Through Darkened Halls
Chapter 9
By Corgi
Severus was surprised at the at the boy's willingness to help him in his laboratory. He knew how much the younger wizard hated potions, he'd admit in a very tiny corner of his mind that his treatment of the boy was the reason why. He sent Po…Harry ahead to his private lab and ordered him to set up five cauldrons while he locked up his personal rooms. His laboratory was located several hallways away from his quarters, which was two away from the Slytherin dorms. He preferred not being bothered by either his students or coworkers as he worked on his experimental potions. He just hoped Po… Harry was capable of following directions. He certainly didn't seem like he could in class.
Severus made his way down the hall, deeper into the dungeons. Having the snake around is neck was liberating as she shared her sight with him. It was also a little disorienting since he was seeing things from a different angle since she perched on his shoulders. Either way he was grateful for the gift. He wouldn't lose those things that made life worth living. He was only a hall away from his lab when dizziness and nausea assailed him. He leaned against the wall with his eyes closed as the snake hissed in a comforting manner. He spared a small thought towards the snake around his neck. Was she suffering from the nausea too? Once the world stopped spinning around him and his stomach stopped rebelling he cautiously opened his eyes and saw… nothing! Though he'd never outwardly show it, panic raced through his mind. Albus never said anything about him losing the ability to see during the first forty-eight hours. He did his best to find the lab and Potter, but after a few minutes he was hopelessly lost. He could tell by the feel of the walls that he was never in this part of the dungeons and wasn't anywhere near his lab or his rooms.
He became short of breath as the panic threatened to overwhelm him. If for some reason some of his Slytherins wandered this way he was in serious trouble. The snake couldn't protect him from a mob with her venom and he couldn't see to aim. He was in trouble and he knew it. He turned in what he hoped was a hundred and eighty degree angle and stumbled forward in hopes of retracing his steps. It wasn't one of his brighter moves as he became even more lost than he was before. He started to hyperventilate as he moved faster in faster in hopes of finding familiar territory. The snake hissed as him, but since he couldn't understand her he never received her message. Much to his surprise the snake slithered down his body when he paused to catch his breath. What shocked him even more was the piercing pain in his ankle as the snake bit him. The poison raced through his system and he collapsed onto the floor. He heard her scales moving against the stone floor as she left him alone in the dark with her venom in his veins.
She moved as quickly as the cold floor would allow her. Her bonded was in danger and she knew only the speaker could help her. The fact that she couldn't talk directly with her bonded distressed her greatly. Nothing in her species collective memory explained why she couldn't speak with the man she allowed to look through her eyes. She paused every few moments to test the air. The one thing these cold, damp, man-sized tunnels were good for was preserving scent. Finally she approached an area that held the speaker's scent and she made her way to where it was the strongest.
She was stalled when she encountered the closed door to the foul smelling place. The crack beneath the door was too small for her to slither under and no matter how loudly she hissed the speaker couldn't hear her. She brushed along the wall seeking a way into the room when she suddenly slipped through a concealed hole in the wall. It was large enough for those furry, hissing, sharp clawed animals walk through and she didn't question her good fortune. She needed to hurry. Though she didn't eject a full dose of venom into her bonded, it was still enough to kill the man if she didn't hurry.
"Speaker, speaker, please hurry. My bonded is lost and in danger." She hissed the moment she cleared the tunnel.
"What happened?" The speaker asked with concerned eyes.
"The bond did what you and the white haired one said would happen. It weakened enough that he cannot see out of my eyes. I had to bite him when he got lost and panicked. Please hurry, speaker"
"I'm coming. I've to find a poison antidote or something to slow it down until we get him to the hospital wing."
She watched as the speaker hurried into a small room filled with hundreds of bottles. He moved frantically through the bottles and luckily didn't break any. He hurried out and threw the door open and waited for her to climb up his body. They ran through the halls with her hissing directions until they reached her bonded. The man was breathing very fast and the speaker knelt on the floor beside the tall pale man. She watched the speaker as he helped her bonded drink down something to help counteract her venom and after as few moments the black-eyed man was close to being back to normal.
She left the speaker and made her way back to her bond mate's shoulders. She looked him over with a critical glare, hissing comfortingly to him as she did so. She could feel the anger, fear and rejection from her bonded and she was confused. She tried to ask him what was wrong and became increasingly frustrated when she didn't get a response. She turned to the speaker for help.
"He does not understand me. How am I supposed to help him I cannot speak to him?" She hissed at the speaker, making her anger clear.
"We'll try and find a way for you to talk directly to him, but for now what would you like me to tell him?" The speaker replied calmly.
"I want him to know that he's going to be alright. That this is only a temporary set back. I want to know why he's angry and feeling rejected." She allowed her confusion at the last to show clearly through her tone.
"Angry I can guess, but the feeling of rejection has me baffled."
"Well Potter, what is she saying?" Severus snapped at the student in front of him.
"Harry, my name is Harry and you agreed to call me by that while I was around to help. As to what the snake was saying, you really should give her a name by the way; she wanted me to tell you something and a question or two of her own." The brat responded without rising to the bait.
"Well?"
"She was trying to tell you that everything is okay." Harry replied to his less than patient prodding. Severus snorted in irritation. "She tasted your fear and knew you were upset because you had no way to defend yourself when the bond fluctuated. She wanted to know why you were mad and why you were feeling rejected. I can guess the anger came from either being bitten or the bond phasing out, or both. Now what about this rejected feeling she said she felt from you?" Severus glared in the direction he thought the boy was in, but didn't think he was able to pull it off with his sightless eyes. He heard the boy sigh. "Alright, alright, but you'd better discuss it with your snake. She may not be able to talk to you, but she does understand what you're saying."
