CHAPTER 14

A/N: Making up for lost time.

Snape had a very worrying blankness on his face as they walked up to Dumbledore's office together.

"This is not so much breaking a Bond as creating one that supersedes the previous one," Dumbledore said. Harry and Severus stood before him, side by side. "This is a blood bond, one used to adopt someone into a family—"

Harry shot Snape a look before he could help it, but Snape merely looked straight ahead and did not meet his eyes.

"—here, it will serve the purpose of breaking the Slave Bond. A Blood Bond will break a Slave Bond, because no Light magic allows a family member to be a slave."

"Wait," Harry blurted. "If we do this, then we'll be family?" He looked at Snape again, but he still wasn't looking at Harry.

A faint sadness showed on Dumbledore's face for a second. "No, my boy," he said. "For magical purposes, in very rare cases, you may be regarded as family, but only if you wish it to be so. Actual adoption requires several other spells."

Snape still wasn't looking at Harry, and it was both annoying and unnerving.

Dumbledore held out a hand to Snape, and Snape responded by doing the same. Dumbledore waved his wand, and a small incision appeared on Snape's hand. Snape might have been made of marble for all the reaction he showed, but the sight still unnerved Harry—Dumbledore making Snape bleed. Dumbledore repeated the process with Harry, who readily went along, feeling no similar qualms.

"You must join hands," Dumbledore said. "Like a handshake, Harry," he added, eyes twinkling a little at Harry's slightly panicked look. Snape lifted his right hand at the same time Harry did, and they each touched their blood-slicked palms to the other's.

Dumbledore lifted his wand again and began chanting.

Harry looked down at their joined hands with the magic pulsing over them, and was suddenly terrified. He looked back up at Snape, and the man must have seen his desperation or shared it, because he gripped Harry's arm with his left hand and pulled Harry a little closer. Harry felt his panic mount. Snape looked like he felt. He was looking at Harry as though trying to memorise his face…as though they were going to lose each other very soon.

"Severus," he began, but didn't know how to continue. Was Snape right about the breaking of the Bond? Would it change how they felt about each other? He cast his mind back to Snape's silences whenever Harry asserted that it would never change how he felt about Snape.

The glowing strand between them suddenly broke. Snape staggered as if he'd been punched in the stomach.

Harry felt a burden lift from his shoulders, along with a surge of euphoria. It was as if he'd been under an Imperius, and the cloud on his mind had suddenly lifted when the curse was broken. He looked at Snape's face, which was now lined with weariness from the breaking of the Bond, and had to quell a sudden urge to step back. The glow of magic had faded, and there was silence in the room. Harry looked down at their hands, and then back at Snape, struggling to remember everything that had happened since he came to Hogwarts in the middle of summer.

The deeply private memories that they had shared. Snape smiling hesitantly at him, as though he didn't quite know how to do it. Snape wiping away Harry's tears with gentle fingers. Snape's hands in Harry's hair, his arms around Harry, and his lips on Harry's ear.

It was surprisingly difficult. The old resentful memories came rushing back with new force, as though they had been suppressed—

The smirk on Snape's face as he broke Harry's vial of perfectly made potion, and marked him with a zero. Insulting him in class, in public, and in private. Gleefully taking advantage of the Bond at the beginning—making Harry kneel and apologise, making him slave like a house-elf for hours on end.

How could he have forgotten—or disregarded all that? Had Snape been right—had his judgement been knocked off kilter by the Bond's manipulation?

No! Harry scowled fiercely, trying to master himself. I can't just forget. Severus is my friend now. He's like a father to me now—

Snape was looking back at him. Harry thought he saw a flash of the old sneer on his face, before it disappeared and was replaced by the same eerie blankness from before.

"Headmaster, please excuse us," Snape said. "We need time to adjust to the change."

Harry had almost forgotten Dumbledore, and now quailed under his keen gaze. He was sure Dumbledore knew all was not well.

"Of course, Severus. And please," he added, "reconsider what I said during our last discussion on the matter."

Snape jerked his head stiffly in reply. "Come," he said to Harry, and headed for the door in a whirl of robes.

Harry followed hesitantly, looking back at Dumbledore and feeling like there were weights tied to his feet. The initial euphoria at the breaking of the Bond had faded away now, leaving him feeling hollow and confused. He wished he didn't have to face Snape just then. Overcoming the mad urge to lock himself in Dumbledore's office, he followed Snape out, stopping at the door to turn back.

"Thank you, Professor," he said, wondering why it took so long for him to remember to say it. Dumbledore smiled and assured him it was quite all right, but his eyes never left off sharply assessing him.

Snape was waiting for Harry down in his quarters, looking rather impatient. "Sit," he said to Harry, motioning him to a chair and not looking him in the eye. Harry's insides seized uncomfortably.

He paused for a moment before sitting, remembering that it had been impossible to sit at the same level as Snape without have Snape's arms around him. He suddenly caught sight of the dining table, which had been adjusted so Harry could sit at a lower level. It was now back to normal. He looked away quickly.

"Sit," Snape said, his impatience now very clear.

Harry cautiously obeyed, noticing his careful avoidance of any names. No 'Harry', or even 'Potter'. It didn't bode well.

"Er…" he said, "so you can't see into my mind anymore?"

"No." The answer was curt, emotionless.

Harry waited, but Snape said nothing. "Severus," he finally said, the name feeling slightly foreign on his tongue, but still pleasant. Snape twitched at the name. "What is it? What's wrong?" He hadn't meant to sound that desperate.

"This ends now," Snape said.

"What?"

"This. This—familiarity—between us, Potter." Harry's heart sank at the surname. It must have shown on his face, because Snape sneered at him. "I warned you before, didn't I? Breaking the Bond would have repercussions, same as the forging of the Bond itself. Do you not feel it?"

