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"What are you doing in here, Malfoy?"
Draco paused a moment with the Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook in his hands, trying to see if he recognized the voice. He didn't, which left him with no choice but to turn around and see who it was. He would have preferred the option to simply march straight out of Flourish and Blotts with his nose in the air, but he was coming to accept that the world didn't always provide him with everything he wanted.
He still didn't recognize the person when he turned. It was a tall boy with eyes so bright and a flush so hectic that Draco would have thought he was a Weasley if his hair was red. But he was dark-haired and dark-eyed—and, more to the point, clutching a wand as if he wanted to snap it rather than aim it at Draco.
"Purchasing a book," Draco said, deciding that he should answer the boy's question with the maximum of cool scorn, after a leisurely glance up and down him. He had improved his notions of male attractiveness since he started sleeping with Severus, but this boy was no prize. Scrawny, and not in the rugged way that Potter favored, either; more as if his parents didn't earn enough Galleons to feed him properly. Surely he must be at least a Weasley cousin. "Do I know you?"
"If you don't, then it's because you must have forgotten me to assuage your guilt." The boy raised his nose. Not only a Weasley cousin, but a Weasley cousin with pretensions. "My name is Mark Pepperfield."
Draco frowned. He had memorized the names of people with a grudge against him during his Wizengamot trial, when it seemed that anyone who might have a case had appeared in the courtroom to testify. He was sure he would have remembered a Pepperfield.
"I didn't do anything to you." He lowered his voice, a trick Severus sometimes used when he was angry and wanted to catch someone else's attention rather than being turned out, and saw Pepperfield's eyes widen. "I'm a free citizen of Great Britain just like you are, pardoned by the Minister himself. Now, sod off." And he turned to the front of the shop with what he thought was a rather magnificent snap of his cloak.
"You let the Death Eaters into the school, and they made my little sister have nightmares!" Pepperfield yelled.
It was all the warning Draco got before something that hurt more than a splash of scalding water hit him in the back.
*
Eric Scarman was appropriately named, given the scars from torture he had running up his back and legs. (Harry was quickly coming to appreciate that chasing Dark wizards was not a profession for anyone vain). But he was a quick duelist, chosen to "help" the trainees with Curses and Hexes because he could hurl spells with supernatural speed. Harry had to rely on a combination of instinct and training to defeat him, and already it had earned him a bleeding finger, a broken bone in his hand, and several singed eyelashes.
Thus, it was pure luck that he dropped to the floor with shock when the phoenix mark on his left arm began to burn and missed Scarman's latest spell.
This wasn't like the burning that had invaded him when Snape and Malfoy were in danger of dying because of the bond, Harry thought absently as he scrambled to his feet. Scarman was commending him, but he couldn't listen right now. He concentrated on the pain instead, and identified it as a tingling surge, the same kind of sensation repeated over and over again.
A bell. A warning call.
And if it was the left mark, and not the right, or both, that meant Malfoy was in danger.
"Sorry, sir," he gasped to Scarman, who was frowning because he hadn't responded to the congratulations the way he was supposed to. "I've—I have a bond connecting me to a friend, and I reckon he's in a spot of trouble," he improvised desperately. Scarman would probably think he was talking about Ron. Everyone knew how close Harry was to his best friends, and a bond wouldn't surprise them.
Scarman hissed under his breath and stepped out of the way. "Nothing a Death Eater would like better than striking at a war hero," he said. "I wish you luck."
Harry held back his hysterical laughter as he scrambled for the doors of the classroom. Not Death Eaters, not likely. And if you only knew.
Once again, the moment he was outside the Ministry building, the burning call sharpened, and he knew where he was going even though he had no idea of the Apparition coordinates. He stretched his left arm out in front of him, watched the phoenix's claws and beak and wings glow red-gold, and said, "Take me there."
The marks flared brilliantly and pulled him through time and space as if those things were a sheer curtain that had been suddenly lifted.
*
"Take that for destroying my sister's future," Pepperfield was saying, somewhere beyond the pain. He sounded a bit shocked, but pleased, as if he hadn't thought the spell would work this well.
Draco clamped his teeth down on his tongue, doing his best not to scream. He knew people were staring, but no one in the shop so far had moved to help him, so he didn't think they would. The very least he could do in the face of hatred like that was to keep some sign of his pain from his tormentor.
