Disclaimer: If I owned it, why would I be spending my time writing this crap when I could be lounging in my swimming pool full of Oreos? My point exactly.
A/N: Yeah, so, I have been neglecting my account on this site for a long time...what can I say, I happen to be a little more involved on a different fanfiction site... Okay, so that's a lame excuse... Anyway, I suppose a chapter is better late than never, right? RIGHT?...Well, if any of you are still with me, enjoy this chapter, and if you'd be so kind, let me know what you think. Even if that means twenty different flames, well...I deserve it. lol. Anyway, please enjoy reading the chapter!
Chapter 8
Harry wasn't sure what had just happened. He had once again broken into Snape's mind without intention, but it had been different this time. For one thing, he hadn't used a wand to do it; he had used his mind. For another, he had seen a very shocking memory of Snape's. Yes, the others that he had seen had been shocking, but this was a different kind of shocking. This – this was too much for words.
Harry couldn't believe it – Snape was a cutter! Though, with this, everything made sense now. He had been upset with Harry for cutting himself, because he obviously knew what could happen. Thinking of this made Harry realize something else as well.
Snape must have really cared for him, or at least for his well being, because he was obviously worried for him. And, if he really was worried about what Harry would end up doing to himself, Harry was certain that it was because he had experienced all of this before.
But he was still having trouble believing it all; I mean, Snape – a cutter! Who would have thought? Harry was wondering why he hadn't noticed the marks before, though. Then he realized that Snape always wore long robes that covered his arms and wrists, and occasionally even part of his hands.
But then, he had rolled up his sleeve after the Triwizard Tournament to show the mark on his arm to Fudge, and even then he hadn't noticed anything else. Harry was becoming completely confused now. He was sure that he had seen Snape cutting himself in his memory, but he was also sure that he not seen any marks on his wrist after the Tournament. So what was going on?
He got up off the floor where he had been sitting since Snape had broken the connection between the two and sent him flying, and made his way out the door. He walked into the hallway, and then heard a voice call his name.
"Harry?" it asked, and he turned to see Hermione standing a few feet away, looking up at him.
"Hermione, did you see which way Snape went?" he asked, before looking up and down the hallway.
"Err, yes," she said slowly. "He went down the stairs and was headed for the entryway. But why do you need to know-"
But just then, she was cut off by a noise from downstairs. They heard a door slam shut, and Harry knew at once that Snape had left. Quickly turning away from Hermione, he ran down the stairs, and went halfway down the next set before jumping over the banister and hitting the floor.
He then ran to the front door, and threw it open. He saw Snape billowing down the front walk, robes flying out behind him. He quickly ran after him, just as he turned into the street, and shouted, "Professor!"
Harry knew that Snape had heard him, but he never made any indication that he had. He just kept walking away. "Professor!" Harry shouted again, still running towards him. Again, he just kept walking. Harry was beginning to get mad now.
"Professor, stop and turn your lazy arse around so that I can talk to you!" he yelled, and instantly, Snape stopped. Harry finished running the remaining three feet or so towards him while Snape spun around. Harry was panting slightly, but he could tell that he had made Snape angry.
"What did you say, Potter?" he asked him, the gloomy streetlight casting an eerie glow around him.
"I told you to turn your lazy arse around so that I could talk to you," Harry replied forcefully. "Now what was that that I saw back there?" he asked him. Snape didn't appear to want to answer though, and just turned around and started to walk away again. Harry was practically fuming – why wouldn't Snape talk to him?
He never even stopped to consider that he wasn't holding a wand, nor that he was aloud to do magic outside of school and was in an area inhabited by muggles. He just let his anger get the better of him, and he shouted, "Petrificus Totalus!"
A bright light seemed to shoot out of the palm of Harry's hand, and hit Snape square in the back. Harry gasped and yelled as his Professor's limbs tightened up and he fell to the ground.
"Oh my Merlin!" Harry yelled out, running over to Snape's locked form on the ground. He paused at his side and threw himself on the ground muttering the countercurse. Snape immediately gained control of his limbs again, and quickly sat up. Harry stood, and offered his hand to Snape, who brushed it away.
"What in Merlin's name do you think you were doing?" he spat the moment he had stood. He quickly looked around them, and then whispered while continuing on. "Do you have any idea how much trouble you can make by doing this? Not only did you use a spell on one of your Professors', but you also performed it in an area that was surrounded by muggles."
"Yeah, and now the Ministry knows about it," Harry said flatly. Snape sighed.
"No, they don't, Harry," he said, and Harry looked up at him with wide eyes. "Dumbledore somehow fixed it so that the Ministry doesn't know when you use magic. He thought you may need it now, considering that he thought you may need to use your wand quite often out of school now."
Harry just stared at him, totally surprised. But then something else clicked in his mind, and he quickly said, "But I didn't use my wand." Snape stared back down at him, confusion spread throughout his pail face, and said, "What do you mean you didn't use your wand?"
