A/N: Thanks to all those who read, reviewed and enquired after me. And thank you also for your patience. It was never my intention to leave you all waiting so long, but life seemed to think I had run out of tragedies to inspire my writing and provided me with the opportunity to stock up. I wasn't really in the position to argue.

From now on things will hopefully go a little more smoothly and I will be able to update again regularly. Thanks again for waiting for me for so long.

Chapter 18: Alone

For the first time ever Harry wondered who cleaned up his Quidditch robes. Wasn't that a job for the house elves? Sirius must have been livid about this sentence. Yet Harry couldn't help feeling that it was not exactly an adequate punishment for an offence as big as his Godfather had committed - unless the sweat of Slytherin Quidditch players was potentially more dangerous than he had thought up until now.

However, that was only a little musing in the back of his head. What must it feel like to know that you are never safe, not in your own home, not even in your own head? Snape had invaded his mind during their Occlumency lessons, but there had been a chance for defending himself – or at least a chance of escape. Harry had thought himself the youngest student to ever learn about Occlumency. Pompous as ever, he realized with a rueful smile. Now he found that Snape had beaten him. And he wasn't envious in the least. He did store Dumbledore's advice about drawing a curtain, though, for later use. That picture made the whole concept so much easier to understand. Harry wondered why Snape had never used it to explain the idea to him.

Beside him Hermione had started working on her fingernails again while muttering, more to herself than to anyone else:

"Obviously not talented enough to block an intrusion of this calibre."

Harry thought that pretty much summed it up.

The younger Snape was sitting inside what seemed to be the Malfoys' limousine. He was flanking Lucius on the left side, while the young man had his arm around Narcissa on his right. The dark haired boy stared out the window quietly, trying to ignore the little kisses and not exactly subtle exchanges of physical affection going on right beside him. At a red traffic light, when his mouth was not occupied elsewhere, Lucius put his free arm around Snape's thin shoulders and declared cheerfully:

"Thanks to you we all passed, Severus. Even Crabbe and Goyle. I think the only one more surprised about that than them was good old Dumbledore. And for that you deserve praise again. Well done, eagle nose!"

He pulled his friend a little closer in a mock attempt to plant a kiss on his dark hair, but the boy wriggled out of his reach and pressed his nose against the window again. A tear was slowly rolling down his pale cheek.

"Are you crying?" Lucius asked in shock and clearly too loud for Snape's taste. Narcissa tugged at her boyfriend's sleeve and whispered into his ear:

"Are you really this stupid or are you still drunk from last night's party? We are leaving. All of us. This was our last year at Hogwarts and next term he will have to return on his own. I would be crying, too, if I was in his shoes."

Lucius focused on the huddled black form beside him.

"Is that it?" he asked the younger boy. "Are you afraid of going back to school next term alone?"

Snape shook his head, still staring out the window, and wiped his face with a well-worn sleeve.

"No, it's got nothing to do with that."

Lucius let go off Narcissa now, grabbed the other boy by the shoulders and forced him to turn around.

"Then why are you sad? We gave Black, Potter and Lupin a good thumping before we left and that slimy little Pettigrew will be lucky if he loses the donkey's ears before the start of the new term. Your marks are good as always and Dumbledore finally has the decency not to comment on that anymore, so no reason to be afraid your old man is going to freak out again. And from what I saw at last night's party you already found yourself a nice set of new friends."

Snape's eyes grew bigger suddenly and he hissed:

"But I don't want new friends, Lucius. I was perfectly content with the ones that I had."

He lowered his gaze again.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine. I can understand that you won't have time for me anymore with the big career that your father is planning for you. But maybe you could send an owl from time to time."

Lucius stared at him in disbelieve.

"So you think that we will not see each other anymore, just because we graduated?"

He let out a relieved laugh.

"And I thought you were the cleverest one of us! Severus, listen to me."

With that he put his long forefinger under Snape's chin and lifted his face, much like it was his mother's habit with the shy young Slytherin.

