Salazar and Merlin, the boy wouldn't stop staring.

In the Great Hall, every time he looked up, his green eyes would skip over to the staff table like a deer eyeing a predator. Potions class was an utter nightmare. Snape wondered absently if perhaps he should just make a cauldronful of Calming Draught and hand it to the boy and then they could both take it before every Potions class and perhaps they'd get through the term in one piece without having an epic meltdown. He'd have to offer it to Weasley and Granger too, because they were flat-out glaring at him. This development was so unusual it was almost comical. Granger, with all her obsession for rule-keeping, was disapproving of his behaviour toward the boy.

He'd had to take a few points, and had matched the glare with an equally long one of his own. But they kept their mouths shut. It was only because Snape watched them as often as they watched him—the only difference being that his watching was subtle whereas theirs was…decidedly not—that he knew that it involved rather a lot of mutual rib-poking and toe-stepping and muffled 'ouch!'-es.

The long faces weren't entirely his—fault—because the recent development in Buckbeak's case had reached Snape's ears as well.

Of course the boy would be upset over Buckbeak. Snape had seen whole hordes of Muggles die at the Dark Lord's hands, and the three of them were behaving as though an animal's execution was the most appalling thing in the world.

Draco Malfoy would milk the whole thing of course. Snape idly watched Potter's face redden in their classes together and hoped that whenever the boy's temper did give out, it would not be in his class. It wasn't.

They had other problems to deal with, soon. The Quidditch team had brought out the competitive streak in anyone with a wand and an ounce of magical knowledge. Madam Pomfrey's tongue grew sharper and sharper with each passing day, and her ire was directed at Snape and Minerva, as the Heads of the two Houses scheduled for the match, whenever it wasn't wagging at the students who had the unfortunate luck to get hit.

Snape did his best. Or, at least, the best that he could when he still had to be the evil Potions master. He ignored Poppy's glares and Minerva's increasingly snappy remarks on his Slytherins. He kept them in the common-room, he spoke to them, he assigned private lessons for certain more hot-headed members. When he found out Draco had assigned Crabbe and Goyle to Potter, though, he couldn't do much but be glad that Wood was, in his own way, taking care of his team.

And, one day, when he heard that Potter had used the Protego with so much force that a fourth year had fallen flat on his back, he went to his office and smiled to himself for a full six seconds, before he remembered that he was still angry at the boy.

Minerva noticed, as she always seemed to, that there was something wrong with Snape and Potter. She was looking now, too. Between Potter's green eyes and Minerva's sharp eyes and Albus' everything, he was seriously contemplating the idea of taking a sleeping potion to knock himself out for a month or two. Perhaps by the time he woke up, Black would be arrested and—

And?

He was still furious. He had been furious when he saw the boy at the statue, bearing all signs of running and getting dirty. It had reached epic levels with each lie, each bald-faced lie—

And then that map, that wretched Map—

He did not know if the boy knew whose map it was.

Of course he knew whose map it was!

But he didn't look like it, and the boy had all the subtlety of a chicken. A drunk chicken who'd just been hit over the head.

Increasingly, Snape found himself remembering that event, that momentous event in fifth year, that had nearly cost him his life—so soon after that other event, the one he couldn't remember without bile rising to his throat.

Lupin, glittering golden eyes, werewolf.

Potter, wild-eyed and dishevelled, yelling at him, pulling him away in a tangle of messy, lanky arms and legs.

Running, running so fast he thought his legs would give out, or his lungs. Potter, pulling him up when he stumbled and fell.

And Black, standing at the gates of the castle with Albus Dumbledore, his eyes downcast and defiant all at once.

Black, who tried to kill him once, and then killed him properly without ever raising a wand to him, without ever being even aware of the mortal wound he'd inflicted.

Albus called him into the office once, and gently recommended forgiving the boy.

He doubted forgiveness was a concept he could ever understand.

-

Harry couldn't stop staring at Snape. For a long while he wasn't even sure why he was doing it. Later he realized he was waiting for his Potions master veneer to crack, for something to leak through.

Merlin, of all people to get attached to, he had to pick the one with the most personal history with him, and the finest ability to hold a grudge for ages.

Lily Evans Potter. Harry shuddered. The venom he could lace into that disyllabic word never ceased to amaze. Potter. Looking at Harry and seeing James Potter. He's dead, Harry wanted to say. He died and he won't come back ever. Whatever your thing was with him, it's over, move on.

But Snape wouldn't even look back at him in the eye. Wouldn't give him detention. And he was not about to go down to the office, not after that exit.

Lily Evans Potter. He didn't know why it bothered him so much.

-

Idiot idiot idiot!

It sounded remarkably like Snape's voice, he wasn't sure, he didn't know, and he didn't particularly care.

