Harry remembered his lessons with Thella. Love first. Use no other vehicle. Focus exclusively on what he wanted for seventeen seconds. Keep it simple, don't ask for everything all at once. Back to her kitchen safely. Visions of Iece in Draco's arms gave him the lift he needed. The image made him smile involuntarily, and that's how he knew it had caused a genuine feeling, and wasn't forced. When he opened his eyes, he was back in the brightness of Thella's kitchen.

She sat with her ipad and a fresh cup of tea, as though she'd been reading while she waited. Only twenty minutes had passed, she told him. He felt he'd been gone all night. He wanted to tell her everything, but decided on only the highlights. Excitement filled his voice and he leapt into what had happened, knowing she was one of the few people who would believe him and possibly know what the hell he was talking about. When he left her, he didn't know when he'd find another person to share so many private details with. As much as he wanted to talk to Draco about it, he knew that door was currently slammed shut. It would only upset Draco.

Thella listen politely, not batting an eye when he told her that Snape's mother had more to say about her. If she knew any more about their preternatural connection, she didn't let on. "I'm just happy you got what you wanted."

He really had. He knew how to get into the portrait now. He didn't learn how Snape and he were related, but Eileen said that would come, as if she'd get Snape to talk. He practically had permission to go forward and now that he did, he couldn't hold his excitement back.

He left Thella, using the CIUM ring to portal back to the travel hub so that his return was registered. Then he apparated back to Jipsy's vault. He arrived to see her dressed in Ladoria's pink lace slip, which bundled into a puddle of folds at her feet. She seemed embarrassed and startled, immediately replacing it with her track suit by snapping her fingers.

"Sorry, Jipsy. I didn't mean to surprise you."

Her smile forgave him and she asked if he'd like breakfast. In her time, he'd been gone all night. He couldn't do the math on the time discrepancies between here and Thella's environment, so he shrugged it off. The only person's time he needed to be concerned with was Draco's. He told Jipsy that the trip inside the photo was a complete success and that he now had the key to getting inside at Hogwarts.

"Jipsy knew that you would master it, Harry, sir."

A thought made him hesitate. But the more he reflected, the more he decided to give into it. He bent down to her and told her not to be alarmed. He hugged her. He was going to ask for permission, not sure of the etiquette between elf and employer, but he couldn't hold himself back. Surely, she was too smart to be insulted, too intuitive to mistake his actions.

"Thank you for joining our family, Jipsy. We really needed you."

Her little body felt rigid against him and he understood that she wasn't at all accustomed to physical touch or this kind of expression. He tried to make it quick, for her comfort, but he thought of what it would've been like to hold Dobby and remembered that he never got to until it was too late. Would he have feel like this? Like some little rubber mannequin, only warm beneath his pillowcase? She was as small as a child, and he just wished he'd been able to give Dobby as much grateful affection as this, just to say thank you for all the times he'd helped. Just to let him know that he'd forgiven all the nasty tricks Dobby had played, that had Harry seriously hating him at one time. He knew he couldn't use her to make up for the past, so he let her go gently and checked to see if she was okay.

Like a good elf, she made no complaint and her smile appeared genuine, reaching up to glistening, emotion-filled eyes. "Jipsy is happy to serve the Potter-Malfoys."

That's all he needed to hear. Great, he hadn't offended her elf sensibilities. Once they got clear of the bank, they apparated home. Harry entered to a quiet dawn, filling the condo with grey and gold morning light. He'd missed his window to return before midnight, but wasn't concerned with any argument Draco wanted to start. He found him asleep next to Iece, in his and Draco's bed. He laughed at the musical chairs game, the lengths that Draco went to, to keep from sleeping alone. He'd be lucky if their slumber continued for another thirty minutes. It was time for them to get up and here he was just crawling into bed. Didn't matter. He climbed in behind Draco, wrapped his arms around him, and enjoyed the most satisfying thirty minutes of his life so far.

