The next morning, it was as if Harry’s fury had coalesced into a low-burning, dangerous outrage. He wasn’t sure how much Malfoy either knew or had figured out about Harry’s childhood, but he certainly knew something was off. Harry had to be angry because if he wasn’t, he’d just be scared out of his wits that Malfoy was so dangerously close to learning his darkest secret.

While Harry was steadily growing more confident that Snape wasn’t going to tell anyone about the Dursleys - or, at the very least, that he intended to keep things quiet - Harry absolutely did not believe for a second that Malfoy would behave with any sort of discretion. Harry could already hear Malfoy describing the bruises in a drawling voice: “Can’t even defend yourself from a bunch of Muggles, Potter? You really are a pathetic wizard.” Pansy Parkinson’s shrieking cackles would rise above the laughing Slytherins, and Harry would never be able to show his face at Hogwarts again.

So yes, Harry was livid. If that meant he elbowed Malfoy so roughly out of the way on his journey to the loo that he stumbled into the wall, then so be it. Or if it meant Harry ‘accidentally’ trod on his foot with as much force as he could muster as they sat down for breakfast, Harry rather thought he should be forgiven.

Malfoy, who never avoided an opportunity to grass someone up, especially Harry, shockingly didn’t say anything. He only let out a small squeak of pain. That surprised Harry, especially since Snape was right there and ready to swoop in and take Malfoy’s side, like he was so fond of doing. Why wasn’t he kicking up some sort of fuss?

Harry didn’t know, and not knowing made him even angrier. He didn’t know what was wrong with him today, but it felt like the slightest provocation would make him absolutely explode. In fact, he was so consumed by his wrath that all the conversation turned to buzzing in his ears, so he didn’t even notice that Snape was trying to speak to him until he felt the man tap him on the shoulder. Harry was so out of focus that he cringed away from the contact before he had time to think about what he was doing. That display of utter weakness, of pathetic fear and vulnerability, just vexed him further. He wanted to slap someone - preferably Malfoy…

“What did you say?” he managed.

“I said to wait down here for a moment while I establish Draco upstairs.” Snape’s jaw was tense. Harry hoped he didn’t think that Harry had been intentionally ignoring him. It just felt impossible to even think clearly at the moment, let alone listen. “We need to talk.”

Harry was glad that he’d already finished eating, since his stomach contracted uncomfortably at that idea. While Snape escorted Malfoy away, he was left to ponder what this talk could be about. It wasn’t too difficult of a question, though. Harry had a pretty good idea - it was time for his daily interrogation about the Dursleys.

And unfortunately, he was right. Snape sat down opposite to Harry and fixed him with that awful, piercing look of focus. “Now, Harry.”

First names again. It was always 'Harry' when it came to the stupid Dursleys, wasn’t it? Then right back to Potter when Snape didn't want something. The manipulativeness of the man sitting before him only served to worsen Harry’s foul mood.

“I would like to continue our discussion from yesterday morning, if you would.”

“I wouldn’t like to, actually,” he bit out.

Snape exhaled loudly. “I told you yesterday morning that we would be continuing it, and I am a man of my word.”

“Don’t care, don’t want to talk, leave me alone,” Harry muttered, glowering at Snape. The man was beginning to look just as frustrated as Harry felt.

“Burying all of your feelings will do you no good, you know.”

“Oh yeah?” Harry challenged. “Well it’s been working perfectly nicely for me for the last twelve or so years, so I think I know what I’m doing better than you, Snape.”

“As the adult in this situation with far more knowledge about emotional regulation and mental health, I would argue that I do, in fact, know what I’m doing here,” Snape said sharply. “I can see firsthand what effect your relatives’ treatment has had on you, which is why it would be wise for you to unload some of it.”

“You don’t see anything about me!” Harry shouted. That had to be some kind of record - he’d not even managed five minutes before flipping out this time. “You don’t know anything about my mind, and you certainly don’t know shit about the Dursleys!”

“Language,” Snape growled, “and perhaps I would know more about the Dursleys if you cared to enlighten me further about their treatment of you?”

“NO!” Harry yelled. “I actually don’t care to! I’m not telling you, I’m not telling anyone, so you can just leave me alone about everything already!”

Harry sprang to his feet, and without touching it, the chair he had been sitting in exploded backwards and hit the back wall with a noisy bang. Instantly, the rage building up in his chest turned to icy dread. More accidental magic. Why did that keep happening? He was supposed to have better control over his emotions at this age!

He dared to look at Snape, whose mouth was pressed into a thin, white line. Oh God, he was pissed. Furious, really. All of that stuff he’d said yesterday was definitely about to go out of the window, he was going to completely snap, and Harry didn’t want to be there when it happened so, paying no mind to Snape’s orders for him to stay and talk, he fled the room, heart thudding.

