The next day Snape was sitting at the table, buttering his toast, as if nothing had happened. Harry settled down opposite him.

The newspaper had reappeared on the table.

"You managed to Occlude successfully," Snape said, without any indication that it was a compliment. He might have been talking about the weather. Harry nodded. "Of course, proper Occluding is in response to a mental attack by a Legilimens, and clearing your mind sufficiently before you go to bed to avoid a nightmare is just a small stepping-stone to Occluding."

So… not a compliment, maybe an insult? "Will you teach me 'proper' Occluding, then?"

"Do you fear an attack by a Legilimens anywhere in the near future?"

"Is that why you learnt Occluding?"

Snape looked annoyed. "That has nothing—"

And then he yawned. Really loudly. He couldn't help it, though his hand flew to cover his mouth. He blushed a little and broke eye contact, but Snape was looking at him thoughtfully. "Are you tired?"

Well, he did feel a little achy and sleepy, but that was normal after—

And then he saw him, and he jerked back so hard he fell out of his chair and landed on the floor.

Snape arose too, very quickly. "Potter? What—"

"Lu-Lu-Lucius!" he shrieked, pointing behind him to where he was standing, just… standing? And smiling? In the same clothes he'd worn to the court—

Snape looked at his pointed finger as if it were a particularly interesting object. "It's a hallucination, Potter." A halla-what? No, Snape had used this word before— "It's not real. You're imagining it. Another effect of the withdrawal, I imagine. I should have stopped the potion long ago," and he looked annoyed again, though this time it was probably directed at himself.

"But he's—" he pointed a little bit more, wiggling his finger, but even he could see Malfoy was acting a bit oddly, just smiling like that. And where did he come from anyway? He groaned, but he still couldn't take his eyes off him. "Great."

"It'll pass," Snape said.

"After how long?" He knew he sounded a bit whiny but he really couldn't help it, first he went crazy with the magic and now he was imagining Lucius Malfoy in Snape's house. What next, would he burst into flames when he stared at a candle or something?

"A few days. Go back to your room, your body is weak. I'll—" he broke off with a groan. "No, I can't give you potions for this. You'll just have to sleep it off."

"Sleep?!"

"You slept once, successfully." Malfoy vanished.

"Yeah, and once I went crazy!"

"And I stopped you. You cannot stay awake until the symptoms wear off; you must sleep eventually. If you persist in staying awake, I imagine the hallucinations will get worse. What's Lucius doing now?"

"He's … gone, he disappeared when you were talking. He was just standing there."

"Hallucinations can do much more than that."

He shivered. Snape looked at him, but there wasn't any emotion in those eyes. "Go to bed," he repeated. "I'll have Trippy bring up a tray."

"And a book?" A small part of Harry was wondering when he had gone and become a reader. But there wasn't much else to do, and reading a book had at least one effect of making you forget your overwhelming thoughts.

"The purpose of sending you to bed is to sleep, Potter. Go."

At the door, Harry paused. After a few seconds of fiddling with his hands, he finally worked up the courage to look at Snape and say, "I shouldn't have said that yesterday. I was just...upset. I'm sorry."

Blink. "I know that, Potter."

"And I didn't mean it either. I don't really think you were enjoying it."

"Alright, Potter, you've made your point. Now go."

—-

Snape considered having Trippy watch him, but then he remembered that in the cellar Dobby had been assigned to guard him too. He sighed, and trooped to his room, settling in in much the same position as before, after lighting the candles and making sure the boy was playing the Walkman.

The alarm made him look up a while later, wand in hand.

This time it was less—violent—than before, a soft sphere of air around the boy, and he was hovering over the bed too, but barely. Nothing was flying. He kept his wand at the ready, but this was a compromise he could live with.

The basics of Occlumency, he'd told Potter about his accomplishment. There was a certain ability to compartmentalize and block all emotion that was essential to mastering Occlumency, and that Snape doubted he would ever be able to do, but this was rather an important basic. And he'd got it in a trice. …

The airy circles faded, and he slumped back into the bed. He was still sleeping. Snape waited for a moment and decided the danger was past. He quietly left.

He strode back in when the wake-up alarm went off. Potter was sitting up in bed, yawning. "I did it!" he said, smiling at him.

"Indeed." He lowered his head in a single nod. "Did you dream at all?"