"What."

His voice came out perfectly steady—Snape's influence, hahaha, a wild part of his brain managed to think before the rest of his brain shut it up.

Remus was standing next to Sirius, and although they both looked grim, they had still hugged each other, and Harry's wand was in Remus' hand, and so was Ron and Hermione's, and he was an idiot.

Snape was right after all, said the same part of his brain.

Then Hermione began yelling her head off and Harry was sufficiently shaken out of his numb shock to join in. "I trusted you! I trusted you even after everything that Snape said—"

"No," said Remus, his Remus, with the brown eyes that Harry had always known, "You have to listen to me…"

"Harry, don't listen to him, he's been helping Black, he's trying to kill you, he's a werewolf!"

There was a short silence.

"Yeah, I know," Harry said. Now Ron and Hermione were staring at him. He shrugged.

Then Remus laughed, a strained laugh that made something inside Harry squirm. "I imagine Snape told you?" he said, looking at Harry, who didn't know whether to nod or shake his head and settled for stony silence.

"Get away from me, werewolf!"

An old feeling stirred inside Harry then, from the cellar. Mudblood, blood-traitor, all the caustic words that were spat at him and later at Hermione and Ron. Muggle. Squib.

He shook his head jerkily. He wasn't to feel pity.

Five years, five years he'd known the man. If he couldn't trust Remus…

"You're the cleverest witch of your age I've ever known, Hermione."

"But I'm not, if I were I'd have told everyone!"

Harry found his voice. "Everyone already knows. I mean the staff." Four pairs of eyes turned to him—no, five, Crookshanks too—and he cleared his throat. "You, you have a lot of explaining to do," he said firmly, looking at Remus.

"You can't trust him," Hermione said.

Harry looked at Black, who had crossed over to the bed and covered his face with a shaking hand.

He'd some experience with Death Eaters, at least—

"Lift up your sleeve," he said to Black.

After a moment of startled silence, he did so, and Harry let out a breath. Dirty and wrinkled, but devoid of the Mark. Could he dare to—?

"Okay, explain?" he said to Remus.

Remus handed over Harry's wand to him, and he took it, warily, with burgeoning hope that he agonized over whether to quench or not. Hermione and Ron took theirs, one looking guardedly hopeful and the other gobsmacked.

"How'd you find us here? —Oh. The Map."

Remus gave him a tiny smile. "I wondered if you'd noticed. Yes, I was watching it. Ever since I took it from you in fact, wondering if I could catch Sirius trying to get in."

"Map?"

Harry looked at Ron. "Yeah, he wrote the map. With—others." He gave a significant nod to Black. "And my dad."

He ignored their questioning glances to look back at Remus. "If you're not with him—"

"I'm not."

"—How'd you know he's innocent?"

"I saw a name on the map. When Sirius Black pulled Ron into the Whomping Willow, there were two names on there."

This didn't seem like anything remotely resembling an answer to his question, but Remus looked at Ron. "May I see your rat?"

"My rat?" Ron asked, with the air of one whose been asked to hand over his wand. "What's he got to do with it?"

"Everything. May I see him, please?"

Scabbers emerged, thrashing wildly in Ron's grasp. Remus moved closer to Ron; Harry, without thinking, raised his wand before he realized who it was pointing it and thought again that if Remus was going to kill him, then there was really no one in the world he could trust.

"What? What's my rat got to do with anything?"

"That's not a rat," Black said.

Scabber's tail was in Ron's grasp.

"What do you mean, of course he's a rat!"

"No," Remus said. "He's a wizard."

Wormtail.

"An Animagus, by the name of Peter Pettigrew."

Wormtail. Lost a finger. A finger.

A missing toe…

"Pettigrew's dead, though," he said, louder than everyone else, and looking at Black, whose face twitched.

"I meant to, but little Peter got the better of me—not this time, though!"

And Black threw himself at Ron. Harry gaped for a moment in frozen surprise and then his mouth half-formed the word Petrificus before Remus moved forward, pushing Black away.

"You can't do it like that—they need to understand—"

"We can explain afterwards," Black snarled, but Harry stepped forward, between Ron and the two struggling wizards.

"There were like a hundred witnesses," he said, slowly, deliberately, his voice only barely shaking and his wand just a little more. Sixty? Yes, it was closer to sixty.

"They didn't see what they thought they saw!"

"The Map never lies, Harry. Peter's alive, and Ron's holding him."

Ron's eyes plainly said what he thought. Wormtail, the word danced in Harry's mind. An apt—well, mostly—name for a rat…

"Well." Somewhere he could see Snape raising an eyebrow at him, for his lack of eloquence or for his hope, he didn't know, but he couldn't—he couldn't dismiss the sensation, wild and blooming, that perhaps his father's best friend had not betrayed him after all.

