Harry wasn't about to stop his protests. Sure, sure, he and Snape were getting along these days, and Snape had even gone so far as to admit that he didn't exactly hate Harry's guts, but that didn't mean Harry was prepared to leave beautiful Gryffindor Tower for the bowels of the earth! "The whole idea's ridiculous," he asserted. "I'm sure the Dursleys didn't live in their house for twenty years before I came along."
"I'm sure they had clear title to their own property, too," Snape sneered. "It's a matter of convincing the spell, Potter. Your cousin can't ward an area without consent of the owners. I don't have title to my little corner of the dungeons but by sheer right of domicile for so long I feel they're mine, so the spell will serve its function."
"Look, you and Dumbledore are great at magic; I'm sure you can figure out a way to bend the spell so it can attach itself to the Tower--"
"That won't produce a teacher fully trained against the Dark Arts, there to safeguard you when the next hex or curse comes your way! It also won't carry with it the sheer deterrence my quarters will. My Slytherins will think twice before they mount an attack there!"
"Will they?" Harry questioned. "No offense, but you've got to be high on their list of people to kill, too. I mean, they must know by now that you were the one who got me away at Samhain. Your cover as a bad guy is completely blown to smithereens."
"Yes," Snape silkily agreed, "but you're forgetting two things. One, I am their Head of House, which means I can expel them at will. Meddling with my private space is a shade different from bringing a snake into my classroom. I have wards and spells plastered across my quarters to catch anyone who violates my privacy, and well they know it."
"And two?" Harry pressed.
Snape glanced heavily at him. "I know all those Dark Arts they lust after, and I'm quite capable of murder if provoked enough. Expulsion is the least of their worries. Believe me, no one will dare attack a student right under my own roof."
"If your sheer presence alone is warding enough, what do we need with Dudley?"
"My presence won't hold off the Dark Lord, or Lucius Malfoy. My own defensive measures might not even reject the former, but with the blood sacrifice shielding you, you will be perfectly safe. Remember, the Dark Lord himself could not do a thing to harm you at Number Four Privet Drive, could not even touch the building around you, not until your aunt died and the wards fell."
"I could just have a portkey that would take me down to your rooms at the least hint of danger," Harry suggested, beginning to feel desperate.
"And what if the danger is yourself? Have you thought of that? Where do you want to be if you have another nightmare and your magic goes wild? In the Tower where your power might lash out to hurt the other Gryffindors? Or with me? Last time I was the only one who could calm you."
"That was just because we weren't all right and it was really bugging me!"
Snape shook his head. "There is more to it. I've seen your dark powers firsthand, when I've been in your mind guiding you towards Occlumency. They know me. And too, you might consider that you still cannot bear to be touched by anyone except me. Is that a burden you wish to inflict on all your friends?"
Harry didn't know what to say to that. It was true that he didn't want to unleash his wild magic in the Tower, or freak out his friends with his aversion to any contact. But still, live in the dungeons with Snape? The Slytherin dungeons, no less?
Taking advantage of Harry's hesitation, Snape briskly announced, "As your own question about classes indicates, you are well enough to finish your recuperation out of hospital. Therefore, I will have the house-elves move your things at once--"
"But I don't want to live with you!" Harry erupted, only to feel himself taken aback by Snape's irate reply.
"Yes, you've made that quite evident! Well, I don't expect it to be a basket of roses, either, but in the interests of keeping you alive, Potter, I've been good enough to agree! I frankly don't see what issue you can have with it. Or do you think I'll take my chance to poison you if you have to eat at my table?"
Harry was about to ask why he'd be eating down there at all; didn't they even think the Great Hall could be made safe for him? But that question was overshadowed by a greater one. Why would Snape bring up poison?
I frankly don't see what issue you can have with it...
"It's nothing personal, Professor," Harry murmured, suddenly realizing he'd made it sound like it was. "I mean, um... you've been really good to me lately, the operation, and Occlumency, and telling me my father came out all right after all, and saving my life again, and then Devon, and the night the windows smashed and you held me again. It's not like I don't appreciate all that, and all those potions too... I've been meaning to thank you--"
"Merlin preserve me," Snape drawled.
"Oh, cut the attitude," Harry chided. "You want more? I even like you, sarcasm and all. Breathe, Professor... anyway, don't bring up poison like that. It's stupid."
Snape's eyes narrowed, though he didn't look nearly so angry any longer, at least in Harry's estimation, which was getting fuzzier all the time. He was used to the sight by then; it meant the Eyesight Elixir was waning. "Then what is your objection?"
"I have friends in Gryffindor," Harry explained, thinking it was really weird he'd have to. It was pretty bloody obvious, wasn't it? Then again, maybe it wasn't to someone like Snape. He didn't appear to have friends now; maybe he'd never had any, so he couldn't understand how Harry must feel. "I've just gotten back here after what seems like a month in Hell, Professor, and we've barely caught up. And now it looks as though I won't even get to see them in classes. So when am I going to, if I move out?"
"Harry..." Well, that was good at least, a break from the infernal Potter Snape had been going on with. "There are more important things than friends."
Harry shook his head. "No, see? That's where you're wrong. Or maybe it's just you being Slytherin, I can't really tell. But there isn't anything more important. What's the point of fighting Voldemort if when it's all over, there isn't anybody I did it for? If I give up everybody I care about just to win, then I'm giving up my reasons to bother winning."
Snape said nothing, just stared at him, his dark eyes calculating. Just what they were calculating, Harry couldn't have said.
"I am a Gryffindor, you know," Harry continued. "Whatever the Sorting Hat might have wanted for me at first, whatever you think would have been best, I ended up there, and five years has an impact. Professor? Summers with the Dursleys weren't so much a misery for me because of the weeding and the occasional slap, it was because nobody there cared about me. After I'd been in with Gryffindors for a year, I knew how much that meant. The worst part of summers was missing my friends. You know, that's why I never read that letter until you made me?"
Snape had appeared to be listening carefully, and he was without a doubt one of the smartest people Harry had ever been around, so he was slightly stunned when his professor merely replied, "Come again?"
"Uh..." Harry paused, trying to think how to explain. "I'd never gotten a letter, except from Hogwarts or my friends here. And in the summers, sometimes I'd think the letters were all that kept me from going barmy--"
"You are stronger than that."
"Yeah, maybe so, but it felt that way. And then I got the letter from the Dursleys, and I knew it was going to be filled with insults and such... all right, laugh if you want, but it just seemed like opening it would make it real. And I didn't want it to be real, 'cause then the whole idea of letters would just be shot for me. I mean, it would ruin the only good thing I got to have each summer. See?" he finished hopefully.