Chapter 32: Butterbeer, Briefly
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter: JK Rowling has the pleasure of that. All I own is a really fiendish cold, the kind where it feels like your nose is on fire and/or about to explode all the time. Pity me.
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A/N: And because everyone keeps going on about chapter length: every chapter is 8±1 pages long. For those of you who haven't got to that bit in maths yet: that means either 7, 8 or 9 pages. So if they seem to be getting shorter, it's an illusion! Last week's was one of the longest yet: this week's is 7.5.
If you put all my fics in order according to how much I've learnt from them, Fallen would be top of the list. Seriously. All the feedback you wonderful, amazing reviewers give me – both positive and negative! – has been more helpful than you'd imagine, even if one of the biggest things I've learnt is that you can't please everyone, ever, and what one person loves another will absolutely abhor – just look at last chapter's reviews and see what people were saying about the whole Ginny/Dean thing!
I also have to apologise for the choice of this chapter's quote. If I say my beta made me do it, will you forgive me?
With that thought, I'll move onto the chapter. Enjoy!
Do, or do not. There is no try.
Yoda in Star Wars
He fell to the floor, dizzy and gasping for breath.
When his vision cleared, Harry glanced upwards to see Snape in front of him, eyes narrowed and dark, arms crossed impatiently and his lip curled. Nervously, Harry glanced away again, preparing himself for the inevitable lecture. You must do better. You must try harder. Except he didn't know how he could try any harder.
The Occlumency was more difficult today. However hard he pushed, however hard he tried to block Snape out, it never worked. And then Snape would glare at him, and make some coldly sarcastic comment, and Harry would struggle to his feet and try again and it would be just as impossible that time…
Snape hadn't spoken yet: Harry chanced another glance upwards and saw the Potions teacher looking at him with contempt. Perhaps Snape's disgust had reached the point where words were so pathetically inadequate that he didn't bother using them.
At any rate, Harry's breathing had calmed and his vision was now completely clear: he pushed himself to his feet, forced himself to make eye contact with Snape, and waited.
There was a very slight pause, no longer than a heartbeat, before Snape raised his wand. 'Legilimens.'
The spell tore into Harry's mind as though there were no resistance at all, pictures flashing across his internal vision– flash of green light – basilisk – falling from his broomstick – graveyard – Aberddewin - Sirius - He just gets everyone into danger…
And back to the dungeon, surrounded by grey stone walls, cold air, the smell of old potions, kneeling on the floor with his heart pounding.
He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself, and heard Snape's voice, harsh and angry.
'You are not trying, Potter.'
Wearily, he opened his eyes and looked upwards. 'I am trying,' was all he could say: there was really nothing else to be said. He was trying; he was not succeeding.
'Then explain why your mind is putting up no resistance whatsoever,' Snape snapped curtly. 'Unless you are managing to become worse at Occlumency – an incredible feat considering how poor you were to begin with – I can see no reason for your performance today other than that you are not trying.'
Harry took a deep breath. It was true that he did seem to be worse today then he'd ever been before: he just couldn't block anything, for some reason, as though his mind were too weary to do anything. He was tired in some way that was deeper than physical: he wanted to lie down somewhere and sleep for a year, sleep until all this was over and everything was alright again. Except that it wouldn't be, not until he killed Voldemort. Or was killed by him, in which case he'd get the sleep he'd wanted – just one he'd never wake up from.
'I am trying,' he repeated.
Snape raised one disbelieving eyebrow, then lifted his wand once more – Harry had a split second to react – and said, his tone almost lazy, 'Legilimens.'
Veil – Umbridge – quill – Sirius – death – danger – Dursleys - cupboard – Dudley – bullying – Voldemort – Cruciatius…
The spell ended abruptly: Harry was surprised to find that he hadn't fallen to the floor, though he definitely felt like doing so.
Snape's voice was colder and harsher than ever: what hellfire would be like if it were cold instead of hot. 'I would have thought that you would have tried harder, after Aberddewin,' he said sharply. 'Is the great Harry Potter really so uncaring about the lives of others that he cannot be bothered to practice-'
'What?' Harry cut in incredulously, mouth hanging open. He shut it. 'Professor, I-'
'Should learn not to interrupt your teachers,' Snape replied icily, turning away from him and crossing the room to his desk. He sat down, took out quill and parchment and began writing.
