A/N: I know you'll all hate me but this is a really short chapter. (Especially Koredik, this is just for you)
grins sadistically Enjoy!
Chapter 18
SS
Severus sat silently beside the bushy haired girl, rubbing tiredly at his forehead. The whole hall had broken into chatter when it had been Professor McGonagall who had given the leaving speech, not the absent headmaster.
She had mentioned briefly the reason, but Severus couldn't concentrate, not only had he slept badly last night, but he had been forced to listen to a whole days worth of Gryffindor prattle as Hermione had thought it best to drag him along to the common room.
He blamed the girl and her foolish notions of companionship for the pounding headache that seemed to crawl up from the back of his skull spreading in throbbing waves to his temples, crashing together just behind his eyes.
He sighed and rubbed his eyes, staring unseeingly down at his plate.
"Are you alright Harry?" The girl whispered in his ear and he fought to bring a weak smile onto his face.
"Yeah. Just tired."
"Oh." Her eyebrows raised in a look of understanding. "Have you talked to the headmaster about it?"
Severus blinked. What was the girl talking about?
"You know the headmaster told you to see him whenever you had any dreams." She whispered and Severus frowned. This headache really was distracting him, he should have figured that out.
"It's not anything like that." He grimaced at the implications. "I just haven't been able to sleep."
"You're probably so worried about going back." She slipped a hand onto his knee, and Severus almost jumped at the touch. "It's understandable, but just remember I'm always here for you." She gave him a comforting squeeze which sent all questions straight from his mind. He just wanted her to stop touching him.
"Er." He coughed to clear his throat. "Thanks, Hermi." He shifted a little and she only gave him a comforting smile and removed her hand with a last pat.
"That's what friends are for."
He grimaced back at her, turning quickly to his plate when his eyes met the onyx pair at the head table, suddenly uncomfortable. There was something in that gaze, it was questioning, asking him things he didn't want to answer. Didn't have the strength to answer.
He was just so tired.
HP
Harry glanced out over the long tables of students. They were chattering about holiday plans, quidditch, the food, all the small mindless topics he wished he could engage in. Instead the heavy silence that spread from the absent presence of the headmaster seemed to accentuate even the smallest clink of cutlery, a nervous sniffle, the annoying cough of the Defence Against Dark Arts teacher.
He glanced back over the hall of noisy students.
They didn't know what the absence of the headmaster meant.
He wished for that same ignorance.
"Professor Snape." Harry cringed as the silence was broken.
"Madame Umbridge." He continued staring at his plate, unwilling to look up at the small piercing eyes, the smirking mouth. He was also trying to avoid the looks of the teachers around him, who, having been pulled out of silence, were now watching them with interest.
"I was wondering how your detention with Mr Potter is going." Her tone was conversational and Harry frowned. He sent a quick glare at those staring, and all averted their eyes.
"It is proceeding as well as any extended time in the boys presence can proceed." He answered with a quick frown, still not looking up, hoping the conversation would end there.
"Yet you didn't spend any time with him today, you informed me that the boy was to be in detention and at your side for the remainder of the time he was to be at school."
Harry frowned, worry now worming it's way through him. Had Snape been caught by the toad? Had he been forced to spend the day with her, when he had been sleeping? A quick glance at the man in his body showed nothing more than an exhausted boy, there was no tenseness he would expect if he had spent time with the toad.
"That is true. However my schedule today had no time for him, some of us have more important things to do than spend the last days at school punishing students." Harry still hadn't looked at the woman, his gaze caught on Snape. The man didn't just look exhausted, he looked like he was in pain.
"Be as that may Professor Snape, you could have-"
The ear splitting scream, cut through whatever the toad was about to say and Harry was on his feet before he could even comprehend what had happened. The sudden silence after the scream caught hold of everybody.
Harry stared in horror as his small body bended in on itself on the cold flag stones.
It only took a few seconds before he was the first in action, vaulting clean over the table, storming down the central aisle before scooping up the convulsing body with more than a little difficulty and clutching him to his chest. The way his robe flew around him, billowing like a dark thunderous cloud sent those in his way scuttling for cover.
He made it down the corridor toward the hospital wing before the screaming started again, the hands fisting in the fabric of the robe he wore. Pomfrey was already waiting for him, anxious and fearful at the same time, she took one look at his face and stepped out of the way, letting him place the scarred boy on the pale white sheets.
"We have to restrain him." Her voice didn't brake through the horror that still clung to his mind.
"Harry." Her hand on his arm and he jerked back, wild onyx eyes staring at her in confusion. He had forgotten she knew they had switched bodies.
"Harry." She repeated calmly. "Sit down, I have to restrain him." He nodded numbly.
Harry wasn't sure if he sat or if his legs gave out under him. "Oh Gods." Burying his face in potion stained hands he tried not to let the burning in the back his throat, the stinging in his eyes escape.
He'd betrayed Severus again.
That first scream. That very first scream.
And Harry knew. He knew that everything he had been trying to forget, everything he had been denying had come crashing down on him. He was a fool not to realise what the Dark Lord's silence over the past week or so had meant, Dumbledore's disappearance should have clued him in but no. He was dense enough to think that maybe Severus wouldn't be subjected to another vision, another session of torture.
No he hadn't been a fool, he had been selfish.
Hiding in the body of another, he hadn't wanted to think about the Dark Lord's affects on the older man, not since his first attack, had tried to deny the likely chance of another assault, another assault worse than the previous. Harry cringed, biting hard into his fist, guilt sliding through him, he couldn't even make the excuse of being so caught up in the last two weeks events, one didn't just forget the lingering presence of the snake faced bastard.
The now silent convulsing form before him strained under the restraining and silencing charms the medi witch had placed on the his young body. Mouth opened in a silent scream.
Pomfrey sighed in relief when the body collapsed under the torture, still, silent, no longer in the holds of a Crucio. But Harry tensed, his breath ragged, as if he could feel the curses burning into his being, he knew the meaning of the silence, of the stillness so early into the torture and he prayed he was wrong. Prayed for all he was that the Dark Lord would realise the man he was torturing was in fact the potions professor, that he would come after Harry instead.
Emerald eyes snapped open, unseeing as tears gathered, glistening. Welling, before escaping unchecked down now pale cheeks. Harry heard his breath hitch, could feel his chest constrict as he choked on a sob.
"He'll be alright Harry. We just have to wait." The med witches soft comforting voice cut through him and he shook his head, biting hard into his hand to stop the harsh loud sob in the silent room. She didn't understand. She didn't understand what it meant.
"No." She didn't hear his broken voice, having already moved from the room. He stared at the body, there was no Severus in that shell and Harry wondered where he had escaped.
"…no."
No curse or hex could break a soul the way the Dark Lord could with his hands.
"Fight it." He whispered to the prone form. Too scared to reach out and touch the clenched fist, ashamed to think that if he did, he too would be stained by what he knew Severus was going through. Stained more than he already was.
"I'm sorry." He knew he owed it to the man, knew he had to try something.
"It should have been me." He leant forward, knuckles white, a cold potion stained hand enveloping a smaller, hot to touch.
"It should have been me." His lips tasting the salt of the tears as he kissed the path they made down one cheek. A chaste touching of souls.
And then his forearm started burning.
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--- to be con't