Chapter 7

The fated meeting to discuss his mental health was postponed by school matters, however, as it was now only 5 days before the start of the term, the teachers' workloads had doubled as they struggled to finish lesson plans and arrange their classrooms. Harry was dismissed from the Hospital Wing without any bottled solutions to his sleeping problems. All he received was a parchment with a list of natural methods to help induce healing sleep, as well as the strict admonition to come back to the Hospital Wing if he continued to have nightmares. He promised he would, vocally, and promised he wouldn't, internally. He retreated out of his teachers' ways the rest of the day, determined to make himself as nondescript as possible. He used to be remarkably good at that when he'd still been a little muggle.

That night, he found 3 letters lying on his pillow, delivered by a fierce looking barn owl which had curiously remained perched by the open window. Harry greeted it with a nod, offered it one of Hedwig's treats, which it took solemnly, and then sat on his bed to read his letters.

They were from Ron, Ginny, and Lupin. He opened Lupin's first, settling back against the pillows.

Some minutes later, he looked up and gazed, unseeing, at the wall across from him. Lupin was worried about him. A lot of people were, he supposed…he was worried about himself. After a few lines of greeting, and a couple details about his own life, Lupin had admonished him lightly for keeping his insomnia to himself – Harry only wondered idly who had told him. He hadn't referenced Harry's parents, which would surely have been on his mind after that disastrous meeting, but Harry imagined he was also a little hurt that he hadn't shared anything about it before with him, in private. He was one of their best friends, after all. He deserved to be told what the Afterlife was like for them, if they were happy and all that, didn't he? He was the one who'd known them longer. Guilt gnawed hungrily at his heart.

Sighing again, he put the letter down and scrubbed at his face, which must surely be actively drooping by now. Ron and Ginny's letters were dropped, unopened, on the edge of the nightstand. He was sure they would contain no admonitions, and would probably have helped cheer him up, but he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. He shot a distrustful look at the pillow, fluffed it, and threatened it silently that, if he wasn't spared from dreams that night, he'd chuck it in the fire.

The next morning found it smoldering amid the remaining wood of the Common Room fireplace, and found Harry curled up on the couch before it.

-SSS-

Harry couldn't believe what he was doing. And, yet, his legs kept moving, dragging a bit, but still moving, taking him one step at a time closer to Professor Snape's office door.

The idea had come to him that afternoon in the kitchens, where he'd trudged down in search of satiating his rumbling stomach. The nausea from the dreams had mostly taken away his appetite, and he hadn't had more than a few morsels while in the Great Hall for breakfast. This fact would have likely attracted the attentions of his head of house, or Dumbledore himself, but they had been absent from the head table that morning as Professor Longmire had evidently just arrived. Harry had moved the food around his plate, while sitting alone at the Gryffindor table, for enough time to allow anyone who might be watching to believe he'd actually ingested the food.

He'd pushed the plate away, watched it disappear with a sparkle, and prepared to leave, when he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He tensed and turned around.

In his seat at the head table, Professor Snape was looking unashamedly back. Harry's eyes narrowed. It was the first time he'd seen Snape at meals since Harry's return to the castle. He was still a little paler than was usual for him, but he sat confidently in his chair, back stock straight, and his eyes glittered with life and strength. He neither shifted under Harry's gaze nor acknowledged him in any obvious way. He also didn't look away.

Harry frowned, scratching the back of his neck in confusion, and then went back to gathering his things. Holding his Defense textbook level, he stacked it with a few sheets of parchment for note taking, a dry quill, and a bottle of black ink. Then, balancing, he made his way back out of the Hall.

Just before he reached the massive oak doors, he felt eyes on him again. Before he could turn back, the doors creaked open in front of him. His jaw dropped a little in confusion until he heard the swift click of boot heels on the stone behind him.

"Just like magic," Snape said snidely as he went past, rolling his eyes. Harry blinked and then scurried through just as the doors began to swing shut.

When he finished his reading for Defense in the library, Harry went back up to the Tower to drop off the book, and picked up the letters again, which he'd yet to respond to. He wasn't actually sure they expected a response given Ron and Ginny would be there in 4 days anyway. Still, it was something to do.

He went and sat in the courtyard, read the rest of the letters – which were of the normal, banal sort – and wrote out a positive, and almost certainly misleading, response to Lupin, in the hopes of assuaging his concern. After that, his eyes tired from squinting at parchment in the direct light of the sun overhead, he returned to the castle halls.

