A Season for Healing
By Dien
Summary and disclaimer in part one.
Rating: The series overall has an adult rating due to the Severus/Harry plotline... This part is R for language
Notes:
Icarus-- job going well. Thanks for the compliments on descrip! :) I shall remain mum for now on connexions between DE-ness and Dad-death. Mostly cuz I don't yet know.
Dylan, thank you thank you for another lovely review. You make me all tingly. *big grin*
Those who asked about Dolophion-- there is a remote possiblity he'll show up. It depends on whether or not he's still alive, or whether nasty things in the Forbidden Forest have proved too much for the poor fellow.
Sick and Twisted Barbie Girl (nice handle :P): http:// groups. yahoo. com/ group/ seasonofhealing/ Delete the spaces in that URL (DAMN FF.N) and you should have the link. :D
Thanks to Kez, De Severa, and all my other very faithful and lovely reviewers who provide impetus for continuation. *big hugs*
Pencil, Switchknife, and other who pointed out errors before my beta had a chance to... heh.. I mean, thanks. Yes, I'm actually happy. Really. Really...! ;)
(Continual thanks to) my beta Nyarth; she is fantastically awesome cool. Everyone: GO READ HER STUFF! She's in my Favorite Authors. Go! Go! (but finish this first)
Chapter Twelve. In which Severus appears to take out a nervous breakdown on Harry
Harry woke late, to Wiggin's disapproving and pained look, as well as the delicious breakfast the elf had brought with him. Macavity was nowhere to be seen.
He asked Wiggin to leave the food for him, as he felt in need of a quick morning shower. The night had been free of Voldedreams, but it had featured a rather interesting dream that had involved Dean and, for some strange reason, Professor Dumbledore's desk. Thankfully the Headmaster had had the good grace, in dream, to refrain from entering his office while the two had been otherwise occupied.
Harry emerged from the shower, toweling his hair dry, and sat down to breakfast. As he ate, he reflected that he couldn't remember having such an appetite, ever, at Privet Drive.
"Well, that's what fresh air, decent food, and a lack of Vernon Dursley will do for you," he sagely advised himself, then felt stupid for talking to an empty room as well as vaguely ashamed for reasons he couldn't put into words.
Harry leaned back in his chair, glass of orange juice in his hand, and creased his brow with thoughts of his relations.
It was... strange, to be a summer away from them. As he thought about it, he contrasted the breakfast he'd just enjoyed with the meals he'd received from his family during other summers and his younger childhood days. The difference wasn't so much in the quantity nor quality of food, but in the attitude of those giving it. He couldn't recall sitting down to dinner with the Dursleys without the sensation that they begrudged him even his food.
His food? Hell, they'd begrudged him his whole existence. He shook his head minutely. No matter what he'd done trying to be inconspicuous to them, it had never been enough. Nothing would be enough, no matter how many years you tried to do what people told you to do and tried to live up to what they wanted from you and tried to learn what they told you and tried to fight who they told you to. Harry slammed his glass down on the table, then instantly winced at the spilled orange juice and used his napkin to wipe it up.
Well. Who cared. There were the elves to do that after all. It was summertime. He was going to fly.
****
Instead of bothering to go through the miles of corridors to the battlements, he took off from his room's balcony, and wondered why he hadn't thought of it before. The first order of the day was just going straight up, getting some altitude and a view of the countryside. Despite the flying he'd done yesterday, he hadn't really taken the chance to look around much and did so now, hitting a level about two hundred feet above the top of the tower and hovering. Hogwarts had limits on how high you could fly, but Brennigan didn't.
The castle was below him; the uneven pentagon of the manor, the battlements, and the towers looking almost like a toy version of itself. Almost immediately to the south and east of the buildings, the trees started; thick greenery that looked like broccoli flowerets from up here. He thought he could pick out the thread of the road he and Snape had walked to get to the house, and followed it with his eye until he could see the gate, some distance away, and the Muggle blacktop road beyond. Wiggin had mentioned that there were of course a multitude of charms keeping the Muggles from perceiving in any way the fact that there was a full scale castle less than a mile from one of their roadways.
