A/N 1: Thanks to 'guest', who liked the dynamic in the previous chapter.
A/N 2: Thanks Hamlet! I will continue posting, as I've already finished writing the story. I think we share the same view of Snape - a Snape without snark is no Snape at all.
A/N 3: Thanks to 'guest' who 'stumbled' into the story. I hope you continue to stumble this way until the final chapter!
A/N 4: I've been re-writing canon a little bit - you'll see what I mean.
A/N 5: After reading this chapter, you could be forgiven for thinking that the first task of the Triwizard Tournament is going to be a big thing in this story. It isn't and I apologise if anyone is looking forward to that.
A/N 6: I'm going to post three chapters tonight as they're short and kind of group together. I hope you enjoy them!
Chapter 10: Potter's Dark Night of the Soul
Sunday 22nd November (middle of the night)
(From the previous chapter)
'Never breaking curfew again. Never getting out of bed again, not even for the toilet - I'll wet the sodding bed if I have to.'
That vow lasted four days. Potter paused, his leg half way out from underneath the eiderdown, to reflect on how un-steadfast he'd proven in that particular commitment. Then again, it had been made under the extreme duress of Snape's slipper. Oh bloody, sodding Snape … the very person that had caused the breaking of that vow.
Potter couldn't figure Snape out. He was caustic and unfair and forever rolling his eyes and speaking to people like they were dim-witted three year olds. That bit of him Potter had become used to. What was keeping him awake now were The Git's occasional forays into normality. He'd been forced to admit that Snape wasn't the morose miseryguts that he'd always suspected. The man was quick-witted and lively and spent an awful lot of time with his house. There were even rare moments where Potter found him surprisingly decent, but no sooner did they happen, than Snape went and did something that reconfirmed his 'git' status.
The supper following his appointment with the frayed and tattered footwear item had been a hoot. His inclusion into the club that no one wanted to join - but almost every Snake was a member of - had prompted an outpouring of tales of folk falling afoul of Snape. The 'House of Cunning', it seemed, didn't quite live up to its name. Pucey told some corkers, even Marcus Flint made Potter laugh recounting his botched attempt to cast a featherweight charm on Snape's slipper, as well as every ruler and hairbrush in the dungeons. It seemed Draco was right and poor, old Marcus really was a colossal dunce. Bad luck Flint, but at least you have a very entertaining tale. Of course, Malfoy tried to distance himself from all the humble and hilarious admissions - spinning a line on how he regularly frequented both Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley unbeknownst to Snape - but that blatant fib was howled down and he found himself pelted with half-eaten bread rolls.
Gregory Goyle and third-year Arno Van Den Berg were the last to finish eating, polishing off all the leftover puddings and custard. During the wait for the two gluttons to finish, Potter happened to look left and saw the consummate ease with which Snape leapt down from head table - no need for him to make a diversion to the side steps. It dawned on him just how young Snape was compared to the other professors. Odd to think that the Slytherin housemaster should be working here; not many thirty-four year olds would have given over the best part of their young adulthood to a boarding school. Imagine all the great places he could have gone to instead. But he put away those thoughts as he watched Snape's quick advance upon the Slytherin table. Any second he expected to be told that he and Malfoy had earned themselves a ludicrously early lights out. They weren't. Instead, Snape clapped his hands together and told the third-years to look lively. Tonight was the first of his latest evening innovations; each week he intended to pick a year group to give a demonstration of something they'd learned in classes.
The Git stood behind Arno, rolled his eyes and gave his wand a terse flick. The bowl that Arno was desperately trying to rid of the last remains of custard floated upwards and the spoon wrested itself from his grasp, turned in the air and landed a rap on his knuckles.
"That scraping is excruciating," Glared Snape, "and you'd better have been practising."
"Don't worry, sir; you'll be begging me for tips by the end of the night!"
Snape cuffed him, but it was almost a tender blow and followed up by the faintest of smiles. This is Snape being happy, noted Potter.
Slytherin left the Great Hall en masse with Snape at the vanguard. The third-years were sent running on ahead to prepare and the first and second-years were ordered to go and arrange the furniture for the display. That left Potter and Millicent bang up next to Snape.
"What are the third-years going to show us, sir?" Asked Potter.
"Wait and see."
"I think I've forgotten everything we did in third year." Said Potter.
Another roll of the dark, dark eyes. Potter expected it. Quick as a flash, the housemaster grabbed at Potter's school jumper, pulled him close and gave him a quick shake. Potter hadn't expected that.
