This story has been revised and updated, the chapters will be consolidated and new updates will be added at the end, as usual. I noticed several places that I could improve the quality of writing. The story up to the point I have written so far will not change, only some small details. Please review or email me any suggestions. Thanks!

This story is AU, Severitus
End of 5th year- Indefinite (I have not written the epilogue yet)
Canon pairings.
The return of Sirius Black may or may not occur, I have not decided yet.

Disclaimer : I wish I was JK Rowling. Unfortunately I am not. Otherwise Deathly Hallows would have ended differently. So I don't own most of these characters. Thanks a bunch.

"Harry, I wish I had more time to explain to you everything that has been going on over the summer. I am coming to fetch you before term starts, if you receive this note on or before July 28, I will arrive the 29th to collect you and bring you back to the school to go into hiding,. You are safer in Dumbledore's care than the muggles you share a home with. Severus will be joining me in case there are problems during the travel. Have your things ready when I arrive. Voldemort has been picking off members of the resistance and people in the Ministry have gone increasingly mad. I know losing Sirius was hard, Harry, but we can continue on. Things have come to light Harry, I am confident of your strength to handle them, I can only hope you are emotionally ready."

-Remus Lupin

He poured over the letter another time or two, hands fidgeting and trying to figure out how he could have ten minutes or ten hours before Lupin would show up on his doorstep. Harry estimated that because it wasn't quite lunch time that he had at least until then to try and shove all of his things into the trunk and warn the 'family' downstairs that he wasn't going to be around to finish the chores today.

With that, he rushed downstairs to find the Dursleys sitting around their usual breakfast table.

"BOY? Really? You think ANYTHING is that important for you to burst in here and interrupt our family time?" Uncle Vernon's use of "family time" meant that they were about to eat, their favorite hobby, but Harry had to find a way to tell them his news without starting a riot in the house.

"I'm leaving. In an hour or two, I suppose." The only words he could find were simple, so he stepped back and waited for the reaction.

"Where do you think you're going exactly? Think you're going to run away from here again? I'll have your hide boy, you won't go anywhere under my roof, not out to disgrace us in public!"

Vernon rose from the table to reach out and grab Harry's collar like he usually did, but for once, the young wizard stepped out of reach and held his wand at his uncle.

"My headmaster is sending a personal escort to see me out of here, I would get out of the way if I were you. He finds it urgently important that I leave here as soon as possible."

Vernon and Petunia always froze at the mere mention of "those people." The people the Dursleys family refused to acknowledge. They always manifested themselves at the worst times. The angry head family member seemed like he wanted to reply, but nothing. He went back to his breakfast, red faced. Harry figured this was his "permission" to go.

"Then I don't expect to ever see your ungrateful, bastard face here ever again boy. You'll find no family here. Get your garbage and get out of my house, NOW."

Harry ran up the stairs, and tossed what few belongings he had into the large trunk. He had a strange feeling about this trip. Watching out the tiny window one last time,

He definitely considered the better part of all this though….

He can never come back. This would be the last time he had to suffer this tiny room. This strange hell that had been his home for eleven years and the added summers would no longer plague his nightmares at the end of the school year. He wasn't quite sure where he would end up, but anywhere was better than here.

Lupin showed up a little over a half hour later, scaring the Dursleys into a corner of their living room while the former professor levitated Harry's trunk down the stairs. They started off into the sunlight horizon with pleasant conversation on a broom, and before Harry knew it, he was walking up the familiar steps of Hogwarts with a great smile on his face. This was his sixth year in this place, and he was determined to make the most of everything. This year was going to be different. So was next year. He could tell, Voldemort himself wasn't going to stop him from achieving his dreams.

When Harry Potter fell asleep that night, it was with great expectations. The next morning he began his exploration of the empty castle.

He stepped out into the common room to examine its hollow soundless nature. It was nice being alone in the school, but strange. Strange without the hustle, loud voices, gossip, giggling girls and petty hexes and spells directed at angry house mates. He continued to the library to entertain himself and found old annuals full of photos from past years. His mother and father's face were plastered happily inside the cover of one, waving fiercely. Harry smiled. He was world known for being the living son of these two people.