On the eastern side of the castle were the gardens he and Macavity had partly explored his first day. From above, he could appreciate the fact that there had been an initial design to their layout, the paving stones and walled areas making curving and-- of course, he sighed-- snake-like paths. But when he and Macavity had explored, he recalled that much of the stonework had been crumbling; many of the flagstones had been overgrown; more of the fountains had been stagnant than not.
That was odd, he realized, very odd when house-elf magic should be able to prevent that or fix it in an instant. He pondered the dilemma for a second, thought to ask Wiggin about it.
No, wait; he'll give us the "pained" expression. Best to ask Macavity instead... Harry turned his broom more to the north, noting for the first time a mill-pond or fish-pond or something of that nature a small distance away from the house. The ground near it looked very green and pleasant, and he thought he could see another bit of stone, a roof or something, between the green bulk of a few more trees that grew close together. Outlying building of some sort? It was added to the list of things to investigate.
Finally he turned his broom all the way to the north, grimacing at the view. The trees of the south and west had been nice; the gardens were fantastic if decaying, the pond was interesting.... the moors were just plain ugly.
Bare and bleak and empty of anything. Everywhere else bore the human touch, as generations of Snapes had turned this piece of the moors into something habitable, but north... Harry wrinkled his nose. It's not like it was even an attractive color for ground to be. Just purpley-gray-brownish-blah. One big bruise of the earth... probably Snape's favourite part of the estate!
Harry snickered to himself, his aerial survey of the grounds complete. He pulled a few loops in the air just because he could, feeling the breeze keenly through his thin t-shirt and not minding it a bit.
Heights were his spaces, after all. He'd always felt comfortable up there, with the added freedom of an extra dimension of movement. The wind seemed to whisper secrets to him, speaking of which way to move, which currents to drift on...
"This has to be the most naturally perfect place for flying in England," Harry muttered to himself before pulling into a steep dive for the courtyard. The wind screamed past his ears as the very solid-looking stones rushed up ever closer. At the last possible second, he leveled out, skimming a mere two feet above the flagstones and flashing through one of the courtyard's open arches with a yell of exhilaration and adrenaline.
"WHAT THE FUCKING HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE BLOODY WELL DOING?!?!?!?!"
Harry wheeled the broom around to see Snape standing on the battlement he'd just flown under, apoplectic with rage. One hand was gesturing violently with a wand in such a manner that Harry felt nervously he might have to duck an Avada, but the next moment, the outraged voice yelled a charm he wasn't familiar with, and Harry felt both himself and his broom being drawn inexorably towards the shouting Snape.
Bloody fantastic. What had he done now? Harry steeled himself for a Snape tirade, even as invisible binds of magic dragged him thither. As he got closer, his sometime professor's rant started to make itself into words.
"....bloody idiotic imbecilic Gryffindor prick, you moronic little dunderhead Potter-brained little tosser, you, you, stupid child, idiotic, I ought to blast you straight to London, what in Circe's name did you think you were DOING?" snarled Snape in a more out-of-control voice than Harry'd ever heard from him before, even during the "incident" at the Shrieking Shack. Close enough now to see that the man was indeed white with rage, and aside from that looked terrible. Not that Snape ever looked good, exactly; but this was the whole nine yards: bloodshot eyes, hair a greasy mussed tangle, hands clenching and unclenching spasmodically on the stone balustrade in front of him, his work clothes a stained and rumpled mess.
Harry and his broom were, at a gesture from the wand hand, dumped unceremoniously onto the stones at Snape's feet, and Harry barely had time to process that before a hand grabbed at his collar and hauled him none-too-gently to his feet.
"You. Idiot boy. What. When. When I said you could fly. I did not-- what the fuck, then? Did your bloody broomstick break in mid-air? That had best be the reason for that little fall from grace, boy! You stupid brat!"
