Snape took it, but instead of concealing it in his robes, he turned it over twice in his hands, and asked, "May I?"
Harry gulped. "Read it, you mean?"
A dark, sardonic glance said without words that the question had been inane.
"Why do you want to?" Harry asked. "Don't you trust me?"
"Do you have several hours, Mr Potter? I believe it would take at least that amount of time to even begin to define the parameters of my trust as it applies to you."
"You could just say no," Harry pointed out. "Since you obviously don't."
Snape flicked a bit of ash from the shoulders of his robe. "I trust your intentions, I should say. It's to your own advantage to be discreet about your situation. However, I have concerns about the execution of that discretion. And frankly, Mr Potter, I place a far higher value on your life than on your privacy."
"Fine, read it," Harry gave in. He had a sneaking suspicion that if he refused, Snape would read it anyway, most likely in front of him. Harry could do without having his pride trampled quite that much. "But no taking points," he added.
Snape raised an eyebrow as he slit the envelope open with a quick charm from his wand.
Harry tensed, and held his breath, remembering how he'd written that he'd hated Potions since the very first day. Well, at least he hadn't used the words greasy git or worse, that slimebag hell spit out.
"Well worded," Snape decided as he crisply folded the letter back in fourths. "You will need to prepare a new envelope. A repair would be invisible, but still detectable if one had suitable spells at one's disposal."
Definitely paranoid, Harry thought, but he found he didn't really mind. He was too relieved that Snape wasn't going to say anything about the contents of the letter.
In that, however, Harry was wrong. As he handed a freshly addressed envelope to Snape, the Potions Master remarked, "I did not realise you understood Reconstitutio, Harry. Did Miss Granger discover the spell during one of her frequent forays into the Restricted Section?"
Harry covered his surprise well, he thought. "Restricted Section? What's that?" he brazenly lied, though of course every student had heard of it within a week of the Welcoming Feast. "And why do you want something on Hermione, Professor?"
"Why do you think?" Snape replied, moving toward the sofa. "She's a Gryffindor. She sent you these, by the way," he added, fishing in his robes for an enormous, tightly curled roll of parchment. "Class notes since the 22nd. The girl needs to learn not to write down every word of every lecture. Notes are supposed to be just that, not bloody transcriptions."
Harry chuckled slightly, not just at Snape's dead-on depiction of Hermione's idea of diligence, but also at the next-to-last word. It didn't seem like the Potions Master of Hogwarts to speak so unreservedly, but then again, Harry was realizing that there was more to Snape than he'd ever suspected. A lot more.
Then another thought occurred to him. "Um, how'd she know that you could pass these on to me? She hasn't got my own letter yet!" And then, on the heels of that thought. "Oh. She figured it out. Well, that's Hermione for you."
"Disgusting amount of intellect for someone her age," Snape scathed, though Harry could tell his heart wasn't really in it. Truth to tell, Snape looked a bit as though he'd found cause to admire Hermione. Reluctantly, though. Very, very reluctantly. Snape was frowning as he sat down and crossed one leg over the other, his long, slender hands taking a moment to arrange his robes.
"I probably revealed too much when I followed you into your . . . well, I honestly don't know what it was, Mr Potter. Arabian boudoir, perhaps? At any rate, Miss Granger knew then that I was involved in whatever difficulties you were facing. Irritating girl. I was tempted to hex her when she handed me those, not the least because you don't need schoolwork cluttering up your attention, just now."
"Right, Remus and I covered that earlier," Harry agreed, tossing the notes aside as he sat down on the other end of the sofa, sitting sideways so he could see Snape. "We covered a lot of things, actually," Harry added darkly. "Like the fact that he knows about my uncle not being the nicest person ever to grace the earth. Like the fact that famous Harry Potter was terrified to go under the knife! Whatever happened to decorum, eh? To discretion?"
Snape flicked his wand at a lamp to turn it on, then laced his fingers together before he replied. "Did I ask you to apologise for discussing my personal business with your godfather? No, I did not. Nor will I, ever. You had a purpose for speaking with him, a valid purpose. And so too did I with Lupin. I quite assure you, I never once referred to you as 'famous Harry Potter,' though I did tell him all I deemed necessary."
"Necessary!" Harry exclaimed.
"Lupin's quite intent on a theory that mental, physical, and magical states of being are irretrievably interwoven."
"I noticed! Not only does he think I'm a bloody masochist hell-bent on my own destruction, he also believes my bad attitude explains my lack of magic." Harry moved his hands in an outward arc, and shot a glance at his teacher. "He thinks I'm depressed!"
"It would not be abnormal, in your situation." Snape thought to say.
Harry wasn't about to let him skive off that easily, though it didn't surprise him that Snape hadn't gone for the verbal bait. The man knew how to manoeuvre, no doubt about that. But Harry wanted to know, so he asked: "You don't think I'm depressed, do you? I mean, not just today, but lately? In general?"
Snape tapped his index finger against his cheek, and looked at Harry as he considered that. "You wrote your friends that you were fine. I think you believe this, yourself. But that does not necessarily make it true."
As answers went, that one was about as ambiguous as they came, but Harry let it go. "How were your classes?" he changed the subject. "Dumbledore covered for you, er, pretended to be you while you were with me all last week?"
Snape stared at him a moment more, then drawled, "He taught every level first through sixth to reduce fruit sugars down to lemon drops."
Harry almost laughed --the image was ludicrous-- but instead felt a cold, hard rage gripping him, rushing up from his core to spill out his fingertips. "That fool!" he shouted, fury ripping through him so fiercely it hurt. "What's he playing at? Nobody would believe for an instant that you would let us make candy in class! The whole school's got to know by now that it was Dumbledore on Polyjuice, so that leaves them knowing that I'm gone while you're gone, and two and two makes four, doesn't it, last time I checked! Hermione's not so effing smart after all, is she--"
"Harry, Harry!" Snape was shouting over his outburst. "I was joking, Harry."
Harry stopped yelling and gave his teacher a long stare. "You don't joke."
"Well, I certainly won't in future," Snape retorted. "You seem . . . tense, which isn't going to help with Occlumency. I thought a little humour might help relax you. Instead, you snapped like an old wand. And please, keep a civil tongue in your head. Albus Dumbledore is not a fool."
Harry thought of last year, of secrets kept from him too long, of the price he'd paid simply because the headmaster had ignored him, and kept his lips firmly pressed together.
"Perhaps we should commence what I came here, for," Snape suggested, his voice markedly calmer. "It is late already, and I cannot stay all night. Have you practiced clearing your mind?"
"No, because I don't know how!" Now Harry's hands were drumming against his knees. "What am I supposed to do, just think of nothing? How can anybody who's alive sit around and think of nothing?"