People...I am crying as I write this. I had no idea there was a 50 fic limit on the Doc Manager and when I had finished writing my fiftieth part, I went to save it, but it wouldn't save. So I deleted the earlier ones in the Manager only to discover that decided to delete what I had written so far forcing me to start over. I am in tears. I had managed to make it long, spent over six hours writing it and it is gone. I am crying...and I am laughing because this is just so ridiculous. I am going to eat some ice cream and destroy some monsters on Guild Wars 2 and then I am going to start again.
You had better well damn enjoy this as you have no idea the tears I have shed and the trouble I have gone through to post this. I had it perfect! And now I must begin again. :D
"You. Are. An. Idiot!" Snape was smacking Harry with each word he said. They were in the Potion Masters' classroom with Harry cowering before him and trying to block each hit. "You. Should. Have. Done. It!"
"Why?" Harry yelped, glowering at his teacher, who finally stopped the physical abuse.
"It was a perfect opportunity to see what his true intentions were and you, being the idiot that you are, passed it up!"
Harry didn't bother trying to block this thump over his head. "I want him to tell me! Legilimency just seems wrong!"
"Think what you want!" Snape stalked to behind his desk again. "It doesn't make you any less an idiot!"
Not too many days after this lesson, The Quibbler released the interview. While Harry received a week of detention, lost fifty points for his House, and lost all privileges to visit Hogsmeade, he didn't care because the truth was out and, by the word of at least half the letters he had received, people were believing him. Umbridge had even done the one thing to ensure that everyone read the article: she banned it from school. By the end of the week, he could hear people debating it in the halls. Even the teachers showed their support such as Sprout who awarded twenty points to Slytherin (in all the years Harry had been at Hogwarts she had never awarded Slytherin so much as a single point in her class) when he had passed her a watering while Trelawney predicted that Harry would not die an early death, but instead live to be very old, become Minister of Magic, and have twelve kids.
But what made Harry happiest was when Snape, who would have under any other circumstances never done this, permitted Harry's potion class to have a free period instead of sitting through that day's lesson, provided they kept their volume reasonable and they didn't break anything. Theodore had, faithfully, started working on homework and Harry had found himself mimicking him, which earned him a toffee discreetly tossed into his lap from his Professor.
Of course, the Slytherins whose parents he had ratted out, with the exception of Theo, had begun giving him the cold shoulder and Malfoy had even tried hex Harry on multiple occasions.
"Why are you still hanging around him?"
Harry had been about to head up to his dorm after finishing his homework when he had paused outside it and discovered that Goyle, Crabbe, and Malfoy were facing a calm-appearing Theodore.
"He betrayed your father!" Malfoy was saying. "He betrayed you!"
"Am doing as I was instructed." Theodore replied in his smooth tone. "Was told to get close to him and that's what I have done."
"You're playing him?" Draco sounded uncertain.
"And he believes me." Theodore's answer made Harry's stomach churn and his chest ache. "As long as he is sure I am not bothered by my father being turned over, he will trust me. Will believe I am on his side and this is what I can give to my father and...his master. What have you to offer?"
Not wanting to hear more, Harry turned and started out of the Slytherin House, scar prickling and head pounding. Without realizing it he had found himself in Snape's office and confided to him his fears and misgivings.
"If Theodore is on your side," Snape pulled a vial down off a shelf. "Than it means he is turning his back on the father he adores and abandoning the path, which he will be expected to take."
"Father he adores?" Harry shook his head. "How? That man tried to kill him!"
"Here. Apply this to your scar. It should cool it." Snape passed the vial to Harry, who began to do as he was instructed. "Nott still remembers what it was like when he had a father who didn't hate him. When Theodore was born, the Notts were lucky to have him. He was a miracle child as they were well aged and had come to the conclusion they would not be having any children. This blessing they spoiled and cherished and adored and, naturally, they taught him all about his Pure-blood heritage. Of course, his mother had to ruin everything. She believed love would win out if she confessed her secret as she thought her husband loved her. She was foolish. Nott Sr. had only married her because of her blood and the heir she was meant to provide and he felt no love for her. When she told him the truth, whatever "like" he had of her quickly reverted to hate and...this hate turned upon the son he had thought was pure and a blessing. He saw Theodore now as only a product of lies and sign of his own shortcomings and this hate spawned resentment and disgust and a dismissal of Theodore as his own. Nothing with even a hint of "Muggle" was permitted to be his son."
"That's why Theodore hates Muggles and Mud...uh..." Red splashed across his face at his own mistake and he amended hastily. "Muggle-borns, right?"
"Yes." Snape took the offered vial back from Harry and returned it to its place on the shelf. "He sees them as the source of his suffering. Had Muggles and Muggle-borns never existed, he would not have lost the adoration of his father. He resents them as much as his father despises him. Furthermore, he sees a need to prove himself to his father. He wishes for his father to see that the wizard blood dominates the bit of Muggle his mother brought with her and he strives to excel beyond normality and prove to his father that he is every bit the son Nott Sr. had hoped for."