There had been no point in not screaming in front of the Dark Lord. He could always use Legilimency to learn exactly how much it hurt.
And then boots landed solidly beside his head, and Draco turned weakly over, gasping, wondering if Pepperfield's sister or someone else from his family had arrived to help torture Draco. It couldn't be Severus. He was never that lucky.
But no, instead it was Potter, who crouched down beside him and put a hand on his left shoulder. Draco shivered. The pain in the left side of his body ceased instantly, and then the pain on the right side was gone, too. He was grateful for the healing, but Potter's anger was like a marching lightning storm. Draco didn't want to be caught out in it.
"What did you think you were doing?" Potter did the lowered-voice trick even better than Severus, maybe because of his name. Pepperfield actually stumbled back into a bookshelf, and looked as if he were about to drop his wand. "Using a curse on someone the Minister pardoned? Someone who had to survive Voldemort ordering him to torture people for almost a year?" Draco frantically wondered how Potter knew about that. "And what about you?" He turned a furious glare on the rest of Flourish and Blotts. It looked as though everyone present would have poured out into the street, except that they were afraid to move. Potter's voice was rising in power and volume now, and every book in sight was jumping, the pages shaking as if they would tear free of the spines. "Don't tell me you didn't care, that you'll willingly see anyone tortured for his blood. Fuck me, you're as bad as Voldemort—"
It took a large effort, as Draco was rather enjoying the show, but he put a hand on Potter's shoulder. "They're going to wonder why you're so upset," he muttered.
Potter irritably tried to work his hold off. "Let them. Bloody bastards, hurting someone because of who he's related to—"
"Yes, but do you want them to know about the bond?"
He might have emptied a liter of ice water over Potter's head. The git froze, and the image Draco received of his emotions was of lightning halting in place, then cracking and falling from the skies. Then he sighed and helped Draco to his feet. "What curse did you use on him?" he demanded of Pepperfield.
"The Scalding Arch Curse," the boy whispered, and Draco shivered. The pain from that curse built until it exhausted the body's ability to resist it, if left untreated. He was lucky indeed that Potter had been there and he hadn't had to go to St. Mungo's.
He wanted to resent that—he was dependent on Potter for physical protection; really, he was no better than a pet—but Potter's brow contracted, and his eyes flashed most impressively, and he said, "That's Dark Arts!"
Draco shivered again, but this time because he had finally seen what Severus was always going on about in the last month: how magnificent Potter was when he was angry. He was tense, too tense even to tremble, and he was leaning forwards. Given how lean he was, it made him look like a winter-hungry wolf ready to rip Pepperfield's throat out.
"Yes," Pepperfield whimpered. Draco wanted to laugh at the way he shook now, too afraid to look away from Potter's eyes. "I—I didn't think. If you knew that he caused my sister nightmares—"
"Lots of people have nightmares," Potter said. "Not all of them go around using illegal Dark Arts on the people they believe are responsible." He surveyed Pepperfield with a coldness that would have done credit to a Wizengamot judge. Draco did his best not to look smug. "What's your name?" Potter asked at last, in a tone of voice that suggested he was barely resisting the temptation to say that Pepperfield must be called "Idiot Imbecile, of the Mudville Imbeciles."
"Mark Pepperfield," said Idiot Imbecile, or at least that was what he said when you left out all the stammering.
Potter took a deep breath. "Then I'll see you under that name in the Ministry tomorrow morning, when there's an official investigation into this," he said. "Good afternoon, Pepperfield." And he turned and escorted Draco, arm still around his shoulders, to the door.
Someone stepped in front of them. Draco scrutinized her narrowly, but he didn't know anyone outside his family with hair that pale—it was almost white—and big blue eyes full of tears, either. He sighed in irritation. Why must there be so many innocent victims in the world?
"I don't understand," the woman whispered. "How could you support him and think well of him, after all he did?"
"I'm training to be an Auror," Potter said. His voice had got colder yet. His anger was back to a mutter on the distant horizon, which signaled a storm coming rather than one actually there. Draco was glad he'd retained that measure of control. Maybe they could get out of the shop without burning all the books in sight. "That means protecting innocents no matter how much I might disagree with their personal politics. And Mr. Malfoy has paid as much of a debt as he had to pay." The woman went on staring, and Potter made his voice thinner until it was practically a hiss. "Get. Out. Of. Our. Way."
