Title: All That Glitters

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So here is, at long last, the confrontation between Snape and Harry. For all those who were hoping for something that offered a reconciliation… sorry. This chapter isn't going to fix everything. It will make progress, though...

Summary: For the first time ever, he was looking at Snape. Really looking, and he wanted to know what he would see. He wanted to know what was there.

All that is gold does not glitter

Not all those who wander are lost

Chapter Thirty-Six: …The More They'll Never Be the Same

When he entered the room and saw Harry Potter standing by the window, he thought with a sarcastic snort that rules clearly did not apply to the Boy Who Lived. Mere civilians were never allowed to visit prisoners in Azkaban, unless they were family. And even then, they often had to have ties with someone in power at the Ministry to manage an unsupervised visit like this one.

For a moment, then, Snape wondered if he hadn't gone insane. Had he been at Azkaban much longer? Perhaps it had been years already, and Potter was now an Auror? After all, time meant little to him here, and he had no way of marking the passing of each moment.

Potter turned from the window, and Snape looked at him. Really looked at him. The resemblance to his father was uncanny. There were few, Snape reflected, who looked that similar to either one of their parents, and yet if Potter's eyes had been a different color, he could have been mistaken for his father.

But those eyes…

Lily's eyes.

All those years, he had looked at Lily's eyes. All those years, he had watched those eyes stare back at him, had seen them filled with hatred, with disgust, with fury. And now, as he looked at them one more, and saw the blatant confusion and frustration in them, he felt something constrict around his heart, squeezing until he could barely breathe.

But when he spoke, his words were simple, smooth, and filled with his trademark drawl. "Potter. I hardly expected to find you here." He walked further into the room, and the Aurors who had brought him from his cell stepped back and left the room. He knew they would be positioned on either side of the door, ready to burst in at a moment's notice.

Still, it amazed him that they did not feel the need to restrain him with chains or ropes in the presence of their Savior. Were they not afraid that he would attack Potter? Or did they simply assume that the boy was strong enough to hold his own? After all, Potter had a wand. Potter had not spent time in Azkaban. Potter probably could have bested him in a duel.

The thought made him sick to his stomach, but that was just one more emotion he did not let show on his face.

"Hannigan is in prison," the boy said, walking towards the table. "So are Runcorn and Yaxley. Kinglsey has been released, but he's still waiting to see what the final consequences will be." He leaned against the table, hands spread out on the wood in front of him, and said, "Andromeda testified on your behalf."

Snape curled his lip. "Fascinating," he said coldly, feigning disinterest.

Potter wouldn't meet his gaze. He was staring instead at the ground, as though the gray stone might yield some answers. "I know why you did it," he said, and his voice was a low murmur. "I know…" and then he stopped, trailed off.

Briefly, he lifted his gaze to meet Snape's, and then he looked away.

"Does the why matter to you, Potter?" Snape asked harshly. He wouldn't sit, not until Potter had. He would not give the boy an advantage of height. So though he was nearly shaking with exhaustion and longed to sink onto the chair before him, he remained standing, forcing himself to appear calm.

"You loved my mother," he said. His eyes had now moved to the table. They had narrowed slightly, as though he could not quite conceal the dislike he felt, and though he was determined not to glare at the other wizard, he had no qualms about sending a glower towards the table.

Snape rolled his eyes at that. When would the boy learn to keep his emotions guarded? Any fool could read him like an open book, and it didn't even require Legilimancy.

Aloud, he said, "Why have you come? I highly doubt that it is for this scintillating conversation."

"You loved my mother," Potter said again, but this time he continued, "and yet you still joined the Death Eaters. You still joined a group of people who you knew were opposed to Muggleborn witches and wizards, who wanted them all dead."

Snape said nothing. It wasn't a question, and he felt no need to answer it. Let the boy wonder. He had wondered about a lot of things in his life, and he would continue to do so. No one was ever given all the answers, and one day he would have to accept that fact of life.

But though he did not have to answer the question aloud, it was a question that he still strove to answer for himself. He could say that he did not know the truth about the Death Eaters, he could say that he never believed that they would turn so evil, but those would be mere lies.

Harry Potter might not deserve anything more than silence, but Lily still deserved an answer.

Unfortunately, he did not have one to give.

He'd never had an answer, not to that one, very pertinent question. If he had been able to answer it, maybe he wouldn't have been foolish enough to join the Death Eaters in the first place. Maybe things would be different. Maybe he would be different.

Maybe Lily would still be alive.

