Chapter Three: September 8th

Harry had been avoiding thinking about his dream of Thursday night for the last two days. They'd had another Potions class yesterday, and Snape had ignored him to an astonishing degree. Not only had the teacher not mentioned anything about their 'problem', he hadn't even bothered to make the effort to take points from Gryffindor, let alone insult Harry as much as he usually did. Harry hadn't even 'overheard' any stray thoughts from Snape, despite it being obvious that Snape was thinking rather hard about something, and was acting unusually distracted. It was quite disconcerting, in fact, particularly as Harry was trying his utmost to determine whether Snape might have had similar dreams to his own. It was clear that the dream had been a result of the bond, and he wanted to know if it was having a similar effect on both of them. He wanted to know if what he had seen was real, but knew that, even given the opportunity, he wouldn't dare ask. Even Gryffindor courage only went so far.

All the way through dinner on Saturday, Harry wondered about what Snape would say. He was actually getting rather good at listening to the conversation going on around him with one ear and making the appropriate responses when required, while concentrating on something quite different. Unsurprising, really, when he considered how often he'd been doing a similar thing in the past few months. He told himself repeatedly that the only reason he was interested in Snape's answer was because it was his mother, and Snape's feelings for her, that they would be discussing.

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After dinner, he made some sort of excuse about work that the other Gryffindors accepted, and made his way in the direction of the library. After the O.W.L.s, he'd been allowed to change his subject choices when deciding what to take for his N.E.W.T.s. He'd dropped Divination with relief, and taken up Muggle Studies – living with the Dursleys all those years had to be useful for something – and, at Hermione's insistence, Arithmancy. New subjects meant more work, but he was surprised by how much he was enjoying them. While he was by no means a Hermione, after the amount of revision he'd done at the end of last year and his O.W.L. results, they were happy to believe that he wanted to keep up his achievements.

As soon as he was out of everyone's sight, he turned towards the dungeons instead, trying to quell the insane fluttering in his stomach. He couldn't decide if it was anticipation or fear, and neither of those emotions was one he particularly wanted to face. Although he rather thought he would prefer it to be fear. He wasn't ready to deal with the consequences of anticipation at all.

He knocked at Snape's door just as tentatively as he had almost a week earlier, and got an identical response. He cracked open the door cautiously and stepped in. Time to get his answer.

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"Take a seat, Harry." Snape said without looking up from his marking. "I'll be with you in a moment."

Harry did, and a few minutes later Snape laid his quill aside and looked at him expectantly. Now that he was about to find out if Snape was still in love with his mother, he found he didn't want to ask again just then. He couldn't come up with anything else to say, and settled for "So…"

Snape quirked an eyebrow at him, but seemed happy to not have to answer right away. Instead he said, somewhat awkwardly, "How…how are you finding the term so far?"

Harry had the urge to laugh at the thought – and reality – of Snape attempting to exchange conversational pleasantries, and with Harry, of all people. He had to accept, though, that his own conversational gambit hadn't exactly been the best in history, so he carefully didn't laugh, and instead said the same thing he would have said if Sirius had asked the question.

"I'm not sure, actually. I mean, I'm really enjoying my new subjects, but in the others I thought it was supposed to be a step up from the O.W.L.s. So far, though, we either seem to be going over old things, or learning impossibly difficult new things." The Potions lessons definitely fell into the latter category.

"I suppose they do," answered Snape, not seeming to realise that Harry hadn't vocalised the last statement or that Harry could 'overhear' his amusement at that description of lessons so far.

"Can I…" Harry began then decided that he should really be allowed to ask questions without first needing approval if they were to have any sort of sensible conversation. "What's it like for you, teaching?" A question he'd actually wanted to ask for a while, and he was sure that Snape, with his professed dislike for it, would have a much more interesting answer than, say, Professor McGonagall.

Snape actually smiled at that, and answered the question that Harry was thinking rather than the one he'd spoken. "I suppose now is when I am meant to say that I loathe it and that I… what's the current gossip? ...have my eyes on the Defence Against the Dark Arts position? But the truth of it is that I enjoy the practice of my own art very much. If I can make even one of you children each year see something worthwhile in it over, or even in addition to, the instant effects of Charms or Transfiguration, then I feel vindicated in my choice of profession.

"As for teaching Defence, honestly I think that the position is more trouble than it is worth, and my experience in the area is more in the practice of Dark Arts than defending against them."

Well, that was interesting. Harry was again glad of the proof that he wasn't the only one confessing more than he would normally, at least. He was very sure Snape would never have admitted any of that to him, but especially the last bit, before his mother's bond had been revealed. The rest of the little speech was quite fascinating too. He was about to ask another question when he realised that his friends would expect him back eventually, and he had no idea how long Snape's answer to his original question would take. It was, after all, the reason for this meeting and he knew somehow that the answer would not be a simple yes, or for that matter, a simple no. "So, um…did you have enough time to think about it?" he asked, hoping that Snape would understand what he was trying to say.

"I…yes." Snape said, uncharacteristically hesitant. Harry could understand that, as he wasn't exactly comfortable with it either, and Snape was about to explain how he felt about a woman he'd loved to that woman's son, to whom he was magically bound.

"I suppose that really I need to start by explaining some other things. I don't know how much Lily's diaries told you, so I might repeat things you already know. I trust that you will not let any of this leave this room." It wasn't a question, but Harry nodded anyway.