Chapter Text
As the winter broke into a cold, wet, and windy spring, nothing at all happened. Well, things happened, of course, but normal things. Harry tried to get his Quidditch team up to snuff, and did his homework, and came down to the dungeons to be with Severus. He continued to work on his ‘intention magic,’ as Severus called it, and did as he was told and didn’t succeed at Apparition too early. Harry wasn’t really sure that it would be so easy for him, but he didn’t try very hard, just in case. And he was too young to test with the first group, anyway, so it didn’t matter.
Hermione and Ron were still at odds, but they each seemed to have independently decided that Harry didn’t need to be interrogated every day. Ron was being friendly and nice, and didn’t shout at him anymore, and Hermione was helpful, and if the two of them weren’t speaking to each other, fine. They’d get over it eventually. Maybe even soon, as Ron and Lavender didn’t seem that happy together. Harry thought that maybe Ron had made her promise not to say anything about what she’s heard in McGonagall’s office, too, because he hadn’t heard anyone whispering about him in the corridors. Well, people still whispered, but it was the regular stuff. All Chosen One and Boy Who Lived type stuff. No suicide rumors, and nothing about Snape, thank god.
Things had calmed down. And Harry didn’t even have to worry about dodging Slughorn's parties anymore. Not after the assignment from Dumbledore. Harry had made a single feeble attempt to wheedle the Horcrux memory out of Professor Slughorn, but had failed so horribly that all future meetings of the Slug Club seemed to have been canceled. His “cheek” in presenting Slughorn with a bezoar instead of a brewed antidote had not been enough to impress the truth out of him. He’d been infuriated, in fact, and had shouted at Harry that he didn’t know anything at all about Horcruxes.
His reaction had been so strong that Harry had dropped it immediately. And though Hermione was sure that Slughorn just needed to be persuaded, and Ron was sure that Slughorn loved Harry so much that he should just keep asking, Harry was not at all confident in either of those ideas. He’d been rebuffed so forcefully that the only real option seemed to be to let him cool off. Lull him into a false sense of security, maybe, and then try again later.
He wished he could talk to Severus about it. Slughorn had been Severus’ Head of House. He probably knew all kinds of things about him. But Dumbledore had told Harry not to involve Professor Snape, which was honestly excruciating. Severus was who he went to when he was lost and confused, wasn’t he? But he’d promised Dumbledore he wouldn’t, and after what Dumbledore had done for them with the Governors, he felt like he owed it to him to obey. So, instead, Harry just re-read his copy of Advanced Potions Making over and over, hoping sixteen-year-old Severus would give him a hint.
The real Severus was acting a little differently towards Harry, too, now. After the hearing, and the disastrous start of term, and that first night - he was… well, not solicitous, exactly, but sort of… careful with him. He kept trying to get Harry to do these weird breathing exercises that Harry didn’t like, and when Harry tried to get some force out of him, he absolutely refused. It was almost like he thought that Harry wanted him to be gentle all the time, now, because he’d asked for it once. But that was wrong, and Severus wouldn’t listen. They had a fight about it, actually. A big one.
Harry had screamed at him that he didn’t go through all the bullshit to have Severus treat him like everyone else did, and that he wanted things to go back to how they had been before. Before his suicide attempt was what he’d meant, of course, and even though he didn’t say that out loud, Severus seemed to hear it, and had gotten very drunk, and smashed a glass, and sent him back to his dorm. Harry spent that night fuming in his hangings, and glared silently at the floor all through class the next day. But then, after dinner, Severus called Harry back to the dungeons, and offered him a compromise.
Severus sat him down and told him that, unless Harry got used to showing sparks, he would not hurt him anymore. At least, not as much as Harry wanted. So they would have to make a deal. And they made one, and now Harry had four colors of sparks: Green for more, gold for enough, red for stop, and finally purple, for when he didn’t know what color to use.
Severus made him swear that when he was asked for his color, he would answer verbally, or with sparks, no matter what. Green, gold, red, or purple. No matter what. And Harry said fine, and Severus glared at him, so Harry said, “yes, sir,” instead.
That was their new thing, now. The Colors.
