Dark Chocolate

Part 1

"Seventh Year"

Prologue

Slytherin, as a rule, was a very stylish house.

In essence, the Slytherins, who resided deep under the ground in their cavernous, damp rooms, were the epitome of class and prestige. Most, if not all, were from respectable families with dark pasts, and there were rarely any Muggles placed in Slytherin. If there were, they knew better than to say anything.

Slytherins were conniving, bitter, intelligent, cunning, bold, and more oft than not, miserable little shits.

That’s not to say they were an unfavorable house. No, of course not. Heros born and lived different lives wherever they were placed, and many hero’s had been found in Slytherin when Hogwarts was at its darkest hour. Their sheer crafty brilliance, paired with Gryffindor foolhardy courage, made one hell of a formidable weapon.

That’s not to say they were a strange house. Where the Gryffindors were blatantly blind and stupidly gutsy, the Slytherins had a dark, sneaky kind of slyness that cut quick to the bone with its ingenuity and wit. While the Ravenclaws and ever sweet, ever good Hufflepuffs were studious, hard workers, Slytherins often skimmed by on the skin of their teeth; they lied, cheated, bribed and charmed their way through their lives.

That’s not to say they were a bad house. No, not at all. They were just...Different. Sometimes, Different wasn’t always Good, especially in the current day and age.

The three hundredth and sixty third generation of Slytherins to come through Hogwarts was no different. They took their house pride to heart, and did their best to preserve the honor of their forefathers in everything they did, even if it meant putting Tangling Truss in the Gryffindor’s racing brooms, or dumping entire buckets of sewage on various enemies (mostly in the shape of Weasleys) from the high turrets of Hogwarts castle. They thought it not a prank, but their god-given right to uphold the honor bestowed on their house for countless generations.

There was one honor, one prestige that was cast on Slytherins in particular to stand up for. It had gone through several incarnations and dozens of names but for the last fifty years or so, they were known as the Slytherin Capers.

Every year the sixth and seventh year Slytherins bet and gambled therir way through the Capers; the seventh years showed their respect to the previous generations by doing something spectacularly wonderful (often terrible) to Hogwarts and its denizens, and the sixth years learned, to preserve the tradition.

The Hogwarts Express had just dropped off the fresh faces and old friends for the start of a brand new year.

And Draco Malfoy didn’t think he could contain his glee, for this year, of all years, he knew just what he wanted to do, and to whom.

And so it began.

Slytherin first years were initiated into the ranks with threatened words, heated glares, and a few idle threats. After all, they could perform magic with one leg, couldn’t they? Hell, Millicent Bulstrode only had one good eye. And if she could throw a flawless Jelly Legs curse, than these young whelps who grew bolder and bolder with every passing year could stand up for what was right.

That evening after the Welcoming Feast, the Slytherin seventh years, a few trusted sixth years, and one often-hated Potions Master met in the classroom yet to be sullied with frog legs, snake venom, rat hairs or Longbottom’s exploding cauldrons.

They sat in a circle, wearing the snake wreaths on their heads with the house crests, the hundreds of scales showing all the names of the people they had been adorned by. Twenty candles lit in the middle of the room reflected silver and green light on the people surrounding them, turning them an odd shade of very pale green. It was an honor, a privilege to be in this particular room at this particular instant, one that lesser years envied, one that lesser years would one day participate in. Draco almost felt like he was experiencing a little bit of history in the making, and the awe and power of it made him giddy with delight.

"You have had all summer to explore a game plan, Draco," came the silky timbres of Snape’s voice, quiet and powerful, with a hint of rich amusement. A voice Draco had memorized by now.

"Of course. My father was in Rome all summer," h dropped lightly, smiling at the jealous stares of his classmates. "I didn’t want to go. After all, I had a lot of planning to do, and things to get ready."

"Mmm." There was the amusement again. Snape was really enjoying himself...he must have known where this was heading. "Why don’t you grace us with your plans then, Draco."

"I love to destroy peoples lives in such a way that it doesn’t seem to be destroyed. I love messing with people. I love making them think things they wouldn’t normally, I love putting people on edge, but most of all, I love just screwing with people’s heads. The ultimate mind fuck; and I’ve got someone in mind, someone that will just embarrass Gryffindor to no end, to see fall."

"Really." Snape’s eyebrow rose high.

"Two words."

"Hmm?"

"Harry Potter."

Silence.

And Snape’s lips twitched.

"I’ll assume we will keep total discretion."

"Of course. But you see," Draco leaned forward into the candle light, and the other seventh years followed suit. "I’ve got a way to do it that will turn some very, very useful information I found out during last term to our advantage."

"And that is?"

"The Boy Who Just Wouldn’t Die, Hero of the Wizarding Rebellion.... He’s gay."

The roars of laughter ricocheted off the walls for what felt like an eternity, the sounds oddly making the candles hiss at them even as they laughed. It was strange, but not as disconcerting as it should have been, or as odd as Harry Potter being as gay as the driven snow. Slytherins were known for being bisexual or more, but a Gryffindor being a queer? Harry Potter being a queer? That was just too good to pass up.

"Is he?" Snape managed, still smirking with mirth, still levitating one eyebrow.

"Oh, he is. Found out by a very reliable resource, and passed on to me. But, this...my plan, Plan Gay Gryffindor, requires a certain participation on your part. Before you take offence, Professor, we all find you to be a handsome and charming man," Draco edged in with care, Crabbe tensing beside him. They’d been on their Head of House’s dark side once before, and it was most certainly not a place they wanted to be ever again, "but Potter hates you."

"He does." Snape stopped, as if considering, eyebrow raised and eyes slightly out of focus. He sat there for a half a moment, as if chewing on the information, and Draco held his breath.

Then smirked, when Snape chuckled darkly. "Are you proposing what I believe you are, Mr. Malfoy?"

"Oh, yes."

"You always were a wicked child."

"Thank you, sir."

Chapter 1

"The Offer"

Seventh year had been a year Harry Potter wasn’t sure he looked forward to, or dreaded beyond the telling of it. The tell-tale tightening in his belly had begun as soon as he’d boarded the train to Hogwarts, had lasted all through the Sorting and the Welcoming Feast, and followed him all the way up to his dorm room. It had persisted to rip at his intestinal walls and claw at the back of his throat as he climbed under the covers that night and all through the next morning, when he had a spectacular case of the runs and came to breakfast pale and shaky.

This was his last year at Hogwarts.

A year from now, he was going to be asked to leave and go make his fortune.

He hadn’t voiced it, because he was, after all, a Gryffindor. Gryffindors never worried about such trivial things as the rest of their lives, and they most certainly didn’t let the worry get to the point where they got the runs and vomited up everything they ever ate in their entire lives. They lived in the moment.

Harry just wasn’t so sure he wanted to live in the moment anymore.

And this year, this year of all years, it was worse; so much worse. He’d received his class schedule from McGonagall, and had spent ten minutes staring at it, clutching a still revolting stomach. No. It couldn’t be. No, no, no.

There, in tidy handwriting, was, "Double Potions, 707, Dungeon class 452, Mon. Wed. Fri., 1 p.m."

Well, really. Why wouldn’t Merlin, chose to humiliate him like this when it was such an ample opportunity for humor?

If Harry was honest with himself, really and truly honest with himself, for once in his pathetic excuse for a life, he could admit that his view towards the slimy, greasy Potions Master had turned into images of all that dark, silky hair pinned back with a velvet green ribbon, and slacks so snug they outlined all the juicy bits that made his mouth water. Harry had agreed, wearing less while battling Voldemort had been more, and if he hadn’t been so utterly depressed and furious at the time he was sure he could have appreciated Snape’s lack of clothing. Maybe he could have stopped himself from putting Snape on a pedestal of teenage hormones and carnal lust. But, honestly, the man had saved his life, and, honestly, under all those billowing robes, Snape was built like..well, like a well built man. In Harry’s wild thoughts, he had a penis the size of–

All right. Well. Not thinking about that now.

"You all right, mate?"

Harry met Ron’s gaze and quirked a little haphazard grin at him. Anything to keep the slightly obvious erection rubbing his stomach a secret. Thank Merlin for voluminous robes. Curse Merlin for creating seventeen year old bodies, one which was still queasy at the thought of food and yet reacting like this. "Fine. We’ve got three classes with Snape every week, though."

"Three?!" Eyes enormous, Ron leaned over and peered at Harry’s schedule, as Hermione rolled her eyes before them and crunched on her toast. "Rotten luck. We can’t ever catch a break, you know. Can you imagine? Three days a week in that greasy git’s chamber of horror. We’re never going to get the stink out of our hair."

"Actually, sulphur and several other ingredients in most potions are wonderfully beneficial." Hermione said casually, as she sipped her juice. "They’re supposed to make your skin and hair very pliant and soft. Like having a pro-vitamin bath every day."

Ron stared at her and Harry hid the chuckle behind his hand. "Come on, we better get going. Ron and I’ve got Divination, first. You’re going to Runes?"

"Until ten. I’ll see you in History of Magic, and after the luncheon break we’ll go to Potions together. And don’t forget!" Hermione pushed the planners she’d bought especially for their NEWT year (probably ages ago) towards them both. "We need to keep up a tight studying regimen. I expect you both in the library at four."

Before either Ron or Harry could get a word in edgewise, she took up her satchel, tossed her bushy hair over her shoulder, and flounced out of the Great Hall.

"Wonderful. Studying with Hermione every day. Why doesn’t someone just put me out of my misery?" Ron sighed, deeply.

"Actually, Mr. Weasley..."

Harry’s eyes flew up. He hadn’t even heard the man coming, and very rarely did, if truth be told, but suddenly there he stood, the center of all of his nightmares and fantasies for the last seven years, peering at the both of them from above his beak of a nose. "Studying for your NEWT’s in a timely fashion, instead of cramming for them at the end of the year, will make sure you pass. In your case, by the skin of your teeth." His dark, beady eyes flickered from Ron to Harry, and Harry felt his belly drop out. Carefully, dramatically, Snape slid an envelope from one of the many pockets in his robe and set it down in front of Harry. "However, you will find that others have ripe potential and waste it uselessly and piteously on such trivialities such as sports and toys. I hope you, Mr. Potter, will find that your priorities have...changed, this year?"

Harry stared up at him, willing his mouth to work. "Yeah, I’ll try," he blurted lamely.

Amusement flickered over that face, gone in a moment, and Harry could only stare. "See that you do. Mr. Weasley?"

Ron looked up.

"Ten points from Gryffindor. Tuck your shirt in. We have a dress code at Hogwarts, or have you so soon forgotten?" Snape seemed almost relieved to have taken points, and gave a pleased smirk. "Good day."

