Harry sighed tiredly; absently rubbing the back of his right hand beneath the desk with his left as Delores Umbridge’s simpering voice delegated homework from the front of the classroom. I must not tell lies. His fingertips skimmed the slightly raised, opalescent lines spider-webbing his hand. This was the first DADA lesson in which Harry had managed to keep his mouth shut and ignore all provocation, focusing entirely on the useless information they were being force-fed. He couldn’t ever remember feeling so tired so early into the school term.

He didn’t know why he hadn’t told Ron or Hermione yet about what detentions with the pink, frilly toad currently standing before him actually entailed. But then, if he was honest with himself, it was probably the same reason he hadn’t told them the details of life with the Dursley’s either. He just. . . couldn’t.

It doesn’t matter anyway, he reasoned. He certainly had no intention of earning any more detentions with her. And it wasn’t like he wasn’t used to scars, he considered ruefully. The class was so close to being over. He remembered when Remus had been teaching them and how much he had enjoyed this class. It made him shudder to think of the year just gone and reflect that even a Death Eater taught DADA better than Umbridge. Not that anyone could ever tell her that, she didn’t believe in them.

Harry was watching and listening carefully through a veil of polite nonchalance. Almost over. Nearly there. He didn’t know why he was so anxious or why those detentions had shaken him as much as they had. He felt rather ridiculous really, just last year he had faced Voldemort and witnessed his rebirth – the event he relived in his worst nightmares almost nightly – and yet a few scratches on the back of his hand had him edgy enough to want to scarper as soon as he could. Hell, the events of last year had left him with a huge gash up his arm and he was unnerved by some tiny slices on his hand.

But thinking about her demeanour as she hungrily watched him cut into his own hand over and over and over for hours at a time, every night of the week. . . well, at least he knew why Voldemort did what he did.

He understood on some level Voldemort’s hunger for power which had torn him apart and become the all-consuming evil he was known for; he could accept the reality of it – it made sense whether he agreed with it or not, and considering it had torn his life apart he knew instinctively that he didn’t, it was something he had to search his soul over.

Perhaps he’d simply grown used to the idea of it over the years. Umbridge on the other hand completely unnerved him. The way she held so much power over his whole life without physically being dangerous but purely because she was in a position of authority and felt no qualms in using that. Much like Uncle Vernon he pondered dismally. Ever was there someone in charge of him who enjoyed the power. But then, his uncle had been physically dangerous. Feeling the bumps on the back of his hand he had to rethink Umbridge as well. Maybe, he wondered glumly, I’m just a lousy judge of character all round.

Harry forcefully pushed the thoughts of his uncle away as he brought himself back to the present in time to hear Umbridge excuse the class. At last.

He was so focused on gathering his belongings as quickly as humanly possible that he didn’t realise for a long moment that Umbridge was standing directly before his desk. Constant vigilance. . . evidently not. Not until far too much pink had overwhelmed his vision did he raise his head.

“Mr Potter,” her quiet voice - oddly meant only for him for once - reminded Harry of a disgustingly sweet medicine he had been given by a school nurse once when he was young. It had made him gag, much like he was struggling not to now. “If you would remain for a moment?"

He dearly wished he could simply say ‘no thanks’ but he knew her question was anything but, so he remained still and tried not to look like a trapped animal freezing automatically into fight or flight mode as Ron and Hermione moved past him, shooting worried and somewhat pitying looks over their shoulders. Ah, that was why he didn’t tell them.

It occurred to Harry that it was unusual for the woman to want to punish and/or humiliate him without an audience. Surely this couldn’t prove any points she felt needed proving? He swallowed in trepidation and hated himself for it. What was his problem? Some saviour of the wizarding world he was.

“Mr Potter,” she cooed and he hid his glare behind indifference, certain he’d never heard any part of his name sound so disgusting, “I was quite pleased with your efforts in detention last week."

Trying not to look too shocked Harry raised an eyebrow but kept quiet. No need to dig himself into trouble. Especially when he was talking to a woman who liked to bait him more than Snape and Malfoy combined. His mind quietly raced, trying to make sense of what she’d said. How can someone do a good job of lines written in their own blood? And detention was a punishment; he hadn’t thought he’d be tested on his efficiency at it.  But then, he’d been wrong before. She smiled. It looked revolting. And more than a little worrying.

“It started me thinking,” She continued, tapping one pudgy finger against her lips in a mockery of thought and despite the situation he couldn’t help thinking of Fred and George and the sheer amount of trouble they could have gotten themselves into from that one opening, “I believe you made a fair amount of progress in changing your views of reality – readjusting them. Given that progress I think it would be worth exploring just how much you can be. . . rehabilitated."

He stared at her for a long moment, his stomach-turning revulsion warring with a combined sense of utter confusion and abject, curious kind of horror. It was the part of him that had thrown up the walls of denial – refusing to understand for all he was worth – that was confused and it was that part that forced him to ask in a somewhat choked voice, “Rehabilitated?"

“Yes Mr Potter. You have a much skewed sense of reality, and of yourself. I had hoped to merely to shield the other children from the misconceptions you believe so as to avoid the inevitable widespread confusion and needless panic you insisted on spreading,” Harry could feel his blood pulsing loudly in his ears and wasn’t sure what to react to first, knowing the minute he did he would turn this conversation from civil to vicious, knowing he would come out the worse for it because she would make him pay and thankful when she distracted him by continuing, “but now, I would like to help you as well Harry."

He had to swallow heavily so as not to vomit, his first name sounded so much worse than his last had when coming off her tongue and he wondered if he could somehow get the sound out of his head later before it gave him nightmares.

“I think a week of nightly sessions should do the trick, although I am of course open to the idea of more if you need it to help your. . . correction. I am here to help you after all." He eyes had softened as she spoke and somehow this managed to strike a sense of terror in him he hadn’t felt since the end of the last school term. After all, everything changed when your adversary was insane.

“I. . . I’m not sure I know what you mean. Professor." He added the last at her lengthy pause and kept his face still through great force of will as that soft look returned to her face. And he had truly believed insanity had reached its limits in Voldemort.

“No, I don’t expect you do. But that’s alright; I’ll fill you in on the details once we begin." Harry kept himself emotionless in the face of this disconcerting new Umbridge. He couldn’t escape the obvious knowledge that she said what she said to reassure him. It was in the way she smiled again and if he hadn’t known her the way he did and he had no aversion to pink or large people with superiority complexes he might have thought her kind. Maybe. This disturbed him more than anything else. What on earth was she up to now? Her complete lack of predictability unnerved him no end.

Her expression changed slightly as she saw his blankness and mistook it for confusion, changing to a look of maternal indulgence that made him shiver, “Enjoy your weekend dear-" dear?! “We’ll start next week, perhaps at nine pm?" He could have laughed; she was looking at him as though she really was giving him a choice.

He almost said something stupid - almost asked if he had to - before his survival instinct kicked in. If she was willing to play pleasant, no matter how chillingly foreboding that may be, he wasn’t about to push it. Like this she was almost tolerable. He nodded haltingly. He could think about the ramifications later. Whatever it was she was suggesting he had no choice and he didn’t want it to turn ugly. The voice in his head sounded suspiciously like red-headed twins as it whispered snidely, too late. Besides, the sooner he agreed and faced the inevitable the sooner he could get away.

“Yes Professor."

Her smile widened and the toadlike look was back full-force. “Good. Run along now,” she turned to regard the clock on the wall and somehow managed to see past the many kittens falling over each other in the frame to see the time, “Hmm, you’re already going to be late for your next class but I’m sure Professor Snape will understand."

Harry couldn’t hold in his groan though luckily she had turned away and appeared not to hear him. His day just kept getting better and better.

Harry ran through the halls as fast as he could, his feet slapping on the unforgiving stone as he sped around corners and down stairs. He shivered as the air grew abruptly chillier with every step below the Great Hall he took. His book bag banged against his back as though in an attempt to keep him moving as he stopped outside the door to the Potions classroom and caught his breath, only to jump violently as the heavy wood was thrown open and an echoing boom split the air upon its impact with the wall.

Beyond the imposing figure of his Potions Professor Harry could hear the sniggers of Slytherins and a sigh or two from Gryffindors who didn’t need an O in Divinations to know that mass point loss was in their future.

“So kind of you to join us Mr Potter." Harry was surprised with himself. The familiarity of the sneer in Snape’s voice was the most comforting thing he thought he’d heard in quite a while after being left so nonplussed by Umbridge. He straightened from his slightly bent position, disregarding his own fast breathing as he faced Snape and replaced the blank look on his face. If he’d faced Umbridge he could definitely face Snape.  

He waited silently as Snape’s scrutinising eyes raked over him, his sneer never faltering as he took his time assessing his least favourite student, probably relishing the opportunity to punish him. Harry’s traitorous mind supplied, wonder how long it’s been since he’s had a girlfriend. . . The deep voice was dangerously soft and maliciously delighted when it came.

“Nothing to say? No excuses?" If he’d thought they would make a difference he might make some. As it was. . . “Dear dear Potter, and here I thought fame was good for excusing a lack of punctuality, you use it so often." Harry continued to stare blankly back at his teacher while idly wondering if Snape would ever get tired of espousing the unfounded benefits of his fame. Snape’s smirk deepened, more than willing to read his silence as defiance. “Too good to speak now?" He took a step out of the classroom and closer to Harry. “I’m more than happy to break you of that illusion."

Harry shuddered slightly, someone else breaking him of habits and illusions. . . rehabilitating him. . . he wrenched himself back to the present. Pondering his earlier ‘deal’ – as if he’d had a choice in it – was something best done away from the teacher – other teacher – who hated him most. Evidently his shudder was taken as victory so Snape continued, “Let’s say a week of detentions?" Brilliant. “I will see you at eight tonight. Do not be late again; you will not like the outcome I assure you. In."  

Harry kept his head down as he passed Snape into the classroom, making his way to a desk and sitting beside Neville, ignoring the jeers and sympathetic looks alike. Later, later, later, he chanted in his head. He pushed it all back because if he examined it now he wouldn’t be able to concentrate – wouldn’t be able to cope – and he was in Potions, he needed all of his concentration. Later, he promised himself, bowing his head over his textbook.

Severus Snape was not looking forward to his evening any longer.  It was Friday night and instead of getting work done, a glass of Firewhiskey and an early night, he was spending a few miserable hours with the Potter brat, supervising cauldron scrubbing.  Why hadn’t he just taken a couple hundred points and kept his evening?  That’s right; because he’d seen a weakness and exploited it.  He sighed.  He really had to learn the difference between spying and teaching otherwise he’d never get his evenings back.  Now he had a week of them to spend with Potter.  Damn.

With a slight frown he sat down at his desk and began organising his work into piles, finding the seventh years’ essays for marking first.  If he had to work this evening he’d make use of the time properly and get the most time consuming stuff done over with before the weekend.

It was slow going and he only had three rolls of parchment in his ‘marked’ pile when there was a knock at the door.  A quick check of the time told him Potter was ten minutes early.  He smirked.  Clearly his ability to teach even his most thick-headed student something was still in top form.

“Enter.”

Potter looked a little pale as he stepped into the room, hovering by the door nervously with his head lowered, his mop of messy black hair almost all Severus could make out of him above his chest.  Severus’s smirk stayed where it was at this show of penitence; maybe he was beginning to get through to the boy after all.  Either that or this was a new ploy or display of inherited arrogance.  Knowing it was undoubtedly likely to be the latter; Severus lowered his gaze back to his marking after jabbing his quill towards the large stack of cauldrons to one side of the room.  

“You’ll be scrubbing those.  You know where everything is.”

“Yes sir.”

As the boy shuffled to the cupboard housing the various needed cleaning supplies, his shoulders hunching a little more before moving to the large pile of potions-encrusted cauldrons, Severus once more lamented his lost evening.  He could only hope it ended quickly.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

As Harry contemplated the large – frankly, massive – pile of cauldrons to his left covered in various noxious, viscous and completely unappetizing globs of spoiled, exploded and very, very rarely adequate potions of all kinds, he wondered if what he would have to do had been worth earning this detention.  Then he remembered that unlike several past detentions with Professor Snape he hadn’t actually earned this one.  This one was courtesy of Umbridge.  How kind of her.

The thought – inconceivable as it was – of Umbridge’s kindness... an oxymoron if ever there was one, prompted the memory of the ‘r’ word that had been buzzing persistently around his mind all afternoon and as much as he’d try to brush it away it would simply dodge and return, closer and more annoying than ever.  Much like a fly irritating the toad despite the high fatality rate of such actions.  Fly.  Toad.  And he was back to Umbridge.

Sighing, Harry lifted various cleaning detergents and a cloth from the cupboard – conspicuously lacking the ‘Harry’s Room’ sign that he was so used to seeing in cupboards of this size – and, ignoring the shiver of perception as other persistent and disturbing memories tried to assault him, he knelt beside the largest of the cauldrons which, from his new position as he rested back on his calves, reached his chin. 

Harry expertly poured a measure of bright green detergent smelling strongly of artificial apples whilst musing on whether a person could truly be an expert at such things before rolling up his sleeves, straightening his legs and back to reach inside the cauldron and beginning to scrub the inside of the large, black metal, wondering idly if it was ‘later’ yet.  His mind responded with a firm no and he automatically pushed the thought aside in favour of focusing on his work.

After fifteen mind-numbing minutes and two very sore knees however, he was desperate for a distraction and decided that ‘later’ could indeed be now.  He wouldn’t get any peace and quiet once he got back to the common room anyway and once he went to bed he knew he’d be out like a light.  He was so tired.  Besides the fumes from the combined potion remnants and bubbling, steaming detergents eating away at said potions remnants were stinging his hand and he wondered if that was part of Umbridge’s plan. 

If she couldn’t make the appendage hurt enough by making him cut into himself every night, she’d allow Snape to burn the words into it instead.  Every time any of the detergent spilled over his hand – which was disappointingly often – fresh waves of agony assaulted him and he couldn’t have cared less if contemplating Umbridge’s words left him tired or distracted anymore.  He needed the distraction so badly.   

Rehabilitation.

An hour passed before Harry was willing to give up his train of thought to the pain in his hand.  He hadn’t gotten far anyway.  Rehabilitation.  How had she meant it?  Rehabilitating him from what?  Why?  He had plenty of half-crazy ideas that he wouldn’t have put past her regardless of how unrealistic they sounded in his head but he knew that nothing he suspected was likely to even be close.  And being prepared probably wouldn’t help him any regardless.

Snape, it seemed, had had enough of his presence and the occasional sharp exhalation when various acidic substances sunk into the angry red and sluggishly bleeding cuts on his hand and the man took far less time than usual to dismiss him.   He hadn’t finished all of the cauldrons and when he stood to leave on growled command – “Enough.  Leave.  Now.” – and looked quizzically back at the small stack of still potion-spattered equipment, Snape had gotten that little smile on his face that on anyone else might have been mischievousness and on Snape made first years cry and Harry want to groan. 

“Do not concern yourself Potter, they will be there upon your return; accompanied by many more I don’t doubt.  Monday night at eight.”

“Um, sir?  Could we perhaps make it earlier?”  Snape smirked and Harry wondered why the hell he’d bothered asking.

“And why would that be Mr Potter?  Surely your legions of fans would be amenable to the later audience with yourself?  Or do your many other... important activities require so much of your no doubt valuable time so as to need the readjustment of my own timetable?  Should I have booked ahead?”  Ooh, but Snape was pissed.  Harry should have just left.  Nevertheless, he made one last attempt.

“No sir, I... I have-”

“Speak up Potter.”  Harry sighed.  Damn.  Why did he have to ask?  Then again thinking of how Umbridge would have reacted to a rescheduling, Snape and his familiar ire suddenly seemed more appealing by far.  The thought made his back straighten and forced the words past his reticent lips.

“I have detention with Umbr- Professor Umbridge at nine.”  Soft snickers.  Well, if that’s the worst he got-

“Haven’t been able to convert her yet either Potter?  Fame really isn’t everything, or perhaps you’re simply losing your touch.”  Sarcasm, mocking; he could take it.  Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter.  “Well I suggest you take it up with Professor Umbridge,” the heavy sarcasm in the term ‘professor’ wasn’t imagined but was far outweighed in Harry’s mind by the sinking feeling in his stomach, “I have more important things to do with my time than slot your detention in at your convenience and if you were dunderheaded enough to have double-booked us that is hardly my problem.  Monday.  Eight o’clock.  Do not be late; we may break you of your habitually atrocious punctuality yet.”

“Yes sir.”  He tried to sound sincere.  He really did.  Snape seemed to be a little more forgiving due to the mental image of Harry facing Umbridge – and coming out the worse for it – as he failed to point out the disrespect in the way Harry’s words had floated out on a sigh of defeat.  It was probably the fact that it was defeat.

“Good.  Out.”

Closing the heavy wooden door behind him Harry couldn’t stop the thought of I hate my life before it registered.  Ruthlessly, he squashed it down.  Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. 

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Severus sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly.  Potter had grown increasingly pale and after an hour had looked completely exhausted with his little gasps every few minutes becoming increasingly frequent.  And loud.  And distracting.

Unable to put up with it and already despairing how behind he was on his marking due to the detention – deciding to ignore that it was he who had assigned the detention in the first place – he had dismissed him.  Hardly an adequate punishment but he had a week of detentions in which he would sufficiently intimidate the boy into submission and he really didn’t want him to pass out in his dungeons.  Let him do it in the halls where it wouldn’t be Severus’s problem.  Hopefully the weekend would grant the golden boy some sleep and the following week’s detentions could be served quietly and fully awake. 

Another week of detentions.  Merlin, what had he been thinking?

 Sleep.  Sleep was brilliant. 

Thoughts of sleep swamped Harry’s brain when he wasn’t floating between dreams and nightmares.  For the most part he enjoyed his weekend – as much as anyone can enjoy two days of ‘relaxation’ with an insane, egomaniacal dark wizard out for their blood... well, more of their blood. 

Harry was so exhausted on Friday night after his admittedly – thankfully – short and uneventful detention with Snape that he fell into bed and sank into the blessedly soft pillows and sheets that swallowed him whole and refused to let go.  Until a few short hours later when he was thankful again, this time for silencing charms to muffle the screams and tears and dry retching. 

The weekend passed in this way, much like any other; sleeping sporadically through the night and morning, having breakfast for lunch and wasting time that may or may not have been better spent getting ahead with homework.  The bruise-like shadows beneath Harry’s eyes lightened as they did this time every week, ready to darken by the following Friday as sleeplessness took its toll once more.

For the most part the two days of freedom were peacefully boring and allowed Harry and Ron to enjoy lamenting their surplus of time to squander while Hermione sat at the table nearby and studiously ignored their games of chess and Exploding Snap, periodically tutting them – Harry supposed for her own enjoyment as the two boys certainly never heeded the noises.  It wasn’t until Sunday night that the fire sparked and crackled particularly loudly and Harry jumped when, glancing up as his queen blew to pieces before him, he momentarily spotted his godfather in the fire.

He had stop himself from making any noise until he’d checked surreptitiously to ensure they were alone in the common room – possibly not quite as surreptitiously as he would have liked as Hermione saw him looking from side to side and rolled her eyes even as her lips quirked and she hurried to kneel before the fire. 

Harry threw himself in front of it rather less gracefully beside her, knees thudding painfully before the hearth, though he ignored it, and it took Ron a moment longer as he thought at first it was simply a ploy of Harry’s so as not to admit he had failed miserably – again – in his quest to beat the chess champion.

Moments later the face of Sirius Black flashed in the flames once more and at the quick glimpse of three fifteen year olds he grinned.  “Hey kids!” 

Hermione shushed him quickly despite her huge smile mirrored by the two boys beside her. “We can’t be too loud, those last few third years only left a few minutes ago and they’ll still be awake.”

“How’ve you been?” Harry was so eager he nearly spoke over Hermione’s warning in his haste but it only caused Sirius’s grin to grow and Hermione didn’t seem to mind.

“Fine, fine,” Sirius rushed out and Harry saw his expression shift slightly with a flick of flames but Sirius rushed on before he could question it, “How have you been?  How have your first few weeks of lessons been going?”

“The homework’s ridiculous!”

“That’s only because you don’t do it Ronald!”

Ron made a face but Harry was distracted by the same thoughts that had been haunting him for awhile now.

“Sirius, what do you know about Delores Umbridge?  She’s our new DADA ‘professor’.”

“Yes we’ve heard.  Nasty piece of work apparently, I don’t know all that much about her but you should hear Remus when her name comes up.”  Hermione nodded and Harry shot a glance at her.

“Yeah, she hates anything ‘not human’,” Sirius seemed to pick up on where she left off with a growl.

“And two years ago she drafted some anti-werewolf legislation that makes it pretty much impossible for him to get a job.” 

Harry reasoned that that would be about right.  And he thought he’d hated her before...  he shuddered a little as he wondered if she’d deal with Lupin using the same approach she seemed to think favourable with him... rehabilitation.  The word wouldn’t leave his head; it clung to him and tainted everything, even this visit with Sirius he hadn’t thought he’d be lucky enough to get.  Still that word wouldn’t leave him alone, filling him with dread.  Tomorrow night...

