YAY AN UPDATE! I'm not dead yet! (sorry if my slightly inappropriate gallows/trauma humour doesn't sit well with anyone)

Still pretty not great, therapy is kicking my ass. I'm doing okay though, just not up to much. So I have a new chapter for you all, but this is all I'll manage this month. This update has taken the better part of dec, jan, and feb. I have some of the next few chapters started, the bones are their they just need polishing up. Hopefully have the next one ready in early march. I'm aiming for monthly updates at the moment. Small steps :)

Thank you again for all your support and kind words, it means a lot.

Enjoy

0o0o0o

Harry did not go straight to his cupboard after fleeing the potion masters office, nor did he rush to see his friends. Somewhat overwhelmed, Harry sought refuge deep in the warren-like depths of the lower dungeons. He craved the cool still air and the dark, deserted passageways full of the comfort of enveloping shadow.

Stalking the lower dungeons, Harry's feet twisted and turned through the now-familiar empty tunnels and walkways. He was far too restless to do anything else as his mind churned.

It was good what had happened, Harry was feeling a bit better about Snape now. But the meeting had left Harry feeling raw, overexposed and so vulnerable that his skin was crawling with it.

Eventually, Harry folded himself up into a small alcove in the ruff stone wall and pulled out his mirror.

"Hey kiddo, what's up?" Bill said, and Harry noticed that one of Bill's eyebrows was singed off and his face was covered in soot.

"What happened to you?" Harry blurted.

Bill snorted, and grinned, "I'm at Gringotts, working my way through the stuff we cleared from Hogwarts."

"Anything good in there?" Harry asked curiously, letting himself get side tracked.

"Yeah, loads," Bill said, "all of it is cursed or covered in nasty hexs! So plenty of interesting puzzles to keep me entertained. That rusty sword we confiscated ended up with a bone-melting hex in it. It was meant to be a bone weakening hex, but someone tried to remove it (badly) and made it worse; the poor incompetent idiot."

Harry couldn't help a snort.

"I'm about to start working on that ugly stuffed troll. I think it has several mutated curses and hex's on it." Bill said happily before peering at Harry, "What's up?"

"Wasn't sure you'd still be up," Harry deflected, his smile faltering slightly.

Bill just smiled, "I keep odd hours."

"So I'm coming to learn."

"How are you?" Bill asked genuinely, "what's wrong?"

Harry sighed, "I talked to Snape."

"How'd it go?" Bill asked.

"I messed up; I used legilimency on him. By accident!" Harry said when Bill raised his singed off eyebrow in question.

"I didn't even realise I was doing it." Harry groaned, his cheeks heating in mortification. "He flipped his shit but is teaching me how to control it now. You were right last week when you said maybe we were on the wrong track. We were. It's to do with how heightened my mage sense is and my empathy. Legilimency comes from a different place for me, completely naturally. He said I'd never be able to turn off the empathy or mage sense completely. Not that I'd want to. But I can learn to subdue it, so I'm not hearing peoples surface thoughts without wanting to. And he said he can teach me to control it."

"That's great!" Bill said.

"Yeah," Harry said, not too enthusiastically.

"You're nervous about the lessons," Bill said, pinpointing the cause of Harry's reluctance.

"Yeah," Harry said. "He said my natural shields were shit and need healing. By someone who knows what they're doing. He offered, but I really don't want anyone else in my head, let alone doing something with it!"

"Ah," Bill said, "I had hoped that wouldn't be necessary, but Severus would know and would be able to help you heal them."

"mm," Harry said not convinced, "he apologised, and we talked, but people have messed with my head enough! I don't want anyone else screwing with it, even if he says, he'll heal the damage. But it needs to be done Bill. They fall when I'm startled. It has to happen. It's leaving my defences vulnerable. And I can't afford to see anyone else, both money-wise, and I can't really trust anyone else with it. I don't even know if I can trust him with it, and you know about the oath. I don't even know who else could do it."

"We'll you don't have to do it right this second," Bill said, "you can think it over get to know him a bit better over your lessons so it won't be as uncomfortable and scary."

Harry nodded, biting his lip as he wondered if he should ask bill to be there when Snape did mess with his head like the man had suggested. But Harry hesitated, opened his mouth only to close it again and shake his head.

"What?" Bill asked

Harry shook his head, even after all this time, he still felt uncomfortable and far too vulnerable; asking for help, asking for what he wanted.

"It's nothing," he said.

Bill looked like he wanted to press, but there was a clattering in the background on Bill's end, and someone said something urgent in goblin. Bill sighed, and said with a smile, "I gotta go, my break is just about up, but we can talk about it more on Saturday."

Harry nodded getting up from the stone alcove he'd sat down in and started wandering the dungeons again.

Eventually, however, the need for company and his friends' warmth, his family, drew Harry out of the dungeon's depths. He wanted something familiar, something comfortable, something known. He needed his family.

He went to the room of requirement. Hermione greeted him with a warm hug and an, "I was so worried! You took ages! How did it go?"

"Okay," he said, "I think I'm good but can you check me over? He gave me a potion."

She whipped out her wand and cast the full range of detection spells they were now both experts at. But it pronounced him clean and verified that the potion had indeed been what Snape had said it was.

Harry sighed in relief. He'd thought he'd been fine, but the reassurance of the spells helped settle his jittery nerves.

