"Does it impress you," Snape asked rather caustically, "that you have this evening compelled me to break an oath? I swore I would not talk about my own father to you, Harry. Ever. And now I have. Are you proud of yourself?"
"No," Harry answered honestly. "But... about this not talking. That's no good. I mean, it's not like I want to pry just for the sake of it. I need to know you better. Otherwise, it's kind of like... um, like we're not family at all, actually."
"I will not infect this family with even remnants of the illness that plagued my childhood," Snape retorted. "And you will not persuade me with pseudo-psychological arguments. You do not know what you are talking about."
"What about the book? It said it was good to talk, you know..."
"Sometimes it is also good not to." Snape sighed, shaking his head. "Samhain, Harry. That was a horrendous experience for you. Have I ever sought to make you speak of it, relive it out loud? The book recommended you be encouraged to talk about it with someone whom you trust, but I knew you better than any book. You needed someone you could trust, yes. I have sought to be that for you, but I will not press you to suffer again that which you should never have suffered at all. I ask the same consideration of you."
"All right, I understand." Harry nodded.
"Good." Pausing, Snape glanced at Harry over his glass of amber liquid. "I should have asked, would you like something to drink as well?"
Harry wasn't thirsty, but it seemed like Snape was trying to be civil, so he didn't want to refuse. "Um, sure, some lemonade would be nice."
Snape flicked his wand in three precise arcs and a glass glimmered into existence in Harry's hand.
Smiling his thanks, Harry tasted it. Hmm, bit more sour than he liked, but he passed that off as Snape not being in a very sugary mood. "Thanks," he murmured.
Snape nodded briefly, then lapsed into a silence broken only by the clinking of ice. For a few moments, Harry thought it was just a pause for the man to assemble his next rebuke; he was slow to realise that his father was waiting for him to respond to all that had already been said... giving him a chance to speak his mind. In private.
He could say anything he liked to Snape now, he knew. Anything at all; Snape wouldn't punish him for speaking his mind. He just wanted him to wait until they had a time like this, a time alone, before Harry began to rail against him. Was that so much to ask? Uncle Vernon had never made Harry feel as if his comments were allowed at all.
The boy stared down into his lemonade, suddenly glad he had something to hold, because only then did he begin to understand something of what his behaviour must have looked like to his father. It was a sobering realization. At that moment, he wondered why the man even wanted to keep him around. "I am sorry," he said, the words that time heartfelt. "I wasn't trying to humiliate you or anything like that. I just wanted you to be fair to Remus."
"Another thing we had best discuss," Snape sighed, taking a rather large swallow of Galliano that time. "Harry, I am Head of Slytherin. Fairness is not a quality I have ever aspired to. Moreover, you have known me for six years, most of that time in a context guaranteed to ensure that you became well-acquainted with my harsher qualities. I refuse to believe that you can really entertain fantasies about me changing so radically."
"I... well, I think I understand that's not going to happen," Harry acknowledged. "And it's not like I want you to change everything. I like you as you are, and I think we get on, and um... I think Mrs. Weasley was right that you can give me the kind of support I really need. You're a good father," he finished, looking down because what he had to say next was harder. "There um, are some things you could improve on, though. I mean... I understand I shouldn't have gone about things the way I did, but you did apologise to Remus in the end. That was good. I mean, I thought so."
Snape downed the remainder of his liqueur and set the glass down with a thud. "I did not think so, and furthermore, I have no need for my interactions with my other adults to be managed by a sixteen-year-old. Do my wishes mean literally nothing to you?"
Harry coloured. "I just don't like the two of you at odds."
"Be that as it may, in front of others you simply must refrain from criticising me, Harry. Even if you believe I am being grossly unfair. Even if I am being unfair to Gryffindor and your friends are insisting you do something about it."
"You're thinking of class," the boy realised.
"We'll be in class together soon," Snape affirmed. "It will be good for you to return to a normal routine, but I admit I am not looking forward to sixth-year Potions with you."
That sort of hurt Harry's feelings, even though he had often felt approximately the same way.
"You have never particularly appreciated my classroom demeanour," Snape went on, "or my methods of instruction. As far as I am concerned, you are entitled to an opinion. But now, being my son, you may well feel entitled to voice your opinion in full view of the other students. That, I cannot tolerate."
"I won't say anything in class," Harry heavily promised. "I won't, all right? I'll just take notes and brew and clean up my own boilovers as best I can, and I won't ask you for a thing, I swear. I'll pretend I don't know you from Adam."
"Who?"
"Never mind," Harry muttered, feeling progressively more awful. "It'll be like this year never happened, that's what I meant."
Snape drew his feet in toward his chair, his hair swaying as he shook his head to reject that solution. "I don't expect that; I don't even wish it. Everyone does already understand that you are now my son, and I've no desire to claim otherwise in class or out of it. What I ask is that you not argue with me in front of other students."
Harry mutely nodded.
"It's an easy thing to promise," Snape pointed out.
"I'm a Gryffindor," Harry stressed, glaring. "I keep my promises."
"See that you keep this one. If you try to talk me out of points from Gryffindor I'll have to take points from you, and you know what that does to the counters. I'll be quite annoyed if Slytherin loses points on your account. Remember that."
Harry relaxed a little, then. "But you don't take points from Gryffindor like you used to, do you? I mean, for no reason at all?" When Snape merely raised his eyebrows as if to say, I do believe we just covered that, Harry suddenly felt as though he had swallowed a bellyful of lead. "You mean Ron was right? You kept picking on Gryffindor, even after you adopted me?"
Snape didn't nod to acknowledge that, but neither did he deny it.
"You kept right on taking unfair points, giving Hermione all the hardest questions, ignoring the way Crabbe and Goyle practically fall into their cauldrons?"
"Crabbe and Goyle are not in sixth-year Potions," Snape pointed out.
"You know what I meant."
"Yes," the Potions Master admitted. "Harry, what is fair is very rarely strategic. As estranged as I have been from many of my Slytherins, I've no desire to alienate them yet further. Changing my classroom practices could only accomplish that. Surely you can see that much?"
Harry could, but all the same... "Do you still hate Gryffindors on principle?" he blurted. "I mean... if the Sorting Hat had never wanted to put me in Slytherin at all, would you still..."
"Love you?" Snape blew out a breath. "How can I answer that? What if I had never masqueraded as Lupin? What if your aunt had been cured by the bone marrow and you had never fallen ill? What if Lupin hadn't had a hankering for ice cream--"
"I get the point," Harry dryly put in. "But you didn't answer my question, did you? Do you still hate Gryffindors just because of where they were sorted? Because, no offence, but that's not very strategic."