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All he can see is white.

It is blinding, too powerful for him to continue looking. It’s sort of like staring directly into the sun, and maybe there was a time when he would have done such a thing anyway, just to prove he could, but now he is not so brave and he closes his eyes against it, unwilling to look, to see.

There are voices, too, that he can just barely make out. Talking about him. They always are.

“It’s quite bad, Albus.” He knows that voice, or should know it, at least, but right now he cannot place it, cannot even think about the voice itself without missing everything it is saying. “We can’t keep him here forever.”

“I’m afraid St Mungo’s would be too dangerous,” replies the other, grimly. “You’ve done what you can, Poppy. It will have to be enough, for now.”

“You can’t seriously be saying—”

“There is nowhere else.” Firm, commanding, but not unkind, never unkind. “If there were another option, we would take it, of course, but right now…”

“The students will be back soon.” A whisper. Fearful. Harry wonders if his voice would sound like that too, if he tried to use it right now.

“Three weeks. He will be healed by then, won’t he?”

“Physically, certainly, but—”

“That is what matters most, I’m afraid. Poppy, I am sorry to have summoned you for something so terrible, truly. Thank you for coming. I know you value your time off, so limited as it is.”

“I’m not bothered by that, Albus!” Bristling, angry. “This has been a horrible ordeal. I don’t even want to think what he’s been through—”

“All things grow better with time, Poppy. Ask, once he is awake and talking again. He need only share the burden. The rest will come.”

“And you’re the expert, are you? He’s sixteen!”

Finally, Harry places the voices: Madam Pomfrey and Dumbledore. They are arguing about him, he knew this already, but now he starts to realize what, exactly, they are arguing about. A horrible ordeal, she said. He feels worn down, tired, but he does not think it was so bad. He remembers, vaguely, being taken from his aunt and uncle’s—no, not from there, something else is missing. He was not on Privet Drive. Or maybe he was. Though he strains to recall, it does not come, not wholly.

He doesn’t know where he was taken, only that he was. It was not so long ago, though, was it? Days, perhaps—he thinks to ask, suddenly realizing that Madam Pomfrey has gotten his age wrong, that his birthday has not yet passed and he is, in fact, still only fifteen, but then figures she must simply be generalizing. He is, after all, basically sixteen. He isn’t entirely sure of the date, but his birthday must be coming up soon. Within the next two weeks, or maybe three.

He’s not completely stupid, though, and he does know that it was Death Eaters who abducted him. It should have been expected, perhaps, and he wonders why he wandered away at all—if he did wander away, that is. Perhaps his aunt and uncle really did kick him out this time, but he has barely spoken to them all summer, has barely even looked at or been looked at by them.

Was Voldemort there? He can’t quite recall. There are faces and voices he can remember, but, right now, he cannot even think to place a name to them. He is still rather groggy, after all, and his head is aching rather fiercely—from the whiteness of this place, perhaps. It must be the hospital wing, if Madam Pomfrey is here.

While he has been thinking, he’s missed the rest of the conversation. Suddenly, someone is approaching him, heels clicking softly against the white floor, and then there is a presence above him. He cannot see, but he can feel it, and, without his volition, his body tenses, retreats into itself. If he had more strength, it would be urging him to run, but he cannot feel his legs, doesn’t know if he could even make them work right now. His chest grows heavy, painfully so, and he does not dare open his eyes to see who is looming over him.

“Mr Potter?”

Madam Pomfrey’s voice again. She is the one standing above him, then. And yet there is a part of him that thinks he is still in danger—yes, he can remember. Glamours, or Polyjuice, or perhaps it was really them, but there were people he thought were trustworthy there. He remembers Remus, but it can’t have really been Remus, could it have been? The voice is the same, the face…

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she says soothingly. “There are some potions here I need you take, that’s all.”

He shakes his head, then stops, feeling suddenly short of breath. Potions. They give them to him every day. Some of them mend his skin together, make him lose feeling at the tips of his fingers and toes; others, though, seem to make the pain so much worse. One is a medicine, the other an instrument of torture, but he does not remember which is which. Or, more likely, they have never told him. Yes, that seems right.

But there is one voice, a familiar one, that often accompany those potions. Whispered words he can’t always quite catch, but they seem reassuring, somehow. The voice is not this one, though, and he knows better—knows that when the others show up with potions, they don’t mean anything good for him.

A sigh. “You’ll need them to recover, Harry. Perhaps with some food?”

His chest stutters painfully. No, he does not want to eat, does not even want to think about eating. There are things people can do with food too, and he has learned his lesson the hard way.

“It’s only us here,” she continues, coaxing, as if he is a wild animal backed into a corner and not a prone figure on a hospital bed. He is already within her control, isn’t he? She could do anything to him, and he would not be able to fight back.

He cracks open his eyes, just enough to see her standing above him, looking more concerned than he has perhaps ever seen her. He’s not completely sure what’s wrong with him—knows it is assuredly not good, but the look on her face now makes him wonder just how bad it really is. Nothing hurts, though. It can’t be much worse than anything else he’s been through, can it?

“For nerve damage,” she’s explaining, he suddenly realizes, “and another for the pain.”

He opens his mouth to respond, but finds his mouth feels odd, somehow stuck together, and closes it again, disoriented. He notices, too, how raw his throat is, as if he has not had any water in ages—or like he’s been screaming, and yet he is sure he has not been.

“Sit up, now,” she urges him. “Take these and once they’ve settled, you can take the others.”

The others?

Finally, he opens his eyes fully, and instantly is flooded with the blinding light. He keeps them open now, though, and tries to sit up but even this, this simple movement, is all at once too much and he cannot quite manage it. Madam Pomfrey sets the phials she is holding down carefully, then comes a little closer and says, “Let me help, then,” but the second her hands brush against him pain overwhelms him, starting from somewhere around his lower back and then shooting upward, through his spine, to his chest, his throat, his head, all-consuming. All he is aware of, suddenly, is that there are hands on him.

It is not an unfamiliar sensation, not anymore. They are always touching him, whether he says no or stop or even when he tries to fight them off. They are aware, of course, that he will try to do this, and so they limit how much they feed him, how often they let him drink, if they let him have potions or not. If he is weaker, after all, he can’t fight back, and they like that. Like that this child—they are always calling him this, reminding him that they are above and he is below—who once refused to bow to Voldemort now has no choice. His wand is gone, long gone, lost somewhere in the scene of the thing or perhaps taken, held hostage, just as he is. He can’t defend himself, and, eventually, he understands that his voice has no power, either, that of course telling them to not touch him will not make them stop.

It is Lucius Malfoy’s voice at his ear, now: “If only they could see you now.”

A hand in his hair, one at the middle of his back. This is where the pain starts, every place Malfoy is touching him, but it’s not just him, no, she’s there too—he hears her laughing, that terrible sound, the same laugh as when she cursed Sirius, and now it is just for him. She doesn’t need to be here to hold him—he cannot, will not, fight back—but she is here nonetheless, hands against his chest, crooning. It’s entertainment, for them—for him, he likes this, this degradation, this making of Harry into a plaything for his followers.

But as quickly as the image comes, it is gone, and all he knows is that his lips are forming soundless words, his throat, his eyes—they sting, fiercely, but it is not so painful as the pounding of his heart, the breaths he cannot quite take in.

He can see Madam Pomfrey now, not so close to him, her hands held up as if to prove that she is not touching him, that she will not touch him again, but it doesn’t make it go away. His body has moved itself, too, somehow, though he was not sure it would be to. He is near the edge of the bed now, sitting up, legs and arms sticking out in her direction. Maybe he hit her, forced her away. He doesn’t know, and suddenly he isn’t sure, exactly, why he would do such a thing anyway.

“The potions,” she says hoarsely, and he nods, unable to meet her eyes or voice the apology he knows he ought to speak. There is a numbness all through him—nerve damage, maybe. That’s what she said one of these potions was for, but he doesn’t know.

She picks up the first one—yellow, of a thin consistency—and passes it along gingerly, making an obvious effort not to touch him. He gets the feeling like he has scared her, and yet he cannot remember how, or why. Still, he keeps his gaze averted as he unstoppers the phial and downs the potion, trying not to react to the bitter taste of it. He passes it back and, again, she is overly-cautious, something far beyond gentle, even. She hands him the next potion, blue, and they repeat the process again.

“They’ll absorb better with food,” she says after a moment. “Some broth, perhaps?”

He barely even hears her. Still, he finds that his heart is beating too fiercely. His palms are sweaty, too, he realizes, and that stinging feeling has not gone away. The pain is still there, too, like burning against his skin.

She doesn’t seem to need him to respond, though, because she disappears for a moment and then returns with a tray. There is only a single bowl and spoon on it, but the scent of the broth—chicken, certainly—is poignant, painful, and his stomach churns at it.

There are things his aunt used to say, sometimes, when he was ill, like that it was his own fault and he didn’t deserve soup or medicine or anything, really, that she wouldn’t take care of him, so he ought to simply not get sick. Is he sick now? Maybe, but he isn’t so sure. Madam Pomfrey certainly thinks there’s something wrong with him, and he thinks he may agree, even. After all, he cannot move—or barely can, anyway—and speaking seems to be nigh impossible, now, too. There is something niggling at the back of his mind, but he can’t quite figure out what it is, or why it should be paid any attention to.

“I won’t be far,” Madam Pomfrey says. “Two hours, I imagine, and you can take the rest of these potions.”

At that, she walks away, presumably to her office. He doesn’t bother to look.

The hospital wing is otherwise, it would seem, completely empty. Harry wonders, briefly, where Dumbledore has gone, then decides that it doesn’t matter, that he doesn’t really care anyway. It must be summer—it was summer when he was taken, after all, and it surely has not been that long. However long it has been, he can’t remember what happened since, even if he tries. Images, maybe, or sensations. He was hungry, but he often is during the summers. Cold, tired—again, nothing new, and yet these seem to carry new associations, a type of pain that begins in his temples and makes him wince.

There was a voice too. The potions, he recalls. They gave him potions sometimes, and more often than not there was that voice with them. He knows that voice, and yet he cannot recall how it sounded, whose it was, only that it made him promises, told him they would leave together as soon as they could. Everything else is hopelessly blank, try as he might to remember.

Though it is no easy task, he swallows back his nausea and eats the meagre meal he has been offered—or tries to, at least. By the time Madam Pomfrey is back with the other potions she mentioned, he has barely managed half.

She doesn’t seem too bothered, though, only giving a small, sad-sounding sigh as she removes it and then offers him another potion. She says something about damaged tissues, but he only just registers the words. Again, he finds that he does not really feel hurt anywhere, though surely the things she is saying must imply that he is—and quite badly, too.

To his surprise, however, she does not leave again after he has taken these potions. Instead, she sits down beside his bed and, for a long moment, she is silent.

Then, finally, she says, “Professor Snape wondered if you might speak to him.”

Harry glances at her, eyebrows furrowing. She must understand what he is thinking just from this look, because she smiles a bit.

“You don’t have to speak with him,” she assures him. “But you will need to speak to somebody, eventually, I’m afraid.”

He opens his mouth to respond, then closes it again, chest aching. Slowly, he shakes his head.

A sigh, again. “I had known you were stubborn, but this is very important, Mr Potter. Would you speak to the Headmaster?”

Harry just stares at her.

“Professor McGonagall? She has been asking after you, you know.”

His stomach twists at the thought. How many people know he is here, then? And why are they all apparently so worried? Well, maybe Snape isn’t worried; perhaps he wants to see Harry so he can gloat, just like the others did, because he is so very pathetic. It would be his style, after all, wouldn’t it, to be pleased to see Harry in pain?

But he’s not in pain, not now. Maybe he ought to be, but he isn’t, and he gets the feeling that he is probably mostly healed from whatever happened anyway. Will they send him to his aunt and uncle’s again, once he leaves here? Maybe he’ll be allowed to go to the Burrow, instead.

Even as the thought comes, though, he realizes that he would not want that at all. If even Madam Pomfrey is looking at him with so much concern, bordering on pity, then what would the Weasleys think? What would Hermione think, even? No, he can’t go to the Burrow, but, again, he finds he cannot quite recall why he was not at his aunt and uncle’s in the first place. If they’ve kicked him out for good this time, then he can’t go there, either, but it’s unlikely they’ll let him stay here, once he is healed from whatever’s wrong with him.

It ought to be frustrating, he supposes, and yet he seems almost detached from it all. It is as if this is happening outside of him. Or he is outside of what is happening, maybe. Like he is merely an observer of his own life.

And it has been this way for some time, he thinks. He knows, now, with certainty, that he has no control over his own life. It has been this way for a very long time, and yet only now does he really understand. He will go wherever they tell him to. They will make him see others, whether he chooses to or not. Dumbledore, or McGonagall, or Snape, it doesn’t matter. This is not his choice. He does not get a choice. He never really has.

His voice, though, he can control. Or, thinks he can, anyway. Oh, they can tell him to talk, but they can’t force him to. If he can throw off Voldemort’s Imperius, then surely, surely, he can do this.

