A/N – Oi, I don't think I've even got an excuse for how late this is. Finals were, what, two weeks ago? Yeah. But since then, I've got nothing. Sorry, guys. My deepest apologies. Enjoy the belated chapter.

-

The Dark Mark had gone numb, but his scar burned, proof Voldemort was near. Occlumency lessons meant he no longer heard him or felt his emotions, but he caught glimpses of a scene in the Forbidden Forest. White masks, serious conversations in low tones.

"Leave Dumbledore for me," he heard Voldemort instruct them. "Kill Severus if you see him."

"He's aware of the risk, my Lord." Lucius collar still intact. "He met with Dumbledore this morning. Harry Potter was with him."

"Harry," Voldemort breathed. "Is he still loyal, Lucius?"

"No, my Lord."

Voldemort clenched his fists. "I no longer care who kills him, but see to it that he's dead before we're finished. Killed on sight. If you see him and allow him to live, it will be you who suffers."

Harry's breath caught in his throat and he collapsed back onto his bed.

It was around ten in the morning, and he had been just about ready to fall back asleep. His roommates, and everyone else, was off being briefed on the situation. No doubt he would know when it let out, because there would be chaos in the halls. The Hufflepuffs would probably start crying. He rolled over and buried his head in his pillow.

There was a gentle tap on his door. "Harry? May I come in?"

Dumbledore bloody again? "If you want."

He pushed the door open. "Harry, I would appreciate it if you joined everyone? You're vital to this, you know."

Harry sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed. "I saw Voldemort. He's in the forest, with all his Death Eaters." He pushed a hand through his hair. "He's going to kill you himself. He wants to," he corrected. "And me and Snape are supposed to be killed on sight. There might be more, but that's all that I saw."

Dumbledore regarded him, sad but calculating. "Then I must ask you to remain elsewhere for the time being. Professor Snape as well."

"Grimmauld Place?"

"Exactly."

"And what about you, Professor?"

He smiled. "I must remain here. But I'll manage. Pack what you need, Harry, and I'll tell Severus to do the same. You'll leave within an hour."

"Yes, sir." He went to pack.

-

"An indefinite amount of time to spend with you alone. What more can I ask for?" Snape was on his knees, stacking boxes in the fireplace. It's not nearly enough to have had babysat you last night. Now I have perhaps a month or more to be in your presence. I'm truly blessed."

Harry handed him the mortar and pestle he had been reaching for. "You can stay here if you'd like," he offered. "Get yourself killed once you step in front of a window."

Snape looked back at him. "Potter, the windows are being cemented up, did nobody tell you?"

Harry blinked. "No, nobody did."

"Ah. Hand me that – no, not upside-down, you idiot."

This wasn't going to be easy.

-

"Potter!"

Harry looked up from making his bed. Snape had icily offered him Sirius's room, but he just gently closed the door and returned to his spare instead. "What?" he called back.

"Come move your damn boxes!"

He descended the narrow staircase. "I didn't bring any damn boxes," he snapped. "Those are all yours."

"In the parlor. I need to put my equipment in the basement but I can't get around these."

"Oh, you can go to hell," Harry muttered.

"Pardon?" Snape snarled.

"Nothing." He entered the parlor. "What are you talking about – Oh."

A pile of boxes was right in the center of the room, Harry written on each one in Sirius's messy scrawl.

"Never thought of you godfather as a packrat," Snape mentioned. "But I daresay even his judgment is better than to leave you anything of importance."

"Just. Shut. Up," Harry snapped. "Help me move these to my room."

"Why should I, after such animosity?"

Harry gritted his teeth. "Because they'll be out of your way in half the time. And," he added reluctantly, "I'll help you set up the basement. A quarter of the time than if we worked alone."

"Because I have such pressing matters to attend to," Snape said coldly.

"Well, you must, otherwise you wouldn't brought all this. What're you making?"

"Veritaserum, primarily."

"For Lucius?"

"For any captured Death Eater." Snape studied him. "You're still on his side, aren't you?"

"Voldemort's? No."

"Not him. Lucius."

"Oh."

Snape lifted a box, and Harry did the same. "You didn't answer my question."

"You wouldn't like the answer," Harry said evenly as they crossed the room, to the stairwell.

"When will you admit that he's dangerous and you shouldn't associate with him?" He stormed up the stairs.

"He wouldn't hurt me." Harry followed, resisting the childish impulse to stomp.

Snape gave him a backwards glance. "Potter, your naïveté still amazes me."

"Why are you so cynical?" Harry snapped.

"Because I have known longer than you've been alive." Snape dropped the box inside Harry's doorway. He pushed it against the wall, teeth clenched. "He's charming, and he'll gladly exploit it. He will use anyone to achieve his own ends."

"Just like all Slytherins." Harry pushed past him and back down the staircase.

"Just like most Slytherins," Snape corrected.

"Maybe I'm different to him." Back to the parlor.

"I doubt it."

"Well, you're wrong," Harry said shortly. The conversation ended there, and they continued to move the boxes in an angry silence.

-

The boxes were moved and Snape's crates unpacked silently. By the time they had finished Harry already wanted to be back at Hogwarts, away from Snape.

His temples pounded. "Can I go now?"

Snape was already bent over a cauldron. "It would relieve me immensely if you did."