“So how is she in class?” Sirius continued manically, seeming a little too curious and excited.  Harry knew he had to be going stir-crazy but if this was really the honest extent of Sirius’s fascination then he fervently hoped someone in the Order did something to help before his godfather cracked completely and decided Hogwarts needed its own resident doggy mascot.  

“Crap.  Really, she’s a right bit-” Ron answered immediately, ignoring Hermione until her hand hit him in the back of the head with a thwack and cut him off mid-word.  He threw a wounded look over Harry’s head at Hermione on the other side of him as he rubbed at where she’d hit him, which in all honesty didn’t actually hurt.  Nevertheless, he whined, “’Mione!”

“Ron’s right though,” Harry picked up, as much to distract himself as to be a part of the conversation. “She’s terrible, won’t even let us use magic...”  He trailed off, unable to keep up the thread of his own argument and Sirius grew concerned.

“And how are you doing, have you had any more nightmares?  Your scar been hurting?”

Harry looked into his godfather’s eyes and knew instantly that he couldn’t tell him about Umbridge, just as he couldn’t tell his friends.  More so.  He wouldn’t tell Ron and Hermione because of how little he knew they could do about it and because it would be so much harder to face it all if he knew he’d told.  Not to mention their worried words and the many mentions of the injustice of it all would be too much to stand.  For all that they were his best friends – and the best best friends in the world as far as Harry was concerned – neither of them quite grasped that life really wasn’t fair and he couldn’t – wouldn’t – be the one to ruin that illusion for them.  He didn’t want them to be... well, like him.

Sirius was in an even worse position to do anything about Harry’s situation and he couldn’t stand to worry his godfather over something he could do nothing about.  It would drive Sirius over the edge if nothing else – an edge Harry could tell Sirius was skirting already – so resolutely he shook his head and tried to sound like he wasn’t lying.

“No more than usual, lessons are just doing my head in.”

“You’re not alone,” Ron grumbled and shot a furtive glance at Hermione as he ducked a little, trying to avoid any possible smacks upside the head that may be coming his way.

“Well maybe you guys just need a break?” Sirius said clearly trying to force some brightness back into their conversation.  “Snuffles worked pretty well last time, when’s your next Hogsmeade weekend?  I’ll come for a visit.”

“NO!” Harry and Hermione burst out simultaneously.

“What?  It’s not like a dog is suspicious-”

“But it was Sirius,” Harry insisted.  He couldn’t shake the sudden fear – possibly irrational – that Sirius would be caught and taken away again... or worse.  No, he couldn’t lose him, not over a visit, no matter how stir-crazy he might be or how much Harry desperately wanted to see his godfather.  Especially at the moment.  “Something Malfoy said on the train... I know his dad noticed you at the station and it’s just too risky, if anyone saw you-”

“All right, all right, I’ve got the point,” Sirius grumbled, though it sounded far less good-natured than Ron’s grumbling had only moments ago.  “Just an idea.  I thought you might like to catch up.”

“I would!  Of course I would, I just don’t want you chucked back in Azkaban!”

There was a long moment of silence and an anxious Harry grew uncomfortable as Sirius studied him, a small crease between his eyes.  Harry suspected it was his own insecurities causing it but he couldn’t help but feel like he was being judged and was inevitably being found unworthy... something less than enough.  Years of conditioning by the Dursleys had done a better job than they’d realised he thought grimly; they’d be thrilled.  Would Sirius really be so upset when Harry was just worried for his freedom?

“You’re less like your father than I thought,” Sirius finally said quietly, as though to himself, and Harry’s stomach dropped at the coolness in his voice.  He had been right?  Was that really what Sirius had been doing?  Judging him and finding him not as good as his father?  Sure, he’d thought that was what Sirius had been doing but he was still shocked to be right in this of all things.  Did that mean he wanted nothing more to do with him?  He wasn’t good enough?  He felt like he’d been sucker punched.

Harry hadn’t really considered it in the time he’d had with Sirius, having had barely more than a year all together to be his godson, but was that a... requirement?  A requirement for Sirius to care was that Harry had to be like James?  Harry was all the man had of his best friend after all.  Maybe... maybe it wasn’t so unreasonable a demand.  The thoughts flickered through his head at light-speed and there was the smallest, blackest part of himself that pulsed and twisted and coiled, feeding on his insecurity and uncertainty and agreeing with the judgement.  Not enough.  Harry was never enough.

After all, he wasn’t anywhere near as smart or talented as his father, his best achievements were lauded as being ‘as good as’ or ‘because of’ James.  None of it was ever based on his own merit, it was genes or reputation or luck.  And when he failed he was suddenly less like James than anyone thought.  Would James have defeated Voldemort by now?  The thought was disconcerting.  And disappointing.  If Sirius felt that way how would his father have felt?  They were best friends.  In their time they would have agreed on so many things and saw things the same way.  Would James have looked at him the way Sirius was now?

The Dursleys, Umbridge and Snape would all be absolutely thrilled.  They all hated wasting their time.  They’d be gratified to know they hadn’t; that Harry didn’t doubt their judgements anywhere near as much now.  That they’d been right all along.  Funnily enough, that thought did nothing to make him feel any better and it was with his stomach lower than his feet and through a haze of pain he’d known since he was that child in the cupboard that he heard Sirius continue, though he paid no attention to the words anymore.  

“The risk would have been what made it fun for James.”

Ron had seen first-hand Harry’s upbringing while rescuing him in second year.  He knew the treatment – well, some of it – that Harry had endured for years at the hands of his only relatives and he knew his friend well enough to know he was not unaffected.  He also knew a little more than Hermione did about their friend’s insecurities, having spent many more nights in the same room – whether at The Burrow or in their dorm – as Harry screamed and thrashed and whimpered and cried, lost in his many fears and memories, and Ron found that he couldn’t not break the brief but suffocating silence. 

“Look-”

But that’s as far as he got because Sirius made a show of turning his head to the side before a rushed and insincere, “I better get going, I think Kreacher’s coming.  I’ll write to tell you a time I can make it back into the fire, then, shall I?  If you can stand to risk it?”  And with that he was gone.

Hermione was silently staring into the flames with a tiny crease between her own eyes telegraphing her disapproval of the way Sirius had behaved and Ron looked down at Harry with concern but Harry quickly adopted a blank look and said as neutrally as he could, “yeah, I might go to bed too.” 

He stood before either of them could say anything and, ignoring the gazes he could feel boring into his back from where his friends still sat on the floor, he walked resolutely to the dorm currently occupied by a sleeping Seamus, Neville and Dean, none of whom stirred as he padded into the room, bee-lining for his bed and sprawling across it, thoroughly deflated and defeated.

He heard Ron enter the room a few minutes later and quietly walk to the side of Harry’s bed before sitting beside him on the edge, his eyes trained again on Harry’s back; he swore he could feel the intensity of it between his shoulder blades.  When Harry felt the bed dip he moved his head slightly so his words wouldn’t be muffled beyond recognition.

“What?” he muttered flatly.

“Sirius-” Harry made a sharp movement and Ron shot a glance over his shoulder to make sure none of the others had heard but three distinct snore patterns reassured him after a moment and he turned back to find Harry sitting up.  His friend’s face was still resolutely composed in its blank mask from what Ron could see by the shafts of moonlight illuminating patches of the room.  “Snuffles,” Ron began again falteringly, “you know him, he’s going nuts locked in that house and he’s just a bit...”

“Right.”

“No mate, you know he’s not.”  At Harry’s silence Ron’s quiet voice grew more intense, “he’s not.  You’re not your dad and you shouldn’t have to be; you’re your own person.  It wasn’t fair of him to suggest-”

“I get it, the only thing he suggested was that my dad was... better.”

“But he’s not.  I mean, he was great... I’m sure... but...”

“I know what you mean but to Sir- Snuffles I’m... I’m not... I’m not him.  I think it means I...”  Harry hesitated, not sure if he was ready to admit so openly to such a large insecurity, but looking at where the sparse light glittered and reflected a powerful compassion in the eyes staring back at him, that compassion there for him, such emotion not usually seen on his best friend’s face at all; he couldn’t not finish, “it means I’m not good enough.”

“Then that’s his problem, not yours.”  Ron said without a moment’s hesitation, unwavering, so quietly it was almost a whisper in his firmest voice, not quietly enough to cover the slight heatedness of his words, and though Harry found that he couldn’t barricade such a large chink in his armour so quickly, he was too grateful for his friend’s palpable concern and the sheer heartfelt care he spoke with not to smile.

“Thanks Ron,” he said, his voice very slightly hoarse.  It was the most emotion they’d shown with each other in quite a while and Ron rose quickly to his feet and crossed to his own bed, although Harry couldn’t fail to notice the last look Ron gave him; judging.  Like Sirius had done earlier, but for vastly different reasons.  Harry’s chest warmed to know that tonight, not everyone who judged him found him wanting. 

Ron knew the ‘thanks’ for what it was.  Harry was thankful for their friendship, for Ron’s presence, for his words and the reassurance they provided.  The ‘thanks’ was by no means acceptance of his words though, and Ron and Harry both knew it and both knew enough about the other to realise it was as much as either could hope for tonight. 

Both of them got comfortable and sent a quiet ‘G’night’ across the distance between beds before dropping into the lazy haze of a late night.  Harry heard Ron’s snores add to the symphony coming from across the room long before he finally felt part of his mind turn off and another part wake up with its own cacophony of screams and whimpers to break the too-brief silence.

Ron and Harry were both utterly exhausted on Monday morning and Hermione wasn’t the only one to notice the dark shadows beneath her friends’ eyes.  Harry’s nightmares woke him several times through the night and though Dean, Seamus and Neville had silencing charms on their curtains – all of which had cocooned their beds in blessed silence all night long – Ron didn’t like to pull his curtains closed and leave his best friend to the terrors his mind never failed to provide. 

Harry had to wonder if it was worth having such a good friend through the night when it made said friend so grumpy through the day; but then he would remember when he had writhed, sweat-soaked and screaming, twisting in his sheets until they had trapped him in his bed and further in the depths of his mind and he knew he was more grateful than he could ever express for the rough shaking, slicing through his nightmares and waking him up before he could hurt himself or make himself sick.

Ron caught the grateful looks sent his way every time Harry noticed his friend’s yawns or the half-hearted scrubbing of his tired eyes and Ron always smiled back reassuringly.  They both knew that Ron would help no matter what Harry said and that Harry would do the same if the positions were reversed.  Nevertheless, Ron found himself having to convince Harry to accept his help with his nightmares and other worries, usually because Harry would say he didn’t need it, that he could cope on his own.  Ron knew he’d done just that too many times to count and wouldn’t allow his friend to do that again.

As he tried to stop his face from its inevitable plunge into his porridge, Ron’s eyes flicked up and met Hermione’s and from the worried little crease between her brows he knew she’d noticed the way Harry’s eyelids drooped a little more than his own; not from exhaustion but depression.  The night before was still playing on their friend’s mind and they both knew it. 

Ron could see the indignation aimed at Sirius flicker in Hermione’s expression but a second later with a little breath she released it, recognizing that it would do no good now.  Ron’s lips quirked in a tiny, sympathising, not-quite kind of smile and Hermione’s face softened further in response.   All they could do was be there for Harry.  It irked them, especially knowing it would take a lot for Harry to finally open up to them and ask for help or reassurance in his own way and that, until then, he would keep it bottled inside himself; letting it fester like an open wound.  Until Harry realised that he could trust them to be there for him, anything they did would hurt more than help.  They just had to listen when it was time and both of them were infuriated by their own uselessness.

Harry, completely missing the silent exchange occurring over his head, felt eyes boring into him, not from beside him but from the staff table.  Hardly caring about anything much as Sirius’s words from the day before circled his head – my own personal vulture waiting for me to croak he thought miserably – his eyes lifted slowly; too lazy to flick up as usual to meet those still on him.  He caught the barest flash of black eyes connecting with his before his teacher turned away and Harry watched Snape a moment longer.  He wondered idly what made him suddenly so interesting to his least favourite professor and if some of the rumours were true about the man after all.  Maybe he could sense misery.  It was a wry thought and offered no humour whatsoever, but it somehow managed to drag him from his pit of melancholy to the safety of neutrality.  Familiarity was good, familiarity allowed him to function, even if it wasn’t particularly positive.

What followed was the height of tedium and Harry couldn’t have been more disappointed by the lack of distraction if he’d been locked in a padded room in a straight-jacket for the day... which, he reasoned, wasn’t too far off of reality.  DADA had somehow managed to become even more boring for the lack of any significant development in the coursework beyond the increase in page number.  Transfiguration was as irritating as ever; the class leaving the room two hours after entering it with nothing to show for their efforts other than tension headaches and various inanimate objects sporting various, decidedly animate appendages... except Hermione’s.  Not to mention the palpable disapproval in their lack of progress from their head of house in ‘an OWL year no less!’

The worst part of the day had to have been when Harry realised as the bell rang signalling DADA to be blessedly over for another day, that the hell was only beginning for him.  He’d procrastinated in rescheduling with Umbridge for as long as he could and he knew he’d pay for that – after all he’d known about Snape’s detentions since Friday. 

Still, when Harry took longer than necessary to pack his books back into his bag, angling quite conspicuously for a chat with the giant toad, the predatory grin that awaited him when he lifted his head almost convinced him to run and never look back.

Reluctantly squashing those survival instincts Harry stood and waited for the last of the other students to leave.  Hermione and Ron had already left with half a glance at Harry.  Ron was starving for lunch already by that point and Harry knew that Hermione was ‘desperate’ for a visit to the library despite her own personal stash that by now must have rivalled the one upstairs.  Even when they were alone in the room Harry didn’t move, noting with no small amount of trepidation that Umbridge hadn’t moved either and simply stood staring at him.  There was a perverse hunger in her eyes that had him redoubling his effort to stay where he was and not tear down the hall after his friends.  Hell, he’d have followed Malfoy to escape this.

“Professor Umbridge, I needed to talk to you about our...” detention? Meeting? Rehab session? “Meeting tonight.”

“What about it?”  The look she was giving him, she was daring him to ask.  Like she knew.  Harry wasn’t stupid, he knew teachers talked to each other about their students – who was causing trouble, who needed help, who needed to change the times of their multiple detentions... that bastard – Harry had been sure that the other professors all hated Umbridge.  Evidently that wasn’t enough to discourage Snape from making Harry’s life worse.  Fantastic.  Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived solving work place disputes.  Bet Dumbledore was thrilled.  That brought a lump to his throat and he pushed it all down, felt it solidifying in his chest, an immovable weight that made his voice wobble.

“I need-” Her eyes flashed and he backpedalled quickly, “I have a detention tonight, uh, every night this week.  I was wondering if we could push the time of our... meeting... back.  A bit.”  He added, suddenly very unsure.  It was only the knowledge that she would have strung him up by his thumbs whether she had Dumbledore’s backing or not had he decided to simply show up late that convinced him that he was doing the right thing.  The only thing.  Crap.

 “Really?” She asked rhetorically in her sickly sweet voice with a faraway look, adopted and perfected by those in the soap operas Aunt Petunia loved.  She’d crossed her arms over her ample bosom and was now tapping a glittering, overly bejewelled hand on the crook of the opposite elbow as she pretended to consider his request.  She’d known.  She’d been waiting for him to go to her.  She had an answer prepared and was doing a terrible job of looking shocked at his appeal as she revised the wording in her head.  He waited impatiently for her to tear him apart.  “And why, pray tell, would I agree to that?”

What, had Snape given the bitch tips?  How To Irritate and Eviscerate The-Boy-Who-Lived 101.

“Um...”  How was he supposed to answer that?  Too many times had he tried with his uncle and been backhanded for his trouble.  She watched him flounder for a long moment, enjoying it immensely, before smiling.  Oh, damn.

“Mr Potter, I fear these sessions of ours are entirely non-negotiable.  They are just too important.” She walked towards him with the slow, steady steps of a predator with cornered prey – playing with her food – and her smile became indulgent.  It was just too disgusting.  “Now, I understand that you have been misbehaving in other classes to have earned a week of detentions with another professor-” so hers are going to be detentions after all? “-surely emphasizing the need for our sessions even more, yes?”

She was waiting for agreement.  All he could stomach was a tight nod.  She beamed.

“Yes, so I am afraid our appointment time stands.  I suggest you speak to this other professor, though you can hardly expect him to change his plans to meet yours,” ‘His’!  Bloody Snape, he did tell her; those were practically his words!  “Keep in mind Mr Potter, that there will be punishment for any lacking in your punctuality.”

“Run along Mr Potter, don’t want to miss lunch, you’re skin and bones.” 

He spun on his heel and ignored the girly little laugh behind him and the way her last words had sounded far too appreciative of the mental image they must have evoked.  He was so sick of this.  His own cold fingers skittered absently over the back of his hand and he refused to admit that his irritation was being battled by anxiety.  What was she planning?

He sat at dinner that night and his silence was more than enough of a reminder to Ron and Hermione of what awaited him at the end of the meal.  Snape then Umbridge.  Well, they only knew about Snape but that was enough to earn their dismay on his behalf.  A quick glance at the staff table and he was reminded of just how little his day had improved. 

McGonagall had requested he stay behind at the end of Transfiguration and had taken the time to explain just how unhappy she was to have one of her Gryffindors displaying such disappointing behaviour to have earned himself two weeks of simultaneous detentions.  Truth be told, Harry knew she was more disgusted that he kept getting into trouble with the man who would rub it in her face the most.  Sure enough Snape appeared to be doing just that over his evening meal.  And over Dumbledore’s where it sat between them.  Not in any long diatribe like the ones he often treated his students to but in little veiled quips and smirks that were quickly getting on both McGonagall and Dumbledore’s nerves.

Further down the table sat the fat toad herself who was trying to make ‘polite’ conversation with Professor Flitwick about how half-breeds shouldn’t be allowed around children, obviously oblivious to the fact that Flitwick was sitting on several cushions to barely reach her chin and that an equally disgusted Hagrid was sitting on her other side growing steadily redder in his outrage.  Umbridge was usually fairly careless in most situations, a trait that didn’t escape any of the students and confused everyone who didn’t understand the politics of the situation as they wondered how in earth she got a job in defence.  Many doubted she’d be able to defend herself against a bucket of flobberworms. 

Of course, it stood to reason given Harry’s luck of late that Umbridge would choose that single moment in time to be perceptive enough to feel eyes on her and look directly at Harry as though expecting it to be him.  As always, Harry was thoroughly disarmed by the sadistic gleam he could make out even from where he was two tables away.  Dropping his gaze and swallowing the small mouthful he’d had he looked at the rest of the thoroughly unappetising food surrounding him and decided the following few hours might be easier with an empty stomach.

Hermione – as always – noticed when he paled and pushed his plate away.  Leaning over the table she touched his wrist and quietly asked that question he hated, though he was too used to it to really care anymore.

“Are you okay Harry?”

Ron must have eaten enough to not be as ravenously hungry as usual because he noticed the question and Harry’s pallor.  Feeling the weight of the two pairs of concerned eyes on him, Harry decided he was more than ready to get tonight over with.  He was ready for this week to be over and the only way, most unfortunately, was through.  Sliding his legs over the bench he leant backwards and muttered, “I think I’m just gonna get tonight over with.  See you later?” 

“I’ll still be up doing homework so I’ll be in the common room when you come in.”

“And I’ll be there too.”  Harry smiled knowing that Ron was trying to promise his presence and get out of homework at the same time.  A glance at Hermione showed it hadn’t gone unnoticed and Harry was almost thankful for the detentions; he had the beginnings of a headache and it was obvious that, had he stayed, he would have been treated to another of Hermione’s lectures about responsibility and OWLS. 

“Ronald...” was all Harry heard of Hermione’s reproof as he made his escape while they were distracted. 

Once in the Entrance Hall he took a fortifying breath before beginning the descent into the dungeons.  There was a great deal of hesitation in his knock on the hard wooden door to Snape’s office and a long moment of silence followed the echoing thuds.  Harry hadn’t checked the staff table again before he’d left dinner and wondered if he’d have to kill some time and come back later.  He’d been hoping he could begin his detention with Snape a little early to allow for an earlier departure, refusing to accept how foolishly optimistic the concept was. 

He knew he’d still be late to Umbridge’s detention – or whatever it was – either way, but perhaps not by quite so long... perhaps lessening his ‘punishment’.  He knew it wasn’t the best plan and that he’d still be punished but he had to hold out hope wherever he could... who would have thought a life haunted by Voldemort would have taught him anything?

His thoughts were still bitter when the voice of the potions master finally filtered through the heavy door with his customary “Enter.”  Harry winced before putting his palms against the door to push it open and fighting the urge to lay his head against it and refuse to move ever again; Snape sounded on the verge of a screaming fit already and detention hadn’t started yet. 

Harry was in for one hell of a night.

Snape’s dark eyes flickered up from his contemplation of one of the many rolls of parchment he had spread across his desk in a patchwork of marked and unmarked essays; some covered in the messy scrawl of childish penmanship, others covered more noticeably with red inked corrections – or insults about the quality of the essays as the case may be.  Very messy essays, Harry thought with dread as he took stock of the large smudges of ink marring the topmost parchment he could see from where he was across the room.  Probably first years. 

