3.

Harry didn’t know how to feel any more. He couldn’t hate Snape after the story the man had told him, but... he felt the injustice of the whole situation. He had to pay for his parents’ deeds dearly – and even more for his grandfather’s cheating for God’s sake! – however, the only thing he wanted was to live a quiet life away from publicity and Dark Lords... But all this was denied him.

How would his life have turned out if Snape had raised him? The man wasn’t totally deprived of human feelings, Harry could see many of them now, so he could assume that even if he probably wouldn’t have been loved, his well-being would have been secured surely. He would have been in Slytherin as the nephew of the Slytherin Head of House, and... but Harry had to stop.

He was the nephew of Snape! It was not a possibility – it was the truth.

In the last two days while he was lying in the Infirmary healing from his wounds, his thoughts always returned to this point. He was Snape’s nephew. Bloody hell!

Sometimes, when he thought of the past Potions classes or any other occasions he had had a row with Snape he felt his hands clenching into fists – then he calmed himself down and asked himself again and again what to do with this ultimate confession.

Or more so: what did Snape want about all these things he confessed? Surely, the man didn’t want Harry around him, did he?

But Snape behaved so strangely in these days... He was soft and calm and very guilty, he offered his help to Harry in every situation – and Harry simply didn’t know what to say, what to do.

One day Harry received his OWLs results: he was happy to see that he had passed all the exams he needed to become an Auror – even his Potions’ grade was Exceeds Expectations – and Harry didn’t know whether to laugh or not: to pass the potions exam with better than an A(verage) exceeded his every expectation as well. Snape assured him that he would take him into his NEWTs Potions class and offered tentatively to tutor Harry during the holidays as well.

“Will I remain here for the remaining part of the holiday?” he asked back and Snape flushed slightly.

“Well, we... I... so...” he stuttered, but when Harry didn’t interrupt him he went on. “I thought you could come to live with me.”

“WITH YOU?” Harry gaped at him. “But...”

“I’m a blood relative of your mother, Potter. You will be safe with me, if you can consider my house as your home...”

“Oh,” that was the world’s end. He, Harry Potter going to live with Snape of all people! “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why?” Snape asked.

“Because we don’t like each other. I’m not sure I can ever call home the house er... you are living...”

For a short moment, rage crossed the man’s face. Then the rage went, leaving behind a slightly sad expression.

“I see,” Snape said. “Well, of course you can go to the Headquarters if you want...”

Was that disappointment in the man’s voice? But why? Surely, after the last years’ treatment he couldn’t think possible that Harry would go to live with him willingly?

“That will be fine, sir,” Harry said. “For both of us.”

“You can’t spend the whole August in Grimmaud Place, Harry. It’s not safe enough. Too many people goes by. I think I should insist you go live with Professor Snape.”

Harry hit his leg with his fist.

“Well, I don’t think so! I want to do what I like! I don’t want to live with him! I don’t even like him! How could I feel myself home in his house?”

The Headmaster cast a thoughtful look at him.

“I thought you got through your past animosity.”

“Yes, we have, but it has nothing to do with the fact that I don’t want to live with him! He treated me like shit for years and now he comes and confesses his faults to me... It’s too late, sir, don’t you think?”

Dumbledore let out a long, barred breath.

“Harry, I had to confess something. Severus wanted to take you after your fourth year. We had a quarrel about you, but we didn’t have any other spy amongst Voldemort’s organisation. He was worried that you couldn’t digest the events of the Tournament, but I thought it more important to have a spy... You can add it to my many mistakes, Harry...”

But now, Harry wasn’t angry or feeling any hatred towards the old man. Snape wanted to take him, willingly, without any internal or external coercion (not like now that Harry practically didn’t have any place to go) in order to help him through...

“I should have been more steadfast against the Headmaster,” Snape later told Harry when he questioned him about that decision. “But after a while I managed to convince myself that you are all right, you didn’t have problems about the events, that you were just an idiot child, like your father was... Last year’s events just increased my hatred so that this summer, when the Headmaster offered me the same I refused it without thinking...”

This information overloaded Harry. He still didn’t want to go to live with Snape, but he wasn’t as sure as he used to be.

“Certainly, Headmaster, there must be another solution,” he said angrily.

“Perhaps there is, but I don’t know that,” Dumbledore said. “But now I’d like you to tell me what happened.”

Harry shook his head vigorously.

“I’m not ready,” he said and he thought that he could never tell Dumbledore. This wasn’t the first time the Headmaster pressed him to talk about the events, but it just increased Harry’s hatred towards the old man. He WOULDN’T tell him anything. Ever.

“You must tell somebody, Harry.”

“But not you!” Harry yelled and jumped out of bed. “Not you!” He ran out of the hospital wing still hearing a loud ‘Harry, wait!’ called after him. He didn’t stop. He left a castle in a hurry, going directly to Hagrid’s hut, which was now empty, and collapsed on his friend’s cot. What did Dumbledore think? That after so much cheating and lies, Harry would do willingly everything the Headmaster wanted him to do?

Snape found him some hours later fallen sleep from exhaustion. The man didn’t wake him, just sat on Hagrid’s favourite chair and watched him with a strange expression.

“What are you doing here?” was Harry’s first question as he woke with a start sensing that somebody was watching him.

“I didn’t feel it safe to leave you alone outside the castle,” the man said simply. “The Headmaster told me that you...”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Harry interrupted him.

“I don’t want you to talk about it,” Snape shrugged. “I know precisely what happened. The only thing I don’t know is why did the protection wards disappeared from the Dursleys’ house.”

Harry scrutinised him for a long moment then he sighed.

“Aunt Petunia didn’t want me any more. She was afraid of Vol...”

