Disclaimer: I own about as much as this as I do Britney Spears CDs - that
is, absolutely nothing. Well, except for the plot. The plot is mine. But
that's more like downloading one song, rather than buying the whole CD. .
.yeah.
Rating: For now, it's a cool PG for some swearing and tiny hints of innuendo, but it will later be jacked up to an R (like everything I write, it seems) for sex, death and money, honey. Not so much money. Money isn't, like, porn. Unless they started printing bills in which all the Prime Ministers/Presidents/What-Have-You were naked and doing naughty things to each other. . .but I really and truly wish they never do. o_O
Unless, of course, Alan Rickman happened to become Prime Minister of Canada. Along with Johnny Depp. And Hugh Jackman. Mmm. Screw the fact that not a one of them is Canadian.
And in conclusion to that, this story is currently rated PG. Huzzah for random topic changes. =D;
Author's Notes: I'm not quite sure where this story came from, but meh, it's here. Please note that, in all likelihood, this will become SS/HP in the later chapters, and could involve (gasp!) sexual situations. Also in later chapters, if blood and torture makes you squeamish, then. . .well, you're screwed, more or less.
P.S.: For any of those who read this who also happen to read my other fic, 'Pandora', I kid you not when I say that I really am still working on it. I promise you. v.v I'm already working on getting the next chapter out. XD;
Alright, so, let's get the show on the road. Enjoy!
///
Finality
///
Male PMS existed, Harry Potter concluded. And it was called Severus Snape.
Irritable, moody, and dark, the man was as ill-tempered as a pissed off badger on a blazing summer's day. The classroom seemed to reflect Snape's consistently dark mood - that is to say, the dungeon that Potions was held in had no windows, so the only light was given off by the torches that burned on the wall. The ambience was oppressing.
The professor of said class was slowly gliding (the man did not simply 'walk') down one row, watching as his students measured and poured in their ingredients as per instructed on the chalkboard. They were creating something called 'Mellaphorous', a draught that was supposed to induce mellow feelings. It was a surprisingly complicated potion, and Harry figured that anybody would need it, even the most hippiest of hippie, after having to go through all the painstaking steps that the students were forced to take.
Harry stared at the concoction below him, which didn't look too bad thus far. It was simmering nicely, having now turned a nigh-transparent silver colour; a smell that wasn't unlike that of chocolate wafted to his nose - Harry realized that his potion was actually turning out well. Extremely well, for that matter.
The embodiment of manly tetchiness was currently examining a Slytherin's potion, and of course, was not sneering in contempt as he did with the Gryffindors. It was so unbelievably unfair, Harry thought as he continued to stew his (Potion's) juices. Just because Grease Lightning was head of the Slytherin household, it didn't mean that he could treat everyone differently!
Harry forced himself to stop thinking. He was sounding dangerously like Hermione, in his own opinion, and Hermione, while still his friend, didn't exactly have a personality that Harry strove to attain. He doubted he could get a stick that far up his ass, no matter how hard he tried.
. . . of course, that did not sound at all dirty. Right. Of course it didn't.
He shook his head; he had to //concentrate// goddamn him. He wasn't about to screw up one of the only potions that, in his entire career at Hogwarts, was about to turn out almost perfectly - this time, he was sure that, when Severe Temper made his way over to Harry's cauldron, all of his professor's smarmy comments would quickly be disarmed by simply looking at what Harry had created.
The Boy Who Lived smirked to himself, watching Snape move to another cauldron to thoroughly berate a brown-haired Gryffindor girl who was attempting to liquify a solid mass of ugly orange. Continuing to watch this, Harry's hands moved his stirring stick, continually swishing about the contents of his Mellaphorous potion. . . today would not be the day he'd be on the receiving end of his Potions professor's insidious words.
Harry stared hard at Snape, who seemed to not notice this. His seventh - and final - year with the rather intimidating man felt as if it were a long time coming. Finally, he'd never have to see the greasy bastard again, he'd never have to hear one of those damn sarcastic insults, and he'd be showing off with his perfect po-
There was a soft bubbling noise coming from Harry's cauldron. He looked down.
In a pure fit of irony, Harry's brew had decided to angrily explode in his face, and consequently, all over him. With an extremely loud bang, silver liquid sprayed all over the boy's features, staining his robes and generally making quite a mess. The entire class stared at him - thankfully, Harry wasn't able to see any of their expressions due to the fact that his glasses were completely covered by the strangely viscous liquid, although he heard laughing. Goddamned Slytherins.
He also heard the distinct swish of heavy robes approaching his area. Wiping off a bit of the sludgy goo from his glasses with the sleeve of his robe, he was faced with what seemed to be a solid wall of black. His eyes trailed upwards, and Harry soon discovered that this black wall was attached to a head (or vice versa), which had equally black hair, and the eyes of this head were staring right back down at him.
Snape elegantly arched an eyebrow.
"Now, Potter. . ." the taller man drawled, his voice smooth and thick with sarcasm, "I am quite certain that Mellaphorous is a potion that stays inside the cauldron when it is being created. Isn't that correct?"
"Yes, sir," Harry muttered, feeling the sudden urge to deck his professor, but knowing that this feeling would soon pass, and it was no use getting into any trouble so early in the year.
"Mm. What could have possibly gone wrong, Potter? Considering your //stellar// abilities in this class - " Draco Malfoy sniggered at this, " - I am positive that you've managed to yet again muddle a relatively simple potion."
Another, albeit slightly more venomous "Yes, sir" issued from Harry's mouth. Relatively simple my ass, Harry thought, glancing over at the front of the classroom, where all three chalkboards were covered in Snape's slanted writing, detailing every instruction to the fullest. Between Harry's vision impairment and the fact that the Slytherins were always attempting to sabotage his cauldron, the bespectacled young man currently covered in sticky liquid thought he had been doing quite an exemplary job of creating the Mellaphorous draught. What could he have done wrong. . .?
"I see. Well, judging by the amount of crushed bat wing you have left in your vial, it seems that you used too little of it to start with, though that would not account for the spontaneous combustion you've managed to conjure here. It also appears that you forgot the rather important sliced snerckwheat. Yet, it would take so much more in order to make a draught intended for calming into something so. . .violent. Any ideas, Potter?"
Harry could feel the tips of his ears burning, rather aware that all eyes in the class were glued to his form. He shifted a little, which created a rather odd squishing sound due to the exploded potion.
"No, sir," Harry said quietly after a few rather tense moments of deliberation. In turn, Snape smirked, looking down his hooked nose at the Gryffindor covered in his own concoction.
"I expected as much from you, Potter. I'm sure your ego takes up far too much space in your head to allow any sort of important information to weasel its way between your ears." The half of the classroom populated by those of the Slytherin house erupted with nasty snickers and giggles, while the Gryffindors stayed cautiously silent, not wanting to lose house points and gain detentions.
Harry had to clench his jaw, feeling the familiar bubble of hot anger rise within him at his professor's cold words. Knowing that if he were to open his mouth to respond, only a slew of derogatory words that would force him to pardon his French would spill forth, rather than something otherwise logical. Harry kept quiet, waiting for Snape's taunting to continue.
"Look at the chalkboard, Potter, or are you blind as well?" The boy covertly shot a glare at the older man, before turning his attention to the boards at the front of the room, wiping off his glasses one more time for good measure.
"Please read to the class instruction number twelve. If you are capable, that is." Another round of laughter from the Slytherins, and Harry was seriously thinking about going to the management on this one. Enough ought to be enough. However, for the time being, Harry simply took a deep breath and read off the chalkboard, making a mental 'check' for everything that he was sure he did.
"Pour diced flabblestaff into the cauldron, allow to simmer untouched for five minutes." Check. "Proceed to stir three times clockwise, and three times counter-clockwise." Check. "Make sure stirring does not exceed six rotations. . ."
Oh. Damn.
"Good, you //can// read, Potter. I feared that you may have been illiterate; of course, that would give you at least a plausible excuse for mangling your potion." Blushing with embarrassment, Harry looked steadfastly at the ground, his fists balled by his side. It was all he could do to prevent himself from physically attempting to assault his Potions professor.
Snape waved his wand and uttered a cleaning spell, which rid both the cauldron and Harry of the gooey mess, and said: "I hope you've learned from this experience, Potter. Though judging by past events, I am afraid it is far too much to ask of you. Ten points from Gryffindor."
Feeling righteously bitter after having watched his potion (and thusly grade) disappear, Harry barely noticed when the bell rang, signaling the end of class. Quietly, the rest of the students bottled their potions, taking the vials up to Professor Snape to be marked later - all, of course, except Harry, who now had no such potion to bottle. Slytherins and Gryffindors alike then collected their belongings, making their way towards the exit of the dungeons. With one of Snape's simply irrepressible smirks, the man sat himself gracefully down at his desk to begin marking a pile of sixth year essays on the correct use of flesh-eating bacteria in paralysis potions.
The boy was left standing in the classroom, holding his text loosely in one hand, pencil case clutched in the other. Harry kept quiet as he looked at Snape, who was hunched over his desk, quill scratching against parchment. For a short few moments, the boy simply stood, working on not vocalizing his rather intense embarrassment-cum-anger.
