"This reminds me of your more garbled answers in Potions class," Snape observed. "What in Merlin's name is your point?"
Harry swallowed, nervous because he knew he was intruding into areas where he had no business. He hadn't seen much about Snape's family in that pensieve the year before, but what he had seen hadn't been pleasant. Still, decades had elapsed since those memories had been forged.
"Harry?" Snape sharply questioned.
"Sorry," he quickly came back. "Um, well I just wondered what your usual Christmas routine was, because whatever it is, I think you should follow it and take Draco with you, that's all."
"Follow it," Snape blankly repeated.
"Yeah," Harry urged, surprised that he would have to explain. "You know, get away from Hogwarts, see your Mum and Dad, or... um, whoever it is you usually see. You must have some family, I'm thinking."
Snape leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands across his chest. "You are proposing I should leave you here alone? Your cousin will be gone by then, I hope you understand."
"Uh, yeah, I understand that," Harry murmured. He'd sort of gotten used to having Dudley around, he realized.
"Do you have any concept how daft a notion your suggestion is?" Snape inquired, his eyes beginning to glare. "You, in the Slytherin dungeons, completely alone!"
"Well, they should be warded with the blood sacrifice by then--"
"You can't even Floo for meals without a wizard's assistance!"
"I thought we could just arrange for Dobby to pop in each morning and night and see what I need--"
"I did not think you were finding my company so intolerable," Snape glacially remarked.
"It's not that," Harry protested. "I mean, I don't! It's just... I just realized you would probably have plans if I wasn't in the way, and I don't want to wreck your Christmas, that's all!"
Snape's hands sought the arms of his chair, and gripped them. "You aren't in the way."
"I... " Harry didn't know what to reply. He didn't actually know why he'd said that. Or said it like that. It sounded stupid when he heard it repeated back out loud, though it made perfect sense inside his own head.
"As a matter of fact," Snape casually volunteered, "I do have holiday plans. I plan to spend the Yule season with you and Draco, if that's quite all right with you?"
"Um, yeah," Harry smiled, a little bit chagrined.
"Have you any other suggestions for my social calendar?" Snape snidely went on. There was a hint of a smile about his mouth as he said it, though, so Harry didn't figure the man was really all that angry.
"Well, I don't know that it needs to be in your calendar," Harry put in, "but I still think Draco could use a change of scenery."
"Just Draco?"
"I already told you that I'm going stir-crazy," Harry reminded him. "But I think it bothers Draco more. I mean, he can't even have his friends come down! Um, does he have any friends left?" When Snape didn't answer, Harry exclaimed, "Oh, just sneak him out onto the Quidditch pitch or something, would you? Let him go flying! You can borrow my invisibility cloak if it'll help."
"I'll take it under advisement," Snape dryly remarked. Then, with a strange glint in his eye, he offered, "As I recall, your spelling is adequate for your age. Now that your vision has returned in force, would you be willing to assist me with this endless pile of essays? You could check over the first years' efforts, correcting their atrocious spelling."
"Sure, all right," Harry said, though he had to add, "you know, the pile is only endless because you assign your students way too much work."
"Ah yes, I had forgotten you considered yourself the foremost authority on instructing adolescents."
"I'm just saying, there's more to life than Potions."
"There is," Snape agreed, shooting him a wry smile. He quickly sorted though the parchments and drew out a set for Harry to use. "But where would your beloved werewolf be if some of us weren't devoted to pursuing excellence in the field of Potions and promoting it in others?"
"TouchÈ," Harry murmured. "Hey, speaking of Remus, you said yourself my vision's no longer much of an issue. When can I see him?"
"Determined to surround me with Gryffindors, Potter?"
"Hey, I'm the one who's outnumbered here," Harry protested, taking the quill and ink his teacher pushed across the desk. He noticed the way Snape had sidestepped his question, but decided not to push things. Not just yet, anyway. Scooting his chair up closer to the desk, Harry frowned down at the first essay. "You can't be serious. It's almost Christmas and this girl still spells Potions with s-h-u-n-s?"
"Leona Ellingsworth," Snape said without glancing Harry's direction. "Hufflepuff. What can you expect?"
Surprised at Snape's ready answer, Harry pressed, "Oh yeah? Well, what little quirks do my essays tend to have?"
The Potions Master smirked slightly, even as he continued writing commentary on a seventh-year's paper. "You've yet to use a transition, you ramble on for three paragraphs before deigning to mention your thesis, and for some reason you believe that Quidditch analogies will shed some light on the topic. Allow me to enlighten you: they don't."
Harry laughed, remembering a few... no, a few dozen, comments to that effect. "What about Ron?"
"Apart from the fact he thinks that ten inches equals a foot?"
"And Hermione?"
"Addicted to the words therefore, insofar, and of all things, hitherto." Snape lightly shuddered.
One more, Harry told himself. Then he'd stop.
"What's wrong with Draco's essays?"
Snape stared at him for a moment, then levelly admitted, "Generally nothing but that ridiculous calligraphic script he favors."
"He cheats, you know," Harry offered. "He's got a spelled quill to do that fancy script for him."
"That is not cheating. It's being--"
"Slytherin," Harry finished, just as Snape also said the word.
"Mmm," Snape agreed. "Though it would be better for his work to look less like a work of art. Harry. It is good to talk with you, but I really do need to mark these, now."
"All right, Professor." Harry grinned, and corrected spelling without much comment from then on.
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"Blood," Dudley blankly repeated late one night.
"Yes," Snape patiently explained, just as if he hadn't just gone through the whole thing twice already. "The spells for the warding involve specific demands of the participants. You must have a nearly continuous physical presence here for the magic to remain active. Your blood integrated into the spells will achieve this."
"I'm absolutely positive my Mum wouldn't have agreed to er... any hocus-pocus like this. I mean, it sounds like..." Dudley shivered, and gripped the edge of the dining table. "Voodoo."
A muscle twitched in Snape's jaw, but he was doing an admirable job of repressing his yell-at-imbecilic-student response. Dudley wasn't his student, and they needed him, so terrorizing him was out of the question. Too bad Neville couldn't fall into that category, Harry reflected.
"Transferative warding wouldn't have been required at Number Four Privet Drive, as the proxy for Lily Potter's blood actually did reside there," Snape began, but Draco cut him off.
"It's like this," he explained, leaning over the table. "Your Mum really lived there, see? Her just being around would make the spells work, so all she had to do was take Harry in. This is a little different. You don't live here, so you have to leave a little bit of yourself behind, or the magic'll fall apart. Does that make sense?"