*Sort of graphic descriptions of violence in this chapter.

Chapter 3

The night before the students arrived, Harry had terrible dreams.

In the first one, he was teaching in front of a classroom of students and any time one of them raised their hand, Harry was filled with hope that they wanted to answer questions he was asking about the Dark Arts. But every time he called on one of them, they had questions they wanted him to answer about his personal life or the war. Tell us how you found the last Horcrux. Does your scar still hurt sometimes? When are you going to marry Ginny Weasley?

The next dream was about Snape. It was a memory, actually. Holding Snape's open neck in his hands, his blood spilling through Harry's fingers like sand, Snape's desperate wish. Look at me.

In the morning, McGonagall gave them assigned seats at the head table and briskly informed Harry with a smirking look over her glasses that the Defense teacher's traditional place was beside the Potion Master's.

When Snape arrived late and took his seat, Harry just wanted to watch him. Watch him breathe, examine the way his scars closed. He felt worried for Snape as if Nagini had bit him last night instead of five years ago.

"Feeling alright?" Harry mumbled and he immediately wanted to sink into the floor for opening his mouth.

Snape put down the kettle for tea and turned to look at Harry. "Are you alright, Mr. Potter?" He had that indent between his brows that meant he was dealing with stupidity.

"Actually, it's Professor Potter," Harry said under his breath but he was pretty sure Snape heard him because of the slightest pause Snape took while buttering his toast.

The hours between breakfast and dinner, when the students started to flood into the hall, went by much too quickly for Harry's liking and he felt completely unprepared. He'd spent weeks reading everything Hermione had found for him to read, planning out his entire first term of lessons, carefully thinking about assignments to make them interesting instead of typical essay tasks. But nothing he found in a book could tell him how to dodge the kinds of questions he heard students asking him in his dream.

These were the questions he whispered furtively behind Snape's back to Neville, who was seated on Snape's other side.

"What do you do when they ask questions about the war?"

"Sometimes it's good to just throw them a bone and answer one or two," Neville said, leaning too far into Snape's personal space because Snape glared at the top of Neville's head like he was trying to set his hair on fire. "But then get straight back to the topic at hand, shows you're cool but also not going to let them run the show."

"Of course, why didn't I think of that?" Harry said, truly feeling stupid, and leaning fully back into his own chair.

There was one other thing he was really afraid of.

"What if," Harry said leaning back behind Snape to talk to Neville this time, because Snape glared warningly when he tried the other way. "What if they say mean things? Like to your face or behind your back and you find out somehow?"

Neville laughed. "You're Harry. Bloody. Potter. They're not going to."

"Alright," Harry said, small.

"Really," assured Neville. "And besides you've always known how to deliver a good come back."

"Right," Harry said. "Still, my feelings would be hurt."

Neville laughed at him again. "The Boy Who Lived, ladies and gentleman," he said.

The Sorting Ceremony went on seamlessly. One Gryffindor first year tripped endearingly on his way down from the hat and his house elders came and carried him to the table, which was cheering him on. When the feast began, the energy was as good as Harry remembered it and briefly, he forgot his troubles.

He barely slept. In the morning he was too nervous to eat but also strangely starving at the same time. Still, he kept away from the Great Hall, instead staying in the office near his classroom, reviewing his plans for the day.

He was sure he would muck it all up when his first class came in, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor third years. But as the lesson began, he found he'd made so many meticulous plans (Hermione's advice) that there wasn't enough time to do everything he'd wanted them to. He'd given some of them Sneakoscopes and assigned a number of classmates to be designated liars to set the Sneakocopes off. They had to collectively figure out who of them was "sneaking" and Harry found himself smiling during the lesson more than not. It reminded him of Dumbledore's Army and gave him confidence for the rest of his classes, which were all older students.

He almost got through to after lunch feeling like he'd overreacted about being talked of and stared at.

In between classes, he'd gone to the lavatory and ran into a group of lost first years on their way to the dungeons. Although Harry wanted to protect them from Snape rather than deliver them, he helped them find their way.