With an effort, and more freaked out by Snape's behavior and incoherency than anything else he'd seen this summer, Harry wrenched out of Snape's grasp, wiped a fleck of spittle from his cheek, and backed slowly away.
"Sir-- Professor-- I think you need to calm down--"
"DON'T YOU PRESUME TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO, POTTER!" roared Snape, a furious tic at work in his right cheek. "Calm down, he says, calm down, why you insignificant beetle, you, you, Gryffindor, what in fuck's name was the cause of that?!"
"Cause of what?" Harry nearly yelled back, but remembered himself and kept it to a loud conversational tone.
"Cause of-- IF YOU PLAY INSOLENT WITH ME, POTTER, REST ASSURED I WILL SKIN YOU ALIVE AND FRY YOUR INTESTINES OVER A SLOW FIRE," Snape yelled, or meant to yell, but the effect was entirely ruined by the fact that his voice broke on 'alive.'
Harry stared. Don't laugh, Harry, don't laugh, he'll kill you here and now if you laugh. For God's sake don't laugh.
Snape twitched, all over, but mostly his wand hand, and took several deep breaths, closing his eyes. After about ten seconds of silence, the courtyard deadly still (Harry thought the birds were probably holding their breath), Snape opened his bloodshot eyes and glared at him.
"The. Fall. What was the reason for that," he hissed through his gritted teeth.
Harry exhaled slowly, then enunciated his words with a precision to match Snape's. "I. Didn't. Fall. That was a dive."
Snape's eyes positively bulged. "You, you did that on purpose?!?!!"
"Yes," Harry said slowly. "In Quidditch, we do it all the time..."
The man in front of him abruptly turned and stalked away, without further explanation or word unless one counted the long string of blistering and incoherent oaths and profanities that tumbled from his mouth. Harry listened with wide eyes to things that would have gotten any student at Hogwarts detention. Snape had, uh, quite a vocabulary... too bad he didn't have anything to take notes with...
About ten paces away, Snape stopped, wheeled back, and stomped back over to Harry, snatching the broom from his hands.
"No more flying," he snarled and once more turned and walked away, heading off to the castle proper. Harry felt his jaw drop open in protest, and started to work on the words to demand his broom back, but Snape was walking fast and by the time he marshaled his indignant outrage, the man was already out of range.
Harry let out a little bewildered laugh and sat down on the stone parapet, leaning back next to a gargoyle that leered demonically. "What the fuck," he mouthed silently to himself, shaking his head in disbelief. "The man is absolutely insane. Abso-bloody-lutely insane. He's the one who should be in St. Mungo's, not his mother."
The gargoyle did not respond to his comments, which only surprised Harry a second later. Everything else talked in this damn place, why not the gargoyles.
The young man rolled his eyes and pushed himself up from the stones. Well. What was he supposed to do now? Damn Snape and his bloody irrational, well, everything.
With a disgruntled sigh, Harry started to walk off in the opposite direction along the battlement, towards the library. If nothing else, Snape wouldn't be there.
****
Severus snarled curses to himself as he wrestled with the heavy door that led inside from out. Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid STUPID child.
Inside, blessedly inside, out from under that big arching relentless blue bottomless sky. He had a headache, a ferocious one, perhaps unparalleled in his dealings with Potters old and new-- no, he admitted there had been headaches worse than this in the past. Hell. Bloody fucking hell, damn the boy, for a Knut he'd go back and put the brat out of their mutual misery.
Stair. Right at the turn in the corridor. He was vaguely aware of a rushing, roaring noise, and it took a second to realize it was his own breath. Snape forced himself to not hyperventilate, feeling dizziness and nausea expressing their own opinions on the matter.
"Fuck," he exhaled, and sat down in the middle of the small, winding hallway, because it was too hard to walk when it was spinning every which bloody way. Severus leaned his head against the cool stone of the nearest wall and waited for the pounding in his skull and the sick feeling in his gut to subside.