To his immense relief, the bedroom was empty. Harry, who was feeling rather lightheaded after the accidental magic, sank to the floor and leaned his head against the bed, chest almost painfully tight. Privet Drive was a horrible place, but at the very least, he knew where he stood there. Harry was perfectly aware of what Uncle Vernon would do to him for accidental magic of that kind. Snape was an unknown entity, and Harry didn’t like those.

Five minutes passed, and then ten. Snape did not appear. Harry remained on the floor, counting the nicks in the wooden boards, heart thudding. By the time his bedroom door actually swung open, some of the fear from his outburst had faded slightly, although it all came flooding back when he took in Snape’s dark, irritated features.

“You are not in trouble,” Snape intoned. Harry didn’t believe that for one second, but he nodded anyway, feeling rather numb. Snape stared at him in silence for several moments before raising a hand. A moment later, a large glass of water sailed into it, which he handed to Harry. “Drink.”

Harry stared at the glass in his hand but hesitated before raising it to his lips. Was this Snape's way of punishing him? Some kind of colourless poison?

Snape somehow picked up on the track Harry's thoughts were going down and scowled. "If I was trying to poison you, this isn't how I'd go about it. That is just water. Drink it all."

Harry wasn't sure if sort of threatening to poison someone more subtly in future was the best method of coaxing another person into drinking something they'd just handed to you, but it somehow worked. Harry began to sip the water without further complaint, and if there was something hidden in it, Harry certainly couldn't taste it. It was difficult to drink all of it through his ragged breathing, but by the time he finished drinking it, his breathing had actually slowed and his heart was beating more gently.

Did you put a potion in that or something?” Harry asked, setting the glass to one side. It was shocking how well that had worked in making him relax.

“No,” Snape said. “That was plain water. Cold is effective at slowing the heart rate and calming the nervous system, and drinking it rapidly as you just did helps to regulate breathing."

That was a bit interesting, Harry thought, but he couldn't think about it too much because he was still so worried about the consequences of shouting at Snape downstairs. It was a far cry from the all-consuming anger he'd woken up with. In fact, he felt a bit like a startled deer, ready to bolt at any moment. A large change, certainly…

At the minute, Harry felt a little bit like an emotional yo-yo, constantly swinging between sizzling outrage and sickening fear, or even both at the same time if things were particularly bad. He wasn’t normally so volatile, and he absolutely hated feeling that way.

Snape, who was turning out to be far more perceptive than Harry had ever given him credit for, picked up on his badly-hidden anxiousness. He moved from the doorway and sat down next to Harry on the ground, which completely shocked him. That wasn't particularly Snape-like! What on earth was he doing?

Still, the lack of a dark, irritated figure looming over him helped relieve some of the lingering tension in Harry's chest, as did the shock of seeing Snape lower himself in such a way. It almost made Harry feel as though they were on even footing.

"Are you alright?" Snape asked finally.

The question was so odd that Harry couldn't help but indulge in a hoarse chuckle. "Does it look like it? No."

"That is… reasonable, given your situation," Snape said slowly. His eyebrows were creased into a look of bemusement.

Harry simply shrugged and went back to staring at the floorboards. Snape continued to stare at him, while Harry ignored him. Silence fell over the room.

After a long, awkward pause, Snape sighed loudly. "Harry, has it ever occurred to you that I am just as unsure about how to proceed under these new circumstances as you surely are?"

That got Harry's attention. He looked up, shocked. Snape, unsure? He always seemed so…controlled. Knowledgeable, even. But no, Snape just looked visibly frustrated at the moment.

"You need to talk about this with someone," Snape said, words punctuated with sharp hand gestures, "but I can't take you to someone else because of your position in the wizarding world. You are vehemently opposed to talking to me. I cannot and will not use Legilimency or Veritaserum on you, as this needs to come naturally. I also sense that bombarding you with questions is not the right course of action to take."

You've got that right, Harry thought grumpily.

“I don’t know what to do with you!” Snape hissed.

“I don’t know what to do with me, either,” Harry admitted reluctantly, crossing his arms and staring anywhere but at Snape’s face. “I just don’t think about it. It works well enough.”

“It doesn’t, as a matter of fact,” Snape said tersely. “Take the small instance of accidental magic you had in the kitchen, as well as the one from yesterday. You bottling up your emotions is directly contributing to you losing control over your magic."

Harry bit down on the inside of his cheek. "Sorry, I didn't mean to -"

"I know you didn't mean to!" Snape said, his voice a low growl. Harry jolted away, and Snape visibly tried to school his features. "I've already told you that you are not and will not be in trouble for instances of accidental magic, even if you blew out every single window in my house."

"But what if I hurt someone again?" Harry asked, not meeting Snape’s eyes. "Like Aunt Marge?"

"You didn't technically hurt your aunt in the first place," Snape said. "You merely inflated her. However, if you were to hurt someone with accidental magic, it would in all likelihood be self-defence as your magic responded to a perceived threat. We might discuss it, but you will not be punished."