At first, Harry didn’t think he would ever need purple. It sounded stupid, really - the idea that he wouldn’t know if he wanted more or not - but he found out almost immediately that he was mistaken. The very first time they tried it out, in fact, he realized that he didn’t know nearly as much as he thought he did.
He’d been face down on the dining table, and Severus was finally - finally - giving him the belt, and the first few times Severus asked him, Harry answered, “green,” with progressively more annoyance.
“Green.”
“Green.”
“Green!”
“GREEN! Jeez, how many times are you going to make me say it?”
“As many times as I want to hear it, Potter.”
“Fine, fuck.”
But then, after a while - Harry didn’t know how long, exactly, but long enough that he’d been really black and blue the next day - Severus had leaned over him, breathing against the back of his neck and pressing up against the welts on his skin, and demanded his color, and Harry realized that he didn’t know. Had no fucking idea, in fact. So he said, “purple.”
Gasped it, really. Sobbed it.
After that he hadn’t been nearly as scornful about the colors.
It happened like that a lot, actually. Green for more, yes, but purple pretty often, too. Purple, for I don’t even know my own name.
Purple sparks usually resulted in Severus deciding for him, which was ok, even if Severus sometimes decided that he’d really meant red. That was what happened that first time, and it happened a couple of other times, too. And when Severus decided that purple really meant red, he would stop, and make Harry discuss it, afterwards. Harry didn’t really like that, but he did it because it was what Severus wanted, and usually Severus waited a while before trying to make him talk, which was ok. He didn’t just demand an explanation right away, or anything. They would talk about it the next day over drinks, or through the bracelets, or cuddled up together in bed, late at night.
It wasn’t so bad.
After a while, Harry started to almost like it. Severus seemed to trust him more now that he was using the colors, anyway, and that, he definitely liked. He even started practicing the stupid breathing thing Severus wanted him to do: stretching out his breaths until his exhales were longer than his inhales, for twenty cycles every night before bed. Severus said it was supposed to make him sleep, and it sort of did. It worked a lot better when he was in the dungeons and Severus was right there watching him do it, of course, but sometimes it worked in Gryffindor tower, too.
Harry started asking for Dreamless Sleep a little less often. Maybe once or twice a week.
He was feeling better. Almost good, sometimes. It really did seem like things had calmed down.
Harry didn’t know what Hermione was doing, though.
And what Hermione was doing was watching Harry.
Well, watching Harry interact with Professor Snape, that was.
She watched him in class, and in the corridors, and at meals. Anywhere that Harry and Snape might be within eyesight of each other. She felt a little bit bad doing that, but Harry'd refused to tell her anything after the disaster outside the portrait hole that first day. She’d tried to ask him loads of times, in all kinds of ways, but he was evasive. More evasive than he’d ever been about anything before, in fact, and that made her worried.
He’d told her freely about the Minister of Magic cornering him at the Burrow, and had even shown her his mother’s letters, but he wouldn’t say anything at all about Professor Snape, or the Board of Governors, and wouldn’t tell her much about taking the Dreamless Sleep, either. He just said that he’d been sad about the letters (which was understandable - Hermione cried herself when she read them), and hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone, so he figured if he took more than one dose he would just sleep for a long time. And that was true, in a way, she supposed. He could have slept forever. And that, of course, made her very worried.
He didn’t say it, but Hermione got the impression that Professor Snape had saved his life at the Burrow, which made Ron’s reaction to seeing Harry in the corridor pretty bizarre. Ginny told her that Ron had shoved him. Had almost punched him. And that had certainly never happened before. Ginny told her, too, that Ron had accused Harry of making him ‘lie to my own mother,’ and Hermione herself had heard Ron shouting that Snape had taken Harry away in the middle of the night. And Snape had been there, too, at the end of the summer, guarding Harry’s bed, hadn’t he? Throwing out his arms to hold everyone back until Harry said it was ok.
So she had to wonder: why, exactly, was Professor Snape in charge of Harry, now? Or if he wasn’t, what was he doing? And why was Harry going along with it? And keeping it a secret from her?
