DISCLAIMOR: Not mine. I wish they were. No money here. Attorneys can get my unpaid bills.
A/N Thanks for all the GREAT reviews. Y'All are fantastic!
At the end of his fifth year at Hogwarts Harry stayed with the Dursleys for two weeks. With Dumbledore's permission he relocated to the Order headquarters. Everyone who'd been there the previous summer, with one notable exception, was there this summer for safety reasons. Headquarters was still 12 Grimmauld Place, without Kreacher (he'd passed away) and they'd finally managed to get the place decontaminated and cleaned up.
During the cleaning and decontaminating Harry thought a lot about the previous year's events. It all came down to one thing: he'd been manipulated and his godfather had died because of it. Occlumency lessons with Snape had failed and it hurt that the failure cost him Sirius. He'd tried to talk to Remus, but Remus had problems of his own. Ron and Hermione had finally bought a clue, gotten together, and were too busy with each other to spare time for him. Mrs. Weasley was stressed out over Order business that she still would not discuss with Harry. Even though he now knew more and was told more on Dumbledore's orders she felt he was too young to be that involved in it. Percy had finally apologized to his parents but their hurt over his behavior lingered.
Harry had no one to talk with about it. Dumbledore was rarely around and Harry really didn't want to add to the man's burdens. There really wasn't anyone else he was comfortable talking about it with, and the lingering guilt over intruding into his least liked professor's life lingered. So what to do?
He finally decided he should apologize to Snape for it, but the famed Gryffindor courage wasn't up to doing it face to face. He wrote a letter and gave it to him after an Order meeting at the beginning of August. No way would he have sent such a letter by owl post. Getting a reply surprised him. Especially that reply. There was no snark, no sniping at him, and no insults. It was probably the most human behavior he'd seen from Snape. Snape gave it to him after the next Order meeting, along with some potions to help him with his dreams. It was the first overtly thoughtful thing Snape had ever done for him and he was grateful.
Now in the middle of August, he'd given Snape the letter at the beginning of the month, he was busy trying to do his homework. Homework wasn't fun but it was something to take his mind off Sirius, and his lingering anger at his death. He'd gotten his OWL results. He hadn't done badly at all. Had even gotten one in potions. Missed the History of Magic OWL but there was a reason for that. Hermione of course had done the best out of all of them. She'd gotten outstanding in everything. Harry really couldn't bring himself to care much about the results. He'd seen too much in too short a time and he was still hurting over it. Some wounds as Dumbledore said really did go too deep This felt like one of them.
At Hogwarts Professor Snape was doing the finishing touches on this month's batch of wolfsbane potion and thinking about Potter and the extraordinary letter he'd written. One thing Severus Snape NEVER expected from the Potter child was an apology. Snape would never admit it out loud but he was starting to feel concern for Harry. He seemed to be slipping into some sort of apathy. This morning in a fire call to headquarters Mrs. Weasley had tried to get him to talk to Lupin about his "excessive" grief and he'd refused. The ensuing argument had the attention of everyone in the room but Potter.
Potter had ignored the whole argument and when asked his opinion stated that Professor Snape had the right to refuse should he choose to do so. His answer had shocked everyone in the room. But he refused to elaborate further and for that Snape could not help but feel a little gratitude. So the child had understood.
He hoped Potter was well but everything he'd seen so far made him doubt that. He had the feeling Potter needed to talk to someone and no one there was listening to that need. He'd seen Potter's friends more wrapped up in each other and ignoring Potter's pain. He'd seen Remus Lupin withdrawing into grief to the point he was worthless. He'd also seen how Mrs. Weasley was treating him like a child and refusing to discuss anything of import with him. At times he found himself wondering why he put up with the lot of them there.
He'd spoken to Dumbledore concerning Potter's dreams and found out that Potter hadn't lied about telling him. The concern of course was that the dreams were not being manipulated. They were indeed normal nightmares, and after last years events nightmares were to be expected. So when he gave Potter his reply he'd given him some sleeping potions to help with the dreams. So far they seemed to be working.
Another concern of course was his spying. So far nothing seemed to come from it. Snape had not gone back to Voldemort as was expected. Voldemort would have had him killed on sight. He had spoken with some of the other Death Eaters and gotten them to do the spying for him. Promising with Dumbledore's okay that they'd be protected from imprisonment when the Dark Lord fell again. So instead of spy he was now the spymaster. He hated it.
The Death Eaters who'd been at the Department of Mysteries had all been tried and convicted. And all were at Azkaban now. No longer guarded by dementors, the ministry had aurors doing guard duty now. He'd have to deal with the children when school started again and wondered how many of them would be returning. He was concerned about Draco Malfoy among them. That child was too much like his father. He suspected but could not be sure that Draco had already taken the Dark Mark. Yes the war was heating up. Already there had been attacks on wizards and muggles by Death Eaters. Voldemort was working to consolidate what he could while he could. The long period of ministry denial had only helped him.
This was going to be a very nasty hard war, and he only hoped Potter was up to it. As he knew the prophecy was reliant on Potter to kill Voldemort. Potter seemed to realize he would need more skills to do this than what he already had. Losing Black had been a horrible thing for young Potter, and one could only hope he would get over it.
Despite what Dumbledore told him about having a good heart, skills would be necessary. He and Dumbledore had spoken of the need for extra training recently and had come to the conclusion that Mr. Potter was in for a VERY busy year. Dumbledore had asked Snape to teach him dueling and extra DADA since he would need both. One thing that Dumbledore made clear was that Harry was not to be taught any of the Dark Arts no matter if Severus thought he needed them or not. Other instructors at the school would be teaching him other things. About the only one not involved in the extra training would be Sybill Trelawney.
