guess I will take that plaster.”

“Thank you for coming to get me again,” Harry said with crushing gratitude. Snape glanced back with a pained expression and Harry went on, “I didn’t know you’d managed to become an Animagus. You didn’t let on at all. I would have helped you with it, though you apparently didn’t need any. It’s a useful form,” Harry added into the silence, blathering, perhaps for lack of having anyone friendly to talk to for days.

Snape spoke in a lecturing manner, “We needed to get through the spell barriers, which were extensive.” He came over with a shallow bowl full of a green paste. Harry leaned back and let it be dabbed onto the stinging red line that wrapped around his shoulder. “Let that set up before getting it wet,” Snape instructed him and placed the remaining portion in easy reach. “Need anything else?”

“Dinner. Water. Lots more water.”

Snape went to the door just as it opened and Winky stepped in, delivering a tray. Harry drank thirstily from the glass even though he had had two at the Ministry. The tray also contained a thin chicken stew, the scent of which made his stomach twist fiercely. Snape still remained nearby after Winky departed. Harry hungrily spooned stew into his mouth before halting when his stomach threatened rebellion.

Harry noticed Snape’s furrowed brow. “What’s wrong?”

Snape snorted softly. “I did not do well by you, Harry.”

“Seems like you did to me,” Harry countered, setting the soup aside to let his stomach settle. He picked up the cloth and washed his arms again.

“When you did not come home in the late afternoon, I assumed you were being difficult. The search for you should have commenced twelve hours before it actually did.”

Harry squeezed out the washcloth and re-soaped it to stall. “I shouldn’t have been behaving so badly last week. I’m sorry for that. I had a lot of time to think during the last four days. A lot of time.”

Harry rinsed the cloth out again without using it and again rubbed soap into it before holding it between his hands. Staring at the quickly dissolving bath bubbles and the bright pink of his knees showing through, Harry said, “You’re a wonderful parent, Severus. Having met your dad, I’m guessing that’s why you need to hear that.”

Snape’s frown didn’t disappear but he did straighten from his deep slouch.

Harry went on with deliberate calm, “I’ve got so much out of being with you, beyond even your willingness to bail my bum out of the bad situations I seem to get into.”

Snape’s dark eyes considered that before his lips twitched slightly. He moved to the door, opening it a crack. “I will let you finish your bath in peace.”

Harry peered up at him, finally taking the time to really look at him. “You look like hell, Severus.”

“Fell completely apart,” Tonks said, as she came through the bathroom door, pulling the opposite handle right out of Snape’s hand. “Hasn’t slept. Hasn’t eaten. Not a thing. Go on,” she ordered him, pointing around toward the kitchen.

Bowing his head, Snape strode away.

Harry cut himself off from watching Snape depart with concern and instead fumbled with covering himself as the bubbles had faded to the tub edge. “Tonks!” he complained, reaching for and knocking the bubble bath bottle into the tub with him. She fished it out and added a copious amount before running the water again. It foamed nicely and he relaxed.

Quietly, she teased, “Not like I haven’t seen it before…”

Harry, blushing until his face felt hotter than the tub water, snapped, “Still.”

She chuckled. “I just wanted to talk to you a bit before heading home for a long sleep,” she said with affection.

Harry relaxed when the bubbles reached chest height. He dunked his head and began washing his greasy, gritty hair.

Tonks said, “You weren’t stuck there super long, but I want to make sure you understand what can happen to someone held captive like that.” Harry stretched his neck to one side. He didn’t want to think about it, really, but Tonks plowed on, “Mostly I want to make sure you don’t withdraw, which is a common reaction.”

Harry sank down into the suds until only his head was exposed. “Is that why I feel like curling up into bed about a hundred times more than I want to go back and see my crowd of friends who are waiting?”

“Yes. Resist it. Visit with your friends for as long as you can stand it and then a little longer. Let them remind you what normal people are like. Everyone’s been deucedly worried about you, Harry,” she added somberly.

