Chapter 24: Memories

Disclaimer: Due to a combination of sugar, caffeine and insomnia, I feel daring. So I'm not going to say that I don't own Harry Potter or any of the other related things in this story… oh, drat.

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A/N: I'm back from the boating holiday! Don't worry, it was profitably spent driving the boat (with both my parents as backseat-sailors), reading OOTP, planning my other little holiday project, and relaxing. Of course, as soon as I came back, I was lumbered with a cold, insomnia and a family argument, so it's been a tough week for writing. Apologies for anything that isn't up to scratch – I'm always paranoid about that, though my betae assure me I'm fine.

Insomnia is a great thing for leaving you with nothing to say, isn't it? I've also been very bad with replying to e-mails, which I apologise for – rather a lot of you e-mailed my last week, including what must be my longest review ever, and I still need to reply to them! Thanks a thousand times to all my reviewers: you must be doing something right, if you can inspire me to write when I'm sneezing all over the place and exhausted! Love to you all. Enjoy!

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.

Michel de Montaigne, (1533-1592)

The meagre hours spent with his friends had flown past with ridiculous speed, as though someone had swooped down on a Firebolt and snatched the time from Harry's hands. And perhaps, if you could move time around like sand on a beach, they'd dropped it here, in the strangely silent corridors with their ominously flickering torches.

How long could it take to get to Snape's office? His watch said it had only been ten minutes since he left the common room behind, but it felt like an unbridgeable eternity had passed between then and now.

Get it over with, he thought as he turned the final corner, Snape's office door appearing a few metres away, large and imposing. And then, as if time had gotten bored with going slowly, he was standing in front of the door in what felt like a heartbeat's space, staring at the wood.

Snape was going to be horrible. Harry had no idea how he was going to try to calm himself, to attain the blankness needed for Occlumency. He was going to go in there and be completely unprotected, completely vulnerable to Snape's attacks, and the last thing he wanted to do was relive any of the things in his memory, especially not with Snape there. His memories were private…

Just get it over with.

With some kind of huge, cold weight settling itself inside his ribcage, Harry knocked on the door.

'Enter.'

The word was snapped; harsh and bitter, and Harry couldn't stop himself wincing as his hand fell to the doorknob. If Snape was that angry before the lesson had even started, he had no hope.

The room was still as grim and forbidding as he remembered it. The shelves around the walls were still lined with their murky jars of ingredients; the glass made grey and dirty under layers of dust. There wasn't enough light, leaving the edges and corners of the office cloaked in secretive black shadows out of which anything might appear; while what little light there was seemed pale and devoid of warmth, illuminating but not cheering.

Snape was behind his desk, holding a midnight-black quill in one hand with a stack of parchment before him, obviously marking homework. 'You're late,' he accused Harry, in a voice that could have frozen hellfire.

He was two minutes early.

'Sorry, Professor,' Harry muttered, glancing at the floor, because Snape's glare carried the undiluted venom of his bitterness and loathing for James Potter's son. But then again, Harry reminded himself; in a matter of minutes Snape would be attacking his mind again, and if he couldn't even meet the professor's eyes now, what hope did he have to fight against him then?

So he looked up, and met the dark, angry eyes with what he hoped was a calm emerald stare, and after a few seconds Snape put his quill down, sealed his inkpot, and got to his feet.

Stay calm, Harry instructed himself as Snape strode round to face him. Harry tried to breathe more slowly, to stop his heart thudding in his chest, to calm the tumult of twisting fear in his chest. Just stay calm…

Snape didn't bother giving him a warning. 'Leglimens!'

It was a violent attack, and before Harry could even begin to retaliate the office had vanished. He was back at the Dursleys, with Uncle Vernon slamming the door of his cupboard shut and turning the key… in Umbridge's office with the quill cutting into the back of his hand… at the Dursleys' again, lying on his bed and wishing Sirius were still alive, and then, with a burst of pain so strong it made him gasp, back in the Department of Mysteries, watching Bellatrix's curse hit Sirius, watching him fall backwards, through the veil, gone forever…

'SIRIUS!'

And back to Snape's office, kneeling on the floor and gasping in air as though he'd just run a marathon. His glasses had fallen off, turning Snape's face into a pale oval blur, the eyes and nose and mouth almost distinguishable, but the expression impossible to read.

He closed his eyes, trying to get his breath back, trying to pull himself together. He would not break down in front of Snape. Never. It was hard, feeling the pain and the guilt and the loss of Sirius' death pounding through him, tearing at him, but he tried.

'Your glasses, Potter.'

