Harry barely made it to the toilet before he began emptying the contents of his stomach into the bowl. Severus had followed him only a couple of steps behind and so he arrived just as Harry first threw up, instantly kneeling down beside him, placing one hand on the boys back and the other on his upper arm providing Harry with both support and comfort.

"I'm sorry Harry. I shouldn't have shown you that. I'll cover it back up. I know that it is disturbing to see. I just, well, I just thought that it would show you that you aren't alone in this, it would help you see that I understand some part of what you have been through. I'm sorry."

Harry wiped his mouth and then rinsed it out from the tap before replying. "Don't. Don't cover it back up. Please? It wasn't that which made me sick, it was the thought that someone else had been through the same as me. I know how it feels, and I don't just mean physically, so it pains me to think that someone else has been through it themselves. Can I see? Promise I won't be sick this time." Harry knew that he was making the room very sombre so he decided to add on the last part in an attempt to lighten the mood a bit.

Severus moved his arm so that Harry could see the scars and it was closer to the boy. He noticed Harry move his hands towards the letters but stopped a few millimetres away looking to Severus in silent question. Snape nodded at Harry giving his consent at which the boy closed the gap and continued moving his hands, fingers tracing the letters as he went along.

Snape recognised the look that Harry was getting in his eyes as he traced the letters, he knew that when Lily used to look like that she was using a rare skill originating from the powers of Seers. Her ability to focus on an item and look to the past had clearly been passed on to her son. After a few minutes Harry was still focused with going over the scars repeatedly so Severus decided that he would speak up first. "What did you find out then young man?"

"What?"

"Your mother used to be able to tell the history of an item by touching it, it's a rare skill- looking to the past rather than to the future. She couldn't do it with people though."

"I can't tell the complete history of a person by touching them, however I can see the events pertaining to a specific injury as well as being able to sense how a person felt at that time, as well as in the present. That just enable me to piece it all together to find out a more detailed story."

"So?"

"So what?"

"What did you find out from that?"

Harry looked at Severus as if determining how much he should let the man know that he figured out. "It was deep, the person who did it had little regard for whether or not you died from the blood loss. The lines are uneven, mine are straight and even all the way through, mine are done as a ritual, as a branding, as a reminder, yours was unplanned and hurried. The varying depths and lines mean that it was done through inhibition, the person was drunk. You loved the person who did it but not much, though that was not through care but instead through duty, feeling you MUST love him, but truly you despised him. You still hate the man. It was the first time that he ever carved into your flesh like this but it was a common occurrence that he would hurt you, hence where the hatred originates from. You didn't like the way that he would come home drunk often and hurt your mother or yourself, therefore it was your father, not your dad though, you didn't care for him enough for him to earn that title. You still resent him now, not for this though. You are no longer bothered by the scars as you feel that it shows your past, just as much as the Dark Mark does. As for the reason," at this point Harry paused to see if he should go further but upon no objections he closed his eyes and focused back on the scar. "It was done through hatred, not for you but for what you are, it was done through a hatred of magic. It's the same feeling you get from the scars on my stomach, they were formed of hatred and a fear of what I was, am."

Harry opened his eyes and blinked away the glassy look before shyly looking up at Snape. He could see tears in his Professors eyes and felt horrid for being the one to put them there. He gripped his wrist tight with his nails as he apologised. "I'm so sorry. I said too much. I shouldn't have said all that. I didn't mean to pry either, I shouldn't have looked so deeply into it, it's your past. It should've been up to you to tell me as much or as little as you chose. I'm sorry."

As Harry spoke, Snape broke out of his thoughts he focused on the boy next to him. Noticing instantly that Harry was working himself up and not realising that he was bleeding Snape decided to stop him. "Harry, it's fine, it was just a shock hearing you compare the two of us." He reached over and placed his hand on top of Harry's that was gripping his wrist and whispered, "let go please Harry." He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding when Harry did as he asked before he made a move to get his wand so that he could heal Harry when he was stopped.

"I've got this Sir." Severus looked over wondering why Harry would make him leave it. Harry was ignorant of Severus' confusion as he stood and washed the small beads of blood while watching the five crescent cuts disappear.

"Harry, your arm?" He heard the shock laced into his teachers voice and so looked at his arm trying to see what was baffling his teacher before looking back to the man hoping for more explanation. "The cuts are gone?"

"Yeah? I said that my magic heals me."

"I had thought that you meant that you healed yourself using your magic, you know, charms. Not that your magic just did it by itself. Being able to do that, as well as tell the history of an item or event through touch and being able to feel a person's emotions, your magical core is the most powerful that I have ever seen. Not ever Dumbledore or the Dark Lord could do those things, well Dumbledore can heal himself somewhat but not to the extent that you seem to be able to.