Harry swallowed, hard. Right. Snape was a wizard. It made sense that another wizard wouldn’t find accidental magic weird and abnormal. Harry knew this logically, but he had a hard time getting himself to believe it.

Snape was watching him closely again, his gaze piercing. "If you are so deeply concerned about this accidental magic, though, perhaps it would be advisable to discuss your experience with the Dursleys instead of shoving it down so it all bursts out at inopportune moments."

Even though this was coming from Snape, who Harry didn’t want to take any advice from on principle, he couldn’t help but reluctantly accept that he was making a good point there. The idea of continually losing control of his magic was utterly repellant to him, and Harry was desperate to just make it stop. He was pretty sure he’d take on just about any plausible advice, even if it came from a man he hated.

Still, there was one issue.

"I just don't know how to talk about it," Harry mumbled, picking at a loose thread in his jeans. “I know logically that I should, probably, but when you’re actually there asking, I can’t.”

"That much is clear," Snape said with a shake of his head. "And bombarding you with questions isn't working, either, so I propose more of a two-way conversation. I can ask you questions, and you can similarly ask me what you'd like."

"That just seems like a slower way of interrogating me about the Dursleys," Harry grumbled.

"I do not mean we only discuss your relatives," Snape corrected. "There are other things we could talk about, so we may begin to…get to know one another better.”

“...Okay?”

Snape seemed to think hard for a moment. “Do you have a favourite colour?"

“Sorry, what?”

“I don’t understand how that’s a particularly difficult question to answer,” Snape retorted sharply. “So?”

The question was so jarringly mundane that it took Harry a decent moment to cobble together an answer. "Um. Red?”

Snape's lips twitched slightly. "Ever the Gryffindor, I see. I should have expected as much."

"It's not just because of Gryffindor!" Harry protested. "I've liked red since before I knew about the Hogwarts houses, actually."

"Very well," Snape said, inclining his head. After a moment's silence, he added, "Now, is there anything you wish to ask me?”

"Er…" Harry ripped the loose thread in his trousers free. "I don't know. I don't think I can just sit here and chat with you, sir. It's properly weird."

"Perhaps it would be easier if we were engaged in another activity while we spoke?" Snape suggested. "You seemed to find it easier to speak to me last night while we were cooking."

"Yeah, it was better,” Harry agreed. “That might be alright. Are we going to cook again or something?"

"No, I have something else in mind." Snape waved his wand. Moments later, a small wooden box flew through the air and into Snape's hand. He got to his feet, placed the box down on the desk crammed in between Harry and Malfoy's beds, and lifted the lid. Inside the box was an old, faded chessboard.

"You know how to play chess, I presume?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "I'm terrible at it, though. Ron always beats me."

"Constantly disparaging yourself and your abilities is not what I would consider to be a great exhibition of self-preservation," Snape remarked, setting out the chess pieces. "Much of the world will already take it upon themselves to tear you and your abilities down. You would do well to not give your enemies weapons."

"Oh. Sorry?" Harry couldn't be entirely certain, but he thought that was Snape's way of telling him to…have confidence? How odd.

"At any rate, comparing yourself to young Mr Weasley is not a fair measurement of your own chess ability," Snape continued. "After all, he defeated Professor McGonagall's enchanted chess set when he was just a first-year, a feat many grown wizards would struggle with. That requires a degree of talent."

Harry's jaw dropped. "You did not just compliment Ron!"

Snape's gaze remained steady. "I can look at things objectively, you know. Through that lens it is impossible to overlook the bald facts of Mr Weasley's chess ability."

I really have gone through the looking glass, Harry thought blankly. A world where Snape was not taking every opportunity to insult Harry and his friends was not a world he was used to living in. It was almost impossible to reconcile with reality.

But if Snape just kept up this strange, new, polite demeanour, maybe a chess game with him would be…bearable. Spinner's End did get rather boring, and it was something to do. Besides, there was still half of August left before Harry got back to Hogwarts. Maybe if Snape didn’t hate him so much, that time would be a bit less rife with tension. Perhaps a game of chess was the first step towards civility. It was like Snape had said; he didn’t know how to navigate these new circumstances, either. Harry had to give a little back, and maybe he could start here.

"This is only a Muggle set, but if you enjoy it, I’ll dig out my Wizard’s chess," Snape said, taking a seat at the desk. “Do you want black or white?”

"I don't mind," Harry said, rising from the floor and perching on the edge of his bed so he could better access the chessboard.

"I'll take white, then," Snape said, giving Harry a slightly disdainful look. "There is nothing noble about turning down a basic advantage. You've just lost an opportunity by giving me the first move."

"Oh, just play already," Harry snapped.

He couldn't help but be shocked that Snape remained composed - in fact, his face didn't so much as twitch as he reached out and slid a pawn forward on the board. That was strange, too. The Snape Harry knew would have immediately barked out a sharp reprimand about his tone. He'd been like this ever since he'd found out about the Dursleys. Harry hadn't known Snape was capable of such scrupulous self-control.