It was about noon and lunch would be served soon. However, a peek inside revealed the new professor sitting now at her spot at the head table beside Professor Sprout. Harry couldn't see her very well from that far away, but the thought of meeting someone new, and possibly suffering through a classic 'oh! You're Harry Potter!' moment didn't seem at all appealing. He slipped out again, and continued walking down to the kitchens, where, after a brief tickling of the pear, he was the recipient of a grand feast for one, curtesy of Dobby.

"Thanks, Dobby," he said, trying to keep the dismay out of his voice as he watched three more elves deliver highly stacked plates to the table before him. "I'm never going to be able to finish, though," he warned.

"Eat, Mr. Harry Potter, sir," the elf squeaked, a sock hanging off each ear. "We makes much food and Mr. Harry Potter needs help to grow." Harry grimaced a bit, managed a smile, and then began chowing down as best he could on duck, chicken, beef, carrots, mashed potato, cauliflower, and an assortment of sweets. Even one bite of every plate would have left Hagrid quite satisfied, not quite stuffed, but definitely satisfied.

Finally, he sat back on the bench, trying not to slouch so his lungs could still expand. Next time, he thought, maybe I'll just eat in the Great Hall like everyone else.

The elves took his food away and his eyes grew heavy. The thought of going all the way back up to the Tower before he could lay down seemed itself exhausting. Instead, he tucked himself into a corner, out of the way of the bustling elves, who were still catering to the teachers above, and he leaned his head back against the wall.

The next moment, he was in a dark place, full of shifting and moving shadows. He looked around and found himself on a long and winding road, paved with black bricks that looked slick with rain. As it went on, the road split. He found himself standing at the crossroads without having intentionally moved. To the right, in the distance, was a castle, something like Hogwarts, but minus the warmth. It looked old, abandoned, and was crumbling in many places. There were spikes coming out of a trench all around it. On the other branch was a green field, which led to the seafront. A small shack, just barely visible, was sitting in a bed of scraggly long grass. There was something in the window, he noticed, something or someone. He started to move in that direction, to try to get a closer look, but found, oddly, his wand pointed in the other direction, towards the foreboding castle. The more he tried to go towards the shack, the more the wand urged him in the other direction.

Then, suddenly, he was caught in a duel, and his wand was fending off the oncoming curse. A priori incantatem affect emanated from the red fire of his wand, and the green fire of the enemy's, who he couldn't even see. Like in the Riddle's graveyard, he saw spirits, murdered by the other's wand, emerging to stand around him. But these spirits were more familiar. Dumbledore, McGonagall, Tonks, Mrs. Weasley, Ginny. He clung to the wand as they urged him forward, urged him to keep fighting. Until, finally, one last spirit emerged. Severus Snape turned ghostly white eyes on Harry and Harry froze, petrified.

"Neither can live while the other survives," Dead Snape quoted at him. He looked almost repentant.

"No," Harry cried, looking around at his friends, his adopted family. "I'm sorry, I can't do this."

The wand in his hand had begun to burn white hot with the power of the spell.

He let go.

"Ahhhhh," he cried out as he exploded in a flash of ghastly green light.

"Mr. Harry Potter sir," a high-pitched voice was shouting. "Mr. Harry Potter!"

Harry groaned through a sob, turned over and was sick on the floor. Suddenly, he felt a fluffy white mist surround him, warm and relaxing. He rolled onto his back, away from the pile of sick, and forced his eyes open, inhaling breaths of restoring air.

He sputtered backwards when he saw the two enormous tennis ball eyes staring back at him.

"Mr. Harry Potter! Is you being alright now?" Dobby asked, looking grief stricken, wringing his ears in his hands. Another gust of fluffy, warm air wrapped around him, filling him with artificial peace, and he blinked in surprise.

"Thanks, Winky," he said roughly. Winky, Barty Crouch's old house elf, was staring at him from beside Dobby, clasping her hands together.

"You is welcome, Mr. Harry Potter Friend of Dobby, sir," she said. Of course, Harry thought, she used to keep Barty Crouch Jr. sedated during his moments of mania too. He grimaced.

"Dobby will be cleaning this up now," Dobby said, and snapped his fingers. The puddle of sick disappeared, and the flagstones of the kitchen where it had been sitting looked like they had been recently scrubbed to perfection.

With more thanks, which resulted in exultant cries of delight from Dobby, and nervously wringing hands from Winky, Harry left the kitchen.

