Rules of the Game by margot_llama
Past Featured StorySummary: AU. Harry, on the night the first letter came, was dumped by the Dursley's in London. Now, three months later, he is found and expected to lead a normal life at Hogwarts. But, where Harry Potter is concerned, can anything be normal? Mild abuse, neglect.
Categories: Teacher Snape > Trusted Mentor Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required)
Snape Flavour: None
Genres: Drama
Media Type: None
Tags: Alternate Universe
Takes Place: 1st summer before Hogwarts, 1st Year
Warnings: Alcohol Use
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 35 Completed: No Word count: 95472 Read: 197392 Published: 22 Sep 2006 Updated: 29 Jan 2007
Chapter 28: Boggarts and Dementors by margot_llama

Harry was a little sad to see the summer end. No more private time with Snape, no more breakfasts with Tookie, no more—was this what summer felt like? Being fun and carefree? No more summer. He made careless mistakes all the day before in their lessons—including an explosion that burned his arm (the bad one, the one he had broken and the one the basilisk had bitten) badly enough for Snape to stop and bandage it. He was distracted.

He didn’t mind as much when Snape brought him to the train station.

“I’ll be going ahead, Potter, of course.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I—“ Snape cleared his throat and put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. This Harry would miss too. Snape seemed to be working on being able to casually touch Harry, and he put a hand on his shoulder when ever Harry seemed to need it. “You may always come to my office, of course, Mr. Potter. I trust that your tutorials shall continue, as well. And I hope—“ Here Snape’s hand tightened firmly, “I hope you remember what I have told you about Black.”

“I do. I—I won’t do anything stupid, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s precisely what I mean.” He gripped Harry’s shoulder for another moment, then released. “Go find Granger and Longbottom. I shall see you at Hogwarts.”

The train was packed that year, and the three could only find one compartment. Once they had dragged their trunks in, however, they had realized someone else was in there.

“Who’s that?” Harry asked.

“Dunno,” Neville whispered. “Looks like he’s asleep.”

Hermione pointed to the case over his head. “He’s a professor. Probably to replace Lockhart.”

Harry, Hermione, and Neville made themselves comfortable in their compartment on the train and started to talk about Lockhart’s dismissal, which had coincided with the events of last year. Some Slytherin had stumbled into his office to find him in an unflattering night shirt and with his hair all mussed, and Lockhart had promptly Obliviated them. Unfortunately, the boy had gone straight to the Headmaster, afraid he was possessed, and the Headmaster had found out the truth and fired the man. The Slytherin had ambushed him at the gates of the school, supposedly, and Obliviated him in return, though no one could conclude that. When they got bored with that topic, Hermione started playing with Crookshanks as Neville tried to convince her to change the cats name.

“It’s just plain mean to him, Hermione! So he’s got wonky legs—so what! Shouldn’t have to be his name.”

“Crookshanks is a fine name, isn’t it, darling?” Hermione cooed to the cat.

“But Tiger—he looks like a tiger, doesn’t he, Harry?”

“He does,” Harry said as he nibbled on a chocolate frog.

“But Crookshanks is his name. I can’t take it away from him—it’s his.”

“True,” Harry said as he bit the frogs head off.

The two bickered good naturedly about it until the door to their compartment slid open and two Weasley heads poked in.

“Oh, hallo,” Ron said. “Mind if we—AARGH!”

He had been holding scabbers, and the cat in question had lunged at him, growling, until Ron shut the door quickly, shutting himself in the hallway and somehow stranding his sister in their compartment.

“Er—hello,” Harry said.

The girl squeaked and ran. Hermione gave the cat a measuring grin.

“Perhaps Tiger could be a sort of—nickname.”

Neville whooped in glee.

The conversation turned to Hogsmeade, and Harry turned glum.

“I can’t go.”

“But—it’s supposed to be wicked! Candy shops and toy shops and joke shops—“

“The Shrieking Shack is the most haunted place in Britain! The whole town is an educational land mine!”

“I can’t go,” Harry repeated. “My uncle ripped up my form.”

Neville narrowed his eyes. “Bugger. Well—you could always ask Snape—“

“No, he couldn’t sign. I asked him first night of break.”

Hermione’s forehead wrinkled and she looked thoughtful. “Well—maybe it’s for the best. With Black out, I mean. But—“ Hermione said quickly, seeing the crushed look on Harry’s face, “But that doesn’t mean that we’ll go without you.”

“No way!” Neville said. “Either we all go, or we all stay. Bet it’s a good time for exploring, with only the littles around.”

