Chapter Text
The corridor was an eerie place, but Severus didn’t feel uncomfortable. There was a welcomingness to the air, completely at odds with the environs but tangible in the ambient magic around him. He flicked his wand—interesting detail, that—and conjured a bright ball of light as he continued walking.
That eeriness was mostly due to the familiarity of it all. The flagstones were identical in color and shape to those of Hogwarts, the torch brackets twisting in perfect copies of its own metal holders. Almost out of habit, he turned a corner to where long years of teaching told him there should be a staircase up to the Great Hall. He instead found himself in a dim hallway with unexpected floral wallpaper and a thickly cloying atmosphere of dread. The light on the tip of his wand puttered out pathetically, and a door slammed shut behind him.
An instinct born many years ago flared up within Severus at the sound of heavy footsteps on the floor above, and he found himself fading back into a corner before he could stop himself. Scowling at his own reaction, he shook his shoulders to ease the tension from them and tucked his wand into an inner pocket. He could already tell it would not work here.
There was a staircase to the left, and a small door to the cupboard below pulsed with the fear already in the air. He guessed it was the focal point of this particular memory and looked around critically.
The faded quality of the surroundings, paired with the almost glowing halo around the lights and the soft edges around more distant objects, all presented this as a childhood association. Twin sets of unease curled in his gut: one, his own at what he might find here; the other, Harry’s personal feelings about the place where Severus now found himself.
The closed door behind him was a plain, muggle thing with a peephole at eye level. He leaned in towards it, but before he could get a good look at the street he expected to see outside, the door to the cupboard creaked open. He turned with a pounding heart.
Inside the cupboard was a dingy cot. A single, spluttering lightbulb above illuminated the cramped space. Small details, like the broken crayons and a sign reading “Harry’s Room” made its purpose unmistakable. Severus’ rage swelled as he stepped closer, inspecting the empty hovel.
“Boy! I thought I told you to stay in there!” a blustering, self-important voice burst loudly behind him. Severus turned, vague memories of Tobias Snape haunting him, to see a man that could only be Vernon Dursley. The large man was glaring malevolently at him with beady eyes. Aggression was evident in every line (curve) of Dursely’s body, and when he took one heavy step forward, the rising tide of poignant and child-like fear that crackled in the air around the memory got the better of Severus. He stepped backwards, the back of his knees hitting the cot. Wavering, losing his balance. He began to fall. Dursley’s piggish face filled with glee and the small door slammed shut. The light above cut out with it, and Severus fell… and fell… and fell, until he hit the ground with enough force to knock all of the air out of his lungs. The sight above him was completely different, now. Blue sky, wavering with intense waves of heat that felt like the height of summer. Another face came into view, an obscenely obese child with lacklustre blond hair who was grinning cruelly at him.
“Fell, did you, freak?” he asked. His voice was nasally and unpleasant.
Severus began to get up, but the boy kicked out and hit him in the ribs. It caused more pain than it should have on the grown wizard.
The surrounding emotions pervading this specific memory were still fear and dread, but there was a hint of anger as well. Or maybe that was just Severus.
Then the boy’s face disappeared, and Severus suddenly felt light-headed and sore. He was still lying on the ground outside, but the clouds had changed and he was holding a small trowel in one hand.
“Why are you lying around? Up! Vernon will be home soon, and I don’t want to see you slacking.”
There was the third voice, the one Severus found himself hating most. Even almost twenty years later, he still recognized Petunia Dursley.
Severus painfully picked himself up, looking around a half-finished garden wearily. He needed to get out of this memory cluster. Scenes from Harry’s childhood would likely continue to follow one after the other, dragging on endlessly in a draining way that Severus suspected his childhood had often felt. The emotional associations linking them all together would create a never-ending series of dreary abuses unless he could escape.
He stared around, trying to find any imperfection in the scene around him that could indicate a place where Harry linked it with other rooms or corridors to form his mind maze.
The other child came back, taunting him about how useless and freaky he was. At the reminder of his magic, Severus pulled his wand back out and experimentally tried another lumos. As he’d expected, it didn’t work. Harry must have felt incredibly cut off from his magic here, if he was even aware of it at all during the occurrence of whatever memory was currently happening, and as a result it was functionally nonexistent here.
