Aspen in the Sunlight - A Year Like None Other

Harry thought about that, realizing with dismay that it did fit what he'd seen of his father as a fifteen-year old. "I wish people would stop confusing me with James," he murmured. "Well, I suppose there's not much choice to be made, is there? I'll have to donate my marrow. I don't see another way of generating enough good will."

Snape sat down across from him and splayed his hands on the table. "I think, perhaps, your only real choice is to leave your aunt to her fate. If we lose you in an effort to maintain the wards, we have lost all that matters. You've heard the prophecy."

"Lose me?"

"To Muggle medicine!" Snape hissed, scowling. "Weren't you listening? You are not a Muggle, Harry. You should not subject yourself to doctors, full stop. I should likely not have even mentioned it."

"So why did you?" Harry asked, head tilted curiously to the side.

"Because you are not fifteen and not an idiot," Snape sharply retorted. "You do better with more information rather than less, a notion the headmaster is beginning to appreciate as well, though I'm sure you don't believe that. You can weigh these matters for yourself. I said it was your choice, did I not?"

"Yeah," Harry mused. "I do know what you mean about Muggle medicine. Mr Weasley tried some stitches last year; they didn't work out so well. Of course, that might have just been because of the venom. But you know, I was Muggle-raised, which might give me an edge, and you said children could tolerate things better. See, I was listening. Although I sort of remember something strange about doctors, hmm . . ."

Snape eyed him critically. "What?"

It took Harry a minute for the memory to come clear, and even then he wasn't sure he wanted to reveal it. But after what Snape had just said about sharing information, he thought he'd better. "Well, I can remember going to the doctor lots of times, but mostly it was just for Dudley. One time, though . . . I don't know, I must have been three, maybe. Dudley was getting shots, and the doctor said that I was supposed to, too." At Snape's blank look, he explained, "Um, that's where they stick this needle in you so they can inject a . . . um, I guess it's sort of like a potion?"

Snape was barely breathing, Harry noticed, but he had air enough left in his lungs to say, "Was this done to you, Harry? This . . ." he sounded thoroughly revolted. "This injection of potion?"

"Yeah," Harry admitted. "But they had a time of it. When the nurse showed me the needle I screamed. I mean, really screamed . They had to hold me down, but when it touched my skin I felt this strange shivery wave sort of coursing through me. I . . . uh, made the needle bend double, I think. I'm not sure. I just know that Aunt Petunia started screaming, too, and then she hissed at them to get another one, and that time she held her hand over my eyes when they did it."

"I imagine you were punished," Snape surmised.

Harry shrugged it off, his mind so lost in the past that he'd forgotten, really, who he was talking with. "Whatever they injected, I had a reaction. I can't really remember the details. Just getting sick, so sick, and it was hot and sweaty in the cupboard, and I wanted to rinse my mouth, but they wouldn't let me out." The memory was one of his most chilling, probably because at the time he'd been too young to understand why nobody would help him. Harry shrugged again, and tried to leave it in the past. "Anyway, I never had to get another shot. I don't know how they got out of it, come to think of it. I have this idea that I should have had more, to be allowed to attend school." He gave a mirthless laugh.

"You were locked in that cupboard whenever you did accidental magic?"

"Oh, no, I lived in there all the time," Harry explained, then could have cursed his Gryffindor forthrightness. He should have just let Snape believe the other thing; it would have explained the black energy just as well. Some part of him, though, was relieved to let go of the secret. Yeah, the confused part of my mind that almost thinks he's Remus, he caustically told himself. Then he realised that wasn't really true. Or fair. Maybe it's the part of me that remembers yesterday. He tried to make the Disapparating easier, he made me sit down and rest instead of cook, he sat up all night to be sure I'd stay safe. He researched the leukaemia, and without even pointing out that I should have had the brains to think of that on my own.

"Harry?" Snape questioned, and somehow, the name clinched it.

"You aren't going to tell anyone," Harry murmured, but it wasn't a question, or a command.

Snape's gaze was level, almost non-committal; he didn't give any reaction at all, though he did say, "You aren't the only one with a sense of . . . decorum, about such things."

Harry supposed that was Snape's way of saying he'd understood that Harry had needed to talk to Sirius. Or maybe he was trying to thank Harry for not spreading Snape's worst memory all through Gryffindor Tower. A little of both, Harry decided.

"Yeah. Decorum, good word."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, until Snape prompted, "So. It is your choice, Harry. We can go back to Hogwarts without further comment and never speak of this again. No doubt your aunt will die, and the wards will fall, long before summer comes, which will free you from the necessity of ever coming here again."

"Talk about tempting," Harry admitted. "But you're the one who said Hogwarts wasn't completely safe. And how could it be, when Dumbledore's idea of a Defence teacher is a bloke with Voldemort sticking out the back of his head? Much as I hate it here, I probably do need to hang onto the one place on earth that might actually keep me secure. And if that means Muggle medicine gets its hands on me?" He lifted his shoulders.

"Hogwarts may be a safer option than subjecting yourself to the marrow extraction procedure," the professor pointed out. "From your account, you were highly averse to Muggle medicine even as a child. And now you're nearly full-grown, and the medicine in question is far, far more invasive. Accio book," he suddenly called, waving his wand toward the upstairs bedroom.

After the book landed on the table with a thud, Snape flicked his wand to make the pages turn themselves at high speed. He muttered an incantation at the flipping pages, some series of Latin phrases Harry had never heard before. The book abruptly went still, and Snape flipped it around to face Harry. "Read this chapter before you decide," he instructed.

So Harry did, pulling awful faces all the while.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh, ick," was about all he could say when he first finished reading. "That was completely gross from start to finish. And they use needles. Just what I need."

"You can see why I have reservations."

"Yeah," Harry admitted. He did wish he could run away home to Hogwarts, but he knew the wish was selfish, on several fronts. "Um, but it doesn't really matter, you know? I mean, I'd have to do it even if I wasn't angling for the wards. She is my aunt."

"You do know how irrational that sounds?" Snape returned, shaking his head. "She may share your blood, but she's been your aunt in name only, Harry. You do not owe her a thing."

"I owe my mum," Harry clarified. "She wouldn't want me to let Petunia die, not when I might be able to forestall it."

"You might be surprised," Snape tightly informed him, eyes fierce. "I knew Lily Evans. I heard her talk about her magic-hating Muggle sister. That alone should have told me that my assumptions about your first eleven years were erroneous. At any rate, I have no doubt that your mother would not want you to undergo a painful, highly dangerous and dubious procedure in hopes of saving someone who has treated you so shamefully."