Harry cheered up a bit, and Hermione turned the conversation to an amazing book she had read bout something or another. She had just started to exclaim the merits of Peppermytyn Twine, a wizard from the eighteenth century, when the train stopped.

“We can’t be there already, can we?” Neville asked, peering out the window. “W-where are we?”

Suddenly the compartment was very cold and dark.

Harry wrapped his arms around himself and shivered. Neville did as well, but Hermione was merely looking pale. She reached out next to her and started to shake the sleeping man.

“Professor,” she hissed, then she started to shake him harder. “Professor, wake up, please!”

It was then that the door to their compartment opened and some…thing floated in.

It was the stuff of nightmares. A tall, menacing shadow clad in a tattered black cloak. A single hand protruded from the folds of it, a hand that was gray and slimy and decayed—

Harry felt the cold pick up as a sucking noise came from the shadow. This was more than a wind, this was as though they had all been plunged into the ocean in winter, like the time Dudley had turned the hose on him in mid-January, this was ice freezing all over his body—

He could feel Neville going stiff beside him, hear his whimpers, but it took him a moment to figure out what was happening. Before it hit, he grabbed Neville’s hand and squeezed.

Screams filled the compartment. Pleading yells, cries of pain, and worse, a women yelling ‘Not Harry! Not Harry! Not Harry!’ He had to stop it, he had to save her, she was his mum, wasn’t she, she needed him and he tried to move, tried to yell, but it was too cold to move anything and all he could see was blackness—

He woke to someone slapping his face and crying. At first he thought it was still the woman from before, but no, this was Hermione.

“Harry! Harry, wake up! Wake up! Neville! Neville, please, Harry, wake up, please!”

Harry opened his eyes and tried to sit up, but was immediately knocked to the ground by Hermione hugging him ferociously.

“Oh, Harry!”

“What—what happened? Where’s Neville?” He tried to push his glasses up, but he found he was still gripping Neville’s hand, and Neville was gripping his right back. He looked more scared then he ever had before, even in the Chamber or when the Queen took him out in first year.

“H-harry,” Neville stuttered out, gripping his hand even tighter. “Y-y-you’re okay.”

“I—what happened? Where did that thing go?”

“Professor Lupin,” Hermione answered. “He sent it away with—it looked like a giant silver cloud, but it made it go away.”

“Who screamed?” Harry asked.

Hermione looked puzzled and nervous. “No one screamed.”

“But I heard—someone was screaming.” For a moment Harry was scared he was going mad, like last year, but Neville’s hand tightened in his.

“I—I heard it too. A man, right?”

“No,” Harry said. “A woman…she was yelling my name—“

A loud crack stopped this conversation, and the three turned to look at Professor Lupin. He was holding a bar of choclate and had snapped it in half.

“Here,” he said kindly, handing some to Harry and Neville, who snapped a bit off of his and gave it to Hermione. “Eat this, it will help.”

“What—“

“That was a Dementor. One of the Dementor’s of Azkaban.”

“Professor,” Hermione asked, her eyes still scared though she seemed a bit more under control. “What did they do to Harry and Nevile?”

The man sighed. “A Dementor makes you relive your worst memories. Harry and Neville have—worse memories than most.”

Harry licked his lips and swallowed, taking a tiny bite of the chocolate. It was like he had just drank an entire pot of hot chocolate, his stomach felt warm and so did his limbs. He looked to Neville, who still seemed frozen, and he nudged him until he took a bite. He too, seemed a bit better.

“So—so the people in Azkaban,” Neville asked shakily. “They feel that way all the time?”

“Yes,” Professor Lupin said. His eyes looked pained.

“G-good,” Neville said. Harry couldn’t help but agree.

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They arrived at the school still shaky, but none the worse for ware. Malfoy had seen them and sneered, but he seemed a bit shaken as well. When they arrived in the school, McGonagall was waiting nervously in the Great Hall.

“Mr. Potter, Mr. Longbottom, Miss Granger! With me, if you please.”

They followed her until they arrived at her office. She sat at her desk and offered them each a tin of chocolate biscuits.

“Professor Lupin owled ahead and said you’d been taken ill on the train, Mr. Potter, Mr. Longbottom.”

Harry nodded slowly, but Neville asked a question.

“I—Professor Lupin, he said they make you relive your worst memories—but I don’t ever remember hearing that.”

Professor McGonagall looked pained. “We shall discuss this at a later time, Mr. Longbottom.”