Harry opened his eyes and looked up to see Snape's hand extended to him, holding out his vaguely recognisable glasses. 'Thanks,' Harry muttered, reaching out to take them and trying to stop the image of Sirius' death from flickering again and again across his inner vision, each time bringing with it a vicious stab of pain.

He pushed his glasses back onto his nose, forcing himself to focus on the shape of them, the smooth Muggle plastic of the frames, the way they rested lightly on his nose and the back of his ears, because if he concentrated on something else hard enough he could force the memories out of his mind.

Standing, he took a sharp breath and forced himself to meet Snape's glaze, to show that whatever his Potions professor thought, he wasn't weak, he wouldn't break. Snape was regarding him with a frown, the same kind of expression he wore when carefully measuring some ingredient for a potion, and Harry realised that Snape was evaluating him. Determined not to be found lacking, he raised his chin and stared back.

After a moment, Snape gave him a cursory nod, though his face betrayed no hint of what he was thinking. 'Have you collected yourself, Potter?'

'Yes,' Harry said shortly.

Snape raised his wand, and Harry had a half-second more to brace himself before Snape cried, 'Leglimens!'

The office wavered before him for a heartbeat, and then he was submerged under cool water, breathing through gills, and his heart thudding in he chest as he searched for his best friend… he was in the Chamber of Secrets, with Ginny lying limp and lifeless on the stone and a Basilisk approaching… he was back in Snape's office, a year ago, and Snape was raising his wand…

And back to the real office. Harry realised he'd managed to remain standing that time, though Snape was looking at him with a raised eyebrow. Harry stared back defiantly. Had that last vision surprised Snape, seeing that these Occlumency lessons ranked in the list of Harry's worst memories? He shouldn't, Harry thought, gripping his wand tightly as a sudden vehement fire rushed through him, he's seen enough of my memories to know this can't be fun for me…

'Potter, you will never learn Occlumency if you don't make more of an effort,' Snape said simply. His tone was as neutral as it could be, but his comment still annoyed Harry.

'I am trying,' he protested, 'but…'

'No, you are not.' Snape cut in flatly, this time carrying a little more bitterness. 'I have told you before, Potter; to block an attack, you need to be calm; you need to be able to block those memories completely. Collect yourself, and we shall try again.'

Snape's acidic tone seemed to grate at Harry's nerves: he bit the inside of his cheek as the other man spoke. He could still feel the residual pain from his memories swirling through him like water, boiling water that left his insides raw, to add to the vicious, tearing pain that was Sirius' death, the heavy sense of guilt. Calmness? Blocking these memories? He could just have easily have scooped the stars from the sky and used them as diamonds.

'It's rather hard to be calm when someone who hates you is prying through your memories, sir,' Harry spat bitterly.

Snape fixed him with a dangerous glare. 'Then you should be thankful I am not the Dark Lord,' he said, 'I assure you that he hates you far more than I ever will. Potter, calm yourself.'

That wasn't going to happen; not with this jumble of feelings tangling around each other inside him, long-forgotten fears and pains and hatreds mingling with fresher guilt and loss. Harry took a deep breath, then another, which only served to make the pain worse.

'I'm calm,' he lied.

Snape raised his wand. 'Leglimens.'

Seven, and running away from Dudley and his gang… watching Voldemort rise out of the cauldron… Ron refusing to speak to him in fourth year… Quirrel drinking from the unicorn… in Snape's Pensieve, watching his father acting like an arrogant bully…

The spell broke sharply, and Harry was facing Snape, both of them breathing too hard and too fast and with an anger that was almost solid, crystallising out of the air between them.

'You are not trying.' Snape hissed. 'If anything, you are getting worse.'

Harry glared back defiantly. 'How am I supposed to be calm when…'

'When you're facing the Dark Lord and about to be killed at any moment?' Snape cut in sharply. 'If you cannot be calm here and now, you have no hope of being calm then!'

There was a sharp silence. Harry had heard people describing a tense atmosphere as so thick you could cut it with a knife, but his atmosphere was knives, razor-edged and cutting and dangerous.

'Do I need to clarify what that will mean, Potter?' Snape asked coldly. 'If you cannot control your emotions then…'

'I can't just stop myself from feeling things!' Harry exploded. 'I can't do that, don't you think I've been trying to do that all summer?'

'You do not need cease all feeling, Potter, you merely need to remain calm, which you are not doing.'

Fury burned coldly in Harry's chest, 'Yeah, well how am I supposed to do that when Voldemort-' Snape frowned, '-is trying to kill me and I keep remembering Sirius…'

Harry cut himself off in mid-sentence, now angry with himself as well for mentioning that in front of Snape.