When they arrived at the classroom door, Harry stood to watch them enter and find their seats. It was deathly quiet in there, the first years clearly stunned into silence by Snape's mere presence.

One of the girls he dropped off turned back before sitting and rushed back out to Harry.

"Are you the man called Harry Potter?" Harry had to lean down to hear her whisper.

He smiled. "Yes." She must be muggle-born.

The girl nodded as if she was processing this information and turned back quickly into the classroom to find a seat. Snape was thankfully pretending not to pay attention.

Harry turned to go and the smile wasn't even dead off his face when he heard the click of a camera, the flash blinding him and casting his shadow on the wall.

"What-"

Blinking and furious, he didn't even need his wand to summon the camera into his hand.

It was an older Ravenclaw student with a cringing grin and his hands still shaped in the air around his camera. His friend was standing next to him, eyes wide, as if to say this was NOT my idea.

Harry looked at the camera and the lens made an audible crack. He opened the back and shook the film out. It fell to the floor.

Snape, hearing the commotion, came to the door to see what was going on. He saw the camera in Harry's hand and his eyes flashed.

"Mr. Brandi," Snape started, ready to probably take 2 points from Ravenclaw or something. For all he cares about me, Harry thought.

"It's alright, Professor," Harry said. He picked up the film off the floor and walked to the student called Brandi, handing it to him.

"Rita Skeeter will pay you 50 galleons for that," Harry said. He made it his business to know the going rate for pieces of his life. He shrugged and handed over the camera too. "But if you hold out, you can get her up to 100."

He climbed the stairs out of the dungeon, feeling the eyes on his back the whole way.

When his classes were over for the day, Harry was summoned by McGonagall via the fireplace.

He Flooed to her office and Snape was there with her. Of course.

Out of habit, Harry glanced back behind him where he knew Dumbledore's portrait was. Dumbledore was asleep. Or, as Harry suspected he often was, pretending to be because he thought it'd be a hilarious way to spend his days posthumously. Pretending to be unconscious while listening in to private conversations.

"What were you thinking, Potter?" Snape was immediately on him. "Now we'll have half the school trying to get a photo of you for allowances to spend at Hogsmeade! Or down payments on houses, according to your information!"

"I broke his camera! I really doubt that's very encouraging. And how many students have cameras like that? The one he was using are the same ones used by the professional stalkers that I have to deal with all the time. There's no way-"

"You idiot!" Snape hissed.

Harry gaped, outraged. "Oh, you-"

"Silence!" Mcgonagall yelled, coming between them and then adjusting her glasses. "Really, you two! It would do you good to remember that you are colleagues now and should communicate in a professional and rational way."

Snape laughed, seeming to remember Harry's correction the day before. "Oh yes, Professor Potter," he said, "the picture of professionalism."

McGonagall glared at Snape. "Are you quite finished?" Snape didn't answer.

"Harry," she started, "it was maybe not the best course of action to break Brandi's camera. That is his personal property, you see, and his parents could make quite a stink about it. However, considering the severity of his indiscretion, we may be able to take the focus away from that unfortunate choice of yours."

Harry hung his head. "I'm sorry. You're right. I just was-"

He looked up. They were both waiting for him to finish.

"I was having such a good day and this one first year muggle-born student whispered to me privately asking if I was Harry Potter and it was sort of cute and non-invasive and I thought for a moment I'd manage the whole day with that being the worst of it. And I just lost my temper. I'm sorry, it won't happen again."

"Alright, I'll take your word for it," she said. "But we should also announce through the Head of Houses that anyone taking photographs without permission will face punishment."

"Oh, do we have to, Headmistress?" Harry said, his brow crinkling and the edges of a headache creeping in on him. 'That's seriously embarrassing."

"Perhaps you should have-"

Harry cut Snape off. "Yes, yes, I know. But don't you think that might just draw more attention to the incident? Maybe we should not do anything and see what happens."