What a stupid git. Harry stormed back upstairs, seething, temples throbbing….

"They are gone, my Lord." An unfamiliar voice. "Harry and Severus both." He cringed. "It cannot be a coincidence."

"No, it cannot," Voldemort agreed. "Two of the people I specifically targeted, gone into hiding. But how could they know?"

A second voice – Bellatrix's, he realized. "Potter no doubt has expected it."

"Of course… But Severus?" They were silent. "I believe that somebody is acting as an informant. But who has the motivation?" He looked around the semicircle of masked Death Eaters. "Who here is not loyal? Who is sympathetic to Severus, to Harry?" His grip on his wand tightened. "Lucius?"

"No, my Lord, I did not – "

"Liar," Voldemort spat. "I know of your feelings toward the boy."

"My Lord, that is irrelevant !"

"Not only are you useless to me in your current state, but you are a traitor. I am so very disappointed in you."

"If you do not believe me..." He knelt, kissed the hem of Voldemort's robes, and let his head drop to his chest.

"Legilimens!"

Harry saw Lucius's thoughts, feelings. He saw his own summer once more, through Lucius's eyes. Voldemort withdrew and Lucius stood shakily. "Very well," Voldemort murmured. "But to remind you not to stray…."

"My Lord, please – "

"Crucio!"

Lucius crumpled, and Harry's throat caught. Pain, sharp splinters of pain, all along his torso, his limbs. His vision swam, he couldn't breathe, and he fainted.

-

He felt himself be picked up and dropped unceremoniously onto a couch. "Professor Snape?"

"Is there anyone else here?" he snapped.

Yes, definitely Snape. He felt a glass pressed into his hand, and downed it. It was fiery and bitter and after he swallowed he had a coughing fit. "What was that?"

"An alertness potion mixed with rum." He offered a hand reluctantly, and Harry accepted as he got up, shaking from adrenaline. "Now what happened?"

Harry pushed his hand through his hair. "Sometimes I see what Voldemort does," he explained. "That's how I knew they were targeting you, he said so to the Death Eaters."

Snape studied him, dark eyes unsure. "Thank you, Mr. Potter."

"Yeah. But they found out, somehow that me and you aren't there. And Voldemort accused Lucius of being a spy and he did Legilimency and saw that he's not. But he did the Cruciatus anyway. But… it was like I felt it too. Not as intense," he decided. "But it still hurt."

"As though the pain were halved?" Snape suggested.

"…Yeah. What happened?"

Snape returned to the basement, and Harry followed curiously. "Grind those." He pointed to a bag of salamander tails.

"Aren't you going to tell me?"

"Yes, Potter, but you could be useful while I am." He handed him the mortar and pestle, and started mincing mint leaves. "It's called sympathetic magic, what happened. Where a portion of the curse – or even an innocent charm, it hasn't got to be dark magic – is absorbed by a second person, one whom has strong emotional ties to the first." He pushed aside the minced leaves and started a new pile.

"Like my mother did?" Harry suggested.

"No, although it's similar. But sympathetic magic is spontaneous and cannot be learned. It's rare, enough so that you're only the second person I've encountered ever to experience it."

"If it's so rare, how do you know so much about it?" Harry poured the powdered tails into a vial.

"It doesn't matter to you."

"I'm just trying to talk to you, don't get all defensive," Harry answered, irritated. Snape handed him another bag of tails wordlessly.

They worked in silence for what seemed like forever. "Dumbledore was the first," Snape said finally.

Harry blinked. "What? Oh."

"It was twenty years ago, when I was still loyal to the Dark Lord." He hadn't looked up from his cutting board. "Dumbledore knew, although he'd suspected it for several years prior. That would've been my last year there, he didn't trust me around the students. I was willing to sacrifice my job for Voldemort."

"But…you're still there."

"Your powers of observation remain unparalleled," Snape said dryly. "But don't interrupt."

"Sorry."

"But concurrently, Lord Voldemort thought – wrongly – that I was sympathetic to Dumbledore, since I had orchestrated no attacks at Hogwarts." He pushed another pile of leaves aside and rinsed the knife. "If Voldemort knew – even merely thought – that you were a spy for Dumbledore, you were killed." He rearranged the knives idly, still not making eye contact. "He found me alone in the Forbidden Forest one night, and cornered me. Dumbledore had followed me, assuming I was meeting with the Dark Lord. I was in reality only taking a walk, but…. I'll take those now, Potter, I need a coarse powder, not particles unseen in macroscopic conditions."

"Oh." Harry handed him the mortar sheepishly.

"So Voldemort cast the Killing Curse, but it didn't hit anyone really. It kind of…spread out." He was focused on a beaker in front of him, staring into it intently. "It hurt. A lot. And I felt exhausted, drained. But I lived, as did Dumbledore. Obviously." A half-smirk. "I felt – feel – indebted to him for that. And that's why until recently I was a spy for him."

"I didn't know that."

"Of course you didn't," he snapped. "I've never told anyone before."

And the moment of quiet understanding was over. "Do you need me to do anything else?"

"You would be most useful just out of my sight," Snape told him, leaning over his cauldron once more. "But do tell me if anything happens."

"Yes, sir." He ascended the staircase, but when he reached the top, he looked back at Snape, just for a moment, as though seeing him for the first time.