Book Two: Snape's Memories

Chapter Seventeen

"Tell me, Mr Potter, when they sent you back, was it a punishment or a reward?" Snape's voice was distant and brittle.

Another dream.

Harry blinked. He was sitting with his back up against the headboard in Sirius' old bedroom. The room that he and Ginny now slept in, it having been the room Harry had always slept in, ever since he and Ron and Hermione had hidden from Voldemort here.

But this was Sirius' room, not Harry and Ginny's. The old posters were there. As was the old bureau which Snape was rummaging around. The room looked as it had done the day Harry, Ron and Hermione had sought it out as a hideout from Voldemort.

Snape apparently found what he was looking for. He sat down on the end of the bed with a photograph in his hand. Harry could only see him in profile, but from what he could see, the man looked dreadful.

Snape looked younger again, perhaps, twenty five. It was hard to tell, really, because he looked so distraught. Definitely no older than thirty. Younger than Harry in years, but his face was lined with pain, and tears trickled from his eyes. The man didn't seem to notice

"Come again?" asked Harry, confused. Why on earth were they here?, "You look terrible, Professor." he blurted out.

"Have you looked in a mirror today, Potter?" snapped the younger man, coldly "I asked you a question. When they sent you back. Was it a punishment or a reward?"

"When who sent me back from where?" asked Harry, still befuddled.

"When whatever power sent you back from Death." Snape wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and glared at Harry, as if challenging him to ask what had moved the man to tears.

"I...no one sent me back...I...wanted to come back...I had things to finish" Harry stammered.

Snape snarled, "Of course, things would be different with you, Potter. Of course you could choose to come back." the man said bitterly, "Everyone has things to finish. Lily had..." the sentence was unfinished as Snape stopped with what sounded like a sob. He looked away, trying to master himself.

"I've had dreams where that happened." said Harry softly, remembering the odd dreams that he'd had for years after the War "Sometimes my mother raises me alone. Sometimes my father died and you married my mother. Sometimes you were my father. Phoebe said they were all a kind of wish fulfillment dream. Even the nightmares." Harry paused considering, "I suppose it would be easier for me if the Dursleys hadn't been part of the equation."

"Did they harm you so much, Potter?" Snape asked quietly. "Did being raised by those muggles damage you so much?" he turned back and met Harry's eyes. Snape's eyes were somehow deeper than Harry remembered.

Harry stared at the man's face, looking for signs that he was being mocked. Snape's expression was guarded, and his eyes were serious. Harry search for the man's usual sarcasm, not finding it.

"Yeah. They did." Harry said honestly, "You know they did." he said with a little more heat.

Snape's expression did not change, and he said nothing.

Harry continued "I've thought about the damned prophecy over the years, too. I sometimes wonder if 'Mark him as his equal' meant I was marked for the kind of childhood I had. Did Dumbledore know, do you think? What he did? What he sent me to? What he kept sending me back to?" Harry had pondered that question for years. He hardy ever thought about it anymore.

Tim and Dudley had apparently brought it back up again.

"Minerva knew something was wrong." replied Snape quietly, "And Molly Weasley regularly sent the Headmaster a howler, when you arrived at her house, bruised and underfed. But she never had any proof and Dumbledore wouldn't hear of it. He thought that the wards were the best chance of keeping you alive. No one could do anything, because you never mentioned it. In those days it was even harder to get a child removed from their family. The Ministry would have wanted proof."