In the wee hours of the nigh'
Mugs are raised,
Mask are shed,
Secrets and woes shared,
And if the company's right,
Plans are made...
1:22 AM
Snape's arm seared. His eyes snapped open. Fear bit at his throat. A scream rent the air. Not his own. The scream abruptly ceased. Sheet flung high, he ran. "Stop!" He shouted in his head. Don't be a Gryffindor. Creeping now. An uttered spell, "huminum revealio." Only one other person. The intruder? Or an intruder and a dead former nuisance? With a spell the door slowly swung open revealing Harry alone and clutching his head.
It was a disturbing sight. Disturbing because the boy was silent. Disturbing because the boy looked so small and young. Disturbing because the boy was obviously in pain. Disturbing because when Snape's fingers brushed the child's head the boy journeyed to a corner on the opposite side of the room with such speed that Snape suspected accidental magic assisted the flight. Disturbing because the child no longer displayed pain. He displayed fear.
Snape ran a hand through his hair. "Shit." Fear wasn't something he knew how to fix; Mr. Fuss had already found a way to remove himself from his abusive home life, there was nothing left to fix.
The fear blossomed into embarasment. Snape silently acknowledge the change. Embarrassment was good. Embarrassment meant the boy knew his fear was unfounded. Best of all, embarrassment was easily solved. Just feign ignorance. Snape left the room. Perhaps he'd make cocoa.
1:28 AM
Snape shouted, "You want this hot chocolate you best get your butt down here. You're nearly fourteen. I'm not carting it up..." Harry stepped into the room. "to you," Snape finished.
It was blatantly obvious on the child's face that this was a new and slightly unsettling experience for him. When you are a loved three year old and are awoken from a bad dream or are injured you're cuddled and fawned over. But when you are thirteen and unloved the concept of someone caring enough to sit with you in the middle of the night drinking cocoa was as bizarre as people walking on the moon is to pure bloods. Snape should know. Lily had opened her door or window to him on late nights when his father binged.
1:32 AM
The brat had settled and it was time to ask, "What happened to hurt your head?"
But before he could get so much as the first syllable out Harry stated, "Your arm and my forehead hurt simultaneously," Then with narrowed eyes, "Why?"
Snape was taken aback by the boys perseptiveness. He must have held his arm while in the brat's room. Snape hesitated to answer. He drew in a sharp breath then quietly spoke, "Your life has not been all sunshine and rainbows. Yet, who did you seek assistance from? The warm, squishy always cheerful Molly Weasley? the twinkly eyed headmaster? No, you came to the dungeon bat. The most feared and despised professor this century." Snape shifted uncomfortably, "I also lacked in people who would give you more than the two fingered salute. Like you I sought assistance and a connection and found it with those whose companionship most would flee from, which I eventually fled from."
"A horse will drink from a polluted pond if there is not else to drink."
Snape nodded in response.
Silence reigned.
1:36 AM
"I saw him. Voldemort."
Snape jerked as though slapped.
Harry ran his fingers through his hair, "Heard him, really. It was odd. The voice connected to the hand was small, like a child's."
"You know his voice?"
Nod.
"How?"
"Dementors," Harry shuddered, "I hear my Mum begging him not to kill me."
Snape's eyes snapped to Harry.
"He tells her to get out of the way. She doesn't."
Harry's eyes slid down and to the right.
Snape's did the same. For the briefest of a firefly's flash he felt an odd hope because his former master had attempted to do as he had requested, had made an attempt not to kill Lily. If the Dark Lord had tried to keep his word, perhaps he wasn't to blame for Lily's death. That instant of reprieve from guilt was squished with the ferocity it deserved. No matter who carried the blade to her door he was the one who had set it swinging. He had been starved of acknowldgement, assistance, companionship, dignity. He hadn't been a snake; he'd been a puppy begging for a pat on the head. Like any good retriever he'd run off and fetched every ball, not caring or even noticing the flower beds destroyed in the chase or the holes and drool left on the ball. "Great," thought Snape, "I'm comparing myself to The Mutt."
1:41AM
Snape attempted to speak, but found he had to clear his throat, "Wh..phf...What did he say?"
Harry looked at his half mug of cocoa and spun it about in his hands, "A muggle showed up. An old guy. He had the man that was with him, McDermott, he said, told him to kill the muggle. Then told his snake to eat the guy."
"You saw this happen. The man being killed?"
Nod.
1:43
Snape noticed a leg bouncing beneath the table. "There's more."
Harry looked up. "They, they were planning something. Planning to kill, gulp, someone."
"What else aren't you telling?"
Shrug.
Snape flicked his wand at a cupboard then levitated a plate to the table, then swished at another cupboard and had a box of biscuits from a local bakery floating towards him. He placed the biscuits on the plate and touched them with a mild heating charm and a smell wafting charm. Snape kept the plate to his side of the table. He lifted a warm, soft, and ever so slightly gooey chocolate chip biscuit to his mouth and savored a bite.
"Tell all and you can share in the biscuits and finish your cocoa. Stay quiet and you'll go straight to bed."
The odd ploy actually pulled a small smile from the teen before his face again paled, "They plan to take me. Use me for something. Kill me. They're waiting until after the World Cup and he's supposed to have someone loyal at Hogwarts that will help him get me. He said many loyal servants would give their right hand to assist him. Said it with an odd tone."
Snape's brow furrowed. He shoved the cookies toward the teen. "Eat. Then we must plot."
3:18 AM
Two weary souls climbed into their beds, plots and plans swirling in each head.