"I mean, I didn't use my wand," Harry told him. "I didn't really even notice that I didn't have my wand. I just said the incantation, and the spell just sort of shot out of my hand."
Snape seemed to be shocked, surprised, scared, and in awe all at once. "You mean, you used wandless magic?" he asked him hurriedly, and Harry just nodded.
"It's not the first time," he said. "I've done it quite a few times, actually. In fact, I did it this morning when you had your hands on my shoulder and I burned them and yeah..." His voice slowly faded out as he got towards the end of his sentence.
Snape seemed to be a little hesitant about talking about the subject, but must have quickly overcome the feeling, because he said, "Yes, but its quite common for a wizard of witch to use wandless magic like that when they are angered or hurt. But to just do it out of the blue like that, that's a different story."
"Yes, but I was angry," Harry said to him. "I was mad because, well, I didn't think that you wanted to talk to me, and I wanted to find out what was going on and all, and so I said the spell."
Again, Snape seemed slightly hesitant, but still went on. "Well, yes, you were angry, but this is still different."
"How so?" Harry asked him, slightly puzzled.
"Well, all the others times that you've done it, you never said a spell, right? It just sort of came out, didn't it?" he asked, and Harry nodded, beginning to understand what Snape was getting at. "But this time, you knew what you were doing, and had complete control over the spell. And it didn't just happen, either. You said the incantation, knowing full well what it did. Harry, this is real wandless magic."
It was now Harry's turn to feel shocked again. "So, does that mean that I can, you know," he paused a minute, trying to just comprehend what he was saying. "Do magic without my wand whenever I want to?"
"Well, I don't know," Snape told him. "I'd say yes, but it's a very complicated thing to do. You'll be able to do it sometimes, but I don't know if you'll be able to do it all the time."
Harry nodded again, and then said, "Can I try it again?"
"Well, if you're going to do it again, we have to go inside first, because we are still in the presence of muggles," Snape told him. "And, I don't think that you should do it again until Dumbledore has been informed. We need to be absolutely certain that the Ministry won't be able to detect this, either."
Harry, for what seemed like the thousandth time, nodded his head. Then he started to speak again. "Professor?" he asked, and Snape looked full on into his face. "Err, do you want to, err, talk?"
Snape sighed slightly, and Harry was sure that he knew what it was he was really asking. "Yes, Harry, I believe that we should talk," he said quietly. "Go upstairs and wait in your room. I'm going to go contact Dumbledore and let him know what just happened, so that we can see if you can use your, err, powers," he said, and Harry, once again nodding, walked up to the house, Snape trailing along behind him.
When they reached the staircase inside, Harry went upstairs and Snape continued on to go down to the kitchen, so that he could Floo Dumbledore. Harry walked up the steps to his room, and pushed open his bedroom door. Upon stepping into the room, the lights flicked on, and he gasped slightly. His room hadn't been cleaned since he had first placed the knife to his wrist, and for the first time, he noticed all of the blood.
When he had gotten up earlier, he had slipped out of bed, and made his way through the darkened room to the door. Since there were no lights on, he hadn't seen anything – he just walked through by memory. Then he quietly had gone into the hallway, making his way to the bathroom. Once inside, he had stripped off his wet and stained clothing, before getting into the shower and washing all of the blood off of his body.
He then undid his bandages, and threw them away, before washing out all of the deep cuts he had made on himself. It had stung horribly, but he did it anyway, until they were clean as he could make them. Then he had stepped back out of the shower, dried himself off, and had taken some more Medical Spell-O-Tape and covered his wounds. He didn't bother covering his scar, though, since it looked the same, just a lot more red and a little swollen.
He had just borrowed some of Ron's clothes, since his room was right there, and then had gone down to the kitchen to eat dinner. Now, Harry was back in his room again, and he was shocked at how much blood he must have lost. He thought that, had he been able to, he would have died from blood loss.
The sheets were no longer white, but dark, deep crimson, and the floor next to his bed showed a puddle of the red liquid there. This puddle was nothing, though, compared to everything at the foot of his bed. There, on the floor, was a small pool of blood, that looked as thought it covered an area of about two feet, and Harry realized that all of that had come from just his wrist in a matter of about twenty minutes.
He almost gagged, just seeing all of his blood spread out like this. It made him sick to know that he had done this to himself; and yet, he thought that if things didn't get better for him, he might find himself doing this again.
Suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder, and Harry jumped a bit at the sudden voice. "Quite a bit, huh?" it said, and Harry looked up to see Snape standing over him, staring down at him with a look of sympathy on his face.
"Err, yeah," Harry said, and Snape continued looking down at him.
"Dumbledore said that you could use your new, err, power," Snape said, once again accenting the power part. "In fact, he encourages you to use it. Said it might come in handy later on, and I believe he's right. He seemed quite fascinated by it actually, though he didn't seem entirely surprised."
