Seven Drops and Asphodel Blooms
Summary: When Harry blows up his aunt during the summer, Dumbledore is much quicker to react. Snape finds him far before the Minister does, but his plan of dropping him off with a lecture and half a dozen additional summer assignments doesn't work out.
In which Harry spends the summer at Spinner's End.
Chapter 24
The weekend after the first task, Harry bumped into Fleur on his way to the owlery. She caught sight of him at the same time that he spotted her. Harry thought at first it was the usual 'Is that Harry Potter?' double-take, but he started doubting it when Fleur walked towards him with confident strides.
"I heard you have warned Diggory about the dragons," she said in a thick French accent.
It was the first time they'd ever exchanged words. Harry didn't know what to make of it. "I did."
"You have told Krum as well."
"Your headmistress already knew," he protested, realizing what she was getting at. He couldn't say for sure if he would have told anybody about the dragons had he not spotted Maxime, but he knew that if he'd told somebody, he'd have told them all.
If he'd had any doubt that Cedric would have done the same thing, he only needed to remember the Quidditch match in which he'd (unsuccessfully) demanded a repeat of the game after Harry's fall from his broom.
But Fleur shook her head with far more flourish than the action required. "That is not what I mean."
Two passing Ravenclaws gave them odd looks, but Fleur didn't pay them any mind.
"You could have told your own champion. Not Krum."
This again. Harry was getting a bit tired about people telling him he should have let Krum go into the first task blind. Sure, he wanted Cedric to win as much as any other Hogwarts student, but he wasn't going to cheat to put him ahead of the others. "That wouldn't have been fair," he said curtly, hoping she'd get annoyed if he was being rude and leave.
No such luck. She looked at him with a scrutinizing gaze that did nothing to distract from how beautiful she was. It occurred to Harry that she was probably as used to people gawking at her as he was used to people staring at his scar.
"I will remember this," Fleur said, an odd sort of shine in her eyes.
Harry was trying to decide if she'd meant it as some kind of a threat when she'd already skipped away, leaving him standing in the hallway. He shook his head, putting the encounter from his mind, and continued on to the owlery to send a letter to Sirius.
Their lessons continued, and Harry found a spell that Snape resolutely refused to teach him. He'd stumbled upon it in Snape's NEWT-level Potions book—'Advanced Potion-Making', which he was only allowed to read occasionally—so Snape must have been a bit older when inventing it.
"Why not?" Harry frowned, still holding 'Advanced Potion-Making' in his hand. "What does it do?"
Instead of answering, Snape made a slashing motion with his wand and hissed, "Sectumsempra."
The empty chair in front of Harry fell apart, cut into two pieces.
Before Harry could decide if he was disappointed by such an anticlimactic result, Snape muttered, "Reparo."
The two halves of the chair tried to stick themselves back together feebly, but broke apart almost immediately. One of the legs broke off as they toppled over a second time, and rolled sadly across the stone floor.
"Had I targeted a living being," Snape said, "the wound would have been almost impossible to heal through magical means."
"How?" Madam Pomfrey had always healed his injuries so effortlessly, even regrowing the bones of Harry's arm in his second year. A part of him found it hard to believe that there was anything she was incapable of mending.
"Dark magic does not mix with other spells."
Harry's throat felt dry. He stared at the broken chair. "Why did you invent a spell like that?"
"Because I could."
Though Snape's honesty meant a lot to Harry, his words stirred something uncomfortable in his gut.
Ever since the first task, Cedric had started treating the trio almost like they were friends. He'd always been friendly, sure, but now he seemed to make a point out of greeting them in the hallways, stopping by for a quick chat when they happened to meet in the library, and keeping them up-to-date on his progress with the golden egg—though so far he didn't seem to be having much luck.
It was a little odd at first, considering Cedric was several years older, but in the end it wasn't all that different from hanging out with Ron's brothers.
Harry hadn't had anybody bother him about Skeeter's articles in weeks, and even Malfoy and his goons had gotten bored of it after fewer and fewer people still laughed at their taunting.
Once or twice Cedric even gave them pointers for whatever they were working on that day. It turned out that having friends in the upper years had its perks.
"Just wait till Sprout lets you into greenhouse number 4," Cedric said, his Transfiguration essay not having grown past its measly two paragraphs for a while now. "It's where she keeps some of her favorite plants. Like her venomous tentacula—though we only started studying that one this year, so it'll be a while for you guys."
Hermione hung onto his every word, but Harry secretly thought that he'd gladly wait to handle something called a venomous tentacula for another few years—or indefinitely.
"I've read that it has one of the highest numbers of defense mechanisms of all known magical plants," Hermione said, her eyes gleaming. "Venom, obviously, but also spikes that are sharp enough to cut through wood, vines that can strangle most of its predators—humans included—and fangs that bite with the strength of a shark."
