Remus had arrived only thirty minutes ago, but Sirius's slow-burning fury was already rising to a crescendo, and it was due to get worse.

"Tell me again," he ordered through teeth ground tight, pacing back and forth. "What, exactly, did that greasy fucker say about my godson?"

The exhausted way Remus dropped his head into his hands, sighing against the table, did nothing to help Sirius's anger. "How many times will you have me repeat myself?"

"As many as it takes for me to understand what Snivellus is playing at, here."

It wasn't a matter of whether Snape had been truthful; he'd heard Lily speak about her sister often enough, and James had happily regaled them with the tale of his one and only meeting with Petunia Dursley and her dull walrus of a husband. Harry's family were not pleasant people. That was fact.

It was also fact that Snape was a manipulative, Dark creep who would swindle and sneak his way into the business of others, to use their secrets for his own gain. So…what was he hoping to gain, here, now that he'd so willingly told Remus his findings? "What does he think we should do?" he snapped out, spinning about on his heel and storming over to the fireplace, and then back around towards the end of the table where his oldest friend had slumped forward, face-down, with a groan. "Moony, I swear to Merlin, if Snape is plotting something—"

"I think I'd prefer it if he was," Remus muttered, turning his head sideways to look at him. "Severus doesn't want to do anything. He wants us to keep quiet about it all."

"I can't help but agree with you. Severus doesn't seem inclined to admit there's a problem, let alone take action against it."

They both looked up to find Arthur in the doorway, stepping off the last stair to approach them. "Arthur," Remus said slowly, shifting so that he was sitting upright. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were there…"

"Did you speak to him?" Arthur asked. "Does he truly not want to do anything? Have you asked him if he'd seen anything suspicious?"

Sirius turned his head towards Remus, who once again dropped his face in his hands. "Moony. Tell him."

"Getting him to admit to anything was like trying to convince a Boggart to show you its true form," Remus said wearily, words slightly muffled. "You were right. He doesn't seem to find anything wrong with being withheld meals, or being locked up, or even caned—"

"They've caned him?" Arthur's voice was calm, but he positively radiated fury.

"Yes," Sirius said, even as Remus said, "Potentially." Incredulous, Sirius shook his head and glared at the fireplace. "Yes," he repeated, forcefully, "they have. Don't take it like it's some idle fucking threat, Moony. My godson—my godson—has been locked in some goddamn closet without food, Merlin knows how many times. Do you know what he said to me, the night that filthy rat went free? He wanted to live with me, when a half hour before he wanted to kill me. And Snivellus—"

"Sirius—"

"Snivellus thinks there's nothing wrong with that! You know he hates Harry. He was always so obsessed with James, and now he's transferred it on over to Prongs' kid. Of course he doesn't think anything is wrong. Why would he? He's probably getting off on it all."

Arthur appeared entirely flummoxed. "I don't…" He trailed off and then cleared his throat, firming his voice and squaring his shoulders. "I don't quite think you understand the situation. The problem is, I don't believe it's my place to tell you all of the details, Sirius, I'm sorry. Remus, has he…shown you the storage room?"

"I didn't ask to see it." Remus closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.

Feeling left out of the loop, Sirius gazed at the two of them, fingers curling against his palms. His nails bit deep into his skin. "If either of you are hiding something from me," he began, "something about Harry…"

"It's not about Harry," Remus said, and then stood up to take a turn at pacing. There was a vexed, frustrated air to him, and he was tapping at his lips as though nudging a secret back inside. He always did that, Sirius remembered with a startling moment of years-old recollection, when he knew something he didn't want to share.

"What storage room are you talking about?" he demanded.

"It's not a storage room, by any of the regular means," said Arthur, slowly, in a way that made Sirius think he wasn't keen on giving details. "It's an old bedroom."

"I want to see it," Sirius said immediately.

"He's very adamant that nobody but he go inside," Arthur said in a rush, looking at him in faint alarm. "And what's more, should you really be going there, as things are?"

"I want to see it," he repeated, "and Moony is going to take me there. Aren't you?"

Remus looked very much as though he wanted to wring his neck. Not cowed in the slightest, Sirius gestured to him in a 'well?' motion. "It's not a good idea," Remus said in a low, angry voice. "I do not like this idea. It will go very wrong, Padfoot."

"Curiosity killed the cat," Sirius said with a grin. "Where's that owl Ron keeps, do you know? Pig-something-or-other? I think it's time we sent a letter to old Snivelly. We should let him know he'll be expecting a visit."

—

Severus began to regret his decision to hold an Occlumency barely a minute after he voiced it aloud. The boy was faring no better, standing and holding his wand out in a parody of self-protection. His stance was horrendous, Severus mused, eyeing the way he stood with his feet too far apart, shoulders tight and high. Though he'd never been athletically inclined, or well-coordinated in the slightest, even he could easily sweep Potter's feet out from under him and wrestle the wand straight out of his hands.

"Why do we have to do this so early?" Potter asked again, eyes twitching downwards as though he suspected Severus truly was about to take his wand by force. "Couldn't we do this…I dunno…after dinner?"

