Natasha's note: For my faithful followers- this story is for you. For newcomers to this series- the tale will make very little sense to you and probably have little entertainment value unless you read the three stories that come before. They are in order: Band of Gypsies, A Debt Repaid, A Fatal Attachment and Gypsy Witch.

Harry's Torment

Daniel celebrated his twelfth birthday in style. His father, Harry Potter, his godfather, Severus Snape, his various 'uncles' and his closest friends, Veronica and Ron Weasley, were all sitting in front of a campfire.

One of the elders and leaders of the small Gypsy caravan, Jolie Pulani was playing a fiddle, another 'uncle', Gregor, played a guitar. Several other men from the entertaining family were singing and everyone was clapping.

Daniel had been reunited with his estranged father during his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. His second term at school was ending and he had joined his mother in her Kumpania, the name for the small group of families that traveled the road in their wagons. Daniel was just getting to know his father again for the first time after three years of separation. Harry was now the Headmaster of Hogwarts.

Now as he sat looking into the fire, Daniel knew that he still felt very shy around his father, who was a very famous man. One of the reasons he felt that way was that Harry had not been willing at the time to talk about why he had been absent from his family. Still, as Daniel watched his father, he was willing to let his questions rest for awhile and enjoy just being with the man.

The women of the group, as was custom, sat outside the ring of men near the fire. Daniel's mother also watched Harry with eyes that burned with more than firelight. Daniel knew how she felt, could feel her happiness, because he had many special gifts, and was called a Senseve. He could sense, feel and know things that ordinary men could not. Even as young as twelve he was considered an Adept Senseve. There were several levels; the most talented, were called High Senseve, the next level- the Adept and then those still being trained. All Senseve were born with their gifts and were taught by those who had mastered their abilities.

Daniel sat at the fire and translated to his friends; twins, Veronica and Ron Weasley, what the group was saying or singing, since the Gypsies or Roma spoke only in their language of Romani. He was just about to tell them what was happening. Luciano and Pascal, two older men had gotten to their feet and had begun to dance. In his world the men learned to dance at a very early age. His mother had told him once that he would never become a full-fledged adult until he had learned to dance.

He watched as the two men stood, posed, feet together, arms in the air and began the dance. They began slowly shuffling and then their steps became more frenzied, circling the campfire, arms linked, at first going left and then right. Everyone in the camp, including children clapped and shouted out encouragement. Many played instruments or sang. Everyone admired the style and the fashion with which each man carried out his dance. Greater respect was shown to the man who danced the best.

Daniel explained to his friends that the two men were performing a ritual dance. Everyone was having a wonderful time shouting out to them. Now exhausted, they sat down, waiting for the next man to stand and show his expertise. Daniel was surprised when his father stood. Harry had walked with a cane for years and Daniel knew that it was the result of torture he had endured just before he killed the darkest, most evil sorcerer and wizard known for many years, Lord Voldemort.

Harry stood and handed him his cane and bowed slightly. This was to indicate he was dancing for Daniel as a measure of respect for his twelfth birthday. Daniel glanced anxiously over at his mother who wore a expression of rapt respect and admiration. He caught her eye when he started up, and she shook her head. To stand or assist his father in any way would be a sign of disrespect and would humiliate him. No matter how well or poorly he did, Harry danced for his son and could not be embarrassed in front of others.

Daniel glanced over at his stepfather, Severus Snape, who normally dressed in black robes and clothing during the school year, but was now dressed in Roma clothing while in camp. Severus looked at him and then turned to watch Harry. Daniel knew that he, also, wanted to step in and help the man.

Harry started with the pose, typically taken; arms up, hands loose and free, head straight. Jolie began to play and watched with glittering black eyes and a grin which allowed the gold in his mouth to glitter in the firelight. Jolie's eyes squinted from the smoke of the fire and drooped as he listened to some internal instruction that guided his magical fingers on the fiddle.

