I'm always slow with updates, especially those that involve the Golden Trio. And this one does. Ladies & Gentlemen, I give you Harry & Co. Enjoy!

Chapter 9: Nightmares

Sirius waited nervously with Alastor and Tonks in the living room. Molly's strident outcries had died down, to be replaced with ominous murmuring. It'd been three quarters of an hour. The universal pity of the Order went out to the unfortunate Headmaster, but none were so foolish as to try and pull him out of there. Sirius, after his own little experiences of the Weasley matriarch, had pointedly ignored Moody's grumbles and moves to enter the kitchen. If they wanted to interfere, it was their funeral. He wasn't going in there. Not for love nor money.

Moody stood up again. "We gotta go get 'im," he muttered, not very enthusiastically. Sirius and Tonks shiftily looked elsewhere, neither willing to offer their services. It was ridiculous. They'd happily rush to his aid in confronting a Death Eater army, or Voldemort himself, but Molly Weasley on a rampage? Not on your life. But thankfully, it seemed they wouldn't have to. The murmuring had died out in the other room, and they could hear footsteps, slow and hesitating, coming towards the door. They stood, facing the hall.

Albus looked like death warmed up. All colour had fled from his face, leaving his wide eyes to float unaccompanied in the white expanse. Those eyes were blanked with shock, devoid of the twinkling life that habitually enlivened them. His movements were stuttered, and achingly slow. He looked like he'd just walked off his first battlefield: as if the things he'd seen there had seared his mind and taken any chance of his happiness. Everyone who saw him then privately, and with heartfelt sincerity, vowed to never, ever get on Molly's bad side.

"Headmaster?" Tonks asked uncertainly. "You ..." She'd obviously been about to ask if he was okay, but that was so clearly not the case that it would be stupid to finish out the question. They stared at him. He stared back. Nobody moved.

"Headmaster?" came another voice, familiar and velvetine, from above, on the stairs. Albus started, glancing up at Snape with something approaching fear. The old man shifted uneasily, making no reply. Sirius felt an urge to get between them, to protect Albus, though that was irrational. Snape was in no condition to harm anyone. But with the twins on either side of him, with Molly backing them up from below, there was no doubt that the situation looked menacing. And Albus looked so fragile and old, shaken to his core. "Sir?" Snape continued. "What is it?" The twins snorted. It was perfectly obvious what it was, and Sirius did not appreciate the spy's needling. For gods sake, there was no need to keep picking at the man, not after Molly'd had her say.

"Severus ..." Albus croaked. "Severus, I ..."

"He's sorry, Severus," Molly finished decisively. Snape's head snapped around to face her, shock on his face.

"What do you mean, sorry? For me? Why? What happened?" He actually sounded genuinely confused. Sirius stared. It had to be an act. There was no way the man could not be aware of what Molly had just spent the bones of an hour hammering into Albus, and the last few days ramming home to everyone else. Okay, he'd been unconscious for quite a bit of it, but still! You didn't acquire an army of supporters overnight, and not know it. But he looked so confused. So ... so bloody innocent. Snivellus!

Sirius wasn't quite sure if it was a good thing or not that the door burst open at that point, admitting a flustered Minerva leading a panicky trio, headed by Harry. His damned portrait of a mother opened her mouth and let loose, and every head swung in that direction, a variety of expressions centred on the stunned newcomers. Out of the corner of his eye, Sirius picked up the return to life in Albus' features, but his eyes were all for his godson.

Harry looked upset, fevered. His gaze wandered over them, before fixing on Snape. On the stump of the spy's arm. With a strangled cry, Harry jerked forward towards him. Severus recoiled slightly, then shook himself and faced the boy. Harry sank to one knee at the foot of the stairs, hugging himself, and Sirius leapt forward with Molly to catch him. Harry jerked away, terror and horror and revulsion in his face. His eyes never once left the ruined limb. It held all his attention. Shaking, unconscious of the tears that poured down his cheeks, Harry raised terrified eyes to meet Severus'. "It was real!" he choked out.

Confused, afraid, everyone turned to the spy to explain what was wrong with the boy, but even as Harry looked at no-one else, Snape only had eyes for Harry. He wore a strange expression, somewhere between fear and pity. He flowed gracefully down to crouch in front of Harry, who all but leapt back. Snape caught his shoulder with his one hand, still strong enough to arrest the boy's backwards movement. Looking directly into Harry's eyes, Snape held them both in place, ignoring the growl that burst unwilling from Sirius' throat. "What have you seen, Potter?" he murmured softly. "What was real?"

Harry trembled in the spy's grasp, gasping breath in harsh sobs. He was close to hyperventilation. Sirius was beginning to panic. He'd never seen the boy so upset, and this was looking uncomfortably like Severus' fit the other day. If Harry went off like that, Sirius didn't know what to do, and Poppy wasn't here anymore. He didn't know what to do!