"Famous last words," Snape said.

"That I will leave up to you, Harry. You, after all, would mainly suffer the effects of that particular experiment," McGonagall said.

Harry's headache had well and truly arrived. "Oh all right," he said. "Announce it then."

It seemed both Harry and Snape preferred not to leave through the Floo, because they both awkwardly took turns out the door and down the stairs from McGonagall's office. When they were out in the corridor, Snape whirled around from in front of him and opened his mouth to speak.

Harry beat him to it, because maybe it was easier to fight with Snape than to be openly reverent of him.

"You, you absolute git! You can't possibly have anything else to say- unless you're going to try to take 50 points from Gryffindor? Because you can't, because I'm not your student anymore for you to reprimand. And I can call you a git anytime you are, actually, being one," Harry said, looking around to make sure there weren't any students. "And I will!" he added for good measure.

"I receive your insults with pleasure, Potter. That way I can tell you to shut up and keep your arrogant, pig-headed self out of my dungeons so I don't have to involve myself in the obstacles to law and order you cause wherever you go!"

"Oh my god," Harry said as a pain, sharp and precise as a needle, threaded through the right side of his head. "You are literally- How can you be so ridiculously difficult to talk to?!" Harry clutched his head and closed his eyes, the image of Snape's black eyes boring into him seared over his vision.

"And," Harry rushed to add and opened his eyes before Snape had the chance to respond, "I was only in the dungeons because I was helping first years find their way to your classroom because god forbid they're late- you'd eat them alive!"

Snape was suddenly looking calmly behind him. Harry turned to see two students with Prefect badges coming up the corridor. They looked like they were trying very hard to mind their own business.

That was when Snape stepped into his air space and leaned down to speak low in Harry's ear.

"Be careful or I'll eat you alive too."

Yes, Harry thought. Fighting's definitely easier.

He dreamt again that night. This time the students in his classroom did nothing but take big blinding photographs of him and Harry was frozen to the spot in front of the room, just waiting for it to stop.

He dreamt Ginny was begging him to come back home and Ron and Hermione were telling him in a Floo call that he didn't belong there.

He dreamt of Snape, too. He was holding his neck again, but there was no blood. Just Snape's big throat in his hand, his fingers pressing into his jaw line, Snape looking at him, dangerous.

Then Harry was on his back and Snape was over him. He was still looking at him, staring straight into his eyes and pinning him to the spot, pressing their hips closer together. Harry wasn't resisting because it felt…

Good.

More than good. Harry suddenly became choked with desperation, with want. He raised his head to get closer to Snape's face, but Snape pulled back, his hand around Harry's throat this time. Harry moaned so Snape would feel his vocal cords vibrating inside him, so he could do something.

And then Snape was moving. The hand in Harry's hair trailed down, down, down the middle of him until he reached the edge of Harry's white t-shirt and Snape grabbed a fistful of it and pulled it up to reveal Harry's stomach. The cloth of his shirt dragging against his skin made him feel crazy and it looked so flimsy and ripable in Snape's big veiny hand. Snape had gathered it tightly so the taut pressure was so different from the careful way Snape's face was hovering just over Harry's skin and breathing on it, his nose sometimes skimming it.

And then the tongue in his belly button.

Harry threw his head back and felt like crying. When he looked down again at Snape, Snape wasn't looking at him, just licking the skin around his belly button and taking bits of flesh into his mouth and sucking, kissing.

He looked up at Harry and said "I'll eat you alive."

Harry woke up, moaning into his pillow. He sat up in bed, panting in the dark.

Breakfast was extremely difficult. Harry not only was horrified with the turn his dreams took last night, but was forced to sit next to Snape merely hours after his disturbing awakening. And as Harry suspected Snape could read his mind (even without a legilimens spell) ever since he'd met the man, this was triply disconcerting.

But was he really attracted to Snape? Was his mind playing him scenarios in his dreams just because dreams can be bizarre misplacements of thoughts and feelings? Was it ultimately meaningless?

