Chapter Eight.
Thank you once again to all my reviewers. I am doing my best to not make this a generic Severus helps hurt Harry fiction, but obviously it would be impossible to totally avoid all the cliches. I have decided to make my
chapters longer and hold my impatience in check. I hope you all prefer this.
Harry remained where he was on the bed, gazing blankly at the door, which had just slammed so violently behind the bitter Potions Master. The thoughts in his head had become sluggish, as though some thick substance had glued them all together, slowing their rotation. He once more felt as though the life had been sucked out of him, leaving a hollow vacuum within his ravaged heart and body, seemingly unable to be filled. His emotions confused him, leaving him at times, desperately wondering who he was, what he was, which parts of him were real, and which parts were simply a product of current circumstances. Averting his gaze from the door, he lowered his eyes to stare at his newly bandaged hand, studying the creases as though his life depended on it. He felt numb inside...totally dead, as though he would never again feel love nor pain nor anger and he hated this numbness...this emptiness. He wanted to feel something, anything at all to remind him that he was still a human being...to remind him that he still existed. It seemed somewhat ironic that he desired this, considering he would just as soon be dead as be alive right now.
Shifting slightly, he frowned as he felt something digging into his hip and reached into his pocket to retrieve whatever the guilty artefact was. He had, in his panic, entirely forgotten that he had his shrunken school trunk in his pocket and smiled slightly as he dropped it on the bed beside him and stood up. Gazing around the room, he spotted what he had been looking for and went to retrieve his wand from where it had fallen during Snape's bone-rattling shaking session. Within a matter of seconds, his now normal sized trunk lay open on the bed, clothes strewn carelessly over the floor, as Harry Potter stood, lovingly caressing the handle of his treasured knife.
To him, it was like a comfort blanket...he knew it would always be there, waiting for him when he needed it most. It promised him some form of relief if the feelings of numbness or of rampant pain became too much for his tormented mind to deal with. Sighing softly, he picked up a mangy, moth eaten sock from the pile of clothing on the floor and buried the knife in the very tip, shoving the precious bundle under the mattress of the bed. His heart rested a little easier just knowing of its presence, and he lay back down on the bed, closing his eyes against the small amount of daylight that streaked across the chamber. He welcomed the darkness of a few more hours of sleep.
Severus Snape had been unable to relax enough to enable the luxury of unconsciousness to return, and currently sat within his study, strong thumbs rubbing the tiredness from his dark eyes. To be frank, his response to Potter's actions had come more of fear than anything else. On seeing the boy's bloody fist, his first feeling had been not rage at the damage to his property, but rather shock and a slight hint of concern. If there was one thing Severus Snape feared above most else, it was being privy to emotions of empathy or sympathy. He could not afford to care. It was a simple as that. He had spent years devoting immense energy to shielding all emotions save the most negative from those that would use them against him. The memory of the responses of James Potter and Sirius Black on finding out Severus harboured affection for Lily Evans, remained a bitter taste within his mouth, and not one he would soon forget.
As long as he could see James in Potter, and not his mother, it was all too easy to loathe the boy, but things were never so simple. He had made a promise many years ago, having realised his failure in not warning the Potters in time of the upcoming threat, to protect Potter to the best of his ability. Oh no, he had not worded his promise to anyone...it was a promise he had made to himself, and the only viable means he had to in some way gain redemption for his failure. That said, he did not need to like the brat to do this small duty,
and like him he would not. Something was not right about the child, that was plain enough. The astonishingly speedy swing from outright, demonstrative anger to silent submission had not evaded his notice. Nor had the haunting emptiness in Potter's usually vibrant green eyes...green...Lily; mustn't think of Lily. Slamming his fist to the desk in frustration, Severus stood up and strode over to the fireplace, hoping the intended recipient of his visit would be awake at such a ridiculous hour. Snatching a pot from a nearby shelf, he threw some of the powder into the still burning flames and snarled, "Hogwarts, Headmasters office".
Shaking the soot from his robes, he emerged gracefully to find the batty old codger sat at his desk, smiling benevolently, his eyes twinkling with an irritating jollity. Scowling and folding his arms across his chest, Severus leant against a nearby wall and fixed his sometime mentor with his most withering glare. Chuckling, the Headmaster leant forward and gestured to the chair opposite his own with a sweeping motion of his cerise clad arm. Balking at the grotesque display of colour, Snape remained where he was and cleared his throat.
