Okay... totally sorry about that double cliffy, here is the next posting. Personally, I think this and the next chapter are a bit melodramatic, but it gets better, I promise. And to make uo for the cliffy, next chapter will be double the size of my normal chapters. : )
Oh, and by the way, (I can't remember if I've mentioned this and I'm too lazy to check) I have an original fic out on Please check if you can, I've only one review.
'Insanity' is not the right word for this. Insanity is where you see beyond the world.
Harry had snapped, his mind had broken, his soul had cracked. He could see beyond the universe, and this was enough to drive anyone mad. He knew now that nothing really mattered; he had known it before but had not accepted it. Now he knew that his actions were of no consequence -
Something, for a moment, tried to fight back. Something said that the world was a tiny, complex place, not to be compared to the infinity of the stars.
Why not? It's part of the stars. How does humanity affect them? What difference do they make? None.
The stars or the humans?
Insanity was all this could be likened to. Insanity.
Harry stared at the sky. Coldness filled his sight; it was as if he had been seeing through dark grey smoke. Everything was liquid clear. The closest thing this could be likened to was... dreaming.
He could hear sounds… like voices?
He stood up, slowly and dreamlike. He looked around him, saw through the dim fog, and noticed where he was. He also noted that he had a strong urge to be away from this place. Away from its walls of stone, away from its harboured memories, away from its foundations that echoed with unsung triumphs and unnoticed victories... and popular defeats.
Harry looked around at him slowly and precisely, eyes never missing a detail.
Almost, imperceptibly, the voices were growing louder.
This was not paranoia, schizophrenia, anything like that. These were simply the sounds of all the thoughts, all the unconscious he had blocked up over the years... and all the souls he had felt it necessary to harbour inside himself.
Harry started down the stairs, slowly and calmly. Everything was right; everything had to be right. Nothing really mattered anymore. Nothing was significant.
He reached the bottom of the stairs, and opened a door at random.
Part of his mind screamed at him, this is not the way out!
Of course. Instead of being sane, with the little voice of insanity gnawing at him, it was the other way around...
Harry didn't care right about now. He blocked it out.
The room was a classroom. Harry felt angry, cheated of his escape.
The desk in the room exploded into flames as Harry raised his hand to it.
He left, allowing the door to swing in the convection currents created in the aftermath of the blaze, which was quickly moving to engulf some of the other objects in the room.
What Harry didn't notice was that the fire burned, not flickering yellow flames, but a fierce orange blaze. These flames were Harry's anger. He just didn't know it yet. If he would ever know it at all.
Harry stalked through the corridor, robes flying out behind him.
Rage engulfed him. It swept over him like a smooth, midnight-blue silk cloak. He wanted out. So far, he had not achieved this. That was Not Right.
Insanity had also given Harry the blessed gift of a child's view on the world. Things should happen. When they didn't, he got angry.
His pace picked up from ponderous to eerily determined, then to horribly determined. He walked down the corridor, palms outstretched from his body, an ethereal glow surrounding him. Every time he passed a door, it flew open, and inside it began to burn.
He passed a bookcase standing forlornly in the corridor. His eyes narrowed, and he swung his fist as if to hit it.
At the last moment, he stretched his fingers out, and the entire thing burst into flames.
This fire was his anger, all right, and it was nothing so crude as magical fire. He controlled it. No, it controlled him. He was simply an outlet. But the rage inside was building...
Harry stopped in the middle of the corridor, fists balling, when he tipped his head back and screamed. The entire corridor exploded.
Harry walked through this, flames licking at the stones, and he could feel the temperature rising by the second. He headed down the steps onto the next floor.
He was about three floors from the Entrance Hall.
llllllllll
Snape looked up from the Library, eyes narrowing dangerously. There were thuds above him, sort of... minor explosions?
Leaving the book he was reading, he cautiously approached the library door, and opened it.
Potter had just arrived at the bottom steps of the stairs. His head slowly turned and looked at Snape.
Eyes that showed so much hatred. Eyes that betrayed so much sheer rage. Eyes that looked insane.
Eyes that had a red tint. Eyes that wore no glasses, yet looked perfectly focused.
Snape took a step forward, and burning reached his nose.
His head snapped to look up the stairs, and he saw wisps of smoke chasing themselves lazily down the stone steps, tumbling like children playing roly-poly...
His eyes snapped back to Potter's face.
The boy had completely lost it. No question about it. If the eyes and flames weren't enough, the thin shield of power surrounding him was.
Snape had never seen anything like this before. His hand went for his wand, and then Harry was running...
It was just like that. Harry was running. From a standing start to full-out sprint with nothing in between.
Snape began to run as well, but he only caught the swish of a cloak as Potter rounded a corner. The thing that immediately occupied his attention, however, was the fact that the entire stone passageway was on fire.
The flames appeared to be feeding off the stone. Snape wondered wildly for a second whether Potter had a salamander; the only thing that they couldn't burn was sand, rock and salamander weed. Everything else was fuel, even water. For some reason, handcrafted stone burned, whereas raw rock did not.
Snape put an arm over his mouth and nose and ran through the corridor, feeling the evil heat scorching his face, his body and his hair. He thought idly for a second that he'd never liked his eyebrows much anyway.