But Harry knew it couldn't be, because as Snape sat at the head table next to him that morning, he had to force himself not to glance at the way Snape trouser's might or might not be gathering around his-

NO!

His mental reprimand was so loud in Harry's own mind that he cringed, almost sure that Snape heard it. But Snape was just pouring tea for himself and repeating Harry's question from the day before. "Feeling alright, Potter?"

"Yes," Harry said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. "And I won't be offended by your question because it's a perfectly nice, reasonable thing to ask someone."

"Mmm," Snape said, and proceeded to completely ignore him.

When the mail came, Harry had a letter from Ginny. He found himself hoping Snape hadn't seen who it was from.

And he had another letter from Ron. Harry opened that first and stuffed Ginny's letter into the pocket of his robes, when he could read it later in private.

Harry,

Didn't think I'd be sending you one of these so early in the school year but we need you to come in on this case. A very high profile muggle celebrity's disappeared and their minister suspects there's magic involved. As we hope the muggle is still alive, 'fraid it's quite urgent. Get in touch as soon as you can.

Ron

Harry showed the letter to McGonagall immediately, apologizing for having to have his classes covered so soon and he was off. He stopped by his room for a couple of things, including his badge, and quickly made his way out of the castle and down the hill into Hogsmeade.

He Apparated just outside the entrance to the Ministry of Magic and dialed himself in. When he got to the office, Ron looked to be in the midst of leading a briefing around a map of London with John Dawlish, another Auror, and Bernie Pillsworth. Bernie was from a department that protected wizard secrecy, and sometimes was sent down to consult or be debriefed in cases involving muggle society.

"Harry," Ron said. "That was fast!"

"What's happening?" Harry said, pulling up a chair.

"Victim's name is Rebecca Rickton," Ron said, pointing to a still photograph of a pretty, thin brunette woman. It was hanging in a corner on the same board they had the map of London open and tagged.

"Muggle moviestar, very public figure. Disappeared from her Kensington flat 4 days ago- paparazzi saw her going in but no one saw her come out. When they searched the place, she left her cellphone, her wallet, her keys, everything and whoever took her left a message."

"Boyfriend?" Harry asked.

"Unfortunately, no," Ron said. Boyfriends were usually easy suspects. "No girlfriend either, from what we can tell."

"What made the authorities think there was wizard involvement?" Harry said.

Bernie responded. "The message," he waved his wand at another photo under the picture of the woman and it slid into Harry's hand. This was a moving photograph- a clean, white bedroom with an old painting hanging over the bed.

Across the painting, it was as if an invisible hand was writing in blood:

Let's play

I hide

You seek

When the message was done writing itself, it erased and started over again.

"Magic," Harry said, his stomach twisting. "Have any of our people searched the flat?"

"Not yet," Ron said. "We were just about to go."

Ron, Dawlish, and Harry made their way out of the ministry and Apparated to the Kensington location.

It was less flat, more townhouse. The bedroom was on the top floor and Harry started there while Ron and Dawlish started on the ground floor.

Harry found no typical signs of a struggle, which seemed more proof that a magical person was involved who could have spelled her immobile or unconscious immediately upon arriving. The more Harry saw of her life in the room, the more sick he got. Cup of tea near her bedside, a post-it stuck to her wardrobe mirror that said "CALL JERRY!", a book on her shelf titled The Highly Sensitive Person. Harry guessed she might be the type to keep a journal, but the police probably took it already.

And then the message.

It was there and still writing and rewriting itself, but slower now that the magic was wearing off. That gave it an even worse effect.

Harry got closer to it, wanting to smell if it was really blood or some kind of red paint. It was odorless.

But keeping his face close to the painting made him notice something else.

The picture itself.

It looked ancient, like a true oil painting from a museum cracking with age. It was a very intricate depiction of a section of town filled with small children and all the children were playing games. Climbing walls, hanging things out of windows, walking on stilts, riding each other's backs. Let's play.

