Twenty-Two: Inari (IV)
Thunder struck the house until it rocked on its feet, until the birches whistled and moaned under the weight of racing air, until Harry's heart missed a beat and restarted so it could happen all over again.
The sun had faded by now, the last tendrils of white like ribbons among the easy dusk. But lightning illuminated the attic in stark contrast, drawing the shape of the armoire into focus, overexposing the white of the sheets, blinding him for long enough that he was still blinking it away when the awful racket of skies splitting open followed, reverberating in Harry's every limb. He felt it up his spine, in his every tooth.
Harry wasn't afraid of storms, but then he'd never seen one quite like this.
He kicked off the sheets in frustration. It was inconceivable to sleep, and not sleeping always made him anxious: the minutes ticked by, and with each, his chances of getting enough hours in to wake up well-rested. Or to fall asleep at all—it became impossible after three a.m., he knew. The next day would be ruined if he didn't sleep. He would be too tired to do well in his lesson with Leeni, too tired to help with the harvest or with the fence-painting, too tired to keep a rein on his temper. He didn't want to have a rubbish day. In the thick of the night, the prospect struck him as horribly miserable.
The house shook with the next stroke of thunder. It was stupid to be afraid and yet he was, very much so. Annoyed with himself, with the storm, with the lack of lights in the attic, he scrambled up to stand and tiptoed across the creaky floor to the ladder.
It sang under his feet. He didn't think he was doing anything particularly wrong: surely no one would begrudge him getting up to go to the bathroom or get a glass of water? But the Dursleys usually locked him up during the nights, and there was a persistent itch in the back of his head that compelled him to stealth—he felt like at any moment, a door might bang open and Snape would come careening out to yell, 'What on Earth do you think you're doing?', like all the other times Harry had had no idea he was even breaking some unwritten rule.
In the kitchen, he poured himself a glass of water, which he took with him to the sitting room. The embers in the fireplace had ceased their sizzling, but they were warm to the touch: it couldn't be that late. Definitely not yet three. He felt just a little safer here, with a full floor of the house between him and the angry skies; but he couldn't very well fall asleep in someone else's sitting room.
He wished he were back in Gryffindor Tower. He'd always slept best there, and even when he didn't, he could lie awake listening to the other boys' breathing and feel at peace.
Thinking about Hogwarts had been a horrible idea, because now he was thinking of Ron and Hermione, and his stomach was twisting. He would never have been so anxious sneaking around at night if he had his friends with him. They made him brave, Harry realised: he was different when he was with them, he was better, and now that he didn't have them near, he was back to the boy he'd been before he knew he was a wizard—quiet, odd, afraid.
It would be a month soon since he'd seen them last, and a month wasn't much at all, but—Harry had never had anyone to miss before. He hadn't realised how grim a feeling it was.
Everything was grim, he decided. The whole lot. This night. Tomorrow. His life. He hated storms.
A blare of lightning. Leeni was standing in the doorway, eyes dark.
Harry scrambled back, lungs tightening and fingers clutching at the comforter. But she was just standing there, looking at him; and the demon-like gaze, that was just her usual impassivity, painted eerie by the light.
'You're not in bed,' she said. With anyone else, Harry might have thought this was a veiled accusation, but she was only stating the fact.
'I couldn't sleep,' he muttered. 'Sorry.'
She reflected on this. Then, she beckoned him toward her. 'Come.'
He followed obediently, sure she was leading him back up to the attic; but she stopped by the door to Snape's bedroom, and banged on it like her life depended on it.
The door blew open. Snape was on the other side, eyes wide with urgency. 'What is it?'
There was a smile tucked into Leeni's chin. She was playing a joke. Clearly, storms had a vastly different effect on her than they did on Harry.
She gave him a little push on the back. 'Found this downstairs,' she said.
Snape frowned at him. He didn't ask what on Earth Harry thought he was doing, which was something at least.
'I was getting some water,' Harry explained, very unhappy about all of this. 'I was going to go back to bed soon. I just can't sleep.'
'Yes, well, who could?' Snape scoffed. 'If we're not all deaf by tomorrow morning, it will be a joyous occasion. In.'
It was not a very polite way to invite someone into your room, but this was an altogether odd situation and Harry didn't feel confident enough to point it out.