"I never really cared for being able to feel people's emotions, it makes for a lonely life, knowing exactly how somebody feels about you sucks in the majority of cases. Telling the history of something is great but it tend to alienate people as it isn't exactly and every day ability, much like being a parseltongue, people don't like what they don't understand, it is just another thing that sets me apart. Healing myself is the one thing that I couldn't live without, literally. Without that ability my uncle would have killed me long ago."

"I will make sure that you don't go back to those- those things Harry. You don't deserve to be treated the way they seem to be treating you. If you can feel emotions and how someone truly feels then you must know that I am being honest right now, every word I have said is true."

Harry could feel the sincerity of the professor's words and so knew that he could trust the man. "How? How can you stop me from being sent back? I've asked but Dumbledore just tells me that I have to stay there because of the blood wards."

"Those wards only work as long as you still think of that place as your home. If you no longer consider it to be your home the wards are broken so that no longer could be used as a reason."

"But where would I go? I've got nowhere else to go."

"Let me worry about that for now."

"Sev I can't forget that home until I have somewhere else to call home, I consider Hogwarts to be my home and yet I still have to return there so I can't be free of that place."

"Well, you could come live with me. If you wanted to that is. You don't have to, it was just an idea." Severus felt highly embarrassed for ever making that suggestion and once again thought that Harry would instantly reject that suggestion so was rather shocked by the boy's response.

"I'd love to," Severus felt his heart swell, "but I couldn't." Then it deflated again.

"I understand that it is a bit sudden and I don't exactly treat you well in class but it felt right to offer. I don't mean that as in I felt obliged to ask but rather that it would be an honour to be your guardian."

"It's not that I don't want that Sev. You make me feel safe. You are the only person who seems to care about me rather than what I can do for you. There is no one that I would rather stay with because of that, but that is why I couldn't. I'd just be a burden and I could never repay you. Nothing I could do or that I could give you would ever be enough."

"Could you trust me?"

"Of course. I already do, otherwise I wouldn't have shown or told you the things that I have done in the past 12 hours."

"Then you don't have anything that you owe me, I would be honoured if you would live with me. I just want you to trust me, to believe me, I just want to protect you. You give me your trust and there is nothing that could ever be better or more important to me than that."

Harry could sense the sincerity from Severus as he spoke those words compared to when he spoke to others; Ron always exudes jealousy towards Harry, Hermione pities him, while Dumbledore holds a slight amount of compassion he mainly feels smugness at the fact that he has Harry on his side as though he is nothing more than a trinket.

"Would you ever get a tattoo of anything Severus?"

"That's a bit of a change of topic there Harry."

Harry laughed nervously, scratched the back of his neck and simply replied, "yeah," before he continued waiting for Severus to answer the question.

"I'm already marked Harry, I don't know that I could ever bring myself to get another."

"If you didn't have the dark mark, what would you get?"

"I don't know, I had considered getting a family crest at one point, or the Slytherin crest, with an open lily under it. Why do you want to know what I'd get?"

Harry looked embarrassed for a moment before looking into the black eyes of his professor. "I know how I can get rid of the Dark Mark, remove the outward evidence of it as well as any hold over you that Voldemort may still have, however I would need to cover it with something else. I know it is a bit presumptuous of me but if it were something you desired I could do it."

Severus looked shocked, and rightly so, at Harry's words. "Why would you do that for me though?" Snape tried to look disinterested in the idea but Harry had felt the wave of hope that flashed through the man at the mention of the removal of the mark.

"Because you are a good man. You don't deserve to have these reminders of your past, I could heal the scar fully too if you wished but that would be painful and I would have to rest for a day or two afterwards so that would be best done on a weekend or holiday."

"If you can remove scars and heal old wounds completely, why haven't you done that for yourself?"

"Sev, my uncle used to reopen the wounds every time they began to fade. If I took away all of my scars completely I don't think I could heal myself after the beating that I would get. It's just easier this way believe me."

"If I take you away from them will you do it then? Will you heal yourself fully?"

"If you get me away from them and you let me help you by doing the same."

"You don't have to do that thought Harry."

"No, I don't have to. However if that is a deal, give me your left arm."

Severus thought for a moment but deciding that it would be worth it to help Harry he handed over his arm with little reluctance. Harry pointed Snape's wand at the snakes, waking them up before placing a hand over the mark and began whispering in parseltongue, 'come, leave this man, join me brothers, reside with me and leave this man, come.' The snakes moved onto Harry's palm, bringing with them the piece of Voldemort that allowed him some level of control over the person. Harry then began transforming the remaining lines into the outline of a crest with the requested lily underneath it. "Slytherin or Snape crest?" The potions master decided on his house as they were more his family than his father ever was. Upon this word Harry moved his hand closer to Severus' hand so that he and Snape could see the lined forming the details within the crest, watching as the image took shape.