What if the painting was placed there after the woman'd been taken?

Harry looked around the room. There were sets of small framed photographs on each wall with monochromatic frames. This larger painting was easily the largest in the room and just didn't fit.

Harry stepped onto the bed and then on the bedside table to be tall enough to look at the top edge of the painting.

No dust.

He whispered a levitation charm to lift it off of the wall. Sure enough, there were four markings on the wall, as if a smaller portrait had hung there and was removed.

"Ron?" Harry called. "I think I've got something." The back of his neck tingled and he suddenly dreaded being alone.

They were walking in Notting Hill, where they'd interviewed Rebecca's parents and one of her friends that also lived in the neighborhood. It didn't give them much.

"It's obviously some sort of challenge," Ron said. "He wants us to find them."

"It's performative," Dawlish said. "Rigging a painting, symbolic imagery. Maybe a serial murderer? But why take a muggle?"

The question hung between them. A double decker bus beeped at Harry because he'd stepped off the pavement where they were waiting to cross.

"A muggle celebrity, at that," Harry said. "He wants attention. Maybe he'd take her somewhere visible, public. Famous, even."

"Holy shit," Ron said, pointing behind Harry.

Harry turned and looked up. On a long advertisement space on the side of a residential building, Rebecca Rickton's face appeared. She was terrified and covered in tears and snot. At first her face filled the whole frame of the space, but as it slowly zoomed out, you could see she was hovering, immobile, over the steps of a fountain with hundreds of people around her staring. There were huge television screens on the buildings behind her, televising her exact current image, so the nightmare was replicated endlessly.

Dawlish gasped. "Look! She's everywhere!" He was pointing into a pub, where sport's televisions were projecting the same images of Rebecca's petrified body.

"Where is she?!" Harry yelled, panic flooding his body.

"That's- that's Piccadilly Circus," Ron said.

They Apparated.

She was naked. It was the first thing Harry noticed and he'd thought it strange that it hadn't occurred to him when he saw her image first on the side of the building. She was naked and trembling.

She was crying.

A knife hovered through the air, between her breasts.

Harry, Ron, and Dawlish were running up the steps to the fountain, wands out, desperately trying to stop, disarm, transfigure that knife.

When it pierced her skin, Harry was up, in the air with her, grabbing the handle and trying to stop it and pull it out of her. He was shaking with the effort and as he was failing, he looked at her. Her mouth was open but the sound was stuck in her, too big, too terrible to come out. She was in more pain, the knife cutting her open still but just slower, harder.

It was impervious to all their attempts and couldn't be stopped. Even by magic; except the dark, dark kind that pressed it to her chest and dragged it down her body and split her open once Harry's fingers slid off the wet handle.

The magic that covered them in her blood, that made the stone steps slippery and black with it. Harry lost his breath as he fell to the ground, the impact crushing.

Then Bernie Pillsworth was in his face and the other members of the secrecy department were Apparating around him on the scene, and Pillsworth yelled "GO!"

Harry appeared in the alley near the Three Broomsticks and leaned against the brick wall, sliding to sit on the floor. The sun was setting and Harry was breathing deeply and focusing on the color of the sky and wiping his bloody fingers on his trousers.

He wondered where Ron had thought to Apparate- probably wherever Hermione was. He put his face in his hands and quickly pulled back when he smelled the metal.

He needed pressure to ground him so he curled up into a ball and put his forehead against his knees. He couldn't escape the smell, it was everywhere, but it helped to be in the dark.

He needed to get up to the castle without being seen. It wasn't late enough for the halls to be clear, but maybe he could wait till 7, when everyone was at dinner.

And he needed to talk to Ron.

He went into the Three Broomsticks and headed straight for Madam Rosmerta's, despite some gasping at the look of him and even one man's "Dear god, is that Harry Potter?"

"Harry, dear-" she started.

"I'm sorry to come in like this but it's a long story. Can I use your Floo?"