'What… you were saying… what were you saying?' Harry demanded, his eyes never leaving the Potions teacher, a cold, numb speck growing inside him.
'Merely that I was surprised the wizarding world's greatest…' His eyes narrowed, and he sneered, 'hero didn't appear to care about…'
Very slowly, Harry shook his head. 'I… Aberddewin… of course I care,' he said. He remembered how he'd felt when he'd first heard the news: frightened, nervous, afraid it would happen again. He'd known, also, that this was his responsibility, that he was the only one who could put a stop to this…
'Then why,' Snape asked, 'were you making no effort?'
'I was!' Harry protested. 'It's just… I don't know, I couldn't…'
'You weren't trying,' said Snape harshly, putting the quill down and rising from his desk. 'The first major attack of this war, and our golden hero can't even be bothered to learn Occlumency, doesn't even care…'
'I do care.' Harry's voice was hard, lower than normal, sounding quite alien as it interrupted Snape's silky poison words. 'If I didn't care, I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be torturing myself spending hours in this dungeon with you shoving around the insides of my head, if I really didn't care I wouldn't come…'
'And if you cared, you'd try harder.' Snape spat, his eyes narrowing. 'Get out of here, Potter. Come back when you can be bothered to learn.'
'No.' Harry's voice surprised even himself; he seemed to have said that without thinking.
'These are my personal rooms, Potter,' Snape said, quite calmly, quite placidly.' Get out.'
'No,' Harry repeated, noticing a tremor in his voice: he swallowed it down. 'Try one more time. Once more, and then I promise to go if you want me to. I do care.'
Snape's expression was unreadable as he eyes Harry from across the room; then came a few steps closer, and with a perfectly emotionless tone raised his wand and said, 'Legilimens.'
Harry was determined to succeed this time, or at least to do better than before, and he felt Snape's mind press at his own. After a triumphant half-second's resistance Snape burst in, and the memories…
He was in the Department of Mysteries, standing on the platform, looking at the empty, billowing veil… at the Dursleys, with Aunt Marge's dogs chasing him up a tree… Dudley was stealing his lunch at school for the third day running, laughing as he ate it… sitting in his cupboard…
No, he had to concentrate, had to block this out. He tried to ignore the stream of memories – could faintly see Snape and the rest of the room– but how to stop him?
He tried shoving at that invasive presence with his mind, tried blocking it, tried anything he could think of, but nothing had an effect, and Sirius was falling through the veil once more…
It ended: he was kneeling on the floor again.
'Out,' was the only thing Snape said, as he turned his back and stalked back to his desk. Harry pushed himself to his feet, realised he was shaking.
As he left, he paused with his hand on the doorframe. 'I do care,' he whispered, very quiet. He didn't know if Snape heard or not, because the professor made no noise.
He slipped out silently, closing the door behind him.
'I hope Harry's okay.'
Hermione glanced up from the book she was reading. Ginny was sitting beside her, arms crossed on the thickly padded arm of the chair she was sitting in, chin resting on her forearm in what couldn't be a comfortable way. She brushed a stand of hair out of her eyes with a vaguely irritated frown.
'So do I,' Hermione replied, 'but we aren't going to do him any favours worrying about it. You could do your homework.'
'I've done it,' Ginny muttered, closing her eyes. 'I wish I'd gone with Ron.' Ginny's brother had decided to creep off to the kitchens and get some Butterbeer, chocolate and sweets from Dobby, to help cheer Harry up when he got back.
'You could probably catch up with him, if you tried,' Hermione said noncommittally. She tried to return to her book – it was one of her favourite stories, and it was just getting to one of the most dramatic parts of the plot – but at that moment Dean came in, chatting casually to Seamus, and Ginny started gave him such a dark glare that Hermione couldn't help but be distracted.
'Look,' she said as Dean and Seamus dumped their schoolbags behind one of the sofas and headed back out again, 'are you ever going to talk about Dean, or are you going to do like Harry does and stay silent all the time?'