The boy was speaking again, and Snape forced himself to pay attention to those words, to focus on what was being said.

"I mean, I know you hated my father, but did you really hate him enough to want him dead?"

Black eyes narrowed as Snape retorted in an acidic tone, "Do you really think that your saintly father would have grieved for me?" The words were bitter and filled with pain from a dark and tormented past, a past that Snape had no desire to share with the boy. And, after all, the truthful answer to Potter's question was not one that he would actually want to hear.

Snape wasted no emotion on James Potter's death.

There were points in his life when he actively wished harm upon his messy-haired rival. Perhaps he might have even childishly wished for the wizard to meet an untimely death. Certainly when he realized that the Dark Lord meant to kill Lily, his thoughts had been for the red-haired witch, and not her husband. Even the imminent danger to her child had not really registered with him. It was not until Dumbledore so harshly pointed out that he was ignoring them that he fully realized they would be killed as well.

He despised James Potter.

But now that he fully understood what death meant, he could not honestly say that he would have wished it on the arrogant, cocky, conceited wizard.

And yet, this was a war, and people died, and though Snape felt a trace of remorse for the death of James Potter, he did not grieve. Not the way he grieved for Lily, for Dumbledore, for Minerva. Grief he saved for those he respected, those he loved. He could not spare emotion for every single person that ever died, and certainly not for those who had done nothing but torment him during his life.

He looked away from the green-eyed Harry Potter. He regretted any unnecessary death. And God knows he had seen a lot of death in the past few decades. But it was not the answer the boy would have wanted to hear, and he did not bother to say it all aloud.

"Why did you join our side?" Potter asked. "I don't understand how you could have turned on my mother. I don't understand why you would have wanted to be a Death Eater. But you did all of that, so then… why did you come back?"

"If you cannot determine the answer to that from what you have seen and heard, then you are even more idiotic than your father," Snape sneered.

"If Voldemort hadn't targeted me, would you still be on his side?" the boy questioned softly. "If my mother had never been in any danger, would you have ever… would you still be killing, torturing, maiming… Did you ever care about what was right and what was wrong?"

Snape stiffened, then said sharply, "This world is not so easily divided. Only you foolish Gryffindors think that right and wrong are always blatantly obvious. Everything is always gray."

The boy gave a bitter laugh and pulled out the chair in front of him. It scraped against the floor, a squeaky, high-pitched noise that echoed back and forth against the stone walls. He flopped into it, almost as though he were collapsing against the weight of his questions.

"That's not true," he said, his words simple. He still wasn't looking at Snape, but when he spoke, his words were firm and uncompromising. "Not everything is gray. There's a lot of it, but… some things are clearly right. And some are clearly wrong. And that doesn't change, no matter what."

Snape honestly wasn't sure what annoyed him more – the fact that the boy had the naïveté of a child, or that he was perfectly content with what he believed.

He pulled out his own chair and sat down stiffly, thankful that he had somehow managed to keep from collapsing on the floor. The exhaustion that seeped through his body turned his limbs to lead and left him feeling sluggish. But his mind moved quickly, sharply, and he sent a silent prayer to whoever was listening that this God-forsaken prison had not yet stolen his sanity.

"You hated me. I hadn't done anything to you, and you hated me. Why?" Potter folded his arms over his chest and chewed his lip for a moment, the words lingering in the silence between them.

The conversation was jumping around, moving sporadically from one topic to the next. Snape blinked and accepted the accusation, watching as Potter's face grew darker, and his lowered eyes simmered with anger and frustration.

"You picked on me at the beginning of the very first class. You mocked me when I couldn't answer questions on a subject we hadn't even started yet. You took a point off because of something Neville did, something that was in no way my fault. You accused me of letting him screw up so that I would make myself look good. Why? Why did you hate me so much?"

Though he would never actually admit it, Snape was slightly impressed that the boy actually recalled the events of that class so clearly. It was nearly ten years ago.

He opened his mouth to answer the question, a sarcastic remark on the tip of his tongue. But then Potter lifted his gaze, finally looked up and met his eyes for the first time since the beginning of the conversation, and they were filled with a look of hurt, of betrayal, of anger, of resignation…

A look identical to the one worn by Lily that fateful day by the lake when the word Mudblood had slipped from his tongue.

And everything else around Snape fell away, until all he could see were those eyes.

Lily's eyes.

Part of him didn't want to be here.

Facing Snape was not easy. He hadn't really expected it to be easy, but he also hadn't expected it to be this difficult.