'You are not the only one with less-than-pleasant memories, Potter,' Snape snarled viciously. 'Other people can keep their emotions under control, and I expect no less of you. Until you manage that, you will be utterly defenceless against the Dark Lord. Are you such a self-centred, arrogant little boy that you don't see what the consequences of that will be?'

'I'll die,' Harry said simply, feeling like he couldn't care less at that moment, but his answer seemed to infuriate Snape even more.

'And is your life the be-all and end-all of this war?' Snape spat. 'Potter, if you die, if you are incapable of defeating him, the Dark Lord will win. It might take him a year, or a decade, or a century after killing you, but he will turn this world into what he desires. His will be a reign of terror the likes of which this earth has never seen before! You cannot imagine the horrors he would perpetuate, the murders and tortures he would perform… and all you can do is snivel about your own pathetic little life.'

Snape looked at Harry as though he was something slimy, something disgusting, and Harry spoke up. 'I know I have to kill Voldemort,' he said, 'I know that, and I know what will happen if I don't, but I can't just…'

'Then I suggest you learn, and quickly,' Snape snapped, 'because if you don't, Potter, you will die at Voldemort's hands, and you will be guilty of failing to prevent those deaths and tortures, just as you are guilty of causing Black's death now because of your reckless impulsiveness!'

Harry gasped, paling suddenly, and stepped backwards as though he'd just been slapped in the face.

'Don't…' he began, and his voice was shaking with either pain or anger or both, 'don't you ever bring up Sirius…'

'I shall mention whomever I want,' Snape said harshly, 'if it will get the importance of these lessons firmly into your idiotic brain.'

'I know they're important,' Harry said quietly, though all he wanted to do was yell and scream and shout at Snape for thinking he didn't know how important this was, for thinking he wasn't trying when all he'd done for the past few weeks was try to push the pain away. He would have shouted, too, but any kind of coherent words were lost beneath that raw ache of pain, the old scars from memories half-forgotten, the new and fresh waves of misery from more recent memories that hung in his mind as vividly as blood. Beneath all that was a river of rage at Snape, like boiling acid in his blood, and guilt like a heavy sickness over Sirius and the possible future deaths of thousands, and a myriad other tangled feelings without names that coiled around his heart and throttled it until he couldn't think straight, let alone form a coherent sentence.

On one of the shelves behind him, a mercifully empty glass jar shattered without warning, littering the shadows with broken stars that glinted in the torchlight. Snape, already looking murderous, seemed even angrier.

'Just go, Potter,' he spat. 'There are only five minutes left in this session anyway, not one of which could be profitably used with you in this state. Get out, and if you make no improvement next week…'

The threat was left hanging. Harry had already gone.

'Bloody Snape,' Ginny muttered as she passed through the Entrance Hall. She was firmly convinced that the embarrassment of being caught kissing by him in the first place was punishment enough; and now she'd have to spend an evening cleaning out cauldrons or something equally disgusting. And all for kissing Dean in an empty classroom!

Ginny had heard Dean remark that he thought Snape was just jealous and bitter because he didn't have anyone to kiss. She thought it was a very probable suggestion.

Oh well. At least in an hour it'd all be over, and she could go back to the Gryffindor common room and relax. Perhaps on the way back, she'd sneak down to the kitchens and ask the house elves for some Butterbeer, or - even better – hot chocolate. With copious amounts of cream and marshmallows on top. And some fudge sauce dribbled over the cream. That was how hot chocolate was supposed to be.

Perhaps if she focused on hot chocolate throughout her detention, it'd stop the cauldrons smelling quite so badly. Ginny resolved to try this, turned the corner and almost tripped over Harry.

He was sitting with his back against the wall and his legs stretched out across the floor, arms folded across his chest, staring at a random point as though he were willing it to catch on fire.

Occlumency, Ginny realised. She had known Harry had his lesson tonight, but there were so many winding passages through the dungeons that she hadn't expected to run into him. Unless, of course, he was sitting on the ground at the end of the corridor that led to Snape's office.

'Harry?' she asked, not sure if he'd noticed her, and he glanced up, momentarily confused.

'Oh. Hi,' he said, by way of greeting, and his eyes dropped to the floor with a sigh. 'Snape's in his office.'

Ginny glanced down the corridor to the door, then glanced back to Harry again. 'I've got five minutes,' she lied, before stepping over Harry's legs and sitting down beside him with her legs tucked underneath her. 'I assume Snape was a bit of a git?'

Harry snorted. 'That's an understatement,' he said semi-casually, but the undertones of anger in his voice were evident.

'What happened? Did you see…' She sought for the best phrasing. 'What happened in the Department of Ministries?'

