Snape walked as speedily and as quietly as he could down to the dungeons, Harry curled up in his arms. Snape was vaguely aware that Potter weighed next to nothing. On the negative side of the scales. The sixteen-year-old was absolutely no problem to carry. Frankly, Snape had carried heavier cauldrons.

Thankfully, he had met no one else on the way to his quarters. He didn't know if he could cope with the embarrassment of a), being forced to look after this brat of a boy, b), being forced to care for this brat of a boy, and c), having to carry him (of all the indignities!) down to his rooms.

He muttered the password to his rooms, and used his wand to open the door.

Striding across the stone floor, he opened Potter's room door whilst supporting the frame resting against his chest easily with one hand. He really was far too light, for a growing child.

Snape lay Harry down careful on the bed, and placed the parchment and quill on the desk. His eyes landed on a loosely rolled-up piece of parchment, with half an empty ink bottle next to it. Snape made to pick it up, to read it ­–

Harry moved slightly as he settled into the new texture of the bed. Glancing quickly at the desk, Snape left the room.

Snape settled into his chair and steepled his fingers.

At least I never turned out to be like you.

Snape rubbed his forehead tiredly. Things were getting more confusing by the minute.

Voldemort had held only two Dark Revels recently. They were basically an excuse to do some Muggle torturing, with a body count afterwards with a prize to the winner... usually it was a young, crying, female muggle.

But the starling lack of frequency... Snape was beginning to suspect something nasty was being planned. Very nasty.

Potter had lines on his face. He had the expression of a forty-year-old who had seen and lived too much, had experienced far too much of the world to know that there was no such thing as a fairy tale ending... people were lost, lives destroyed. He had seen death, but precious little life.

Sounds like me, he thought with an ironic mental snigger.

...it took little to make a teen feeling angry and misunderstood, but quite a lot to make them world-weary...

Being the head of Slytherin house, he had to deal with quite a lot of adolescents with suicidal and homicidal tendencies. And in every case it was someone did not understand them. Snape asked them the same question every time: if I gave you the means, would you kill them/yourself right here and right now?

And there was, every time, a slight hesitation, and Snape knew there was hope for them. They hadn't thought it through; they were merely making threats for attention, whether they knew that or not, and Snape made sure they received it... not from him, never from him. Children had to learn to find comfort in their friends and fear in their
(overlords)
bosses. Snape may have been cold and uncaring, but he did not appreciate the senseless waste of life. Especially a child's. Especially a child.

Not once had he ever come across a child who was quite happy to do away with themselves, purely to escape the life they lived. Snape knew such children existed, but he had never met one. Snape did, however, have a nagging suspicion that he could predict Potter's reaction without the aid of ligilimency.

Children should not be tired of living. Children should not have to shoulder a burden that would crush the strongest man.

Child... even the word itself seemed to emit innocence, defencelessness, purity. Here did these values vanish
(at such an early age by god at such an early age)
to?

Potter was clearly waiting out the war. Waiting for when he could know the Dark Lord was dead, or that Potter himself had nothing left to live for and failed in the task delegated to him by the entire wizarding world

Snape had absolutely no idea what was in the prophecy, but he could tell Potter did. And it was not showing well upon the boy's face; Potter had trained himself to hide his feeling from everyone. Whether unconsciously or not, he was not only hiding his emotions from those around him but also from himself... somehow. They boy's mind was a pressure-cooker, simmering gently in the furnace of its own heat.

Children should have no place in the fights of supposed adults who should know better.

What was Potter's place in the War? People expected so much of him.

People say I am cruel to him, but I don't expect the world of him... how is it that he has stayed sane so long? How is it he has stayed alive so long?

Snape knew that Potter really had nothing to prove to him. He could become the best Potions brewer in the world, he could discover a cure for cancer, he could slay Voldemort blindfolded and with nothing but a blunt fingernail...

... but Potter would always be nothing more than an arrogant pinprick
(who couldn't find his arse with both hands)
to Snape.

