AN: Sorry for the delay. You can thank a recalcitrant macbook, a chapter in dire need of some sort of plot interest and, well, me being lazy. This chapter started out as a massive info-dump. I'm not really sure what it is now.

For the disclaimer, you can refer to the first chapter if you feel the desperate need to.

Hogwarts Castle was too vast for one small child. It may have been Harry's Wonderland, but it was also Harry's prison. While there was no end to the assortment of rooms that Harry could explore, he wasn't allowed beyond the castle grounds. His only playmate was Sirius, who, as childlike as he could be, was more of a father-figure than the peer the lonely boy needed.

The sheer quantity of adults in his life allowed for very little playtime. Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix doubled as his guard and his teachers, dedicated to ensuring his survival. Remus, Harry was surprised to find, was skilled in hand-to-hand combat while Sirius, with a sabre in hand, was a duelling master. And while Harry quickly took to their style of teaching, there were also teachers like Alastor Moody, the eye-patch-wearing amputee with a temperament to match his staunch, craggy face.

Their first lesson hadn't been one to easily forget. Harry had been directed to a seemingly empty room, one he was sure had been a large study at some point but since then had been cleared and scrubbed and stripped back to its basic, cavernous capacity. While Harry looked to his left, trying to remember how that particular side of the room looked before, something flew at him from his right. It hit his neck with stinging force, and Harry lost his footing, collapsing against the wall with a yelp.

Slowly, Harry looked from the little orange pellet rolling around his shoes to the area from which it had been fired. Standing there, with a menacing black rifle in his hands, was the most frightening man the four year old had ever laid eyes upon. And he looked furious.

'Dead,' he barked. 'If I had been one of the Dark Lord's Death Eaters, you'd be off to meet your parents before you even realised why.'

Harry's face crumpled at the mention of his parents, but this man showed no remorse.

'Never enter a room without recceing it first. It isn't safe until you've noted every entrance, every exit, every person, object or hiding place. With your evident lack of brains, after you've done all that, it still probably wouldn't be safe. The threat of the Dark Lord is real. You know full well that he doesn't care that you're a wee brat that doesn't even clear his navel. He'll kill you all the same if you walk into his sight gaping at the scenery.

'Now, Dumbledore sent me to you because a dead man can't kill the Dark Lord. I've obviously got a lot of work to do, starting with basics of staying bloody well alive. So what now, Potter? Your enemy has been so kind to let you know he's in the room. What's your next move?'

Throughout this blinding, flabbergasting tirade, Harry had remained pasted to the wall behind him, his gaze drawn to the gun in the stranger's hands. It looked nothing like Voldemort's gun, but still he heard the man's icy laugh, his mother's cries, smelt the fire, the blood. The combative stranger didn't hesitate. Hoisting his gun, he shot Harry with another hard pellet, catching him in the chest. 'Ow!' he protested.

'Dead again, Potter.'

'B-but I know you're here now,' Harry muttered quaveringly. 'It's not a surprise anymore.'

'Indeed, but you're no less dead. What's the use of knowing the enemy's in the room if you're too slow to avoid them?'

Harry hadn't an answer to this.

'Dumbledore tells me that you've started combat training and sabre-play already. How are you getting along with those?'

'They're hard,' Harry admitted.

The man nodded. 'Do you get tired quickly, easily?'

It was Harry's turn to nod.

'Well, they clearly went about this all wrong. It's not best to learn any sort of martial activities until…' Moody had looked at Harry more closely then, as if he only noticed just how small his new student really was. 'You can't fight well without having a solid, er, base of fitness, of strength and agility.'

Harry was so intent on listening to his words that he only registered the man aiming his gun when it was too late to dodge completely. The bullet caught him in the side midway between his hasty lurch to the left, and he doubled over, too scared to even sniffle.

'Always be aware. Never keep your attention focused on one place. Let that be the one thing that lodges in that soft head of yours. Constant vigilance.'

'Constant vigilance,' Harry murmured in reply, though he had no idea what that meant.

The man stalked towards him, causing the boy to scamper to his feet and back away, eyes trained warily on the barrel of Moody's gun.

'That's better. There's only one time when it's smart to be near an armed enemy, and that's when you have your own weapon, which you bleeding well don't. Distance won't save you, but it's better than letting the enemy too near.'

