Disclaimer: Standard
Beta'd by the lovely, wonderful, amazing imadoodlenoodle.
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"What, precisely, were you thinking? Mister Potter." Harry was standing in Professor Snape's office the day after the Troll Incident, as he and the others were now calling it.
"Honestly sir, we didn't expect to find the Troll." Harry suddenly remembered Blaise's words and shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I didn't expect to find the troll. Miss Zabini probably wanted to a little because mister Crabbe had just told us he could speak Troll, but mister Goyle and I just wanted to make sure Granger was safe." He settle into a pattern of speech he'd been taught by captain Flint for official situations. Of course, it was mostly applied externally, such as with parents, but it felt better at that moment.
"Very well." Professor Snape sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers and glowering a bit. "You will tell me everything that happened. Then, if I have no questions, we can begin our lesson."
Harry found himself talking, starting with the charms class and Draco's comment about the beaver, and ending with the arrival of the professors. He left nothing out, including the fact that he'd seen Professor Snape himself, running away from the dungeons, and that he'd noticed his Head limping, though he'd told no one.
"And then mister Crabbe said 'your mother was a dwarf who couldn't even lift a club' in Troll, and it got really mad and started taking swings at us so Granger started telling mister Goyle how to do wingardum leviosa properly because she didn't have her wand, and he made the troll's club fly up and it fell on his head. Miss Zabini said 'Huh. Go weighted clubs.' And then Professor McGonagall showed up, and you and Professor Quirrel got there a second later." There was a moment of utter silence.
"Mister Goyle said what?" There was a note of something Harry would later come to learn was called disbelieving incredulity in his Head's voice.
"Your mother was a dwarf who couldn't even lift a club." Harry said. "Sir." Harry got to see his Head lower his head into his hands and groan in dismay.
"Very well." Professor Snape finally looked up. "I am satisfied that half of my first years should have been sorted into Gryffindor, or Hufflepuff, or anywhere but Slytherin. Now," he leaned forwards in one of his abrupt changes of topic, "how have your nights been?" Harry felt his mind wandering as it often did during these meetings, and brought it under his control, focusing on the room by counting the jars with weird things that he could see.
"It's been good sir." Gregory clapped him on the back when he'd woken up for the ninth morning in a row without having disrupted their sleep. "The nightmares aren't coming nearly as often." Gregory was holding him as he thrashed his way into wakefulness, flailing and shaking in terror. "But when the do come they're just as bad." Gregory was stroking his back as he shook with reaction. Harry shook off the memories, focusing on Professor Snape's hands, counting the seconds between each twitch.
"And your classes?" Draco's smirk, Gregory's history notes, the comfort of being part of a group.
"They're going well sir." Studying late at night, curled by the fire in the common room long after most of the first-years had given up, being tutored by the older students.
"And your friends?" Blaise's notes on absolutely everyone. It was interesting what he associated each question with. Classes was flashes of noticing things about his friends, friends was the pranks, and worse than pranks, planned for not-friends. Harry shook his head to clear it.
"My friends are doing good." Harry smiled. "Even if Draco's still a spoiled brat." He felt the slight pressure that was always there when his mind wandered let up, and he immediately oriented himself to the room.
"Sit, mister Potter." Professor Snape gestured towards a chair placed to the side of the desk, turning it with a flick of his wand so that it faced his own chair. Harry walked over with no hesitation and sat down, resting his hands on his knees. "It has been almost precisely two months since you came to this school." It was a statement, an introduction to a conversation that entered into unknown territory. "And each day that passes I see you, at meals, in my classroom, here as we are today, and part of me sees your father." Harry did not speak. Speaking would be bad. "When you do things like that rash and foolish run to save miss Granger from herself I see your father very clearly," he paused, "but I also see you." Professor Snape leaned forwards, locking his eyes to Harry's, his gaze different, intense, and a bit frightening.
"You have begun to change, mister Potter." A poignant pause, something much more than just a teacher-student relationship passing between them. It was as though connections could be passed through blood, as though the enmity between Severus Snape and James Potter had created a bond between Professor Snape and Harry Potter. "You are not a carefree, arrogant little toad." Bitterness like a sugar cookie dipped in firewhisky hung in the air. "You are not, your father, much as young mister Malfoy is attempting to turn you into him, though he is not aware of the similarities."
"The difference between you and mister Malfoy, or, for that matter you and your father, is that you wear your arrogance like a cloak and just as easily discarded, while they assume theirs like they were born with it already a part of them." These conversations were not all that unusual, though they usually stayed on slightly less...dangerous...topics. Harry knew that if he hadn't have been sorted into Slytherin then he and Snape would have never been able to create this fragile ease that existed between them.
What had started out as relatively simple lessons in mental control as an attempt to prevent the nightmares had evolved into strangely deep conversations that fluctuated between the original intent, lessons on surviving Slytherin and the world of pure-blood wizardry, and soul-baring sessions in which Harry got a chance to talk about his life with the Dursleys and Professor Snape was able to come to terms with the fact that he didn't absolutely despise the spawn of his childhood enemy. The subject of Harry's mother, however, did not come up.
"Speaking of cloaks," Harry chose to interrupt, knowing through that strange feeling he got during these sessions, that what needed to be said had been said and they should move on, "Do you have any idea what Draco's mother has to do with his ridiculous wardrobe?" Harry had been meaning to ask this for over a month, but it kept slipping his mind.