Daniel clapped and also began to utter encouragement, while the tempo increased. Harry's feet never faltered. He shuffled faster and faster swinging in circles. At the height of the beat, he gestured for Daniel, who leapt up and joined him, arms linked to each other's shoulders. He looked at his father's sweaty face and the eyes that laughed and knew that his father was having a glorious time. Together they stepped around the fire in a frenzy; yelping as they went.

Harry finally let go and dropped to the ground to let Daniel continue and finish the dance. In their camp, Daniel was now almost considered a man at twelve and would follow the customs that men in the camp followed. He stopped at the end of the music and stepped to sit just behind his father who looked exhausted but was laughing and calling out in Romani to his friends who were now taking their turns.

When Daniel looked again, his mother was smiling. He watched then as women danced, sometimes using veils, writhing their torsos and limbs as they moved; as a single dancer or in pairs. When his mother danced, she did it before his father and used hands cymbals.

Daniel blushed when Ron Jr. leaned in and whispered. "Your mother is fantastic! And to think your father can dance!" He grinned and dropped his head for a moment. He couldn't remember feeling so pleased.

It was later when the fires died down and the children were rolled up in quilts beside the wagons that the men began to tell stories. The women brewed hot black coffee, brewed twice and sweeten it with generous amounts of sugar. This was handed round as each man would sit and speak in low guttural tones.

Once again, Daniel waited for Harry's turn. The few things Daniel could remember of the man when he was small were the tales his father told. He wondered now what he would say and if it would be as exciting. It also reminded him that there were many years that had passed in which his father had been gone. He sat and listened, wondering somewhere in his mind what had taken place then.

Harry's turn came. "I met a vampire by the name of Kaldensky," he began. There were some murmurings from the men, a few nodded their heads seriously and gazed into the red embers. The women huddled together knowing that the tale would be frightening and wishing it so. Ron and Veronica sat near Daniel and listened wide-eyed as each man told one tale after another. Harry continued, "He's still around although he usually stays at a respectable distance from me these days." Harry began to weave the tale slowly, stretching it so that each listener could bring to their own imaginations the colors and hues of the tale.

Severus Snape sat back and pulled his wide-brimmed hat over his eyes and folded his arms over his chest. Daniel could sense some tension there, although it looked to anyone else as if he had lost interest and had fallen asleep.

Daniel listened with his eyes closed. It had always been easier to shut some things out this way since his senses were so acute. He often felt flooded from the emotions of many people around him; their odors, their sounds, even the expressions on their faces stimulated his brain.

"His fangs were three inches and he opened his mouth wide to extend them the full length, the curve of his red lips around the whiteness was the only thing I could see in the faint beam of light," Harry was speaking softly. Only the faint sounds of the fire snapping, crickets in the bushes and an intermittent huffing of a horse grazing nearby could be heard as he spoke. "I could smell him, and hear him rustling like a bat opening its' wings. I had no wand, no weapon, nothing that would keep him away and he wanted revenge. I had escaped his clutches many times before and he was angry."

Harry nodded to those watching him, "Oh yes, we knew each other," he said as if answering their unspoken questions. He looked at Snape who remained motionless. "He is one of the Old Ones, and very, very dangerous."

A few women sighed softly. Harry stared at the fire, the redness of his scar on his forehead was amplified by the burning coals. "They have very little human left in them, if any. The things that are used to ward off the vampire do not work on him, because he is wise and cunning."

Daniel stared at the man and held his breath. He'd heard the story before but only as a little boy and it still made him feel fear.

"I had been trying to wall him up, entomb him," Harry was saying. "It is the only way to deal with one of the Old Ones because they are almost impossible to kill. A wand does not work nor even Roma magic." He shrugged as if apologizing to the group and then went on, "I had him cornered in a dungeon in the old McKennan castle on the north shore. I'd been tracking him for about six months and found his lair in the black holes that have over centuries become labyrinths. What I wasn't aware of at the time was that he had enticed me there; had purposefully allowed me to find him."