Harry swore colourfully in his head, discounting how often he’d been doing that lately in favour of silently bemoaning how much worse this night could possibly get.  He’d seen enough detentions to know that Snape was harder to deal with when he was marking whilst supervising and his professor’s mood declined sharply with the year level – and competency level – of the students he was marking.  First years were guaranteed to make for an awful evening for both of them.  And he had to deal with Umbridge after that.  Crap. 

He moved hesitantly into the room, unconsciously skirting the wall as much as possible, feeling as though he was trapped in a cage with something dangerous.  This was really quite true, all things considered. 

Not liking the look Snape was giving him; one of those I-know-you’re-scared-of-me-and-you’re-right-to-be looks that made his eyes narrow ever so slightly and a smirk form at the corners of his mouth, Harry dropped his own to the stone floor and scuffed his shoe a little.  He hated to show this man any kind of weakness by fidgeting but if he didn’t he would just be wound that much tighter.  He couldn’t afford to snap tonight, whether due to anxiety or anger.  No matter how humiliating, penitence would be the best way to go.  He was sure he’d never felt so infuriated.

“You are half an hour early.  It would seem detention works as a corrective measure after all; we will have you learn the meaning of punctuality yet.”  The drawl sounded bored and entirely uninterested, like Snape was too tired to really bother insulting him.  Nevertheless, “that having been said there is a difference between early and too early, the latter often considered similarly rude.  I have half a mind to make you wait in the corridor until eight, but then who am I to deny the pleasures of cauldron scrubbing?” 

There was a short pause where Harry glared at the floor and Snape’s lip curled maliciously.  “This sudden change in you does make me wonder... but then, not even you would be stupid enough to attempt to manipulate me into allowing you to leave detention early simply by arriving when you feel like it.  Especially not when you have already been denied such an arrangement.”  How dare he?  How could he twist everything around so much?  It wasn’t like Harry had much of a choice, Snape hadn’t given him any.

Snape’s lip curled a little more before his head jerked toward the corner of the room.  “Cauldrons are there, you will clean them until I say you can leave.”  And with that Snape returned to marking essays and Harry sighed.  Many of the cauldrons were covered in what Harry could only assume was a six or seventh year assignment, each of which looked to have failed utterly.  The filth encrusted on each was of different colours and consistencies, the only similarity being how much the stains refused to budge without serious elbow grease.  The ache in Harry’s arms wasn’t helped by the knowledge that the man who continually looked over with a smirk could say one word, wave his wand and eliminate the work in seconds.

By the time nine o’clock rolled around there was a bone deep ache in Harry’s arms and back and his head felt fit to explode any minute though he fervently hoped it wouldn’t because he had made very little headway – only three of countless cauldrons were on his ‘clean’ pile – and he didn’t need the extra work that would come from the mess of his own combustion. 

Glancing up at the clock to curse the seconds that were steadily dooming him, Harry’s eyes dropped when he felt Snape’s on him.  Though there seemed something... off in his behaviour tonight, like he was distracted, the man was still smirking more than ever and despite his exhaustion Harry’s blood boiled.   

Everyone in the school detested Umbridge, she wasn’t likeable in the least and when she wasn’t trying to get teachers sacked she was undermining their authority to gain a greater hold on the school and the students.  So, of course, it stood to reason that if anyone had to like the sadistic cow it would be Snape.  Harry had always felt himself lucky in some respects – he had bested the darkest wizard of the century too many times not to – and yet in this moment he felt cursed.  More so.

Yes you evil, greasy- “No sir.”  The reply came from between clenched teeth but Snape was having too much fun to notice.

“You might like to continue then; otherwise I may be forced to keep you back until you have completed a satisfactory amount of work.”  Harry’s mouth hung agape for a few seconds before snapping shut.  Bastard!

“Yes sir.”

When Harry next looked up, the clock seemed to be screaming at him.  He’d become distracted by cauldron scrubbing in an attempt to stave off nerves about his upcoming confrontation with Umbridge.  Despite puzzling all week over the possibilities of the many different meanings of Rehabilitation and what it could mean in the fat toad’s head, he had decided halfway through cauldron number four that he really didn’t want to know any longer. 

Unfortunately in wasn’t up to him and even more unfortunately it was now quarter past ten.  Oh, Umbridge was going to kill him.  No, he knew he wasn’t lucky enough for that, the memory of that cruel gleam in her eyes at dinner was too raw.  She would make him suffer for this.

Snape’s eyes rose from where he was writing a rather long comment in red ink on some unfortunate first year’s paper – long enough that he had taken to writing over the student’s work – to rest on Harry’s messy, bowed head before travelling to the clock and back again.  Harry’s initial panic at seeing the time had diminished somewhat in the face of the futility of it all – it was Umbridge after all.  Just by being told to go to her he had been sentenced to something horrible, how much further could she possibly go?  He met Snape’s gaze with no small amount of calm dejection though he forced it to look as neutral as possible.  He suspected he hadn’t been completely successful.

Standing slowly – hurry up – and taking leisurely steps towards where Harry sat between clean and dirty cauldrons – hurry up, hurry up! – Snape peered into each of the seven he’d managed to get clean before waving his wand dismissively and turning.  His cloak hadn’t settled entirely before the rest of the cauldrons were shining and Harry scowled.

“I suppose you’re done for the night,” Snape drawled, purposely speaking as slowly as possible, not to delay Harry but to rile him.  “You are due here tomorrow evening, eight o’clock.  Now run along, have fun.”

And with a smirk Snape was seated behind his desk once more and Harry fairly flew out of the room with no idea why he was bothering.  He was doomed already.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Harry took a moment to catch his breath as he stood outside Umbridge’s office.  He had briefly contemplated the wisdom of skipping it altogether as it was technically not a detention – apparently – however Umbridge held far more sway over Hogwarts than anyone would have liked to admit and he knew she would have her way.   The longer he went against that the more painful she would make it.

He let his hand fall on the pink-tinged wood, wondering when his thought processes became so morbid as to make him compare the sound of his knocking to the beat of ritualistic tribal drums he had heard on TV once at the Dursleys when he’d been listening from the kitchen sink.  He couldn’t be going to his death, he wasn’t; that was utterly ridiculous.  It wasn’t as though Umbridge was answerable to no one; everyone at the school knew just how far up the Minister’s arse her nose went.  At the very least she was answerable to Fudge and the law.  No matter what she did, Harry would survive it.  It wasn’t that bad.  He’d survive.  He always did.  And he ignored entirely the faint voice in his head that pondered whether by the end of the week he would still want to.

“Come in.”  Harry shuddered at the trill in her voice and opened the door with a loud creak.  Pink assaulted him and there were suddenly many angry meows and hisses emanating from the walls.  Evidently even the cat-covered plates knew he was late.  No chance she’d missed that then.  Though, he wouldn’t be surprised if she was actually dumber than a painted cat.

“Mr Potter,” And there she was, pink and round and so very malicious and Dursley-like it was all Harry could do not to recoil or glare or both.  She said his name softly, as though she was in awe of his daring and a quick glance at the clock on her wall – much different to the far more normal one on Snape’s wall – had him a little in awe of his own daring as well. 

It was now half past ten.  A full ninety minutes later than the time she had given him.  Not to mention the fact that she knew his detention with Snape was only supposed to go until ten so, despite the fact that she would have punished him for his lateness anyway, there was now every chance she thought he had done it on purpose when he had tried so hard for the opposite.  Oh, but he was so screwed.

“Mr Potter,” she breathed again, reminding him a little of Snape as he watched her warily while she stepped around her desk, assessing him with her slightly slanted, piggy eyes, “I see my idea came not a moment too soon.  Punctuality is, after all, one of the very first rules of etiquette and we must show good manners mustn’t we?”

“Uh, yes professor?”  She unnerved him enough to make him completely lost in most of their confrontations.  He could never quite figure out her motivations and it made him feel out of the loop constantly around this woman who had proved already how dangerous she could be.  It didn’t help that he didn’t know why he was here in the first place.   Knowing he was likely going to regret asking but needing to know more before he could combat her and his own fear, Harry gathered what Gryffindor courage he had and asked what had been on his mind for days.

“Professor?”  He waited for her somewhat indulgent nod before continuing, “I was wondering, what did you mean exactly, when you mentioned, um, rehabilitation?”  The grin that swept over her face was terrifying.

“Ah, right to the point I see; good, very good.  No time to waste, but we will discuss that in a minute,” the last was accompanied by a hungry look and it took everything Harry had to hold his ground.  “As I said the other day, I do believe I may have been remiss not to offer you this opportunity earlier.  Everyone should have a chance don’t you think Mr Potter?   I believe muggles call it an ‘intervention’.  There is hope for everyone after all, and it would be wrong to deny you that.  Especially as it would benefit so many others if our work here was to succeed.” 

Now Harry was thoroughly confused and his apprehension was a separate bundle in his chest making his fingers twitch with the palpable need to wrap themselves around the doorknob behind him and disappear.

“What work would that be professor?”  Even as he asked he knew he didn’t really want to know, but he had to nonetheless.

“Why Mr Potter... Harry,” his skin crawled as his name escaped her lips with something akin to whatever twisted affection the woman might be capable of.  “We are going to work on you.  Improving you for the benefit of all.  You are a very influential person and it would be a shame to see that influence go in the wrong direction now wouldn’t it?  You see, I had hoped the detentions you have served so far with me would accomplish what other professors here seem to believe impossible.  I was attempting to reach you through all of the fame that surrounds you, the misconceptions.  The delusions you hold.  I was attempting to make you see Harry, that these things you base your life on are false.” 

She shook her head sadly and tilted it to the side as she regarded him with pity.  “You have a distorted view of the world and I do believe I began correcting that, although I could do more.  I believe you also hold a false image of who you are.  Of course many your age do, but yours I find is much more damaging, both to you and those around you.  I will attempt over the next week to correct that.  Of course it may take longer but we may negotiate that at the end of the week.” 

Oh my... she’s insane.

“Anything you would like to add at this point dear?”  Harry simply stared, feeling too many things to think straight, let alone speak.  “Alright then,” she continued a little more briskly, clasping her hands together.  “I believe first we must focus on the most pressing issue.  Punctuality.” 

Despite the many things going through his head, the many impressions of shock, horror, anger and denial that would not quiet themselves and let him think, Harry had to admit to the bitterly humorous irony of the immediate situation.  It was Snape’s detention that had led him here, his own attempt at instruction on the importance of punctuality.  How much worse could his night get? 

Harry’s eyes widened almost comically when he saw what Umbridge withdrew from behind her desk to aid in her ‘instruction’.  Much.  His night could apparently get much, much worse.

It wasn’t the fact that it was long and light and had a bit of spring to it.  It wasn’t the way it curled cruelly at one end or the fact that the other tapered into what was unmistakeably supposed to be a cat’s paw.  It was the fact that it was pink. 

As the two pudgy hands that gripped the object flexed the wood to show the amount of give it had and, to someone who had felt one before, just how much it would sting, Harry tried not to laugh at the fact that he was about to be beaten with a pink cane.  Oh, but this was just sad.  Even for him.  Growing up in a cupboard, which had never been something to brag about before, would always be on another level entirely to this.  This was humiliating in the extreme.  The woman certainly knew how to keep him quiet.  As if he would ever tell anyone about this. 

Having experienced all kinds of punishment from the Dursleys for the greater portion of his life, he felt suddenly at ease.  He didn’t think he was masochistic and he certainly didn’t welcome any kind of punishment but compared to the blood quill – a magical artefact when it was magic that had rescued him; liberating him at eleven from a mundane muggle existence with his family and bringing him to Hogwarts and friends; punished by what had saved him as if to show him just whose mercy he was at and how much – a cane he could handle. 

It was something he had faced before and no doubt would again; it didn’t play mind games, it didn’t leave any long-lasting, tell-tale scars in places they would be seen and commented on – not usually anyway – and he didn’t doubt that this time at least it wouldn’t be the worst punishment he’d ever had.  Umbridge couldn’t possibly have more strength than his uncle and even if she came close, Harry knew that this was something he could handle.  He could handle this.  He could handle her. 

Nevertheless he felt he had to say something.  He wasn’t sure how a blood quill would be received by the other professors but he knew caning wasn’t allowed.  That was why Filch was in his constant state of depression.  That and whipping and chains and any number of other banned, sadomasochistic crap the twisted bugger could think of.

Harry watched Umbridge approach somewhat warily, though without the fear of the unknown that had possessed him earlier.  Would she go for his hands or the seat of his trousers?  How many would she be satisfied with?  How much strength did she have? 

“Robe off.  Hands against the wall I think dear.”  It made Harry want to retch that she would call him dear and hit him at the same time.  He didn’t move.

“I didn’t know caning was allowed professor?”  He made it sound as much like a polite inquiry as he could.  There was no need to rile her when she held all the cards.  And a cane.  Even if it was pink.

“We will no doubt be adjusting what you do and do not know many times this week so you may consider this your first lesson.”  That’s a no.  “Though you do raise an excellent point,” she said as she stopped and lowered the cane in her hand marginally.  Harry was astounded; that was all it would take?

“I- I do?”

“Yes dear, I’d almost forgotten,” she continued as she swept back behind her desk again, opening the top draw to withdraw something else before closing it softly, leaving Harry to wonder what he’d brought on himself now.  As she made her way towards him again he fought not to shrink back against the wall and was surprised when she raised the hand that wasn’t holding the pink cane to reveal a vial of malevolently glinting, blood-red potion that reminded him too much of a pair of eyes from his nightmares and one too many encounters in his comparatively short lifetime. 

She held it up to his eye level and a swirl of black curled lazily through the liquid.  “This,” she murmured from a few feet before him, “will also be necessary.”  He looked at her uncomprehending for a very long moment before his brain clicked from denial to horror.  He shook his head quickly back and forth soundlessly and she tutted, taking a step closer.  “Mr Potter, the longer you dillydally, the more time you will spend with this,” and she held the cane up.  She thrust the vial into his hand and stepped so close he couldn’t not recoil, though it did him no good as she followed with a small smirk.  “You will drink it Harry, do not make this more difficult on yourself.”

“What- what it is?”  He inwardly cursed himself for wavering.

“A surprise.  You will know when you’ve taken it.  And if you do not do so in the next ten seconds you will find me most... displeased.”

He unstoppered the vial and sniffed the potion, wondering absently if Snape had brewed it with him in mind even as he ran over his options several times, coming to the same conclusion over and over.  He had no choice.  This woman basically ran the school and would only make things worse for everyone if he couldn’t handle this.  He could handle this.  He had handled worse, this he could do.  Besides, what was this in comparison to the things he would have to do in the future?  Umbridge, for all her insanity had nothing on Voldemort in the end and if he couldn’t handle her he would be dead before it could possibly matter anyway.  The potion in his hand clearly wasn’t Veritaserum and if taking it risked nothing except his health then it was the same as a caning really, wasn’t it?

Nevertheless, the smallest, weakest part of him made a vow in the confines of his head.  He shuddered and tipped his head back, swallowing the potion as quickly as possible and grimacing when he distinctly felt the small black thing in it slithering down his throat like it was alive and couldn’t get inside him fast enough.  Even as he felt it settle he vowed that if things got too bad, if he really couldn’t handle it, if she went too far; he would tell someone. 

But he was strong.  He’d been trained for this for years – all those things he’d accomplished, all the reasons he was called the boy-who-lived, all those legends people told that held the slightest grains of truth to them.  He was powerful; he was able to handle himself.  And he would.  She wouldn’t break him. 

He didn’t fail to notice that despite her words he didn’t feel any different for having taken the potion – besides a bit of nausea due to its texture – and could only hope that it meant it hadn’t worked.  Maybe... maybe since Snape was supposed to be on their side and it would have had to have been his potion... maybe he had done something?  Made it wrong on purpose – made it ineffective somehow. 

“Now, your first lesson, changing perceptions...” she trailed off, apparently in anticipation as she took back the empty vial, putting it on her desk with a soft clink and running an affectionate hand down the cane as she turned back to him.

“I thought that was punctuality,” he muttered before he could stop himself as he turned towards the wall.  He wouldn’t argue this.  He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of thinking that he could handle having his hand torn open night after night and yet would complain over a couple lashes with a pink cane.  He just wouldn’t.

“What was that dear?” 

“Nothing, Professor.”

“Dear dear, punctuality and elocution, we do have our work cut out for us don’t we Harry?  Never mind, I happen to be a very good teacher.”

Harry scoffed silently, thankful he was facing the wall.  He supposed it would be his legs and bum that would get it then.  He wondered if any of the older professors at Hogwarts had doled out this kind of punishment before, back before it was banned.  He should ask McGonagall.  He leant forward, bowing his back as he put his palms to the wall and readied himself, waiting to be told how many he would be getting for his ‘transgression’.  Therefore he was not expecting the swish, thwack of the cane and the pain that blossomed seconds after the sound broke the silence of the room, not where he had expected but in a sharp line across the bottom of his back.  The pain seemed to culminate where the cane had hit the unforgiving ridge of his tailbone and he gasped, his legs buckling slightly under the weight, which was considerably heavier than he’d been expecting because of where the blow had landed and the force behind it.  

He looked back over his shoulder to see Umbridge contemplating his back and circling him where he stood before, without warning, she raised the cane high above her head.  He turned his head away swiftly when he realised what she was doing.  It smacked hard against the ridges of his spine, landing at a diagonal angle down his back and creating a lopsided cross on his lower back if the feel of it was anything to go by.  The second blow had hit his tailbone as well and he felt the pain radiate like white flame from that one spot, blinding him so much to the state of the rest of his back that the long lines did no more than tingle.  He’d learned something new about Delores Umbridge he realised as he fought not to let any sounds escape his bitten lips.  She had excellent aim.

He still had his shirt on but considering the piercing stare she was levelling at his back he guessed it did very little to stop her from seeing her handiwork as she continued applying well-placed strokes on his back from different angles.  The vertical ones were the worst as his knees wobbled beneath the extra weight she put into her handiwork.  He hadn’t known before tonight that a cane could be applied this way and the vicious sheen to Umbridge’s eyes made it so much worse.  For some reason he thought he might prefer Uncle Vernon’s belt and blind rage.  It was over much quicker as it was fuelled largely by his emotion-driven adrenaline.  This was cold and calculated and she was enjoying herself far more than his uncle ever had.  He did it to release frustration; she was doing it for enjoyment.  Amusement.  Dragging it out.  Planning for it to cause maximum pain. 

That and the fact that she wasn’t tiring anywhere near as fast.  Each time she brought the cane to his back, the force went straight through his body, making his legs ache fiercely as they supported the abused area and his feet quickly became sore as they absorbed the shockwaves against the stone beneath him.  She twirled her weapon occasionally around her hands like a wand while she considered, giving him too much time to think of the pain and to become apprehensive of the next stroke.  And when she brought it down again whilst standing beside him with the cane in her pudgy fist lining up against his back as though she was playing golf backwards, he saw the way she held it – the back of her hand facing down – and it reminded him of the way his uncle had backhanded him in the past. 

When the cane made contact he noticed the difference and hissed at the increased power from the adjustment.  Welts were crisscrossing his back and he could feel the flaring stars of pain where each one intersected another.  The entire punishment took far too long and he had lost count completely by the time the lashes stopped coming and there was a noticeably longer pause.  The feel of her breath on his neck and the sound of her quiet voice from right beside his ear made him flinch and then curse himself for his noticeable show of weakness.

“So Harry, do you think this lesson has been learned or must we continue?”  Faced with no other possible reply and feeling something suddenly curling and writhing deep at the bottom of his stomach as though in response, Harry gritted his teeth against the impending nausea and replied.

“I’ve learned.”  And he had, hadn’t he...? 

He did recoil, though not far when he felt his back flare at the movement, as she brushed the back of her hand across his cheek.  The caress left his throat working in an effort to keep from vomiting.

“Good.  Very good.  Then let’s end this session.”  Harry almost agreed when he saw her lift the cane again.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw her readjust her hold on the cane until she was grasping it by its curve before lifting the moulded cat’s paw end to the top of his back, resting it on one shoulder as a grandmother might to nudge forward a hesitating toddler.  It was incredibly strange and for a moment it simply sat there. 

Harry gasped again as he suddenly felt a sharp sting like a ton of tiny needles were sinking into his shoulder as the skin was pierced in one quick motion.  The cane hadn’t yet moved and he had to bite his lip until blood filled his mouth to keep from making noise as that pain increased before travelling slowly down his back, bumping over and slicing through his welts from his right shoulder to his left hip. 

“There,” He heard her mutter with satisfaction when she’d finished the long rake of her cane across his skin and he saw out of the corner of his eye as five sharp, bloodied claws receded back into the paw.  He dreaded to think what his back would look like now with the five long, continuous and clearly bloody lines trailing down his back, not to mention the damage it must have done to the raised skin of every welt.  He could feel hot trickles of blood curling sticky warmth around his ribcage and pooling in the dip at the small of his back, causing his soggy shirt to stick to his skin and to sit too heavily against his abused flesh. 

Straightening slowly, he felt the newly torn and abused skin shift as his bowed back curved naturally, stretching and pulling skin that screamed its complaint.  He clenched his teeth resolutely against any noise of pain.

