Second Place- Angst
Third Place- Drama

DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Author notes: NotesMany thanks to Erin and Devi for beta-reading this story for me, and to silverspirit for checking it for any pesky Americanisms. Thanks also go to Devi for giving me the original plot idea (and also for allowing me to borrow her idea for Harry's future career).

Harry opened his eyes onto darkness.

At first his disorientation was complete to the point where he honestly couldn't tell whether he was facing up or down, but after a moment he became aware of the smooth solidity of a stone floor pressing against his back. The air around him was bitterly cold, and it helped to clear the lingering fogginess from his head.

He lay blinking up into the darkness, straining to see some image there, some contour that would provide a clue as to where he was. His head hurt abominably, and a fierce churning deep in the pit of his stomach convinced him to lie where he was until he got a better grasp of his surroundings.

Just where the hell was he? His entire body felt heavy, weighted, as if he'd been drugged... God. He realized he was shaking and pressed his palms flat against the floor to stop it. The sudden fear that twisted through him bit deeper than the cold seeping in through his robes.

He'd been in Hogsmeade; he remembered that much. Hanging out with the other seventh years on one of their coveted weekends away from Hogwarts. The countryside surrounding the town had been beautiful, autumn just pushing on the edge of winter, and the air had been filled with Ron's effusive banter about the twins' latest line of toys, which were being offered for sale for the very first time that year at Zonko's Joke Shop. There had been a sad light in Hermione's eyes when she overheard a gaggle of third years whispering speculations about the truth behind the legend of the Shrieking Shack; Harry knew she still felt bad about Remus Lupin's resignation as DADA instructor, even after all these years.

All perfectly normal, just another Hogsmeade weekend like a hundred others... which he supposed explained his stupidity in allowing himself to forget that they were still at war with Voldemort. Constant vigilance -- wasn't that what Mad-Eye Moody always used to say? Or at least the person they'd thought was Mad-Eye Moody, which just went to show that not even constant vigilance was enough to guarantee that the Good Guys would always come out right in the end.

The thought was chilling.

He still wasn't sure how they'd managed to grab him, but some of the more debilitating curses were like that. And of course he had no way of knowing just who had kidnapped him, but he didn't have any doubts who it must have been. He'd known with a certainty as bitter as pain the moment the curse hit him -- Death Eaters. Voldemort's political progeny, doing their lord's bidding with an efficiency that Harry should have -- should have -- anticipated.

And what now? Obviously Voldemort wanted him alive, for whatever reasons he had. And those reasons didn't even bear thinking about, did they? Harry squeezed his eyes shut and rolled onto his side, willing the spinning in his head to subside. It was entirely possible that Voldemort wanted him alive, but broken. Useable. Malleable. Like a tool that could be pulled out whenever its master had need of it.

Biting hard into his lower lip, he forced back the tears that pricked at the backs of his eyelids. There was going to be torture, doubtlessly, but he'd survived worse. Hadn't he? Voldemort had learned over the years to be cautious around him; that had to explain the fact that he'd been drugged. As hopeless as he knew it had to be, he lifted one hand to scrabble briefly at his side for his wand. It was missing, as he'd expected.

The dull echo of footsteps sounded abruptly somewhere nearby, and Harry tensed, fighting the wave of nausea that slithered through him when he raised his head warily to turn toward it. The fine layer of sweat on his skin chilled quickly in the coldness of the room.

He blinked owlishly into the darkness for a long moment, feeling a sudden sourness twist deep in his belly as he wondered if he'd been blinded. But no, he could see a thin yellow line down at floor-level now, horizontal in the void that surrounded him -- the crack of light showing underneath the door of his cell.

The sound of a key turning in the lock of the door was terrifying enough to propel him up onto his hands and knees, but that was as far as he could move before a fresh surge of dizziness overwhelmed him. The world seemed to tilt underneath him, and he squeezed his eyes shut as tight as they would go while he waited for it to stop spinning. God. There was no way he could fight back in this condition, no weapon at all that he could raise in his defense.

Fighting back a wave of nausea, he watched helplessly as the crack of light under the door widened, spilling lurid torchlight into the cell. Terror made his mouth run dry, and he forcibly shoved his burgeoning panic from his mind, determining that he would not show them how terrified he was, no matter what they did to him. He wasn't going to give them that satisfaction.

The door opened to reveal a figure dressed in draping black, its face a pale smear in the shadows that flocked around it. For the first time, Harry realized his glasses were missing, and he recoiled, feeling stung by that further bit of helplessness. He cried out when hard hands closed tight around his upper arms, wrenching him to his feet, and he caught a glimpse of a skull-like visage, floating suspended in the nightmare of darkness around him.

For one heart-stopping moment he thought he'd been given to the Dementors, but then he realized he was looking at one of the masks the Death Eaters wore. That thought was only marginally better, and then only until his captor began to pull him from the room, forcing him to walk through the pain and nausea that still writhed through him.

He thought suddenly that he ought to fight back somehow, but then the corridor they were walking down opened into an enormous chamber, lit by what looked like a thousand flickering torches. Harry felt fevered as he looked around, trying to take it all in, but all he could see was fire and movement and a vast, looming darkness that seemed to be trying to eat him whole. It pressed in around him, cutting off his breath, and the sweat stood out on his skin again, hot as acid where it burned against him.

He could see them now -- Voldemort's faithful, clustered around the large dais at the far end of the room. Impossible to tell how many of them there were, and Harry found himself struggling to pull back even as his captor pulled him forward, dragging his heels along the ground. He couldn't help but think how truly pitiful he must look, weak as a pummeled kitten, dazed and half-blind and dumb with terror, no matter how much he tried to hide his fear.

The heat of the fires was withering. Masked and hooded, the Death Eaters waited, filling the air with the sour taste of their anticipation. Harry reminded himself again that he'd been tortured before, and survived. There wasn't anything they could do to him that would break him. Nothing they could do to him that would make him anything less than what he was, and they didn't dare kill him until Voldemort gave the word. Cold comfort that that was, he clung to it.

He was thrown onto the floor at the foot of the dais, and he landed hard, barely managing to catch himself on his palms before his face slammed into the stone. Panting, he looked around, feeling the weight of the gazes on him.

"Harry Potter." The voice, however expected it was, made him cringe. High-pitched and cold, it skittered along Harry's nerves until it seemed to burrow into him, setting up residence deep beneath his skin.

A light titter moved among the Death Eaters, amusement feeding itself at his expense.

"The Boy Who Lived," Voldemort continued, and there was a heavy sense of derision to the words. "The last and best hope of the wizarding world." More laughter from the attendant Death Eaters, and while a larger shadow seemed to grow and writhe on top of the dais, Harry found himself feeling sickeningly thankful for his poor eyesight. There were some things he just wasn't prepared to see, not ever again.

And yes, let the mockery begin. First the mockery, then the torture, and then the violent, cataclysmic end of the free world. Harry felt a bubble of hysteria rising in him and did his best to choke it down. He thought suddenly of Professor Snape, who, so far as Harry knew, was supposed to be spying among the Death Eaters for Dumbledore. Was he one of those faceless figures hovering around the foot of the dais? Would he dare raise a finger to help Harry if he were?

The thought brought more despair with it than hope, and Harry curled in on himself, waiting for the first bright flicker of pain to come. Voldemort would likely begin with the Cruciatus, and then move on to more interesting forms of torment from there. But they wouldn't break him, damn it. He wouldn't let them.

Whatever drugs he'd been given seemed to be settling down in his system, and he found that as long as he lay still, the world didn't seem quite so inclined to buck and heave around him. He couldn't be sure if that was a mercy or not, but before he could decide, Voldemort was speaking again.

"I've been looking forward to your death, Harry Potter, for a very long time." Low, lethal undertone to the words this time, as if they were only a thin veneer over a lifetime's worth of hatred. Harry shuddered, curling in tighter onto himself. "But first..." The room had gone strangely silent now, and the low sibilance sounded eerily snake-like in the ensuing stillness. "First... I believe my Death Eaters have earned a bit of a privilege in this matter. Before you die, I will allow them to... play." He sounded amused.

There was a heartbeat's pause, as if the universe were holding its breath in anticipation of what was to come. Then there was a low susurration of excitement through the Death Eaters' ranks. Harry narrowed his eyes, trying to sharpen his vision as he was struck by a sudden sense of being hunted, of being held up on display for something he didn't understand. Allow the Death Eaters to play... Was Voldemort going to let them torture him now? All of them? God.

"Pretty wizard child." The voice was Lucius Malfoy's, thick with scorn and amusement and something else that Harry couldn't quite name. He sounded revoltingly eager for whatever it was Voldemort had given them permission to do. There was a rustling of robes as he took a step forward, and Harry shrank away reflexively. But they were all around him now, closing in from all sides.

A hand on the side of Harry's face made him jump, and he stared up into the glaring mask that gazed down at him. Bone-white, it seemed to float in front of his fevered vision, cut completely apart from the rest of the room.

"I've always wondered what it would be like to fuck Dumbledore's little whore savior." Malfoy was crouching over him now, slim pale fingers cold and dry where they rested against Harry's cheek. His nail nicked a stinging furrow in front of Harry's ear, surprising him more than it pained him.

And suddenly Harry knew what they planned to do to him. "No," he whispered, unable to stop himself. He wanted to run, to kick, to bite, to claw his way out of this nightmare he'd fallen into, but the churning nausea from the drugs sent him pitching back down to the ground when he tried to stand. There was more laughter at that, harsh and grating, but he barely heard it. He couldn't hear anything over the fierce pounding of his heart.

There were hands on him now, holding him down, and he fought against them, choking on the scream that was trying to claw its way up from his throat. He couldn't believe this was happening, couldn't believe it was real. The smoke from the torches seemed suddenly cloying, suffocating the breath out of him, and the room spun in a dizzying dance that he hoped desperately would turn into unconsciousness.

Malfoy reached for him again, but another dark shape got in his way, pushing him back. A brief scuffle broke out, and Harry managed to slither out from underneath Malfoy's looming shadow, rolling onto his stomach and clawing his way forward across the floor. He felt like the world was about to spin itself off of its axis, but he knew only that he had to get away, had to escape before they were able to do what they wanted to do to him.

And they were fighting over him now, goddamn it. Feeling sickened, Harry fought to regain his feet, lurching when the firelight bled into shadows around him. Still, consciousness stubbornly remained, and he managed only one unsteady step before he was being borne down to the ground once again.

This time his scream was raw, and he kicked out reflexively, shuddering under the hands that held him. He stared up wildly into the mask that hovered over his face, wondering who it belonged to, which one of them had won the privilege of being the first to ravage him.

"Calm down," a furious voice hissed in his ear, and Harry froze, recognizing it instantly. His chest seemed encased within a solid block of ice, making breathing all but impossible as surprisingly strong hands pressed his wrists down against the stone floor to either side of his head.

It was Snape.

Not for the first time, Snape cursed the foolhardiness of the boy known as Harry Potter. He just had to go and get himself caught by Death Eaters -- damn it, damn it, damn it. Panic writhed like a living thing in Snape's chest as he covered the boy's body with his own, shielding him from the gazes of the other Death Eaters. And Voldemort, of course, who was watching the proceedings with all the amusement of an overseer watching his pets scrabble over a cut of choice meat.

The thought made Snape feel cold inside. He knew Lucius and the others would tear Harry apart if they were given the chance; Snape felt sick over the thought of Harry's innocence being taken that way, in blood and hate and pain and fear. He had no doubt that Lucius in particular would make it a fairly gruesome experience. So much blood...

No. Snape had fought like a mad thing to get Lucius' hands off him, spurred by a rage he hadn't even known he possessed. Harry had been a thorn in his side ever since the day he'd first arrived at Hogwarts, but he didn't deserve to have this happen to him. Spoiled prima donna brat that he was, Snape couldn't just stand by and watch him be tortured. Not while he had the power to prevent it.

And he really wasn't cut out for this Death Eater business, now was he? The thought made him smile grimly behind his mask, even though he didn't feel much humor in the thought at all. Rape and torture had never been a hobby of his; in those early days, he'd been interested in power on a much larger scale. Now, with the benefit of experience on his side, the idea of forced dominion in any form fell flat for him. That kind of power came at too high a price.

A shadow moved at the corner of his eye, and Snape looked up sharply, cowing the offender into submission with a warning gaze. He was sweating now; at the first sign of weakness, the others would move in and take their prize away from him. There was nothing he could do to save Harry from this fate, unless he gave up his cover as a Death Eater. And even that would only serve to guarantee his own rather unpleasant demise, making their hatred for Harry burn even more brightly.

All he had to do was stall for time; at the start of the year, Dumbledore had put a locator spell on Harry, anticipating this moment even if he couldn't have foreseen its exact circumstances. Harry fallen into the hands of the Death Eaters... it was every wizard's worst nighttime terror. Harry, the best and last hope of the wizarding world.

Depending on what wards Voldemort had in place here, it might take Dumbledore some time to reach them. That knowledge was foremost in Snape's mind, the acute awareness of time running through his fingers like a sieve. Time was life, and he had to do something to stall here before Lucius decided to get brave and try to reclaim his right at being the boy's first rapist.

Harry's eyes were wide and dilated as they stared up at him, his skin covered with a thin sheen of sweat. He'd been drugged, obviously. There was no telling what he'd been given, or how long it would last. Not that it would do either of them an iota of good if he'd been completely alert and lucid; in fact, his disoriented state might even be a blessing now.

Feeling sickened, Snape pulled both of Harry's wrists over his head and transferred his grip on them to a single hand. Harry twitched under him, moaning softly, and twisted his head to one side. Did he even know it was Snape who was touching him? Would it make things better or worse for him if he did?

Forcing himself not to think about it, Snape reached down to hike up the front of Harry's robes and closed his fingers over the clasp of his trousers. God. What he was about to do was unforgivable, but what else could he do? Let Lucius maul the boy? Swallowing down the surge of nausea that rose in him, he pulled open the front of Harry's trousers with a sharp, angry motion that made Harry cry out and twist to get away from him, panic blossoming in his eyes. And damn it, that wasn't what Snape wanted to do at all; he was trying to make this easier on the boy, not torment him further.

"Harry," he whispered, wishing desperately that he dared offer some word of comfort. "Harry, damn it..."

Somehow, he managed to subdue Harry's struggles without relinquishing his grip on him, and Snape let out a breath of relief, knowing that Lucius and the others were watching. He didn't want to hurt Harry, but he couldn't be gentle with him, either. God, where was Dumbledore? Snape was quite willing at this point to sell his soul for the headmaster to make a timely appearance.

Harry's eyes were focused wide-eyed on the sea of faces that watched them. Snape could feel the fear trembling through his limbs, setting up a fine vibration that worked its way up into Snape's body where it lay on top of him. Wanting to distract him, he leaned down over Harry's face to draw his attention, at once cursing and feeling grateful for the anonymity of the mask he wore.