“Don’t say his name!” Snape warned him without the usual harshness. Harry lifted an eyebrow, but he didn’t protest.

“She was afraid of You-Know-Who,” he said the name with an acid irony. “She announced that she didn’t want to be my guardian any more and that I would have to go to an orphanage. She hoped she could save her family that way,” Harry’s eyes darkened with anger. “Then I couldn’t restrain myself any more. I told them my opinion of them, perhaps a little bit brutally, but it was so good... but I did a mistake. I called Dudley, my cousin a fat pork, and it infuriated uncle Vernon to no end. He slapped me so many times that my lips were bleeding and when he finished, he ordered me to my room. That night Vol... You.Know-Who caught me.”

They looked at each other openly.

“I’m sorry, Po- Harry,” Snape said again. Although the boy’s tale was told in a neutral tone, the man could sense the pain of being rejected in Harry’s whole behaviour.

Harry rolled his eyes in annoyance.

“It wasn’t your fault, professor. Really. You couldn’t guess it. It was the Dursleys’ fault, my aunt’s fault. And my own stupidity, when I made my uncle infuriated.” Harry leaned back to the wall and closed his eyes. “Perhaps you were right all the time. I’m just a stupid, little, nasty boy...”

“You were a child. I should have been more mature.”

“Don’t you think I’m still a child, sir?” Harry smirked.

“No, not after... after what happened...”

Snape left his sentence open so that Harry could feel the invitation, not the pressure to elaborate precisely what had happened. Harry leaned his head to his bent knees to hide his face from Snape and began to talk, in a hushed voice.

“They didn’t give me water. I was so thirsty... and there was cold, inside and outside... you know Voldemort” a short snort from Snape’s direction, but Harry shrugged it off, “made me guarded by Dementors. I could see my parents dying, Cedric dying, Sirius dying... They cursed me, and...” Harry shook his head. “You know that, don’t you?”

Harry lifted his gaze and their eyes locked. Snape nodded slowly.

“I think I know,” the man said. Harry inhaled deeply and muttered much more quietly-

“They tortured me. Physically. Every day. And the Dementors made me re-live the whole thing again and again. After some days I became totally burnt out. I couldn’t feel fear, just pain. I didn’t want to live any more. I gave up. Then you came and saved me – again.”

“I...”

“No, professor. I owe you an apology. You saved my life in my first year, and I never thanked you. By the way, you didn’t do it for my father’s sake, did you?”

Snape reached his hand and patted Harry’s shoulder awkwardly.

“No. I did it for you. For my father’s sake and for your mother’s. I couldn’t save them.” Snape looked out of the window. “I think I wanted to compensate for my hatred somehow.”

“I hated you as well.”

“Because I made you hate me. As I said I’m the one to be blamed here.”

Harry cracked a half-smile.

“Sir, don’t think the whole world is about you.”

A shadow of a sneer appeared on Snape’s face.

“Potter...”

“Does Dumbledore trust you because you are my uncle?” Harry asked suddenly.

“Er... not precisely. But almost right.” Snape focused his eyes to Harry’s face. “I saved Petunia and your parents before I’d changed sides. From that point I wasn’t safe in the Dark Lord’s presence. He knew that one of his servants had worked against him and he was quite a skilled Legilimens. I needed to learn Occlumency in order to protect myself from him. It was just one obvious way: I went to Dumbledore and asked for his help. He asked me to be his spy in return. I agreed.”

They stared at each other for a long time.

“It’s a pity I didn’t know you before,” Harry finally said.

“The same goes for me,” Snape muttered and stood up. “Come on, Potter. You have to return to the hospital wing. You need to have a rest.”

Harry followed him without protest. While they were walking in a comfortable silence Harry scrutinised the man from the corner of his eyes. Could he trust him after so many sarcastic ‘Potter!’s, so many sharp words and hurting sneers? Was it a game again, or was it something more? But why, why did Snape decide to be human with him? Why?

Without noticing he asked the last question aloud.

“Why what?” Snape stopped and turned to him.

“Why do you care now?” Harry asked in confusion and anger. “Why? You still don’t like me, do you?”

Snape’s lips pressed into a thin line, but Harry couldn’t decide what the man felt. For a long minute he thought that Snape would sneer at him and yell in his usual manner, but nothing similar happened. Instead, Snape lowered his head and whispered-

“Because I’m the responsible for all you had to suffer.”

“Nonsense!” Harry snapped. “I told you that...”

“Whatever you told me Potter, I know precisely what I did and what I should have done,” for the first time in days Snape seemed really annoyed. “I owe you this!”

“But why do you think that living with somebody who dislikes me would do me any good?” Harry kicked the ground furiously.

“I don’t dislike you.”

“Well, I should have said ‘somebody who hates me’, shouldn’t I?”

“And I certainly don’t hate you,” the man said firmly. When Harry cast a sharp glance he hastily added. “Not any more.”

Harry folded his arms over his chest.

“What’s this sudden change? Seeing me utterly humiliated satisfied you enough to want something else? Or what? Do you pity me? Or did you find your conscience?” he couldn’t help but cry the last questions.

“NO!” Snape yelled back. “No,” he repeated more calmly. “I don’t know why,” he muttered. “When I heard that you were kidnapped, suddenly, I could see everything I did to you very, very sharply and distinctly. I could see all my stupidity and childish reactions and I realised what an irresponsible idiot I was. But it seemed too late. I was scared that you would die before I could apologise to you, without being... I don’t know, what that was. Guilt? Yes, but not only that. Fear of losing my only living family? Perhaps. I... I really don’t know. I wanted and still want to justify what I did.”

Harry nodded and they turned to walk again.

“Thank you,” Harry said when they reached the school’s gates.

“For what?” Snape raised an eyebrow.

“For telling me."

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