He slowly turned around, looking at the garden around him. Potions expert that he was, it didn’t take him long to identify the presence of an ingredient that would never be caught growing in the muggle world. He grasped it with one firm hand and pulled.
Severus was back in a hallway that looked extremely similar to those of Hogwarts. There was a window nearby. He looked out of it. Instead of the grounds, it showed a dark forest at night. A sickly green light shot into the sky above it, twisting into a snake and skull. Severus moved on.
He wandered, carefully paying attention to his surroundings and trying to orient himself with where he had last been. If the layout were true to actual Hogwarts, he should be at least a floor up from where he had been walking before stumbling upon Harry’s memories of the Dursleys, as there were no windows in any of the dungeon corridors. This was not Hogwarts, though, and the last time he had treated it as such, he had gotten into trouble.
Severus was not here in search of any particular memory or piece of information, however. He had merely wanted to see how Harry’s mind maze manifested itself to an attacker. There was no need (and he frankly had no desire, after that rattling experience) to stay any longer. To escape, he focused on the one thing present that wasn’t in some form a part of Harry’s mind: himself. He turned his attention inward, pulling away from the general sense of Harry’s current feelings and giving himself over to his own thoughts. He centered on the distant sensation of his own body and drew out of Harry’s mind with a firm tug.
The green eyes he had been staring at blinked owlishly, and Severus shook his head to reorient himself. His private quarters had grown cold in the time they spent in Harry’s mind maze, so he stood (shakily, although he hid it) and tossed another log onto the fire.
Sparks drifted up into the chimney lazily. Severus leaned his forearm against the mantle and stared into the revitalized fire. The scenes from Harry’s childhood painted a grim picture of neglect and maltreatment. Overall, it was nothing he had not already known about. The overwork, the aggression, the bullying, even the cupboard, had all been known to him. He remembered when he had first learned about how the bright, lively teen he had come to know spent ten years of his life in the cupboard under the stairs. He had been full of rage, had thought he couldn’t get angrier. He’d been wrong.
“Well? How did it go?”
With effort, Severus turned back to his student and the task at hand. “You have been successful.”
Harry looked at him in silence, long enough for the moment to become awkward, before crossing his arms and scowling. “Stop that.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re looking at me like you’re feeling sorry for me.”
“I do feel sorry that you had to endure such treatment.”
“Why? It’s not your fault.”
An animal that had long been chained to the ruins of Severus’ battered heart howled in protest at this. It was his fault, and if Harry knew it, it would destroy everything between them. Externally, he forced his face into a neutral expression that was devoid of either pity or devastating guilt. “Never again, do you understand? I will never allow you to go back there again.”
“Dumbledore–”
“I do not care what the Headmaster thinks. I have already spoken to him, and he agrees that if there is a better place for you to go, it would be preferable to sending you back to that filth.”
“Any place is better than the Dursleys,” Harry said frustratedly, running a hand through his hair in agitation and making it stand on end. While the same action in James Potter used to ignite a rage in Severus, seeing it in Harry only made him feel something like… fondness.
“I agree. I have proposed multiple places. His concerns are security and secrecy.”
Harry chewed on his lip. His green eyes, suddenly full of pensive hope, flicked towards Severus’ own and then away again. “Couldn’t… couldn’t I stay with you?”
Severus was completely blindsided. While he was in his most self–indulgent moments, when completely alone and allowing himself to regretfully contemplate the things he wished for but would never have, the idea had crossed his mind. They had learned how to cohabit rather well in the village. Harry seemed to understand when Severus needed quiet and when he needed something to distract him from his spiralling thoughts. In turn, he provided the stability and reassurance that Harry’s so-called family had been criminally lacking in. They could work well together if they tried. He enjoyed teaching the teen about defense and occlumency. When seeing the quiet but bright smile that spread across his face during their lighthearted bickering, Severus felt a stirring of life inside his chest that he had thought long dead. Somehow, over the course of those months in the village, Harry had unwittingly provided more than a sense of duty to Severus. He had given him purpose.
How could he allow himself the luxury of keeping Harry close beyond their roles as mentor and student? Taking him into his home out of choice rather than necessity would almost be an insult to the penance he could never repay. Of course he would continue to do his best to train him, help him, and prepare him for the brewing war, but it must be better for Harry’s own sake that he stay with someone else. Someone who deserved his light, who didn’t hide his own darkness out of shame and a cowardly fear of rejection whenever reminded of the role he played in orphaning him. He had never found the courage to tell Harry about the prophecy at all, much less who had delivered it to the Dark Lord’s hands. If there were any other viable option, it must be in Harry’s interests to send him there instead.