Madam Pomfrey must take his continued silence as disagreement—which, he realizes with a sort of thrill, it is—because she leans back again, looking upset.

“Very well,” she says. “I’ll tell them you need more time.”

Minutely, he nods, then turns his gaze away from her again, to the wall in front of him. He is struck, once again, by the emptiness of the hospital wing. He thinks to ask her what day it is, but stops himself. He does not want to speak to her and, anyway, he doesn’t really care. It is inconsequential, pointless. His days will pass whether he knows exactly which one it is or not. Most likely, it is sometime in mid-July. He is used to spending birthdays forgotten. What does it matter, then, if this time he is the one who forgets? It is not important, after all, not really. It is just a day. He wonders why he ever cared so much about it.

“There’s a potion for dreamless sleep.” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Madam Pomfrey gesturing, likely to the bedside table. “You can take it whenever you like, but only half of what’s here, you hear me?”

He nods again, hoping it will be enough to make her leave. It isn’t.

“Professor Dumbledore will need to speak with you soon.” Her voice is quiet, and there is something underlying it, anger, or at least something close to it. “He’s heard from Professor Snape already, but he would like your account as well, he says.”

Again, Harry opens his mouth, thinking to ask what Snape has to do with any of this, then closes it again, reminds himself that it doesn’t matter, that it is better for him if he doesn’t care.

“I’ll speak to them both tomorrow,” she says tiredly, and then, finally, she is gone again.

He closes his eyes against the white again, but there is nothing there, nothing to remember. Eventually, he shakes his head, then leans over and retrieves the potion she has left behind. As she directed, he only takes half, and he only just manages to put it safely back where he got it before he is falling asleep again.

*

“Do you know what day it is, Harry?” Lucius Malfoy asks, in that smooth, drawling way of his. Harry has come to hate this voice, more, even, than he hates Draco’s.

“No,” he says shortly, not interested in the answer. He knows he has been here for a very long time, already. He doesn’t need to put a number to all those dreadful days.

“Really?” He comes closer, leans down, so close Harry can smell his breath. “That’s a shame, Harry, it really is. The surprise we have for you won’t be quite so exciting if you aren’t sure what it’s for.”

Harry scowls at him. The temptation to spit in the man’s face is strong, but he has learned, already, that this will only end poorly for him and so, this time, he does not give into it, no matter how strong the temptation is.

“Ah, come now, Harry, aren’t we getting along?” His lips curve upward, but there is nothing kind about the look at all. “We’ve remembered, just for you. My master is very kind to you, you know. Compared to the others, you’re obviously his favourite. Come, won’t you? He’s waiting for you.”

Harry sets his jaw, determined not to let any weakness show. He knows there is no choice in this, that it will be less painful if he just lets Malfoy take him wherever Voldemort apparently wants him. This is normal, by now, this coming and going. At this point he feels it may be a mercy if they just killed him, and yet he knows that Voldemort is thinking the very same thing—that he ought to exact over fourteen years of vengeance before he kills Harry.

They keep him bound, ropes magically tying his wrists together. His wand is gone, and his glasses are broken beyond repair, yet they let him keep them anyway. So he can see everything they are doing, he supposes, knows who does what. This is important to Voldemort, after all, this knowing: His victims must know who is in charge. Must know who is hurting them, and why.

It’s not like Harry would ever doubt it, though. As Malfoy pulls him up and forces him out the door, down the hall—Harry does not know where they are, but it is almost assuredly some sort of manor—he mentally catalogues all the things Voldemort may have planned for him for the supposed “surprise.”

They come to the same large room as always, cleared away of nearly all furniture except for a terribly ridiculous-looking throne, wooden legs carved into snakes, the armrests their heads. As always, this is where Voldemort sits, waiting for him, looking immensely pleased with himself—or Harry thinks so, at least. A face so inhuman is not an easy read by any means, but this is one he has been seeing a lot of in the past while.

By now, the pain that attacks his scar is familiar too, and he bites his cheek to keep from reacting to it. This is, after all, what Voldemort wants, and it is simple enough to deny him the one small satisfaction, at least, if absolutely nothing else.

Voldemort rises, gliding over to them. Malfoy keeps a hand wrapped painfully around Harry’s arm while Voldemort leans in close and touches his cheek. He jerks his head back, but it is pointless; there is nowhere for him to go.

“Harry, Harry, you must be wondering why Lord Voldemort has summoned you today, yes?”

“No,” he grits out.

“You oughtn't be so stubborn.” He pulls back, then, but barely. “You see, Harry, many years ago one of my precious Death Eaters told me that a baby born at the end of July would be my downfall. How wrong he was! Sixteen years later, here that child stands. You pose no threat to Lord Voldemort, Harry, none at all. I can do anything I want to you, and you cannot even fight back.” His lips turn up, into something that would be a smile on anyone else’s face. “Birthdays are important, aren’t they, Harry? I’ve planned a celebration for you today. I believe you will enjoy it immensely.”

Suddenly, it makes sense, what Malfoy was saying. He ought to know what day it is. Today is his sixteenth birthday. The last day of July. He has been here for over three weeks already, and yet the days have all blurred together, have become one seamless entity.

“You are nearly an adult, Harry,” continues Voldemort. “There are certain passages, you see. Things we must all do as we enter adulthood. I’m afraid your disgusting Muggle relatives have failed to introduce you to such things, but worry not, Harry, for we will step up now. Sixteen,” he muses. “To think, they thought you—a mere child!—could destroy me.”

Harry struggles against Malfoy’s grip to no avail. They have done all sorts of things to him since they abducted him—broken his bones, torn out his fingernails one by one, cut so deep into his skin he very well could have bled out, only to heal him magically and do it all again. There is the cold, and the hunger, and the darkness. He has no idea when they will come for him again, only that they will. He was sure, by now, that they had already done everything they could to him—perhaps now they will take his eyes, finally, he thinks. That certainly would be a surprise, and yet it does not seem right, not when Voldemort is all about seeing things.

“While you’ve been sleeping away, Harry, we have been hard at work.” Finally, he steps away, though he is still, by Harry’s estimation, too close. “Muggles going missing all over the country, I’m afraid. Do you ever wonder, Harry, what happens to them? I would imagine not. But today, you will learn. Come, Lucius,” he commands, and Malfoy complies immediately.

Harry tries to plant his feet, but it is no good. Frankly, he is too weak to fight back. He has always been thin, but, now, he can count his ribs, can never seem to hold any amount of oxygen for as long as he ought to be able to. People can die from starvation, he knows, and yet also knows he will not. There are the potions, after all. The ones Snape delivers every day, nearly without fail.

The thought is not calming in the slightest, but it is something to occupy him as he is dragged along once more. They enter into what appears to be a dining room, though it is obviously sized for a large number of people. And, too, it seems to currently be holding a large number of people: the majority of the seats at the table are filled by masked Death Eaters, and on the other side of the room…

Missing Muggles, he said. And these must be them, Harry thinks. All of them tied up, bound just as he is, lined up against the wall with fear so alive in their eyes Harry can see it all the way across the dimly lit room. There must be at least twenty of them—men, women, and children alike, though it is impossible to tell which ones might belong to a single family unit, if any do at all.

“Our guest of honour has finally arrived,” Voldemort declares, sadistically gleeful. There is a horrible glint in his red eyes. Harry is certain, suddenly, that whatever this “surprise” is, Voldemort has been waiting to unveil it for a long time.

“You’ve done a fine job,” the Dark Lord praises. “My, we are in excellent company this evening, aren’t we? Perhaps we ought to let Harry pick first. He is our guest, after all.”

There is a low rumble of something that could be positive or negative, and yet Voldemort does not seem to care for such trivialities. Malfoy pushes Harry forward, and there is Voldemort, a cold hand snaking around Harry’s shoulders, holding him too close, too close, he is too close—

“You see, Harry, this is what it means to grow up.” Chilled fingers ghosting along his jaw, a subtle show—he is the master here, he is in control; Harry cannot say no. “We enjoy nights like this, occasionally. They’re Muggles, all of them. Filthy creatures. Do you know what happens to filth, Harry?”

Harry bites his tongue. He will not answer, will not engage…

It doesn’t matter, though. It is out of his control. Harry cannot say no.

“They’re eradicated,” Voldemort whispers, directly into his ear. It is not a breath, but a hiss, and Harry realizes, perhaps a bit belatedly, that Voldemort is speaking to him—and only him.

He straightens up, but does not drop his hold on Harry. With his other hand, he draws his wand, incants an Imperius at one of the Muggles near the middle of this sick congregation. Harry watches as the spell takes hold, as she loses her grips on herself, and then as she steps forward, almost mechanically, until she is right before them.

“I could make her do anything, Harry.” His voice is low, the closest to kind it can probably ever get. “She could gouge out her own eyes. Could strip herself naked and let herself be a target for anyone in this room. What do you think, Harry? It is your birthday, after all.”

Bile rises in the back of his throat. Wordlessly, he shakes his head, unable to take his eyes off of the puppet of a woman in front of him. He can hear the other Muggles, the children, crying. Nobody says or does anything to them, but Harry gets the feeling that once Voldemort has had his show, they will not be so merciful.

“There are many ways to break a person.” Voldemort’s voice is conversational. It is as though he is trying to assume the role of an all-knowing mentor. The thought makes Harry’s stomach twist painfully. “They aren’t all so easy, however. You, after all, will not be broken. Not yet, at least, but there are many more things we have waiting for you, Harry, many more indeed.” He is watching the Muggle woman. Suddenly, she falls to her knees before him, bowing. “All you need,” he says, “is a little control.”

With another flick of his wand, she is convulsing in pain, her limbs bending impossibly. She does not scream—cannot scream, Harry realizes in horror, watching as blood trickles from her mouth, as her teeth dig so deeply into her lips the flesh tears apart. Silent tears stream down her face, but no matter how Harry struggles against Voldemort, he cannot stop him, cannot reach her; he is nearly as helpless as she is.

And then it stops. She begins to retch, expelling more blood than vomit. Voldemort looks on in plain disgust, but does not step back, as Harry would have expected him to. Nor does he clean the mess.

Instead, he seems to order her forward. She crawls through the bloodied spew, hands slipping in it, until she has reached Voldemort’s feet. Now, finally, he takes one step back, so she cannot quite touch him. Harry stumbles slightly, not expecting the movement, but Voldemort holds him upright.

“You see, Harry? Filth belongs amongst filth.” He points his wand down at her again. “Avada Kedavra.”

A blinding flash of green fills the room. Harry’s breath catches in his throat, but he cannot close his eyes, cannot look away, and then it is gone and the Muggle woman is lying dead at their feet, face down in her own vomit.

“Simple,” Voldemort says. “Isn’t it, Harry? There are at least a dozen more. Why don’t you call one forward next?”

Harry presses his lips together firmly. Nausea has overwhelmed him; he’s certain if he opened his mouth now he would be vomiting too, but he does not have much he can possibly expel, does he?

“A shame,” Voldemort murmurs. “Well, I suppose you’ll just have to watch, then.” He looks over Harry’s head at the gathered Death Eaters and now, certainly speaking English, he asks, “Who shall be next?”

While they all try to get their tremulous answers in, Voldemort cleans up the mess in front of them and levitates the dead woman away, tossing her carelessly to leftmost side of the room. “Nagini will eat well tonight,” he whispers, and Harry shudders. Even his breaths feel cold, so close to Harry’s skin. He is too close, too close, and yet Harry cannot get away…

Suddenly, Voldemort tightens his grip on Harry. “Silence, now,” he commands. “Very good. I think it will have to be these two, then.”

He points his wand at the line of terrified, wailing Muggles again, and begins the whole process over again.

*

When Harry wakes, he is not alone. He doesn’t need to open his eyes to know this; he has become so aware of other people around him that he can always tell, now, in a way he couldn’t even when he was still living full-time at his aunt and uncle’s. He can’t tell their intentions, though—he must simply assume they are bad, because nobody seems to have good intentions anymore.

“Drink this,” the person says—a quiet, silky voice. He knows this voice, but he is afraid to look, worried that if he does it will all be an illusion.

When he does not move, the person shifts. There is a thin hand as his cheek, easing his jaw open. The potion slides easily between his lips; it is second nature, by now, to swallow it.

“That’s good,” the person murmurs, pulling back now. “You will be all right. I swear it.”

Harry doesn’t know why he does, but he is sure he trusts this voice. And yet he is just as sure that he will not be “all right” at all, that he is stuck here until they finally decide to just kill him already.

Retreating footsteps. The sound of a door opening, closing, locking.

He is alone.

*

“Your potions, Mr Potter.” It is the same thing every day, lately. As usual, Madam Pomfrey does not touch him. He takes the potions mechanically, still not able to feel any difference from them, to feel anything at all, really. He does not know how many days it has been, or how many doses of these potions he has been given by now.