"And this is why you believe he can't be rooting for me?"
"It goes against everything he has worked so hard for over the past few years. If he can do this one thing for his father, even if it means turning you in or doing whatever it is Nott Sr. has asked of him, perhaps he can win his father's love at long last."
Harry had never had such an uneasy sleep before.
His next Occlumency lesson had Harry finally repel Snape from his brain only to wind up swimming in Snape's thoughts. If only he hadn't gone through the door from his dream during the next bought of Snape-in-his-head.
"Have you been practicing?" Snape growled at him.
"Yes!" Harry rubbed ferociously at his scar. "I don't know what else to do! I mean, I haven't had the dream of the corridor in ages, but then we do this and I am suddenly going through the door! And my scar hurts all the time! And I can still see things when he gets angry or happy! I feel like I'm not making any progress!"
"You are making exceptional progress." Snape told him and Harry lifted his eyes hopefully. "You are simply not learning it fast enough."
He handed Harry the vial he had given him last time. "Keep it. Use it whenever your scar burns and it should relieve it. When you run out, inform me and I shall supply you with more."
"Thank you, sir." Harry quickly applied some of the ointment to his forehead and the burning sensation subsided.
"I want you to fight the dreams." Snape instructed Harry in a quiet voice. "When you realize you are someplace you shouldn't be or if you feel like you have possessed the Dark Lord's mind, I want you to wake yourself up. By doing so, you will learn to leave his mind and stay in your own. This will help you occlude your mind."
"Yes, sir..." Harry capped the vial and then a question escaped his mouth before he could stop it. "Sir, why do you call him the Dark Lord? The rest of the Order doesn't and I've only ever heard the Death Eaters use that title."
Snape's brow rose. "Shouldn't that be your answer then?"
"But you're a spy, not a Death Eater?"
"And say I did start calling him You-Know-Who or some other Order-friendly moniker," Snape sneered, eyes glinting. "How do you think the Dark Lord would react if I accidentally slipped one of these nicknames before him or his followers?"
Harry smiled before he could stop himself and he earned himself a smack. "Sorry...I just thought...that'd be...well, not funny because he'd probably...you know...not do something nice...but I guess I just imagined...you calling him something funny and...I don't know..."
Snape rolled his eyes. "And what kind of "funny" name could possibly be applied to the Dark Lord, Potter?"
"I don't know." Harry was fighting down the giggles that threatened to surface. "Voldy or Snake-face or The Riddler or...Tom."
Snape's brow raised. "Tom?"
"Yes, Tom." Harry started to laugh despite the glare he was receiving. "I'm sorry, Professor, sir, but...I just...pictured you calling him...Tom...and the look he'd give you."
"Oh, I'm so glad to see you make light of any impending torture I may receive." Snape drawled.
"Sorry..." Harry almost immediately stopped laughing.
A scream interrupted their conversation and they had gone out to find Trelawney being dismissed by Umbridge, though Dumbledore and McGonagall saved her from being sent off the grounds as this power still lay within the headmaster, who then introduced Firenze as the new Divination teacher.
"Lucky." Theodore elbowed Harry, causing the boy to jump and then give a nervous smile.
Things went from bad to worse when Dobby informed them on their Patronus Practice in D.A. that Umbridge was coming for them. Theodore had tried incredibly hard to protect Harry in their run, taking the hit when Draco had tried to hex them, and permitting Harry several more minutes of escape time, but he had been caught regardless and taken to Dumbledore's office.
If it hadn't been for the recruitment list, things would have ended a lot nicer, but Dumbledore took the fall for Harry and the following day Umbridge was the new headmistress with a newly appointed Inquisitorial Squad. The day would have been hell (Malfoy was taking points from everyone except the Slytherins, Ron was blaming Harry, and Umbridge had tried to get the truth from Harry using Veritaserum, he assumed) if the Weasley twins hadn't released an enormous crate full of fireworks, which would do more damage the more one tried to get rid of them, much to Harry's amusement. Even better, the teachers were deliberately unhelpful, asking Umbridge to handle the fireworks as they believed they didn't have the proper authority to get rid of them on their own.
Of course, Snape was the most evil of all the teachers, intentionally performing Vanishing Spells on the fireworks, which caused they to multiply, before calling Umbridge to handle them when the room was so full of sparks and smoke that one couldn't see in front of their own hand. He cancelled almost all of his classes that day and permitted the students to run amok through the halls.
To top off the day, Harry began a dream down the corridor, hand reaching for the knob, and decided he wanted to wake up. To his shock, after several seconds' worth of struggling, he had succeeded.
He reported this small victory to Snape who congratulated him on his improvement.
"You must continue this effort until he cannot show you these dreams. This is very important."
