No, not somebody.
A father.
Feeling less alone than he had in a long time... well, less alone than he ever had, really, was probably what gave Harry the confidence to venture, "About Ron. Can I suggest, sir..." Unsure how to phrase it, Harry chewed his lip.
"Yes?"
"It's just... remember, I told you Ron doesn't do subtle? Well, why don't you try sitting him down for a talk? I think he'd appreciate being treated like a friend of your son's, instead of um... like some bothersome insect you'd just as soon swat."
"I'll treat him as your friend the moment he begins acting like one," Snape replied, his black eyes implacable.
"That's not right for you to wait for him to make the first move," Harry pointed out. "You're the responsible adult. The professor. You're supposed to be more mature."
"Supposed to be?" Snape slanted him a glance.
Harry sighed. "The way I hear it, back when I was blind you were taking points off Ron just for glaring. And don't say you did it because the behavior was inappropriate. You've been taking unfair points off Gryffindor for years, for no other reason than that..."
"Yes?" Snape asked, rather darkly.
"Well, you hate Gryffindor," Harry said, his tone suggesting that that was pretty obvious, after all.
"I..." Snape snapped his mouth shut, only to resume speaking a moment later. "Well. There is one Gryffindor whom I assure you most emphatically I do not hate."
"Yeah, I remember." Harry grinned a little bit, the memory still one that warmed him. "You don't hate me at all." When Snape said nothing, Harry went on, "Honestly, I don't think you hate Ron either, do you? Or Hermione. Hmm, maybe you do actually hate Neville."
"Hatred is a very strong emotion," Snape merely said.
Harry didn't know what that might mean, but he figured they might be heading into dangerous waters if he kept on, so he only said, "Well, think about what I said, okay? Ron's more likely to see what's in front of his nose if you don't get in his face."
"That is a horrible concatenation of imagery," Snape saw fit to inform him.
"I'm talking to my father, not writing an essay," Harry retorted.
"Your essays show the same flaws," Snape countered.
"Will you sit Ron down for a talk or not?" Harry asked, exasperated.
Snape leveled a serious glance at him. "I will consider it." Harry figured that would have to be good enough. For now, anyway.
They sat in silence for a few moments, Snape merely watching the flames, apparently content to just share in Harry's company. Harry, however, was anything but content. Their fight was obviously over, which was all well and good, but he knew he still needed to talk to his father about it. Draco and Snape could apparently just skip that part and go on. Maybe it had to do with being Slytherin. Harry didn't think he was exactly an overemotional Hufflepuff, but neither could he just ignore the awful things Snape had said and done.
"I... I'm a bit surprised you still haven't brought up what happened on Friday night," he hesitantly admitted as he turned toward his father. "Not the Ron part. I mean, the Draco and me part."
Snape shrugged. "Are you asking if I've plans to punish you yet further? I thought five hundred points was likely chastisement enough."
"Points and being locked out," Harry ventured, biting his lip until it really hurt, that time.
Snape glanced up, his black eyes deeply shadowed, yet glimmering with surprise. "That wasn't punishment. I was simply occupied."
"With..." Harry had been going to say Draco, but decided it would make him sound like an ungrateful jealous little shite. "With something more important than me," he amended, only to realize that wording wasn't much of an improvement.
"It was not more important," Snape corrected, closing his eyes. "It simply could not wait."
"But why'd you have to lock me out?" The question came tumbling out on its own, sounding so plaintive that Harry cringed.
When the Potions Master opened his eyes, Harry realized the man looked absolutely exhausted, as though he were suffering from a fatigue that went far beyond the physical. "Never mind," he hurriedly said. "You should go get some rest, I think, sir."
Snape shook his head. "That can wait, especially given how deeply I slept last night."
Harry blinked. "So that's why you didn't answer my knock?"
Sitting up straighter, Snape urgently pressed, "You needed me in the night?"
"No... well, yes. But just to talk. I guess... well, I couldn't help but notice that you were avoiding me all day Saturday."
A sigh broke the air. "I admit that I was still angry. But that is not why I locked the door. I... needed to eliminate distractions."
"Draco isn't a distraction, but I am?"
Snape's long hair swayed as he denied that. "Draco has helped me before with the task I was engaged in. And you..." His voice dropped. "The full truth is that I locked you out because I would prefer you not know certain things."
Harry tensed, his fingers almost clawing the leather arm of the chair as his dream danced before his eyes.
"My Dark Mark was flaring," Snape quietly admitted, his voice a low hush, barely audible against the crackling of the flames.
"The Death Eater gathering," Harry breathed, appalled. He'd asked once how Snape was managing, and the man had put him off, and Harry had been only too willing to forget the matter. But he shouldn't have been, he realized now. "Oh, sweet Merlin. No wonder you were so cross about Ron, that night. Are you in horrible pain very often?"
"The pain commenced some hours after your friend left. And as for often..." Snape paused, clearly reluctant to divulge, "I have found a way to tolerate it, but my solution is... inelegant."
Harry understood, then. "You and Draco were working on the remedy all day yesterday."
A low curse crossed Snape's clenched lips. "Remedy is far too kind a term. You have probably heard that the Mark is somewhat akin to your own curse scar? That it cannot be removed?"
Harry slowly nodded, his eyes wide with distress.
"It cannot be magically removed," Snape corrected, all at once sounding much the teacher. "Skin can always be sliced off. However, the Mark returns as the wound heals, which happens at a preternatural rate, as the spell's purpose is to keep me marked. Do you follow me thus far?"
Harry swallowed back the foul taste that had risen to his mouth. "Yeah. You've been cutting it out of your arm over and over, haven't you?"
"Essentially," Snape admitted. "Even that strategy would be of little effect, however, if not for a topical Potion I began developing shortly after Samhain. Necessity truly is the mother of invention, I have concluded. This Potion greatly slows healing, and so delays the need for another session with the knife. Don't look so ill, Harry. I put a strong numbing agent in the Potion, obviously."
"And so yesterday..."
"The Mark had grown back. When Voldemort began to call his followers, I felt it. Draco helped me cut it out again."
Ashamed that he'd looked so obviously nauseated, Harry rallied, "I could have helped you, Professor. It's not just Draco who can stomach... oh, I think I understand. Draco has to help you because you're applying a little of what that book called aversion therapy."
"It started that way," Snape admitted. "You were blind and in the hospital wing, and the Mark had grown back--I first cut it off myself back in Devon. Healer Marjygold visited you in the cottage and gave me a salve that worked remarkably poorly... It was not until we returned here that I could develop something better..." For a moment that stretched out almost endlessly, Snape closed his eyes and simply rested. Then he added in wandering tones, "Did I say poorly? It might have been a Longbottom creation, it was so inefficacious. Hog's swill, truly. Perhaps that was the active ingredient..."