Harry's eyes were wild when they focused on him, but at least he didn't seem so painfully aware of the jackals waiting for their turn to torture him now. Wishing again that he dared offer some kind of reassurance, Snape tugged Harry's trousers down over his hips.

Trust me, Harry. Snape closed his eyes to block out the bright shine of betrayal in Harry's eyes as he did what he had to do. Stall. Prevaricate. Time was life.

And it really shouldn't feel as good as this, having all that smooth skin sliding under his palm. Flat stomach, slender hips, lean thighs shaped by years of riding a broomstick. Such warm, young skin, unmarked by anything more serious than the occasional Quidditch pitfall. Innocent in a way that Snape had never been. There was a sense of the forbidden to this that had nothing to do with the misfortune of their circumstances.

And finally, warm flesh at the heart of him, slick with sweat and heat, responding to Snape's touch despite the horror that thrummed through them both. Harry let out a gasp that sounded pained, even though Snape's touch was tender. Snape gentled him with a whisper, hating himself even as he did it. There was no comfort to be found for Harry here, no matter how much Snape willed it.

A few brief tugs to his own traitorous flesh, and he was ready. It shouldn't be as easy as this, should it? Somehow he thought it shouldn't be as easy as this. Harry's prick was hard now, betrayed by Snape's hand, but this would go easier for him if he were aroused when it happened. Snape could feel Lucius' eyes burning a hole in the back of his head, coolly assessing.

He brought his hand up to his mouth and spat into it, wanting to give Harry at least some lubrication. His fingers felt cold around his cock as he massaged the spit over his aching flesh. God, he didn't want to do this, didn't want it and wanted it at the same time, and the contradiction was a torment all its own. Harry had fallen quiet beneath him, and Snape was afraid to open his eyes to see what his face looked like, what his eyes looked like.

So good, feeling himself sink into that sweet young body. And it shouldn't feel that good, as bright as pain, and Harry had clenched up around him, breath stilling entirely as his body arched uselessly to get away. Snape tightened his grip on him and reached for Harry's cock, soothing him through the first painful shock of it and whispering urgent commands for him to relax, to stop fighting it, or he'd tear himself apart.

So sweet as he slid inside. So slow, so careful, don't hurt him don't tear him don't make him bleed. Snape sighed, feeling a sense of profound relief when Harry relaxed under him, falling quiescent once again. Slow slide in, and out, and god, he really ought to hate himself for feeling this good, for taking any kind of pleasure out of this at all. He let go of Harry's wrists and slid his arm under Harry's shoulders, cradling his head away from the punishing hardness of the stone floor.

"That's it," he whispered, feeling as if something dark and wild were trying to claw its way out of his chest. It hurt, and he choked it down with an effort, fighting the urge to scream aloud. Harry felt so fragile underneath him, so fragile and fucking young and fuck, he couldn't stop now if he tried. Desperately, he pulled at Harry's prick, wanting him to get something out of this other than pain and humiliation, wanting to distract him from the reality of what was happening to him, even if it was only for one bright moment. Because after Snape was finished with him, there were others waiting to take their turn who wouldn't be so gentle, who wouldn't care at all if they broke the vessel they were using for their own selfish pleasure.

Orgasm struck with impossible intensity, stealing Snape's breath away, and he was barely aware of Harry's body bucking under his, coating his fingers with a blood-warm slickness that seemed to literally pull a scream from Harry's throat. Snape huddled over him, not wanting to let go, not wanting to admit that his attempt at stalling had been in vain. Because Dumbledore hadn't come, and there was nothing to save Harry now.

But he couldn't protect him forever, not if he wanted either one of them to live to see the morning. Slowly, Snape pulled out of Harry's body -- so slow, so careful, don't hurt him -- and carefully set Harry's head back down on the floor. He opened his eyes finally, but Harry's eyes were closed, his face slack, shielding whatever he was feeling. The sight of him struck like a blow deep into Snape's chest, spearing him with guilt.

He'd done this. Oh dear god, he had been the one to do this to him.

Reluctantly, he drew back and closed up his own trousers, concealing himself behind the loose fall of his robes once again. He couldn't take his eyes away from Harry's face; the boy's eyes looked bruised, his face wasted. Already, Lucius was moving in to take Snape's place.

So caught up was he in the horror of what he was witnessing, Snape almost didn't notice the first low whisper of disturbance at the far end of the room. They'd all been so focused on watching Harry's torture that they hadn't been aware of the intruders breaching the walls of their sanctuary, and for once Snape cheered the Death Eaters' single-minded focus on other beings' pain. The bright crimson and purple of Dumbledore's robes was a beacon in the crowd of wizards and witches coming toward them.

It was Crabbe who raised the first warning cry, and Lucius jerked away from Harry as if he'd been burned. An angry mutter rose up among the Death Eaters, but none of them looked willing to stand around and defend their new-won toy. Not even Voldemort dared stand up to Dumbledore directly, and sure enough, their Dark Lord had already chosen to pursue the better part of valor and Disapparated.

Now that Voldemort had removed the anti-Apparition wards, the Death Eaters began to follow their lord's lead one by one, some with more eagerness than others. Lucius gave Dumbledore a scathing glare before he conceded defeat and vanished in a swirl of black robes.

Snape hesitated only briefly before moving to follow. As much as he wished he could stay to make sure Harry was truly unharmed, it would destroy his cover if he were to remain behind. A part of him gibbered in desperate relief for the excuse that gave him to flee without acknowledging what he'd done.

He held Dumbledore's gaze for the barest of instants, comforting himself with the knowledge that Harry was safe now. Safe and protected, and whatever else had been done to him, at least he would be alive and unmutilated to deal with it. The moment before he Disapparated, Snape slid his eyes away, unable to hold the older wizard's gaze.

There would be time to deal with the consequences of his choices later.

Harry woke up in unfamiliar surroundings. For a moment, the darkness pressing in around him made it impossible for him to breathe, and he drew his knees up to his chest with a low moan, wishing quite suddenly that he were dead.

Then the darkness began to coalesce into outlines around him, and he realized he was in the hospital wing at Hogwarts. He blinked rapidly, feeling disoriented, but the low shapes of the beds surrounding him were unmistakable, now that he could focus on them. The night outside the tall arches of the windows was heavy with the dark hours just before dawn, illuminated faintly by the barest touch of moonlight.

It only took a moment for him to remember.

Hard hands hurting him, throwing him down, holding his wrists, refusing to let him pull away. Fire and darkness, laughter, so much laughter, cruel and hurting, and the knowledge that he was going to be tortured. I believe my Death Eaters have earned a bit of a privilege in this matter...Pressure, such horrible pressure, and he couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything except lie there and pray they wouldn't kill him. Before you die, I will allow them to... play.

Panic made the edges of the room turn to grey around him, and he curled one fist in the sheet beside him, fighting back the scream that wanted to rise in his throat.

"You're safe, Harry."

Inhaling sharply, Harry turned to see Dumbledore sitting in the chair next to the bed. The headmaster looked disturbingly old in the pale moonlight falling in through the windows, as if he'd aged a lifetime since Harry had seen him last.

Harry blinked hard, eyes burning, and sank back down against the pillows. He wondered how long Dumbledore had been sitting there, waiting for him to awaken. "What happened?" he asked, almost inaudibly. His voice sounded raw, hoarse from remembered screams, and he flinched away from it reflexively.

Dumbledore paused for the barest of moments before replying. "What do you remember?" His voice was gentle.

Feeling suddenly cold, Harry pulled the sheet tighter around his shoulders. It occurred to him then that Dumbledore knew, and his breath seemed to freeze in his chest, deep inside where even Voldemort couldn't touch him.

He realized he was clenching his jaw so hard his teeth ached, and he relaxed it with an effort. "You found me," he said at last.

"We did." Dumbledore's voice was still quiet, as if he thought Harry might break if he spoke too loudly. "I had... anticipated certain problems this year, and arranged for a spell to tell me your location in the event of an emergency. It took us a bit of time to get past Voldemort's wards."

Harry closed his eyes, feeling strangely hollow. Like he was just a shell, and the real Harry was still out there somewhere, waiting to come home. "Thank you," he whispered, curling his hand in the sheet again.

There was a long silence then, and Harry thought to himself that this had to be rather an awkward situation for Dumbledore, all things considered.

"You should try to get some more sleep," Dumbledore said finally. "It's going to take some time for the drug you were given to work its way out of your system. Poppy's done what she can to speed your metabolism, but the effects will still likely last well into the morning."

Harry didn't honestly think he'd ever be able to sleep again, but Dumbledore seemed to hear the thought before it finished crossing his mind.

"Sleep, Harry." Dumbledore was firm. "You're safe now. No one here will hurt you."

Safe. The word sounded vaguely surreal, sound without any meaning attached to it.

"Don't leave me alone," Harry whispered, without opening his eyes. His hand ached where he was clenching the sheet. "Please."

He just about jumped out of his skin when he felt light fingers skate across his forehead, brushing his hair away from his eyes. "My dear boy." Dumbledore sounded sad now, and Harry was struck again by how old he was. "I'll be sitting right here till you wake up in the morning. You have my word on that."

Feeling slightly reassured, Harry let out his breath in a sigh, trying to force himself to relax. Dizziness still swirled at the edges of his mind, and he let it carry him, pulling him down, drifting without protest into the welcome numbness that seemed to have set up residence inside of him.

As he lay there waiting for unconsciousness to claim him, he spared a last desperate thought to hope that he wouldn't dream.

The next time Harry opened his eyes, there was daylight in the room. He blinked into it uncertainly, experiencing a moment's blessed befuddlement before he remembered where he was, and why. Hastily, he closed his eyes again.

"Did you sleep well, Harry?"

And there was Dumbledore, right where he'd promised he'd be. As grateful as Harry felt toward the man, he couldn't help feeling a faint twinge of resentment.

"Fine," he answered, not wanting to talk about the dreams that had plagued him. Even drugged, they'd come for him, lurking like shapeless leviathans around the edges of his thoughts while he slept.

There was a moment's low murmuring before Dumbledore spoke to him again. "I just sent down for some breakfast for you. I do trust you're hungry?"

"Not particularly." But Harry knew it wouldn't do any good to argue. Sighing heavily, he burrowed into the pillows and wished rather fervently that he hadn't had to wake up. He didn't want to even think about what had happened to him last night, and Dumbledore's presence here was making avoiding the issue impossible. Unbidden, an image surfaced in his drug-addled memories -- the confusion of the raid, the suddenness of being left lying there on the stone floor of the chamber with his trousers twisted around his ankle and his robes hiked up around his chest. Dumbledore's face, blurred by nearsightedness and tears as it leaned over him, looking stunned. The feel of a hand settling over his brow, cool and dry, and a whispered voice saying, Sleep...

"Your glasses are on the table beside you." Dumbledore's tone was mild, and Harry felt a sudden unrestrained gratitude toward him for not pressing the issue. "Your friend Ron recovered them from Hogsmeade when you disappeared."

Turning his head, Harry saw that his glasses were, indeed, sitting on the table beside the bed. He reached for them and hooked them on over his ears, feeling somewhat better when the room came into sharper focus around him.

"Is Ron all right?" he asked, feeling a sudden pain in his chest at the thought of his friends in the hands of the Death Eaters. Surely Voldemort would only have ordered him captured -- wouldn't he? "And Hermione? They were both with me when..." He trailed off, unable to finish the thought.

"They're fine." Dumbledore held up a hand to stall the question. "They're both fine. They've been informed of your return, and are presently sitting with Professor McGonagall in her office. They were both rather... distraught by yesterday's events."

Harry closed his eyes, feeling sick to his stomach. He realized suddenly that he hadn't eaten since early yesterday afternoon. "How much do they..." He twisted his hands in the sheet miserably. "I mean, what do they know about what... about what happened to me?"

"They know you were abducted by Death Eaters, and held in Voldemort's fortress until you were rescued late last night." Dumbledore eyed him steadily, looking grave. "They were told nothing further other than that you are now safe."

The burst of relief Harry felt at that was so intense it left him reeling. Even so, he couldn't help but wonder who else had seen him like that, aside from Dumbledore. The thought was almost too painful to think about. Harry Potter -- boy wonder of the wizarding world. He felt his lips curl in a not entirely pleasant way and threw himself back onto his pillows, choking back a humorless laugh.

"Harry..." Dumbledore sounded uncertain now, and that was such an alien emotion to hear in him that it made Harry recoil reflexively. "I do hope you realize that whatever happened to you there -- whatever happened while you were under Voldemort's control -- wasn't in any way..."

"I know." The words came out more curtly than Harry had intended, but he couldn't bring himself to apologize. He didn't want to hear anything about how it wasn't his fault, or whatever other trite phrases the headmaster was about to bestow on him. "I just... can we not talk about it, please?"

Dumbledore looked unhappy with that request, but before he could respond, his attention was caught by something over Harry's shoulder.

"It's about time you woke up," Madam Pomfrey's voice said from the other side of the bed, making Harry jump. The nurse bustled into view with her usual brisk efficiency and reached out to lay her palm across his brow, muttering under her breath about something that sounded like "Death Eater animals" and "can't believe" and "treated a child that way". Harry tried hard not to flinch away from the touch, uncomfortably aware of the fact that he didn't succeed entirely.

"I'm fine," he said, gritting his teeth. He didn't start breathing again till she'd taken her hand away.

She mmm-hmmed vaguely in his direction and reached for his wrist to take his pulse. "Albus, you should have let me know immediately when he woke up. We still don't know exactly what he was given, or what side effects it might have on a wizard's physiology."

Harry suspected that the thought should have been frightening -- he'd been given an unknown drug! with possible side effects! -- but he didn't feel anything other than a detached sense of unease as she continued to examine him. He held himself as still as possible while she poked and prodded him, took his temperature, tested his reflexes, looked into his eyes, and generally set about convincing herself that he was all right.

"How is he?" Dumbledore asked when she was done.

"Humph." She crossed her arms over her chest. "As near as I can figure, he's worked the drug out on his own. But I'd still like to keep him here for another day or so, just to make sure."

Harry expected to feel a reflexive irritation with that pronouncement, but he surprised himself by feeling relieved that he wouldn't have to return to his dormitory immediately. He really didn't feel ready to face anyone yet.

"Whatever you think is best, Poppy," Dumbledore said, watching Harry closely. His tone was even, but Harry thought he sounded sad.

They were interrupted then by the arrival of a house-elf bearing a platter of food, which was subsequently set down on the table beside Harry's bed. The little creature gazed at Harry with a concerned expression before glancing uncertainly at Madam Pomfrey and making itself scarce. Apparently the house-elves had been well-trained not to disturb patients in the recovery wards.