For the past few years, the mere mention of Snape had brought out the worst in him. The search for the Horcruxes had slowly mellowed his impatience. They'd all changed during that year, though for Ron and himself the change was more obvious than for Hermione. But they'd all changed, and his biggest lesson had been the importance of keeping his temper under control.

He'd done it, too. Since then, he'd rarely lashed out in frustration, forgoing the temperament that had characterized most of his fifth year. But his continual search for the potions Master, his refusal to let go of the past… that had remained, despite Hermione's words of caution and reprimanding stares.

And since starting this last search, what had he done?

He'd used some Dark magic on Malfoy, some spell he could not even name. It hadn't been intentional, but it had burst out of him all the same, his anger and rage at Malfoy's mocking words giving him the ability to call on powers he didn't even realize he had.

He'd recklessly interrupted whatever meeting Kinglsey and Snape had planned on the ground of Hogwarts, and gotten himself stunned and disarmed in the process. Then he had just as recklessly followed Hannigan into the dungeon basement and found himself thrown into a battle that had cost the Headmistress her life.

He knew the importance of thinking through his actions prior to actually acting. He also knew there were times when one had to act without thinking, when there was little choice. When right and wrong were obvious enough, and there was no time to dwell on anything else but that moment and the consequences of it.

That knowledge had sent him after Runcorn and Yaxley in southern France, and again forced him to follow Yaxley and Malfoy back to Hogwarts.

It was also what had pushed him onwards when he walked with his parents' ghost-like spirits into the Forbidden Forest, ready to die so that the final Horcrux would be removed and Voldemort would be rendered mortal once more.

But there were times when he should have stopped, if only for a few seconds, to think about what he was doing.

He looked at Snape.

Really looked at him. And tried to see past his own prejudices, how own anger and hatred and fury. It wasn't easy, and he knew he was staring intently at the other wizard, letting an awkward silence fill the room. But he didn't care.

For the first time ever, he was looking at Snape. Really looking, and he wanted to know what he would see. He wanted to know what was there.

And he wanted to know what Snape saw when the potions Master looked at him.

He rested his hands flat out on the table, palms pressing into the wood. The world was gray. He knew that. He'd always known that. Snape had been right to make that argument.

But he'd been wrong also. There were right choices and wrong choices. And sometimes the answers were obvious, is people were willing to look. Really look.

Snape was speaking, answering Harry's earlier question. "You were a fool to take your eyes off of Longbottom for even a moment," he said callously.

Something constricted sharply around Harry's chest. Was this all he would get? Bitter words and insults, thinly veiled dislike and disgust? He'd hoped for more, for some sort of understanding and closure, but maybe that had been asking for too much. He wasn't even sure what understanding would look like when it came.

He did not avert his gaze, did not look away and pretend that the words did not hurt him. If his emotions showed in his eyes, he did not care. Snape had often told him during their ill-fated Occlumency lessons that those who wore their heart on their sleeve would find that their enemies had an easier time ripping it away from them. But at this point, he didn't care. At this point, he had a feeling that even with the most guarded of expressions, he would not be able to truly hide.

"That's not what you said," Harry said finally, forcing the words out, forcing himself to continue speaking. The air in the room around him seemed to be getting colder and he wondered vaguely if a Dementor had come drifting close to the door.

Snape lazily lifted one eyebrow.

"You accused me of letting him screw up on purpose so that it would make me look good," Harry explained, heat rushing to his face as he recalled that first potions class.

There was a look in Snape's eyes that he couldn't decipher.

"What made you think that? You hadn't ever met me, and you automatically assumed that I would let someone else screw up – and get hurt – just to make myself look better?" he pressed, and now that the words were stumbling from his lips, he wasn't sure he could get them to stop. Snape hadn't been fair to him, not for all his years at Hogwarts. He'd stopped expecting it at some point, although that didn't really make it any easier to bear.

Neville had been covered in boils after that disastrous potion brewing attempt, and the others around him, Seamus included, were lucky to have escaped without injury.

Harry had been eleven. He'd been bullied and beaten too much by Dudley and the rest of that gang, and he would never have deliberately done that to someone. Things changed as he got older – he changed as he got older – and he'd made mistakes, done things that he shouldn't have, things that had ended up hurting other people. Most of it had been unintentional, the result of anger, of an uncontrolled temper.

But at eleven? He wouldn't have even though of that. Hurting Neville in some misguided attempt to make himself look like a better potions maker would simply not have occurred to him.

