Uh... there's some bad language in this chapter. And the darker themes are here, too. I think I'm going to raise the rating to T. It seems much more fitting after this chapter.
Also, I have this chapter and the next one written, and then this story is going to slow down a little bit because I really don't have time for any of this right now. It's midnight, and I'm currently writing an English essay, not to mention the other homework I have to do. Cool, cool, cool.
Thanks for supporting this story!
Glimpses – Chapter 13
"Harry, I really don't think we should be heading to Diagon Alley today," Snape announced the next morning, studying the ten-year-old carefully. He looked slightly peaky from all the potions, and his red-rimmed eyes, slumped shoulders, and stumbling walk convinced Snape that he was far from ready to go out in public.
"Da-ad!" Harry protested, and Snape felt his heart skip a beat. He sucked in a quick breath. "But I want to go! I want to see the other magical people!"
Snape reached out to tousle the boy's hair. He paused abruptly when the boy flinched. It was a habit of Harry's – a habit that Snape was determined to break.
"Foolish child," he chided gently, moving his hand forward to card through the boy's hair. He crouched in the entrance to the kitchen, grabbing the boy's face and forcing him to meet Snape's eyes. "How long will it take you to realize that I do not mean to break the promise I made you." He pulled the boy into a gentle hug – Merlin knew he needed it – and whispered in his ear, "I will never hit you, Harry."
Harry relaxed slightly in his grip and Snape picked him up, moving him and depositing him in a chair at the table.
"Now eat," Snape commanded, snapping his fingers and gesturing slightly to the food that appeared on the table at the sound. He took a seat himself. "You know you are not ready to go out qui– take the potion first."
Harry sighed exaggeratedly before uncorking the vial and downing the disgusting liquid. Snape watched the boy carefully, suppressing amusement at his reaction.
"However, if you are feeling up to it, we may brew a potion today. If you like, that is." He was focused entirely on his food, acting as if he didn't care what the boy's reaction would be.
"Really?" At the boy's reply, Snape looked up, unsure how to take the quiet word. Harry's face betrayed a mixture of excitement and fear. He opened his mouth to pose a question. "You won't, you won't, burn me?"
Snape looked at him in shock. Those bloody Muggles. "Yes, really. And of course I will not burn you. I am here to help you, Harry, not to hurt you. But if you don't eat, we will never get around to it."
oOoOo
Harry ran out of the bedroom wildly, trying to find Snape in the quarters. Snape – his father – had made him take a nap, but now he was refreshed and ready to brew the potion he had been promised.
"Dad?" At the lack of response, Harry called louder, "Snape!"
The man came hurriedly around the corner, his expression unreadable and his eyes fierce. He relaxed slightly when he saw the boy, who had just casually laid himself across the couch.
"What is so urgent?" he asked, exasperated. Harry tried to hide his small trepidation at the man's half-anger. He knew immediately that he failed, because the man's face softened considerably. "What?"
"Can we. . . brew that potion now, sir?" Harry asked in slight embarrassment, studying the fine creases in the leather under his hand.
The man paused for a moment before answering. "Sir?" He half-smiled, but continued when Harry went to apologize, shaking his head slightly. "I suppose we can. Give me a moment." He turned back toward his lab, then paused. "And you really needn't shout."
Harry grinned apologetically, then sat back on the couch, waiting for the man to return. He jumped to his feet when Snape appeared again, and all but ran back to the potions lab in the back corner of the quarters.
He looked around in curiosity when they entered the lab. He had never been in this particular room in the quarters before. The walls were, like the rest of the home – and the castle, for that matter – made of stone, and Harry inspected several cabinets with interest, finding them full of little vials of colorful liquid and more of the strangely-named ingredients that were also housed in the cupboard. A table was backed up against the back wall. Harry figured it really wasn't a good place for it, seeing as one could be snuck up on very easily when in such a position. And if there was ever an accident or explosion – as Snape had explained occasionally happened – one would be unable to protect himself from the blast. Harry turned his attention back to the tall man standing behind him.
