Title: It Doesn't Take a Prophecy…
Rating: PG Angst.
Summary: Harry's caught by Severus, yet again. But, this goes just slightly differently.
It Doesn't Take a Prophecy…
"Potter!" Professor Snape growled irritably, though the tetchy growl was seeming old to even him. "Explain yourself."
"Sir…" Potter began in an equally weary tone, obviously stalling as he searched his underused mind for yet another feeble excuse for being out after dark. This time, however, Potter's response surprised him.
"Merlin, do we really have to keep doing this? Can't we just get on with it. No matter what I say you're going to take points and give me detention… so … I mean, do we have to … Damn, I don't know, just… do we have to do this?"
Severus's eyebrow rose higher and higher as Potter rambled on, arching as he noted the exhaustion and dejection in the boy's tone.
"If it were as you said, that nothing in your response matters, why do you believe that I force myself to inquire for and listen to feeble excuses ad nauseum?"
"Ad naus…? You mean it does matter?"
Severus remained silent until it became obvious that the boy could not credit the fact and needed further reassurance.
"When it is factual and meaningful. Yes, it does matter… if for no other reason than a proper apportioning of points."
"But," Potter erupted, "You always take loads of points."
"I repeat. When it is factual and meaningful…" Severus broke off, deciding not to end the child's unusual candor with a reminder of how frequently the boy had in insulted his intelligence with the weakest of lies. At least, the child had the grace to blush knowingly.
"Meaningful?"
"Yes, Potter. Your reason for being out after curfew must be a meaningful one to avoid detention and a loss of points. It is insufficient to say that you simply can not sleep. Your house common room is sufficient to the task of providing distraction until morning if need be."
"You might as well just take the points, then." Potter snorted, but Severus still heard a heaviness of tone that concerned him.
"Indeed?"
"I came down here because I couldn't sleep."
"And your common room was not sufficient to the task?" Given the child's many experiences, Severus was not prepared to deride his difficulty sleeping yet, lest it be over something as trivial as excitement before the next morning's quidditch game.
"It wasn't that," Potter shifted back and forth uncomfortably before admitting, "If I had stayed up there I would have had to talk about it with Ron and Hermione."
Perhaps, it was a nightmare then. Given the events of the previous year's triwizard tournament, it was only to be expected.
"And you do not feel that you can discuss something with your friends?" Severus asked, his concern growing at the thought that the child's nightmares had grown so frequent that his friends and dorm mates were keeping a night watch.
"Not about this. They don't know anything more than I do about stuff like this and it would just worry them…" the child's unspoken 'even more than they are' was nevertheless heard by the potions master.
"Stuff like this?" Severus asked hesitantly, wondering whether he should send Potter to the Headmaster, his Head of House, or Madam Pomfrey.
"You know about what happened to Ginny, second year? Sir?" Potter asked glancing at his left arm suggestively to insinuate, correctly, that if Severus was Dumbledore's spy – as he had revealed himself to be while the boy was still in the infirmary – then he might have been informed about Voldemort possessing the Weasley girl.
"Yes. I was informed of it."
"I just can't stop thinking," Potter began then paused expectantly before commenting with curiosity, "You didn't snort. Hermione always snorts when I say that."
Stifling his amusement, Severus was immediately glad that he had suppressed his first reaction, particularly as he hardly wished to be classed with the attention-seeking know-it-all.
"Mr. Potter, in case it has missed your notice, I am a strong proponent of the intelligence of Hogwarts student body. I would not be so highly incensed by your classmates choice not to use their critical thinking skills if I were not so firmly confident of their existence. I would and have loudly advocated the position that you, in particular, should be required to engage in the activity as much as possible."
The boy's pensive eyes widened humorously as he translated the comment that was both a backhanded compliment and a thinly veiled insult.
"I think I preferred Hermione's snort." He finally replied with a touch of impudence.
"Perhaps, however, my comment makes a point while hers simply expels wasted air. Now, if I may ask, what point has your non-stop thinking revealed that plagues you so? And how does it relate to Ms. Weasley's difficulties."
Potter stared at his arm for several seconds more before finally answering "It wasn't her precisely, but something he said after he came out of the diary… something he said about how everything else he had planned became of secondary importance after discovering about what happened when my mum and dad died and I …"
"Became the boy who lived?" Severus supplied in a carefully neutral tone – realizing that the child was reaching toward an epiphany that the Headmaster had been hoping to forestall.
"Yeah. That, and I can't stop thinking about what he said. If a bit of him stuck in a diary when he was sixteen would feel that strongly, then how would the real thing, I mean how would … he feel?" Potter asked carefully, knowing that the potions master found it difficult to hear Voldemort's name.
Severus listened silently, suspecting that it had been a rhetorical question.
"I mean after last year, it's pretty obvious isn't it. I thought I was just getting caught up in these messes because you were right and I'm kind of like my dad and don't know when to quit, but after last year…I can't hide from it now. He was after me and set everything up just so he could get to me. He even said something about it in the gr-graveyard."
The child lapsed into silence for several seconds, growing paler as he obviously dwelled on the events of the third challenge.
"What did he say?" Severus finally prompted when he felt that further contemplation of the traumatic event would do the child no benefit.
"That some of his followers saw him as weak because of me. That's why he wanted to duel me instead of just kill me." Potter said with an equanimity that told the Professor that the matter had been well thought out and that the boy truly did grasp the implications.
"So… I keep thinking that even if he didn't want revenge, he'd still believe that he had to come after me because of that. People won't follow him if they think that he's weaker than me, will they? Especially now that he looks like that? … He won't stop until he kills me, will he? He can't afford to. He won't stop until he kills me or I kill him… if I can."
Potter met his eyes with a gaze that begged to be contradicted, but as Severus had frequently warned the headmaster, it didn't take a prophecy to recognize an inevitability.
"Mr. Potter, your deliberations have served you well, for I can see no flaw in your argument; however, I would note an old adage that I have often found to be accurate: forewarned is, indeed, forearmed."
"Yes, Sir." Potter responded dejectedly as he dropped his gaze. "Sir, I think that … that I can sleep now if I tried."
Ignoring the obvious lie, Severus reached into his robes and withdrew two vials from his potion belt. Handing the first to Potter, the potions master gestured for the child to drink it immediately then took back the empty vial.
The second one, he held out explaining, "While I applaud your critical thinking skills, there are times as well that one should put away their contemplations. This should help you to do so as well as forestall any unpleasant remembrances that come to you in the night; however, unless you wish to be found sleeping where you stand when you take it, I would advise waiting until you have reached your bed before you take it."
"Thank you, Sir." But, when it seemed as though Severus was going to dismiss him without further comment, Potter reminded the professor. "Sir, you haven't assigned detention or any points."
"Ever the Gryffindor, Mr. Potter. Very well, one point from Gryffindor being out after curfew and one for using the word damn. Detention in the Seventh year Defense classroom tomorrow at seven."
"Yes, Sir." Potter stared momentarily, not quite believing his luck before thanking the professor and retreating.
Severus waited until he was at the end of the hallway before finally calling out, "And Mr. Potter, fifty points to Gryffindor for facing difficult questions with logic and fortitude."