He smiled, a little embarrassedly. "It was—a rather happy dream, that's all." Ah. That would explain it. He was rubbing the back of his head, messing his hair. "So, does that mean the symptoms are over, or…?"

"Are you tired?"

"A bit, but—" and then his eyes widened, staring at something beyond his shoulder. "Oh oh no no."

"Who is it?" he glanced over his shoulder before he could help himself. He had countless wards about his home, nobody but Dumbledore could get in without setting the alarms off, but still, it wouldn't do to get overconfident.

"No, Mrs. Figg, that's not true," and his tears spilled over, his fingers trembling, covering his lips.

So the hallucination was talking now. "Potter, look at me. Look." He was staring at the hallucination wide eyed, so Snape grasped his chin gently and turned his face, so Potter was looking at him. "It's not real."

He gave a sob and buried his face in his hands.

Not for the first time, Snape wished he could go and throw something hard or sharp at Albus Dumbledore.

"Whatever she's saying to you, it's not real. She's not real, Potter."

"'Coz she's dead."

Snape conjured a box of tissues in what was getting to be an almost subconscious wand movement. At this rate, he was going to cause a tissue crisis. Maybe he could blame it on Lucius Malfoy.

Potter was rubbing at his face with the tissues, and then all of a sudden he jumped and moved his arm away, hugging himself. Snape stifled a groan. "Get under the covers," he ordered. Potter complied. "Now, Occlude."

He closed his eyes, and Snape could see his brows furrowing with the effort. "Breathe, Potter. Being calm is key to the process."

He was counting his breaths again. "I don't think it's working," he whispered. "There's a hand on my arm, is it yours?"

Snape looked down in surprise. Somewhere along the way, his hand had reached out and looped itself around Potter's wrist without any input from his brain. "It is."

Tears were leaking out of his eyes again. "Thank you." Before Snape could reply, something along the lines of not needing to be thanked for tiny favours, the boy said, "They used to hold Dudley when he was sick," he said, pressing his tissue to his mouth.

Snape was just trying to get his head around the meaning of that when he opened his eyes and screamed.

"Close your eyes!"

"D-death Eater," he whispered through eyes squeezed shut. "Oh oh!"

Snape tightened his hold. "There's no one here, Potter. There are shields around this place, put up by Dumbledore and I. No-one can get in without me knowing about it."

"Okay," he hiccupped. And then his left hand reached out and found Snape's palm resting on his other hand and latched on.

Snape sighed. Could've just conjured him a hot cup or something.

It was another ten minutes before he opened his eyes again and said, "They're gone."

And then he Occluded and fell asleep.

—-

The success rate of the Occluding was just over three-fourths over the next three days. But it didn't work for the hallucinations, and eventually Potter just ignored them, since they didn't usually do more than just stand in the room. Snape could see that they affected him though, and he could know when he was experiencing a hallucination by how his face went a little pale and his shoulders stiffened.

Once, Potter reported that it was 'the pink lady from court' and he was calling him a 'Half-blood wisp'. Snape told him he was more a Pureblood than a Half-blood. Another time it was Draco Malfoy who was telling him, over and over, that he was a worthless blood-traitor. Usually, though, it was Mrs Figg or Lucius. On seeing them, he would either retreat to the sofa by the bookshelf or his bed, increase the volume on his Walkman, and read a book or close his eyes.

The Walkman seemed to be permanently wedged to him now. And he'd had to send for more candles. The first day, he'd decided not to work in the lab, in case Potter needed him, but Potter seemed to be doing fine on his own, so he entered the lab the next day. Every movement was made with an air of tense alertness for the next time the alarm went off.

The first time it did was two days after his first successful Occlusion and nightmare-less sleep. Placing a quick stasis charm on his potion, he ran out to the hall to witness nearly half the books in his library circling the boy, along with some others wandering aimlessly mid-air. As was his practice, he slipped into his mind and ordered him to wake up. His levitating charm was off by just a second and Potter fell to the floor.

He scrambled up and his expression was one of absolute terror when he saw the books lying, haphazard, in the hall. "I—I fell asleep—"

Snape flicked his wand and the boy flinched, taking a step back. He slowly pointed it at his books, and they rose into the air. He flushed. In less than two minutes, they were all rearranged in their proper positions.