She finally did squeak and scurry then, like the mouse she was, and Draco strutted out at Potter's side.
The pain in his back was completely gone. Pepperfield being tried, or at least scolded, by the Minister himself would put a damper on other people who might think to attack him simply because of what he'd done in the past.
And the Chosen One, the Minister's current pet trainee Auror, had practically staked a claim to him in public—and done it in such a way that Draco thought he might come to consider him a friend in the future, rather than just someone who went out of his way to protect everybody he came across.
What wasn't to strut about?
*
"He cannot have used the Scalding Arch Curse."
Harry fought the urge to roll his eyes. Snape was being difficult, as usual, in this case because he was staring at Draco's back expressionlessly. "That's what Pepperfield claimed he used, and Draco said he felt something like that, too." Draco, under Snape's hands, twitched violently. Harry frowned at him. Really, everyone was behaving strangely today. "Maybe it was something else, but it would have to be something that resembled the Scalding Arch pretty bloody closely."
Snape transferred the expressionless stare to him. "And how would you know what spells resemble the Scalding Arch?"
Harry blinked like a lizard and tapped his fingers against his Auror trainee's robes. "Learning all about curses is a part of my exalted program of education, remember?"
Snape simply grunted and turned back to Draco, then began tapping his wand in a series of jerky motions. Harry sat back in his chair and watched intently. He still didn't know if Draco needed to be taken to St. Mungo's. If so, then it would suggest the bond hadn't worked as well as Harry thought. His touch could only relieve pain, not take away a curse.
If not…
Harry nibbled his lip. Snape hadn't mentioned healing as one of the side-effects of the bond. On the other hand, saving Snape and Draco's lives had been the first thing he ever willed the bond to do. Maybe it made sense that part of that was still hanging around.
Draco suddenly gasped. Harry grabbed his hand, and Draco squeezed hard enough that Harry thought he was competing with Ledbetter in the "smash-Harry's-bones-to-a-pulp" contest. He looked at Snape. "What is it?"
"Nothing unexpected," Snape murmured. "Sending a Seeking Spell into the muscles in search of pain is not painless, though it is easy."
Harry narrowed his eyes. He'd never heard of a Seeking Spell, and would have to remember to ask Hermione. For right now, he would trust Snape, who would probably not want to hurt the man he loved. But he might do something that wasn't the most comfortable thing simply because it was expedient, and Draco didn't deserve to suffer like that. So Harry would still ask Hermione.
"Causing pain to find pain," he contented himself with saying now. "That sounds counterproductive."
Another blank stare, and then Snape stepped back from Draco, shaking his head. "I must research the bonds further," he said. "I did not know that this was possible. For that matter, I did not know that it was possible for us to summon you when we were in danger from something that had nothing to do with the bond itself." He looked at Draco. "Or did you consciously call out for Potter?"
Draco sat back up at last and shook his head, tugging his shirt down. Harry surveyed his motions critically. His instructors had just begun the courses on seeing shock and critical, hidden injuries, and Harry still wasn't very good at them. But as far as he could tell, Draco was all right. "No. I wished someone would help me. That's all."
"Then I must study," Snape said, and stalked away with his robes flowing impressively. Harry waited until the potions lab door had closed behind him before he snorted.
"He's acting as though I'm shedding poisonous particles that will kill all his delicate potions ingredients," Harry muttered.
Draco tossed him a curious glance. "You forget we can feel your emotions," he said. "Severus knows that you distrust him and feel protective towards me at the moment. I don't think he likes it that one part of your feelings changed and the other didn't." He paused. "Why do you still feel protective of me? And why are you calling me Draco?"
Harry jumped and started to accuse Draco of reading his thoughts after all, and then remembered he had said the name aloud. That was when Draco had twitched.
And Draco's cheeks were pale again now. It seemed he understood the reason for Harry's momentary flash of apprehension and hated it. Harry sighed. "I'm still not used to this," he muttered. "But the main answer to your questions is that I saw you as someone in need. Someone I could do something for. Snape isn't like that."
"He needs your emotions to survive." Draco's face was the curiously blank one now. "You're bound to his soul and his magic, and him to yours."
Harry rubbed a hand over his face and flopped against the back of the chair. "Yeah, but he's still…I don't know. I don't think he'll ever need me. Me as a person, the one person who can make a difference in that situation. If he was bonded to you, then he would need your emotions and your soul and your magic, in my place. It wouldn't matter to him that it was you and not me. Except that he might think it was a little easier, not being tied to someone he hates."