Out in the hall, he stopped to lean against the wall. Winky notwithstanding, the dream had left him shaky. He felt the exhaustion creeping back through his veins as the adrenaline died away, and he kicked at the wall behind him once, frustrated beyond belief.

"I need help," he said to himself, and the admission felt like a blow. He rubbed at his eyes beneath his glasses, and then, seeing something odd, pulled his hand away to look at it. Four new crescent moons on his palm, with two of the indentations dribbling blood.

He could go back to the Hospital Wing, as he'd promised, and beg Madam Pomfrey for more potions, he considered. The last look she'd given him had threatened an inclination towards desperate measures, and he didn't want to know what those might be. The same could be said of McGonagall. The thought of going to Dumbledore, and exposing him to more evidence of Harry's weaknesses, filled him with dread and he shied away from it immediately and automatically.

He sank to crouch on the floor, his left hand tangled in his hair. The walls of the castle seemed to be closing in around him. He needed a solution, any solution, and he needed it fast.

Which was how, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, Harry found himself walking, intentionally and of his own accord, to the office of the resident Potions' Master, his own personal arch nemesis.

He stood in the quiet dungeon hallway before the closed oak door, hesitating. Was this really his last option? Maybe he was going crazy, after all. Who could possibly be this desperate?

He knocked twice, lightly, on the wood (maybe, if Snape didn't hear him, he could take it as a sign…).

"Enter," the low voice called. Harry sighed, rubbed his face again, steeled his back, and turned the ancient brass knob.

"Potter," Snape said, glancing up for the briefest second from his desk, before returning to the document before him. The greeting contained neither surprise nor welcome, but Harry forced himself to step into the room.

"Sorry to disturb you, Professor," he started, clearing his throat after 'sorry' and trying to remember what it felt like to be confident. "I wondered if I could have a word."

Snape didn't say anything for a long moment, just continued marking the parchment before him with sharp, spikey quill strokes. He had a lamp at his elbow to read by, whose light glinted off all the jarred specimens in his office but offered no cheer. There was a pile of thick tomes on the edge of his desk and every other available space was taken up by scrolls of varying sizes and shades, a testament to the quickly approaching term. Harry was just opening his mouth to excuse himself and escape, deeply regretting his plan, when Snape looked up.

His gaze was as black as coal.

He sat back in his high, winged leather chair, steepled his fingers before him, and regarded Harry where he still stood in the doorway.

"One word," he said, finally. "That is all I have time for, Potter, for you especially. You have one word to capture my attention. I suggest you choose wisely." He cocked an eyebrow, but otherwise his face was expressionless.

A number of single words – names, really – occurred to Harry as he stood there before the man who had tormented him for 5 years running. He then thought of a number of names for himself for having come down to the dungeons in the first place. His right hand curled into a fist as his anger grew, but the spike of pain where he pressed on the new wounds immediately drained him of it. He felt himself deflate. He caught Snape's dark eyes with his own green ones.

"Help," he said, dully.

Snape said nothing for a long time again, his eyes narrowing slightly. Harry could feel his muscles beginning to tremble from the inaction of standing there, stoic. He reached out a hand to grip the doorframe.

"Sit down," came the command. Harry shook his head a little to clear it and then moved to obey, sinking into one of the two plain wooden chairs before the desk.

"When, Mr. Potter, was the last time you slept for more than 6 hours consecutively?" Snape asked without preamble, crossing his arms as he scrutinized the teenager before him. Harry frowned in thought.

"I don't remember. Probably…" he hesitated as he considered it seriously. "Probably not since…not since before Sirius died."

"Hmmm," Snape said, voice still devoid of any hint at underlying emotion, not even rage. "And you think that's normal, do you?"

"Well, no, sir," Harry responded, a little more sharply than he intended. He bit his lip for a second and forced his words out more neutrally. "I don't think that's normal. That's why I'm here."

"You admit this and, yet, when two adult, highly competent witches, entrusted with your care urge you to sit down and talk with them, you resist point blank. Why?"

Harry drew in a calming breath.

"Because, Sir," he said, allowing just a little dark sarcasm to bleed into his voice, "Believe it or not, I don't relish the idea of re-living the moment when Voldemort – " Snape, to his credit, only stiffened lightly at the name, " – tortured me to within an inch of my life, threatened to murder everyone I love, and then tried to kill my potions professor. I think about it enough when I'm sleeping to desire to do so while awake."