And just because he couldn’t help it, just because he was so hopelessly addicted, he turned and watched as Snape walked away. Then again, everyone else in the room was watching, so it wasn’t too obvious that Harry stared after him.

The voices returned to a dull roar around him, as Harry stared at the envelope. And he would have opened it, he would have, if everyone around him hadn’t been staring and the clock chimed that there was ten minutes to make it to Divination.

"What do you think....?" Ron whispered, eyes wide as he stared at the envelope. "Don’t touch it. It might have poison on it."

"Ron," Harry rolled his eyes. He picked the envelope up and stuffed it in his book bag, spelling it closed so no one could get into it, and heaved it over his shoulder. "The man saved my life. He wouldn’t want to take it away now, now would he?"

"You never know!"

And so they argued, all the way to Divination. While Ron kept sputtering every dark and nasty thing he could in relation to Snape, Harry dreamed. The suspense, he was sure, would almost be better than what was in the letter, if Harry knew Snape at all. And he did. All too well. He knew how brave he was, how cunning, how careful and quick, and how deeply he wanted Harry to survive. He remembered Snape throwing himself in front of the Cruciatus Curse as Voldemort threw it at Harry, and he remembered it was the last distraction he’d needed. Instead of using magic, though, Harry experienced one of the few epiphanies in his life and trusted his hands instead of his wand.

The crunch of bones under his hands as he broke Lord Voldemort’s thin, brittle neck had been deeply, deeply satisfying in a way which nothing else could be for the rest of his life.

Old Voldie hadn’t been expecting that.

But, now was most certainly not the time to think about it or all the other emotional rampaging going through his system as he crawled up the ladder into Trelawney’s House Of Hell. It was just so bloody hot with the fire roaring and the incense burning. Harry always felt a little light headed when he walked in.

Sometimes he had to wonder if it was only incense she was burning.

Class began as usual; they all took out their new books and Trelawney started to lecture in that windy, trembling little voice of hers about palm reading. Boring as all bloody hell as usual, and Harry took the opportunity to fish the green envelope out of his bag. It wasn’t very big, the size of a letter, and very light. His full name was written in flowing script along the front, and he particularly liked the way the ‘H’ melded with the ‘y’ with a little ribbony line. It was beautiful, and he realized, sitting there, that he’d never seen Snape say his name, let alone write it.

He could get used to it.

Carefully, so he wouldn’t rip the envelope, he slit it open with his thumb and slid the letter out.

Harry gaped. Several times. Like a fish out of water.

Apprentice? Under Snape? The idea was ludicrous, insane, unbelievable...and yet, sorely tempting. Not just because he’d be in the man’s presence all the time, but because Snape was an incredibly intelligent wizard and could, very likely, teach him more than he could ever learn just taking regular classes. He wasn’t too crazy over the Potions thing, but Defense Against the Dark Arts? Snape was brilliant in the field, and really, it wasn’t a wonder he had always wanted the job so badly. He probably could have taught them so much.

Did he mention the sexy pants?

Harry was blown away.

And then he wished he could have been when he realized all eyes were on him.

"Did you hear me, Potter?" Trelawney asked, her bracelets clinking and annoyance in her eyes.

"Yes. I did. I.....Jupiter?" Harry supplied. Usually answers taken out of his ass could prove to be disastrous in other classes, but in Divination? Mercy was shining down on him today and Trelawney just glared, sniffed, and continued on with her speech.

Wow. Okay. Did he ever have to talk to Ron about this. There would be time, in History of Magic–Binns never looked up from his lectures. For now, though, Ron was peering at him from the corner of his eye, and Harry pushed the envelope under the table towards him; might as well fill in Hermione when they saw her.

More than that, though, Harry really and truly valued his friends opinion. Ron was his best friend in the whole world, had fought by his side when there were fifteen Death Eaters ready to rip their lungs out, had braved anything and everything for him.

And Ron’s opinion, though most of the time sorely unjust, meant the world to Harry.

This time? He didn’t know how on earth he choked the laughter down as Ron first turned a violent shade of red, before paling to a near-white that Sir Nicholas would have envied if he’d been there to see it.

While Trelawney was putting on her show at the front of the room, Harry watched Ron rip a piece of parchment out of the one stuffed into his book, and took out his quill.

Harry blinked at the little paper, and looked up at Ron. He thought after six years in the Wizarding world he’d learned everything, but he was yet again proven wrong. Even Hermione, a Muggle born, knew more about this world than he did.

It left a vaguely unsettled feeling in his stomach, battling the dread and anxiety already there for seniority, as he took Ron’s quill and scratched, Do I look that obvious?

A little grin from Ron, at that. Just a bit. Hermione can explain it better than me...it’s a real honor. Too bad it’s from that greasy git, you could have accepted it, and found a good job after we graduated. Being a tyro, especially at Hogwarts, is this huge honor. Percy was one for Professor Vector, few years ago, Arithmancy. Remember, the funny looking robe he had to wear?

Harry did. At the time he’d thought it was something to do with Prefects, but now that he thought about it, he couldn’t believe he’d missed it. I feel stupid sometimes.

Harry was sending a sharp glare at his snickering friend when they began their in-class assignment.

Chapter 2

"The Disbelief"

Of course, as fate would have it, Harry didn’t get a chance to talk to Hermione about the potentially life changing, completely preposterous offer he’d been given by one Severus Snape until the end of History of Magic. Binns had droned on and on and on, but there was a pop quiz expected at the end of the class, so they’d actually had to pay attention.

Harry wondered how his brain hadn’t dribbled out of his ears.

Or lapsed into a coma.

Needless to say, by the time he turned in his homework and finished his quiz, he was ready for caffeine and sugar of any kind. Talking about the letter he’d received was definitely not something to discuss at the lunch table, unfortunately, so they ate quickly, Hermione taking her toast with her, and they found an empty classroom ten minutes before the next hour.

Harry fished the letter out of his satchel, admiring the curly ‘H’ once more before handing it to his friend.

And could honestly say he hadn’t been expecting Hermione’s squeal of approval.

"This...it’s wonderful!" she cried, waving the paper about like a flag and throwing her arms around Harry’s neck. "Are you joking? This is amazing! I’m so jealous! Being a tyro is a huge honor, Harry!" She nearly squeezed the life out of him as Ron stared, glaring, in what Harry assumed was jealousy. He grinned cheekily at his friend just for the hell of it.

"Thanks, Hermione. But I’m not going to accept it."

After that he was sure the cries had gone supersonic, and if his brain hadn’t dribbled out before...

"What do you mean you can’t accept it?? You’ve got to accept it! The only way you can’t accept it is to forfeit all of your placings in Potions! You’ll be sixtieth in the class!"

Oh.

Oh!

Harry glared, darkly. "He failed to mention that little tid bit. He would, too. Ron said you know what it entitles?"

"Of course I do. Honestly, I’m buying you both Hogwarts, A History for Christmas." Hermione glared and Ron had the good sense to look ashamed. "A tyro is an apprentice, though not in the classical sense of the word. Being a tyro means you have the talent to be something you never considered, and you need a tutor, or a master, to bring it out in you. Every few years the Hogwarts teachers take on a tyro if they find someone who will live up to their legacy. Everyone except for the professors in the Potions department. No one has been a Potions tyro in years. You’re breaking like, a twenty year record, Harry." Hermione positively beamed at him. "The last person to be a tyro in Potions was Professor Snape himself."

Wow. Talk about too much to take in at once. Harry sank down into a chair beside his friends, and took in a very deep breath as Hermione perched herself on the desk across the way. "What does it entitle?"

"Oh...lots of things. Like, for instance, you learn about the field you’ve been apprenticed to, and any relating fields. For you, it will be Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions, which go hand in hand," Hermione chirped, still beaming, "and he’ll tutor you in the other subjects when they bring things up that are relevant to what you’re studying with him."

"All right. Okay, Hermione. Say...all right, say I don’t want to be a tyro," Harry asked tentatively, with a glance at Ron, who by now was looking thoroughly disgusted. "What then?"

"Then you have to write a formal response to him, explaining why you’re refusing such a completely amazing gift, stating all the reasons why you don’t want to. In retaliation, it is his right to take away your Potions standing, and a host of other things. This is...huge. Professor Snape, of all people." At that, Hermione’s brow lifted up nearly to her hairline, and she traded a glance with Ron.

Which they’d been doing a lot of lately.

Which was annoying Harry. Deeply.

"What?" he asked, waving a hand between them as they spoke a hundred different things with only a look. "What are you guys thinking?"

"Well...Harry. I know that...well, you and Professor Snape haven’t exactly ever gotten along," Hermione started, quietly, chewing on her lower lip. "and this is the seventh year of school, but...have you heard about the Slytherin prank thing?"

"Slytherin prank?"

"Yes. Seventh year, they....but," Hermione shook her head. "Surely Professor Snape wouldn’t stoop that low. He’s a Hogwarts teacher, after all." She shook her head once more, her hair flying. "Never mind. Suffice it to say, I doubt this is a joke. You should really consider it, Harry, especially if....well...don’t get mad."

"I won’t," Harry muttered, adding an exasperated sigh. Flip out your entire fifth year and you pay for it the rest of your days. "What is it?"

"Well...I mean, you want to be known as something other than The Boy Who Lived, right?"

Harry nodded. He’d give anything to be known for who he was, not what he did when he was a baby, not over something he hadn’t had any control over, not over his parents death and his survival.

"Thnn this could be your chance. Snape’s not so bad, you know. I’m sure once you get to know him, and he starts teaching you, you’d learn a lot of things they couldn’t teach you in regular class." At that, Hermione gave a jealous little sigh, "Did you hear Neville got a tyro letter? Neville."

Ron visibly relaxed next to them and grinned as he rose, looping his bag over his shoulder. "He’s good at Herbology, Hermione."

"Neville!" Came then bemoaned cry from said girl. "And no one has approached me yet. I’ve worked so hard."

"At least you don’t have to worry if you’re selling your soul to the devil," Harry told her, smiling as he squeezed her arm gently. "Come on. We’re due to Hell in five minutes."

Hell was a nice term.

It was as if Snape hadn’t given him the letter than morning at all. The first class of the year and already Gryffindor had lost twenty points; Neville’s cauldron had boiled over and burned a hole through the floor, and they were set to write a four foot long essay on why mudflap doesn’t mix with elder seeds, with a bi-section on good cleanliness pertaining to ones cauldron, and Snape had given him three hours of detention for Friday night for apparently being cheeky, when Harry hadn’t said a word at all.