After spending a few house lingering around the great stone hallways, Harry made his way to Dumbledore's office. He had not seen another living soul all day except knowing that Professor Lupin was asleep still. Snape had not accompanied Remus after all, and Harry didn't particularly care. Even if the old bat was looming around, he'd likely never see him. The man hardly ever came out of the dungeons if he could avoid it.

"Sugar Quill!"

Harry made his way up to the office and found the Headmaster hard at work, rather, playing with one of the trinkets on his desk.

"Professor Dumbledore?"

The old man turned looked up and smiled warmly at Harry.

"I'm glad you decided to visit Harry. This place is so ghostly with so few people around during the summer."

"Can't even imagine, Professor. Do all of the teachers leave for summer holiday?"

"Many of them simply go home or some lovely tropical island where muggles have not yet mapped. But they will return in a week or two to begin preparing for term…ah yes they will. Severus and Remus have made this summer holiday much more 'warming' if possible. It has not been quite so dark and damp with the two here."

"I thought Professor Snape was supposed to come with Lupin to get me from the Dursleys?"

"Yes, he was. However I felt it was safe enough for Remus to accompany you by himself. Professor Snape has been working on something important to me for the past few weeks, so I left him to his work."

"I understand. I don't think I mind Professor Snape not coming, in fact I don't think I would mind if he and I never crossed paths anywhere but in his classroom with the other Gryffindors." The old man chuckled at this, a lot of the students wouldn't hesitate to agree with Harry.

"Do try to understand my boy, Severus is still a human. A reclusive one, but life has put him through more than few others have seen. Take it from me that he can be quite the humorous gentleman, you must simply know him in the strange manner in which I do."

Harry silently agreed with an odd look on his face. He admired Dumbledore greatly but knew he was a few beans short of a box. He turned on his heel to leave on this strange note, before the professor inquired him.

"Harry, I was wondering if you could take a look at something for me, I would like to get your opinion."

Dumbledore picked up a worn, leather-bound journal from his desk. He opened it to a particular page and showed it to Harry.

"I understand that Hagrid gave you a box of letters and photos from your parents a few years ago. Can you determine if this handwriting…if this might be your mother's? It has been far too long for me to remember myself.

Harry took the book from his hand and studied it intensely.

"I wish I had thought about this before we left Hogwarts, people change so much over time, If I had only known how people sometimes can't be trusted…how they leave their darkest intentions for us to see when no one else is around. I cannot say anything for myself either…if he only knew the intentions I had just a few months ago…"

It was one of Lily's journals. Harry recognized the handwriting distinctly and nodded while handing the small book back to Dumbledore.

The professor shut the journal promptly and mumbled to himself curiously.

"I see. I had wondered. Remus and Severus both told me the same thing as well. Curious to find such things buried around Hogwarts. Wouldn't you say? Hmmm… oh! I suppose this confirms a few things for me. I must ask you with most seriousness Harry, to return to me tomorrow at the same time. We shall need to have a discussion then about discoveries that Remus and I have made since the summer began. It'll be of utmost importance to you."

He smiled at Harry and waved him out of the door. The young man was now racing with thought about what their conversation would be like tomorrow. He absent mindedly skipped down the stairs with his eyes facing the ground until he walked into a tall, dark, wall of some sort… well rather…. a menacing Professor Snape. He fell backwards and began mumbling an apology.

"I wouldn't be so ignorant Potter, before you fall into the wrong person."

Snape snubbed the boy and walked into the office Harry had just stepped out of.

"I shouldn't expect much out of that git, like he would help anyone off the floor."

Harry got up and went down to the kitchens to get some food. The next few weeks were going to be exponentially strange; he knew that without a doubt.

The next morning Harry attempted to cure his anxious waiting with a game of chess, Lupin was the one person at Hogwarts he was completely unable to defeat at the game.

"Knight to E-5. You know Harry, it seems like yesterday your mum rang me to tell me that you were a chubby brand new baby. Now you're almost a man, it makes me feel like I have aged a whole century since then."