“Considering it is quite late already, I think I’ll dismiss you now and we’ll just have to begin properly tomorrow.  I assume you will not be late again?”  Harry knew she was baiting him.  They both knew he still had detention with Snape tomorrow night and that he would still be late.  But then, what was the worst Snape could do to him?  Certainly he would be mad – furious, insane with anger at Harry’s arrogance – but he wouldn’t cane him.  Umbridge would.  And, if this was how they spent every night this week, Harry’s back would be a mess of bloodied torn flesh by the end of it and they wouldn’t have covered everything Umbridge clearly wanted to which would result in more detentions... or whatever the hell this was.  Snape was bad but Umbridge was worse.  Knowing that, all he could do was nod.

“Excellent, I see this message sunk in much faster than the last.  We’ll have those delusions of yours broken in no time.”  Harry turned slowly, trying not to aggravate his back and saw Umbridge tapping a pink fingernail against her pursed lips in thought.  “We didn’t make quite as much progress as I would have liked, but then you did learn this particular lesson rather thoroughly so perhaps a reprieve is in order.  I’ll save your surprise for tomorrow evening.”  Surprise?  What new hell had she thought of now?  “Run along Harry, I’ll see you tomorrow.  Remember, don’t be late.”  Her simpering laugh rang in his head, unable or unwilling to echo into nothingness.

He almost bolted out of the room once she’d given permission, dragging his bag on the ground behind him as he knew simply from moving that adding the extra weight to his shoulder would be unbearable.  He was still a little shell-shocked but there was a numb, disconnected part of his mind that reasoned that as far as punishments went, it wasn’t the worst he’d ever had.  His life was fraught with danger and he’d seen his share of violence, he could handle this.  That was the most logical, least emotional part of his mind. 

The part that would have had him sticking up for himself and realising not only the injustice but the sheer wrongness of her actions; that part of him was strangely absent.  He didn’t think he deserved the punishment – he knew in a weird, abstract kind of way that that wasn’t it precisely.  More it was the slightly fatalistic, objective viewpoint that it could be worse so he shouldn’t expect better. 

He was the boy-who-lived.  A caning from one extra person wouldn’t change that.  He was one student in a school overrun with them.  Not only that; he was one of the older ones of the school and if he complained he would be risking those few students older than himself and the many younger ones, because they needed Dumbledore and Harry forcing an earlier confrontation between the Headmaster and the ministry over a caning wouldn’t just be selfish, it would be irresponsible. 

But then... what if Dumbledore didn’t do anything anyway?  The thought had Harry stopping where he was, alone in the middle of the silent corridor, standing in the shadow just beyond the pooling moonlight.  Looking absently out the window with his thoughts so abruptly halted, he found he could see the moon – not quite full, Remus had a few more days – and the starlight that couldn’t be completely obscured by the low-lying clouds, lit from behind by translucent silver.  What if Dumbledore didn’t disagree with what Umbridge had just done?  Harry doubted that the grandfatherly old wizard would support such punishment, but he was the same man who had left him with the Dursleys.  Surely, if he thought it was for the greater good, for the ultimate protection of the wizarding world – or at least for Hogwarts – surely he would turn the same blind eye he had been turning since Harry’s parents had been killed.

The thought had him swallowing hard against the lump that had formed in his throat, threatening to choke him.  He welcomed back the numbing blanket, pushing the rest of his emotions back.  He was being ridiculous, a week of this and it would be over.  And anyway, she wouldn’t do this every night.  She said he’d learnt this lesson; whatever surprise she had for him tomorrow might not be so bad.  He didn’t know if his train of thought proved his optimism or sarcastic pessimism... perhaps Snape had it right and it was just another sign of his idiocy.  Or insanity.

Whatever it was, it was enough for now if it allowed him to stop thinking.  Carefully, Harry made his way back towards Gryffindor tower, taking his time to stop in one of the boys toilets on the way to cast a quick scourgify on his clothes.  He didn’t know any healing spells but that was alright; he couldn’t do magic in the holidays either and he got by well enough then. 

Wetting a bundle of paper towel, he made quick work of cleaning some of the blood off his back and the trail it had made around his torso to his chest and stomach.  The red stood out starkly against his  moonlit skin; new enough to still be wet and bright red and glistening but with sticky globs of crimson where the blood had already coagulated and clung persistently in the hollows between his ribs; the force necessary to remove them made Harry sore and need to stop to retch every so often. 

He would have been lying if he’d said that seeing himself in the mirror, seeing his back and what it had become over the course of the night hadn’t fascinated him.  There was a lot more blood than he’d thought. 

He worked quickly and after another scourgify he looked normal.  Normal enough to pass cursory inspection from his friends at least.  They didn’t know he’d had the meeting with Umbridge so they wouldn’t suspect anything anyway.  It wasn’t such a stretch to believe that Snape would have kept him this long and for once Harry was pleased with the man’s reputation for being a snarky bastard; it definitely worked in his favour now.

__________________________________________________________________________________

When he stepped through the portrait hole ten minutes later, pulling his bag laboriously behind him while trying to make the action look as natural as possible, he was surprised enough to take a step back when he was accosted by his friends the second he was seen.

“Are you okay?  Where were you?  It’s nearly midnight; surely Professor Snape didn’t keep you in detention this whole time!”

“’Mione give him some space to breathe.”  Harry could only agree with Ron as Hermione had been on him as soon as she’d seen him, jumping from the couch in front of the fire where the two of them had clearly been waiting and latching onto his neck.  Harry couldn’t have been happier that she hadn’t touched his back but it still strained under her slight weight and the sudden change in position and he couldn’t help hissing a little.  Hermione immediately released him and looked at his face carefully. 

“What’s wrong, did I hurt you?”  Harry shook his head and tried for a smile though he didn’t know how successful he’d been.

“It’s fine, I’ve just been cleaning cauldrons and my back’s hurting a bit.”

“But you disappeared at dinner; you can’t possibly have been cleaning cauldrons for over four hours.” 

Despite looking worried as well, Ron smiled a little, “You did something else to piss him off didn’t you?”  When Harry didn’t answer immediately, not sure what to say as it was always true but not the way his friend had meant it, Ron nodded knowingly and his smile turned rueful, “Mate, I know he’s... well, Snape, but maybe you shouldn’t rise to it every time.  He only says the stuff he does to get you in trouble.”

Harry felt the slightest twinge of betrayal that his friends assumed it was his fault and the irrational feeling in him rose like bile and coiled in his chest that they thought he deserved what had happened that night.  Of course neither of them knew, and he suspected that wasn’t even really what Ron was saying but his nerves and emotions were overwrought and he wasn’t entirely rational at that point.  He could feel the air of despondency that settled over him like a cloying cloak and wondered if his friends could feel it as palpably as a Dementor’s chill the way he could.  It was as though a physical weight settled on him and he could feel his back prickling with the implications.  Instead of the usual self-defences he might have come back with, Harry just nodded slowly.

“Yeah, I guess.”  He missed the look that passed between Ron and Hermione who were both at a loss as to the reason for his sudden shift in mood.  “Thanks for waiting up for me but I’m exhausted, I might just head to bed.” 

He didn’t look up as he passed them without another word, trying not to look too much as though he was dragging his feet.  He heard Ron call out that he would be up in a minute but he didn’t have the brain space to think up a reply so he didn’t try to.

More glad than ever for the silencing charms on the curtains of the other beds and similarly happy that Dean, Seamus and Neville had apparently decided on an early night – sort of, it was getting rather late for a school night – Harry flopped tiredly onto his bed, sprawling face down and hissing again into his pillow when the move pulled the skin on his battered back taut.

Using the least energy possible he rolled to the side until he could manoeuvre himself beneath the heavy quilt, not caring as the weight settled on his back.  Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he would regret not seeing to his back again before sleeping, or at the very least not taking off his shirt, but he was so tired.  Surely it couldn’t be so bad to just let his eyes slip closed for a little while.      

Regret it he did the next morning when he woke before the sun rose.  Harry wasn’t sure what had woken him at first until he realised he had tried to shift position in his sleep and his shirt had pulled over his skin ever so slightly.  He froze as pain lanced through his back.  Crap.  Crap, crap, crap. 

His back had bled again through the night and his shirt had dried to the torn skin.  Every move he made shifted the fabric and pulled on the edges of wounds, brushing welts and igniting fire in the intricate latticework covering the expanse of skin.  Oh, but this was going to hurt so much. 

It was still early and though he felt more tired than when he’d fallen into – onto – his bed, Harry knew he wouldn’t sleep anymore that morning.  Instead he took advantage of the privacy afforded by the time of morning as the other boys might as well not have been in the same room, dwelling as they were in their dreams.  Harry pulled the curtains around his bed closed before placing a silencing charm on the inside. 

He’d promised Ron once, a long time ago, that he wouldn’t do that – use a silencing charm on his bed – because his friend had said he wanted to be there, to help if Harry had a nightmare.  As much as Harry didn’t want to shut Ron out – especially knowing how hurt Ron would be if he knew Harry was breaking his promise – he couldn’t afford for anyone to find out about his latest injuries.  He had a week of Umbridge’s little meetings and he’d already reasoned out exactly why he couldn’t tell any adults about it. 

The first thing Hermione would do if she knew would be to go to McGonagall or Dumbledore, and Ron would most likely agree.  Even if he didn’t, the idea of the two of them knowing caused an ache in Harry’s chest that he couldn’t quite explain, but it felt similar to the feeling he got at the idea of them finding out about the extent of what happened at the Dursleys.  Harry assumed it was shame.  And that would make this week that much harder to get through.  One week.  He just had to get through one week. 

Not even that, he thought as he began to peel his shirt very slowly from his damp, clammy skin.  Four more days and it’s over.  He would try to never provoke another detention from Umbridge again, make her believe he didn’t need any more ‘rehabilitation’ and it would be over and nothing need ever come of it.  Things always get better eventually anyway, he thought and that voice in the back of his head was wondering if he was becoming a little hysterical, but of course he ignored it. 

The Dursleys were horrible but he only spent a few weeks or at most a month or two there every year now.  Four days was a small price to pay to stay at Hogwarts.  Harry didn’t even realise how his thoughts were warping his perception as he went from one seemingly logical point to the next, becoming more irrational by the second without knowing it in the corners of his mind.  It never occurred to him that his logic was flawed. 

He found he had to pull harder and harder on his shirt against one spot on his back where it refused to budge, so welded to the flesh it had become through the night.  As he gasped at the ripping sound that came from both skin and shirt; he never noticed the fact that he was now absolutely certain that despite it all, this pain was still a small price to pay to stay in the only place he’d ever thought of as home, regardless of the fact that ‘home’ should never have had a price to begin with.

It took him more energy and time than he would have liked to get ready for the day and the sun was a shining but obscured golden semi-circle on the horizon with pink and purple clouds dancing above and below it when Harry drew back the curtains with his bare back screaming at him.  He was grateful the other boys all slept late most days – half the time missing breakfast for the extra fifteen minutes of accidental sleep they got in exchange – and crept to his trunk to find a shirt for the day and to stuff the bloodied, balled-up remains of yesterdays down the side of his other belongings.  If he left it out a house-elf would be at it within the hour and his secret wouldn’t last.  Particularly since Dobby had taken to personally cleaning whatever room in the castle he happened to occupy.  He saw the amount of blood on the shirt but failed to see the patches of clear and green-tinged wetness also staining the shirt in places as it was shoved to the bottom of his trunk.

The shirt he’d picked for the day was slightly more well-worn than the one he’d chosen the day before and was softer on his skin, though his back still complained.  Loudly.  He was distracted enough that he didn’t notice the eyes that blinked lazily open shortly after his back was covered. 

Ron had stayed in the common room with Hermione the night before; waiting up for their friend to return from detention and doing homework while they waited.  Hermione had finished the entirety of her assignments and Ron had done all but one – which for Ron was saying a lot as they had piled up alarmingly – before Harry had stumbled into the room around midnight looking pale and defeated. 

Ron had never seen his friend look the way he had last night after a detention, except perhaps the night he’d seen Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest in their first year.  To see it now was unnerving, especially when it was so unexpected.  It had been Snape for goodness sake; it wasn’t as though it had been a detention with Umbridge.  Harry always returned with a sickly look to him on the nights he’d been with her, but Snape was as routine as detention could get with Harry, given how often they baited each other and Snape’s tendency towards needless sadism (in Ron’s eyes... though Hermione had put it into words for him).

Harry’s mood changes in their brief discussion had left his two friends utterly disconcerted and they had both noticed his glazed eyes and the light sheen on his skin.  Hermione had suggested as Ron was leaving that he should try talking to him again before going to sleep and they had decided together to keep an eye on their younger friend and to check in the morning to see if Harry had come down with something or was simply being his usual secretive self.  Once Ron had reached the dormitory that night however, he had found Harry already asleep and hadn’t been able to wheedle anything further about the night’s events out of him the way he sometimes managed to do due to Harry’s ever-present fatigue.  Harry’s secrets would have to stay secret for a little longer.

Ron and Hermione didn’t usually mind it overmuch, the tendency towards secrecy was an inherent part of Harry’s nature as they had both learnt early on, and they both knew it had more likely than not developed early on because of Harry’s relatives and the lack of any kind of support if such secrets were told.  That didn’t stop them from coaxing him to open up about anything and everything whenever they could though.  They wouldn’t have pushed so hard but to get a little from Harry meant a lot and there seemed to need to be a great deal of resolve and persistence in uncovering his secrets.  There was always the obvious underlying insecurity to work around; Harry needed to be certain the people he opened up to wouldn’t abandon him straight after and if he was in any doubt he would close up immediately.  It was a mark of how strong their friendship was that he told them as much as he did. 

It was another reason Ron had been so furious with Sirius for his words of the other night.  Harry had unveiled an insecurity of his; one of those things he held extremely close to himself at all times and revealed to few.  He had entrusted that to Sirius in his outburst about his godfather’s possible recapture – though considering the way Harry had spoken his concern, its revealing hadn’t been entirely intentional; rather, a reaction to the idea of losing Sirius to Azkaban again – and Sirius hadn’t just disregarded it, he had stomped all over it and set the foundations of unconditional trust Ron and Hermione were constantly trying to build up for Harry’s sake back immeasurably.  He had made Harry doubt one of the few people he thought he could trust and his own judgement in choosing those people. 

It was no secret Harry thought badly of himself, though he tried to hide it.  If he didn’t trust the people closest to him when they proved that he was genuinely worth loving and having around, then he would convince himself of the opposite far too fast for anything to be done.  It was a tenuous situation and Sirius hadn’t helped.  Then again, nothing was as bad as the way society was currently viewing Harry Potter, as Ron found later that morning.

 __________________________________________________________________________________ 

“And have some of this one too.”

“Ron, really... no wait-”

“And this.”

“Ron, stop!”

But Ron ignored Harry’s protests and flailing hands with the ease of long practise and continued his quest to fill Harry’s breakfast plate with everything within reach of his long arms. 

“I can’t eat all this and you know it,” Harry said, trying to reason with Ron even as another sausage was added to his plate. “This will all go to waste and other people might want some of this stuff.”

Ron gave Harry a doubtful look.  “Yeah, ‘cause we’ll all starve if you have another sausage.  Come on, it’s not like Hogwarts is going to run out of food anytime soon.”

“Lucky for you,” Harry muttered as he watched Ron’s focus shift to his own plate before grimacing as his friend tried eating a poached egg and two rashers of bacon in one go.  Despite the not so appetising picture his friend made, Harry had to smile as he belatedly realised he was mimicking his friend and eating a breakfast he probably wouldn’t have touched otherwise.  He was struck – possibly by the normalcy of the moment as the three friends ate breakfast together – that Ron and Hermione were his family.  He shifted in his seat a little; more aware than ever of the secret upon his back that was weighing heavily on him, separating him from his friends in some intangible way. 

Perhaps he should tell them?

He looked at Ron, remembering the many times his friend had defended him, looked out for him.  Looked after him.  He’d rescued Harry from the Dursley’s when they were twelve.  He’d been hurt by Harry’s godfather, even if it had been an accident.  He’d seen the way the world saw him just last year, turned on him and seen Harry from the other side.  And he’d come back.  He’d apologised. 

Harry could trust Ron.  He knew he could, five years had proved it.  He should tell him.  He really should... 

He shifted his focus to Hermione who was hidden behind the Daily Prophet, only the top of her frizzy hair still visible.  He could trust her too.  So many years, so many years of adventures the three of them had shared and so much pain they had weathered together.  He should.  He really should...

Then he saw his own face, small, in the corner of the front page of the paper hiding Hermione’s face.

“Anything interesting?”  He kept his voice curious despite the welling pit of trepidation.

There was no response and Harry tried again.  With the sudden loss of his appetite he needed a distraction – the food was only serving to make his stomach churn and watching Ron eat was never a good idea to begin with.  “Hermione?”  He called a little louder.  She lowered the newspaper until he could see her eyes and the top of her nose and he noticed the hesitation and concern in them.  His stomach, still churning, dropped at an alarming speed into his shoes.  “What’s happened?”

His apprehensively resigned tone roused Ron and he snapped out of his obsessive eating to look at Hermione as well.  She quickly shook her head, brown hair flying everywhere and coming dangerously close to becoming smattered in her breakfast, which sat ignored at her elbow.  “No, no, nothing’s happened.  Not really...” she hesitated, glancing at Ron and giving him a look that Harry didn’t understand.

“What do you mean, ‘not really’?” He asked, growing suspicious as his friends shared another look.  He rolled his eyes, remembering from the year before the many times his friends had tried to shield him from the vitriol the Daily Prophet had printed about him during the Triwizard Tournament.  No way was he going to allow them to do that again. 

They may have been the only two people he trusted to have his back – he trusted Dumbledore and Sirius and most of the Order as well but they were all keeping secrets from him and Dumbledore hadn’t so much as looked at him since the year before, which hurt more than he’d have liked to admit – but shielding him from things wasn’t a solution to his problems.  If people were talking about him, he wanted to know exactly they were saying.  It’s not like he could possibly be called worse than he had been already in his fifteen years.

Reaching out he ignored Hermione’s pleas of “no Harry, it’s nothing, don’t-” and plucked the newspaper from her hands before turning it around.  Staring back at him was himself; a very large picture of himself having just returned from his encounter with Voldemort the previous year; dirty and bloody, pale and terrified, and half sprawled across the body of Cedric Diggory, mouth open in silent screams and sobs the camera couldn’t catch.  The headline above the photo did all the screaming, proclaiming ‘Harry Potter Saviour or Sinner?’ 

Neither Ron nor Hermione missed Harry’s confusion and, as he read the article, they watched as the confusion morphed into surprise.  Hermione wanted to moan and Ron grew furious and wanted very much to find Rita Skeeter and wring her neck when they noticed Harry’s eyes attain an understanding they shouldn’t have held and a far too self-deprecating smile touched his lips as though he should have known all along. 

“They think I killed Cedric,” Harry murmured blankly to no one in particular, eyes still on the article.  Hermione rushed to argue.

“They don’t want to admit You-Know-Who’s back and they have to explain it somehow.  They’ll do anything to discredit you because you’re the only one who saw His return.  You can’t believe what they write!  You shouldn’t take any notice of it; really, they’re grasping at straws, tell him Ron.”  This was accompanied by an elbow shoved in Ron’s direction, catching him in the gut.

“Hermione!” He shot her a look of complaint but she nodded in Harry’s direction where that smile was still lingering on his face.  Ron wanted to scream and rage at the unfairness of it all.  They expect him to be their saviour one moment and blame him for things he can’t help the next, Ron thought furiously, brain working over time to come up with an argument against the article that might actually breach Harry’s insecurities.  Of all people, why did everyone have to pick on the one who just accepted it all?

“Seriously mate, Hermione’s right.  You can’t pay any attention to that crap, you know that.”  Ron felt thoroughly useless as Harry’s eyes remained fixed on the paper in his hands and ignored the feeble attempts to reassure him.  What was there to say?  In the end there would always be horrible things said about Harry and he would probably always be affected by them.  “Harry,” Ron pleaded, trying again to draw his friend’s attention away from the slander.  “Harry, listen, they’re all lies.  You know they are.”  Ron could hear the beseeching edge in his own voice but it didn’t matter.  He would have been thrilled when Harry’s eyes lifted to his own if it hadn’t been for the look on his friend’s face.  It hadn’t changed.

“But they’re not, are they.”  The smile was gone but Harry looked miserably numb, only the barest hints of his chaotic emotions and the storm of his tumultuous thoughts breaking his blank mask through the defeated cast of his eyes.

“Harry!” Hermione gasped and Ron knew that if Harry had been sitting beside Hermione he would have had an elbow in his gut as well.  “You know it’s not!  It was not your fault.  You were there when you-know-who came back, you know what really happened.  You can’t say they’re right, you can’t!”  Hermione tore the newspaper from Harry’s unresisting fingers and tossed it away as though it was a poisonous snake – which, unsurprisingly, was the way she saw everyone who worked for the Prophet.  It was clear that Harry was lost in his own thoughts but Hermione wasn’t finished, “How can you possibly buy into what they’re saying when you know they’re lying?”