"Watch the demonstration carefully tonight. This might be your last chance to make up for your egregious lack of attention in classes."
Alright! Calm down, you nutjob! You were sort of happy two minutes ago, thought Potter. Before Snape could ruin the mood, however, came the consternated shrieking of Madam Pomfrey as she descended the great staircase prodding Ernie Macmillan ahead of her.
"Whatever were you thinking, you silly boy?!"
"Professor Dumbledore told me I had to do it!" Whined Macmillan.
"Fiddlesticks! Why in Merlin's name would he do that? I'll have you know those lavatories are spotless, young man!"
Millicent was thrilled as she took in Macmillan's embarrassed face.
"Is everything alright, Madam Pomfrey?" She asked ever-so-politely.
Poppy Pomfrey seemed unused to addressing enquiries from Slytherins and she directed her response to Snape.
"It's all fine now. I don't know what this young man was thinking; taking it upon himself to come and clean the hospital lavatories indeed! They're always pristine!"
"I'd expect no less." A bemused Snape replied.
"I know they are," Said Macmillan, "but I didn't want to disappoint Professor Dumbledore; that's why I cleaned the … the … other."
Madam Pomfrey shook her head and tutted.
"Then he starts cleaning bedpans! Poor little Terence Dawkins hadn't even finished using it before he yanked it away from him; gave him a terrible shock!"
Millicent now exploded into laughter. She ducked behind Snape's back and smothered her face in his teaching gown to muffle her guffaws. Snape's arm snaked around and landed a few discrete whacks on her, but they didn't have much effect. Once Poppy had shooed Macmillan into the hall for his supper, the housemaster turned and his long fingers found Millicent's chin and raised it up.
"Do I want any more details, Miss Bulstrode?"
"No, sir. I really don't think you do." Millicent replied.
And that was that. He carried on leading his Snakes down to the dungeons and Potter decided he'd never be able to figure The Git out; one minute, he pounced on the slightest infraction and the next he let things go. There seemed neither rhyme nor reason to his moods. So stuff him, thought Potter.
oOo
It was the Draconifors spell, as taught by McGonagall to her third-year classes, that was being demonstrated that night. Arno Van Den Berg and his best chum, Harriett Walsh, pleaded with Snape to let them transfigure a dragon from something larger than a pencil sharpener, but he wouldn't relent and so there were ten tiny dragons pattering around the common room floor and occasionally erupting like almost empty cigarette lighters. They delighted first-years Malcolm and Alicia, who both wanted one as a pet. Potter was reminded of Norbert and had a brief panic that they'd try to snaffle one.
"Cute now, Malcolm. But who wants an old, fire-breathing dragon running around the school?"
"That's no way to talk about your old head of house, Potter!"
"Sod off, Malfoy."
"You're right." Said Alicia to Potter, "We don't want one of them."
Potter felt a sharp elbow in his ribs.
"See? Even our first-years aren't as thick as Hagrid!" Said Malfoy.
"Sod off, Malfoy." Said Potter again, as Alicia continued speaking, "We're working on getting a grindylow out of the lake."
"Maybe not." Said Malfoy in response to Alicia's alarming news.
She scooted off to scoop up a tiny dragon that seemed intrigued by the fire.
"She is joking, isn't she?" Potter asked Malfoy.
"I bloody well hope so."
Before they could investigate Alicia and Malcolm's intentions further, Snape finished his inspection of the transfigured dragons and had the third-years quiz the older students on the various types of dragon. Malfoy beat Potter in identifying the Norwegian Ridgeback and gave his archrival a supremely smug look.
"By the way," whispered Potter, "what exactly did Snape do when McGonagall dragged you down to him after Norbert?!"
"Sod off, Potter."
Snape took over the questioning from the third-years, deciding that the fourth-years could all do with a bit of a review of this particular aspect of transfiguration. Potter wondered what on earth it had to do with The Git if they forgot some parts of another professor's course, but he was slowly becoming accustomed to Snape's tyrannical ways and so endured the mini lecture on Chinese Fireballs, Hungarian Horntails, Ukrainian Ironbellies, Swedish Shortsnouts and others without complaint.