“I– I do not th–”
“Please, sir! There’s nowhere else I’d rather go.”
Severus highly doubted that. He had come to accept, unbelievable as it was, that Harry had become attached to him. Still… a couple of highly sarcastic uses of the word “dad” notwithstanding, he had little reason to think that this superseded his loyalty to Black or his love for his friends. “Are you certain of that?”
“Yes,” Harry stated firmly, and to his credit, he really did sound certain. Then his posture faltered slightly. With forced casualness, he added, “But I get if you don’t want me around in your time off, though. I mean, you hate kids, so you probably want to get away from students in your summers. If you–”
“That is not it,” Severus cut him off, seeing the self-deprecating track he was headed down and not liking it. “It has nothing to do with not ‘wanting you around’. If anything, I have become rather used to your presence.” He cleared his throat and looked away, embarrassed as a teenager talking to his first crush at admitting his feelings so blatantly. It was worth it, though, to see the reignited passion in Harry’s face.
“Then what’s the problem? In fact, there isn’t even another option anyway! If I could have just stayed at Headquarters, you would have already told me by now. There’s a lot of people in and out, too, so it wouldn’t be very secret. The Weasleys are still trying to rebuild their home. Hermione lives with her muggle parents and can’t use magic to defend herself or anyone else. Remus is sick half of the time because of his condition, which isn’t his fault, but would make it hard for him to be there. Besides, he’s been running around on missions for Dumbledore. Most of the Order is busy doing stuff for the war. Now that Voldemort knows you’re a spy, you’ll be in hiding from him too, and it just makes sense for us to hide together.
“Basically, you’re the only one I can really trust who won’t be gone half the time; or doing something else; or unable to fight some, if not all, of the time. So really, it’s either you or the Dursleys.”
“You are not going back there,” Severus repeated reflexively, still absorbing that rapid-fire speech. Teaching that boy how to think had been a horrible act of self-sabotage.
Harry beamed. “Great, then it’s settled!”
“Wait, no–”
“We can eat something besides fish, and you can teach me more about wards and strategy and all of the other stuff we’ve been doing. I can still practice my bagpipes without pissing everybody off, since I’ll be able to do magic—”
“Are you implying that I, a professor, would allow a student to break the Restriction for Underage Magic?”
“—and can put up silencing charms. Or I guess you could do it, since you did before. Oh, and you can take me swimming and I’ll know how to breathe right this time, and do you have a cat? You seem like a cat person. Maybe not, though. You probably wouldn't leave it alone all school year, and you don’t have one here unless it hides in your bedroom when I’m around. Hedwig gets along with cats, even Crookshanks. I can draw up Quidditch strategies for the team while you read your books and pretend you can’t hear me muttering about chaser configurations and stuff. You’ll sigh over my clothes and I’ll try to trick you into eating breakfast. It’ll be like the village, except better, because there’ll only be one power-hungry man after me instead of two!”
Severus had to admit that Harry drew a pretty tempting (if rambling) picture of what it might be like. He observed Harry’s excited, mischievous face and found that he could imagine it all himself… except maybe the cat. He could never articulate the suddenly over-full mix of longing and hope that the thought poured into his throat like molten gold. He didn’t really want to. He let the blend disperse down somewhere between his fourth and fifth ribs and settled on, “I shall speak to the Headmaster.”
Harry’s smile was so bright it was blinding. Severus looked away for the sake of his retinas and collected himself.
“We have become woefully off-topic.”
“Right, Occlumency. What was it like up in there?” Harry’s grin shifted to something less manic, and he tapped one finger against his temple.”
“Empty.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Ha, ha. I could tell where you were in the maze,” and here the smile fell, to be replaced with something like shame, “and what you were seeing, but I couldn’t really control or direct where you went or anything.”
“That is something that will come with practice. As the intruder, I felt as though I were physically present and walking around. It was clear to see how memory groupings formed the structure of it, and the emotional associations between memories within the groups. I presume the place I found myself was a trap room?”
Harry nodded.