To top it all off, Snape was at his snarky best. If anything else, he wondered if Snape would teach him how to belittle someone so thoroughly. ...not that he was taking the tyro. He didn’t really care if his potions standing went down..he was thirtieth or so in the class, and he couldn’t get much worse than that, so what was another thirty places? And if he had to have detention, and suffer through all of Snape’s comments on how ungrateful he was, then he’d do it, too. Because, honestly, studying under Snape? Snape? The man who’d rather see his head on a stick?

The man who had saved his life and nearly bled to death on the battlefield just to save him?

Bugger.

He inhaled stiffly as he took the fire out from under his Calming Draught and turned the ladle eight times counter clock wise, as it said on the board. As the years had progressed he’d found that he was able to follow the directions if they were very, very clear, and had even managed to make some P average potions once in a while, which kept him from failing utterly. It was just so bloody hard because he couldn’t ever measure how much a pinch should be, or a dash, and what was the difference anyway?

Stupid potions.

‘The Calming Draught should be a thick, pale shade of sunflower by this step,’ was scrawled in Snape’s neat handwriting at the bottom of the board.

Harry took a glance at his bright red concoction and groaned inwardly.

And as if on cue, Snape prowled in right behind him, and took in a deep breath.

Bug. Ger.

"Mr. Potter," he enunciated in the silky, dangerous tone he often took with someone he was about to tear apart. Draco looked positively thrilled and smirked cheerfully at Harry from across the room. "I have never, in all the years I’ve worked for Hogwarts, seen such an atrocity of a potion; and that speaks volumes, considering your classmate is Neville Longbottom."

Harry sighed and looked up in time to see Neville’s crestfallen look.

"Did you add a dash, or three scruples of fig, as the instructions say? Hmm? Was that a pinch, or seventeen drachms of mugwort? Do we need to go back to Remedial Potions, Mr. Potter? Do you need a refresher course on how to add ingredients to potions? I’m sure even you could remember it. Perhaps if we got you a very clear flow chart?"

Another deep breath. Harry was in for it, and he glared up at him.

"And yet, somehow, I don’t believe that’s what this is. I believe you are just sloppy, lazy, and much too arrogant to follow something like directions for a simple recipe." A wicked, wicked smirk.

"Fifteen points from Gryffindor for this abomination. Save a bottle full so I might put it on as a display of your incompetence to the younger years, and then get rid of the rest of it before you kill someone."

All right. So there was the answer to if he was going to accept the tyro or not.

What. A. Git.

Draco and the other Slytherins were snickering madly. They’d been acting strangely all class long, and Harry had a sinking feeling in his gut they were planning something. Regardless, he glared darkly at them, then at Snape as he strode away, and gathered the vile by his book. The arrogant sod. It was almost like Snape took an almost carnal pleasure out of humiliating him, degrading his work, and making sure he felt as small as possible when he left the classroom. He was a Gryffindor and Gryffindors were brave to a fault, but sometimes, when Harry talked to Neville, he could see that even Gryffindors could feel badly under all of that scrutiny. He knew he did. At least Neville channeled that feeling into Herbology, where he was number one in the class.

Harry didn’t channel anything anywhere.

His life had come to a stand still since Voldemort’s demise. It had felt like everything in his life had led up to that moment, everything he’d ever done and ever been had cultivated in the instant he murdered the cold blooded bastard and rid the world of his influence once and for all. But the thing was, once Voldemort was dead and lying at his feet, Harry’s life had ended, too. He had been born and raised to do what he’d done, to kill the most evil magician ever to be born.

What now?

He wasn’t particularly good at anything other than staying alive and breaking the rules. He had no special talent in magic, as everyone did. Everyone did. Neville was good at Herbology; Hermione at Runes, Ron was stunning when it came to charms. Even Draco was exceptionally skilled in Transfiguration and had become a registered Animagi the year before, under McGonagall’s tender care.

But Harry didn’t have anything. He wasn’t good at anything, despite the tyro he’d received from Snape, and part of him felt like it was some joke anyway. Surely, Snape couldn’t be serious. He’d made the potions because he’d had to, in the heat of battle, with his friends dying around him. He’d made the potions for Seamus and Dean, for Professor McGonagall, Colin Creevey, and Snape himself, as well as countless other nameless faces. He’d made the potions to save their lives, when no one else had been able to, when Madame Pomfrey had been up to her ears in stanching wounds and setting bones, when the other Professors were battling Death Eaters on the doorstep and Harry had been too injured himself to help them.

He’d worked for twelve straight hours with Madame Pomfrey, until his body had been one screaming ache and his soul sobbing for rest. She’d showed him, directed him, and all he’d done was stir and mix. Nothing special.

He’d gone into shock, after everyone had been helped, and had been unconscious for the better part of three days.

A year later, Harry was still walking with a limp that Pomfrey told him he would more than likely live with for the rest of his days.

So, that’s what he was good at. Being unconscious, killing bad guys, and saving the day. He didn’t want to live that for the rest of his days. Being an Auror could be fun, but as Harry saw it, he’d been an Auror for the last seventeen years. He was tired of fighting bad guys, tired of being in the heat of adventure. He was just tired.

And now, Professor Snape was offering him the chance of a lifetime, a chance to study potions and defense in an articulated, intelligent environment where he could really learn what he wanted without having to suffer through people telling him no all the time. Even if he didn’t become an Auror, at least he would be prepared in case Voldemort ever made a third showing, or even if he wanted to write a book, or create weaponry. It was the chance of a lifetime.

And then everything got sort of fuzzy in Harry’s brain. He’d been doing that a lot lately, his concentration would go amiss, and he’d just move through his life without really paying attention to the things he was doing. For instance, he supposed at some point Snape had told them they could go, because he was packing up his bag. His cauldron was already spelled clean, his things locked away in the special drawer.

He lived in his sadness. Even he knew he was monumentally depressed, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He’d rather die than tell Dumbledore or Professor McGonagall that he couldn’t handle the aftermath of the thing they’d chosen for him, simply because he refused to acknowledge their existence beyond what was necessary. If he was true with himself it wasn’t their fault, but it felt good to pin the miserable shit his life was on both of them. Dumbledore had encouraged him, Professor McGonagall had made sure he hadn’t strayed from his path, and here he was. They’d manipulated him to the ends they needed in every way possible, and had now discarded him and let him go on his merry way.

And so, the question of the hour simply boiled down to this. What now?

What now, indeed.

The tyro was an excellent chance to be led by an adult into a world his peers had been training for their whole lives. A grown wizard could help him adjust to living in a world where Voldemort was gone and he had other reasons to live now, not because he had to but because he wanted to. A place where he could forget that he’d never been truly loved by any adult, where he had been orphaned and raised by two people who should have never been allowed to procreate, let alone given a child to care for. A place where he didn’t have to think about the feelings of utmost betrayal for his parents by dying and leaving him alone with those people, who would have treated a dog better than they treated him. A place where he didn’t have to think about the first eleven years of his life from inside a cupboard, where he was starved and spanked for no apparent reason, where he’d been controlled to Dumbledore’s every whim for his ‘own good’. A place where it didn’t do to dwell on dreams, as the Headmaster had told him once, but where life was endured because their was nothing else one could do. A place where he could take Dreamless Draught as often as he needed to, where he could live his life in a half-drugged stupor if need be, to forget about the first twenty years of his life where misery had taken a first place seat in the picture show.

The only consolation was that he’d been numb for most of it, unaware he was being tricked and used to everyone else’s ends, and by the time he’d been old enough to realize what was happening to him, it was over. Except now, where did he go from here? Where could his life take him? Where could he be safe, and alone? Was there anywhere in the wizarding world where he wouldn’t be judged by the scar on his forehead?

Yes. If he was honest, ther was. He needed someone to help him, to show him, someone who was impartial to who he was and what he stood for and who looked beyond the surface to see who he was.

Snape was that person. If only he weren’t such a bloody bastard.

He knew what he had to do.

"Ron?" he looked up from his things to see his friend looking at him in that expression he had that was partly sadness, partly hope, and smiled at him. The protective shield of love and understanding his friends showed him was like a warm blanket he could feel his heart wrapped in whenever he felt he was particularly close to losing his mind.

"Mmmhmm?" Ron asked, a tinge of red hitting his cheeks as his brow rose.

"Tell Hermione I’m going to be a little late. I’m going to talk to Snape, all right?" Hermione had dashed off as soon as Snape had said they were dismissed, for no other reason than to set up for their study session, Harry was sure.

"Oh, bollocks. You’ve decided, then," Ron answered, slapping his forehead and shaking it in horror. Harry knew most of it was a show–his friend respected Snape, even a little, because the man had put himself in front of death for Harry.

If only he weren’t such a bloody bastard.

"Not yet," he answered back, offering him a smile as he set his bag on the table in front of him. "I’ll see you in the library in a bit. See if you can’t nick some of the chocolates in my trunk before you go, all right? Don’t let Madame Pince see it, or she’ll have our hides."

"Mothers milk," Ron purred, making Harry laugh again, and with a wink he and the others left.

The classroom emptied after that, Draco and the other Slytherins sneaking off to do whatever in Gods name they did to fill their evenings, and Harry took a tentative step towards the professor. He was seated at his desk, scrawling something with that long quill Harry was slightly envious of, and he quietly waited until Snape had finished writing before clearing his throat a little. "Professor?"

Snape looked up, an eyebrow arched, and scowled. "I said class was dismissed."

"Yes, sir. I was...I mean," Damnit! Breathe, Harry! "I was wondering if I could talk with you about the letter," he exhaled, all in one breath.

Snape’s other brow rose, but where there had been a scowl, now seeped amusement. He set his quill down and regarded him, and Harry was momentarily struck by how he felt like a bit of prey in Snape’s nightly meal of students. Creepy. "Have you, then."

A shift. "Yes. I..I mean," he cleared his throat again and shifted his weight. "Why me, sir? If...if I can ask."

He’d prayed the question wouldn’t offend the man, because Merlin knew Snape’s moods changed like directions of the wind, and he was rewarded now with a small smile. Sarcastic, but a smile nonetheless, and some of the dread in Harry’s heart seeped out. "Ah, yes, Potter. Have you decided?"

"Yes. I mean...I think so," Harry shifted again. "I wanted to know if you could tell me a little more about it."

"I suppose. Stop hovering and sit," Snape commanded, and Harry plunked down in the chair beside Snape’s desk before the words were out of his mouth. Better to follow the directions then endure Snape’s wrath. "I do tend to forget you lived with your adoring Muggles for the first years of your life" Snape shifted back, legs crossed and fingers steeped before him. "What questions do you have?"