"We will always have time for you. Especially I will. I hope you will understand that my desire to visit you in school is not exactly high; I'm glad I finally escaped the bloody place. But during the holidays we will still see each other. It's just this one summer you will have to do without me and Narcissa."

The girl reached across her boyfriend's chest and ruffled Snape's hair.

"You know we're greedy", she said grinning. "We just couldn't say no to a trip through Europe with all expenses paid by his parents."

She gave Lucius a wicked smile.

"Just you and me, cute one, for eight whole weeks. Are you really up for it?"

Lucius blushed a little, making his two companions smile. By the time the car stopped outside the Snape residence they had already made plans for meeting at King's Cross in two month three hours before the train would leave for Hogwarts. The young Snape looked relieved as he waved the dark limousine goodbye, picked up his heavy trunk and started dragging it towards the door.

This time nobody was waiting for him outside. He rang the bell and waited. Nothing moved inside the house. No lights were on apparently, for the windows looked down on him with dark eyes. He rang once more and listened intently as the dark mournful sound echoed through the house. The empty house. Sighing he stowed the trunk away in a large crevice under the stairs and made his way to the back of the building, probably to look for an alternative entrance.

The garden was far from well kept. In fact it resembled something like a wilderness with the ambition to turn into a jungle and the fact that it was dark didn't help. Snape didn't seem to mind, though. With sure steps he found his way to a little back door beside which stood a pot with blooming lavender. He fumbled around with the pot and the flower for a while and the frown between his brows deepened. As he withdrew his now dirty hands he stared from them to the flower, confusion in his eyes.

"Why did they remove the key?" he murmured quietly. Finally he shrugged his shoulders and started to head back towards the front door, presumably to wait there for his parents. He hadn't reached the front yard yet when heavy rain started to pour down all of a sudden, as if someone had just opened a valve. Dark eyes stared at the sky accusingly.

"Great. Just great."

Muttering relatively harmless curses under his breath he started jogging towards the far end of the garden where a huge oak tree dominated the area. Underneath the tree was a field of blossoming daisies and a spot where obviously no water reached the ground. Snape settled down there and stared out into the rain. The daisies around him slowly opened up despite the lack of sunshine and the night seemed a little less dark somehow.

"I missed you, too", the boy whispered quietly and a sad smile spread across his face.

Harry was confused. Snape talked to flowers? Or to trees? He couldn't understand how anyone would feel comfortable in that joke of a garden. He wouldn't be surprised, if there had been flesh-eating plants somewhere in that mangle of too high grass, weed, out-of-control bushes and knotted trees – and he was not thinking of insects as their preferred main course.

But then again – he had also seen the inside of the house and had got a good long look at its inhabitants. Maybe the garden was really the better alternative.

The sun was slowly rising again when Snape woke up. He was still lying under the tree, huddled into his school robes which where as wet as the rest of him. Momentarily confused he stared towards the house, then obviously the memory of last night hit him and he sighed heavily. He tried to bring some sort of order into his tangled mess of black hair and wrung out his robes as he went slowly back to the house. By the time he rang the bell again he looked slightly more presentable than a hobo.

"Severus?"

His mother looked terrible. Dark rings were under here beautiful eyes and through her faded dressing gown it was clearly visible that she had lost too much weight. Her face was white as a lily, but there were bruises around her wrists in the shape of fingers. Her son took a hesitant step towards her and reached out an equally hesitant hand to rest on her arm.

"The summer holidays have started, mother. Did you not remember that I was supposed to come home last night?"

Her four-fingered right hand flew to her mouth in shock while her left pulled him towards her.

"Oh my God, I really forgot. Severus, I'm so sorry. Did you sleep outside all night? Oh, look how wet you are. Let's get you inside and into something warm and dry."

She clutched him to her side and walked inside on unsteady legs.

"My trunk is still outside", he told her softly, pressed her hand shortly and was just turning around when he saw his father walking down the stairs.

"No, it's not. I already brought it into your room. It was very careless of you to leave it under the stairs. Somebody could have found and taken it. We can't afford new school books and robes for you right now, so you should take better care of your things."

