Once in his own room, he looked down at Draco for a moment, keeping his distance in case those Slytherin reflexes sensed him again. He couldn't help but think about his dream. It would be all right, wouldn't it? The stupid thing wasn't a seer dream, and Snape was going to secure the Owlery anyway, and Draco did know better than to leave the dungeons---
"Playing ghoul again, are we?" Draco's voice broke into his thoughts.
Slytherin reflexes were better than he'd figured. Harry reminded himself to keep that in mind when it was time for him to face his new House mates in their own territory.
"No, just thinking," he answered.
"Did Severus sort out your dream?"
"Yeah..." Harry rolled wearily into bed and fussed with the blankets until he had them just right.
"Good..." Draco lapsed right back into sleep.
And after just a moment more, so did Harry.
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Harry didn't know if Snape actually had told Draco about the potion, he just knew that for a couple of days, the Slytherin boy didn't mention anything about Snape's mood or his temper. Just as well. Harry thought he'd have a hard time not explaining the situation, and it really wasn't his place.
That morning, Snape had returned from breakfast in the Great Hall with a series of packages bobbing through the air behind him. Books, he'd explained, with a wry glance at Harry. A quick indexing spell performed on each neatly wrapped box revealed the contents. Snape banished one package into his office, and said that as it was Saturday, Harry and Draco could work on shelving the remainder of the books that morning. He promised to take them to Devon that afternoon, which made Draco grin and Harry sort of groan, and then Snape was leaving again, muttering something about sometimes feeling he was more a Detentions Master than a Potions Master.
Draco wasted no time in performing a box-splitting spell, but when he tried to levitate the books out, a flashing red light surrounded the cartons for a few seconds. "Looks like some of them, at least, must be warded."
It was news to Harry that books could be, but these were wizarding books, so he simply pitched in and started lifting stacks out of the boxes. It didn't take him long to realize that after those first few seconds, he was the only one pitching in.
"It won't make you a house-elf to help me, you know," he commented as he heaved a set of dark black books onto the table.
Draco looked up from a slim volume that had caught his attention. "Hmm? Oh, well. If you insist." Instead of helping, though, he set himself to studying the spines of several stacks already on the table. "You know, I wonder if this is some sort of test," he mused.
Harry gave him a curious glance.
"To see just how we'll shelve them without direction," Draco mused. "Severus probably wants to see what we come up with."
Harry stopped unpacking then, and studied the book titles himself. "Alphabetical or by subject, then?"
Draco gave a rather sly grin. "I know. Just for fun, let's put them on the shelves by height. Tall ones on the bottom shelves, shortest ones at the top." And when Harry shook his head, he urged, "Oh, it hardly matters, you know. When Severus wants a book he can just Accio it by title."
"But you said the books were warded--"
"Not against Accio," Draco announced in that smug voice he did so well.
Harry had to agree, it would be a little bit funny to see the look on Snape's face if they organized the books that way. It was a harmless prank... nothing like making fun of the man's shampoo--or lack thereof...
"The worst thing that can happen is he makes us reshelve them," Draco wheedled. "But he might laugh, you know. And... well, Severus could do with a laugh, I think."
Harry gave the other boy a sharp look, but couldn't tell if Draco was referring to Snape's withdrawal from Truthful Dreams, or not. It was true, however, that he thought it would be good to see his father have something to laugh over.
Nodding, Harry began scooping up some of the tallest books and putting them away. Draco didn't help, but by then Harry wasn't expecting him too. The Slytherin boy probably considered he had done his part just in figuring out how the books should be organized, even if his solution was more a joke than anything else. At any rate, before Harry could complain, the magic doorbell rang and Draco was sauntering over to look at the parchment which read simply, Hermione Granger.
"You think she'd give us the weekend off," Draco lightly complained, but at least when he opened the door he was civil. That was all that counted to Harry.
Hermione's eyes widened as she took in the scene in Snape's living room. As Harry might have guessed, the first words out her mouth were, "Oh, what wonderful books--" and then she was down on her knees, fishing through boxes and oohing and aahing over the contents. "Mostly Potions, a smattering of Defense, and a few that look a bit like Restricted Section material..." Sighing with pleasure, she looked up at Harry. "This must be the best part of living here. I always suspected Snape would have a really marvelous research collection. Does he add to it regularly? Do you get new books all the time down here?"
Harry shook his head, relieved for once to be having a normal conversation with Hermione. He should have thought sooner to get her mind onto books... "These are replacements for some books that got destroyed," he explained. "Draco told you about it, remember?"
Hermione glanced once at the Slytherin boy, who was by then seated at the table reading that same slim volume that had caught his eye earlier. Harry strained to see the title and was pleased that even at a distance, the small type was visible. Blood is Thicker than Potion... Harry wasn't sure what a book like that would cover or why Draco would be so interested in it.
Scooping up a few tiny little treatises on various seeds--they might have come in handy when he'd been researching the Gryffindor well-wish, he reached up to place them on the topmost shelf.
And that was when it happened.
Hermione looked up to ask something else about Snape's books, and as she did, Harry's loose sleeve pulled back to display his entire forearm, and the ugly black-and-yellow bruise that marred it.
Hermione drew in a harsh breath, and Harry thought, Uh-oh, I really should have let Snape heal this one. But he'd wanted his father to respect him, too, not think of him as a crybaby, and anyway, it was inches above his wrist where nobody would see... except that Hermione had.
Harry hurriedly pulled his sleeve back down, but not before Draco, sensing the change of mood, had glanced up from his reading and taken the entire scene in.
"Harry--" Hermione began.
He would know that tone anywhere. It meant that she'd had just about enough of his lies and evasions. It meant she was done holding her peace about it. She was going to do something. She was going to tell someone that Snape was abusing him, for pity's sake! Or maybe she thought that Draco was to blame and Snape wasn't doing anything to stop it. Either way, she was going to report the matter to Dumbledore, or maybe Wizard Family Services, and that awful casewitch was going to come back to take him away, and make Severus sign some awful paper saying he wasn't a fit father or something. Harry could see it unfolding in his mind.
I might as well just tell her, Harry abruptly came to a decision. Severus will just have to deal with it. It's not like her knowing is any real problem. Hermione'll keep my personal business to herself, just like Ron's been doing.
"It's like this," he cut across her words. "I've been working really hard to get my magic back--"