A second later, Snape craned his neck up slightly, his eyes resting on the only person currently in the dungeon with him.
"Well?" he asked, pausing his writing for a moment, not bothering to wipe a strand of black hair from his face, allowing it to simply hang there. This bit of inaction irked Harry to such a degree that he was sure he felt his eye twitch.
Another moment of silence.
"Nothing," Harry finally said, his fist clenching around the strap of his pencil case just a tad more. With that, the Boy Who Lived turned on his heel, and exited the classroom as fast as he could manage without tripping over his own robes.
~*~
As a wise man once said, "Time is an illusion - lunchtime, doubly so." It seemed to ring true in the case of Harry Potter, who personally thought that this particular lunchtime was much, much shorter than usual. However, glancing down at his watch, it was revealed to Harry that time was ticking away as usual, and it was obvious that he was on the verge of some sort of long-overdo psychotic breakdown.
Well, perhaps not, but be that as it may, Harry figured that his irritated feelings, no doubt carried over from that dreadful Potions class, had something to do with his personal inability to correctly measure time in his head. That, and his head was just //killing// him - and it wasn't the scar hurting, either, so it wasn't even a relatively useful headache, which only served to make the boy feel worse. He munched half-heartedly on a ham sandwich, taking sips of his pumpkin juice every now and then. Ron glanced at him.
"You okay, mate?" the boy asked, swallowing the remnants of his tuna sandwich, picking out a roll of bread from one of the multitude of baskets that were currently residing on the Gryffindor table. Harry sighed, running a hand through his unruly black hair.
"I don't know. Just tired, I guess," he replied half-assedly, poking at an innocent pickle with his fork. He was starting to feel a little too warm in the Great Hall, which was packed with children and teenagers all around him. Goddamn people.
Hermione, ever the observant one, looked at Harry over her own glass of pumpkin juice. She decided to take a stab at why Harry looked like a kid who was just told that Santa wasn't real.
"Don't let Professor Snape get to you, Harry. You know that you're not a failure," she said, attempting to be reassuring. Of course, it didn't help Harry much.
". . . thanks, 'Mione," he said, finally deciding to eat the dill pickle that had been previously rolling around on his plate like some sort of rolling thing.
"Yeah, Harry. Snape's just a bastard, don't listen to him," Ron interjected, nodding as if to emphasize his point. The red-haired boy deliberated on whether or not he truly wanted to have a bit of Caesar salad, but quickly decided against it, since salad was relatively healthy. While Harry nodded in agreement with Ron's comment, Hermione, as always, looked aghast.
"Ron, don't say that! Professor Snape may not be our favourite person in the world, but he's still our teacher," the frizzy-haired girl pointed out, making quick work of a baby carrot.
"Teacher schmeacher, 'Mione, he's a prick. Probably hasn't been laid in a hundred years, either," Ron said, which elicited a laugh from the Gryffindors in the immediate area, which did indeed include one Harry Potter. Hermione did her very best to keep the stern look on her face, however it wavered for a few moments, and a smirk shone through.
"Yes, well. . . his personal life is also none of our business," she stated after clearing her throat and taking an orange from one of the baskets. As she began to peel it, she turned her attention back to Harry. "Just make sure to not let him get you down too much. Remember, if you need any help at all in Potions, you can always just come to me." The bespectacled young man smiled a little bit at his friend.
"I know, thanks, but I think I'll be alright. After all, I've been through worse and survived, right? A surly git hasn't got anything on a Basilisk."
"Well it is Snape we're talking about here - a glare from him and you might as well be Petrified," Ron pointed out, swallowing another mouthful of tuna.
"Ron, if you look a Basilisk in the eye, it kills you, not Petrifies you." At this, Ron blinked twice.
"Wait, then why the hell aren't you dead, 'Mione?"
"I saw it through the mirror. It's when you see it indirectly that you become Petrified."
Ron stared at her, looking a bit clueless.
"You were //there//, Ron!"
"..ohh yeah."
Hermione mumbled something that was, no doubt, insulting to Ron under breath, before eating some more of her salad. Harry, also feeling a little put off by the fact that Ron had seemingly forgotten all their trials involving the Chamber of Secrets, went back to silently picking at his food. After all, something like having to //kill a giant snake// was generally not a thing that one forgot too easily.
"We were talking about Snape before, right?" Ron asked after a couple moments of silence, wiping his mouth with his napkin. Hermione shot a look at him.
"You really are an idiot, Ron Weasley."
"I am not!"
"Yes you are!"
"No I'm not, you're just saying that because I'm not doing so well in Divination!"
"And Herbology."
"Sod those plants, that's what I say!"
"You were supposed to put those plants in sod the other day, but you didn't! That's why you //failed!//"
"Oh yeah? Well. . . you have frizzy hair!"
They both went on like that for a little while, although Harry didn't seem much to care, or mind. Their banter floated off into the background, joining the rest of the sounds that the other students were making, synthesizing all into one tone of superfluous mush.
God, Harry was depressed. And to think, only half the day was over.
~*~
Needless to say, Harry felt absolutely and completely exhausted by the time his last class was over. He had to physically pick himself up out of his classroom chair, lest he fall asleep in it; he had a headache right behind his eyes, and he managed to feel hot and cold at the exact same time. The weather outside certainly did nothing for his present mood, either: cold and drizzly and generally very British, the entire atmosphere just seemed crushing, even within the walls of Hogwarts, where the outside world was currently invisible in the hall that he was in.
A nice cup of hot tea and a nap sounded like heaven to the boy as he only half-listened to what his two best friends were saying. They had finished the day off with Professor Binns, so everyone's brains were feeling rather dulled, ergo the fact that no one seemed to notice that Harry Potter could have passed rather spectacularly for a zombie.
"You'd think a ghost'd be interesting, but no. His personality's as dead as he is," Ron lamented, shifting his textbooks from one arm to the other. "And on top of that, he gives out enough homework to last until the day //I// die. It's a conspiracy to kill his students - either by boredom, or by hand cramps. I swear it."
"Honestly Ron, what would Professor Binns have to gain from killing his own students?" the token female of the group asked in a rather chastising manner. Ron leaned in close to Hermione, as if he were sharing an extremely important secret.
"Because. . .he wants us to //join him!//" he said, unable to help the grin that broke out on his face, "And he'll create an army of the most boring sods in all the world!" Hermione simply rolled her eyes, sighing at the redhead's immaturity.
"That is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard in my entire life, Ron. And I own a television set that has cable." Ron furrowed his eyebrows.
"Television, eh? My dad talks about that stuff all the time, you know. He goes on about the moving pictures and the sound and whatnot. Oh!" he exclaimed, suddenly remembering something. "I've been meaning to ask you for a long time, 'Mione - who's Monty Python, and why does he have a Flying Circus? I thought the title was self-explanatory, but my dad tried to talk to me about it, and. . .well, I had to leave the room so my head wouldn't explode."
At that moment, Nearly Headless Nick happened to float by, providing adequate distraction for Hermione from Ron's question. They all said hello to the friendly apparition, who in turn lifted his hat (and a bit of his head) in acknowledgement.
"Hello, hello! How have you three been faring?" the ghost asked them, smiling indomitably. Hermione and Ron smiled back, and Harry stared out the nearby window, wavering slightly.
"We're doing well, Sir Nick," Ron told him with a grin. Nick's attention, however, wandered over to where Harry looked about ready to pass out.
"Oh dear, what's wrong with Harry?" Nick inquired, tilting his semi- translucent and semi-decapitated head. Harry, having heard his name, turned his head, blinking lazily.
"Huh?" the black haired boy uttered intelligently. "Oh. Hi, Nick," he said after wiping at his eyes, barely stifling a yawn. The poltergeist before him tut-tutted, putting his hands on his hips.
"Mr. Potter, you should take better care of yourself! You look as if you haven't slept in days. When I was still alive, I had trouble with sleep too, you know. A warm glass of milk and a good piece of literature would always lull me to sleep on such nights, I'd suggest you try that," Nick said knowingly.
"Now that he mentions it, you do look like you need some sleep, mate," Ron said after a short moment of scrutiny. Harry nodded, feeling as if a fog had wrapped around his brain.
"I'll keep your advice in mind, Nick. Thanks," Harry said with a bit of a weak smile.
"Good, good. Get yourself to bed, then - looks to me as if you'll sleep like the dead," Nick commented with wink. Hermione and Ron chuckled lightly at the spirit's joke, however Harry simply yawned.
"We'll get him back to the common room, not to worry," Hermione said, linking her arm with Harry's, nudging him a little to get the boy moving. "See you later, Nick!" The ghost called out his own goodbye to the three students, and floated merrily on his way in the opposite direction from where Ron, Hermione, and Harry were heading.
In truth, Harry couldn't quite explain why he suddenly felt so tired. True, he'd been getting less sleep than usual for the past week or so, but that wasn't a terrible rare occurrence. He had survived on much less sleep in his relatively short lifetime, and had been able to function without having his friends practically drag him back to his dormitory.