“I’ve been bloody worried as well. Rick is a lunatic.”

Tonks rubbed her long pink fluffy hair back. “I’m really sorry about that, Harry.”

They both fell silent and Harry started washing his feet with great fastidiousness, just because he could.

Tonks said, “Tara is here by the way. Just found out what happened to you, although no one knows the connection.”

Harry froze with the cloth between two toes. “I’ll have to talk to her,” he breathed.

“One thing at a time,” Tonks said. “Maybe I will wait for you. I’ll see you upstairs,” she said as she departed.

Coddling him, Harry thought with a little annoyance.

The door opened again as he bundled himself in soft, lovely, clean towels, but it was Snape this time, simultaneously eating a biscuit and carrying fresh clothes.

“Thanks,” Harry said, “forgot to ask Winky.” He accepted the t-shirt off the top of the stack and slipped it on.

“Are you certain you do not require a Healer?”

Harry nodded. “I’m fine,” he insisted, glad to be able to say that. A little food had rendered him almost normal feeling and the hot water had eased his aches. Just some sleep and he would be back to himself, he was certain.

Fully dressed in marvelously clean clothes and in his favorite maroon dressing gown, Harry let Snape lead him out with an arm around his shoulder. “You should at the very least say hello to your friends,” Snape commanded as navigated the steps up to the hall.

The hall was a welcome sight with all the lamps and candles lit, the center of what he considered home, and he was finally warm from the bath all the way through to the marrow of his bones.

Harry said, “Uh uh. There shouldn’t be two of us taking orders from Tonks.”

Snape’s lips twitched every so slightly upward.

Flush with gratitude for being home and with affection for the steady hold around his shoulder, Harry quietly said, “I love you, Severus.”

Their footsteps stuttered to a halt halfway across the floor. Hermione came to the doorway of the dining room, face flush with a welcoming smile. She must have sensed something because she hung there, hesitating with her hands on either doorframe. Distress flickered over Snape’s features before they relaxed.

Softly, Snape said, “Come, Harry, your friends have been most worried about you.” His easy tone was in contrast to the fiercely tight hold he had on Harry’s shoulder as he steered him toward Hermione.

His much shorter friend stood on her toes to give him a hug. Behind her, others came to their feet to greet him as well. “How did they find you? Tonks wouldn’t say,” Hermione complained.

Harry looked to his guardian and Snape didn’t reply. “Severus, you didn’t—” Harry began with a plummeting sense of horror, but was interrupted by all the others coming over to welcome him back.

The bunching around him finally eased when the Weasley twins gave up congratulating him gregariously and repeatedly. Beyond them stood Tara, and beside her, Elizabeth. Harry blinked, recovered his poise, and said, “Hi,” to both of them before pulling a rather pained looking Tara aside.

“Look, I—” she started to say before Harry cut her off with a whispered, “Don’t worry about. It wasn’t your doing.”

“Are you all right?” she asked. “He didn’t hurt you or anything, did he?”

Harry, very aware of the attention the full room was giving them, said lightly, “No. Not really. He was mostly just annoying.”

Winky came in with trays of small sandwiches and squares of cheese. “Wow,” Ron whispered. “How’d she know I was hungry?” But in contrast to his words, he grabbed Harry and sat him down at the table before the tray and across from Ginny. Holding Harry down by the shoulders, Ron said, “You look like you haven’t eaten. First dibs.”

The seat beside Harry was vacated and Tara reluctantly accepted it. Harry picked up a sausage sandwich and looked around the room. “When I’m an Auror and out…doing something dangerous, you aren’t all going to sitting here like this worrying, are you?” he accused them all.

Tonks stepped over beside him and took up a stack of three little sandwich triangles filled with marmalade. “Yes, Harry, I think they are,” she said sympathetically, patting his shoulder. “This just came for you, by the way.” She held out a letter.