Snape closed the door in Leeni's face, which would have also been rude, only it seemed a natural conclusion to the joke, and then he gestured for Harry to sit in the armchair. He had to move a book and a dulled pencil to the windowsill, and curl his legs close to his chest to avoid putting his dirty feet in Snape's sheets. This room, Harry thought, wasn't nearly big enough to contain two people in it at the same time.
'Well? What's wrong?'
Maybe Snape had gone deaf already. 'Nothing,' he said, this time much louder. 'I couldn't sleep. Is that a crime?'
Snape pressed two fingers to his temple. 'Fine, but is yelling about it absolutely necessary?'
'You didn't hear me the last time I said it,' Harry pointed out sullenly.
'Oh, I see. You are here to give me cheek. Let me at least sit down for it, shall I?'
This was getting annoying. Snape was playing and Harry had no interest. 'Stop.'
'Are you afraid of the storm?'
'No, I'm not afraid—I'm not five. It's just loud.'
'Yes, storms rather tend to be. I didn't realise this simple fact of life was so soul-shattering.'
'It's not soul-shattering, I just can't sleep, okay?'
Snape was silent for a moment. Harry could have easily met his eye if he glanced up from where he'd hid his face between his knees, but he wasn't going to.
'Okay,' he heard him say. 'Then don't sleep.'
'I can't—' Harry's frustration caught in his throat. 'If I don't sleep now, I'll not sleep the whole night.'
'Then don't.'
'I have to get up in the morning and do things!'
'What things might you possibly need to do?'
'My lesson! Like, learning natural magic, remember? And I'm supposed to help Kauko with picking mushrooms, and with painting the fence. And I'm just going to be sleep-deprived and annoyed all day.'
'Lessons can be rescheduled. Have you signed a contract obliging you to having one every day?'
'No, but we always have a lesson in the morning.'
'Then you are within your right to feel tired and skip one. It will be quite the blow, but I do believe Leeni will eventually recover from the disappointment.'
Harry snorted. Yeah, when you put it like that, it didn't sound like a big deal, but you could make anything seem unimportant if you cracked enough jokes about it. 'I've still got to do the fence.'
'Kauko is perfectly capable of painting the fence herself. Although it might be too wet tomorrow to attempt it anyway. And before you say anything, I assure you she can go mushroom picking on her own, too.'
'She'll be upset with me if I tell her I can't go just because I'm too lazy.'
'In that case, I shall tell her I have forbidden it. You have detention all day tomorrow for giving me cheek, you're not allowed out of the house. That will also provide the perfect excuse for any displays of foul mood on your part. Next problem, please.'
Harry grinned into his knees. That was a good idea, actually: whenever he didn't feel like doing something, he could just tell people Snape had given him detention. It would be a lie, sure, but what was Snape going to do if it ever got back to him—say that he hadn't given Harry detention? That would only chip away at his reputation.
'The storm's really loud up in the attic,' he complained.
'You can stay here until it passes.'
'I can't sleep here!'
'Last I heard, your intention was to stay awake all night so you could be miserable tomorrow.'
'That's not my intention, it's just what's going to happen.'
'Forgive me if I don't see the practical distinction. If the storm doesn't quieten down by the time you're ready for bed, you can sleep on the sofa downstairs. Next.'
At the rate they were going, Harry was going to run out of problems real soon. He bit his lip. 'I miss my friends,' he confessed quietly.
'That is—not unexpected,' Snape hesitated. 'Perhaps you could write them tomorrow.'
Harry stared at him. 'Write? But I thought—'
'It was too risky when we travelled,' Snape cut him off. 'But now—we can ask the Headmaster to take the letters and post them from Hogwarts. Let me be clear though: you will be given rules about what you are and are not allowed to write about, and you will follow them.'
'I won't write about where we are or anything!' Harry's heart soared with swelling hope. 'I'll—you can even read them—well, no, you can't, because that's private, but I swear that I won't—'
'Yes, I'm the one who has put the idea forward, Potter. You don't have to try and convince me.'
Harry sank back in his seat, trying to ease the excitement into something less disturbing. He wanted to shout with joy, but it was the middle of the night.