It could always be hormones, Harry reasoned, his mind feeling even more foggy now. Or he could be developing a cold, which really wouldn't be fun. A runny nose was no laughing matter. Well, unless you went for that sort of joking, and frankly, Harry didn't. Dudley had enjoyed such toilet humour, which was enough alone to make Harry unappreciative of farts or snot for their comedic value. Same with reality TV - not that he ever really got to //watch// any TV at the house he lived in on Privet Drive, but when your options were either Big Brother 5,742 or Fame Academy. . .well, TV suddenly wasn't something one was interested in watching.
Before his tired and murky-feeling brain knew it, the three of them had arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady. Harry couldn't help but wonder why this Fat Lady had no other name but Fat Lady. Wasn't that offensive? Harry'd sure be pissed off if he was known as something like The Skinny Guy With Glasses. Surely being known for all eternity as the Fat Lady had to chip away at that poor woman's self-esteem, too.
Hermione was about to say the password, when Harry piped up.
"What's your name?" he asked the Fat Lady in the portrait. She certainly looked taken aback.
"Excuse me?"
"What's your name? You can't just be known as the Fat Lady, can you? I mean, your mother must've been really sick if that's what she named you. . . .not that I'm insulting your mother," Harry blathered, paying remarkable rapt attention to the Fat Lady's face as he talked. She looked rather flummoxed.
"I. . .w-well. . .it's Catherine. . ." she managed to say, her eyes wide with confusion, "But why do you ask?" Harry shrugged.
"Curiosity, I suppose. I mean, everyone has to have a name, and since we see each other so often, what with you being the gateway to the Gryffindor tower, I thought we'd be on a first-name basis." Harry blinked. "Is that wall moving?"
Hermione and Ron looked in the direction that Harry was staring. The wall, it seemed, was not moving at all. Hermione smiled apologetically at the portrait of Catherine the Fat Lady.
"Don't mind him. He's, ah, just a little sleep deprived," she explained. Catherine smiled back, albeit not apologetically in the least.
"Don't worry about that. No one's ever asked me my name before, you see, and it was rather nice.it's been so long since anyone's called me by my first name. . ." She, too, stared off in the distance, lost within a memory.
Of course, the three students still had to get into their dormitories, and thus felt a little guilty for having to shake the painted woman out of her reverie, albeit not physically, because that would obviously ruin the painting.
"Um, Catherine? We still have to get into our rooms, y'know," Ron pointed out, smiling now much in the same fashion that Hermione was but moments before.
"I think the wall's taunting me," Harry muttered, staring intently at the stone mammoth of a wall on the other side of the room. He narrowed his eyes. "Smarmy wall."
Hermione and Ron both looked at Harry.
"Uh, Harry, the wall's not doing //anything//," Ron said to him, attempting to break his friend's gaze from said stone barrier. Hermione placed her hand on Harry's forehead, frowned, and sighed.
"He has a fever," she stated, before turning once again to look at Catherine. "Citrus Lady," Hermione pronounced clearly, and the Fat Lady swung open to admit the three of them.
"I wish it were Christmas," Harry mumbled under his breath, stumbling only slightly as they made their way through the portrait hole, "because at least we'd all have presents instead of just suffering in the cold, all. . .without presents. Why is it so cold in here?"
"It's not cold, Harry," Hermione explained to the boy patiently, taking on a nigh-maternal tone. "You're just sick, is all."
"Oh," was all the Boy Who Lived said to this, yawning again, beginning to feel oddly sweaty in his heavy robes, yet rather cold at the same time. He shivered a little bit. A few moments later, they thankfully arrived in the Gryffindor common room; Hermione placed Harry in the overstuffed chair nearest the fire.
"Appreto compress!" exclaimed Hermione, waving her wand above her overturned palm; instantly, a smallish bowl filled with cold water and a cloth appeared from thin air in the girl's hand. Pocketing her wand, she gave the bowl to Ron.
"Here. Take Harry upstairs, and put this on his forehead. I'm sure he'll sleep the fever right off," she affirmed to Ron, who in turn nodded.
"Right, mum." Hermione glowered a little at her redheaded friend, who simply smirked in return. "Okay, //Hermione//, I'll take him up."
"Good, then. Try not to get him killed somehow up the stairs, //Ronald//," she said sarcastically, smirking in return. Ron rolled his eyes.
"Oh come off it, I'm not //that// irresponsible. And besides you seriously did sound like my mother just then."
"Ron?" Harry asked quietly from the couch. The freckled boy looked down at him, blinking somewhat owlishly.
"Yeah, Harry?"
"Hermione's your mum? Why didn't you tell me?" Harry said, sounding genuinely confused, though at the same time attempting to make his tone threatening through his rather slurred and sluggish speech. Ron's eyebrows shot up to nearly his hairline, and Hermione began laughing.
"Get well soon, Harry," Hermione said through a few stray giggles, making her way up the stairs to the girl's dormitories, leaving Ron and Harry alone in the common room. Laughing a bit himself, Ron shook his head.
"Alright, Harry, to bed with you," Ron sighed, leaning down to sling Harry's arm around his neck. He successfully managed to get Harry to his feet, although they both wavered a little as they walked, considering Harry was putting most of his weight against Ron's shoulder.
"How come. . .you dint tell me 'Mione wus your mum?" Harry asked, his speech a little halted. His green eyes blinked slowly, the fever flushing his face pink. Ron laughed again.
"Hermione's not my mum, Harry. We were just kidding around."
"Ohh."
Without a terrible amount of difficulty, Ron was able to heave Harry into his four-poster. Immediately, Harry shed his robes and crawled under his covers, drawing them up to his chin. He sighed a little as Ron put the compress on his forehead, and plucked his glasses off his face.
"You'll crush them if you leave them on when you sleep, you know," Ron told his friend. Harry, frankly, didn't care, because he was back in his nice, fluffy bed, his head now resting on his nice, fluffy pillow. Ron said something else, but Harry couldn't quite make it out from his place between asleep and awake.
"Mm. . .hm. . ." Harry mumbled softly, before everything around him disappeared, and he fell into the arms of sleep.
~*~
The boy awoke with a start, his green eyes shooting open. Taking in a deep breath, he sat up quickly - however, being that this boy was in a fevered state, moving his body at such a fast pace seemed to make the world spin around him. It reminded him of being in the Ministry of Magic's Department of Mysteries.
Maybe that thought contributed to the knotted feeling in his stomach, which, consequently, seemed to be pushing something. . . //up//. Harry Potter knew this feeling quite well. He was about to throw up.
He stumbled out of his bed, nearly getting tangled up in the curtains that surrounded it. From this, he managed to knock over the bowl of cold water onto his feet - the compress, which had been sticking to his forehead up to this juncture in time, landed squarely on the ground with an odd, plopping noise. Harry took the time to swear under his breath.
His legs felt like somebody had come along with a crowbar and pried all the bones out of them while he slept; which, he thought sadly, would not be too strange an occurrence if it happened to him. In order to steady himself, Harry kept against the far wall, leaning against the cool stone as he walked. A few times on his short journey to the bathrooms, Harry had to clamp a hand over his mouth so that he wouldn't spill the contents of his stomach all over the ground of the boy's dormitories - while a cleaning spell may have been able to get rid of such a mess easily, it still wouldn't do to possibly have someone watch you vomit all over the floor. How. . .embarrassing.
After another few minutes of shuffling against the wall, and another few attempts of his body to expel the bile rising in his throat, Harry finally made it to the bathrooms. He rushed as fast as he could to one of the stalls, knelt before the porcelain god, and proceeded to spew.
The retching sounds Harry was making echoed through the empty bathroom. The boy shuddered a little, coughing and spitting into the toilet, his stomach still twitching a bit under his thin t-shirt. He took a shaky breath, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and flushed the toilet, leaning his head against the side of the stall.
He still felt incredibly warm, and no matter how tired he was, he knew he wasn't going to get much sleep in the state that he was in. Maybe Madame Pomfrey could help him. . .? Well, at the current hour, Harry thought it was doubtful, but at least it was worth something of a shot.
Learning from his previous experience, Harry rose to his feet slowly and carefully, placing his weight on the side of the toilet stall. He realized, suddenly, that he had forgotten to put his glasses back on in his rush to get to the bathroom, and it explained why everything looks so blurry and out-of-focus to the boy.
No matter. He knew his way around the school well enough to get by on hardly stellar vision. Slowly, he shuffled over to the sinks, gargling his mouth with the water from the taps, doing his darndest to get the awful stench and taste of vomit out of his mouth. Geeze, how did bulimics //do// this so frequently. . .? Harry pondered this for a few moments, standing a little dumbly before the sinks once he was finished. He could feel his entire body trembling minutely; hugging himself, he made the effort to turn around, and exit the bathrooms to go find the school's resident nurse.
~*~
As it turned out, Harry Potter only knew his way around the school well enough to get by on hardly stellar vision when we wasn't ill or dizzy. Much to his chagrin, the boy found this out the hard way as he walked down a corridor he thought he would recognize, but alas, had not the moment he began to walk through it. For some reason or another, this window looked too large, or that archway hadn't enough arch, or what the hell was //that// they had carved on that door?