When Draco awoke, Harry couldn't wait to show off the fact that he no longer needed glasses.

Draco lay beneath him, looking unimpressed through sleepy eyes. "You think you can trust her because she fixed your vision? Muggle's conquered refractive surgery over twenty years ago. And no offense, but you look weird without your glasses."

"But now I can wear sunglasses and look really cool, like normal people."

Draco shifted on the pillow. "Not with those eyebrows. They're out of control. We need to get you a man facial. It's like your magic is trying to warn people not to fuck with you or something. Please wear your glasses. This woman sounds bossy and has no regard for how her actions might affect our private life."

"But she helped me," Harry defended her. "And the glasses hurt my eyes now. Everything's blurry," he grinned, putting the glasses back on as if that would be all the proof Draco needed.

The other grabbed his wand from under his pillow and zapped the lenses. "There. Can you see?"

"Yeah, what'd you do?" Harry took them off to examine them.

"They're just fake lenses now. No prescription. I'm not ready to look at you without them. It's too startling."

Harry laughed, but Draco's brow furrowed in thought. "The nerve of that witch. You're not to undergo any dramatic transformations without discussing it with me. You rarely look into a mirror. I'm the one who has to look at you, and I'll say when I'm ready for this."

Harry detected a hint of possessiveness, even jealousy. He liked it, and demonstrated by kissing him. They made love one more time before the morning got away from them.

Several hours later, while Jipsy bathed and fed Iece, he and Draco talked. They arrived at some hard won agreements. Draco didn't want to hear anymore about Snape's mother. "You're going to find what you're going to find. Go. Get it out of your system. Just let me take her to America. Everything's going to come out. I don't want her around the gossip. Hell, I don't want her around the truth. Not until she's old enough that nothing can cause her to doubt herself. Let me take her. Just me, her and Jipsy. For a while. Don't look for us, especially while things unfold. Let me come to you when we're ready. I've already invested in some property. We both know a trial is coming. I need to be able to retreat with her. It's gonna get crazy for us and you're not going to be here."

"I'm not going to be gone that long. That sounds like you're asking me to give up my daughter."

"No, I'm asking you to trust me to keep her safe while you go off on another daring adventure that may or may not land you in prison or kill you. I'm tired of having to discuss it. We've tried doing it part-way, your way, it doesn't work. You're split between us and whatever compels you to go chasing after a dead man. It isn't helping her. This time, stay away until you've finished whatever it is you're trying to do. Search the ends of the world for Snape, for all I care. Just get it out of your system so that when you come back home to us, you're really there for her. Not concerned with anything else."

"I'm doing this for her. Snape might have answers."

"Stop lying. You're doing this because you need Snape, she doesn't. Snape died in your arms and then you found out he loved you from the get go. That he treated you like shit because he couldn't let on how much was riding on you. You want to give your fucking life to Snape, admit it. You're chasing after a ghost that you idolize. You're hanging all your hopes on him, with nothing to go on. Look at her, she's awake. She's playing, there's no more danger now that she has the bracelet. She could live the rest of her life this way, but you still want to drag Snape into this. Well go find him. I can't stop you and I'm tired of trying. Just admit that you're the one who needs him, not her. Stop using her as an excuse."

This stung, but Harry's restored faith allowed him to listen without anger.

Draco confessed to having already hired bodyguards to keep themselves hidden. Harry forgave his lack of faith. He admitted that he hadn't given him a whole lot to believe in. His track record was terrible, but he refused to fight about it on the cusp of finding Snape. He gave in. If this is what Draco needed to help him feel better about things, then so be it. He trusted him. "Okay."

He wanted to say that he wouldn't be at Hogwarts for more than a week, if that, but experience was teaching him to keep his mouth shut when it came to time. Draco was still pissed that he lied about staying gone so long last night. It was obvious that he was going to miss Harry, but something had him rattled. He levitated a canvas bag from their closet shelf and took a handful of extra wands and wrist-watch devices from it, placing them in a suitcase for Harry.

