Title: L' Estate di Suicidio

Author: Clynn

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me, and I'm not making any money off of them.

Author's Notes: Okay, so it took a little longer than I expected. I'm sorry. I'm trying, I really am. Anyway, thank you for your wonderful reviews, as always. As for my one dissatisfied reader, well... Let me just say that my goal is not and never has been to imitate J.K. Rowling's writing. I admire her, yes, and I enjoy her work, but as far as I'm concerned, the point of fanfiction is to take characters that you haven't created and place them in situations that you DO create. I know that Harry Potter is not going to attempt suicide in the next book. But I also think that it is an interesting situation to explore, and since Rowling won't do it, why shouldn't I? Frankly, I think it is asinine to limit oneself to what is or what will be, rather than discovering what could be. Thank you for the review nonetheless. I hope that everyone enjoys this chapter, and once again (as always, it seems) I'm very sorry for the delay in updating.

Chapter 18

I stand over the simmering cauldron, stirring gently and steadily. Professor Snape sits at the front of the room, busily preparing lessons for the approaching school year. The steady bubbling of the healing draught is calming, and I know that I will miss this, when the school year begins. I will miss the opportunity to stand in an almost silent room, not worrying about anything but when to add the next ingredient and which direction to stir. Tomorrow, the school will open, and hundreds of students will pour in, holding screaming conversations, fighting to be the loudest, to be heard over all the others. Tonight, I will move all of my things back into Gryffindor Tower, as Dumbledore asked. Tonight, I will face my first night alone since I tried to kill myself. I won't really be alone, of course. Extra wards were placed on the tower, Professor Snape will probably be monitoring them all night.

I won't last the year, I'm sure of it. Professor Snape keeps telling me that it will get easier, that I will adjust quickly to being surrounded by people who don't understand me anymore and pretending that I'm still one of them. I don't believe him. How can I? Just the thought of spending a night alone makes me feel slightly nauseated. Its ridiculous. One summer with Snape and all of a sudden the thought of a few minutes alone makes me want to jump out the nearest window. All the progress I thought I made is nothing. Absolutely nothing.

"Potter!" My head snaps up and I stare in front of me in pure confusion. Snape is looking at me with loathing written all across his face. I flinch involuntarily, and Snape's face relaxes back into the concerned, friendly look I've adjusted to. "Harry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I just thought we ought to get used to playing our old roles before school starts. You can't look hurt every time your bastard of a teacher glares at you, people will get suspicious."

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir," I whisper, looking back down into the cauldron. No wonder Snape called my name, my potion was giving off a horrible smell. I must have forgotten to add the spleens. Quickly, I add a few mint leaves to neutralize some of the more noxious products of my mistake and resume stirring.

"Harry? Look, I know you are worried about tomorrow, but its no use trying to avoid me. You have been doing it all week, don't think I haven't noticed. Talk to me." Snape's voice is soft and demanding, but I don't really want to talk to him. I have to learn to work through this myself. Snape is not going to be able to do this tomorrow or the next day, I will be alone. And I need to figure this out. Alone.

"You're right, I'm a little worried about school starting, but I'll be okay. Its nothing." Snape looks at me skeptically.

"Nothing? Harry, I'm worried too. It isn't nothing to me. I've spent all summer with you, getting to know you. Albus and Minerva may very well have been the only two people I trusted, the only two I considered friends, and then we just got stuck together. At first it was a duty, I was repaying a debt, but Harry, I genuinely care about you. I like having you around. I even like the damn hippogriff, and if you ever tell anyone what I just told you, I will hex you with something so ghastly that you will have to spend a month in the hospital wing."

"Might not be so bad," I grumble. "Compared to Gryffindor Tower."

"You know, just because we can't be seen being friendly doesn't mean we can never talk. If you are feeling overwhelmed, or if you want to get away, you can always come down to our rooms. I'll never change the password without telling you. And you can always where that damn invisibility cloak if you are worried about being seen. Besides, the year will be over before you know it, and you are more than welcome to spend next summer with me, if you'd like, and if your relatives agree."

"Really? I can stay with you again? You don't mind?" I struggle to fight a grin, and realize with a start that I find the expression almost as detestable as Snape seems to.

