In the end, neither of them told the boy a thing. Severus suspected it was because neither of them wanted to.

Instead, they stayed outside far longer than necessary, leaning against the wall in silence as he dug out a new cigarette and lit up again. Severus was nearly finished smoking it when Lupin spoke up. "We'll have to say something to Harry eventually," he said in a low voice, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. It was an unusually clear night. In a different place—a better place—they might have been able to see the stars. "We can't just talk about it but do nothing."

"Certainly we can," he replied, in a tone that he hoped would make clear he was done discussing it. "The boy is not currently in Tuney's house. I have no intentions of giving him any sort of injury. He's fed and clean."

"You don't treat him very well," Lupin pointed out.

Severus took a drag of his cigarette. "And?"

"It could harm his self-esteem. I think he's begun to…" Trailing off, Lupin shifted his gaze absently to the sky again, and finally said, "Harry isn't entirely unhappy here, is what I'm trying to say. What you say to him holds weight. I hope you know that."

What I say holds weight? What the sodding fuck did that mean? Potter was not a toddler in need of coddling. He was an adolescent boy who was flippant with rules and had a habit of throwing himself headlong into danger. What Potter needed was to develop a strong common sense; he didn't need Severus to tell him useless platitudes and assurances. Unsure of what to say in reply, he settled for an indifferent hum and inhaled a lungful of smoke.

"I know you don't believe me," Lupin sighed, "just as you don't believe I wasn't pranking you. Don't you think Sirius would have mentioned it last night if I'd told him? He'd have lorded it over you."

Severus did not want to believe him. "Mm," he hummed.

"You're not going to say anything to me, are you?"

"Mm." He was sucking restlessly on nothing but filter at this point.

The wolf was quiet for a time, until he'd tossed the cigarette butt onto the ground next to the first and Vanished the both of them. Severus had turned to leave when Lupin murmured, "I really shouldn't have done it at all."

"Done what?" he asked in resignation, and hated himself for it.

"I shouldn't have kissed you. It was—wrong of me. I should have kept my distance." Lupin's eyes were still fixed on the sky. Severus was abruptly reminded of the way he always touched the boy: gingerly, as though he was afraid of spreading some horrific and infectious disease. The body language which always screamed discomfort when somebody drifted too close to him during an Order meeting, and the studious way he avoided ever speaking of his affliction. "It was a mistake I should not have made. You were right to have stopped me."

"You're a bigger idiot than I thought," Severus snapped, lip curling as he turned back round to face him fully.

"How so?" Lupin said with a bitter, self-deprecating smile. "Was it even consensual, Severus?"

"Being maudlin doesn't suit you." He knocked a third cigarette out into his palm and lit it with a snap of his fingers. If he was to stay out here still, he might as well smoke. "Have you and Potter been comparing notes?"

"This is not a joke, Severus," the wolf snarled, pushing away from the wall. "Was it consensual?"

"Did you or did you not see me agree to your scheme that night?" he demanded. "Had I said no?"

"An absence of a no isn't a yes."

"Well, it hadn't been a no, so do us all a favor and cease and desist with this self-pitying attitude you've adopted." He sucked on his cigarette like it was the last bit of oxygen on the planet. This was too much. This entire week, this entire summer, was too much. He hated Remus Lupin and Arthur Weasley. He hated Albus Dumbledore. Why had he agreed to any of this? He should never have agreed to take in Potter. Why had he? Why?

He forced himself to last until his cigarette had burned down. Vanishing it like he'd done the others, Severus muttered, "I'm going inside," and managed to walk two full steps before there was a tug on his robe. Whirling round with an insult on his lips, Severus found himself blindsided with Lupin said softly, "If it had been consensual…then, if I were to do it again, would be still be?"

Severus's brain short-circuited, just a bit. "I-I don't…" he stuttered, taking a quick look at the back door again to ensure they were still alone. He yanked his robe out of the admittedly loose grip the werewolf had on him—and then realized Lupin's eyes were very dark, and his cheeks looked rather flushed. Severus's stomach lurched in a way that wasn't entirely unpleasant. "I'm…going inside."

"That's fine," Lupin said, looking at him with his peripheral vision, head turned away. "We don't have to."

Suddenly quite torn with himself, Severus snapped his gaze from side to side to check for snooping neighbors, and then seized a handful of Lupin's clothing, tugging him too close. "Fine," he said, trying and failing to sound irritable. "Don't look so damn pleased."

The memory of Lupin's bashful grin, and the way he'd touched his shoulder like it had been spun from glass, lingered in his head long after the man had left for the night.

—

Sometimes Severus wondered whether he should be worried over the amount of sleep he'd been getting lately. He'd never slept well, likely never would, but he could count on both hands the hours he'd had in the last few days.