"Narcissa Malfoy, operates under the rule that anyone associated with her family must wear appropriate attire of an appropriate color, which has nothing to do with complexion, and such attire must display an appropriate amount of wealth." Professor Snape straightened. "She has, since her marriage to Lucius Malfoy, hand-picked the wardrobe of everyone she has had over for dinner more than three times save her husband and myself. She has dressed the Crabbes and Goyles, the Parkinsons, though miss Pansy seems to have...modified her attire. I would caution you to keep quiet the amount of gold you hold in your vaults, otherwise Narcissa may insist on a month long excursion to every 'fashion capital' our world has to offer, in order to properly clothe you." Harry started grinning at this last sentence until Snape's face made him stop abruptly.
"You, you aren't serious? Are you?" Harry started to become worried.
"Mister Potter, am I known for my jests?" Snape gazed evenly back.
"She's already started to dress me." Harry pulled at the green sleeve underneath his robes, the embroidered silver snakes around the buttonholes all hidden by said robe. "How did you escape?" Harry looked beseechingly at his Head of House, maybe, just maybe, there was a chance for escape.
"I told her no, and I refused to let her pick even one garment for me, and believe me mister Potter, if she is allowed to select even one garment she will find a way to select them all." Professor Snape arched an eyebrow as Harry groaned, covering his face with his hands.
"I'm sick and tired of green, silver, and black." Harry raised his head. "And Draco looks horrible in his darker outfits. It makes him look like a corpse. I want something in a nice dark red, or jeans, jeans would be nice. I like jeans. I want to see Draco wearing light blue or green. Something happy!"
"Something similar to the – shirt – you borrowed earlier this year?" Professor Snape interrupted, his laughing eyes unamused.
"I would never expect him to wear a tee shirt." Harry said honestly. "That would be asking a bit too much. No, I just want him in something that isn't the same green, silver, or black." He thought for a minute. "And actually, really, I just want me to have a choice of something else."
"Well then mister Potter, you have the unenviable goal of standing up to a woman more terrifying than an improperly brewed batch of Veritaserum – on the subject of clothing." Professor Snape smiled, and not in a very nice way, but strangely enough it was comforting. "I will, of course, inform the lady Malfoy that if she kills you she will have to purchase your coffin." Harry smiled at that, a soft huff of laughter escaping his lips.
"Now I do believe mister Goyle is about to knock on the door to inform you that it has been an hour and you promised to study history and charms with him after our meeting." Professor Snape gestured for him to rise, and sure enough there was a knock at the door seconds after he rose to his feet.
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"M-m-mister P-p-p-pot-t-ter. P-please st-tay after c-class." Professor Quirrel stuttered as the bells rang out the end of a rather dull DADA class. Harry packed his bag slowly, nudging Gregory towards the door and giving him a look that said 'wait please'. When the classroom was empty he turned to the turban'd man at the front.
"Yes Professor?" He kept his voice polite, but he was quite tense, and the scar on his forehead was stinging in a way that made him want to rip it off and feed it to the giant squid...not that that would do any good- or was even possible...
"I w-was w-wond-d-dering." Professor Quirrel walked towards him, and Harry barely managed to hold his ground. He wasn't scared, much, but as the Professor approached the stinging turned into a violent burning. He held his hands in front of him in a futile gesture of warding, and one of his hands touched the Professor's. Both pulled back, and Harry saw boils erupting on the Professor's hand as he turned and fled the room.
"Harry?" Gregory was waiting right outside the door. Luckily no one else was with him.
"Let's go. Now." Harry turned and ran towards the dungeons, not even willing to brave the Great Hall for dinner, there was always the Kitchens.
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A woman was screaming, and a man. Green light, blinding, and a high, cold laugh.
"We'll fix you boy."
"No! Not Harry!"
"None of that, funny stuff."
Heavy fists turned into blinding green light.
"Harry! Harry wake up!"
Curled in the cupboard under the stairs, his entire body aching.
Bars like a cage, a woman screaming, a tall, hooded man, nothing but darkness and those piercing red eyes, green light, so much green light. The green light overwhelmed him, enveloped him, and then he was a the zoo, staring at the snake. The snake that winked when he apologized for his Uncle's behavior.
"You can understand me?" He asked. The snake nodded.
"I'm getting Professor Snape."
Professor Snape? A man in a billowing black robe telling him that he didn't want him in his house. Waking up in a cold sweat, Gregory's arms around him. Uncle Vernon's hands coming down over and over, pain blossoming across his chest, on his arms. Flying into a wall. Flying. Flying on his broom, chasing the snitch that turned into a flash of green light and he was falling and a woman was screaming.
"I don't want him in this house Petunia!"
"I do not know how you were sorted into this house, mister Potter."
"We have to Vernon. Please!"
More fists, across his body, everywhere that wouldn't show when he went to school. He wouldn't stop. It would never stop. Green light.
"Mister Potter." Something sharp and horrible smelling was being held under his nose. He barely managed to roll onto his stomach and shove his face over the side of his bed before the contents of his intestines emptied themselves onto the plush carpet. When he picked his head up Professor Snape was holding a bottle of Dreamless Sleep potion. He nodded, and his Head poured a small dose into a conjured cup, handing it over. Harry drank it and leaned back as he felt the mattress sink and Gregory's arms reach around him. The last thing he remembered was Professor Snape rising and waving his wand over what used to be the contents of his stomach. Then the potion kicked in and he entered a state of nothingness.