It was almost lunchtime by then, so Harry ordered through the Floo. Grilled cheese sandwich with chips, and a big glass of orange juice, followed by strawberry ice cream, but it really wasn't very much fun eating all alone.
After lunch he just wandered for a while, back and forth across the length of the dining alcove and living room. That soon palled. It was almost a relief when he realised he needed to use the toilet. He couldn't leave the dungeons without an escort, so Snape could hardly blame Harry for going into his room after all, could he?
The moment that question crossed his mind, Harry had to ask himself why he'd even wonder that. Snape had said it was all right to enter his room, after all. He'd even taken the trouble to write it down so that Harry would know.
Harry shook his head to clear it, and tried to stop second-guessing himself as he opened his door. He noticed as he passed it that the picture frame was showing the Whomping Willow, just as Snape had said. He took care of his needs in the bathroom, then went back out to study the frame for a moment. The willow trying to bud out into new leaves. Harry could see grass fluttering in the breeze, so the image wasn't frozen in one sense. Snape was right, though; no matter how hard he thought about Hagrid's hut, or the greenhouses, or the Quidditch pitch, he couldn't get the frame to budge from showing that one tree.
Well, he hadn't really thought Snape was wrong, though he still did wonder if wanded magic would make it work as before. Not that he was going to try any; he just wondered. Same way he wondered if the missing piece of his mirror had ever come back into existence. Harry began looking around for it, thinking that if he found it he'd have to give it to Snape to keep with the other shards.
The missing shard of mirror was still missing, Harry realised with dismay. The feeling was cut short, however, by the sight of something odd in his room. Something he recognised straight away.
A plain parchment envelope, propped up on the shelves where Harry normally kept his books and some of his Christmas gifts. The shelves were empty now; not even Draco's things remained. There was only that envelope and what it contained. A Gringotts key. Harry knew that without even opening it because by then, he knew he was living out events he'd dreamed.
The unadoption dream...
But Snape wasn't going to unadopt him; Harry knew that. He wasn't worried at all, hadn't been for ages.
Three months is not ages, except perhaps when one is sixteen...
All right, so it hadn't been ages. But it had been long enough for him to learn that he could depend on Severus.
And besides, now that he was thinking about it, it came to him that his dream-self hadn't been the least bit worried about an unadoption. He hadn't been afraid at all, not while he'd still been inside the dream. Even hearing all that the casewitch had said, he'd felt just fine about it all. It was only when he'd woken up that he'd panicked.
His dream self had been curious, though, about this key. Just whose was it? Wandering over to the shelves, Harry broke the plain wax seal holding the envelope closed and examined the tiny key that dropped into his hand. Not his. Definitely not his. He supposed it might be Draco's, but if Draco's vault had reverted to Lucius, wouldn't the key have gone to him right along with all the things Draco had bought with his money?
So maybe it was Sirius' key? After all, Harry didn't know what that one might look like. But why would that key show up here, and in an unmarked envelope no less? Dumbledore had it, and it wasn't as if Snape would have gone to the headmaster to say that Harry should have it so he could pass it on to Draco. Not when Snape had tried to tell him not to bring the bequest up in the first place.
Good advice, Harry recognised. He should have listened to it. But the idea had just seemed so utterly perfect at the time. He'd been sure that it was what he was meant to do with the money. He wanted Draco to have it. And he was supposed to have good instincts, wasn't he?
Not on that count, apparently.
A thudding noise announced that someone had come in, and Harry held his breath, because this was it, wasn't it? It would be Snape and the casewitch out there, discussing something that had sounded like unadoption months ago, but now...
If you could think of someone other than yourself for five contiguous seconds...
And that, as it turned out, was what it all boiled down to. Harry had interpreted that awful dream with thought only for himself; it had never once dawned on him that the whole thing might have been about Draco. Of course not. Back when he'd dreamed it, right after that awful you-don't-deserve-to-be-my-son argument, he hadn't understood, not really, that Draco had needs too. Serious ones.
As far as Harry was concerned, it was high time that Draco got adopted too.
It was just a shame that it had to happen like this, with poverty and expulsion wrapped around it. It was a shame it had to look like Snape was doing it because of circumstances and not love. But it had looked that way for Harry's adoption too, sort of, with the blood warding being dependent on the legalities, and Harry had gotten past all that.
Voices drifted in from the living room, voices he'd heard before. Words he'd heard before. Amaelia Thistlethorne was talking, her high voice unmistakable. Harry put the key back in the envelope and set it down, then went to the door to listen, peering out through the crack to spy on Snape as he talked with the casewitch from Wizard Family Services. He almost wanted to go out there, but he hadn't done that in the dream, a thought which kept him in the room. He didn't know what might happen if he defied the future, but if he ended up somehow fouling up the adoption, he'd never forgive himself.
"Well," the casewitch was saying. "I certainly never thought to be back here so very soon, and under such terrible circumstances."
"Have you brought the paperwork?" Snape asked, his voice businesslike and determined. "I want this over and done with, as soon as possible."
The casewitch pursed her lips. "I am under a great deal of pressure not to permit you to take such a step as this, you understand."
A sneering expression settled on Snape's face as Harry looked out at the scene in the living room. "I need not ask from which quarter. He does so love to pull those strings. No doubt he doesn't care for this development, but..." Snape shrugged. "I'm afraid it is necessary." His eyes narrowed. "You won't let his influence dissuade you, I trust."
"Of course not. Wizard Family Services' sole concern is the best interest of the child. Are you certain this is the only way to resolve the situation?"
"I am absolutely certain," Snape replied as he crossed his arms in resolution.
"I understand that your feelings may have changed, but this is so sudden--"
"On the contrary. It is long overdue."
The casewitch shifted on her feet as though considering how best to get through Snape's stubbornness. "I'm sure the young man must be very upset, which is only natural, considering--"
"Miss Thistlethorne," Snape softly said, his tones ringing with decision, "it is time to end this... standoff, so that both he and I can move past the regrettable position we find ourselves in. I trust I make myself clear?"
"Very clear, Professor."
With that, the casewitch extended a parchment. Snape took it, and summoning a quill, signed it.