A civilized conversation? With Snape? Harry’s mind boggled, and he blinked at the man twice before speaking. "Uhm...well. I mean, what would...be required of me? If...If I decided to take this?"

There was that smile again. Only way more...what? The expression was foreign on Snape’s face, and Harry was taken aback by it for a moment before it flittered away. "You will be required to move to quarters adjacent to my own. You will tutor and work with me every free moment of your day and into the night. You will more than likely find Quidditch to be a distraction, and I’ll ask you think clearly on if you would like to continue it should you accept the tyro." Quidditch meant nothing, but Harry didn’t say that, just nodded as he listened. "You will specifically wear the apprenticing robes of our field, which is primarily Potions. You will do my bidding as I require, and you will listen to and study everything that I say. You will eat, live, and breathe what I teach you. You will work hard, or you will fail," Snape answered, silkily, regarding Harry once more with a neutral expression. "As I told you in my letter, once the childish distractions around you are taken away, you have the ability to be a bright student, and after the demonstration of your skills last year, I found it prudent to offer this apprenticeship to you."

Harry nodded, silently. Half of what Snape had told him he’d expected, but moving to a new room was new. So was the faith Snape so obviously had in him. "Sir," he said carefully, making sure to make his voice as neutral as Snape’s face, "I just don’t know if you should be offering this to me on the merit of my Potions skills. I’ve..well, not failed, but almost failed every year I’ve been in your class."

"Yes, you have. Miserably," Snape answered, still looking at him carefully.

"So...I mean...why not someone like...like Hermione?"

At that, Snape’s expression twisted with anger, "Are you questioning my choices, Mr. Potter?"

Oh shit. "No. Well...kind of," Foolish Gryffindor bravery, that. "I’m not what you’d call a stellar student."

"Mr. Potter, what part of the tyro did you not understand?" Still silky, still dangerous, still angry. "Being a tyro means taking on a subject you very likely have a strong talent in, but have not developed for a score of reasons. For instance," he lifted the vile of sickly red potion from the desk where Harry had set it, "you were trying to make a calming draught, something of which you failed quite spectacularly, because you did not want to."

That was true enough. He really hadn’t felt like it. "Yes, sir."

"No. You do not understand my meaning," Snape said, making a face at him. "You did not make a calming draught because your magic regarding potions has not been tamed and put under control. Wizarding children often display raw talent...talent that has yet to be harnessed and controlled. Your natural inclination toward Potions put together, through your subconscious, a different potion." He lifted the vile, "If I’m not mistaken, this is a skin anti-inflammatory and scar remover. A perfectly made skin anti-inflammatory and scar remover." Harry stared at it, as he finally realized what Snape was telling him. He’d created a different potion because his brain wanted to? And Harry thought he’d been odd before. "You might have been thinking about your popularity before you came into my classroom," at that, Snape sneered. "Or even the battle last year, and made a potion to remove your scar, which would have fulfilled the requirement–you wanted a potion to calm yourself; so you made one," Snape explained, eyebrow raised with a smirk. "The last person to come into this classroom and show a skill like that was myself. Do you understand now why I have chosen you?"

Harry blinked a few times as he fought to take that in, and nodded. Could the little bottle really remove his scar? Had his answers lain in his subconscious all this time?

Snape seemed to realize what he must have been thinking, because his brow arched. "It won’t remove your scar. Nothing will. It’s a magical object."

Damn.

"You said I would live here?" Harry asked, changing the subject subtly. He and Snape were having a semi coherent conversation which, until now, was low on insults and barbs. It was a miracle of Merlin, in Harry’s very fine opinion.

"Yes. In the rooms next to my own, which will be opened and cleaned for you should you decide to work with me," Snape answered.

"And...and I’ll be working with you. On Potions."

"And other things." A light sneer. "I’m truly astounded you can pay attention when it serves you. No wonder Dumbledore had such faith in you."

Dumbledore. At the name, and the insinuation, Harry plastered an indifferent look on his face even as something quietly sobbed inside of him. If Snape caught it he didn’t say anything, though his eyebrow rose a little higher in that way he had.

"I’d...I’d like a few days to think about it," Harry finally said, nodding as he gathered his book bag.

"Mmm." Snape looked at him again, studying him, and Harry felt almost like he was looking through him. "You have until Friday afternoon."

"I’ll have my answer by Wednesday," Harry answered lightly, and rose with his bag. "Thank you for the interview, sir."

"Fine. Get out."

And so he did.

Chapter 3

"The Consideration"

The week was passing like it had been stuck in a particularly gooey puddle of Bubotuber puss, in Harry’s opinion. Not just because his mind was on seventy different things at once (with Snape’s confounding tyro being number one on the brain), but also because he found himself with the less than pleasant task of picking the things he was going to devout his time to this year.

And Quidditch wasn’t one of them.

"What?! You’re going to quit Quidditch?"

"Ron, calm down."

"I won’t! I will not calm down!"

Said Weasley was...less than pleased. His roars could have rivaled that of five Gryffindor lions, and he was utilizing all of his Weasley energy to scream at the top of those substantial lungs. His face had turned a lovely shade of beet red, and even Hermione was staring at him like he’d lost his bloody mind.

Which of course was drawing a crowd of less than pleased Gryffindors.

"Ron, shush!" Harry snapped, even as the few fifth years watching looked at them, in worry, from their corner.

"I will not shush! You! You!" his face was a very classy color of scarlet. "You’ve...you....you!"

"Me," Harry answered back, mildly, as he set his quill down over his Transfiguration homework. They were studying during their free hour before lunch–Defense Against The Dark Arts hadn’t exactly gone as planned. Remus Lupin had resumed his duty in the long line of professors before him to teach Defense, and had played a pivotal roll in Voldemort’s messy demise throughout Harry’s sixth year. The bad thing was, he’d paid the price for it. His left leg had been completely taken off during one horrible explosion, and he had been significantly scarred, despite the best Madame Pomfrey, and St. Mungo’s, could do. It was at times like today, a few hours before a rainstorm and the full moon was about to hit, that the pain became too much for him to teach and he canceled his classes. He’d been fit with a prosthetic leg and talked with a slight slur but despite it, he was still the best damn Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Hogwarts had ever had.

As well as being, despite all of the recent deformities, devilishly sexy.

It was really too bad, in fact, because at one point, Harry had been certain the emotions were reciprocated. That is, until Professor Snape stopped at Grimmauld Place after a skirmish wearing nothing but torn trousers and a shirt ripped to shreds, panting and sweaty, hair tied back in a piece of ribbon and wand at the ready.

Oh. Nice thoughts.

Nice thoughts that had no precedence with the here and now, because Ron was staring at him. Glaring, really. Harry hadn’t meant for it all to come out like this. Merlin knew, but now that it was....he just sighed all over again and rubbed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger under his glasses.

"How can you say such a thing?" Ron hissed as he righted the chair he’d overturned, and took a seat in it with a bone jarring thump. "Quit Quidditch! That’s a sin in most parts of Britain!"

"Only for boys," Hermione’s eyes, if possible, couldn’t roll any harder.

Harry was absolutely blessed to have such a practical friend, even if that practicality had infuriated him in the past. "Thank you, Hermione. Listen... I’ve done a lot of thinking."

Ron groaned, loudly, and Hermione glared at him until he shut up.

"I think...I mean...okay. I want to learn. You both...you both have had the gifts of getting ready to the outside world for the last seven years. You’ve studied, and learned, and dreamed. You have goals set up for yourself. I...I don’t have anything." He held up a hand as they both began to talk at once, and waited until they were quiet to continue. "I lived waiting for the day Voldemort would kill me. Well...he’s dead, now, and I don’t have to wait anymore. It’s time I learn to live, too, and taking the apprentice with Snape will do it for me."

When Harry put his hand down so they could speak, Ron was just staring at him with the most betrayed expression Harry had ever seen on his face. "Snape. Professor Snape. The one who’s nearly killed you?"

"Saved me. Eight times, counting the battlefield," Harry answered, quietly.

"All right, then...the one who’s humiliated you? Who’s...who’s...taken house points! And called you names!"

"Who taught me to control myself around sharp tongued individuals, how to deal with blatant stupidity, and showed me that the world isn’t fair," Harry answered instead, in the same soft tone. It was times like these that he felt that he and Ron were worlds apart. He’d already lived several lifetimes and had horrors thrust upon him since he had been a little boy, so it all felt like child’s play when it came to making decisions like this. The saddest thing was that when Harry thought about it, like now, he realized how deeply he didn’t care about the world to be able to make such easy decisions and commitments.

"Ron...I want this. I want to feel safe, and happy, and I want to control myself and my magic. I want a wizard who knows his stuff to teach me how to be that, too." Ron was staring at him, disbelieving, and Harry added, "He says I have a gift. Even if I don’t like Potions all that much, I’m a natural at them. He says I can do it. If Snape of all people said it, then...I’ve got to try. If I don’t try, I’ll kick myself until dooms day for not giving myself the chance."

It was as if Ron deflated. Somewhere along the way Harry’s words got to his friend’s heart, because those blue eyes regarded him with both suspicion and begrudging admiration. "You’re willing to give up Quidditch of all things, to see if you’ve got talent?"

Harry simply nodded.

And Ron simply sighed. "I’m not happy with this."

"You don’t have to be," Harry answered back with his most charming grin in place. He was delighted when Ron laughed, and Hermione seemed to take a breath beside them for the first time since they’d begin to talk.

"If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you had a crush on the old git," Ron snickered wickedly.

If Ron had known just how much that was true, Harry was sure they’d be screaming ‘Clear!’, or whatever the wizarding equivalent was, anyway, over his dead body. So he just grinned at Ron and rolled his eyes as convincingly as he could, amused just how close his friend had come to his greasy, gittish, sexy, gorgeous secret.

Ah, well.

Harry had been thinking it over, seriously, for two days straight. This afternoon would see another Potions class, and he felt deceivingly happy that he was making this decision himself and giving it to Snape as an adult. Usually he would consult Dumbledore about such a thing, but as the man had said two words to him in the last year, Harry felt it lucrative to return the favor in kind. Despite that, he found himself feeling slightly...unnerved over such a thing. It didn’t really matter one way or another–this opportunity was too good to pass up, and he’d known his answer when he read the letter.

For once in his god forsaken life he was making a decision with his best interest at heart.

And it felt bloody strange.

That feeling didn’t go away for the several hours between the conversation with Ron and Hermione, and Potions. In fact, time seemed to slow down if at all possible, and it certainly gave him time to think, in any regard. Ron had been expectantly shrill–but Harry didn’t hold it against him. His friend often times had a hard time dealing with changes in Harry’s life that seemed to change who he was–and Harry had a good inkling why that was.

