A/N: This chapter depicts an event referenced in Chapter 22 of The Lion, The Snake and The Stone, and also provides a bit of a resolution to the first half of it.

June 1992
The Bonds in Adversity, and of It

Harry, if asked at the beginning of his first year at Hogwarts, would have said that the strongest and worthiest of bonds only existed between long-time friends, and that the adventures one got up to during childhood were the best basis for trust and comradeship.

He was, therefore, finding himself just a bit surprised, after his encounter with the Dark-Lord-sticking-out-the-back-of-his-head Defence Professor in the bowels of the ancient castle, fighting over the blood-red Philosopher's Stone, to note that this also applied to people you disliked, or even called your enemies.

Oh, not that he had stopped thinking of Evan Snape as either an enemy, or dislikeable, in the least. But the fact still was that they had shared a very harrowing experience together, working in surprisingly efficient tandem and even saving each other a couple of times, and the weird sort of understanding that was now springing up between them in the oddest of moments was no doubt the consequence of this misadventure.

Even if it was utterly discombobulating.

The afternoon after Harry woke up properly from the sleep induced by magical exhaustion, he and Snape were never left completely alone. Sirius had to leave soon after Uncle Regulus and Snape Senior had departed, but Remus came in his stead in the afternoon, and Mrs Snape seemed as content to stay in the hospital wing as both Harry's and Snape's friends were. Surprisingly enough, Madam Pomfrey didn't appear to be very upset with how many visitors the two boys had; Harry assumed it was because they were currently the only ones in the whole hospital wing, or that maybe Mrs Snape had convinced her to allow it.

Mrs Snape was pretty awesome in that way.

Lovely though it was, though, playing cards with his mates and listening to stories about his and Snape's parents' own Hogwarts adventures (new ones at that, because it turned out that Remus and Mrs Snape had had quite a few of their own, completely separate from either the Senior Marauders or Mr Snape), the busy afternoon never allowed Harry and Evan the time to figure out how they would now be acting towards one another, so all Harry was left with were the strange knowing looks and smirks they exchanged aside from their guardians' bodies, and a whole host of confusion, because he was finding that he still didn't like Evan Snape in the least, but at the same time, he couldn't really forget how Snape had tackled Quirrelmort in order to stop him from forcing Harry to tell him where the Stone was and then no doubt killing him. Or, as it was turning out that afternoon, to deny that their lives were perhaps a bit more entangled than either of them liked to admit, seeing how their parents and guardians had all gone to school together, and two had come out of it the best of friends, while the other two to this day still couldn't stand one another.

Apparently, their parents were, in some ways, surprisingly similar in actions to one another. Not a thought Harry found likeable for entertainment.

Be that as it may, by the time everyone had left the hospital wing and Harry and Snape were alone, they were both so exhausted that they nodded off straight after dinner, and didn't even end up exchanging one barbed word between them, let alone any sort of real conversation or acknowledgement of what had transpired in the last few days.

Harry dreamt.

He dreamt of his mother in the Mirror, holding the blood-red Stone in her hands and extending it to him as an offering, while he himself held Voldemort's face in his hands, feeling it smoke and blister under his fingertips, and the man was screaming in a high-pitched, fluctuating way that made Harry's heart race and his breathing catch in his throat.

He woke up with such a start that he was almost half-way out of his bed by the time he realised it had been a nightmare, though that was made harder by the fact that the screaming, moaning sounds had not gone away with the images behind his eyelids. It took him perhaps a bit too long to realise that the sound hadn't been from the nightmare itself, but from the other bed.

Harry's first, wild thought was that Voldemort had come back to finish the job, and he groped for both his glasses and his wand on the nightstand, clumsy in his grogginess and with his sleep-addled brain refusing to come up with any sort of offensive spell, and he was just about to stuff his glasses onto his nose when a sharp, female voice broke through his rising panic.

"Mr Potter, back to bed; everything is all right!"

Madam Pomfrey. Suddenly, some of the torches on the walls lit up, enough that Harry could see she was right – there was, in fact, no attack of any kind happening, though Harry couldn't fully trust that when Snape was cowering against the headboard, with his arms extended protectively over his head, kicking out against his bed covers, and still screaming in shrill tones that got broken up by laboured breaths.

"What's going on? Why is he screaming?" Harry asked the witch striding up to them in her nightclothes and wrapped in a housecoat, teetering between doing as he'd been told and climbing into his own bed, or approaching the terrified Slytherin.

"It's a night terror, nothing we can do; it'll pass on its own if he doesn't wake up."

Night terror? Was that like a nightmare? But Harry himself had never done this, not that he could ever remember.

"But... can't we wake him up?"

Madam Pomfrey shook her head.

"No. Engaging him could make it worse," she explained, and with a flick of her wand, the sound dampened, though it didn't stop completely, and it did absolutely nothing to stop Snape from his terrifying behaviour.

"I don't... Madam Pomfrey, I don't understand. What's night terrors? Is he... is he in pain or something?"

The other boy suddenly jerked, kicking the air with his feet, and tumbled off the bed, his scream tapering off into a whimpering sob. Then he flipped on his side and looked directly at Harry and Madam Pomfrey – and continued screaming.

Harry cried out in fright and buried his head in Madam Pomfrey's side, feeling panicky and insecure, his hands suddenly tingling uncomfortably, feeling like they were being licked by flames and blistering skin. The old matron rubbed his back and shushed him.

"It's all right, child. There is nothing for you to be frightened of."

