Looking over at the low hanging, old fashioned futon sofa in the corner of his office, Snape shook his head in abject disbelief once more. There, snoring softly on it, covered in his cloak, was none other than Harry Potter.

He was vehemently glad it was still the middle of the night, because really, should anyone happen in across this scene, he was quite sure that his reputation would never recover.

Pulling a stack of grading towards him, he was thankful for his little sleep requirements. Scratching a quill across one of his better student's parchment, his eyes annoyingly flickered over the boy.

Just in case.

Scolding himself for being so utterly ridiculous, he dropped his head back to the essay in front of him but his thoughts were whirring, and they weren't potion based.

He had intended to utterly chew the boy out, issue dire consequences for his asinine behaviour and send him on his way back to his dormitory.

…but it hadn't quite happened like that.

Harry's eyes, even to him, had been full of fear at the thoughts of returning to his dorm. After putting him on detention for another week, Snape had caught the glint of fear and sighed. After suffering through years of childhood nightmares himself, he knew that returning to the place where they most commonly happened could be daunting.

He had then snapped to Harry that he could sleep on the futon, because frankly he didn't need him waking up the rest of his irritating little Gryffindor friends, whom he would have to suffer in their sleep deprived state in the morning.

His lips twitched as he thought of that explanation, as he checked the sleeping form once more.

It was quite credible.

Quite credible indeed.

His brow furrowed however when he registered the real reason he hadn't sent her maddening offspring packing.

He didn't have to admit it to anyone else, but he did need to admit to himself.

The growing feelings of care, of giving a damn, for the boy were indeed growing. He had tried to stomp them out. Tried to bury them deep in the core of his supposedly icy soul, but he couldn't quite manage it.

He didn't know if the protective stance that was beginning to take a stranglehold of him was a result of suppressed guilt, or because the kid actually wasn't all that bad.

He snuck another glance over at the slumbering, cloak covered ball, and smirked.

It was suppressed, transferred guilt.

It had to be.

…had to be…

He shook his head once more and not the first time wondered how in the hell his world had been so thoroughly blown off its axis, but in a creeping way.

A subtle way.

In a way that he didn't notice until it was too damn late.

He kept working, and flicking his gaze across at Harry, and before long the gentle dawn sun was beginning to spill into the room.

Glancing at the clock, Snape yawned slightly and stood quietly. Making his tentative way so as not to wake the still sleeping gatecrasher, he swept up the stairs into his quarters.

A quick wash and a change of clothes and he was back down, looking the exact same.

He glanced at the still sleeping boy and frowned.

Really now, it was the middle of the day. Just as he was about to prod the kid into consciousness, he stirred of his own volition.

Snape stood quietly as the transition from slumbering to awakening took place.

He had to admit it was hilarious.

The way those eyes widened in shock as the young Gryffindor woke to find him to be the first thing in his visual sweep. The way he scrambled off the couch with muttered apologies for being there in the first place. The way he looked down in confusion at the pyjamas he was wearing.

Within seconds the memories of last night seemed to replay in the kid's head, and he looked up at his professor apprehensively.

God he was so like her.

"Sir," he stuttered anxiously, "please don't tell Du-"

Snape cut him off with a wave of his hand.

"I don't intend to burden the headmaster with the many escapades of Harry Potter," he drawled sarcastically, "unless of course, you are late to my lesson."

He checked the clock once more.

"Which you will be, if you do not get a move on Potter."

Harry gaped.

There was no mocking.

There was no sneering.

There were no gleeful promises to inform his Slytherin's that Harry Potter had crashed on Severus Snape's sofa because he was having bad freaking dreams.

Wondering if he was still dreaming, Harry subtly pinched himself.

It stung.

He was awake.

"If you are quite satisfied as to the state of your alert consciousness Potter, I really must insist that you return to your house, and prepare for the school day."

Reddening slightly at his obvious lack of subtly, Harry nodded jerkily. Glancing down at his night dress clad state, he reddened further.

The school was moving above him.

There was absolutely no way he could get back to Gryffindor tower without a ton of people seeing his less than groomed condition.

Suddenly Snape's hand was moving, and he blinked.

Before looking down and breathing a sigh of relief at his transfigured state. He was fully dressed in his Gryffindor uniform, with not a pyjama item in sight.

"Anything else?" Snape murmured with a hint of sarcasm, "Perhaps I could organise room service for you?"

Harry found himself grinning.

In Snape's office.

Having spent the night there.

…and surviving. With all his limbs and vital organs unscathed and accounted for.

It was supremely bizarre.

It was one of the most surreal things to ever happen to him at Hogwarts.

Which was indeed, saying something.

"No thanks Sir;" he laughed nervously, "I'll just go now, then…"

Snape rolled his eyes and pointed towards the door.

"I entrust Ms Granger with the heavy task of ensuring yourself and Mr Weasley make it to class on time in the normal sense Potter, but now you are testing even her skills."