People groaned in the circle. The Roma were particularly afraid of vampires and so the tale was making everyone shiver with fear and excitement. They were now ready to hear the climax of the tale. Daniel's father was a good storyteller, he drew the ending out, describing his moments of terror and desperation as he cornered the vampire and then found to his dismay, it was he that was cornered.

"I had scarred Kaldensky once, in my youth when I ran across him for the first time. I had used a mirror and reflected a beam of sunlight on his face. He was quite a handsome creature at the time, but the light burned a scar across his left cheek, burned his eye and ended in his hairline. It was white and ugly, particularly his eye, with its' milky pupil. For that he hated me, because I ruined his beauty and therefore his ability to entice strangers so that he could feed on them." Harry used his hands as he spoke and traced the scar across his own face forgetting that he also wore a scar very near the one he was illustrating. "I ran from him. Up the stairs, through hallways until we reached the very top of the castle on the battlements. The wind was blowing hard and he forced me onto a rampart. We were hundreds of feet above the ground."

As Daniel listened he thought about his earlier meeting the day before with his godfather Severus, who was now laying with his feet extended towards the fire as if napping. Daniel had gone to him to ask a question.

"Boldo (godfather)," Daniel had approached him in the twilight of the evening along the bank of a fast running river. Snape appeared to be studying some of the plants lining the bank.

"Yanel," Severus replied and rose from his bent over position. "Happy Birthday, Yanel."

Daniel smiled and reached out his hand to shake Snape's. The man's eyebrows arched and his frowned.

"Are you so old now that you shake my hand?" the man asked.

Daniel contemplated him with a serious look and then grinned. He leaned in and hugged his godfather around the chest and said, "I will do this one last time before I am considered too old to hug you any longer. But you must not tell anyone. " He stepped back to look up into his godfather's face.

The face had softened and the black eyes that stared down at him were full of warmth. "Is that so?" Daniel had heard stories about how hard and cruel Snape had been to others when they went to Hogwarts. He found it hard to believe. He also found it hard to believe that the man had been what the wizards and witches called a Death Eater to the Dark Lord, Voldemort. When he looked into his face and Severus looked back, all Daniel could see was a man who loved him. A man who had given him the love that he had missed from his own father.

"Yes, it is so," Daniel answered, seriously. "I will say this also, one last time, I love you, Boldo," Daniel raised his chin and stared into the man's eyes.

"Well, if that is what is to be," Severus said and sighed softly. "Then, I will also say for the last time, I love you, Yanel. But you will always be able to find it in my heart."

They stood staring at one another gravely and Daniel broke the silence. "I've come to ask a question of you."

Snape looked at him with some skepticism. It was not the custom of the Roma to ask questions: it was a rarity. He tried to remain light-hearted, "and that would be, what? To find out what I have for you for your birthday present?"

Daniel smiled slightly. "No, Boldo, but I would like to know what it is?" He'd rarely ever gotten a gift from anyone in the kumpania. Only the non-gypsy people he knew, the ones the Roma called Gadjo, ever gave him gifts.

Snape withdrew his wand and with a slight tap and swish he produced a package of irregular length and tied with string. "I have consulted the experts in your family and they think it is the very best one."

Daniel hurriedly tore the wrapping off and screamed in joy. It was a broom, a Quidditch national playing broom called the Silver Smoker. He marveled at the ebony handle and the white broom-straw tail intricately hand-woven with the finest of unicorn hairs that shimmered iridescently. Daniel wanted to take it for a test run but held back his enthusiasm. He wanted to ask the question he had come to ask.

"Boldo, this is a wonderful gift," he said and hugged his godfather again. He received a small smile in return. "I will treasure it always." Daniel thought of the other children in the camp and their envy at seeing him with a broom, since his own people rarely every used them.

"Alright then, Yanel, ask the question you have sought me out to ask," Snape said sitting down in the grass. "Then you can ride the broom you so much want to ride."