"You go through them so quickly. The wand may choose the wizard, but you seem to be able to persuade any wand to cooperate."

They were all generic anyway. Nothing was ever going to replace his first one that Hermione broke ages ago. He'd always known he'd have to make his magic adapt to whatever he was holding. The Ministry had contacted them to state that his wand was retrieved as evidence. They'd ordered Narcissa Malfoy to hand it over, as it had been left on her dining room floor. It would not be returned to Harry prior to the investigation.

Draco went on, "The watches still work. I'll have to charm some more, but take what we have and use them if you need to. Don't underestimate the trouble you could still get into in that castle. If you need me, I'll come."

He looked as though it pained him to say it. He hugged Harry, but pulled back. "Don't need me." His tone said, between you and your daughter, I've got enough to deal with.

Their foreheads touched, appreciating the last intimate moment they would have together for a while. Draco's grip on him felt harder and more desperate than usual. He wondered why Draco was shaking.

Upon answer from McGonagall, to his request to visit, Harry arrived at Hogwarts two days later. The Headmaster's office looked and smelled exactly the way he remembered. Like a scholar's underground foray into sorcery. Like old leather and brittle pages left in the sun. And licorice, though McGonagall's sweet tooth fell upon the preference of butter mints. She still kept licorice around to honor the memory of her friend. Her presence had only enhanced the office's Old World charm with feminine cultivation. She made an aged thing lovelier to behold. More graceful.

Her Gryffindor colors, splashed about the room in touches of trinkets and souvenirs, were the only displays of her personal bias. She welcomed Harry with a sober smile, hot tea and biscuits while she listened to him. Ancient artifacts that only a sorcerer knew how to use, stood locked from the students. Thick tomes hunkered behind grills, leaving the portraits of previous headmasters to look down on their meeting. He tried not to let it show that he was looking for Severus's portrait among the many, and couldn't find it in its place. Dumbledore's portrait had waved at him upon his arrival, before dozing off or pretending that he wasn't listening to their conversation. Harry didn't care. Nothing bad could ever happen to him here. If those seven years hadn't killed him, he hardly felt threatened by the next week or so.

"So good to have you visit, Potter. The students are in for a treat. You're in our history book now, so I do hope you can make it to the Great Hall for dinners during your stay here."

"Of course, it's the least I can do. Thank you for letting me come back. I know my request must've sounded crazy."

She sipped, looking over her glasses. "Not at all. I'm well aware of what the trial put you through and your unique set of circumstances." Here, she paused, giving him time to consider a message that she was too polite to throw in his face.

He got it. Snape would not've disappeared without telling her something of the truth, if not everything. She'd been closer to him than Dumbledore, even. Snape might've been Dumbledore's henchman, but she and him had actually befriended one another for survival throughout all the old schemes. She'd already allowed him to take the Professor's ashes and now he was back asking for something more outrageous than that.

He continued, "Well, I wouldn't be here if it didn't concern my daughter's health. I explained everything I could in the letter, I just don't have answers to it all. But I've been investigating for a while and I'm led to the portrait. With your permission, I'm hoping to engage with it to try to get answers. I'll consent to any security wards, in order to have the time alone with it. I'll disturb as little as possible and leave like I wasn't even here."

"Shush. I'm not concerned about your ethics, Harry. I practically raised you, I know you love this school as much as I do. When you explained your daughter's situation, I knew I had to open every door I could to help you. How very dreadful, with her so small and innocent. Draco must be beside himself. Of course you may use the office at night, at your convenience, to question the portrait. I don't know how cooperative Professor Snape's image will be, but if anyone can persuade him, I'm sure it's you. After all, we now know how he really felt."

His heart lifted. His thoughts exactly.