"Voldemort!" Harry gasped. "I saw it. He showed me. I thought it was a nightmare. I saw what they did to you!' Severus flinched back, eyes fluttering closed as he struggled to regain composure. Sirius, though he had only a vague idea of what the spy's discovery had involved, was nevertheless horrified at the thought that Harry had witnessed that. The Weasleys moved in to calm both Harry and Severus, but the pair flinched away, Severus without even looking. The man had yet to release his steel grip on Harry's arm, and the knuckles of his hand were white with strain. The grip had to be hurting Harry, but the boy gave no sign, the pair still lost in a shared horror that was theirs alone.

"All?" Severus whispered. "Did you see all?" Harry only nodded, which Snape couldn't see, but seemed to understand anyway. The man trembled, face twisting in a grimace of pain that was echoed by the boy he held. Sirius was lost. He couldn't see that pain, couldn't do anything to help it. Not even Poppy could help with this. "Everything?" Severus continued, unwilling to believe. "Even ... Even Lucius?" Sirius bit his lip. Please, let the boy not say yes. Even in school, there'd been rumours about that, that Molly had verified by telling them of Snape's scars. Lucius was an unmitigated bastard, everyone knew that, but now they knew he was a rapist too. Please, let Harry not have witnessed that piece of shit given free reign. Please, let it not be so.

"Yes ..." Harry choked. Oh, hell in a handcart. Oh gods. "And ... and Bellatrix. And Wormtail." Sirius snarled automatically at the name, but the implications of the list were beginning to worry him. Surely not ... Surely not all of them had ... No wonder the pair were so bad. Gods. "And Rookwood, and Avery ..." Please let him stop. Don't let there be more. "And then MacNair, and ... and your arm. And the fire. And Lucius. And ... and ... It wouldn't stop! The dream wouldn't stop! And he was laughing! He was laughing in my head the whole time. He enjoyed it. And everything they did, and everything he did ... I HATE HIM! IhatehimIhatehimIhatehim!" Harry choked off with a shuddering gasp, and Severus, eyes still closed in desperation, pulled him into a clumsy one-armed hug. He said nothing, merely held the shuddering boy. Harry wept, as Sirius had never seen anyone weep, and Severus held him and said nothing, and the Order pulled away, out of respect and horror and not a little desperation. No-one knew what to do. Sirius had never felt so helpless.

Finally Severus pulled back. His eyes had finally opened again, whatever emotion he had hidden by closing them having subsided enough for him to pull the mask back up. Gently, he raised Harry's swollen face to look at him, expression grave and yet ... understanding? It was nothing Sirius had ever seen on this man's face before, but it was curiously fitting. "I can make you forget," Severus offered softly, raising his remaining hand to lay it gently on Harry's forehead. "Some things should not ... should never be seen. I can take it away, take those things. I can make it safe to sleep again." Sirius started, but saw what he meant. Harry looked as if he hadn't slept in days.

Harry stared into the spy's face. Severus looked back calmly, silently offering. Slowly, Harry shook his head. "No. No, don't." Sirius could have screamed. Why the hell not? "I don't want to know," Harry tried to explain. "But I think ... I think I need to. I need to hate him. I have to kill him. I didn't .. know if I could, before, but now ..." He trailed off, but with the murderous expression he wore, no-one needed words to get his meaning. "But ... If you want me to ... I owe you too much already. If you don't want me to know?"

Severus shook his head. "I want him dead," he said calmly. "If it helps you kill him, then keep your memories. But don't let them rule you. I am not dead yet, and he hasn't beaten me. So don't you dare let what you've seen change anything. I won't tolerate anyone's pity, especially yours!" For some reason, Harry smiled at this.

"Oh, I don't think I could pity you, sir. I saw to the end, you see. I don't know how you could laugh after that, but it sure as hell pissed him off. When you jumped, I thought our heads would explode with his fury! You were not meant to escape, and I was not meant to see you do it. He was fairly steaming!" Severus chuckled softly, a glint in his eye that echoed the sheer desperate mischief in Harry's. That, Sirius could understand. Turn horror to humour, or go insane. And if anyone had an excuse to go a little loopy, it was those two. Severus lowered his hand, letting it pause in its path to wipe Harry's face. He stood, slowly and with difficulty, and in an instant the twins were there, helping him. Sirius moved in around them to hold Harry, meeting Molly Weasley halfway so they both could hug the child. Over his godson's head, Sirius met his old rival's onyx eyes, offering his grudging respect and gratitude for Severus' help. And for the man's suffering. Not pity, though. He'd never pitied Snape, because helpless or not, the man's had always fought back. Even as a schoolboy, Sirius had admired that. Severus nodded slightly. He knew. He understood.

They'd always be rivals, always only grudging allies, but Severus and himself would never again be enemies. Not while they both had Harry to take care of. And Sirius knew that was what the other man did. He just hoped the stubborn bastard would let Molly and the others take care of him. Not that he really had a choice, anymore. Like it or lump it, Severus Snape wasn't alone anymore. And from the looks of things, never would be again. Sirius smiled to himself. Tormenting Snivellus had just become far more challenging. And far more fun. Let the games begin!

Woah! Far more rough than I'd originally intended. Still, moving on now. R&R?