Amazingly, the corner of Snape's lip twitched, as though he were resisting a smirk.

"Yes," he responded. "I suppose that might be a touch unpleasant." His gaze wandered from Harry's face, just for a second, as though caught briefly in a memory. "Nevertheless, boy," he continued, catching Harry's eyes again, "you cannot go on as you have. You are seriously risking permanent damage if you do not allow your brain, or body, to rest as it needs."

Harry frowned and drew himself up a bit straighter.

"I know. That's why I'm here, Professor. I thought, maybe, you could –"

"Overthrow the word of a trusted medical professional and give you access to potions she has deemed unfit? Think again, Potter. You cannot reach above the rules this time."

"Fine," Harry spat, the anger roiling back up and propelling him to stand. "Sorry for wasting your time, sir. See you at the Welcome Feast." As he turned to go, a spell flew over his shoulder at the door, the click of the lock sounding clearly in the quiet stone room. He stared at the door, stopped cold, chest heaving from unreleased emotions.

"Sit down, Mr. Potter," Snape said, unaffected. "You may have come of your own volition but, now you are here, we will continue this discussion until I am satisfied it has run its course. Sit. Down."

Harry sat. There was nothing left to do. He was tired, a little dizzy, and within Snape's formidable power. He slumped back into the chair.

"When Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall suggested, strongly, for you to seek additional help, Potter, it was for the reasons I see before me," Snape said, launching into his lecture voice almost seamlessly. "Lack of sleep dulls the mind, heightens susceptibility to strong emotions, saps at physical strength and, in the worst cases, can lead to permanent brain damage or death, as I have already mentioned. Dreams, additionally, are a defense mechanism which the brain uses to review, consider, and sometimes provide solutions to puzzles we face in the waking world. They are the means by which we handle many of life's stresses. This is why such potions as the one you took earlier are highly regulated, for the body even requires the occasional nightmare to function properly."

He paused to make sure Harry was paying attention. Tired green eyes met his black ones without missing a beat. Snape stood up, and continued, pacing a few steps behind his chair.

"In a case such as yours, the usual recourse would be to seek out a therapist, or mind healer, to aid this life-saving defense mechanism. They help their clients work through stresses during the day which would otherwise need to be untangled at night, in the form of nightmares. The reason you, Potter," he said, turning on the spot to look at Harry, his robes swishing around his legs, "continue to have endless nightmares is because you suffered, greatly, at the hands of evil men and women, which, doubtless, caused you great stress."

"You can say that again," Harry muttered. He looked up and caught the corner of Snape's lips twitching again.

"Therefore," Snape continued, "the only way you are going to conquer your nightmares is by coming to terms with the stresses they reflect by discussing what happened to you with a trusted individual."

"You want me to just trust a random mind healer with everything that happened to me?" He asked, incredulously. Snape glared at the interruption. Harry sighed and snapped his mouth shut.

"If your lack of sleep weren't already working on dismantling your short-term memory, Potter, you might have noticed I said consulting therapists is the usual recourse," Snape ground out. "The difficulty of ensuring your continued safety and your status as the Child-Hero both aside, the sheer effort it would take to get a stranger up to speed with your outrageous life eliminates this as a possibility. It would require far too much wasted time, which is precisely what you don't have."

"So, sir," Harry said, struggling to keep the impatience out of his voice, "what is the solution?"

"The solution, Mr. Potter, is to speak to someone with whom you already have a connection, and who is already appraised of your current situation, even loosely. As I said, a trusted individual."

"Like…Hermione?" Harry asked. Snape rolled his eyes heavenward.

"No, Potter, not like Miss Granger. Her capacity for retaining complicated material notwithstanding, she is not capable of meeting this need. I was thinking more along the lines of Headmaster Dumbledore."

Harry blanched and sunk deeper into his chair.

"I'd rather not go to him about this, sir."

"Any particular reason you wouldn't like to speak with the foremost wizard of the age, who also happens to be nauseatingly fond of you and personally charged with your continued welfare?" Snape asked, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. "I need not even mention the convenience of speaking with someone to whom you have already relayed a summary of said traumatic events."

Harry stood up again, but without the intention of heading out the door. He started pacing like Snape without realizing it, running a nervous hand through his hair.

"He, the Headmaster, knows most of what happened, sir, but there's other stuff, stuff I can't tell him. Stuff I don't know I can tell anyone, actually. Which is why I haven't," Harry rambled.

