The next day dawned bright and early for Harry. He was so used to Aunt Petunia rapping on his door at an indecent hour that his internal alarm clock never allowed him to wake too late. He dressed himself in another set of baggy clothes and put on his broken glasses before heading down the narrow stone staircase. He didn't think Snape would be up yet, and was glad of the opportunity to poke around his new surroundings without the scathing black eyes burning into the back of his head.

As he swung out the secret door in the bookcases and stepped into the sitting room, Harry got a clear look of the place in the dawning sunlight. Although he really wasn't much of a bookworm, as he studied the titles of the hundreds of books on the walls, he couldn't help but pull them from their places and flip through them with interest.

The first one he saw was called 'Antidotes for the Hopelessly Dull'. Harry chuckled slightly and stared at the complicated lists and instructions on every page. The title was clearly a misnomer. As he went around the walls he found several other amusing titles including 'The Hag's Guide to Love Potions', and 'Tonics for Those Who Don't Wish to Die."

Harry could have spent hours going through these books that asked for all sorts of ridiculous ingredients like frog toenails, and dragon whiskers, but decided he needed to acquaint himself with the rest of the house too. There would be plenty of time for reading in the next few months.

He crossed the room and felt the bookshelf cautiously where he'd seen Snape emerge the night before. It didn't take much time to find the exact place, and just like with his own door, this one swung forward easily and noiselessly. Harry peered around the corner before he stepped into the room, hoping he was not intruding on Snape nor on any personal space. To his relief, the room beyond the bookcase seemed to be a sort of kitchen, although, like the rest of the house, it was completely unlike any he had seen before. Unlike the Dursley's kitchen which was comprised almost completely of sterile white surfaces and shiny new appliances, this one was decidedly grimy as if rarely used, and, as far as Harry could tell, had only an oven and stove for appliances.

It was then that Harry noticed movement in the sink. At first he though it must be a rat (what else would be scurrying around the kitchen?), but as he got closer, he saw the first real sparks of true magic so far in the house. The dishes were stacked in one section of the sink, but as Harry watched, they lifted themselves up one by one into midair as another unsupported sponge scrubbed them clean.

Harry was mesmerized. Surely he was imagining this, it was simply to marvelous to be real! But no, he stuck his hand out to touch the sponge and skillet, and they were both quite real. He grinned to himself; even if Snape wasn't nice, this was surely better than weeding Mrs. Figg's garden for the rest of the summer.

He turned his back on the dishes cleaning themselves and saw an open door to his left. Forgetting the caution he had used to come into the kitchen, Harry pushed this door completely ajar with confidence. It was pitch black, but as soon as Harry stepped in, torches lining the walls sprang to life with the same green flames as had lit his way up the staircase to his bedroom the night before.

At first, Harry thought he was looking at a store room for the kitchen as he saw half a dozen large pots on the countertop lining two of the walls. But as he stepped closer, he saw that several of them were bubbling with different substances. i These aren't pots, /i thought Harry. i These are cauldrons! /i He tried to get a better look at the potions bubbling and got up on his tip toes.

The first of the cauldrons held a thick orange paste where an occasional air bubble would rise to the surface and pop, sending small flecks of the paste flying everywhere. The second was an acid green gel- liquid that looked the slime that he Harry seen so many people dumped in on Dudley's television. Excited, he extended his fingers towards the colorful surface when he was stopped by a cold voice behind him.

"Do not touch that, Potter. Unless of course you wish for all the blood in your body to turn to ice. Trust me, it's a gruesomely painful experience."

Harry whipped around, dread flooding his body. There stood Snape, framed in the doorway in midnight black robes and his hands on his hips. There was a look in his face of cold fury. "I…I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to do anything wrong. The door was ajar, you see…"

"Get out of here Potter, I never want to see you in here again without my permission. God that?" Snape's voice was slow and punctuated, his tone quiet and threatening. It scared Harry far more than if Snape had shouted at him.