Hermione trusted Professor Snape, and had done for years. But this… this was new. The way he’d fallen beside Harry’s chair in Professor McGonagall’s office, and laid his hand on Harry’s back, and sent them all out - like he was responsible for Harry. Like he was Harry’s guardian, or something. And Harry hadn’t even flinched at the touch of his hand, either, though Hermione was quite sure she had never seen Professor Snape touch him before.
It was more than that, though. More than just a lack of rejection. The touch had looked familiar. Almost intimate. And that was very different, and she did not know what he could possibly mean by it. Touching Harry. Hermione wasn’t sure she’d ever seen any teacher touch Harry. At least… not like that.
Over the summer Ron had written to her a lot. He’d told her about how listless Harry seemed, and how he was pretty sure he wasn’t sleeping very much, and how one morning Harry hadn’t woken up at all and how scary it had been. And then, later, he wrote to her that Harry was found in Snape’s room, and that there was a fight, and that he’d never seen Professor Lupin so angry before in his life. Ron had told her about Lupin shouting, pointing into Snape’s face and threatening to kill him. And then Dumbledore had come, and separated them, and Harry had hurt himself, and been taken away. And then, what? Snape took him away from the Burrow, too. And it had gone all the way to the Board of Governors.
She wished she could have been there in the meeting between Ron and Professor Snape, because Ron had come out of it turned completely around. But she hadn’t been there, and she didn’t want to know badly enough to ask Ron about it. As far as she was concerned, Ron could fall right into a ditch and let Lav-Lav help him out of it. Fucking Lavender Brown, inserting her into all kinds of situations. Hearing about Harry’s overdose as if she was relevant at all.
Well, Hermione had taken care of that at least, hadn’t she? She’d cornered Lavender in the girl's bathroom and given her a choice: either have her memory modified, or swear to never tell a single soul what she’d heard in McGonagall’s office. Lavender had sworn readily, and had not broken her promise, possibly afraid that if she did, boils would erupt on her face spelling out the word SNEAK. Lavender was a little bit afraid of Hermione in general, it seemed. As she should be.
So, Hermione split her time between classwork, Prefect duties, researching Horcruxes, watching Harry, and watching Snape. And after a while, she was pretty sure that at the very least, Harry and Snape had gone through something significant together. They looked at each other. A lot. And not glaring. Not even staring, really. Just looking. From across the Great Hall, and across the grounds, and across the corridors. Looking at each other.
And then there was the bracelet. She’d seen it a few times. It was suspicious, the way Harry lifted up his sleeve to look at it when he thought no one could see. With his eyes skipping around, almost like he was reading something. And then once - just once - she saw Snape lift up his sleeve, too, in the hallway. It was just for a moment, and though she could not see if he had on a bracelet, the gesture was so similar that she was sure that he must. And that meant something, even if she didn’t know what.
Harry had told her that Dumbledore was tutoring him at night. And maybe he was. But if he was, so was Snape. And Harry was looking at him. A lot. And Snape was looking back.
She decided she would give Harry one more chance to tell her the truth. And if he didn’t, she would have to go directly to Snape. She wasn’t afraid of him, not really, and certainly something was different between them, now. Something big. She hadn’t ever seen Harry look at anyone quite like he was looking at Snape. And Snape - well. His expressions were pretty hard to read.
***
“Harry?" Hermione asked. "Can I talk to you?”
They were just leaving Charms, and, as usual, Ron had left with Lavender. He didn’t seem very happy with her at all those days, Harry thought, though he had worn that horrific gold my sweetheart pendant at least once to please her.
“What? Oh, sure,” Harry answered. “What’s up?”
“I thought we might-” She dropped her voice, and gave him a significant look. “Speak privately.” Harry looked around at the other students filing out.
“Is it about… you know what?” he asked.
“C’mon,” Hermione answered, and led him out the door and down the corridor into an empty classroom. Inside, she pointed her wand at the entrance and cast muffliato. Harry grinned at her.
“Warming up to the Prince, are you?”
“It’s useful,” she answered, a little stiffly.
“So, anything new about Horcruxes?”
“No,” she began. “The only mention I’ve found of them - even in the restricted section - was in Magick Moste Evile, and all it said was that Horcruxes were too 'evile' to be mentioned.”
“Wow. Too evile for the evile book? Must be pretty evile.”