He didn't like it. 

"Is this whole game just going to be you trying to turn me into a Slytherin or something?" Harry asked eventually, shuffling a piece forwards.

"Do you consider notes about basic self-preservation to be Slytherin?" Snape countered.

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Forgive me. I was labouring under the misapprehension that self-preservation was a basic instinct possessed by all humans," Snape said dryly. "I forgot I was talking to the boy who took it upon himself to slay a Basilisk at twelve unaided."

"Unaided? I went and got Lockhart!" Harry protested angrily. "Seeing as he was the Defence Against The Dark Arts professor I sort of assumed he'd be qualified to deal with the problem!"

"You attended the duelling club, as I recall," Snape said contemptuously. "You personally witnessed how Gilderoy was incapable of blocking a simple Disarming Charm. Qualified indeed…"

Harry couldn't help but admit that Snape unfortunately had something of a point. Lockhart had been extraordinarily useless.

"I don't just run headlong into dangerous situations," he still insisted. "I've always tried to get someone, but no one ever listens to me!"

"Very well," Snape conceded. Harry couldn't help but get the general impression that Snape didn't quite agree with that statement, but since he hadn't outright called Harry an idiotic Gryffindor with a penchant for getting himself into trouble, he decided to just let it drop and focus on the chess.

"Remember, you are free to ask me questions if you wish?" Snape prompted.

"Right." Harry did his best to rack his brains for a really interesting question, but of course came up blank. In the end, he settled for asking, "So what's your favourite colour, then?"

"Blue," Snape said immediately.

"Really?" Harry asked. "But you're always in black! I'd have thought that was your favourite!"

Snape's eyebrows rose. "You mentioned your favourite colour was red. I do not see you wearing it constantly."

"Hmph. True." It was still a slightly strange idea for Harry to reconcile himself to.

"Now, time for my question." Harry dug his nails into his palms, dread coiling in his stomach. Here came a new interrogation about the Dursleys…

"Why is it that you and Draco despise each other so intensely?"

"Huh?" Harry didn't know what he'd been expecting, but it certainly wasn't that.

"I've asked Draco, but he is extraordinarily reluctant to give me a satisfactory answer," Snape continued. "I thought you might be more inclined to explain."

"Oh. Well, he was actually one of the first wizards I ever met," Harry said, casting his mind back to his eleventh birthday. "We were getting our robes fitted at the same time and he was just being kind of stuck-up, and he kept saying all these rude things about Muggleborns, and Hagrid, and it put me off. Then, he came up to me and Ron on the train and was nasty to him, and then he told me he wanted to be my friend. He said he could help me avoid "the wrong sort' or something. I quite liked Ron by that point so I turned Malfoy down. He's hated me ever since."

"I see." Harry couldn't help but think Snape sounded a tad surprised by his story. "And you had developed a bond with young Mr Weasley so quickly?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "His family helped me get through the barrier at King's Cross. I couldn't find it."

"No one told you how to get through the barrier?" Snape's surprise was far more obvious that time.

"Nope," Harry said glumly. "Hagrid forgot to tell me how, and my aunt and uncle obviously weren't going to help me. I was fending for myself until I spotted the Weasleys."

Harry still remembered the dying echoes of the Dursleys' laughter carrying over the breeze as the car had screeched away following Vernon's snide comment about platform nine-and-three-quarters not existing. He could still feel that terror he had felt at eleven, standing in the middle of King's Cross with a trunk, a birdcage and the overwhelming certainty that this had all been a huge mistake and he was now stuck in central London with no way to get home.

Harry abruptly came back to himself and realised Snape was scrutinising him closely. Harry had mentioned the Dursleys, all without even meaning to.

"Hey, you said we would both be asking questions, but you've just asked me like three in a row and I've not asked you anything," Harry said, feeling a little defensive.

"I was not aware this little chat had such strict rules," Snape commented. "Go on, then. Ask me something."

"Alright, then," Harry said, leaning his elbows on his knees. "Why is Malfoy staying with you?"

"I believe this is a conversation about the two of us, not Draco," Snape said sharply.

I was not aware this little chat had such strict rules," Harry said, doing his best to mimic Snape's ironic, deep tones. He expected some sort of reprimand for it but to his shock, Snape made an odd noise that sounded like a suppressed chuckle.

"Besides," Harry continued, "you just asked me a question to do with Malfoy!"

"I believe I asked you about Draco in the context of his relationship with you, which means it's relevant to the matter at hand," Snape said.

"And I asked about Malfoy in context of his relationship with you," Harry countered. "So it's still… relevant to our conversation or whatever it is you said."

"Touché," Snape said, taking one of Harry's bishops with his knight.

"So why is Malfoy living here?" Harry asked again.