After the first-years were packed off for their library study session, Snape allowed the others to race the dragons. It turned into great fun. The loser of each race had to perform a forfeit and Potter thought he might die of happiness as he got to witness Malfoy standing one-legged on a stool singing 'How Much is That Doggy in the Window?' In one race, Goyle's dragon veered out of lane and set fire to the bottom of the curtains. His forfeit was to dance an Irish jig. The boy could move! Who'd have thought it?! It went from forfeit to one-man-show in a heartbeat. Eventually, they persuaded the great hulk to sit down and the races continued, but not for long. Pansy upset second-year Lara Templeman by suggesting that the only real value in a dragon was to make dragon skin shoes. She eyed the Antipodean Opaleye covetously and began to estimate how much she'd need to enlarge it to make shoes and a matching bag, making Lara burst into tears. Snape overheard, sent Pansy to her dorm, told Lara to pull herself together and ordered the third-years to re-transfigure the dragons. The races had ended but it had been a good day, thought Potter - at least from suppertime onwards.
oOo
Saturday night had just been plain odd. In the afternoon, Hagrid had asked Harry to visit him after supper with his cloak. He'd become almost distraught when told that Snape had confiscated it.
"Just try, Harry." Hagrid had implored.
No way would Snape give him back the cloak and so he trudged miserably back down to the dungeons wondering what the groundskeeper had had planned. The vaguely happy Snape of Wednesday night had definitely disappeared.
"You've been out of the castle, Potter. Did I not make the rules plain to you? There is to be no lone wandering."
"It's daytime! You said it only applied to the evenings!"
"I don't like your tone. See me in my study after supper."
He didn't think he was in for another bout of the slipper. Malfoy had told him that Snape didn't muck about with such matters; if he found out you'd done something, punishment swiftly followed. All the same, it was bound to be bad. He fell into a foul mood for the remainder of the afternoon as he reflected on the nature of torture. By suppertime, he'd reached the conclusion that real torture wasn't being treated badly all the time. The Dursleys had been consistent in their lack of care and Harry had acclimatized to it, even turning the tables and teasing them occasionally. No, real torture was being decent one minute and changing to be a complete git the next. Snape was torturing him, he decided, and he wasn't going to take it.
He marched down to Snape's study after supper and banged heavily upon the door.
"Thank you so much for still leaving the door on its hinges, Potter." Said Snape.
The housemaster arched his brow when no apology was forthcoming, but Potter didn't weaken.
"I have an appointment and need to go out. You will sit there and copy out the rules on lone wandering around the castle and grounds."
"How many times, sir?"
"Until I get back … in around two hours. I think by then even you should be fully conversant with what is expected."
Snape told him that he'd find parchment in the cupboard and left.
Potter sat and fumed for ten minutes then he debated leaving. Next he began to think straight. Why would Snape make him write lines in his study? He never did that; people usually had to sit and do it in the common room - while everyone else was having fun. Out of curiosity he tried to pull open a drawer. They were all locked. He looked around and saw the mass of parchment that had littered Snape's desk on Wednesday had disappeared. He tried the cupboard. It was open and true to his word, Snape had left a stack of parchment - sitting on top of his dad's cloak. Oversight or plan? Potter never saw where Snape put his dad's cloak on Wednesday; maybe he did just sling it into the cupboard. No time to think now, though. He grabbed the cloak and went racing off to Hagrid.
oOo
So on Saturday night Potter had ventured unseen into the forest and seen Charlie Weasley and his corralled dragons, only this time they were the fully-formed variety. Snape's lecture of Wednesday played in his head as his eyes darted around and he squinted to make out the breeds. Then he heard Charlie speaking. Effing hell! He had to get past one of these?! He tried to calm his breathing and prayed he drew the Common Welsh Green and not the Hungarian Horntail. "Time to go back." Hagrid called out to Madame Maxime, but Harry knew he was really speaking to him.
Thanks to Snape, he knew the dragon breeds before Ron's brother spoke. He also had a fair idea of their behavioural traits. That wasn't luck or coincidence; he was sure of it. He raced back to Snape's study, scribbled one and a half sheets of lines and watched as Snape returned from his convenient appointment and inspected them. All he wanted was one clue in The Git's reaction that might tell him what he was thinking. But Snape had reverted to being his usual sour and unfair self,
"Industrious as ever I see, Potter." He sneered as dropped the sheets of parchment, "Get out."