“Must. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“No?”
“No, I wanted to talk to you about Snape.”
Harry would not tell her. When she asked him again if something else had happened, he said no. When she asked him if he had anything he wanted to tell her, he said no. When she asked him if Snape had saved him at the Burrow, he said yes, and then he said no, and then he said he was pretty sure no one had saved him, they’d just been watching him until he woke up. And then she asked about who had gone to the Governors to report Snape for giving him sleeping potions, and he said Professor Lupin. And he hadn’t ever told her that bit of information before.
“Professor Lupin?” she asked, startled. “But - he was who threw a fit at Headquarters, wasn’t he? Ron told me. Before we - before school started.”
“Yeah, he was,” Harry said slowly. “He was still mad about that, I guess.”
“And he went to the Governors because he thought you’d tried to kill yourself with the potions Snape gave you.”
“I guess.”
“And that’s it?”
“He seemed to think it was a pretty good reason. Why are you asking about this again?”
“Well, you never told me.”
“Hermione. I have told you. There isn’t anything else to tell. Snape had to go to the Governors, and I sent a statement with Dumbledore, and I didn’t see the hearing. Dumbledore just told me Snape got acquitted and that was all.” Hermione gave him a skeptical look. “What?”
“Is he still giving you Dreamless Sleep?”
Harry looked shiftily at his shoes. “Sometimes, yeah. Just one at a time, though. He’s still annoyed about that - other time.”
Ron said Harry had a case of it under his bed. Snape must have taken it away. And now he was sending up one at a time? How in the world could that possible work?
“But, Harry,” she began. “How does he know if you need one?”
“How does he what?”
“How does he know if you need a Dreamless Sleep?”
“Oh. Usually I just… uh - send Dobby. Or Kreacher. You know. To ask him. They can apparate around the castle.”
“And then he just sends one up?”
“Yeah, usually.”
“That’s pretty nice of him.”
“Sometimes they have snide notes attached.”
Hermione thought maybe he was trying to make a joke, but he looked really uncomfortable, so she let it go. If he really wouldn’t tell her, fine. It would be unkind to push too hard. So, instead, she laughed lightly, and let him leave, and then went to the library to think.
In the quiet of the stacks of books, Hermione thought about Ron’s incredible fury in McGonagall’s office - cursing at Snape and getting in his face with no regard for the fact that he was a professor, and one that used to be his most feared. She thought about Harry’s reaction to the shouting. She thought about Harry in Defense Against the Dark Arts, totally ignoring the assignment and just looking at Snape for an hour, and how, even when Harry was paying attention, he seemed more like a TA than a student. And Professor Snape seemed happy to tolerate that, even though she was quite sure that Harry would have been crushed beneath a year’s worth of detention for it in Potions.
She thought about Harry isolating himself over the summer - refusing to answer her letters - and then being found in Snape’s rooms under such circumstances that Dumbledore had been called to break up a fight.
She thought about Snape looking back at Harry from a hundred feet away, his expression inscrutable, and then imagined what she might think if it was another student looking at Harry like that.
She thought about Harry appearing at breakfast, though she hadn’t seen him in the common room.
And then she went to Snape’s office, and knocked on the door.
***
“Enter.”
“Professor Snape?”
It was Hermione Granger. Severus looked at her in the doorway for a moment, before gesturing at the chair before his desk. It was office hours. No need to panic. Maybe she had an academic question.
“How can I help you, Miss Granger?” he asked, once she’d sat down and set her bookbag on the floor.
“I want to talk to you about Harry,” she said.
Well, maybe slight panic was warranted.
His bracelet was silent, though. Surely no new crisis had occurred. He raised a delicate eyebrow at her. “Oh? Whatever for?”
She took a breath, seeming to steel herself, and Severus was immediately very sure that whatever she was about to say was going to be awful. Maybe she’d seen something. Or Harry had said something. Maybe Severus had been careless with his bruises.
“He’s been pretty different this year,” she began.
“Has he?” Severus answered. Hermione scowled at her own legs.