So, for most of the day he paid special attention to Ron during classes–passing notes with him, snickering, sharing jokes. Harry was almost certain that Ron was terribly afraid of losing him–but what he didn’t know was that Harry was terribly afraid of losing Ron.

In the end, after making sure Ron understood he was giving up Quidditch so some other young talent could play, and so he could concentrate on his studies, Ron seemed to feel better. Harry knew he did. His friends loved him so much, and had put up with so much of his crap. No one in the world knew him better than they did–they were truly his family.

He realized, sometime between Charms and Divination, that they were the blinding spear of light in his dark, siphoned life.

And he really, really liked that.

The sad thing was he didn’t have time to tell them that, because lunch came and went in a flurry of sandwiches and juice. Days and times for the oncoming Quidditch tryouts were announced, other special clubs gave all the information for when they would be starting again and accepting new members, and then they were thrust into their final period of the day before supper.

Potions.

It was, as anyone would have delightfully agreed, a disaster in the making.

They were supposed to make a Wart Cap Draft, which would then be dried and powdered for Madame Pomfrey. It was a standard seventh level potion, but even Harry could see that Snape was having severe reservations about assigning such a thing when Neville Longbottom was looking at the board curiously. So, Snape stood there and snarled at them for a good fifteen minutes before they could even get their supplies out, threatening the life of anyone who caused their potion to have any reaction other than what was necessary. He declared it the first quiz of the year, and the person who failed this one wouldn’t be passing the mid-term. Which, of course, meant that this potion was the mid-term, and they’d have to make it again come Christmas. Hand it to Snape, the sexy bastard, to veil something that important in an insult.

It wasn’t a hard potion to make, and it was one of those rare ones that Harry could understand. Its purpose was simple enough–it was used for magical burn victims, and hardened the skin temporarily until a proper cure could be found. It also had severely volatile ingredients that would need a skilled hand to manipulate, and a decent spell caster to set the final charm on the whole thing.

Harry had been smeared with it himself after Voldemort’s final siege in Madame Pomfrey’s tender love and care, and without it, Harry was sure he’d be doing more than just limping these days.

The potion itself was very interesting to make. It utilized tubeworms and nettles as its main ingredients, and as time progressed, Harry found himself immersed in his work. When he was in his groove, or as Ron called it, in his zone, he often times forgot about the world; forgot about anything but what he was doing. His zone had become his life as of late, because he often forgot about the world during the times he was concentrating, or thinking, or hell, breathing. It wasn’t that his attention was somewhere else–it was that he was so completely focused on his task that he forgot about everything else.

A few weeks after he killed Voldemort, he heard Dumbledore and Madame Pomfrey whispering about Post Traumatic Stress syndrome, but as they saw him watching, he never heard another word about it again.

This potion in particular came very easy to him because he knew exactly how it worked and exactly what its main functions were, and if he didn’t think about Sirius getting it all over his hand the first time Harry visited Grimmauld Place, it was easy enough to concentrate.

Later on, he wondered if that zone is what had nearly cost him his life.

He was used to Neville’s cauldron exploding every other week. He really was. The kid went through thirty of them every year, after all. What he wasn’t used to was having any type of warning beforehand. Or well, usually he didn’t. He didn’t realize that everyone else had already backed away, even Neville, and that Professor Snape was yelling at Harry himself to step back, before it was too late.

Harry lifted his head, caught sight of Snape’s dark, unreadable eyes and his roaring, "Get back!" from the sickly green substance overflowing from Neville’s cauldron, and Harry only had time to stand and back up a foot, two, watching with horror becoming the situation as the potion bubbled and exploded.

The boom felt like it had knocked his ear drums clear into the back of his head. He fell arse over tit, slamming back hard into the ground and stared, dazedly, as the liquid sloshed in slow motion. It was a graceful arch of frothing green acid, and it almost seemed to take on a mind of its own the seconds before it fell all over him.

It burned where it hit, and the pain was instantaneous. Harry began to scream, loudly, he was sure, as the other cauldrons were set off like dominoes after the initial explosion. Liquid was exploding everywhere, he was burning alive, screaming, pain, dear heaven, and this is where it would end. Right here. God, how embarrassing. Fight the Dark Lord, kill the Dark Lord, and where do you end up? On the floor of a Potions classroom, covered in half made, boiling liquid, screaming your head off.

Poetic justice if Harry had ever heard of it.

But he wasn’t hearing much, because his body was shutting down. What scared him most in his fading mind was that he wasn’t very frightened of dying at all. And then that minimal fear was gone as well, sliding out to join the other thoughts bleeding from his mind.

He felt a presence...dark, like night. It seemed to cloud over his body, cover it up tightly, and a moment too late he realized Professor Snape had covered his much smaller body with his own. Now that was poetic justice. Have the man where you finally want him, and you’re boiling alive in half made potions.

More rocketing explosions, one after another. Snape’s robes, however, seemed to be repelling the liquid like water. Oooh. So maybe that was why he always wore them, no matter what. Especially when Neville was in the room.

His hard body, much taller and fuller than Harry’s scrawny own, was covering him everywhere, pressing the potion into his body, and it hurt so badly that Harry was sure he was going to lose all bodily function any second. He was covered everywhere, his head too, crushed against a smooth neck and the billowing robes blanketed them like darkness.

He knew he was still screaming. He knew it. He just couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t hear Snape’s words as his lips moved, couldn’t hear the explosions themselves, couldn’t hear anything. Literally. Though, of course, his pain was taking up center stage in his head. Snape was trying to talk to him, his black eyes staring at him in an expression of horror that Harry hadn’t seen there since Voldemort tried to kill Harry himself. It was oddly grounding and he closed his throat against the screams, unable to breathe under the suffocating weight of the Potions Master, and unable to think through the pain.

He carefully closed the feeling off, separating the agony from his consciousness, so it was a thing he could only see in his mind’s eye. His body felt detached from it, his pain lightening all over his body but somehow, not his own. Manageable that way.

And he was just getting to the point where he could faint without the risk of dying when Snape climbed up from on top of him, shook out his still pristine robe, and lifted him up like a rag doll. Harry didn’t weigh much, and....he couldn’t remember where that sentence was going.

Harry was sure he screamed. Screamed and screamed and didn’t stop, as Snape looked down at him with fear and the world darkened to nothing.

- = - = -

The first thing he was aware of was voices. Quiet, murmuring voices, all around the blackness of his world at the moment. His body was stiff as stone and he felt that if he moved even an inch, something vital was going to break. So keeping himself entirely stock still, relishing in the cool feeling of painless nerves, he opened his eyes.

Snape was sitting beside him.

Watching him.

"Potter," Snape inclined his head. "That answers if your brain is still about you. How do you feel?"

How did he feel? Well. Kind of giddy that Snape was sitting here, actually. Strange... "Stiff," Harry’s voice grated like sandpaper, and he winced quietly at the sound.

"Don’t try to talk too loudly. You screamed yourself hoarse, not that I can blame you, this time." And now that Harry was waking up, he could see the repressed rage in Snape’s face that made him shiver. If Neville wasn’t dead, he would be soon. Harry could only imagine the chaos of the classroom. "What can you remember?"

Too much for his own good. "Mmm." Talking was for people who weren’t half conscious, so he let his muscles relax again, and let his eyes fall. Stopped...opened them for a moment. He had promised to tell Snape his decision on Wednesday, and he would be damned if he didn’t. When he made a promise, he kept it. Even though it probably wasn’t Wednesday anymore. So, clearing his aching throat, he whispered, "‘Fesser, I humbly ‘ccept your tyro."

It was Snape’s shocked eyes that followed him into dreams.

Chapter 4

"The Introduction"

In all of Harry’s many years, he’d never had something, somewhere, that was simply his own. Many times during Voldemort’s reign of death, and many times in the aftermath of his own breakdown, Harry was pushed to write his own will. He’d made hundreds of revisions by now, each time listing all of his worldly possessions, and each time, deeply, unspeakably unnerved at how little he owned. At present, he had eight books, his father’s invisibility cloak, three school robes and one pair of dress robes (too small, now), four quills, his potion supplies, an assortment of underwear and Muggle clothes passed to him from Dudley, the omnioculars from the World Cup, the Marauder’s Map, the photo album of his parents, the flute Hagrid made him as a boy, Hedwig, of course, and his wand. And that was it. His Firebolt had been destroyed during the Battle of Yorkshire, and the Sneakoscope Ron had given him smashed beyond comprehension during a fit of fury his sixth year. The other small thing’s he’d collected through his years at Hogwarts were gone, after a fit of housekeeping that Harry regretted even to this day, even if ridding himself of rubbish had significantly lightened his heart at the time.

How pathetic did it seem, then? All he had to show for himself after seventeen years of living was a few odds and ends that weren’t really worth anything to anyone else. Dumbledore surely had his own kind of Marauder’s Map, invisibility cloaks weren’t as rare as Ron had made them seem all those years ago, and the books he owned were sold in mass supply everywhere.

He had nothing.

And the fact that he had so little only made him feel all the worse as he walked into his new rooms beside Snape.

Harry had gotten out of the hospital wing just a few hours before, after spending three days there recovering from the burns. His skin was completely healed, if not a bit sore in places, and Snape had come to find him after word got out.

The rooms were amazing.

All the wood was in a light, but rich, shade. There was an enormous fire place, as well as a thick, lovely couch sitting before it that just screamed for warm nights curled on its soft, worn in cushions with hot cocoa and a good book. The apartment had been sparsely furnished for whatever reason. All Harry could see, despite the embarrassment of his few things, was the possibilities. He’d never owned anything that was distinctly his before, nothing he had the freedom of doing with as he chose.

"It’s lovely," Harry breathed softly, and diplomatically decided to ignore Snape’s loud snort as he set his trunk down.

"There’s no need to be rude. You have to fill it as you see fit, and add your own possessions as you go. You may furnish it at your own disposal, Potter," Snape answered him, and pointed towards the only two doors in the room. "Those lead to your bedroom and to my own rooms."

Now that Harry had a chance to soak in some of the sitting room, he let his eyes travel over the rest of the apartment. The room was oddly circular, with only two doors leading from the sitting room, and the first door, ornate but still practical in its way, led into a beautiful bedroom. Empty of things, but already Harry’s mind was working overtime. He could see the bookshelves he would line along the walls, and the carpets he’d put on the stone floors.

It was pathetic, but he was already in love.

He’d thought about it, several times in the days he was recovering, but Harry had honestly assumed he’d never have rooms like these. Never. Well, that was also because he was terrified of what he’d gotten himself into, but it seemed once he got used to the fact that he was going to be a tyro, the fear had settled into a thick and nauseous paste deep in his belly.