And Harry began to doubt his earlier suspicions that Snape had ever been trying to help him.
oOo
But now, in the dead of night, as he tiptoed from his bed, the mass of doubts, suspicions and hopes were lurching relentlessly around his head. He really ought to stay in bed. He was exhausted and he'd have to be up and showering in four hours, but who was he kidding? He was a creature of the night. From the age of six, the night time had been his time, eating toast and watching the telly with the volume turned right down at the Dursleys, or wandering the corridors of Hogwarts with a homicidal maniac in tow. He didn't care about the rules; he felt like going up to the Astronomy Tower. Stuff Snape, he thought, and stuff his sodding slipper. No, hang on … maybe he wouldn't go that far. Okay, the Astronomy Tower was out, but he was going to go and sit in the common room.
Zabini rolled over in his sleep and gave him a start, so much so that he knocked into the tall boy's cabinet. Potter checked that all the bottles Zabini had piled up there were still standing. He smiled as he scanned the various creams and lotions vain Zabini used religiously - and wondered if he knew that Daphne and Pansy occasionally sneaked in to plunder his supply. Would Zabini care? Probably not. Potter didn't think he'd ever seen Zabini in a bad mood.
Next to Zabini, Gregory Goyle was bathed in a green glow - making his features appear even more lumpen and ugly. Potter looked and saw a green glowing stone lying on the sheet inches from Goyle's hand. On Wednesday afternoon when Snape had sent them to their dorm, Malfoy had shown the stone to Potter,
"It's his 'safe stone'." Malfoy had said, rolling his eyes, "Snape made it for him. As long as it glows green, nothing can harm him. Bloody thing keeps me awake at night; he's supposed to keep it under his pillow."
Potter carefully reached for the stone and pushed it under Goyle's pillow. Crabbe's bed was next and as he edged his way past, he saw the ever-present chess pieces under a mass of Honeydukes wrappers. Beside Crabbe, almost completely hidden under his eiderdown, lay Theodore Nott. He was a puzzle to Potter. A clever boy, Nott seemed completely normal during the day. He was friendly and had a good sense of humour, but he was also a fellow night time wanderer. Potter had seen him creeping out of the dorm. What kept him awake at night, he wondered.
And last was the Platinum Prat, sleeping like a baby. Potter pointed his weak Lumos and saw the photograph of Malfoy's vile father on his bedside cabinet. Why would he keep that there after all he'd told Potter during their fireside chat? Then again, what did Potter know? He'd only learned what a fine man his father was since coming to Hogwarts, and even if someone told him he was arrogant and cruel like Lucius Malfoy, maybe he'd still worship his memory.
He finally slumped down in front of the fire and struggled to have a sustained thought. Too many of them were dancing around his brain, vying for attention. Crabbe and Goyle weren't the brutes he'd always thought them to be. Malfoy had been human and opened up to him. Millicent had stuck up for him and got one back on Macmillan. And Snape had been decent - and then been a shit again. Three weeks ago he'd have written off Slytherin as being a bunch of evil tossers and a part of him yearned for that certainty now. At least Pansy was being reliably horrible; he could still count on her. He banished all the relentless thinking by focussing on picking off a scab on his shin without causing the sore to bleed. His ploy worked and once all the scabby skin had been flicked into the fire, he saw what was bothering him.
Harry felt accepted. That was the problem, and it had been causing him no end of grief. He felt part of the Slytherin gang, and it wasn't a perfectly hideous feeling. Snape had thrashed him, and Harry didn't hate him any more than he usually did. Yes, he'd gone to the library to help Hermione, but he'd known it was wrong. Snape warned them almost daily against breaking curfew or going out of bounds. He'd broken those rules and to be found out and punished for it seemed somehow right. Try as he might to feel affronted, he couldn't. He also had a fairly well grounded suspicion that Snape actually didn't want him dead. That business with the parchment on top of the cloak? No way was that an accident. Snape tolerating him he'd grown used to. But Snape actually helping him?
He felt disloyal, but disloyal to whom exactly? To Ron who'd turned on him when he needed him most? Ron who could still be friendly, but who could equally be coolly dismissive? McGonagall? Dumbledore? They had to have known how worried he was about the Triwizard Tournament, yet they'd blithely sent him off to the Snake house. No. His real concern was for Hermione. But Harry knew just what she'd say in this situation. She'd tell him he was being silly. That this was a marvellous experience for him and he should make the best of things.
She was right; she most often was. But the settling of one worry only caused a void to open up begging to be filled by another. The tournament! Bloody hell, the tournament! The good thing about moving into Snape's house had been he hadn't lingered on this likely suicide mission, but now he was getting used to being a temporary Snake, it began to seep into his thoughts. What the bloody hell was going to happen with those dragons?