Snape was still looking at him, his expression completely devoid of any identifiable emotion.

He shivered, and this time, he did look away.

When Potter finally averted his gaze, it was almost easier for Snape. He'd forgotten just how much power those green eyes had over him. He hadn't seen the boy in a long time, and the memory of Lily's eyes staring at him with hate and disgust had almost faded.

Almost.

He'd made mistakes in his life. He'd made more significant mistakes than many others had, and he'd done more significant repentance. And though it was rare that he would ever admit aloud when he did something wrong, particularly if the only other person in the room was Potter, that did not stop him from admitting it to himself.

He'd looked at the eleven-year-old Harry Potter and seen James.

James Potter would not have cared if his classmate ended up looking like a fool. In fact, he might have found the entire situation funny, and had a good laugh with Black about what had happened to Longbottom later after the class was over.

But Harry Potter was not his father.

And, unfortunately, the boy was right about his anger. In this particular instance, Snape knew he had been wrong in his assumption.

Still, he did not answer the question, and maybe that didn't really matter. Potter started speaking again, anyway.

"Did you ever care about anything besides my mother?"

He snorted. The boy had once again changed subjects, as though he could not stick to any particular topic for an extended period of time.

"Did you ever…" Potter trailed off and looked away, unconsciously lifting a hand to run it through his hair. It wasn't exactly the same gesture that James had often done, but it was close, and Snape felt his hands unconsciously clench underneath the table.

In looks and in mannerisms, Potter far too much resembled his father.

Then the boy shook his head and said bitterly, "But of course, why would you? You don't believe in right and wrong."

That was the challenge of being a spy to a sadistic Dark Lord. Right and wrong became blurred when the right action necessarily required keeping up appearances of being wrong. Sometimes the lines disappeared all together, but there was no way to explain that to Potter. There was no way that he could fully grasp all the subtleties of a life filled with gray.

"You loved my mother."

This time, he did answer. "Yes." There was really no point in denying it, not when the boy had heard the full recounting of Andromeda's story.

Potter gave him a quick look, then lowered his gaze back to the table. "And she was the only reason you came back? What would have happened if…"

"Why does it matter to you, Potter?" he sneered, shaking his head as black eyes focused on the boy. "I did what I did. What do you care about the hypotheticals?"

Potter said nothing.

Snape was content to let the silence rest between them. He had other concerns. Potter had informed him of the fate of several players in this game, but what about the three Malfoys? What had happened to them? He almost asked, but then stopped himself. It wouldn't help to know, not how when he was in no position to do anything about it. He'd done all he could to help Narcissa, and if that hadn't been enough… well, what more could he really do?

The anger of that thought rushed through him, but he ignored it. He had spent years being helpless, being forced to stand by and watch as others died, others that he could have saved. Keeping his cover as a spy had been all that mattered at the time, and yet it never grew easier, never became more bearable, watching yet another Muggle or Muggleborn die, tortured by the gleefully cackling Death Eaters.

"I'm trying to understand," Potter said finally in a clipped tone.

Snape nearly laughed. "Are you?" he drawled coolly. "And what are you trying to understand?"

"Everything!" the boy exploded, red splotches of anger appearing on his cheeks. He was breathing heavily, and then suddenly he was on is feet, shoving the chair away from him in a rush of anger. It skidded onto its back two legs, hovering for a moment before crashing to the floor.

The noise could obviously be heard in the hallway outside the room, and the door was opened quickly, and Auror sticking his head into the room, wand held out in front of him.

Potter sent him a pointed look, and he withdrew, shutting the door behind him.

Snape remained impassive, watching and waiting.

"How could you?" Potter whispered finally, turning away from Snape and walking to the window. "Did you ever… did you ever care about me? Did you ever stop seeing me as… as my father?"

And with those few words, Snape found himself impressed against his will. It was the first time he had heard Potter admit that his father was not a saint. Perhaps the boy had finally grown up enough to see past his own preconceptions and accept the painful truth that his hero wasn't always so virtuous.

Then, for some reason he couldn't quite figure out, a memory slipped into his mind. Potter, facing the Dark Lord, had asked the most vile wizard who ever lived to see if he could repent. He'd offered a way out, offered a second chance to someone who most certainly didn't deserve it.

And the fact of the matter was that Harry Potter was not like his father. He could, on occasion, be arrogant. But he did not strut about as though he owned the castle, he did not mock the less fortunate students, and he did not pull dangerous or humiliating pranks for fun.

He was far more like Lily than his father.