Making things worse was the fact that Harry just couldn't stop himself from shivering. His movements felt disjointed and oddly out of sync with one another; sometimes he'd catch himself leaning a little too far over or back, and as such, he'd almost collapse in a heap on the cold stone floor. Harry, a credit to the boy's nature, prevented this self-humiliation by once again using the wall as a guide.
Harry made his way along as best he could. One of the most hindering aspects of this hallway, however, was the fact that it kept tilting to the right every time Harry had managed to regain (or re-lose) his balance. Now, it could also have just been Harry's lack of bearings, but Harry preferred to think of it as the room's fault. As such, the boy found his arms to be flailing about more often than not, searching for something to keep him stable if he ventured too far from the wall.
He found something after a few minutes. To him, whatever it was happened to be tall, solid black, and it had luckily stepped in front of him just as he was about to fall. Harry teetered dangerously forward, then slightly back, then forward again before gravity picked up the slack, and as physics would dictate, the entity that was Harry Potter leaned a little too far forward, causing him to effectively lose his balance.
Thank goodness the tall, black thing was in front of him, or else Harry would have painfully kissed the hard ground, rather than have fallen gently against the firm, oddly warm mass of dark solid.
Being tired as he was, Harry found the pile of black to be quite comfortable; rather than retain his balance as quickly as one only could when sick, Harry chose to simply close his tired eyes, and sigh. He could hear a faint, steady beating sound underneath what could only have been cloth, and it was gently lulling him to sleep. So comfortable and warm. . .
The black fabric spoke, causing Harry to feel something of a rumble course through the blackness on which his head lay.
"Potter, what in the //hell// do you think you are doing?"
The voice, obviously belonging to the individual comprised entirely of black clothing, shocked the fog right out of Harry's brain, like a sudden bolt of lightning. His eyes snapped open, and cold panic settled like lead in the pit of stomach. He very much did not want to draw his face back to look up at the man - not so much now because what was obviously the person's chest was comfortable, but because of Harry's pure fit of astonishment and embarrassment.
Well, he looked up anyway.
"Puh. . .Sna. . ." was about all Harry managed to stutter out, craning his neck to look certain doom in the eye, and also stepping back at the same time. This proved to be a rather unwise choice, as Harry still had not managed to grasp any sense of equilibrium.
In other words, he fell flat on his back, arms akimbo. A dull //thud// resounded throughout the corridor as Harry's body impacted against the stone floor.
Snape blinked, his face betraying a rare vision, that being the foreign emotion of surprise. It was quickly replaced, however, by an expression that frequented Snape's features more often than not - a cold sneer, accompanied by restrained irritation.
"Whatever sort of prank you are pulling, boy, I'll have you know that it is not working, nor is it amusing," he said coolly, crossing his arms over his chest. Harry muttered something from his current residence of the floor, but it was far too muffled to be understood.
"Well, Potter? What sort of excuse will your ridiculous, Gryffindor brain attempt to manufacture, hm?"
Harry rubbed his eyes, blinking a few times. He looked up, Snape looked down, and Harry knew he was in deep, deep trouble if he didn't say something coherent, and fast.
"I'm lost," he answered truthfully. Snape continued to stare at him; his eyes flickered for a moment, but from what, Harry was unsure of. In fact, he couldn't even be positive that his dark eyes //did// flicker, seeing as they currently looked like blurry, black jelly beans to him at the moment.
"You're lost," Snape repeated. Harry nodded his head. "Potter, how can it be that you are lost in the school that has been your home for nearly seven years? Better yet, how can you be lost in a hallway that you've traveled down nearly //every day// for said seven years?"
'Traveled down nearly every day?' Harry thought, confusion quickly setting in. No, that couldn't be possible, he didn't recognize anything in this corridor. . .well, maybe except for those doors, which sort of looked like the ones that led to the dungeons.
". . .oh." The Potions master smirked.
"'Oh' is quite correct, Mr. Potter."
"It was 'cause I don't. . .have my glasses," Harry said weakly, scrubbing at his eyes once more and blinking, still feeling a little perplexed by the whole situation. God, why was it so damn //cold?//
"I'm sure that excuse would make sense if I were drunk. Now, up." Harry sighed shakily as he propped himself up on his arms, able to feel himself tremble. Leaning forward, he managed to get up onto his knees without too much of a fuss, but completing the task of standing up seemed to be a feat that was slightly more elusive.
Snape said something under his breath that Harry couldn't quite make out. Patience in dealing with children was not the older man's forte. Briefly, he wondered why the hell he was a teacher, remembered the answer, and concluded his train of thought by scowling at Harry.
"Would you mind hurrying things along? It //is// rather late, and I can only chastise you so much before the novelty wears out for one night," Snape bit off, watching as Harry continued to struggle to get up. A few moments passed before he sighed, albeit less irritably as he could have.
"Oh, fine," he mumbled, crouching down to Harry's level. Placing his arms under Harry's, Snape lifted the boy to his feet; however, considering Harry's general sense of luck that night, it was thought to be rather fitting that Snape's apparent helpfulness was too quick in its execution. As such, the boy found that his legs still weren't working quite right, and he couldn't help it when he collapsed once again against the chest of his Potions professor.
Snape, at this point, started to figure that something truly //was// wrong at this point. Potter certainly wasn't the type to go around and make pranks - rather, that was the niche of those Weasley twins, gone but not forgotten from Hogwarts - and there didn't seem to be anyone else around to impress, or generally entertain. He was also fairly certain that Harry didn't act so.to put it lightly, deranged, when all by his lonesome.
The younger man looked up at Snape rather pathetically. Severus made a small checklist in his mind - flushed skin, what looked to be a thin sheen of sweat, slightly glazed, unfocused eyes (although Harry always looked more or less glazed and unfocused in Potions class anyway, it seemed), and obvious difficulty concerning motor skills. It was either sickness or drugs. Drugs didn't seem too likely, but kids these days. . .
Snape put his cool palm against Harry's forehead; the boy's skin positively radiated with heat, and certainly felt clammy. Yes, that certainly explained things.
"For God's sake, Potter, it's only a fever," he sighed, moving Harry so that the boy's one arm was swung around his neck. Now standing beside each other, Snape helped walk Harry down the corridor, albeit slowly. This, in and of itself, served to only further confuse the sick young man.
"Why are you helping me?" Harry quietly asked his professor, half walking, half stumbling down the hallway, feeling at once relieved and mortified by the fact that Snape had found him. Snape sighed.
"Because it wouldn't do to have a student such as yourself crawling the floors at night. Someone could have ended up tripping over you and causing a real mess," he replied. Harry, expecting a response such as this, stayed silent, having nothing much to say.
They continued down the hall in such a manner, until Harry realized that they were beginning to descend the stairs to the dungeons. Now, while Harry was certainly not on his best form, he knew that the school infirmary was //upstairs//, and generally not located in Snape's classroom. Snape noticed Harry's look of (increased) confusion.
"No use disturbing Madame Pomfrey at this hour. I've a draught I can give you that should clear up your fever," Severus said, leading Harry down the stone steps. The green eyed boy blinked.
Snape was. . .being nice? To //him//? Well, at least relatively so. There was no possible explanation for this, save perhaps Hell freezing over. And it just might have. Maybe Satan liked ice hockey.
"I shall have you know, Potter, that I will be deducting five points from Gryffindor for your disregard of curfew, and an additional five points for bothering me so late at night."
Ah. So Satan didn't like ice hockey after all.
It didn't take long for Snape to find the draught he was looking for once they arrived in his classroom, despite the fact that it involved some serious rummaging through the various shelves. Snape took down a small, purple vial, which fit quite neatly into his hand; he looked at the Boy Who Lived over his shoulder, who was currently leaning against one of the student desks for support. The head of Slytherin "wingardium leviosa"-d the bottle to Harry, who easily caught the potion that lazily floated to him. Snape, seeing that Harry had managed to receive the draught without too much of a hassle, turned his back to the boy, casting a spell to re- arrange the various potions and concoctions on the shelves to accommodate for the draught he took down.
"It's rather potent," Snape began to explain, "so take it once you've arrived back at - "
However, dear Harry was only concerned with getting rid of that horrible, sick feeling. Halfway through what Snape was saying, he had quickly uncorked it and downed the contents. It was grape flavoured, which Harry found to be actually quite amusing.
Of course, the stuff also happened to have the profound effect like that of a boxer punching an old lady. Within seconds, Harry's eyelids suddenly felt like a metric ton apiece, and he could swear that somebody had just stuffed his head full of cotton, as if he were some sort of plush toy. He fell back against the desk, and consequentially, off of it, taking a cauldron with him; Harry fell to the floor in a very deep sleep, and it didn't look as if he were going to wake anytime soon.
Snape swore, but thankfully, Harry couldn't hear him.
///
And so, that was the first chapter of, ah, this. I hope you like it so far - please review, because reviews are like oxygen, reviews are a many splendored thing, reviews lift us up where we belong, all we need are reviews! =D
. . .mmm, Ewan McGregor.