Anxiety, Madame Pomfrey called it. He was suffering from anxiety. Gave him several potions to calm it, all the while muttering about children in a heartless war and what it did to gentle young minds, which had insulted Harry deeply. He was neither gentle nor young, thanks so much.

Regardless, he took a slight glance at Snape. The man hadn’t said much of anything since coming to retrieve him aside from a snapped, "Get your things." He’d waited while Harry got his trunk, which McGonagall had Ron pack for him during Harry’s stay in the hospital wing. Snape had even waited while Harry had himself a few moments to realize he’d never sleep in the dorm again.

Despite Harry’s emotional upheaval, it had been deeply amusing to see Snape in the middle of Gryffindor Country, snapping and snarling like the overgrown bat he was.

The feeling of anxiety had only worsened, the foreboding eating at the line of his stomach like a particularly tasty treat. What if he’d made a mistake? What if this wasn’t what he should have done? Why hadn’t he stayed with Ron and Hermione? Why was he doing this?

"Potter. Are you listening to me?"

Harry snapped back to the present, blinking and looking up at the man peering at him with slight disdain. "Sorry. Just..sorry. What were you saying, sir?"

Snape rose a brow, obviously not expecting such an easy response, and glared. "Your brooding is a problem we will fix at another date. Your robes, Potter."

For the first time, Harry realized what was sitting on the edge of the bed. He set the side of his trunk down, set Hedwig’s empty cage atop it, and took a good look at the robes spread on the bed. The trousers and shirt were a hunter green, deep and dark, with a brown belt that matched the heavy brown boots sitting on the floor. The shirt was simply shaped, long sleeved and v-cut at the neck, the collar short but elegant.

The robes themselves were a deep, dark brown and were so long Harry was sure they’d sweep the ground. Much like Snape’s, actually. What caught his attention most was his house crest sitting on the right breast, with another crest, strangely designed, sitting above it.

"They are the official robes of our field, and as long as you are my tyro, these are what you will wear at all times. We will talk about those stipulations in a moment," Snape said coolly, and motioned to the crest above the Gryffindor lion. "This is the Potions crest, which has been altered to allow for Defense Against the Dark Arts, as you can see in regard to the swords. The feathers stand for Potions, as well as the cauldron beneath them. The wand emitting sparks atop stands for loyalty and guardianship. It is an honor I will not have thrown in my face."

At the sharp words, Harry looked up, looking into Snape’s angry face with shock, and a bit of anger himself. "I won’t dishonor you."

"See that you don’t." And in the usual Snape fashion where dramatics were actually okay, Snape turned in all of his black robed glory and swept from the room like a raven, gliding through the apartment with Harry to follow him helplessly.

The second door of the room led to a small, yet cozy, kitchen done in deep mahogany wood and shiny tile floors. "This is the door to my own rooms," Snape said without preamble, and before Harry got a chance to look at the warm and comfortable kitchen, was led into the sitting room. Snape’s rooms were very similar to Harry’s own, but with subtle differences. Like the fact that Snape’s had to have at least six thousand books lining countless bookshelves, stacked on the floor where they didn’t fit, and held back by mountains of scrolls in some places. It was chaos, but a subtly orderly chaos, with the feeling that Snape knew exactly where every single thing was in this room.

Harry admired it, and envied it, all at the same time.

"You are free to read any of the books." Snape must have been watching him. Harry cast a small glance up, and saw the amused sneer curling the man’s lips. Yep. Caught. "With the exception that you bring them back and put them exactly where you found them. If I find one thing amiss, you will be given the arduous task of cataloguing all of my books alphabetically, without the use of a wand."

Meep.

"Now, as your rooms were, in fact, once a cupboard, you will have to use my own facilities until the proper ones can be installed for y–"

A cupboard. He was going to be sleeping in a cupboard again. His blood roared in his ears but he fought the instant claustrophobia joining the anxiety and nerves having his stomach lining for dinner.

"..Potter? Potter."

Harry shook his head, nodded, then shook it again as he cleared his throat. Yep. He was an idiot. "Sorry."

"If using my lavatory and kitchen is so distasteful, I’m sure that your dorm would be a most appropriate place to sleep," Snape snarled, and glared at him angrily in such a way that Harry knew instantly how deeply he’d offended him.

"No. It’s not that. Look, I’m sorry. It’s just been a tough few days." Which it had been. But his lie must have sounded hollow, because Snape’s glare turned to one of suspicion for a few moments.

It almost seemed that Snape was going to call bullshit for a few, nerve wracking moments, before he began to talk once more. Harry let out the held breath in a long, silent expulsion of thanks. "We will also be using my personal work room to start the experiments, and test how deep your talent runs. However, as the hour is late, we will do so tomorrow. First, sit."

Harry turned to look at the large, lovely desk, piled high with everything from books to quills, homework to jars and boxes filled with Merlin only knew what.

"I have the guidelines for the Potions tyro outlined for you," Snape sat himself, in a sweep of black robes and dark eyes, and as Harry watched, picked a scroll from another small heap of them on his desk. The craziest thing was that he seemed to know exactly which it was because he handed it to Harry. How in the bloody hell he’d known was a mystery to Harry’s own problem solving brain, and he blinked a few times before lifting the scroll from Snape’s palm and sitting himself.

It looked normal enough, like any standard sheet of parchment, but was rolled closed with a slender length of brown leather. Harry carefully untied it, making sure not to pull too hard and rip the paper, and unrolled the sheet just as carefully. Snape’s handwriting, an elegant scrawl that moved down the page, brought him into the words immediately.

Harry took a moment to stare. He looked up...blinked...and then reread the entire thing over again. This...was more than just a small shock. He supposed he’d taken the honor of what Snape had offered him a little too lightly, and was now feeling incredibly ungrateful and completely unprepared for this. The stipulations Snape had given him weren’t terrible...restoring Madame Pomfry’s stores, once he had the skills, wouldn’t be hard. However, the penalties that would fall on him should he decide he didn’t want to do this were extreme, and Harry stared at it for a long time before looking up at the professor. "Sir, if I die at some point during the duration of this contract, what penalties will I be under?"

Snape blinked, then stared at him for a moment, as if shocked that he’d ask such a thing. "I’m sorry?"

"If I die. What then?"

Another blink. "You will be buried with full tyro honors, of course." Then he seemed to recover, because his usual sneer graced his face once more. "However, I sincerely discourage dying while under my watch. Are you planning on visiting the grave sooner than you’d intended?"

"Don’t know," Harry answered back, honestly, just to see the surprise flitter across Snape’s face. Doing this whole tyro business was worth every blink and stare of shock the man was giving him. "Never know, these days. The Death Eaters are kind of mad at me, after all."

"Yes, they are."

Since Snape seemed amused over it, Harry let it go and kept rereading. The Wandless magic part was very interesting, as Harry could do a bit of it already. Lighting candles, turning pages in books. It was definitely a handy bit of knowledge, and he looked forward to Snape showing him more. The two things he liked most, though, that cinched his agreeing to the rest of it, was that Snape understood. He got it. More than anyone else had, even Dumbledore. Snape understood that Harry was terrified of living on his own, of being alone again and that this way, he could learn how to function as a member of Wizarding society without thoroughly embarrassing everyone he’d ever met in his life. And he’d get to stay here, if he wanted to, study under Snape for all the years he chose to work at his field, and maybe take a job as a professor here at the school when he was ready.

And even though the last statement said that he was in no way to get attached to Snape, Harry knew knew he could try. At least try.

So, after reading it once more, and fully understanding what was going to be expected of him while at the same time having no clue, he signed his name with a flourish on the bottom line, then watched as his name was printed underneath magically. It flashed gold, binding the contract and making it unbreakable.

Snape was watching with an unreadable expression, and took the parchment himself after Harry was finished. He signed his name along the bottom, as well, with that quill Harry was crazy over, and glanced up with an eyebrow raised. "Dumbledore will finalize it with the School Governors by the weekend, and on Monday you will begin your studies."

"Okay," Harry answered, then at Snape’s glare added, "sir."

"Mmm," Snape muttered, as he rolled the parchment back up.

Harry studied the man now, as his head was bowed, and let himself take in the long, lank hair, the high broached neck of his robes, and the long flow of the black materiel. He’d always wondered what Snape looked like under all those layers, if he was thin as his face said or paunchy around the middle. Not that Harry particularly cared, after all. Snape’s looks, while less than clinically handsome, were still handsome in their own dark, delicious way, and coupled with the voice and the dark, sarcastic charm made him all the more unapproachable. It was his genius Harry was attracted to, his personality he found desirable. God, he was sick. "Will there be anything I need to buy?"

At that, the man looked back at him inquisitively. "Perhaps. What did you bring with you?"

Oh. Now, that caused a bit of embarrassment, which made Harry squirm in his chair like a first year. "Not much. A few books, some clothes, some odds and ends. I haven’t had a lot of time to buy stuff."

"No, I suppose you haven’t." Not pity in Snape’s voice but a weary kind of understanding that made Harry look back up, but before he could look too closely at the professor, Snape pushed a piece of parchment toward him, as well as that long quill. "Please remove the word ‘stuff’ from your vocabulary. It is an inane word used for inane purposes by inane people. And as you are not inane, and I am not inane, make sure not to utter it in my presence again. Now, write."

Harry couldn’t help but be amused, grinning to himself as he took the quill and parchment and pulled it in front of him. "All right."

"You will need a decent broom for the times when we need to go looking for our ingredients. I find that natural ingredients, rather than store-bought, make for stronger and more intense combinations. You will need four tyro quills, with our crest imprinted on them. I have the design on a parchment for the engravers to copy onto your things. I’ll expect you to have another set of robes just like the ones you have already seen, and you may switch shirts from green to black when you feel like having something different, but no other color. You will need a great deal more parchment, and I suggest we investigate how to attain Muggle notebooks, three hundred and sixty sheets each. They make for fantastic log books." Harry scribbled it all down, quickly, as Snape spoke. "You will need a pair of gloves, made of dragon hide, and although I have aprons here made of the same material, buying a personal one made to fit your body is much more elegant and comfortable." Snape stopped for a moment to look at him closely. "I have many materials here, but you may want to have your own cauldrons. You will need four, sized fifteen and a third, to eight and a quarter. You will also need a set of your own tools, though I have two sets, your hands are smaller and more slender than my own. You may want tools that are customized to you–I find that it’s easier to work when you’re not worried about the control you have over your knives."