"But Scabbers can't be Pettigrew, sir, there's only seven Animagi this century."

Remus laughed, and Harry's insides loosened. No way he could laugh like that, so free, so innocent, if he was in league with Black. The smirk on Lucius Malfoy's face floated in his memory. And Black, Black wasn't even looking at him, he realized with a jolt. His eyes were on the rat. If he was so unhinged and mad, why hadn't he tried to attack Harry yet?

Black didn't even have the Mark…

Black did turn to look at Harry then, but his eyes were running over his entire body—eyes, hair, hands, legs, like a full-body scan—before resting on his scar. His face twisted, just a little, and then he turned away.

"There used to be three unregistered Animagi running around Hogwarts."

"Right," Harry said. "Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. You say this—" he gestured at Scabbers with one definitely-not-trembling hand "—this is Wormtail, and you, Black, you're Padfoot, so my father—" lump in throat, swallow "—Prongs?"

The bedroom door opened with a creak.

#

"…I convinced myself that Sirius was getting into the school using Dark Arts he learned from Voldemort, that being an Animagus had nothing to do with it. So in a way, Snape's been right about me all along."

Words that stuck like splinters in Harry's heart.

"Professor Snape was at school with us," Remus said, his eyes passing over the three of them before coming to rest on Harry. "He's been telling Dumbledore all year I'm not to be trusted. He has his reasons…Sirius once played a trick on him that nearly got him killed."

Black snorted and Harry tried very hard not to look at him.

"Serves him right," he sneered. "Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to…hoping he could get us expelled…"

Harry opened his mouth, but Remus hurriedly moved on. "Severus was very interested in where I went every month. We were in the same year and we didn't like each other much."

"You pranked him," Harry said.

"Yes—"

Another snort from Black. "Trust me, he could defend himself well enough. He knew more hexes than any of us even before he joined Hogwarts."

Harry did not know what to do with that information.

"Anyway," Remus said, with a warning glance at Black, who gave him a bemused look, "Snape saw me once crossing the grounds. Sirius thought it would be—erm—amusing, to tell Snape how to get past the tree. Of course, he tried it, but before he could get as far as this house, your father went after Snape and pulled him back. Snape saw me though, at the end of the tunnel. Dumbledore forbade him from telling anybody, but ever since he's known who I was…"

Remus paused. Waiting, Harry realized, for his reply. He opened his mouth. "That wasn't very nice," he said faintly, to Black.

"He deserved it," Black said.

"He saved my life. Thrice—" A familiar tendril of guilt wrapped itself around Harry's throat. "Thrice now," he finished.

Into the silence post that proclamation, Harry looked at Remus. "Is that why Snape doesn't like you, because he thought you were in on it?" Though why anyone in his right mind would think—

"That's right."

Heart, drop, stomach. Harry wheeled around. Snape had removed his Cloak and it slithered to the floor. His wand was pointed at Remus.

"Found this at the base of the Whomping Willow, very useful, I thank you, Potter…"

Still Potter. The word solidified and settled in Harry's stomach, cold and acidic.

"I've just been to your office, Lupin." Snape was panting, barely, but his eyes were dancing with triumph in a way that Harry had never seen before and didn't think he wanted to, ever. "You forgot to take your potion; I brought a gobletful along. Lucky that I did…for me, I mean. Lying on your desk was a certain map."

"Severus—"

"I've told the headmaster again and again that you've been helping your old friend into the castle, and here's the proof—"

"Severus, you're making a mistake. You haven't heard everything—Sirius is not here to kill Harry—"

"Two more for Azkaban tonight," Snape said, as though Lupin's words were washing right over him with a metre to spare. "I shall be interested to see how Dumbledore takes this…he was quite convinced you were harmless…"

Harry found himself fidgeting his wand, rolling it through his fingers.

"You fool," Remus said softly, and Harry nearly choked on his breath. "Is a schoolboy's grudge worth putting an innocent man back in Azkaban?"

BANG! And Remus fell to the floor, tied up. Black jumped forward, but Snape pointed his wand at him.

"Give me a reason, and I swear I will," he whispered.

"Um," Harry said.

It was quiet enough, but it sounded like a thunderbolt. Snape's eyebrow twitched, and Black looked at him.

"Professor Snape—it wouldn't hurt to hear what they've got to say, would it?" Hermione said.

Snape yelled at her. Harry heard the words as if from a distance, and he was fairly certain he'd forgotten to blink. He did so once, deliberately. Hermione fell silent, and shot him a single wide-eyed look.

"Severus," he said, very quietly, timidly, he thought. "That's not fair."

"What have we said about life being unfair¸ Potter?"