Yes. Tell me what you think. ^_^
~Chibikat
Rating: For now, it's a cool PG for some swearing and tiny hints of innuendo, but it will later be jacked up to an R (like everything I write, it seems) for sex, death and money, honey. Not so much money. Money isn't, like, porn. Unless they started printing bills in which all the Prime Ministers/Presidents/What-Have-You were naked and doing naughty things to each other. . .but I really and truly wish they never do. o_O
Unless, of course, Alan Rickman happened to become Prime Minister of Canada. Along with Johnny Depp. And Hugh Jackman. Mmm. Screw the fact that not a one of them is Canadian.
And in conclusion to that, this story is currently rated PG. Huzzah for random topic changes. =D;
Author's Notes: I'm not quite sure where this story came from, but meh, it's here. Please note that, in all likelihood, this will become SS/HP in the later chapters, and could involve (gasp!) sexual situations. Also in later chapters, if blood and torture makes you squeamish, then. . .well, you're screwed, more or less.
P.S.: For any of those who read this who also happen to read my other fic, 'Pandora', I kid you not when I say that I really am still working on it. I promise you. v.v I'm already working on getting the next chapter out. XD;
Alright, so, let's get the show on the road. Enjoy!
///
Finality
///
Male PMS existed, Harry Potter concluded. And it was called Severus Snape.
Irritable, moody, and dark, the man was as ill-tempered as a pissed off badger on a blazing summer's day. The classroom seemed to reflect Snape's consistently dark mood - that is to say, the dungeon that Potions was held in had no windows, so the only light was given off by the torches that burned on the wall. The ambience was oppressing.
The professor of said class was slowly gliding (the man did not simply 'walk') down one row, watching as his students measured and poured in their ingredients as per instructed on the chalkboard. They were creating something called 'Mellaphorous', a draught that was supposed to induce mellow feelings. It was a surprisingly complicated potion, and Harry figured that anybody would need it, even the most hippiest of hippie, after having to go through all the painstaking steps that the students were forced to take.
Harry stared at the concoction below him, which didn't look too bad thus far. It was simmering nicely, having now turned a nigh-transparent silver colour; a smell that wasn't unlike that of chocolate wafted to his nose - Harry realized that his potion was actually turning out well. Extremely well, for that matter.
The embodiment of manly tetchiness was currently examining a Slytherin's potion, and of course, was not sneering in contempt as he did with the Gryffindors. It was so unbelievably unfair, Harry thought as he continued to stew his (Potion's) juices. Just because Grease Lightning was head of the Slytherin household, it didn't mean that he could treat everyone differently!
Harry forced himself to stop thinking. He was sounding dangerously like Hermione, in his own opinion, and Hermione, while still his friend, didn't exactly have a personality that Harry strove to attain. He doubted he could get a stick that far up his ass, no matter how hard he tried.
. . . of course, that did not sound at all dirty. Right. Of course it didn't.
He shook his head; he had to //concentrate// goddamn him. He wasn't about to screw up one of the only potions that, in his entire career at Hogwarts, was about to turn out almost perfectly - this time, he was sure that, when Severe Temper made his way over to Harry's cauldron, all of his professor's smarmy comments would quickly be disarmed by simply looking at what Harry had created.
The Boy Who Lived smirked to himself, watching Snape move to another cauldron to thoroughly berate a brown-haired Gryffindor girl who was attempting to liquify a solid mass of ugly orange. Continuing to watch this, Harry's hands moved his stirring stick, continually swishing about the contents of his Mellaphorous potion. . . today would not be the day he'd be on the receiving end of his Potions professor's insidious words.
Harry stared hard at Snape, who seemed to not notice this. His seventh - and final - year with the rather intimidating man felt as if it were a long time coming. Finally, he'd never have to see the greasy bastard again, he'd never have to hear one of those damn sarcastic insults, and he'd be showing off with his perfect po-
There was a soft bubbling noise coming from Harry's cauldron. He looked down.
In a pure fit of irony, Harry's brew had decided to angrily explode in his face, and consequently, all over him. With an extremely loud bang, silver liquid sprayed all over the boy's features, staining his robes and generally making quite a mess. The entire class stared at him - thankfully, Harry wasn't able to see any of their expressions due to the fact that his glasses were completely covered by the strangely viscous liquid, although he heard laughing. Goddamned Slytherins.
He also heard the distinct swish of heavy robes approaching his area. Wiping off a bit of the sludgy goo from his glasses with the sleeve of his robe, he was faced with what seemed to be a solid wall of black. His eyes trailed upwards, and Harry soon discovered that this black wall was attached to a head (or vice versa), which had equally black hair, and the eyes of this head were staring right back down at him.
Snape elegantly arched an eyebrow.
"Now, Potter. . ." the taller man drawled, his voice smooth and thick with sarcasm, "I am quite certain that Mellaphorous is a potion that stays inside the cauldron when it is being created. Isn't that correct?"
"Yes, sir," Harry muttered, feeling the sudden urge to deck his professor, but knowing that this feeling would soon pass, and it was no use getting into any trouble so early in the year.
"Mm. What could have possibly gone wrong, Potter? Considering your //stellar// abilities in this class - " Draco Malfoy sniggered at this, " - I am positive that you've managed to yet again muddle a relatively simple potion."
Another, albeit slightly more venomous "Yes, sir" issued from Harry's mouth. Relatively simple my ass, Harry thought, glancing over at the front of the classroom, where all three chalkboards were covered in Snape's slanted writing, detailing every instruction to the fullest. Between Harry's vision impairment and the fact that the Slytherins were always attempting to sabotage his cauldron, the bespectacled young man currently covered in sticky liquid thought he had been doing quite an exemplary job of creating the Mellaphorous draught. What could he have done wrong. . .?
"I see. Well, judging by the amount of crushed bat wing you have left in your vial, it seems that you used too little of it to start with, though that would not account for the spontaneous combustion you've managed to conjure here. It also appears that you forgot the rather important sliced snerckwheat. Yet, it would take so much more in order to make a draught intended for calming into something so. . .violent. Any ideas, Potter?"
Harry could feel the tips of his ears burning, rather aware that all eyes in the class were glued to his form. He shifted a little, which created a rather odd squishing sound due to the exploded potion.
"No, sir," Harry said quietly after a few rather tense moments of deliberation. In turn, Snape smirked, looking down his hooked nose at the Gryffindor covered in his own concoction.
"I expected as much from you, Potter. I'm sure your ego takes up far too much space in your head to allow any sort of important information to weasel its way between your ears." The half of the classroom populated by those of the Slytherin house erupted with nasty snickers and giggles, while the Gryffindors stayed cautiously silent, not wanting to lose house points and gain detentions.
Harry had to clench his jaw, feeling the familiar bubble of hot anger rise within him at his professor's cold words. Knowing that if he were to open his mouth to respond, only a slew of derogatory words that would force him to pardon his French would spill forth, rather than something otherwise logical. Harry kept quiet, waiting for Snape's taunting to continue.
"Look at the chalkboard, Potter, or are you blind as well?" The boy covertly shot a glare at the older man, before turning his attention to the boards at the front of the room, wiping off his glasses one more time for good measure.
"Please read to the class instruction number twelve. If you are capable, that is." Another round of laughter from the Slytherins, and Harry was seriously thinking about going to the management on this one. Enough ought to be enough. However, for the time being, Harry simply took a deep breath and read off the chalkboard, making a mental 'check' for everything that he was sure he did.
"Pour diced flabblestaff into the cauldron, allow to simmer untouched for five minutes." Check. "Proceed to stir three times clockwise, and three times counter-clockwise." Check. "Make sure stirring does not exceed six rotations. . ."
Oh. Damn.
"Good, you //can// read, Potter. I feared that you may have been illiterate; of course, that would give you at least a plausible excuse for mangling your potion." Blushing with embarrassment, Harry looked steadfastly at the ground, his fists balled by his side. It was all he could do to prevent himself from physically attempting to assault his Potions professor.
Snape waved his wand and uttered a cleaning spell, which rid both the cauldron and Harry of the gooey mess, and said: "I hope you've learned from this experience, Potter. Though judging by past events, I am afraid it is far too much to ask of you. Ten points from Gryffindor."
Feeling righteously bitter after having watched his potion (and thusly grade) disappear, Harry barely noticed when the bell rang, signaling the end of class. Quietly, the rest of the students bottled their potions, taking the vials up to Professor Snape to be marked later - all, of course, except Harry, who now had no such potion to bottle. Slytherins and Gryffindors alike then collected their belongings, making their way towards the exit of the dungeons. With one of Snape's simply irrepressible smirks, the man sat himself gracefully down at his desk to begin marking a pile of sixth year essays on the correct use of flesh-eating bacteria in paralysis potions.
The boy was left standing in the classroom, holding his text loosely in one hand, pencil case clutched in the other. Harry kept quiet as he looked at Snape, who was hunched over his desk, quill scratching against parchment. For a short few moments, the boy simply stood, working on not vocalizing his rather intense embarrassment-cum-anger.