It has just been the two of them, though. He finds that, as no-nonsense a person as she is, Madam Pomfrey is in fact quite gentle. Perhaps he has never really noticed before because all his injuries have been related to Quidditch.

His stomach twists at the thought, but he isn’t completely sure why. He will miss Quidditch, yes—because he is sure, so sure, that he will never be able to enjoy it, or maybe even anything, for that matter, again—but it is not really so bad. Nothing really feels bad at all, actually. The emptier he can make himself of thoughts and feelings, the better, he has come to realize.

Madam Pomfrey is still here, hovering over him. She does, sometimes. Harry is certain of her intentions by now, and so he finds he doesn’t tense up quite so badly when she comes close to him anymore. Whether she could touch him or not, he doesn’t know, but she hasn’t tried to again, not since what happened the first time.

“You need to get out,” she finally says. “Out of the hospital wing, I mean. To the grounds, perhaps. You should be able to walk for a while, I think.”

He has been walking a bit every day. Maybe even every hour. He can’t quite tell: through his lethargy, time seems to pass differently, doesn’t even seem to pass at all, really.

“I’ll accompany you, of course. But it will do you some good, fresh air.”

It has become easy enough to just go along with what she says. It’s never a command, not from her. Merely a suggestion. And he does trust her, trusts her judgement where his health is involved at least. He still doesn’t really know what’s wrong with him, but he does know that it is easier to move now than it was, and he does not need quite so much sleep. He is finally able to eat real food, too, and yet it is much like the liquids he was restricted to before anyway, in the sense that it carries no real taste with it.

She doesn’t touch him, but she watches with sharp eyes as he gets out of bed, then leads him—slowly—to the exit of the hospital wing. Suddenly, Harry finds himself halting, heart beating fast.

“It’s all right, Mr Potter,” Madam Pomfrey says. “There’s nothing in the castle that can hurt you.”

He must know this, but somehow it feels wrong to step past the threshold, into the corridor. He has spent the past five years in this castle, to be sure. It is the first place he ever called home.

And yet.

Every part of his brain tells his body that there is no reason to just stand here, that, like Madam Pomfrey said, it is safe outside of the hospital wing. But he hasn’t been safe anywhere in so long, it seems impossible that such a thing could really be true. The hospital wing is enough, isn’t it? And, anyway, he didn’t have a choice in waking up here. Someone else brought him, but he still isn’t sure who.

“Harry?”

“I can’t,” he rasps. It is the first time he has spoken in days, but now that he has said the words, the rest seem to come with no pause at all: “Please don’t make me leave here, I can’t go—” He stops, panic flooding in his chest. “Where’s my wand? They still have it?”

She blinks, then shakes her head. “No, we have it. You may take it back, if you wish.”

“Oh.” He looks away from her, uncertain. “I don’t—why do you have it?”

“It came back when you did.” Her voice is careful, measured. He gets the feeling there is something she’s not telling him, but he doesn’t know if he should ask, if he should even care.

When he says nothing, she sighs, stepping away from the doors. “Staying here won’t help any. I can’t force you, but you may find you feel better.”

There must be a sort of irony to this all. He knows who he is, what he has done: he’s the Boy Who Lived, slayed a basilisk, protected the Philosopher’s Stone, survived the Triwizard Tournament, survived hundreds of Dementors—survived Voldemort, and five times, now, at that. But it is a corridor in Hogwarts that will be his undoing. The grounds he has spent all his springs on since he was eleven years old.

Even knowing all of this, though, he can’t so much as think about leaving here without anxiety seizing his body entirely. There’s probably nothing out there, but there’s something out there, and he knows better now than to go looking for trouble.

“I can’t,” he says again, but his voice is not any stronger, not really.

She is quiet for a moment. Then, she nods.

“Maybe tomorrow,” she says.

*

“You’ll have to be out of here tomorrow,” Vernon barks. “You hear me, boy? I don’t want to see you in this house at all!”

“I can’t leave,” Harry tells him, for the umpteenth time. “It’s too dangerous.”

“I don’t think so, boy. You’ve ruined my chances too many times. I won’t risk this.”

Oh, yeah, Harry thinks, just risk my life instead, then. But he says, “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll stay in my room, but I can’t leave.”

He looks like he wants to argue more—he usually does—but at that moment Petunia pokes her head around the corner, eyes narrowed. “He’ll have to stay, Vernon.” She sniffs. “But you mind yourself, won’t you?”

“Yeah, sure, fine.”

“I’ll be heading out,” she continues. “They wanted to see Vernon alone.”

Harry has heard the plan multiple times, so he just nods. Dudley and Petunia will go out and get the shopping done for the week, though Dudley certainly won’t be pleased about it. Harry doesn’t really care either way. Even without his uncle ordering him about, he would have stayed in his room anyway.

Besides, he doubts that whatever job offer Vernon is supposedly getting will go well. It will be his fault whether he’s involved or not. This is the general way of things, around the Dursley household.

“Get out of here, then,” Vernon says gruffly. “I don’t want to see you ‘til the day after next!”

Harry shrugs, then turns and leaves. There’s food in his school trunk. It is, after all, still only the first week of summer break. If he’s going to be stuck in his room for the next two days, perhaps he can send some letters, or get a start on his summer homework. With the threat from the Order hanging over their heads, the Dursleys have mostly ignored Harry since he returned from Hogwarts—which is certainly fine by Harry, and he’s sure they’re happier for it too. They don’t know about Sirius, either, and he doesn’t plan on telling them anytime soon. Really, he’d rather just ignore that, too.

This deal Vernon is preparing for, though, has reminded them of Harry’s freakish presence in their home. He has been trying to convince Harry to get out of the house on the day of his little at-home conference or whatever it is, but Harry thinks he’d rather try his luck with his uncle than some Death Eaters, thank you very much.

He returns to his room to find the letters Ron and Hermione have already sent him over the past couple days. They both say things to the same effect; apparently Harry’s supposed misery is one thing they can finally agree on.

But Harry feels fine, really. It was harder when they were still at Hogwarts, but now it is sort of like when Sirius was on the run again. He couldn’t keep in steady contact from so far away, after all. If Harry thinks about it like that—that Sirius is just too far away for him to reach right now—it doesn’t sting quite so badly.

Otherwise, it would probably eat him up on the inside, and he knows that he will have to move on whether he wants to or not. It’s for the best, to not acknowledge those feelings. He had his time between returning from the Ministry and getting on the Hogwarts Express to grieve, and now he needs to figure out what he’s supposed to do with the prophecy and everything it implies.

He writes responses to his friends’ letters, edging around the topic of Sirius as best he can. He asks about their plans for the summer. In Hermione’s case, he wonders about how she’s feeling as they wait for results from their O.W.L.s, knowing that she will be more likely to respond to that than anything else in the letter. Ron is a little trickier to distract, but Harry doubts Ron really wants to talk about Harry’s feelings—which are not morose or depressed or any of that rot anyway—either.

By the time he has drafted passable letters, it is late enough that he decides to simply retire to bed.

He will send the letters tomorrow.

*

He comes less often, Harry notices. Lately, Harry finds he doesn’t notice much, but he does notice this. Notices it because there is so little left for him to bother noticing at all. Notices it because he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to find the will to keep pumping oxygen through his lungs if there is nothing left for him to cling to.

Perhaps he doesn’t really come less often. Perhaps time has just started to pass differently, and Harry hasn’t noticed it. Perhaps this, too, is some cruel plan devised by Voldemort and his foul admirers to make him miserable. If that’s the case, he won’t give them the satisfaction of admitting it’s working, but each day certainly feels bleaker than the last.

He is always hurting, lately. They’ve found so many different ways to use his body against his will that Harry’s sure there is nothing more they can do to him, until there is. Mostly, it is Bellatrix Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy, but if Voldemort is feeling “charitable,” as he calls it, he will let others have their way with Harry, too. Maybe there had been plans to kill him before, but now he is just some plaything for them. They enjoy degrading him, like to see him on his knees. He stopped saying no when he realized it made no difference, but they always know he would say it if he were not so stubborn, and they relish in that too.

It is like this every day. They don’t do the same things, no, but there is always something meant to make him hurt. They torture others in front of him. It is somehow far worse to see another person raped in front of him or subject to torture curses—there are more spells designed for torture than simply the Cruciatus, Harry has discovered—than it is to have them do the same things to him, and yet there is a terrible sort of relief in it too, and then the guilt he feels at being grateful that, today, it isn’t him being touched or whipped or left to bleed dry overwhelms him. Mostly, it is easier to just not feel anything, and yet this too is far easier said than done.

More than anything, he wishes he could forget. Even if he was still stuck here, in this terrible cycle, it would not be so bad if he woke each day with no memories of the last. Things have begun to blur together, anyway; he does not know if it has been a day or two weeks, can never recall who is dragging him out this time or whether it is Lestrange or Malfoy taking off his clothes. Perhaps the only thing he doesn’t want to forget about is Snape, and isn’t that some sort of cruel irony, that Snape is the only person he really believes anymore might actually be able to help him.

He comes less often, but Harry always remembers when he does. Sometimes he’ll do odd things, run a hand through Harry’s hair, rest it over his forehead, like he is worried Harry is running a fever though Harry is fairly certain there are spells to check for that, and those are probably more reliable anyway. He always has potions, and though he never stays long he always leaves Harry with something, a promise or even just the fragment of one:

“I will get you out of this.”

Harry hasn’t really talked in so long, he never knows how to respond. He supposes it is better if he doesn’t; mostly, talking back to Snape has never helped anything. But, then, Snape has never helped him before, not so outwardly, at least. He doesn’t know why Snape hasn’t gotten him out yet, but he tries to believe that he still might. It’s the only thing that will keep him sane, he supposes, the promise that this will not last forever.

A hand brushing against his cheek, clutching at his hand while potions are brought to his mouth, again and again and again. Somewhere along the way, it became the only touch he does not fear. Somewhere along the way, it became something sturdy. Something—or someone—he could trust.

*

Harry wakes to the feeling of someone holding his hand. Though he is aware of it, he doesn’t pull away immediately, not until he has blinked the sleep from his eyes and managed to see that, indeed, there is someone sitting next to him—touching him.

His first thought is that Madam Pomfrey broke her promise. His second is that he knows it was not really a promise at all, but there is a part of him that thinks it ought to have been. She has been saying for quite some time, now, though: You need to talk to them.

All of them.

He is almost grateful it isn’t Dumbledore or McGonagall in the chair by his bed, and yet this visitor isn’t exactly a welcome one, either. He cranes his neck, trying to find Madam Pomfrey, but Snape says, “She will be back shortly. She asked me to watch over you, in the meantime.”

Harry leans back, but remains cautious. He narrows his eyes at the Potions Master. “Why?”

“I believe she has been called to see the Headmaster.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” He pauses, then sighs. An odd look crosses his face, but perhaps it is only odd because, for once, it is not anger or hatred. “We don’t need to speak, if that is what you prefer. If you wish to never see me again, I certainly wouldn’t blame you. But I wished—to ensure you were, in fact, safe. I am satisfied you are.”

Harry stares at him.

After a moment, Snape nods, then rises. “I will go, then.”

“Wait,” Harry blurts, then stops, feeling disoriented. “I just—I have no— I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Do you not recall?”

“Recall what?”

Slowly, Snape lowers himself down to sitting again. “You were kidnapped.”

“Yes,” Harry says impatiently. “And tortured, apparently. What do you have to do with any of it?”

For what is surely the first time in Harry’s life, Snape looks shocked. Harry thinks he ought to be yelling by now or something; this calm, gentle Snape is uncomfortable in its lack of familiarity.

Before either of them can say anything more, though, the doors of the hospital wing open up to admit Madam Pomfrey again.

“Thank you, Severus,” she says curtly. “I believe the Headmaster would like to see you now.”

Snape gets up again, and now, thankfully, he is back to his regular scowling self. “Very well, then. Thank you, Poppy.”

And then he is gone, just like that.

“You should know, Harry,” she says after a moment, then stops. Starts again: “You should know that the school year will begin again in only a matter of days.”

He blinks. “Sorry?”

“The first of September. It’s only five days away.”

But that can’t be right; it is not even August yet, he’s certain of this much. He has thought about it again and again since he woke here. His birthday can’t have passed already. How could he not remember nearly two entire months?

He remembers some things from the beginning of July. Remembers writing to Ron and Hermione, and he remembers that his uncle got some sort of promotion at work. Too, he remembers that he was kidnapped. It’s easy enough to surmise by whom, but he isn’t sure how it happened in the first place, how he wound up outside of the wards around Privet Drive. He remembers some things about being in captivity too, but he is sure it can’t have been for that long. If that were the case, surely he would be far unhealthier? And yet he feels fine, for the most part. Sometimes he has what Madam Pomfrey calls “panic attacks,” but she’s also assured him they will go away in due time. Physically, at least, he really is fine. Madam Pomfrey said so days ago—or at least Harry thinks it was days. He really just assumed he was only still here because there was nowhere else for him to go.