"Albus, I must once again question your sanity. You have left me in charge of a boy who, judging from this morning's performance, belongs in a locked isolation ward in St Mungos. Short of locking him in his room, I see no means to deal with him. He has no respect for my property, no respect for my personal life, and certainly no respect for me."
The Headmaster sighed heavily and for a moment seemed lost in thought as he gazed disconcertingly at younger man before him. Finally, his eyes becoming sharp and his expression slightly more serious than befit his nature, he stood up and wandered across the room until he faced Severus.
"Severus, you will not reach the child with harsh words and vitriol. Harry has suffered a severe loss and learnt of the destiny he must fulfil if any of us are to survive. That is a heavy load indeed upon a child's
shoulders, and he is still a child. Also...', here the elderly Wizard hesitated, his eyes taking on a saddened light, his expression being one of guilt. Passing his frail fingers across his brow, he continued in a quieter voice, '...I have reason to believe I should not have returned Harry to the Dursleys each Summer. Certain information has come to light that suggests they treated him in a manner worse than I had expected. I need you, Severus, to find out the extent of this...mistreatment"
Severus' eyes widened slightly at the last, while inwardly he snorted at the idea of a Potter being anything other than royally spoilt and showered with adulation. And just how was he supposed to find the information he required, short of force feeding the boy Veritaserum, which he was not entirely unwilling to do. It was not as if the Potter child was suddenly going to spill all his sickly secrets to the man who had taken the utmost pleasure in baiting him for the last five years. Sneering, he fairly spat out his next words, feeling satisfaction as Dumbledore stepped back to avoid the flying spittle.
"Potter is a spoilt, arrogant little boy...how that has evaded your notice I do not know. This morning he took it upon himself to wake up the whole household with his incessant banging and shouting. I entered his room to find furniture strewn about and Potter bleeding all over the place, having taken a dislike to his bathroom mirror. Such behaviour cannot go unpunished, Albus."
Running his hands distractedly through his beard, the Headmaster returned to seat himself behind his desk, concern vaguely apparent in his stance and in his gaze, which once more rested upon Severus. His voice, when he spoke once more, sounded tired, yet at the same time, urgent.
"Severus, I cannot emphasise enough the importance of this matter. It is imperative that you change your attitude towards Harry and let go of this rather juvenile grudge. Harry is not his father and had you managed for one moment to see beyond your bitterness towards James, you would have realised he is far more like his mother than anything else. If you cannot do this for the boy, Severus, then do it for Lily...and yes, I am fully aware of the feelings you had towards her. I must ask that you remain in the manor at all times, excepting when you are called. I fear Harry is not to be trusted by himself any longer. I will call by in a few days time to see how you are coming along. Good day Severus"
Anger shining in his eyes, Severus sharply turned about and flued back to his office, murderous thoughts running through his mind. If truth were to be told, Severus Snape was inwardly panicking. For the first time in many years, he felt panic rising up within him at the prospect of failing once again. He simply did not possess the parts needed to drag the boy back from the precipice; they remained firmly barricaded in behind a firmly bolted door.
Harry was awoken from a blissfully nightmare free sleep by a distinctly squeaky voice in his right ear. Opening his eyes blearily, he stared for a moment at the creature stood by his bed holding a tray laden with the most unappetising food he had ever set eyes on, not that he had any intention of eating it. Just the thought of anything passing into his shrunken stomach bought acidic bile to his throat, which he hurredly swallowed back down. Sitting up, he half heartedly listened as the small elf babbled on about why he was being given only mashed foods and why he had to eat them, and how Master had ordered that all was to be cleared.
Finally, Minky left, having placed the tray on the desk on the far side of the room. It was at this point that Harry thanked Snape for giving him a room with a bathroom, as he padded across the room, his bare feet slapping on the stone floor almost soundlessly. Removing the plate of scrambled eggs, tomatoes and pureed mushrooms, he stepped into the bathroom and tipped the lot into the toilet, stepping back as it his the water with a splash. Quickly he flushed the edibles away, a slight tinge of guilt pervading him as he returned the plate to the tray and drank half of the orange juice provided.
Ignoring the clothes scattered on the floor, and ignoring the fact he smelt quite appalling from the filth of two weeks in the heat, he fetched his photo album from his trunk, returned to the small desk, and sat down to once more brood on those he had irretrievably lost.
