Monotony
A/N: I really don't think all the chapters will be this long! I just couldn't find a suitable place to stop and neither could I split it into two. Sorry if you think things are going two fast but a month's of detentions is a lot of time spent together!
Therefore, when I awoke the following morning, it was with a sense of dread and more than a little hope that Hermione was going to be very sympathetic with me and not just rattle out one of her trademark 'well-you-know-what-happens-when-you-break-the-rules' speeches. They're just so irritating! I started to sleepily dress when Hermione murmured astonished,
"Harry, your eyes are so puffy! Are you ok?"
Her concern broke my dream and I remembered screaming and sobbing, dreaming yet again of the death of my brave parents. Sighing deeply, I cursed Snape. This was all his fault, I hadn't had these dreams in months. Thank Merlin I'd had the foresight to put those muffling charms over my bed before I went to sleep. Waking the whole dorm with screams is one of the most embarrassing things I've ever done. Hopefully it wont be a problem from now on but it definitely affects the amount of rest I get. It seemed as if I'd been asleep five minutes not five hours.
Hermione worried even more when I told her about my nightmare.
"Harry, you can't let yourself become too stressed what Snape said. Since when did his opinion get you down? We all know what a mean person he is."
And she was right, I couldn't explain exactly what about last night had made the dreams return with such a vengeance. It probably had something to do with me being so vulnerable after thinking about how much I missed Sirius.
"I know Hermione, I do. It wont get me down, I was just a bit rattled that my nightmares came back, that's all." I tried my best to force a smile but I think it must have looked more like a grimace because the lines on her face only deepened.
Breakfast was a rather gloomy ordeal, Ron was not impressed at Snape's punishment to say the least.
"But Harry, what about your Quidditch?" he moaned at me.
"Ron do you think I haven't already thought about that! I'm going to have to practice the whole weekend and maybe half an hour after dinner," I said, letting my head droop between my hands.
Ron dared to send a shooting look of loathing up to the Teacher's table. For some reason Snape was already looking this way and Ron made eye contact. If I wasn't already so depressed I might have found it hilarious that Snape just raised an eyebrow and Ron went that special, trademark Weasley red.
Professor McGonagall started to make her way along the Gryffindor table with lesson timetables. I crossed my fingers and silently prayed, 'not potions, not potions, please not potions'.
I think someone must have cursed me at birth, someone other from Voldemort I mean. Staring me in the face was possibly the worst morning I had ever faced; double Potions, with (of all people) the Slytherins! Ron and I groaned in unison. Hermione simply sniffed and added, not-so-helpfully
"Come on, you two, it's only one morning then…" Ron and I turned to look at her, daring the say 'and then only a month's worth of detention.'
With begrudging feet we walked down to the dungeons, pulling our cloaks tighter around us as drafty and chilly air nipped us.
Malfoy was leaning against the door, grinning smugly at me.
"What?" I spat out, he really was an insufferable creature.
"Well, nothing really," he drawled, "Just heard about your scuffle with our beloved Head of House last night." He chuckled and looked at me scornfully.
"You're not going to punch me as well, are you Potter?"
His cronies guffawed dutifully and Pansy Pignose simpered over him, like a little puppy. Honestly, all this because I'd turned him down for a date in our first year. You know, I used to wonder if it wouldn't have been less trouble to humour him. As he made yet more wisecracks at my expense, I longed to do a Hermione and punch him right in his smug, ratty, little face. I took step forward, fists clenched but a low, dangerous voice stopped me in my tracks.
"Miss Potter, I hope you do not wish to spend even more time in my office? Or maybe this time you'd like some of those non-existent Gryffindor points taken?" he murmured.
Uncurling my fingers, "No sir. Sorry sir."
We entered and Malfoy enjoyed a good five minutes mocking me in a falsetto voice 'no sir, sorry sir' again and again.
Hermione sat on a stool beside me and was about to unpack her things when Snape called from the front of the classroom,
"No Miss Granger, I think I'll have Miss Potter sit up here by myself please. There's no knowing what mayhem she may cause, if left to her own devices."
Snape let one side of his face tilt upwards in a mockery of a smile.
He instructed us that today we would be making a Wit-Sharpening potion and made the easily foreseeable jokes about my lack of wit and how this potion would be totally redundant because you cant sharpen something you don't have, then gave us 80 minutes and at the end he would sample one potion.
I opened my book at the correct page but, as usual, the instructions blurred with boredom and I chopped things I should have sliced, squeezed things I should have crushed and I think I actually lost a live cricket down my top. With all the cauldrons lit, the room began to warm up and, it being an unusually hot day for Autumn, I had to take off my robe.