“Professor Dumbledore thinks you ought to stay here,” Madam Pomfrey is saying, “and join your classmates when they arrive.”

Something in her tone tells Harry that she does not agree with Professor Dumbledore.

“Ultimately, it’s your choice, but school will still be here when you’re healthy again, Mr Potter. I don’t believe it is worth the risk.”

Harry opens his mouth to protest that he is healthy, but stops before the words even reach his tongue. Mentally, he does the math: if there are five days until the first of September, then that means today would have to be August twenty-seventh, wouldn’t it? He counts it again, but there is no way he can deny that, unless Madam Pomfrey is playing some sick joke on him—which, at this point, seems rather unlikely—it really is the end of summer.

“I don’t understand,” he manages.

“Well, I know you’re healthy physically, but—”

“It’s July,” he cuts in. “I thought it was July. It is, isn’t it?”

For a moment, she seems surprised, but the expression quickly falls away and is replaced by a more familiar one, that serious look she gets when a student is injured.

But Harry isn’t injured, not anymore. And he certainly isn’t suffering from amnesia; it doesn’t feel like anything is missing at all.

“I believe it’s time you told me what happened, Mr Potter.”

“Don’t you know already?” His throat feels raw. He glares up at the ceiling. “I was taken somewhere by Death Eaters. They made me some sort of prisoner.”

“Well, yes, but…” A brief hesitation, and then, “But what happened, Harry? What did they do to you?”

It is like she has knocked the wind from him, and yet she is quite far away, is certainly not close enough to touch him. His heart begins to beat rapidly in his chest; every sensible part of him is saying that this is not a topic they should be discussing, not now or ever.

“What do you remember?”

He feels quite dizzy, suddenly. No, he doesn’t want to remember any of it, does not even want to try. He remembers cold floors, hunger, pain, sometimes. He remembers someone else there—promising to get him out, to keep him safe. He remembers the feeling of hands against his skin, gentle, but, no, they are not gentle, not at all, these hands leave bruises, wounds far deeper than the surface—

“Stop,” he gasps. “No, don’t, I can’t.”

“Breathe, Mr Potter,” Madam Pomfrey directs. “In and out, that’s right. You can’t remember?”

He follows her lead briefly, then shakes his head.

“Perhaps a Memory Charm?” She frowns. “Diagnostic spells rarely catch those, but it is curable—”

“No!” He stumbles out of bed, to his feet, leaving the cot safely between them. “No, you can’t, there’s nothing wrong with my memory, I swear—”

“You don't know that,” she says steadily. “If something is missing, you need to remember.”

“I don’t want to remember!” he shouts. “Don’t—don’t mess around with my head! Everything is fine!”

For a moment, he thinks she will keep arguing, but then she takes a small step back.

“I won’t do anything without your permission, Mr Potter.”

He’s certain he can’t trust her, but he nods. Fighting back will only make it worse. He will just have to be on his guard, won’t he? Will just have to watch and wait, stay prepared, for the moment she tries to harm him…

And yet there is the niggling thought that she does not want to harm him at all. What was she trying to do to him, anyway? His memory is fine, so if she did something to fix it, then it would probably just have no effect at all. Granted, he doesn’t know a lot about Memory Charms. He supposes Hermione would know, but then he winces, because he cannot even imagine seeing Hermione right now, cannot bear to think what she would see in him.

Cautiously, he settles back on the hospital bed. On the other side of it, Madam Pomfrey readies his potions. They are not all the same every day, but he doesn’t bother to ask what they are for. Asking would make it real, somehow, in a way it is not now. There is control in not knowing, control in the uncertainty of it. The rest of his life is far beyond his grasps, has slipped away from him like silken sands, but the constants he does have are worth holding on to—and right now, this is the sturdiest thing he has.

She doesn’t speak as she hands him the phials, as he downs the liquids inside them and passes them back. Does not speak as she leaves him to summon some food, nor when she returns with it for him. Does not speak when the meal is finished and she retires to her office.

Harry doesn’t speak either, because there is control in this too. When night washes over the hospital wing and he begins to slip into sleep, after all, he will lose the rest of that meagre control he does have. He won’t remember in the morning, but it doesn’t matter:

His life does not belong to him anymore.

*

Bellatrix is worse, Harry often thinks, even then Voldemort himself. Of course, it can’t be true, not really, but it feels that way sometimes. She delights in his pain, especially when she is the one to cause it, but more than that she delights in reminding him of what he has lost, of Sirius. And each time she says his name, it makes everything else hurt so much worse.

What did Sirius die for, if this is all that has come since? It was Harry’s fault—she tells him so, cooing in his ear, like it is praise. It is the only praise she would ever give him; otherwise, he is filthy half-blood scum, a plaything for her and her Lord and his other enlightened, loyal followers.

“If only he could see you now,” she’ll say, and it will be followed with a curse or a wound or her awful hands against his bare skin, all of it to say to him that he does not have control, that he is owned now.

The other is Lucius Malfoy. Harry still isn’t certain, but he supposes this must be some sort of Malfoy estate. He is always there, though Harry has learned by now that Voldemort does not see Malfoy the way Malfoy wants to be seen by him. It must have something to do with his failure in the Department of Mysteries, but if he is here now, then he mustn’t have been in Azkaban long. It is impossible for Harry to say; he has no idea how long he has been here, or indeed what was going on around the day he was abducted. Something happened to his aunt and uncle, but he still cannot say what, exactly, it was. Maybe they’re dead too, like the scores of Muggles Harry has seen murdered since he arrived here.

There are others too, but Bellatrix and Malfoy seem to see the most of him. It is like some sordid family affair for them; he wonders if Narcissa and Draco would be here too, if they had a choice, and yet too thinks there are things Malfoy has done to and in front of Harry that maybe even his son would find too gruesome to stomach. As for his wife, she must be looking after Draco, wherever they are. If, indeed, this is a Malfoy estate, then it is certainly not the one the family lives in.

There is also Bellatrix’s husband, Rodolphus. Harry can’t gather much here, but they aren’t overly concerned about what he does overhear, either. While Bellatrix will be here to torture and kill any new prisoners the Death Eaters drag in, Rodolphus himself will be out there in the raids, doing the kidnapping. Voldemort believes them to be a good team—loyal and unforgiving and definitely insane. But Bellatrix often says she gets bored without her husband around. That’s where Harry comes in, apparently.

He has spent, by his estimation, most of his day at Bellatrix’s mercy. By now, he is bruised and battered, hands tied up. His clothes are mostly gone—and what is left is in a horrible state—to give her access to as much of his body as possible, and he doubts he would be able to stand now, even if she would let him try.

She stands above him, twirling her wand in deliberation. Whatever she is trying to decide, however, is interrupted by the door slamming open. Harry dares not look up, knowing better by now than to ask for punishments—a lesson learned too late in his life, he supposes, though his uncle had certainly tried.

“The Dark Lord would like Potter now,” says the Death Eater at the door. Harry recognizes his voice, but cannot place a name to it.

“Fine, then.” As if for good measure, Bellatrix kicks the hardened tip of her boot forcefully into Harry’s ribs. He inhales sharply, the taste of blood filling his mouth as his teeth rip into his lip again. While he coughs, she steps around him and ushers their guest away. The door remains open when she turns around and grins at him. “My Lord will be most pleased to see you, Potter. Why don’t you stand up?”

He takes in a wheezing breath, but screws his eyes shut and tries to pull himself up off his knees. It is agonizing; the pain begins in his chest, but spreads all the way down through his gut, to his tailbone, up his spine and into his skull. There is nowhere left he has not been touched, has not been hurt. But it will go away soon enough, he reminds himself. Potions, at the very least; they do not like him to be sick, do not like him to be too weak to even protest, though he tries not to do that at all anymore; it gives them too much satisfaction.

With trembling legs, he eventually manages, though he stumbles as soon as he attempts to straighten himself. Immediately, Bellatrix is there, a steadying hand against his hip, fingernails digging into his searing skin. A wicked smile stretches across her face.

“Poor baby,” she coos. “Can’t even stand on your own. I’ll keep a hold on you, Harry. Come on, now. We absolutely mustn’t keep my Lord waiting.”

Harry is given no opportunity to fight back before she is pulling him along. She has done nothing to protect his modesty, though this in itself is nothing new. Perhaps the thing they all like more than seeing him in pain is humiliating him. It has lost its novelty, for him, but maybe there’s a sort of power in it, too, in knowing that they are able to take everything from him—his clothes, and the last of his dignity with them, included.

He has come to be familiar with the halls, almost. They all blur together sometimes, however. He knows that he would not be able to get out of here, not on his own, not even just due to the fact that someone is guarding him constantly. If he dreamed at all, it would be of these labyrinthine corridors, but he does not dream anymore, not so that he remembers, anyway. It is, possibly, the only good to come out of all of this; he hasn’t had a single nightmare in weeks.

It could be some sort of magic, but Harry doubts it. Rather, he thinks he has been pulled too tight, now. He does not sleep in periods long enough to have dreams, let alone to see them in full. But the potions keep him going. More than the potions, the promise of the one delivering them keeps him going.

When they come to their destination, Harry feels himself fill with dread as he sees that there is no audience gathered here. It is only Voldemort himself, and once they are within the room fully, Bellatrix proudly holding Harry out to her master, he says, “Leave us now, Bella.”

For a moment, she is silent, and Harry thinks she might protest. But then she drops her hold on him and he falls to the floor on all fours, wincing as his palms slam against the wooden surface.

She bows deeply. “Yes, My Lord, of course, My Lord, thank you.” And then she is scampering away, losing only a second to throw a horrible-looking grin in Harry’s direction.

When she is most assuredly gone, Voldemort steps closer. Instinctively, Harry tries to recoil, but his body is in no shape to be moving away; Voldemort’s long, spidery fingers grip his chin and direct his eyes upward.

“Harry, Harry, Harry.” His lips twist maliciously. “I have been thinking, Harry. Do you know what I’ve been thinking?”

Harry scowls at him. He only laughs.

“Of course you don’t, Harry. You see, I am a most talented Occlumens, a skill you certainly do not possess. A few months ago, Harry, you forced me out of your mind and body by sheer willpower alone. But today, it is I who will be in control. I’ll give you something you want, Harry. Something you want desperately. How does that sound?”

Horrible, Harry thinks, but he does not speak, does not even move.

“Ah, of course. I understand you to be the emotional type. You must be overcome, suddenly, with the kindness Lord Voldemort is showing you.” He leans in closer, so close that Harry can taste his breaths. “Wouldn’t you like to see your parents, Harry? I can show them to you.”

It all happens very fast: before Harry can even process the words, Voldemort has moved his other hand, his wand hand, and then suddenly the entire room disappears around them. Instead, Harry finds himself standing before an unfamiliar cottage. It is the dead of night, but there are children in costumes roaming about, laughing and cheering with each other with bags of holidays sweets between them.

He struggles, but it is pointless; he can only watch as Voldemort moves onward, opens the door of the cottage and steps inside. As soon as Harry gets a view of the people within it, horrific realization washes over him. With renewed desperation, he fights to escape, but he cannot get out, cannot go anywhere.

James and Lily Potter do not notice him, however. They do not run. As Voldemort sweeps into the room, they remain entirely unfazed. They are here together with a baby—with Harry—and they do not see the threat, do not see their murderer looming just before them. Some part of Harry knows this is not how it happened, but does he know? He can’t even remember his mother and father, would never have been able to recall anything about this night at all if not for the Dementors forcing him to relive parts of it over and over again.

As Harry watches, Lily suddenly turns her wand on James, expression hard. She speaks, but Harry does not hear what she says; there is a flash of green, and then he is lying dead beside the crying baby while Lily looks on with a satisfied smile. She raises her wand again, but this time Harry does not see what she does, because the cottage falls away entirely. They are outside of it again, walking in just as they did before.

Again and again and again, he watches his parents turn on one another. He watches them kill each other, and then themselves. Watches one of them die by Voldemort’s hand, and the other by their own. They die from spells. They die from sharp knives. They die from asphyxiation. They die from a snapped neck. They die and they die and they die, and the only other constant is that no matter what Harry says or does, they never hear him. At some point, he started to cry, but he cannot remember when. His throat is raw from screaming, his chest heaving painfully as his heart makes a frantic attempt to beat outside his body.

They die and they die and they die, and he can do nothing but watch it all happen.

Voldemort is, for once, a wholly silent observer. The one within the memory itself—is it a memory? One version of it must be, at least, and yet the longer it goes on, the less certain he becomes—does little to intervene. Sometimes he will cast the Imperius. Sometimes he will cast the Killing Curse. Sometimes, even, the Cruciatus. But he is rarely the one to do the killing, at least not directly. Lily, with fierce emerald eyes. James, the same smirk on his face Harry remembers from Snape’s memory. The baby is always between them, crying and crying and crying but never heard, never even touched…

They die and they die and they die, and Harry cannot save any of them.