As thoughts and recollections so often work, one bringing up another, the trap room had been really effective in forming a stream of unpleasant memories. “I was not… unaffected by your own feelings, either within the memory or those of your current state.”
“You could tell what I was actively feeling?”
“When I focused, yes. In the beginning, it felt calm and welcoming. I was uneasy at the uncanny likeness to Hogwarts, but you yourself seemed content.”
“I don’t want to be content if someone’s attacking me!”
“I doubt you would be,” Severus said in amusement. “You probably did not feel threatened, as you knew it was only me.” And wasn’t that strange, considering the mutual animosity they once shared. It reminded him of the recent development again. Merlin, he was going to have a teenager in his house. He wondered if Spinner’s End would survive it. The place was already rickety enough as it was.
A part of him curled in shame at the thought of bringing Harry to such a place. He would have to try to fix it up or something beforehand and ignore the urge to burn it down and be done with it. He knew Harry would not judge him for its pervasive air of poverty, but he didn’t want to take the teen from one bad environment to another. Severus had struggled with himself enough in the village when he worried that he wasn’t providing in the way an adult was meant to provide for a child.
“Poverty’s not a vice, Sev.”
“You don’t get beat up by the kids at school, Mum. If it’s not a vice, it’s a target.”
Harry was oblivious to the way his mind had wandered. “Probably. So how do I direct somebody if they’re already in the maze?”
“It is something to experiment and work with. We will discuss it at Wednesday’s lesson.” Severus noted the way Harry’s face unexpectedly dropped at this and frowned. “What is the matter?”
“I’ve managed to evade Umbridge so far… and this is part of that, isn’t it?”
“‘This’?” Severus said airily.
“Moving the Occlumency lesson to right after school. You and all of the other teachers have made sure I don’t have a spare moment since Saturday so she can’t get at me, right?
“I am sure I have no idea what you are talking about. The staff would never sabotage the High Inquisitor.”
“...Right. But I have her class on Tuesday, so she’s gonna have her chance then, yeah? I might not be alive anymore by Wednesday.” He said it jokingly, but Severus saw the unease on his face.
There were two things Harry did not know. The first was that Dumbledore and other Order members within the Ministry had doubled their efforts to legally oust Umbridge from the castle, and the staff was aware of this. They certainly had been trying to stall for time in hopes that those attempts would succeed. These efforts had been frustratingly unsuccessful. He would personally be more concerned if it weren't for the second thing Harry didn't know: the contents of Miss Granger’s note.
“Alive or not, I expect you to be here at our usual time the day after next. Death is no excuse for slacking off.”
Harry made a face at him, which Severus generously didn’t comment on. He checked the time and saw that it was nearing the time for food to be served in the Great Hall.
“Is there anything in particular that you wish to eat for dinner?”
“What?”
“It is almost time for supper. I was going to propose we eat in my quarters.”
“You are conspiring against Umbridge!”
“Slander,” Severus smirked, moving to the door. “Chicken or meatloaf?”
“Perch.”
He gave him a dry look. “Is that so?”
“No! Just kidding. Whatever you’re having’s fine.”
“I will be back.” He slid out the door, leaving a smug teenager behind.
The kitchens were not far from his quarters. He did not actually have to go there to order food sent to his quarters; all professors were able to call the house elves to them at the slightest need. Harry, raised in a muggle environment, had luckily not questioned it. He slipped his hand into a pocket of his outer robe to check if the bottle within was secure.
“Miss Granger, a moment.”
She was not surprised. She made brief eye contact with him, nodding slightly, before smiling at her friends and walking up to the desk. He watched the two boys deliberate before leaving. Weasley clearly did not want to leave her to the tender mercies of their dreaded potions professor. He knew Harry’s friends had tempered their opinion of him somewhat after learning about their newfound amity, Granger more than Weasley, but there was still a reserve present that Severus had zero inclination to overcome.
“Sir?” she asked after the door closed.
Severus eyed her, trying to get a read on the girl. She had turned out to be far more than the rule-obsessed know-it-all he had once taken her for. He suppressed the urge to contemplate what kind of influence she might have on Harry. He was hardly one to talk. Once the silence had stretched long enough for her to fidget—Gryffindors never did have that indifferent mask his Slytherins developed—he said, “You left something behind.”
“Yes, sir.”