"Of course, dear," she said and took him by the elbow to lead him up the mini spiral staircase to her second floor office. It was tiny, barely space enough to fit her desk and chair but there was a fireplace with a pot of glittering powder near it.

"Thank you," Harry said. When she closed the door behind her, he threw powder into the grate and his head was in Ron and Hermione's flat. No one was sitting by the fire.

"Ron! Hermione!" Harry called.

"Harry!" Hermione came in from the kitchen. "I was just making tea for Ron, he's in the shower. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I just wanted to speak to him. It was- well it was really fucked up to say the least."

"Ron told me. Though he didn't need to, really, everyone in the city knows. It's mayhem."

"I've no idea how they're going to get this under control."

"Seems like that was the point- to make it impossible to keep the magic quiet. They can't possibly erase the memories of that many people. They can't even track everyone who saw it because it was televised."

"Ron will be getting back to the ministry right after he's clean," Harry said. "Maybe I should-"

"Harry," Hermione said, getting closer to the fire and kneeling. "You can help from afar. You just started at Hogwarts. Give peaceful life a chance," she said, smiling.

It was easy to be convinced when he thought of Snape.

"Yeah," Harry said. "Yeah, I'll stay. But tell Ron to Floo me when he can."

When it was time he could head back to the castle, he left the Three Broomsticks and walked up the hill from Hogsmeade shivering. The temperature was dropping and the wetness of his clothes didn't help.

Snape was waiting for him at the entrance, his face unreadable.

Harry's breath shortened. "How'd you know?"

"Shacklebolt informed McGonagall. She's making an announcement to students at dinner."

"Alright and you're here to do what?" Harry asked, his numbness wearing off as it seemed wont to do around Snape. "Make me feel like a piece of shit that you scraped off the bottom of your shoe? Or maybe to point out to me all the ways I fucked up today?"

"No," Snape said calmly. His eyes were moving across Harry's face, perhaps following the patterns the blood was making. "To make sure you aren't seen. But do remind me to take you up on those offers, because I have many ideas I'd love to share with you."

Harry wanted to scream, but he didn't and this was the moment that probably gave him the false sense of control he had. He merely walked past Snape into the entrance and up the first staircase he needed. But Snape was following him.

"I know how not to be noticed. I don't need your help and I'm not your responsibility anymore and whatever," he stopped at the first floor landing and waved his around Snape's person, "habit you have from years of doing this, of taking care of me or- or whatever- you know what I'm getting at, don't you?"

Snape was glancing around them cautiously and then suddenly he was pushing Harry toward the next flight of stairs.

"This is not the time or the place, Potter," Snape said, his hand between Harry's shoulder, forcing him up the steps.

"Which I don't even know what you'd want to keep doing that for," Harry's voice was rising and he knew it was bad, he knew. But he felt small, like a knot of feeling Snape kept tripping over. Snape touching him was making it worse.

"Because you apparently hate me so much," Harry continued, louder all the time, "that not even when the war's been over for-" Harry's voice became muffled by Snape's hand, closed over his mouth as they went up the last bit of the stairs to the second floor and into Harry's quarters.

Once they were inside, Snape was taking his hand away but Harry held it there. It was the pressure he'd needed. He was panting as if he'd been running. He pressed his back against the door and closed his eyes. Snape didn't move.

When Harry opened his eyes, Snape wasn't looking at him like he was crazy or utterly confused or angry or any of the things Harry could imagine. He was just looking at the blood Harry was caked in.

"Is any of this yours?" Snape asked.

Harry shook his head, not letting go of Snape's hand.

"You're going to shower," Snape told him. "You're going to order something from the kitchens. You're not going to show your face outside these rooms until tomorrow morning when you've pulled yourself together."

Snape tried to get his hand back but Harry held fast. They looked at each other for a moment and then Harry let go.

"Do you understand?" Snape asked.

"Yes," Harry said in a gasp, as if he'd been under water, and then Snape was gone.