“Hermione,” Harry finally said tiredly, “you weren’t there.  They may have the details wrong but even you can’t argue that I was at fault.”

“Of course I can because you weren’t!”  Hermione was becoming quite red as the angry flush in her cheeks spread and her eyes were glistening with tears of frustration.  Even Ron was looking a little worried despite being red in the face himself due to his anger at life and the injustice in it.  Harry just shook his head and Ron fought not to yell.

“Look, you can’t accept the blame for His actions.  You aren’t the same person-” Ron broke off as Harry suddenly leaned forward determinedly; having apparently lost patience in an argument he thought he knew better in.

“It was me who said we should take that cup at the same time.  It was me who Voldemort was after.  Cedric only died because he got caught up in an attempt on my life and I helped to lead him there.  I couldn’t even stop Wormtail from... It was me.  My fault.”  Neither Ron nor Hermione had a response to that or the time to get one out as Harry abruptly stood and left the hall.  Both of them had heard Harry hint as much and Ron frequently had to listen to Harry apologising to Cedric in his sleep; but hearing it said so vehemently, hearing Harry’s utter conviction in his guilt and the rightness in him feeling it was something else and it left them both speechless for a long moment as they stared after him.

“I don’t think it’s just... what did you call it?” 

“Survivors guilt,” Hermione murmured, her tone matching Ron’s as both of them sat unmoving, still looking at the doors Harry had disappeared through.

“I don’t think it’s just that ‘Mione, he really believes it’s his fault.  Like he thinks he cast that killing curse himself.”  Ron was in awe that his friend was so convinced.  Ron and Hermione had spoken about it in a moment alone when it became evident at Grimmauld place that Harry was so weighed down by his grief that it was affecting his appetite and sleeping habits and they had decided to do what they could to convince him otherwise but neither had thought it would be as difficult as it had proved. 

Now, in the face of the wizarding world agreeing with Harry and convincing him further of his misplaced culpability, both were feeling rather helpless.  Not only did they have to contend with Harry’s conviction, they also had to disprove the newest labels society had branded him with.

Hermione was nowhere near as surprised by the small brown owl that suddenly landed in a bowl of cereal to her left as Ron was if the way he jumped half a foot was any indication.  Giving the little creature an absent pat on the head, Hermione took the note it carried before ducking as it nearly clipped her head with a wing in its clumsy, slightly soggy take-off.  Ron peered curiously at the missive from beside her.

Ron looked confused until Hermione flicked her eyes up to meet those of the Headmaster and Ron’s followed.  Dumbledore smiled at both and when Hermione nodded agreeably he returned it before turning to McGonagall and picking up on an earlier conversation.  Hermione dropped her eyes back to the piece of parchment in her hand, thinking of the many precarious situations her and her friends seemed to constantly face; physically, mentally... politically.

Ron’s eyes followed the Headmaster for a moment before being drawn to the left to meet the dark ones still trained on him.  Ron offered a perfunctory glare which was returned but both were weak and neither student nor teacher seemed to put much effort into it, both looking away quickly with more important things on their minds.  The sun was blocked and the Hall darkened but not even a distant rumble of thunder could break Ron from his musings.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Upon leaving the Great Hall, Harry leant tiredly against the wall before hissing under his breath and taking an immediate step forward.  His back was extremely tender and moving hurt but it was manageable.  Putting weight on it or leaning against things was out of the question still.

He sighed as he turned away from the doors to lean his shoulder against the wall instead and knuckled his eyes, exhausted.  He wasn’t overly shocked by the turn the media had taken but to have his innermost thoughts splashed so largely across a newspaper so widely read was disconcerting.  Demoralising.  Not the best way to start a day.  But then, the stripes on his back had ruined any semblance of a good day already so it wasn’t too much of a loss.  He did find it irritating that his friends so adamantly denied any fault on his part when it was fact that he had had a hand in the death of a schoolmate.  He wished wholeheartedly that he wasn’t at fault but in reality he was and he had to face the consequences of that.  If that meant facing a world of disappointment – of hatred – then that was what he would do.  He owed it to Cedric. 

Knowing that was hard enough but having to convince his friends of his guilt, having to say it in different ways over and over until they understood he was a bad person, that ate away at him and made the hurt and loss ache that much more.  He wished they would accept it and get it over with.  But then, when they eventually did, would they realise he wasn’t who they thought he was?  Would they not want anything more to do with him because of it?  Were they in denial because they didn’t want to accept that their friend was capable of doing what he’d done?  Should he actually want to keep them in denial?  He couldn’t tell them.  It was like a slap in the face after the thoughts he’d had in the Great Hall over his breakfast.  How hopelessly naive he’d been, of course he couldn’t.  Because he needed his friends, and it was the only way he was going to keep them...

“So Potter, which is it?”  Harry couldn’t muster any more than a slow turn for the blonde behind him.  The blonde behind him who happened to be alone.  That was unusual.

“Which is what Malfoy?”  Even to his own ears he sounded exhausted and his reply came out half spoken, half sighed. 

“Saviour or Sinner?  Don’t know many murderous saviours myself.”  What he had just said answered the question in his own mind.  How could anyone think he could ever be a saviour of anything?  He was making it far too easy for the blonde who had been set against him since his first day here and at that moment he really couldn’t have cared less.  He was so tired.  His reply to Malfoy’s question was weak and his voice still sounded weary. 

“Yeah, no one would ever call your father that.”  Malfoy’s wand was out before Harry had time to blink and he was so shocked at himself for his lack of any kind of defensive movement that he didn’t notice Malfoy was as well.  He hadn’t gone for his wand.  Hadn’t even thought about it.  What was wrong with him?

“With reflexes like that I know who my money’s on in this war.”  Malfoy sneered but the surprise ruined the effect somewhat.  Not that Harry noticed or would have cared even if he had.

“Yeah, me too,” Harry murmured before spinning on his heel and walking away.  It was only when he was halfway up the stairs to the second floor that he realised what he had just done and, spinning mid-step, he saw Malfoy’s undisguised shock before he lost his footing and fell.

He didn’t fall far, only sliding two steps before his foot caught and stopped his descent, but his weight fell on his back and he couldn’t stop his gasp.  He had to take a deep, steadying breath before he realised his eyes were shut and they flew open, trying to focus through the fire searing his back.  Malfoy hadn’t moved though his wand was hanging limply in his hand at his side, face still displaying open shock.  It wasn’t something seen on a Malfoy often.  Harry painfully hauled himself up, as shocked at his own behaviour as Malfoy.  Where the hell is my head today! 

Malfoy took a step forward and when he broke the stunned silence there was no malevolence in his voice, only something that sounded like curiosity.

“What was that Potter?”  Leaning weakly on the banister though he tried to hide it, Harry shook his head quickly, trying to think.  He had to get out of there before he showed any more signs of weakness and so he attempted what he knew would distract Malfoy fastest.  He tried to piss him off.

“Didn’t know you cared so much Malfoy.”  Even to Harry the attempt sounded weak but though Malfoy’s expression didn’t lose its curiosity it still gained an indignation and his voice raised several octaves when he replied.

“You wish Potter, just looking forward to the show.  Then again it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen you faint.”  Something was off in Malfoy’s voice as well though his sneer was the same as ever and Harry simply rolled his eyes, too tired to care.

“Whatever,” he muttered before pushing himself to climb the stairs.  It was slow going and if he’d looked behind him he would have noticed the eyes trained on him but he didn’t.  Relief was muted by his exhaustion when Harry finally arrived at the top of the flight and was able to remove himself from Malfoy’s line of sight.  It was muted further when he realised his first class was DADA.  His day had clearly been destined as one of the worst of his life from the start.  Except, perhaps, for yesterday.

Meanwhile Draco Malfoy was left at the bottom of the stairs trying to figure out what the hell had just happened and Snape, having followed the blonde from the Great Hall and shrouded himself in the darkness of an alcove nearby while anticipating an altercation and ensuing loss of points, withdrew to the dungeons even as his mind wandered the halls and the first heavy raindrops started pounding against the walls.

It was a slow form of torture, to sit still for the two hours Tuesday morning’s DADA class lasted and keep his head down and his eyes on his book when he could feel that hated gaze trained on him so intently.  He could feel it burning into the back of his neck as she circled and stared.  Harry could feel his back prickling with not-so-phantom pain and he fought not to show any signs of tension even as he felt certain he would be struck the second he stopped expecting it.  Umbridge’s weren’t the only eyes on him but they were the only ones he felt as she circled.  And again.  And again.  It was a very long two hours.  And at the end of it he still wasn’t free.

“Mr Potter, a word?” 

Having just stood up with his friends to leave, his head dropped in defeat at the simpering voice.  What more could she possibly want?  Hadn’t she made him suffer enough for one lifetime?

He noticed the way Ron and Hermione wouldn’t leave but he paid it no mind, too distracted by the incoming horror in pink.  As he tried to negotiate his bag and his back he found he was actually glad of the pain which rocketed through his body at the contact as it didn’t allow him to feel the apprehension he knew he should have.  It took the woman a long time to reach the three of them as her girth worked against her and she got stuck on a few desks but eventually she stood before them, looking not at Harry but at Ron and Hermione with flashing eyes and a predatory smile posing perversely as a motherly one.

“I do believe I asked for Mr Potter to remain,” she began and Harry recognised from his hearing in the holidays and countless times since that she was gearing up for a long, pointless spiel to try and prove herself intellectually better than all others.  He wondered if she would fail as miserably as she usually managed to.  He sighed quietly as Hermione opened her mouth, quite likely to argue.  He blocked them out as he thought about how he knew things like that about Umbridge; idiosyncrasies that he really shouldn’t know at all and he felt an overwhelming wave of disgust at himself for it.  He couldn’t have explained why, but something in his gut twisted at the thought that this woman he hated so much took up so much space in his head, even if it was because he hated her so much.  He barely heard the diatribe going on over his head. 

“As I can see you are clearly not a boy Miss Granger, I am afraid I do not understand your presence.  As for you, I could have been sure your name was Weasley.  Has it changed since the beginning of class when I took role?”

Ron and Hermione were glaring daggers at their teacher by the time Umbridge stopped talking and Ron muttered under his breath “Old hag,” apparently unable to stop himself.  Indeed, he didn’t seem to realise he’d given voice to his thoughts until Umbridge’s eyes flashed, clearly having heard him.  But then her eyes swept over Harry’s bowed head, saw the look on his face, and she shook herself from her ire.  Both teens that were paying attention were disconcerted by how suddenly her anger became something completely different and the woman continued as if nothing was wrong, and it didn’t escape Hermione why.  Her chocolate-brown eyes darkened significantly but she stayed silent.

“As I was saying, I need only Mr Potter.  You two can run along, he will be with you shortly.”  Harry distantly heard Hermione’s reply and found himself in awe of her tenacity; he doubted he could have argued with Umbridge at that moment.

“It’s just that we were going to walk to our next class together and we’ll all be late if we don’t leave now.”

“Have you forgotten Miss Granger that I am a professor here?” she ignored Ron’s mutter of “not bloody likely,” and continued in a louder, somewhat more determined voice.  Though her words came out shrill, forced from behind clenched teeth, she didn’t seem to notice she’d lost her air of indifference.  “I have excused the two of you and there is no reason why you should be late for your next class.  If you are, you will no doubt earn a detention from Professor...” she looked pointedly at Hermione until she caught on.

“We have Herbology next.”  Umbridge sniffed disdainfully.

“Well no doubt there will be some kind of repercussions awaiting you if you are late for Professor Sprout,” she sniffed again as though she highly doubted it.  “As for Mr Potter, I will be done with him shortly.  Until I am, perhaps you should keep in mind that I am your professor and you are students and the enforcement of rules falls to me, not you.”

Hermione was red in the face she was so utterly livid, but upon seeing this Ron dragged her from the room before she could get herself into any serious trouble.  Harry lifted his head and came back to reality in time to hear Hermione’s voice float in from beyond the door.  “Why did you do that?  I wasn’t finished with that insufferable, unbelievable...”

Her voice was lost as she was no doubt dragged further out of earshot before she could finish her list of epithets.  In a slight haze Harry saw Umbridge swoop down on him like some great pink bird of prey.  Personally he didn’t think they existed.  Surely they’d be far too noticeable. 

“Mr Potter,” she said his name as though she was cooing to a box of chocolates finally in her grasp.  He shuddered.  “Your friends are quite... spirited.  I wonder if they get that from you.  I wonder, if I were to adjust your views of authority, you might adjust theirs by way of influence?  Perhaps something we should discuss further tonight.  You have reason to be quite irritated with your friends actually, if they hadn’t interfered we would have been done by now and you wouldn’t be fifteen minutes late for your next class.  Pity.  It was the subject of punctuality I wanted to discuss with you too.  You see I’ve had a talk with Professor Snape,”  Harry’s eyes widened fractionally as he wondered what trouble he was in for later that night when he would no doubt find out what Umbridge had seen fit to discuss with Snape about him. 

“And he has refused to change the time of your detentions with him to allow for mine,” Harry closed his eyes tightly and barely held in a groan.  “So, I am willing to overlook your lateness to our meetings for the rest of the week.”  His eyes flew open again and he regarded her with disbelief.  She was making allowances for him?  What the hell?  “We have much to get through and I believe in future you will maintain your own punctuality where possible,” she paused to stretch her jewel encrusted talon to his shoulder, brushing the welt through the fabric of his shirt and he winced.  “It was a hard-won lesson was it not?”

Harry was numb.  He didn’t react to her baiting and on some level he was sure this would anger her as she usually only did things to provoke a reaction from someone, yet his lack of response seemed to be exactly what she was after as she smiled, looking quite satisfied.  Pulling back her hand she turned and made her way back to her desk, continuing as if nothing had happened.

“You will come here as soon as your detention with Professor Snape is finished, understood?”

Harry could only muster a nod and she seemed to expect this as well as she looked over her shoulder in time to catch it.  “Good, now run along, mustn’t keep your friends waiting.”

Without a word Harry spun on his heel and left.  

Professor Sprout had luckily opted to take points rather than give a detention and no one was overly fussed about the five Gryffindor lost as they were in the lead for the house cup by so many more.  Harry wondered if he could suggest the alternate form of punishment to Umbridge. 

By the time lunch arrived and Harry, Ron and Hermione were sat in the Great Hall; Harry’s head was pounding with a pulse of its own making him feel quite sick.  Hermione hadn’t helped his headache in the least as her tirade had only stopped for brief periods in classes, and even then it had only reduced to a frenzied, hissing whisper.  Hermione had noticed Harry’s state but it only fuelled her to new levels of aggravated indignation.

“And then she has the gall to –”

“Hermione!  You can stop now.”

Though Ron had tried multiple times to calm her down, Hermione had resisted each time and she looked like she would this time as well until Ron nodded his head in Harry’s direction where he sat rubbing his temples and ignoring his sandwiches.  It got the desired response.

“Harry?” Hermione’s voice was soft and slightly unsure, so unlike it had been for the last two classes that it successfully caught Harry’s attention.  “Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“You should eat something.  Lunch’ll be over in ten minutes.”

Harry sighed and continued to rub his head.  It really wasn’t helping but it gave the illusion that he was doing something to stop the pain and for some reason that helped his state of mind a little.  He looked at Ron with tired eyes.

“What do we have next?”

“Divination.”  Harry groaned and his head thudded as he let it drop defeatedly to the table.  Ron nodded pityingly, misunderstanding Harry’s reaction.  “I know mate, I didn’t do my homework either.”

The afternoon just got better and better from there as far as Harry was concerned.  The incense wafting around the Divination classroom in clouds of heady perfume was stifling enough to make Harry’s eyes water and his head felt full of cotton wool by the time the class was over.  It was only made that much worse when he walked into Potions.  Even though it was their last class of the day, the seventh year class before theirs had brewed something that, despite being bottled and cleaned thoroughly from cauldrons and other equipment, had left behind a noxious, cloying smell of its own that seemed to prickle at everyone’s noses. 

After an hour in Divination, with a terrible headache and an ever-worsening sense of nausea – not to mention the pain in his back which seemed to culminate in his temples – Harry felt and looked far worse than anyone else in the room and Snape noticed immediately, though of course he made no sign.

The three friends had settled in seats at the back of the room in an attempt to go unnoticed and amazingly enough it actually seemed to work.  For the entire lesson Snape stayed away from them, only coming near them once to sneer into Ron’s cauldron, ignoring both Hermione’s and Harry’s as he disappeared to the other side of the room in a swish of heavy, black fabric.  Harry kept his head down and worked on his potion, giving it all of his attention, though he couldn’t have said afterwards what he had brewed.  He didn’t notice the looks Ron and Hermione exchanged throughout the lesson – one of which caused an extra malicious sneer from Snape when it resulted in the utter ruin of Ron’s attempted potion – or the way they both seemed to become more anxious as the lesson progressed. 

By the end of it they were whispering covertly together as they cleaned their cauldrons together at the sink in the corner.  By then Harry had noticed the strange behaviour but really couldn’t have cared less, he felt too sick and it was affecting his train of thought disastrously.  When Snape dismissed the class and called over the sudden din for him to remain behind, Harry saw the mingled look of concern and relief in both of their faces – though he forgot the former in the face of the latter – and the only thought that flitted absently through his mind like a dejected murmur was: who could really blame them?

Harry walked disinterestedly to the front of the classroom, going against the current of rushing bodies as the rest of the students hurried in the opposite direction.  It was as though he was hearing through a badly tuned radio when he heard Snape tersely dismiss Malfoy who was clearly lingering before he eventually came to stand a few feet before Harry.  All Harry could really make out was the general form of him, so distracted was he by the various aches and pains his body saw fit to remind him of constantly.  He was desperately trying to calm his stomach, his throat occasionally having to work to keep what he’d eaten down with dry gulping movements even though he hadn’t had anything since breakfast. 

Snape was silent for a long time but Harry didn’t notice until the awful smell that had lingered in the room seemed to suddenly disappear, though it took a little longer to stop clinging to the inside of his nose.  In the clearer air Harry’s eyes lost some of their glaze and he looked up tiredly to see Snape watching him intently.  His face was inscrutable and his eyes revealed only his interest in Harry’s face which they roamed over again and again.  Harry was the first to break the silence, ruminating over why it usually had to be him that did so when in the presence of Snape.  Especially when it was usually the professor who wanted to talk to him in the first place.  It seemed like such a lot of hassle to Harry who wanted, more than anything, for life to be simple.  

“You wanted to speak to me sir?”  Even his voice sounded tired.  Had he not felt so awful he would have cursed himself for showing any kind of weakness in front of this man.  As it was, he was tired.  He couldn’t ignore it anymore.  Snape continued watching him, showing no indication that he’d heard him at all until, after nearly a minute of nothing, Snape spoke softly, dangerously.  It was almost enough to distract Harry from the words he said.

“The next time you come to this classroom when you should be in the infirmary, the next time you endanger the lives of every other person in here by using volatile substances without focus or concentration; I will see to it personally that you become one as painfully as possible.  Do I make myself clear?”  Snape had stepped forward as he spoke and now stood in Harry’s personal space, towering over him and looking quite threatening indeed.  Harry wondered if he should tell him that, he was sure it would make the man happy.  If he ever was.

“Yes sir,” he said instead.  A shame really. 

 “In that case I suggest you go there now.  Don’t think it will get you out of detention tonight unless you are dying.  Imminently.”

“Yes sir,” he repeated, feeling a little useless in the conversation.  Waiting until Snape made a shooing motion with his hands to be sure he was dismissed, Harry turned and left, dragging his bag and wondering how he would possibly make it up that many stairs. 

As he passed through halls and under arches, windows with and without glass, he noticed for the first time the storm clouds building.  He’d been so distracted he felt as though he hadn’t noticed much outside of his head for days, as though he was living in a different space to the one the rest of the world occupied.  Now he remembered the sound of rain through the night, the scent of it in the air, and he watched now as the clouds roiled and tossed like waves on the shore, large plumes of bruised sky colliding only to separate as he stood before it all and stared.  He looked out from a large arched window, nothing separating him from the smell of the oncoming storm and wondered why it felt so calming to watch such turmoil on such a scale.  The air had an errant crackle of electricity to it that he hadn’t felt since winter the year before, the kind that comes from approaching thunder and lightning and the probability of torrents of rain in the near future.  It made him feel like he was home.  He had only ever experienced these kinds of ferocious, deadly storms since coming to Hogwarts and every year it came at a time of year he usually managed to forget that he had another ‘home’ completely; long enough after leaving his relatives that his body had recovered with a long stretch ahead before he would have to see them again.  He was home. 

But home was also his friends.

He hadn’t see Hermione or Ron when he’d left the classroom and it hurt a little to think they hadn’t waited for him.  They always waited.  He internally cursed himself again.  He was being ridiculous; of course they didn’t have to wait for him.  He was heading for the infirmary anyway.  As if they didn’t have better things to do than hold his hand.  It struck him that he was obeying Snape of all people, but he really couldn’t have cared less.  He truly felt terrible and Madame Pomfrey may be able to help.  The thought only really made him feel bad for wasting her time though since he knew she couldn’t.  Not really. 