*

The crisp air of summer is a welcome reprieve from the stuffy atmosphere of the hospital wing, but he still finds himself worried, like there is something out here that will attack him. Madam Pomfrey has promised she will keep him safe, if not the wards around Hogwarts, and while Harry would like to trust her word, he was told he would be safe at his aunt and uncle’s too, and how had that turned out?

He thinks to ask about them sometimes, but, selfishly, finds he would rather not know. Madam Pomfrey certainly thinks him fragile, but it is not a matter of breaking or even being close to it; it is simply that he isn’t sure if he would be happier to find out if they were dead or if they were alive, and he doesn’t want to figure it out.

“What are you thinking?” Madam Pomfrey asks suddenly.

He glances over at her, eyebrows furrowing.

“You look like something is on your mind,” she presses. “Anything you tell me will remain entirely confidential.”

He turns his gaze forward again, sighing. He has heard this before. As the first of September creeps ever closer, she says it more and more. What is he thinking? Mostly, he is trying not to, but he fears he hasn’t done very well on that front.

“You needn’t be ashamed, whatever it is.”

“I’m not,” he mutters.

“What are you worried about, then? The more I know, the more I can help. And, Harry, I do want to help. We all do.”

“I don’t need help,” but obviously it is a lie, or his heart would not be pounding so fiercely right now.

“Everyone needs a little help now and then,” she says quietly. “I see a nice spot by the lake. Why don’t we sit?”

He lets her lead him to the place she has apparently scouted out for them, then lowers himself down on the grass beside her. It is a rather surreal situation, if he really thinks about it, and yet he cannot find it in himself to be surprised or amazed or anything, really, other than exhausted.

“What will you do on Monday?”

He stares out at the lake. It is undisturbed today, reflecting the blue sky above like a perfect mirror, and yet he knows, perhaps better than most, the things that lurk beneath its pristine surface. He used to fear the water, a bit, at least since the Second Task, but now he feels mostly empty looking over it.

“I don’t know,” he finally says. “They’ll know, won’t they?”

“Know what?” Her voice is gentle. It usually is, these days.

“I don’t know,” he says again, throat tightening. “Know—know something’s wrong, I suppose. I can’t—you know, Hermione would want to—I dunno, hug me or…or something, and…”

“That can be avoided,” Madam Pomfrey points out, not unkindly. “I’m certain your friends would be understanding. You have been through a horrible ordeal this summer.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Some part of you does.”

“Then I don’t want it to.” He glares at the lake, yet it remains untouched, smooth as glass. “Obviously you all think I’m mental, and maybe I am, I don’t know, but—but it’s not like I asked for any of this. Why would something I don’t even know about bother me so much?”

It is more than he intended to say, but he doesn’t bother to even try taking it back. Madam Pomfrey has been more than accommodating for him over this past while, kind in every way imaginable. The days have sort of blurred together, but, through it all, she has been a constant. There is something else, one thing he does remember, that has gotten him through long, restless nights, but it is Madam Pomfrey who is there in the morning with breakfast and potions to bolster him, and never once has he heard her complain about it. Surely she must have better things to be doing in the summer, but she has been here with him, even though—aside from some nutrient deficiencies, she says—he is entirely on form. And, anyway, he was quite deficient before, so this is nothing new by any stretch of the imagination.

For the first time, Harry finds himself properly grateful for the matron. She has kept the others mostly away from him, like she promised. Has not asked for much more for him than this, and what has he done but make her job more difficult for her?

“You’re not insane,” she tells him quietly. “But even Professor Snape doesn’t know what they did to you.”

“Why would he know?” His stomach twists painfully. “He was involved?”

“No, no,” she soothes. “He said you don’t seem to remember this either, but…he was the one who saved you, Harry.”

There is a small ripple across the surface of the lake as something beneath it—the Giant Squid, mostly likely—stirs.

“Saved me,” he repeats.

“Yes.” A hesitation, but it is very brief. “He Who Must Not Be Named asked Professor Snape only to supply you with potions while you were there. Professor Dumbledore hoped that there would be a way for Professor Snape to maintain his cover, but even from his position, he wasn’t privy to much information. All we knew is that they weren’t planning to kill you. Not yet, at least.”

“So…so why…?”

She sighs. “There were a lot of barriers to get through. If he had acted too soon, Professor Snape likely would have been caught and killed, or worse. As it is, they now know his true loyalties. I’ve heard all this from the Headmaster,” she adds. “I wouldn’t have had the slightest otherwise. I know it’s difficult, but I think, Harry, that you ought to speak to them. Even if you don’t remember, you should at least know what happened by their accounts.”

It is a lot to take in at once, and yet Harry doesn’t find himself shocked by any of it. He focusses hard on the image of the lake in front of him. He does remember this, but he isn’t sure if he wants to, not really. A voice, quiet and silky but determined, a promise. He remembers the potions, too. From the very beginning, this memory has stuck with him, and now, for the first time, he properly questions just who that voice belonged to.

“In the hospital wing,” he starts, then falters, chest stuttering painfully. What had Snape said? That he wanted to ensure Harry was—safe?

If you wish to never see me again…

“He asked after you at least once every day,” she says. “I don’t know what he thinks of it all, but I do believe he has truly been concerned.”

“Yeah.” Harry swallows, then pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them. His heart roars in his ears. “Madam, what…what do you think is wrong with me?”

“Nothing.” Firm, certain. “I’m a Mediwitch, not a Mind Healer, mind you, but I believe all you’re dealing with is a very understandable reaction to something traumatic. You’re still very young, Harry. A wizard three times your age might not have made it through everything you have.”

He shuts his eyes tight. She has done a lot for him, he knows. Perhaps the least he can do for her is try.

After a long moment, he finally forces himself to ask, “My aunt and uncle are dead, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” she whispers.

“And Dudley?”

“Yes.”

“So there’s nowhere left for me to go.”

“Hogwarts will always be here for you, Harry.” When he cracks his eyes open and glances at her, she smiles, though it is an awfully sad expression. “Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore are worried about you too, you know. We aren’t asking you to go through this alone.”

He can’t quite smile back, but when he meets her eyes, he suspects she might understand anyway.

“You needn’t tell them anything more than you remember. I will make sure of that.”

Slowly, he nods. If he tried to speak his agreement, he knows it wouldn’t come, but he has been afraid for so long, and of what? Madam Pomfrey has proved to him again and again, hasn’t she, that he doesn’t have to do this alone. No, he does not want their help, but even through days of him not speaking, through his violent reactions to being touched, his anger and his fear and his memory problems, she hasn’t passed him off to somebody else.

And Snape saved his life, he thinks. Not for the first time, but this time was more dangerous, wasn’t it? Maybe it could all be some elaborate lie to lure him back to Voldemort. Perhaps Snape is really not loyal to Dumbledore at all.

But Harry can still hear his voice. Gentle hands, a promise that never faded: “I will get you out of this. I will.” And so he did.

“Tomorrow, then,” Madam Pomfrey says. “Let’s head back inside for now.”

Harry watches as she gets to her feet. She is not a young woman, but she does not move as though she is really so old. Just as he is about to get up himself, he sees her slowly extend a hand down to him.

He looks up at her, blinking, and she smiles again, in encouragement now.

“The steps you take are all your own,” she says, “but it’s all right to have someone walk beside you.”

His gaze falls down to her outreached hand. With trembling fingers, he reaches out and places his hand in hers. Then, he tightens his grip and lets himself be gently pulled up to his feet. His chest is heavy with a feeling he cannot quite name, but it isn’t all bad—and he has not let go yet.

Her smile widens, but she says nothing. As they turn away from the lake and head back to the castle, he does not drop her hand, and she does not ask him to.

*

The day of Vernon’s interview is as boring as ever, for Harry. He wakes early, the silhouette of his falling godfather still featuring prominently in every corner of his mind, and then he rises and opens the window, though the fresh air does nothing to make the room any less stifling. He’s used to this, though, so he instead moves to grab the letters he has penned to his friends. As he approaches Hedwig, she blinks up at him and he smiles.

“Take these to Ron and Hermione,” he murmurs, holding the letters out in one hand and stroking her head gently with the other. She lets out a low chirp in response, and then she is off.

The other benefit of the Dursleys’ new brand of avoidance towards him is how very easy it will be this summer to communicate with his friends. They detest Hedwig, but they haven’t locked her up or even threatened to. She’s very quiet, anyway, likely because she is smart enough to know that if she is anything but, Harry will be in trouble for it.

He spends the rest of the day doing little more than he would normally. Without his texts for the coming school year (or, indeed, the motivation for schoolwork this early in the summer), he can’t exactly get a start on any homework or reading. Rather, he occupies his time mostly by reading well-worn Quidditch texts or simply lying in bed, staring listlessly up at the ceiling.

He has heard nothing from downstairs all day, but he isn’t about to test his luck and venture down there now. His uncle hasn’t been violent—or that violent, anyway—since before Harry went to Hogwarts, but without the ability to do magic outside of school, it’s not like Harry is any more capable of protecting himself now than he was back then. Besides, he’d be just as bored anywhere else in the house as he is here. At least here he doesn’t have to see or hear his relatives at all.

Still, long minutes stretch into long hours, and, eventually, the sun begins to sink beneath the horizon. Just when Harry is beginning to wonder if they have forgotten about him again, he hears the sound of the front door opening and closing.

If Petunia and Dudley are home, then the interview must be finished. He shrugs, flopping back down in his bed, but he stops as a loud thump resounds around the house, followed by complete and utter silence. It lasts for only a moment, however, and then there are footsteps moving around the house.

But Harry has spent enough of his life listening to his relatives’ footsteps, and he knows that these belong to neither Vernon nor Dudley, but they are still too heavy to be Petunia’s. It could be a matter of distance, but he is already gripped by the sudden feeling that something is wrong.

Quietly, he slips out of bed again and grabs his wand, approaching the door the same way he might were it the middle of the night and he was going downstairs to find something to eat after too many missed meals. When he opens it, he hears no voices, but registers that there is more than one set of footsteps. Three or four, maybe.

He reassures himself with the thought that the wards around the house will keep him safe. They’re supposed to protect the Dursleys, too, but, to be completely honest, he is not really so worried about them as he is for himself.

Halfway down the stairs, he stops, nearly tripping as he catches sight of his uncle by the door. It is still ajar, but more concerning is the fact that Vernon is on the floor, unmoving. There is no blood, not as far as Harry can see, anyway, but he has to lean against the wall nonetheless. Overcome with a sudden dizziness, he works to catch his breath, but he barely gets the chance.

The footsteps are coming closer. With nothing else to do, Harry turns and hurries back up the stairs, returning to his room. He closes and locks the door, thinking fast.

Vernon is probably not dead, he reasons. Whatever happened to him, it can’t have been magical; the wards wouldn’t let any wizard with ill intent through, right? So he oughtn’t leave the house. It would be too dangerous for him, just like he told Vernon yesterday.

He hears the steps climbing the stairs now. Panicked, he ducks out of sight behind the bed, watching in horror as the locked door opens with ease.

The figures in the doorway are familiarly masked, but he dares not look at them for long. He holds his breath and hopes that the heavy pounding of his heart won’t give him away.

This must be a bad dream, it must be, and yet it is far too real, and much too unlike the things that normally haunt his nightmares. Suddenly, he is certain that his uncle is not merely unconscious. He spares only a moment to wonder if his aunt has met a similar fate yet or not before he hears them come into the room fully.

There is nothing else to do. There are at least three of them, but—

“Stupefy!” he cries, pointing his wand at the nearest Death Eater’s back. The figure topples down, but the others know where he is now. Rising fully, he brandishes his wand toward the next, another Stunner on his lips, but two spells fly at him at the same time and he ducks down again to avoid them. Cursing, he moves to Disarm the one closest to him, but misses by a margin and the spell instead hits the wall. As he looks, he sees that there are in fact four of them, and one has blocked off the door entirely.

Thinking fast, he dashes toward the open window, but the second his hands reach the sill, the window is crashing down, crushing his fingers in the process. He cries out as the sound of his bones cracking rings out through the air; his wand clatters to the floor, and one of the Death Eaters approaches from behind and grabs his arm.

Harry makes to pull away, but it is pointless; just as he manages to free his hands, he is being tugged by his naval, moving fast to a new destination far, far away from here.

*

“It’s wonderful to see you up and moving again, Harry.”

Harry can’t meet Dumbledore’s eyes, though he knows it is a horrible show of cowardice. He wonders if McGonagall is disappointed in him for it, this utter lack of Gryffindor spirit.

“Thank you, sir,” he manages, but even these words are choked, painful. He knows Dumbledore will not hurt him, or let anybody else hurt him, and yet the knowledge that there are three other people in this office with them leaves him feeling almost trapped, stifled, the way he often felt at Privet Drive.

Privet Drive. He’ll never go back there now, will he? He always thought his final departure would be a much happier occasion than it has been.

He remembers now, a bit, about what happened. He knows that the wards somehow broke—presumably because his aunt and cousin were murdered, wherever they were—and Death Eaters broke into the house. He had put too much faith in the wards, but, then, hadn’t they all?