"What are we brewing?" Harry asked with interest, deliberately removing his use of the word 'sir,' as he knew the man didn't like it. Snape nodded in slight approval of the boy's word choice.
"What would you like to brew, Mr. Harry? Pepper-Up Potion? I do believe you read about that one in the book you were reading the other day."
Harry nodded excitedly. "Yess—" he stuttered, trying to hide his slip.
He watched as the man began to pull things from the surrounding cupboards, pointing to each one in turn and explaining it. After a thorough explanation of everything used, they began to work, Snape lighting the burner beneath the black cauldron with a slight prod of his ebony wand. Harry watched the magic, fascinated.
"You teach Potions here?" Harry asked, looking down at the fangs he was attempting to grind. He felt the thin fingers of the man close over his own and guide his hand gently, aiding in the preparation of the ingredient.
"Yes, however unfortunately," Snape sneered, adding the fangs into the boiling potion. He quietly instructed Harry to begin shredding the mint leaves.
"Unfortunately?"
"They're all dunderheads, the whole lot of them," Snape murmured, and Harry giggled quietly at the man's words. He continued working with the leaves in front of him, paying more attention to his guardian than the work he was supposed to be doing. Snape leaned in again, helping him carefully, before turning to stir the potion once more.
"But I'm not a dunderhead, right?" Harry bit his lip worriedly.
"You're not a student here. Yet," Snape replied quickly, looking down his hooked nose at the boy who was currently standing on a small stool. "I hope you prove yourself differently."
Harry smiled to himself, handing the mint leaves over to be added. He would. He would prove himself to his guardian, his father, if it was the last thing he did.
The potion was nearly finished when Harry saw Snape straighten and cast a quick glance toward the door. After instructing Harry not to touch anything, he set the pepper he had been about to add on the table and swept out the door, an old man's voice carrying through the quarters, clearly distressed.
Harry's gaze flickered from the boiling cauldron to the pepper, then back again. Snape had instructed him not to touch anything, but he himself had been about to add the ingredient, so surely it wouldn't hurt if Harry did it instead.
He picked up the small bowl carefully, and upended it. He was pleased when the potion turned the pale shade of pink that had been depicted in the book. He turned to stir it, but forgot that he was still holding the bowl and it fell from his hand, shattering on the edge of the cauldron and falling into the potion.
Harry gasped and watched in horror as the potion began to glow and expand, smoking dangerously, before exploding in a burst of pink light. He listened to the sound of vials and jars smashing on the ground before his head collided with the stone floor, knocking his vision into blackness.
oOoOo
Snape's lovely Floo conversation with the Headmaster was interrupted by a loud explosion and the sudden wafting of pink fumes down the hallway.
"Bloody idiot," he muttered as he ran toward his lab, leaving Dumbledore calling out his questions. Snape ignored him, cutting off the connection rather abruptly. "Potter!"
The boy was lying on the floor, glasses askew, mouth slack. He was covered in bright pink potion and blood dripped steadily from a cut somewhere on his head. But he was fine.
With a wave of his wand, Snape cleared up the pink potion and vibrant fumes. Another wave and the room was restored to order. Another wave and the blood was gone from the floor and Potter's head was healed.
Snape fumed in silence, staring at the boy on the ground. He lunged forward and grabbed the now-conscious boy by the arm, bending him over the lab table. In an instant, his belt was unbuckled and he yanked it off and into his hand. He raised it, ready to hit the small ten-year-old folded over the harsh wood. The boy wasn't even struggling; in fact, he curled further in on himself, exposing his back more. Snape could see the small, pointed bones of his spine protruding through Dudley Dursley's castoff t-shirt.
"Please, sir," Potter begged without hope. Snape knew immediately he had been in this position many times before, but in his consuming rage he couldn't find the will to care. He brought the belt down harshly.