Snape took a breath, and Harry’s eyes widened. More? "You will need a winter cloak with the tyro crest on them, as well as scarf, hat, and gloves of the same color scheme and design. I suggest new dress robes, as Dumbledore has been making rumblings about throwing another winter ball, and as my tyro, it is expected for you to be dressed exceptionally well." A threat, not a promise, and Harry couldn’t help grinning again. "We will explain your tyro to the Seamstress in Diagon Alley, and they will know exactly what you need. I also expect you to replenish your own stores of basic Potions ingredients, as well as Demiguise skin, which will be included in the first potion we will be doing."

Snape stopped to think, and Harry thought for a moment of his vault at Gringotts. He had enough, but he had to make sure. His parents had opened two other vaults while they were still alive, and the interest from the money in them was still coming into his own. On his eighteenth birthday the money that was in the other two vaults would be transferred to his own, and not for the first time, Harry thanked his parents from the very deepest part of his soul for writing a will and making sure that he would be taken care of. He wouldn’t have been able to do anything if he didn’t have his money, or would have had to ask others for money, which was something his pride and integrity wouldn’t allow. He had over fifty galleons with him right at the moment, figuring he’d need more for his last year at the begining of the semester, safely closed in his trunk. Somehow, he didn’t think it was going to be enough.

And he was still thinking about it when Snape shocked the pants off of him.

"We will go to Diagon Alley tomorrow morning to get these things. Dumbledore has already excused you from your morning classes, and has asked you to join him in a private council before we leave. I will go to Gringotts while you are with him, and we will meet in Diagon Square at nine thirty. Are we clear?"

Harry couldn’t help flushing softly, and clearing his throat. "Sir...I...I’ll need to go to Gringotts myself."

"For?"

Harry stared. Couldn’t help it. "For...well, this stuff."

At that Snape seemed to get offended, and his lip curled in anger. "You are my tyro, Potter. You misunderstand the situation–you are my own private student now. You are under my care and my protection. I will provide for you everything you need."

"But...but sir," Harry cleared his throat quietly, in mortal embarrassment and a healthy dose of fear. "This...this is going to come out to at least two hundred galleons."

"And?"

All right. So Snape had money. Not news there, everyone thought he had to be the heir to a fortune, but still, Harry was deeply uncomfortable with all of it. "And...well, I’d like to help."

"Help," a seemingly unheard of word in Snape’s extensive vocabulary.

"Yes. You know...pay for some. Whatever makes you comfortable. Half, maybe."

"What part of ‘you are my tyro’ did you not understand?" Snape asked quietly, but slowly, as if talking to a particularly dense child. "You are under my care, now. I will provide everything for you."

"But..." Harry, just shut up. "Sir, I can buy my own clothes."

Snape looked Harry up and down and rose a brow.

All right. So Dudley’s cast-offs weren’t exactly made of gold. But Harry had so little need to wear Muggle clothes that it didn’t bother him, not in the least. Apparently, it was bothering Snape, though, because Harry shifted a little in discomfort. "My cousin’s clothes. My Aunt and Uncle–," are very well off, "didn’t have a lot of money to buy me clothes." Which was true, because they never had money for him. " And I just don’t really have a need for Muggle stuff."

"But you will now. And I must insist that you not appear to be a beggar child or an anorexic," Snape graced him with a smug smile of scorn. "You will take all of your cousins things, boil them in anti tracing solution, and burn them tonight."

"Burn?"

"Yes, Potter. Have you not been paying attention for the last six years?" Seemingly amused to have answered his own question, Snape smirked. "Your clothes leave a signature behind; hair, skin, and nail particles that can be used by any skilled poison expert. Your cast-off clothes can kill you. Burn them, tonight. Tomorrow, we will go to Diagon Alley." A moment. "Add Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans to your list."

What?

Snape stared serenely back at him.

"Every Flavor Beans?"

"Mmm. And Chocolate Frogs. And perhaps some Licorice Wands."

Why was he...?

Oh.

Oh!

Snape. With a sweet tooth.

The image was so astoundingly ridiculous, so completely unthought-of, that all Harry could do was gape at the man sitting before him. "Licorice Wands?"

"Do you recommend anything else?"

Recommend? Harry just stared with his mouth slightly hanging open. "Ah...Fizzing Whizbees are good."

"I find they’re too bitter near the middle. However, if you feel like them, I think we can include them in our shopping."

Snape. Offering to buy him candy. The fog seemed to engulf Harry’s head. Apparently, that old saying about what you see isn’t always what you get was entirely true. "Sir, you...I mean..."

"Mr. Potter, the first thing I believe I will teach you is that things aren’t always what they seem. You have learned that lesson in parts and chunks over the years, but I doubt you understand it in total. What is isn’t always what is. Did you think, just because I am a thirty seven year old bastard Potions Master that I don’t enjoy things like sweets?"

"I...no. I didn’t mean to offend," Harry added quickly, filing Snape calling himself a bastard into his head for later consideration, and probable amusement. "I mean, but...you’re the last person I imagined liking those kinds of things. You always...I mean, sometimes I wonder if you’ve even got time to sleep, or let alone bother with it."

And for the first time, Harry was graced with one of Snape’s smiles. It was, by far, one of the best things Harry had ever seen. He couldn’t help returning it. It was like the sun dawned on Snape’s face, lighting his features up and momentarily casting the smudges under his eyes into shadow. He graced the world with his amusement and if this world could have things as moving and beautiful as Snape’s smile, then Harry didn’t think it so bad at all. Beautiful and gone too soon, but from that moment on Harry didn’t think he’d ever be able to reconcile the image of Snape grinning at him with the image of his git Potions Master. "As I said, Mr. Potter, things aren’t always what they appear. I saw your expression when you came into my sitting room...did you think me to live in a perfectly ordered home?"

Harry took a glance around at the chaos that were potions ingredients and books, set strategically in key places, and decided that if Snape was going to be honest, Harry could return the favor in kind. "I thought everything had an organized mess feel to it. It’s lovely."

Snape’s expressive eyebrow arched. "Lovely?"

"Sure. I mean, you don’t seem particularly worried that you’ve got books stacked waist high in places, because I think you know exactly where everything is."

"Mmm," more amusement. Dear Merlin. The second conversation they’d had that didn’t include barbs and snaps. Harry didn’t think his heart could take all of this shock. "Which is why I asked you to return everything to where you found it, should you borrow it." He paused for a moment, "I find that it’s too much of a hassle to organize everything in my personal life. Make no mistake–our laboratory will be in immaculate condition, and you will organize and label everything on every jar and bottle. Everything will be where it’s supposed to be, so no mistakes and unfortunate accidents, not unlike Mr. Longbottom’s this week, should occur once more."

Well, he couldn’t quite stop the visible wince, now could he? "Madame Pomfrey told me everyone else was all right, and that only a few people got some minor burns. What.." A moment. "No one told me what happened."

Those piercing eyes took him in for a moment, watching him, studying him like a bug under a microscope. Harry had the peculiar feeling Snape could see through him, and realized at once Snape probably was. Sometimes, Harry really hated Legilimency. "What do you remember?"

"Ah...I was working. I guess I just didn’t hear everyone," at that, Snape snorted, "and when I looked up, Neville’s cauldron was just boiling over. I didn’t have a chance to move at all."

"No. You didn’t. The explosion set off a domino effect–all the cauldrons on the left hand side of the classroom exploded and doused you with half-made ingredients. Do you remember screaming?"

That had to be a trick question. Of course he remembered screaming. In fact, if memory served, he remembered screaming quite a bit. However, Snape’s expression seemed to be asking for more, and Harry’s eyebrow lifted up on its own accord. "What?"

"Do you remember what you were screaming?"

He had been screaming something? Now that was news.

Snape’s eyes were hard and soft at the same time, glaring and investigating, as he gazed at him. When he’d been a little boy, Harry had always thought that when Snape looked at him he could read his mind. Of course, Harry had been right–Legilimancy was just that, reading minds and reading emotions. So, Harry looked at him calmly as Snape looked for whatever he sought.

"Tomorrow we will talk about this small problem you have with brooding. It is unhealthy, and dangerous, as you saw this week. Learning Occlumency will enable you to have discipline over your mind, but more importantly, it will teach you how to hide your emotions."

All right. Harry felt himself get hot with both embarrassment and anger. He didn’t really appreciate having all of shortcomings put on the table so easily, and he glared at the older man. "What do you mean, ‘problem’?"

"Problem. You lose yourself in your thoughts and forget to live," Snape’s eyebrow was up just as high as Harry’s. "You get sloppy and don’t think. You could have saved yourself three days in the Hospital Wing if you’d simply been paying attention."

"I was paying attention. I didn’t hear anything else because I was paying attention."

"No. You lost yourself in your potion, in a mindless task you can perform in your sleep," Snape snarled back, "and you will not do it again."

"How do you know?" Harry felt his voice rising and decided, if his voice was going to, he might as well get up, too. He climbed up from the chair in anger, and glared as the man across from him with all the hate he’d once felt for the surely bastard. "It’s my business what I do or don’t do."

"No. It’s not," Snape’s voice had taken on that deadly, sharp glint again that sounded like caressed knives and hot honey over an open fire at the same time. "It is my business. You just signed your life to me for the next ten months, Potter, and you will do as I say or you will regret it."

"You can’t bully me around!" Harry yelled back, stabbing his finger in the air at him. "I’m your student, not your house elf!"

"You will be whatever I deem you to be, and you’ll be thankful for it, you insolent, impetuous little boy. You have no idea how much I could show you, but I will be damned first if you think you’re going to act like the spoiled, rotten child you are while in my presence!"

After the last outburst they both seethed for a long minute. Harry glared, darkly, meeting Snape’s own furious gaze, and the battle of wills roared unspoken between them.

Harry would have given an arm to have kissed him.

It was with that thought that Harry broke away from the glare, feeling the blush creep up onto his neck as he stomped back to the door between their rooms. "I’m going to get settled in."

"See that you do. Your linens are in the wardrobe. I will shower later tonight," Snape muttered. Mmeaning the shower was free now.

Right at the moment, Harry needed to cool off in the worst way.

In more ways than one.

Chapter 4

"The Interview"

Morning dawned, cool and crisp. Like a bird unfurling her wings, the sun rose and warmed the land just enough to forgo thick winter robes and wool socks. Hogwarts was a cacophony of happy students, cheerful ghosts, and begrudgingly upbeat professors, and though Harry thought he’d feel disconnected from it when he woke up the next morning, it was the opposite. If anything, he felt tied to the school even more, ingrained in its history where the possibilities were endless. For the first time in his short life, he would have a choice on how he wanted to spend that time and how he wanted to make the mark on his own history.