“It is very good to see you safe and healthy again,” McGonagall is saying.

“He is not healthy.” This is Snape, voice so soft Harry would have missed it if not for the silence of the room otherwise.

“Yes,” Madam Pomfrey says. “I don’t believe Harry should rejoin his class on Monday.”

He looks down at his hands, shoulders tense.

“And what do you think, Harry?” asks Dumbledore kindly.

Breathless, he shakes his head. He does not want to decide, he can’t decide. It is far too much. He isn’t even sure he has the ability to choose for himself anymore.

“It is entirely your decision,” Dumbledore continues. “Of course, we would like to see you back in classes, but accommodations might be made, given the extraordinary circumstances. Your health and safety are very important.”

Harry chances a look up at the Headmaster. He is sorrowful, earnest. Harry knows he means it, but—

“It didn’t matter before,” he whispers. “Why now?”

Dumbledore winces, and Harry quickly looks away again, turning instead to study the corner of Dumbledore’s desk.

“I am sorry, Harry. I have failed you on many counts, now. I deserve your contempt, but you must know that I still care for you, deeply.”

Harry bites his lip, disturbed by the sudden stirring of emotion in his chest.

“Yes, of course,” McGonagall murmurs. “The Headmaster is correct, Harry. This choice is yours to make.”

“I can’t,” he croaks. “Don’t—I can’t— Please don’t—”

Suddenly, there is a hand on his shoulder. Sucking in a sharp breath, he halts, but he feels no compulsion to get away from the contact. When he looks over, he sees Snape watching him carefully, though without the malice Harry has come to expect from him.

“I must agree with Poppy,” Snape says, turning his head to address Dumbledore. “Potter is in no shape to be in classes, not with so many others around him. His classmates will want to know what happened, and if he cannot even tell you…”

Dumbledore sighs. “Yes, Severus, that is true. Despite our best efforts, we haven’t been able to conceal the Dursleys’ murders from the Ministry. It may only be a matter of time before someone realizes who they are and it winds up in the news.”

Harry’s stomach twists. “What happened to them, sir?”

“Swift and painless,” Dumbledore says quietly. “You missed the funeral, but—”

“That’s fine,” Harry cuts in, heart beating fast. “I wouldn’t have wanted to go, I don’t want to know where they’re buried or—or anything like that, I’m not upset—”

“But it would be all right to be upset,” Madam Pomfrey says. “They were your family, after all.”

McGonagall nods. “And so shortly after losing Sirius—”

Before he is even aware of what he is doing, he’s on his feet, glowering down at her. “Don’t you dare compare them to Sirius! Some family they were—I’m glad they’re dead!” His breath catches in his throat painfully at the admission. No, no, he’s not glad they’re dead, of course he isn’t, what an awful thing to think, let alone say—and yet.

Yet, he knows it is true, and that makes it about a hundred times worse.

“You don’t mean that,” Dumbledore says gently. “We understand, Harry. You are grieving, that’s all. It is a trying process for anyone.”

In an instant, his anger overwhelms any guilt he might be feeling. Chest heaving, he whirls around to face Dumbledore directly.

“Grieving! Grieving what, exactly? Should I feel bad that I never have to worry about missing a meal again because my aunt and uncle hate me too much to feed me? Sorry the people who locked me in a cupboard and only took me out to slap me around for ten fucking years are dead? I’m sorry they didn’t suffer more! Maybe they’re the ones who ought to have been taken and tortured and—and—” He gasps, feeling suddenly dizzy. One hand goes up to his head while the other grips the Headmaster’s desk. His legs wobble dangerously beneath him. What was that word he was going to say? He knows it, even now, but dares not speak, dares not even think it. If he acknowledges it, it will be real, and then it can hurt him all over again.

“Harry,” Dumbledore starts, but is cut off by Madam Pomfrey saying, “Don’t you say a single word, Albus!”

Harry concentrates on this, more than anything. Could anybody else speak to Dumbledore like that and get away with it? She must be angry to talk over him, and, suddenly, he realizes that she is—she’s angry on his behalf.

“I’ll need you to breathe, Harry, yes, that’s right, just like that. Slow it down. Good, that’s good. Come back and sit, all right? Try to relax. Nothing here will hurt you.”

They might go through these exact same words every day, and yet they have not lost their effect yet. With her gentle coaching, he manages to catch his breath again. Eyes stinging, he returns to his seat and stares down at his shoes. They are not so interesting, but the more he thinks about the laces or his foot size or when the last time he bought new trainers was, the easier it is to keep everything else in his head back.

“Is that true?” Snape asks, but he isn’t looking at Harry. He doesn’t sound angry, exactly, but he isn’t merely curious, either.

“I had known Harry was unhappy there,” Dumbledore admits. “I confess that I was unaware of the particulars of the situation.”

“Situation!” Taken aback, positively bewildered. “Poppy, what do you make of this?”

Madam Pomfrey is quiet for a moment. Harry can imagine her look her perfectly, lips pursed, hands clutching at her apron. Finally, she says, “I suspect there is a great deal we don’t know about Mr Potter, and we oughtn’t be making any more assumptions.”

The anger and the guilt and those horrible, threatening thoughts have gone away completely, replaced now by a surge of gratitude so massive he has to blink to keep it from spilling down his face.

“Well, Harry?” This is McGonagall. Her voice is weary, but far from unkind. “Could you elaborate for us?”

“Elaborate what?” he asks blankly, finally looking up at her.

“Your aunt and uncle,” Madam Pomfrey clarifies. “What were they like?”

“Oh.” He stops, swallows. “It’s embarrassing, really, you know. Stupid, really.”

“What is?”

“Well, they hate me.” He frowns. “Hated me. They’re really dead?”

“They’re really dead,” Dumbledore confirms.

“Oh,” he says again. “Well, I get now that it was really not so bad there. They might have been awful people, but they were hardly Death Eaters.”

“But you didn’t get along?” McGonagall presses.

He shakes his head. “They hated me,” he repeats. “Maybe Dudley warmed up to me a bit, after I saved him from the...from…” But his tongue feels heavy in his mouth, like this is not a word he should say, either. “After last summer,” he says instead, after a moment of dazed contemplation. “My aunt, though, she didn’t—my—my mother—”

The dizzy feeling hits him again, nauseating in its suddenness. He bows his head, breathing hard. Not this, no, no, he can’t think about this—

“Your mother?” Dumbledore’s tone is encouraging, but it is the words Harry finds himself thinking about, looping in his head over and over again just like her deaths. He remembers seeing her kill herself, and James too. Remembers watching helplessly, knowing with painful certainty that this is real, that his parents did not die in a car accident after all.

He winces, bringing a hand up to rub at one of his temples.

“She’s dead,” he manages. “She’s dead, she killed herself, she’s dead, it’s all my fault—”

“Voldemort killed your mother, Harry,” says Dumbledore, but he sounds so very far away. “It was neither her fault nor yours.”

How did she do it? He can’t remember, not exactly. A knife—no, a spell—a spell that slit her throat clean, just as a knife would have done? No, that isn’t right, she was suffocated, she did not kill herself at all…

“I can’t remember.” His whole body shudders with the weight of his next breath. “I don’t want to—”

Perhaps the Headmaster goes to say something else, but he is cut off by Snape: “Don’t speak, Dumbledore. It will likely only make it worse.”

“What did they do to him?” McGonagall whispers, horrified.

“Nothing that can’t be solved,” Madam Pomfrey responds firmly. “Listen to me very closely, Harry. Can you hear me?”

He nods, but dares not speak; it is though there is acid on his tongue, something searing and painful, knowledge he does not wish to carry any longer.

“I know it’s difficult,” she goes on, “but we need to know what happened. You don’t remember how your mother died?”

“I do,” he says, then stops, throat aching. “No, I can’t remember, but I was there—”

“You were only a year old. It would make sense that you can’t quite recall.”

“N-no, I watched it all.” As the most overwhelming part of his panic begins to subside, he finds his memory clearing up too. He tenses his shoulders and closes his eyes. “It wasn’t my memory, but I don’t—I can’t remember—I don’t know which was real.”

“What do you mean, it wasn’t your memory?”

“It was the Dark Lord’s, I presume.”

“In a Pensieve?” McGonagall wonders.

Harry shakes his head. “I don’t know, I can’t remember.”

“It is not impossible to share memories through a reverse sort of Legilimency,” Dumbledore offers. “Since Voldemort is an accomplished Occlumens, he would likely be able to create false memories that seem, to anyone else, quite real.”

“And he chose to create a memory of Lily Potter committing suicide?” Snape asks incredulously. “That seems absurd.”

“But there was more to it. Wasn’t there, Harry?”

His stomach churns, but he swallows back against his rising nausea. “Yes. More than one.”

“More than one memory?”

“Yes.”

“Pressuring him for details will do no good,” Madam Pomfrey interrupts. When Harry opens his eyes and glances over at her, she is glaring at Dumbledore. “You said yourself that it would take time, so let’s not rush the process.”

Dumbledore inclines his head. “Certainly, Poppy. As it is, we should discuss what we will do going forward, rather than what has already happened. It will only be a matter of days before the students arrive for the term. Professor McGonagall and I will make any arrangements necessary on your behalf to ensure you don’t fall behind your classmates, whether you attend classes with them or not.”

Harry frowns, looking between his Head of House and the Headmaster. “I don’t even have textbooks or anything. I never even got my exam results.”

“We have your O.W.L. results,” McGonagall assures him. “As for textbooks, those will be easy enough to get before Monday. Your summer assignments will, of course, be waived in light of your circumstances.”

“I don’t want special treatment—”

“We would do the same for any of your classmates,” McGonagall says sharply. “If Mr Weasley were in your position, rest assured that he would be facing the exact same options.”

“But he’s not,” Harry can’t help but argue. “And he never would be, because Voldemort wants me.”

“That may be true,” Dumbledore allows, “but circumstances as they are, I wouldn’t consider it as any sort of special treatment, Harry. I’m afraid your classes are not quite as important as your safety.”

He wants to say that that’s ridiculous, that attending classes wouldn’t compromise his safety, but a quick glance around the room silences him before the words even make it to the tip of his tongue. Even Snape looks somehow sorrowful, like this is a funeral rather than a discussion about Harry’s academic future. Well, for Snape, perhaps those would practically be the same thing, and yet Harry still thinks he ought to be gleeful, ought to be in agreement with Harry, for once.

But, then, Snape saved him, at risk to his own life.

Why?

There is still a dull but painful pounding centred on the right side of his head. He knows that he cannot keep ignoring what is right in front of him, but he is so very tired and none of it is in his control anyway, is it? His reactions, too; he cannot seem to keep himself—his anger or his grief or this horrible anxiety—in check. He wonders if it would happen in class, too, if even a simple potions ingredient would be enough to set him on edge all over again.

Madam Pomfrey is insistent that he will come out of this sane and healthy. Harry wishes he could agree with her, but, then, maybe this is better, this being taken care of. Has he not been through enough? Has he not lost enough?

Abruptly, he finds himself on his feet again, but this time he is looking at Madam Pomfrey.

“I would like to go back, now,” he says quietly, and she nods.

“Very well. We’ll speak later, Albus,” she adds before anybody else can say a thing.

She stands and ushers him forward, leading them out the door and down the spiral staircase, but comes to a halt in the corridor before the gargoyle statue.

“Whatever happens,” she says, “you should know, Harry, that your parents were very brave people, and they loved you dearly.”

He would like to say he does, but the words will not come. He recalls the look on Lily’s face as she raised her wand against James, and he isn’t so sure, anymore, that it isn’t real.

Instead, he nods. She offers him a tight smile in response, then begins walking again. They only make it so far, however, before the sound of footsteps behind them has Harry coming to a stop, heart in his throat.

“Poppy, wait.”

Madam Pomfrey looks back, then, and Harry breathes out a sigh of relief.

“What is it, Severus?”

“I need to speak with Potter.”

“I don’t think—”

“It’s all right,” Harry says, before he can even really think about it. “Go on, Madam. I’ll catch up.”

She blinks. “Are you certain?”

Harry glances back at Snape. Snape, in his swirling black robes, looking down with an expression only just short of disgust or something to the same effect. He is as intimidating as ever, and yet Harry knows there is nothing for him to be afraid of, not now. Even if Snape hates him, he will not hurt him, will not even threaten to.

And isn’t that ironic, when only months ago they both know he might have? Harry doesn’t think Snape pities him, no, but his instincts are all he has left, and, right now, they are telling him there is nothing to be afraid of.

Madam Pomfrey must think so too, because she doesn’t argue any further. With a nod, she turns and continues on, leaving the corridor empty but for Harry and Snape, the latter standing stock still, arms across his chest.

“You’re the one who brought me back, right?” Harry asks after a moment. It is an awkward, uncomfortable question, but perhaps that is only because Snape is looking so very awkward and uncomfortable right now himself.

“You remember?”

Harry hesitates, then shakes his head. “Madam Pomfrey told me. But—er, thanks. For saving me, I mean. Again.”