"Because I've been assigned guardianship of him."

"Yeah, that much was obvious," Harry said, glaring at Snape. "You're supposed to answer properly!"

"You never made that a condition of our conversation," Snape said, raising his eyebrows.

"Can I?"

"Only if you agree to the same terms," Snape said. "If I answer your questions with a reasonable amount of detail, will you do the same when I ask you questions?"

That meant when Snape asked about the Dursleys, Harry realised glumly. All of a sudden, his questions about Malfoy became a lot less pressing.

Snape tapped the side of the desk, regaining Harry's attention. "I've already given you my word that I will not needlessly bombard you with questions about your relatives during this conversation. This new condition does not change that."

Harry sighed. "Fine…"

"Very well, then." Snape advanced his queen before he continued speaking. "Draco is living with me because he has no other appropriate relatives to reside with. Lucius Malfoy is the only child of an only child, and both of his parents are deceased, as are Narcissa's mother and father. Narcissa Malfoy does have two sisters, but one of them is also in Azkaban, and the other Narcissa hasn't spoken to since her teenage years. They are not close whatsoever. Instead of delving into the business of other distant cousins and aunts, the Malfoys determined that I should take guardianship of Draco in the event of their deaths or incapacity due to a slew of personal and political reasons that would almost certainly go over your head."

Harry sat back, reeling. Snape had really kept to his word - that was a lot of detail, just like he'd promised.

"Why hasn't Malfoy's mum spoken to her sister in years?" Harry asked curiously.

Snape fixed him with a stern look. "That, as I'm sure you can recognise, is entirely Draco's private family business and does not pertain to either one of us. Your previous question was tangentially related at best already. It would be very impolite and, more importantly, a breach of Draco's trust for me to go into detail with you about the intricacies of his relationship with his aunt."

"Right. Sorry," Harry said quickly, feeling oddly chastised. He couldn't help but feel the tiniest bit guilty, since he could of course recognise that Snape was actually right… The idea of Malfoy knowing anything about Harry’s private business was positively revolting, after all. Since the hatred between the two of them was decidedly mutual, Harry had to assume that Malfoy also hated the prospect of Harry knowing anything about his personal life.

The information he had gleaned was still quite interesting, though. Who’d have guessed Malfoy had so many relatives locked up in prison? And why was he estranged from the other, mysterious aunt Malfoy’s mother didn’t speak to?

Snape cleared his throat, dragging Harry from his musings. “Next question: what would you like to do after Hogwarts?”

Harry paused for a moment before responding. “Er - what do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I said,” Snape said. “When you finish school, what are you going to do? Do you have a career or field of study that interests you, perhaps?”

Harry, to his shock, was absolutely stumped. No one had actually asked him that question before, and he’d never really asked it of himself. Before he’d known about magic, his life goal had really just been getting away from the Dursleys at eighteen, since spending your entire childhood being told you’d never amount to anything didn’t do wonders for career aspirations. Even the magical world wasn’t much better, since Harry’s entire life’s accomplishments were irritatingly defined by something he’d done as a baby. He didn’t quite know what he wanted to do.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted eventually. “I’ve never really thought about it…”

“Well, give it some thought now,” Snape said. “It’s always good to have something to work towards.”

Jobs. Wizarding jobs. They were different, Harry knew, since he and the other second-years had spent a lot of time at the end of the last year looking through career leaflets to help determine their elective subjects. What careers appealed to him?

Harry’s main examples of prominent wizarding careers came from his time with the Weasleys, he realised. Mr Weasley was in the Ministry, which Harry didn’t think interested him. Curse-breaking in Egypt like Bill sounded cool, or a job like the one Charlie had on a dragon reserve in Romania… Harry had never been outside of Britain, as a matter of fact. He’d always wanted to see the world.

“Maybe something abroad,” Harry said eventually.

“Interesting.” Snape gave him an approving nod before taking one of Harry’s knights. He pulled a face. Snape was irritatingly good at chess…

“Er… so I get a question now?” Harry asked in an attempt to distract himself from his failures.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

Once again, Harry found himself stumped for something to ask. Snape seemed very reluctant to give him a full answer when it came to questions about Malfoy, which were the ones he wanted to ask, so that was a dead end. He also hadn’t spent much time thinking of Snape as an actual person, as opposed to an irritating Potions teacher who lived to make his life hell, so it was hard to scrounge up questions that weren’t outright rude. Harry waited several moments, looking around for inspiration, until his eyes landed on the rows of houses outside of the window. An idea struck him.

“You grew up here in Cokeworth, but you don’t have the accent,” Harry said, cocking his head to the side. “Why?”

Snape gave him a contemplative look. “My mother was from London, so I supposed picked up on a few of her speech patterns as a child. Then, once I began at Hogwarts, I intentionally modelled my manner of speaking after the Received Pronunciation used by many Purebloods who I admired.” After a moment of hesitation, Snape added, “your mother kept far more of her original accent than I did once we started at Hogwarts.”