"Sounds about as fun as the devil's snare," Ron muttered, but Cedric didn't seem to have heard and Hermione straight up ignored him.
Even Ron had warmed up to Cedric by now, having been forced to admit that the older boy wasn't just nice to a fault, he was also surprisingly fun to be around. How Fred and George had managed to hold onto their grudge despite being in the same year as him (and thus presumably sharing some classes), Harry had no clue.
There was a commotion at the library entrance as Fleur bustled in with some of her classmates—a rarer sight than Krum, but one that had become more and more frequent since the first task.
Madam Pince shot them a scathing look. With all three champions (one of which had been famous even before being chosen for the tournament) it'd be almost impossible to keep the library quiet—though not for lack of trying, seeing as she instantly prowled through the narrow rows, descending upon careless students with a finger on her lips and an ear-drum piercing "Shh!"
Harry thought it probably wasn't a coincidence that all the champions came here more and more often. They all had probably the same thing on their minds. Lowering his voice, he asked, "Had any luck with the egg?"
Cedric grimaced. "Not yet. I'm still looking."
But apparently they hadn't spoken quietly enough. Krum poked out his head from behind a nearby bookshelf as if he'd been summoned, meeting Harry's gaze with one of his usual scowls.
"He's coming over," Ron hissed quite needlessly.
Hermione huffed at Ron's behavior, but didn't call him out as Krum was quickly reaching their table.
"Come with me," Krum grumbled, addressing a baffled-looking Cedric.
"Uh," Cedric said. "Why?"
"Have something to say." Krum paused, his frown deepening. "I have," he corrected. "To you."
"Look, man," Cedric pushed himself to his feet, "I don't know what this is about, but—"
But Krum seemed to have waited long enough and interrupted with a terse, "Put it in water. The egg. Will tell you about next task."
He shuffled off as abruptly as he'd come.
Harry, who'd genuinely considered the possibility that Krum might try to lure Cedric away from witnesses to beat him up (that was just the sort of vibe Krum gave off), stared after him.
"Well that was something," Cedric muttered, either far less taken-aback than Harry or hiding it much better.
They watched Krum awkwardly approach Fleur not much later, supporting the theory that he genuinely might not have known how to start a conversation without coming across as threatening. They couldn't make out what he said, but considering it couldn't be more than a few short sentences (and taking into account Fleur's look of surprise), it was probably a decent guess that not only had he returned Harry's favor by helping out the Hogwarts champion, he'd also extended the gesture to Fleur.
The Goblet of Fire, so it seemed, had done its job well in choosing worthy champions. Once again, all three of them were on the same page.
Harry was starting to get annoyed about the Neville situation. Of course it wasn't just Neville Snape was treating horribly (and had for the entire time Harry had been going to Hogwarts), but he, being naturally clumsy and hopelessly terrified of Snape, often got the brunt of Snape's nastiness.
While it was far from the first time Harry had brought it up, he'd never seriously pressed the issue after being dismissed by Snape. He was starting to seriously regret ever having backed off. Why was he still letting him get away with it? Harry couldn't have changed Snape's mind a year or two ago, but now everything was different. It had been for a while.
The more time passed, the more selfish Harry felt. He got along just fine with Snape, and he'd noticed that Snape was targeting Ron and Hermione as rarely as he did Harry these days. But the others weren't getting bullied any less.
He'd taken up glaring at Snape whenever he singled out Neville. Then, realizing it had close to no effect, he acted out in class on purpose. It annoyed Snape to no end, since Harry was supposed to know better than to mess around while brewing.
Harry decided to count it as a win even as he started serving regular detentions alongside those that were actually after-class lessons.
Harry had by now told Hermione about Kreacher and regretted it only a little. She'd beamed at him when he'd mentioned the locket he'd given back, musing it must have been important to Kreacher, but she'd also doubled her efforts in her house-elf liberation agenda.
She once in a while disappeared much like she had been doing last year, when she'd used her time turner to keep up her impossible class schedule. Instead of doing school work she now visited the kitchens.
"I can't believe you haven't run out of things to ask them," Harry told her after another afternoon she'd spent interrogating Dobby, Winky and however many other elves would talk to her.
"I can't believe they're not getting tired of answering yet," Ron muttered under his breath.
But no matter what they said, Hermione wouldn't let herself be deterred. Harry was only waiting for the day she'd inevitably stop accepting their excuses for not coming with her.
Harry could easily admit that both he and Snape were stubborn to a fault, so it seemed like no matter how far things escalated during Potions, neither of them was going to cave.
Neville made a mess in class that attracted Snape's ire. Harry made an even bigger mess, forcing Snape to change targets.