"Y-Yes sir, never." Snape seemed to Harry like the kind of man whom one never wished to cross. Harry bent his head low and kept his eyes on the ground as he ducked around Snape and out of the potions room and into the kitchen with as much haste as he could muster. Behind him he heard Snape slam the door, and when Harry looked back, he saw that Snape had shut himself inside the room.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief and allowed his heart rate to return to normal before turning around to face the kitchen. To his surprise, on the shabby table in the corner of the room, a fully cooked breakfast of eggs, sausage, and bacon was sitting there steaming. Harry couldn't remember there being anything cooking when he had been in the kitchen, but wasn't finding anything too surprising anymore.

For a minute Harry wondered if he should touch it. Maybe Snape had been meaning to eat it before he caught him trying to touch the potions. But his fears were allayed when he saw a note sitting by a small tub of the same orange paste he had seen bubbling in the first cauldron in the other room. The tub was sitting right next to the plate and seemed to be addressed to him, so he took it to mean that the meal was his also. He sat down and started to read:

i Smear a thick layer of this onto your bruised eye and let sit for thirty minutes. Then wash off with soap and water. /i

Harry looked at the nasty paste and made a face of revulsion. "Ugh!" did he really have to? But he weighed his options and decided that if the concoction would help clear up his black eye, it would be worth it.

He laid his glasses to the side and, with deliberation, spread the bruise remover over the entirety of his blackened eye like he was smearing a particularly thick cream cheese over a bagel. He washed his hands in the sink to get the residue off of them and was just about to begin working on his breakfast when he heard the snap of the door behind him.

Snape swept into the room, and Harry could see him smirking slightly as he caught sight of his ridiculously orange face. He passed right by the table, robes softly whipping the corners and Harry felt the color rise in the parts of his face not covered. As he went, Harry saw the blurred outline of the stick he was carrying the night before poking out of the sleeve of his robes. Harry swore he saw him give it a minute wave, but couldn't be sure because his glasses were still laying on the edge of the table. But, as nothing happened, Harry assumed that Snape must not have meant anything by it.

Harry finished breakfast alone, putting his used plate in the queue to be washed and headed back up to his bathroom to scrub off the once orange goop that had now turned a congealed reddish brown color and was giving off the smell of well-worn sneakers.

This task took more effort and time than Harry had first imagined. It seemed to have attached to his face and was resisting the copious amounts of soapy water being thrown at it. Finally, getting a bit desperate and wondering if Snape had simply given him the wrong instructions so as to get a cruel laugh at his expense, Harry took the entire bar of soap and started scrubbing his eye with it. After only a few moments the hardened mass came off almost in one piece, and Harry was left to look at his newly mended face. Other than the flushed redness in his cheeks from the effort he had just expended, his eye looked completely normal again.

"Wow, I'm really going to have to get myself some of that!" Harry murmured to his reflection. "Dudley will be so confused!"

To get a better look at the potion's effects, Harry picked up his glasses and placed them on his nose. But they weren't the same glasses he had taken off before breakfast. Yes, they were the same black rims, and fit the exact same way, but these spectacles were mended completely. There were no more spidery cracks webbing the left eye glass, and the scotch tape was gone from the sides to reveal that they were good as new.

Harry goggled at them. His glasses had never been this good, not even when the Dursleys had first given them to him. He remembered vaguely that they said they had pulled them out of a box full of Uncle Vernon's late uncle's things. They were scuffed and bent, but Harry had no choice but to take them, as he couldn't see well otherwise.

A small smile started to curve the edges of Harry's lips. He though he knew exactly why Snape had so discreetly waved his wand while passing by the breakfast table this morning.

Taking the steps two at a time, completely forgetting that he'd intruded on a private room of his caretaker, Harry ran down from his bedroom excitedly, hoping to thank Snape for his help.

"Mr. Snape?" he called to the empty sitting room. Nothing moved or even gave so much as an acknowledgment that Harry had said anything. "Mr. Snape?" This time his voice was a bit lower. He didn't want to get into trouble for shouting in the house, as he rightfully suspected Snape to be the kind of soul that valued silence.