Harry froze and stared at Snape, wide-eyed. He almost couldn’t believe those words had just left Snape’s mouth, and felt his heart rate spike. He’d never properly thought about how he didn’t know what his mother's accent sounded like...

But now, he could start to imagine Lily’s voice with more clarity. That made an odd, warm sensation spread through Harry’s stomach. He’d spent many long hours as a child imagining that very thing, but it had always felt intangible and difficult to truly believe. This extra little detail helped in unimaginable ways.

"Now, although I promised not to bombard you, I wonder if you'll indulge me with just one question about your relatives?" Snape asked, turning away from the chess game and fixing Harry with his beady eyes. Harry bit his lip and didn't respond immediately.

"This is important information I need to have so I can ensure you do not have to return there,” Snape added in a brisk, almost business-like voice. “Just try, for your own sake.”

Harry sighed, and forced himself to nod, the prospect of freedom from the Dursleys and help with the accidental magic spurring him on. "Fine. Ask away."

"I gather that there is a level of physical abuse." Harry cringed slightly. "We discussed your cousin's violent streak yesterday, but did not get onto the elder Dursleys before we were unable to continue. Would you be able to describe it for me now?"

Harry turned his eyes away from the chessboard and stared at his shoes, chest uncomfortably tight. "Well it's not like they beat me or anything. Not really. Lots of people smack their kids, right?"

  They never hit Dudley, though.

"They hit you hard enough for it to bruise," Snape said quietly. "That is not right."

"It's just - it was particularly bad this last summer because of Aunt Marge," Harry added a little desperately. He didn't know why, but he was beginning to feel strangely defensive of his home life.

"Aunt Marge. This is the aunt you blew up?"

"Yeah." Harry swallowed, his tongue dry as sandpaper. "Uncle Vernon’s sister. She hates me more than they do, actually. Thinks I need a good hiding. Uncle Vernon would be rougher with me when she was visiting."

"Did she ever hurt you?"

"Sometimes. She has a walking stick." Aunt Marge enjoyed thwacking it against the backs of Harry's legs and barking at him to stop slouching.

"I see." Harry still didn't look up and meet Snape's eyes. "I'm assuming from your descriptions that your uncle would hit you, then?"

"Yeah." Harry remembered his promise of detail and took a deep breath. "Never where it showed, really. But he'd sort of rough me up a bit when I did something bad. Or throw me around." Into my cupboard. "Like I said, it was never too bad. Weird stuff always happened to Uncle Vernon if he went too far, he'd jolt back like he got electric shocked." The time he tried to choke me. "I'm pretty sure it was my accidental magic, but it protected me. He was scared to do more in case I did something abnormal, so he never did too much damage."

"Oh, I'd say he did plenty of damage," Snape growled. Harry got the sense he wasn't just referring to physical injury, and shuddered a little. That thought made his insides go cold. "And for the love of Merlin and Morgana, stop defending the awful treatment you received in that place!"

"Er - sorry.”

"And stop apologising," Snape added. "I never thought I'd say this, but I almost prefer you in a defiant rage to this unwarranted contrition!"

Harry almost apologised again but quickly stopped himself. He was fairly aware of the fact he sounded like a broken record, but it was pretty difficult to switch off. He didn’t have a clue what else to say apart from mindless apologies.

"Was it just your uncle who hurt you, then?" Snape prompted after a minute's silence. “Or was Petunia involved?”

"No, Aunt Petunia did too." Harry bunched up his oversized jeans in his fists. "She never did anything much worse than slap me, though." She hates me too much to ever want to touch me, even when I was bad. "Um. Actually, she swung a frying pan at my head a few times. It never really connected with my head, though. I’m good at ducking."

“I see." Snape's face had slipped back into that blank, emotionless mask, but Harry was getting better at seeing through it now. A muscle was ticking in Snape's jaw, the surefire sign that he was on the verge of losing his temper. His voice remained toneless and even, though. “Thank you for your candour, Harry. I understand this isn’t an easy topic for you to talk about.”

“It’s really not,” Harry mumbled, rubbing his hands over his arms. This supposedly helped? While Harry was at least somewhat relieved that it wasn’t hanging over him anymore, it was by no means pleasant to talk about Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon to Snape. Even though it had been a little easier with the distraction of the chess game that Harry was currently losing, talking about the Dursleys - to Snape! - was never going to be easy for him. Harry had twelve years of training screaming at him that what he'd just done was dangerous and so, so wrong. In fact, just thinking about it too thoroughly made Harry feel a little sick.

“Harry. Look at me.” With no small amount of difficulty, Harry ripped his gaze from the floor and met Snape's eyes. They were filled with a strange sort of fervour. “What your relatives did to you was wrong.”

No one had ever said that to him before. Ever.