The smell of the food made Harry's stomach cramp with nausea, and he turned away from the platter with a grimace. As hungry as he might be, he didn't think he'd be able to keep anything down at the moment. Maybe it was the lingering effects of the drugs still circulating in his system.

"I need to talk to Harry alone now, if you don't mind," Dumbledore said, and Madam Pomfrey nodded, gathering up her equipment and turning to go.

"Just make sure he eats something," she said, giving Harry a last searching look. "And I'll expect you to call for me immediately if you start feeling ill."

"I will," Harry promised, wishing she'd leave him alone already. He hated being fussed over at the best of times.

Then she was gone, and the two of them were alone again. Dumbledore chuckled and bent to sniff at the food on Harry's plate appreciatively. "She's got a good heart," he said, reaching for a crust of French toast coated liberally in powdered sugar. "You don't mind if I snag one of these, do you? They wouldn't bring anything half so tempting if I sent down for a breakfast of my own."

Harry shrugged. As far as he was concerned, Dumbledore could have the whole thing. "Help yourself."

Dumbledore chewed quietly for a few moments, without taking his eyes away from Harry. After he swallowed, he softened his voice and said, "If there's something bothering you, you can feel free to talk to me about it. Whatever it is."

Dropping his eyes to his lap, Harry twisted his fingers in the sheets. God, he really did not want to talk about this. "It was Professor Snape, wasn't it?" he asked.

A pause. "Yes."

Harry closed his eyes, feeling as if the room had suddenly gone cold and distant around him. There was an odd ringing in his ears. "Was I... hurt badly?"

"No." Dumbledore's voice was somber, but there was no hesitation in his reply. "The injuries you received were all superficial."

That was something, anyway. Harry shifted uneasily, pulling the sheet tighter around him. He couldn't seem to look away from his hands. "I know why he did it, you know." Dumbledore didn't say anything, but Harry didn't let that deter him as he continued, "He was trying to protect me. I know what they... what they wanted to do to me. Lucius Malfoy was there. They would have... I would have been hurt pretty bad, wouldn't I? I mean, if Professor Snape hadn't... hadn't been there."

"I think that's a fair assumption, yes," Dumbledore agreed mildly.

"So it's okay. I don't blame him or anything. He was trying to protect me. I get that, okay?"

"That's a very mature attitude to take, Harry." Dumbledore's voice was completely nonjudgmental. Harry couldn't tell what he was thinking at all.

Harry nodded, feeling the unexpected sting of tears in his eyes. He blinked them back angrily. "So where... where is he now?"

"He returned to Hogwarts early this morning and retired immediately to his chambers." Dumbledore was still eyeing him intently, like he was waiting for Harry to have some sort of reaction to the news. "I thought it best if he remained there for the time being."

"Probably a good idea." Harry was finding it difficult to breathe. His knuckles were white where they clenched around the folds of the sheet in front of him, skin stretched thin over the bone beneath. His eyes were burning. "Look, I... I'm still kind of tired. I think I'd like to go to sleep now."

"I understand." The sorrowful note was back in Dumbledore's voice. "Would you like me to stay here with you again?"

The thought was tempting, but Harry knew the headmaster had an entire school to look after, and he'd already given up his duties for far too long babysitting a single student. "No," he said, lying back against his pillows and rolling onto his side. He closed his eyes with a near inaudible sigh. "I just want to be alone right now."

There was a moment's pause before he heard Dumbledore stand up behind him. "As long as you're sure." After a brief hesitation, Harry felt Dumbledore's hand settle awkwardly on his shoulder. The gesture was unexpectedly soothing. "Be sure to call for Madam Pomfrey if you start feeling any worse."

"I will," Harry said. He felt cold when Dumbledore pulled his hand away. He listened intently while the headmaster left the room, robes swishing audibly across the floor, and then he was alone.

Harry had never truly realized how quiet the hospital wing was, or how empty it could feel when there was no one else around. And as much as he didn't want to think about anything -- anything at all -- the memories were there, pressing at the edges of his mind.

"No," he whispered into his pillow, staring hard at the window across from his bed. His vision shimmered, and he blinked, refusing to allow the tears to fall. "No. I'm perfectly fine."

Nevertheless, he knew it would be a long time before sleep would come.

Severus Snape was not surprised when he heard the low knock on the door to his personal chambers. It was a polite knock, if a bit implacable, much like the man who was doing the knocking.

He'd spent the morning sitting in his favorite chair in front of the hearth in his sitting room, staring into the fire. The port in the liquor cabinet against the wall had been calling to him with steady frequency ever since he'd arrived, but as tempting as it was to begin drinking himself into oblivion, that felt a little too much like absolution in his current frame of mind.

He didn't deserve the mercy of forgetting what he'd done, however momentarily.

Stirring himself to movement, he stood up to answer the door. He couldn't help feeling a small tingle of dread as he did so, but he resolutely ignored the feeling as he stepped back from the open door to give the headmaster room to enter.

"Good morning, Severus," Dumbledore said as he came into the room, sounding disgustingly cheerful. He either didn't notice or else failed to acknowledge Snape's forbidding scowl. "How are you feeling this morning?"

"I've felt better," Snape admitted, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He closed the door and moved back to his chair in front of the fire.

Albus Dumbledore was in many ways a wizard's wizard. He was one of the few men Snape truly respected, even if he did have a penchant for candies and pleasantries that made it hard to take him entirely seriously at times. Despite the fact that he was a tangible reminder of everything that had happened last night, Snape felt somewhat comforted by his presence here now.

Behind his half-moon glasses, Dumbledore's eyes were uncommonly solemn. "Things are a bit of a mess right now, aren't they?" he said, settling into the chair across from Snape with a low sigh.

Snape smiled thinly at that. "As always, you have a talent for understatement." Bitterness lodged deep inside his chest, and he turned away to look into the fire.

"Harry's resting now," Dumbledore continued, and even though Snape wasn't looking at him, he could feel the older wizard's eyes on him. "His injuries were minimal, and the drugs he was given seem to be working their way out of his system without any noticeable difficulties."

"I'm glad to hear that." And he was, really. Because that had been the point of last night's charade, hadn't it? To ensure that the boy wouldn't be injured more than absolutely necessary?

The thought made him close his eyes to press back the flood of memories that came with it. And why, with everything he'd done last night, with everything he'd felt, was the feel of Harry's skin beneath his fingers the one memory that stood out most in his mind? He curled his hand into a fist, feeling somewhat absolved by the bright sting of pain as his nails cut into his palm.

"Severus." Dumbledore's voice was stern. "You weren't to blame for what happened last night. You did everything you could to save him."

"I raped him, Albus." Snape could barely recognize his own voice. It sounded hoarse, raw, a mere ghost of its former self.

"You couldn't have done anything else. Not without condemning him to an even worse torture."

And that assessment made Snape angry for reasons he couldn't precisely pinpoint. Slitting his eyes open, he sneered, "Is Hogwarts in the practice of exonerating its faculty for taking sexual advantage of its students?"

Dumbledore's expression did not change. "You didn't take advantage of him," he said, in that same low, calming voice. The compassion in his eyes hurt to look at. "I dare say you were in near as much anguish as Harry during the ordeal."

And oh, if only that could be true. Snape turned toward the fire again, clenching his teeth so hard they ached. He could still feel the silken surge of Harry's body beneath him, eloquent in its suffering, and the memory filled him with the guilty echo of remembered passion, sharp and biting. He could feel the boy's shoulders cradled in the crook of his arm, feel the shallow panting of the breath hot against his neck. No, anguish had not been foremost among the emotions that had consumed him at that moment.

"Voldemort is to blame, Severus. Not you."

Dumbledore sounded so very sure of himself. And so be it; if the headmaster wanted to pardon Snape's crime without so much as a slap on the wrist, then who was he to argue?

"As you say, Headmaster." Snape tore his eyes away from the fire and forced himself to meet Dumbledore's gaze. He made damned sure his face didn't show anything of the turmoil he felt within. "Will I be allowed to resume teaching my classes on Monday, then?"

Whatever Dumbledore saw in Snape's expression made him frown slightly. "Of course," he said. Then, after the barest pause, "Although I think it would be best if you spoke with someone from St. Mungo's. Just to--"

"No, Albus." Snape was rather proud of the fact that the words sounded civil, although inwardly he seethed. He had to force his hand to unclench from where it had latched onto the arm of his chair. "I do not need to 'speak to anyone'. It was, as you said, a traumatic experience, but I assure you I've committed far worse atrocities as a Death Eater." Which was actually almost true.

Again, that flicker of concern crossed Dumbledore's eyes. For a moment Snape thought he was going to press the issue, but then he said, "As you think best, my friend."

Snape was relieved. "Well, then, it would seem there are no further--"

"You will, of course, have no reservations about teaching Harry in his class on Monday morning, I assume."

Snape stared at him, caught completely off guard by the question. This was something that had honestly not occurred to him. How on earth could he be expected to teach Harry now? He couldn't imagine even being in the same room with him at this point in time.

"Albus," he said, treading carefully. The glint in Dumbledore's eyes was unnervingly intent behind his glasses, watching Snape's reactions. "Do you honestly think it's fair to ask that of him?"

Dumbledore's lips pressed together in what might have been a shadow of a smile, and Snape wondered if he'd noticed how adroitly Snape had turned the question around to focus on Harry instead of himself. He probably had.

"I believe that would be up to Harry," Dumbledore said. "He knows his feelings better than any of us. But when I last spoke to him, he seemed adamant in his understanding that you were not at fault in what happened last night. He knows you were attempting to shield him from a greater tragedy -- one he may not have survived. As far as I can determine, he holds you entirely blameless for what happened."

This news was unexpected and vaguely disquieting. It was a moment before Snape could think of a reply. "Even so, it seems unkind to put him in a situation where he would be faced with a constant reminder of what... happened." The minor hesitation was barely perceptible, and he plowed on. "Surely someone else would be better suited--"

"And if he decides he is up to the challenge, Severus? What then?" Dumbledore's gaze was calculating.

Snape gnawed on the inside of his cheek in frustration. "Then I will teach him," he ground out, digging his fingers into the arms of his chair again.

Dumbledore smiled sunnily. "Splendid," he said, as if that solved the matter. Clapping his hands down on the arms of his chair, he pushed himself to his feet. "I believe I'll leave you alone then. I apologize for the interruption of your leisure time. Sunday mornings are more precious than gold to a working professor, as I well remember from my own days of teaching."

Feeling a bit dazed, Snape walked him to the door. He couldn't quite believe the interview was over, just like that. "Thank you for your time, Headmaster," he said automatically, without really paying attention to the words. His mind was spinning with the realization that he wasn't going to be held accountable for his crime, and that he was apparently expected to continue teaching Harry on Monday morning like it was business as usual between them.

Dumbledore paused at the door when Snape opened it and turned to look at him with an uncommonly serious expression. "Please remember, Severus, that if you feel the need to talk to anyone, at any time, you can feel free to come to me."

Snape nodded tersely, biting back an acerbic reply. "I'll keep that in mind."

Dumbledore smiled slightly and straightened his hat. "Good day to you then," he said in a briskly businesslike tone, and shuffled off down the hall. Snape watched him go until he'd disappeared from view around the corner before closing the door.

Maybe opening that bottle of port wouldn't be quite such a bad idea after all.

Harry was torn away from his contemplation of the wall beside his bed in the hospital wing by the sound of voices outside the doorway. He tensed involuntarily before reason reasserted itself, and he reminded himself that he was at Hogwarts. There was absolutely nothing that could hurt him here.

Feeling vaguely disgusted with himself for his reaction, he turned to see Dumbledore leading an unfamiliar witch into the room. Harry immediately sat up, straightening his glasses on his nose, and tried to ignore the reflexive burst of resentment that passed through him. After all, he'd told Dumbledore he wanted to be alone.

"Ah, Harry. I'm glad to see you're awake." Dumbledore's voice was as cheerful as ever, which was somewhat more irritating than it probably should have been. He smiled broadly as he came up to the side of Harry's bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine, sir." Harry's gaze flickered uncertainly to the stranger standing behind the headmaster's shoulder, waiting patiently to be introduced. The woman was tall and sturdy-looking, with long brown hair that was beginning to grey at the temples, tied back with a thick hairclip behind her shoulders. Her smile seemed friendly enough, but he still got an odd sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach when he looked at her. Whoever she was, he couldn't help feeling wary of Dumbledore's reasons for bringing her here. Not to mention that he really did not feel like being sociable at the moment; he could barely stand his own company right now, much less that of others.

"I'd like to introduce you to Christine Ramsey," Dumbledore said, seeming not to notice Harry's discomfort. He waved the woman forward to stand beside him. "She's a former student of mine. I asked her to come in to speak with you this afternoon, and she was kind enough to accept my invitation."

Instantly, Harry's unease deepened. "She's a shrink?" he asked, feeling a stirring of anger and reflexive fear at the thought of it.

Christine Ramsey smiled. "I'm a counselor at St. Mungo's, yes," she said. Her voice was calm and rather pleasant to listen to, all things considered. "The headmaster thought you might want someone to talk to."

Harry was already shaking his head. He turned to Dumbledore, unable to completely hide the betrayal he felt. "So what, then? Something like this happens, and you think I've cracked up?" He felt his face heat when he realized that this woman had to already know all the details about what had happened to him last night.

"No, Harry, it's nothing like that." Dumbledore leaned down to touch the back of Harry's hand, looking concerned. "But I think that, perhaps, you'll feel better if you talk things through with someone." His voice was layered with all the things he didn't say, and once again, Harry was struck by the image he must have made when Dumbledore found him lying at the foot of Voldemort's throne.

"I just want to forget it happened," he whispered, feeling angry with himself for the sudden sting of tears that rose in his eyes.

"I know you do, Harry." Dumbledore's voice was sympathetic. "But I'd like you to try talking to Christine anyway, to set my own mind at ease. Will you do that for me?"

As if he could ever deny Dumbledore anything. Harry gave an inward sigh and nodded miserably. "Okay."

Dumbledore's smile returned instantly, although his eyes were still shadowed. Harry felt vaguely guilty for that. "Thank you. You truly are a young man of amazing resilience."

Whatever that meant. Harry felt like he was about to fly apart into a million pieces, and was barely managing to hold himself together. Nevertheless, he mumbled something suitably agreeable as Dumbledore turned to go.

Once the headmaster was gone, Christine Ramsey pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed. Harry avoided her gaze, staring hard at his fingers where they twisted idly in the edge of the sheet in front of him.

"This isn't exactly the ideal place to have this conversation," Christine said ruefully, adjusting her robes around herself as she settled in the chair. "If you'd prefer to go elsewhere..."

"No," Harry said quickly, glancing up at her from under his bangs. He wasn't quite ready to leave the hospital wing yet.