"I've done my best to prepare him, of course, of your arrival. Mostly, during the day, he is agreeable, and keeps to himself unless the students pester him for details of the war. They want to talk about you and try to pick his brain. He pulls their most humiliating moments from their minds and taunts them until they run away. Shameful, I know, but we can't understand what traumatic difficulties a portrait carries with them into that nether world, or how long their scars last. They really should respect his wishes to be silent on the matter. He's given enough."

Harry was stuck on that last detail. "It occlumences? The portrait is capable of Occlumency?"

"Unfortunately. However, nothing more serious than crushes and bed-wetting, have escaped the tender craniums which guard their juvenile secrets. The portrait possesses more residual magic than most of the others, but yes, it can affect anyone who makes a habit of staring into his face. We think the children are inadvertently lending it their magic or manifesting their own fears by what they believe to be true about the portrait. Either way, it's only defending itself. I'm constantly shooing students away. The portrait was placed in the antechamber behind me, to give it some peace, but students occasionally risk severe discipline by sneaking in to have a glimpse. Castle wards catch every one of them. The Professor becomes quite the enigmatic attraction each spring."

Harry almost said, cool, but didn't want to give his enthusiasm away. "That sounds promising, like there's something real of him that I might be able to work with."

"I only hope you find the answers you're looking for." Tenderness in her voice and eyes encouraged him to take all the time he needed. "Filch is still with us, you'll have clearance to come and go from your room as often as you need to. It's so good to have you back."

Their conversation meandered into politely catching up with the details of their lives, until she excused herself and let him into the antechamber. She gave him the incantation that would get him passed the wards any time he wanted. They stood a moment, looking up at Snape's portrait together. It was larger than average and dominated the wall. In the room, amid all the deep greens and patterned burgundies accentuating 18th century parlor furniture, cabinets of undisclosed records and scrolls, as well as a small hearth, this could've been exactly the office of choice for the person staring back at them. He had it all to himself. The other paintings were of beloved staff members who had never approached the rank of Headmaster.

"Well, here he is," McGonagall waved her hand. "My dear friend."

The portrait hung, large and stately, in an ornate frame that boasted of handcrafted mastery. It suited Professor Snape's demanding exactitude well, and Harry wondered if McGonagall had chosen it. The skill involved in creating such wide panels of meticulously engraved and guilded wood, felt laborious and exhaustingly tedious as he studied it. Like one of Snape's assignments. There he was, dark in all his layers of black, unmoving, arms folded, and frozen in a perpetual stance of barely tolerating whomever was currently annoying him. The artist's magic had softened the way his robe reflected light, rendering his chest and shoulders with contours of fabric that tempted the hand to reach out and touch. His face remained lined with tension, unforgiving of those who gawked at him, and Harry could hear exactly what that structurally precise mouth sounded like as it belittled him for the hundreth time in front of his class mates.

"If you don't have anything useful to contribute to this discussion, Potter, I suggest you turn your attention deficit to the board and make use of the few minutes you have to write down my theorems before something bright and shiny distracts you again."

The memory of being chastised unfairly, made Harry take a deep breath. Only Snape's hair, chopped harshly around his face and shoulders, hinted that something softer lay beneath the mystery of the man he was now looking at. Something hidden. His hair flowed in gentle waves, feathering around his temples and drifted behind his stiff, Victorian collar. Its texture softened those butchered edges and made him look more attractive in death than he had ever allowed himself to be seen in life. Harry could see why students were fascinated with it, making it the popular haunted house equivalent, out of all of Hogwart's magical portraits. Kids probably dared each other to try to make it react to them.

McGonagall's eyes got misty and she waved her bout of emotion away. She told Harry, "Good luck getting him to talk. If you need me, you know how to reach me," and patted his shoulder before leaving him alone with the portrait.

Harry waited. The Professor looking down at him continued to fake his indifference. It never wanted to speak to him before. He knew what it would do if he continued to stand their waiting on it to respond to him.

"I'm back, as you can see."

Portrait Snape held his stance.