He'd been scratching his neck with his right hand and he'd turned to look at Snape to plead for another solution but, doing so, allowed Snape to see something rather curious from across the relatively small room. He closed the distance between them in two long-legged paces and grabbed Harry's hand in his own. Harry flinched badly and tried frantically to pull his arm free. Snape stared at him, his fingers locked around Harry's wrist, and he waited until Harry stopped thrashing. When he did, Snape flipped Harry's hand over to study the palm.

"Explain this, Potter," he commanded, bluntly. He looked up and found Harry flushing from the exertion. "Now."

"Can I sit down?" Harry asked, a little shakily.

"Of course."

Snape dropped his hand unceremoniously, cast a glance at the still sealed front door, and then, without explanation, walked into his back storage room. Harry did not watch him go, did not try to escape, did not do anything but run his hands through his hair again and chastise himself for the ridiculous reaction Snape's entirely benign touch had caused.

"Sorry," he said, as Snape came back. The man settled in the student chair opposite Harry's and completely ignored the apology. He balanced a metal tin on his thigh.

"Give me your hand, Potter," he commanded, "and explain this injury."

Harry complied, laying his hand, palm up, in the Potion Master's and curiously eyed the jar as the lid spun itself off. Ah, he thought, recognizing it, a third-year healing salve.

"Potter!" Snape barked, and across the short distance, it sounded especially menacing. "I'm not going to ask you again."

"Oh, er, that wasn't me," Harry stuttered through a wince as the man wiped out the cuts with a wet cloth. "Well, it was me, but it wasn't intentional. I was dreaming."

"Of what were you dreaming?" Snape asked, applying an even layer of the lilac-tinted salve.

"I was dueling. Voldemort," he said, and Snape's grip on his wrist tightened briefly, "while in the graveyard my fourth year. At least I think it was that one. There were sort of two dreams in one."

"And both involved you clenching your fist so tightly you pierced your own skin? Extraordinary," Snape commented dryly. Harry, however, was thinking back to the dream. He thought of the little shack, and he thought of the dark castle, and he thought of Spirit Snape emerging from his dueling wand.

Snape looked up and caught his eyes. Harry felt the brush of Legilimency, but instead of trying to, probably vainly, block the man and keep him out, Harry, who was exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally, invited him in. For once, he thought, see what I see so I don't have to see it alone.

Snape accepted the invitation and, thankfully, did not start a full-scale assault on his mind. Instead, unlike the year before, he started gradually, examining memories as he went, searching for something, although Harry didn't know what.

Harry blinked. He was leaning against the back cushion of a fluffy black armchair, his head nestled into the corner crease. He rubbed at his eyes, disoriented, and then found he was still in Snape's office, just in a transfigured chair that was infinitely more comfortable than the other had been. He looked left and found Snape now at his desk, quill scratching at a number of official looking documents again. The clock on the wall read 5 o'clock.

"What happened?" He asked, still a little groggily, sitting up and fetching his glasses from the edge of Snape's desk.

"You feinted, Potter. Drink that," Snape said without looking up. A glass half full of pumpkin juice was sitting before a pyramid of stacked scrolls. Harry frowned and moved to do so but stopped when he noticed the bandage wrapped around his right hand. He flexed his fingers and felt them pull at the cloth.

"Thank you, Professor," he said, grabbing the cup with his left hand, instead. It was spiked with a potion, he knew, it must be, but he doubted Snape would try to poison him while sitting in his own office, surrounded by all his potion ingredients. That would be too obvious, surely.

He drank down the juice and tasted nothing averse.

"Go up to the Tower, Potter," Snape instructed, distractedly still marking the parchments, "lie in your bed and go to sleep. If you wake from a nightmare and cannot return to sleep, lie down in your bed anyway and pretend. At the very least, your body can recover even if your mind cannot."

"Okay…" Harry responded, entirely confused by this unexpected series of events.

"Tomorrow evening, at 6 o'clock, I will expect you to be standing at my office door. Between now and then I will have spoken to the headmaster and may be able to offer you some 'help.'" He looked up. "Until then, keep quiet, calm, and do your darndest to not involve yourself in any death-defying activities. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. You are dismissed."

So, Harry stood and left, casting a backwards glance at the man whose greasy black hair had fallen to cast his pale face in deeper shadowy contrast.

"Thanks," he muttered.