CHAPTER 9
After his unusual Occlumency lesson, Harry, who was surprised that Severus had made the effort to use another approach to Occlumency for Harry's sake, began to read the book carefully. He was equally surprised to see that the book was written in an understandable manner, without long complicated sentences or unintelligible vocabulary. Hermione beamed at him, pleased to see him working in earnest for a subject and teacher he disliked; on the other hand, she was stiff and cool to Ron, who gave her the cold shoulder as well, and they made sure to sit far apart in their classes – including in Potions. Ron huddled closer to Harry, shooting Hermione a sour glance.
"For heaven's sake, Ron," Harry grumbled underneath his breath, chopping up his Flobberworms briskly. Severus's dark eyes moved in his direction.
"Five points from Gryffindor for whispering in class, Potter," he said silkily. Draco Malfoy, who would usually have smirked, did not show any sign of gloating. The Slytherin was looking pale, anxious and had lost a lot of his smugness. Harry thought he knew why. Draco was of age – old enough to become a Death Eater. And old enough to have his marriage arranged by his family. Of course, some arranged marriages worked and others didn't, just like so-called love marriages; but most of the old Pureblood families, who tended to be deeply steeped in age-old traditions and the like, changed with time and were open-minded and practical about the change of customs and emergence of new ones; they did not involve themselves in such things as arranging marriages; their children, independent and responsible for their own lives, married or did not marry; they lived in domestic partnerships or remained single; it didn't matter as long as they were happy and healthy. But Draco's parents belonged to the conservative type; they recoiled from change, clinging tenaciously to increasingly obsolete traditions and views. Draco was supposed to marry Pansy Parkinson. It was known all over the school; while Lucius had to languish in Azkaban for five months (a fact which aggravated Draco's worries), Narcissa Malfoy had been interviewed in The Daily Prophet, and she had proudly revealed the marriage plans for her son to the press. Unfortunately, this intelligence was a novelty for her son as well. While Pansy simpered and put on airs, imagining herself the wife of a wealthy Pureblood, Draco was a lot less enthusiastic. His marks had started to drop – along with his arrogance. No one felt sorry for him. His fellow-Slytherins were more concerned about their own well-being, and the students from the other Houses, of course, had a lot to smirk about. Harry naturally benefited from the absence of Draco's nasty comments after so many years.
While the potions were brewing, Harry searched in his bag for his pestle, which he had forgotten to extract. As Harry dug around in the bag, there was a small thump, and something fell out. Severus narrowed his eyes and picked up the object. It was the bird Harry had just finished carving; all he had to do was the fine-tuning and polishing. Ron had insisted that he show it to the other Gryffindors, but Harry had been embarrassed, insisting that it would be like boasting; Ron, however, had snatched it from the sill of the dorm and passed it around the table at breakfast. Harry had planned to return to Gryffindor Tower before lunch in order to hide the bird away in his dorm; he wanted to do so after breakfast, when everyone trooped off to their houses to brush their teeth and fetch their books, but in the rush of getting ready and trying to locate the cap of his toothpaste ("A Summoning Charm would have saved you the time," Hermione had pointed out logically), he had forgotten to remove it; and now, Severus was holding the bird in his slender fingers.
"What have we got here, Potter?" He studied the bird.
"He carved it, sir," Hermione said, throwing Harry a beseeching look which said, please try to be silent, Harry, otherwise Gryffindor will lose points and you'll end up in detention.
Severus raised a slim eyebrow.
"You made this?" he asked suspiciously, looking at Harry as if he could not believe that Harry was capable of being creative.
"He did, Professor," Hermione said.
Severus gave her a cold look.
"I asked Potter, not you, Miss Granger. Well, Potter? Did you make this bird?"
"Yes, Professor."
Severus moved it around in his hand.
"Who helped you?"
"I did it alone, sir," Harry answered.
"Indeed," Severus said with a sneer. Harry held his gaze steadily.
Everyone else was trying very hard to be absorbed in their potions. Malfoy looked up, but his attention was called off by an ominous bubbling sound from his cauldron.
"Items like this, Potter, have no place in my class. I am confiscating it. Another five points from Gryffindor."
He moved away, still holding the bird. He placed it on his desk.
Ron leant over to Harry.
"Sorry about that, mate."
Harry shrugged.
"I can always carve another bird," he muttered. Hermione gave him a sympathetic look from the other end of the room.
"I thought I told you not to speak in class, Potter. Ten points from Gryffindor."
