"A few dozen, more like," Harry muttered. "What is it, then?"
Draco shrugged. "It could be anything. Maybe I was more right than I knew, earlier. It could be he really doesn't like what he has to do to you in Devon. Or maybe the Hufflepuffs are melting more cauldrons than usual, or he's finally getting disgusted with the way his own House wants him dead."
"Maybe," Harry murmured, taking up the essay Snape had thrown down. He couldn't seem to get his mind onto it, though, no matter how he tried. He kept wondering instead what was bothering his father.
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"Well, that's it," Harry pronounced a few days later. "All the major spells Hogwarts covers up through the end of fifth year. If anybody ever sees this, they'll think I have the worst grasp of Latin in history. Some of the 'translations' aren't close at all. But it's what the spell means to me that counts."
"All the major spells," Snape echoed, giving him a stern look.
"Well, yeah! If you make me figure out every last little charm, I won't get back upstairs until I'm old and gray. I mean, I have tried. Some spells just don't seem to work for me any longer."
"You just haven't hit the right words, that's all," Draco broke in. "Keep experimenting. You'll get there."
Snape charmed the scroll of parchment so that nobody besides the three of them could read it. "The lexicon needs to be completed, yes, but the bulk of that can wait until summer. As your spell control is coming along nicely, I estimate you will be ready to resume normal student life in little more than a fortnight."
How could that sound like no time at all, and also sound like forever?
Draco took the scroll and began to scan it as he commented, "I think you'll be able to defend yourself in the hallways, but this list won't help you too much in class. What are we planning to do about that, Severus? Have Harry learn all his charms in advance so that by the time they're presented he'll know how to incant them?"
Frowning, Snape shook his head. "I've considered the matter and decided that a little misdirection wouldn't come amiss."
A bad feeling washed over Harry. "Misdirection?"
Snape gave him a wry glance. "Yes. You are undoubtedly a Gryffindor, but as I told you long ago, you should take greater pains to develop a little Slytherin cunning. Don't look so appalled at the prospect. We don't want others to know you can perform wandless magic, or that your wanded powers are quite so remarkable. The corollary to that is that the less powerful you seem, the better off you will be when it comes to surprising Voldemort in the final battle. Therefore, you will not learn your lessons in advance. You must resign yourself to appearing a bit... inept, in class."
"Rotten deal," Draco sympathized. "But I think Severus is right about this being our best strategy."
Harry shrugged. He was just grateful that his father hadn't smirked and reminded him just how much experience he had at looking inept in Potions class. Because then, Harry would have had to point out that it was Snape's insulting manner that had made him too nervous to perform well... and he didn't want to fight with his father about how class with him used to go, he just didn't. Actually, he was a bit nervous again, wondering how things would go now, having his father as a teacher.
"I don't care if it takes me a while to get the hang of new spells," Harry ventured, "but you know how you don't want anyone knowing how my magic works now? Well, I think I can hide the wandlessness, but I don't see how we can avoid the other students finding out I have to say my spells in Parseltongue." He shivered a bit just thinking about it.
His father, he noted, was watching him closely. "I thought you had accepted that part of yourself. In fact, I thought that was what was allowing you to incant in Parseltongue."
Harry remembered that... Snape saying in the hospital that accepting his dark powers was likely part of the key to making them do his bidding. "I'm all right with it," he explained. "It's just that second year..." he sighed. "Parseltongue is really going to upset the other students."
"Not as much," Draco put in. "We all know you're a Parselmouth, now. And besides, it never did make any difference to your friends, did it?"
"No..."
"Well there you have it, then."
"But incanting in Parseltongue is going to seem a hundred times more creepy than just speaking in it," Harry complained.
"That," Snape told him, "will just have to be borne. As for the risk that the key to your dark powers will become known, I see no way around that. The alternative is to keep you hidden away, and that, I do believe, has gone on quite long enough."
"Yeah," Harry agreed, almost expecting Draco to start complaining again about being left behind.
All he did though, was pierce Harry with a steady silver gaze, and mouth one word, "Slytherin."
Harry turned away, but some part of him was realizing that he didn't want to leave the dungeons. Wasn't that daft? If anybody would have told him months ago that he'd feel this way, Harry would have laughed himself silly. Now, though, this place was a little bit like home. And he'd never had a home, let alone a father to talk to, or a brother...
But as much as he didn't want to leave, he also didn't want to stay. It was true, what he'd said before; he needed his friends in the Tower. But now he knew that he needed his family just as much. Hmm, maybe he was finally finding out what it was like to be normal, to be pulled between home and school instead of regarding Hogwarts as a refuge from everything that was wrong with his life.
"On to other matters," Snape crisply announced. "I've decided that quite a few of the books that formerly were in my office needn't be restricted. I'll be purchasing replacements; you and Draco will be shelving them in here."
Draco crossed his arms. "Do I look like a house-elf?" he haughtily inquired.
"I can always resume keeping them off-limits," Snape told Draco, his voice quite a bit more stern than Harry felt was warranted.
"Shelving it is," the Slytherin boy returned, beaming Snape a smile that was fake all the way through.
Snape actually bared his teeth, which prompted Harry to wonder out loud, "Is everything all right, sir? I..." Should he offer to pay again, after all? Or apologize once more? It was hard to believe that either of those would help matters... "You seem a little bit out of sorts," he decided to venture. "Is there anything I can do?"
Sighing, the Potions Master ran a hand through his hair. "No, Harry, there's nothing you can do."
It suddenly came to him what the matter was, what it had to be. "You're starting to think that my latest dream is going to come true after all, aren't you?"
That seemed to snap Snape out of his introspection. "No, not at all. You mustn't think that. I merely have some Order business on my mind."
Draco had looked rather intrigued at the mention of another seer dream, but that comment had him stiffening. "What Order business?" When Snape said nothing, he pressed, "It's about me, isn't it? There's some new Malfoy plot afoot to take me to the Dark Lord to be tortured!"
The Potions Master hesitated just a moment. "You may as well know, Lucius has never ceased his attempts to remove you from Hogwarts. His latest gambit was to argue to the Board of Governors that as you've missed a considerable number of classes, your student status should be revoked. However, Albus headed him off by pointing out that petrified students a few years back missed a great deal more class than you have, and no one penalized them."
Draco sighed. "I somehow suspect that wasn't the first time Lucius has tried to use his influence on the Board to get me kicked out of here."
"He is persistent," Snape agreed. "Perhaps you'll feel better to know that his influence has waned a bit since his incarceration in Azkaban."