"No," he said with hints of a sneer. If he let the boy's transgressions go unpunished for too long, the lesson would not hold. "We will do this now, to ensure you do not go upstairs without my permission again. Each time you disobey my orders, we will have an Occlumency lesson, in hopes that it will be enough to dissuade you next time."

"So this is a punishment, then?" Looking at him incredulously, the boy shook his head. "Better than Polyjuice crustings, I s'pose…"

Severus allowed himself a thin smile. Yes, infinitely better than Polyjuice crustings. "Don't tempt me. As I recall, I seem to have a cauldron left over from brewing Veritaserum. Would you prefer to clean that instead of having another lesson?"

For a moment, he wasn't sure whether the boy would pick scrubbing cauldrons over Occlumency. There was a vaguely contemplating expression on Potter's face (giving it all, Severus thought snidely). Then he shook his head quickly and fixed his eyes on the floor. Unsure whether to be relieved or disappointed, Severus sighed sharply and pulled out his wand. "Ready yourself, then. We will begin now. One, two, three…Legilimens!"

He knifed into the stream of memories, and lost himself quickly in a blur of half-recalled moments in time. Severus watched, through a haze, as Potter went rigid in front of him; he pushed the image away and focused instead on the memories, and then further in, to seek dark spaces and the sensation of hopelessness.

He was not to be disappointed. Those memories were plentiful, whirling past in a sickening rush. Peering through the grates on a door, out into a hallway—a dingy mattress on the floor—a stained blanket shoved into the corner, wrapped around prized possessions too old and broken to be considered worth anything—spiders dangling from the ceiling, twisting about in the air above his head—

A cupboard, Severus thought, pulling out sharply and rubbing at his eyes. Not a closet. A cupboard, underneath the stairs.

What he would give, in this moment, to speak to Petunia Dursley face-to-face.

"I don't…I don't understand," the boy gasped from his position on the floor, pushing his sweaty fringe away from his forehead. "Were you, er—looking for something? They're usually all different, but…"

"You're imagining things," Severus said coldly. "Again. Stand up."

He made no attempt to be subtle in his goals as he kept the cupboard under the stairs swimming at the forefront of Potter's mind. Prying deeper, he flashed through years spent in the dark; it was only at the sensation of shivering under an inadequate blanket that Severus became acutely uncomfortable, and withdrew entirely, pushing the memories—his and the boy's—mingling about in his head, down beneath the surface of fog, down into a chest somewhere far below the surface. He locked the thoughts up tight and let the key drop deeper into the never-ending gray. It was only after he felt he'd sufficiently repressed it that he opened his eyes to find Potter slumped back against the wall, palms pressing against his face.

"I was locked in a closet once," the boy said, in a hollow voice, "when I was little. Dudley—my cousin—pushed me inside. I was in there for a couple hours. That's all it is. I don't like thinking about it, so if you could just…forget about that…That's all it is."

Severus did not call his bluff. Instead, he reached out, hauling the boy up onto his feet by his upper arm. "Again. Prepare yourself."

This time, as he cast Legilimens, he allowed himself to stray from the cupboard, instead bringing the memory of the unknown woman speaking of caning into focus.

"You see, Vernon, when you cane the whelp, you have to hit the fleshy parts of the legs. Avoid the bones—people these days have been nosing into the right to discipline ungrateful beasts. You don't want social services called. What would the neighbors think? Bruises show at the bones. It's the flesh that leaves little mark."

Severus had to will himself not to violently eject himself from the boy's head, instead doubling down on his efforts, dragging the memory of the woman's voice out into the open. A strip of memories paraded through his mind, each as vile as the last—until they reached the end, where she miraculously—magically—happened to inflate into inhuman proportions, and take a flight through Surrey. And then there were the boy's friends, one laughing and the other scolding, and a burst of affection surged through the connection, blindsiding him entirely as he sank into it, melting, nesting deep and warm—

The connection split into pieces, sending him staggering back at the suddenness of it. Potter stumbled into the wall but did not fall. He was wide-eyed, breathless and sweaty—but standing. He had thrown Severus out of his mind.

Emotion. That's Potter's key. Severus's chest was heaving. Swiping his hair away from his face, he took a deep breath and forced himself to settle down. Emotion. We can use this. "That was," he said slowly, still fighting to catch his breath, "not entirely reprehensible, Potter."

The praise stopped the boy in his tracks. "Really? You're—You're serious?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?" he snapped.

"No, definitely not," Potter said cheerfully, as a grin split his face. "I'm honestly not too sure what I did to throw you out, but it worked, didn't it?"

When had Potter stopped being intimidated, or even truly angered, by his surly responses? Severus couldn't help but wonder, with a tinge of panic.

"Harry isn't entirely unhappy here," Lupin had said. And he wasn't entirely happy here, was he?

(The problem was that Severus wasn't entirely happy to know this. Relieved, perhaps, for it meant the boy wasn't being a little terror anymore, but—happy? Not as such.)