He shot, and Harry heard the satisfying smack of the pellet meeting the wall he had recently been standing in front of. His brief moment of celebration was injurious; Moody caught him in the calf before he had time to refocus on the task.

'Keep moving. Standing still is like painting a massive target on your forehead: too tempting by a half. I'll sort you out, don't you worry. Under my guidance, you'll be running miles without stopping, light as an acrobat, quick as the very bullets you'll be trying to avoid. And vigilant, always, always vigilant.'

He hobbled forward, stepping heavily on the metal, mechanical wonder that was his prosthetic leg. Harry tried to break away, but the man dropped his gun and seized Harry's shoulder. 'After all, you don't want to end up like old Mad-Eye, do you?'

Moody flipped up his eyepatch, and Harry's scream half-escaped him in a strangled squeak. He hadn't known what to expect, a gaping socket, a flat terrain of skin marred by a clean scar, maybe even a small, dark eye to match the one that stared at him so intensely. Instead, there was a synthetic eye, a bulbous, unwieldy thing that spun madly in its socket, as if its electric blue mass was chartering every detail of their surroundings.

Moody waited a while, until the boy had calmed down somewhat, before somehow managing to release the boy's arm as roughly as he had grabbed it.

'Outside,' he snapped.

Harry nodded to Moody's shoes. Dissatisfied, the man forced his chin up. 'Yes, sir.'

'Yes, sir,' Harry repeated, managing to meet his gaze for a full two seconds before glancing down again.

For the rest of the afternoon, Moody had Harry doing stretches and running the length of the largest field that the Hogwarts grounds could offer. But Harry remembered the night even more. It was the first time in too long a while that he, albeit aching and covered in bruises, sank easily into a deep, dreamless sleep.

…

The next couple of years were the hardest. Harry was suddenly expected to learn and give so much so often. But as the various disciplines became more familiar to him, he stopped enduring his lessons and started excelling. And with the gradual introduction of weight-training, acrobatics, knife-work and marksmanship, Harry began to evolve into a boy whose deadliness belied his size.

But he had to be smart. He was thoroughly educated in the history of his planetary system, from the mass exodus of humans from Earth to the discovery of crystal mines and chemicals as a power source to various wars and their great military heroes. In this, Harry found it more of a struggle to concentrate, his mind roaming when conflict and murders were discussed, but his tutors were patient, understanding that he would grow to appreciate what they were trying to teach them. When he was mentally capable, they would move him onto battle strategies, educate him in commanding multiple legions and squads, and also motivating his followers with powerful rhetoric. If he happened to inherit any of his father's charisma, they would make full use of it.

Hagrid taught him how to survive in the wild in the Hogwarts grounds' forest, although he seemed more concerned with capturing the dangerous animals that it was best to avoid, Pomona Sprout added to this knowledge with plant identification and usage, and Madame (Poppy) Pomfrey helped him with the basics of healing and first aid. Molly Weasley, a motherly woman with flyaway red hair, insisted upon teaching him how to cook as soon as he could reach the kitchen counter. Harry saw these lessons as a reprieve from his otherwise strenuous schedule and particularly liked baking; kneading the dough was very therapeutic.

There was another reason he looked forward to Molly Weasley's visit, and it came in the form her boisterous son. Ron Weasley was thin and freckly with vibrant red hair, but most importantly, he was the first boy Harry had ever spoken to. Not that the conversation was anything spectacular, Ron was in all senses a real six year old boy, but Harry vowed to embrace any words that came out of his mouth.

'So you've lived here for two years?' Ron asked incredulously, sneaking a cookie from the cooling rack. 'By yourself?'

'Not by myself. I had Sirius and Remus and Mr Dumbledore and lots of tutors like your mother.'

'My "mother"?' Ron asked, amused, before taking a bite of Harry's latest bake. 'Mmm, stellar grosh! Nice one.'

'Thank you,' Harry said politely. He didn't know what else to say, what other children liked to talk about. Luckily for him, Ron was full of questions.

'So, what's it like being "the Chosen One?"'

'The Chosen what?'

'The Chosen One, that's what everyone calls you, you know. Because you're going to fight You-Know-Who, aren't you?'