"Yes, sir." Harry took out his wand, ready for his next lesson, but Malfoy arrived, interrupting them, and informed Snape that Montague, who had gone missing thanks to the Weasley twins, had been found by Umbridge in a toilet. Snape dismissed Harry's lesson until tomorrow.
Snape and Malfoy gone, Harry also rose to leave, only to notice the Pensieve glistening on the Potion Masters' desk. Not wanting to leave such a vulnerable and valuable thing out where anyone could access it, Harry gripped the sides of the Pensieve to move it into a more concealed place, except his hand slipped on the wet side and it crashed back onto the desk, water slopping around the edges and a strand of memory slapping Harry square in the face.
He landed hard on the stone floor of the Great Hall and took several seconds to clear his spinning head and rise achingly from the floor. Desperately, his gaze spun around, trying to figure out how to get out of the memory, until he froze at the sight of himself.
Only it wasn't himself: it was his father. Aside from a longer nose, lack of scar, and hazel eyes, James looked exactly like Harry. In fact, they were probably only an inch of each other's heights. His gaze swept the hall, set up from O.W.L. testing, and found the other three Marauder's and Snape, who gave Harry an uncanny impression of Theodore as he wrote diligently five times more than the students around him.
After getting over the shock of what he was beholding, Harry again tried to escape the memory, only to find himself forced to accompany Snape when they started to leave the Great Hall after the test. He stuck close to his father, wanting to learn about him, see him, and get to know the man he would never have the opportunity to meet in person, while he continued to try to figure out how to get out. Was it a spell? Did he just think to leave?
Than things got ugly. Sirius, being bored, and James attacked Snape and Lily, Harry's mother, tried to stop them. Despite subconsciously knowing he could do nothing to the people in the dream, Harry had instinctively attacked James and Sirius on several occasions throughout the memory as things escalated to worse when James hung Snape upside down. Harry had jumped between the curse, but, of course, it had hit Snape.
"Stop!" Harry begged the memory in a howl of bewilderment and desperation. "Let me out! I don't want to be in here! I-I don't want to see this! I never wanted to see this! Let me out!"
Snape was on the ground again per Lily's demand, which James pointed out how this made Snape lucky.
"I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!"
Harry nearly dropped his wand, which he didn't realize until now that he was holding. Lily seemed stunned, though she recovered quickly.
"Fine. I won't bother in future. And I'd wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus."
"No!" Harry roared at her. "What are you thinking? He's in Slytherin! Of course, he doesn't mean it! How dense are you?"
No one was listening to him as Lily called James on his arrogance before storming off. Then James had spelled Snape back up into the air.
"Who wants to see me take of Snivelly's pants?"
"Monster!" Harry spat on the ground, shaking so hard he was having a time of trying to keep his wand in his hand.
Then something grabbed him and he was yanked from the memory.
"Ever heard of respecting other people's privacy, Potter." Snape's words were pouring over him before Harry had even stabilized himself. There was water all over Snape's desk, soaking into third year's essays and dribbling onto the floor. He could feel the water soaking into his own robes as he feebly took a seat in a chair.
"I...didn't mean to." Harry mumbled, refusing to look Snape in the eyes. "I had only meant to move it somewhere, so anyone who happened upon it didn't come prying...but it slipped and I found myself in it and I didn't know how to get out..."
"Did it not occur to you that, if I was concerned with it being pried into, that I would have put it into hiding myself, Potter?"
"I...no..." Harry swallowed hard.
"And I am to take it by your word that you had not intended to pry yourself?"
"If you don't believe me..." He looked at his Professor in the eyes. "You can Legilimens me if you want."
"I...believe you..." Snape's voice was a whisper as he spoke, fury in his eyes and the tightness of his lips, but the rest of his features seemed relaxed. "You will not repeat what you say to anybody."
"Of course." Harry replied quickly, sympathy coming to his tone. "I mean, why would I when I..."
"You do not have to console me, Potter." Snape's voice was very tight when he spoke as if he was resisting saying something. "I am fully aware that you and I hold many similarities in this regard. I do not need to hear it."
"Sorry, sir." Harry let his gaze drop to the floor. "I...really am sorry."
"Enough." Snape was speaking so incredibly quiet that Harry had to strain to hear him. "Leave. Tomorrow you will resume your lessons."
Harry didn't bother speaking another word and merely nodded before heading to Slytherin House where he ignored Theodore and went straight to his dormitory. Once changed and in bed, Harry stared at the canopy above him, face red and stomach churning with self-loathing and guilty resolution. His father had been exactly as Snape had described and if Harry despised anyone it was people like his father, people like Dudley, people like Ronald...he was going to prove to Snape that he wasn't like any of these people. He wasn't a bully or a monster or evil for no apparent reason. If it was the last thing he did, Harry vowed to be better than his father ever was.
Well, it's not as long as it was before, but I can't remember word-for-word what I wrote originally and therefore: this. I don't think it is as long as it was either. Grr...well, at least this didn't take me nearly as long to write. You had better appreciate it! (Jk jk :D)