Whoa! Big jump in the number of reviews! Not to mention 10 separate Communities! Not bad at all! For those of you looking forward to finding out what their animagus forms are... you're going to have to wait a little longer. I think it'll come up next chapter. One person did make a guess about what Harry's form is, and came close but not quite. I will say that none of the forms are animals that have shown up in the Harry Potter world, as such.

Thanks must go to Xikum for her wonderful betaing skills. Also to JK Rowling and the others who own the characters herein. I, by the way, don't. Enjoy! Review if you want to! I always appreciate it.

Mythic Alliance

Chapter 7

That night, as Snape patrolled the corridors absently, he was not at all surprised to find someone in the Astronomy Tower. It was slightly unusual that there was only one person, instead of a couple, but it wouldn't stop him from taking points and enjoying himself as he did.

As he stepped deliberately loudly into the room, he saw the student turn, his wand coming up as he entered. He recognized the movement even before he saw his face. "Mr. Potter. Is there a reason you have broken curfew? I do believe Dumbledore would not allow another detention for several days, so I'm going to be required to take points."

Harry put his wand back into its holster, but didn't speak. He just shrugged and turned back to continue looking out the window.

"Mr. Potter, are you ignoring me?" Any gentleness was gone from the professor's voice at the snub.

Harry turned back. "I'm sorry, Professor."

Severus was ready to tear strips off of the Gryffindor's hide with several well-chosen words when he actually looked at the boy. His face was pale, his hair lank and sweat-soaked, and his eyes deeply sunken and baggy.

"If you're having trouble sleeping, why haven't you gone to see Madam Pomfrey? That *is* what she is here for, is it not?"

Harry shrugged with disinterest again, and Snape admitted to himself that he was ever so slightly worried. It was not like the Golden Boy to be so... detached. He didn't think he was going to get an answer, but finally the boy deigned to speak. "She said she wouldn't give me any more sleeping potions until the beginning of next month."

"That does not sound like her," Snape mused. "How many has she already given you this month?"

Harry looked away and muttered something too low for the professor to hear.

"What was that?"

"Ten, okay? She gives me ten at the beginning of every month so I don't have to keep going back to her."

"Are you telling me that you have used ten sleeping potions in two weeks time?" Snape roared.

Harry flinched back, tucking himself deeper into the corner of the window and Severus took a deep breath, trying to get himself under control. "Nightmares or insomnia?" he finally asked, when he was sure his voice wouldn't be too harsh.

"Is there a difference?" Harry asked with a rough laugh. "The nightmares get so bad I'm afraid to sleep. I stay up as long as I can, only to fall right back into them again. It's a good thing I learned silencing charms years ago. I'd really never get any sleep if I was always worried about waking my dorm mates up."

Severus frowned. "I've seen no signs of it."

Harry shrugged again. The potion's teacher was getting very tired of those shrugs. "I'm good at hiding it. Just like I am with everything else."

"What are the nightmares about? *Them*?"

Harry snorted. "Sometimes, but not usually."

"So what is it?"

"What isn't it?" Harry asked, exasperated. "Cedric *died* in front of me! And why? Because I had to be a stupid Gryffindor and share the prize. 'Kill the spare'. That's what he said. Like it didn't matter. Like Cedric didn't matter! And you know the worst part?"

"What?" Severus prompted.

"In my nightmares, half the time it's not even him I see. I dream that it's Ron, or Hermione... someone I actually really know and care about. And that's even worse. Not only seeing them dead in front of me, but knowing that I'm glad it was Cedric, and not one of them. He doesn't deserve that. He deserves better than just me and a bunch of Death Eaters remembering his last moments. Why couldn't I just have been as selfish as you've always called me? Just that once?"

"Both the Dursley's and myself have a great deal to do with that," Snape admitted.

Harry looked at him in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"To be truly selfish, you've got to believe that you deserve good things," Snape told him. "Regardless of what I may have previously believed, it's obvious that you do not. However, I must admit that my constant put downs probably did not do a lot towards building your self confidence."

Harry shook his head, but the small smile on his face was a true one. "You were the only one who ever treated me normally. I needed that."

"Your definition of normal would not be the same as that of most other students in this school, most other people at all."

"True, but it was still better than being treated as the bloody Boy-who-Lived. Sure, sometimes I could really dislike the unfair way you acted, but I'd rather you were that way then fawning all over me like Lockhart."

Severus nodded his understanding, but knew it wouldn't help his own guilt. He should have noticed and done something. He was a teacher. No matter what he believed about the way Harry grew up, no matter how much the boy looked like his father, he should have been able to see past it to the true child underneath. This was his failure, and he would not be absolved of it. What really hurt was wondering if he'd have missed the signs if Potter had become one of his Slytherins, and his fear that he would have.

"So that's it? You dream of the Third Task every night?"

"Oh, Merlin, no!" Harry laughed again in a way that contained no happiness. "I dream of my parent's deaths and dementors, of the basilisk in Second Year, of Pettigrew in Third. I dream of the first person I ever killed." His voice trailed off.