"Only if it is okay with your aunt and uncle. Don't get too excited, Harry, they might want you to stay with them. After all, they never get to see you. You stay with Weasley and Granger here at Hogwarts for the holidays, and-"

"They don't want me there," I interrupt. "Trust me. They have never wanted me there. I imagine they were delighted when they woke up one morning and discovered me gone." Professor Snape stares at me for a moment.

"What do you mean? Harry, they are your aunt and uncle. Certainly they weren't happy to find out that you were so miserable! I'm sure Albus had to put up quite a fight to make sure that you could stay here." I let out a derisive snort.

"The only thing my aunt and uncle could have been unhappy about was my failure to finish what I started. I suppose they probably hate you for stopping me, but then, they would have hated you anyway. They hate all of us freaks. Anything to do with magic. They were terribly disappointed when they realized that keeping me in a perpetual state of depression had done nothing to make me more normal." The bitterness in my own voice is a bit surprising, but not undeserved. The Durselys have made my life hell for as long as I can remember.

"Harry! You make it sound like your aunt and uncle rival Voldemort in their cruelty! I know that Albus would never have forced you to stay with them if they were so horrible."

"They aren't as cruel as Voldemort. They don't have enough power to be that cruel, and maybe they wouldn't be anyway. All I know is that even Voldemort does not hate me as much as my aunt and uncle do. Look, I don't really want to discuss this with you. I'm at Hogwarts now, and I won't have to deal with them again until summer, and maybe not even then, if you will let me stay with you. So, my family isn't exactly nice. So what. I'll live. Right now, all I'm worried about is getting through the day tomorrow." My anger and frustration is building with every word I speak. I have spent all my time with Snape, told him everything he wanted to know, everything except about the Dursleys. And now, when I finally feel comfortable enough to begin talking about them, he doesn't believe me. How dare he? How dare he give me that shit about learning to trust me, and then turn around and throw my trust in him right back in my face? I slam my hands down on the desk, turn and stalk out of the room. I don't bother looking back to see if Snape is following.

I storm down the hall towards Gryffindor Tower. Its a pointless gesture, since Snape can just as easily get into the Tower as he can his own rooms. All the heads of house know the passwords to the dorms of each house. I pound up the stairs to the bed that has been mine for four years and throw myself into it, closing the curtains around me. It will only be a matter of minutes before Snape comes into the room, only a few minutes of peace before he begins demanding answers. I bury my face deep in my pillow and shut my eyes tightly. The scarlet that pervades the dorm pounds against my eyelids, and I can see the deep, angry color taunting me, even as I shut myself off to it. Red is not a good color for me. It should be. Red should be energetic, happy. Red should be life. Red should not be spilt blood on pale skin, ugly stains on a silver knife. Red should be temptation, yes, but temptation for life, for passion. Red should not be enticement towards death.

But it is. I've corrupted it, tainted it with my own misery, and now it is reaching out to me with an offer nearly impossible to resist. I've imbued it with myself, the part of myself that I have been struggling with all summer. I've tried to repress it, to ignore it, to overcome it, and now I want nothing more than to accept it. What guarantee do I have that this blackness is not an intrinsic part of who I am? How do I know that fighting this pain is not simply creating more pain? Where is all of the progress that I have supposedly made? If all that I've worked for, all that I've spent months building, can disappear in an instant, how do I know that it isn't better to simply stop working? What reason do I have to keep trying?

Snape yanks the curtains around my bed open, his mouth in a grim line and his eyes livid. "You CANNOT run from me every time we come to a subject that you do not wish to discuss! I will not chase you all over the castle to get the answers to a few basic questions, and I certainly will not tolerate temper tantrums! I don't understand what your reaction tonight was about, but it is not my job to coerce you into telling me." Snape is as close to screeching as I have ever heard him. He pauses his diatribe to take a breath, and I take the opportunity to interject.