He lifted the scrap of paper, reading it over once more. The script was uncharacteristically messy; he would not have recognised the handwriting if he hadn’t seen just whose potions vial it had been slipped under. Delores Umbridge never received her Dragon Pox vaccine.
“How on earth do you know this?”
She flushed and broke eye contact, staring resolutely at a jar of particularly hideous grindylow kneecaps on a shelf behind him. “I’ve always been good at research.”
A Slytherin would have never admitted culpability. This was not one of his Slytherins. This was a Gryffindor, one who had given him a very valuable piece of information in a most un-Gryffindor way. He raised an eyebrow.
“The laws of wizarding Britain are terribly archaic, you know,” she said, forced to speak by his lack of answer. “There’s hardly a word about enforcing patient privacy.”
“I believe St. Mungo’s has policies regarding that matter even so.”
She only shrugged, face still coloured with embarrassment.
“Have you shared this with your friends?”
To his surprise, she shook her head. “You know how Harry is.”
“Your meaning?”
“Well, he’s… noble, isn’t he? I’m not sure he’d approve. He’d say it was underhanded.”
Severus tilted his head curiously as he looked at her. “Very well,” he finally dismissed. “Although you understand that this could never be used to harm a colleague.”
“Yes, sir. I simply found it interesting.”
“Did you.”
“May I be excused, sir?”
“I suppose you may.”
She gave a fleeting, awkward smile as she left. He watched the door shut, deep in thought, before turning and disappearing into his private lab. He had no more classes until after lunch, and there was something he had to brew.
He was startled out of his reverie when he rounded a corner and interrupted two teenagers’ amorous entanglement. They jumped apart with horrified gasps at the sight of him. Both were upper year Slytherins, but neither appeared happy to see their Head of House at this particular moment. His gaze rove over their rumpled outer clothes and blown pupils as his lips curled into a sneer. Merlin preserve him from these hormonal menaces!
“Detention.”
They looked after him mournfully as he swept past them, not saying another word.
The elves greeted him cheerfully when he stepped inside the warm kitchens, observing the busily organised preparations to feed a castle of hundreds of students and its staff. The head elf approached him and bowed low.
“Is there something I can be’s helping Master Snape with?”
Severus nodded. “Yes, Hakee. Two simple meals to be sent to my quarters, whatever you have on hand.”
Hakee bowed again. “We will takes care of it, sir.”
“By the way, have you prepared Professor Umbridge’s meal yet?”
A flash of dislike quickly passed over Hakee’s weathered face, but he disguised it with with a mask of polite professionalism. “We have, sir. She is being specifically requesting fancy meals every night, we must be making it special for her.”
Derision spiked in Severus. The self-importance of a woman with a unique title and ego to match it! “Is that so?”
“Yes, Master Snape. Tonight she is having us cook her a Dover sole fillet.” Of course she had. He showed Severus the platter, which was concealed beneath a cover charmed to retain heat. He lifted it and a waft of fishy steam drifted up. He wrinkled his nose; working all day in a fish processing shop for months had not endeared him to the scent, and it had been long enough ago for any nose blindness to have inevitably worn off.
There was a commotion behind them, the sounds of platters hitting the floor and several elfin cries of dismay. Hakee rushed over, snapping orders and fingers. Not wasting a moment, Severus poured the small bottle’s contents into the bowl of dipping sauce on the side of the platter. He shook the last drops out onto the fillet itself for good measure.
He replaced the cover and strode out of the kitchen, nodding in response to Hakee’s distracted call of “We sends you your food soon, sir!”
As he walked back to his quarters, this time fortunately not encountering any teenage trysts, he thought with grim amusement that it was almost like the old days. The only difference was that this particular target would not die of any horrible poisoning. That potion would merely infect her with the Dragon Pox virus. As the evening progressed, she would progressively feel worse and worse until convinced that the illness had been coming on for days. Maybe she would even blame it on the stress of Harry Potter. By the time she woke up the next morning, it will have set in with full force. He would be surprised if she physically made it to breakfast. Dragon Pox was an illness that varied in severity, but for someone who had never been given the standard preventative cure as a child, it would likely be much worse. At the very least, it would get her off her feet and their backs for a time, and that might just be enough. If nothing else worked, perhaps the DADA curse would.
If there were not a chance that someone could walk by and hear him, he would have started whistling.