“I’ve tried to ask him, but he won’t tell me.” Severus stayed quiet. Why was she here, now, after so many weeks? Harry was doing better than anyone could have expected. So why now? She must know something. Give her silence and draw her out. “Is he-” She paused, and swallowed, and Severus saw color rise in her downturned face. And then a muscle in her jaw worked, and she looked up. “He’s obsessed with you,” she said. “I want to know why.”
Well, fuck.
“Pardon me?” She did not speak. Harry had said something about this, before, hadn’t he? That it was good Hermione Granger didn’t know if he was in his bed or not, because she would be harder to put off. “Miss Granger,” he said slowly. “What are you asking me?”
Hermione’s mouth twisted up, and the gesture was so familiar that Severus was forced to remember that this girl was one of Harry’s best friends. He loved her, and she loved him, and, more than that - she knew him.
“Do you really want me to ask?” she said. “Because I will.”
Severus just looked at her for a long moment, deliberating, and then pointed his wand at the door and warded it with a silencing charm. She glanced over at it, and then back at his face, her expression grave.
“He looks at you all the time,” she said. “And I mean all the time. If you’re there, he’s looking at you. You must have noticed.”
“I have noticed,” Severus answered slowly, trying to think what angle would satisfy her. She was probably too smart to deflect, and certainly she loved Harry too much to be scared away. “I’ve been tutoring him, as I think you have guessed.”
“Wandless magic,” she said, and Severus nodded. “He told me it was Dumbledore.”
Severus shifted the potted cactus on his desk a little towards his cup of quills. He hadn’t killed it yet. It was still quite plump and green. “The Headmaster is supervising,” he said. “But the training can be very… hard on him.”
“It’s not just that,” Hermione said. “I know it’s not.”
“Oh? And how can you tell?”
She glared at him.
“I can tell.” Severus didn’t answer, and she didn’t say anything either, for a moment, like she was trying to draw him out. “Listen, I know Harry,” she finally continued. “He’s my best friend, and I’ve been through a lot with him. We’ve been together since first year. And he’s acting different now, and I want you to tell me why.”
“Do you? If you know him so well, maybe you should lend me your expertise in interpreting his gazes,” Severus said acidly. “If they are such cause for concern, perhaps you should tell me.” His scorn sounded pretty convincing, he thought, though what he was really feeling was fear.
She glared at him again. “You want my opinion?” she asked. “Fine.” She crossed her arms. “He loves you.”
“He what?” Severus summoned all of his experience withholding emotion from the Dark Lord to put an appropriate expression on his face. “That is categorically absurd.”
“Don’t hurt him.”
That was not what he’d expected her to say at all, and when she did say it, he knew at once that he’d failed. How was it, exactly, that Harry was able to strip him of his two most dependable talents? Lying, and terrifying students? It was like he was naked. He had to say something.
“Miss Granger,” he began. “I was cleared by the Governors.”
Take that sentence and put it right back in your fucking mouth, Severus. That sounded like a confession you unforgivable DOLT.
“You’re an Occlumens, though, aren’t you?”
Well, we were due for a crisis, weren’t we? And here it is. This is Hermione Granger, and she knows Harry’s heart and soul, and she is the sharpest student in the school, and if she says that Harry is looking at you like he loves you it’s because he IS. If she isn’t on your side you’ll end up in a box and you’ll never touch Harry again. If she decides you’re lying that’s the end. Fix it. Make her trust you.
Severus covered his mouth with his hand, and then took it away.
Maybe he could handle her like he’d handled the Governors. Show her his heart, but only the top layer. The love. The protection. Not the… other things. That might appease her. Or at least - make her leave.
“Hermione,” he said, and her eyes went wide. “If you want the truth, I need you to promise me that you will not speak.”
“I won’t,” she whispered, sounding suddenly terrified. “I’m worried about him. He’s so - different.”
“Swear to me.”
“I swear.”
Severus looked out the window. “You want to know why Mister Potter is looking at me?” he asked, folding his hands. “Well. He’s been struggling. At Headquarters it became apparent to me that he would hurt himself if left alone. He wasn’t sleeping, and was behaving bizarrely. I, perhaps unwisely, took it upon myself to medicate him. To calm him down.”
“The Dreamless Sleep,” Hermione breathed.