"My books have protective charms on them," he said, feeling the need to alleviate the look of guilt on the pale face. "A fall will not hurt them. Fire will not hurt them. The pages cannot be ripped out." Nothing short of the Dark Arts, in fact, could damage his books.

He nodded, looking a bit wide-eyed as he normally did when introduced to new aspects of magic. "Cool."

"Are you hurting anywhere?"

"Hmm?" he said absently, still staring at the books.

"You fell. Are you hurt?"

He looked a bit startled. "Oh, no, sir, I'm fine."

Snape rolled his eyes. Lifting his wand again and ignoring the tinge of panic that seeped into the boy's eyes, he muttered a quick diagnostic charm. "Congratulations, Potter. You seem to have learnt to use that word more accurately now."

And he turned on his heels and went back to his lab.

The next day he went to the hall to find Potter sitting on the floor in the middle of the hall, arms wrapped around his legs.

"Potter! What on earth is the matter?"

The entirety of Potter's lower lip was in his mouth when he looked up. He pointed at some vague location to the left of Snape. "M-m-mum—"

Snape could see the spot out of the corner of his eyes. "Potter, there's nothing there."

"I know!" he wailed, and then he buried his face between his arms.

Snape took a step forward. Of course the boy would see Lily. Of course. Nothing would ever be easy for him, would it?

Now if the boy had seen James Potter, it might have been a different matter. Snape would insist that it was not real, a thousand times, until the hallucinations went away.

Perhaps that was what he would have done.

He knelt. Potter was crying, very softly. Snape put a hand on his arm, and he jumped, looking up with widened, tear-filled eyes, and then he pulled himself up and launched himself at Snape, circling his small arms around Snape's torso.

"Potter," he began.

"Please, please please. Two seconds."

Tick. Tock.

"Potter."

"I didn't even know what she looked like, Aunt Petunia never had any pictures of her in the house—" A wave of rage at Lily's dratted sister, now a familiar rage after all the things Potter had said about her, drove away any thought of resistance he had to the touch "—I saw her picture in the news, with me, with dad—" Snape wondered if Potter noticed his body stiffening.

"She was really pretty," he whispered. "And happy. To have me." Snape sat still as stone. "And then she died—" Snape could hear him choke on the word "—because of me…"

Snape closes his eyes, wondering if he could clench his jaw any harder than he already was. "The Dark Lord killed your parents, Potter."

"Yeah, but he went there to kill me. I read the news. No-one has ever survived the killing Curse except for me." After a moment of silence, Potter stilled and pulled himself back, falling back on his haunches, a blush colouring his cheeks.

"Potter—"

"You're going to tell me that's not in my hands too?"

Snape stared at the boy's bright eyes, at his face, not quite angry, but challenging. For a moment, he looked quite unlike either of his parents. "When Voldemort came to your house, your mother could have chosen to flee without you and leave you behind. She could have spared her life if she had done so. She did not. She had the choice to choose her own life over yours, and she did not. She chose you. Do not —do not throw that away, Harry."

A minute later, Snape was dangling a box of tissues under his face.

"I promise this will be the last time I cry in front of you," Harry said, a bit nasally because his nose was still blocked up.

"I have no need for such a promise."

"Okay, so. Okay," he said, wadding up his tissue. Snape pointed his wand at it and it disappeared. "Sorry," he said, rather breathlessly, pointing at Snape's shirtfront.

Snape opened his mouth. Closed it. "Is it your nature to apologize for everything?" he said at last, standing up.

Potter shrugged. "It's safer."

Snape stared at the boy, who clearly didn't understand the import of what he just said as he calmly sat back down on the sofa. "So." Really, the only reason he'd asked that offhanded question was because he didn't want to talk about Lily, or James Potter, but here he was, talking about something uncomfortable anyway. "You have made it a practice to apologize for everything that is or isn't your fault when you are at the Dursleys?"

Potter looked up now, with a growing light of comprehension in his eyes. Too little too late, Snape thought. "Well," he said blushing again, "the Dursleys couldn't really understand what was wild magic and what wasn't."

He couldn't do this. He really couldn't. He should just Floo the boy over to Albus Dumbledore and have him psychoanalyze the boy. Snape was a Potions Master by profession and a Healer by extension. Nowhere in his thirty years did he get any experience relevant for this kind of work.