After cautious minutes in which he heard his breathing and heartbeat return to something approaching normal, Snape experimentally opened his eyes. The walls and floor were still swimming, blackening at the edges, and he shut them again almost immediately.
His palms felt sweaty and he shifted his grip on his wand in the one hand and Potter's broomstick in the other. If he didn't feel so absolutely miserable and incapable of concentrating, he'd burn the thing to cinders. Damn the boy!
Severus Snape was running on what, for a Muggle car, would have been the equivalent of gas fumes. He had had nothing to eat since the salad about twenty hours before, and he had not slept in the last three days. Energizing potions of his own creation had kept him alert, competent, and on his feet the entire time, without any major ill effects, but after every high came a low, and it was a rather phenomenal low that was hitting Snape right now.
By itself, this was fairly routine for summers at Brennigan. The elves and the animals knew to expect such an eccentric schedule from their master: days of being "on," then "off." It was not normally a cause for worry, nor was Snape himself usually in such bad condition at this point of the cycle.
But, normally, he did not exit the safe haven of the library tower to see Harry Potter crashing towards the ground like a comet. He had been sure, dead sure, that he was going to be cleaning up a boy-splat off the flagstones of his courtyard-- or at least, had been sure of that once he'd managed to fight down the initial vertigo and hysteria that had threatened at the sight. He hadn't thrown up, hadn't lost the battle with his nerves entirely, for which he was grateful; and lo and behold the fucking brat was still alive, by what miracle of Merlin nobody knew...
...and he'd been flying hellbent towards the ground on purpose, or so it seemed.
Snape fought a dry retch as he curled up against the corridor wall, unable to stop the sensations, the images. Fall, fall, fall, fall. Falling goes on forever. Ripped from the sky, ripped from your safe place, ripped and hurled towards the earth and fuck, it hurts when you land, hurts so much, sharp and world-blackening pain, and Black and Potter, the fuckers, they're laughing, oh god oh god. Help me. I'm falling.
"Severus?"
Snape bit his teeth down hard on a scream and forced himself to sit up. The nausea wasn't past. He ignored it and opened his eyes, focusing on Wiggin.
"'m all right," he muttered, disgusted with the weakness and tremor of his voice. "I'm... just... needed to sit down. I'm fine."
Wiggin was giving him a look equal parts disapproval and concern. "You're shaking, Severus. You are most certainly not all right. Let's get you up to your room, my boy."
"'m not a boy," he managed to growl, ignoring the fact that he was indeed shaking. Wiggin picked up the broom and wand, and used a combination of magic and his hands to pull Snape more or less to his feet.
"I wish you wouldn't do this to yourself, Severus," Wiggin clucked as he started to guide his master through an archway on the way up to the bedroom. "Did you eat the sandwiches I took down to you? Or are they still sitting on the counter?"
"...what sandwiches?" Snape muttered, already starting to lose the battle with consciousness. It was safe to do so, Wiggin had him. Wiggin was safe. Home was safe.
The house-creature sighed and shook his head. "I suppose that answers my question. Open, door!"
They made it to Severus's bedroom at last, and without ceremony Wiggin steered his charge to the bed. Severus plopped unresisting onto the soft surface, and the elf snapped his fingers to divest his master of the rumpled and worn clothing. Severus protested, very weakly, that he wasn't a child and didn't need to be treated as such.
"Severus, I bathed you and your sister when the two of you were babies, I healed your grazed knees, I wiped your noses. Do not presume to tell me how to treat you. Now, if you're not quiet and sleeping, I will not only seal your mouth, I will bring you warm milk."
Severus quieted, and Wiggin efficiently tucked the edges of the sheets and blankets around him, then stepped back and sighed.
"Not good for you to do this, Severus, not good at all," he muttered to himself once more, then drew the room's curtains and left his master to sleep. Food and baths could wait until the body had recovered somewhat from exhaustion.
****
Harry tried out a few of the oaths he'd heard Snape using as he picked through the library shelves in boredom. Stupid Snape. The man had some damned problem, took it out on him, and now he wasn't allowed to fly.