A second later, Snape craned his neck up slightly, his eyes resting on the only person currently in the dungeon with him.
"Well?" he asked, pausing his writing for a moment, not bothering to wipe a strand of black hair from his face, allowing it to simply hang there. This bit of inaction irked Harry to such a degree that he was sure he felt his eye twitch.
Another moment of silence.
"Nothing," Harry finally said, his fist clenching around the strap of his pencil case just a tad more. With that, the Boy Who Lived turned on his heel, and exited the classroom as fast as he could manage without tripping over his own robes.
~*~
As a wise man once said, "Time is an illusion - lunchtime, doubly so." It seemed to ring true in the case of Harry Potter, who personally thought that this particular lunchtime was much, much shorter than usual. However, glancing down at his watch, it was revealed to Harry that time was ticking away as usual, and it was obvious that he was on the verge of some sort of long-overdo psychotic breakdown.
Well, perhaps not, but be that as it may, Harry figured that his irritated feelings, no doubt carried over from that dreadful Potions class, had something to do with his personal inability to correctly measure time in his head. That, and his head was just //killing// him - and it wasn't the scar hurting, either, so it wasn't even a relatively useful headache, which only served to make the boy feel worse. He munched half-heartedly on a ham sandwich, taking sips of his pumpkin juice every now and then. Ron glanced at him.
"You okay, mate?" the boy asked, swallowing the remnants of his tuna sandwich, picking out a roll of bread from one of the multitude of baskets that were currently residing on the Gryffindor table. Harry sighed, running a hand through his unruly black hair.
"I don't know. Just tired, I guess," he replied half-assedly, poking at an innocent pickle with his fork. He was starting to feel a little too warm in the Great Hall, which was packed with children and teenagers all around him. Goddamn people.
Hermione, ever the observant one, looked at Harry over her own glass of pumpkin juice. She decided to take a stab at why Harry looked like a kid who was just told that Santa wasn't real.
"Don't let Professor Snape get to you, Harry. You know that you're not a failure," she said, attempting to be reassuring. Of course, it didn't help Harry much.
". . . thanks, 'Mione," he said, finally deciding to eat the dill pickle that had been previously rolling around on his plate like some sort of rolling thing.
"Yeah, Harry. Snape's just a bastard, don't listen to him," Ron interjected, nodding as if to emphasize his point. The red-haired boy deliberated on whether or not he truly wanted to have a bit of Caesar salad, but quickly decided against it, since salad was relatively healthy. While Harry nodded in agreement with Ron's comment, Hermione, as always, looked aghast.
"Ron, don't say that! Professor Snape may not be our favourite person in the world, but he's still our teacher," the frizzy-haired girl pointed out, making quick work of a baby carrot.
"Teacher schmeacher, 'Mione, he's a prick. Probably hasn't been laid in a hundred years, either," Ron said, which elicited a laugh from the Gryffindors in the immediate area, which did indeed include one Harry Potter. Hermione did her very best to keep the stern look on her face, however it wavered for a few moments, and a smirk shone through.
"Yes, well. . . his personal life is also none of our business," she stated after clearing her throat and taking an orange from one of the baskets. As she began to peel it, she turned her attention back to Harry. "Just make sure to not let him get you down too much. Remember, if you need any help at all in Potions, you can always just come to me." The bespectacled young man smiled a little bit at his friend.
"I know, thanks, but I think I'll be alright. After all, I've been through worse and survived, right? A surly git hasn't got anything on a Basilisk."
"Well it is Snape we're talking about here - a glare from him and you might as well be Petrified," Ron pointed out, swallowing another mouthful of tuna.
"Ron, if you look a Basilisk in the eye, it kills you, not Petrifies you." At this, Ron blinked twice.
"Wait, then why the hell aren't you dead, 'Mione?"
"I saw it through the mirror. It's when you see it indirectly that you become Petrified."
Ron stared at her, looking a bit clueless.
"You were //there//, Ron!"
"..ohh yeah."
Hermione mumbled something that was, no doubt, insulting to Ron under breath, before eating some more of her salad. Harry, also feeling a little put off by the fact that Ron had seemingly forgotten all their trials involving the Chamber of Secrets, went back to silently picking at his food. After all, something like having to //kill a giant snake// was generally not a thing that one forgot too easily.
"We were talking about Snape before, right?" Ron asked after a couple moments of silence, wiping his mouth with his napkin. Hermione shot a look at him.
"You really are an idiot, Ron Weasley."
"I am not!"
"Yes you are!"
"No I'm not, you're just saying that because I'm not doing so well in Divination!"
"And Herbology."
"Sod those plants, that's what I say!"
"You were supposed to put those plants in sod the other day, but you didn't! That's why you //failed!//"
"Oh yeah? Well. . . you have frizzy hair!"
They both went on like that for a little while, although Harry didn't seem much to care, or mind. Their banter floated off into the background, joining the rest of the sounds that the other students were making, synthesizing all into one tone of superfluous mush.
God, Harry was depressed. And to think, only half the day was over.
~*~
Needless to say, Harry felt absolutely and completely exhausted by the time his last class was over. He had to physically pick himself up out of his classroom chair, lest he fall asleep in it; he had a headache right behind his eyes, and he managed to feel hot and cold at the exact same time. The weather outside certainly did nothing for his present mood, either: cold and drizzly and generally very British, the entire atmosphere just seemed crushing, even within the walls of Hogwarts, where the outside world was currently invisible in the hall that he was in.
A nice cup of hot tea and a nap sounded like heaven to the boy as he only half-listened to what his two best friends were saying. They had finished the day off with Professor Binns, so everyone's brains were feeling rather dulled, ergo the fact that no one seemed to notice that Harry Potter could have passed rather spectacularly for a zombie.
"You'd think a ghost'd be interesting, but no. His personality's as dead as he is," Ron lamented, shifting his textbooks from one arm to the other. "And on top of that, he gives out enough homework to last until the day //I// die. It's a conspiracy to kill his students - either by boredom, or by hand cramps. I swear it."
"Honestly Ron, what would Professor Binns have to gain from killing his own students?" the token female of the group asked in a rather chastising manner. Ron leaned in close to Hermione, as if he were sharing an extremely important secret.
"Because. . .he wants us to //join him!//" he said, unable to help the grin that broke out on his face, "And he'll create an army of the most boring sods in all the world!" Hermione simply rolled her eyes, sighing at the redhead's immaturity.
"That is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard in my entire life, Ron. And I own a television set that has cable." Ron furrowed his eyebrows.
"Television, eh? My dad talks about that stuff all the time, you know. He goes on about the moving pictures and the sound and whatnot. Oh!" he exclaimed, suddenly remembering something. "I've been meaning to ask you for a long time, 'Mione - who's Monty Python, and why does he have a Flying Circus? I thought the title was self-explanatory, but my dad tried to talk to me about it, and. . .well, I had to leave the room so my head wouldn't explode."
At that moment, Nearly Headless Nick happened to float by, providing adequate distraction for Hermione from Ron's question. They all said hello to the friendly apparition, who in turn lifted his hat (and a bit of his head) in acknowledgement.
"Hello, hello! How have you three been faring?" the ghost asked them, smiling indomitably. Hermione and Ron smiled back, and Harry stared out the nearby window, wavering slightly.
"We're doing well, Sir Nick," Ron told him with a grin. Nick's attention, however, wandered over to where Harry looked about ready to pass out.
"Oh dear, what's wrong with Harry?" Nick inquired, tilting his semi- translucent and semi-decapitated head. Harry, having heard his name, turned his head, blinking lazily.
"Huh?" the black haired boy uttered intelligently. "Oh. Hi, Nick," he said after wiping at his eyes, barely stifling a yawn. The poltergeist before him tut-tutted, putting his hands on his hips.
"Mr. Potter, you should take better care of yourself! You look as if you haven't slept in days. When I was still alive, I had trouble with sleep too, you know. A warm glass of milk and a good piece of literature would always lull me to sleep on such nights, I'd suggest you try that," Nick said knowingly.
"Now that he mentions it, you do look like you need some sleep, mate," Ron said after a short moment of scrutiny. Harry nodded, feeling as if a fog had wrapped around his brain.
"I'll keep your advice in mind, Nick. Thanks," Harry said with a bit of a weak smile.
"Good, good. Get yourself to bed, then - looks to me as if you'll sleep like the dead," Nick commented with wink. Hermione and Ron chuckled lightly at the spirit's joke, however Harry simply yawned.
"We'll get him back to the common room, not to worry," Hermione said, linking her arm with Harry's, nudging him a little to get the boy moving. "See you later, Nick!" The ghost called out his own goodbye to the three students, and floated merrily on his way in the opposite direction from where Ron, Hermione, and Harry were heading.
In truth, Harry couldn't quite explain why he suddenly felt so tired. True, he'd been getting less sleep than usual for the past week or so, but that wasn't a terrible rare occurrence. He had survived on much less sleep in his relatively short lifetime, and had been able to function without having his friends practically drag him back to his dormitory.
