AN: I'm writing this as a companion piece to my one-shot "Nothing at all." It's not necessary to read the other story to understand this one. This will be a multi-chapter fic, although I don't know how long. I'm working with an idea that popped into my head and not something that I've planned out. It starts after fifth year and will at least cover the summer, perhaps sixth year in its entirety if the interest is high enough and I don't get myself into any irredeemable plot holes. This is AU. Additional heads up that chapters will likely be on the shorter side, because I'm primarily a short story writer and even my longer pieces reflect that. Also, I don't own Harry Potter.

Exceeds Expectations

Chapter One

He feels the way he usually does after Aunt Petunia has managed to get him in the head with the frying pan and knocked him out. Although it's not an unfamiliar feeling, he is confused, because he also registers the softness of the mattress beneath him and the plush weight of the duvet on top, and those three sensations definitely don't belong together. The Dursleys usually just leave him on the floor if they take a swipe at him and he has the audacity to lose consciousness.

"Aunt Petunia?" he croaks. When he speaks, his lungs feel like he's been smoking a pack a day since he was in nappies. He coaxes his eyes open a sliver, but that doesn't do him much good since he isn't wearing his glasses.

"If you seriously mistake me for that aunt of yours, then I suppose I should call St. Mungo's and get you a room next to the Longbottoms."

He's discombobulated as hell, but that is definitely not Aunt Petunia's voice. In fact, if he didn't know better, he'd say it was-

"Snape?"

"That's Professor Snape to you, Potter," sneers the man who is, indeed, Severus Snape.

He groans. "I'm dreaming," he mumbles, shutting his eyes again.

"You are not," replies Snape, "to the misfortune of us both."

He feels something being pressed into his hand, and he automatically grasps at the object, although his fingers tremble. A bit of prodding reveals that he holds his glasses, and he struggles to put them on. They're lopsided, but he doesn't have the energy to care.

"Welcome back to the land of the living."

Snape's face comes into view, in all its sallow, crooked-nosed glory, and he wonders if it'd be too obvious to take his glasses off again.

He says the first thing that comes into his mind: "What the hell?"

Snape scowls. Well, he was already scowling, but his scowl deepens perceptibly. "I'll let your cheek slide because you're stuffed to the gills with potions and your lamentable self-control is surely nonexistent in this state," he growls, "but don't think it'll become a habit."

He wants to respond with language even more vulgar, just to needle Snape, but he forces himself to take a deep breath. Just get some information out of him, he tells himself, and then you can even cuss him out if you want. Except that he wouldn't really. He knows, because there have been loads of times he's been mad enough to cuss out Severus Snape, but he's too afraid to actually do so.

"Now," Snape is speaking again, "what is the last thing you remember?" He isn't looking at Harry, just organizing vials of potions on the bedside table. There are an awful lot of potions there. Harry hopes they aren't all for him, but he knows that's probably wishful thinking.

"Uhhh… Well, Dumbledore took me to meet this guy who turned himself into an armchair." A derisive snort comes from Snape, which he ignores. "And then… I was going to stay at the Burrow, wasn't I? Did I make it to the Burrow, or…?"

"You almost made it to the Burrow," Snape informs him.

"Almost? What do you mean almost?"

Snape sighs and looks around the room, as if he's hoping someone will come save him from this painful conversation. Harry figures it's more painful for himself, given that he's the one who doesn't know anything, while Snape is the one who is only giving him half answers.

Finally, after an unnecessarily long pause, Snape says, "The Burrow was attacked."

"What?"

Snape glares, but doesn't comment on the interruption for once. "The Burrow was attacked," he repeats. "It was set on fire, and the house's structural integrity was compromised enough that the wards fell. You tried to help, and then the Death Eaters arrived. Let me know if you need any of those words over three syllables defined for you."

Git.

Insults aside, now that Snape says it, it does feel vaguely familiar in a nauseating, surreal sort of way. He's groping around his memory for any details when the thought strikes him.

"The Weasleys!" he gasps. Horror enables him to bolt upright for a brief moment, and then blinding pain through his abdomen causes him to fall back down. "Ow."

Snape sneers, but promptly hands him a vial of green sludge and says, "Pain reliever. One sip only. The other potions will not have quite worked their way out of your system yet and it wouldn't do to overdose on this."

His hand shakes as he tries to bring the bottle to his lips, and he wonders how mad Snape will be if he spills the potion all over the bed. Then, to his astonishment, long fingers curl around his and help guide it the rest of the way. He's glad he can only have one sip. He doesn't think he could hold his head up for long enough for two.

Snape takes the vial back without comment, and Harry asks, "The Weasleys? Are they all right?"

"For the most part, they sustain only minor injuries," Snape concedes.

"'For the most part'?" Harry echoes incredulously. "Damn it, why can't you ever just-"

"Mrs. Weasley is in St. Mungo's," Snape snaps. "The headmaster told me not to tell you right away. He said it would put your body under undue stress."

Privately, Harry thought that waking up to find Snape in the same room had already done that, but even in his emotional turmoil he knows better than to voice that thought. Instead, he asks the obvious question. "Is she going to be all right?"

Snape gives a terse nod, and he feels a breath he didn't realize he was holding leave his body. "She is stable now. I do not know what sort of lasting damage there may be, but last I heard, they said she was going to live."

There's silence as he considers all this. His head feels fuzzy, and his body feels worse, and there are a whole lot of thoughts bouncing around in his brain right now. But he forces one particular thought into coherence.

"Were they attacked because of me?" he asks in a small voice.

Snape looks down at him, and for a moment, he thinks he sees pity in the dour man's eyes, but it is gone as fast as it came, if it was really there at all. "I do not know," he says.

"You don't know, or you won't tell me?" Harry challenges.

"I do not know."

He opens his mouth to ask about the rest of the family, and about Hermione, whom he thinks he now recalls being told was already at the Burrow, but Snape shoves another potion into his hand. He recognizes this one as Dreamless Sleep.

"The headmaster will be along in a few hours," says Snape. "Get some more rest. He will talk to you then."

Harry considers arguing, but he's pretty sure he'd lose, and besides, he'd rather talk to Dumbledore than Snape. This vial is small, sized down to contain an individual dose, and Harry is able to raise it to his mouth and tip it back with minimal trouble. He feels those fingers brush his again as Snape takes the vial away, and his last thought as he drifts into unconsciousness is, I wonder whose bed this is and where they bought their duvet.