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 and angst.

Notes: I am ASSUMING YOU'VE ALL READ OOTP. There are some things similar and some things different, which I will now proceed to ramble about.

For a long time, I have thought there was another "prank" involved in the MWPP/Snape rivalry aside from just the werewolf thing. It turns out I was right (see JKR's Awful Underwear Scene, Inducing Hatred of James)... but my scene had to do with heights and kites. I have chosen to go with heights and kites, for what it's worth. I will try and incorporate other bits of OOTP (such as Kingsley Shacklebolt, 'Snivellus,' etc, as they occur to me. No promises though).

Because I am dismissing the Underwear Chapter from SOH-continuity, I am also getting rid of Harry-rooting-around-Snape's-Penseive. I am still undecided on how much Occulumency, and past tutelage in Occulumency,  will make it into SOH... *sigh*

Enough of that.

A big thanks to all reviewers and readers. One of you (or possibly more than one of you, I don't know) nominated this to the HP Slash Awards, which I am intensely flattered about, even if we're listed there as HP/DM and won't make it past the first round anyways. *big grin* I'm still flattered.

For anyone who's asked what Severus's problem is with heights; read this chapter.

Thanks to those who pointed out the missing chunk of the prior chappie. Thanks also to those who caught my broomstick error. Ater Serpens caught me in an error about a Quidditch team, thank you...

For those of you who want the whole list of Snape Glares, I'd advise you to join the Yahoo! Group (link can be found in my bio). It's easier than me trying to send the HTML file, what with FF.N not allowing URLs anymore...

Phalanx Dragon: Yes, Lucien was one of those that Harry was warned about. Severus finds him just as intolerable as he does Amelia. Severus doesn't like Gryffindors.

(Continual thanks to) my beta Nyarth; she is fantastically awesome cool. Everyone: GO READ HER STUFF! She's in my Favourite Authors. Go! Go! (but finish this first)

Chapter Thirteen. In which a very bad dream occurs for the first time in years, and the ghosts gossip about Severus.

Severus Snape ran slim, clever fingers over the iridescent surface, his young face alight with something approaching exultation. The paper-thin fabric under his hands had taken months to prepare; further months to fasten it, with terrible carefulness, to the frame of bone... He'd spent every spare moment of this his fourth year making the thing of loveliness that sat on the table before him.

A wizard's kite. A dragon kite. Not at all the sort of thing sold in Diagon Alley's toy shops, little simple bits of enchantment and paper; no, it was a true kite, a thing of power and terrible beauty. One such as the teenager had just completed could fetch over a thousand Galleons. Not that he had any intention of selling it, of course.

Again he ran his hands over it, reverently. This was magic, the whole point of being a wizard, the whole point of living. The sort of thing few other people understood or appreciated... Maybe Shacklebolt in Ravenclaw, or the mudborn Lily Evans, he thought with a wry grin. But certainly not most of his pedantic, dull professors; nor Lucius Fucking Malfoy, nor that absolute imbecile Sirius Black. He smirked again, with far more malevolence, as he thought of the Gryffindor, all dark stylish hair and mocking blue eyes.

Sirius Black-- no, nor Holy and Revered James Potter either-- couldn't make something like this.

The abandoned workroom was quiet, empty. He'd stumbled across it in his second year, as he'd wandered the corridors wishing desperately for a place to try his own experiments in potions. He'd been through that particular hall several times when he saw a new door-- and beyond it, a room that was essentially ideal for any project he wanted to work on. As far as he knew, no one else even knew the room existed, which made it all the more perfect.

He lifted the kite with careful hands, entranced by the pattern of the scales that glistened and shone with such terrible beauty, and slipped the leather cover over it. Time to test it.

The top of the astronomy tower was deserted this afternoon, with the weather being what it was today, gloomy clouds warring with the occasional patch of blue sky. The stiff wind from the east drove the drizzly rain into his face, whipping his chin-length black hair into his eyes. He smiled slightly. Lily, silly little mudborn, kept saying that he needed a haircut.