The older man was dressed in a rich gown of crimson velvet. He wore leather boots that reached over the knee and in his hand he held a book that looked extremely old – and extremely expensive. His son stared up at him boldly for a moment before his mother clenched four fingers into his arm. Reluctantly he lowered his gaze and muttered:" Sorry, father."

The old Snape nodded.

"Change your clothes, please; your cloak is dripping on the floor. When you're done meet me in the study."

He turned around and walked up the stairs again gracefully.

"Can't he first eat something? He's been outside all night."

The woman's voice sounded as thin and worn a she herself looked. Both voice and speaker were trembling. Her husband kept on walking without an answer.

"He knew I was outside, mother", Snape said, and there was a bitter ring to his voice. "You heard him, he took in the trunk."

She looked at him with a puzzled expression.

"He would never do something like that. He wouldn't. No, he wouldn't."

She kept repeating these words over and over again and was shaking her head as she walked into the kitchen. Her son stared after her with a mix of anger and worry displayed on his young face.

Ten minutes later he was in the study, dressed in clean and dry robes. His father turned around as the boy closed the door behind him. With a few long strides he had covered the distance between them, grabbed his son's shoulders violently and spun the child around.

"Look at me" he hissed imperiously. Snape obeyed and stared into the older man's cold eyes unblinkingly as a hoarse voice whispered "Legilimens!" Long fingers clenched into his shoulders. The man's gaze intensified and the boy flinched a little. After a couple of minutes the old Snape seemed to be satisfied and released his son.

"Good. You are doing well at school and have the right friends – and the right enemies, which is almost more important."

He smiled a wolfish smile.

"As far as your questions about last night are concerned – I figured that you were obviously too tired to wait for us at the front door like it would have been decent, so I was nice enough to let you sleep. Ah, and the key that you were looking for…. The lock doesn't work anymore. It can't be opened, neither from the outside nor from the inside, so we thought we might as well throw away the key. Nobody uses the door anymore."

The boy was biting is lower lip, probably trying to hold back a comment. His hands were clenched into fists and the coldness in his eyes rivalled the coldness in his father's voice.

"May I go now, sir?" he asked surprisingly calm.

The older man nodded and waved him away with a lazy gesture.

On his way down into the kitchen the boy kicked every single prop in the banister with a ferocity that made him look much older than he actually was. By the time he entered the kitchen he was actually limping a little bit.

His mother sat at the table, head in her hands, and ignored the persistently whistling kettle. She was staring blankly at the wall.

Snape hurried to the oven, put down the kettle and started preparing tea for the two of them. When he was done he carefully carried the two cups over to the table, poured milk into them and placed one steaming cup directly under his mother's head.

She looked up at him. Her eyes were red from crying.

"Severus, he is not like that. You have to believe me. He loves us, you and me. Whatever he does is for our best, we … you have to believe that."

He laid a hand gently on her arm, but the look he gave her was hard and piercing.

"He loves no one but himself. You and me, we are just decorum for his obsession with his own brilliance. We are here to prove a point."

She lashed out unexpectedly, hitting him full in the face so hard that he fell over the backrest of his chair. He pressed a hand to his split lip from which blood was slowly dripping and clambered to his feet again. His mother looked livid.

"You have no right to talk like that about your father. Remember your manners! Show him the respect that he deserves!"

He almost couldn't see her through his tears as she stormed out of the kitchen and up into the study. Suddenly realizing what she was about to do he dashed towards the front door, ripped it open and stormed out. His breathing was ragged from anger and fear and his eyes were desperately travelling up and down the street. Then, gradually, his shoulders slumped down, his hands relaxed and he hung is head. Quietly he turned around on his heels and walked back inside. As he closed the door he already heard his father storming towards him, fire in his eyes, belt in his hands and "Crucio!" on his lips.

"Why didn't he run away, that bloody idiot?" Ron asked stricken. Harry turned around to face his friend with a serious expression on his face.

"And where would he have gone to?" he asked. Ron just stared back at him and gulped.