It was Arthur Weasley's fault.

If he hadn't demanded to see that fucking hellhole of a bedroom…

During these flashes, have you by any chance noticed anything—odd? Anything abnormal, in any way? Maybe even…familiar?"

Fuck you, Severus thought bitterly, rolling over onto his side and regretting it immensely as his elbow sunk deep into the mattress and effectively trapped him until he managed to flip onto his stomach again. His back had begun to ache more and more each night he spent on this wretched thing. How had he managed to do it every night as a child?

"You don't have bars on your windows," Potter had said. "Don't lock me in!"

Lock him in…the closet?

Severus felt sick, fevered and shivery. This was all wrong. Potter was supposed to be a privileged, spoilt brat. He should have been an arrogant twat like his insufferable father. But Tuney had always been…less than accepting. During the time he'd nearly hit her with a tree branch during a bout of accidental magic, he'd come to their house days later to see Lily, and Petunia had invited him in. He'd gone barely half a foot inside the house when she'd slammed the door in his face and bloodied his nose. Severus had taken great care not to use magic, accidental or otherwise, within her sight again.

But he'd been an impoverished, unkempt Jew living on the wrong side of the river, with a father who'd earned himself an unsavory reputation. Surely she wouldn't have done such things to her own nephew. Surely.

Being their flesh and blood hadn't stopped his parents from doing things to him, though.

That's different, he told himself, tucking his arms under his pillow and forcing himself to close his eyes. What his parents had done to him had never put him in danger. It had just…been.

There had been a summer when a social worker had braved the streets of Spinner's End and had paid his parents a visit. She'd asked few questions. She had not inspected the house. He supposed he could understand why; he'd not been a pleasant boy, and even at the age of thirteen, he'd rather resembled an overgrown, hideous vulture. He had not been an attractive child, and had become an even less attractive adult. People who were attractive, with money and personality—those children had a future. Those were children worth saving. Worth loving and caring for. Severus had never found out who had called the social worker in, and it hadn't mattered; either way, his meals had been withheld from him for three days, for his audacity to parade family business round town.

His mother, most of all, had been furious. "Looks like someone decided to play Cinderella," she'd sneered for weeks on end. 'Cinderella boy' had always been his least favorite nickname, even above 'Snivellus.' "Perhaps we should cut his hair, Tobias, before he decides to let it down like Rapunzel and run off to join the vermin in the streets."

Now quite furious, even though the incident had been over twenty years ago, Severus sat up and looked round the room for something to break.

He'd grown to hate his mother, over time, just as he'd grown to hate near everyone else in his life. She'd been his protector in his early childhood, bearing the brunt of his father's rage so as to save him from the same fate. That had changed as the years went on and he'd learned how to make people despise and stay away from him. It had reached its peak when he'd shown his first signs of magic at the age of six. By the time he was in his fifth year at Hogwarts, she'd begun actively lying to his father about his supposed sins, to ensure his role as the family scapegoat and keep Tobias's violent rages focused on him instead of her.

But that was all—different. It was different. That was just the way some families were. (He would not—could not—entertain any alternatives. It was just the way some families were. It could not be unusual, because if it was, then surely he had done something awful, terrible, to have made his parents despise him so. It had to be normal.) But Potter's family…

Yes. There was something odd about it all. Something wrong.

And he did not like wrong.

It took what felt like an eternity for Severus to drift off, but he found no comfort in sleep, for his dreams were plagued by images of dark closets, and shadowed figures with raised fists.

—

"Snape?" Harry called, edging into the dark alcove behind the bookshelf and peering blindly up the stairs. "Are you up here? Professor?"

He'd woken to a silent house and unmade breakfast. Snape had been nowhere to be found downstairs; in fact, even at a quarter to eleven, there had been no sign of him having woken up at all. That was a bit worrying. Harry had never known Snape to not be awake and rattling about the house long before he got up. Maybe he was sick. Maybe, Ron would say, he died in his sleep!

Three years ago, he'd have been excited at the thought, but suddenly he didn't find himself too keen on the idea of it. Harry wasn't sure he wanted to know why that was. Although it wasn't bad here—it was a step up from the Dursley's, for sure—it was Snape. Snape's house. He should have been running screaming from the premises, not…wondering if he should make breakfast for his evil bat of a Potions professor.

He would have gone outside, Harry assured himself as he gingerly touched another step and then pulled himself up, blinking rapidly as though it would somehow give him night vision. The way Snape and Lupin had found him the night he'd gone to the playground…They'd known exactly where he was. Snape would be able to find him again if he wanted to. And Harry didn't actually have a death wish, no matter what anyone said.

