Snape drained the cold coffee in his cup, grimacing as though he didn't care for the taste, then poured himself some fresh. "I'm not even certain that 'punishment' is an apt term. I merely thought that if your friend was required to spend enough time here, he would eventually come to realize that you were going to be fine."
Harry felt his eyes go wide. "The lines were nothing but a pretext?"
Snape sipped his coffee and nodded. "This adoption has disrupted your relationships with your closest friends. You have repeatedly told me what your friends mean to you. Harry." He waited until the boy looked at him once more. "It was never my intention to deprive you of them."
Talk about plots inside plots... It took Harry a moment to really grasp it, mostly because the scheme was so completely misguided. "So that's why you gave him such a huge number of lines?"
Snape shrugged. "Mr. Weasley, however, is proving recalcitrant indeed."
Well, duh, Harry almost said, but he knew that rudeness wasn't going to help his cause. "This is just what I was trying to explain before," he pointed out. "Your plan. It's way too Slytherin. I could have told you it wouldn't work, if you'd just discussed it with me."
A rather derisive look settled on Snape's face. "You, of course, being an expert on teenaged boys."
"I just know Ron. He doesn't do subtle. He's got more of an all-or-nothing sort of personality."
Snape appeared to think that over. "And so? What would you have advised, had I brought the matter up beforehand?"
"Well, that he needed to see a lot of us together. And more than that, he needed to see you being a father. Because... all right, it's like this. Even when you were spending time with me, you were mostly being like a professor, you know."
"You still think of me as primarily your teacher," Snape gleaned, sounding... well, not too pleased by that, actually. That was nice.
"No," Harry insisted. "I don't, but Ron would have thought that. Look..." He tried to think back. "What he mostly saw was you quizzing me. Ron wasn't going to see that and start thinking, there's Harry's father, right?" Harry gulped, and crossed his fingers for luck, juvenile and Mugglish as that was. "I'd just like to know... are you going to let Ron come back next year, Professor?"
Snape's sigh sounded exasperated. "Harry, I thought you understood by now. I've no interest in expelling him."
"So that was just an awful threat to try to make him do another ten thousand lines?" Harry's own sigh was even more exasperated. "There you go again. No offense, but--"
"Why is it," Snape asked sardonically, "that whenever you say no offense, you invariably follow it with something highly offensive?"
"But tricking him into extra lines was a terrible idea," Harry went right on, undeterred. "How's Ron going to calm down enough to stop and think about what he sees here if he's boiling over with rage?"
Snape raised his chin a fraction. "Mr. Weasley was in charge of his own punishment. For all I cared, he might have done a mere hundred lines. I planned to release him from detention the moment his behavior indicated he understood that you were in no danger here."
"But he doesn't think I'm in danger!" Harry exclaimed. "He knows, and he even said, that he doesn't think you were, er... you know... with me."
"I should hope not," Snape retorted, crossing his arms. "He does however think the adoption likely to be to your detriment."
Harry scowled. "And you did a really good job convincing him otherwise, didn't you? He probably thinks you punish me the same way, with months of lines."
Snape shook a rueful head. "In that case, I shall simply have to take your advice and be sure Mr. Weasley has more opportunity to see us interact as a family."
"You... then you aren't going to expel him?"
Now it was Snape who was scowling. "Didn't I just say that was never my intention? I have explained the entire situation to the Weasleys, including the matter of the misspelled word, and while they too disapproved of my methods, they did not think it amiss that their son be required to learn that his... hysteria is misplaced."
"When'd you see the Weasleys?" Harry asked, wondering if that was where Snape had been the night before.
"I have not seen them in person, Harry. Order members have a variety of ways to communicate."
Oh yeah, Dumbledore had mentioned that. "All right, but if everything is settled, then why are they coming here for a conference?"
"It yet remains to persuade Mr. Weasley to resume doing lines."
Harry thought a moment about that. It was wrong. Horribly wrong, but should he push his luck with Snape? Then again, the stupid dream hadn't been a seer dream; of course it hadn't. Snape wouldn't unadopt him. Some deep part of him knew that the same way he knew his name. It was fixed. Permanent. He had a father, now. And he wanted to be a son, which didn't mean just blindly accepting whatever bizarre Slytherin manipulations Snape could dream up. It meant discussion, give-and-take, negotiation.
"Don't you think the Weasleys were really good about the adoption?" he asked, deciding he'd sort of smooth into his real topic. Snape would probably notice, but then again, he would probably approve. He liked to see Harry maneuver; he'd said so. "I mean, they could have come unglued like Ron did; they have sort of looked on me as another child in the family. But they were really, really great. Didn't even resent it."
Snape gave him a longish stare, probably wondering what he was up to. "Arthur and Molly Weasley are rational adults," he finally answered.
"Yeah, but they have feelings, too," Harry pointed out, then went in for the kill. "Don't you think they'd appreciate it if you showed their son a little of the consideration they've already shown yours?"
Snape's nostrils flared. "Oh, very good, Harry. However, it's in Mr. Weasley's best interests not to toss away a close friendship. His parents concur. He will have to do his lines. This time I will put forth more effort to see that he comes to terms with me being your father."
Harry bit his lip. "I appreciate that, sir, I really do. But all this manipulation... I don't like it. I really don't. I mean, I got pretty upset when you tricked me into using the Floo, so how can I help you trick Ron like this?"
"The alternative is to let him decide when next he will venture down here."
"No, the alternative is to get him down here in some less cruel way," Harry retorted.
Snape frowned. "That would create the unfortunate impression that a professor, a master of his craft, had not been allowed to enforce his standard of discipline."
"Yeah, I'm real worried about your reputation," Harry sourly put in, then realized that had come out awfully rude. "Sorry. I meant, I think you'll still be able to terrify the pants off--" Shite, that wasn't much better, was it?
Snape, however, cracked a smile. "I really must go speak with the Weasleys, now," he announced. "What do you recommend I tell them?"
Harry did a double-take. "You're asking me? Night before last, I begged you to relent!"
"I admit, at that time I was frankly irritated with your inability to see what I was really doing. But now that you know my plan, if you still think it ill-advised..." The Potions Master lifted his shoulders. "You're my son, not my student, though hopefully soon you will be that as well. Still, here, you will always be my son first, and as we have established, there is a time and place for negotiation. So. What do you wish me to do?"