Shattered Illusions Chapter 19

Severus sat at his desk to wait for Harry, grading papers as the time slowly ticked by. It was nice to try to take his mind off of things, but he had a hard time doing so. He wanted to know everything about what Harry was going through and he couldn't wait to go out tomorrow to learn about Multiple Personality Disorder. He knew a little, but it had been years since he read anything on it. Most of what he learned was gone and forgotten. Suddenly there was a cautious sounding knock at the door.

"Enter." He said deeply. Just in case that it wasn't Harry, he needed to sound like he normally did. Wouldn't be in his best interest to expose his soft side. The door opened slowly and Harry poked his head inside, looking very nervous.

"You may come in, Harry." Severus said when he saw the hesitation. Why did Harry look so scared? It was detention, but Severus really just wanted to talk to him. Generally when he gave Harry detention they just talked unless he really did something to deserve the detention. Then he made him do what everybody else did. Things like scrubbing cauldrons with a tooth brush and putting the ingredients in alphabetical order and such.

Harry stood in the doorway looking down and shifting from one foot to the other. He had his lip between his teeth and his hands were clasped behind his back.

"Come in and have a seat, Harry." Severus said calmly. He watched as Harry nervously came forward and sat down carefully in the chair. Harry didn't make eye contact.

"How are you doing?" Severus asked. Harry shrugged, but didn't say anything.

"That's not a proper answer." He said. Harry didn't look up and didn't say anything.

"Are you doing alright?" Severus got concerned. It was unlike Harry to act in such a way. Harry nodded.

"Could you say something please?" Severus asked. Harry shrugged again. What was he to do if the boy wouldn't talk to him?

"I really just wanted to know why you were late to class today." He said. "Normally you're on time. You didn't come in with Granger or Weasley, who were you with?" Harry finally looked up at him fearfully. He didn't want Harry to be afraid, he didn't know what was provoking the fear.

"You're not in trouble." He said carefully, studying the boy. It didn't seem to help. Harry fidgeted in his chair and was biting his lip. Severus reached forward to pull the lip out from in between Harry's teeth. Suddenly the boy started sobbing and pulled his knees up to his chin, he started rocking back and forth. Severus sat in shock for just a moment in surprise, then quickly stood up and went to Harry's side.

As soon as Severus touched him, Harry made an animalistic noise and sprang up from the chair. He bolted to a table that was up against the wall and then crawled under it to hide.

"Harry?" Severus asked worriedly. "Are you alright? I didn't mean to scare you." Harry whimpered and sniffled. Suddenly Severus had a thought. Maybe it wasn't Harry. Was it Freak? He didn't want to call the boy Freak, it just felt wrong.

"Come on out. Everything is just fine. You are safe. I won't hurt you." Severus said.

"Fweak sowwy." Severus heard come almost silently from under the table.

"You're not a freak." Severus said. He knew it probably wouldn't do any good, especially if that was what the personality was named. He still felt that he should say it though.

"Am." Was all Freak said. It was more of a hiccup as the boy was still sobbing. "Fweak no do it eben."

"Didn't do what?" Severus asked.

"No be late." Freak said. So that meant it was either May or Harry that was late to class. Severus guessed May.

"Was it May?" Severus questioned. He saw movement from under the table and Harry's bright green eyes were looking up at him. "Was it?" Freak nodded slightly.

"Then that's alright." Severus said. "There's no need for you to be afraid if she did something wrong. You had nothing to do with it." Freak looked fearful still and started whimpering again.

"Not May's fault." Freak sobbed. "Fweak should done somefing!" Severus's knees were starting to hurt from kneeling on the ground. He pulled out his wand and spelled the table away. Freak looked shocked, then scared.

"It's alright." Severus murmured as he pulled Freak into his arms and sat against the wall. "I am not going to hurt you." At first Freak was squirming and sobbing loudly, trying to get away. After awhile though, Freak started to calm down.

"Safe?" Freak asked as he sniffled and hiccupped.

"Safe." Severus confirmed. Freak looked very confused and tired. He still seemed a little scared, but not nearly as much. That was an improvement. Severus looked down and the boys eyes were closed and it seemed that he'd fallen asleep. Severus shook his head and sighed. What was he going to do?

...

Harry yawned as he sat up and almost panicked when he realized that he didn't know where he was. He threw the soft green blanket off of him and stood up. He was in what looked to be an office. There was a desk and a couch with many shelves of pickled things in jars.

"I see that you're finally awake." He heard behind him. He turned around quickly.

"W-where a-am I?" Harry asked Snape.

"You're in my office." Snape said. "I would like to speak with you, if that's alright." Harry nodded. Was he in trouble? "Have a seat." Harry walked over to the plush looking arm chair that was on the other side of the desk, Snape took his spot at the desk.

"A-am I i-in t-trouble?" Harry asked nervously and confused.

