By lethe medusa
lethemedusa yahoo.com
The jar of cockroaches missed the boy's head by a bare inch, crashing against the door immediately in front of him. Scattered across the floor, the desiccated corpses crunched beneath careless feet as the boy scrambled to open the door and flee from the dungeons, flee from Severus himself.
He stared after the boy, his entire body fraught with tension as he restrained himself from chasing him down and wringing his thrice-cursed, scrawny little neck. His hands flexed in claw-like fashion as he imagined green eyes bulging, open mouth gasping as he crushed the wretched boy's throat between his hands...
With a mental wrench, he shoved the image out of his mind, and focussed on his breathing, consciously compelling his body to relax, one muscle at a time. When he finally stopped trembling with rage, a wave of exhaustion passed through him that left him weak at the knees. He sank into the chair behind his desk, and gazed at the Pensieve lying there in bitter disgust, and humiliation.
The boy had seen at least one of the three worst memories of his life. It would be too much to dare hope that he hadn't seen one or both of the others.
He closed his eyes, mentally cursing the boy and Dumbledore to the lowest hells. He had known when the Headmaster had approached him what would happen, that the boy would somehow manage to penetrate his defenses and see what Severus would much prefer remain locked away from spiteful, prying eyes. Dumbledore had assured him that he need only teach Potter occlumency and not legilimency, that his memories would be safe, had even provided him with the use of his own personal pensieve to protect him from any backlash he might suffer - a circumstance he was highly suspicious of, where Potter was concerned.
He should have realised that any preparations he could have made would all be in vain. This was Potter, after all. He would defy anyone to name a student more willful and self-centred in the past century. The boy would stop at nothing to have his way. He was much like Dumbledore in that respect, only Potter stampeded in like an elephant as opposed to the Headmaster's subtle manipulations.
"Damn the both of you," he whispered furiously.
Opening his eyes, he was mesmerised by the glinting silver light reflecting from the bowl of the Pensieve lying so obtrusively before him. It was so very close to the edge of his desk; just a little push would send it tumbling down and spilling his secrets onto the floor where they would be lost amidst the lingering residue of a thousand years of students' erroneous concoctions.
Yet Potter would still remember.
He snorted harshly at his foolishness. Despised though these memories were, they were a part of him. Eradicating them from his own mind would not change the fact that they had indeed occurred. Instead it would weaken him, for he would still feel the effects of the memories without knowing firsthand the precise cause.
Knowledge was an essential part of Severus' life. He would not deny himself his own.
The rush of the memories rejoining his mind was almost physically painful. For a brief moment as he recalled the events he had attempted to hide, he wished he had indeed destroyed this past rather that endure its constant needling at his sense of self-worth. Yet it also provoked his pride, prompting the persistent determination that had served him so well in surviving the machinations of a Dark Lord and a benign dictator.
He glared at the now-empty pensieve, knowing the Headmaster would not be pleased to discover that he would no longer be attempting to teach the dratted boy occlumency. Severus had kept his word, and done his best to drum the practice of occlumency into the boy's thick skull. The lack of progress was simply due to the boy's own laziness and obstinance. If the boy had been more willing to learn he would not now be little better off than before the lessons had started. An hour ago Severus would almost have felt a touch of guilt for that, as from what he had gleaned during the few lessons they'd had, the boy was indeed susceptible to the Dark Lord's influence. Almost.
If the Dark Lord snaked his way into Potter's mind now, however...
He shook his head and pushed himself out of the chair. He lingered for a moment over the pensieve, then summoned a House Elf to return it to the Headmaster's office. Over to the door, a quick wave of his wand, and the broken jar of cockroaches returned to the storage cupboard once again whole.
He paused at the mark on the door that indicated where the jar had hit, and ran his fingers over the indentation. Its depth was testament to the anger with which he'd hurled it at the boy with his magic.
Uncontrolled magic.
He leaned forward, resting his head against the marred door as laughter welled within him, spilling out of him unpleasantly like sewage from a blocked drain. It tasted foul in his mouth.
"Hypocrite," he murmured at last, as his shudders subsided, and tried to clear his mind of messy black hair, green eyes and glasses.
They haunted him incessantly.
Shorts Main