It could always be hormones, Harry reasoned, his mind feeling even more foggy now. Or he could be developing a cold, which really wouldn't be fun. A runny nose was no laughing matter. Well, unless you went for that sort of joking, and frankly, Harry didn't. Dudley had enjoyed such toilet humour, which was enough alone to make Harry unappreciative of farts or snot for their comedic value. Same with reality TV - not that he ever really got to //watch// any TV at the house he lived in on Privet Drive, but when your options were either Big Brother 5,742 or Fame Academy. . .well, TV suddenly wasn't something one was interested in watching.
Before his tired and murky-feeling brain knew it, the three of them had arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady. Harry couldn't help but wonder why this Fat Lady had no other name but Fat Lady. Wasn't that offensive? Harry'd sure be pissed off if he was known as something like The Skinny Guy With Glasses. Surely being known for all eternity as the Fat Lady had to chip away at that poor woman's self-esteem, too.
Hermione was about to say the password, when Harry piped up.
"What's your name?" he asked the Fat Lady in the portrait. She certainly looked taken aback.
"Excuse me?"
"What's your name? You can't just be known as the Fat Lady, can you? I mean, your mother must've been really sick if that's what she named you. . . .not that I'm insulting your mother," Harry blathered, paying remarkable rapt attention to the Fat Lady's face as he talked. She looked rather flummoxed.
"I. . .w-well. . .it's Catherine. . ." she managed to say, her eyes wide with confusion, "But why do you ask?" Harry shrugged.
"Curiosity, I suppose. I mean, everyone has to have a name, and since we see each other so often, what with you being the gateway to the Gryffindor tower, I thought we'd be on a first-name basis." Harry blinked. "Is that wall moving?"
Hermione and Ron looked in the direction that Harry was staring. The wall, it seemed, was not moving at all. Hermione smiled apologetically at the portrait of Catherine the Fat Lady.
"Don't mind him. He's, ah, just a little sleep deprived," she explained. Catherine smiled back, albeit not apologetically in the least.
"Don't worry about that. No one's ever asked me my name before, you see, and it was rather nice.it's been so long since anyone's called me by my first name. . ." She, too, stared off in the distance, lost within a memory.
Of course, the three students still had to get into their dormitories, and thus felt a little guilty for having to shake the painted woman out of her reverie, albeit not physically, because that would obviously ruin the painting.
"Um, Catherine? We still have to get into our rooms, y'know," Ron pointed out, smiling now much in the same fashion that Hermione was but moments before.
"I think the wall's taunting me," Harry muttered, staring intently at the stone mammoth of a wall on the other side of the room. He narrowed his eyes. "Smarmy wall."
Hermione and Ron both looked at Harry.
"Uh, Harry, the wall's not doing //anything//," Ron said to him, attempting to break his friend's gaze from said stone barrier. Hermione placed her hand on Harry's forehead, frowned, and sighed.
"He has a fever," she stated, before turning once again to look at Catherine. "Citrus Lady," Hermione pronounced clearly, and the Fat Lady swung open to admit the three of them.
"I wish it were Christmas," Harry mumbled under his breath, stumbling only slightly as they made their way through the portrait hole, "because at least we'd all have presents instead of just suffering in the cold, all. . .without presents. Why is it so cold in here?"
"It's not cold, Harry," Hermione explained to the boy patiently, taking on a nigh-maternal tone. "You're just sick, is all."
"Oh," was all the Boy Who Lived said to this, yawning again, beginning to feel oddly sweaty in his heavy robes, yet rather cold at the same time. He shivered a little bit. A few moments later, they thankfully arrived in the Gryffindor common room; Hermione placed Harry in the overstuffed chair nearest the fire.
"Appreto compress!" exclaimed Hermione, waving her wand above her overturned palm; instantly, a smallish bowl filled with cold water and a cloth appeared from thin air in the girl's hand. Pocketing her wand, she gave the bowl to Ron.
"Here. Take Harry upstairs, and put this on his forehead. I'm sure he'll sleep the fever right off," she affirmed to Ron, who in turn nodded.
"Right, mum." Hermione glowered a little at her redheaded friend, who simply smirked in return. "Okay, //Hermione//, I'll take him up."
"Good, then. Try not to get him killed somehow up the stairs, //Ronald//," she said sarcastically, smirking in return. Ron rolled his eyes.
"Oh come off it, I'm not //that// irresponsible. And besides you seriously did sound like my mother just then."
"Ron?" Harry asked quietly from the couch. The freckled boy looked down at him, blinking somewhat owlishly.
"Yeah, Harry?"
"Hermione's your mum? Why didn't you tell me?" Harry said, sounding genuinely confused, though at the same time attempting to make his tone threatening through his rather slurred and sluggish speech. Ron's eyebrows shot up to nearly his hairline, and Hermione began laughing.
"Get well soon, Harry," Hermione said through a few stray giggles, making her way up the stairs to the girl's dormitories, leaving Ron and Harry alone in the common room. Laughing a bit himself, Ron shook his head.
"Alright, Harry, to bed with you," Ron sighed, leaning down to sling Harry's arm around his neck. He successfully managed to get Harry to his feet, although they both wavered a little as they walked, considering Harry was putting most of his weight against Ron's shoulder.
"How come. . .you dint tell me 'Mione wus your mum?" Harry asked, his speech a little halted. His green eyes blinked slowly, the fever flushing his face pink. Ron laughed again.
"Hermione's not my mum, Harry. We were just kidding around."
"Ohh."
Without a terrible amount of difficulty, Ron was able to heave Harry into his four-poster. Immediately, Harry shed his robes and crawled under his covers, drawing them up to his chin. He sighed a little as Ron put the compress on his forehead, and plucked his glasses off his face.
"You'll crush them if you leave them on when you sleep, you know," Ron told his friend. Harry, frankly, didn't care, because he was back in his nice, fluffy bed, his head now resting on his nice, fluffy pillow. Ron said something else, but Harry couldn't quite make it out from his place between asleep and awake.
"Mm. . .hm. . ." Harry mumbled softly, before everything around him disappeared, and he fell into the arms of sleep.
~*~
The boy awoke with a start, his green eyes shooting open. Taking in a deep breath, he sat up quickly - however, being that this boy was in a fevered state, moving his body at such a fast pace seemed to make the world spin around him. It reminded him of being in the Ministry of Magic's Department of Mysteries.
Maybe that thought contributed to the knotted feeling in his stomach, which, consequently, seemed to be pushing something. . . //up//. Harry Potter knew this feeling quite well. He was about to throw up.
He stumbled out of his bed, nearly getting tangled up in the curtains that surrounded it. From this, he managed to knock over the bowl of cold water onto his feet - the compress, which had been sticking to his forehead up to this juncture in time, landed squarely on the ground with an odd, plopping noise. Harry took the time to swear under his breath.
His legs felt like somebody had come along with a crowbar and pried all the bones out of them while he slept; which, he thought sadly, would not be too strange an occurrence if it happened to him. In order to steady himself, Harry kept against the far wall, leaning against the cool stone as he walked. A few times on his short journey to the bathrooms, Harry had to clamp a hand over his mouth so that he wouldn't spill the contents of his stomach all over the ground of the boy's dormitories - while a cleaning spell may have been able to get rid of such a mess easily, it still wouldn't do to possibly have someone watch you vomit all over the floor. How. . .embarrassing.
After another few minutes of shuffling against the wall, and another few attempts of his body to expel the bile rising in his throat, Harry finally made it to the bathrooms. He rushed as fast as he could to one of the stalls, knelt before the porcelain god, and proceeded to spew.
The retching sounds Harry was making echoed through the empty bathroom. The boy shuddered a little, coughing and spitting into the toilet, his stomach still twitching a bit under his thin t-shirt. He took a shaky breath, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and flushed the toilet, leaning his head against the side of the stall.
He still felt incredibly warm, and no matter how tired he was, he knew he wasn't going to get much sleep in the state that he was in. Maybe Madame Pomfrey could help him. . .? Well, at the current hour, Harry thought it was doubtful, but at least it was worth something of a shot.
Learning from his previous experience, Harry rose to his feet slowly and carefully, placing his weight on the side of the toilet stall. He realized, suddenly, that he had forgotten to put his glasses back on in his rush to get to the bathroom, and it explained why everything looks so blurry and out-of-focus to the boy.
No matter. He knew his way around the school well enough to get by on hardly stellar vision. Slowly, he shuffled over to the sinks, gargling his mouth with the water from the taps, doing his darndest to get the awful stench and taste of vomit out of his mouth. Geeze, how did bulimics //do// this so frequently. . .? Harry pondered this for a few moments, standing a little dumbly before the sinks once he was finished. He could feel his entire body trembling minutely; hugging himself, he made the effort to turn around, and exit the bathrooms to go find the school's resident nurse.
~*~
As it turned out, Harry Potter only knew his way around the school well enough to get by on hardly stellar vision when we wasn't ill or dizzy. Much to his chagrin, the boy found this out the hard way as he walked down a corridor he thought he would recognize, but alas, had not the moment he began to walk through it. For some reason or another, this window looked too large, or that archway hadn't enough arch, or what the hell was //that// they had carved on that door?