"You like being needed." Draco's voice was curiously low and clear. Harry again looked at him, but he was shite at reading Slytherin faces.
"Well, yeah. I do." Harry shrugged. "But too many people needed me for generic reasons. They needed a hero and a savior, and not Harry Potter. But today you required protection, and that was something I could do, based on my training. Not something that happened when I was a baby, not something I barely remember. And—" He hesitated for a moment, then decided that he might as well be honest, since he'd started talking about this already. "I was destined to fight Voldemort because of a prophecy, you know? But not me, at the same time. It could as easily have been Neville Longbottom."
Draco made a noise like Dudley choking on a chicken bone.
"Yes, really." Harry grinned at him. "But Voldemort decided on the half-blood, like him, and not the pure-blood as the dangerous one." He shrugged, thinking about what Dumbledore had told him, on that long-ago afternoon when he was still grieving for Sirius and trying to deal with this flood of new information about what his role in life was. "So the prophecy needed a hero, too. Not me."
"But maybe I needed any Auror," Draco said. "Not you. So how do you reconcile my need of you and Severus's lack of need?"
"I don't know," Harry said. "Maybe just because I've learned how to protect people from the Aurors and I didn't learn anything about accidental magic; it simply happened." Draco looked dissatisfied, but Harry decided to change the subject. He'd said more than he should have on a subject he didn't understand that well. "What were you looking for in the bookshop?"
Draco reached over to the table next to the couch where Snape had treated him and displayed the book. Harry smiled at the title, 301 Ways of Protecting Yourself from Curses. "Matthewson is good," he said. "But a bit of a beginner's text." He was reading much more challenging books in Auror training now.
"I know," Draco said, and folded the book close to him. "But I never sat my NEWTs in Defense. I wanted one that could remind me of basic concepts I'd forgotten."
"Are you going to take your NEWTs?" Harry relaxed back into the chair. He was proud of himself for finding common ground they could talk about, without constantly talking about the bonds or Snape.
Draco shook his head. "I know what I want to do," he admitted. "Create a new discipline that combines Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts. I need more information than I have right now to do it."
Harry blinked. "But Potions and Defense are fine on their own," he said. "I can't think—what would you do when you combined them? What do you want to accomplish?"
Draco scowled at him and hugged the book more tightly. "I don't know yet. I just know that I want to combine them."
"Well, think about it," Harry said.
Draco sneered. "What? Concerned that if I succeeded, they might make you learn Potions in your training?"
"I'm going to start that next year," Harry said, and threw in an exaggerated shudder and eyeroll so that he could get around the tension that was starting to hover between them. "Unless you think you can develop it that fast, then I don't have anything to worry about."
Draco hesitated. Then he said, "I could help you study for the Potions part of your exams."
"Why?" Harry said. Draco stared at him, and he added, "I just—why do you want to? Don't you think that it's best we keep out of each other's lives as much as possible?"
"Honestly?" Draco was speaking very softly now, so softly that Harry had trouble hearing him even when he leaned forwards. But he paused, so Harry had to nod to show he was interested in his answer. "No. Of course not."
Harry frowned and played with the edge of his shirt. "Why not?"
A flood of words broke out of Draco, as if he'd been longing to talk to someone about this. Of course, Snape probably isn't the most sympathetic person if you want to make an intimate confession, even if he's great in bed, Harry thought wryly. "Because this bond is something powerful, and important, and special. If it can heal a curse like the Scalding Arch Curse, then it might be able to affect our lives even more than that. I want to know what the bond is, and does. I want to know you better." He hesitated, and color stained his cheeks. "I want to know you better as a person, too."
Harry shook his head. "But we're happy the way we are now."
Draco rolled his eyes. "You think that because you're never here for Severus's mid-morning rants about the way you run out of the house."
Harry started to ask why Snape would want him around more, and then sneered as something Draco had said before connected with these words. "He thinks the bond is powerful, just like you do," he said flatly. "He wants to use it to gain power, doesn't he? Or prestige. Or acknowledgment of his greatness at potions. Or maybe just power over me. I've never been certain what Snape wants." He shook his head and stood up. Bitterness coiled through him like oil, destroying all his pleasure in being able to laugh with Draco and talk like a civilized person. "I should have known." He strode towards the door.