'Yeah, but that wasn't… I mean, I'm used to that. To remembering it. It was more that he acted like I… like I don't know how important this is.' Harry said bitterly. 'I know it's important! I know I have to…'

He broke off suddenly, with a sidelong glance to Ginny, who had been sitting quietly and listening. He looked evasive, and weary, and angry, and hurt.

'And… I don't want to talk about it. Not now. I…' He raised a hand to his face. 'I can't even think straight right now, let alone talk. Sorry, Ginny…'

'It's okay,' she said, and after a heartbeat's deliberation she reached up and pulled his hand away from his face, gave it a gentle squeeze, and dropped it. It wasn't okay, really; she wanted to know what had happened. But if Harry didn't want to tell her, well, cajoling and pleading would only make him more upset. Later, when he wasn't in such a state, she'd ask him – or get the story off Hermione and Ron if they heard it first. 'Are you going back to the common room, then?'

He shook his head. 'It's a perfectly nice corridor,' he said. 'And there's too many people in there.'

'Well, it won't be a perfectly nice corridor when one of the Slytherins walks down it and finds you sitting here,' Ginny remarked, getting to her feet. 'I think one of these doors…'

She selected one of the doors with a frown and cautiously opened it. Inside was an empty classroom, all its furniture cleaned away centuries ago to leave nothing but cool grey stone.

Harry followed her in. 'More peaceful than the corridor,' Ginny remarked, 'though you'd better lock the door, I bet this is a prime Slytherin kissing spot.'

He snorted. 'Thanks,' he said, and settled down again, leaning against one wall, topping his head back and closing his eyes.

Ginny glanced down the corridor to Snape's office door. She was at least ten minutes late; he would be furious. And she didn't want to scrub out cauldrons or chop frogs legs or whatever horrid punishment he had in store for her. And she didn't want to leave Harry.

She closed the door and muttered a locking charm, then sat down next to Harry. He opened his eyes; strangely colourful in the empty grey room.

'Don't you have detention?' he asked with a frown.

Ginny gave a casual shrug. 'I don't care. Unless you'd rather I went?'

Harry appeared to consider this. 'You can stay, I guess,' he said, and Ginny smiled.

They passed a companionable five minutes in silence, with Harry's knees drawn up to his chest and his forehead resting atop them, while Ginny sat beside him and wondered if he was okay. He could be crying, very quietly, and she wouldn't have been able to tell. Or sleeping. She knew he was hurting; that much was obvious.

'Harry?' she asked tentatively, but he seemed not to notice. He wasn't asleep; his breathing was too quick and rapid for that. Somewhere inside himself, then: somewhere where the outside world faded away and left you trapped in your own mind, your own memories. She remembered that from her first year, when Harry had saved her from the Chamber and she'd had to deal with the fact that she'd almost murdered people.

Tentatively, she reached out a hand and put it on his shoulder, hoping it would at least offer some small comfort.

A few minutes passed in this way, until the heard a door open in the distance and the sound of footsteps on stone. 'Weasley?' It was Snape, and true to her predictions, he sounded furious.

'Weasley!'

Harry was more important. She didn't move.

Snape's footsteps stalked down the corridor, and she heard him trying other doors, looking in other rooms. Why wasn't he looking for her in Gryffindor? He must have heard her voice before, speaking to Harry, she realised. If so, why hadn't he come looking for her immediately?

The doorhandle rattled, and Snape hissed something under his breath from outside. Ginny's heart sank, and she prepared for a furious rant by Snape. He'd know the countercharm to open the door, and then it was anger and scrubbing cauldrons…

The door flew open, and she gave Snape the best glare she had as he stalked into the room, sweeping his gaze over the inhabitants. He raised an eyebrow when he saw her with Harry.

'Your detention, Miss Weasley?' he asked, his tones icy.

'I felt my friend's well-being was more important,' she said defiantly. If she was getting in trouble anyway, she wasn't going to back down.

Snape frowned at her, then his gaze slid to Harry. 'I suppose,' he said after a moment's pause, his voice dry and acidic, 'that comforting Potter is a cruel enough detention for anyone. Though in future, kindly remember that attending a detention can be an intelligent idea if you wish to keep the rest of your week to yourself.'

And with that he stalked back to his office, leaving a very surprised Ginny behind him.

A/N: Apologies for not having any Draco in there; but don't worry, I'll make sure to include him next chapter. Now, I propose we conduct a scientific experiment: do reviews cure insomnia? Scientifically speaking, good reviews should make me happy, leading to me relaxing and getting a better night's sleep. I shall keep a chart of how many reviews I get each day, and how many hours I sleep that night, and we shall see if there's a correlation. So review, in the name of science!