"No, of course not." Snape replied calmly. "I just wanted to ask if you'd been having any problems with your memory or anything like that." Harry's eyes narrowed.

"W-what do y-you m-mean?"

"Like, do you have missing memories? Are there things written on your assignments that you don't remember writing?" Harry thought. Yes, he'd had both of those happen. Harry nodded.

"I-it's j-just 'cause I f-fa-fall a-asleep all th-the t-time." Harry said, ashamed.

"Do the names May and Freak mean anything to you?" Harry's head jerked up to look at Snape.

"Th-they're i-in m-my d-dr-dreams s-sometimes." Harry admitted. How did Snape know that? Snape looked surprised to hear that.

"What do they do in your dreams?" Snape asked.

"U-usually w-we a-all ju-just t-talk." Harry said. "M-May l-li-likes to b-brag h-how sm-smart she i-is. F-Freak j-just cries a-alot. M-May a-always just says sh-she's d-doing it for m-me."

"What do you think she means by that?" Snape asked, sounding curious. Harry shrugged.

"I d-don't k-know." Harry said. "Th-that's all I c-can r-re-remember."

"That's fine. You've done good, Harry." Snape said. Harry felt joy rise up inside of him for no good reason at all.

"Are you ready for Christmas?" Snape asked. "That's coming up, you know."

"Y-yeah, I kn-know." Harry said as he looked down.

"What's wrong?" Harry thought. He didn't know what was wrong.

"G-guess I j-ju-just don't know wh-what to e-ex-expect." He said. What did Christmas mean around Hogwarts. Did he stay or go? He'd choose to stay if he could. He quite liked Hogwarts. He figured Ron and Hermione would probably go home, but that would be okay. Some time to himself would probably do him some good.

"I would prefer it if you could stay at Hogwarts for the holidays with me, but you can choose to go back to the Dursley's if you wish." Snape said.

"I'd r-r-ra-rather s-st-stay if I c-could." Harry said and by Snape's half smile, he could tell that it was just fine.

"I won't be around tomorrow, I will be in the muggle world doing some research."Snape said. Harry wondered what kind of research but thought it best not to ask. Instead he smiled and nodded. He'd just have to find something to do with Ron and Hermione, Neville too if he was interested. If Hermione had her way, they'd spend the day studying or reading in the library.

Snape dismissed Harry after asking if there was anything else that they should talk about, Harry shook his head so Snape told him to head back to the dorm before it got too late. He was deep in thought about everything that's been going on when he accidentally bumped into somebody. He toppled over onto the ground and grunted in pain.

"S-sorry!" He said quickly and looked up. It was Malfoy and he didn't even look that upset.

"No worries, Potter." Malfoy said as he held out his hand. Malfoy had been nicer to Harry lately and he wasn't really sure what to think of it. Should he trust him or not? Was he just pretending so he could humiliate him later? He just didn't know. He reached out and took Malfoy's hand.

"Where are you going in such a hurry?" Malfoy asked,

"P-profe...professor S-snape t-told me to g-go b-back to the dorm b-be-before i-it g-got t-too l-late." Harry said. Suddenly somebody walked by and Harry's forehead burst out in pain. He clutched his lightning bolt scar as if his life depended on it and groaned. He opened his eyes to see Professor Quirrell walking away. He looked over at Malfoy, who had a strange expression on his face.

"You okay there, Potter?" He asked. Harry nodded. "I think something's up with that Quirrell."

"Oh? L-like w-wh-what?" Harry asked curiously.

"I just have a weird feeling about him. Once I hear him and Snape having a heated argument and they just kept talking about 'the stone' and I don't really know what stone they were talking about but then Snape said something about something names Fluffy. It was weird." Malfoy said.

Fluffy was the three headed dog that was standing on the trap door. Hagrid once blurted it out when Hermione, Ron and him were having tea together. Somehow, he remembered that but he didn't remember going for the tea. Weird.

"Th-That's s-strange." Harry said.

"Yeah. I've also notice that your scar hurts every time he's near. What's up with that?" Malfoy demanded, not angrily or mean. Just curious. Harry could see in Malfoy's eyes that he just really wanted to know what was going on. He didn't seem like he wanted to hurt Harry right then. He nodded, his scar did hurt when Quirrell was near, but he didn't know why.

"Well, I guess I've got to be getting back as well." Malfoy said. "See you around." Then he turned and started walking in the other direction. Harry shook his head to try to clear it, then continued to walk in the direction he was going.

He spoke the password and went in. It was pretty much empty when he got in, except for a few people sitting around talking. Ron and Neville were sitting on the floor playing wizards chess again. They seemed to do that a lot. Hermione was sitting in a chair reading a book, that seemed boring so he went over and sat down next to the boys.

"M-Mind if i w-w-watch?" He asked.

"Of course not!" Neville said.

"Yeah, you're welcome with us anytime you want." Ron replied. Harry grinned. Honestly, how did he get so lucky with such good friends?