Harry handed it to Tara to have it opened, since he had a sandwich in his hand and eating seemed more important. Elizabeth leaned over his shoulder to look at it curiously. It was then that Harry realized how very surrounded he was by girlfriends past and potential, and he dearly hoped they didn’t get to talking to each other too much.

“It’s from the Minister of Magic,” she said. “You want me to read it?”

Harry thought that over, but before he could answer, Ron grabbed the letter away and began reading aloud. “Dear Harry… Wow, the Minister refers to you as ’dear?’” Ron glanced around the generally grinning room. “So very glad to learn that you have returned home safely. Awwww…”

Harry reached back, grabbed the letter away. and stashed it in his pocket.

“I wanted to hear that,” Hermione complained.

After eating enough to feel unwell from it, Harry listened dully to his friends’ low chatter and fell into a pleasant stupor. He was bone tired though, and soon rested his head on his folded hands on the table.

“Is he asleep?” someone asked.

“Might be,” Hermione whispered.

The entire room grew silent as Snape stepped around the table and lifted Harry’s arm over his shoulder. “Come on, Harry. Time to go to your room.”

Harry’s eyes fluttered open and immediately closed again, heavy as lead. “G’night,” he muttered at the doorway and it was echoed by his friends who were now gathering themselves to depart.

In his room, Harry sat on his bed and watched through a veil of half-sleep as Snape brought his pyjamas over to him. Harry stared at them, wondering where the energy to don them might come from.

“Do you need anything else?” Snape asked.

“You repeated that spell. Didn’t you?” Harry said accusingly. “I didn’t want you to do that. I’d have happily stayed there a lot longer to prevent it.” He frowned deeply, feeling guilty and pained, which he had no protection from right then.

Quietly, Snape said, “I didn’t, although now I wished I had, seeing your condition. I told Ms. Tonks that I had, but she did not believe me, I’m certain. For one thing, I knew more than your location. She did not insist on the truth since she was far more interested in locating you.”

Sitting straighter on the edge of his bed, Harry thought that over with his slow brain. “So…wait, don’t tell me…Malfoy?”

Smiling faintly, Snape nodded. “But at his request, no one is to know that.”

“Oh. All right then.”

Remembering his rival’s dropped hint, Harry decided he should have been confident that Draco would go for help. He hoped though that he didn’t feel Harry owed him too much. He couldn’t bear that.

While getting changed into his soft pyjamas, his tired mind, thinking about the next day, conjured the dates. “Tomorrow’s the first,” he realized aloud. “You shouldn’t be here,” he insisted in some alarm.

Snape grinned inwardly. “I do need to leave tomorrow but the students won’t arrive until evening on the Express. It will be fine.”

Finally changed with his clumsy hands, Harry clamored under the covers, deeply anticipating an entire glorious night in his warm soft bed. Before he lay back though, he said, “You can go tonight. I’ll be all right.”

Snape balked and approached to stand directly beside the bed. “As welcome as this sudden streak of independence is…I will depart after breakfast.”

“If that’ll work out.” Harry straightened the duvet, relishing its plump warmth. “I realize…” he began, keeping his head down. After a hesitation he continued, “I realize now that it doesn’t matter if you’re at school. You’ll come for me if I need you.”

“Of course,” Snape said.

A tad sheepishly, Harry said, “I guess I knew that before, but now I really do. I thought maybe you’d already left for school and didn’t know I was missing.”

“What? Harry…” Snape scolded.

Explaining quickly, Harry said, “You said you were leaving. I didn’t know you would worry enough to think something bad had happened. I figured by Monday the Ministry would notice.”

Snape appeared dismayed as he slowly sat on the edge of the bed. “I worry about you constantly,” he admitted quietly.

Harry’s face wrinkled up and he said, “That’s a tough job.”

“Yes. And I wonder sometimes how Albus managed to retain such an appearance of aloofness from his concerns for you. I do not even have the Dark Lord to worry about,” he added.

Harry, feeling a burst of honesty, stated darkly, “I want to get Avery.”

Snape fell thoughtful before saying, “Do work though the Ministry on that. Please don’t go it alone.”