Harry smiled slightly, and moved a little into the room. Snape followed, and was about to clean up the blood, his wand in front of him, when there was a mutter of, "Evanesco," from Harry, and the blood was all suddenly gone. Snape turned to see Harry there, his right hand outstretched, and Harry smiled up at him. Snape smiled back.
"Well, I see that you're quite good at doing that already," he said, and Harry smiled slightly again. Then Snape motioned for Harry to sit down in the chair by the window, and he quickly moved over to it and did so. Once he was seated, Snape conjured up his own chair, and moved it to face Harry, before sitting down. Once he too was seated, he stared into Harry's eyes, until Harry felt like he couldn't stand it anymore and averted his gaze.
"Well, I'm sure you want to know about what you saw in my memories earlier," Snape said, and Harry was surprised that he was being so straightforward right away. Harry just faced Snape again, and looked into his eyes, giving him his full attention. Snape took in a deep breath, and plowed ahead.
"Well, you already know that I worked – and still am working, in a sort of way – for the Dark Lord," he shuddered slightly, and Harry knew he was thinking of Voldemort. Harry knew what it was like facing him, but could only imagine what it was like working for him. However, he quickly shook his thoughts as Snape continued on.
"Anyway, I started working for him a long time ago, back when I was in my seventh year at Hogwarts," Snape told him, and Harry gasped. He didn't know that people could be accepted that young. He thought they would have been out of school at least.
"Yes, I was still at Hogwarts," Snape said, as though reading Harry's mind – which, Harry reminded himself, was totally probable. "You see," Snape continued, "people can become Death Eaters as soon as they turn sixteen. I, however, waited a year first. I wasn't sure that it was really something that I wanted to do, but after all of the hell that I went through at Hogwarts during my Sixth Year, well, let's just say that I thought this might help me a bit."
"Well, about a year after I had joined the Dark Lord's service, I found out that it wasn't at all what I had heard it to be. I hated it, and I didn't want to be in it anymore. But, stepping out just isn't something that you want to do, especially if you've just joined. You know what happened to your godfather's brother, Regulus. Well, I didn't want that happening to me, so I stayed."
Again, he shuddered, and he waited a few minutes before continuing on. "I had such a horrible time with the Death Eaters, that I found myself wishing myself dead on more than a few occasions. However, Voldemort placed a curse on all of us, so that we couldn't do that. He would only let us get so far in inflicting pain upon ourselves, before it would all just stop and, try as you might, you couldn't get any closer to death. Of course, anyone else could kill you, you just couldn't kill yourself."
Snape again stopped, and looked down, running a hand through his greasy hair. When he spoke, his voice was much quieter than it had been before. "That was about the time that I started to cut myself," he said quietly. "I don't remember really much about it, except that it was painful, and I enjoyed it, only wishing to do more than I could. The only two times that stick out distinctly were the very first time, and the very last time."
"I'll never forget the first time I cut myself," he said, getting a glossy look to his eyes. "It still haunts me to this day. It was a year after I had graduated from Hogwarts, and I had just gotten back from a Death Eater meeting, where I had been placed under the Cruciatus Curse. I was terribly upset, and my whole body ached. I wanted to die just then and there, and when I walked into the kitchen of my home, I saw a knife sitting on the counter. I didn't even think about what I was doing. I just picked it up, as if it were calling to me, and I went up to my room."
"There, I sat down on my bed, and I took out the knife. I stared at it for a while, looking at it gleaming in the light, and then I pressed it over my wrist. I felt the pain, and I even screamed, but for once, I welcomed it."
Harry could see tears forming in Snape's eyes as he said this, and felt suddenly bad for him. "I can remember waking up in the morning, my bed looking much like yours, though not quite as bad, and still clutching the knife in my hand. I started cutting myself daily after that, until I finally went back to Dumbledore. One night, after I had talked to him, he showed up at my house while I was doing this nightly ritual of mine, and stopped me. He had a long talk with me, and from that night on, I have not cut myself once. I've had the urge to many times, but I haven't done it."
Harry smiled slightly, but warmly up at Snape, and he said, "Thank you for telling me this. It means a lot to me to know that you would share something like that with me."
Snape just looked at him, and quickly wiped the tears from his eyes. But there was still one question that Harry had for him.
"Err, Professor?" he asked, and Snape glanced over at him again. "Err, if you don't mind telling me, how is it that you cover up your scars?"
Snape let out a small, hollow laugh. "Concealment Charm," he said. "It covers up all the scars so that I don't get asked too many annoying questions. But there's one scar that the Charm won't cover..."
His voice faded, and he shuddered slightly again, and Harry knew exactly which scar he happened to be talking about.
Shaking his head slightly, as though to rid his mind of the thought, Snape made to get up. But for the second time that day, Harry grabbed his arm.
"Wait," he said. "I want to tell you my story."
A/N2: Well, like I said, if you're still with me, let me know what you thought of the chapter. Thanks much to all of the reviews from the last chapter - they're greatly appreciated! I'll try to pay a bit more attention to this site from now on...blushes Sorry about the wait!
Later taters,
SiriusBlack4Ever