Something odd twisted in Harry’s chest. As simple as those words were, they managed to lift a weight from Harry's shoulders that he hadn't even realised he was carrying. He felt lighter, somehow.

“Do you know that?” Snape asked.

“Yeah,” Harry mumbled. “I mean, I saw the differences in how they treated me and how they treated Dudley. I know it wasn’t quite normal.”

“But knowing and believing it are very different things,” Snape said quietly.

Harry nodded again, not trusting himself to speak. He knew, somewhat, that the Dursleys were nasty people. That they were cruel, even.

But Snape was right. Harry didn’t believe it. Every time Harry’s head tried to convince him that something was wrong with the Dursleys and not with him, his heart screeched out in protest that he was the problem. After all, it wasn’t like the Dursleys were incapable of love, or something. They adored Dudley, that much was clear.

But they’d never loved Harry. No one wanted him.

“I don’t think I’ll ever believe it,” he said thickly, daring to admit it at last.

“You will someday,” Snape said, leaning forward. “It will take time, but it gradually becomes easier.”

“But how can you know that?”

“Experience,” Snape said simply.

My father was a very unpleasant man. The words echoed in Harry’s head again, and he felt the weight of Snape’s confession hanging between the two of them. The trust behind such a statement was strangely precious, and Harry couldn’t stop thinking about what it could possibly mean in regard to the change he'd witnessed in Snape…

“Check.”

Harry winced. The game of chess was really not going in his favour, so he switched to silence in order to concentrate. That was for the best, really. So many emotions Harry couldn’t even label has started swirling around in his mind, and he thought if he spoke about these topics for another moment he’d do something stupidly emotional, a prospect which repulsed him.

Eventually, when Harry thought he could remain composed once more, Snape looked up from the board and cleared his throat. “I believe I owe you a question, then?”

Harry thought for a moment. After that last remark about personal experience, he had a couple of nagging questions to ask about Snape’s father that he’d be compelled to answer if his agreement held up. But somehow, Harry felt like there was an invisible line there that would be unwise to cross. Despite all of Snape’s promises to remain civil that he had so far kept, Harry still had a sneaking suspicion that Snape’s childhood was a potential landmine that could blow their fragile trust to smithereens.

Instead, a different line of questioning rose to mind. One that Harry suspected was just as risky, but couldn’t quite resist following once he came up with it.

“So you knew my mum.” Harry scanned Snape’s body language for signs of anger, but apart from a stiffening in his shoulders and a slight twitch in his fingers as he moved his king, nothing too obvious was apparent. “You said she met you in the park one day, but how did that even work? I know she was a Muggleborn, but aren’t you a Pureblood? How did you ever run into each other as kids?”

“I notice you assume I’m a Pureblood. That is untrue.”

Harry’s jaw dropped. “But you’re the head of Slytherin! How can you be if you’re a…?”

“Half-blood, like yourself,” Snape said. “My father was a Muggle, my mother a Pureblood.”

“I had no idea…”

“Well, it’s not exactly something I make public knowledge,” Snape said. “It isn’t easy being a half-blood Slytherin.”

Harry could imagine.

“As my father was a Muggle, I grew up here,” Snape said, gesturing to the house. “Your mother lived a few roads over, and we attended the same primary school, although we were in different classes. I had been watching her for a while, as I’d noticed she was magical. I was the one to tell her about it all when we were both around nine years of age. After the original shock of me telling her she was a witch - not ideally phrased on my part, I'll confess - we developed a fast friendship.”

“Wow,” Harry said softly, staring out of the window. Spinner’s End was uphill, so he had a reasonably good view of the houses stretching out in front of him. He wondered which one was his mother’s, if it was even visible from here.

“Checkmate.”

Harry turned his attention back to the board and groaned. “I told you I was bad.”

“If you were truly as bad as you imply, you’d have lost the game long before now,” Snape commented, swiping the pieces back into the box. “Still, perhaps we should have a rematch soon, so you can hone your skills and take on Mr Weasley with more confidence come September.”

That surprised Harry, somewhat. That someone - let alone Snape - would actually want to spend time with him. He wasn’t used to adults bothering to pay much attention to him, outside of the Weasleys, and even they were exceptionally busy.

What was even more shocking was the fact that Harry didn’t wholly hate the prospect of a rematch.

“Okay.”

“We cannot now, as I need to take care of some business,” Snape said, getting to his feet. “But perhaps soon.”

Harry nodded as Snape headed towards the bedroom door and opened it. Before he left, Snape turned back and watched Harry for a long moment, expression inscrutable.

“Thank you for telling me about the Dursleys,” he said finally. “I promise you I will keep your confidence, and I will do my best to make sure you never have to return there.”

Harry nodded. It still felt wrong to be trusting Snape with any of this, but Harry didn’t exactly have a choice, did he? Snape, for better or for worse, had been the one to work out what was happening. That meant that Harry was forced to trust him to a degree, even if he wouldn’t have under any other circumstances.