Does that make me the right person for him to talk
(oh god oh god please no, anything but that)
to? Because I have no real preconceptions of what he should be capable of, does that mean I have more right than anyone else to try to understand him?

Oh, God, no. Dumbledore, you steered me into this, you –

llllllllll

Harry opened his eyes.

For once, his mind was a blissful blank of optimism. Yes... lack of nightmares did indeed affect his mental attitude. He tried a smile and was surprised to find it fitted quite well. It remained in place long after he gave up trying, and the smile didn't make him feel that the top of his head was going to fall off.

He stood up and stretched, feeling renewed vigour in his muscles. Stretching his neck from side to side, he wondered where the stiffness he would have expected had gone, what with spending the whole night –

Wait a minute. He was in the room he used in Snape's quarters (the idea still filled him with disgust). Why wasn't he on top of the Astronomy Tower, or at the bottom of it in lots of little pieces?

Harry gave it careful consideration, and deemed that a teacher had found him or maybe Hagrid. It wouldn't have been Snape. Snape bringing him down here? That went against all of the man's principles.

Harry realised he was still dressed. Yes, someone had brought him down here.

Weird. I've been in Snape's place (ugh) for exactly seven days now. Back to the Gryffindor rooms in two days, and into Occlumency in four. Oh God, Occlumency.

Harry changed into a fresh robe and walked out into the main room. His head was unusually clear and worry-free; he felt like his mind was rested. A night's worth of not having to think, to cry, to remember had done him some good
(then why is the burden still there still heavier like you forgot them)
and probably just as well.

Harry shook a couple of unnerving thoughts to the back of his head as he backtracked to his room, retrieved his broomstick, and headed out again.

llllllllll

Watching Snape wake up was an experience in itself.

Most people go through a bit of an... amnesiac stage, i.e. who am I, where am I, who is she/he, why am I cuddling a traffic cone and wearing fluffy suspenders, oh my God what happened at the party last night?! are all part of the natural process of a mental brain-check to make sure that someone else has not come along in the night and replaced You with someone else.

Again, watching Snape wake up was an experience in itself.

One moment he was asleep, the next he was awake. Snape was unconscious to instant operation on all eight cylinders in the blink of an eye.

He heard a door open. He heard footsteps pause. He heard them fade, pick up something and then close the door again. The footsteps grew louder until they were passing behind him and out of the tapestry hole.

He tapped his fingers a couple of times and stood up, hearing his joints click. He'd evidently fallen asleep in his chair again. He'd better be careful. Next thing you know it'd be fluffy slippers and a nightcap with a bell on it.

Snape usually hated Saturdays. All the noisy bustle of the students, all the obnoxious kids yelling and shouting, pounding noise into his heavy mind –

Holidays were a real godsend. Snape preferred his own company, and the silence of absolutely no one else. Sometimes his brain felt so hot it could explode, and the silence was like a cool sheet of water, culling some of the heat. It was a pleasant sensation, and Snape savoured it while he could. It wouldn't last much longer anyway; another fortnight, most of which would be spent in the Gryffindor rooms. What he did for Dumbledore sometimes...

Weirdcraz24: Yay! Blushes

Starinthedark11: Nyawww. Will do!
The notebook? Hmmm...

Emerald Black Snake: ... bit of a conflicting name there, Emerald Black. Yay!!! UK-ness!! It's cool to know that some of my reviewers live in the good ol' UK (although there's nothing wrong with Americans minor panic). As you can see, just updated!

Ravin mad: Hi there. You live in Bradford? NO SHIT!!! SO DO I! Suffice to say that if you see a teenage girl in city centre in a red Che Guevara t-shirt or a black top with a white outline of a hand on it it's probably me.
Leigh... she's the sister of one of my friends, and she, y'know, sort of hangs around the bus I get on... I nearly gave up on this story due to really bad writer's block (I hope it's not too obvious) but she wanted me to write more, so I got back into the swing of things. Yay.

PadfootsNoxed: Interesting name.
'Cute'... er... I'm worried now.