Reaching the top of the stairs, he looked around blindly for any sign of Snape, and then pulled himself to his feet, shuffling towards the door ahead of him.

"What are you doing?" said Snape sharply, from directly in front of him.

Harry startled and took a step back, only to meet empty air. He gasped and had begun tipping backwards when Snape seized the front of his shirt and yanked him back onto the landing. "Thank you," he said, breathless, "and sorry. I was just wondering if you were home."

"Wondering if you were able to snoop around upstairs uninterrupted, you mean." Harry could barely see his professor's face, outlined in the faintest of light, but he knew there would be a sneer on it. "Back downstairs, Potter. Now. "

Trying not to get angry (he'd just gotten up here!), Harry carefully sat at the top of the stairs and scooted himself down one by one, Snape following behind him. He could feel watchful eyes burning into the back of his head. He stood as he reached the bottom and slid the bookshelf aside a crack, squeezing himself through and out to the living room, which seemed altogether too bright after the darkness of the stairwell. "Is Professor Lupin okay?" he asked as Snape closed the shelf with a flick of his wand.

Are you okay? Harry wanted to ask next, because frankly, Snape looked like hell.

"What?" Snape muttered, eyes half shut against the light streaming in from the front window.

Harry, who had never seen Snape anything less than scarily alert, couldn't help but stare a beat too long. He cleared his throat and hurriedly looked away. "Er—Lupin. Is he all right? You were both talking for a long time last night, and he seemed a bit…"

"Eloquent as always, Potter."

"So is he?" Harry pressed. "Okay?"

"He's fine," came the annoyed response, as Snape abruptly moved to the kitchen without looking back. "Have you eaten?"

"I ate a bit ago." He sat down on the sofa until the heady aroma of coffee began to fill the house. Getting to his feet, he went into the kitchen, where Snape was leaning against the counter with his eyes closed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Are you all right?" he dared to ask. "Sir?"

Snape opened his eyes and turned to him with a wordless snarl. Harry balked but didn't step down. After what seemed like forever, he relaxed minutely, and then went back to waiting in silence. Harry slowly walked over to the table and sat in his usual chair, hands automatically seeking out the loose bits of stuffing in the seat cushion. He'd found a small bundle of stuffing on the floor last night; by the time he left, he would probably have the entire thing flattened out. Hopefully reparo would work on it. If not…well, how difficult could sewing be?

"So," Harry said, and then found the rest of the sentence dying in his throat when Snape glared at him. Gryffindor courage, he told himself. "Are you…hungry? I could make something…"

"Was that your job?" Snape said flatly.

"My—?"

"At your aunt's house. Was that your job? Cooking for them?"

Harry looked around the room awkwardly. "Sometimes?" he hedged. "Aunt Petunia cooked, too, but every once in a while I was the one in charge of meals. So…sometimes."

Unhitching himself from the counter, Snape stepped over to the coffee maker and poured himself a mug, and then added what seemed to be an almost obscene amount of sugar. Harry tried not to stare. And then he tried not to get up and leave the room when his professor sat down across from him and fixed him with another glare.

"Er…"

"Two meals," Snape said in a cold voice. "That is all you will be allowed to cook per week. No more than that."

"What?" he burst out, leaning forward. "Why?"

"Because I said so," Snape snapped back.

"But that—but I like cooking!"

"And furthermore," continued Snape, "I have told you time and time again, Potter, that you are not to go upstairs. Have I not told you this? And yet I find you scaling the stairs. Has it not occurred to you that there is a reason I have told you not to go up those stairs? Have you not seen how dangerous they are?"

Harry glowered at him. "I was careful," he mumbled.

"You nearly fell," Snape pointed out.

"Only because you startled me!"

Pinching the bridge of his nose again, Snape tilted his head back and sighed. He downed half of his coffee and set the mug down with a thunk. "Two meals a week, no going upstairs, and if you have eaten then we will now begin another Occlumency lesson."

More than a little horrified at the thought, Harry began to bounce one knee. "But it's only noon," he protested weakly. "Why now?"

Snape grinned slightly, exposing his crowded teeth. "Because I said so. Up, Potter, so we can see how well you've been doing on those deep breathing exercises."

Never mind, Harry thought as he got to his feet and began gulping down air in a decidedly unrelaxed manner. I should have run screaming from the premises.

—

—

A/N: Chapter 18 is the furthest I've written and all that will be posted in mass quantities. I'll now be posting on the schedule that I write with on AO3! (Aka, the I-Work-Six-Days-A-Week-And-Have-Two-Jobs schedule.) If anyone spots a typo or a word that is accidentally in my second language, please let me know so I can correct it. I'll update soon!