He gave a last long look to the clouds coming ever closer and couldn’t help the nostalgia for younger years that the smell of rain induced, years of childhood he should have had and hadn’t.  Years he mourned when he had never truly had them to begin with.  The first year he had spent here had been his childhood, his second entry into the world he had been born to, the year he learned what he needed to know.  What he was.  What he would be.  It didn’t feel like enough but as far as a childhood went he supposed it would have to do.

Harry was completely exhausted by the time he reached the unusually quiet Infirmary and it showed.  The white-clad woman within had known him long enough to immediately expect the worse upon his arrival, especially if he was feeling poorly enough to go to her willingly.  Far too many times he had to be dragged kicking and screaming (or sullen and silent as the case may be) or brought in unconscious (which had happened far too many times in both of their opinions).  Seeing a pale and shaking Harry Potter enter her Infirmary alone was not a positive sign, for all that it meant he had come to her willingly after years of resistance.  It only made her worry more as she wondered how bad it must be for him to have trusted her.

She was disappointed when she realised he still didn’t – not really.  He appeared to be on auto-pilot and stayed silent as she directed him to ‘his’ bed, the one he always used when he was in need of her help, the one he had chosen in first year because of the high arched window beside it.  She drew her wand and performed a standard diagnostic charm, opening Harry’s file and touching wandpoint to parchment before waving it in intricate patterns around his body where he sat on the edge of the bed. 

As she performed the routine charm her eyes took in the dulled glaze in his own, the glossy sheen that made his green eyes eerily luminous, the clammy skin and tremors racking his entire frame.  She suspected he had a bad case of the flu or something similar.  That was why the worried crease between her brows deepened to a frown of confusion when her charm proved inconclusive.  Nothing appeared on the parchment she held in her other hand when she touched the tip of her wand to it.  Apparently there were too many things in his body warring with each other for a standard diagnostic charm to get a clear reading, and that made no sense whatsoever unless their Potions Professor had finally cracked a decided to use students as test subjects after all. 

She had gotten the same reading the first time Minerva had brought Harry to her after a vision from Voldemort.  The curse scar and its effects were foreign to his body; he wasn’t born with it, therefore it confused any reading she had tried to record about it and its symptoms.  Being a school-trained medi-witch, Poppy Pomfrey knew a wide range of healing spells and potions and the effects of many illnesses and infections likely to be found in a school but she wasn’t as knowledgeable in any one field as the specialists of St Mungo’s.  It was a rare occurrence when a student would need to be taken to the wizarding hospital but it had happened in the past.  Poppy however was reluctant to do this for Harry, knowing the danger as well as any of the staff; perhaps more so as she had seen him hurt so often before.  She wasn’t about to do anything that might risk seeing him that way again.

She remained undecided, her eyes watching Harry intently as she tried to reason what would be best for her patient, when Harry seemed to come back to himself a little and his eyes finally left the floor to meet hers. 

“Madame Pomfrey?  I really only need a Pepper-Up Potion or some sleep or something and I’ll be alright, this isn’t necessary.”  He seemed not to notice that she had already charmed him once and was currently deliberating.  She didn’t like the way his pupils were dilated and the fact that it was obvious after watching intently for a moment that he was rocking back and forth ever so slightly, as though unaware of the movement and unable to stop.  She was incredibly concerned but reasoned that for the moment there wasn’t an awful lot she could do, and the curse scar had interfered with her readings before.  It may still be something fairly small and it was clearly something she wouldn’t glean from him.  Not consciously at least. 

“Okay dear, I’ll be back in a moment,” she said soothingly.

Harry seemed not to notice the pause.  He simply nodded and continued to stare into space as she went to her potions cabinet where she kept a small stock of salves and healing potions.  She had known the boy for five years now and still he wouldn’t tell her anything, would never admit to needing help or healing unless he was forced to.  She sighed.  There was only so much she could do until he decided to confide in her.  In anyone.  She had noticed the signs, those small giveaways she had seen in far too many students in her career at Hogwarts.  She had gone to Dumbledore every year that Harry returned, underfed, body stressed to the point of collapse.  With no proof she had nothing but suspicions to pester Dumbledore with but she could see it, in Harry’s eyes whenever he returned and inevitably came down with something at the beginning of term in September; his immune system too weak not to be susceptible to the hundreds of other students bringing all kinds of illnesses with them from their time away from school.  And every time he came – or was dragged by his friends – grudgingly.  Every time he scarpered as soon as he could.  

Taking the right vial back to Harry’s bed with her, she handed it to him keeping her hand on the potion until Harry had grabbed it in both of his unsteady hands and raised it to his lips.  Steam shot out of his ears and the tell-tale flush of his the potion helping his body boil whatever infection he might have appeared on his cheeks as he drank but it immediately gave way to a startling shade of white before he gasped, clutching his stomach.

Harry couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so sick; sure that it had been many years ago.  Long enough ago that he had been shut in a cupboard until he was well again.  He felt like something was sinking its teeth into his gut from the inside and he could feel himself paling, the bile rising, before he was doubled over and retching between his knees over the side of the bed.  Madame Pomfrey was quick with a basin which he held in shaking hands as he continued to empty his stomach, ignoring the wetness he could feel at the corners of his eyes.  He felt thoroughly miserable by the time he sat back, careful to sit straight on the edge of the bed despite his exhaustion, his back already paining him from his body’s convulsions.  He was grateful the medi-witch’s sharp eyes had missed that at least.

Madame Pomfrey was solicitous as always and Harry quickly found himself eased back against a mound of pillows so gently he felt only a twinge from his back.  A warm flannel brushed his face, soothing the oversensitive skin and cleaning his clammy skin.  The woman seemed to be in her element now that she had a student she could cater to but he noticed the way her usually well-hidden concern seemed to be mounting in a way he knew he wouldn’t like.  This was confirmed when, wanting to get away from those piercing, assessing eyes, he asked if he could go back to class now and she assured him in her don’t-argue-with-me tone that he was going nowhere.

For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening she monitored him closely while she covered her hovering by cleaning, rearranging the potions cabinet and remaking the perfectly made beds nearest Harry’s.  She needn’t have bothered, after the first five minutes he was too out of it to notice. 

When it came time for dinner to be served in the Great Hall Harry started levering himself up to leave but Madame Pomfrey appeared at his elbow before he could get far and gently pushed him back down.  “I don’t think so young man, you’ll have dinner right here.”

“I’m fine now Ma’am, I can eat in the Great Hall.”

“No you can’t,” she started resolutely.  “I will not have you-”

What she would or wouldn’t have him doing was never given voice however, because a very muddy Hufflepuff Quidditch team chose that moment to spill through the infirmary doors with a rather ruffled Madame Hooch and three stretchers following in their wake.  Over the sudden din Harry heard Hooch calling to Pomfrey and gesticulating wildly, only barely missing several students’ heads.

“These two collided mid-air and that one caught a bludger in the back of the head because of the distraction.”  Harry couldn’t help his smile when he heard Madame Pomfrey’s mutter of “bloody ‘sport’” and used the distraction to lever himself up once more and escape the infirmary before anyone noticed, though with no intention of going to the Great Hall.  He just needed a bit more rest – rest he could get in his dorm – and he’d be fine.

Hermione was having a horrible day.  She had somehow received an E on the Ancient Runes essay she had been handed back in class earlier that day and Potions had been a very long hour of brewing and trying to plan with Ron how to get away from Harry for their ‘tea’ with the headmaster without him noticing.  Not that she thought he would have noticed anyway.  She had found it increasingly hard to concentrate when it was obvious that Harry was sick, his eyes dull and his skin pale and shiny with perspiration.  Half the glances she had exchanged with Ron had been in concern for their friend who had been rubbing at his temples constantly, though she was fairly sure he’d been unaware of his actions. 

Neither of them wanted Harry to know they had been invited to a meeting with Dumbledore when they both knew Harry hadn’t – or at least they strongly suspected he hadn’t and they didn’t want to mention it just in case.  They both knew how adrift Harry was feeling lately and neither had missed the way Dumbledore was suddenly ignoring him.  So it turned out to be a blessing for them that Snape had held Harry back at the end of class.  It enabled them to get away before he left, but neither of them had been able to shake the guilt they had felt over the abandonment and Ron had spent the time it took walking to the headmaster’s office worriedly ranting to Hermione about their Divination lesson and Harry’s similar behaviour throughout it.

As Hermione walked to the Great Hall for dinner that night she couldn’t help rubbing her own temples in frustration as she thought about how ultimately pointless the meeting with the Headmaster had been.  The man may have been one of the greatest wizards of their time – and quite likely the time before it as well – but it was obvious that as equally worried as the man was about their friend, he knew as little or less than they did about Harry’s current moods and how to help.  He insisted when Hermione asked that the distance he was currently keeping from Harry was necessary and not to mention it, but Hermione couldn’t help wondering if there was some other way around whatever the issue was.  Any other way.  She had it on very good authority that the loss of support on his part was slowly driving Harry mad. 

Though he had seemed as concerned as they were, Dumbledore did seem to have that hopeful twinkle in his eyes firmly in place and assured them that no matter how hopeless it might seem, hope always remained, though he expressed it with a clichéd muggle sentiment that soared straight over Ron’s head like a rogue bludger until Hermione explained it.  She sighed as she spotted her friend’s fiery hair a little apart from the other Gryffindors at the table, writing furiously on a piece of parchment.  As she approached she saw that he was penning a letter.

Snuffles, I wouldn’t be writing but I think you need to talk to Harry.  Especially after the other night.  Me and Hermione think something might be wrong but he won’t talk to us and Dumbledore will only say something about it being dark before morning but-

“Dawn.”

Ron jumped when Hermione stopped reading over his shoulder to correct him.  Turning to face her he looked at her quizzically.

“The saying,” she explained, “is that it’s darkest before dawn.”

“Fat lot of good it does,” Ron grumbled before returning to his letter.  Hermione couldn’t help but agree as she slumped onto the bench beside him before looking around the hall. 

“No sign of him yet?”

“’Course not, he probably won’t come at all.”  Ron wrote as he spoke and Hermione could see from the harsh movements of his hand that his words were likely becoming just as harsh.  She could see the parchment beginning to tear under his fierce strokes and tried to think of something to calm him before he found himself having to rewrite his missive.

“Ron, you can’t blame him for the way Harry’s acting lately.”  Ron gave her a look and she amended, “not completely.”

“Sure I can.”

A few moments later Ron stopped writing and looked over his letter with a satisfied air that Hermione didn’t think boded well so she plucked it from his hands and read the rest herself.

Me and Hermione think something might be wrong but he won’t talk to us and Dumbledore will only say something about it being dark before morning dawn but that doesn’t help us or him.  If you talked to him you might be able to get more out of him or at least make him feel a bit more like he can trust someone because after the other night...  He’s been quieter since Sunday and it’s not good for him.  He isn’t eating or sleeping well and Snape’s being worse than usual and there’s nothing we can do and Sunday just made everything worse.  He’s supposed to be able to turn to you but he can’t and at the moment I don’t think he’d want to anyway.  I thought you said he could rely on you.

-Ron

Hermione thought it read a little harshly and knew that Sirius would think the same but she couldn’t find it in herself to be all the concerned for Sirius after Sunday night.  Nevertheless she relented enough to pick up Ron’s quill and pen a short note at the end.

If you don’t talk to him soon you may lose him for good.  He’s less self-assured than you think.  At least give it some thought.

-Hermione

“You’re too nice you know.”

Hermione looked up and saw Ron watching her and shrugged before handing the note back.  He tucked it in a pocket of his robe before picking up a fork to start on dinner which had appeared at some point, unnoticed by both.  “I’ll owl it tonight.”

Harry’s eyes shot open and he looked around wildly to see a dark and empty dorm room.  Just a dream.  He willed his heart to slow and found an eerie feeling replacing the panic he’d woken in, the kind of feeling that made him wonder what he was late for, where he was meant to be.  It was only when he noticed just how dark it had become despite his curtains being open that he realised he had detention, two of them, and he was very late.  Crap.  Snape would have his head. 

Pulling himself laboriously to his feet, Harry swayed a moment, reflecting that he felt only the slightest bit better than he had earlier that day.  He told himself to suck it up as he trudged down the many stairs to the dungeon.  He didn’t see more than the odd straggler who took no more notice of him than he did of them and in the silence he still didn’t manage to lose the strange displaced feeling he’d woken with before he was standing before the heavy wooden door leading to his next few hours of hell.  Here again.  His fist wouldn’t rise to the wood this time; it was content to remain in a tight, white-knuckled ball at his side.  He could- would do this.  He was growing to truly dread the sound of his fist hitting the wood, enough so that his stomach turned at the sound and feel of the knock rebounding from the wood into his trembling hand.

“Enter.”  Do I have to?

Harry found it was almost worth the dread curling in his gut to see the expression on Snape’s face as he stood, framed in the doorway.  He’d certainly never seen the man look surprised before.  Unfortunately it didn’t last long and then the usual annoyance was twisting his features.

“Potter, what are you doing here?”

“Um, I have detention?”  It wasn’t until Harry asked that he realised he must really have been exhausted.  What sort of question was that?  Did he want a detention? 

“What part of ‘the next time you endanger lives using volatile substances, you will become one’ did you not understand?” Snape asked uninterestedly as he returned to the grading spread across his desk. 

“I’ll uh, just go then,” Harry said, already edging out the door but he was stopped when it shut in his face of its own accord.  When he turned Snape was tucking his wand back up his sleeve.

“Oh no, don’t let me deprive you,” Snape said in his quiet voice, gesturing to a pile of cauldrons in the corner even as he kept his eyes on his work, going so far as to write a comment in blood red ink as he spoke to show how very uninterested in Harry he was.  Harry had to wonder how someone developed the skill to concentrate so fully on two things at once, then scowled as he realised what he was thinking and how it was no doubt akin to Snape’s own thoughts.

Knowing it was more an order than a suggestion; Harry sighed quietly and went to work.  It didn’t take long for his back to start screaming as his position – slouched forward on his knees – reopened his wounds yet again.  No doubt the welts looked rather angry and raw by now but it was the scratch he was worried about.  He was still wearing his robes – the dungeons were cool enough that he wouldn’t have been able to comfortably work without wearing them despite the manual labour – and he was thankful for it because he could feel his shirt sticking to him and knew it wasn’t with sweat. 

He had barely finished his first cauldron when he realised Snape wasn’t sitting at his desk anymore.  His lack of concentration startled him as much as it had the other day when Malfoy had confronted him and he looked around the room a little desperately in search of his teacher but Snape wasn’t there.  Despite feeling incredibly ill at ease, Harry took the opportunity to straighten his back and had to bite his lip hard to keep in any noises he would have made otherwise.  His back was on fire!  He was so sure of it he put his hand to the small of his back but only felt damp fabric.  When he brought it back to continue cleaning – there was no such thing as a good reason to anger Snape and angered he would definitely be if he returned and found Harry not working – he saw his fingertips were tinged red and realised he’d bled through his robe. 

He almost started panicking before he pulled the material around to examine it and saw that, because it was black, the stain wasn’t visible - especially not down here where light was sparse.  Upstairs it would be a different story but even then he could pass the darker patch of fabric as water.  He suddenly felt a lot tireder than he could ever remember being.  He just wanted this to be over, all of it.  It was too much like hiding things from teachers when he was younger to cover the best efforts of the Dursleys except back then the teachers hadn’t been particularly perceptive.  With friends like Hermione and Ron this was just proving exhausting.  He was so sick of detentions with evil gits and toads – not that Snape could really compare to Umbridge – and he was sick of feeling... pointless.  Like he was a waste of space.  Wasn’t it enough that he had to feel like that through the holidays?

Harry felt a presence behind him and started badly, the movement wrenching his back painfully though he only allowed a small hiss past his clenched teeth as he turned and found Snape standing not three feet behind him.  Holding a potion.  What now? Uh, even in his head he sounded whiny.  Harry didn’t know what to think when Snape bent and thrust the vial he held into Harry’s hand that was closest.

“Potter, clearly you are still ill.  Did you decide to disobey me yet again?” Snape’s voice was filled more with a tired sort of exasperation than anything else as he rose to his full height again and looked away as though bored by the exchange and it took Harry by surprise.  There was no malice.

“No sir, Madam Pomfrey said I was fine.”  One of Snape’s eyebrows arched and he waited a moment for Harry to backtrack before he spoke himself, his voice heavy with doubt.

“She said you were fine,” he repeated, his eyes scanning Harry’s face slowly before purposely lingering on the shadows beneath Harry’s eyes and his pale, shadowed cheeks.  Harry realised then that he probably should have given himself a once over in a bathroom before coming to detention.

“Well, she didn’t say I was sick.”

“Potter,” Snape pinched the bridge of his nose briefly as though willing his patience to return. “If you do not see the difference between the two...” he trailed off as he examined Harry’s rather blank expression before sighing again.  “Never mind.  Drink that, I will not have you fainting in my classroom.”  Harry opened his mouth to argue that he wasn’t about to faint but closed it with a snap as Snape looked at him as though he expected the retort and had already prepared a punishment for it.  With a sigh of his own Harry examined the vial he held.

“What is it?  Sir?”  Snape was already on his way back to his desk and didn’t turn as he answered.

“A mild calming potion.  I assume Madame Pomfrey gave you a Pepper-Up Potion?” Snape continued before Harry could answer, “If you still look that way after a Pepper-Up another will do you no good, clearly your current condition is due more to stress than anything else.  That should help as well as a good night’s sleep.”

Raising his own brows and examining the potion again, Harry had to admit – grudgingly – that Snape was probably right, though why Snape thought he would get a good night’s sleep anytime soon was perplexing when the man knew he had detentions with Umbridge after each of his own every night this week.  After a minute’s more hesitation he emptied the vial.  He instantly felt his weariness hit him like a wave but also a relaxed sort of peacefulness and despite Snape being nearby couldn’t help feeling as though he would like nothing more than to curl up on the floor and sleep, his eyes closing without his permission before he forced them back open.  Knowing Snape was nearby however propelled Harry into action and with arms like cooked noodles he continued cleaning cauldrons. 

He worked slowly – very, very slowly – but Snape didn’t say a word.  Even when nine o’clock came and Harry had only cleaned one other cauldron Snape said nothing and dismissed him without a single taunt.  Harry didn’t see his professor lower his quill as the door closed, or when he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger tiredly, as though wearied by the child he had sworn to protect being so clearly sick and seemingly uninclined to do anything about it.  Something was just so obviously... wrong.

Waking up on Wednesday morning was an ordeal in itself.  His nightmares were getting worse.  A mixture of emotions assaulted him in waves through the night and usually reached their crescendo in a vision or a nightmare he himself somehow concocted, usually only a few hours after he had fallen asleep.  That morning – he assumed it was morning considering the time he had returned to his dorm – he had awoken and immediately thrown himself over the side of his bed to vomit.  A dizzying mix of Dursleys, Voldemort and Umbridge wafted through his head as he slept and the images had just become too violent to sleep through anymore.  So much so that his stomach rebelled upon awakening as he recalled in vivid pictures what he had somehow managed to sleep through for hours.  But that wasn’t the worst of it.  As soon as he was aware of himself enough to recall where he was and recent events he couldn’t get last night out of his head.

The evening before had to have been one of the worst of Harry’s life.  He couldn’t remember much of Umbridge’s detention now just as he couldn’t when he found himself stumbling out of her room with no idea of what had happened for the last few hours.  He reasoned that he must have been too exhausted and Snape’s calming potion must have only made him drowsier.

Upon leaving the hated office he had gone straight to the same bathroom he had used the night before to clean himself up, knowing he needed it and unsure why except for the increased pain in his back.  He must have removed his robes when he first entered Umbridge’s office, the heavy black fabric had been uncomfortably heavy with half-dried blood and the cleaning solution he had been kneeling in when he had been elbow-deep in cauldron grime and Umbridge’s office was always the wrong side of warm, especially after the chill of the dungeons.  He only realised he had to have left it behind when he came back to himself to the sound of rain on glass and his own pale reflection staring back at him from the mirror over the sink he was braced against. 

He looked terrible.  Far more tired than usual – as if that was somehow possible – whiter than ever, shaking, though he hadn’t noticed, and his clothes hung off of him more than they usually did upon his return to school.  He didn’t know if it was his hunched shoulders but he looked smaller somehow.  Great, not only am I not growing, I’m actually shrinking.  The stray thought was barely there, his focus fixed on the odd, vague picture he made in the dusty glass. 

Lifting his shirt over his head tore something; he felt the uncomfortable pull of taut skin and the sudden snap before a torrent of warmth that seeped down his back.  There was no increase in pain, there was already too much; so much that he felt as though he was losing sensation in his back as it felt numb, not as though there was no pain, more like the nerve endings couldn’t stand it anymore and were in overload.  In fact, he realised dazedly, there was almost no pain at all anymore.  Almost. 

Naked from the waist up and shivering from the cool night air, much cooler for the rain pounding against the thick glass windows, Harry balled up his shirt and used it to wipe over the dusty bathroom mirror before him, having to lean over the ancient porcelain fixtures to do so and feeling his back protest.  The mirror reflected the world much clearer after a few moments of wiping his utterly ruined shirt over it and Harry almost regretted doing so as the blurry spectre he had been looking at materialised looking that much worse in the clear glass.  There was very little light as clouds blanketed the sky so thoroughly but there was enough for Harry; if he leaned forward and concentrated he could see his face clearly in the mirror.  His eyes.  His puffy, swollen eyes and tear-stained cheeks.  He’d cried.  He didn’t remember crying.  What the hell did she do?