A knot inside Harry slowly loosened. Anger, now, opening up his mouth, giving him voice, traction. "That it has help." From Death Eaters. He'd said it when he'd stayed at Snape's house; it had been an angry sentence, barely thought out, but it had been spoken. And judging by his expression, he remembered it.

"Joke's on you again, Severus," Black said, breaking their stare. "As long as this boy brings his rat up to the castle, I'll come quietly."

"Oh, I don't think we need to go that far. All I have to do is call the dementors. They'll be pleased to see you, Black…pleased enough to give you a Kiss, I daresay…"

Black's face whitened, further even than Snape's, which was an admirable feat, Harry thought absently. "You've got to hear me out—look at the rat—"

"Come on, all of you. I'll drag the werewolf." The ends of Remus' cords settled in his fingertips. Harry's eyes travelled down the length of the cord, settling on his eyes. Remus' lips were parted, forced apart by the cord between them. He was staring at Harry with fixed intensity.

Harry moved to the door before Snape could get through it.

"Get out of the way, Potter," Snape said. "If I hadn't been here to save your skin—"

"Did you know Black was an Animagus? Did you know Pettigrew was one?"

"I neither knew nor cared. Get out of the way, Potter."

"Don't you remember what happened the last time someone was accused of something without enough proof? If someone could get away despite being guilty, surely the opposite could happen!"

"Potter, I will not ask again."

"No. This is ridiculous," he said flatly. "You're being—you can't even think beyond what Black did ages ago."

"Silence! I have just saved your neck, Potter, you should be thanking me on bended knee!"

"If you're going to bring Black to the dementors you have to make sure he actually deserves it first! Black doesn't even—"

"Like father, like son, Potter, so convinced of Black's loyalty, unable to even admit you might be mistaken in Black. Move away from the door, Potter!"

"Severus—"

"Do not call me that!"

Harry gulped past a large lump in his throat. "Professor Snape, he doesn't have the Mark," he whispered urgently.

He'd been so sure that this would be the clinching argument, to counter the swirling clouds of black thunder in his face and eyes, and clear his head long enough to think.

"That means nothing, Potter, except that Black was too weak to make the final act of allegiance to the Dark Lord."

Harry's brain went to mush then, as his eyes went down to where he knew the final act of allegiance was there, smudged but very present, on Snape's forearm.

Snape roared, "Get out of the way, Potter!"

He did not get out of the way. He raised his wand—please, please forgive me for this—and yelled, "Expelliarmus!"

Two other voices joined his, and Snape was slammed into the wall, and slid to the floor, unconscious. Harry watched the trickle of blood from under his hair, drops of blood on the floor.

"You shouldn't have done that," Black said, but Harry barely heard him. He took a step closer to Snape, but the sight of his eyes shut, his head lolling on his shoulder, stray drops of blood on his hand, made him pause and let out a shuddering breath.

Remus stepped toward him and he jumped. Remus' hand had been stretched out, as if to put it on Harry's shoulder, but he dropped it quickly. "Thank you," he said.

"I still don't believe you."

"Then it's time we offered you some proof."

Sirius wasn't being careful with Snape's head. It kept brushing against the ceiling. Harry pointed this out to him after the fourth time. Sirius grimaced, but kept Snape's head an inch away from the ceiling from then on.

Snape was going to be furious with him, he thought mournfully. He could apologize—for what, he wasn't sure, apart from the head wound, which wasn't really his fault, he wasn't trying to hurt Snape, just disarm him, and how was he to know Ron and Hermione would try the same spell at the same time? But he would apologize, for, er—

"Er."

Harry paused his unblinking watch on Snape's floating body to look over at Sirius, who was watching him curiously. "You know what this means?" he asked abruptly.

"You're free?" Harry suggested.

"Yes. But I'm also—I don't know if anyone ever told you—your godfather."

"Yeah, I know."

"Your parents appointed me your guardian," he said stiffly. "If anything happened to them…"

Hope soared like a flying hippogriff before landing headfirst. The wretched blood wards, he thought.

"I understand, of course, if you want to stay with your family. But well, think about it. If you want, a different home…"

Harry cleared his throat carefully. "I'd love to," he said, and Sirius beamed, and Snape's head went and bumped the ceiling before he hurriedly jerked his wand at him. "But, er, Dumbledore—erm, it's a bit of a long story, but I can't move away from my family. Blood wards, they keep me safe. From Voldemort."

Atleast Sirius didn't jump at the name. His face fell, though, and Harry bracingly said, "I'll come over though! I only have to stay for like, three weeks, or four, in a year."

Sirius grinned again, and bang went Snape's head.

Of course, he thought later—an angry, explosive thought just before the Dementors swooped down upon him—of course it'd all have to come crashing down.

AN:

Oh, dear.

Far too angst-y for the New Year, no? Such a pity.