1Rated R for swearing, violence, and suicide (and/or suicide-related issues). If this offends anyone, don't read. Thought I'd add that I own nadda. All characters, names and related indicia are property of J.K. Rowling. I am merely trying to share some of her goodness in a non-illegal way. :)
—x—x—x—
Chapter 19: The Second Slytherin Revenge
"Get up. Get up!"
Harry was shaking. He groaned and pressed his forehead to the cold stone floor in an attempt to banish the pain in his scar, aware of the two ice-like eyes that were boring holes into his back. He didn't care about the dust being caked onto his skin from the contact with ancient stone, or the way his knees were bleeding from him falling over all the time.
He didn't care about anything.
"Potter! Get! Up!"
Knowing full well what would happen to him if he disobeyed his order, he suppressed a shudder and pushed himself off the floor again, gripping his wand with trembling fingers. A jolt went up through his back and into his head and he almost yelped.
Snape stood menacingly across the dark room, his pale face practically glowing against the black of his robes. His lip was curled in nothing short of disgust and he glared at the young wizard before him as though wishing him dead. The freezing dungeon classroom, lit by only a few torches, looked cheery, warm and welcoming against the petulant expression that the potions master had on his white face. Harry braced himself for another outburst.
"Weakness!" Snape cried angrily, his nostrils flaring, slamming a fist down onto the nearest table. "Nothing but weakness! You are making no effort!"
"I am!" Harry yelled heatedly, and in doing so causing his head to explode with pain. Wincing against it he furrowed his brow as if in worry and concentrated only on drawing breath. The room began to sway slightly and Harry roughly backed against the wall behind him for support.
"I do not see it," Snape hissed, walking up to the boy and looking down at him through fiery eyes. "I have seen no sort of progression since you have begun classes this year! None at all! Why am I wasting my time on you when you have absolutely no desire to excel in this!"
"I can throw it off," Harry protested, gritting his teeth, painfully aware that Snape was almost nose-to-nose with him. "I can break through it."
"Barely," the potions master whispered. "You still give away too much."
"Well I'm sorry," Harry shot back, his temper rising quickly. "But it's bloody hard to concentrate while my head feels like it's being ripped apart."
"Oh, spare me the theatrics," Snape snapped, backing away to walk stiffly to his original place across the room. "I daresay I've heard enough of them." He turned around to face the boy and his robes billowed around him as if they were carried on a wind.
Harry gaped in fury. He stifled a moan of pain by biting his lower lip and his eyes watered. This was ridiculous. He hadn't eaten that morning and he knew as soon as he'd knocked on Snape's classroom door that he should have. His stomach was feeling painfully empty and his head swam with dizziness. Snape didn't seem to notice or to care, however, and so the Occlumency lessons had begun at seven that morning, and would run until the first classes began. Harry's just happened to be double Potions.
So far the lesson had been terrible. It was just after eight o'clock and Harry could throw off the spell, but it still took him a little while. He couldn't understand it. He could easily shirk the Imperius Curse as thought it were nothing, but for some reason he just couldn't get a grip on what it was that Snape was doing to him. It was infuriating the potions master and Harry almost took pleasure in that fact, although he would rather be spared getting screamed at so early in the morning; especially when he hadn't slept at all the previous night.
Snape raised his wand.
"No...not again..."
"Yes, Potter. Again," the man sneered. "You must learn. And if it be the hard way as you've apparently chosen, then so be it."
"Wait - there was an easy way?"
"Legilimens!"
Harry let out a strangled cry as the spell hit him. Once more, like so many other times, the images began flashing through his mind without permission. Harry tried desperately to banish them.
Harry was looking at his bruised and swollen face in a mirror...
The image slid into his head, scratched and grainy and very diluted of colour. His face was horribly gaunt and injured. Bruises covered his skin, his eyes were swollen, his lip was bleeding and split...A large man slid into the memory quicker than the blink of an eye as the image jumped to accommodate his presence, and the black-haired boy at the sink went completely rigid, knowing it wasn't over...
Harry had had enough. He squinted through hazy eyes and could just make out the smoky form of his professor across the dark room, mumbling under his breath, his wand pointed straight at him. Harry shook and raised his own wand; sweat covering his body with the strain the spell was putting on him.
"Protego!"
"POTTER!"
Snape ducked and the spell missed him, hitting the wall behind him and causing a web of cracks to spiral through the stone. He growled in anger, his onyx eyes filled with an alarming amount of rage. He straightened and advanced on Harry, who was shaking with suppressed fury. He was going to teach the brat a lesson.
"Something the matter, Potter?"
A hiss. "No."
"What was that I just had the pleasure of seeing? Have you been having a bad year?"
Green eyes incredulously met his.