He continued to lean forward, turning on the tap and waiting for the old pipes to creak and whine before a jet of cool water exploded into the sink.  Harry slowed the flow of water to little more than a trickle and cupped his hands, filling them with water, icy cold and stinging his palms, before splashing his face a few times; hoping to rid himself of the exhausted look in his eyes and the evidence of tears on his face.  Bracing his hands on the sink again he looked back into his reflection, noting the way his ribs were visible beneath his pale skin even in this position, their shadows giving them away in stark contrast to their luminous protrusion.  He saw with a little relief how the skin of his face and neck had momentarily pinkened from the water and how he no longer looked like he had been crying.  Not really. 

He examined himself carefully, millimetre by millimetre, looking for clues even though he didn’t really think he wanted to know, staring at his reflection as he examined his thoughts and memories thoroughly.  The evening ended for him at the point he had entered Umbridge’s office.  The following few hours, while still in his mind, was confused and jumbled enough that he really couldn’t get any sense out of it beyond disjointed feelings and reactions; her face and blood.  Why blood?  If his back was hurting why would he be remembering blood?  He froze, eyes widening as he wondered if it had been someone else’s.  Had she hurt someone else as well?  Had he?  No...

Feeling a twinge in his back again and realising the blood had begun to dry in his leaning position as it cracked when he stood straight, he knew something more must have happened there and he thoroughly wetted his shirt.  Not willing to use his wand to remove the blood he began to wipe it from the small of his back in small circles.  He couldn’t have said why, he just needed to do this himself, the muggle way.  There was something comforting in it, self-soothing.  Like hugging oneself, holding oneself together with one’s own arms; something else he’d done often, though not always consciously.  He was actually briefly thankful for his small frame as the lack of weight allowed him to reach most of his back if he stretched his arms as much as he could, the cool water from the wadded shirt dripping down his back and making him shiver, reaching his waist and staining the hem of his trousers pink.

He had to rinse the ball of ruined shirt twice in the sink – so much blood – and he washed his back slowly while facing the mirror, not willing to see the damage.  When he felt the warmth starting to trickle down his spine again, contrasting with the iciness of the water he was cleaning it with and making him shiver and feel faintly nauseous, he had to turn to see where it was coming from; bracing himself and taking a deep breath before he could bring himself to turn his body and not his head to look over his shoulder at his reflection. 

He wasn’t able to move when he saw it, unable to fully comprehend what he was seeing and struck dumb by it.  He just stood and stared.  His eyes were wide and frozen and his body taut but he couldn’t feel any of it because he was so transfixed by the sight of his own ravaged skin.  There, gouged deep into flesh already flayed open, were the weeping words, ‘I will not attempt to close my mind’.

Harry didn’t know how long he stared at the words.  The words written in his own chicken-scratch handwriting.  The words written indiscriminately over the deep claw marks and welts from the cane that he had received only the day before and which were looking torn and raw.  The top of his back was livid red which faded to a waxy white half way down and despite most of the damage being over his shoulder blades, the wounds on his lower back stood out far more against his clammy skin.  The writing was red on red but the torn skin around the edges of the letters was ghostly white and so very stark against the ruined skin it sat upon, especially in the icy light of the moon. 

He couldn’t seem to get his mind to work properly; it was as though it had stalled and he didn’t even have the will to close his eyes against the sight.  He couldn’t feel his neck twinging painfully in its twisted position, couldn’t feel himself shivering.  There was just silence in him and the sound of rain pelting glass outside him and that was all.  Harry had long since passed the point where the words became embedded so firmly behind his eyes that he saw his back in sharp relief every time he blinked but he still couldn’t make sense of them. 

‘I will not attempt to close my mind’.

‘I will not attempt to close my mind’.

‘I will not attempt to close my mind’.

‘I will not attempt to close my mind’.

He didn’t become aware of anything else until long after the words had ceased to mean anything. 

Moving as though underwater, Harry turned his wrenched neck with an automatic groan as nerve endings came painfully alive, losing sight of his back and hugely grateful for it as he felt himself waking from whatever trance the ghastly sight had induced.  His face, when he took the time to glance at the mirror and the extra few minutes to focus his eyes on it, remained impassive, inhuman.  He didn’t look like himself.  He didn’t recognise himself.  The messy black mop, eternally pale skin, lightning bolt scar, glinting green eyes; it was all there but he didn’t recognise himself.  Something was just... wrong.  Something was just so wrong with him. 

He looked around the room with blank eyes, utterly unsure of what to do next.  Just... lost.  He didn’t feel the biting cold attacking his bare chest or the slowing trickles and stickiness on his back.  He’d ceased feeling awhile ago.  He just stood, pivoting indecisively every once in awhile as though the new angle would present a course of action to follow but it never did.  He noted absently the way every time he stiltedly turned the moon was in a different position and eventually it disappeared entirely behind the top of the window’s arch. 

He moved forward numbly, not feeling completely aware of himself, and found that if he stood in the corner beside the window at just the right angle he could still see the moon.  The silver sphere became the only thing he saw when he closed his eyes and he stared until the rest of the world was dark and the moon was as bright as the sun and pain was thrumming behind his eyes.  Even then he didn’t look away.  When the moon threatened to disappear behind the wall again Harry sunk to the ground and curled his legs to his chest, arms around his knees, back to the corner where the draft couldn’t reach it and he could pretend it didn’t hurt, swaying the slightest bit and staring; staring at the only bright thing left.   

And that was how Ron found him. 

Well, in actuality it wasn’t; and that would have been obvious if Harry had turned his head to see the Marauder’s Map in Ron’s left hand and his father’s invisibility cloak in his right. 

“Harry?” Ron kept his voice quiet, worried about attracting attention from ghosts or prowling teachers.  When Ron caught sight of Harry huddled in the corner – fully conscious and aware as far as he could tell – he sighed in relief, having been confused and a little concerned when he saw Harry’s unmoving dot in the boys bathroom on the map.  He plonked himself down on his knees beside Harry and looked out the window to see what Harry was looking at. 

When he saw the moon he sighed, “Poor Remus.”   He looked back at Harry as he continued blithely.  “I was just up in the Owlery, you wouldn’t believe what Umbridge’s done!  She’s monitoring the mail still but she has guards there at night to make sure no one can get to any of the owls, not just the school ones but all of them!  It’s bloody ridiculous – that’s people’s familiars she’s holding hostage!  I borrowed your dad’s cloak, I knew you wouldn’t mind and I had to post... something...”  He trailed off and Harry might have noticed Ron’s complete inability to lie at all convincingly if he had been listening.  As it was his eyes had never left the moon and he hadn’t heard more than a monotonous sort of murmur coming from Ron.   From Harry’s lack of questions Ron assumed he had successfully avoided any questioning so he sat back on his haunches and watched the moon too, looking for a reason as to why his friend found it so fascinating.

It didn’t take long for Ron to look back at Harry quizzically, about to ask why he was sitting in the corner of the boys loo until he saw that what he had previously thought was a nondescript T-shirt covering the bits of Harry’s shoulder Ron could see beyond the drawn up knees was really bare skin.  Ron immediately stood and started taking off his robes.

“Bloody hell Harry, you’re going to make yourself sick if you sit around half naked.”  He paused what he was doing to groan softly and mutter, “Bugger, I’m turning into Mum.”  Nevertheless he crouched in front of Harry who still hadn’t taken his eyes off of the moon and draped his robes around his friend’s shoulders.  The back of Ron’s fingers brushed Harry’s arm as he covered his friend as best he could and the redhead cursed.  “You’re frozen, how long have you been sitting here?  Harry?”

It was only when Harry continued to stare unblinkingly at the moon, showing no signs whatsoever of having noticed Ron’s arrival, let alone anything he’d said, that Ron began to think that something might be wrong.  He tried to catch Harry’s eyes but it didn’t work until he forced his head between Harry’s gaze and the moon, finally noticing just how vacant that gaze was. 

“Harry?”  Ron’s voice was much quieter now and laced with concern.  Moving very slowly, Ron put his hands on both of Harry’s where they held his knees to his chest with a force that left the knuckles white and pried them gently, finger by finger, away from his friend’s own skin.  Harry offered little resistance beyond his frozen fingers staying just as rigid once removed from his legs.  He seemed stuck in his current position and Ron remembered rare times in the past when he’d wake up in the middle of the night to see Harry like this after a particularly horrifying nightmare.  As he worked to ease his friend into a less scrunched position and then helping him to his feet – making sure to keep an arm around his back when he saw how unsteady he was on his feet – Ron murmured nonsense the entire time without paying attention to what he was saying.  It was just as well because as it was on his mind he ended up telling Harry all about the letter he’d just sent to Sirius despite all efforts not to let Harry know about it.  Harry however was paying just as little attention to his words as Ron was, taking the miniscule amount of security he could from the sound of Ron’s voice and the strong arm keeping him up and not knowing much beyond it. 

As they began to walk, slowly so that Harry’s feet which had long since fallen asleep would hold him up, Ron despaired of being caught by roaming teachers before he remembered the balled up bundle of fabric he still had.  Even as he tugged his robes further around Harry to try to cover him as much as possible and looking around the room to see Harry’s missing shirt which seemed to have disappeared altogether, Ron considered the best way to get back to Gryffindor tower.  It wasn’t likely to be easy with Harry so out of it and he had half a mind to simply take him to the infirmary but he knew his friend wouldn’t appreciate it when he came back to himself so Ron disregarded the idea.  Taking out the invisibility cloak, he pulled Harry against his side, still supporting his slouching form, as he threw the cloak over their heads.  Their feet (or more accurately, Ron’s feet since he was a good head taller than his friend) poked out the bottom but unless Mrs Norris was out he doubted they would be noticed. 

The walk back to the tower was slow going and Ron’s concern was steadily increasing because Harry still wasn’t speaking or moving without the odd nudge from Ron by the time they reached the portrait.  Muttering the password (kaleidoscope – everyone suspected Dumbledore whose robes could always be described similarly) and steering his friend towards the couch in front of the empty fireplace in the common room, Ron pushed his friend down and noticed the lack of reaction as he sat beside him.  Deciding to try methods that had worked in the past, Ron stayed silent except for a quiet incendio to set the banked embers ablaze before them.  He was determined not to fuss, yet he still found himself drawing the robes tighter together around a still unresponsive Harry before determinedly busying himself with clearing the chair on his other side of the books that had been precariously stacked and left there – no doubt by Hermione as they so often sat here to study after dinner. 

Going through the books as he tidied up he cast distracted eyes over the titles and blurbs of books as he kept one eye on Harry, waiting for some recognition to come back.  It took much longer than Ron had expected and he was beyond worried when he finally noticed Harry blinking slowly at the fire as though waking up from a very deep sleep. 

“Harry?”  It took him a moment but then Harry was turning to look at Ron and murmuring something unintelligible.  “What was that mate?”

“... Hi.”  And then Harry was looking at the fire again as though he needed to be looking at it, drawn against his will to the blinding brightness of fire in the dark.

Ron gave him some time but instead of snapping out of whatever stupor Harry had been in, his friend seemed to be sinking back into it.  Wanting more than anything to get his friend talking – he couldn’t help until he knew what was wrong, why couldn’t Harry ever understand that? – Ron tried to think of an icebreaker. 

“Harry?  Um... have you done that essay for McGonagall?”  Okay, he wasn’t very good at icebreakers.  Nonetheless, “I was going to ask Hermione to help me with it in the morning, do you want to ask too?”

Ron had reached the point where he was sure he was talking to himself until Harry’s quiet voice stopped him from opening his mouth again.  “Yeah... haven’t done that yet... think she’d mind?”  Ron was too relieved to be getting sense out of him to hold in his quiet laugh on a sigh.

“Who, Hermione or McGonagall?”  Harry didn’t even blink let alone smile but Ron didn’t mind, at least he was talking.  And he could see how Harry’s shoulders had lost some of their slump; he simply looked exhausted instead of cowed and Ron knew it was partly due to the return on normality so he continued trying to put his friend at ease.  “’Cos I don’t think Hermione will mind too much but if McGonagall catches us at it again she’ll have kittens... at least Trelawney doesn’t care so much about essays, just those stupid charts and diaries.  Still prefer McGonagall though.  Who wouldn’t?” 

Ron continued to make mindless observations he knew by heart as he surreptitiously studied Harry and watched his posture change from haunted to tired but relatively normal, filing in the back of his mind the fact that tired seemed to be normal for Harry since... well, always.

Eventually he noticed Harry’s eyes drooping and as much as he could talk until Harry fell into a dreamless sleep, he wasn’t stupid and knew that wasn’t likely to happen given his earlier behaviour.  He also knew just how painful these couches could be to sleep on unless some serious charms were added first to stop a person’s back bending unnaturally through the night.  Thus he reluctantly wound down his one-sided conversation before yawning and stretching.  He almost made it a suggestion but thought better of it and decided to do what he seemed to do best.  Reaching down, he didn’t give Harry a choice as he hauled him up as carefully as he could, not caring anywhere near so much when his announcement of “bedtime,” reminded him once more of his mother.

And so, when Harry awoke on Wednesday morning from the dizzy array of horrible nightmares that was his life by vomiting over the side of his bed, he immediately looked to the bed next to his to see that Ron was still asleep and was guiltily but overwhelmingly grateful for the late night and his own nightmares that has ensured his early morning.  Not that given half a choice he wouldn’t have preferred to have a restful night rather than the disturbed ‘rest’ he somehow managed.

He snuck around the dorm as the others slept, trying not to trip over anything in the pre-dawn darkness as he collected clothes from his trunk and ignored his back and the pain and dampness he could feel there.  He could almost convince himself that he was too used to it to be able to feel that pain anymore as he pulled what felt like very coarse fabric over his wet back.  He was almost successful. 

As he half-threw himself out of the door to escape the dorm – not anyone in particular, he just had to get out... – Harry felt a spike of adrenaline, a much smaller, muted version of the kind he’d had the last time he’d faced Voldemort, the kind that made his head pound and his heart race and he felt like he could run laps around the castle and as though his legs would give out all at once.  He took a moment and a deep breath to shake off the persistent light-headedness that still clung to him before attempting to descend the stairs to the common room without falling down them. 

When he reached the common room he looked out the nearest window, noting the fact that it was still so dark that the sky hadn’t even begun lightening yet.  He wasn’t hungry but he knew he wouldn’t want to face Ron for quite awhile and really, what else was there to do at four or five in the morning?  With that in mind, Harry threw on the black robes he’d found in his trunk – last years; it was a testament to his living environment through the summer that he hadn’t really needed new ones when he went shopping for his school supplies this year as his old ones still fit – and left the tower, making his way down to the kitchens in search of something very small and plain to eat.  He doubted he could stomach anything more.

He regretted his decision fifteen minutes later when he found out just how much of a morning person... elf... Dobby could be but since there was nowhere better for him to be he simply slouched in his seat at the small bench in the kitchens with his mounds of food in front of him and elves speeding around him so fast that the food they bore could barely keep up with them (if the leaning tower of raw bacon was anything to go by – and didn’t that just turn his stomach inside out).

After half a slice of barely browned bread he pushed his plate away and ignored the platters he was surrounded by and the elves plying him with food – especially Dobby who managed to make his head feel fit to exploding within an amazingly short amount of time – and crossed his arms on the table before resting his aching head on them.  He didn’t want to go anywhere else; despite the noise and veritable tornado of activity of which he was the eye, he was happy enough here.  Comfortable.  More so than he knew he would be anywhere else where the silence and the events of the night before could come back to him in greater detail than the vague, broken recollections he had now. 

No, he didn’t need any more detail than knowing in an abstract sort of way that his back was branded with words that would haunt him – with curiosity if nothing else – and that Ron had seen him at a time he would have preferred not to be seen.   Had helped him out of a stupor with gentle words and actions and from the corner of a bathroom to the common room, then bed.  That Ron would want questions answered now that he was more lucid.  Questions he didn’t feel up to asking himself, let alone answering to someone else.  No, out of the question.  But here, in a kitchen where he was surrounded by busy little workers, in this place that made him think of some strange scene in his head from times when he was younger and making breakfast at the Dursleys – well, the memory wasn’t happy and it wasn’t comfortable, but it was normal and away from here and the knowledge that he could handle that made him feel that maybe he could handle this too.  Just sitting, resting in this place that could have been in his head, where no questions needed to be answered and he had the knowledge that he was home and surrounded by beings who didn’t mean him harm; here he could rest.

And he did until Dobby shook him out of what he realised had to have been a heavy doze. 

“Master Harry Potter Sir is being late if he doesn’t leave now!  Lessons started thirty minutes ago.”

Harry swore but there was not much heat behind it, he was so tired.  Which wasn’t odd in itself but the fact that he’d slept for so long when he hadn’t meant to without dreaming... not really... well, that was unusual.  Dobby was wringing his hands fretfully and Harry had to ask before he left, “How long were you trying to wake me up?”

“Dobby is shaking young master but Harry Potter isn’t waking up so Dobby left him for another five minutes, and then another five minutes, and then another five minutes and then two minutes and then-”

“Okay, I get it.  Thanks Dobby.  I’ll see you later okay?”  He was out the door before he heard a response and belatedly hoped that Dobby hadn’t punished himself when he couldn’t wake him up.  Why hadn’t he woken up?  He knew how much strength the little elf was capable of, he shouldn’t have been able to sleep through that.  But he had.  Not only had he fallen asleep but for at least half an hour he hadn’t been able to be woken.  His thoughts cut off abruptly when he reached his first class – transfiguration – and realised before his fist hit the wood of the door but after he could have aborted the movement that he hadn’t done his homework.  A snatch of conversation played in his head from the night before as though a tape recorder had been waiting for just that moment.  

“Come in.”

Oh crap.  Sucking in a breath that made him so lightheaded he had to lean against the doorframe, Harry pushed the door open and tried to convince himself he was ready to face the worst.

McGonagall was not happy.  She never seemed to be on a normal day but today she was already in a bad mood for some reason or other and the classroom was overflowing with tension that only got worse when the Transfiguration Professor saw that it was a late Harry Potter.

“Mr Potter, can I assume you have a valid reason for being late; did you perhaps get lost on your way here or was it your lack of a timekeeper?”  Harry floundered for a moment before McGonagall spoke again, not so much taking pity on him as immediately growing tired of waiting any longer due to his interruption.  “Take a seat Mr Potter.  10 points from Gryffindor for your tardiness and I want to see you at the end of class.”

Harry moved forward a pace before he noticed Ron’s eyes on him, the questions practically flying from them straight at him, demanding to be answered.  Unable to handle it, Harry simply sunk into the nearest seat at the back of the room.  Ron frowned and stared at him as much as was possible for the entire lesson while Hermione simply watched, rarely taking her own eyes off of him but clearly finding it harder to split her concentration between Harry and taking notes.  He wished he could tell them not to bother themselves worrying.  He was fine.  I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.  Funny how little weight those words possessed when used too often.  Or inaccurately.

Talking to McGonagall was irritating in the extreme and both left the lesson in a snit, Harry more than annoyed that the woman could be so distracted and still demand ridiculous amounts of ‘common courtesy’ on his part (though luckily she forbore to sentence him to even more detentions).  Still, it was better to face her than his friends.  Which was why he was that much more irritated to find them waiting for him, despite how late it made all three of them for DADA.  He wasn’t irritated as in angry, it was more like a wound being irritated... like my back... and he could have done without it.  Unfortunately, neither of them were very good at taking hints.  Surprisingly it was Hermione who was taking the more direct approach and it was Ron telling her to leave off by the time they reached their next class. 

Harry was more than a little surprised when Umbridge gave them a sickly sweet smile and told them not to be late again before telling them to sit and ignoring them completely.  If Umbridge was in a good mood... well, it didn’t bode well for Harry.  But then, nothing concerning the woman seemed to bode at all well for him.  He avoided her eyes at all costs, still going to great lengths to stop himself from thinking about the previous night, and she seemed to notice because she was in high spirits by the end of the class.

At the end of the class Harry excused himself from his friends with the excuse that he needed to use the loo and would meet them in the Great Hall for lunch.   He then proceeded to hide for the duration of their lunch break in the third floor boys’ toilets where he found his bloodied shirt from the night before in a chipped sink he doubted anyone had gone near in years.  Maybe his luck was turning up after all.

The rest of the day passed in much the same way his morning had; dodging Ron and Hermione, ignoring his stomach which swung between roiling as though he’d eaten too much and aching with hunger (but then he’d had a lot of experience ignoring his stomach so that wasn’t terribly difficult) and when he wasn’t sitting in the back of classes to avoid his friends he was hiding in the boys loo.  It actually reminded him a lot of school before Hogwarts.  Hiding and dodging and spending too much time in a place he otherwise wouldn’t have gone near but for once a day.  It was more than a little depressing to realise Hogwarts had become just like living with the Dursleys.  He even had his own Uncle Vernon here.  One who could use magic and frequently abused that power... abuse of power... not so dissimilar at all.  It helped to know that the reason he was hiding at the moment was due to the fact that he had friends here who cared enough about him to want to interrogate him to find out what was wrong.  But then he realised that because of that he was sitting on an old, incredibly uncomfortable marble cistern and had been for the last forty minutes and the thought ceased to be quite so reassuring, because really, what was he supposed to tell them?