He uncovered the kite and sucked in a harsh breath at the way a stray beam of sunlight hit the wings and made it look like it was on fire. Oh Merlin, but it was beautiful. The cord, made of the thinnest of silver wires and dragon heartstring woven together, was quickly attached to one wrist. The resplendent body of the kite, all greens and blues and golds and silvers, shot through with deep scarlet and vivid amethyst, was gently lifted, then tossed to catch the wind.

It did. Shining, magnificent, the kite rose effortlessly into the air, sparkling spells and aerodynamics mingling to create the beauty that was a wizard's kite. The boy closed his eyes, oblivious to his body, as the spells bound him and the kite, transferring his consciousness to the weightless and fiery object that danced and claimed the wind as its own.

He soared up, up, up forever, free of his body, free of the earth and gravity's dull sway. Gods yes! Look, look, watch while I master the very wind and firmament, while I dance dances with the air, while I walk the halls of cloud and rain and leave this drab February earth beneath me!

The kite soared above the Gryffindor lion flag, its dragon wings spread wide, its scales gleaming in a iridescent blaze of color, and the boy's clean, triumphant laughter rang in the winter air.

A shift. Time passing. February becomes March. Severus Snape takes his covered kite with him to the north of the school, knowing the other students preferred the lake and grassy lawn on Hogwarts' southern side. But here he could have his valued privacy.

He took off the kite's cover and felt for the breeze. It was mild, but enough to fly. The kite spread its wings, springtime sun hitting them and setting them practically aflame with colour, and Severus started smiling again. The spells took hold-- he became the kite-- and he was flying again.

The sensation was indescribable; the liberty exhilarating. He spread his dragon's wings and tasted the air beneath him, his to master and dance with. He caught an updraft... then dove glittering towards the earth... darted back and forth like a hummingbird...

Hey Sirius what's that hey it's Snape Snape is flying a kite! Like an ickle first year flying a kite

Think you can catch his kite James think you can catch it

Of course I can it's twenty times as big as a Snitch

Grab it away from him then make him beg to get it back

Random garbled ugly noises. Meaningless. They belonged to the creatures of the earth, who were so far beneath his level it was ridiculous to even note them. The dragon wings beat, lifting him higher into the air.

But-- two new presences in the firmament, intruding on Heaven; the dragon bared painted teeth and narrowed its gaze at the new flyers, who had no wings, who flew on pieces of dead wood. Ah, one of them challenges him, flies up, he knows him don't I--

POTTER--

Pain. Fingers dig into his skin, strong cruel fingers crumpling his beautiful shining scales and ripping his flesh from his bones; tearing him out of the sky and flinging him to the hard hungry bitch Gaiea far below, oh God, I'm falling, listen to Black, the fucker is laughing as I fall

Nice catch James hey what's going on Snape fell down did you see that look at him Merlin he's crying like a baby he's sniveling what the hell's your problem Snape

Hey here it is Sirius I broke it a little when I grabbed it awfully fragile thing Circe look at him cry over a stupid kite, you're right, he's sniveling, sniveling severus snape, Sniveling Snape Snivellus Snape its just a bloody kite just a bloody kite just a bloody kite

Snivellus! I like that that's good James come off it Snivellus grow up it was just a little kite here you can have it

The kite crunched a little more as it was tossed onto the ground, a weak whimpering sound.

Severus writhed in his sleep, a hand clutching at the sheets spasmodically. He bit down on the scream, bit down until the pain in his mouth woke him.

He shot upright, gasping for breath and groping desperately for his wand. His fingers encountered the smooth wood on the night-table, clutched it tightly, and he was halfway through a defensive charm before he knew where he was. Home. The bedroom, his bedroom.

Severus let out a choked breath of relief and forced his body to relax, inch by painful inch. He dropped his head onto his knees and took deep breaths of the air.