ShadowedHand: Hey there. 'Tip of the iceberg'... you have no idea ironic snicker. Contemplative... I should hope so. There will be more compassion later on, but from whom and to who may come as a surprise...

Kazaera: Yup, I'm unique, just like everybody else. Quite.
Nyawwww... you're making me blush. The reason I've written this fic is because I really can't see how else a human being would react... Harry is supposed to be human, after all, and the human brain has this habit of blocking out things it thinks can't possibly be true (my impending exams, for one... I need to revise, oh panic panic panic...). In this case, Harry having to save the world. He can't grasp the gravity of the situation. In this fic, he's been allowed to sight the reality of life, but not how fate is neither cruel nor kind and that only human frailty judges it so (yeah, I know I'm pretty cynical for a teen). Imagine what it would be like if you fully understood everything... there's a level of protection built into he brain to stop something like that happening. You want proof? Okay. Can you seriously tell me you can picture the size of the universe in your head, compare yourself to it and still feel normal? Try it sometime. It's really not pleasant. That emotion is where most of my philosophy comes from.

Erisinia: Oh, I mean, wow. That is SO TOTALLY NEAT!
Um... 'egomaniac'? That's a tricky one. How about... pack, black, knack, track... I hope you write that second verse. You should make a fanfic out of it.

Kirsti-Lee: Hey there! Yay! Sniff... I love it when people make me feel worth it... every me and every you... sorry, I'm listening to Placebo right now, and I keep randomly typing lines and then deleting them, so I won't bother this time.

Shelly101: Hey there! Wow... short review, long words, and not one spelling mistake!

Forty-two dreams: Slacking?! ME?! Yes, sorry about that. Class time, leisure purposes... well, I'm passing the class quite nicely and I always have free time at the end of the lesson anyway.
Your rant against those specific metaphors has been psychically taken aboard long before you wrote the review, because I looked back on it and decided it was a bit melodramatic. A lot of rewriting has gone on in later chapters because of a similar thought of my own, and where I suspect mushiness has crept in it has been removed with a harsh and pitiless stroke of the delete button. Still... some sympathy and other stuff will remain. I wan tot write about the people and not the caricatures they are portrayed as.

Espergirl04: Yay! I feared it was getting too soppy, and I'm injecting some more vitriol in later on. It won't get too harsh, though. I don't want a snappy Snape.

Kip: I tried to e-mail you and my e-mail server promptly broke down again. How typical. My computer is, if you will excuse my language, UTTER SHIT, hence me spending ICT lessons updating. Yes, it was Molly Morrsion's 'Lies', which I thought had an interesting note of disparity in it while they force-fed Harry calming draughts.
I don't think I see the world in a 'funny' way, except possibly to remark that the world is a funny old place. I prefer frankly cynical and downright narcissistic (in the philosophical sense). Well, thankfully, I'm apparently funny.

Jen: Will do.

Leggylover03: hello there, o faithful reviewer. Well... no, quite frankly. However, situations may make it seem so...

Shada Bay: Thanks. I really appreciate it. No, I mean it. As for the two lines, the first I had had a mental picture of Voldemort backing away down a racetrack. As for the second, well. Snape is Snape, what more can I say.
Everybody's human. Snape has forgotten this fact about Harry, is all.

Read300300: Naughty, naughty. Either I'm rubbing off or you're just plain bad. Snickers. Anyway, as you can see, I have updated.

Mystic Phoenix: Father-son? Hmm... Harry is sixteen, going on seventeen (stupid Sound of Music film, get out of my head) and he needs less of a parent and more of a... well, a friend who understands, I guess. I wanted to write a father-son fic but I wanted to stay true to the characters... the only person I know who has every plausibly been able to pull that one off was a certain GreenGecko.

A sequel.... I don't know... I couldn't simply not wait until the next book, because I would plan to base it over a period over the holidays, and I need to know what has happened during the year to make it plausible.

Anyway, I'm trying as hard as I can to update, so hang in there!

Bluethought