Except that he continually gave second changes. He risked his own life to pull Draco out of the burning Room of Requirement. He offered the Dark Lord a chance to repent. And now he was here, facing Snape, asking for an explanation, for answers, for anything that could somehow ease the enmity between them. He forgave, even when it seemed completely ludicrous to do so. He offered a chance to people who never asked for it, probably didn't deserve, certainly wouldn't know what to do with it...

He offered another chance, and in the end, that was something that even Lily hadn't been able to bring herself to do.

Snape leaned back in his seat, black eyes focused on the boy. "Yes," he said simply. Potter narrowed his eyes in confusion, and Snape elaborated, "I stopped seeing you as your father."

Potter stared at him for a moment, and his expression was entirely unreadable. Snape had the strangest sensation that even Legilimancy would not reveal what thoughts were passing beneath those green eyes.

The Potter said softly, "Alright," and walked to the door. He paused, looking back, one hand resting on the knob. It seemed as if there was something more he wanted to say, something else to fill the empty silence between them. But then he looked away and left the room, closing the door behind him.

He wasn't unhappy to see her. But he wasn't really happy about it, either.

He was rarely unhappy to see Luna, but sometimes her presence was grating. Sometimes he didn't want to be faced with her blunt declarations, her ability to observe and decipher anything she saw before her. He'd never met anyone as perceptive as her, and yet somehow he'd also never met anyone as oblivious as her. She was an odd set of contradictions, and often she was just too much to handle.

But she had the annoying habit of not knocking, or of knocking and then not bothering to wait for someone to answer the door, which made her even more problematic to avoid.

Harry glanced up and offered her a smile. She floated into the room as she always did, a dreamy smile and a wandering gaze traveling over everything.

And then she started rambling about Crumpled This and Two-Horned That and Flying Something-Or-Others and he fought back the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, he looked away from her, towards the dreary gray clouds that floated lazily across the gloomy sky.

"You went to Azkaban today."

Harry looked back to Luna, surprised by the change in her tone. The odd, feather-light quality of her voice was gone, and she looked serious. Truly serious, and it was the first time he had ever seen her with that expression on her features.

"I did."

"What happened?"

Harry considered the question for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't really know," he admitted honestly. And he didn't know. He had no idea what to make of his conversation with Snape, no idea how to judge what had passed between them.

Luna looked towards the window. "You used Dark Magic before."

Harry nodded wordlessly. "I did," he agreed. There was no point in denying it, because Luna knew. He'd told her the truth before, and besides, she had the unique ability to see through most lies.

"People think I'm rather odd," Luna remarked casually, glancing over at Harry once more. "You know they call me Loony?"

Harry nodded bleakly, remembering that Ron had often called her that, and he had silently agreed with his best mate. He'd tried to be nice to her, but still… he had thought she was a complete lunatic the first time they met.

"You were nice to me, though," Luna continued, musing more to herself than to Harry. "And you know, that made some people nicer. But it made others meaner. A lot of the girls especially didn't like it. Like when you invited me to Slughorn's party. They were jealous, and they didn't think I heard the things they said, but I did. I heard them."

"I wasn't… I didn't mean… I was just… um…" Harry stammered for the appropriate response, unsure how to reply. Should he express sorrow or pity for how she was treated by the other students? Should he apologize for inviting her to that party, for being friends with her? She he just accept what she was saying with a silent nod?

That seemed to be the easiest solution. So he nodded and waited for her to continue.

"But I didn't mind that people were mean to me because of you. You were my friend. And I liked having friends."

He remembered abruptly the portraits he had seen in her room, the chains connecting them, the links that spelled out the word friend over and over.

"You're a good person. Sometimes people do bad things. Sometimes they do unforgivable things. Sometimes, in a war, they have to. But that doesn't mean the person is unforgivable. Just the action. Just what they had to do."

Harry licked his dry lips and nodded again.

"And sometimes people do bad things because they are mad, or upset, or hurt." She paused, thinking, and added, "Or because they're jealous. Like the girls who hid my homework. And my shoes." Then she gave a little shrug and said, "It doesn't mean they are a bad person. But you have to look at them. You have to really look, and you have to be willing to see. That's how I know that using Dark Magic didn't make you a bad person."

She settled herself into the sofa across from the fire place and pulled out a copy of the Quibbler from her robes, flipping it upside-down and beginning to study one of the articles with an intense concentration. Harry stared at her for a moment, watching her read, and then realized that she hadn't been talking only about him.

She'd been referring to Snape as well.