Well, we don't find out about who the people from the veil are yet (I don't even know who they were actually, that might be fun to write), that will be in the last chapter. Concerning that, please the bold message at the bottom of the chapter to find out the length this story will end up being.

Rescue and Troubled Past

"Disecorum!"

The worm creature was dissected into several pieces, oozing blood all over. Just behind where the now dead creature stood Severus Snape, wand dead steady and eyes giving off a dangerous gleam. They owed their lives to the man… again if they counted taking Ron, Hermione, and Harry back to the castle once the dementors were still free in third year.

"Never, in all my years of teaching," Snape began, still poised in rage, "have I ever seen such reckless condemnation of human life. You may think that you are all that, but listen here mister you have no right to place yourself, or your peers, in such a state."

Harry finally snapped out of the daze he was in, considering being so close to being eaten by some worm creature. "Like you care," he spat, still trying to yank his leg out of the worm's web like spit.

"I think I do, just too much." He carefully poured a shiny blue solution on the green gooey solution and watched as it dissolved the mess away, yet didn't harm the skin at all. The process was repeated to the rest of the students, eneverating the few that were knocked out from it. "You may not like it, but you are still my son, my only child, and I will hold that in high regard. What am I to think when I try to speak with you, only to have McGonagall tell me that you aren't anywhere in the Gryffindor territory? I just knew you had to be here considering the veil dissolving."

"How did you know about that?" Harry demanded. He turned to look at the veil, and true enough, only the doorway was left, the veil gone forever.

"It was in the newspaper, if you must know. A fool could figure out that you would irresponsibly rush out to save this piece of flesh, not thinking of the dangers. Do you even know how much danger you put yourself in? You could have been killed, or worst, captured by the enemy and forced to be made a hostage. What would you have done then? There's no way out of such a predicament."

"I could have gotten out," Harry yelled, resisting against the hold Hermione and Ron tried to have against him, "everything wasn't just easy for me either, no matter what you think. I'd rather fight for those who believe in me or else there is nothing to live for. Every night I see things that people three times my age should never have to see in their life, but I see it, since I was fifteen! What else am I supposed to do? Just sit and wait while something bad happens when I know I could have prevented it?"

"Drink this," Severus answered, pulling out a vial of a purple potion swirling with silver and blue sparks.

It took awhile, but Harry did take it and downed the whole thing in one gulp. A look of disgust ran through his face as he asked, "What is this stuff?"

"It is called Demoror Alucinor," he answered coolly, smoothing out the wrinkles in his robes, "and it will help you with these nightmares you say you are having. We'll see what happens, but as your connection with Voldemort is not considerably normal, we might have to use a different potion. And we are going to have a talk about these dreams you are having."

Harry looked ready to object with such a potion, until Ron stepped in, pointing to the veil victims. "What are we going to do with them?"

The students were led out of the Ministry with Harry being dragged by the ear by Severus. They couldn't believe their luck, it seemed both good and bad. Yeah, they were saved from being eaten or dissolved, or whatever the worm was going to do to them, but it was by Severus Snape! They would never live it down.

Once outside he conjured the brooms they had used to get to the Ministry in the first place (flew to Hogsmeade, floo to Leaky Cauldron, walked to the Ministry phone entrance) and the Night Bus. Soon enough the purple triple-decker bus was up and running towards Hogsmeade. They took the uppermost level all to themselves for security reasons and to make sure the press didn't hear about it. The students didn't know how he did it, but Severus was able to transfigure the people from the veil and had them walking into the bus. Imagine Sirius Black awake from the dead, walking into the bus full of sleepy wizards and witches. At least they could blame it on their tiredness…

Snape had yet to talk since he ordered poor Stan, the conductor, to take them to Hogsmeade ASAP. Each time the other students tried to speak of the incident, they were given a glare to shut them up. All they could do is drift softly off to sleep.

The victims of the Black Veil were transported to their own ward in St. Mungo's Hospital for all Magical Folk where they were looked over by the most prestigious doctors known in the business. These professionals were baffled by the symptoms found in the patients. They were supposed to be dead, even if they hadn't just gotten out of the Death Veil, with such symptoms. As they were still alive, the doctors could only imagine the strength of mind and will these people have. The students were unable to visit the victims due to the protection spells around both sets of people and the issue of school. They couldn't go anywhere without their Head of House knowing.

Harry subconsciously started to avoid the Potion's Master in any way possible. That week, there was no potion's class or else he would have had to face the fact that he was avoiding his father, one way or the other. He didn't even go to Dumbledore, or else the Headmaster probably would have told him the inevitable, when Voldemort's dreams just kind of stopped. Not that he was complaining or anything; he didn't want the nightmares to happen. Ole' Voldie was just taking a break or something…

"Harry," a third year he didn't recognize interrupted his thoughts, "the Headmaster asked me to invite you down to his office."