"Don't worry, I won't stay long. Just until you talk to me. I've learned some new tricks. I'm not that kid that you bullied into hating you anymore. And I also know that you're alive. You're fooling everyone. Even the Headmaster, who gave you her loyalty and her friendship." He shook his head, letting the judgments against Snape pile up. "That's okay, though. I know now that this is just your way of protecting everyone. That's why I'm determined to talk to you, no matter what you think."

Portrait Snape's pupils moved, barely perceptible. That black center, darker than the irises, expanded as it took more information in. An ethereal wind, borne on magic, lifted strands of his hair. Harry thought his caped shoulder moved as he shifted his footing.

"I think you can help me. You knew about the curse before Nagini attacked you. Before you became a painting, therefore, your portrait knows what you knew. I'm asking you, please talk to me. Please help me figure out how to save my daughter. She seems fine now, but I know she's sick. The same curse that affected me and Draco, is damaging her. It's turning her into something and ruining her childhood. If you think I'm gonna turn back just because you won't talk or want to pretend to be dead, you're in for a rude surprise. I didn't come to be nice. I came for information. And as much as I love you, I know you're going to be an asshole because you always were. I'm prepared to go right through that, to get what I want."

Now the portrait took an interest in him, tilting its head and feigning mild acknowledgment of Harry's audacity. Harry knew that it would avoid him if pressed, leaving him, so he whipped out the photo he was carrying and held it for Snape to see. It was a copy of Jipsy's photo. Eileen and her baby confronted the portrait. Snape squinted at it. His face grew dark with realization.

"Have you talked to your mom lately?" Harry asked. "She had some things to say about you. She helped me a lot, and gave me her blessing to find you. Cute kid, right? Who knew you were that cute? We only thought your face had one mode. Scowl. I stare at this all the time." He shook the photo. "Except for the hair difference, you look like my kid. Amazing, wouldn't you say?"

Snape's portrait was no longer grimacing, but looking with suspicion and appall at the photo. His mouth had gone slack, offended, and unable to recover. Harry thanked Eileen for this effect. He couldn't have done it without her.

"I guess I got your attention now. How about talking to me and answering some of my questions? You have nothing to lose."

The portrait summoned its most imposing rejection and stared daggers into Harry's plans.

"Please. I need your help or I wouldn't be here."

Snape looked as if he'd predicted Harry's pity-plea long before now. And he still didn't give a crap. He suddenly drew himself up, backed away from the frame and turned to dismiss Harry from his sight. His cape folded over his shoulder as he strode into the interior of his painting. It was the same response that Harry had always gotten since the portrait's appearance.

He itched to follow inside, but knew he had to wait till after hours. Kids might spot him if he had to follow Snape into other paintings. He'd cause a ruckus. The other paintings might tell, disrupt classes and ruin the goodwill between himself and McGonagall. He had to get his head, and his plan, together. After surviving Eileen, he'd hastened to make a guilt-free departure from Draco's hurt feelings. It cost him a lot to be there and he wasn't leaving empty handed. But he did need rest and clearer mind, because he planned on pursuing Snape through every last painting in the castle if he had to.

He spoke to the back of Snape's billowing cape as it disappeared into the depths of the painting. "I will come after you. You can't hide in there. I will find you." If Eileen's picture could tell him secrets, then Snape's could as well.

"You'll tell me how to help my daughter and how we're related. You'll tell me, or I'll die getting those answers from you."

He held the photograph until his arm grew tired and lowered. He listened to his vow lingering in the silence. The other portraits were watching him without daring to interrupt his thoughts. His threat didn't make them hospitable, but they knew who he was and wasn't concerned about the school's safety. Just about the threat given to one master from another. They kept their curiosity to themselves, and whispered out of Harry's earshot.

Eventually Harry left to get some sleep. He knew his quest to find Snape, was going to take all night. If he entered the painting this evening, it might even be a week before he found his way out again. It all depended on what he'd have to do to get Snape to talk. At this point, he was prepared to do anything.


Thank you all for reading! Until next time. :-)