Disclaimer: The characters and settings, including any sentences taken directly or partly from the books or movies, of Harry Potter are the property of J. K. Rowling, Scholastic Books, Bloomsbury Publishing, AOL Time Link and Warner Brothers. I do not make money from publishing my story.

Snape limped into the hall after his student and Harry quickly offered support again. The hall was large in volume and the ceiling was at least three stories high. A broad white marble staircase started in the center of the room. It was circular in shape and made a lovely balcony on the first floor before continuing to the second in the same manner.

Wand still in hand and at the ready, Severus cast the Hominum Revelio spell, which indicated that they were alone on the property. Quietly, which in Harry's case was caused by him still being in awe of the mansion, they continued to the next room. Snape was momentarily distracted by the movement of the paintings on the wall there, to which he had raised his wand. The fine balance of the two people limping into the room was disturbed for a moment, at which it was restored when Snape lowered his wand again.

Adjoining to the hall was a fine living. The room was full of dark wooden furniture with white accents. The floor was again white marble, but crèmes and dark brown carpets accented the room nicely. It was a welcome change from the crowded rooms of Snape's home, but it made Harry wonder who's house this was.

"Put your belongings on the floor", he could be imagining it of course, but it sounded as if there was less malice in Snape's voice than usual. Deciding he didn't need to agitate his professor and bring back the malice in his voice, he quickly did as he was told.

While Severus was returning their belongings to their original size, the paintings on the wall of the living had caught Harry's eye. The paintings moved, proving that the house in which they resided had once belonged to a wizard, and while Harry didn't recognize any of the witches or wizards in them, he felt like they all resembled one another, like family did.

Meanwhile Severus had taken a variety of potions out of one of his own bags and drank one and applied at least two of them, mild pain reliever and a mild pain reliever. He also applied some orange paste to the wound itself, which seemed to heal the burn on the skin. After which Severus cleaned up and concentrated on his student and that which Harry had been obsessed with for the last few minutes.

Severus stepped up behind his pupil, "these people were all Princes, my mother's family", he turned away from the paintings and took a seat in one of the armchairs. His eyes glossed over in memory as he continued to talk.

"My mother was the eldest, having one younger brother. Her father and mother were both purebloods and had been raised as strictly as any pureblood. They believed that interbreeding with muggles would mean the end of the magical race and that lowering ourselves to technology was the lowest thing to do. They were as they would have called it a proper wizarding family."

Harry was reminded of his aunt and uncle, who wanted nothing but to be normal. He guessed that counted for Snape's relatives too, but their opinions of what was normal could not have been further apart.

"My mother was happy and so were my parents. That was until my mother fell in love with a muggle my father. Her whole family abandoned her and even disinherited her. Her parents stripped her of the Prince name and acted if she had died, even her brother whom she had been very close to."

Snape indicated to the very last painting to the right. It was of a man, not very old, but he looked quite sickly. He had the same dark brown almost black eyes, that his professor had. "She really loved my father, but my father wasn't too keen on her being a witch", Snape continued his tale, " as I remember he wasn't too keen on me as well."

"Her parents died soon after her marriage with my father, within six months of each other, they went sick with a mysterious illness, they say, I believe they died out of their loss of their darling daughter, they had never been the same after she left. Somehow I believe they had been forced to disinherit her. Her brother lived on for a few years, but then he too died, of dragonpoxs."

"Ever since my uncles death, I have been the sole heir to the Prince estate and heirlooms, that includes this mansion, though it only recently came to my attention", Snape said, concluding his lecture, by the look on his face he was done showing emotion, "this mansion will be our safe house, for now, do not unpack all your belongings, we need to be able to run at a moment's notice. Go upstairs and pick any room you like."

Harry walked over to his belongings and went to take them upstairs. Just before he left the room, Snape turned to him, "Get some sleep, Harry, you look like you need it." When he reached the first door upstairs, he took it. His legs felt like lead and he would really like to put his heavy trunk aside. So when he took the first door and it opened up to a medium sized bedroom with adjoining bathroom, he took it.

When he was getting ready for bed, he glanced in the mirror, even though Snape was right did he have to make it sound so sincere. Normally he wouldn't have taken a comment like that from Snape serious, but when he was still this emotional and used his given name..

Meanwhile Snape was checking all the existing wards and casting some of his own. Even though this house once belonged to a pureblooded family, which meant that a lot of time and effort had been spent on the wards, Severus needed to cast some of his own wards, just to let himself feel more at ease.

It had been a long and stressful day and soon Severus too retired to one of the bedrooms on the first floor. Before going to bed however he took one last look at the grounds, making sure that no one was there, even though the wards would warn him if anyone tried to breach the ground's wards. That night both wizards slept almost peacefully. Harry wasn't disturbed by dreams of his dying godfather nor of Voldemort related nightmares. Severus too slept without being tormented by the Dark Lord and the only thing that woke them both was the first light that shone into their rooms, produced by the warm July sun.

Still into their summer routine, breakfast was served between the two of them. It wasn't much, but Severus hadn't had much time to arrange provisions before they had fled Spinner's End. Nonetheless they enjoyed their breakfast, albeit simple toast and tea, and afterwards they cleaned up together. "Let's get you down to the library, I can help you with some studying and maybe get some of my own research done", Severus gave Harry a nudge out the door and the led Harry into the entrance hall again. The kitchen and dining room were on the same side of the house as the living. Harry hadn't been to the other side of the house yet.

They entered another cozy room. A lot of dark wood and green, the accents were in crèmes, which made it lighten up, but the most eye-catching feature of the room must have been the fireplace. A lovely white marble fireplace framed in dark wood and very detailed ironwork. The walls were covered in books and Harry felt like he was back at Hogwarts again, because adjoining to the cozy room were at least three smaller rooms all filled with more books.

Neither the height of the ceiling or the variety of books was inferior to Hogwarts own library. He should have expected it. A family as old as the Prince's would have had enough time to collect a fair amount of books and according to this, each family member had had different interests, but one subject stood out as one of the smaller rooms was filled with books on that subject alone, Potions. Severus began rummaging the different rooms and ended up with quite the stack of books, all kinds of subjects. Half the stack was meant for Harry, whom quickly accepted the stack when Snape handed it to him.