To his surprise, Snape winces. “I did not save you—”

“What?”

Snape glares at him. “You foolish boy! You can’t even remember what happened to you, it was so horrific, and you truly believe I saved you? I have failed you more than words can even say—”

“But I’m alive, aren’t I?”

“Barely!”

Harry frowns. “I’m fine—”

“You are not—”

“Well, I will be, then!” He sucks in a deep, sharp breath, then stills. For a moment, he focusses on his breathing, just the way Madam Pomfrey is always telling him to, and then he sets his jaw and looks up to meet Snape’s eyes. “I hardly expected you to say otherwise, of all people.”

“They didn’t see what I saw!” he snaps. “They did awful things to you. I always saw the aftermath of it, and the things I heard others say—”

“But what could you have done?” Harry demands. “You would have died too, and then what?”

Snape pinches the bridge of his nose, looking the way Harry thinks he might were this a conversation about some sort of rule Harry had broken, and yet it’s not, not even close.

“If you don’t even remember, how can you say so?” He drops his hand, looking suddenly very weary. “But this isn’t what I wished to speak with you about.”

Harry eyes him with caution, suddenly unsure if this is a conversation he’s willing to have, but eventually he nods, urging the professor to go on.

“I don’t know what you’ve been told,” Snape says, “but this has changed a…great number of things.”

“Because you can’t do the whole double-agent thing anymore?”

Snape’s lips twist into something that is not quite a grimace. “Not entirely, though that is certainly a factor. There are…items we should discuss, but you should know that I—or, that is, if you are opposed, I would not hold it against you.”

“You’ve never had a problem holding things against me before,” Harry mutters, but he doesn’t know if his heart is really in it. His heart has not been in much, lately.

“I know.” A sigh. “That is why I hoped to speak with you.”

Briefly, Harry wonders if this is even Snape standing before him. Maybe this is all a dream, but, then, he has not had a dream in a very long time that wasn’t a nightmare, not so far as he can remember, anyway. And Snape has certainly never featured in his nightmares before, has he? But he can’t be an imposter, either; Harry is sure of this much, though why, he is less so.

“Perhaps,” Snape says, looking for all the world like he has just eaten something very sour, “I owe you an explanation. It is…not an excuse, but if you would—that is, if you are willing to listen, I may…owe you—an apology.”

Harry stares at him.

“The Headmaster has been telling me for…some years now, in fact, that you are not—that you are not your father.” Snape looks away from him, scowling. “I refused to believe him. I would not have seen you any other way, except… You must understand, what happened to you—I would not wish such a thing on any person.”

“I don’t want pity,” Harry says quickly. “You don’t need to feel bad for me, sir—”

“You misunderstand.” Snape turns his head again, and the look in his eyes is so startling that Harry can do nothing but shut his mouth and wait. “I made a promise, a great many years ago. I promised that—no matter what should happen, I would protect you. When it came to rejoining the Dark Lord, even. I did it because of you, and even from my position, I was unable to do what I vowed I would.”

Harry blinks hard as the corridor begins to twist. Protect him? Snape? It makes no sense—but it does, doesn’t it? Because it was not Snape who tried to Jinx him off his broom in first year after all, and didn’t Snape try to shield them from Sirius, when they all still thought he was a crazed mass murderer, from Remus? He did understand Harry’s message in June, about Sirius, and yet Harry blamed him for the whole thing, as if it could have possibly been anybody’s fault but his, Harry’s.

“I am sorry,” Snape says after a long moment. “Truly.”

“I don’t understand.” Harry squints against the pain in his head, but he will not back away from this, not now. “What’s there to be sorry for?”

“Are you even listening to a single thing I’m saying?” And there, now he sounds like the Snape Harry knows, the Snape who hates him, who does not pity him, who—

“It was all for you!”

Harry inhales sharply. Before he can even register what he is doing, he is shaking his head. “No, that’s not— That’s ridiculous. I’m just—I’m—”

But even he knows that it is a rather stupid thing to contest. He isn’t just anybody, is he? Even after all these years, it is difficult to remember, but in the wizarding world, he means something. Doesn’t he know, after all, when so many people have already died for him?

“You are as thick as ever,” Snape hisses. “You truly believe you do not deserve saving? Is that it?”

“I don’t—” He stops, swallows. “It’s not about deserving or—or anything like that. I just mean—I know—I understand what you’re saying. Professor Dumbledore told me the prophecy, so—”

“The prophecy?” Incredulous, so much so that Harry snaps his mouth shut again, suddenly doubting everything he has just said—or not said, really. “Potter, the prophecy is the least of my concerns right now! Do you even see yourself?”

“I…”

“You’re in no shape to be thinking about the prophecy either,” he goes on angrily. “You’re sixteen. I hardly think the fate of the world should be on your shoulders!”

Maybe three months ago, Harry would have grown furious at him for saying the exact same thing. Maybe he would have yelled and cursed, thinking he would be proving his point but really just reinforcing Snape’s. Maybe these words would have made him feel all sorts of awful, this terrible reminder of what he has had forced upon him. Maybe, just maybe, he would not have been able to handle that knowledge at all.

But now, he feels himself deflating instead. He is too young, it’s true. That’s why he would have been so angry in the first place, isn’t it? He’s never really gotten to be a kid—but right now, today, there is nothing stopping him from simply letting someone else take care of him. Madam Pomfrey is probably waiting for him even now, waiting for the moment she can fuss over him and ensure his safety and she’ll lock the doors to the hospital wing when they both need to sleep and in the morning she will be there, as always, with breakfast and nutritive potions—even though he doesn’t need them, not like he needed the potions he was on at first.

She isn’t the only one, though. Is she?

“You know,” he manages, only somewhat embarrassed by the thickness of his tone, “that might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Professor.”

To Harry’s utter amazement, Snape laughs. He hadn’t even known the man was capable of such a thing, and yet it is not a happy sound, not really.

“Yes,” he murmurs, “I suppose it may be. I would…like to explain to you—everything, that is, but I see that there may be things you aren’t ready to speak of yet and so…I will not, by any means, insist.”

Any trace of Harry’s good humour fades immediately. “It’s not—I do— I mean, I know what…”

“I know,” Snape says, and he stops, vision blurring slightly.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to let myself.”

Snape steps closer, until he might touch Harry should he reach out to do so. He does not.

“It is hardly an unexpected reaction. Shall I escort you back to the hospital wing?”

Harry hardly hears him. “I do want to try,” he blurts. “It’s not like it’ll kill me to remember. And—and anyway, Madam Pomfrey thinks I do remember, but I just—”

“I would trust her opinion on that,” Snape says quietly. “There are mysteries about the human mind we can barely even begin to comprehend. Most likely, your mind is doing what it feels necessary to protect you. Perhaps in a way similar to Occlumency.” He sounds thoughtful, now. “Somewhat like accidental magic, I suppose.”

Harry doubts he could even manage Occlumency accidentally—and he suspects Snape probably agrees with that, for all the rest of his strange behaviour—but he says nothing. With a small nod of acknowledgement, he ducks his head and turns again to follow Madam Pomfrey’s path.

He doesn’t need to hear Snape’s footsteps to know the man is following him. He finds he doesn’t mind so much, though, anyway; his presence is almost comforting, the way Madam Pomfrey’s has come to be on their brief excursions outside the hospital wing. It is a sort of security he has never had before, not even when he was small. Maybe it ought to scare him, the thought of letting his guard down around anybody at this point, but he is calmer than he has been all day as they wind through the castle’s corridors.

Snape trails him even into the hospital wing, where Madam Pomfrey is waiting. She looks between them, a wordless question spelled across her face.

Finally, Snape says, “I could use Legilimency.”

Harry glances back at him, mouth dry. “So I remember?”

He nods. “You said you want to, did you not?”

The ache in his head is only worsening. “I’ll have to—see it all again. Won’t I?”

Snape doesn’t meet his eyes. “Yes.”

Behind him, he knows Madam Pomfrey is surely holding her breath, expecting another outburst from him. He is almost expecting it himself, but it simply does not come. Not this time. Not with Snape.

“And you would see it too,” Harry says. His voice seems to echo around them, a feeble reminder of the emptiness of the hospital wing, of the castle. It will not be empty for long, though. It is only a matter of days before students return from their summer breaks.

Snape hesitates, but he has never been one to mince words, has he? “I would, yes.”

Should it even bother him?

By now, he’s sure Madam Pomfrey is right. He does remember—remembers enough to know he cannot stand being touched, that he feels somehow contaminated; remembers enough to have forgotten how his parents even died—but each time he gets too close to those memories, it just hurts. He is so very tired of hurting, but he is tired of being afraid, too. And what is he afraid of, anyway? He said himself—remembering will not kill him. The more he remembers about Voldemort, even, the better his chances of survival.

So why does it still feel so hard to just say yes?

“It might help,” Madam Pomfrey suddenly says. “To relive them with another person. Severus would, in a sense, be an anchor back to reality for you.”

“The Headmaster may also be willing,” Snape adds, uncertain. “If you should choose to do this, that is. It would not be instantaneous, either. If it is the content of it all that made you repress them in the first place, forcing you to relive everything in full would be counterproductive, to say the least. I cannot say whether it is...even possible, nor how long it may take, but—”

“I need to know,” Harry cuts in quickly, heart beating fast. “You said—they—there were rumours, you said, sir. And—you said there are—things you wanted to tell me, but— So, I need you to tell me now. Everything. First, I mean. I need to know before I…”

Snape studies him for a long moment. Harry could not even hope to decipher that look, but he is certain it is not malicious, at least.

And isn’t that, more than anything, what he wants to remember? He can trust Snape, and yet he is not sure why. Snape hates him, but even this isn’t true, is it? He can’t remember. There is so much he is afraid to remember.

But he needs to know.

“Very well.” Snape’s voice is quiet, withdrawn. Harry wonders if he would even want to know what he is thinking. “Whenever you are—comfortable—”

“Now,” Harry says, before he can regret it.

Snape must have been expecting this, because he just nods. His gaze moves to Madam Pomfrey, then, and he says, very calmly, “I believe Mr Potter has quite the headache.”

Harry stopped being surprised by Snape’s ability to know everything long ago, but now, suddenly, he is sure this is not a matter of mind reading or any magic at all, even. Just how closely has Snape been watching him this afternoon?

Madam Pomfrey doesn’t question the diagnosis, either. She steps away from them and returns with a potion in short time, which Harry hastens to take—because it is true that he has quite the headache. When he hands Madam Pomfrey the phial, she says, “I’ll still be around, whenever you need me.” And when she retreats into her office, Harry wonders if it is important that she said when and not if.

Left with only Snape, Harry shifts nervously on his feet. “So—”

“Why don’t we sit?” Snape interrupts. He doesn’t sound weary, exactly, but it’s something very close.

Harry swallows, nods, and goes back to the same cot he has been situated in for—what is it? Weeks, now? He sits on the edge of it while Snape pulls a chair over. Was it not so long ago that they were in this position before?

But I wished—to ensure you were, in fact, safe.

He does remember, parts of it. Remembers those brief feelings of security in a place that otherwise only represented something so much worse than mere pain. I will get you out of this, and he did, but—

“You should know,” says Snape, “that I truly did not wish for any of this to happen. Even—that is, I did not even wish for this to happen. You were never supposed to know.”

“Know,” Harry echoes.

“Indeed.” It is odd to see an expression that isn’t anger or something born of it cross Snape’s face, but this is somehow so much worse than that. Harry almost wishes he were looking at him with hatred right now instead of…this. “I already told you that I made a vow to protect you, a great many years ago.”

Cautious, Harry nods.

“I do not…wish to lie to you about the circumstances that led to that vow. I fear—you will not like what I have to say, and I have no excuse for that, as much as I do for anything else.” For Harry’s kidnapping, he means. As if that’s his fault. “I was not always on Dumbledore’s side. In fact, for…a number of years, I was a quite willing Death Eater.”

Well, two months ago, Harry thought he was still a “quite willing Death Eater,” so that’s hardly shocking news.

“But I believed…foolishly, I believed that my status would protect the—would protect someone I cared about.” He looks away, and Harry is too caught up in his words to feel bad about the fact that he’s grateful for it. “I curried favour with the Dark Lord, thinking that it would keep her alive. I had…no regard for others like her. I understand now that it was—not right.”

For a long moment, Snape does not speak. Finally, heart in his throat, Harry asks, “Her?”

A deep, stilted breath. “Lily.”

All at once, Harry’s headache returns, right through the potion Madam Pomfrey gave to him. He bites his tongue, hard, to keep from making any indication of it, but Snape looks up sharply anyway, like he does not need to see to know.

“You know she was murdered by the Dark Lord,” Snape says quietly, urgently. “You do. You must.”

He screws his eyes shut tight. “I do,” he mutters, although he doesn’t. “I do. Keep going.”

“Potter—”

“I do.”