"Right," Harry murmured, before making his way towards the door and hesitating with his hand on the latch.

Surely he should say something.

"Uhh…thanks for-"

"Out Potter."

He didn't need to be told twice.

He scarpered.

Clambering into the portrait hole, he saw Ron sitting in their usual seats beside the fire looking at him in bewilderment.

"Where've you been?"

Harry blinked.

"Uhh….up in the owlery with Hedwig. I woke early and fancied some fresh air," he lied guiltily, not at all ready to explain whatever the hell was going on between himself and Snape.

Mostly because he had no idea what was going on between himself and Snape.

It was inexplicable.

Ron nodded his head in easy acceptance of this falsehood, and Harry felt his guilt rise. He hated lying, especially to Ron or Hermione.

She herself, melted in the common room as he thought it, and smiled at both of them in greeting before pushing them out of the room with dire thought of tardiness.

Sitting down to breakfast in the Great Hall, Ron was murmuring mutinously about their upcoming double potions class, with a less than flattering commentary on their professor.

"He's not that bad," Harry eventually blurted out, before he could stop himself.

He was met with identical looks of shock.

"What?" Ron demanded in surprised, looking at his best friend as if he were gravely ill. Hermione too, tilted her head in utter confusion.

"I uhh…I mean that he's…well, Dumbledore thinks he's good so…" he garbled nonsensically, blushing heavily under their searching stares.

He thought, to his horror, there was an inkling of comprehension in Hermione's eyes, but Ron continued to look merely flabbergasted.

"Are you sick mate?"

Harry was spared answering this, when Hermione butted in and utterly changed the conversation, and Harry knew he had seen that flicker of understanding, he hadn't imagined it.

Wonderful, he thought to himself miserably, spooning cornflakes into him in a half hearted kind of way.

Before long, they were making their way to potions class and Harry was beginning to feel sick with worry.

What if the…understanding or whatever the hell it was that was going on between himself and Snape was all a figment of his imagination?

What if the man mortified himself in front of the entire class?

What if he told them all he had basically been too much of a child to sleep in his own dorm last night?

His stomach churned.

Lining up outside the classroom, Gryffindor's on one side and Slytherin's on the other, he hadn't even the heart to glare at Malfoy as he habitually mocked him.

They all fell silent as Snape's familiar gate began to be heard, and before long the man had swept into view.

Harry braced himself.

…but Snape merely barrelled past him as always, without a second glance, without anything out of the ordinary whatsoever.

He breathed slightly easier as he followed Ron and Hermione to their usual seat.

The class began as it always did, and it became clear that Snape, at that moment anyway, had no intention of behaving any differently towards Harry than he usually did.

His breathing came even easier to him.

As this was one of their rare non practical lessons, he found his mind begin to wander as Snape's voice vibrated around the room.

He did despise potions after all.

That, at least, had not changed.

He was so tired….

His broken sleep was catching up with him, and after forty minutes of monotonous lecturing, he found his eyes begin to droop.

Before long his head was lolling on to his chest, his sleepiness unnoticed by Ron who was equally inattentive, and Hermione, who sat rapt with attention.

A tall Gryffindor in front of him blocked him from Snape's view, and before long he was utterly in the grips of sleep.

…and that's when the voices started.

One high, uncaring….purposeful.

One shrieking, hysterical…protective.

The familiar battle of murder facing off against motherhood.

He twitched violently in his sleep as the flashing green light soared across his sub consciousness, and as his mother's screaming echoed in his ears with a deafening pitch.

…but, she wasn't the only one screaming.

He was screaming.

In the middle of a crowded classroom, being shaken anxiously by a horrified looking Ron and Hermione.

Jolting fully into consciousness, Harry blinked and found the entire ensemble of the third year Gryffindor's and Slytherin's gawping in his direction.

Even Malfoy looked utterly shocked.

Harry flinched as Snape swooped down on him, looking down with an expression that was completely indecipherable.

Thrusting the book he was reading from at Hermione who caught it in trembling fingers, he glanced down at Harry once again with that expression once more before speaking.

"Ms Granger….kindly take over from where I left off. I will return momentarily."

He then took Harry by the elbow and pulled him from his seat. Ron bit his lip against the instinct to reach out and grab his friend back from the grasp.

Harry for his part, wobbled slightly as he stood, and looked up at the man who was causing so much conflicting emotions within him, and gulped.

Surely this was the end for him.

Snape eyed him for another moment, before bodily turning him in the direction of the potion's door.

"Mr Potter," he murmured quietly…"you, on the other hand, are coming with me."

…

TBC

…

A/N: Tbh, I'd lost the will to write this one, hence the late update, but a sick day from work and the resultant Harry Potter binge put me right back on it. Please let me know what you guys' think/want to see, because I've no set plot line in mind, so I can incorporate things that you want to read!

-Inks.