Once upon a time, there was Harry Potter. It is futileness to describe his life before that time, or his appearance, or how his dreams and fears were interpreted and treated by the world. You see, once upon a time there was Harry Potter, and then there was nothing else.
It started in the apothecary. He was caught stealing again, his small hand tightly clutched around a phial, the rest of his body disappearing under the invisibility cloak.
"Potter."
"Professor."
A look of total shock across his face.
"Stealing from me in the middle of the night, are you? You dare ignore every existing rule and you have the cheek to creep inside my private space again, as though you –"
And then, I take a better look of the phial. Healing salve.
He glances over.
Knows I noticed.
He's angry. Ashamed. Trapped.
"Undress."
He shakes his head. I repeat my order. "Your shirt. Get it off."
He does so. His torso is intact, but he won't show me his back. When I order him to lower his pajama bottoms as well, I know he'll refuse. He's not going anywhere until I know.
I wait. He stares. It's on his back, then.
I wait some more.
He turns around defeated. A wound tears his skin below his shoulder blades and makes the skin swell blood red.
Only is not a wound. It's a scar. Carved with something pointed, apparently. Something sharp. Something like a knife.
FAGGOT, it says.
I dig into my mind searching for a bitter remark, but find none.
When I dismiss him, I pretend to have forgotten to take the salve back.
"Why am I here?"
"Because you failed your term examination, Potter. And you haven't appeared in my class for more than a week."
He waits for me to add something. Anything more interesting than his examination. Potions were always a waste of time for him.
He looks at his tests as though it's a blank piece of paper he'd sooner toss away than show any interest to.
"Who did it to you?" The question is out of my lips before I can help it.
Red blushing cheeks. He hands me the test back. I don't take it. He stares at his feet.
"Malfoy."
He shakes his head.
"Goyle."
He shakes his head. He wants to leave.
"He wasn't a Slytherin?"
He shakes his head. Then it hits me.
"Gryffindors."
He gives me the faintest of snorts.
I nod curtly, and decide to leave the rest of it to his therapist. As he steps to the corridor and the door closes behind him, I am vaguely reminded that he doesn't have one.
"Hogwarts is the symbol of duty. Of bravery and loyalty," I hear Albus saying, and I almost puke on my dinner.
Potter didn't expect this. I didn't expect it either. He glances over at Albus and his eyes shine of hate and betrayal. Then leaves.
The headmaster's speech against bullying couldn't have gone worse.
"Stop that."
I furrow my brows. I wasn't doing anything.
"If you, of all people, begin looking at me like that, I'll fucking kill you."
Ah. The strong one. Do I pity him? I suppose I do.
"Do you want to know how it happened?" He scrubs the cauldron harder and the sponge on his hand disappears almost completely into his fist. The possibility of him wanting to tell me finds me startled, and am afraid of even nodding, in case he changes his mind.
"We were at the showers. Washing up after practice. The Quidditch team and some other folks that had come along to practice for fun. I'd been staring. Again. They caught me staring."
His lips thin and his jaw remains clenched for a long moment. It occurs to me that he believes he deserved it.
"Someone mentioned it and the rest of them laughed. Somebody called me a poof. I called him an arsehole. We got into a fight. I punched him first."
I'm unaware of how I should respond to this. I will certainly not congratulate him about it. Or scold him.
He closes his mouth around the details he won't tell and I am most likely assured that he somehow managed to develop a hard on during the fight. Life isn't easy after all. Once he was that exposed, there were no excuses for what he was.
"And they attacked you."
He nods.
I return to my papers.
I see him again after the Christmas holidays, and he's changed. The guilt is now secured behind the anger. He walks alone to some class.
"Potter."
"Professor."
He doesn't stop, however, and soon I am alone again in the corridor.
My wand is pointed at him and the lighting spell I had cast a few moments before blinds him. He doesn't think of dropping to his knees and begging for forgiveness.
This is getting old.
"Do you have any decency at all?"
