Snape glowered at the door after the knock came. Merlin only knew what kind of interfering Lupin or Albus was going to try, and to say he wasn't in the mood was a vast understatement.

There was a chance, though, that there was news. So he stood up and went to the door, passing yet another batch of Seamus's potion that would soon be going sour.

He narrowed his eyes when he saw who stood there. "What do you want?"

Potter's brow was furrowed and he didn't answer. He looked back, careful. Like he was examining him.

Snape straightened, irritation a welcome emotion after hours of silent nothing.. "Fast, Potter, I haven't got all night."

"Why did you join the Death Eaters?"

Snape was caught sincerely off guard. "None of your bloody business. Good night."

"Wait." Potter hesitated, color in his cheeks, and held up a glass bottle of dubious content. "I didn't come empty handed."

Surprise made Snape study the boy. "It would take much more than the contents of that bottle to get me drunk enough to tell you anything."

Potter's eyes flashed, then cleared. His expression stayed neutral. "I need your help. You understand things better than I ever could, and I need you to help me understand so I can stop him."

Snape opened his mouth and relied on years of lashing out at those children to bring out a suitable response and get the brat out of his room. But his instincts failed him.

"Poddywas talking to me today about understanding. I don't get it, really, buthe thinks it's a major thing I'm missing.ButI just...I know I don't see everything I should about Voldemort. I need help."

Blast Potter for humbling himself, and sincerely, just when Snape was too distracted to revel in it.

His arm gave a deep, throbbing pulse. His hand came up to rub over the spot, and he felt hollowed at the realization that he had taken his potion just hours ago. His immunity to it was growing every day.

Potter was the only chance he had of stopping the pain once and for all.

He sighed and moved aside, opening the door.

Potter's eyes went wide and he hesitated before stepping inside. "Thank you, sir."

Snape snorted - one reflex that never failed him. "I'm 'sir' now, am I?"

Potter moved in, looked around briefly, and turned right back to Snape. "I would appreciate if you wouldn't act as though my hostility towards you was something unfounded that you were a helpless victim of."

Snape frowned but reached out for the bottle. He moved to his table and grabbed a glass. After the barest pause he grabbed a second. "I don't know what you hope to gain, but my usefulness regarding the Dark Lord has passed. I know no more than you do."

Potter looked incredibly awkward standing there, which did a little to improve Snape's mood. "Actually...what I want to know has more to do with you than Voldemort, though I think it will help me with him."

Snape's mouth twisted. "I will tell you nothing I think you don't need to know."

Potter nodded.

"That question you asked at the door, I suppose that's the first thing you want to know."

Another nod.

Snape sat down, pouring himself a full glass and sipping gingerly. Bourbon, and not complete rubbish. He was mildly impressed. He'd half-expected firewhiskey. He regarded the glass for a long time, thinking.

"I joined the Dark Lord because I was meant to," he said finally.

"I don't understand," Potter said.

"Why are you going to kill the Dark Lord?"

Potter blinked. He took the empty glass Snape had set down and poured himself a finger of Scotch. "Because I'm supposed to. Because no one else will."

"Because of the circumstances of your life. The scar on your face told everyone who you were and what you were meant for." Snape didn't wait for a nod. He was right, and Potter acknowledging he was right was unimportant. "The world isn't selectively superficial. It's not only you who is pushed into a path because of what you are."

Harry leaned in, ignoring his glass, brow furrowed.

"I have always been much as I am now." His face hardened and he returned that stare. "You saw oncefor yourself how I used to be."

Potter actually blushed.

"I was sorted into Slytherin." He trailed off, taking a deep swallow of strength from his glass. His next words were more intense than he had intended. "I want you to think back, Potter. You heard the Sorting Hat's song many years in a row. Students were sorted into Slytherins, you might recall, because of ambition and a disregard for the rules. Yet because many of the supporters of Dark Arts were from that house, Slytherin became known as Dark in itself. In my time as head of the house I saw many students who turned to Dark Arts because everyone assumed they were Dark already."

Harry nodded. "It was the first thing I heard about Slytherin. That every wizard who ever went bad was from that house."

"Rubbish. But we have the majority. The Dark Arts call to those with ambition and a desire for power. When the Dark Lord's name began being whispered during my student years,Slytherin was looked at in accusation. I can remember more than once when your father and his cocky gang of friends would accost me because of an attack, or a report in the papers that His numbers were growing."

"I'm not my father."

"Yet can you honestly tell me that you ever thought about trusting a Slytherin student? That club you started, the defense club, did you ever consider allowing my students in?"

Harry frowned.

"No," Snape answered. "You didn't. With dark families and dark influences in their House and beyond, those students needed more help than anyone. Yet you never thought to help them. No one did. Only I, who couldn't risk my position by actually helping at all." His eyes flashed. "I lost so many to the Dark Lord because they felt they had nowhere else to go. Because no one told them, as no one told me when it was my time, that there was help."

"But you..." Potter hesitated, and the argumentative edge left his voice, leaving simple curiousity. "You studied the Dark Arts. You were obsessed with them. At least that's what..."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "That's what Black told you? Or Lupin? They were right. That was my fascination, along with potions. The trouble with you noble Gryffindors is that you throw around the terms light and dark as if they encompass everything."