A bolt of lightning struck so close, he didn't need to listen for the thunder—he felt it in his every bone.
'Aren't you cold?' Snape was wholly unbothered by the noise. Harry wished he could be that indifferent to the world at large. 'Put your feet under the duvet.'
'My feet are dirty though.'
'Dirty? What on Earth have you been doing?'
'Nothing!' Harry bristled. 'I've just been walking around barefoot, so—'
'Were you planning on washing your feet before going back to bed?'
Was he supposed to? 'No?'
'Then what is the problem?'
Harry thought about explaining to Snape that they were wholly separate issues, putting your dirty feet into your own bed and putting them into someone else's, but if he managed to convince him, he wouldn't get the duvet, and he was getting chilly. He straightened his knees until his feet slipped under the covers and his legs lay flat on the warmed mattress. If he stretched them out a little further, he would be nudging at Snape's thigh.
'Is that the end of your ongoing life issues?'
Harry shrugged. He didn't really have anything else specific, only this nebulous cloud of bad feeling; he didn't want to whinge, but he also didn't want to get kicked out of the room if Snape decided he was done talking. He wriggled his toes instead, watching the sheets distend and drop, over and again until Snape caught his feet through the fabric and held them still.
'I'm just being weird.'
Snape did not react either which way. The silence made Harry anxious.
'I never used to be afraid of storms or anything,' he said. 'And I'm not now, I'm just—I'm nervous and not just now, I'm nervous all the time. I know I'm being childish and all, but I—it didn't use to be like that. Usually I'm not so, I don't know. Weird.'
Snape hummed. 'You don't seem weird to me. And the circumstances are such that I am not at all surprised you would often feel nervous.'
'You didn't know me before though. I used to be in trouble all the time, too. Not like, not school trouble or—you know, breaking rules trouble, I mean bad—circumstances. And I wasn't this nervous.'
'I imagine your relatives weren't much interested in offering comfort. It makes sense to me that you would choose to hide these feelings and concentrate on survival.'
Harry hadn't felt like he'd been hiding. This was the very opposite of what he'd wanted to hear: he didn't want to be like this all the time, he wanted to get back to how he was before. Though if that meant going back to Dursleys—
'Does your head still hurt?' he remembered suddenly. Lightning illuminated Snape's face as it twisted in amusement: it made him look like a night terror. On instinct, Harry tried to pull his legs away, but Snape's hold was too firm.
'If I hear that question one more time, it might well start.'
Harry wriggled his toes again. Without looking, Snape tightened his fingers around them in warning. His mouth quirked.
'I stole my wand from your coat,' Harry said.
Snape's head whipped to face him.
'On the train to Warsaw.' He gulped, staring down his lap. His hands fisted ineffectually on the upholstery. What was he doing? 'After I read the article in the Prophet, because I thought—but then I put it back later. I didn't cast any spells or anything like that, I swear. And in Zakopane, one time when you left and told me to stay in the house, I didn't stay, I went to the big field behind the garden and I met this adder and talked to it, and then it bit me, but Agata used natural magic to heal me. And I know I should have told you she could do magic, but she said she didn't even have a wand, so I didn't think it was dangerous or anything, and—and I didn't want to leave yet, because I really liked it there, and that was really stupid but I didn't know she was going to hurt you, I swear—sorry.'
He released his breath. He waited.
When he risked a glance up, Snape appeared not to be blinking.
'I'm sorry,' Harry repeated, hoping to break him out of the trance.
'You—' Snape halted, then took a harsh breath. 'What did you mean by saying that you talked to the adder?'
'Uh.' This felt to Harry like the least condemning piece of his confession, so he didn't at all mind talking about it, hopefully at length. 'It just told me to go away and not touch the nest, and I wasn't going to, but I think it got scared.'
'And you understood it?'
'Well, yeah.'
'Of course you did,' Snape muttered, seemingly to himself. He ran a hand down his face. 'I don't even know what to tell you, you little fool—do you even comprehend the seriousness of hiding such a thing from me? Have you completely forgotten that my primary purpose during this excursion is to protect you? How on Earth do you expect me to do so when you refuse to tell me the truth?'
Tears hung heavy on Harry's eyelashes, blurring his vision. 'I don't know,' he whispered.