The room was dim, the heavy curtains drawn against the sun. The thin sheets were tangled around his bare, sweat-drenched body, and he shivered, feeling the chill, despite it being a summer's afternoon. With a convulsive shudder, he struggled out of the strangling sheets and made it out of bed, shaky legs taking him to the bathroom where he proceeded to lose the nothing he had in his stomach.

Snape sank down on the cool tiles and worked on stilling the tremors in his limbs. He hadn't had the dream in... years... not since the Brat's first year, after the absolute nightmare of the Quidditch match. And before that, not for years and years, certainly not in such detail, not reliving the whole experience so completely. He could feel the raw pain in his ripped skin, in his broken bones; he could feel absolute raging primal hatred filling him. If James Potter had appeared before him, reincarnated, at that moment, the only thing that would have kept him in his new lease on life would have been Snape's current inability to focus or cast an offensive spell.

After some minutes spent on the floor, he began to feel the cold sinking into his bones. He wearily lifted his head, brushed the greasy tangled hair out of his face and the burning moisture from his eyes, using the wall to help him stand. He still gripped his wand tight enough that his knuckles were going numb.

Neither Potter nor Black had ever understood exactly what the kite had been. They had taken it for a child's toy, not the psychic vessel it had been. Severus had never informed them otherwise. He had never informed anyone of what had happened that day; not Dumbledore, not his sister, not a soul. His resignation from the Slytherin Quidditch team had raised eyebrows, his problem with heights had provoked jeers (which he'd responded to with curses), and slowly it had become a fact of life until the adult Severus rarely let himself remember there was a time he hadn't had the vertigo and the fear.

He could fly; if he had to. It took immense preparation to get ready to do so; it took an approximate litre of assorted potions to deal with his fear, his nerves, his physiological reactions; it took an effort that he'd only made twice. One had been the night he'd had to fly to Dumbledore and tell him that Voldemort was going for the Potters, now; the second had been when he'd volunteered to referee Potter Junior's Quidditch match to keep Quirrell from murdering the brat in plain view.

Potters and flight; what was it about Potters and broomsticks, Potters and Snitches, Potters and himself? Of all the people to have in his home...

The terror had passed. He felt filthy and weak; hungry and thirsty and in desperate need of a shower. He couldn't summon the energy. More sleep. Needed some more rest. He tottered back to bed, not letting go of the wand, not looking at Potter's broomstick where it rested against the nightstand.

As he closed his eyes, he realized too late his mistake-- he hadn't performed the charms that would keep him from dreaming. But it was too late; sleep already had him, and it was with restrained terror that he slid back into Morpheus's care.

....Severus Snape ran slim, clever fingers over the iridescent surface, his young face alight with something approaching exultation. The paper-thin fabric under his hands had taken months to prepare, further months to fasten it, with terrible carefulness, to the frame of bone... He'd spent every spare moment of this his fourth year making the thing of loveliness that sat on the table...

***

"...so there we were, Gryffindor down sixty points to Slytherin-- only because they'd been cheating-- and I see the Snitch all the way at the other end of the field, but Malfoy is halfway between me and it," Harry said with a grin, gesturing how the play that had won this year's Quidditch Cup had gone down. His audience listened attentively with a rapt expression on his ghostly face.

"What did you do?" Lucien said, chewing on his lower lip as if the question was one of life and death. Harry made an expansive motion with his hand encompassing all of the pitch in his mind. "I flew straight for the centre of the field, where Ron, Ginny, and Beauregard were all tangled up with Crabbe and Goyle, right? They saw me diving as fast as the Firebolt would carry me, scattered out of the way except for Goyle, who tried to hit a Bludger at me. I ducked and it caught Malfoy who was chasing after me as fast as his Cleansweep would go. Then, I banked left hard--"

"And caught the Snitch?" said Lucien with delight.