"We didn't start that. Light and Dark has been around forever. They must be important, or why would the words have come to mean so much?"

Snape let out a hiss of air, unsure whether he should feel annoyed or refreshed at Potter's curiosity. "Magic that was too powerful, or granted too much control, or was deemed to have less than noble intentions, was labelled as dark magic. If you ask me, I'd say it was a Ministry idea, or whatever government existed at the time. Anything that grants people too much power is to be guarded against."

"That sounds a bit paranoid."

Snape eyed him. "You can say that, seeing the government of our time and the way it reacts to perceived threats to its power? To Albus, for one?"

Potter raised his glass. "Point made."

"The world is not as simple as you would prefer. You're an Auror. If you've ever taken a life, you know I'm right."

Harry blanched, and Snape knew the boy had killed. How often, he wondered vaguely.

"The term Dark cannot simply be applied to someone as if it is everything there is to know. If it were that easy, you would have no regrets about killing. If it were simply a wiping away of darkness, what's to regret? But people are more than that. Magic certainly is more than that. Unforgivables do not have to be Dark. The killing curse is an instant and painless way to inflict death, and sometimes that can be a blessing. Torture has been around since the dawn of man, used for good and evil. The cruciatus at least leaves no scars, no risk of death. At times even the imperious can be justified. That's the way of the world. Dark is never completely evil, and light is never entirely good."

Potter's expression was oddly thoughtful. "I've never thought of it that way."

Snape's lips pressed together. "No. Not many people do. I have seen both sides. I have known noble Death Eaters and reprehensible Aurors, even some in the Order."

Harry's brow furrowed. "Dung?"

Snape actually laughed before he caught himself. "Fletcher is annoying at worst. I mean those in the Order who torture innocents, roust people from their homes, seperate children from caring parents because of suspected ties to the Dark Lord. I'm talking about Aurors who imprison without trial or evidence. Who curse first and ask questions later. And I have seen Death Eaters take curses to save children caught in the crossfire, and face death at the Dark Lord's hands rather than harm another person."

Harry shook his head, eyes wide. He seemed gobstruck, which made Snape feel a grim sense of satisfaction. The bourbonprobably helped.

He sighed, taking another long draw of the warming liquor. "I became a Death Eater because I didn't know. None of us knew, not back then, entirely what it meant. I thought it was freedom from noble persecution from people like you. A chance to study my art, to protect my kind from Muggles and their cruel ways."

A surprised laugh. "Their cruel ways?"

Snape raised his eyebrows. "Have you heard the old stories of witches and their tricks to get out of being burned at the stake?"

Harry nodded.

"Some children heard those stories and laughed at the stupid Muggles and clever witches. I heard and realized that Muggles wanted to burn us alive. Kill us, in such a barbaric way, because we had magic. Some of us were raised to believe that and to fear."

Harry frowned, toying with his glass.

"I also joined with the Dark Lord to get my revenge on your father and Black and their kind. As I said, nothing is all black or white. I was not noble. I killed. Muggles and wizards alike. At the time I didn't regret it. I laughed with my brothers afterwards as we cleaned the blood from our robes."

Harry blanched.

"I am not innocent. Few people are. But when I realized my mistakes I took steps to correct them, and that's all any of us can say for ourselves. Even you."

The boy drained his glass in one swallow, making a face even as he held out his glass for more. "It was easy to think of you as evil. Too easy, I suppose. Though a lot of that was your doing."

Snape smirked, obliging him by pouring him another glass.

The bottle shook, though, and the liquor spilled at Potter's next words.

"Do you love Seamus?"

He set the bottle down hard, his features freezing.

Harry met his eyes, obviously under the misapprehension that they were becoming amiable in their truth-telling. "Though you may not realize it I've been accusing you of some pretty bad things. I jumped to conclusions. I know the truth of how he feels for you, at least."

"I don't want to talk about him, Potter."

"Listen. I don't-"

"Then bloody well shut up about it!" Snape's voice was a whip, hard and sharp. He already had to stay in the quiet room, in the empty bed, brewing and binning the same potion over and over. He wasn't about to share it with Potter.

"I just wanted to know."

"You don't need to know. It is between him and I."

Harry frowned, but Snape was beyond caring. The entire bloody story of his life and the brat still wasn't happy. Potter had nerve. Not to mention some Gryffindorish sense of entitlement.

"I don't see how any of this helps you against the Dark Lord, Potter. If you were hoping I would give you something to hold over me you're sadly mistaken."

"I don't want to hold anything against you. You have helped, I think. I need to talk to Poddy, but..." Potter's gaze went back to the glass.

Snape stood up. "I have work to do."

Potter looked up, surprised, but nodded. "You're working on potions?"

"What else?"

"For what? The Order?"

"No."

Snape strode over to his table, sighing at the darker tint of the potion at the edges. Burnt. He pulled out his wand.

And to his great irritation, Potter moved not towards the door but towards him. "Is that...that's the potion you give Seamus?"

A terse nod. Snape's mind was on other things. He was running low on crushed moonclover root. He would have to send for more. Making the potion so often was depleting his stores.

"Why...?"

Snape didn't answer.

Potter left a minute later.