“He—the man. Was that my dad? Was—“

“Later, Mr. Longbottom.”

“I don’t remember mine either,” Harry said quickly. “It was—it was my mum, wasn’t it? When he—“

“I do not know, personally, what your memories are. If you would like to discuss this at a later time and tell me in full detail, we may do so. But now is not the right time.” McGonagall looked stern and sad on this point. “Later. I promise you.”

The boys relucatantly agreed.

At this point, Madam Pomfrey bustled in like a whirlwind, checking each of the boys for fever and shoving bits of chocolate into their mouths. She finally let them go with the stern order that if they should feel any depression or pain, to go immediately to the Infirmary, no matter the time.

While the two were being poked and prodded by Madam, Professor McGonagall was having a serious talk with Hermione. She handed her a brown paper parcel and, at the end of the talk, patted the girl on the shoulder. The three made their way, quietly, to the feast, where Neville could barely bring himself to load up Harry’s plate.

Ron Weasley seemed shaky as well. All through the headmasters speech he sat passively next to his brother Percy. When the Dementors were mentioned, he shivered, and Percy put a concerned hand on the boys shoulder.

Their dormitory was very quiet that night, and before Harry fell asleep he thought he heard Neville crying in the bed next to him.

Harry woke up in considerably better spirits the next morning, as did Neville. The three set out for breakfast, where Neville loaded twice the amount of food as normal onto Harry’s plate and his own. He even put extra toast on Hermione’s.

“We’ll need stregnth,” he said, and the three tucked in.

Divination was their first class that year, and Hermione seemed a bit preoccupied. When Neville pointed out that her bag looked a bit heavy, she merely said she wanted to be reading up for her other classes in her spare time. Harry had not liked the class, as a whole, which had consisted of Professor Trelawney seeing the Grim in his cup.

“I quite liked tea,” Harry said sadly as they left the classroom. “Never feel the same way about it, will I, not if I have to keep looking in it for portents of doom—“

Hermione merely snorted and called the whole thing rubbish, as did Professor McGonagall.

Neville seemed to have something on his mind, though, and he announced to the other two as they walked to Care of Magical Creatures that he needed to talk to them that evening.

The class started out exciting, but ended badly. Hagrid called on Harry to ride the hippogriff, which Harry did, then Malfoy got jealous and called the hippogriff stupid and got himself hurt. Hagrid had promptly brought the boy to the hospital, and the boys felt badly.

“His first class ever and that happens,” Harry said. “It’s a shame.”

That night, Neville sat down with them in front of the fire and cleared his throat.

“I—d’you know why I live with my gran?”

Harry and Hermione shook their heads.

“My—my parents were—well, they were Aurors, you know, dark wizard catchers. They were friends with your parents, Harry. And they—they were—“ Neville blinked furiously.

“Did he—kill them too?” Harry asked, suddenly feeling like a very bad friend. To think, he had been ignorant of this for three years!

“No. He—when you defeated Him, Harry, my mum and dad came out of hiding cause they thought it was safe. But, but it wasn’t, really, and these—these people came and they—“ Here Neville started to sniffle, “They tried to get my parents to tell them how to bring back the Dark Lord. And, and my parents didn’t know and e-even if they did they wouldn’t tell, so they just—they kept casting an Unforgivable on them, and—“ A little tear dripped off of Neville’s nose.

“What happened to them, Neville?” Hermione asked gently.

“They’re in St. Mungo’s.” Neville started to cry. “They’re crazy.”

Harry wasn’t sure how long the three of them sat there. Hours, it felt like, maybe days. But Neville simply sat there, crying, and Hermione moved over and gave him a hug, and Harry grabbed Neville’s hand again.

And there they stayed, until Neville stopped crying. That night, when they parted ways, Harry sat on Neville’s bed for a while before he went to sleep.

“Do you miss them?” Harry asked.

“They—they aren’t dead.”

“But you still can miss them.”

“I—I do.” Here Neville almost broke into a fresh bout of tears. “I miss them a lot.”

Harry reached out and grabbed Neville’s shoulder. “Me too.”

That night, both Harry and Neville cried themselves to sleep.

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The next day dawned, and again spirits were rejuvenated. Once Neville realized that Harry and Hermione weren’t about to abandon him because his parents were mad, it went on like it had never happened. Like last year’s discovery of Harry’s secret, things remained unchanged between the three.