"Do you believe yourself to be special? Or do you constantly tell yourself that you are nothing? Do you hope to get some pity from others? Are you the poor one?"
"Sod off."
"Do you remember that night when you looked at yourself in the mirror, your ugly face disfigured?" Snape stopped and looked down at the wizard by his feet. "You deserved it."
"No!" Harry cried, shuddering and sliding to the floor. "No!"
"You did," Snape whispered. "And you know it. You are filthy. Nothing. Think of all you have just seen..."
Harry pressed his face to the ground again, trying not to let the tears slip out through his closed eyelids. He wouldn't cry in front of Snape again. He knew what the professor was trying to do to him. Yet, his mind was slowly slipping away from him and letting it be coated in what Snape was saying. His soul was scratching at his insides. He wanted to close his eyes and never have to open them again.
"You are empty inside," the man whispered. "You feel nothing. You are nothing. You have no one and nobody wants you."
He's right, you know, Harry thought to himself.
"How does it feel to be alone in a world where no one cares?"
Harry squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth together. He was caving and he knew it, but he couldn't help it. It was true...it was all true...
A while passed.
"You realize I have succeeded," Snape exclaimed after observing the boy for a moment.
Harry looked up. "What d'you mean?"
"You didn't give me many memories this time and that is definitely an improvement, but even so, I have enough to reduce you to this. You are weak. You need more training, as much as I hate to say it. I would prefer you out of my classroom as quickly as possible."
He paused and pocketed his wand with moon-white fingers. "But I do not see any wish for improvement from you, Potter. Are you listening to me?"
Harry's brow furrowed in thought. His mind was somewhere else at the moment and he was finding it difficult to focus on what Snape was presently saying to him. "Why did you say those things to me?"
"To show you exactly how the Dark Lord would use your memories against you. You aren't well and you aren't even close to standing a chance against him."
Harry threw himself into a nearby chair dizzily and sighed, his eyes red-rimmed from tiredness and his skin covered in a thin sheen of cold sweat. "I am well. I'm fine. I can't stand up to Voldemort - "
"Don't say his name, Potter!"
"- And I know that, but it's not like people are expecting me to live anyway."
Snape seethed. His furious eyes narrowed and his lip curled to form one of the most dangerous glares he could summon. "Never speak his name in my presence! I have told you never to do that and even now you disregard my rules. I am still your professor. Ten points from Gryffindor."
Harry scowled.
"And ten more points for telling me to sod off."
Harry clenched his teeth, refraining from retaliating with a comeback. He'd only lose more points if he pissed Snape off, especially before classes had even started.
Snape sat on the closest tabletop and regarded Harry with an expression quite like smugness. "Idiot boy...you aren't well. I can blatantly see that."
"Oh yeah?" Harry snorted. "How would you really know?"
"A little griffin told me," the man answered, his eyes malicious. Something was strange about him all of a sudden.
Harry stared.
Snape stood up and took out his wand. "Again."
Harry groaned and got up.
—x—x—x—
"Anyone?"
Dead silence.
"Anyone besides Granger?"
Muffled laughter from the Slytherin's.
"No? Then would you all mind telling me what you're doing in my potions class?"
More silence. Extremely uncomfortable silence.
Snape scowled irritably and summoned Neville's plant off the boy's table with a wave of his wand. The bottom part of the stem looked like it had been chewed on and the potions master regarded it with raised eyebrows before properly severing the roots off it with more magic.
"Do try to sharpen your knife once in a while, Longbottom," he sneered. "By the way you hack at things I daresay you'll have to do that quite often."
Neville flushed as the Slytherins chortled. Pansy snorted loudly in happiness and Snape closed his eyes for a moment before continuing. (Hermione put her hand down, looking very put out).
The crackling of the flames under the Gryffindor and Slytherin cauldrons pierced through the heavy din of the dungeon. The smell was wonderful: every brewer had to place herbs of lavender on the fire before they began ("Why would that help the potion?" Ron had complained), and it was making them all a little sleepy. Even the Slytherins were quieter than usual, but nobody was complaining about this. The glow of the flames cascaded along the walls and shimmered off every surface and thing in the room; it was quite unlike any potions class they had had before. The particular salve they were making called for such strange ingredients with even more peculiar ways of adding them, so the heavy scent of lavender had to be bypassed in order for them to concentrate. It smelled a little like Trelawney's room with twice the amount of terror.
"The Adder's Tongue is important to the mixture because of the severity of its healing properties," the professor said, glaring at Hermione. "In ancient times it was soaked in cold water and bound to a wound until the plant became warm, then was buried in mud to seal the charm. Only recently has it been brewed in potions. It is mixed with the Plantain herb in this particular brew to aid with the healing of physical pain, giving the salve a cooling sensation when administered."