Christine nodded. "That's fine." She smiled at him. "I want you to be comfortable, Harry. Is there anything you want to ask me? Anything that might set your mind at ease about talking to me?"

Harry considered the question thoughtfully for a moment, even though he was fairly certain there wasn't anything that would make him feel comfortable around this woman. Or anyone else, for that matter. "You're a counselor?" he asked at last, hedging.

"Yes. I've got a Muggle degree in psychiatry, as well as extensive wizarding training in soul healing." Her eyes shadowed slightly when he didn't say anything further. "Professor Dumbledore told me about what happened last night. It must have been quite an ordeal."

Her tone clearly invited him to extrapolate on the comment. Biting back a humorless smile, Harry laid back down and deliberately closed his eyes. "Look," he said, as politely as he could, "I realize you're trying to help and all, but this really isn't necessary. Like I told Professor Dumbledore, I know that Snape did what he did in order to help protect me from the other Death Eaters. I should be thanking the man, right?"

There was a heartbeat's pause. "Is that what you feel you should do, Harry?"

Harry clenched his jaw briefly. "Talking about it isn't going to help," he said, more sharply than he'd intended. He took a deep breath to calm the rapid pounding of his heart. "I'm fine with it. Really. So you don't need to waste any more of your time here."

Several moments of silence greeted the statement, and he had to resist the urge to open his eyes again. Finally, he heard Christine stand up from her chair and say, "If that's what you want, Harry. No one's forcing you to talk to me."

He'd expected her to sound disappointed in him, but instead she just sounded... sad. Not that there was any reason for her to feel sad. Anyone with half a brain could tell that he was perfectly fine.

"If you change your mind at any time," she added gently, "I'll be available. Even if you just need someone to talk to. I won't speak at all if you don't want me to."

Harry didn't say anything in reply, and after another uncomfortable moment of silence passed, he felt a brief squeeze on his arm. "Take care of yourself, Harry," Christine said sincerely, and then she was gone.

He was alone again.

He tried to tell himself that he was glad of it.

Harry approached the Potions classroom on Monday morning with more than a fair amount of trepidation. His feet dragged as he made his way down the stairs toward the dungeons, and he had to keep reminding himself that despite appearances to the contrary, there really was enough air in the corridor for him to breathe.

"Are you all right, Harry?" Ron glanced at him with concern for about the five hundredth time that morning.

"Fine," Harry ground out, tightening his arms around his books. He wished everyone would stop asking him that question. Anyone with half a brain could see that he was perfectly fine, but they still seemed intent on reliving the fact that he'd been captured by Voldemort that weekend. It certainly wasn't the first time that had happened -- he wasn't about to start falling apart at the seams now.

Nevertheless, he had to admit to a fair amount of trepidation as he made his way toward the dungeons. But that wasn't too surprising, now was it? After all, Snape hadn't exactly been an impartial observer during the whole thing. Not that Harry could really hold him accountable for what he'd done; just the memory of Lucius Malfoy's hands on him was enough to send him into a cold sweat. No, Snape had done the only thing he could do under the circumstances, and had saved Harry from a pretty horrific experience to boot.

Everything was perfectly fine.

"Harry, are you sure?" Hermione stepped up against his other side, looking worried. Why couldn't they just leave him alone? "You don't look so good. Maybe you should go back to the hospital wing."

Despite the bristling resentment Harry felt at the suggestion, the idea was enormously tempting. And who was to say he really wasn't sick in some way? His palms were clammy where they clenched white-knuckled around the edges of his books, and his stomach churned with a queasiness that was nauseatingly reminiscent of the effects of the drugs he'd been given on Saturday night.

But skipping potions class would only give Dumbledore more ammunition to use against him. The headmaster had wanted Harry to take some time off from his classes to 'work things out', and that thought had been sufficiently terrifying that Harry had vowed never to do anything to make Dumbledore bring up the idea again. Not to mention that missing class would make Snape think Harry was avoiding him, and that was something Harry had no intention of doing. His pride -- poor mangled thing that it was -- refused to allow it.

Setting his jaw, he tightened his grip on his already-abused books and forced himself to move forward into the classroom. "I'm fine," he said firmly, ignoring the anxious glances Ron and Hermione cast at each other behind him.

He took his usual seat at the back of the potions classroom and concentrated on pulling his supplies out of the locked supply cabinet under the desk. The familiarity of the motions calmed him somewhat, and the panic attack -- or whatever it had been -- mercifully began to fade.

Dumbledore had surprised him by giving him back his wand that morning; he deliberately refused to think about the fact that Snape must have been the one to engineer its return. Nor did he allow himself to think of anything else. He'd actually relaxed enough to smile at the joke Ron was telling him when the door to the classroom burst open, and Professor Snape stalked into the room.

Instantly, Harry's heart seemed to leap into his throat. He swallowed hard, looking anywhere but at the dark-robed shape that flickered at the edge of his vision, and spread his hands flat against the table's cool black surface to calm himself. This was ridiculous. Steeling himself against the flutter inside his chest, he forced himself to raise his eyes.

"Open your textbooks to page 141," Snape instructed crisply, without casting so much as a glance in Harry's direction. If he felt at all uncomfortable about being in the same room with him after what had happened that weekend, he was doing a remarkable job of hiding it. "You're going to be making a Revitalizing Draught this morning. Instructions are in your books, and the ingredients can be found inside the stores cabinet. You should be sufficiently experienced at this point in your education to handle the potion with a minimum of difficulty. Do try not to blow anything up today." There was a brief titter from the Slytherin side of the classroom at that, which Snape pointedly ignored.

Harry stared at him, wondering just what he'd expected to feel at this moment. He'd been so worried about facing Snape again, and now that the moment was here, he felt nothing. Surely that was wrong somehow. Snape certainly looked the same as always, looming a bit like a black-robed vulture hovering at the front of the room, lording over his domain. He turned his back to the class as he picked up a piece of yellow chalk and began scribbling a brief outline of the procedures they were to follow on the blackboard in his usual near-illegible scrawl.

Harry stared at him until Ron nudged him with his elbow, then turned back to his work. For some reason, it was extraordinarily difficult to concentrate today, and he found himself glancing at Hermione's cauldron more often than his own, hoping to gain some insight into what it was he was supposed to do. He was trying so hard not to notice Snape where he lurked at the front of the classroom that he was aware of little else, and by the end of class, he hadn't even come close to finishing his potion. For once, Snape didn't single him out or even let on that he'd noticed the lapse at all.

The second the class period ended, Harry shoved his materials back into the supply cabinet and rose to leave, barely remembering to lock the drawer behind him before he left. There seemed to be slightly more air in the hallway than there'd been in the classroom, and he breathed it in hungrily, feeling lightheaded. He refused to notice that his hands were shaking where they clutched his books close against his chest.

Ron caught up with him outside the classroom, looking harried. "Hey, you're sure in a hurry to get out of there," he said, shifting the strap of his book bag across his shoulder. And then, "Did you notice he didn't take a single point from Gryffindor today?"

Harry nodded, chewing on his bottom lip.

"Harry?" Hermione had caught up to them now. She looked exasperated, skipping sideways down the hall as she finished sliding books into her bag. "You shot out of there in an awful hurry. And you barely got any of your work done today. Are you sure you're all right?"

The question made something snap loose inside Harry's chest. He ground to a stop and whirled on her, forcing both her and Ron to come to a startled halt. "I'm fine," he said, glaring at them both. "Why the hell does everybody keep asking me that?"

Hermione stared at him with wide eyes, looking like she wanted to cry. Harry lowered his gaze and cursed himself inwardly.

"Now look, mate." Ron's voice had the barest hint of anger in it this time. "I know you had a rough time and all this weekend, but there's no cause to--"

"No, you're right. I'm sorry." Harry ran his fingers back through his hair with a sigh. Wonderful. Now he was able to feel guilty on top of everything else. "I just... I'm tired, I think. I'm going to head up to the dorm and try to get some sleep."

"It's all right, Harry." Hermione, as always, was quick to forgive him his minor shortcomings. She gave Ron a quelling glare to stave off any further comments. "Ron will tell Madam Trelawney you were feeling poorly and went to lie down. I'm sure she'll understand."

"Use it as an excuse to predict his untimely demise again, is more like," Ron said with a wry grin. His eyes, however, were concerned as he turned back to look at Harry. "I'll come up to check on you after class, all right?"

"Okay." Harry gave an honest smile, feeling fortunate to have such good friends. Nevertheless, he couldn't help feeling a little discomfited by the weighing look Hermione gave him as she turned to leave.

He didn't feel particularly tired despite the excuse he'd given for his foul mood, but he decided it wouldn't hurt to go back to his dormitory anyway. The room would be deserted at this time of the morning, and a little self-imposed isolation sounded enormously appealing at the moment.

Dropping his books carelessly onto his bed, he moved to sit down on the wide sill in front of the tower window, pulling his knees up to his chest. Through the window, the school grounds looked comfortingly distant, brittle in the late autumn light, like they were a picture painted in a children's fairy story. The view fit in nicely with the feeling of surreality that was currently drifting through him, and he rested his cheek against the chilled glass of the window with a sigh, closing his eyes.

He really was losing his mind.

It seemed impossible to think he wouldn't have some reaction to seeing Snape after what had happened that weekend. After all, the man had fucked him. There was a kind of power in using the forbidden four-letter word that thrilled him and terrified him all at the same time, even if it was just in the privacy of his thoughts. But that was exactly what Snape had done, wasn't it? Held him down and... well. The memories didn't really bear repeating.

"Get the fuck out of my mind," he whispered, spreading his palm flat against the glass.

He wished he could forget it had ever happened. He wished he could think Snape's name without feeling the echoing ghost of remembered hands against his skin. It would have been so much easier if he hadn't... if he hadn't felt... if his own body hadn't...

"I'm perfectly fine," he said firmly, refusing to acknowledge the tears that were making their way down his cheeks.

He wished he didn't feel so very cold.

Professor McGonagall looked up from the scrolls she was marking when she heard a hesitant knock on the door of her office. "Come in," she called crisply, mentally bracing herself for the coming interview. The door opened slowly, and Harry Potter peeked his head around the edge of it, looking wary. Forcing her face into a neutral expression, she waved him into the room.

The boy's eyes looked huge behind the narrow lenses of his spectacles as he settled into a chair across from her desk. His hair, always unruly, looked as if it hadn't been combed in a week. The shadows under his eyes bore an uncanny resemblance to dark purple bruises, and she couldn't help wondering when the last time was that he'd gotten a decent night's sleep.

"You're not in trouble, Mr. Potter, if that's what you're wondering." She tried to keep her tone light as she set her quill down on the desk in front of her.

"Then why am I here?" He sounded defensive.

She pressed her lips together for a moment before replying. "I'm worried about you," she said bluntly. "I've been hearing some distressing reports from your other professors."

He shrugged, not meeting her gaze. One heel kicked absently at the leg of the chair he was sitting in. "I'm fine. Really."

This time, she couldn't keep her frown from showing briefly. "They say you've been exceptionally quiet lately, and that you've been turning in substandard work. Except in Potions, which oddly enough you seem to be improving in." Best not to mention his travesty of a performance in her own class these past few weeks. Leaning forward slightly, she tried to catch his eye. "You've been refusing to participate in class, and I hear from your friends that you've been spending an inordinate amount of time by yourself. As your Head of House, I'm... concerned. Is there anything you feel you want to talk about?"

Something like bitterness chased across his features at the question, gone so quickly she half-believed she'd imagined it. "I guess classes have just been more difficult this term," he said, sinking back further into his chair. Still, he wouldn't meet her gaze. "I'm working on it."

"I've also heard that you quit the Quidditch team." This was the detail that had caught her attention enough to feel that intervention was required. She couldn't imagine the bright, enthusiastic young man she'd known ever willingly giving up his place on the House team.

"It just doesn't seem... interesting anymore," he said with a shrug, picking at the sleeve of his robe. He looked like he was trying to bore a hole in his lap with his eyes. "Nothing does, really."

"Harry..." She deliberately lessened the formality a notch, hoping this would help him choose to open up to her. "I'm trying to understand what you're going through, but you're not giving me much to go on. Don't you still want to be a wizard?"

She'd meant the question to be rhetorical, but to her dismay, even this question failed to pierce the shield of apathy the boy had erected around himself. He shrugged again, rubbing at his eyes under his glasses with the fingers of one hand. "I don't know." His voice was flat. "I just... I don't know." He looked tired. "May I go now? Please?"

McGonagall stared at him, feeling vaguely resentful that he was resisting her attempts to reach out to him so completely. "Yes," she said, more sharply than she'd intended. "You may go."

He stood up and left without once looking in her direction.

That could certainly have gone better, she thought, leaning back in her chair with a sigh. She'd dealt with problem students in the past, of course, but it seemed surreal that her current difficulty should be with Harry Potter of all people. While his academic record had never been exactly sterling, he'd at least had an enthusiasm for his studies that had seemed as much a part of him as his love for Quidditch and his penchant for breaking the rules.

Something had changed.

It had been nearly a month since he'd returned from his latest t�te-�-t�te with Voldemort, and while she didn't know the details of what had happened to him there, she was growing increasingly certain that that had been the start of his current difficulties. Of course Albus was refusing to tell any of them just what had happened to the boy, saying that it was something he needed to work through in his own way, in his own time.

Pressuring him will only make it harder on him, Minerva, he'd told her, and while she'd agreed with him at the time, she was beginning to have second thoughts about the wisdom of that decision. But what was she to do about it? Surely none of them could do anything to help the boy until he made the decision to allow himself to be helped. Unfortunately, being depressed was not something she could simply take away House points for in the hopes that his behavior would change.

Biting back another sigh, she turned back to her marking.

Snape scowled out over the classroom of seventh-year Slytherins and Gryffindors in front of him, keeping cursory track of their progress while they worked on preparing the initial stages of a Dreamless Sleeping Draught. His eyes slid over Potter's bent head without pausing, despite the fact that the boy was obviously too preoccupied with avoiding his gaze to be making any kind of headway in the preparation of his potion. Not that it mattered; Snape had taken to giving him passing marks on each of his assignments whether he completed them or not, just to cut down on the interaction between them. He was still waiting for Albus to come knocking on his door about it, since it was the first time in Potter's history at Hogwarts that he'd consistently received passing marks in Snape's class.

On this subject, however -- as in so many others -- the headmaster remained silent. And so Snape seethed inwardly and continued teaching his classes to the best of his ability, all the while doing everything in his power to forget that Harry Potter existed.

Damn the boy.

Potter glanced up once right before class ended, inadvertently catching Snape's eyes as he reached for a jar of Abyssinian shrivelfig on the table in front of him. He flinched and ducked his head, fingers clenching visibly around the jar as he turned back toward his cauldron.