“Yes,” Severus answered. “And more than that. He needed limits. I gave them to him.” He paused, and looked at the cactus, thinking. “He was afraid of me, and so he listened. I got him through some terrible nights.”
“He never answered any of my letters.”
“No, I wouldn’t have thought so. He didn’t want friendship - or - solace, or any comfort at all, back then.” Her expression shifted like the scales had just fallen from her eyes, and Severus was suddenly very concerned that he wouldn’t be able to control her conclusions.
“He wanted you,” she said.
“Yes,” Severus answered slowly.
“But Professor Lupin didn’t understand.”
“No. He didn’t. He thought that I was - taking advantage of him. Or that I was manipulating him. He didn’t understand what it was that Harry needed.” Potter. Say POTTER. Come on, focus. “There was a fight, and he - I mean - Potter broke it up. He blasted us apart. And afterwards…”
“He was sick,” Hermione supplied.
“It wasn’t just sickness. He collapsed. He was bleeding from the eyes. It was on the very edge of fatal. We brought him here, the Headmaster and I, to the Hospital Wing, as you know. We stabilized him.”
“And Ron and I came to visit. And you were there. Protecting him.”
“Yes.”
“And then what happened?”
And then what? What a question. I gave in. I fucking folded.
And I don’t regret it, either.
“He recovered from his injury but he wasn’t ready to return to the student body. He was paralyzed. Terrified to have everyone looking at him.”
“And you helped him.”
“Yes.”
There was a pause. “He’s been sleeping in your quarters, hasn’t he?” Hermione asked, looking at her hands. “He comes to breakfast alone a lot.”
“Sometimes he does, yes. There is a room for him. Where he can have some… privacy.”
“And then he went away for Christmas and tried to kill himself.”
“No,” Severus answered. “Lupin surprised him, and then the Minister, and I gave him the letters - I assume he has shown them to you?” Hermione nodded. “It was too much at once. He was confused. He didn’t know what to do.”
“And you weren’t there that time.”
“No. I wasn’t there.”
Hermione looked out the window as she digested that information, and neither of them spoke for a long while.
“Does Dumbledore know all of this?” she asked, looking back at him. “I mean, I suppose I shouldn’t ask you. You could just lie. How would I know?”
“He knows,” Severus said. “Why do you think I still have a job?” She didn’t seem to like that answer very much.
“Do you think I don’t know the stakes?” she scoffed. “Come on.”
“My apologies for underestimating you. But Albus does know. He testified on our behalf.” Our. Our? What are you trying to do? Ask her to be your maid of honor? “And, as you say, the stakes are high.”
“I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he’s looking at you, Professor.”
Severus drummed his fingers on his desk. “I think I might be-” He broke off, wondering what Harry had told her about his life before Hogwarts. He might not have told her very much at all, and if he hadn't, what he said next might not make much sense to her. But he trusted her, didn’t he? Surely he had told her something. “I don’t think anyone has ever tried to take care of him before. He isn’t used to it.” The very corners of her lips turned down like she was trying not to react, and Severus thought that maybe Harry had told her some things. Maybe he'd told her, and she had tried not to react, then, too. To keep his confidence. “He didn’t like it at first. I think it frightened him. To be looked after.”
“But not now.”
“No. Not now.”
“He has - a bracelet,” Hermione said slowly. “He looks at it a lot when he thinks no one is watching.”
Severus considered trying to pivot the conversation to something else, but it didn’t seem worth it. Or, if he was honest, it didn’t seem possible. And Hermione Granger had kept hundreds of Harry’s secrets already, hadn’t she? Maybe she would keep a few more.
He laid his left arm on his desk and pulled back his sleeve. “Yes, he does,” he said, turning his wrist up so that the red ink of his Mark was exposed along with the silver cuff. “And you must never speak of it.”
Hermione’s eyebrows furrowed. “I’ve trusted you since you kept Quirrell from knocking Harry off his broom,” she said quietly. “Don’t let me down, now.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Miss Granger,” Severus answered. “Promise me.”
“I promise,” she said. “But there’s… something else, too.”
“And what is that?”
“What’s a Horcrux?”
Oh, is that what she wanted? A trade?