'No,' Snape's voice dripped with acid. 'Me neither. You are certainly not going mushroom picking now. If I can't trust you to inform me when you've been hurt, how am I to ever allow you to leave my sight?'
'I'm sorry,' Harry repeated, not knowing at all what to say to make this better. Why had he ever opened his mouth?
'That is well and good, but what am I supposed to do with an apology? Do you not see—' Snape cut himself off. 'I have the sense that your pretend detention tomorrow will turn out much more real than anticipated.'
Harry shook his head desperately. 'No,' he pleaded.
'No? Then tell me what else to do. What do I do to ensure this never happens again?'
Harry opened and closed his mouth. What did Snape expect him to say?
Thunder rumbled outside. The storm was fizzling out now. Rain shook against the windowpane.
Snape sighed and sagged, like all the anger had left him in one. 'Never mind.'
Panic rose in Harry, sharply acidic. 'What? No—no, you can—I won't do it again! You can punish me—give me detention or—' he scrabbled desperately for an idea that might appeal to Snape, but back at school, he mostly just enjoyed taking points from Gryffindor, and that wasn't very helpful in the middle of summer, '—or give me some other punishment, whatever you want—'
'I am not going to waste our time on disciplinary measures that will accomplish nothing. I should not have asked you that question. You are unable to provide me with an answer.'
Harry wrapped his arms around his chest so tight it hurt. The sob shook silently through his frame.
'Alright, calm down,' Snape was saying, which almost made Harry laugh: how could he be calm? 'The wand, this was after the adder incident, correct? You took it on the train to Warsaw? If I thought you might be able to use your wand to protect yourself, I would have reconsidered letting you keep it on you, but you do not yet know any defensive spells, do you?'
Harry shook his head.
'The balance of risk and gain in this case is heavily skewed then, because there is always the possibility you might misplace it, correct?' He nodded obediently; Snape was speaking much softer now, but Harry still only wanted for this to be over. 'In any case, you seem to have realised that much on your own, so—well done.'
That stopped the next sob short. Harry stared up at him. 'Why are you being nice?'
Snape refused to meet his eye. 'I'm trying out positive reinforcement.'
Harry considered this.
'It's weird,' he decided.
Snape snorted. He didn't seem particularly angry anymore, but Harry reasoned that the balance of risk and gain was, in this case, skewed toward asking to be sure.
'Are you angry?'
'No,' he smiled. 'I am not. The storm seems to have moved on. Now that you've been exculpated, might you perhaps give sleep another chance?'
Harry was too high on emotion to possibly fall asleep, but he felt it safest not to argue. 'Can I still write to my friends tomorrow?'
'Have I at any point indicated otherwise?'
Harry would have much preferred a straight answer, but he supposed Snape wouldn't be himself if he gave up on being annoying. 'Then okay.'
He was in the process of extracting his legs from the sheets when the springs of the bed whined, and then Snape was standing up and pulling him into the air. The duvet fell unceremoniously to the floor, and Harry wrapped his arms around Snape's neck on pure instinct, feeling altogether alarmed.
'We don't want you putting your horribly dirty feet in clean sheets,' Snape muttered. He was so close like this that his voice tickled Harry's ear, and he had to angle his head away and hide it in the crook of his neck. 'Where's this water you were allegedly getting?'
'I left it downstairs,' Harry mumbled. His cheeks burned. This was too weird for words, but then again, this was a weird night altogether.
Snape bent sideways to reach for the wand he'd left on the windowsill, tipping Harry with him in a way that felt distinctly precarious. He tightened his arms and legs around him, feeling like a monkey.
'Accio Harry's water.'
The glass floating behind them, they climbed to the attic just like this, which seemed to Harry inconvenient and entirely unnecessary. He wasn't all that light, either: he could feel Snape's muscles tensing in exertion. He would have much preferred walking up on his own, but he was too embarrassed by this whole thing to say so.
Snape set him down on the mattress. It felt as though Harry's brain wasn't working properly anymore: it took an expectant look from Snape for him to recognize he should be lying down.
'Can I get some water?'
Snape obligingly lowered himself to perch on the edge of the mattress and pressed the glass into Harry's hand. He seemed intent on waiting until he was done so that he might put it away, which made Harry drink far longer than he had the need for, watching from the corner of his eye as Snape drew close whenever he stopped for breath, and away when he started swallowing again.