Harry smiled at his friend.

"I feel like that to, Professor Lupin. It's been really…hard for me to accept sometimes. I feel like every time life gets a little better, it takes this horrible downward spiral again. It sucks, I don't know what else I can do. Voldemort's prophecy is just looming over my head and there isn't anything I can do about it right now."

"I wish there was something I could directly do to help you, Harry. I cannot even being to imagine what you have been through. I always thought I had it rough growing up, but it seems someone else always has it worse. You can never forget that you have friends though. You have a family even if they aren't blood. I can promise you this Harry, I will always be here to help you. You can always come to me for anything.

Harry smiled and laughed while he noticeably lost the game of chess again.

"You want to tell me about any of these secrets that might attribute to making this year harder or easier?"

"We'll talk about that with Dumbledore in a little while. Don't worry, I'll be right there with you. Honestly, I don't know what we're going to do exactly. Dumbledore hasn't even told me everything, but it's important to him Harry, so it should be important to you to cooperate."

Lupin flicked one Harry's chess pieces over and laughed. They shook over a good game and started off to walk to the other side of the castle where the headmaster's office was located. Half an hour and conversation later, they muttered the password to the entrance and stumbled in to find Professor Snape in the corner scowling and Professor Dumbledore with an unusual twinkle in his eye.

"Harry! I'm so glad you decided to come up to help me out."

"What exactly am I doing for you, professor?" Lupin looked confused as well, and took a seat in a chair across from Dumbledore's desk. The headmaster picked up an oddly shaped bottle full of a watery, teal potion off of his desk and examined it.

"Harry, in times like these I know one of my wild experiments may seem like the least of importance to you, but, could you humor me if only for this once? I have suspected recently that in discovering your mother's journals, that she and the marauders might have secrets hidden from us. They might be of use to uncover… but I could be wrong about all of it and it will have no meaning. Let's just give it a try, shall we?"

He carried the same soft smile, implying to Harry that whatever this was, it couldn't be that dangerous to Dumbledore. There was no reason not to trust the headmaster, was there?

Snape approached him with a small knife and cut one small arc across his palm swiftly. Harry jumped and yelped in slight pain, struggling while the Professor held his arm completely still with force. He allowed the blood to drip from the knife into an empty glass. He then took the teal potion and poured half of it into the empty bottle with Harry's precious lifeblood in it.

"Albus, I don't know where you get the manic idea for this, but if it doesn't work, I'm going to rebuke you heavily for wasting my time."

Professor Dumbledore had stopped grinning, but was now intensely watching the results of this experiment unfold. The teal liquid began to bubble. Snape set down the bottle and took the clean side of the knife to his own palm, adding a few drops of his blood to the bubbling concoction.

"Err. Professor…What…the bloody hell…"

The potion bubbled and swirled itself into a clear water somehow, sparkling in the sunlight coming through the window in the back of the office.

"Hmmm. I'm not sure if I expected this or not. I think we should confirm whatever this is telling us. Try the potion Harry, I know for sure that it won't harm you."

Everyone in the room was exceptionally confused at this point. Snape mending the small cut in his hand with an irritated look, Remus Lupin was curiously wondering what strange agenda Dumbledore could be working towards…and Harry was hesitant to listen to anything that the seemingly crazy headmaster was telling him to do.

"You sure it won't cause any long-term side effects?"

Lupin nudged Harry, as to simply follow the order. These were Dumbledore's orders, after all, what harm could really come of it?

Harry reluctantly took the glass and emptied it of its contents. He cringed afterwards and wiped his lips. The two professors and Lupin watched him intently.

"I don't understand what that was supposed….."

Harry was cut off by an intense pain in his stomach.

"I'm not so sure you haven't made a mistake, Headmaster."

"He's been under blood magic Severus, it's going to un-wind itself from the inside out."

Lupin looked extremely worried now

"I thought you said it wouldn't harm him!? Headmaster, I…!"

Harry remembered simply feeling as though his intestines were twisting in several directions and pulling from all ways. He squeezed his eyes shut, and before he knew it. All was black, and peaceful.