"Can't we help him? Or make him stop?" he asked when her vigorous rubbing finally started properly chasing away the remnants of his nightmare and being scared into wakefulness. By then, Snape had pulled himself up to sit with his back against the stone wall, and his voice appeared to be tiring out, though only in little bursts. Swallowing, Harry peered at the dark-haired Slytherin, his curiosity slowly overtaking his fright. Now that he was getting past the terrifying part of it, the whole thing seemed a bit silly, in a macabre sort of way.

"Using magic isn't recommended for this. Stay on your bed now, Mr Potter," she instructed, letting him go to crouch by Snape. "Calm now, Evan, it's all right. Everything's all right." It took another minute or two, but Snape did appear to be calming down, and when she apparently deemed it safe enough, Madam Pomfrey took the gangly boy by his elbow and hand, and pulled him up. He blinked up at her and whimpered, but followed docilely enough as she led him back into his bed. "There, now, back to bed with you, young man." Whining, Snape curled up on his side, and to Harry's absolute shock, by the time Madam Pomfrey had reset his covers, he was fast asleep, as if nothing whatsoever had happened.

"That's it?" Harry found himself asking in absolute bewilderment.

"That's it. He won't remember it in the morning. He had a couple last night as well, though I imagine you wouldn't know. No doubt it's been triggered by your foolish misadventures. Fighting You-Know-Who, really. Foolish, reckless children, you two are, as bad as each other."

"Does he do this often?"

"From what his mother told me, it depends on his stress levels," Madam Pomfrey explained, putting things back to rights. "Can you go back to sleep, Mr Potter, or would you like something to help you sleep?"

"I... I guess that's ok," Harry agreed, watching as she transfigured his bed into a narrow four-poster bed one, with sheer white drapes that she closed one after another. "What are you doing?"

"He is likely to have at least another one before morning, and unless you wish to be woken up again, I will be putting up silencing wards on your bed. Expect it to be dismantled by the time you rouse in the morning," she informed him, sending a small vial flying into his open hands. "That is a Dreamless Sleep, Mr Potter; do not think I didn't catch you also having some nightmares of your own."

Cheeks heating up in embarrassment, Harry chugged down the potion and settled down into a comfortable position.

"Can't you give him this, too?"

"It wouldn't work; night terrors aren't the same thing as nightmares. Mr Snape will be perfectly fine, Mr Potter; this is something he's been contending with for most of his life. It is usually much scarier for us who have to witness it than for those who suffer from it, I assure you."

"Ok," Harry agreed, still feeling a bit dubious, but suddenly too tired and sleepy to consider it further. The Dreamless Sleep was already starting to work. Yawning, he settled a bit further in the bed, and forgot all about his own nightmares and the other boy's night terrors.

At least, Harry forgot the nightmares and night terrors until the morning, when he remembered and then couldn't quite decide what to do about this information. This, of course led to him giving Snape sneaky looks, as he tried to figure out if Madam Pomfrey was right when she said the greasy-haired boy wouldn't remember them.

"What?!" Snape exclaimed finally after they finished breakfast. "Why are you looking at me like that, Potter? What?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

Snape peered at him, then seemingly dismissed it, which made Harry want to pick at it like a healing scab.

"It's just... did you have any nightmares about Quirrellmort?"

"N– wait, why are you asking me that? Did you have any?"

"No, of course not." He wasn't going to admit to that to Evan Snape of all people.

"So why are you asking m– oh, God." The boy's eyes widened and he paled. "Oh, Merlin. You saw it, didn't you?"

"I didn't see anything," Harry said hurriedly.

"You did. I had a night terror, didn't I?"

"No. Well, maybe. Sort of. Madam Pomfrey said that was it. You were kicking and screaming and you fell off the bed."

"I did? I don't hurt anywhere."

"You dragged your pillow down with you. Do you really not remember anything?"

Snape shook his head. "No. Sometimes I do, if I wake up from them, but the last time I did was months ago." A guarded look overtook him, and he glared at Harry. "You better not be thinking of telling any of it to you mates, Potter, or I–"

"Or you what?" Harry pounced on that, clenching his fists as he remembered how the other boy had put Seamus in the hospital wing with a broken leg and missing teeth.

"You'll regret it," Snape promised, looking like he remembered that same instance as well.

"I bet not nearly as much as you'll wish I'd never seen it," Harry promised in return, even though until this very moment he'd not had the intention of ever mentioning the other boy's affliction to anyone.

Something strange flashed over Snape's face, there and gone again, looking nothing so much as one of those expressions Harry had seen on Ron's face when the twins were being particularly cruel in their teasing of him, and in the next moment, the greasy-haired boy was turning away to stick his nose in a book that was on his nightstand.

Harry knew he'd won in this exchange, because now he had something to hold over Snape when the Slytherin didn't have anything of equal value to assure mutual destruction, and a big part of him was crowing inside with joy. But on the heels of that understanding was also the feeling of pressure being released, and after a bit of thought he realised it was because that air of understanding that had persisted between the two boys since yesterday, the unsureness it brought and the undercurrent of some strange potential, had vanished.

They were comfortably back to their own sides, with the animosity and resentful hatred that had been simmering since the train ride back in their proper place.

And Harry was a bit bewildered to find that a small part of him felt mopey and sad about that loss.

He forgot all about it, of course, by the time Slytherin won the House Cup, for the seventh time in the row, and what he had to look forward to was a stern talking to by Remus and Sirius about that same animosity and Professor McGonagall catching them in the act of getting their revenge, when Snape had gotten away with hurting Seamus so badly.

At least, he forgot it until the following year, when the Chamber of Secrets was opened and the Heir of Slytherin tried to strike terror into the heart of the school with his ancestor's monster.