She then passed Essie back to him, and he gently assisted her in coiling around his arms and up his neck. Her cool weight felt soothing, reassuring. Even if they had not been together long. He'd missed her while in Snape's office.

"You smell strange, like plants and dead things," the little snake hissed curiously as Harry stroked her smooth scales. Harry hummed contentedly in response.

"It went okay," Harry said as he allowed Hermione to drag him to the oversized squashy couch that they were all piled onto. He sat between Hermione and Neville, enjoying the closeness and the reassuring warmth of his friends as he leaned against Hermione as he told his tale. Or at least the bits he could tell. There was a lot he had to leave out or would have to tell Hermione later in private.

It was good to get it off his chest. And he was somewhat relieved to know Snape had been telling the truth when he'd said he'd apologised. Neville had been partially horrified at the prospect of remedial potions. It took a while to talk him down but once they assured him, they would both go to each one with him. He calmed somewhat.

"He has been better lately," the quiet boy said.

"So what's this about veritaserum?" Fred asked, "and where can we get some."

"More importantly, where can we get the recipe for the antidote!" Harry said, "Snape may not be intending to poison us, but I don't want anyone else to get the chance!"

"I've never heard of it before," Hermione said with a frown, "it may be restricted."

"Off to the library then," the twins chorused for her.

It was easy to sneak around the school now without being seen. Between their knowledge of secret passageways, and disillusionment charms, as the cloak did not fit the five of them, getting into the library after curfew was a walk in the park. And with the new and improved map, Harry had the password to the restricted sections. They didn't even have to slide under the wards.

They spent a frustratingly un-productive few hours hunting down an antidote to veritaserum. They did find a couple of good books in the restricted section that would prove useful for their extra O.W.L studies. Hermione also found a thick tome of hiding and magical shielding. Hopefully, that would offer them something useful in counteracting Moody's eye. But it wasn't until their second round through the potions section that they finally found it.

Harry understood that Snape had been bluffing, but he would be damned if anyone was going to force him to give up his secrets, his weaknesses.

He found an antidote in the restricted section. It looked devilishly difficult.

The five of them skip going to the chamber that night under the time turner, and instead seek refuge in one of the old brewing labs in the lower dungeons. They put proximity and alert wards all over the corridor, to warm them if someone approached—they were not exactly meant to be down there, or brewing, and certainly not this potion. But the wards of the old classroom are still there, and easy enough for Harry to activate and make strong again with a little help from Hogwarts.

It was a long-winded potion, and the first stage of it blew up in their faces. Three times. Even with Harry, Hermione and George (who was surprisingly good at potions) all working on it.

They'd finally managed to past the first stage right at about 2 in the morning, (and that was with having used the time turner.) Thankfully the wards on their brewing mats held, protecting them from most of the burns and explosions. But completing stage two and three was just as difficult.

Eventually they managed to get through stage one, two and three and approach the final stage of the potion. The instructions for the last stage were simple enough, but the timing was tricky.

This time it blew up spectacularly, blowing through the warding on the brewing mat, and activating the protective wards on the bench, and the classroom wards flared with a bang, as the magic ignited to contain the blast.

The five of them threw themselves to the ground as boiling potion exploded everywhere, sending bits of cauldron shrapnel hurtling. Thankfully the desk's wards mostly contained it. The ward caught the jagged pieces of the cauldron and the worst of the scalding potion. But the three brewers still ended up with small burns pealing and blistering their arms and hands.

"Well fuck," George said when the explosion was over, as Fred rushed over to him. Fred had been working on something else in the back corner with Neville.

"Do you recon anyone heard that?" Neville asked joining them.

"I hope not," George said, letting his twin wash his burns with a spout of cold water from his wand. Neville went to do the same for Harry and Hermione. But Harry shied away, unable to help it. He was tired and anxious and jittery.

"I think we've had enough for tonight. We still need to get some sleep before class." Hermione said as Neville cleaned her burns.

Harry just nodded with a sigh, he flicked his wand, bandaging his burns with a quick spell, feeling too tired and defeated to really bother with them. He ignored Hermione's worried look and just flicked his wand over the mess to start cleaning it up.

As much as he wanted an antidote to keep them safe from the threat of veritaserum right this instant, he saw Hermione's reasoning. Between his run-in with Snape before and several explosions, his nerves were shot and he could barely keep his eyes open. They'd all had enough for the night.

"Quick! Someone's coming!" Fred said suddenly "my alert spell just went off."

"Shit." The five of them scrambled to finish grabbing the last of their gear. They managed to get out of the classroom and into a snake passage just as they footsteps round the corner.

That had been too close, in multiple ways, Harry thought as he pulled out the map to see who it was. Snape heading towards the classroom they'd been using. Shit, it hadn't occurred to him Snape may be connected to the old classroom wards. But it made sense, Snape was a potion master, it was his domain.

The five of them trudged up to the room of requirement where they helped each other put dittany and mertlap essence on the numerous small burns they had on their arms and hands. The twins insisting that Harry not just dismiss his own burns.

Still, Harry though, this would probably be some more scars to add to his collection, what did it really matter.

END NOTE:

Harry's feeling a bit defeated and emotionally exhausted so he's not taking care of himself as he should. But don't worry he has friends to help him.