The Beginning of a Bond
Three weeks had passed since Harry's conversation with Snape and the tension between them hadn't lessened in the slightest. Harry had taken to the old stand-by of ignoring the man. He didn't have the slightest idea how much time he was giving up for him, and at the rate things were going he probably never would.
Snape had almost exhausted the resources in the library in spite of its size. Everything he had found, it went without saying, had been entirely useless.
None of the charms Harry had cast over his eyes had held. Not that he had expected them to. He was just grateful that it was such a small thing that almost no one had noticed. He'd passed it off as wearing a pair of contacts, and the excuse had worked because his eyesight had come right.
But even with that one good thing, everything else seemed to be going wrong, in some way or another. As a result he had constantly been on edge. He seemed to have landed more detentions in the past three weeks than he had all of last year, and that was saying something.
This morning Harry had potions first period. As he made his way through the twisting passages, which lead to the dungeons someone's elbow caught his in the stomach on their way past and knocked the breath out of him.
Without so much as a seconds pause he took off down the corridor, in pursuit of the idiot that had dared lay so much as a finger on him. Rounding a corner he got a proper look at the back of his fleeing target, and was not at all surprised to find that he had blond hair.
Malfoy, it seemed, had been particularly determined to rub Harry the wrong way, especially over the last week. He was the cause of at least two thirds of the detentions Harry had been slapped with.
Furry may have given him wings, but arrogance meant that Draco was always half way off the ground, suspended over all of the schools common attendance. Well, at least in his own opinion. Harry's feet moved at top speed, but he didn't catch the blond until just outside the potions lab.
Putting one hand in front of him, he slammed the blond up against the wall. With his other hand he grabbed his wand from in his pocket, and drawing it pressed it hard against the side of Draco's throat.
The blonds Adams Apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed, but his voice didn't hold the slightest hint of fear, "Go on Potter, do it. I know you'd love to see me plastered all over the floor."
"You'd like that wouldn't you?" Harry was sounding more than a little pissed, "An end to your worthless life and with your dieing breath you get me expelled," Harry narrowed his green and black eyes, "So tempting."
His grasp tightened on the wand, but before he could say any of the spells that he had in mind a hand came down and clamped onto his shoulder. The one voice that Harry had been hoping beyond hope he wasn't going to hear spoke up, "Well, well boys. We wouldn't be fighting in the corridor would we? And outside my very own classroom, no less."
After a few very tense seconds Harry lowered his wand and turned to face the speaker. His eyes searched out Professor Snape's, and locked on them. These days there was an almost hypnotic quality about them, "No sir. I was just showing Draco the spell I learnt in Defence Against the Dark Arts. He was having trouble getting it to work, see?"
Snape felt a tiny flash of pride for the speed at which Harry was capable of thinking, "Very thoughtful of you Potter, but the rules quite clearly state that no magic is to be used in the corridors between classes. You'd do well to remember that."
"Yes sir," both the boys chorused. Snape unlocked the door to the potions lab and slipped inside leaving them to finish sorting out their problem. He was pretty certain they weren't going to kill each other, knowing how close he was.
Harry turned his full attention back to Malfoy, "You'd better watch yourself because next time, I swear I'll do it. Its just your luck that Snape was around to save your pathetic ass today, because next time I'm not holding back."
Draco regarded Harry coldly, but didn't reply. He just turned, and raising his arrogant nose into the air stalked into the potions lab behind Snape. Harry fiercely resisted the urge to use it for target practise.
Then he spent the next half a minute fighting to get his breathing under control. In that time Hermione finally caught up, not that it looked like she'd been putting much effort into the chase.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Just fine," Harry muttered, stepping through to the potions lab beside her. She gathered everything they'd prepared last time and sat down at their usual table. The rest of the class began to file in around him.
Snape looked up from his desk, "Bee seated Mr Potter. You work would be of a far better quality, were you actually doing something."
He nodded, "Yes sir" Harry lowered himself into the seat beside Hermione and after scanning the method on the board began to finely dice the shrivelled remnants of a flobberworm.
Draco rose from his seat and Harry's eyes narrowed at the blond, tracking him. At the front of the class he bent over and whispered something to Professor Snape, who nodded before drawing out a stack of essays and turning his attention to them. Draco turned and headed back to his seat, pausing at Harry's desk.
Then, before anyone could so much as look up, let alone do anything to stop it Draco struck Harry across the shoulder. Harry rose and rested his hand on Draco's arm. Energy surged through Harry and a flash of light half-blinded everyone in the class. Draco was thrown back and struck the wall with a force that made Snape wince.