Once the crest was finished Harry took his hand away completely as Snape looked at his arm in awe at that lack of the Dark Mark on his pale skin and instead the appearance of a vibrant green crest and a gorgeous lily underneath. Harry meanwhile was studying the two snakes on his palm. "Now for the hard part," he whispered. At these words Severus looked over at Harry and realised that the young man had managed to remove the mark by taking the magic into himself and he felt guilty for this fact.

Harry forced his magic towards his hand in order to fight the unwelcome intrusion of the foreign magic held within the ink of the snakes. It took Harry almost two full minutes to defeat the magic causing the snakes to finally still once more. Harry destroyed the ink making it move into his bloodstream but had not yet removed it fully.

"Sorry about this," spoke Harry softly as he cut his hand using Severus' wand, the blood flowing from the wound was black with the destroyed ink. He had to keep it open for 37 seconds until the blood flowing from it was its normal colouring once more. At this point he let his magic heal him once more and the Dark Mark was finally gone from the both of them.

Severus was initially panicked at Harry harming himself once more but seeing the black blood he understood that he was simply finishing the task of ridding them of Voldemort's magic once and for all, from the Dark Mark anyways. He let out a sigh when Harry healed the wound as soon as it was possible.

Harry waved his hand and all of the blood that had been spilt was gone and the room was clean once more. He rinsed his arm for the second time that day before offering a hand to Severus to help him from the bathroom floor.

Snape accepted the hand graciously and stood before leading the way back into the main room. He walked over to the settee and sat looking at his arm, twisting it this way and that, looking at the dramatic change.

Harry seemed to debate between sitting next to the man and talking to him, or moving to the piano and playing for a little bit while the man seemed to be so distracted. He made his way over to the piano bench and began playing a slow melody that he had composed a few years previous.

Snape looked at the young man after a while and decided to join him. When Harry sensed the other man moving towards him and join him on the seat he began transitioning the music into a slightly faster piece. He drew the music to a close and turned the arm of the man sitting next to him so that he could see his inner arm.

"What do you think?" he asked the older man, a bit apprehensive about the reaction that he would get, he knew that if the man said that he didn't like it he could easily change it however he wanted it to be right.

"It's amazing. I just can't believe that you could do this, or that you would do it, for me. I wouldn't change a single thing about it."

"You may think otherwise soon. I didn't just want to leave it as a plain tattoo, don't worry though, I didn't do a Voldemort on you, I can't control you or anything like that. I can change it if you want, or make any differences that you ask for. I guess there are two aspects that I should explain to you. I just feel as though I couldn't leave you unprotected so I added a protective charm, a shield or sorts I suppose. If anyone maliciously casts something on you it is redirected back at them, obviously I didn't let it work for any spell but anything that could cause you a great deal of injury or pain, death, or that would mean you are unable to retaliate. It will also reflect ALL magic cast by Voldemort or any of the Death Eaters that I know of as I figure since they have found out about you being a spy you will be a big target for them. The other thing that I did was to impart some of my ability to feel emotions into it, whereas I can sense the emotions of anyone near me, you have to be in contact with them. Like I said I can get rid of those things if you want me to. The third aspect I think would be more appropriate to show you," at this comment Harry put his hand on the other man's wrist and gauged the reactions as Snape watched the lily come out in full bloom and the colours seemed to brighten. "It's not clued into me in case you start to think that. It will appear in full like that if the person that you are in contact with truly cares for you. If they trust you completely."

"Why would you do that?"

"I know that I should have asked you first. I'm sorry. I'll take it all off if you wish. Just say and it will be gone and we won't mention it again."

"Harry, it's perfect. I mean it. I just, it's really exceptional, it's amazing, and I just don't know why you would do all that for me."

"You heard what I said about the lily right. It will only bloom like it did if the person deeply cares for you. I care for you. I know that we never really got along in class before but I always respected you. You would shout at people but it was always through concern rather than anger. You hated me for being the replica of my father however today you stayed with me, you've really helped me when no one else has ever bothered to. You're like the dad I never knew." Harry had left his hand on Severus so that he could feel the honesty in the words, although that also meant the embarrassment during the last seven words which he whispered, barely making a movement in the air, let alone making a noise.

Harry drew his hand away when Severus didn't reply as he felt even more embarrassed for what he had just said and stood up from the piano. "Well I guess we should go, dinner is in a couple of hours and I have homework, plus I'll have to catch up on the lessons that I missed today."

"Harry?" the boy turned with his hand still on the door ready to leave, "you're like the son that I never had." Harry gave a small smile to the man before leaving with a whispered thank you lingering in the air.