Soon, Harry felt bad and gave it up. As he lay back down, he realised Snape had been acting like his servant again. Maybe he was playing, too. Harry sometimes liked to pretend that Dudley was an heir to the throne: it had made waiting on him a lot more fun.
He had to bite his lip to hold in the laugh.
'What's so amusing?'
'Nothing,' Harry had rolled onto his side and could now see from up close Snape's hand where it rested on the mattress, propping him up. Before he could think about it much, he wrapped both his hands around the wrist, one on top of the other. 'I was just playing—I was pretending the other day that you were my servant, and now it's like you're pretending that.'
'Hm,' Snape mused. 'I would much rather pretend that you were my servant. That would mean you must obey me in everything without argument, wouldn't it?'
'Yeah, well, I'm not pretending that.'
'Your mother and I used to play that game,' he said softly. Harry's hands tightened their hold. 'Although I believe we played slaves, not servants. She used to make me eat a variety of absolutely disgusting foods—biscuits slathered with mayonnaise, bananas dipped in Marmite—claiming they were banquet dishes that might have been poisoned and I needed to sample them to check.'
'Were you playing that again when you bought the raw fish in Amsterdam?'
Snape chuckled drily. 'Hilarious.'
The story he'd told seemed happy enough, but his tone was tinged with sadness. He often sounded like that when he told Harry about his mum, and sometimes, he would peer at him after like he expected Harry to have been made sad, too. But they were only stories: Harry told stories about his parents all the time, if only to himself. Snape missed Harry's mum and talking about her made him sad; Harry had supposed once to be missing her, but now that he had the experience of missing Ron and Hermione to compare it with, he realised it wasn't at all the same thing. You couldn't miss a character from a book—you could only wish they were real.
Rain pattered on the roof. It didn't sound much like water; Harry imagined bags of peas being overturned one after the other in the sky. Snape pried the wrist out of his clutches, which Harry fought against at first before realising what he was doing, but he only moved to rest his palm on Harry's head. He gave him the left hand to hold instead, and twined their fingers together.
Harry imagined another story, now: in this one, it rained for such a horribly long time there was a deluge, and Leeni and Kauko's house remained standing only because natural magic had protected it. Harry and his parents, who were alive, and Snape and Hermione and Ron and Hagrid, they all had to move in because their own houses had sunk. There weren't enough rooms for everyone, of course, so Harry and his friends stayed in the attic together with Harry's mum and dad, who were children, too, because they always were in Snape's stories and it felt odd to Harry to imagine them differently. Snape kept his current room for himself, because of course he would never agree to sharing, but he let Harry sit with him when the attic got too loud.
Hedwig was there, too, and brought them news from the outside world. But the news didn't even matter since they couldn't do anything about it.
That was how Harry eventually managed to sleep: imagining they were stranded in the heart of an endless sea, the house drifting like a boat on its gentle waves.
Thank you to all those who've left sweet comments on the previous chapter, and those who wished me a quick convalescence. Fortunately, while it made me feel shit while it lasted, I seem to have fought covid off pretty quickly, and my family are all feeling better too.
This sweetheart of a chapter is the last breath before the drop of the final arc, so I hope you've all enjoyed the fluff. On Wednesday, we're going to Privet Drive!
Guest comment replies:
Kathleen - I'm sorry to hear covid hit you so hard! I hope you're all well now. I had a pretty bad few days, but fortunately recovered very quickly after that. As to Snape and Harry, well, I can't make any promises... ;)
Guest (Jan 20) - Thank you so much for these words of support! I'm sorry to hear covid has taken so much from you. Fortunately, my family and I are all doing okay now, so I'm hoping for no more drama. But as for drama in the story, it's making a grand return next chapter!
James Birdsong - thank you! :)
Guest (Jan 20) #2 - Thank you for the well-wishes! I was very happy with that last line, so I'm glad you liked it. This chapter was a bit of a downer, so hopefully the fluff of this one makes up for it ;) And to be fair, becoming a mother at 21 isn't so odd now, and was definitely less so in the 80s... but yeah, when you think about it, they were both such babies themselves!