As soon as he could see properly Snape made his way over to Draco. The blond seemed a little dazed, but aside from that he was fine. He helped the boy back to his feet, "My office. Now. And don't bother about getting your things."
Then he turned to Harry, who visibly swallowed.
"Head through to my office as well, Mr Potter. And whatever you do, make sure you do not kill Draco."
"Sorry, Herm," Harry muttered softly before leaving the class with his head lowered. In Snape's office he dragged a chair as far away from Draco as possible. The other teen looked cool and confident.
He shot Harry a look and a cocky grin that he just wanted to tear off that smug face, "Better pack your bags, Potter."
Harry returned Draco's look with a glare that would have been able to peel paint, but didn't reply. It wouldn't do him any good to make the situation any worse than it already was. Snape may be his father, but he couldn't see the man defending him. Experience had taught him not to expect much from blood.
So, Harry got the shock of his life when Snape came in and seated himself behind his desk, and the first words out of his mouth were, "Are you alright Harry?"
The boy looked at him, "Me?"
"Yes, you. I believe that is your name. Sometimes when magic surges like that it can cause more harm to the caster than to the…" Snape looked at Draco and caught himself before calling the blond a victim, "…target."
"He attacked me and you're asking him if he's okay?"
Harry wished he could take a photo of the expression on Draco's face. It was even more memorial than after the ferret incident, and Draco still went red when that was brought up, "Yes, I'm fine, Professor Snape. Fine as I ever can be."
"Good," Snape muttered softly, before looking at Draco, "Now, as punishment…"
Draco lent forward in his seat, anticipation on his arrogant face. Harry tensed himself, dread rising in his chest.
"I think, one week's detention to be served with Filtch for an unprovoked attack on another student ought to do it, Draco, and maybe you'll think twice about getting in over your head next time. If you do so, Merlin help me, I swear I'll indulge and let you have it out with Mr Potter."
Once again Harry pinned the fact that he didn't have a camera. But if Draco had gotten into that much trouble…
Harry winced, "And me, sir?"
"Are very lucky you didn't hurt yourself or Mr Malfoy. If you had you would be on detention with him," Snape's eyes rested on Draco, "You can go to your next class now. And it would be in your best interest to hurry. I'm not going to cover for you if you wind up late."
Harry could almost see the steam rising from the blonde's ears as he stood up, knocking the chair on to its back, and stormed out. Harry rose to follow him, but Snape shook his head, so he simply picked up the chair and sat back down.
"You seem rather surprised," Snape prompted when he was sure Draco was out of earshot.
"Surprised isn't the word for it," Harry admitted, almost reluctantly, "When we…err, I reacted like that I thought you were going to kill me or something."
"A smile tugged at the corner of Snape's mouth for a few seconds, "Haven't you realised I'm far more subtle then that? To murder you right then and there would have attracted far too much attention, and probably a long-term stay in Azkaban. Both are things I would prefer to avoid."
"Oh," Harry felt his heart drop a few inches in his chest. How'd I ever fool myself into thinking that Snape could actually care for me? He hated himself for trusting an illusion.
Obviously, it had showed on his face because all traces of humour dissolved for the man's face, "You don't have much faith in adults, do you?"
"Why should I?" Harry's voice came out as a bitter snarl, raw with emotion that he'd been trying to keep a cap on for the past several years, "What with the way my damn, so-called relatives treated me ever since I landed on their doorstep. And you haven't given me much of a reason to trust you, either."
"Your relatives?" Snape raised his eyebrows. His voice was soft and deadly. Harry mentally slapped himself for letting anything slip. It was a mistake even bigger than trusting Snape had been, in his opinion.
"Doesn't matter," Harry shrugged, "Its nothing. Nothing at all. Its more of a nothing than the bottom of a black hole."
"Translation. It dose matter and it is something," Snape said gently, "People tend not to babble off at a thousand miles a second to cover nothing. And it would save a lot of time and hassle, were you to tell me about your something without further persuasion."
Harry turned away so that he wouldn't have to look Snape in the face, "You want to know what it was like for me, that much?" he snarled.
Snape nodded.
The boy's voice dropped, "I was called a freak pretty much from day one. Anything that went wrong was my fault; all of my clothes were hand-me-downs, at least three sizes too large. My cousin Dudley and his gang beat me up whenever they could find the time, but it was ignored, because he would never so much as harm a fly," he laughed bitterly, "Guess I wasn't as important as one."
There was a pause of a few seconds and Snape opened his mouth, but Harry blundered on, oblivious.
"There were three bedrooms, but I was made to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs until I was eleven. Didn't even…"
Snape raised a hand. It was all he could do to stop himself from Apperating to Privet Drive, bugger the wards around the castle, and tearing the boy's caregivers into a thousand tiny pieces, courtesy of the most painful curses he could think of. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't this.