Right, like the Headmaster was thinking Harry could refuse his order. Not that Dumbledore would make an order outright to any student, let alone his near apprentice, but it wasn't necessarily a request. He would have to go…

Usually, he didn't worry about what would happen when he would go down to the Headmaster's office; he usually went there in the first place. But this time, there was a sense of foreboding in him as he descended the steps from the Gryffindor territory to the gargoyle entrance.

It took him only ten tries this time to guess the password, though when he thought about it, ten times wasn't exactly a good score for anything else. But given that he had spent many minutes previously guessing the password, only ten tries seemed to be okay. What if Voldemort finally got into the castle? Wouldn't it be too easy for him to guess the password if it was just candy?

He couldn't believe his luck when he saw the Potion's Master, nursing a cup of tea in his long, bony hands, across from the headmaster and next to Remus Lupin. The topic didn't seem to be pleasant as Snape's face was a perfect portrayal of annoyance. Once he noticed the newcomer, he swerved in his seat, a loud clank happening when the cup was set down.

"How could you allow such a thing to happen to you?" he demanded, creating a questioning tension to fill the room. "You just deserve much more than that."

"Wha…?"

"I am afraid I am the cause of the frustration, my dear boy," Albus interrupted with his cooling tone, "Severus here needed to be made aware of the situation you have told me the Dursley's made. Why don't you tell us the whole story now?"

"But!"

"Please, my boy. Allow an old man to fix his mistakes." With such a face given by the most powerful wizard in the world, Harry doubted anyone could refuse the troubled soul. But he didn't understand why he had to do it in front of Remus and Severus. Wasn't it enough that Albus heard his pain? However, he knew he would be convinced to speak no matter what, so why even resist?

"Let me tell you the whole story before you start talking again, okay?" Harry waited until he knew that he had everyone's attention and took a deep breath.

"When I was younger, I didn't understand why the Dursley's would yell if someone would do something strange as they called it. At that time, I didn't know that my parents, I mean my mom and James, really died; my aunt just told me that they died in a car crash and that that was the reason why I got my scar. No one could explain the weird dreams that involved the green light, which I now know was the Avada Kedavra from Voldemort. The dream scared me more than anything, I don't know why, it just did.

"They tried to 'beat the magic out' of me, even if they didn't put it in that way. If I said magic, it was like the world ended... but weird stuff would happen to me. Even if I swore that I didn't do anything, the Dursley's would say I did whatever happened whether it is a glass breaking or the plants suddenly catching on fire.

"Even people outside, wearing what the Dursley's called abnormal, seemed to know me... I don't know how. One person shook my hand at a store and then left, not saying a word and I got in trouble because Aunt Petunia would think that I knew those 'freaks'. But that was what I was... a freak. I didn't know what I did to be called that, but that was, in a way, my name. That and 'Boy'.

"One day, Aunt Marge came over to our house-"

"Who's Aunt Marge?" Severus asked, quickly, "I didn't think Lily had any other sibling."

"Well, she wasn't really my aunt. She was my Uncle Vernon's sister, but they told me that that was how I was suppose to call her, and I did, not wanting to get into trouble.

"Anyway, Aunt Marge was over, and she doesn't like me one bit, showering Dudley with lots of gifts and giving me glares. She always said that I was unstable and that I wasn't worth the Dursley's hard work and dedication- like they gave me that. I would try to stay out of the house so she couldn't yell at me or tell me how useless I was but that would never work. For some reason, she wanted me to be near her at all times, probably just to make sure I heard what she called me.

"She had these dogs that she would breed, she still does, but they were the meanest to me... probably because their master didn't like me. I was weeding the garden- punishment for yelling at her precious dogs- and one of the mangy mutts came and started barking at me. Aunt Marge came and accused me of hurting her dogs again and Uncle Vernon came and pulled me into the garage.

"'You are going to apologize to Marge for harming her dogs and then you are going to go into your cupboard without food.'

"I might have been only six, but I knew that he wasn't going to leave it at that. The Dursleys don't care if I worked all day long, if I missed one thing, I would get in trouble. The whole time, Dudley would be sneering out the window, sitting on his fat butt, eating something. When Uncle Vernon threw me toward Aunt Marge, I ran for it.

"I kept running until I knew they would never find me, the forest. That place was my sanctuary for when Dudley wanted to play "Harry Hunting" with his gang-"

"Harry Hunting?"

"Severus, allow Harry to finish his story and then you can ask all the questions you want."

"Thank you Headmaster," Harry said gratefully as Severus mumbled about 'how those kids were going to get it.'