And just what had the headmaster been thinking to allow them to go back to their usual routine -- or whatever parody of their usual routine they were currently playing out -- as if nothing untoward had happened between them? Clearly, it wasn't working for either of them. Snape didn't know what demons Potter was wrestling with in the hours he wasn't immured in the potions classroom, but if the dark shadows under his eyes were any indication, he hadn't been sleeping any better than Snape. Snape's nighttime hours rarely brought him anything remotely resembling rest anymore, and when he did sleep, his dreams were filled with raging fire and hissing laughter and wide, terrified eyes that somehow looked through him and knew what he'd done, even when they failed to recognize him at all.

Damn the boy.

And maybe that had been the headmaster's plan all along. Albus must have known full well that neither he nor Potter would react well to being pressured into talking about their reactions to the events of that night, and so he'd allowed them the freedom to go on pretending everything was normal between them. Until, of course, one or the other of them came to the inescapable conclusion that everything wasn't normal -- and would likely never be again.

It wasn't as if it were just their personal comfort levels which had suffered from this particular debacle. Albus had been understandably disturbed by the fact that Snape had not been informed beforehand that Harry was to be kidnapped, and had determined that Snape would not be required to spy among the Death Eaters any longer. Snape had not even pretended to be disappointed. He'd suspected for months now that Voldemort's faith in his loyalty was waning. Surely there were other, more effective, ways to ensure their success in this war.

Snape cast a lidded glance at the clock in the corner of the room and let out his breath in an inaudible sigh. Finally.

"Dismissed," he said curtly.

The room abruptly filled with a flurry of rustling papers and clinking jars as the students cleaned their work areas in preparation to leave, and Snape had a moment to reconsider his decision before speaking again. Cursing himself inwardly for the thrice-damned fool that he was, he raised his voice slightly and said, "Not you, Mr. Potter."

He watched with a degree of mean-spirited satisfaction as Potter froze with one hand on the back of his chair in the act of rising, looking as if he'd just been hit by an exceptionally powerful Petrificus Totalus. His Gryffindor friends cast him sympathetic glances as they gathered their things and left him to his fate.

Potter -- Harry, Snape corrected himself reluctantly, as referring to him by his surname made Snape think all too vividly about the boy's father -- was very methodically clearing off his section of the table when the last of them left. The sudden quiet was deafening. While he didn't raise his eyes from his task as Snape approached him, there was a heightened wariness about him that made Snape's lip curl.

Snape waited until the classroom was completely empty except for the two of them before he spoke. "It has come to my attention, Mr. Potter, that your recent mockery of a performance in my class has been rivaled by your ineptitude in your other classes. I must admit to some... surprise... that that would be possible."

Harry's brow furrowed at the biting sneer in Snape's voice, but he didn't look up as he moved to return his jar of Abyssinian shrivelfig to the stores cabinet. It didn't escape Snape's notice that he kept at least the length of a lab table between them at all times.

Snape clenched his jaw briefly, feeling a flare of something uncomfortably like guilt coil deep in his gut. Guilt and, even more uncomfortable, a desire to make amends. As if that would even be possible. "It has also come to my attention that you've quit the Quidditch team."

Harry turned his head away sharply at that, clenching a fist at his side. "I'm fine," he ground out, pausing at the far wall as if uncertain where to flee next. He still refused to meet Snape's gaze.

Snape glared at him, feeling full aware of the deliberate distance between them, of how Harry's breathing echoed quick and shallow in the stillness of the room. The boy was terrified (either of Snape himself or of the memories Snape's presence invoked), even if he wouldn't admit it to himself.

The realization made something snap deep within Snape's chest. Because he knew -- excruciatingly, intimately -- that he had been the one to do this to the boy. The by-now-familiar guilt he'd grown accustomed to melted into a rage that felt almost cleansing, and he quickly stepped around the edge of the rearmost lab table, relishing the startled glance Harry gave him at the suddenness of the movement. Snape stalked toward him, robes billowing with all the dramatic flair he'd cultivated over years of terrifying children into some semblance of academic achievement, and Potter retreated with near-comical haste until his back hit up against the cabinet behind him.

Snape stopped a hand's breadth in front of him, staring down into his upturned face. Harry stared up at him with wide eyes and flaring nostrils, clearly on the verge of a panic attack.

Snape sneered. "Tell me you're fine now."

And Harry, glaring up at him with a fury that seemed directed at himself as much as at Snape, couldn't do it.

Still, he refused to flee, refused to acknowledge the tension singing through him, as if in the pretending he could somehow remake reality so that the unthinkable had never happened at all. Stupid, stupid child. Lowering his voice to a near-whisper, Snape hissed, "Don't you get it, Potter? I raped you."

Harry stood frozen for an endless moment, staring up at him with unblinking eyes. Snape returned the gaze levelly, refusing to back away even though his own heart was pounding so hard it felt likely to crack right through his ribs.

Then, without warning, Harry gave a wounded-sounding cry and uncoiled violently in a flurry of punches that caught Snape entirely by surprise. He pummeled at Snape's chest with both hands, fists striking against flesh with a hollow thudding sound. Snape stumbled back with a startled grunt but made no move to stop him.

After a few moments, Harry collapsed against the floor in a puddle of robes, exhausted. Snape stared down at him, breathing raggedly, then bent to touch a hand hesitantly to his shoulder. He felt somewhat reassured when Harry didn't flinch away.

And maybe it wouldn't mean anything to anyone but himself to say the words aloud, but... "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Harry shuddered. "I know," he said, just as quietly. He didn't look up.

"You're not fine." It wasn't a question.

"No," Harry agreed, voice sounding like it was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "I'm not fine."

"Let me help you," Snape said, and Harry nodded.

"Okay."

Carefully, Snape helped him to his feet, and Harry leaned wearily against his side, still avoiding eye contact. Snape's arm stayed around his shoulders as they moved out of the room toward the infirmary, not feeling entirely certain which one of them was supporting whom.

It should have felt like a victory, Snape supposed, but instead, the guilt he felt only seemed to echo deeper.

"They caught me while I was visiting Hogsmeade with my friends."

Harry closed his eyes and pulled his knees up to his chest, trying to block out the memories the simple statement brought to mind. Christine Ramsey sat in the armchair across from him, resplendent in dark brown and gold robes that seemed to soak up the light from the fire. They were in one of the school's lesser-used study rooms; outside, a fine layer of snow was falling, coating the world in a comfortingly anonymous layer of white. Despite the broad windows and high ceiling, Harry couldn't help feeling that there wasn't enough air in the room to breathe.

"How did they catch you, Harry?" Christine's voice was gentle.

It was a moment before Harry responded. "I'm not really sure. Some kind of spell. They... they stunned Ron and Hermione, so they didn't really see what happened, either."

"So it wasn't something you could have defended yourself against."

Harry chewed hard on his lower lip. "I guess not."

Christine was silent for a moment. Then, "Tell me what happened when you woke up in the cell."

Harry turned to look out the window, gathering his thoughts before he answered. He couldn't believe he was actually here, talking about this. But if anything, his breakdown in front of Snape had convinced him that he wasn't handling this very well on his own.

"It was dark," he said finally. "And cold. I felt... dizzy. Ill."

"The drugs."

"Yeah." Strange how he'd devoted so much energy to not thinking about this, and the memories were still as vivid as if they'd happened yesterday. "I don't know how long I was there before a Death Eater came and brought me to Voldemort."

If Christine was uncomfortable with hearing the Dark Lord's name spoken aloud, she tactfully didn't show it. "And the other Death Eaters were there."

A pause. "Yes."

I believe my Death Eaters have earned a bit of a privilege in this matter.

Harry took off his glasses and scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, wishing he didn't have to think about this. He didn't want to think about this. Even if -- if he was being perfectly honest with himself -- he hadn't really thought of anything else since it had happened.

"What happened next?" Christine asked quietly.

Before you die, I will allow them to... play.

Harry drew in a deep breath and then let it out slowly, avoiding her gaze as he slid his glasses back onto his nose. "He... gave me to them."

The echo of the panic he'd felt still reverberated through him. The feel of the sweat chilling on his skin. Fire, and heat, and laughter, and fear. It all seemed to bleed together in his memories until he couldn't really tell one from the other. The sound of his heart beating had been very loud.

Wetting his lips slightly, he continued, "They... fought over me. Over who would get to be first." As he'd tried to crawl away from them, bruising his fingers against the hard stone of the floor. The memory of Malfoy's touch burning like a brand against the side of his face. "And then... Snape grabbed me."

"You knew it was him?"

He nodded, without taking his eyes away from the window. "I recognized his voice."

This time, Christine's silence was thoughtful. "Did you believe he had betrayed you?" she asked after a moment. "That he was really loyal to the Death Eaters after all?"

Harry had to think about that one. "No," he finally said, toying with the edge of one sleeve. "I mean, I knew what he was doing. He was... he was trying not to hurt me."

"And you believe the other Death Eaters would have."

I've always wondered what it would be like to fuck Dumbledore's little whore savior.

Harry shuddered. "Yes."

More silence, broken only by the low crackling of the fire. An ember popped loudly in the stillness, making him jump, and he turned to watch a shower of orange sparks drift slowly down to settle on the bed of ashes beneath the flames.

"What are you feeling right now?" Christine asked him.

It was a good question. What was he feeling?

"Lost, I guess." He shifted slightly in his chair, wrapping his arms around his upraised knees. "Kind of scared. Lonely. I haven't really had anyone to talk to about all this."

"You haven't told your friends what happened?"

"No." Although he rather thought Hermione was beginning to suspect. "I just... I'm not ready to talk to them about it yet."

"Why not?"

Why not, indeed. Harry rubbed at his eyes again, wishing they would stop burning. He wasn't going to cry, damn it.

"I just... I just don't want them to know."

Christine's expression was solemn. "What happened to you wasn't your fault, Harry. It's not something you need to feel ashamed of."

Harry clenched his jaw and turned toward the window. The falling snow seemed muffling somehow, camouflaging. From this angle, he couldn't see a single person out on the grounds; he and Christine might have been the only two people left in the entire world.

"It hurt," he said at last, giving up controlling the burning in his eyes as a lost cause. What did it matter, anyway? "I mean, he was trying not to, but it... it hurt anyway." He paused. "It was the first time I'd ever... I mean that I ever..."

"The first time you'd ever had sex?"

He nodded, chewing on his bottom lip. "All I could think about was that Malfoy was going to be next. And then god knew who else. I... I wished I was dead." He tightened his arms around his chest. "But Snape still... I mean, he made me..."

Christine nodded slightly, looking as if she understood. "He made you orgasm."

For some reason, his vision was all watery. "Yes," he whispered.

"Harry." Christine seemed to be choosing her words carefully. "Just because you achieved physical release doesn't mean you wanted it to happen, or that you enjoyed it. It's an involuntary reaction to physical stimulation, nothing more. Kind of like... like breathing hard after you've been running. It's not something you can control."

Harry mulled the words over, trying this new idea on for size. He'd spent so many sleepless nights agonizing over how he could possibly have found pleasure -- however twisted -- in what had happened to him. It was his deepest shame, the guilty truth he could never admit to his friends, the memory that had made it impossible to meet Snape's eyes for the past month and a half, or to meet his own eyes in the mirror. Not even the memory of the violation he'd suffered at Snape's hands had carried as much weight as the belief that his body had been a willing participant in it.

And now... maybe it hadn't been his fault, after all? Was what Christine saying true?

"I need to think about that for a while," he said.

Christine smiled at him. "That's fine, Harry." She patted his arm lightly in a comforting gesture. "You're doing just fine."

"Just so you know, it wasn't my idea to be here."

Snape deliberately folded his hands together in his lap and met Christine Ramsey's gaze levelly, refusing to show a hint of the agitation he was feeling inside.

Christine smiled, settling back comfortably in her chair. "Why are you here, then?"

Snape scowled. "You know full well why I'm here. The only way Potter would agree to speak with you is if I agreed to have a conversation with you as well."

"And it's important to you that Harry speak to me?"

"He obviously needs to speak to someone. The boy's falling apart at the seams."

Christine paused briefly. "You're in the habit of taking care of him, aren't you? Looking out for his best interests?"

"Someone has to. He's obviously incapable of looking after them himself."

Subdued humor glinted in Christine's eyes at that pronouncement. "You must care about him a great deal."

"I do not 'care about him.'" Snape was incensed at the suggestion. "He happens to be someone I've been charged with protecting."

"By whom?" She sounded curious.

Snape floundered for a moment, unsure how to answer. "He is a student at this school, and I am his professor," he said at last, biting off the words as if they pained him. "That gives me a responsibility to ensure his continued well-being."

"So you would have done the same for any student under your care?"

The question made him pause. Would he have? If it had been Weasley, or Granger, or Longbottom?

Of course, he already knew the answer to that.

Christine didn't seem to be expecting him to reply. "Will you tell me what you were feeling when you first learned that Harry had been captured?"

Snape tightened his fists until he felt his nails press into his palms. His voice was even when he replied, "I was furious."

"At Harry?"

"Yes, at Harry. The fool child has been hunted by Voldemort for the past six years of his life; you'd think he would have learned something about being cautious in that time."

"You felt he had foolishly put himself at risk."

"Yes! He's forever putting himself in danger, and the headmaster does nothing to prevent it. He encourages it, even."

"And that bothers you."

"Of course it does. Everyone insists on treating him like he's the savior of the wizarding world, and that's a hell of a responsibility to put on the shoulders of a child."

"Except that he's not a child anymore, is he?"

Which was something Snape was intimately aware of, thank you very much. Determinedly, he pushed the memory away. "No. I suppose not," he admitted grudgingly.

Christine regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. "What did you feel when you discovered what the Death Eaters planned to do to him?"

Snape clenched his teeth together until his jaw ached. He could still see Malfoy crouching down next to the boy. Touching him. "I felt helpless."

"You wanted to save him."

"He didn't deserve to have that happen to him. And M-- the Death Eaters would have made it a point to ensure that it would be painful for him."

"They would have hurt him."

"As much as they were able." He closed his eyes briefly.

Christine was silent for a moment. "You thought you could make it easier on him?"

"I knew the headmaster was coming. If I could just... stall them, then it was possible he wouldn't have had to go through that at all."

"But it took Albus a while to get to you."

"There were wards around the house. It took time for the aurors to dismantle them."

"So you had to keep stalling."

"Yes." The word was little more than a hiss. "If I had shown any weakness, they would have taken him from me. It was only their fear of me that was holding them back." He blotted his damp palms against the front of his robes, feeling his insides twist in remembered revulsion at the thought of what he'd known he had to do. "I... I couldn't save him from what had to happen to him. But I could try to make it easier on him."

"So in a way you did save him. He survived the experience without significant physical injury, which is what you'd intended."

Snape smiled humorlessly. "I wasn't aware rape was considered such a noble endeavor." His voice was thick with scorn.

