Secrets and Confessions

That evening, in the Gryffindor common room, Severus joined Harriet, Ginny, Ron and Hermione in their usual seats by the fire. Harriet seemed slightly more cheerful than before, but her laughter still seemed forced and he caught her staring into space when she thought no one was looking. Ginny was making everyone laugh telling them stories from when her and Ron were small and they we're discussing the whereabouts of Longbottom. It turned out that he had volunteered to spend his weekend helping Professor Sprout with a particularly rare and violent plant that was about to have offspring. Snape didn't envy him that task, he much preferred plants dried or otherwise prepared for use in a potion.

As the evening wore on and the younger students disappeared to their various dorm rooms leaving the five of them lounging comfortably by the dying fire. Hermione and Ron muttered something unconvincing about studying and left together, heading up the stairs to the dorms, leaving Harriet and Ginny talking about quidditch strategies while Snape watched the glowing embers only half listening. He startled when the mug of hot chocolate that he was holding spilt in his lap, muttering a quick cleaning charm.

"I appear to be dozing off ladies," he said with a yawn. "I better go upstairs before I pass out completely." They waved him goodnight and continued with their conversation. He realised on entering the silent bedroom that Ron was not back yet. Looking forward to having the room to himself, he stripped to his boxer shorts and burrowed under the blankets. He gave a great sigh of contentment and closed his eyes, swiftly falling asleep.

XXXXXX

Severus awoke with a jump. The door to his shared room stood slightly ajar, silhouetting a figure by his bed. The floorboards creaked as the figure moved and he sat up reaching for his wand on the bedside table.

"Wassat?" he muttered sleepily.

"It's just me." a nervous female voice replied.

"Huh, who?" he said rubbing his eyes, suddenly very aware of his near nakedness. "Potter? What the hell are you doing in here?"

"Sorry, did I wake you?" she said

"No, can't you tell I was wide awake?" he said with a sarcastic tone. "what time is it ? And you still didn't tell me what you're doing in here."

"It's about one in the morning and I can't go to my room right now." she said.

"Why ever not?" Severus asked, bleary-eyed and slightly annoyed.

"Well, Ron and Hermione are in there at the moment and I don't want to interrupt." she explained.

"They're still studying?" Severus asked, surprised.

"The noises I could hear outside the room would seem to indicate that they are not studying." Harriet said with an embarrassed laugh, "well, not studying magic anyway."

"Ah!" he said with a blush. "I thought there were charms on the dorms to stop that sort of thing?" he noticed her giving him a strange look, "I read about it..."

"In Hogwarts; a History?" she asked with a smile. "There are, but the new first years got our old dorms. The rooms our year are in now are like guest rooms or private rooms. I guess because we're all of age anyway they don't bother with that sort of thing."

"Incidents like this make you wish they did." Severus laughed.

"Exactly," Harriet said, perching on the side of his bed and lighting her wand. "Believe me, if you had walked in on Ron Weasley's white arse bobbing up and down once you definitely wouldn't want to repeat the experience."

"Obviously!" said Severus with a grimace, "and thanks for that mental image, now I feel slightly ill."

"I love to share." Harriet laughed, "So can I crash in here then? Just till Ron gets back ."

"I suppose so," he said sighing, "Take your pick, there are two free beds."

"Can I just sit in your bed with you and chat?" she said, "I always have trouble sleeping these days. Then there's the nightmares."

"I'm not exactly decent," Snape muttered, drawing the covers up to his chest, "but if it stops you whining."

"I don't whine." she whined, shuffling up on the bed until she was next to him, fully clothed, under the blanket.

"Why don't you ask Madam Pomfrey for a dreamless sleep potion if you're having nightmares?" Severus asked, "Or even make your own, seeing as you are Slughorn's golden girl in potions."

"You know as well as I do I'm nothing special in potions." Harriet said folding her arms and huffing. "If you must know, Slughorn's opinion is all down to a book I found in my sixth year. I learned so much from that book, not all of it good..." she fell silent.

"What?" he asked, seeing her thoughtful expression.

"It's just," she looked him in the eye, "the spell I was going to use on Pansy, it was from that book, which turned out to be Snape's. I just wondered how you knew it?"

"I was privately tutored." he said, thinking fast, "I picked it up from one of my darker teachers. Don't forget that most of my family are on the dark side." he changed the direction of the conversation, "So this Snape I keep hearing about, why the interest?"

"You wouldn't understand." she said.

"Try me."

"Well," she hunched her knees up to her chest and stared ahead, "He always seemed to hate me so much, right from the first time I met him. I just couldn't do anything right. Everyone thought he was a bit evil you know, the way he was so nasty to everyone except his own house, he was head of Slytherin." she paused and shrugged her shoulders. "I later found out that he was at school with my parents and he and my dad hated each other. I learned that he had told Voldemort about the prophecy, all that 'Chosen One' stuff, and he had turned spy for Dumbledore when he found out Voldemort was after my parents. See he loved my mum, had done since they were kids."