It wasn't really a big deal, others had done it, and Lavender Brown had undone about five of her shirt buttons. But, like I said before, I'd done a good amount of developing over the Summer and Mrs. Weasley hadn't really taken that into account when doing my shopping for me.
I hadn't realised but quite a few of my top buttons had come undone and my tie had slunk down a little. It wasn't until Malfoy walked past and made a snide comment about me 'looking available for work' that I looked down. In retaliation I flicked a firebug at him. He definitely made that burn on his arm looks worse than it really was! Snape wasn't pleased to say the least.
He had great pleasure in telling me that he would personally find the absolute worst jobs he could exact in me the pain I'd caused one of his students. A lesser student might have broken under my Potion's master's torrent of abuse but I think that the night before had made me stronger. I never wanted to be caught that vulnerable again, or expose how much his words could hurt me. I'd built up my reputation as Harry Potter, the girl who could withstand just about anything and now I had to stick to it.
The rest of the day passed in a relieved blur (relief that I hadn't lost our house any points before we'd had time to gain them). Even Divination was enjoyable! Time flew by far too quickly for my liking and soon enough I'd finished dinner and it was quarter to six.
"We'll wait up for you," Ron promised, looking suitably sympathetic.
"Yeah, and I'll start your History of Magic essay for you," Hermione said kindly.
I nodded and, rather bravely in my opinion, headed off to see one of my least favourite people in the world.
He was sat there, in his dingy office, looking like a creature of the night. And by that I really don't mean a hooker, though I did think the phrase ironic given the reason why I'd burned Malfoy this afternoon.
"Ah Miss Potter," he drawled, looking at me sneeringly, "There are some FireLizards over there that I need you to dissect for me."
In the corner there was a pile of very red reptiles that looked startlingly alive for creatures so dead. Groaning, I picked one up. Its bright skin irritated my fingers and they began to itch, then sting, then burn white-hot.
"Professor! My hands, please, they're burning."
He swept over to me and took my hands in his own. Despite myself, electric prickles ran through my body at close male contact. Snape looked down at me, our eyes meeting and he smiled cruelly.
"Sorry Miss Potter, didn't you see the protective gloves to your right. Do forgive me for not pointing out something so screamingly obvious."
Blisters appeared on my fingers and they really hurt when they brushed anything, so cutting up things for four hours was a tedious and painful task. Not wanting to give in to the bullying I told myself to stay strong, not to whimper or cry out. I was doing well until about the fiftieth FireLizard. Its stupid head wouldn't come off and the harder I tried, the more my fingers screamed out in protest. I was fighting a losing battle. With one final push, it's head came off but one of blisters burst inside the glove. That was the final straw. The tiniest whimper escaped my lips and one solitary tear rolled down my cheek. Snape's head snapped up and his eyebrows knitted together. Without saying a word he swept out of the office.
Well, I just sank into his huge green, cracked-leather sofa. Honest to Merlin, I really didn't see how I was going to survive four weeks of this; my hands were already rawer than the meat Hagrid used to feed Buckbeak. My eyes were heavy and my lids drooped. This really was a very comfy sofa. I sprang up when I heard his footsteps drawing closer.
"Here," he said shortly, "Take those gloves off and soak your hands in this." He put a large bowl of foul smelling liquid on the counter at the side of the room where I had been dissecting.
"Then you may leave."
Gingerly, I pulled off one glove. Sheesh, it hurt like hell but I had to do it. My hands were an astonishing mixture of raw redness and purple-blue bruises. I sniffed the disgusting concoction and was about to pretend to put my hands in when Snape appeared behind me.
"Miss Potter, this is Murtlap essence and will only be of assistance to your…injuries."
I could feel the warmth radiating from his very close body and as his hands clasped by wrists and submerged them in the mixture, my arms shook with the soothing relief the Murtlap brought but also with another feeling. As quickly as humanly possible, he released me and went back to his desk.
It took me a few seconds to realize I was breathing faster and louder than usual, also that my face had turned as red as a FireLizard. Cursing my teenage reactions I slowly took my hands out the bowl. Amazing. They were nearly healed and nearly painless.
Gathering my bag and cloak, I walked to the office door, stopping only to whisper,
"Goodnight Professor."
With a sneer he said, "See you tomorrow, Potter."
Obviously his kindness had been guilt. Not even guilt, he was worried that he was going to get in trouble for misconduct. How naïve of me to think that our dear professor actually possessed some human decency.
Ron and Hermione had fallen asleep on the sofa side by side, almost touching. On the table was my finished History of Magic essay, charmed into my scrawly hand-writing. Ahh they were lovely best friends, just a pity they can't work out how much they fancy each other. One day though, one day.
Thinking it better that Fred and George got some laughs out of them 'sleeping together'; I went to the dormitory alone.
