6.

Severus stood at the center of his office, breathing heavily. He passed a shaking hand over his face and closed his eyes, not quite sure what to do. He suddenly felt very old.

What had he expected to happen when he put the boy under the truth serum? That Potter would break and admit that his father had been an insufferable, smarmy bastard? And what if he had? What then? Severus had a vague image of himself, vindicated, standing over Potter. And even now the image galvanized something in his mind, and he felt himself tense, his mouth twitching in anticipation.

But then...there was the image of the boy's--of Potter, he forced himself to say the name, to attach it to the unlikely memories--Potter's upturned face as he drank the antidote, arching into Severus' palm...Potter collapsing against him just moments ago, breathing in short, hot gasps...the flashes he had seen of the boy's own memories, of Potter bearing his relatives' abuse with quiet stoicism.

He opened his eyes and looked down at his hand, still slimy with Potter's sweat. Shaking himself, mustering a feeling of disgust, he wiped the hand on his robes.

For the next hour and a half he lost himself in a pile of second year essays. One and a half feet on the uses of angelica root, and not a decent effort in the pile. He smiled grimly.

He emerged from the essays feeling a little less hollow, a little more secure. The anger had faded to its usual ambient level, and the dangerous memories had dimmed to the point where he could suppress them.