Chapter 4 – Harry Takes a Little Trip

What did she think they were? Nuts? Harry thought, as he grabbed his bag and waited on his friends. Ron was right there with him, but it was obvious to the both of them that Hermione could care less what happened next, as she slowly stood up after Professor McGonagall's roughly spat command.

Come on Hermione, Harry silently intoned to her within his mind. Sticking around after a display like that was akin to volunteering to stand still in front of a firing squad. It was a bad idea.

"Ron," Hermione said, looking completely unruffled as though there was nothing wrong in their world, "do you mind if I borrow your wand for the rest of the day? I'll take care of it, I promise," she said, apparently oblivious to the absolutely idiocy of her statement regarding his nearly worthless wand.

"Sure," Ron whispered, swallowing painfully, his eyes excessively large in his too pale face.

"And you'll take care of mine as well, I understand," Hermione said, turning around to leave the classroom without waiting on his response.

They left as well, following quickly in her retreating footsteps. Harry was nothing short of amazed that Hermione had not gotten detention right then and there, as would have happened had anyone else tried something that blatantly disrespectful in class.

In fact, nothing happened until lunch was nearly over and they were getting ready to go be systematically embarrassed in Potions. More than a few students had made their way over to where they were sitting to congratulate Hermione on putting the "ol' bat" in her proper place. Fred and George had bounced around them in an annoying manner until Hermione had finally told them to go and made suggestions about where. She had actually shocked them into silence for all of about three seconds before they had simultaneously saluted her, snapped their heels together, and then joined arms and skipped out the main doors.

"You okay?" Ron had whispered painfully to her after they had left and the table had been rocked once more with its typical level of noisy complacency.

Hermione looked at him, narrowed her eyes, and deftly replied.

"NO."

"That much I figured," Harry said quietly, his stomach too queasy to handle the idea of anything more calorie laden than pumpkin juice. With his early success in Transfiguration, he had been left with far too much thinking time, and the events of the previous weekend coupled with the throbbing lines under his clothes had turned him a bit ill and shaky. In addition, Hermione's behavior was further unbalancing his understanding of the world, and he was actually starting to consider going to the Infirmary; knowing that at least if he did that, perhaps he could be knocked unconscious and escape the current insanity of his world for a bit.

Then again, with the way Hermione was going now, she could just as easily knock him unconscious, and then that would save them all a trip. The fact that he was considering asking her to do just that was further worrying him, and the impending doom of going to double Potion's class was just adding to everything.

At this rate, he figured none too jokingly, when I do start hexing everyone, at least I'll be giggling.

The thought did not comfort him.

"10 points from Gryffindor, Mr. Weasley," Snape said, striding into the dank classroom that afternoon.

"Sir?" Ron had asked, coughing harshly after.

"For your atrocious table manners just now in the Great Hall," Snape said, sneeringly at the thin red haired boy. The Slytherins tittered in appreciation of Snape's underhandedness towards one of Snape's most despised Gryffindor students. However, they also fell silent at his sudden glare towards them.

Snape's comments towards Ron served as just one more reminder to Harry about how he had spent his previous weekend, as he could not help but see Draco grinning leeringly at them. It actually made bile rise in his throat before he could push it out of his mind. He began sweating with a renewed fervor, even though the temperature in the room was icy at best.

He glanced over at Hermione, but was taken aback at the hideously cheerful grin she had plastered across her face. It was the kind of look that his cousin Dudley got whenever Uncle Vernon was doing anything especially foul to him. He knew that she must be planning something quite awful for Draco and was singularly glad that he was not in the shoes of the pale, blond-haired boy.

Having apparently decided that he'd done enough damage for the first section of the class, Snape turned around with a dark billow, and gestured at the board before barking out his orders to the class.

"Page 239 - Anti-hiccupping Solution; the instructions are in your book." He ground out in a sinisterly tone to the class of nervous second years.

The class knew better than to sit around after he had issued instructions.

"Individual work today," he added nastily. "Let's see how many of you can make it through today's class without cheating," he said, glaring specifically at Neville, before dropping his eyes on Harry, and then turning to focus surprisingly on Crabbe and Goyle.

Harry had looked quickly at the ingredients list before making his way hastily—and gingerly—to the supply closet. Someone walked into him, landing an elbow in his side, causing him to hiss out loud at the pain. He looked to his left and was unsurprised to see a smirking Draco (he never could think of him simply as Malfoy after all that happened).

Draco ran his tongue over his lips before reaching for some lacewings on the shelf next to Harry's face.

"My my my, look at you," he said, silkily, caressing the front of his own ridiculously expensive robes, causing Harry to see the outline of his slimy cock hidden within the folds of cloth. Harry's stomach dropped lower, possibly into his shoes, where the trickle of blood had started dripping into again.

"Excuse me," he said pointedly, walking carefully back to his cauldron without dropping any of the ingredients. He was aware that Draco was still watching him, but he made a valiant effort not to show him that he had noticed.

Harry's Anti-Hiccupping Solution was the right colour and consistency, surprisingly enough. It seemed as though his luck from that morning had stayed with him, thankfully.

Well, it seemed like that until Snape quietly pointed out that he was dripping blood into his cauldron.

He looked up in confusion at his professor, not understanding why Snape would have the courtesy to help him, and not only that, but help him without the expected embarrassment he had grown used to in the time he had spent in his class.

"Squeeze some of the intestines from your flobberworms into the potion and stir counterclockwise for the next three minutes." Professor Snape said as he shielded Harry from the deprecating glances Draco kept fixing on him.

"Yes sir," Harry whispered and stretched his arm out to grasp the flobberworms. It was then that his side, where Draco had thrown a hard elbow into earlier that class period, decided that it had had enough and just wasn't going to hold together any longer. He felt his skin along his ribs tear open more completely than before, causing him to involuntarily hitch a gasp inwards.

Somewhere, along the way, his numb fingers dropped the flobberworm—on the floor thankfully, and not into the cauldron. He tried to hitch another breath, but the room had begun spinning around him, and he hunched in on himself, trying to hold his side unobtrusively with his arm clamped inwards. Without warning, he suddenly found himself remembering how Lucius had stood over him in a very similar manner, minutes before ripping the last shreds of dignity from him.

Tears clouded his eyes from the spinning room, and he found that he could not breathe.

"Potter!" Professor Snape rumbled disgustedly at him, as he reached out to catch hold of Harry's shoulders and prevent the stupid boy from dumping onto the floor, in broad sight of everyone.

Harry wheezed viciously, his instincts taking over fully as he felt the larger man's hands grasp his body.

Somewhere in the befuddled part of his thinking brain, he found himself endlessly repeating these words: No! Not again!!!

With his blood soaked shoes, he jerked himself backwards, knocking his head violently into the table behind him. As he sunk towards unconsciousness, Snape distinctly heard him say, "Oh good, I didn't need help."

How bizarre, Snape thought to himself, as he caught the pale, sweating, and now openly bleeding boy-who-lived-only-to-be-fucked-senseless-by-a-nasty-death-eater.