"Well," he continued, "I would run into the forest when I had a problem with Dudley. Since I was there for so many times, some of the animals there knew me, like the sparrow family in the hollow tree in the middle of the forest. Sorry about that."

"No problem," Remus said, shaking off the bad memories about the attacking sparrows, "but why would they want to help you?"

"We kind of understand each other. One of their young broke a wing and I was able to fix it, and ever since then, they would attack anyone that was trying to hurt me. It was another reason why the Dursley's got mad at me; the sparrows attacked Dudley's gang once.

"Well, I stayed in that forest, finding the edible plants and sleeping under the hollow sparrow tree. No one would bother me because they didn't know I was there, and the Dursley's thought that it would just be punishment. Life wasn't easy, but I was free. Free to do anything until...

"I was following a squirrel- I don't know why, I just was- and it led me to the edge of the forest. A person saw me and approached. I tried to run, but they grabbed my arm, asking why I was in the forest.

"'Darkness was in the forest,' the woman said, 'you don't know what lurks in there.'

"She took me to the police station and told them where they found me. They asked me questions of where I lived and why I was there, but I knew that I couldn't tell them why I was there. I just said that I was wandering in the forest and got lost. Even though I told them that I didn't need for them to take me home, they did, and when we arrived, Aunt Petunia acted as a worried parent should be.

"I was gone for four days, but she said I was gone for only twelve hours. The police don't know what really happened because I don't want them to know, I didn't want them to know I was weak. Even here, I wouldn't tell anyone because of who I am. I'm Harry Potter, well everyone else sees me as that, and you know that Harry Potter can't be weak. How could the one who defeated the Dark Lord be weak?"

"Harry, that isn't true," Remus tried to say.

"It's true, and you know it. People don't know the really Harry, they just know Harry Potter, their hope for a better world. What about me, though? Can't I have hope; a hope for a better life? I can't have it! My life has been a lie from the beginning and it just got worse. What am I suppose to believe? Who am I suppose to look up to? A better life for me would exclude all of the star treatment that strangers give me!"

Without looking back or listening to anyone's response to his outburst, Harry Potter ran from the room.

He really didn't know where he was going to go; he just knew it had to happen. They just didn't understand, they never understood. They didn't have to be a hero of a world of backstabbers, weren't expected to be something they weren't. It was always him, never anyone else. Oh why couldn't it just be someone else? Just once…

"Harry!"

No, he didn't want to hear more lies, no more! The faster he ran the louder the footsteps behind him became. It was like there was no escape from them, as if he were trapped in some gilded cage, expected to sing.

"Potter, just stop before you hurt somebody!" Again he didn't listen, it would only be lies upon lies and he would be buried under them until he couldn't breathe. "Stupefy!" And the world went black.

Question: Well… what do you think will happen when Harry wakes up (well, who cursed him in the first place?)? Hint: the person is not Severus, but he will end up being there when he wakes up, and the potion will hopefully come back then…
Okay, I am a little sad that for chapter 31, I got fourteen reviews, but then for the past two, I only got four or five each. I was actually debating whether or not to add more chapters to my timeline. I know that I have enough time to write them as I sped up on my updates and increased on my word count, but if no one is really going to read them, then maybe I should just end it swiftly…

So, here's the schedule like… I have planned out three more chapters and then an epilogue. I don't know how much I could put in those three chapters, or if it'll really be that good as there won't be much action. Or I could put in another subplot (something I've been thinking about for a while) which could possibly add another one or two chapters to those three and make it more exciting, but I don't want to write it if it's not going to be appreciated.

Come on people, reviews are a writer's life blood. You just spent what? Five, ten minutes reading it, couldn't you spare just one minute more to tell us what you feel? Even if it's bad, I don't care (just don't make me cry!), I just want to improve this so that a lot of people like it…

So the choice is yours, do you want it to end at chapter 38, or on chapter 40?

KrazeyForever: Hopefully, you can tell from this chapter that one person could tell that they were gone. I would think that the headmaster would know what was happening as he knows everything that happens in his castle (creepy…), but I'm thinking just that. The students worked really hard to get their plan as perfect as possible, and it worked.

Makalani Astral: Okay, well it wasn't dear Sirius that comes to the rescue but Severus, but very good thought. I just kind of had the whole thing planned out before reading that. And you'll be able to get to know some of the people that come out of the veil in the last chapter (not the epilogue, the last chapter), hopefully they come out to be cool people…

Arica, Princess of Rivendell: hm… do you say anything else, I wonder? I think that that is the only thing you have said in all of your entries… maybe you're a mime, but instead of no talking at all, you can only say one thing? Hm… plots