Ginny shrugged, which was quite an odd movement when sitting half-hunched over with her head in her arms. 'There's nothing to talk about.'
Hermione closed her book. 'The first-years certainly seem to be doing a very good job of making it into something to talk about, then, considering how much gossip I've heard on the topic,' she said.
'Hermione, there really is nothing to talk about. I admit I may have been a little… over-dramatic, but really, I'm fine,' Ginny replied firmly. 'I mean, I'm not really heartbroken or anything. If anything, I'm annoyed.'
'Because he was overreacting?'
Ginny nodded. 'Yes. Because he doesn't understand that…' She paused and looked up. 'That I have a life outside him. And that some things are more… more important than snogging in broom closets. I mean, I did like him,' she was quick to add,' and it wasn't all about kissing and things, but… well, I just got the feeling that he wanted me to be there whenever he needed me, regardless of what I was doing at the time.'
Hermione nodded, leaning on the arm of her own chair to see Ginny better. 'But you aren't upset?'
'No,' Ginny replied, with a single shake of her head. 'It'd been going on too long… really, when I broke up with him, I was just glad it was over. He's a really nice guy, and I still want to be friends with him, but as a boyfriend he's too possessive. So yes, I'm fine.'
Hermione gave her a relieved smile. 'That's good,' she said, 'I was afraid you were…'
And then she stopped, in the middle of her sentence, because Harry had just come in and all thoughts of Ginny and Dean faded from her mind.
'Harry!' she called, pushing herself out of her chair and fighting her way through the tangled maze of armchairs to the portrait hole, Ginny not far behind. 'Are you okay? What happened?'
She reached his side: he looked pale, his face rather tight. He shrugged. 'Not well.'
Hermione felt her heart sink – she could tell he was upset, but what could she do? Nothing. Beside her, Ginny tentatively reached out a hand but didn't touch him.
'Harry… do you need…'
He shook his head, taking a step back. 'I think I'd just like to be alone for a while,' he said quietly, before turning and making his way to the staircase that led to the boys' dorms.
Ginny and Hermione watched him go in wordless dismay.
Like and dislike were possibly two of the easiest emotions to sort out, Draco thought. Anything that made you feel good was something you liked; anything that made you feel bad was something you disliked.
He disliked the Slytherin common room. While it was fascinating – watching the groups shift and change, watching the political trends, spotting the various subtle displays of loyalty which no outsider would be able to understand. The colour-coding according to how they felt about Aberddewin, for example.
Yet for all that it was interesting, he disliked it. It was uncomfortable – the emotional equivalent of sitting on something lumpy, he thought. He wasn't welcome there: no one spoke to him, except for Blaise and Ellen, and both of them only spoke to him because they wanted something. Blaise wanted him to switch sides again, and Ellen wanted him to help protect her from the others.
He was spending more and more time outside the common room, now. Sometimes he went to the Library, to meet Hermione or just to study, to read. Sometimes he went flying, on his broomstick by day and on his wings by night. Sometimes, like now, he wandered the hallways aimlessly.
Hermione: that was an interesting point. He spent more time talking to her than to anyone else, these days. Ellen spoke to him perhaps once or twice a week, and he spoke to teachers in lessons, and he wrote letters to his mother: apart from that and occasional encounters – telling the first years where the dungeons were, or telling someone what time it was – the only person he spoke to was Hermione.
Hermione was something he liked. She was intelligent, certainly, and as his mother had said he needed someone he could ask about all the complexity of emotion. Hermione was willing to help, and able: Draco felt he was beginning to get things sorted out. Not the really complex ones, but most of the simpler ones he was almost used to, by now.
He wondered, sometimes, why she talked to him. Blaise and Ellen and the teachers and the first-years in the corridors had a reason, something they wanted out of him: Hermione didn't appear to. He'd thought about it quite a lot. There was nothing he could think of that she could want from him, no benefit she could gain from him by helping him with emotion.
And then, when they'd been studying for Potions together, he'd made a comment that made her laugh and had something like an epiphany. He'd been thinking too much in the terms of cold, Fallen, Slytherin logic, of associating with people because you wanted something from them.
It hadn't occurred to him until that moment that perhaps Hermione was helping him because she liked to.