Draco leaped up and intercepted him. "You don't understand everything," he said. "Yes, we do think that we could become powerful through this bond. That's a reason we chose to share our magic, remember? Because this particular spell would ensure that our combined strength was available to all of us, and not merely to one."
Harry looked at him. "I remember that. And I thought Snape was actually being practical. Should have known it was another Slytherin—"
"No. Listen." Draco pressed his hands into place over Harry's wrists. "Yes, Severus wants power. So do I, for that matter. I was raised to expect it, as my father's son, and Severus joined the Death Eaters to pursue it. It's just mad to think that we wouldn't try to take advantage of the bond.
"But that's not the same thing as taking advantage of you. We really do need your emotions to survive, not because we wanted to peep into your head. You know that from the effects that not feeling them had on us."
Harry jerked his hands out from under Draco's. His head was reeling, between the anger and the contempt and the confusion. "But I don't want you to want power at all."
Draco stood up straighter and looked him in the eye. "You don't get to control what we feel and do any more than we get to control you," he said quietly. "This is what we are. What if we said that we didn't want you to become an Auror because there's a chance that we could die if you lose your life in the pursuit of Dark wizards?"
Harry ground his teeth together. "But protecting someone else is good," he said. "In a way that wanting power isn't."
Draco rolled his eyes. "You used your power with the Minister to get us those pardons, didn't you? You used your magical power to heal me today and keep the people in the shop from attacking me again, didn't you?"
"I never asked for that power," Harry began.
"But you still have it, and you use it." Draco snorted. "I refuse to believe that merely wanting power can somehow cause more problems than the use of it."
"The worst leaders are the ones who want to become leaders," Harry said, though with the vague sensation he was wading into deeper philosophical waters than he was prepared for.
Draco rocked back on his heels and stared at him. "That's the greatest piece of shite I've ever heard," he said. "Who do you think will be the better leader, the person who's trained for it and thought about the consequences of his decisions and tried to find some way around the most obvious problems? Or the one who sits back and wrings his hands and worries because he might be making the wrong choice? Would you want Albus Dumbledore leading Hogwarts if we had a war against another Dark Lord, or Neville Longbottom?"
Harry shook his head. "It's still not the same thing. Dumbledore didn't want power. He was just there to defeat Grindelwald, and after that everyone treated him like a hero." He would keep some of the things he'd learned about Dumbledore's fallibility to himself; he didn't see why Draco needed to hear him speak ill of the dead. "He didn't wake up one morning and ask himself if he wanted to conquer the world. Voldemort and Grindelwald did."
"But once he had power," Draco said calmly, "he fought to accumulate it. Unless you think he never tried to sabotage the Ministry and was grateful when they tried to take away his control of Hogwarts."
Harry hesitated. Then he sighed and shook his head again. "I don't know where to draw the line," he said. "I don't know what constitutes wanting power and what doesn't." He rubbed his forehead, wishing he still had the scar to blame headaches on.
"Then it's rather short-sighted of you to scold me and Severus for wanting it." Draco sneered lightly at him, but Harry could tell that expression didn't have the same force it would have had when they were in school. Then he frowned. Should I be worried that I know that much about him? "Leave it to go forwards. If we start causing harm, then stop us."
Harry thought about it, and found himself surprisingly all right with that. At least he trusted Snape and Draco more than he would have someone like Lucius Malfoy. And if he had misjudged them horribly and they woke up one morning cackling about bloody purity and threatening to kill half the wizarding population of Britain, then he could use the bonds to stop them.
"I'll do that," he said, and yawned.
Draco raised one eyebrow. "Is my conversation that boring?"
"No, my sleeping periods are that short," Harry said wryly. "Can you believe that I thought Auror training would be easier than going in for a seventh year at Hogwarts?"
"Again, rather short-sighted of you." Draco folded his arms as if he thought he had scored a point.
"Piss off," Harry said amiably. "If I'm not going to interfere with your choices, then don't interfere with mine." He started for the door.
"Harry."
Surprised but pleased—it was the first time either of them had used his name without sounding sarcastic—Harry turned around. Draco was looking at him with a serious expression. He bit his lip and said, "When I start helping you with Potions, then can you help me with Defense Against the Dark Arts? I need to know that, too, if I'm going to combine them, but I'm not as good as you are at it."