"No-- it had moved during all that! So as I looked left and right for it, Crabbe flew over and tried to hit me with the bat, pretending he was swinging at the nearest Bludger which was at least twenty feet away; but I moved so quickly he lost his balance and nearly fell off his broom. This bought me enough time to get above the rest of the game, see the Snitch hovering by one of our hoops, and the game was ours," Harry finished with a happy sigh. What a game it had been.

Lucien had the dreamy expression on his face normally associated with those who are deeply in love. "Ruddy wonderful... wish I'd been there to see it...."

Harry shrugged. "You ought to come for our games this coming year. The Hogwarts ghosts watch them all the time, so it's not like you'd really stick out or anything."

Lucien's face fell. "Oh bloody hell, I wish I could Harry, but I'm not allowed to leave Brennigan. Rules of the curse and the death and the high tragic love and all that, don't you know."

"You're stuck here with the Snapes all the time? That's rough," Harry said sympathetically.

"Oh, it's not that bad in summer or on holidays-- there's the chance of explosions at least, then," Lucien murmured dismissively, waving a transparent hand. "Winters are dead boring though, what with Casimir stalking the halls and all, and Ames getting very depressed, and all the Snape portraits being ruddy awful. They don't much like us Gryffindors..."

"I've noticed that," Harry murmured (thinking of one grim-faced man who, Harry had been sure, had given him a particularly evil glare. However, when Harry had turned to check, the painting had been obstinately still. He'd flashed the V back at him just in case, however; and ever since the paintings had seemed to be glaring at him more.)

"But then, Slytherins have all sorts of mental problems," he said with a grin at his fellow Gryffindor. Lucien nodded energetically. "Oh yes. And they're all so arrogant! And let's not even get started on how hung up on lineage and ancestry and what-not they tend to be--"

"Purity of blood, and all that," Harry said with a nod and sigh. "As if it matters."

Lucien blinked, then cast an odd look at Harry. "Er... yes... I mean... well, anyways, wealth is such a big thing with them and all. Quite ridiculous. If you don't have a sea of Galleons to your name, well then, you may as well just not exist. ... Slytherins are so... stuffy. And pretentious. And smug, and slimy, and sneaky, and--"

"--possessed of such an annoying tendency to be nearby when you're speaking of them?" inquired a cold, polite, Snapish voice. Lucien did a ghostly jump, spinning around to see Casimir Snape-Malfoy regarding him with distaste. Harry bit his lip to keep from laughing.

"C-Casimir, I d-didn't know you were st-standing, er, there," mimbled Lucien, Gryffindor bravery nowhere in evidence as he backed up from the other ghost. Casimir sneered. "Obviously. But then, you rarely know much of anything, Lucien."

"I s-say, that's really not on," mumbled Lucien before slipping halfway down into the floor. With a seeming effort, he hovered back up, slipping around behind Harry's chair. Casimir's sneer grew more pronounced.

"Hiding behind the living, McGonagall? How... sad," he sniffed, then ignored Casimir in favour of looking at Harry. "Harry Potter. Have you seen Severus? He doesn't seem to be in his workshop, and I wanted to talk to him."

Harry scowled at the mention of his professor. "I don't know where Snape is and I don't care. Probably having a breakdown or hexing my broom or something."

Casimir's gaze sharpened. "I beg your pardon? Breakdown? Broom?" Behind Harry, Lucien temporarily forgot that he was in need of protection from the other ghost and peered down curiously at the teenager, adding his own questioning look to Casimir's.

Harry shifted, still disgruntled. "Yeah, he confiscated my broom after I was doing a dive in the courtyard. Went completely ballistic on me. After he said I could fly, the bas-- the, the, um..." he cast around for a less offensive term to use in front of the two ghosts, but it turned out he needn't have bothered, as they were already distracted.

"Severus let you fly? In the courtyard?" said Casimir with an incredulous expression on his ghostly features. Lucien echoed him, and Harry blinked up at the Gryffindor ghost.