“I also want to clear Sirius’ name.”

“You may have an easier time with the first.” At Harry’s confused expression, Snape explained, “The first the Ministry can trumpet. The second will only cause controversy. NOT…” Snape went on quickly when Harry opened his mouth to say something fierce. “…that I don’t agree that the record needs correction. I am simply explaining the reality to you.”

Snape tossed his straggly, unkempt hair back and said, “You know I had thought that you and I had got to know each other, but I am discovering many things, including a girlfriend, that I did not know about.” He didn’t sound angry, only mystified. “Do try to keep me somewhat informed of your life by owl if you will. It makes things considerably easier.”

“I’ll try.”

Snape stood. “And if you have difficulty sleeping tonight, do come fetch me.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem.” Harry punched the soft, goose-down pillow behind him. “I’ve been fantasizing about my bed for four days running.” He plopped back on it with a sigh.

“Sleep well, Harry.”

“You too.”

Harry slept so soundly that he didn’t stir even a breath any of the three times Snape came to check on him. The third time, at just before four, Snape stayed longer, taking advantage of the exhausted sleep that kept Harry from rousing to the dark inner vision he must be having of him there so close.

Snape was not normally one for flights of fancy but he stood there wishing dearly that his charge no longer perceived him so, that somehow his shadow could be torn from that green world. Snape fretted also about the future, when Avery had finally been captured and only he himself was the very last free, former Death Eater. Would Harry’s grace about this vision remain the same?

Unaware of his guardian’s musings, Harry slept deeply on as though anchored to it, if one could be so, by plush bedding. Snape straightened as though to bolster himself and considered that if Harry chose to withdraw his forgiveness, then that was certainly his right. But as long as he needed his guardianship, it seemed unlikely.

The morning began bright and sunny. Harry, though loath to leave his wonderful bed early, did so to have a long breakfast with Snape.

“Owl to tell me about the new students, all right?” Harry said as they discussed Hogwarts during hash on toast. At Snape’s nod, Harry added, “I want to make sure the Gryffindors are making enough trouble for you.”

Appropriately grim, Snape stated, “No fear of that.”

Reveling in ordinary, future plans, Harry said brightly, “I’m going to go to the Quidditch matches with Aaron, so I’ll see you at the first one if not sooner.”

“Minerva would almost certainly want you to stay for dinner in that case. I expect to return for a weekend before that.”

Finally, Snape was ready, his small trunk beside the hearth. Harry gave him a quick hug. “Have a good school year. Don’t sneak around the castle as a cobra too much. It’s an unfair advantage over the students.”

Snape smiled with his eyes, but refrained from comment.

Harry added, “Unless you’re going to scare Filch, then it’s all right.” Harry realized that he was stalling and stepped back, forcing his ongoing comments to cease.

“Do behave, Harry, and an owl every day for the next few days, if you would.”

Harry nodded and watched Snape take up his trunk and depart, accompanied by a whoosh of flame.

After breakfast the owls began arriving, as well as a scattering of friends from the night before—the ones who could get away from their other responsibilities. Winky gave them breakfast and most had to depart soon after.

Harry wandered to the sideboard where the owls had been dropping the post. A few packages were there, including one from Candide. Harry unsealed the box from Honeydukes and ate a few chocolates. Everything seemed to taste a lot better than he remembered. He penned a quick thanks to her along with reassurances as to his state of mind and sent Hedwig off with it.

When he was washing up, Harry noticed that his burn had begun to sting again. Most of the blistering streak on his chest had turned white, but two sections of it were still a flaming pink. The wound looked angry, as though it would leave a scar.

The leftover poultice beside the bath had dried up, but ten minutes of hunting in the library produced the instructions for Creamed Barbadensis Hydrating Plaster. Ten additional minutes later Harry had it mixed from the ingredients in the bath cabinet. The relief was instantaneous and, satisfied that he could continue to do without a Healer, Harry confidently continued getting dressed.