Malfoy's potion exploded. Severus naturally blamed the Gryffindor who was sitting nearest to Malfoy and deducted more points.
After Potions, Severus slipped into his office with the bird in his hand. He held it before his eyes and studied it critically from all angles. The workmanship was delicate; a few scratches here and there where the knife had slipped unintentionally…but it had been beautifully and carefully wrought by Harry Potter's hands. He tapped the bird with his wand, and it glowed briefly.
"Magical butternut wood," he said to himself. Severus used to speak to himself at length when he was little. He had invented a friend, whom he had simply called My Friend. Then his father had told him that only mad people talked to themselves. Severus had stopped talking to himself until he reached his teens. Since then, Severus had found out that conversing with onself was not at all unusual or abnormal. In fact, many people did it on a regular basis, and not only because they were lonely. Severus considered soliloquies essential for filtering and expressing thoughts. He liked to assess things aloud; it helped him to structure his ideas, conclusions and evaluations. He was not the only one who found self-conversations helpful: Albus Dumbledore liked to talk to himself, especially when he had a lot on his mind – the Headmaster had told him this with perfect frankness and that impossible twinkle in his eyes.
Severus's hooked nose nearly touched the carving.
"Nice beak," he added. Then, realising that it sounded funny, he repeated the comment. He traced his mouth with his index finger and actually smiled without bitterness.
"You're a falcon," Severus stated next. "At least Potter had enough sense to not make a silly little songbird out of you."
He set the figure on the cool marble mantelpiece of the fireplace, still tracing his mouth with his finger. He had to admit that he was surprised. Usually, this happened extremely rarely – mostly when the Headmaster was up to no good for everyone's good, as the wise but roguish wizard put it.
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When Harry arrived for his duelling lesson a few days later, Severus was waiting for him with the bird on his desk.
"Is this butternut wood, Potter?" Severus said abruptly as soon as Harry stepped inside the office. The green eyes widened a little behind the spectacles.
"Yes – I bought it in Hogsmeade along with the tools," Harry said cautiously, taken aback by Severus's interest in what he thought was a trivial thing.
Severus did not comment. He rose and cast the usual protective spell on his surroundings.
"Last time, Potter, you managed to blast a frankly large hole in my desk in spite of the protective spell. Can you tell me why?"
"Maybe the spell was not very strong because neither of us expected that my Blasting Charm would be that violent," Harry said carefully, avoiding to say directly that Severus's spell had simply not been able to withstand Harry's magic. He was anxious to prevent Severus from interpreting his words in such a way so that he would be able to find a reason to insult Harry.
"Correct. I did not use a fully-fledged charm. As you learnt in your fourth year, magic can be practised in levels. When duelling, Potter, it is to be expected that both combatants will use as much power as they can. This, however, is draining for the caster. You will learn how to vary lower levels and higher levels of spell-casting during a combat; variance, Potter, is a strategy which does not only concern varying spells but how you cast them. If you are a good strategist and tactician, then you will unsettle your rival, and your switching of spells and spell-casting will allow you to recover your power within a matter of seconds. Of course, you also have to know about non-verbal spells. There are ways of recognising how your opponent is going to use a non-verbal spell on you. And I can teach you how to duel with style. Your movements have to be confident… graceful… elegant…"
Severus flicked his wand at Harry with a beguilingly easy grace, and a fireball flashed inches past Harry and was absorbed by the wall. The youth started a little but remained where he was.
"You have to be an actor if you want to be a duellist, Potter, or an Auror, as Professor McGonagall once mentioned. Let us proceed – I have been appallingly loquacious for your sake."
Harry had to try very hard not to stare at the man. Severus was being what he could call extraordinarily and uncharacteristically civil to him; but he could not expect this attitude to remain upright during a duel with the Potions Master.
Later, after an exhausting half-hour, Harry was rubbing soot off his cheek with the drenched sleeve of his robes – Severus was particularly fond of fireballs and water. Severus, in the meantime, was completely unscathed and unruffled, robes clean and unwrinkled, and not a hair out of place. Harry sneezed. Severus ignored the sound.
"Dismissed. I am keeping that block of wood until the next Occlumency lesson," he said curtly to Harry, who had never thought that he would see his falcon again in one piece. He had actually been sure that Severus would use it for his fire.
Severus opened the door for him with a non-verbal spell.
Harry squelched his way out of the dungeons, leaving a trail of water drops on the stone tiles. Severus sniffed haughtily and Vanished them with a careless flick of his ebony wand.
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