And so continued the pattern: get ridiculed in potions class, be tortured by menial tasks in the evening and only just manage to fit in some homework and Quidditch in the mean time. Snape was a cruel taskmaster. Apart from that first night, he never let me go until all the herbs, roots or animals in his pile were correctly dissected. It wasn't that the work was hard, just extremely boring and monotonous. Though I guess it served the purpose of the detention, I never wanted to hit him again! One night, when I was more tired than usual and upset from being scolded by Angelina for missing a Gryffindor practice again, I decided to appeal to Snape's sense of decency.
It wasn't like I'd never spoken to him before, I often tried to break the piercing silences with questions about potions but he usually dismissed me, or answered monosyllabically.
"Professor, please may I ask you something?" My voice shattered the silence that had cloaked us.
"Mmm, what is it now? What does the great Harry Potter want to know?" he said, not looking up from the essays he was marking. He took great delight in telling me my mistakes whenever he marked mine.
"It's Stephanie, actually." I corrected meekly, it wasn't the time to anger him.
"Pardon?"
"My name, there was a clerical error and it was printed Harriet Potter, but that's my middle name. I like Stephanie better." By now, I was blushing under his penetrating dark gaze.
"Well then, Stephanie, come and sit here and ask away. You have finished slicing the batwings." He dropped his raven's feather quill into the blood-red ink and touching the tips of his fingers together expectantly.
"Sir, I was wondering whether I might...er… swap some of my detentions? To lunchtime maybe?"
Snape looked at me, mockingly. Then again his face never really showed much expression so it may have been surprise.
"May I ask why?"
"Well, sir. I was really hoping that I could have more time to prac-" his brows raised, "To do my homework. You see, I'm getting rather behind."
Hanging my head at the obviousness of my white lie, I crossed my fingers. It wasn't completely untrue. I was falling behind in homework but no more than usual. I just needed more time out and about, fulfilling my passion. The only time I ever felt truly free was when I was flying.
Calloused fingertips touched my chin and Professor Snape brought my head up until I was staring deep into his eyes. I shuddered involuntarily and my skin was hot where his touch had been. My breathing quickened.
"If you tell me the truth, I may consider it."
Found out so easily! This man was good, he'd probably had too much practice telling when students' excuses were bogus. Fluttering my eyelids in a hilariously bad attempt at feminine charm I told him the reason.
"I want to practice my Quidditch," I admitted guiltily. Snape looked at me firmly.
"Good," he paused, "…denied."
"But you said-!"
"I promised you nothing, Stephanie," he drawled. "Quite the opposite. I believe I used the phrase 'may'."
"But sir," I said, standing up and pleading with my eyes, "This is everything. If I don't train then Gryffindor aren't even going to be easy to beat. We won't have a working team at all!"
"That sounds very selfish, Stephanie!" he was raising his voice to match my own and standing, "To say that without you your team would be nothing!"
I shook my head furiously, my black curls bouncing around. Taking ten deep breaths, I sat down, calmer now. Snape let his complexion rinse to pale and sat again.
"Please professor," I whispered, "Quidditch is the only thing that doesn't make me feel like a total disappointment to everyone." The fact that this was pure and honest broke me and I felt my face getting wet.
"It's the only time I can be free from my past and not have to worry about the future. The only thing that matters when I'm in the air is that little golden ball. Please don't take that away from me."
Either he'd been effected by something I'd said, or he just didn't want an annoying little blubberer in his office anymore, but something made him nod his head once, looking as though it pained him to do so. Victory didn't feel nearly as sweet as I had imagined. Telling Snape of all people how I truly felt was like a crime. And yet, he'd been pretty understanding about it all. With my head spinning I walked out of the dungeon.
Ron and Hermione were a little more than surprised when I told them the following day at breakfast. They thought Snape must be going a little loopy. We were discussing it over our cornflakes when Cedric Diggory walked over. He was smiling a dazzlingly bright smile and one of his golden-brown locks had fallen over one eye.
"Hey Potter," he said smoothly, "Are you going to be supporting me when I'm one of the Triwizard competitors?"
He tossed his hair and winked at me. I nearly choked on a mouthful of cornflakes. He was so damned attractive!
"Umm, s-sure," I managed to cough, rather unattractively.
"Great, see you around then." With another heart-breaking smile, he turned and went to join his group of friends again.
My heart was doing double time and I'm pretty sure my face was a truly embarrassing colour. Hermione and Ron were speechless as I struggled to regain composure.
"Wow," Hermione and I breathed at the same time.
Ron just muttered sulkily, "Smarmy git."
I was really looking forward to the Tournament ceremony this weekend. With any luck, Diggory'd be chosen and then… I might end up being friends with a Triwizard champion! As we left I thought I caught a glimpse of Professor Snape giving the Hufflepuff table a very irritated glare.