He said the name once more, but still nobody answered. Snape appeared to not have heard him, or could, but was just ignoring him. Harry sat down on the couch, a little put out that he couldn't thank the man for his kindness, but felt sure that he could talk to him at lunch or dinner.

But that opportunity never came, as Harry didn't even glimpse Snape for the rest of the day. Nor did he see him for several days to come. Harry found this highly disconcerting, and was wondering if the man ate at all. He had just started to doubt that Snape was still in the house at all, and wondered if hi might have just left him by himself without telling him.

However, Harry discarded this notion very quickly, as there was always a meal sitting on the table, freshly prepared whenever he went down. In fact, despite the fact that he was being completely neglected by his host, Harry was content because he had never eaten so well in his life. Compared to the very sparse meals he received from the Dursleys, each meal he got at Spinner's End seemed a feast. He felt himself gain a bit of weight, and had to tell himself that he better watch his portions of him might end up looking like his corpulent cousin.

The first glimpse Harry caught of the other man in the house came out of complete, blind luck. One night, Harry was restless and couldn't stay asleep for more than twenty minutes before waking up to a flash of bright, green light.

He sat up and shivered; he'd had that dream many times before. His wristwatch blinked 2:15 am in florescent, yellow light. Knowing that he wouldn't be able to go to sleep any time soon, Harry dropped his feet to the cold, stone floor and got up to go downstairs. He needed something to drink, and while he had never seen where the drinks or food was stored, he was sure tha he could find a glass to fill with water.

He had already swung open his secret door behind the bookcase when he realized that the door to the kitchen was ajar and a light was shining through. Harry heard the clatter of pots and pans, and made sure to make no noise as he crossed the sitting room and peered in.

There was Snape, dressed in what Harry now knew to be his customary black robes and fixing himself a meal using the stick Harry now figured to be a magic wand to heat the food and add ingredients.

Harry watched him with interest. Snape looked somehow different than he had when Harry had seen him last, although he couldn't quite put his finger on how. Snape's thin eyebrows were still pinched as though trying to intimidate the frying pan in his hand, but somehow his eyes seemed less frightening, There were great dark rings around them like Snape hadn't slept for days. His entire face, on the whole, seemed a shade whiter.

Harry supposed it was his mouth, however, that was making the greatest difference. When Harry had last seen Snape, the man's mouth had been curled into a tight-lipped sneer that screamed arrogance and disapproval. It was that sneer that had taunted Harry and irked him most of all. But as Harry looked at Snape now, his mouth was slack, with only the tiniest hint of a frown on it. It made him look slightly tortured and defeated, as though he had spent the last few days in prison.

It was plainly apparent to Harry that this was one persona that Snape did not often put on public display, something that made him feel guilty for intruding upon a clearly private moment.

He backed away slowly, not wanting to get caught any more than he wanted to get punched in the face by Dudley. He hurried back up to his room and tucked the covers hard up around him. Although he had originally gone downstairs to clear his head, Harry found that it was even more clouded than before, and it was a long time before Harry was once again able to enter a fitful, nightmarish doze.

In the morning, he awoke much later than he was accustomed, and by the time he got downstairs, his breakfast was stone cold. Using his fork to toy with the unappetizing lump of stale eggs on his plate, Harry though, i I've got to talk to him. I'm not going to spend the rest of my vacation like this! /i

But, as with most everything else, this was much more easily said than done. For the rest of the day, Harry scrupulously planned how he was going to approach Snape and what he was going to question him about. Dumbledore i had /i said that Snape had all the answers right? All he had to do was ask.

Tonight. He would approach him tonight. He would wait in the sitting room until he heard a shuffling in the kitchen. Then he would make his move, acting as though he was looking for a glass of water. Snape might not be happy with him, but he'd at least be cornered.