"This creature is an animal. It has no concept of human emotion, boy." He snarled at the nosy boy.
"Snakes do understand emotions even though it's not as defined as ours. Also, you know Nagini comprehends those higher emotions. Your snake probably picked up the knowledge of the more complex ones through your bond." Harry debated.
Severus sat there in silence. Right now all he wanted to do was return to his familiar rooms. Those he can maneuver around despite his handicap. After all, he's returned from Death Eater meetings in such pain that he couldn't see straight. He shrugged that line of thought away and struggled to his feet. He nearly fell, but Po… Harry was there to lend a hand and keep him from tumbling to the floor.
"Do you want to go to the lab or to your rooms, sir?" Harry asked as he waited for Severus to steady himself.
"My rooms. There's no reason to bother with the lab. I can't see anything and I don't trust you to get it right." He doubted that Harry would notice the dejected sound in his voice.
While Harry may not have noticed it, his snake did. She immediately began hissing and he heard the younger wizard respond. After their conversation ended he felt the snake rub her head against his cheek.
"The bond will come back, Professor. She says she can still feel your presence in her head. It's a temporary fluctuation. She's not rejecting you."
"Since when have you become an expert on familiar bonds?" Severus snapped, though he really wanted to know, he just didn't want the brat to know he was interested in the answer.
"I bonded my owl and myself together at the end of last year." Harry said as he began leading Severus back to his rooms. "She's my only means of contact with my friends and as a result she's gone a lot. The bond would let her know if I needed help through the emotional surges and she'd know to go and get help."
Severus was surprised at the amount of thought that went into the younger man's decision to bond his owl tighter to him. He wondered what the difference between his bond and the one Harry used were.
"Why does it seem that your bond go both ways and the one used for me doesn't? I've seen you with your bird earlier in the year and it seems that you get input in return."
"The spell I used differs a lot from the one we used to bind you to your snake. The spell I used created a two way channel, but it doesn't allow for the sharing of our senses with each other. Yours allows the use of sight, which may be why you don't receive any emotional feedback from her." Harry told him and Severus could picture the furrows in the younger man's brows as the green-eyed wizard thought through the problem.
"Really? The sacrifice of the empathic reception from the snake is what allows me to use its eyes." Severus stated, wondering if there was a way to gain the lost portion without giving up another aspect of the bond. The younger man must have been thinking the same for his next comment paralleled Severus' thoughts.
"I'll have to unpack my books and see if there's a means to restore the empathic bond from her to you without disrupting the sight bond. There may be a way to give you her language too, possible by charming a ring or pendant. I'll have to look into that too."
Harry had stopped them for a moment and muttered the password to Severus' rooms. Severus allowed himself to be led into his rooms, though he didn't remember telling the brat the password to his rooms. They were barely in and the door shut when Severus continued their conversation as an idea concerning the brat and his owl came floating free in his mind.
"You may want to look into that for yourself too. If you lose those blasted glasses during combat you'll be able to use her eyes." Severus pointed out, but without the venom he would normally use and he didn't have a clue as to why.
"You've got a point. Would you like tea or something to eat, Professor?"
"Tea please, but no biscuits." Severus lowered himself into his chair when he found himself in familiar territory. The air in this room differed vastly from his classroom, work room and the rest of the dungeons.
He listened as Harry puttered around his small kitchen area, making the tea. He still couldn't figure out why Harry of all people is helping him. Didn't he make the young wizard's school career a living hell? He couldn't see any reason why the boy would help him. He really should think of him differently, Harry really wasn't a boy anymore and the times he truly bothered to look at Harry proved that he was a man under those robes. He decided to come right out and demand an explanation from the young man. One could never know with a Gryffindor. He might get the answer he wanted without a fuss.
He heard Harry come in with the tea, the cups rattled on the tray as the young man walked, and after preparing a cup of tea to his specifications the sound of the other man landing bonelessly on his couch met his ears. They sat in a companionable silence, sipping their tea. Neither man wanted to break the wordless truce they had. The only sound other then them sipping tea and the fire crackling was the snake slithering along Severus' clothes. Once their tea was done, Harry silently took the tray inside, washed and returned the pot and cups back into the cabinets he retrieved them from. Severus was amazed at how sharp his hearing became. He could tell from the sounds the brat made where in the kitchen he was and whether he was putting the dishes away properly. He could even hear the very light footfalls the messy-haired youth made across his rug. Harry returned to the couch with out a sound and Severus figured now was as good a time as any to find out why the brat was here.
"So tell me, why are you helping me? Haven't I given you enough reasons not to?" Severus braced himself for an answer along the lines of 'Dumbledore told me I had to' from the young man sharing his quarters.
"Why wouldn't I?" Harry answered in a confused tone.
"I've given you enough reasons to gloat at my misfortune."
"I said before you shouldn't let Voldemort win and I won't allow him to hurt anymore of my family."
"Family?" Severus was confused. He knew that the brat didn't consider him family.
"You heard me right. The staff here is the only semi-normal and reliable adults in my life, even you." Harry replied in a steady voice. "Like Hermione said earlier, if we don't take care of you, who will?"
"You told Ms. Granger what happened?" Severus was becoming angry now. His personal life wasn't something to bandy around the school.
"I had to. She's better at research than I am. Since she's Muggle born she'll have a different insight on how to reverse this curse."
"She's trying to find a cure?" Severus internally cringed at the wonder in his voice. He didn't like the way this Gryffindor was throwing him off balance.
"Yes, she is. I told you you're part of my family and Voldemort's taken enough of it already. I intend on keeping the remaining intact as long as I can." Harry's voice held a note of grim determination.
Severus sat there in stunned silence. A warm feeling was growing with in him, a feeling that only Albus has ever evoked in him.