Christine was unaffected by his tone. "You believe you failed him."

His smile faded. "I did fail him."

"So you wanted to rape him? Humiliate him? Hurt him?"

"No! Of course not. I did everything I could to make it as painless as possible for him. I knew it would hurt him no matter what I did -- there wasn't any time to prepare him, and it would have seemed suspicious if I had. I..." -- he couldn't meet her gaze -- "I tried to make sure he was aroused when... when it happened, because I thought it would hurt less that way. But I was still the one to do that to him. I raped him."

"To protect him from the others."

His heart was beating so loudly it seemed to be echoing inside his ears. "I couldn't let them have him."

"Why not?" Her voice was soft.

"Because..." He closed his eyes, trying desperately to block out the images of what might have been. "They would have broken him."

"Do you feel that you broke him, Severus?"

His fists tightened in his lap. The nails pressing into his palms were beyond the point of pain now. "I don't know."

"Have you asked him?"

The question made him laugh aloud. It was not a pleasant sound. "He has every reason in the world to hate me. He can barely stand to be in the same room with me. If he chose to raise his wand against me and say Avada Kedavra, I would not stop him."

"You feel you deserve anything he chooses to do to you."

"Yes."

"And if he chooses to forgive you?"

Silence. That was something Snape honestly had not considered before.

"Think about it, Severus." Christine smiled slightly, standing up from her chair. "We'll talk again in a few days."

Snape's attention was focused on the potion he was preparing when he heard soft footfalls pause at the doorway of his laboratory. Assuming it was one of his Slytherins come to ask for help on a potions assignment, he finished adding the crushed asphodel leaves from the jar in his hand and made sure the cauldron's contents were thoroughly stirred before turning.

He froze when he saw Harry Potter hovering uncertainly in the open doorway to the room.

Harry regarded him with equal unease, leaning against one side of the archway with one hand on the wall as if he were physically bracing himself. His eyes blinked rapidly behind his glasses as he met Snape's gaze.

"May I come in?" he asked quietly.

Snape forced his limbs to unlock and gestured to the low workbench at the far wall. "You may have a seat if you wish. I'm almost finished."

Harry wrapped his arms around his chest as he moved into the room. He perched stiffly on the edge of the bench and glanced at the cauldron curiously. "What are you making?"

"A new batch of Sleeping Draught for Madam Pomfrey." Snape tried to ignore the eyes on him as he turned back to his cauldron, feeling their gaze cut like razors across his skin. "I have to refresh the infirmary's supply on occasion."

Harry nodded absently and didn't say anything further. Snape stirred the simmering potion for another minute before he was content that it was the desired consistency and would not boil over when he turned his back on it. Wiping his hands on a nearby towel set aside for just that purpose, he turned back toward the workbench.

"I must admit to some surprise that you would choose to visit me in my chambers by yourself," he said. He couldn't quite hold back the bite of derision in the words, although in this case it happened to be self-directed.

Harry blanched slightly at the statement but did not look away. "I suppose I just wanted to prove to myself that I... that I could."

Snape frowned. It had been more than a month since Harry had broken down in his classroom, and there had been little to no interaction between them in all that time. The classes they had together passed in much the same way they had the month before -- namely, with both of them attempting to ignore the other's existence -- except that Harry seemed to be concentrating marginally better on his assignments. Obviously, talking to the Ramsey woman was good for him.

He certainly looked better than he had a month ago. He'd obviously taken to eating regularly again, and had lost the ghost-like quality he'd adopted for much of the previous season. He still looked as if he was teetering on the edge of exhaustion, but that didn't particularly surprise Snape, since he was still having difficulty sleeping himself. Even so, the marked improvements in him were pleasing to Snape since they meant that maybe -- just maybe -- Harry would manage to recover from what Snape had done to him after all.

Snape felt his upper lip curl disdainfully. "You have every reason to want to stay as far away from me as possible," he said, staying well on his own side of the room.

But Harry shook his head. "I don't blame you for what happened. Well... not really. I'll admit I was angry at you for the longest time. But it wasn't you who put us in that situation. It was Voldemort. And you did everything you could to protect me."

Snape was tempted to discount the words with his usual condescension, but there was a world-weariness in Harry's dark green eyes, glittering faintly behind those ridiculous spectacles, that gave him pause. Those eyes knew things, and saw things, that no seventeen-year-old boy should be aware of. He looked much older than he had any right to be; it was an age born of maturity, of circumstances, that burned like a flame within him.

No, not a child at all anymore.

Snape cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I'm pleased that you think so," he said quietly, unable to think of a damn thing else to say.

That earned him a small crook of a smile. "I've been talking to Christine a couple of times a week. She's been helping me think things through. It's been... helping." He glanced down at his lap, where his fingers were toying idly with the hem of his sleeve. "I've rejoined the Quidditch team."

Snape nodded. "I heard."

"And I've also been getting tutoring in my classes to make up the work I've fallen behind in. I'm afraid I haven't been a very good student lately." His tone was rueful.

The comment brought to mind a scathing retort he could make about Harry's performance during the past six years of his academic career, but Snape held it back. "I could offer you additional instruction in potions, if you'd like," he found himself saying instead. "There is still time to prepare yourself for your N.E.W.T.s."

Harry's eyes were uncommonly bright when they looked up at him. "Thank you. I'd appreciate that." He hesitated slightly, glancing back down at his hands. "I know we've never been friends, Professor. We've had our... differences." The understatement made Snape snort in amusement. "But we're on the same side here, still. I guess I just don't want... I don't want us to be enemies."

No, Snape didn't want that, either.

The silence stretched between them, thick and clinging, but not overly uncomfortable for all that. After several moments, Harry stood up from the bench. "I guess I should let you get back to your potion."

Snape nodded. "If you wish to return after dinner this evening, I should have some time available to tutor you."

"I'll be here." Harry favored him with a ghost of a smile before turning to leave.

After he was gone, Snape stood staring at the open doorway for a very long time.

Harry chewed on the end of his quill and looked up from the heavy textbook in his lap, smiling slightly when he saw Snape's familiar black-robed form bent over the cauldron at the other end of the room. He'd gotten used to spending his evenings here in the potions lab studying instead of hanging out with his friends in the Gryffindor common room, and for the past several weeks, the arrangement had worked comfortably for both of them.

He'd wondered, at first, how he could possibly feel comfortable spending time alone in the dungeons with Snape. It had taken a great deal of soul-searching to come to this conclusion, but the truth was, he didn't believe Snape would ever willingly hurt him. He hadn't lied when he'd said he understood Snape's reasons for doing what he'd done to him, although it had admittedly taken him a while to feel comfortable with his own judgment in the matter.

That had been the most crippling blow, after all -- the loss of confidence in his own judgment, his own abilities. He'd never felt so helpless in his entire life, not even when Cedric had died in front of him. The memory of the rape was still enough to make his palms sweat and his insides clench in remembered terror, but it was losing some of its impact now that he was making a deliberate effort to overcome it. That was something else Snape was helping him with -- by not coddling him, or letting him feel sorry for himself, or ceasing to challenge him because he believed he'd been "wounded" in some way. No, ever since Harry'd made the decision to reclaim the life he'd allowed to start slipping away from him, Snape had remained eminently Snape-ish, which was a much-needed anchor in a world that seemed to be spinning all too frequently into chaos.

Besides, it was quiet down here in the dungeons, and Snape never looked at him funny or asked him uncomfortable questions about the time he'd spent with Voldemort. Even Hermione had taken to looking at him with a strange sort of pity in her eyes, which annoyed him to no end.

It wasn't fair to judge her, though, he knew. He'd been an absolute mess for most of the term so far, and it was only recently that he'd made any progress in reclaiming his self-esteem. Perhaps someday he'd be willing to talk to her and Ron about what had happened to him, but for the time being, he far preferred Snape's quiet, undemanding company.

Not to mention that for whatever reason, spending time with Snape like this was helping to keep the nightmares at bay.

"I trust your lack of attention to your text means you've finished your assigned reading," Snape said without looking up from the potion he was stirring.

Harry bit back a sigh and dropped his gaze to the potions book in his lap again. "Undemanding" was a relative term, of course. Snape was as insistent a taskmaster outside of the classroom as he was inside it, and he seemed to have made it his personal mission in life to ensure that Harry would perform well on his N.E.W.T.s at the end of the year. He'd even gone so far as to say that Harry had a fair amount of talent for potions work, when he actually bothered to put his mind to it. Coming from Snape, that was high praise indeed.

Pushing the rest of his thoughts aside, Harry forced himself to concentrate on his studies.

"You and Professor Snape have gotten awfully chummy lately," Ron said, throwing a stone across the surface of the lake with the obvious intention of skipping it. The stone fell into the water with a deep kerplunk the moment it hit the surface.

Harry glanced at him uncertainly, caught off guard by the casual statement. "What do you mean?"

Around them, the school seemed to be caught in stasis somewhere between winter and spring. This was usually Harry's least favorite time of the year, turning the school grounds into a landscape sculpture of soggy fields and mud. But for some reason he thought it was almost beautiful this year, with thick patches of snow interspersed with rugged scraps of green. Thawing from the inside out, much like himself. The lake glittered in the sun like a mirrored jewel.

"Oh, really, Harry." The look Hermione gave him was faintly exasperated. "You've been spending nearly every spare moment down in the dungeons lately. It's not like we haven't noticed you've been gone."

Harry ducked his head guiltily, unable to refute the accusation. He knew he'd been a less than decent friend this year, and it really wasn't fair to either of them. A part of him really had believed they hadn't missed him during his nightly study sessions with Snape.

"Snape's been... pretty decent, actually," he said. Which was surprisingly true. While Snape's general demeanor hadn't changed all that much over the past several months, there was a kind of ingrained habit in the snide comments he made that Harry found almost comforting.

The look Hermione gave him was considering. "Your marks have certainly improved since you've started tutoring with him. I suppose it's been good for you to have someone to talk to about things."

Harry wondered yet again if she'd been able to piece together enough clues from his behavior over the past several months to guess what had happened to him, if not exactly who the perpetrator had been. It wasn't something he was sure he'd ever feel comfortable admitting to her.

"We haven't really talked much about anything other than potions," he said, shrugging. "But yeah, I guess it has been helping." He deliberately failed to mention the comfort he got from simply curling up in a corner of the potions lab and watching the man work. There was a kind of delicate gracefulness to Snape's movements when he was immersed in the development of a new potion that was pure poetry to see. The past six years of their association aside, there was just something about being around Snape that was... comfortable.

In many ways, Severus Snape was a surprising man.

"We're not condemning you, Harry," Hermione assured him.

"Yeah, we're just worried." Ron's expression was earnest. He bumped Harry's shoulder with his own affectionately, making Harry smile. Harry was struck suddenly with how much he'd missed the simple comfort of spending time with his friends. "I don't like the thought of you being locked up down there all night with Snape of all people."

The comment made Harry grin. "It isn't all night," he insisted. "And nobody locks me in. Honest."

Again, the look Hermione gave him was weighing. Ron's expression was skeptical.

Harry cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I'm okay," he told them seriously, meaning it. "Really." For the first time, he thought they might honestly believe him.

It was, perhaps, the first time he honestly believed it himself.

Snape looked up from the first-year exams he'd just finished marking and stretched out the kinks in his neck with a low sigh. Although he was reasonably certain it had to be his imagination, he half-believed the students entering Hogwarts were getting more dim-witted with each passing year.

A small sound drew his attention to the couch by the fire, and he felt his eyes narrow when the saw Harry's dark-robed form curled up in one corner of it, his Transfiguration textbook lying open in his lap. Harry's head was resting on the crook of one arm against the arm of the couch, lashes dark against the pale skin of his cheeks. His shoulders rose and fell in the slow, even rhythm of sleep.

Unobserved, Snape allowed his expression to soften slightly. The boy had become a near-permanent fixture in his chambers over the past month or so, and Snape had become impressed with the sheer determination he leveled against regaining the ground he'd lost in his studies during the previous half of the year. Yet another example of that vaunted Gryffindor courage, no doubt, although Snape had to admit it was serving him well in this instance. Rather than simply obtaining a passable mark on his N.E.W.T.s, Snape believed he was actually going to excel at them.

It still amazed Snape that Harry would have chosen to accept his help in undertaking this particular task. The spectre of That Night -- unspoken of between them, even after all this time -- was still a festering wound in Snape's memories, and it was one he did not believe would ever truly fade. Surely it must be the same for Harry, who had suffered so much more than he had. But perhaps that lay at the heart of Harry's reasons for joining with him in this -- with Snape, he felt no need to justify the occasional lapses in concentration that still gripped him, the exhaustion that dogged his steps after the still all-too-frequent sleepless night, the reluctance he felt to leave the sanctuary of Hogwarts' grounds. There was no need to explain anything to Snape, because Snape already knew.

And he was, so far as Snape could tell, the only one who knew about the details of Harry's assault aside from the Death Eaters and those who had arrived on the scene to rescue him. It seemed odd that Voldemort wouldn't have taken advantage of the opportunity to spread the news to every wizard and witch in Britain. After all, all it would take would be a rumor leaked to the children of those Death Eaters who had been present, and Harry's spirit could have been irretrievably broken in the ensuing chaos of mockery and degradation that would undoubtedly follow.

But of course leaking news of Harry's rape would force Voldemort to explain how he'd tucked tail and run at the first sign of Dumbledore -- not exactly an awe-inspiring image of the Great and Powerful Dark Lord. No, on second thought Voldemort would likely be willing to go to extraordinary lengths to suppress that particular piece of information.

Standing up, Snape moved closer to the couch and stared down at the young man sleeping so innocently there, as if he hadn't a care in the world. As if he wasn't sitting just a couple of metres away from the man who had held him down and viciously abused him just a few short months ago. There was a kind of innocent trust in the way he was lying there, lips parted, lashes fanned across the nearly translucent skin of his cheeks.

Trust and, by extension, forgiveness.

Snape wasn't sure how he felt about that.

And it was so easy -- for the moment -- to push aside the memory of what had gone before and simply drink in the way the firelight danced across the delicate angles of his face. It was a face that had seen so very much of the darker side of life, pain and fear and the death of loved ones and, yes, betrayal. And yet there was a quiet strength to it, even in sleep, that Snape envied. Had he ever had even a portion of this young man's courage, his willingness to accept what life threw at him and, through it all, carry on?

Harry shifted with a low sigh, and his eyelashes fluttered slightly, revealing the barest glint of darkened green beneath them. Noticing Snape standing above him, he lifted his head. "What time is it?" he mumbled sleepily.

"Time to return to your dorm and get some sleep," Snape replied, swallowing hard to ease the dryness in his throat. "I was just coming to wake you."

Harry nodded and straightened reluctantly, reaching for his bag. Snape was struck by the insane urge to ask him to stay and sleep on his couch, if he wished to.