Snape tenderly fingered the lily-like flowers of the plant a moment and cast a threatening glance over the room before returning the herb to Neville, who was still blushing.
"Back to your potions," he barked, swooping down upon his chair and picking up a black quill and a bottle of red ink. "I have essays to grade and if I have to discipline anyone today that person will find his or herself face-first in a cauldron. And the Salve of Healing, when not fully brewed, does horrible things to the skin."
Neville whimpered slightly and bent over his plant.
Hermione pursed her lips and finished chopping her Adder's Tongue, and then studied the instructions carefully before proceeding to powder her dragonflies.
"How do you cut them, Hermione? The herbs?" Ron asked darkly, eyeing Snape lest the professor overhear him asking for help from a classmate. Hermione looked up.
"Just...just chop them, Ron," she answered irritably. "If the instructions don't specify a specific way, then do it however you bloody well please!"
Ron looked taken aback. His eyebrows were in sudden danger of disappearing into his hairline and he exchanged a worried glance with Harry. "Are you feeling all right?"
"Yes!" Hermione answered. "Yes, I'm fine...but really, Ron...I've got to concentrate."
Ron tutted and took to hacking away at his herbs in much the same way that Neville had. Harry watched him drowsily for a moment before clumsily dumping his fistful into his own cauldron, then pulling the bowl of dead dragonflies towards him.
A little griffin told me.
Harry's emerald eyes were far away. He busied himself with his mortar and pestle for a moment, lost in thought, then spotted one more piece of Adder's Tongue that he'd forgotten to chop. Silently cursing, he carelessly gnashed away at it with his knife, his brain demanding attention in so many different areas -
"Ouch!"
"Oh wow, Harry," Ron exclaimed from somewhere far off. His voice was muffled. "You really hurt yourself...Hermione, look at this..."
Harry brought his hand to his face and studied the cut. Dark red blood oozed out in a stream down his wrist from his index finger. He watched it reflect the light from the fires as though mesmerized.
A little griffin told me.
"I'm fine, Ron," Harry protested as his friend made to grab his injured hand. Harry wrenched it free and put his finger in his mouth to suck on the wound. "It's nothing, don't worry..."
"Oh Harry, don't," Hermione said disapprovingly. "That won't make it better. Won't you let me look at it...I could put it under a sealing spell until you can get to Madame Pomphrey. Otherwise you'll be bleeding into your potion and the Salve of Healing is extremely sensitive to the slightest alteration of ingredients...Oh Harry, you did get yourself, didn't you? That's a deep cut."
A little griffin told me.
"Hermione, have you been talking to Snape lately?" Harry asked suddenly, his finger still in his mouth. He really wished that she would stop talking. It was making him angry.
Hermione's eyes went wide. "What? You mean privately?"
Harry nodded.
"No," she answered, suspicion clouding her face. "Why?"
"No reason," the black-haired boy replied, scratching his nose uneasily. He grabbed his herbs with his free hand and dumped them into his cauldron, then tipped the contents of his mortar in after it. His potion hissed and emitted a cloud of steam, then turned from periwinkle blue to bright orange.
"Shit!"
Hermione moaned. "No, Harry...you have to stir it three times clockwise and then twice counter-clockwise before you add the dragonflies...oh dammit, here comes Snape..."
Harry looked down at the knife in his hands as though planning on using it on the potions master as the man stalked down the rows of tables towards the back of the room where the three sat, a horrible look on his face. Harry didn't know why, but he wanted to panic. Possibly it was the way the man's eyes were gleaming murderously, or the degree to which his lip was curling, or maybe even the way he was baring his teeth. Either one, Harry couldn't decide. The class turned in their seats curiously to examine what was happening. With a stab of hatred, Harry spied Malfoy and his cronies laughing silently in their seats.
Snape stopped by their table with a flourish and stared down his hooked nose into Harry's cauldron. Without saying anything he grabbed the knife from Ron's hands and prodded the contents, which appeared to have the viscosity of very thick porridge. The cauldron bubbled and simmered happily in response.
"Zero on this assignment, Potter," Snape sneered, throwing the tool back onto the table. "Empty your cauldron and see me at my desk."
Moodily, Harry ignored the snickers from around the room and the piteous looks that Ron and Hermione were giving him, and waved his wand over his turned-sour potion, causing it to vanish. He harshly stuffed his books and potions ingredients into his book bag and hurried to the front, trying not to notice the sinking feeling in his stomach.
Snape beckoned him closer once Harry arrived.
"Detention for this, Potter," he snarled so that only Harry could hear him.
Harry was incredulous. "It was a mistake! Why do I get a detention for it?"