Potter sat there, with big green eyes, smiling faintly at him, comforting him, trying to reassure him that everything was fine. Snape walked to his lab door. He silently opened it and then shut it behind him. In the still silence, his sigh was as loud as a thunderclap.

He'd barely begun work when there was a knock on the door. He flung it open with a flick of his wand.

Potter was standing there, his fist at eye level. "Can I join you? Sir?"

"Allow a hallucinating child into a room full of volatile substances? What a brilliant idea."

"I'm bored."

"Yes, and ending up with third degree burns or worse is generally considered to be a fine way to while away the hours."

Potter's jaw was stubbornly set. "I'll be fine."

"I do not care for your opinion, Potter."

He didn't budge from his spot, but just stood there, in clothes just a little too big for him, his forehead and scar hidden by a mess of hair, piercing green eyes.

"Fine," Snape growled. "Get in here."

The edges of his lips turned up and he skipped into the room. "Great! Where do I begin?"

Snape briefly made a mental list of the most disgusting potions ingredients in his lab. Then his brain went, "Bicorn horn."

The least disgusting thing. Also one of the least dangerous, which of course was why he'd picked it. Not for any other reason.

Harry picked out the Bicorn and began powdering it with a force that was just a little too passionate for Snape. "Do you enjoy this, Potter?"

He shrugged. "It's not bad."

Eloquent. Snape turned his attention to his own potion.

"So was Potions your favourite subject in school, or something?"

"No chatting, Potter."

His shoulders slumped. Ah, so this was the reason for his sudden interest in making potions. Snape briefly wondered what the goal of Potter's chatting up was, before deciding it didn't matter. Potter was getting well, and he was going soon, and that would be that.

The rest of the hour passed in silence.

The next day when Snape entered the hall for breakfast, an owl was waiting for him, bearing a message from Remus Lupin, who informed him that yes, he would be delighted to meet Harry Potter on the 14th of August.

Harry Potter would probably have to call off that meeting, he thought.

"Are you kidding? Of course not, I'm fine," he said on the morning of the 13th of August, the hallucination of a masked Death Eater beside him.

"Fine is just the word I'd use to describe you, Potter."

He rolled his eyes and then made it look like he was staring at the ceiling. "I'll tell him I'm suffering from Dreamless Sleep withdrawal. So what?"

"I didn't imagine you were close enough to Lupin to share such private details of your life."

"Oh. I didn't think it was private. Did he say when he'd come over?"

"Tomorrow, in fact. I'd suggested delaying it by a few days, but he seemed curiously insistent."

In actual fact, the reason why Lupin hadn't wanted to delay it was because if he waited till after his transformation, it would be delayed by many more days.

"Did he fight Voldemort too?"

"I imagine he did." Snape couldn't care less.

"Why don't you like him?"

Now Snape glared. "Personal questions, Potter. Is that really such a hard concept to grasp?"

Potter looked calmly back at him. "It's not too personal."

"Is it now," Snape said, leaning back in his chair with feigned nonchalance. "Why do you not like the Dursleys, Potter?"

His lips compressed. "They don't like me."

"I didn't like Lupin's friends."

"You mean my father."

Snape smirked. "Exactly."

He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but when Potter picked up his bread and bit into it with a crunch, he felt mildly disappointed.

That night he had another 'incident'. Snape had removed all furniture from the room so there was nothing to float around and crash into things, but this time it took longer to bring him down again. Apparently. His memories of Snape entering his mind and coaxing him were always a bit blurred. Still, this time even he could notice the difference.

Snape was standing as he fell into bed, wand at his side. "What happened?" he asked curtly.

He shook his head. He could feel the sweat on his brow, but he couldn't remember the nightmare. "I don't know."

"The thought of meeting your friend excited you so much you forgot to Occlude, perhaps?"

Harry looked up in surprise at the anger in his voice. "He's not a friend; I'm going to ask him about my father. And why my godfather became a Death Eater."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "I hardly think he'll have an answer to that."

Harry didn't answer. To be honest, he was kind of nervous about this meeting. He knew nothing about Remus Lupin beyond his name and his friendship to his father. What was he like? How close was he really to his dad?

Snape was standing and staring at him in silence, Harry realized after a while. "Um."

"What was the nightmare about?"

Harry frowned. "I—I'm not sure."

"Do you ever have nightmares about the Dursleys?"

"What?" his eyebrows flew up. "No, why?"