“Thank you for telling me about my mum,” Harry said softly.

Snape didn’t respond. His face was normally so controlled, but those words caused the usual mask to flicker. An expression of true sorrow and pain drew his mouth into a thin, white line, and he gave Harry an oddly jerky nod before withdrawing from the bedroom.

In that moment, Harry abruptly realised Snape didn't just know his mother. He'd known her well enough that her memory still packed that much of a gut punch, even twelve years after her death.

He'd never have expected it.

The rest of the morning after Snape left was more difficult for Harry to get through than he would care to admit. Once again, the stifling silence of the empty bedroom left Harry with no way to drown out his thoughts. A certain air of ennui hung over him, so drawing, reading, or cards couldn’t hold any of his attention. He was too distracted by his inner turmoil.

Harry desperately wanted all of the horrid memories to go away, but then he remembered what Snape had told him. If the sudden increase in accidental magic he was experiencing really stemmed from him trying to lock all of his emotions away and never think about them, then Harry absolutely had to stop doing that. He could not, under any circumstances, keep doing accidental magic. He knew what pain that brought.

Unfortunately, not suppressing his memories of his childhood on Privet Drive meant that Harry had to actually sit there and think. He spent all morning mulling over dozens of incidents where he’d done something to upset his relatives, resulting in some horrid punishment.

But had he done something? Dudley had been the one to hit Harry first the time Harry had fought back. In fact, he’d whacked Harry over and over and over before he’d dared shove his cousin away. Uncle Vernon had lost it. He’d rained his fists on Harry until he’d been gasping for breath, cowering away from his uncle’s wrath, all while Aunt Petunia had screeched in the background about how ungrateful he was, how worthless, how everyone would be better off if he’d died with his parents.

  What your relatives did to you was wrong.

And all of a sudden, the suffocating anger from that morning surged back with a vengeance. If Severus Snape, a man who had hated Harry since he’d had the audacity to breathe the same air as him, thought the Dursleys’ treatment of him was wrong, didn’t that say a lot? And yes, a part of Harry thought he deserved it. A loud, vocal part.

But some of the stuff they’d done couldn’t be explained away by Harry’s inherent rottenness. The lies they’d told him about his parents all his life, for example. That they’d died in a car crash. That it had been his father’s fault. That his parents were drunks, and layabouts. That, more than anything, truly infuriated Harry. He could take the Dursleys insulting Harry and his character, but not that of his parents. That was completely and utterly unfair! They were good, noble people, and the Dursleys had stolen that knowledge from him out of blatant spite.

By the time Snape stuck his head back into Harry’s bedroom to let him know it was time for lunch, he was practically trembling with outrage. It seemed the pendulum of his emotions had swung straight back to anger, and Harry felt as though he were made of flaming fury, ready to burn the whole world down with him.

Then, as he turned to walk down the staircase, Malfoy exited the laboratory. All of a sudden, Harry’s rage had a focus. Malfoy glared at him, and Harry glowered back, his hands clenched into fists. The Dursleys weren’t here for Harry to be angry with, but Draco Malfoy was, and Harry certainly hated him with a vengeance. He despised every aspect of Malfoy’s personality, and most of all, he was still utterly seething over everything he’d told Snape. That was truly unforgivable, and truly evil in Harry’s eyes. He was the lowest of the low.

He wasn’t entirely sure what happened at the base of the stairs; Harry was too riled up to pay attention to his surroundings. All he knew is that Malfoy’s shoulder roughly bumped past his - by accident or on purpose, Harry couldn’t be certain, but in Harry’s frenzied state, he perceived it as an intentional attack, and after a long week of bullying, Harry was done putting up with Malfoy’s behaviour. He grabbed Malfoy by the front of his robes and slammed him into the wall of the hallway with as much force as he could possibly muster. He dug the edge of his arm into Malfoy’s chest, pinning him in place, a sick mirror of their fight in the garden the other day, and wasn’t that truly karma? Harry pulled his fist back, drove it hard into Malfoy’s jaw, pulled it back for another blow -

But before his hand could connect, a rough hand seized Harry by the back of the collar and yanked him backwards. He fell away from Malfoy, barely kept his feet, and the anger faded to panic, Vernon was somehow here -

But the hand spun Harry around, and he found himself being pulled away by Snape, not Uncle Vernon. It wasn’t exactly much better to have Snape’s livid face mere inches away from his, though.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing?!” Snape shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. As Harry stared into that horribly familiar look of fury, he realised he’d finally managed what he’d been subconsciously trying to do since Snape had picked him up from that London alleyway. He’d pushed Snape over the edge. He’d made Snape explode.

Harry had thought he’d wanted this. He knew how to deal with Snape angry, after all - that was what he was trying to get back to, the comfortable status quo.

But as he stared into the man’s fierce, narrowed eyes, all Harry could think about was how much he regretted ruining everything.