𝑷𝑹𝑶𝑻𝑬𝑪𝑻𝑶𝑹 || 𝗦𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘂𝘀 𝗦𝗻𝗮𝗽𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗕𝗮𝗯𝘆 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗿𝘆

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟖.

Snape was very relieved. He sat on the train, quietly contemplating his good luck, while Harry sang him a song of nonsense words and occasionally patted his face. The Malfoys had believed him, supported him even, meaning his secret was safe. Harry was safe.

"Shh," Snape warned as Harry's song increased in volume. Harry nodded his head up and down, but kept singing, patting Snape's cheeks with both hands. He'd seen Draco patting Lucius' face and it had made him eager to try it out for himself.

"Don't be rough, Harry," Snape said, catching Harry's hand, after a particularly good slap landed square on his nose. "When little boys hit, they often do not enjoy the consequences."

Harry immediately looked repentant and folded his arms in his lap, getting very quiet. Within a moment or two, however he resumed his singing. Though he'd never say so, Snape was glad, because it had been too quiet for him to really think properly without the happy sounds. There it was. Harry was a white noise maker for Severus. He had a benefit. That's why Snape continued to feel more attached to the little boy. Never mind that Snape had never needed white noise before. In fact, in the past he had craved absolute solitude, complete silence. That little detail wasn't going to pester him now though.

"Napey?" said Harry abruptly, peering hopefully up into Severus' eyes. "See Dwakey?"

Snape smiled. Harry and Draco had come to like each other immediately. After seeing one another they had happily played on the floor for an hour, before Snape had declared it was time to go. Narcissa and Lucius had seemed very glad to see the two boys getting along so well. Apparently, this was the first child Draco had taken a liking too. The especially impressive thing was that Draco had even offered to share his toys with Harry. Harry, who had never seen so many toys in his life, was positively aglow.

"Yes Harry," Snape said. "You will probably get to play with Draco again soon." The fact that they'd gotten along well had eased a worry Snape had had ever since Harry had been taken into his care. If Harry had a friend, it wouldn't be all left up to him to teach Harry to play correctly. He hadn't really known what he was going to do about that previously. Now it wouldn't be such a burden. Harry leaned against Snape's chest and shut his eyes. As he drifted off to sleep, soothed by the constant rocking of the train, Snape continued to think.

He really didn't know how to play. He didn't know how to have a good time. He didn't know how to enjoy things, to lose himself in the moment. A thought occurred to him that he didn't even know how to laugh. Not truly, not because he was happy. How was he supposed to teach these things to the vulnerable little boy whom he now protected? Snape shut his eyes. He was not about to let himself feel guilty. He forbade it. Emotion very seldom had any benefit; he had found this out through many years of pain. Occasionally anger could do something for a person. But not sorrow, and certainly not self-pity. There wasn't any point in sitting there feeling sorry for himself, but there wasn't any point denying the truth either. The reason he couldn't teach these things to Harry was that he never had a chance to learn them himself.

Snape had very few memories from his childhood. For the most part, he resolved not to think about them. If they ever began to surface he pushed them down. That's why he'd always been so smart. He never let himself fall to daydreaming. He spent every moment he could in something productive, keeping his mind occupied so it wouldn't wander to places he didn't want to go.

Snape looked down at the scar on Harry's forehead. That was the mark of magic, a wound left by a dark power. Severus had been wounded when he was a baby as well, but his had been an entirely different kind of wound. The kind left inside, but that showed on the outside as well. It was a wound which tormented him, the feeling that he had never been wanted. It wasn't that his mother hadn't loved him per se...it was that she'd been too consumed with sorrow to take care of him. To take care of anything, really.

As the train chugged across the countryside, Snape's thoughts wound together in a spiral, down down down. Somehow he allowed himself to delve into the scenes from his childhood, which had lodged themselves into his brain, though he'd banished them long ago. The images flashed through his mind as he sat alone, and for the first time in years, he didn't push them away.

His mother crying. Screaming, pleading. This was the predominant memory. Even if it wasn't the center of the memory it remained as a background noise. It was the noise which drove him out of the house to wander the streets by himself, so he wouldn't have to hear it anymore. He wouldn't come back until nighttime, when his mother would be asleep. He knew his parents weren't worried about him, and that they would not be waiting there to comfort him when he got home, but each time he pushed the door open he wished they would be, just the same.

A tall, dark haired man looking at him with flashing, angry eyes, telling him to go to his room and not to come out. He never understood why this happened. One moment everything would be fine, and suddenly he was being sent out.

He'd liked to draw. He had a little packet of crayons that held four colors: red, blue, yellow, and brown. He wished he had a black. That was the color he knew. He colored on the newspaper in the evening time before going to bed, but one afternoon he colored before Father got a chance to read the newspaper. That was a particularly bad night. After being sent to his room, Severus heard dishes smashing, and in the morning his mother had cuts on her arms and on her face. She'd taken him with her to the store to buy some plates, and people had hurried away from them wherever they walked.

People stared at him with distaste whenever he walked down the street, his ill fitting clothes either dragging on the pavement, or showing inches of bare skin. The other little boys would laugh at his long hair. One day he'd tried to cut it, and that had made Father mad too. He had bruises the next day, along with his brand new haircut. The little boys still made fun of him.

He remembered the night he had woken up feeling very cold, the familiar sound of yelling reaching his ears. He had left his room to see what was going on. The door had been flung wide open... His mother had been lying on the front step, her body shaking with tears. Father was nowhere to be seen, he must have just left. His mother was shouting for him to come back, each word seeming like a supreme effort as her body shook with tears. Severus had gone to her to see what was wrong. He tried to hug her. She pushed his arms away. The words she'd responded with when he told her he loved her, to please not cry anymore, were blazed into his mind: Go away, Severus. Just go to your room.

Harry whimpered in his sleep. "Shh, Harry," Snape said quietly, smoothing his hair away from his forehead. "You're safe. I will always be here to protect you."