Harry stared at him for a moment. Then he began to grin. "Was that a touch of humility I hear, Malfoy? Getting back in touch with your childish side?"
Draco made an extremely complicated gesture at him that should have been impossible whilst he was still holding a book. Harry laughed. "Sure. I can help you with that. It's a fair return."
Draco relaxed. "Good. I'll see you later." And he turned and walked out of the room. Though Harry studied him carefully, he couldn't see any of the stiffness or flinches that would have meant the Scalding Arch was still affecting him.
He rolled his eyes and shot the closed potions lab door a disdainful look before he left. "Why can't you be more like him?" he muttered.
*
Severus stared down at the calculations on the parchment, and then shook his head.
Granted, he was working from experience of healing potions, rather than from an expertise on bonds or a familiarity with healing spells. A Healer from St. Mungo's would know more.
But because he hardly intended to tell a Healer, a stranger, about the bonds that linked him to Draco and Potter, he would have to become an expert on bonds himself.
Severus rubbed the phoenix on his arm and leaned against the wall, closing his eyes. He had heard the whole of Draco's and Potter's conversation. They had hardly tried to be quiet, and the lab door bore spells that would conduct sounds to his ears, mostly so that he could hear if someone tried to invade—which was all the more likely now that he and Draco were going out in public again and receiving outraged letters from those who thought they shouldn't have been pardoned.
And he had realized, with bitterness and with a long argument against accepting the obvious in his own mind, that he had indeed gone about seducing Potter in the wrong way.
It was not enough to want to seduce him. Unlike Draco, who had been starved of position attention and required a large dose of concentration during lovemaking in order to soothe him and bring out the best in his personality, Potter was used to people looking at him and wanting him for various reasons. The little speech Severus had eavesdropped on showed that well enough.
He would not be flattered by the attention of a man old enough to be his father, a man he had ample reason to despise. He had not lived with Severus as Draco had and come to know him that way. (He was still not truly living with him). He would not be impressed by Severus's Potions knowledge, and he had shown that Severus's teaching methods were not well-suited to him, even if he had been inclined to take advantage of that knowledge.
And he hated the very notion of seeking power, so he would hate the very notion of exploiting the bond to its fullest potential.
Severus shook his head. So he must show Potter compassion, respect, and—it appeared—frankness. He now had a much better idea of why Potter had invited Severus into his rooms when Severus's temper flared. That was what he was familiar with in their interactions, and so he had assumed that Severus was only being honest when he was angry or disgusted.
And it could not be calculated compassion, respect, and frankness. Potter would pick up on that. He would assume that Severus was feigning everything in order to get close to him and gain power, and that might even cause him to move out of the house. At the very least, he'd never allow Severus another chance.
Severus rubbed his hand across his mouth.
I must actually feel those things for Potter. I must actually wish to demonstrate my honesty.
And as yet, I do not think I can.
Severus took a deep breath. Bitterness like Muggle coffee coiled in his mouth whenever he admitted defeat. But he had to do it now. There was no way he could set out on the kind of campaign he had planned and win Potter's affection and interest, which would be necessary to cement any physical bond.
So he must wait until he did feel some interest in Potter's life, and not simply in altering Potter's life so that he would spend more time with Draco and Severus. He must wait until he thought more often of Potter's random flashes of beauty, his strength, his dedication to protecting the innocent, and his other good qualities, than he did of his negative ones.
If I can actually do this…
Then I would make a good partner for him. But I have to think about that, rather than about molding him into a better partner for myself.
Severus shut his eyes. Albus had laughed at him once when Severus said that it was easy to show sympathy for another person, and harder to criticize them objectively and help them improve.
"Ah, Severus," he said. "If you only knew how hard it is for many teachers to show interest in individual students and not simply in those who are like themselves, you would not say that. Professors aspire to an ideal that we rarely achieve." He had sighed then and stared at the wall. "Merlin knows I have my own pets."
And Potter was one of his pets. But Albus still endangered his life and hid information from him and assumed that he would have to die in order to save the world.
Potter had never had whole-hearted support from anyone except his two best friends. Severus had seen enough glimpses of the boy's home life during the Occlumency lessons not to fool himself about Potter's Muggle family.
Someone who could actually support him and care for him would be invaluable. But I cannot do that if I try to do it.
It was a paradox.
Severus straightened his spine.
But I have always enjoyed a challenge.