'Oh yeah, that.'

'How're you going to do it?'

'I have no idea, Ron,' Harry said, slightly impatiently.

Ron nodded, absently, finished his cookie and grabbed another one. He looked out of the window, over the grounds. From their vantage point, they could see the giant pit in the earth where Sirius and Harry went flying.

'That place would be perfect for Quidditch,' Ron said.

Slightly startled by the sudden change of topic, Harry quickly followed. 'Yeah, it would. Me and Sirius never have enough players for a proper game though.'

Ron looked appalled. 'That's horrible. You've never played team Quidditch?'

'Have you?'

'Com, I've got five brothers… and a sister. And I guess she's good for her age. Better than Percy anyway.'

'Five brothers?'

'And a sister, yeah.'

Harry tried to imagine such a number, a gaggle of children with dark, messy hair and sharp, angular faces. He couldn't. 'What's it like?' he breathed, 'having such a big family?'

Ron thought about it for a bit. 'Loud…and crampy.'

Harry grinned at the thought, so different from Hogwarts Castle which was so quiet and spacious that he felt it would swallow him up. 'Sounds brilliant.'

Ron frowned at him before matching his smile. 'Well, you can have them if you like. I'd trade with you any day. You've got so much room here.'

Harry laughed and Ron joined in, looking pleased, but beneath it all, Harry couldn't help thinking. He wouldn't wish his family away if he knew what it was like. If we traded, I'd be the one better off not him.

Molly Weasley chose that moment to re-enter, taking one look at Ron cramming his face with biscuits and tutted. 'Ronald Bilius Weasley! You were meant to leave them to cool. You should have waited with Harry before eating his biscuits.'

'It's quite all right, Ms Weasley.' Harry smiled.

'How many times, Harry dear? Call me Molly.'

'Yes, Molly,' Harry said.

Ron took this opportunity to try and pinch another cookie, but Molly's instincts were perfectly honed for this type of deception. She dove forward and slapped his hand away.

'Ow, Mummy!' Ron wailed.

Harry laughed again. It's not his fault, Harry reprimanded himself. It's not like he knows the difference. He didn't know what he meant. If he did, he wouldn't have said it. And he pushed the incident away and enjoyed the time spent with someone who didn't care who he was or know what he meant.

…

When Harry was older and more equipped to deal with Snape (in other words, when Dumbledore had finally managed to persuade Sirius' opposition away) Harry learnt the "subtle" art of chemicals. The lessons were, to say the least, unpleasant for both of them and took place in the cheerless dungeons of the castle. In the dark and dingy place, Snape thrived.

'The mixing of chemicals to create potent solutions is a fine and delicate art, one that not just anyone can grasp. With the correct formulas, it can do more than simply power our technology and weaponry. It can rule a man. It can manipulate his body, mould his mind, rob him of his thoughts and memories. It can sustain life and, just as easily, engineer death. Tell me,' the master chemist said, 'how this is possible.'

Snape's pale skin looked especially sickly in the yellow light of the chemical lamps. The sight of him was discouraging enough, let alone the fact that Harry had no idea what the answer was.

'I'm sorry, sir, but I don't know,' Harry murmured. 'I guess that's why you're here teaching me,' he ventured, after the man had remained silent for an uncomfortable length of time.

Snape's black, bottomless narrowed with disdain, and suddenly, Harry was missing even Mad-Eye's tutelage. 'Well, as you are clearly unequal to the task, you can tell me what you do know, if anything. What is a chemicals' base form for example?'

Harry knew the answer and eagerly seized upon it. 'Crystals. We mine them from the earth.'

The answer was correct, but Snape sneered all the same. Young Harry was confused. It didn't matter if he was wrong or right; his new teacher seemed displeased either way.

'After the exodus from our dying Earth was completed, every habitable planet in this solar system populated, every strip of land divided between nations that barely knew who they were once their borders were removed, scientists began to notice strange qualities unique to the nature of their new home. ES-5, and indeed all the other Earth Settlements, were chosen for their climates and atmospheres, so similar to Earth. Even plant and wildlife had evolved comparably here, producing organisms that are believed to be not-so-distant cousins to those that once lived on the old Earth.'