Snape twisted his body to watch her, but said nothing.

"Through everything that happened," she continued after a while, "and all the times I believed people's assumptions about him, in the end he was protecting me. Working to beat Voldemort, despite the danger, to stop the man who killed the woman he loved." she swiped a hand across her face and sighed. "I watched him die for me, I thought I did anyway, and I saw the memories he left. Once I knew the full story I realised I had judged him badly without knowing him, like people have always done with me, and I was wrong about him. He survived, but I've still never had the chance to thank him and apologise. He would probably curse me into next week if I tried."

"Why is it so important to you to apologise?" Snape asked, not having to feign interest.

"I guess I know how it feels to be isolated and misunderstood." she said, stretching her legs out and leaning back. "I don't want him to feel like that. Too many people died in the second war with things unsaid, I just need to make sure I tell people how I feel before it's too late." she shook her head and laughed, mirthlessly. "Now I sound stupid."

"I wouldn't say that." said Snape "I can understand why you want to speak to him. Don't worry though, I'm sure he's being looked after wherever he is."

"That's what McGonagall told me this morning." she nodded, "She called me in to her office and said she had heard I was stressing about Snape. She told me he was recovering and being looked after by people who cared about him. She also said that when he was ready she would arrange for me to talk to him." Snape raised an eyebrow, but said nothing again. "She mentioned that she was appointing you assistant quidditch captain."

"I got conned into that!" he protested.

"I could use the help really." she said, waving a hand dismissively.

"I wondered why you were called in this morning," Severus mused, "I thought it might have been about Pansy, all the Slytherins think we're responsible. Don't worry they have no proof." he said when he saw her face blanch.

"Like they need proof," she grumbled, "Slytherins all hate me on principle."

"Draco doesn't." Snape said before he could stop himself. He looked at her disbelieving face and continued, "Honestly, he doesn't. We talked over the summer."

"Really?" she looked thoughtful. "I'm surprised." They sat quietly for a while until she asked, "So what's the rest of your family like?"

"I can't see why that's any of your business." he snapped, looking away.

"Sorry," she said, softly. "I just wanted to get to know you better. You know loads more about me than I know about you, like you said, you read the papers." she finished with a hint of sarcasm that softened his defences slightly.

"Fair point," he conceded, he made a mental note to fill Draco in on what ever details he gave her and stuck as close to the truth as possible. "My mother was a pureblood witch, my father a muggle."

"Bet that went down well with the pureblood side," she commented.

"Indeed," he said, "they detested him, thought he was scum."

"I bet that was tough."

"They were right. He hated magic. Hated my mother in the end too, and me, but she usually took the brunt of his temper." his voice became almost a whisper as he lost himself in the unhappy memories. "Then she died, and he took it out on me."

"I thought you said your parents were out of the country?" Harriet said, surprising Snape, both with her recall of details and his own slip.

"My grandparents." he invented wildly, "They took me from him when they found out, but not before the damage was done."

"I'm sorry," she said, putting an arm around his shoulder and hugging him.

"Anyway," he said, making no move to break the hug. "I learned to behave like a proper little pureblood, keep the dirty secret quiet."

"That explains the rod up your arse when you think people are getting too close then." she said, perceptive and blunt.

"Enough about me," he said, shaking her off. "tell me something about you that I wouldn't have read in the papers."

"I don't know," she huffed, "I lose track of everything they write. There is one thing no one knows though."

Snape waited expectantly as Harriet searched his eyes for something. She appeared to reach a conclusion.

"I feel like I can trust you, almost like I've known you for years instead of a week." she lowered her voice even though they were alone, "I'm trying to learn the animagus transformation. That's why I've been sneaking off alone, mostly, to practise."

"That can be really dangerous," Severus warned, "if something goes wrong...that's why it's so regulated and there's a register. Why on earth would you want to learn that?"

"Mostly to have a way to escape everyone's attention sometimes," she sighed, her eyes starting to droop. "I just wish I didn't have to be me all the time. My dad did it you know."

"Oh?" Severus said, hiding a stab of annoyance at the mention of James.

"Yeah," she yawned wriggling into a laying position, "you gotta keep it quiet though. If I have to register then it's pointless as a disguise."

"I told you," he said, with a smirk as he lay down next to her. "I'm good at secrets."

"Thanks Ev." she yawned again nuzzling into his shoulder and throwing an arm across his chest.

"What did you call me?" Severus asked.

"Ev." she mumbled sleepily, "Short for Evan, sorry."

"No, I don't mind." said Severus, astonished to find this really was the case. He actually had a contented feeling that someone felt comfortable enough with him to use a term of endearment, it had been a long time. "I actually quite like it." he said, wrapping his arm around her and relaxing. "Good night Potter." he whispered.

"Harriet." she murmured.

"Good night Harriet." he said with a smile.