"Yeah. I already told you that. Remember? We started talking about brooms... anyways," he said, "...he obviously was just screwing with me. Telling me I could fly so he'd have an excuse to confiscate my Firebolt," Harry growled moodily, using a fingernail to scratch at a chip in his chair's armrest.

Lucien and Casimir cast each other deeply concerned glances that Harry completely missed as he picked at the wood. "I still can't believe he let you fly," muttered Casimir, shoving ghostly hands into ghostly pockets and starting to pace.

The teenager blinked at that. "Yeah... kind of funny, isn't it? You'd think he'd try to keep me from practicing as little as possible, on the chance that maybe Malfoy might get to beat me next year," he said with a "fellow-Gryffindor" grin at Lucien. It wasn't returned, as McGonagall was looking worried himself. "Er... Harry, you said Severus saw you doing a dive, and then had a breakdown or something?"

Harry looked back and forth between the two ghosts and finally clued in that something was going on. "Okay. What is this?"

Casimir cleared his throat and looked up at the dragon's bones overhead. "Mmm... Potter, you do know about Severus's problem with what we delicately refer to around here as the 'f-word,' don't you?"

The boy blinked, completely non-plussed. "Look, I can tell you myself that Snape has absolutely no problem with any 'f-word' considering how much he was using them just an hour ago to insult my ancestry, house, intelligence, and--"

"No. The other F, Harry Potter-- Fly."

Harry exhaled and stared annoyedly in Casimir's direction. "Can you please talk sense."

Casimir snorted and dropped elegantly into the chair he'd driven Lucien from, steepling transparent hands together and staring aristocratically over them as McGonagall hovered around uncertainly. "Severus Snape, your Professor Snape, has a bit of a difficulty with, ah, heights. And flying."

"Bit, nothing. He's dangerously unstable when they're brought up, is what Casimir is saying," muttered Lucien, then instantly quieted at a disdainful glance from the other ghost.

"What?" muttered Harry. "How could that-- what, you mean like a little problem with heights, like he gets a little queasy, or..."

Casimir sighed, looked left and then right as if he expected the current-Snape-in-residence to be listening. "No. No, I'm afraid not. Severus has a rather terrible time with heights; he has since he was a teenager. He gets terribly sick at even the thought of flying."

Three days ago, Harry might have smirked at the idea of big, bad, aren't-I-in-control Professor Snape being afraid of heights. Now he just frowned, thinking hard. "But how can that be? He flew in my first year; for the Quidditch match--"

"He did what?" both ghosts asked simultaneously. Harry blinked, repeated, "He flew. He refereed the match, actually; to keep Quirrell from hexing me. I mean, we didn't know that was what he was doing at the time, but--"

"Stop. Start over," commanded Casimir, black eyes drilling holes in Harry. "You say in your first year at Hogwarts, Severus not only voluntarily let his feet leave the ground, he actually was up on a broomstick for an appreciable length of time?"

Harry nodded slowly, remembering the match in his mind's eye. It had been six years ago-- but also the second game he'd ever played in. You didn't just forget something like that...

He remembered-- the way the wind had ruffled his Seeker's robes, how unsure he had been compared to the way he played now, how all the other players, especially the Hufflepuffs that day, seemed huge... how Oliver Wood had encouraged him to grab the Snitch early... how his heart had leapt when he realized Dumbledore was attending the game... how he'd seen the golden, glistening Snitch fluttering lazily around beneath where Snape had hovered like a spectre on his broom. He remembered grinning, imagining how great it would be if he knocked Snape right off his broom, and had actually made his dive a lot closer to Snape than was really necessary, just to spook him. Gryffindor had won the game in barely five minutes.

...as Gryffindors came spilling onto the field, he saw Snape land nearby, white-faced and tight-lipped... Snape spat bitterly onto the ground...