"You are right, Professor. It isn't your job. In fact, I am hardly your responsibility. Nor are you mine. I do not exist as a tool to help you assuage your guilt. Whatever debt you feel you owe, I suggest you find another way to pay it. I will not be the means with which you ease your conscience. You told me you wanted to help me, and I believed you. That was my mistake. You told me you understood me, but it is apparent that you do not. You claim that you have begun to trust me, but you question everything that I say. Clearly, this arrangement is not working in the best interest of either of us. Tomorrow, we will go back to our prescribed roles. I think that will be for the best. Until then, I suggest that we avoid contact with each other, for both of our sakes." I try and keep my tone as calm and detached as possible, but I can hear the quiver in my voice. I avoid looking at Snape, which is in itself an admission of my own weakness. I am furious, certainly, but I am also hurt, and I don't want him to know that. I don't want to know it myself, but I really don't have much of a choice.

"Harry... Harry, I didn't mean that. You scared me, running off like that. I didn't know where you were going or what you had in mind. As for doubting you... Harry, hearing that your relatives mistreat you is being told that Albus Dumbledore placed a child, one of his students in danger. Its not that I don't believe you, it is just difficult to comprehend that the headmaster may have made a mistake. You can understand that, can't you? If I came to you and told you that Albus stood back and watched me be tormented for a few years, wouldn't you have difficulty believing me? Wouldn't you try and find out if there had been some sort of misunderstanding or miscommunication? I know that you wouldn't lie to me. But I also know that Albus would never intentionally place you in a situation where your health was in danger. What you are telling me about your relatives seems to suggest that both of those things can't be true. And they are, I know they are. I just can't figure out how." I look up at Snape. He appears genuinely sorry for upsetting me, and I begin to feel guilty for speaking to him the way that I did.

"Well... It isn't like they hit me or anything. They just, you know, make me do chores and things like that. They used to make me sleep in the cupboard, but I have my own room now. They don't hurt me, not really. Mostly they yell, tell me what a huge favor they are doing me by providing me with a place to sleep and food and my cousin's hand-me-down clothes. It is just a little rough, being constantly berated for things beyond my control, told that I'm not as good as them, that I'm abnormal. I know the headmaster meant well when he put me with them. I don't think he really understands how much they upset me." Snape looks angry again, and a shrink back, not frightened, exactly, but nervous.

"He should have CHECKED, damn it! He should have watched them, should have made sure that you were being taken care of. It doesn't matter whether or not they hit you, the fact that they would tell a child that he was not good enough for them is more than enough reason to remove the child from their care. Its ridiculous! What kind of monster keeps a child in a cupboard? Why didn't you tell me about them sooner, Harry? I'm tempted to go find them now and teach them exactly what a wizard is capable of!" Snape is pacing the small area in front of my bed furiously, and I'm afraid that if he gets anymore upset windows might start shattering.

"Look, its okay. There is no permanent damage, and you told me I could stay with you next summer. I won't have to deal with them again for a long time. So, Dumbledore made a mistake. He's human. Mostly. I think. Well, he's capable of making mistakes, anyway. Its nice that you want to defend me, but I don't want you to hurt the Dursleys, or anyone else, for that matter. They aren't very nice people, but the best thing for them, and for you and I, is to simply ignore them. That is what would make me the happiest." I speak softly trying to mollify Snape's anger. It appears to work, and he takes a deep breath.

"All right. I won't hurt them. But I am going to speak to Albus. Leaving you with your aunt and uncle without checking up on you was unforgivably irresponsible of him."

"Agreed." The headmaster steps inside the doorway, shaking his head apologetically. "I sincerely hope that you will forgive me, Harry, I had no idea that your aunt and uncle were treating you with such contempt."

"Of course, sir..." I murmur, taken aback by the headmaster's sudden appearance in my room.

"And I hope you will both forgive my intrusion. I went to the dungeons to ask if you would be joining us for lunch. When I saw that you were not in the room, I became a bit concerned. It was quite obvious that you left with some haste, as I have never before known Severus to leave his labs in less than pristine conditions. But it seems that I have found you just in time, lunch should be being served as we speak. Care to join me in the Great Hall?" Professor Snape rolls his eyes, exasperated as always with the headmaster's perpetually cheerful manner.

"I'd love to join you, Professor." I jump off the bed and walk past Snape, smiling slightly in his direction. He throws up his hands in mock frustration and follows me out of the room. My situation has not changed at all, but I nevertheless feel a little bit more confident about facing school tomorrow.