Harry turned each difficult word over in his mind, trying desperately hard to remember definitions, to piece them together with their surrounding phrases into something that made sense. Snape showed no signs of relenting, of catering to his nine-year-old intellect.

'So when this new crystal was discovered, it created a large uproar in the field. It was a substance unlike anything we'd ever seen. In some cases it behaved as metals do. Extremely conductive, they somehow had a natural photovoltaic effect. Ah, the ability to convert light in to electrical energy,' Snape explained in a tone that suggested it pained him to do so. 'It melted at an unusually low temperature, allowing us, of course, to create these chemical solutions. And of course there were the unusual effects they could have on the human body. There were so many varieties, each with markedly different properties. When they examined these crystals, the molecular structure was again unique to anything ever seen, and the atoms themselves…they belonged to an element that had never before been discovered. It had no place on Mendeleev's Periodic Table. This one crystal threw into question decades, centuries of scientific study. They named the element that these crystals were formed from Novellium. Nothing else would have been fitting.'

Is this what Snape looked when he was passionate about something? A spark danced in his irises where there was usually nothing but an empty abyss, and Harry found that more unsettling than his hate-filled glares. Still, he smiled tentatively, trying to latch onto his enthusiasm in some way.

But when Snape saw the smile, he froze, like a child caught playing with a toy they'd supposedly outgrown, and retreated behind his familiar mask of aloof disregard.

'Why are you not writing this down? Do not expect me to repeat this.'

Harry fumbled for his solar tablet and transcribed the fragments of what he remembered with frantic twitches of his fingers. Snape watched him in silence, never once extending a helping hand.

'Sir,' Harry whispered eventually.

'What is it, Potter?'

'I can't really remember a lot of what you said. And I don't think I understood all of it either. And I don't really know how to spell photo…photo-vol…'

Snape sighed. 'You come to me, slow and ignorant. What exactly are they expecting me to make of you?'

Harry's cheeks smarted at these casual insults, bandied about as if there were so many others waiting to follow. 'I think they want you to make me better, to teach me. If I…if I knew everything you were trying to tell me already, then you wouldn't be able to do that. So could you teach me a bit more slowly, sir? Because the way you're doing it now makes me feel like you don't really want me to learn, and that you just want to remind me of all the things I haven't learnt yet instead.'

Snape stood abruptly, and Harry gripped the table top, grappling with his now natural instincts to move, to flee, to fight…

…

'Insolent, arrogant boy. He is just like his father. No patience, no intelligence, and yet he acts as if he owns the settlements,' Snape raged, prowling Dumbledore's office with the man himself as his counsel. 'I don't know why you insist on my teaching him. He doesn't take this seriously. He doesn't want to learn. All he wants to do is…' Snape gestured towards the window where Harry could be seen, flying about with Sirius in the gaping hole in the earth, 'is fool about with his insufferable godfather. He is his father all over again.'

Dumbledore got up to join Snape by the window. 'You seem to be forgetting, Severus, that Harry is a nine year old boy. Let him have his fun now, who knows how much he'll get of that in the future.'

There was a silence in which they watched Harry soar. He had come to master the Nimbus hoverboard that allowed him to swoop and dive and tumble through the air.

'You know, Severus. Sirius was in here not so long ago, complaining of the opposite. That Harry was not having enough fun, that he was taking his training too seriously and not being the child that he should be.'

'What does Black know?' Snape scoffed.

'A lot more about Harry than you do. After all, he cares about the boy. You have hardly taken the time to know him. If you did, I'm sure that you would not say such derogatory things about him. He's a good child, a talented child. Bright, warm-hearted and modest.'

'I have no desire to know about James Potter's ilk.'

'He's Lily's child as well.'

'He's their child. The Potters', not mine. Nothing to do with me.'

'You cannot still be angry about Lily's choice.'

'And what if I am? It makes no difference now. She's gone and never coming back, and all she's left is that little boy, James Potter incarnate,' Snape spat, already leaving.

'You are so intent on seeing one side to Harry,' Dumbledore called after him. 'But if you would only look closer. Lily is there too. Pieces of the Lily that you loved.' The door slammed, and Dumbledore could only hope that those last words had made it through in time.