"Because you're so wrapped up in your own pathetic affairs that you cannot even concentrate on a simple potion in my class."
"Pathetic?! How can you - "
Snape wasn't in the mood for this. He had always loathed the scent of lavender and the heavily perfumed air was making him feel sleepy, stupid and his headache ate at the spot behind his eyes. He stood up and looked down at the young wizard, his eyes reflecting his discomfort. He took in every inch of Harry, how the boy was quaking with silent rage, how his eyes were bright with fury and injustice, how he dared to disrupt his potions class with his inept ability at brewing. Merlin, he was becoming worse than Longbottom.
"Out," Snape growled, gesturing sharply towards the door. "Now."
Harry left without a word. Snape turned his eyes on his class and caught sight of almost everyone staring at him (except Granger). A low murmur of talk broke out quickly as all eyes fell back to their tasks after Snape rewarded them all with one of his best death glares, and he straightened up and followed Potter out of the room.
"So," Snape growled as the heavy wooden door boomed closed, rounding on Harry. "You have the audacity to interrupt my class with your pathetic attempt at potion-making, then you decide to counter me when I summon you to my desk?"
Harry was leaning angrily against a damp wall, his arms folded in front of him. He said nothing, but the redness in his cheeks and the flaring of his nostrils gave him away. Snape gazed at him.
"I have told you from your first day in my class that I do not tolerate insolence."
"My apologies sir."
"Brat."
Snape stood a little closer. "I have to worry about enough without you in my life against my discretion, invading my personal privacy and taking up my spare time. I highly advise you to stay out of my way as much as possible, or something might happen." He knew enough about Harry to know that he had to keep a little bit of an eye on him...just to be sure Harry didn't do anything stupid...He allowed a brief memory to flash through his mind. He had been told things he was sure Harry would never admit anytime soon.
"But Dumbledore told us we have to - "
"What our dear Headmaster has ordered us to do doesn't have to be carried out to the letter if we don't want it to be," Snape said quietly. "You can do your homework in my chambers after classes, Potter, but afterwards I want you straight out as quickly as possible."
Harry exhaled through his nose and stood up a little straighter.
"Back into class," Snape ordered curtly. That wiped the triumphant expression from Harry's face and the young man's shoulders slumped. Snape rejoiced inwardly. "You are to complete a foot-long essay on why you should never annoy me. If you don't get it done in class, you can do it during your detention. Now move."
---x---x---x---
Dumbledore had always been a strict believer in honesty and loyalty.
It was one of the most important things to him, almost like second nature after holding these two virtues on such high pedestals all his life. They contributed most to the high level of integrity that most people in the Wizarding world said that he possessed, and if you were trusting in Albus Dumbledore, you would never be let down.
At the moment, however, these morals were being very threatened.
"Really, Albus," Minerva said quietly, her tired gray eyes reflecting the firelight from the grate as she held a steaming mug of tea up to her face. "I think it would be good for Harry to see something like that. Goodness knows he's wondered since he was able to think properly about it."
The ancient wizard sat in his chair, his hands resting flat on the top of his desk. Wearing robes of light blue, patterned with gold stars and shimmering slightly, he resembled nothing short of a very large and oddly shaped pillow. His own mug of tea sat forgotten on the wooden desktop and he exhaled into his beard with a sigh of indecision.
"I know he must have wondered," he acknowledged quietly. "And I feel terrible for not letting him know sooner about this. He hasn't shown any real desire to find out, and that is why I haven't pursued the issue..."
"Do you think it will be good for him?"
"I don't know."
Fawkes gave a feeble chirp from his perch and Minerva jumped slightly, her teacup rattling in its saucer.
"A place like that..." Dumbledore continued after a pause, closing his eyes. "Doesn't perform wonders for the spirit. It is a heavily guarded area and cannot be visited long before one begins to feel an immense weight. You know what is kept in there besides corpses, Professor McGonagall. After I take Harry in I will most certainly have to change the ways to get in, unless I seal the boy's ears so he cannot hear me."
"I'll understand if you don't think it wise."
A portrait gave a loud snore from across the room.
"I think I will, Minerva," the Headmaster said after a few minutes of quiet. "Harry should know. I'll approach him tomorrow while he's with Severus and...it might be good for Severus to accompany us, actually..."
McGonagall sniffed.
"I hope he takes it all right," the man said exhaustedly, glancing once at Fawkes and then wrapping his hands around his tea. "I couldn't bear it if Harry felt more pressure than he already does."
"Are you worried that...?"
"No. I just want him to be all right."
"This will be a large blow to him, Albus."
"Very large indeed."
---x---x---x---
I'm SO incredibly sorry that I took so long to post...school and work and such...Please don't kill me!!!! ï