"Well-- I guess he didn't look that good, afterwards," Harry muttered, his brow creasing in thought. Of course, at the time, he and Ron and Hermione had known that Snape was trying to kill him. They'd been wrong, but that little detail had somehow not been brought up later, nor that match analyzed too closely... nor the look on Snape's face. Harry bit his lip as he recalled how pale-- paler than normal, that is-- the professor's face had been, how-- had the hands been shaking? At the time he'd assumed it was anger at being cheated of the possibility to attack him, Harry; he'd never even considered-- well of course not, why would he have--

Harry suddenly felt guilty, and angry at his eleven year-old self. He didn't think he'd ever even thanked Snape for saving his life....

"Oh, damn," he muttered, sinking back into the chair. Snape's expression when he'd asked to fly (he'd thought the man looked a bit peaky) made some sense now... and if Snape had come out of the library and thought he was falling... Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

Damn it. Just when he was comfortable hating the man again...

"Where would Snape be, right now?" he asked the ghosts. Casimir stopped whispering to Lucien long enough to cast Harry a glare that was both contemptuous and accusing. "You're asking me?" he drawled. "I seem to recall I was looking for Severus myself-- or was, before you, my dear surplus Gryffindor, decided to give him a heart attack..."

Harry glared. "I didn't do it on purpose, you know. And he said I could fly."

"Good heavens, you aren't supposed to listen to anything we Snapes say, you foolish boy," muttered Casimir, rolling his ghostly eyes and starting to sink down into the floor. "I shall be looking for him in the catacombs. You, I believe, have done enough damage for the day."

Before Harry could get a retort off to that, Casimir had vanished between the floor's paving stones. Harry sighed and cast an aggrieved glance at Lucien, floating tentatively nearby. "This is ridiculous," he snapped. "If Snape has such a problem with all this, why didn't he just tell me I couldn't fly? Would have saved us all a lot of trouble."

Lucien shrugged helplessly. "Well. Yes, perhaps. But would you-- I mean, I rather think Severus is-- well, that is to say, it's never struck me as something Severus is proud of. I dare say he didn't want you knowing he is afraid of heights. Dignity at stake, and all."

Harry exhaled. "So instead he nearly gives himself a coronary when I do something he doesn't want me doing?! Yeah, that's so much more dignified."

Lucien smiled weakly. "Slytherin logic. What can you say."

Harry nodded and dropped his gaze to the floor with an exasperated sigh, eyes tracing the flagstones Casimir Snape-Malfoy had disappeared between. Suddenly he blinked and looked back up at Lucien, who was shifting from foot to ghostly foot with the air of a man who's not entirely certain what he's supposed to be doing.

"Hey-- Casimir said he was going to look for Snape in the 'catacombs.' What catacombs?"

Lucien fluttered. "Labyrinth. Under the house. The family crypts are down there. I hate the place. Bloody creepy," he muttered with a shiver.

Harry frowned and dug out the folded-up square of map and his wand from their respective pockets. He hadn't seen any 'catacombs' on there when he'd examined the map on his first day.

"Oh, they won't show up on there, magically protected from that sort of thing," Lucien began, then broke off and said delightedly, "I say! That's one of Wiggin's maps! He let you use one? Oh that's wonderful! We, the ghosts that is, aren't allowed to touch them. Something complicated about our ecto-- ecta-- ecplosm-- something fields, throwing off the magic of the map. Something. Casimir explained it to me once."

The ghost cocked his head to one side. "I say though. Wouldn't the map show you where Severus is?"

Harry blinked, then blinked again, and was reminded, for some reason, of Ron and Hermione. More precisely, the rare occasion when Ron would come up with a blindingly simple solution after Hermione spent hours searching for it. He unfolded the map, tapped it with his wand, and searched for the green dot that was Snape.

The dot was stationary on the second floor of the main bulk of the house, in a fairly large room. Harry nodded decisively, rolled the map up, and headed determinedly for the library tower door.

The fact that he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do when he found Snape was entirely irrelevant.