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It had been their most gruelling session to date. By the time it was over, Harry was dripping sweat and felt close to passing out. Collapsing on the couch when Snape finally lowered his wand, Harry leaned back against the cushions and closed his eyes, gasping.
"It will be worse with him," Snape saw fit to warn. "Magnitudes worse."
"Yeah, got it," Harry moaned. "I'll keep practicing, now that I have more of an idea what to do."
"Do that, Mr Potter." Snape flicked his robes as though preparing to leave. Moving his wand toward the pensieve, he began chanting the incantation that would let him restore Harry's memories.
"No, not just yet," Harry blearily requested.
Snape arched a sarcastic eyebrow and waited for Harry to explain.
"I . . . I . . ."
"Yes?" Snape asked darkly.
His head felt like a lump of granite, but Harry lifted it anyway, green eyes searching out Snape's dark ones. "You said my apology was inadequate. Maybe it was, I don't know. But I'd really like you to accept it, anyway. Please. I thought we were . . . I don't know. Friends, in some respect at least."
Harry couldn't have said that Snape's expression softened, but at least it didn't get any worse. That alone was probably what gave him the courage to finish. "I want you to look in the pensieve. I mean . . . I put my apology in there. Maybe this time you'll think it's adequate."
A sigh escaped Snape's lips. "You don't have to do that."
"Yeah, well I want to. Professor?"
Snape shook his head. "Apology accepted, Potter. We'll leave it at that."
"But I really do want--"
"Do me the courtesy, this time, of respecting what I want."
"Like I should have done to begin with," Harry acknowledged, understanding dawning. "Yes, all right. Thank you, sir."
Snape gave another sigh. "I do believe I prefer you insolent, all things considered."
"I'll work on it." Harry grinned slightly. He didn't feel entirely at ease, but decided to try to act as though he did. Maybe that would get Snape to ease up, too. "Speaking of which . . . just tell me to sod off if I shouldn't ask, and this time I will, I swear, but I was wondering why you came here at all on Halloween. You must have known you'd have to leave. Did you want me to . . . um, see you getting summoned?"
An incredulous look, Harry thought, was at least a reaction.
"Okay, I guess not," he surmised. "I couldn't think why you'd want me to see, but you are a Slytherin, so I figured it had to be some sort of manipulation."
"Hardly," Snape denied, though he didn't look in the least put out at having been called manipulative, Harry noted. "The Dark Lord's summons usually comes at midnight both on Halloween and Samhain. I had planned to be gone before that hour."
"Samhain?"
"The cross-quarter day between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice," Snape snapped. "Really, Potter, this is very basic Astronomy! You should have known all this before you ever set foot at Hogwarts!"
"Yeah, well I was raised by Muggles," Harry drawled. "Remember? Most of them aren't so big on cross-quarter days, or all the other stuff you teachers assume we ought to know. It means I have trouble in a lot of my classes."
"It doesn't appear to trouble Miss Granger," Snape returned.
"We're not all brilliant." Harry smiled. "But I will pass on your compliment, Professor."
Snape didn't look concerned. "She will never believe I said it."
"You think? Nah, she'll trust a fellow Gryffindor."
To Harry's disappointment, Snape didn't acknowledge the banter by so much as a raised eyebrow. Damn.
The Potions Master merely gave a slight nod toward the pensieve. "We had best restore your memory before too long has passed. Hold still, Mr Potter."
After Snape had placed Harry's thoughts back where they belonged, Harry had to ask, "Why'd you leave your own memories in there for three days, then?"
Snape narrowed his eyes a bit. "I wasn't eager to draw them in and out of my mind, repeatedly. It was simpler just to leave them be until everyone concerned had looked his fill."
Harry wrinkled his nose. "Huh?"
A long sigh, then: "Albus needed to see them too, to look for patterns I might have missed, and since disembodied memories don't typically survive magical travel, he had to come here. His schedule didn't permit that until late last night."
Harry stared, a familiar fury filling his veins until they felt like they might burst. "The headmaster was here in this house last night? And he didn't even bother to see me, talk to me? What, does he still think Voldemort's going to reach out through me to get him? Even here?"
"Albus has to do what he thinks best," Snape answered. "I do not know why he has been avoiding you of late, but I could hazard a guess."
So could Harry, once he thought about it. "Yeah, he wants us to learn to get along."
"I should think it's more a case of . . . he wants you to have someone you can turn to," Snape clarified. "You were angry enough to destroy half the contents of his office last year, so he doesn't imagine you long to turn to him. But you do need someone, especially now that Black is . . . gone."
Harry closed his eyes, then clenched them. It helped. "I have Remus, still," he managed to say. "And Ron, and Hermione."
"A teacher whom even you admit doesn't acknowledge that you are growing up, not to mention one whose condition makes him regularly unavailable; and inept adolescents who cannot possibly understand the weight both of past and future that you must bear."
"Great, now I feel more alone than ever."
"You are not alone."
Green eyes opened, eyes that were old before their time. Eyes that had seen too much. "Of course I am. I can't firecall you in the middle of the night if I have a bad dream, or go on about how much Dudley baffles me, these days. It's not your problem."
"You may wake me anytime you have need," Snape steadily returned, though he didn't look the slightest bit compassionate about it. Just . . . factual. Analytical. "Any need. As for your cousin, who else can you tell? For all you say you have them, you have never told Lupin or your friends the full truth about Privet Drive."
"Yeah, well I never told you, either. Not really."
"Regardless, we are where we are, you and I." Snape paused for a delicate moment. "Might I ask what you meant about your cousin?"
"Nothing," Harry passed it off, then realised that Snape might be a good person to ask the one question that had been bothering him. "Just . . . I'm starting to think he might be willing to ward me, even if Uncle Vernon objects. But it's not his house. Does that matter?"
"It does."
"Figures. Oh well, it's not like I want to go back, anyway."
"Even were the wards intact, you would not go back to a home whose owner might conspire with the Dark Lord."
"Too bad he didn't say he'd do it sooner, then," Harry quipped. "I'd rather have spent summers here with Sirius."
"Black would have liked that," Snape admitted. "He asked Albus, more than once."
It was good to hear that, but it hurt. Terribly, reminding Harry of all he'd missed. He clenched his teeth, and purely to distract himself, asked, "So when's this Samhain?"
"Three nights hence." Snape bit out the words as though they were something frozen and distasteful. "And before you worry yourself again over what might transpire on that night, allow me to elucidate that for the Dark Lord, Samhain is ritual, not recreation."
Shivers convulsed Harry. He'd seen Voldemort engaged in ritual, after all. The blood of an enemy . . . the bones of his father . . . the sacrifice of a servant. "Oh, ick. That's probably even worse."