"I was wrong," Severus forced himself to say, even as the words rankled at him, and anxiety itched at him. "I was not going about your lessons the correct way. You should not be going without emotion or thought. Instead, you will learn to overwhelm any wayward intruders with an excess of emotion. Make them choke on it. The Dark Lord is an immensely powerful Legilimens, that is true, but adolescent feelings and whimsies will repel him. I will show you how to work this angle."

"But I thought Occlumency was supposed to make you stop feeling and having dreams?"

"Yes, well, the technique we'll be using is certainly nonstandard. Of course," he added, unable to resist, "nothing about you has ever been standard."

Potter sucked his bottom lip in and chewed on it. He was frowning. "And—And you're sure this will work?" he asked eventually. "To keep Vo—him out of my head? I'll be able to go where Ron and Hermione are?"

Severus couldn't help but wonder, for the first time, how these weeks were going to change things. Would they go back to how they were at school? Taking potshots at each other at every opportunity? Potter was prone to moody outbursts and overbearingly nosy, but he was no longer a complete stranger, nor was he a carbon copy of James. But he wasn't Lily, either, Severus knew; the only thing left of her was those eyes, and the boy's good nature. Harry Potter was an anomaly. A not-stranger.

"If this goes according to plan, and you can find it somewhere within yourself to give enough of a damn to work hard, you may find yourself at headquarters sooner than expected." Severus pinched the bridge of his nose to stave off the headache tingling at his temples like a jackhammer.

A not-stranger with secrets, he told himself as the boy grinned and began to babble excitedly. Severus Snape did not like people keeping secrets from him.

—

"What are you making?"

"Dreamless Sleep," Severus said shortly as he ground lavender in his mortar, crushing them into a paste. He scrutinized the color, and then added an extra sprig. "Potter."

The sharp tone of his voice stopped the boy in his tracks, from where he was reaching out to open the door of the fridge. "Er, sorry, I was just getting some milk…"

"Calm yourself. Valerian-how much is required for a standard batch?" he asked, as he reached for the Flobberworm mucus, dropping two measures into the silver cauldron on the stove. "Well? This is a second year potion, even you should know this…"

Potter didn't respond for a beat too long; Severus was about to give up and say it himself when the boy said in a quiet voice, "I think it's…four?"

"Are you asking, or telling?"

"Telling. It's four," he said, more firmly this time.

"At what stage do you add it?"

"At the beginning, after you put in the wormwood. Are you making that for yourself?" Potter approached the stove, standing on the tips of his toes to watch Severus work. "You seem a bit peaky today."

"Keep your concern to yourself. This is for the infirmary," he muttered, scraping the paste he'd made from the lavender into the bubbling potion, which immediately turned purple and began to shimmer as though he'd added Sleekeazy's to it. He opened a Ziploc bag of Sopophorous beans and crushed them with the flat side of his blade to wring out the juice, and then chopped them, dropping them into the potion. Then, popping the lid off a tupperware box, he reached inside and took a handful of powdered asphodel petals, sprinkling it liberally over the cauldron, and with his other hand tipped a dash of nettle essence inside. He turned the heat dial back a notch to let the Dreamless Sleep brew unattended for the next seventy minutes, and stepped back to set his timer and begin clean-up.

Potter was still where he'd been before, blocking his way. "D'you brew all the potions for the Hospital Wing?" he asked, scratching at his nose.

"Not all of them, no," he said shortly, nudging the boy aside so he could get to the vial of mucus left open on the counter. "Either step aside or make yourself busy, Potter. The lavender goes back inside of the bag, and the asphodel needs a lid. Take care not to damage the lavender. Seal the bag tightly."

They worked in silence, bagging and storing any leftover ingredients, until there came a tapping on the window. Severus looked up to find an overly excited owl twitching about outside. "Are you expecting a letter?" he asked, as Potter looked up with a frown.

"Yeah, but not for another day or two. That's Ron's owl, Pig. D'you want me to get him?"

"Yes. Be sure to lock the window again after he leaves."

'Pig' soared into the kitchen the moment the window cracked open, but it didn't go to Potter—instead, it made a beeline for him, perching at the edge of the hot cauldron with a chirp. Severus resisted the urge to blow the fucking thing up right then and there. Shooing it away from the stove, he grabbed it out of the air and thrust it at Potter. "Take care of the damn thing before it becomes a potions ingredient."

"I don't…think it's here for me, professor," the boy said, waving the offering aside. "I think it's brought you a letter."

The bird squawked in what could almost be mistaken for agreement. Regarding the thing dubiously, he reached for the letter, tearing it off the owl's leg and unrolling the parchment with a flick of the wrist.

It was from Black, though bits of what could only be sarcastically called a letter were peppered with writing from another hand, as if Lupin had attempted to snatch it away here and there. Severus stared at the contents of the letter for less than a second. Then, snatching a quill off the table, he scribbled out a "Go fuck yourself" and reattached the crumpled parchment to the owl's leg, before throwing it back out the window.

"Now then," he said firmly, enjoying the way Potter had twitched in horror at the sight of him hurling an owl, "what is the purpose, Potter, of adding Flobberworm mucus to Dreamless Sleep, when the mucus itself has no sleep-aiding qualities? And don't forget to lock the window."