Beneath Still Waters
Rating: PG
Summary: Outside the Great Hall, Severus and Draco learn a bit more about their charge.
"Weasley!" Draco hissed with a significant glance at his mentor.
"I told you he would do it. I told you!"
"What? Ron didn't hex me. He wouldn't…"
"How would you know?" Draco's jealous voice cracked, almost
reaching the hall, and stirring Harry's irritation at his
suitemate over his memory of how Draco had acted on the train.
"I slipped in! That's how. I slipped in and he's mad, sure,
but he doesn't want to hurt me." Harry confessed without
realizing, in his pique at Draco, that he had confirmed his
professor's suspicion until he caught the sharp calculating
look in his professor's gaze and winced as
his professor whispered: 'legillimens'.
Beneath Still Waters
Severus did his best to ease into the child's mind, admiring as he did the child's natural occlumancy shields and well defined mental declensions. Whether it was due to the years of abuse or his natural make up – the child's mind appeared to be well structured and compartmentalized. It reflected a mental preparation that Severus had taken years to set up in his godson's mind, and the fact that Harry, for whatever reason, was so far along would mean that he could begin occlumancy lessons at the exact same point for both boys and allow them to develop and work on their shields together – a factor that was known to be far more favorable than the often overpowering influence of a trained occlumancer/legillimancer. Given their growing friendship, such a bond could only help Draco escape his father's path while giving the fragile child a more self-oriented perspective of what his life should be like.
'Harry' he called in the equivalent soft mental whisper and smiled softly at the child's quick response.
'Sir?' The child's questioning recognition was accompanied by a surprising stiffness in the child's form that worried Severus.
'Child, are you well?'
'You can slip, too?'
'Yes, I can also 'slip' into others' minds.'
'But, you're not evil!' The child protested mentally and vocally with a certainty that Severus found both touching for the child's faith and enraging for the obvious belief ingrained into the child that he was evil because he possessed a rare and delicate ability.
'No, Child,' he answered then gently withdrew from Harry's mind before continuing in a soft tone so that his godson and their suitemates could hear the remainder of his answer. "Occlumancy and legillimency are delicate and difficult arts that take a great deal of training to wield correctly, not a signs of darkness."
"But, Uncle Vernon said…" Harry trailed off wincing as he realized that he had once again slipped back into the use of his uncle's familial title when referring to a matter of his abuse ingrained authority (as Professor Snape described it).
"Child, what have I stated repeatedly about Mr. Dursley as an arbiter of wizarding knowledge?"
"The man…" Harry responded with a sneering tone so like Severus's that Draco's eyes widened as his friend continued, "has so little knowledge and understanding of the wizarding world that the wizengamot would have little difficulty sentencing him to a lifetime stint in a remedial facility for mentally challenged quibs."
Hearing his criticism so perfectly parroted back to him drew a full roll of vibrant, baritone laughter from Severus and caused Draco to grin wryly at his godfather before darting his eyes to the Great Hall's entry in alarm.
"Uncle Sev! They'll hear you laughing," Draco warned sharply causing Severus to quickly regain his composure with a grim nod.
"I'm sorry, Sir." Harry blurted – his eyes solidly anchored to the floor.
"For what are you apologizing, this time?"
"Making you laugh, Sir. I make everyone laugh at me."
Severus was glad, for once, that the child's eyes were glued to the floor, for he was almost certain that the child would have flinched at the stark anger crossing his and Draco's faces.
"Harry, Child, my anger was neither derogatory, nor directed at you but at the fact that for the first time in over a decade, I have a student who actually pays enough attention to my statement that he can accurately repeat them, verbatim to tone and intonation, even weeks later."
"Hey!" Draco protested, "I always listen."
"Yes, Draco, I know; however, I would have thought that you would realize that I hardly consider you a student first… but instead as family first."
"Of course, I knew that. I just wanted to remind you that I do listen, too." Draco retorted but clearly seemed mollified.
"Now, Harry, how are you feeling? It goes without saying that I expect an accurate report. Flying can be dangerous –particularly the first time you are on a broom. If you are in any doubt about your physical state, It should be divulged immediately."
To Harry's credit, he paused thinking about the question carefully, but giving Severus a response without realizing that he was doing so. During his weeks tutoring the child in the hospital wing, Severus had observed and catalogued over two dozen tells and was hard pressed not to sigh as he watched the child.
Harry's delicate hands flickered and fluttered over his robes straightening their folds and cuffs with quick care. The child's pale countenance warmed to an almost healthy peach tinged skin tone with a silent breath of the child's wish magic. His posture straightened and his eyes sharpened in focus so that he would appear to be the eager but sober, model student that he and his housemates were being taught to project.
To anyone, unfamiliar with Harry, the child's appearance would have been flawless, but Severus saw the reddening vessels in Harry's eyes that spoke of still intense, but slowly receding pain. His quick, impersonal scan of the child's face caught the faint bite marks on the child's lips where he had bitten to keep from crying out. The child's chest heaved like a sparrow's caught under a cat's keen eye.
Given the choice, Severus would not have allowed the child's release from the medical wing, much less his return to classes, but the headmaster and mediwitch had prevailed upon him to let the child return to even a half-schedule of his classes. Their arguments, while sound, had not won him over so much as Harry – sitting up, dwarfed by the youth bed and pale by the glaring white infirmary linens – doing just as he was now: attempting to convince Severus that he was in a better condition than he actually was.
And, just as Severus had then, he waited until Harry took the extra step of making his wishes known. In the potion master's opinion, the child's most basic wishes had been ignored and overridden for so long that he was virtually owed a choice in almost every matter that he had the ability to understand. To that end, Severus had not intention of riding rough shod over a single of the boy's choices without compelling or life threatening justifications.
"Professor, I'm not feeling all that great," the child began, not even attempting to lie as they had quickly learned that he had pitifully little talent in the skill – particularly when it came to attempting to fool the potions master.
"But…it really is getting better, and I think that I can try Madam Hooch's class and Draco will be there."
Severus pressed a rather obvious, if tight, smile on his lips and studied the boy who seemed to bloom under it as he nodded encouragingly. He would not coddle the child when and where it was not needed or wanted, but he would certainly be there to insure that the child's wellbeing was guarded, even if the boy would have no knowledge of it.
"Very well, Harry, but you are to take lunch in my offices today so that I may assess your status."
"Yes, Sir." Harry's tiny pearl-like teeth worried his lips to a bruised mauve before he finally worked up the nerve to blurt out: "Sir, may Draco come, too?"
"Do you feel comfortable discussing your matters with him?" Severus asked cautiously suspecting the child was still trying to appease his godson for any time that they spent away from Draco.
"Yes, Sir." Harry answered with far more confidence than Severus had heard from him, "Naja's the best friend I've ever had."