Making things worse was the fact that Harry just couldn't stop himself from shivering. His movements felt disjointed and oddly out of sync with one another; sometimes he'd catch himself leaning a little too far over or back, and as such, he'd almost collapse in a heap on the cold stone floor. Harry, a credit to the boy's nature, prevented this self-humiliation by once again using the wall as a guide.
Harry made his way along as best he could. One of the most hindering aspects of this hallway, however, was the fact that it kept tilting to the right every time Harry had managed to regain (or re-lose) his balance. Now, it could also have just been Harry's lack of bearings, but Harry preferred to think of it as the room's fault. As such, the boy found his arms to be flailing about more often than not, searching for something to keep him stable if he ventured too far from the wall.
He found something after a few minutes. To him, whatever it was happened to be tall, solid black, and it had luckily stepped in front of him just as he was about to fall. Harry teetered dangerously forward, then slightly back, then forward again before gravity picked up the slack, and as physics would dictate, the entity that was Harry Potter leaned a little too far forward, causing him to effectively lose his balance.
Thank goodness the tall, black thing was in front of him, or else Harry would have painfully kissed the hard ground, rather than have fallen gently against the firm, oddly warm mass of dark solid.
Being tired as he was, Harry found the pile of black to be quite comfortable; rather than retain his balance as quickly as one only could when sick, Harry chose to simply close his tired eyes, and sigh. He could hear a faint, steady beating sound underneath what could only have been cloth, and it was gently lulling him to sleep. So comfortable and warm. . .
The black fabric spoke, causing Harry to feel something of a rumble course through the blackness on which his head lay.
"Potter, what in the //hell// do you think you are doing?"
The voice, obviously belonging to the individual comprised entirely of black clothing, shocked the fog right out of Harry's brain, like a sudden bolt of lightning. His eyes snapped open, and cold panic settled like lead in the pit of stomach. He very much did not want to draw his face back to look up at the man - not so much now because what was obviously the person's chest was comfortable, but because of Harry's pure fit of astonishment and embarrassment.
Well, he looked up anyway.
"Puh. . .Sna. . ." was about all Harry managed to stutter out, craning his neck to look certain doom in the eye, and also stepping back at the same time. This proved to be a rather unwise choice, as Harry still had not managed to grasp any sense of equilibrium.
In other words, he fell flat on his back, arms akimbo. A dull //thud// resounded throughout the corridor as Harry's body impacted against the stone floor.
Snape blinked, his face betraying a rare vision, that being the foreign emotion of surprise. It was quickly replaced, however, by an expression that frequented Snape's features more often than not - a cold sneer, accompanied by restrained irritation.
"Whatever sort of prank you are pulling, boy, I'll have you know that it is not working, nor is it amusing," he said coolly, crossing his arms over his chest. Harry muttered something from his current residence of the floor, but it was far too muffled to be understood.
"Well, Potter? What sort of excuse will your ridiculous, Gryffindor brain attempt to manufacture, hm?"
Harry rubbed his eyes, blinking a few times. He looked up, Snape looked down, and Harry knew he was in deep, deep trouble if he didn't say something coherent, and fast.
"I'm lost," he answered truthfully. Snape continued to stare at him; his eyes flickered for a moment, but from what, Harry was unsure of. In fact, he couldn't even be positive that his dark eyes //did// flicker, seeing as they currently looked like blurry, black jelly beans to him at the moment.
"You're lost," Snape repeated. Harry nodded his head. "Potter, how can it be that you are lost in the school that has been your home for nearly seven years? Better yet, how can you be lost in a hallway that you've traveled down nearly //every day// for said seven years?"
'Traveled down nearly every day?' Harry thought, confusion quickly setting in. No, that couldn't be possible, he didn't recognize anything in this corridor. . .well, maybe except for those doors, which sort of looked like the ones that led to the dungeons.
". . .oh." The Potions master smirked.
"'Oh' is quite correct, Mr. Potter."
"It was 'cause I don't. . .have my glasses," Harry said weakly, scrubbing at his eyes once more and blinking, still feeling a little perplexed by the whole situation. God, why was it so damn //cold?//
"I'm sure that excuse would make sense if I were drunk. Now, up." Harry sighed shakily as he propped himself up on his arms, able to feel himself tremble. Leaning forward, he managed to get up onto his knees without too much of a fuss, but completing the task of standing up seemed to be a feat that was slightly more elusive.
Snape said something under his breath that Harry couldn't quite make out. Patience in dealing with children was not the older man's forte. Briefly, he wondered why the hell he was a teacher, remembered the answer, and concluded his train of thought by scowling at Harry.
"Would you mind hurrying things along? It //is// rather late, and I can only chastise you so much before the novelty wears out for one night," Snape bit off, watching as Harry continued to struggle to get up. A few moments passed before he sighed, albeit less irritably as he could have.
"Oh, fine," he mumbled, crouching down to Harry's level. Placing his arms under Harry's, Snape lifted the boy to his feet; however, considering Harry's general sense of luck that night, it was thought to be rather fitting that Snape's apparent helpfulness was too quick in its execution. As such, the boy found that his legs still weren't working quite right, and he couldn't help it when he collapsed once again against the chest of his Potions professor.
Snape, at this point, started to figure that something truly //was// wrong at this point. Potter certainly wasn't the type to go around and make pranks - rather, that was the niche of those Weasley twins, gone but not forgotten from Hogwarts - and there didn't seem to be anyone else around to impress, or generally entertain. He was also fairly certain that Harry didn't act so.to put it lightly, deranged, when all by his lonesome.
The younger man looked up at Snape rather pathetically. Severus made a small checklist in his mind - flushed skin, what looked to be a thin sheen of sweat, slightly glazed, unfocused eyes (although Harry always looked more or less glazed and unfocused in Potions class anyway, it seemed), and obvious difficulty concerning motor skills. It was either sickness or drugs. Drugs didn't seem too likely, but kids these days. . .
Snape put his cool palm against Harry's forehead; the boy's skin positively radiated with heat, and certainly felt clammy. Yes, that certainly explained things.
"For God's sake, Potter, it's only a fever," he sighed, moving Harry so that the boy's one arm was swung around his neck. Now standing beside each other, Snape helped walk Harry down the corridor, albeit slowly. This, in and of itself, served to only further confuse the sick young man.
"Why are you helping me?" Harry quietly asked his professor, half walking, half stumbling down the hallway, feeling at once relieved and mortified by the fact that Snape had found him. Snape sighed.
"Because it wouldn't do to have a student such as yourself crawling the floors at night. Someone could have ended up tripping over you and causing a real mess," he replied. Harry, expecting a response such as this, stayed silent, having nothing much to say.
They continued down the hall in such a manner, until Harry realized that they were beginning to descend the stairs to the dungeons. Now, while Harry was certainly not on his best form, he knew that the school infirmary was //upstairs//, and generally not located in Snape's classroom. Snape noticed Harry's look of (increased) confusion.
"No use disturbing Madame Pomfrey at this hour. I've a draught I can give you that should clear up your fever," Severus said, leading Harry down the stone steps. The green eyed boy blinked.
Snape was. . .being nice? To //him//? Well, at least relatively so. There was no possible explanation for this, save perhaps Hell freezing over. And it just might have. Maybe Satan liked ice hockey.
"I shall have you know, Potter, that I will be deducting five points from Gryffindor for your disregard of curfew, and an additional five points for bothering me so late at night."
Ah. So Satan didn't like ice hockey after all.
It didn't take long for Snape to find the draught he was looking for once they arrived in his classroom, despite the fact that it involved some serious rummaging through the various shelves. Snape took down a small, purple vial, which fit quite neatly into his hand; he looked at the Boy Who Lived over his shoulder, who was currently leaning against one of the student desks for support. The head of Slytherin "wingardium leviosa"-d the bottle to Harry, who easily caught the potion that lazily floated to him. Snape, seeing that Harry had managed to receive the draught without too much of a hassle, turned his back to the boy, casting a spell to re- arrange the various potions and concoctions on the shelves to accommodate for the draught he took down.
"It's rather potent," Snape began to explain, "so take it once you've arrived back at - "
However, dear Harry was only concerned with getting rid of that horrible, sick feeling. Halfway through what Snape was saying, he had quickly uncorked it and downed the contents. It was grape flavoured, which Harry found to be actually quite amusing.
Of course, the stuff also happened to have the profound effect like that of a boxer punching an old lady. Within seconds, Harry's eyelids suddenly felt like a metric ton apiece, and he could swear that somebody had just stuffed his head full of cotton, as if he were some sort of plush toy. He fell back against the desk, and consequentially, off of it, taking a cauldron with him; Harry fell to the floor in a very deep sleep, and it didn't look as if he were going to wake anytime soon.
Snape swore, but thankfully, Harry couldn't hear him.
///
And so, that was the first chapter of, ah, this. I hope you like it so far - please review, because reviews are like oxygen, reviews are a many splendored thing, reviews lift us up where we belong, all we need are reviews! =D
. . .mmm, Ewan McGregor.
Yes. Tell me what you think. ^_^
~Chibikat