At around ten that night, after washing up and putting on his pajamas, Harry took his stakeout place on the couch facing away from this kitchen's hidden door. He took up one of the books laying on the coffee table in front of him, but his eyes merely traced over the words without picking up the meaning. He was nervous. Very nervous. What if Snape scolded him again? What if he sent him back to the Dursleys? The scolding, Harry reasoned, he could take, but for no reason did he really want to risk being returned to number four, Privet Drive.

For all his preparation, Harry didn't have to wait more than an hour before he heard a door shut and a shuffling in the room behind him.

Harry gave Snape around five minutes to himself before rising slowly from his very comfortable seat. Harry's heart was pounding hard in his chest now so that it was difficult to keep his breathing even. He knew he was going to have to do this quickly before his nerves gave out, kind of like jumping into a cold swimming pool. Without so much as glancing into the room beforehand, he pulled open the secret door and stepped over the threshold. But there he stopped, stock still.

Snape had clearly been fixing himself a small meal, but at the sound of Harry's footsteps, he spun around to face the door. "Potter," he said with a slight sneer. "What's a child like you doing up so late? You should be in bed."

"I…I couldn't sleep. I n-needed a glass of water." Harry stuttered. He was losing his nerve after all under Snape's withering stare.

"Liar," he said softly and slowly, enunciating clearly. "You wanted to ask me something." Harry goggled at him, unable to fathom how Snape had apparently just read his mind. "You'll find," the man continued, his sneer becoming more pronounced, "that it is very difficult to lie to me."

"Uh, yeah, I did," said Harry, trying to recover from the unpleasant realization that his thoughts were not private. But his voice became stronger with resolution as he asked, "I…I was just wondering if you knew my parents." He raised his green eyes to Snape's in hopeful expectation.

Snape's sneer wavered for just a moment, but didn't falter. He broke eye contact, looking up slightly, apparently examining Harry's unkempt hair. When he spoke, his tones were careful and measured. "Of course. We were in the same year together at school. Although I have to say," his eyes narrowed maliciously, "that I would have been much better off not knowing your father. He was perhaps the most arrogant, useless human being I have ever had the misfortune to meet."

"Don't talk about my father that way!" Harry cried out in anguish. He'd never been able to discuss his parents with anybody, and didn't want his mental image of them to be tainted by the sullied accounts of a bitter man.

"I will talk about your father any way I wish to," Snape shot back. "If you don't want to hear my opinions, don't ask. Now go back to bed, I don't feel like answering any more of your questions tonight." He strode across the kitchen, leaving his steaming pot untended, and grabbed Harry roughly by the wrist and forcing him out of the doorway.

"Ow! Sir! Please! Ow! Just tell me about the car crash, okay?" Harry pleaded as he tried with all his might to resist the older man. But to his surprise, Snape suddenly stopped and look down at him with wide black eyes, instigating eye contact for the first time since they met.

"What?" he said sharply. "What car crash?"

"You know, the one that killed my parents. The one where I got this scar." He pointed to his forehead with his free hand, still panting from the tussle.

For the first time in his presence, Harry felt he saw Snape's expression soften, but only slightly. "You think your parents died in a car crash?" His voice was so quiet that Harry could hardly hear him. "Bloody hell, Dumbledore said I might have to explain some things, but he never said anything about his." He was speaking through gritted teeth, and his voice seemed to get angrier with every word.

Harry was now very confused. Confused enough to not be frightened by a very peeved Snape only inches from his face. "You…you mean they didn't?"

Snape looked away from him and roughly let go of his arm. "You better sit down the, Potter," pulling out a chair from the table, looking frustrated and a bit frazzled. "You'll have to learn eventually, and though I am sure I am not this one to tell you, I don't suppose anyone else is."

Harry sat in the proffered chair and watched as Snape took the seat opposite him.

Snape drummed his fingers on the table and took a deep breath, making sure to look anywhere but at the boy's face. "Many years ago, there was a powerful wizard who went dark. His name," Snape rubbed his left forearm unconsciously, "was Lord Voldemort…"