"You haven't killed anyone," Snape said, shocked.

"What about Quirrel? He dissolved from the touch of my hands. And I knew something like that would happen if I touched him. I saw what happened to his hands... and I touched his face anyway."

"You didn't have a choice."

"There's always a choice," Harry said flatly. He touched his side gently. Snape watched intently, he knew that was a site of one of the scars they'd not been able to remove. A puckered scar that looked like a burn.

"How did you get that?" Severus probed. He hadn't managed to get answers any other time they asked, but he thought Harry might be in the right mood. He was right.

"My uncle smokes cigars sometimes," Harry answered, then shut his mouth.

Severus tried to decide whether a gentle pushing or a taunt would get him the answers he wanted, but in the end decided to stay quiet. He hid a smile at the realization that his instincts were correct as Harry started speaking again, at which point any thought of smiling completely left his mind.

"That summer, I had a lot of nightmares about Quirrel. I'd wake up screaming about him burning up. Unfortunately, I'd wake the Dursleys up too." He turned away and looked out the window, his voice dropping to a ragged whisper. "He said that if I was going to wake everyone up, screaming about burning, he'd give me something to scream about."

Severus decided that since his instincts had been spot on already, he would continue to follow them. Yes, it would completely ruin his reputation, but he'd done that with this boy several times over the past few weeks. With a resigned sigh, he settled down onto the deep window ledge. Waiting until he could tell Harry was looking at him again, he did as he would occasionally do to homesick Slytherin First Years, he reached over and picked him up, settling his frozen form onto his lap.

"What are you..." Harry sputtered.

"You are not that stupid, Potter, so there is no reason to finish that sentence," Snape replied.

"I'm too big to sit on your lap!" he squawked.

Severus raised one eyebrow. "I disagree. You are actually very small for your age."

"Fine then, I'm too *old* to sit on a lap! Especially yours!"

"I don't recall giving you a choice," Severus replied evenly. "So just settle down."

"This is very undignified," Harry wheedled. Severus was happy to note that the detached tone was gone from his voice and there was life in his eyes once more.

"I'm glad you realize that. I was under the impression that you didn't even know what that term meant."

"Draco explained it to me," Harry said cheekily, though shadows were still dancing at the back of his eyes. "Undignified is you falling into a mud puddle. Undignified is also you, sitting on a window ledge in the Astronomy Tower, with a Gryffindor *on* *your* *lap*!"

Severus gave a rusty chuckle. He should have expected something of the sort. He really should have. There was no way the boy would actually give in and cry. After all, his own reaction would have been much the same, with a bit more sarcasm and less humor. The best he could really hope for was a slight relaxation of the body he held, a relaxation that had not happened as of yet.

"Have you tried meditation?" Severus asked.

Harry nodded. "It works for some of the dreams," he admitted.

"Which ones does it not?"

Harry's hand went up to ghost across his scar. It was all the answer Severus needed.

"You have visions of him?" he asked intently.

"Not exactly," Harry muttered. He sighed. "My scar has always hurt when he was around. Now that he's got his own body, it hurts whenever he's feeling really angry. He's angry a lot, isn't he?"

Snape snorted softly. "That's one way of putting it. He has never been the most patient or forgiving person, and I can not see fifteen years as a spirit having changed that in any way."

"You've got that right," Harry said in an annoyed tone. "It's not that I see what he's doing, not that I remember anyway, I just feel it. Sometimes it seems like I can feel when he's casting a spell, like Cruciatus, but I'm not sure if I'm really feeling it, or just remembering what it was like to be under it."

Severus frowned at that, and pulled his wand. Harry went even tenser at the sight, but didn't move away. The potions professor waved his wand over the boy, running a quick, and more specific diagnostic spell. He frowned at the answer he received. "You're showing the faintest signs of having been under the curse. Not as if it happened a while ago, but as if the curse was very weak and not well directed."

"I can never get back to sleep when that happens. I'm always too jittery and my skin feels as if it's crawling. Meditation doesn't work at all on nights like these," Harry said softly.

Severus absently rubbed his hand over Harry's back. He cursed his unthinking reaction as Harry went from unbearably tense, to rock hard tenseness. But he didn't stop, acting as if he hadn't noticed the reaction. His reward came minutes later, as Harry ever so slightly relaxed. He was still nowhere near to comfortable or pliable, but he also wasn't acting as if the older man's every move was going to hurt. Severus started speaking, and his no nonsense words and tone of voice actually helped the boy to relax even further. "Although there is a potion that can heal damage from the Curse of Pain, I do not believe it is necessary in this case. A simple calming potion will do just as well with the low level of nerve damage you've sustained. I will give you enough for several days, just in case, and upon your next detention you will brew your own. It is a simple enough potion that even you should not be able to mess it up."

"Yes, Professor." They were silent for a couple of minutes. "Professor?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"Can I get up now?" he asked plaintively.