Snape berated Neville for a minor shortcoming. Harry knocked over his cauldron on purpose and forced the entire class to evacuate.
Finally, almost three weeks after their passive-aggressive standoff had begun, Snape seemed to have had enough of sending him acrid looks throughout his lessons.
"You will stop this nonsense at once," he said after Harry had set up his supplies. Since Harry had improved but not gained any more enjoyment out of brewing, Snape hadn't yet tried to find something to replace their (actual) detentions with.
Harry slammed down his scale next to his cutting board. "You first."
"This is not up for debate," Snape said tersely. "You've made your point. Do not strain my patience further."
Whatever fear Harry might have had left for the man had evaporated at some point of his second summer at Spinner's End. "You're supposed to have changed," he said, scowling at the dragon liver in need of preparing. "That includes classes."
"We've had this conversation before."
"Exactly."
"Meaning that it is over."
A particularly harsh jab of his cutting knife sent a piece of liver tumbling down the desk. "No."
Snape met his glare head-on and said nothing.
"You know I only let it go last year because I thought you might still try to expel me?"
"And you believe that is no longer the case?" Snape sneered.
"I know it isn't."
"Oh?" Snape switched stirring the so-far watery contents of the cauldron from clockwise to counter-clockwise. "Do tell me what gives you that impression."
"What are you gonna do? Send me home and write a letter to yourself?"
Snape huffed out a breath of air. For a moment they went through the motions of preparing and adding ingredients, and it almost felt like they'd come to the dungeons for one of their brief visits during the summer.
But Harry would be furious with himself if he let Snape's behavior slide yet again. "I don't get why you can't just make an effort."
"It is none of your concern how I choose to teach my students."
"Funny that," Harry said flatly, "considering I'm one of them."
Snape adjusted the fire underneath the cauldron and added juniper roots with a care that did not match the stormy look on his face. "I've never taught differently."
"And that's supposed to mean something? Do better."
Snape slammed down the ladle he'd been about to dip into the potion and clenched his hands. "It does not work that way."
"Why not? You changed for me."
Pale hands spasmed around the ladle. "Perhaps."
"So what's different about this?" Harry pressed.
The potion in front of them bubbled cheerfully. Harry couldn't remember if adding the next ingredient was time-sensitive, so he decided to wait.
"I could not tell you how I managed it then," Snape finally said.
"Managed what? To be less of a git?"
Ignoring Snape's glare, Harry headed for the storage to fetch a bundle of dried asphodel. By the time he'd returned Snape had lowered the flames until only a dim glimmer underneath the cauldron remained. Harry took it as his cue to add the dandelion sap.
Snape paused. "How much did you add?"
"Five drops."
"Make it seven."
Harry dribbled in two more drops and grabbed the asphodel. Putting aside the stems and leaves, he slowly filled a bowl with the blossoms.
"Changing for the better is not as simple as you make it out to be," Snape continued.
"Please." Harry scoffed. "You're saying you can invent magic spells and read minds, but not acting like a jerk is beyond you?"
"We are not talking about a science." Snape let out his anger by igniting the stems and leaves Harry had discarded.
Harry squinted his eyes at the sudden brightness, but didn't flinch.
"It is nothing like magic or brewing. I cannot find the right incantation to make me a better person. I cannot study it out of a book." Gesturing harshly to the heap of asphodel Harry had collected, Snape spat, "I cannot add seven drops and asphodel blooms to make it happen."
Harry wordlessly dropped the asphodel into the cauldron one handful at a time. He'd been so sure that Snape was just being difficult and stubborn, and while he was definitely both of those things, maybe there was more to it.
More quietly, he suggested, "Why don't you just do what you did for me?"
Snape's scoff sounded half-hearted at best. "Which would be?"
"Just... I don't know." Harry paused, staring at the forest green contents of the cauldron. "You started making an effort after you found out about... you know."
Snape said nothing.
"There's gotta be more students who are… like me. At home, I mean. Unhappy."
"What is your point?"
Harry shrugged. He picked apart one of the asphodel blossoms until the desk was covered in tiny white shreds. "Maybe you could just try to think of that during class. When you're about to… do what you do. You don't have to– I mean, I think it would be enough if you weren't another reason they're feeling like... feeling like I did. When I was still... still at the Dursleys, I mean."
The silence was broken only by the bubbling cauldron and the low sizzle of the flames.
Speaking in hardly more than a whisper, Snape asked him, "Is that how I used to make you feel?"
And though Harry couldn't bring himself to answer, that was the moment he thought Snape might have finally understood.
A/N:
:)
xxx
Huge thanks to my wonderful betas To Mockingbird, Igornerd, flyingcat and ethirielalways!
~Gwen