So it was with a somewhat lighter heart that Harry strolled down the hall towards Dumbledore’s office. He already knew the password (peach parfait, of all things), and though he wasn’t looking forward to talking with the man waiting for him, he could at least admit that he was in a better mind frame than he’d been in before he’d accepted the tyro.

That, or he’d just learned to hide it better.

He made it to the long hall leading to the Headmaster’s office, and slipped into the deserted corridor. He’d seen it countless times in countless different forms–packed with people, sleeping sanctuary to one Snuffles as Remus talked with Dumbledore, occupied with Ministry officials, or as empty as it was now. There were so many memories in this hall that sometimes it hurt Harry to look at it for too long.

Harry stopped for a moment, directly on the spot where he’d fallen. He knew later from McGonagall that Snape had lifted him up and carried him to the hospital wing, and that Dumbledore had spent the next day and a half sitting at his bedside, silent, stony. That had been, if Harry remembered correctly, a month and a half before the Battle of Yorkshire.

Better not to think about it.

"Peach parfait," he said to the statue of the beautiful griffin, and watched its wings unfurl majestically to showcase a beautiful revolving staircase made of hard marble. A neat way to get into the Headmaster’s office, and flawless, at that. The stairwell and the door were guarded against hostile magic, and more likely than not, couldn’t be manipulated with normal magic. It made Harry feel both safe and put out, because more times than one he’d needed to see Dumbledore and hadn’t been able to.

Regardless of the fact, he put it out of his mind, recognizing it as that ‘brooding problem’ Snape had called him on, because he found himself in front of Dumbledore’s office without remembering anything from the trip up.

Harry sighed, quietly, and was about to knock when Dumbledore’s face suddenly filled the doorway like a big, white, majestic bird. "Hello, Harry."

Harry couldn’t get over the fact just how tall Dumbledore was, and every time he talked to the man it was a shock to see just how much presence he had, as if it had slipped his mind only to be renewed at every visit. Even when Harry was young Dumbledore had always been larger than life–now as an adult, and a few inches of height added to his build, Dumbledore was still larger than life, though Harry was glad he didn’t have to crane his neck so far up to see him anymore.

Or maybe he was just short. Yeah, definitely a possibility. "Hello, Headmaster."

"Come in," Dumbledore shooed him in and closed the door behind him, all in a sweep of magenta robes that all but seared Harry’s eyeballs from his head. Harry followed them to the small couches and fireplace beyond Dumbledore’s desk, where tea and cakes were just being set down by Winky, the house elf Barty Crouch had fired Harry’s fourth year. "Lemon drop? Tea?"

"No, thank you. Hello, Winky," Harry greeted the tiny elf, and was rewarded with a sniff, a glare, and a humph as she skittered out. He sat down as Dumbledore himself did, sliding comfortably back onto the cushions of the exceptionally warm and cozy couch, obviously meant to greet and put its users at ease.

Dumbledore poured himself a cup of tea, chattering about nothing important, and Harry grunted his responses quietly as he snuggled closer into the cushions and sighed. This was how it always was. Dumbledore made idle chit chat, tea was poured, lemon drops offered. Then either something wonderful or something terrible dropped into Harry’s lap like a pile of stones. Absently, he wondered if this was why Snape always hated coming up here, and made a note to ask him the next time the man was feeling particularly generous.

Then he realized Dumbledore was staring at him the smallest bit, and tuned back into the conversation. "I’m sorry?"

"Ahhh. Mind drifting?" a little chuckle from the older man. "I tend to have that effect. I was merely wondering about your tyro."

How did Dumbledore...?...oh. Of course. Snape would have to finalize it with him. Regardless, it made him feel a little cold inside, as if the precious gift of his tyro could be seen by anybody. It put him on guard, a feeling he didn’t totally like. "Yes, I’ve accepted it. I signed it this morning."

"Of course you did," another beam from the older man, and not for the first time, Harry wondered if that now that Voldemort was gone, Dumbledore was letting his mind slip away. Then again, he always did enjoy letting everyone think he was a senile old man, and that Harry had been added to that group made him intensely sad. For some reason, he’d thought that perhaps Dumbledore had cared about him beyond his scar, but sometimes, it just felt like that wasn’t always the case.

Harry realized he was looking at Dumbledore, and that Dumbledore was studying him back.

And that Dumbledore was a skilled Legilimens.

He looked away, quickly, but not before seeing the flash of something in the old mans eyes that made him feel sick at the middle, so much so that he had to say something. "I’m sorry."

"What should you feel sorry for, my boy?" Dumbledore questioned gently. "Voldemort is dead, by your doing. You are alive, and mostly whole," he indicated Harry’s bum leg, "and that is something to be proud of. However, I believe...," he sipped his tea, "You are very upset with me."

"Upset?" Harry asked of him quietly.

"Mmm." The older man studied Harry again, and once more, Harry felt like Dumbledore was looking through him.

"Why would I be upset, Headmaster?"

"Because you have not come to see me, or looked at me, or even uttered my name, in many months."

Something hot, strange, and deeply uncomfortable rose in Harry’s throat. Dispassionately he recognized it as anger, but swallowed it before it could blossom into fury. "Maybe it’s you who hasn’t looked at me, or talked to me, or pretended I even existed, since the Battle of Yorkshire. Sir," Harry said evenly, "May I be honest with you, Headmaster?"

Dumbledore was still studying him, but he nodded.

"I’d rather not be here right now. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the fact that you kept me alive for the last seventeen years. I do. But I can’t....Headmaster, I thought..." How could he explain it? How could Harry possibly say that he felt a grandfatherly affection for Dumbledore, that he looked up to the man, that for most of his life he wanted to be him? And then the ultimate betrayal of being completely ignored for the rest of his sixth year, the summer, and into this semester?

"You thought?" Dumbledore prodded, gently, still looking at him with those infuriating, gentle eyes.

"I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought. I just meant, I had hoped that I was more to you than just the Boy Who Lived."

Harry was rewarded, or possibly dismayed, when Dumbledore’s teacup clinked down loudly onto the tiny china plate in his hand. "I’m sorry?"

"I thought...I thought maybe I was more to you than a scar. Through you I could see my father and my mother and Sirius, because you knew them, and I thought sometimes, I could know them, too, just by talking to you. You were there for them, and you were here for me. I thought you cared about me beyond your duty to me, Headmaster." Harry felt something cave, and wanted so badly to cry, but no tears would come. "But I know why. I’m sorry I failed you. I should have killed him with magic, to make sure he stayed dead, but I didn’t. I should have helped you kill the Death Eaters. I should have done more. But I couldn’t save Moody, or Tonks, or Sirius, professor. I couldn’t save Mrs. Weasley, and I couldn’t save Bill from being hurt, I couldn’t stop Colin from choking on his own insides, and I couldn’t make Seamus stop bleeding. I tried, professor. God knows I tried as hard as I could, but people still died. Because of me. Because I didn’t kill Voldemort with magic. If I had found the perfect spell, the Death Eaters would have died with him, and that would have been the end. I know you must be so ashamed of me, I know the Wizarding world must be ashamed of me, because I didn’t come through, and I didn’t stop their friends and family from being hurt. Even now they’re still at large, and it’s because of me."

Dumbledore was completely silent, and the only sound in the room was Harry’s own ragged breathing. This was perfect misery, sharp in his intensity, and seemed to pay a bit of the penance Harry owed to all of the lives that had been lost. Harry relished in it as it washed over his bruised and beaten soul, because admitting his sins made some of the memories that haunted his life seem more bearable. What he couldn’t stand was Dumbledore’s complete silence and his eyes, always twinkling and softly blue, filled to brimming. "Harry..." his voice broke, and when he stopped to clear it, Harry felt a lump rise in his throat. "Harry, you are not responsible for any of their deaths. I...gave you your space. I thought you would need time to distance yourself from all that occurred, and perhaps distancing yourself from me would also be beneficial. It turns out that this old man once again failed to remember what it is to be young."

"Sir, not to be rude, but I am responsible," Harry said, very softly. "I was supposed to kill Voldemort with magic. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was too weak a wizard, so I turned into an animal and killed him with my bare hands. How, how is that not cowardly? How is that not terrible? I broke his wand and killed his body in a matter of seconds. I smothered him with my hands, I killed him, even if he was Voldemort, even if he was the worst thing to ever grace the earth, I’ve killed another man. I felt his bones crunch under my hands, and I was there as he drew his last breath. I was there to look into his eyes and see that it wasn’t hate in them–but fear. Understanding, and fear. I killed him, professor, and I can’t..." He was choking on the lump in his throat, "And my punishment is to be responsible for all the deaths that have come after him, all the deaths that I put into motion because I didn’t face up to him as a wizard, as an equal. Because I was glad when I suffocated him, because all I could feel was revenge, so hot inside of me, finally being let free. I didn’t have pity, Dumbledore, I didn’t stop myself from taking as much enjoyment out of his murder as I could."

His entire body began to shake as he set his head in his hands, and though they were right there, his body still refused to let him cry. He’d cried so much since the battle that he felt he’d cried all of the oceans and all of the rivers in the world, and with every tear the weakness he was totally aware of inside of his soul tore wider, longer.

"Harry," Dumbledore’s voice then, quiet but firm, and Harry realized as the cushions dipped that Dumbledore had sat down beside him. The earthy, fresh smell of Dumbledore’s whole essence wrapped around Harry’s body like a warm blanket, just as Dumbledore’s arms came around him and held him close to his side.

And though Harry couldn’t find the tears his body still refused him, he found the extra well of emotion and began to shake in harsh, dark movements against the older mans robes. They felt like they were wrenching out of him with forceful yanks, and though hysteria leapt up in his throat Harry pushed it back down and let himself be comforted.

It was the fact that no one had ever held him like this that made his sobs turn inward and find solace in truth.

It took him several minutes to calm himself, but when he did, he realized Dumbledore was gently stroking his hair and holding him like he was a five year old. And where once that would have grated on Harry’s nerves, it now soothed and protected, calmed, along with Dumbledore’s soft voice like warm waters flowing in and out of his mind. "Harry, you are the bravest man I have ever known," he murmured gently, and at Harry’s dark snort, lifted Harry’s chin gently so they could look at one another. "You are the bravest man I have ever known. Your courage is a pliable thing, surrounding you like armor. You have braved everything, from your muggle family to the taunts of the students here at Hogwarts, to Voldemort himself. You have faced them with courage and anger, bravery and fear, and you have come out on top. Do you believe that simply because you killed Voldemort without magic that it somehow makes you weak?" He didn’t wait for Harry to answer, just speaking soft