He picked up the Catalogue, held it out at arm's length, and said, "I want stories about Snape the moronic, petty bastard." Grinning slightly, he opened up the book, to see the slanting cursive text read: Search parameters were not met. Please try searching for something simpler.
Harry snorted and dropped the book back down, plopping into one of the chairs and leaning his head back to stare up at the ceiling of the tower. The wrought-iron staircase climbed ever higher, the landings geometric interruptions in his sight.
"Well, this is absolute rubbish," he announced to the library at large, kicking at the floor in disgruntlement.
"Doth something trouble thee, noble guest?"
Harry sat up with a jerk, looking around for who was talking to him. Floating up through the library floor was a silvery outline that was neither Casimir Snape-Malfoy nor Amelia Snape. Ergo...
Oh, fantastic... Harry's subconscious drawled sarcastically. He swatted it-- it was doing that thing where it sounded like Snape again-- and dutifully, being the decent Gryffindor he was, smiled with marginal politeness.
"Hi. You must be Lucien McGonagall," Harry began, keeping his sigh internal, as the ghost hovered nearby. Lucien McGonagall, for such it was, was (or had been in life) tall and broad of shoulder, decked out in fine sixteenth century doublet and regalia. His long, tied-back hair and eyes had been of light colours, impossible to determine exactly what with his current silvery state. He had indeed been a handsome, healthy looking specimen of a man, all nobility and regal bearing.
Harry already hated him.
"I must? I mean, I must, aye. Curséd be though that name that I bear, yet curséd am I to bear it and be that unfortunate..."
Harry gritted his teeth and cut him off. "Yeah. I've got a message for you from Amelia."
"Ah! The noble guest beareth word from my own true love, her whose love doest-- um, doth-- resound over the chasms betwixt us. Some undying declaration of adoration and devotion, methinks?"
"Yeah," the boy said with a sigh. "Something about the roses still blooming in the garden, though the two of you can't enjoy them."
The ghost struck a dramatic pose. "Ah, so true!
Surely, my love's words ringest with the sound of truth, a veritable truth; and
the resounding ringing of honesty is displayedeth... um... that doesn't sound
right, does it," he muttered to himself, then shrugged and continued.
"Her noble... uh... resounding truth... dammitall. Where was I?"
"The resounding truth of her words," Harry reminded him, feeling a tiny smirk begin at the corners of his mouth. Maybe he'd rethink that hate thing.
"Right! Thank you. The resounding truth of the noble phrase which my lady fair, my Juliet, my dark angel, my ev'r sunder'd heart of my heart and light of eyes; she whom I loveth-- lovest with all mine doomed and tragic soul. She, she the er... she whom hath been parted from me by horrible Fate and tragic relatives..."
The ghost paused to catch his breath (so to speak), and Harry helpfully suggested that it might sound better if he switched 'horrible' and 'tragic.'
Lucien cast a dismal glance at him. "You really think so-- I mean, dammitall-- Thinkest thou so, young guest?"
"Yes. And I think that you should also drop the 'ests' and 'eths.' You don't really seem to be all that comfortable with them."
McGonagall gave a gloomy sigh and did the best ghostly impression of plopping dispiritedly into one of the chairs. "I hate talking like that. I'm absolute rubbish at it. But Ames likes it, and since we had a tragically fated high love and all that, I think I'm supposed to... right?"
Harry bit his lower lip. "Er. Not really my province of expertise. Sorry. But really, I'd just go with whatever comes naturally."
The ghost sighed, looking far less noble, regal, and infuriating, and far more pleasant for the change. "Well. When I don't do it, she gets very tetchy. And she can make afterlife hell, believe you me." A dreamy smile started on his face. "But crikes, when she gets going on one of her monologues... a bloody gift for theatre, my Ames. She's something."
Harry tactfully did not advance suggestions as to what kind of something Amelia Snape was. After a moment, the ghost looked up, and said, "I say, you're Harry Potting then, I suppose, so introductions, grand, all that. Sorry I got distracted."
