PART SEVEN – Upside Down and Inside Out"Harry, didn't I tell you to finish that book before coming back in here?"
Harry scowled sullenly. "I did," he lied.
Snape put down the quill he was using to irredeemably disfigure his students' papers with blood red ink. "You've been in there for all of about ten minutes since I left you. I know how fast you read. The book would have taken you nearly an hour to finish. Do not lie to me."
Harry crossed his arms over his chest, both to attempt to look tougher and as a defence should Snape choose to punish him. For two years, Harry had not broken any of the rules to a large enough extent to warrant punishment. He hated to think what punishment could be like when there was magic involved. Snape could charm a paddle to beat him so that it needn't stop when its holder got tired. Or, worse still, he could curse Harry. He'd heard Snape and Dumbledore talk of dark curses that put the victim in so much pain that they might wish that they were dead. Would the Professor get angry enough to do that?
But Snape did nothing other than continue to stare at Harry, as if waiting for him to break down. Eventually, of course, he did. There was only so much silent reproach a thirteen year old boy could take.
"I can't concentrate on it."
"That is why you need to keep going. You need to learn to stay focused on things for much longer than you currently do."
"I've been getting better," Harry argued.
Snape stood abruptly. "Not enough! You will never be useful as long as you cannot think!"
"You said yourself that I shouldn't get any ideas! Back when you showed me your office! How can I think when I'm not allowed to have ideas? There's only so long you can think about one thing without getting ideas! I should know, since I've spent almost my whole life avoiding doing just that!"
"Don't you yell at me!" Snape shouted back at him. He loomed over Harry in a threatening manner. Harry, quite sure that he was going to be hit, and then punished quite thoroughly, dropped to the floor and flung his arm over his head as if to protect him.
Nothing happened.
Harry opened his eyes to see that there was no one in front of him. Snape had disappeared. In fact, so had all the furniture.
"Harry?" a voice called from above him. The voice sounded like Snape's, but he'd never heard it so… worried? Incredulous? He wasn't quite sure, but it at least didn't sound furious anymore.
Harry looked up, only to see Snape suspended above him, upside down, along with all the furniture. How had he gotten up there? Snape's eyes were wide. Harry looked back at the ground he was kneeling on. Or, rather, the ceiling he was kneeling on, he realised with a start, for it was bare other than a spider web suspended between the walls in the corner. He let out a panicked cry and then felt himself falling.
Snape caught him with some kind of levitation charm and turned his body around the right way, finally setting him back down on his feet, which promptly nearly collapsed from underneath him. But Snape was right there, holding him steady with a grip on each of Harry's upper arms.
"That was very impressive," Snape said when Harry's breathing had slowed and his legs felt a little less wobbly. The older man pulled back from Harry, letting him stand on his own, so that he could look at him.
"Did I… did I just do magic?" Harry breathed.
Snape smirked at him, as close as he would ever come to a smile. "I do believe you did. Did you think that I would hit you?"
Harry nodded slowly, worried that Snape would be unhappy with him.
"I wouldn't," Snape assured him. Harry blinked. "When I said you would be punished if you broke my rules, I meant that I would punish you as I would a student. They receive detention when they misbehave. I would have given you some kind of extra work to do."
"Oh," Harry said.
"Your relatives didn't treat you as normal people would have. Headmaster Dumbledore and I have told you that before. And I also told you, didn't I, that if you weren't sure about how something was done, you should ask me?"
Harry nodded, and Snape sighed.
"Well, it's just as well, I suppose. How else would we have discovered that you aren't a squib after all?"
"I'm not?" Harry asked, confused. "So I'm a wizard?"
"Yes, though you have no control over your magic yet, obviously. Why did you never use it before? Didn't you ever try to protect yourself against your aunt and uncle? Didn't you ever get angry or afraid when they were going to punish you?"
Harry shook his head. "I just… that was just how it happened. There was no point being angry or afraid, because it wouldn't change anything. And, you know, I couldn't let myself feel anything that strong, or focus too much on anything in particular, because I knew it would give me ideas, and that would just make things worse.
"But just before, I got angry. At least, I think it was anger. I don't think I've ever felt that way before. Then, when I thought you were going to punish me for it, I just… I was scared, because you're a wizard and how do I really know what you're capable of?"
Snape nodded in acceptance of his explanation.
"You're right, you don't. But if you're going to decide that you have magic when you're thirteen years old, after you should already have started school, then I think that it's probably best that someone teach you just what a wizard can do, before you get yourself killed."
"My magic could kill me?" Harry asked. Harry had been well aware that one of the other witches or wizards around him – the adults, at least, who knew how to properly use their magic – could have likely snuffed him out with a couple of words, or maybe even a thought. It had never occurred to him that they might be at risk from their own magic.
Snape, however, merely looked oddly amused. "Only if you use it very stupidly. And even then, it's unlikely. Though it would make my position as a teacher a lot easier if the more idiotic students frequently offed themselves by accident."
Harry peered up at Snape, who was still significantly taller than him. "Will I be one of your students, then?" he asked.
Snape sighed. "I'd be surprised if I wasn't the very first person Headmaster Dumbledore approached about teaching you. Of course, that will mean I'll very quickly grow to hate you. Students are abysmal creatures, as a rule. I can't abide them. I imagine you'll be the worst of all."
Harry had spent enough time around Snape to learn to recognise what the man had referred to as 'sarcasm'.
He grinned.