"I'll see you tomorrow night?" Harry said once he had gathered his things together. His eyes were dulled by drowsiness, but the smile he favored Snape with seemed to be entirely heartfelt.

"I'll be here," Snape answered gruffly, turning away. He didn't look back as he heard the door to his office open.

"Good night," Harry said softly, and then he was gone. Feeling oddly warmed inside, Snape went about preparing himself for bed.

That night, oddly enough, there were no bad dreams.

"Atropa belladonna," Snape said, peering attentively over Harry's shoulder as the younger man methodically crushed a handful of glossy black berries with his mortar and pestle.

"Family Solanaceae, order Solanales," Harry recited dutifully. "A poisonous Eurasian perennial herb with dull green leaves and purplish-brown, bell-shaped flowers. An alkaloidal extract derived from the plant is sometimes used in Muggle medicines. The roots are one of the primary ingredients in the Draught of the Living Death."

"Correct." Snape allowed some of the approval he felt to show in his voice. It hadn't been all that long ago that Harry hadn't known what an alkaloidal extract was.

Harry looked pleased at the comment, but a moment later, his expression sobered. Glancing up at Snape uncertainly from underneath the thick fringe of his bangs, he asked, "Why have you been helping me, Professor?"

Snape stared at him, caught off guard by the question. He realized suddenly how close they were standing to each other.

"Why do you think?" he said gruffly, taking a deliberate step away. His arm felt warm where Harry's shoulder had been brushing it, and he had to resist the urge to rub it. "You think I want to waste the past six years I've devoted to teaching you and watch you fail?"

Which was a weak excuse, and he knew it. It wasn't like he was offering to give up his free time in the evenings to tutor Longbottom.

Harry's gaze was considering. "It's just... you've always hated me."

"I have never hated you." Snape couldn't quite keep the ire he felt at the accusation out of his voice. "Tolerated you, yes. Was frustrated and irritated by you -- indubitably. But I have never hated you."

Harry almost smiled at that. "Do you pity me, then?"

Snape's lip curled in disdain at the question. "Not everything in life revolves around you, Potter."

Several minutes passed in silence after that, and Snape dared to hope that the conversation was over. But then Harry looked up from his mortar again and said, "You're trying to gain some kind of absolution, aren't you?"

It was the closest either of them had come to mentioning the events of That Night. Snape closed his eyes briefly and looked away.

"There can be no absolution for what I did to you," he said hollowly.

Harry's gaze was solemn. "Why not?"

Snape turned to stare at him again, stunned by the question. "You even have to ask? What I did..."

"Was terrible," Harry agreed, glancing down at the pestle he was twirling between his fingers. He swallowed hard, obviously uncomfortable with the memory. His voice was even, though, as he continued, "But you didn't want to do it. I know that."

Snape pressed his lips together in a bitter smile at that declaration. And it was all so simple to Harry, wasn't it? Painting him as the noble martyr who'd deflowered a virgin boy's innocence out of a selfless desire to save another. How perfectly quaint.

It seemed suddenly intolerable that Harry would continue to be deceived that way.

"Self-sacrifice is a Gryffindor trait," Snape said quietly. Harry apparently heard the dangerous undertone in his voice, because his head snapped up again in surprise. Seeing the uncertainty in his gaze, Snape's sneer widened, taking on a sharper edge.

"What do you mean?" Harry said, voice trembling.

And oh, it was delightful and torturous both to bring all those precious illusions shattering down. "Did it never occur to you that I'd looked on you with lust before that day? That I took pleasure out of holding you that way? Out of... of using you that way?" Snape's heart was pounding now. He could feel Harry's dawning horror sliding into him like a blade of solid ice, sharp and cold and so blissfully painful it took his breath away. This was what he deserved, after all. "That perhaps I was taking advantage of the opportunity to make love to you because I knew I would never have another chance?"

Harry's eyes were huge as they stared up at him, and Snape waited impatiently for him to turn and flee the room, or hex him, curse him, scream at him, anything but stand there and act as if Snape was some kind of bloody hero for what he'd done.

Several moments passed before Harry moistened his lower lip nervously and said, "'Make love to me?'"

Snape froze, mentally replaying the last words he'd said. Damn, damn, damn. "Yes, Potter," he sneered with all the contempt he could muster. "'Make love to you.' Fuck you, shag you, bugger you... is there some other charming euphemism I've forgotten to include?"

Harry's eyes didn't move away from Snape's. His face had drained of all color, but he wasn't running away, damn him. "You were attracted to me before," he said slowly, visibly thinking through the words as he spoke. He swallowed forcefully. "H-How long?"

This torment was eminently more exquisite than anything else Snape could have imagined. Perhaps it was his punishment for allowing things to grow so comfortable between them over the past weeks. Against all odds, Harry had extended him the cautious gift of friendship, and Snape -- wretched opportunistic fool that he was -- had once again accepted what was not rightfully his to take.

"I don't know," he admitted hoarsely, refusing to give himself the satisfaction of turning away from the naked inquisitiveness in Harry's eyes. The weight of that dark green gaze felt like a lash scouring his skin. "Perhaps a year. Maybe more." The shame of that admission burned in him, painfully bright. He wasn't even sure anymore just when he'd ceased looking on the boy as anything other than a nuisance to be endured. Nor was he sure when the annoyance and mistrust he'd originally felt toward him had tipped the scales into reluctant admiration. No matter what trials life threw at him, Harry... survived. Survived and thrived, through whatever means necessary.

It was a trait perhaps only a Slytherin could honestly appreciate.

Not that he had ever expected anything to come of his... obsession. He made sure to treat Harry with the same disdain he'd always felt for him, and that, too, Harry had held up under with a kind of quiet grace that Snape envied. Even in his quietly smoldering rage, inwardly railing at the injustices of the world, the boy was exquisite.

But he was still a boy -- or had been, until recently. Snape was many things, but he was not a molester of children, no matter how bright their spirit or how compelling the challenging flash of their eyes. The obvious difference in their ages aside, he was the boy's teacher. Not to mention that Harry would doubtlessly run shrieking -- or else burst out laughing -- if he ever suspected the change this particular teacher's regard had taken toward him.

Not that it truly mattered. Severus Snape was a solitary man. He was well used to being alone, and the torment of knowing he was infatuated with something beautiful and unattainable hadn't cut all that deeply. And so he'd endured his obsession from a distance, secure in the knowledge that it would burn bright for a time but would soon peter out and fade away entirely, especially once the object of said obsession removed itself from Hogwarts -- and thus Snape's presence -- for good.

Only it hadn't turned out that way, had it?

Harry didn't say anything for what seemed a very long time. And then: "I'm not sure exactly what to think about that," he admitted.

Snape smiled thinly. No doubt.

The look Harry gave him was contemplative. "Did you want to force me?" He sounded more curious than anything else.

And what was Snape to say in response to a direct question like that?

"No," he said, curling his fist at his side.

Harry nodded and glanced toward the fire. The firelight reflected in a glittering arc on the edge of his glasses.

"I feel safe with you," he said, so softly Snape almost didn't hear.

And there really didn't seem to be anything Snape could say to that.

It was remarkable how little things changed between them after that night. Harry showed up the next evening for his scheduled study session, and it continued to be a familiar sight to see him curled up on the couch in the corner of Snape's office doing his homework while Snape was marking scrolls or drafting out new exams. Nothing further was said about Snape's confession to impropriety, and in the silence Snape read a kind of cautious acceptance.

Their work in the lab together was seamless, and Snape began to seriously hint that Harry might want to consider doing some graduate work in potions. Aside from a tendency to not die when people were trying to kill him, Harry had very little in the way of marketable skills aside from his talent at Quidditch. And while Harry had an admitted fondness for the sport, he confessed to Snape one evening that he really didn't want to spend the rest of his life chasing snitches.

Neither of them specifically referred to That Night again. Harry had his bad days, as did Snape, although those were coming fewer and farther between. In time, Snape believed, they might disappear altogether. In the meantime, they continued to draw strength from each other, and faced each day's battles as they came.

The nightmares were still a problem, but even those had become a negligible obstacle now that Harry began feeling inclined to discuss them. Curled up in his usual corner of Snape's couch, voice low as if afraid he might be overheard, he told Snape about his dreams of fire and pain and snakes and blood, and a ring of skulls around him laughing while he screamed. And Snape, wanting to comfort, dared to put an arm around his shoulders, and tentatively pull him close. His breath stilled when Harry rested his head on his shoulder, staring into the fire.

Snape pressed a light kiss to the hair on top of his bowed head, feeling strangely exonerated when he didn't pull away.

Harry grew increasingly nervous as he drew closer to the time when he was scheduled to take his N.E.W.T.s. Not that he wasn't looking forward to seeing all of his hard work finally come to an end, of course. The truth was, he honestly didn't know what he was going to do with himself afterward.

Not that he didn't have a variety of choices. He'd already received a number of job offers, sometimes from entirely unexpected sources. A part of him bitterly believed that it really wouldn't matter how he did on his N.E.W.T.s -- his notoriety as The Boy Who Refused To Goddamn Die would be enough to pave over any deficit in his academic performance.

He could almost see the sneer on Snape's face at that assessment.

"So, Harry," Hermione said to him one evening in the Gryffindor common room. A rainbow of catalogues and university brochures spread in a colorful arc across the table in front of her, consuming her rapt attention. "Have you given any thought to whether you're going to go into Auror training or not?"

Harry shifted uncomfortably at the question, looking up from the chessboard where he sat beside her. Across the table from him, Ron flipped through an issue of Quidditch Weekly while he waited for him to make a move. And sure, it was easy enough for them to think about the future -- Hermione was going on to University, and Ron had a job already waiting for him at the Ministry.

"No," he admitted, drumming his fingertips glumly against the tabletop. "I mean, yeah, I've been thinking about it. But I haven't decided anything yet." Which wasn't exactly true. If nothing else, he knew he didn't want to spend the rest of his life facing down dark wizards, no matter what the rest of the wizarding world expected him to do. Voldemort was quite enough for him when it came to that.

In fact, he'd begun to think that he might want to go into some branch of the healing arts. In his past seven years at Hogwarts, he'd seen enough evil to last him a lifetime. He'd been the cause of enough death and destruction; maybe it was time to start devoting his energies to a more productive pursuit. He'd already spoken to Madam Pomfrey about it, and she'd told him she'd be delighted to take him on as a graduate apprentice if that was what he ended up choosing. He'd be able to take university courses by owl, which would give him time to decide if being a mediwizard was really what he wanted to do with his life.

It was later that night, after nearly everyone else had retired to their dormitories to sleep, that Harry found himself sitting on the couch staring into the common room fire in much the same way he did when he was in Snape's office. On the weekends, he made it a point to steer clear of the dungeons, figuring that Snape deserved some time to himself after more or less babysitting him during their study sessions all week long. Although come to think of it, Snape had never really seemed to mind.

"Can't sleep tonight?" Hermione asked, sitting down beside him. She and Ron had taken to sitting up with him when his nightmares were bad enough to keep him awake. Not for the first time, Harry felt a surge of gratitude that he had such devoted friends.

Harry scrubbed at his eyes, feeling the ache of weariness move through him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a decent night's sleep, although the nightmares were coming at much sparser intervals now. "Just thinking," he replied tiredly. Deciding to test the waters a little, he added, "There's someone that's been... well, that I've been kind of distracted with lately."

He wasn't sure just when he'd figured out that his feelings for Snape were changing. It wasn't anything blatant -- more like a subtle comfort he felt whenever Snape was around, an understated awareness that he was happier when he was with Snape than he was when they were apart. Whenever Snape accidentally brushed against him in the potions lab, it no longer reminded him of the way they'd been forced together by Voldemort -- instead, it brought to mind memories of the way Snape's arm had felt around his shoulders during the nights he'd confided in him about his dreams. Warm, and reassuring in a way that made him wish Snape would touch him more often.

It was... a nice feeling.

"It's Snape, isn't it?" Surprisingly, it was Ron who asked the question. Harry stared up at him in astonishment. He expected to see horror or disgust in his friend's expression, but instead, there was only a sort of weary resignation. "You fancy the bloke."

"Um," Harry said, glancing uncertainly at Hermione.

Her eyes glinted with amusement. "It's not like it hasn't been fairly obvious, Harry."

"Not to us, anyway," Ron amended hastily, seeing the panic begin to crawl across Harry's face.

Harry glanced around furtively to make sure no one had overheard. Fortunately, they seemed to be the only ones left in the common room, and he allowed himself to relax. It was as much privacy as could be found in a place like Hogwarts, at least outside of Snape's dungeons. "And you're okay with that?" he said, turning back around to stare at Ron incredulously. He'd expected something along the lines of a nuclear meltdown when he made the admission.

Ron shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "I don't know if 'okay' is exactly the right word," he hedged. "I mean... Snape." He shuddered, looking vaguely ill. After a moment, he visibly shoved the emotion aside. "But really, Harry, he's been good to you, right? He hasn't been nasty to you or anything?"

"No," Harry was quick to assure him. "No, he's been great. Really."

"Well, then." Ron sounded like that settled the matter. Which, to him, it probably did. He'd matured a lot since the years when they'd been children together, Harry noticed. As long as Snape didn't do anything to hurt Harry, their relationship -- whatever it may be -- had the Ron Weasley stamp of approval.

"Besides," Hermione added, "you've really needed someone to talk to. I'm glad he was there for you, Harry."

Harry felt a pang of guilt when he realized he still hadn't told them anything about what had happened to him the night Voldemort had kidnapped him. At first, it had been because he'd been too scared to even think about it, but now he figured he'd distanced himself from the incident enough that the simple act of talking about it wasn't going to reopen the wound and leave it bleeding.

"About that," he said, clearing his throat hoarsely when his voice caught. He dropped his gaze back down to his hands. "There's something I've been meaning to tell you."

He waited until they were both sitting down beside him before he began to speak. Keeping his voice low, he told them what had happened to him that night in Voldemort's lair, leaving out nothing aside from the fact that Snape had been the one to assault him. There was something cleansing about saying it all out loud that he hadn't expected, as if he were expelling the last of the horror that had clung to him all these long months. By the time he was finished, there were tears on his cheeks that he didn't remember falling, and Hermione had her arm wrapped around his shoulders, cradling him gently against her side.

"Oh, Harry," she sighed, rubbing one hand comfortingly over the middle of his back. She didn't look surprised at what he'd told her. Neither did Ron, for that matter. "I'm so sorry that happened to you. But I'm glad you told us."

"Yeah," Ron agreed, reaching for Harry's hand and squeezing it, hard. Harry squeezed right back. "Stupid fuck coward Dark Lord." There were high points of color on his cheeks, and his voice trembled as if he were near tears. For some reason, his protective rage made Harry want to laugh and cry all at the same time. "He's never going to get another chance at you. I swear."

