A sweep of lank, greasy hair slid over his fingers as the Potions Master stirred. Hmm, have to do something about that, Harry thought. No doubt a gift of shampoo would be hopelessly unsubtle, which reminded him to ask something he'd been wondering about for a little while. He really should have paid more attention to the details on the adoption application, he thought, but he'd been too upset at the time. "When is your birthday?"
"What?" As Snape sat up completely and stretched, a series of cracking noises broke the silence in the room. Wincing in sympathy, Harry noticed the other boys beginning to shift positions.
"Your birthday," he repeated, still whispering. "When is it?"
"Are you delirious?" Snape softly sneered. "You've just channeled dark powers, managing to concuss yourself in the process, and all you wish to know is when my birthday is?"
"I feel all right," Harry insisted, moving to sit up himself. "And I have been meaning to ask."
Snape glowered at him. "Early January," he snapped.
"Oh, I didn't know," Harry murmured, feeling really bad. He'd been Severus' son by then, but he'd missed his birthday! "Sorry. Um, so what happened? I remember the spell, and wrecking the living room, and passing out... Er... sorry about your sofa, and the office wall, and um... anything else I managed to destroy." Harry took a breath. "Ron must have firecalled the Burrow to get you back here, I guess?"
Still glowering, Snape growled, "I didn't need anyone to summon me, not when my office wards had been breached in a particularly egregious way."
"Listen, nobody went into your office, all right?" Harry yelled, then rubbed his head. "Ouch. Why are you so angry, anyway? It's not like I wanted my wand to blow apart your walls!" By the end he was yelling again, which of course only made his head start to hurt once more. Suddenly exhausted, he flopped back down to the pillows and glared at Snape.
"I am not angry about the walls," Snape stressed, sighing a bit as he leaned over and stroked a hand across Harry's hair. "I am not angry at all. It's been a long, hard night."
"What, it's morning already?" Harry turned his head and saw through the enchanted picture frame that it was. "Oh. Sorry."
"Please do stop apologizing," Snape entreated in a weary tone. "Just assure me that you're all right."
"I said I was," Harry pointed out.
Snape wiped his hands on his trousers, nodding in a way that Harry thought was supposed to be brisk. "Yes. Madame Pomfrey assured us you would be. She came down here and spelled away your concussion, then said you would need to sleep a good while. She warned me you would probably feel weak upon awakening. Is that the case?"
"Hmm. Bit weak, yeah," Harry realized. "Uh... can I ask..." He lowered his voice. "Why did you fall asleep on me?"
Snape flushed slightly. "You needed to be held."
Raising an eyebrow, Harry simply waited to be told more.
"You were unconscious but... distraught," Snape admitted. "You only ceased thrashing when I was holding you. Not too surprising, really. You had just channeled dark powers through your wand, which must have been an unsettling experience. Your dark powers recognize me, Harry, as a safe harbor, because I've been in your mind."
"Oh, yeah..." Harry remembered Snape saying something about that, before.
"I tried to stay awake..." Snape shrugged.
"All right." Harry could figure out the rest.
"Now then, perhaps you could enlighten me as to exactly how you managed to destroy the walls."
A horrid thought suddenly occurred to Harry. "The walls," he gasped. "The wards!"
A warm hand suddenly covered his, his father squeezing and then letting go. "The protection spells weren't damaged. They recognized your magic and let it stream through. Doubtless if the wards had battled your spell, we would have a problem. Now, explain if you would, Harry. What happened?"
"I don't exactly know," Harry realized, thinking. "Um... let's see. I was talking to Sals. Explaining Lumos, actually. And, and... it just happened."
Awake by then, Ron pulled his chair over to Harry's bedside. "You don't remember any more than that? You were holding your wand and hissing at the snake, and then you pointed your wand at the wall just like before when you'd been practicing, and... kablooey!"
"Thank you for that scientific analysis," Snape dryly inserted, shaking his head. "You were speaking Parseltongue, then. What did you say?"
Harry wrinkled his brow as he thought back. "Um, stuff like, 'here Sals, this is how you do it'... and then I stretched my wand hand out and tried to say Lumos, but I couldn't. It's weird, I can't make Latin go to Parseltongue. Anyway, I was trying to demonstrate, so I said instead, 'Light up!'"
"In Parseltongue."
"Well of course in Parseltongue! I was talking to a snake, you know!"
"No need to get defensive," Draco put in, swiveling his legs off his bed as he sat up and yawned. "I should have thought of it sooner, that you might be able to incant in Parseltongue."
"That doesn't make sense!" Harry objected.
"I think it does, actually." Snape conjured a glass of water and passed it to Harry. "Parseltongue is itself a dark power, as we discussed. Apparently in your case, it takes one dark power to unleash the rest of them. It's as I said, Harry. Your magic was never missing; it merely remained to find the key to unlock its new form."
Harry shuddered. As far as he was concerned, dark was right. "I was just trying to do a Lumos," he protested. "I never meant to blast the wall apart."
"I would say you produced a Lumos," Snape assured him. "It was merely one of staggering power. All of which we discussed before, if you recall. Dark powers are very strong. Normally, filtering them through surface magic mutes them. But you have no surface magic any longer, which means you're delivering dark powers directly into your wand."
"Well, that's just great," Harry groaned. "I really wanted to get my magic back like this, didn't I? I'm not going to be able to do normal spells any longer?"
"Oh hush, you idiot child," Snape bid. "Now that we know it's a simple matter of speaking Parseltongue, all that remains is to learn to control it more accurately. Everything will be fine."
In the next instant, Harry had cause to doubt that. His scar began to burn and blaze with heat, the sensation seeming to cut straight across his skull. "Owww!" he wailed, and slapped a hand up to his forehead in reflex, trying to crush the pain back out. It didn't work though; when had it ever? And it had never been this bad before. His head was exploding. Harry rolled onto his side, crunching his legs up against his chest, and bit into his own hand so hard he broke the skin.
"I knew that half-blooded arsehole hadn't forgotten Harry!" Draco exclaimed, rushing forward. "Shite, what do we do, cold compress or something?"
"Yes, go get one," Snape calmly requested, and when Draco snatched his wand from the night-table, added, "No magic, not for this."
As Draco rushed into the bathroom, Ron shook his head at Snape. "Cold compresses never did do much to help with this." He lowered his voice. "I bet you know that. You were just giving Malfoy something to do?"
Ignoring the question, Snape leaned forward to gently reach between Harry's teeth, prying them part before he could do more damage to his hand. Taking both Harry's hands in his, Snape held them firmly and leaned down close to speak just inches away from Harry's contorted features. "Occlude," he urged, his tone intense. "Do it, Harry; you know how. Raise that wall of fire and force the pain outside it."