A/N:  Please don't kill me for this chappy!  I won't give it all away but Sev will get over his hang ups, its just gona take a while!

Thanks to Sirius28 who put me on their faves list, and to all those who reviewed.

Chapter ten:  Memories of Night Dancer

Harry walked as far behind Snape as he could, Ron though still mad at him gave him a commiserating look, little did he know that the thoughts flying through Harry's head went along the lines of the only thing even remotely miserable about being alone in the dungeons with Sev was that Sev would never know how he felt so he would never get to follow on from that kiss.  Well, for that reason alone maybe he did deserve to be commiserated.

    They walked out of the great hall and down the steps to the cold of the dungeons in a pregnant silence.  Harry not daring to break it and The Potions Master to stubborn to say anything.  The walk seemed to take hours; Harry was desperate to say anything, just something to break the silence. 

    "In here Potter."  Harry followed Snape into the Potions classroom, maybe he was wrong earlier, however nice it was to be able to fantasise about Severus, the Potions Master was still the same vindictive bastard he always was and was bound to give him something horrible to do.

    "Here, mark these."  Snape shoved a pile of papers and a quill into Harry who barely caught them.  He was grading test papers?   Well that certainly wasn't a very Snape sort of punishment, where were the barrels animals he had to gut?  Where were the dangerous potions that could kill him with a single drop he had to bottle and label till his eyes were so blurry he couldn't see?  "Well, stop sitting there like a moron and mark the papers."  Sev snapped settling at his own work bench to check on a potion that Harry recognised as the one they had been working on last month, it took at least six weeks to brew.  Sighing he turned over the first paper.  Ron Wesley.  Ah, there was the sadistic Snape he knew and loved.

    "Um, professor, these are my own classes." 

    "Yes, Harry, I am well aware of that fact."  There it was.  The transition between the Snape every one else saw and the one Harry did.  He had called him Harry.  The raven haired teen had never know if it was conscious or not but somewhere during their lessons Potter had become Harry, and his pathetic attempts had become passable.  Snape had eventually come to accept that Harry did have some talent in potions and had previously had Harry marking tests and exams however he had never before had the seeker doing his own class.

    "Aren't you worried I'll be less than objective?"  Harry asked in a low tone looking for any way out of marking his friends work, he felt wrong about it, knowing that if any of his friends failed he would feel terrible about having to put an F on it and that if he changed the grade on it to make it a pass he would feel just a guilty. 

    "We have covered all this work previously Harry and you managed to grasp the concept adequately, you will be able to mark it just fine."

    "But well, they are my friends."

    "Yes well if it bothering your Gryffindor sensibilities try pretending you are someone else, perhaps Tom or something."  Snape's voice didn't miss a beat or change tone once, and the moment he had finished speaking he had returned to his potion as if he had said nothing at all.

    Harry went drip white and took several shuddering breaths before he could respond.

    "You…you remember that?"

    "Get to work Harry."  Again the tone gave nothing away; Snape hadn't even turned round to face him. 

    Harry put Ron's test to one side and started to hesitantly mark the texts, the Slytherin's were easy to do as he didn't know most of them well, but the only Gryffindor's he had marked was Hermione's, because he knew it was safe just to stick a full pass on hers and move on.  Eventually he cast a spell on all the texts obscuring there names and making the hand righting generic so he didn't know whose he was marking.

    It took Harry about an hour to finish all the tests and in the whole time Severus had kept his back to him in silence.

    "Professor, I've finished."

    "Very well, put them over there, you're dismissed."  That was it!!!  That was all he was going to get as a reply?  He had expected to be yelled at or sworn to secrecy, or expelled for time travelling illegally instead all he'd got was a short comment about his alias and then nothing.  That didn't sit to great with him for some reason.  He wanted Sev to care even if it was in a bad way, he wanted to mean something.

    "Professor, do you remember?"  He tried again. 

    "Yes Harry I do, now I would appreciate you leaving I'm very busy, and in future, do not turn up to meals in anything as ridiculous as that get up you are wearing currently."  This was infuriating; the man was ignoring the subject completely.

    "Funny, you didn't seem to have a problem with it when you were seventeen."  Harry suddenly realised that maybe that wasn't the best of comments to make, Severus could only remember him staying over for the night, and as far as he was concerned that was all that had happened, they hadn't kissed or danced or anything like that.  Or so Harry thought.   

    "I'm warning you Harry, walk away from this now."  Sev was having trouble dealing.  All through seventh year he had searched for his Night Dancer, and eventually the black haired boy had become some sort of enigma, when ever Potter or Black or even Lupin and Pettigrew got to Severus he would go to The Spark and look for the Night Dancer, and when he couldn't find him he would write imaginary letters to the one that for that single night had helped him escape the nightmare of his life.

    He had never told any one, but that night he had been prepared to take his own life, he couldn't stand it any more, he was a follower to an evil son of a bitch that seemed to enjoy torturing him as much as he did Muggles, he was under constant attack from Potter and Black at school.  His father was constantly at him to be a better Death Eater; he had lied to Tom/Harry.  The flat was not so he could stay at weekends and holidays, it was so he had somewhere to get ready for his Death Eater meetings with out having to keep his stuff at Hogwarts and a place where he could come back to recover from the curses and punishments that were doled out at these meetings with out rousing the attention of the schools nurse.  What was more he didn't enjoy what he was doing for Voldemort; along the line he had come so see the flaws in his fathers' logic, and at the insane plans of The Dark Lord.  Random acts of violence was pathetic, not the work of Lords.  He wasn't suddenly a huge lover of Muggles, he just didn't see the point in senseless violence.

    But then The Night Dancer had come, and he had talked to him, and laughed with him, and called him Professor.  That had given him hope.  If he could be a teacher at Hogwarts then Dumbledore had to trust him, and forgive him.  His elusive Night Dancer had grown in his mind into something perfect and other worldly and had given him the faith to turn to the light side. 

    He wasn't ready for his Night Dancer to be real again, he wanted to keep believing in the perfect image that had replace the time hazed picture he had of Tom/Harry in his mind.  Yet he couldn't turn to look at Harry, afraid that what he might see would be just as amazing as the perfect memory of the Night Dancer he had long given up on but had never stopped treasuring.

    "Please Harry, just leave." 

~*~*~Tbc~*~*~