"You were the one that wanted to know," Harry muttered. His head bowed and he looked tired. Defeated in a way. Then he looked back up and his eyes hardened. He may never earn Snape's respect, but there was no way he was going to let the man know it actually mattered to him.
Snape saw the change in the boy's eyes, and heard the difference in his voice the next time he spoke. The tone was darker, uncaring.
"He's right, you know. Muggles are dogs that will never understand our kind, and deserve nothing more than to spend the rest of their pathetic lives grovelling at our feet. They're mangy, flee-bitten curs."
A man less brave than Snape would slowly be backing out of the office. No one had ever dared argue with the dark lord when he had spoken like this (well, truth be said, no-one had ever dared argue with him at all if they had valued their life) and Potter was sounding exactly like him. It was a very real reminder of how short time was growing.
"Harry, listen to yourself. This isn't you. You are being influenced by him, and you have to fight it," It was a very real effort for Snape to keep the quiver out of his voice.
A high, cold laugh chilled Snape through to his core, "Yes, this is me. Loath as I am to agree with him he's been saying it again and again since his body was destroyed, and I know from personal experience that its true. It may not be a side of me that gets out very often, but I'm still the same person."
Harry rose to leave, but Snape caught his arm. He fought the urge to wince as a small surge of energy made him let go, just as quickly, "Sit back down," he snapped in a voice far harsher than had been his intention.
"No thank you," Harry's voice dropped a couple of octaves. It had that same deadly quiet that Snape's developed, before he struck out. With what had happened to Draco fresh in his mind Snape didn't want to risk pushing the point.
"I know I haven't given you much reason to trust me in the past, but I want to help you, and I'll be damned if I'm going to see you fall. I've talked to Albus. Those nightmares you were having have worked ito our advantage."
Harry didn't seem to be able to understand the obscure language Snape was speaking, "What have my dreams got to do with anything?"
"Apparently, you threw Mr Weasley across the other side of the room."
"There's no apparently about it," Harry was sounding more than a little frustrated, "He was given a free flying lesson, not that its any of your business. It was nothing to what I could have done,"
Snape watched as Harry's eyes widened slightly. He was finally conscious of hearing the words coming out of his mouth, and not having said them.
It was what encouraged him to get the next bit over and done with, "In the possible event of another nightmare, I convinced Albus that it would be in the best interest of both yourself and your dorm-mates, were you to sleep in your own private room," Snape had heard the Muggle expression 'like looking down the barrel of a fully loaded gun' and scoffed at it. He now knew what it felt like.
Total silence blanketed the office for a few seconds. Then a slight crackling made Snape swear as he felt the wave of the energy building up, courtesy of Harry. The hair on the back of his neck was slowly standing up. The energy, which was growing around Harry, was black. Snape said a silent curse. The last time he had ever witnessed some one shrouding him or herself with dark energy that someone had been the Dark Lord himself.
The black strengthened and darkened, in a way solidifying its self. It spread out and encircled the teen, cocooning him. A fly buzzed its idiotic way into the wall of the cocoon. Snape didn't at all envy it. Then, as though the bug had been some kind of a signal the energy field dissolved.
It wasn't the category five explosion that Snape had been preparing himself for. All that happened was that it slowly faded out, and his standing hair settled back down. What Snape saw afterwards however, stirred dread in his heart.
Another part of the spell he and Lily had so carefully woven was gone. Harry's hair, which had only moments ago been short, uncontrollable and raven, was now very well controlled. It also came down to his shoulders and was jet black, with a few streaks of red.
"Sorry," Harry muttered, turning once again to leave. He obviously hadn't realised anything was different, "I guess you're right. That wasn't like me at all."
"Harry..." Snape's hand went out, but he stopped a few inches shy of actually touching the boys exposed flesh. No way was he going to risk making contact after the last time.
Harry's head turned back and some of his newly lengthened hair swung in front of his eyes. He froze for a few seconds, before grabbing around half of his hair, and flicking it in front of his eyes.
"Damn it," he said. The words may have been a curse, but there was no strength in them. Then his eyes rested on Snape's, "Do I really want to know the damage I've just done?"
"Probably not," Snape admitted, but he still drew his wand and conjured a mirror, which floated into the air at a perfect height for Harry to look into.
Harry turned his head from one side to the other. Then, to Snape absolute shock a tiny smile played over Harry's face, "Doesn't actually look too bad. Suits me better then what I had before, at least." he allowed, "At the rate things are going its probably better that I've got my own room."
Snape knew it was as close to a thank you as he was ever going to get at the moment, "Come back after last period, and I'll show you exactly where it is."
