"Harry..."

Harry lifted his head and blinked. He must be dreaming. Severus Snape was there, in front of him, staring at him with a worried expression. It could only be a dream.

"Harry, are you all right?"

It wasn't a dream! Harry got up and staggered towards Snape, letting himself fall into his arms. "Severus... You're really here."

"Of course I am. Everybody has been looking for you since yesterday. A whole day has passed since you disappeared. We didn't know if you were here or not. The Room hasn't been letting anyone enter. Nonetheless, as you might see, it has let me..."

"Does that mean you were the only one that really needed me? Or maybe it was because you were the only person I wanted to see. " Harry embraced him fiercely. "Severus, please. Don't leave me alone anymore!"

"Harry, you must tell me what you want. I mean, besides my blood... my arse... and my loyalty... " he added, sardonically. "I don't know if I can give you what you want."

"I want your hate," said Harry, staring up at him with passionate eyes. "I know that I can count upon it. It's one of the few things I can count upon. Your hate gives meaning to my life."

A bitter smile flashed across the professor's face. "My hate. You want my hate. I think that... I can give you that!"

"But I don't want you to hate me because I'm James Potter's son. I'm not like my father. At least not like that jerk I saw in the Pensieve."

Snape made a hideous grimace. Then he sighed and relaxed a little, and gently brushed his lips over Harry's. "I don't hate you for being like James Potter anymore. Now I hate you for not being like James Potter. I hate you because you have misled me all this time, making me think you were like him. Now I hate you for being Harry Potter."

"Right, but it cannot be because I have this scar, because I defeated Voldemort when I was a baby and because that bloody prophecy says that I'm the only wizard that can defeat him for good. Because all these things have nothing to do with me. I wasn't responsible for any of that, I haven't chosen any of that."

Snape rubbed his finger slowly over Harry's scar, then stroked the boy's face with his knuckles. "I don't hate you for any of those factors anymore. Now I hate you because... because you don't let me breathe anymore, because you burn me. Because you will be my ruin. Oh, how I hate you, Harry Potter!"

The green eyes flared in red rays in the shadows as Harry said, "To the gates of death and beyond."

Snape paled. "Harry... We have a little problem here. I didn't lie to you. I am not a vampire. You haven't been transformed."

"Stop it! You know that it's not true! I can feel my blood boiling, and this is not a metaphor, nor my imagination!"

"Where are your fangs then? If you had been transformed, you would have fangs."

"It's not possible! It can't be an hallucination!"

"The pressure over you has been overwhelming, and you don't have anybody you can lean on, anybody to give you effective support. I'm afraid that Dumbledore has made some terrible mistakes regarding you. Harry, you are under great stress."

Harry got hold of Snape and stared at him with widened eyes, finally realising that the other wizard was telling the truth. "Then you... it was you who used me! You let me believe that you were a..."

Snape interrupted him, the vein at his temples throbbing. "Don't give me that! You put this idea into your head and the more I denied it, the more convinced you became of your outlandish theory."

"It was very clever of you! You kept on denying it, but in such a lame way that I had to think that your denial meant that that was the truth."

"Let's get out of here. You need to eat something and rest. Then you can think about everything and afterwards, if you want to discuss, or to argue with me, come to my quarters."