Daniel often wondered at his godfather's own talents for understanding others. He sat beside him and thought for a moment. "I asked my father where he had been the last three years and why he had not come back to the kumpania." Daniel could feel his godfather stiffen, but he continued, "He said that he could not talk about it just then. I thought…I thought you might know."

Snape stared off across the grassy embankment, his face turned away. "It is not for me to say, Yanel. You must wait until he is ready."

Daniel knew that he would hear those words and still, disappointed, he moved to leave his godfather's side.

"Yanel," Snape turned to face him. He had a faraway look in his eyes and Daniel say something he had not seen in the face, a great sadness. "You are not old enough to know… to hear about certain things. These are things that should remain left untold, perhaps forever." The eyes refocused and penetrated Daniel's. "There are some men…creatures in the world that are so depraved that if you mingle with them for any length of time you begin to feel as if you have become tainted. Some are easy to identify and many not; many walk in your footsteps everyday and look…normal." His voice cracked slightly and Daniel noticed the composure crumbling, slightly. It was unsettling coming from such a strong man. Snape continued, "But they are not normal; far from it. They are cold and deathlike, evil and insane." His godfather's voice deepened and it sent a shiver through Daniel. He was mesmerized by the look on his godfather's face.

"A man can walk among these creatures and feel that he has fallen, has begun to be like them. He may almost feel he has become untouchable, unworthy of acceptance back into this world." His godfather turned away once again and pulled a spear of grass from between his feet and put the tender shoot in his mouth. "Salvation for this man comes over a long time. His heart is hardened to the world. He can become accustomed to seeing the terrible; his ears, hearing the horrible and his mind knowing the unbelievable. He may have to act in ways that are against his nature, against all nature…and yet he will do what needs to be done and loath himself for doing it in spite of himself." Snape spit the grass out and looked once at Daniel. "If…or when your father tells you the story…keep that in mind." Snape rose to his feet and looked down. "Time to go for a ride."

Daniel rose and watched as his godfather walked away. He took his new broom for a glorious ride over the camp and yet the words remained fixed in his mind and cast a shadow over his spirit.

It wasn't until he sat around the campfire listening to his father describing the vampire Kaldensky and sat looking into his face that Daniel thought of Severus' words. The handsome face of his father, glistening with drops of perspiration, as he animatedly told the story caused him to recall his question to his godfather and the answer.

"I knew that if one drop of his saliva touched my skin, it would burn through me, and poison me like venom and his teeth would be in my neck in a flash," Harry said. "What I didn't know was that I stood on the edge of the battlement, perched inches away from the edge. Kaldensky hugged me to him in an attempt to sink his fangs into my neck and I was struggling to loosen his grip. Suddenly, I knew he was ready, and I gave one last yank to free myself." Harry was miming the move he made while struggling against the vampire's attack. "And then I did it! I was free, but falling. I was hundreds of feet up, in the darkness and falling, not knowing what I was going to land on. I could hear him laughing and calling after me, 'until we meet again Harry Potter!' and then I hit. It was water and I went down deep, deep, deep into the moat of the castle. Weeds and grindylows reached to entangle me, but I felt the bottom with my feet and I kicked hard and began to rise, struggling to not suck in the cold, brackish water that surrounded me. I was free at last. My head emerged in the darkest of night and I began swimming in one direction until I could pull myself up and out." Harry finished and received hearty and appreciative thanks from everyone.

The night grew long and people broke the circle and began to drift off to their beds of comforters. Harry got up and called softly to Daniel. "Will you join me yet before you go to bed?"

Daniel nodded and they were followed out of the camp by Severus who trailed behind a few feet. They walked through the wet grass until they reached the edge of the river, the bank soft under their feet.

"Daniel, I understand from Severus that you are still asking questions about my past," Harry began.