Potions that day was almost fun. Malfoy had deemed himself an invalid and set Ron Weasley to doing everything requiring two hands, which was irritating, but Harry and Neville were doing wonderfully on the potion. It was a Shrinking Solution, and Harry was furiously adding everything needed, but Neville and his two left feet had spilled half a dozen caterpillars in and turned it a bright, flourescent orange. Snape had threatened Trevor with the results, so Harry was putting all the skills he’d gained that summer to good use, trying to neutralize the effects. He succeeded, thankfully, and Snape gave Gryffindor five points—meager, to be sure, but Harry felt like it was five hundred. No one ever got points from Snape in Potions.

The class that afternoon was Defense Against the Dark Arts. Professor Lupin led them to the staff room, wands out, and when they entered Professor Snape was in there, reading a book.

“I believe I’ll stay for this,” Snape said, sneering at the Gryffindors. “What better entertainment could there be—watching Longbottom try to fight off a large cauldron filled with Potions ingredientss. I personally look forward to it.” He closed his book and settled back in his chair, and Neville let out a small ‘eep!’ while Harry tried to listen to everything Lupin said about the Boggart.

What would his be? Voldemort? A dementor? How would he defeat it? How could he even begin?

He started to plan, but looked over at Snape fearfully. What if he disgraced himself in front of Snape?

Neville was called upon first.

“Now, Neville, what is your greatest fear?”

Neville bit his lip and shrugged. “I—I’m scared of quite a lot of things, sir.”

“Try to think. What would scare you the most, if it came out of the cupboard right now?”

Neville mumbled something. Professor Lupin stepped forward. “What’s that?”

Nevile cleared his throat and said again. “I—Sirius Black.”

Something went over Lupin’s face, some cross of pain and betrayal, and he nodded. “Okay. Well—you live with your grandmother, Neville, yes?”

Neville nodded and felt Hermione’s comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Yes.”

“Well—can you imgine very clearly what your grandmother wears?”

“I—she’s got this green dress she wears on Sundays.” Harry, remembering said dress, stifled a laugh. “And a—a big handbag.”

“Alright. What I want you to do,” Lupin said, and then he whispered the rest of the instructions into Neville’s ear. Neville paled, nodded, and gripped his wand tightly.

“Ready then? Okay—remember, everyone, the spell is Riddikulus! Go on, Neville!”

Neville stepped forward, and suddenly a tall, terrifying man stepped out of the cupboard.

He was exactly as in the newspaper. His mouth was open in a rusty, manic laugh, and there was bloody all down his front.

“I killed them all,” rasped Black as he stumbled forward. “I’ve gotten all of them, now I’ll get you—“ The mans arm raised, a long, flashing knife in it, and people screamed as he brought the knife down towards Neville—

“R-r-riddikulus!” Neville squeaked, and suddenly the man stumbled. He was wearing a long, lacy green dress with a large red handbag taking the place of the knife. It bopped Neville harmlessly on the head, and Neville started to laugh.

“Alright, alright, someone else!” Professor Lupin cried out, and Seamus stepped forward, his chest puffed out.

Black immediately turned into a banshee, long black hair dragging against the floor as she started to wail--

“Riddikulus!”

She threw her hands to her throat as the unearthly noise turned to a croak.

“Next!” Dean Thomas stepped forward and paled as a disfigured, bloody hand started to make its way to Dean, crawling crablike—

“Riddikulus!” Dean cried out, and the hand got caught in a mouse trap.

“Forward!” yelled Lupin, and before anyone could stop him, Harry stepped in the path of the Boggart.

He had expected a Dementor, had decided to turn it into a balloon, but instead he saw Professor Snape.

He ducked a look behind him and saw Snape was there, sitting in the chair, looking frozen.

“Worthless,” the boggart said, “Absolutely worthless. Don’t know why it took me so long to see it—should have left you with those relatives, at least they could handle you.” Harry flinched back into a desk as he saw Snape raise a hand the way his uncle raised a hand, saw it start coming down—

“Riddikulus!” he cried out, and the hand caught Harry roughly on the shoulder and pulled him in, turning into his uncle, yelling into his face.

“RIDDIKULUS!” Harry bellowed, and it was as if the enormous man had sprung a leak, the air hissed out of him and he started to shrink.

Professor Lupin stepped forward to finish off the boggart, but Harry stared at his shoes, avoiding Snape’s glance at any cost. When the class was dismisssed, he bolted from the room, Neville and Hermione hot on his heels.

Remus Lupin looked, his expression blank, at Severus Snape, who seemed frozen in the chair, his face made of stone.

To be continued...


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