The cupboard door closes behind us and I am terrified of what he might need a salve of my stock this time. It's almost dawn.
He bites back a yawn quite unsuccessfully.
"I wasn't stealing. Sorry. I'll go."
My anger explodes and I feel a vein throbbing on my forehead.
"What the hell do you think my apothecary is? A bloody restroom? Get out of here!"
"I didn't steal anything."
"If I find you here again I will inform the headmaster, boy. Your insolence –"
"You think I'm insolent?" His cheeky smile takes me aback. Something tells me that he'd been either crying or sleeping in here, and his nose is red.
Or it could be the flu.
"And you think this is funny." I try to understand. I cannot.
He snorts. In a friendly way. "Yeah."
I take a breath. "Being homosexual unfortunately isn't an excuse in this school. The fact that you were beaten is irrelevant with you breaking the rules and I refuse to go easy on you lest you have a breakdown. You understand?"
"I never said that I'm – that, sir. Don't you dare call me a homosexual again."
He won't give the names.
Dumbledore is willing to expel those responsible for the crime, but Potter won't give the names.
I noticed that Weasley has other friends now.
Minerva refused to even negotiate about giving a sexuality lesson in class. Albus believes it is necessary in order to avoid other unpleasant incidents.
As long as half the castle is inhabited by fascists this plan is not closer to reality than fairyland.
It will take ages for people to abort their hate. It will take a dead Voldemort to begin.
"Why did my father hate you?"
My pen stills upon the dreadful exam paper and its point digs a little into the paper. It took him some time, but he finally figured it out. My mind wanders for a while and then I return to my work.
When he doesn't get an answer, he slams the cauldron on the table and leaves.
I imagine the irony must be unbearable.
His graduation comes and goes in laughs and shouts and dance and alcohol. He stays away from it all, and I don't see him again for a year.
Then he's sitting at the bar of a cheap pub and I can't help but sit beside him.
His shock only lasts for a second.
"Depressed and a loner from the age of seventeen? One would think that the savior of our world would have better plans in mind."
"The savior may fuck himself raw for all I care. I'll drink."
I order a glass of whiskey.
"And it's eighteen now," he adds.
"Is it? You look like a hundred years old with that coat."
"It's cold outside, Snape. Do you even have a sense of feeling the weather or have the dungeons made you forget how the air is like?"
I shrug and allow my lip to quirk a bit upwards. "I'm a bat, am I not?"
He snorts. "Yeah."
"Hm. And what else am I?"
He rolls his eyes, and it occurs to me that he's counting. "Git. Bastard. Oily. Pervert."
My heart races up. "The students were calling me a pervert?"
He takes a sip from his drink. "You didn't know? They called you more. Mostly a bastard, though."
They mostly called me ugly, but he won't tell me that. I want to tell him that men who desire men are not perverts, but am afraid to bring that subject up. I can tell he's not in therapy yet. He looks a mess.
Perhaps discussing it would make it worse. Perhaps it can't get worse.
He should be studying something. Drinking in a muggle pub was not what Potter's life should be.
"Potter..."
"Piss off, Snape. Don't even start that. Don't even – look, you'd better go."
I silently agree. "Fine. But you'll come with me."
His bright green eyes meet mine and are startled. His fingers clench around his tequila as though they're trying to shatter it to a million pieces. We pay and leave.
As I yank off the condom and toss it aside, the mattress sinks beside me and I feel the shift of the sheets of Potter finding his boxers and wearing them.
"You can stay, you know."
He doesn't need to be told twice. He falls asleep immediately, and I absently rub my fingers through his hair until sleep wins over me too.
The next morning finds me alone. I have no memory of him leaving, and the questions I was planning to ask are now hovering upon the bed unanswered.
When and how did he lose his virginity?
Why didn't he come?
Why isn't he dreaming of becoming an auror anymore?
I rub my eyes and get up.
I'm torn between helping him and convincing myself that he's not my problem anymore.
Does it matter?
I'll visit the pub again tonight. Perhaps.
Fin