Silence, for a beat. And then: “Very well. Lily and I were good friends for a time. Until…the incident you witnessed last year. I was nothing without her. But I was—talented, in the Dark Arts. And the Dark Lord—I can only say that it was foolish, now, but I was easily swayed. I believed that I would be able to preserve Lily’s life, if only I were close enough to the Dark Lord.” Harry’s eyes are still closed, but it doesn’t matter; he can hear the pain in Snape’s voice as clearly as he would have seen it on his face. “Perhaps I would have done anything to earn his respect.”

Anything. Harry feels sick at the mere implication of it, but he has to ask, has to know.

“Did you do—what they—?”

“No.” Snape’s voice is soft, distant. “I did not. But it does not excuse what I did do.” A hesitation, long, drawn out, as if there is nothing he would like more than to drop this conversation completely.

But Snape has always kept his word, if nothing else. Maybe Harry does know that. Has known it all along.

“The prophecy changed things,” he finally says.

“I thought the—” He stops, takes in a deep breath that does little to help the ache in his chest, his head. “I thought it didn’t matter.”

“You misunderstand me. You see…you must know that—I did not know. It makes it no better, and—you have every right to despise me for it, more than you already do. But I would ask you to…at the very least, hear me out completely.”

Harry opens his eyes again, blinking against the harsh white of the hospital wing. Snape is looking away from him, though, eyes fixed on the wall beside him rather than Harry, sitting right in front of him.

“It was my fault.” Full of remorse, of sorrow. “I overheard part—of the prophecy. I am the—reason it all happened. You said you wished to know everything, and so…”

The prophecy feels like something out of another person’s life at this point. He has to cycle the words through his head three more times before he even sort of gets what Snape is saying, and then…

The anger just doesn’t come.

“You told him the prophecy?”

Rigid, tense shoulders. Like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, but Harry never even dropped the first one. “Yes. I had no idea he would take it to mean you.”

“Why would you have cared?”

“Lily,” he says again, voice small and choked. “It was selfish, to think… But even now, it has always been—always been for her, for you, her son.”

Harry rubs his temple, willing the ache to dull again. “You hate me,” he points out.

“But I would do—anything. Anything at all, to keep you safe.” And he has, hasn’t he, because Harry is still alive right now, and he has not lost his mind entirely, not yet… “I begged the Dark Lord to spare her life, but I knew he would not, and so…I turned to Dumbledore. After the night”—a pause, not so much in consideration of his own feelings as of what that night now means to Harry—“the Dark Lord fell, I vowed that I would not let her death be in in vain.”

It is like the air has been stolen from his lungs, suddenly. “Because she died for me,” he realizes. “Not because of—not like—”

“Yes,” says Snape. “You were the most important thing in her life.”

The room seems to spin with those words. He knows this, he does. He remembers—stand aside, stand aside, and she would not, could not. Take Harry and run, but where could she have gone? He did not see any of it, but he knows their voices, he has seen their faces. They are not killers. They never were.

All at once, the illusion of it snaps away. He sees the manufactured malice in his mother’s eyes, sees that the fear on their faces is nothing more than a trick of the light, a bend in the reflection. Knows they would not fall before the Imperius Curse, that no magic could be strong enough to make them turn on each other. The baby, crying in the corner of the memory, is not in the corner at all; the centre of their lives, of their deaths, of everything they ever did from the time he was brought into their lives…

“They died for me,” he gasps, his chest heavy and hurting, full of all the grief that his mind has been poisoned with, all the things he has forgotten but has not forgotten, all he has misremembered and all he has never remembered at all. “He killed them—it was—you told—you—?”

Snape winces. “Yes. It was my fault—”

“But he killed them.” Harry grips the edge of the hospital bed, mind churning faster than anything Snape might be saying. “You didn’t kill them. I didn’t kill them. They didn’t kill each other—”

“He would not have—”

“He killed them.” He knows this, now. He does. It doesn’t make the headache go away, but he knows, and that’s what matters.

“Yes, Potter.” Quiet, somehow defeated. “The Dark Lord killed your parents.”

“And he tried to make me think they killed themselves, or each other, or worse,” Harry continues, “because he wanted to break me, that’s what he wanted, he said so—”

“And it worked,” Snape snarls, but Harry shakes his head.

“I’m still here, aren’t I? And that’s because of you, so—if you didn’t kill them, and you didn’t let me be killed either—”

“It does not absolve me of the responsibility!” He rises, suddenly, agitated, but rather than glowering at Harry, he merely begins to pace in front of him. “I am the reason your parents are dead, the reason you were put in this position at all, the reason you did not make it out sooner—”

“And the reason I made it out at all.” Harry watches him carefully, but finds that, no matter how intimidating, how imposing, Snape looks right now, he is not afraid of him. “That’s what you vowed, isn’t it? You didn’t break—”

“You aren’t supposed to be the one reassuring me!” He whirls around, now, glaring, but it is anger directed the opposite way, and for the first time, Harry sees it. Really sees it.

“I know what happened to me,” he insists. Stops. Amends, “I sort of know what happened to me. But I also know that it wasn’t my fault, and it wasn’t yours, either, and—and I’m done with thinking you or anybody else is the person I need to be worried about when Voldemort is the one I ought to be worried about.”

Because he isn’t angry. He knows he should be—knows that, if he had learned about Snape’s involvement when he learned about the prophecy, he probably never would have forgiven the man. But he has been angry, and he has been scared, and, mostly, lately, he has been rather empty. And it was not Dumbledore who got him out alive. It was not even Madam Pomfrey.

What else is he supposed to think?

“Just tell me the rest, sir,” he adds, a little quieter. “You said yourself I should hear you out first, before I got upset.”

Snape looks stricken, but he does not lash out. Does not tell Harry he’s wrong. Does not, in fact, even argue. He resumes his seat, looking anywhere but Harry, and tells him the rest:

“I have been trying to protect you for years. Since you arrived at Hogwarts. But I did not…wish for you—or anyone—to know it. We—that is, Dumbledore and myself—knew the Dark Lord would return someday. I endeavoured to ensure your dislike of me. It was easy enough, when I disliked you so certainly, but…” He closes his eyes, briefly, then meets Harry’s gaze. “Faced with the realization that you might die, and I would have done nothing to stop it, what could I possibly do? You are—you are my responsibility—your safety, that is to say, is in my hands. Even if I knew…that Lily would be disappointed, I was—more concerned, in fact, about you.”

It was all for you, he said.

“I brought extra potions,” he goes on. “The Dark Lord’s only orders were to ascertain your life. He did not wish you to be absolved of any pain. He did not wish you to find any comfort. But your pain was—easily treated, physically. Madam Pomfrey thinks that…had you only been given enough to keep you alive at the time, you may not have survived once you were out.” He drops his head, hair creating a greasy curtain before his face to block out Harry’s view of his expression. “Whether that is true or not, I have no way of saying. But it at least…expedited the process of your physical healing here, though you were not conscious for quite some time.”

Harry holds his breath, suddenly quite sure that he does not want to interrupt Snape, not now.

“I was not permitted to see you otherwise. The Dark Lord trusted me, but—perhaps he felt that if it ever came back to Dumbledore that I had participated in your torture, I would fall out of status with the Order of the Phoenix. I do not—know how his mind works. All I know of your time in captivity there—just over three weeks, to my knowledge—is derived from the words of others.”

“And…and what did they say?” Even as he asks, he knows he does not want to know.

“They tortured you with spells,” Snape says quietly, so quietly Harry has to lean closer to even hear him. “They tortured Muggles and made you watch. They killed people in front of you. They—used—some of—Bellatrix Lestrange favours knives and…other non-magical methods of torture. Whatever…psychological piece the Dark Lord contributed, I do not know.”

Harry shudders. His skin feels cold, suddenly, and seems to tingle in places—along his arms, across his chest, down his stomach…

He knows that there is something else, though. Something Snape cannot make himself say, but that he knows, something that—

Something that Harry knows too, and yet he has been waiting for Snape to say it for him, because if he, Harry, is the one who thinks it, who verbalizes it—then, and only then, will it be real. And he does not want it to be real, though he can still feel the remnants of touch ghosting over him, phantom pains and worse, a dirtiness he cannot wash off of himself, and it will only become visible if he says it.

“We were eventually able to craft a Portkey that would get us through the wards of the manor,” Snape is saying. “We had to be sure it would work before we could use it, or I would have been caught, and then it would have—taken even more time to find a way to get you out. It was mostly successful.”

Mostly. Harry presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth to keep from asking. He will not speak, cannot speak…

“I had not expected there to be anyone else there. She was the only obstacle between you and your safety.”

Harry does not need to ask who, because he knows, remembers—voices, but that is enough.

“She did not trust me.” You know you aren’t supposed to be here, Severus. You’re disobeying our Lord’s orders! “Her insistences drew others to us. She was accusing me of the exact thing I had come to do.” He’s going to take Potter! “Dumbledore had hoped that…perhaps I would be able to retain my position within the Dark Lord’s inner circle, but he had more faith in her than he had ever had in me. She…would not step aside. I feared what she might do to you if I did not act.” He’s damaged goods, now. The Boy Who Lived! He can’t even say no… “If I was going to be exposed either way, I…” There’s nothing left of him to rescue!

Harry’s mouth is dry, his heart beating fast. The memory does not go on. He cannot recall anything but cold darkness, does not even know at what point Snape did finally get to him.

“After all I had heard,” Snape says, and his voice is small but hard, unashamed, “I could think of nothing else to do. I killed her.”

The silence echoes around them, heavy and indefinite, but—

But there is a sort of unravelling within Harry, something bigger than the weight of the noiselessness. It begins in his chest, small, and then expands, widens, fills him entirely. It does not lighten him, does not lessen the pain that sits beneath his heart waiting to be felt.

And he remembers, he does. Remembers every awful thing Bellatrix Lestrange did to him. Lucius Malfoy, Voldemort himself. He remembers, and he does not wish that he didn’t, even as his throat begins to hurt, his eyes begin to sting.

He takes in a gasping breath. If Snape is still talking, Harry cannot hear him. He remembers, can see it all, feel it all—violating, contaminating—

“They raped me,” he manages around the lump in his throat. “That’s what you’re not saying, isn’t it, sir?”

“Yes,” Snape says, and he does not sound so far away anymore. “They said it was what broke you.”

But Harry’s not broken. He knows, now, that he never really was. All at once, the events of the summer seem to catch up to him. He recalls, finally, the day it first happened. Remembers, too, hearing from masked Death Eaters later exactly how his aunt and cousin died—brutally, painfully, fully aware that it was Harry’s fault. He remembers letters to his best friends, never returned, the grief that had plagued him—a sense, the first few times the Cruciatus hit him, that he deserved it, that it was retribution for getting Sirius killed.

He remembers Malfoy, leading him here and there, remembers Bellatrix finding every inch of his skin, somewhere new to leave her mark on him. Remembers Voldemort—cold, dark, trying to take Harry beneath his vile wing.

The cold, the hunger, the pain.

No, he never forgot it. Even now, he feels it across his skin, feels it pulling his chest apart—the unravelling of something intrinsic to him, and the unravelling of something that dared to mimic that. He is not—never was—broken.

And when he looks at Snape, he knows the man does not think so either.

“I don’t think,” Harry says, “that you need—I don’t think I need to—be Legilimized. Sir.”

“No,” Snape murmurs. “I don’t suppose you do.”

“Do— Who…?”

He watches the stilted rise and fall of Snape’s chest. “I…informed Madam Pomfrey of what I heard. Nobody else. You have my word on that, Potter.”

And Snape keeps his word. Doesn’t he?

It is enough to dissolve the tension in his shoulders. But as that goes, the pins behind his eyes only worsen, his throat growing scratchier still. He has not cried, he does not want to cry…

But when the tears come, each one leaves him lighter. They sear down his cheeks, carved paths of poison, but it is no longer inside of him. He looks down, chest heaving, but is startled up again as a hand touches his. He does not even think to pull away, does not feel he needs to though he is surely as filthy as he feels.

Snape says nothing, simply remains close. Harry cries, and cries, and cries, much like he remembers the Muggle children in the manor doing, like the baby in the false memories, the baby in the real memory…

Harry tightens his grip around Snape’s hand, trying desperately to get his breath back. When finally he is able to, bringing his free hand up to wipe his cheeks, he says, “I’m not—I can’t—go back. Not yet.”

“I know,” Snape whispers, and Harry believes it. “You do not need to.”

His other hand rises before Harry’s face, and then, gently, his glasses are taken, set atop the table next to the bed.

“Rest,” Snape tells him, hand pausing on its way back to rest against his cheek. “We will take care of you.”

We. Himself and Madam Pomfrey.

Harry lets Snape guide him to lying, but he does not dare let his eyes close. There is so much left to say, so much more he needs to ask—

“Rest,” Snape says again, and it is not a command but it is compelling nonetheless. His eyelids are heavy, his heart bled through his chest. What else is there to do? He is at Hogwarts—he is home. After all this time, he is home.

He is safe.

“I will not leave.”

And Harry believes it.