Daniel glanced over at Snape who had stopped in the moon's shadow of a tree and was leaning with his back against it, waiting silently. "Yes," Daniel answered. "I'm angry. I watch you and with all my senses I know that your heart is here with the kumpania. I want to know what could keep you from us, what could have been so important that I lived without you for so long?" The full moon shone down on them and Daniel could easily see his father's face looking down on him.

"Daniel…I don't think it is something that you should hear about; not yet, not at your age…" Harry began.

"Because I'm too young!" Daniel shot back. "I will be of age in one more birthday."

"Yes, I know, but…"

"You left me! You left me to be beaten by Jonas! Did you know that? Would you have cared?" Daniel was angry and letting it out. He noticed with his keen hearing that Snape drew in a quick and haggard breath. That information had been kept between them for years. Severus had told him once after seeing a black eye that his Senseve master had given him that he should not tell Harry. If he did he was warned that his father would use his special gift, his special magic and kill Jonas, which might mean his own death. In the end Harry had killed Jonas, only weeks before, but had not used his powers.

Harry reached for his arm, "He did what?" he asked , his voice hard and cold.

Daniel yanked his arm away. He was still not sure of his father, had not gotten to know him and wasn't sure of what he would do. "Yes, he beat me. Boldo told me not to tell you. He said you would kill Jonas and it would hurt you to use your powers. So I didn't."

Harry stared at him and then turned to Snape. "Daniel go back to camp."

"No…no. Why?" Daniel was angry still and knew what he had done, but didn't feel sorry for it. "Tell me…"

"Do it now!" Harry whirled on him, hissing in fury and for the first time Daniel saw the man who had conquered the Dark Lord, who had gotten away from a vampire and knew he had to be obeyed immediately.

He turned and purposefully walked away from the two men rather than run, which what his heart and legs felt like doing. He'd never seen his father angry and he felt terrified at the moment of furry.

With second thoughts about returning to camp, he turned on his heel and circled around until he was within hearing distance, which for him and his sensitive ears was far enough away to not be seen.

"Why didn't you tell me Severus?" Harry was asking in the hardest angriest voice Danile had ever heard. "If…if I had known I would have killed the evil bast…!"

"You killed him once, Harry," Severus was saying very calmly. "I do not think you can kill him again."

"But you knew!" Harry shouted.

"Yes, I knew," Severus answered. "I told Yanel to tell me if it ever happened again. I went to Jonas and told him that he would not touch the boy again."

"It's likely Yanel wouldn't tell you if it happened again," Harry said, his voice dropping down to normal. "Children are like that and he is very independent and proud."

"I know of one other instance and that is all. Nadya told me of it." Snape's voice was very soft and Daniel strained to hear.

"It's always the two of you keeping things from me!" Harry cried out in exasperation. He turned and his back bent as if the weight of the knowledge was crushing him. And then, he straightened. "Did you hurt him?" he asked with viciousness lacing his voice.

There was a moment of silence and then Snape's low baritone voice vibrated in the night and sent goose-bumps up Daniel's arms, "Yes."

"Good!" Harry growled. "I want to know what you told Daniel about my powers? What is this nonsense about it hurting me?"

"Harry, you forget that I was there when you killed Voldemort," Severus intoned. "I saw what it did to you, and the other time. You take too many risks with your life as if you had more than one to count on. You know it's true that you cannot use that power. As a Protector it is necessary to do your duty and use it only to guard the Guardian. To use it otherwise is to risk your own death."

"So you told Daniel that it would kill me?" Harry's voice was menacing. "What would it have mattered! Jonas was beating my son! Look at him now Severus. He doesn't trust me, he doesn't know me. He spent all of those years with that devil who twisted his mind and abused him," his voice quieted and yet Daniel could hear a gut-wrenching pain in it. "And now. What is he going to think of his father Severus? I will be a monster to him if he hears the truth! I cannot tell him why I was gone from him and Nadya." Daniel heard the agony in the voice and he caught his breath.

"I said it once, Harry," Snape answered, "when it is time you will tell the tale. He loves you."