"Potter, actually," the boy said with a subdued grin, reaching out to pass his hand through the hand the ghost held out.
"Right, exactly what I meant, or said that I meant. So. I heard from Fenris, who heard it from Poe, that you're staying here for the summer? One of Severus's students?"
"Yep," Harry said with a sigh, thinking of the annoying bastard who'd confiscated his broomstick. Lucien smiled sheepishly. "I know. The manor's a bit drear of a place, innit? Could ne'er understand just what the Snapes saw in the bloody pile of rock, besides it being all so outrageously big and what. Ponces, all of 'em, excepting my Ames of course."
"You can say that again," Harry muttered, ignoring the 'Ames' part and concentrating on the 'ponces' part. "Sever-- the current Snape, my professor, he just confiscated my broom. After he said I could fly. Does that strike you as--"
"Fly? Your broom? You've got a broom, do you? What make, what model?" Lucien said, a light leaping into his eyes that hadn't been there before.
"Oh, it's a Firebolt..."
"Firebolt? Lovely, lovely, I used a Firebolt, back when I played Chaser. Not mine-- old Professor Ballimortle got me one since I couldn't afford one on me own. The 1625 Firebolt, that was a good broom, though of course nothing to compare to today's flashy models. Like that Cleansweep I saw in the Prophet recently! I still look through the Prophet at the ads, to try and keep up on the news and all, since Severus doesn't get any Quidditch monthlies or anything. Team?"
Harry blinked. "You mean, team I play for, or team I root for?"
"Both. Either! Oh, this is smashing, I haven't had anyone to talk to about Quidditch in absolute ages... not really safe to talk brooms and flying around him, if you know what I mean. Team, then? What position you play?"
"Ah..." Harry was torn between answering the question and following up the non sequitir the excited Lucien had thrown him. "Well, I mostly root for the Chudley Cannons, they're my friend Ron's favorite team and mine sort of by extension. I play on Gryffindor house team; I'm Seeker--"
"OH, that must be absolutely smashing. I tried out for Seeker once, but we had a thin little pipsqueak of a girl on our team at the time, Rebecca Dumbledore, and she was faster. Best damned Seeker I'd ever seen. Deucedly pretty too, if I'd had eyes for anyone but Ames. How do you do, as Seeker?"
"I do all right," Harry said with a small grin, debating whether or not he should say that Gryffindor House had only lost four of the many, many games he'd played in, and some of those losses could be attributed to foul play. "I, ah, actually was in Witch Weekly last month, in an article they had on promising English Quidditch players."
"You don't say!" The ghost's eyes opened wide
with impressed amazement. "My goodness, I was a decent Chaser, but I never
made it to that sort of level. That's bloody splendid. So, in your opinion, do
the Cannons have a chance at the British Cup this year, or will it go to the
Falcons?
Harry winced. "Well, much as I love the Cannons, I have to admit I think Falcons will take it... you know their Beaters, those two brothers, were offered a place on the England team? They turned it down, said they wanted to stay local for a while."
"Well that's bloody stupid. Hell, maybe if they'd joined, England wouldn't have lost World to Russia."
"Maybe not," Harry shrugged, remembering the very close game he'd attended with the Weasleys. He'd thought the Bulgaria vs. Ireland the year before had been a better game, since at England vs. Russia a slight palpable unease had lain over all the crowds. Voldemort's return, still denied at that point by the Ministry... but rumoured among wizards and witches everywhere.
And there hadn't been a World Cup since.
Harry shrugged off the thoughts and returned to the conversation. "Still, England gave a pretty good account of themselves. Very nice work by their Seeker. Pity Russia's Chasers had got their lead so far ahead. Excellent Chasers, they had."
"Wait, wait," interjected Lucien with a rabid look on his face. "You sound like someone who actually saw it..."
"Oh, well, yes. I went," Harry sighed, and for the next hour found himself recounting a play-by-play account of the World Cup, which he was more than happy to do.