He found himself smiling at the memory as he passed out of a long-neglected corridor, turning onto the path that would take him back to the main areas of the dungeons, when something made him stop suddenly. There were voices up ahead. Snape and Delaney.
'Of course I agree, Severus, in principle at least, yet I feel that Muggleborns…'
The corridor he was in met a larger corridor at a T-junction: it was also quite dark, and if he stayed within it he would probably not be noticed. Which was exactly what he wanted. He shrank back against the wall and listened.
'Our bloodlines are diluted enough already,' Delaney was saying. 'A mingling of wizard and Muggle culture – bringing their music and clothing into our lives – might help to create better relations between wizard and Muggle, which would certainly be a good thing on principle. But it would already result in far more marriages between wizards and Muggles or Muggleborns, and then the wizarding race…'
'Wizarding race?' Snape asked, and Draco heard a rather dangerous note of ice in his voice. 'I was under the impression we were all human, Erebus.' They appeared to have paused in their walk.
'Of course we are. But it's obvious our kind is different from Muggles.' They hadn't reached the junction yet: Draco longed to be able to see the two teachers.
'So different that people with magical abilities can be born to two completely Muggle parents?' Snape was asking.
'Anomalies,' Delaney said, and the dismissal in his voice was clear. A tiny part of Draco's brain whispered Hermione's not an anomaly, but he ignored it, focussing on the conversation.
'Even when they can have more magical talent than Purebloods? Even when they make up almost a quarter of the school's population?' Snape's voice was sharper than a knife: Draco shivered just to hear it.
'It's relatively rare for them to be more magical than a Pureblood, and when they are it's only because the magical bloodlines are becoming polluted with Muggle genes,' Delaney said. 'There's very few bloodlines left that are totally pure, you know – the Holdens, the Bennett-Edmonds, the Malfoys… Which reminds me, I meant to ask you something.'
They started walking again. 'What?' Snape asked, quite sharply.
'The Malfoy heir – Draco. He's in your house, I know: is he doing alright? After his change of alliances?'
Draco's eyes widened. This couldn't be what it sounded like…
'His marks are as good as ever,' Snape replied, and then they reached the junction with Draco's corridor: he shrank back into the shadow, his heart pounding, then they were past. 'He's doing well in his lessons.'
'That's not what I meant and you know it,' Delaney replied. 'You can do well in class and be dying inside. I want to know…'
'Erebus,' Snape cut in, and this time he sounded either weary or oddly gentle, 'I know you feel…'
In the distance, a door closed, and Snape was cut off mid-sentence.
Draco must have waited in the dimly-lit side corridor, staring at the opposite wall, for a full minute before he ventured out into the main hallway. His head was ringing with one single certainty.
Delaney was the spy.
It was nearly ten o'clock when someone – Ron – finally ventured into the boys' dorms to see Harry.
He was lying in his bed, face turned away from the door, and Ron wondered if Harry was sleeping. 'Harry?' he tried in something half a whisper, half normal speech.
There was no reply at all for a moment, then a sigh. 'I'm okay. Or I'll be okay. It's just…'
When nothing more seemed to be forthcoming, Ron tried, 'Snape?'
'Yeah. He's… well, you know what he's like.'
'Do you want me to stay?' Ron asked the figure on the bed. 'To talk, or something?'
'I'd probably be better alone. I'm really tired. Thanks, though,' came the reply.
Ron paused for a moment, then slowly crept up to the bed. 'I got you some stuff from the kitchen,' he offered, pressing the bottle of Butterbeer into one of Harry's hands, putting the bar of chocolate down by the pillow.
Harry's eyes flicked open, glanced towards the food, and he actually smiled, warmth spreading over his face. He pushed himself upright. 'Thanks.'
A/N: I have to say I'm quite eager to see your thoughts about this chapter, so get to that review box right now! Anyone who doesn't…. hmm. Tough call. I'm getting a bit tired of threats, to tell the truth. Let's try the other one – rewards. Everyone who reviews gets an hour in the company of the Fallen character of their choice, to do the activity of their choice. That's anything from throwing darts at their mutilated body to playing chess over a bottle of Butterbeer. (Have to say I'm also quite eager to see what you say about that too!)
Review!