5.

Harry clutched the seat of his chair, letting the parchment fall to the floor. The room was spinning nauseatingly around him; it took all his concentration not to pitch forward or sideways onto the floor. His eyes were dry and burning, and his tongue felt thick and furry in his mouth.

Gradually the room stopped spinning. He pried his fingers slowly from the chair and flexed them a few times. He rubbed his eyes, but the sweat on his hands only increased the stinging.

Beyond the pain, beyond the burning humiliation, there was only one thought in Harry's mind: the need to see Severus Snape suffer. His entire being was focused into a single point of rage.

Harry pushed himself to his feet, hands braced on the back of the chair. The floor lurched sickeningly under him, and he sat down again with a thump. Gritting his teeth, he tried again, and this time he managed to balance on his own two feet. Breathe, he told himself. In and out. Steady. The floor shifted a little, then stilled. He cautiously made his way toward Snape's office, rapped on the door, and pushed it open without waiting for an answer.

"Potter." Snape was standing behind his desk, sorting through a pile of parchment. He looked up with a nasty smile.

Harry charged forward, no longer caring that he might be overheard, or that Snape was a Hogwarts professor, or about anything at all except ripping that smug, self-righteous expression from Snape's ugly face as painfully as possible.

"You utter BASTARD!" he shouted, circling to Snape's side of the desk. To his surprise, Snape's smile faded. Harry was no longer thinking clearly, no longer thinking of anything but the rage pounding liquid fire through his veins. "You filthy, slimy--how DARE you ask me those things?"

"How...dare...I?" Snape's quiet voice was somehow more powerful than Harry's shouting. "I? Little boys who cannot keep their sticky fingers out of other people's memories should not cast stones." He sneered ferociously. His voice was clipped, precise, supernaturally intense. "Like father, like son, Potter. Both hypocrites--"

But Harry wasn't listening. Six years of suppressed rage was bubbling up inside him, drowning out Snape's voice and spilling over.

"YOU KILLED SIRIUS!" Harry roared. Snape snorted.

"Sirius Black died because of his own stupidity."

"Don't you DARE talk about him! You aren't worth the mud on his BOOTS! You-- " Harry felt his face screwing up, his eyes burning, and he resisted it with all his might, focusing on Snape's face, anchoring himself in those bottomless black eyes, "you--you GOADED him, you PROVOKED him into leaving, you KNEW what would happen, you WANTED him to die, you--"

"HE TRIED TO KILL ME!" Snape bellowed, his face contorting, all semblance of control lost.

"YOU'RE GLAD HE'S DEAD!" Harry's vision blurred; his eyes were on fire, but he was past caring, "You--IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOU WHO DIED! IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOU! I HATE YOU! I--" Harry's voice broke into a wail, and he was swaying on his feet, sobbing like a child and beyond caring, struggling for breath, his whole life a battle between screaming and breathing. The world was dimming, fuzzing over at the edges, and he was clinging to something solid and dark, something that smelled of slightly sour, with hints musk and sandalwood...

The next thing he knew he was being held upright, Snape's hands clawed tightly around his upper arms, tightly enough to make his hands tingle for lack of blood. He had never seen Snape look quite so pale.

"Get out," Snape said harshly, now holding Harry at arm's length. Harry struggled to find his footing. Snape let go so suddenly that he almost lost it again.

"Now," Snape rasped, turning his back on Harry. There was a peculiar tension in the way he stood, as if he were almost overbalancing, straining to hold himself upright.

"Now!" Snape whipped around to face Harry.

Harry fled.