The heat made his eyes water, and as he emerged onto the top of the next flight of stone stairs he blurrily saw Potter, still running, heading down again.
He snarled venomously, and headed in a different, secret direction...
llllllllll
When Harry had seen Snape, the emotions that had overwhelmed him had been so strong that he couldn't stand them. Hatred, fear and rage had overpowered him, making him want to kill Snape, made him want to grasp him by the throat and slowly, painfully wring the life from the bigger man. He wanted to see Snape scared, he wanted to know how much Snape had hurt him over the last few years and the last few weeks, wanted to know that for once he was stronger than Snape.
Harry didn't think anymore; he thought in emotions. It made some things easier, and some things harder, but he knew that he had to run before he did what he thought he was going to do to Snape. People told him, in his head that he had already killed. He did not want to kill again; did not want to add to the catalogue in his head Snape's voice.
He paused for a second in a corridor, and tenderly touched his forehead with his fingers. His head felt a little bit sore.
Then he carried on running.
Every door Harry passed, every wall he ran by, burst into flames as soon as he passed.
llllllllll
Snape ran down through the hidden corridor, taking a shortcut to the Entrance Hall. He had a suspicious feeling that was where Potter was heading.
Well, it wasn't a suspicion, really. The boy's mind had been open wider than a door and had been simpler to read than a book. He wanted out of the castle, and there was one exit he knew for sure...
Snape burst from a side door into the Entrance Hall, and ran out onto the porch.
Angry, he turned to look at the main stairs.
Footsteps could be heard. Snape risked a glance up to the rest of the castle; many windows glowed with a worrying orange-yellow light.
Potter had slowed. Snape could hear it in the echoes cast by the Entrance Hall.
It was evening; the sky was in that twilight zone where it is not dark but it is not quite light. The trees were uneasy in the gentle breeze; they seemed to sense something was going on, and today of all magical days.
This breeze stirred the slightly sweaty hair of Severus Snape, eyes alight with anger, as his grip on his wand doubled and he prepared himself to fire some very, very sharp questions at Potter. With the aid of his wand, if necessary.
Hogwarts was his home. Hogwarts was the only place he could really consider his home. Potter was currently setting fire to it.
This made Snape angry.
The footstep were growing louder, and there were a few explosions following him.
The wind dropped ever so slightly, but it was just enough to gently sway the bottom of Snape's robe.
The sky was clear, Snape noticed detachedly. Time seemed to slow as he saw feet descending the first few stairs.
Potter came fully into view and stood on the doorway to the great entrance. Snape focused on the boy's eyes, and saw fire... but not just fire... deeper in he found open pressure that had gone... pressure that kept the mind in a stable shape had just vanished, and Potter's mind was free, not bound by common laws anymore.
Oh... oh dear...
He had to stop Potter before he did anything else stupid and for once, snide words and sarcasm may not be enough... Snape doubted if Potter understood words anymore, if his mind was nearly as uncorrupted as it looked.
Time had not slown. Snape's brain had simply sped up, powered by a rocket fuel of adrenaline and sweet vitriol. He knew that there was no telling where Potter's mind had gone, what it was doing or whether it would come back.
Potter took a single step forward, as if testing the ground before him. Testing Snape's reaction. It seemed almost... animal. No, it was childlike.
No, none of these. It was just... so simple a gesture that Snape would immediately associate it with a child or an animal, one testing the waters to see the reaction. It may have been basic but it was clever, instinctual and usually life-saving. If you know the dangers you can avoid them.
Snape made sure his wand was in plain view.
Next Chapter
Instinct usually played a major part in many of Snape's conscious thoughts and decisions, and the thought that occurred to him now was that Potter was deadly serious about this. There would be no reprieve. There would be no mercy.
There was a problem. He was gasping for breath and his muscles wouldn't respond properly. He had about as much fight left in him as a wet lettuce leaf.
Potter stood over him, face expressionless, but Snape saw the pure hatred boiling in his gaze. He also saw the fireball in his hand. This was the death blow.
Toki Mirage: It WILL get better.
severusphoenix: Give it another few chapters... that part's already written for later postings.
KrazeyForever: Sorry about that... I can't apologise enough...
Read300300: Caught what? Sorry, I'm feeling disorientated today.
Teahleafs: Thanks!
Taking to heart your comment about the whole 'proclaimed genius' thing, I will try to reply as un-egotistically as poissible.
I have been writing fanfiction since the age of ten, but only began writing it seriously since februrary 2004... and posting it I think in June. My first one was based on X-Men evolution, was three novels long, and each lasted about 200 pages. I look back on it now, five years since I've written it... boy, it's crap. I've really had to work to improve. : ) I hope I have.
Shadowed Rains: Sorry. Sorry sorry sorry. Soz. Sorry.
Sorry for detaining you, I hope you weren't TOO late... still, it does credit to my ego that you were so engrossed. I'm planning a super-long chapter later on.
HPbabe143: Nah, I looooove long reviewers. You too.
leggylover03: Im so proud I finally have a flame... I feel so egotistical right nowe. I'm high enough in the rankings to warrant the attention of some flamer!
starinthedark: Just mentioning how you are such a wonderful, deidcated reviewer. You make my day. I'm in a happy mood. La la la la la.
A.Person: I love you, you know. No, really now.