Snape didn't bother to answer that. "Goodnight, Potter."

"Why are you always on about the Dursleys anyway?"

"I am not always on," Snape hissed, spelling the words out like they were an insult. "You are simply not forthcoming."

"Forth what?"

Snape took a deep breath. "Your answers are not to my satisfaction."

"I thought you were the one who said all that about personal questions." His eyelids were drooping. Did Snape really have to do this now?

"I am taking care of you, Potter. It is my duty to ask you questions."

"Well, there's nothing to say. The Dursleys were fine. I'm fine. Okay?"

"Not even remotely. You said they didn't feed you."

Harry could feel a blush heating up his neck and cheeks. "I didn't say—"

"Spare me your excuses, Potter. I can read between the lines in your half-answers. You were running from your cousin that day, were you not?"

Harry felt cold all over. "So what? So he bullies me. Siblings do it all the time."

"Yes, it's rather a little thing in itself, but all those little things taken together form a rather telling picture."

"Like what?"

"Do they feed him well?" Snape snorted. "Of course they do. But they don't feed you. They didn't want to meet with you when you'd been kidnapped off their street. Is that normal?"

"What, being kidnapped?"

Snape lowered his head a fraction and glared. "Do not take this lightly."

Harry ran a hand through his hair. He was tired. He was tired and he was sleepy and he did not want to do this now. "Can I go to bed?"

"Are you tired?"

"Yes."

"Good."

Harry stared, feeling suddenly anxious.

"I do not wish to give you Veritaserum, but you are quite stubbornly keeping from telling me what I wish to know. Feeling tired generally tends to break down one's mental defenses."

"Well, you shouldn't have told me that," Harry muttered. "I'm wide awake now."

"We shall continue this tomorrow then," Snape said smoothly.

"There's nothing to continue."

"I believe we have already discussed how much I value your opinion in matters regarding yourself."

"Uh-huh, the answer is zero."

Snape smirked. "Quite. So. Your aunt and uncle knew about your parents and didn't tell you. They knew about our magical powers and they didn't tell you. Worse, they blamed you for it and punished you. Have you anything to say about that?"

Harry plucked at the edge of his sheet. "Nope."

"Potter." The word was hissed through clenched teeth.

Harry looked up. "So they hated magic and they didn't want me. What am I supposed to say about that? They took me in, because I was Aunt Petunia's nephew and they sent me to school, and they fed me—" Snape snorted, and Harry felt some of that anger boil over. "Well, I didn't die of hunger, did I?"

"Yes, Potter, let's thank the Dursleys for keeping you alive. They are as good as Lucius Malfoy in that regard."

Harry sat up at that. "They were nothing like the Death Eaters."

"Your standards are abominably low."

"I know they treated Dudley like he was some sort of prince, but I'm not normal, am I? And they like to be normal. Growing hair overnight, ending up on the school roof without climbing it, that's not normal. Nobody asked them if they wanted me, did they? What were they supposed to do with me? I should be grateful they didn't abandon me on the street like they—"

He stopped, pursing his lips, already knowing he'd gone too far. Snape didn't look angry anymore. His eyebrows were drawn together and his arms were crossed.

"Petunia Dursley is your mother's sister," he said, spelling out each word as slowly as if he were mining gold. "She knew you were a wizard when she took you in, and she knew why she had to take you in. It was her duty to take care of you, and instead she allowed her distaste of all things magical to get in the way."

"Yeah? Well, not everyone is all about duty like you are," Harry said, feeling entirely exhausted by now. "Can I sleep now? Please? I feel like I'll fall over if I stay up for a second longer."

Snape arose in a fluid motion. "You are normal, Potter."

Harry laughed, in a sort of pained chortle, before he could help it. "Right, yeah, that was convincing. I'm sure loads of people had Voldemort show up at their homes and try to kill their par—"

"You are a wizard and a child. The particulars aren't relevant. An orphan, no less." Harry felt his throat choke up. "You are as deserving of love and care as any other child, magic or no magic."

Harry stared down at the little triangle of bedsheet he could see between his folded legs.

"Remind me to tell you about Squibs born in Pureblood families someday," he said, and turned toward the door.

"Why, what happens to them?"

Snape turned at the doorway. "Nobody knows." with a ghost of a smile, he walked off, leaving Harry to stare at the empty doorway feeling utterly bewildered.