Harry closed his eyes and allowed his friends' loyalty to wrap around him like a warm blanket, enfolding him in the comfort of their presence. He had to admit, at least to himself, that he'd been half-afraid they would be repulsed by him if they knew for sure what had happened to him. Because he'd been weak enough to allow that to happen, weak enough to take pleasure in it happening, however painful and humiliating it had been. But now, with his friends' easy acceptance of him, the message Christine had drilled into him all those weeks ago was finally beginning to sink in.

It hadn't been his fault.

Letting out a breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding, Harry allowed himself to truly relax for what seemed the first time in longer than he cared to remember. "I still don't know what to do about Snape," he sighed, leaning into Hermione's side.

"Does he feel the same way about you?" she asked curiously, tightening her arm around him.

Harry had to think about that for a moment. He smiled slightly when he remembered all the evenings he and Snape had spent together -- all the subtle touches, the heavy gazes that shifted away as soon as Harry looked up to meet them, affection screened away behind a fa�ade of callousness that was as familiar as it was comforting, backed by an iron-willed determination to do no further harm. "Yeah. Yeah, I think he does."

"Well, there you go." Ron's tone made it seem as if Harry's decision should be obvious.

Which, now that he stopped to think about it, it really was.

He found Snape in the potions lab that afternoon, restocking the stores in the cupboard against the far wall. Snape looked up in surprise when Harry appeared in the doorway of the room, but motioned for him to come in without hesitation.

"Here," he said distractedly, thrusting a crate of glass jars in Harry's direction. Peering inside, Harry saw that they were filled with what looked like powdered mandrake root. "Make yourself useful."

Stifling a grin, Harry obediently began to unload the jars into their proper place on the shelf. They worked together in comfortable silence for several minutes until all of the crates were emptied. When they were done, Snape eyed the newly restocked shelves with a critical eye and banished the empty crates with a wave of his wand.

"I trust that something momentous must have occurred to draw you out of Gryffindor tower on a Sunday evening," he said dryly, turning to give Harry his full attention.

Harry couldn't quite hold back the nervous twitch that made his fingers twine around the sleeve of his jumper. "In a way, I guess. I just got done speaking to Madam Pomfrey. She'd offered me an apprenticeship here at Hogwarts with her after I finish school, and I accepted it."

Snape went very still. "Harry..." He looked shaken. A moment later, whatever emotion Harry had seen in those dark eyes vanished. "Congratulations are in order, I suppose," he said brusquely, turning away to straighten the jars on the shelf. "It's good to know our sessions together will not have gone entirely to waste. A knowledge of potions can only benefit you if you're planning to pursue a career in the medical field."

Harry frowned, not knowing how to interpret the deliberate distance behind the words. He'd thought that Snape would be at least a little bit happy for him.

And just like that, it occurred to him that Snape would never be the first to openly admit feeling anything for him beyond a kind of fond exasperation. Already, their relationship had gone beyond the bounds of propriety, and the only reason Harry could think of for Dumbledore allowing it was because it seemed to be helping them both deal with the trauma Voldemort had inflicted on them.

But beyond the usual ethics involved in a teacher-student relationship, Snape wouldn't admit to having feelings for him because of his own self-imposed restrictions. Maybe he didn't believe Harry could ever feel anything for him, although Harry wasn't sure how he could have missed it after the past few months. More likely, Snape had decided that he didn't deserve to have any kind of an intimate relationship with Harry, especially not after the circumstances they'd been forced to live through together. Had he been counting down the days until Harry would leave Hogwarts, assuming that his departure would bring an end to the torment of wanting what he felt he couldn't have?

The thought filled Harry with a surge of frustration that nearly overwhelmed him.

"I'm in love with you, you idiot," he said, not stopping to think about the words before he said them. And while they perhaps weren't the most romantic declaration ever made, they seemed to get his point across perfectly well.

Snape froze for a moment, then turned around slowly to face him. "That is not possible." He sounded almost angry.

Harry set his jaw stubbornly, feeling well-acquainted with the self-condemning obstinacy of one Severus Snape. "I'm sick and tired of people making decisions about my life without asking for my opinion," he said, more hotly than he'd intended. "If you don't feel the same about me, now's the time to let me know."

Snape glared at him, but said nothing.

Softening slightly, Harry took another step forward. He felt like he was trying to keep a wild animal from bolting. "What happened to us wasn't your fault," he said quietly, holding Snape's gaze, and had the questionable pleasure of watching that stone-faced fa�ade crack wide open before Snape's eyes fluttered closed, blocking his view of the turmoil churning in their depths.

"I believe that you believe that," Snape said.

Harry felt an overwhelming surge of anger toward Voldemort for ever putting them in this situation, for forcing Snape to make the choice he'd made on the night Harry'd fallen prey to the Death Eaters. Harry hadn't been the only victim on that night.

"I do believe it," he said firmly, willing Snape to believe it as well.

Harry felt somehow lighter than air as he leaned forward to close the distance between them. He felt Snape gasp as their lips touched, eyes opening wide and almost terrified-looking against the sallowness of his face. The kiss was light, tentatively chaste -- the slightest brush of parted lips, breathing deeply of each other's breath, there and then gone. Harry closed his eyes and sighed when it was done.

Snape's hand lifted to rest on the curve of his waist. "Harry," he said again, and there was a heavy undertone to his voice now, something dark and smoky that rasped like sandpaper across Harry's skin, making him shiver. Harry rested a hand on Snape's chest to steady himself, feeling awed by the warm, steady thumping that beat against his palm. Snape stared down at him for a moment longer, then shook his head. "You should not waste your affections on me."

"It's my choice who I decide to 'waste my affections' on," Harry told him. "Yes?"

My choice. The words seemed to hover in the air between them.

Snape let his breath out in a harsh sigh that tickled the skin of Harry's face. "Yes," he agreed, in a voice that grated like muted gravel. He leaned down to press their foreheads together, tightening his fingers around Harry's waist.

"Yes," Harry echoed softly, feeling his eyelids go heavy as Snape bent down to kiss him.

He couldn't stop himself from trembling, but Snape was moving so slowly, so carefully, tensed to react to the slightest sign of discomfort. Harry curled his fingers in the fabric of Snape's robe and gave his consent in the deliberate way he relaxed into the older man's embrace.

And it felt good, to be held this way, to be kissed this way. Nothing like what he'd experienced the last time he and Snape had been this close together. Warm lips sliding over his, dry and rasping, and the faintest, tentative touch of a tongue against his own. Warm and moist and sweet and safe and good, good, good.

The kiss ended, and he felt a tremulous breath stir his hair as Snape drew back to rest his cheek against the top of his head.

"I want to stay here with you," Harry whispered, burrowing close against Snape's chest. The arms around him felt so good he didn't want them to ever let go. "If you'll have me."

"Yes," Snape said again, just as quietly. He traced a hand over Harry's hair, curling trembling fingers around the back of his skull. "As if I could ever deny you anything."

Harry smiled, hearing the familiar irascibility underscoring the words. But there was also affection there, and acceptance, and the promise of a journey that neither one of them would be taking alone.

He couldn't help thinking that -- all things considered -- his life may have actually taken a turn for the better this year.

When Harry announced his intention to move into the dungeons at the end of the school year, Albus was the only member of the faculty other than Snape himself who didn't seem surprised. The students, as well, acted with predictable agitation, although to be honest, Weasley and Granger took the news rather well.

But then, if Harry was looking for a relationship that wasn't going to ostracize him even further than that scar on his head did... well, he certainly wouldn't be here, now would he?

Snape propped his head on one hand and looked down at the young wizard sleeping in his bed beside him, taking advantage of the rare opportunity to observe without being observed in return. There was something almost disgustingly sweet about Harry when he slept. It irritated Snape that he enjoyed watching him as much as he did.

It had been over a month now since Harry had come to live with him, and they were both taking advantage of the relative quietude of the summer months to grow more comfortable with one another. And it was surprisingly easy -- certainly easier than Snape had anticipated -- to feel comfortable around Harry Potter. He still sometimes shied away from physical contact, but Snape was careful never to push him. It was a triumph of sorts, Snape knew, that Harry had consented to share his bed with him. Anything else would come with time, and for now he was content with whatever Harry had in him to give.

Harry was extraordinarily fond of kisses, for example. And he enjoyed being held, particularly when they sat together on the couch in front of the fire in the evenings. They slept together every night, woke up together every morning, and already, Snape was beginning to feel that he could quite happily follow that pattern for the rest of his natural life.

The brat had spoiled him, utterly.

"See anything you like?" Harry murmured sleepily, and Snape started, realizing for the first time that there was a glint of dark green underneath the thick fringe of lashes he'd been studying.

Damn. Caught in the act.

"Perhaps," he said, as if weighing the question seriously, and reached out to brush the hair out of Harry's face with his fingertips.

Harry grinned at him and lifted a hand to his shoulder, pulling him down into a kiss. Snape indulged him willingly, giving in to the warm sweetness of a sleepy, malleable Harry. The kiss was soft and languid and unhurried, as if there weren't anything more pressing for them to do than what they were doing right at that moment. As, in fact, there wasn't.

The press of Harry's body against his made a spike of desire stir in Snape's groin, but as always, he made a deliberate effort not to notice it. While generous both in the affection he bestowed and in his kisses, Harry had been careful during this past month to curtail those activities before they evolved into anything too intimate. Snape understood -- all too well -- the reasons behind Harry's aversion to physical contact, and he was perfectly content with what intimacy they had managed to forge together. Whenever Harry felt comfortable enough to make love to him -- if Harry ever felt comfortable enough to make love to him -- it would happen in its own good time. Snape was willing to wait.

To his surprise, Harry didn't end the kiss after they'd reached his usual comfort level, and Snape pulled back after a few moments to look at him, wanting to make sure that he wasn't feeling any distress. Harry's eyes were lidded as they gazed up at him, dark hair spread appealingly across the pillow behind his head. He looked hungry, achingly so, tousled and disheveled and unmistakably aroused. Snape felt something sharp and hissing coil deep in his belly at the sight of him.

Sensing the reason behind Snape's hesitation, Harry raised himself on one elbow and held his gaze solemnly. "I'd like to try going further tonight, Severus," he said, licking his lips slightly to moisten them. The unconscious sensuality of the gesture made Snape's fist curl tightly on the mattress between them. "If that's all right with you." His eyes in the torchlight looked almost black against the flushed whiteness of his skin, uncommonly huge without the usual mask of his eyeglasses.

There was absolutely no way Snape could turn down that request, even if he'd wanted to. He fought down the surge of joy that rose within him at the words -- not at the prospect of sex, but at the thought that Harry would crave any kind of physical intimacy with him after what they'd been through. Resting his suddenly trembling hand on the mattress beside Harry's shoulder, he leaned down to kiss him again.

His hands moved over Harry cautiously, inquiringly, and Harry melted into his touch, clearly happy with the proceedings. Harry jumped in startlement when Snape's fingers inadvertently touched the top of his arse, but he smoothed over the awkward moment by simply asking that Snape not touch him there yet. Snape obliged and moved his hands to the front of Harry's body, wanting to give him what pleasure he could. Moving cautiously, watching for any further signs of discomfort, he discovered that the younger man was half-hard already.

The discovery was electrifying.

Waiting for the small nod that encouraged him to proceed, he slid a hand into Harry's pyjama bottoms to stroke him lightly in a long, caressing motion. The heated length of him molded effortlessly to Snape's hand, rising immediately to full hardness, and Snape curled his fingers around it, feeling the sensation of hot, silk-sheathed steel imprint itself on his memories as if he were touching Harry for the very first time.

Harry groaned and leaned his head back against the pillow, biting his lower lip, and Snape leaned down to kiss him, carefully coaxing the teeth away from it. He stroked Harry with increasing firmness, taking his cues from the younger man's reactions, and watched in something close to awe as Harry's hands fisted in the sheets to either side of his body, hips arching up into Snape's touch. He was sweating now, and Snape stared down at him, feeling amazed and humbled by the sight of him. Harry's eyes were wide and unfocused, and Snape kissed him again, wanting to taste him, as his hand stroked him faster and faster to orgasm.

After just a few short minutes, Harry came, body arching up off the bed, eyes squeezing shut as Snape's name burst from him lips. His arms moved up around Snape's shoulders, pulling him close, and Snape held him, murmuring soothingly as Harry panted into the side of his neck.

Harry came back to himself after a few moments and kissed Snape hard, stroking deep with his tongue. He was smiling when he pulled away to lie back against his pillow, unbuttoned pyjama top lying open to either side of his bare torso. His stomach and abdomen were slick and glistening in the firelight.

Snape took a few deep breaths to get his libido under control and smiled shakily back at him. "That," he said, with the utmost gravity, "was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

Harry blushed lightly, looking pleased. He slid a hand between them to reach for Snape's erection, but Snape's fingers coiled around his wrist, stopping him.

"You don't have to," he cautioned, meaning it. As emphatically as his body was screaming for a touch from those slender fingers, he would sooner die than make Harry feel pressured into offering any kind of reciprocation.

Harry nodded solemnly. "I know," he said, smoothing his fingertips over Snape's erection through the thin fabric of his night clothes. Snape let out an involuntary groan and arched into the touch, and Harry smiled shyly at him, touching him with more confidence now. "Do you like that?" he whispered, leaning in to kiss him again.

Finally feeling convinced of Harry's sincerity, Snape lay back and allowed him to open the front of the pyjama bottoms he made a point to wear whenever they were in bed together. Harry carefully drew out his hardened cock and began to stroke him with both hands, those delightfully wicked fingers driving him near to madness with the untutored yet entirely irresistible pleasure of their touch. It occurred to him suddenly that Harry had never done this before, with anyone, and that realization was almost enough to make him come then and there. The thought that Harry would want this, would want him...

The tender concentration on Harry's face was captivating, and after an embarrassingly short amount of time, Snape spilled all over his hands, barking out a surprised laugh at the look of utter astonishment on the younger wizard's face. The aftershock trembled through him for a very long time, and he simply lay there, holding Harry close against his chest. He was relieved that Harry didn't seem to be in any hurry to pull away.

"Thank you for trusting me," he said once his voice had returned to him. He'd never uttered more heartfelt words; he couldn't help feeling that Harry had given him a priceless gift, something cherished and irreplaceable. It was a gift Snape was willing to work the rest of his life trying to make himself worthy of.

Harry tightened his arms around him and snuggled closer against his side, breathing out a contented sigh. "Thank you for saving me," he responded, the words muffled against Snape's chest. His fingertips traced absent, happy patterns across Snape's skin. "You're always saving me," he added, sounding half-asleep.

Lying there in the darkness, holding the thing that had come to be most precious to him in all the world, Snape considered that perhaps this time they'd managed to save each other.