Snape's eyes widened as his hand began its descent. He quickly redirected the trajectory of the belt in his hand. It hit the wooden table with a loud and resounding crack that resonated throughout the quarters. The boy flinched violently, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood.
The entire scene seemed like a picture, neither the stunned man nor the terrified child moving. Then the moment was broken quickly as Snape jerked back nearly as violently as Potter had. Holy fuck.
"Get up, Potter. Holy fuck, Potter, don't just sit there – get the fuck up!"
The boy hesitantly looked up toward him, shock and utter terror evident in his eyes. He began to move, pulling himself fully onto the lab table and huddling into the corner against the wall, furthest from the frozen Potions Master.
Snape turned and ran, through the door of the lab, through the door of the quarters that he locked and warded firmly behind him, through the doors of Hogwarts. He kept running until he was at the far end of the lake, looking out into the dark waters. He briefly considered throwing himself into them, letting them take him in, embrace him. He wondered with a dark curiosity what it would be like, how it would feel, to let the water close over his head, to sink to the bottom of the lake, nothing but the cold water around him, to feel his lungs burn as they begged for oxygen, to finally take a deep breath and feel the water rush into his chest, to feel his wretched body reject the water that both killed him and saved him. Saved him from this damned existence. Saved him from a world in which he had so nearly done the unthinkable. Saved him from a world in which he had nearly become his father, the one man he had promised never to be. Saved him from a world in which he had nearly broken his promise to the one child who meant anything to him anymore.
I wonder how long it would take for a man to drown.
But he shook himself violently and forced himself to sit back on the cold shore of the lake, the icy water lapping at the tips of his boots.
He was a fool. He was a fool. How could he ever think of hurting a child? He had promised himself that never in his life, no matter how angry he got, would he ever harm a child. Ever raise his hand to one. And had that all gone out the window because a ten-year-old boy had messed up a potion? Had disobeyed instructions? Had caused an explosion? He had seen older students cause much worse accidents than that – with the same potion, mind you – but he had been so angry that he had removed his belt and nearly whipped the boy with it. Poppy didn't even necessarily have evidence that Dursley had done that! How dare he even come close to the boy after that. He would talk to Dumbledore. No man who raises his hand against a child should ever be allowed to live. He briefly considered his options. There was no other choice. Harry Potter deserved a much better guardian – a much better father – than him. But it really did come down to a question: why was he so goddamn angry?
He had controlled himself. He had, in the end. Was it the child's terrified eyes? He couldn't stand letting the child down after so many reassuring whispers in the night. What happened to 'I will never hit you'? He had mentioned it earlier that day, for fuck's sake! Where had that gone? He prided himself in his ability to keep his word, but clearly that had no basis anymore. He was lost, lost. He had promised to never be what his father was – to both himself and to Dumbledore – of course not to Potter, because the boy knew nothing about him, but nevertheless it was an unspoken, somewhat-understood promise – and yet he had become him. He had become Tobias Snape in that instant. He could feel his father's spirit, his father's anger, his father's abuse, settling right into him, and he couldn't do it, couldn't take it. He had been unable to defend himself. Maybe he was just like his father. Maybe there was no avoiding the pattern of abuse that tended to occur in families. But no, no, surely not. He had resisted it, resisted his father in the end. But that didn't change anything, not really. And there weren't really many other options for excuses. Could it be because Snape cared? Surely not. Not for the Potter boy. Yes, he cared about the boy's well-being, about the fact that he was generally safe, about the fact that he wasn't being abused, but clearly Snape himself was just as bad as the Dursleys.
But as he stared into the lake and decided he couldn't drown, couldn't die, if only just for the boy, just for Lily, he decided that maybe, just maybe, he did care.
Ugh. My computer is really flipping out tonight. I'm debating throwing it at the wall. -.-
Anyway, I had to do this chapter. I do believe Snape has a tendency to lose his temper a little too easily (well, nobody's perfect) and this was bound to happen eventually.