Chapter Four – Let's Get Started

"So, Snape, did you know that I saw you kill him?"

If he had been hoping for some kind of reaction, Harry was sorely disappointed. Snape did not even so much as look over at him and remained huddled in the corner of the cell. It had been only three days that Harry had seen him, but he got the impression that Snape was faring considerably worse now than he had been three days ago. For one, he no longer quite met Harry's eye or sat up straight to give the menacing glare that had shot fear into the hearts of so many. Harry didn't really think that it was the torture; Snape was a tough bastard and nothing was going to easily defeat him.

The key to all of this was going to be not getting angry when Snape refused to talk to him. That was the mistake he had made before and he knew that Snape would count it as a victory. "You do realize that we can do this the easy way. All you need to do is to tell me and we'll give you the painless death that you don't deserve. Unless there's some really good reason for you to not do it, I don't see why you're not telling me. I don't see why you're…why you're being so goddamn stubborn!"

At that, Snape turned around slowly and looked at him. There was malice in his eyes, and a twisted smile on his face. He didn't say anything, just sat there smirking.

Harry felt an unconscious violence rising in him and had to fight the impulse to reach for the wand. The cell that Snape was in was not large, and so it would not be hard for Harry to take a few steps forward and land a well-placed kick on Snape's body. One more bruise would hardly be noticed. "I tell you what we're going to do, Snape. I'm going to convince them to stop torturing you, and you're going to tell me what I need to know. Does that sound like a fair bargain to you?" Harry realized as soon as he had finished talking that he had been talking to Snape as though he were a particularly stupid child, but if it got the results, that was all that mattered.

Snape stared at him. His expression did not change a jot.

"So you want them to keep torturing you? Oh, I don't know…maybe you're into that freaky pain stuff. Maybe you get off on them hurting you." Harry knew that he shouldn't start down this train of thought, because it wasn't going to get pretty from here. "Though that's not what I'd expect from you, to be perfectly honest. Do you know what you strike me as? You strike me as the kind of person that would want to be inflicting the pain, not receiving it."

Snape stared at him.

This was getting them nowhere. Harry fought back a sigh. "What if I could get your sentence commuted?" He had no idea how that would be possible, but if it would get the confession, one little lie couldn't hurt. "A life sentence in Azkaban?" He had to stifle back the laugh. As if a life sentence in Azkaban would be better than simple death. It wasn't worth carrying on that train of thought, because if he couldn't even take it seriously, there was no way that Snape would be able to.

He was right.

Snape stared at him.

Harry leaned back against the wall of the cell. He was annoyed that there were no chairs here, but the goal was to deny Snape of any and all comfort. He, however, was not Snape and could do with somewhere to rest while he was trying to deal with his murderous, quite possibly crazy former Professor. "They told me before I started coming here that you were at least half-crazy. I don't believe them. You don't seem crazy to me. Do you know what I think?"

Snape stared at him.

That was as good as anything. "I think that you're scared."

Snape stared at him.

"I think you're scared of what's going to happen now. There's no Dumbledore to protect you. The Ministry…well, we're chugging along, but give us a major crisis and I think we're just going to crumble into a million pieces. And we both know that Voldemort is still out there. As far as we can all tell, you're a Death Eater, despite all claims on your part to the contrary. But you don't think that you can betray them this time, for real or as just as another ploy, because there's no one that's really strong enough to offer you any protection. So, the logical option would be for you to just confess. You won't do that, either, because you're either a really powerful Death Eater now, or you're waiting for them to stage another breakout here. If you're dead, that rather makes it a bit more difficult for you to continue on with whatever you were planning. So, how close am I?"

Snape stared at him.

Harry had really been hoping for a reaction, there. It had been a really inspired train of thought, and was severely disappointed that he had got absolutely nothing from Snape. It occurred to him that maybe Snape was totally insane, and didn't have the capacity to reply. But the look in Snape's eyes told the truth; Snape was as alert as he had ever been. This was all part of a plan, a plan that he had no intention of letting anyone in the Ministry in on.

"Do you know what I'm going to do, Snape?" he asked, in a sudden burst of inspiration. "I'm going to ask the Ministry for your release. You're as much a danger to society as you've always been, but I don't think that your sanity is going to much improve in this hellhole." He paused. "What do you think?"

Snape stared at him.