Harry was silent.

Snape nodded in confirmation. "It is to be expected."

"Does that…change things for us?" Harry asked.

Snape had his what-kind-of-idiot-are-you expression on. "What did you expect?"

Harry clenched his jaw.

"I… have a confession, of sorts, to make." Snape's voice had softened. Harry looked up from the floor that he had been so intently examining, eager for any break in that awful mask of granite Snape had on right now. "Do you recall my indirectly pushing you into Occluding strongly enough to deny me entrance into your mind?"

Harry frowned. It had been only a couple of days ago, why was Snape taling about it like it ahd been years or something? And he didn't want to be reminded of that time. "Yes," he said. He didn't know what to call Snape now, either, so he left the sentence hanging.

"I did that on purpose."

"What?"

"I needed to see what would happen if I had not allowed you to get as close as I did. Clearly, the nature of the Bond was such that it would simply not allow its participants to remain distant, unattached."

Harry had a strong feeling he wasn't going to like this. "Why would you need to test something like that?"

"What do you think?" Snape said again, this time in disgust. "My behaviour towards you was not of my free will, Potter. It was not forced by the Bond either; not entirely. I pretended to be kinder than I actually felt, because it was what the Bond demanded." He paused, and added offhandedly: "Also, it was amusing to watch your response."

The blood rushed to Harry's head. "You—what—" He got up, feeling slightly insteady on his feet. "You mean you were lying, pretending to care about me, pretending you'd like to actually be my—"

"Don't." Snape cut him off. "I had no choice, Potter. The Bond would punish you for any distance between us, and for your lack of hard labour. Did you not study the rules yourself, Potter?" His voice rose. "That was the purpose of the Bond—that we either behave as master and slave or father and son. The former was not viable for long periods of time, as you saw. You would've been half-dead in weeks from the exertion required, and the energy leeching off of you."

Harry laughed mirthlessly. "So you conned me to save me, is that it? Well, I wish you'd let me die!"

"I don't care what you wanted or didn't want, Potter," Snape said coldly. "I needed you alive and reasonably healthy to kill the Dark Lord; I neither want nor need anything more."

Harry shook his head from side to side to stop the ringing in his ears. "I don't believe this. I can't believe you. Wait…" A sudden though struck him, making his heart leap with hope. "Is this some scheme to get protect yourself from V—him, because I can't Occlude anymore and my mind is unprotected? Because he can't know everything you've done over the past weeks, looking after me and all?"

Snape's face soured even more. "No, Potter. This is not an act—not anymore." He began speaking slowly, carefully, as though explaining to a child. "Everything that happened during the past weeks was a lie: on two levels. One, anything we felt for each other was a manipulation caused by the Bond. Two, I—was—duping—you." The full-blown sneer was back on his face. "Was that simple enough for your miniscule brain to understand?"

Harry stared at the man. By now, it was all too simple to fall back into his older patterns of thinking: Snape was his enemy. He hated Snape, and with very good reason. The memories of the past weeks were suddenly very dim and irrelevant. He had got out his wand in a flash and was turning it on Snape before he could stop himself. Snape disarmed him immediately—not that he had been expecting anything else—but he didn't stop there. He grabbed Harry by his arms and slammed him into a wall.

"You have no idea how liberating this is, Potter." Snape's hot breaths fell on Harry's cheek. "Not having your pathetic emotions running rampant through my mind—as your punishment for your wrongdoing!" He stepped back and raised his wand. Harry braced himself, but Snape simply summoned his things from his room. (His room. What a joke, Harry thought, mentally correcting the label to 'guest room'.) Harry looked down at his trunk and Hedwig's cage, and then back up at Snape. Snape exaggeratedly rolled his eyes. "These—are—your—things, Potter. One generally packs one's belongings when one is leaving his current place of residence."

Harry ground his teeth at Snape's tone. "And where am I going?" he mimicked Snape's mockingly slow diction.

"A safe house, where you will remain for the rest of your holidays."

"What about the Dursleys?"

"The Dursleys are no longer suitab—" Snape cut himself off. "I suggest you ask the headmaster."

It was obvious Snpae didn't want to talk about them, so of course Harry prodded at the subject again. "They're not hurt or anything, are they?" It would be just like Snape (and Dumbledore, Harry though with a flash of old resentment) to keep something like a Death Eater attack on his family from him.

"What?—no. They are hale and hearty, and the world is all the worse for it, Potter!" Snape spat.

Harry stared again. If the old Snape was back, he should love the Dursleys, because they hated Harry. Why was Snape acting like he hated the Dursleys?

Snape seemed to realise his mistake, too, but quickly recovered. "You know where the door is, Potter. Kindly remove your vaunted presence to the Headmaster's office. He shall take you—"

"Wait," Harry interrupted, returning Snape's glare with one of his own, "Did Dumbledore know about this? That you were cheating me, planning to turn on me now? Did he?"

"I am not familiar with the inner workings of the Headmaster's mind," Snape said smoothly—too smoothly. "I suggest you ask him your endless questions, Mr Potter."

Oh my... "He knew," Harry whispered. "He knew…"And he never warned me.

"I grow tired of this conversation, Potter," Snape said, again looking down at Harry as though he smelled something nasty. "One last thing—breathe a word of what you have learned about my past to anyone, and you will face both my wrath and the Headmaster's for once again putting my position with the Dark Lord in jeopardy." He waited a beat. "Now get out."

Get out.

Harry unclenched his fists, and lifted his chin. "Don't worry, Professor," he heard himself say. "I won't tell anyone your secrets— I won't even remember them, because I'm going to ask Dumbledore to Obliviate me."