Aspen in the Sunlight - A Year Like None Other

Harry didn't quite know how the conversation had got around to that, but it seemed to take the sting out of what had passed before. "I know," he admitted. "And he didn't die in a car crash, obviously, and he wasn't a penniless good-for-nothing."

"He wasn't penniless, no," Snape returned, a comment which could have been snide as hell, but it hadn't sounded that way. More like . . . Snape couldn't admit that the fifteen-year-old had grown up and left his idiocy behind.

Harry finished another slice, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve, thinking that pepperoni was a lot oilier than he'd remembered. But these were Dudley's clothes, so it wasn't worth getting up to find a napkin, even if Snape curled a disdainful lip.

"Let's return to our previous line of thought," the Potions Master directed. "Your uncle. Do you have any notion why he would deliberately antagonize you at a time when he needs your aid?"

"Oh, that's easy," Harry replied, shoving his plate away and wiping his hands on Dudley's pants, just to see Snape wince again. "Uncle Vernon never persuaded anybody to do anything in his life. All he knows is intimidation." Harry frowned, remembering scores of things to back that up, then forced his mind back to the topic at hand. "He'd figure I wouldn't do it if he asked nicely."

"Granted, he didn't ask nicely," Snape's lips quirked slightly. "But that brings me to another matter. Why did the asking make you hyperventilate? I've heard detailed accounts of you, both from Death Eaters and from Albus. Frankly, you've faced down the Dark Lord with far less anxiety than you display before your relatives. You can't possibly find them more frightening than him."

"Yeah. I don't know . . ." Harry raised a finger to trace his scar. "Maybe at least with him, there are things I can do . It's not like I think I can dent him; I was terrified in that graveyard. But I had . . . I don't know. Choices. Spells. Something. Besides, every time I've faced him down, as you call it, I've also had help. First it was the Mirror of Erised, then Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, and um, my parents coming out of his wand, and actually Dumbledore and some statues the last time."

Snape didn't question a word of that ramble. Well, he'd probably heard it all from his sources, as he'd said. Wasn't it just peachy to be the Boy Everybody Talked About All The Time?

"Anyway, what does it matter?" Harry asked, recognizing the impulse toward self-pity and trying to reject it. "They feel the way they feel, and I can't change it. Not even saving Aunt Petunia would really change it, I don't think, though Dudley did have me wondering."

"He saw what your uncle didn't," Snape quietly affirmed. "That alienating you wasn't the best way of asking for help."

"Ha." Harry fished out the chocolate bar as he spoke, and started eating. "Personally, I think the Dementors scared some sense into him. Either that, or when they were trying to suck out his soul, they managed to extract just the worst bits. Yeah, it's probably all linked. I mean, think about it, he didn't give me the caramel-coconut thing, he gave me chocolate ." It wasn't funny, but for some reason Harry laughed.

"Don't joke about Dementors," Snape chided.

"I wasn't. I really do think they might have changed Dudley for the better." Harry leaned back and studied the ceiling. It sort of wavered before his eyes, which only went to show how tired he was. That was likely what loosened his tongue to say, "You know, it's too weird, sitting and talking like this. I don't think you've insulted me in the past three minutes."

"Would it make you feel better if I did?" Snape asked, a little snottily. Well, that was better, Harry supposed.

"Yeah, it probably would," he admitted, standing and stretching. "It'd remind me that you aren't Remus. Well, I'm beat. Uncle Vernon'll pitch a fit if he finds out, but I'll take the sofa, not the floor. You can have my room like he said. Don't guess there's any point in keeping you out of it, not now. Good night."

"Go upstairs to your room," Snape directed. "I'll be right up."

"What for? I haven't needed someone to tuck me in since--" Oh, crap. Aunt Petunia had never tucked him in, but he was hardly going to say so and sound like a sorry-for-himself little twerp.

Snape was shaking his head. "This house may be soaked in your mother's blood sacrifice, but if your aunt dies during the night, the Dark Lord will enter. You should not have let Mr Malfoy see this address. There is no doubt that Lucius has communicated it to all interested parties, by now."

"So you knew it was a letter, you knew before you even took it that I wasn't cheating!"

"Yes," Snape confirmed without remorse. "I keep aware of what is happening in my class, Mr Potter."

"If you did, Neville wouldn't add dragon scales when he needs pixie skin!"

"Mr Longbottom is required to learn by experience, as are you all."

"And it doesn't matter to you that we end up learning nothing at all!" Harry retorted. "That's just brilliant, sir. Anyway, if it's so bloody perilous here, we should go right back to Hogwarts, shouldn't we?"

"Not without transferring the power of your mother's sacrifice to your cousin. That's imperative. When all things are considered, this house is safer for you than Hogwarts, which has allowed Voldemort entrance multiple times since you arrived." Snape frowned at the electric lights in the kitchen, but before Harry could move to turn them off, he'd waved his wand to extinguish them.

All Harry's anxiety came rushing back over him until he felt submerged in it. "Dudley may have given me a sweet, but he won't go against his father, and Uncle Vernon won't lift a finger to help me as long as Aunt Petunia is lying there sick. So what are we going to do about that? I mean, I obviously can't cure her, but is there anything that would? Some potion you know, something St. Mungo's might have, something, anything at all?"

Snape started up the stairs and beckoned Harry to follow. "No."

"Are you sure?" Harry asked, that feeling of panic closing in on him again.

"Wizard remedies work by interacting with the magical core inside our own bodies. With rare exceptions, they're either useless or lethal when used on Muggles."

"Shite."

"Shocking language for a pure-hearted Gryffindor like yourself, Mr Potter," the Potions Master drawled as he strode upwards.

"See, I knew you couldn't go three minutes without insulting me."

Snape whirled on a riser, and stared down at him. "You consider that an insult? And here I was restraining what I really think."

"Sure you were," Harry shot back. "I know what you really think of me. You make it clear every time I go to your class, not to mention at random times in the hallways, and don't you tell me that it's all just some show. You started it back when Lucius Malfoy didn't have anybody to report to. "

"The events of your second year should show you the error of that conclusion."

Snape waited until Harry had climbed past him and their faces were on a level. Then he leaned close, his eyes gleaming in a way that actually called Snape, not Remus, to mind. His voice thrummed with confidence in his own words.

"Allow me to share what I really think of you, Mr Potter. At the hospital today, you called yourself not normal, and made up stories about what Muggle Studies really is. You subjected yourself to insult and abuse, and said hardly a word to refute it."

"So what?" Harry retorted, standing his ground even if it did seem like Snape was breathing down his neck. He felt like Snape was calling him a coward, which just went to show how little the man understood. "You're the one who said I'd better get on their good side!"

"You bought those flowers," Snape resolutely continued, "in a deliberate bid to provoke an argument about money so that you could claim that someone else was working you like a house-elf. You knew your uncle would like that idea. You lied, Mr Potter. You manipulated. You manoeuvred. It was positively Slytherin."