Instead of trying to think it through – again – Harry sat and stared into space, contemplating whether or not it meant he was meditating if he couldn’t feel his back anymore.  Apparently he’d been doing it too long because he was once again late for class.  This time he got lucky; it was Divination...

Harry found when he climbed the ladder – with weak, uncoordinated scuttling sort of motions that he was glad no one else had seen – that he much preferred Trelawney who didn’t notice his arrival, so intent on her crystal ball was she.  Unfortunately there was no seat at the back of the room he could hide in this time, only the cushion beside Ron.  Ron, who was giving him a look that was challenge and frustration and strong concern all at once.  With a resigned sigh that seemed to annoy Ron no end, Harry slumped onto the cushion and pointedly ignored him.  Needless to say his strategy didn’t work very well.

“You finished avoiding me yet?” 

Ron’s voice wasn’t noticed by Trelawney the way no one else’s had been so far – Harry could pick out five distinct conversations being held within earshot.  At the question, full of exasperation at Harry’s behaviour; behaviour which Harry was entirely too tired to realise had actually been a little childish; Harry cast his friend a sidelong look reminiscent of a reticent little boy avoiding a telling off.  Harry noticed the change in Ron immediately after that, the way he was all concern and a bit of surprise, as if that look had reminded Ron that Harry was a different person than the one he’d been expecting. 

For his part, it had been the realisation that Harry hadn’t looked stubborn so much as hunted that had wiped away Ron’s exasperation and replaced it with shock as he really saw Harry.  The way his eyes were huge and glazed behind his glasses and the bruise-like shadows beneath them, the white skin that made them look impossibly dark, and that look he didn’t think he’d seen in Harry’s eyes before.  He looked... younger.  Younger than Ron had ever seen him.  Younger than he’d looked at eleven, though only just.  Ron didn’t know what could possibly have made Harry look that way and it scared him a little.

Harry just kept his eyes averted, trying to ignore the person who was sitting so close beside him and failing hugely.  Especially when that person put a hand on his arm.

“Harry?”  The voice was soft now and filled with none of the irritation from earlier and Harry slanted him another glance that seemed to further unsettle his friend.  “You don’t have to hide from me, I...” Ron seemed to wrestle with himself for a moment before saying defeatedly, “I won’t ask you anything alright?  Just don’t disappear again.  Please?”  Feeling unaccountably childlike and hesitant at the rawness of Ron’s words and tone, Harry gave him a small nod he wasn’t entirely sure of before focussing on the crystal ball that sat before him and trying to block out all feeling.  It didn’t work very well given that the fumes that only yesterday had seemed cloying now felt suffocating and his head was swamped within minutes.  He noticed the looks Ron was so blatantly giving him – or the one long look since he didn’t think his friend so much as glanced anywhere else for the entirety of the lesson.

Yes, Harry decided over the next thirty minutes, he much preferred Trelawney – and figured it was probably because throughout the hour he could feel himself turning white... or perhaps grey; he certainly felt awful, and the woman took just as much notice as she paid the rest of reality.  His head was pounding heavily and felt far too big for his neck when they were finally allowed to leave and he didn’t refuse when Ron steadied him as he stood, finding that he didn’t mind the support or the weakness it implied.  Not when it brought back such broken but vivid memories from the night before; of having a strong arm to keep him standing and a best friend who genuinely had his back.

 He wasn’t sure afterward how he’d gotten himself back down the Divination classroom’s ladder – he figured he was just lucky not to have broken his neck – and was more than a little surprised to see Hermione waiting at the bottom until he saw her face.  She had that same exasperation that Ron had had and, just like Ron, hers was swept away by the sight of him.  However, unlike Ron who had somehow known that to push Harry was to push him away, Hermione set her jaw stubbornly and even Ron flinched a little at the decisive, almost harsh tone of her voice.

“It’s about time we caught you, what were you thinking?!  Ron told me about last night and then you just disappear?  You like awful, what on earth’s happened?  Why can’t you just tell us?!”

“It may be because you haven’t given him a chance,” Ron murmured pointedly, just for the two of them to hear because the third of their trio was looking a little too dazed to be paying proper attention.  When Hermione opened her mouth, clearly set on continuing where she’d left off, Ron said, even quieter than before, “’Mione, seriously; leave it.  It’s not helping.”  It didn’t work until Ron nodded his head towards Harry who was still beside him but who had steadily slumped until he looked like he was caving in on himself with an exhaustion that wasn’t entirely physical.  Hermione didn’t lose any of her concern or even any of her indignation but she did stop talking and Harry was more than a little grateful because it hadn’t been helping his headache.

“Should we go get something to eat mate?” 

Harry looked up and met Ron’s eyes which looked the same kind of gentle that they had whenever he’d been laid up in the infirmary and, looking next to Hermione, he saw that despite her frown – the kind that with her meant there was some piece of information she was missing – she was biting the inside of her cheek and her eyes were a little shinier than normal.  Harry never ever wanted to give his friends cause to worry about him and he hated to think that he was the reason they were so upset now but at the same time, in that moment, he couldn’t help feeling... well, loved.  He couldn’t help feeling happy at the thought and squirmed – just a little – inside.

Dinner wasn’t usually something that Severus particularly looked forward to.  Ever.  Having to watch hundreds of children who had apparently been raised by animals eat at the same time as he did wasn’t his idea of pleasurable.  Or healthy.  It was really just a bit disgusting.  Nevertheless he didn’t have a choice and he would prefer to be here at the head of the Great Hall to see what the little delinquents got up to rather than be away from them and know they were plotting unsupervised.

And they were clearly plotting something.  Groups of them were dotted here and there at the house tables whispering with heads together and passing notes despite being able to talk freely.  The cynical professor in him that had been teaching longer than he would care to admit remarked that they were probably too much in the habit from classes and that clearly his punishments weren’t enough; due to him (or more likely his colleagues who saw him as far too strict, to which he frequently rolled his eyes) Hogwarts would surely soon usher in an entire generation who communicated purely through the passing of notes upon which only the most inane gossip was scrawled.  Excellent.  Once more he congratulated himself for this brilliant career path he was on.  Rewarding indeed.

Such groups at the Slytherin table looked quite a lot more sinister than the rest, but then they did have a reputation to keep.  The majority of the Ravenclaws were bent over books as they ate their dinner and many Hufflepuffs sat staring into space to which he sneered and they didn’t notice.  When he shifted the wasted sneer to Gryffindor he was a little surprised that it still went to waste.  Oh, the Weasley twins no doubt deserved it – if their mutual flinch was anything to go by... which in actuality it usually wasn’t, something else ingrained from the countless times there was a very good, very dangerous reason for that dual flinch – but the ‘golden trio’ couldn’t have cared less and it rankled Severus until he saw why.  And that rankled for a different reason.  Why on earth was that foolish brat not eating?

“I’m just not hungry Hermione, leave off.  Please.”  He hated to plead but really, nothing else was working.

“Just a little bit more,” she coaxed, ladling a small amount of steamed vegetables onto his plate despite the fact that he hadn’t done more than pick uninterestedly at his food for twenty minutes already. 

“’Mione, I’m not going to eat it, you might as well leave it where it is.”

“Just have a bit, you’re looking peaky and you know it.”

“’Mione maybe you should stop filling up his plate,” Hermione shot a somewhat betrayed look at Ron before he turned on Harry, “but she is right, just a little bit and we’ll stop.”

As much as Harry appreciated his friends caring for him, he’d really had enough of it all and he suddenly felt quite strange.  As though on any other day he would have lost his temper and he wanted to but something was stopping him; smothering the anger and frustration and turning it inwards until he had no choice but to be angry at himself before it vanished and he was left simply feeling defeated.  He pushed through it and despite the sudden awakening of pain in his body he forced himself to his feet and fixed a scowl to his face.  His voice wasn’t the yell he wanted to let loose – not at his friends necessarily; at everything, the world and the past and everything – but it was all the colder for it’s quiet anger.

“I don’t need either of you to feed me, I am fine.  Now leave off.”

Feeling a sudden wash of shame at the stricken look on their faces he spun on his heel and went to walk away but was stopped by Ron’s voice which achieved the volume he hadn’t been able to.  “We’re only trying to help and if you weren’t so bloody stubborn and set on lying to us and starving yourself and hiding away from the world you might be able to see it!”  Harry didn’t turn but even so he could clearly see in his mind’s eye as Hermione – still looking as though she’d been slapped from Harry’s words – slapped Ron’s arm even as he heard it. 

Not offering any kind of explanation even though he knew his friends deserved one, Harry opened his eyes and walked away, leaving the Great Hall as fast as possible without running. 

He didn’t stop when the huge doors of the Great Hall closed behind him even though he would have liked to since the brief row felt like it had thoroughly drained him of any remaining energy.  But no, he wasn’t about to show weakness, especially not when a certain blond would make his life hell because of it and was watching from where he stood at the bottom of the stairs in the Entrance Hall.  Brushing past him as though he didn’t exist, Harry noticed out of the corner of his eye as Malfoy opened his mouth and Harry quickly cut him off with a muttered, “Bugger off,” before he ascended the marble staircase, feeling Malfoy’s eyes on him the entire time.

He knew he had less than half an hour before he had Snape’s detention so he only climbed to the second floor, heading for the girl’s loo for some quiet in which he could compose himself, knowing – desperately hoping – that no one would disturb him there.  Except, of course, the reason no one living would want to come in here. 

Harry rubbed his temples as Myrtle’s moans and lazy screams pierced his skull and losing patience with the aimless noises fast he braced himself over one of the porcelain sinks and yelled, “Shut up!”

Myrtle looked affronted for all of two seconds as she floated out of one of the toilets behind him until she saw it was Harry and the changed expression made him want to groan.  Was nowhere in this place empty?  

“Hi Harry,” she said brightly.

“Hi.”  It came out sounding like an acquiescence of some sort, like he was finally giving in.  Clearly he wasn’t going to be left alone for any length of time tonight.

“Changed your mind?”  She asked demurely.

“About what?” He asked back quietly as he resumed rubbing his head.  The throbbing was turning into something sickening, a sort of deep thrumming that made his head feel like it was vibrating, like a huge drum someone was striking over and over and over.  And over and over and over.

Suddenly his mouth felt hot and dry his stomach flipped and he threw himself at the nearest toilet – incidentally the one Myrtle had just floated from – as the tiny amount of food he’d eaten at dinner made a reappearance.

Clutching his stomach in his hands and groaning piteously he continued to heave for what must surely have been an eternity – stop, stop, stop, why won’t it stop – before he slid from his kneeling position to sit on the floor with his head leaning back against the wall, sightless eyes on the ceiling.  He sincerely hoped his stomach was done with its revolt because he wouldn’t be able to move his head regardless.  He cracked his eyes open when he felt something nauseatingly chilling pass through his foot; slitting his eyes against the dimness that felt blinding to his thrumming head and allowing his eyelids to rise as he watched Myrtle ascend to hover above him.

“Yuck,” she observed as she inspected the toilet she’d luckily escaped in time before eyeing Harry who could only nod a little in agreement before closing his eyes quickly as dizziness assaulted him.  “Are you ill?” she continued brightly and he wished she wouldn’t.  He wasn’t feeling particularly chatty.  He hitched a shoulder in a tiny half-hearted shrug.  “You should see Madam Pomfrey.  Or...” he opened his eyes at her uncharacteristic hesitancy to see her full of a kind of hopeful excitement that she was clearly working to repress.  “Or, are you dying?”  He shut his eyes again and thought on that.  Was he?  Would it be easier than whatever this was?

A noise interrupted the two of them and he thought it was probably just as well, he didn’t want to accidentally give Myrtle false hope.

He heard footsteps at the entrance to the bathroom and stayed quiet, vaguely amazed that Myrtle did too, hanging in the air above his head, the two of them obscured by the cubicle they were in.  Most of the heavy wooden doors hanging on the cubicles were half open so it didn’t take much for Harry to shift himself to keep hidden in case anyone walked by.  Well, it shouldn’t have taken much.  The fact that he had broken out in a cold sweat from the effort by the time he relaxed again was entirely coincidental and most likely from his earlier sickness.

But the footsteps never approached; the person they belonged to stopping to wash their hands as Harry heard the taps turn on and off, the pipes in the walls vibrating noisily, before the person left again.  Sighing and tilting his head back again Harry watched Myrtle absently as he wondered if there really was nowhere in Hogwarts that he could be alone and experiencing an odd silly moment of nostalgic thinking.  Now back in my second year...

Hoisting himself painfully to his feet and feeling a deep, whole-body ache take root in his bones, Harry walked very carefully to the sink he’d been at before and turned on the cold water, cupping his hands and washing his face before inspecting it in the mirror.  Oh.  Oh damn.  He looked ridiculously unhealthy.  He couldn’t remember a time when only small amounts of food had left him looking quite so gaunt and thanks to his earlier bout of stomach acrobatics his face was pasty and his eyes dulled to an alarming level.  They looked dead already.  Already?  No one would believe that nothing was wrong with him.  Of course if he was careful the only people he would see before morning were the two least likely to care but he’d never been overly lucky and he knew Ron and Hermione would go out of their way to see him tonight, especially given his blow up.  He groaned and ducked his head as he remembered what he’d said to his best friends.  He’d said worse than that to them in the past – they’d all argued as any friends would over the years – but this time they really were only trying to help and compared to his own subdued behaviour over the past weeks, the way he’d acted tonight by comparison seemed so much worse.

“You do look awful you know,” Myrtle commented conversationally. 

“Thanks Myrtle, that helps.” His dry voice was tired like the rest of him and he looked back into the mirror, ignoring Myrtle’s pale spectre behind him.  Not so much paler than him anymore.

“Only saying.” 

Harry hummed in response and tried to fix his hopelessly rumpled clothes before inspecting himself one last time.

“Nope.  Still awful.”

Harry shot her a look and was surprised when his own mouth twitched in response to the teasing grin she was giving him.

“See you later Myrtle.”

“Wait a minute,” she called as he walked to the door.  “You didn’t answer my question.”  He didn’t have to ask which one.  Nor did he give her an answer.

He knew he was in for it as soon as he opened the door upon hearing Snape’s, “Enter.”

The man was sitting behind his desk as usual but there were no student assignments strewn across the mahogany surface in front of him.  It was bare except for Snape’s clasped, potion-stained hands and the man’s eyes didn’t leave Harry once he appeared in the doorway.  Snape’s eyes roved over him before locking back on his face, his own unreadable and completely unnerving.  Wondering what the hell this was about – Harry knew he was safe from explanations until he ran into Ron and Hermione again; Snape and Umbridge wouldn’t care and they were the only ones he had to see right now.  They wouldn’t care. 

He can’t... 

So why was panic beginning to rise and bubble in his chest uncomfortably?  Causing the kind of discomfort dentists promise before they drill their holes.  His brain studiously ignoring what his body had figured out Harry stayed at the door, one hand on the doorframe as though ready to bolt and Snape didn’t move, just sat and scrutinised and silence reigned and it was driving Harry nuts.

Without moving more than his mouth – and even that was the smallest of motions, just enough to get the words out from between thin lips – Snape said as calmly as Harry had ever heard him, “Take a seat Mr Potter.”

Feeling like a scared first year and an idiot for it in equal measure, Harry assessed the situation with fast flickering eyes but came to no conclusions and eventually the idiotic feeling won out and he crossed the room.  Snape had to have sensed his apprehension but he made no sign of it and Harry was frankly amazed the dour man was being so patient.  He was usually sneering or yelling or something by now.  That only made the panic bubble more furiously.  Predictability was good.  Yelling was good.  Yelling was safe.  This... this was...

Once he was behind the seat Snape had directed him to, Harry stopped and cast uneasy eyes to the empty corner where a pile of cauldrons were usually waiting for him to clean.

“Sit Mr Potter.  We are going to have a little talk.”  As if noticing Harry’s unease with this turn of events... and caring... Snape added, “There’s no reason to be so concerned.  I have a few questions I would like answered.”  Yeah, that helps.  Thanks.

“Yes sir.”  Despite his apparent acquiescence Harry didn’t move to sit down and Snape sighed.  “Potter,” he said with a slight edge of warning and Harry caved.  He just wanted to do his detention and get out and if this was the fastest way...

Sitting nervously on the very edge of the seat Harry ran through the list of ways he could get out of this.  Very quickly.  It was a small list.  Answer his questions until he lets me leave or... er... run?

Snape sat forward and steepled his fingers in a way that reminded Harry of Dumbledore.  That can’t be good... but then, he can’t be as omniscient as he seems.  Neither of them are or they’d have stopped... well... everything.  Too many thoughts followed on the heels of that and Harry shoved it all away in favour of focusing on the situation at hand.  Snape seemed to study Harry for a very long time until Harry was lost in the endless string of moments where he tried not to squirm under the scrutiny.

“I will only say this once; I want honest answers to everything I ask or, if that is not possible, I would like an explanation as to why.  You are not to lie to me is that clear?”  There was very little bite to the warning and Harry wondered what this was really about.  It seemed very important to Snape and Harry couldn’t begin to fathom why the man thought Harry would know anything that affected the Potions Master.  Was this really about Voldemort?  Was he up to something?

“Yes sir,” he said anyway.  Answer questions... run... answer questions... run...  the second option was looking more appealing every minute.  He would have been gone by now if he hadn’t known that Snape would be after him.  Snape studied him again for awhile and Harry resented him for it.  He knows this is putting me on edge; just ask your questions already!

“Is there a reason you didn’t eat tonight?”

The question completely threw Harry and Snape had to have known it but still he remained unreadable.  “Um...”  Harry knew it was a stupid response but he couldn’t think.  Why would Snape want to know that?  Why did it matter?

“Mr Potter?”

“I wasn’t very hungry sir.  Can I ask why you want to know?”

“No, you cannot,” Snape said and suddenly he seemed quite irritated. “Not when I asked you not to lie and you decided to anyway.”

“But I wasn’t!”  Snape studied him a moment longer and seemed to calm again.

“And how long have you had this loss of appetite?”  Harry bristled slightly at the terminology.

“It isn’t a loss of appetite I... I just... wasn’t hungry...”  Snape sneered a little, but only a little and it was gone again a second later.

“Alright... when was the last time you ate?”

“Why does it matter?” Harry exploded, losing his patience so abruptly it startled him more than Snape who just gave him an irritatingly knowing look.

“It matters, Mr Potter, because I will not have a student dying of starvation on my classroom floor and as you seem so fond of earning detentions with me there is a great chance of that happening if you continue to refuse food.  Now when did you last eat?”

Harry scowled but answered, “dinner, didn’t you see?”

“I saw you picking at your food and ingesting enough to starve a rabbit.  When was the last time you ate properly?”

“Lunch.”

“Which you just so happened to not be present for.”

“Breakfast!”

“For which you were also absent?”

“I went to the kitchens for it okay?  I woke up and had an early breakfast, you can ask the elves.”

“Wandering the halls again?” Snape asked with derision but he continued before Harry could do more than angrily open his mouth for a retort.  “Be that as it may, I have no doubt your one proper meal today was not dissimilar in quantity to the amount you ate at dinner, in which case you are starving yourself and you will stop.”

“Why?  How does it affect you?”  Harry might have been horrified at the detentions and loss of points he was risking if he’d realised what he’d said but only this man could get him so angry so fast.

“I believe I have already answered that question.”  Harry glared at Snape for a long moment and was disappointed that it seemed remarkably ineffective as Snape only stared unemotionally back.  It was only when Harry deflated a little that Snape continued.  “Now, what you did consume at dinner; did you manage to keep it down?”  Harry spluttered.

“What!  How does that matter?”  Snape gave him a pointed look but Harry refused to be pushed into answering again and Snape seemed to realise it as he took Harry’s evasion as a yes.

“Alright then; what exactly did Madam Pomfrey do when you went to see her yesterday?”

“She just did a scan and gave me Pepper-Up.”  When Snape continued to watch him as though waiting for him to continue Harry burst out, “really, that’s all she did!”  Snape was frowning now.

“And how long did she keep you in the infirmary?”

“An hour or two I guess.  She hovered the whole time, pretending to clean and stuff.”  Snape looked amused and Harry abruptly realised that he must be very tired indeed to be talking so normally with the man.

“And then she said you could leave?”  Harry nodded but Snape’s eyes narrowed and Harry wondered how he was able to discern the truth so easily.  Practise I guess.

“She didn’t say I couldn’t,” Harry said evasively while his eyes flickered away.  Snape seemed irritated again but not, Harry felt, entirely at him.

“So you snuck out and she allowed you to?”

“Don’t blame her; Madam Hooch and the Hufflepuffs needed her more than I did, of course she let me go!”

“Do you not realise, you imbecilic child, that if she did not expressly say that you could leave then she wished for you to remain no matter how many other students were in need of her attention?”

Harry couldn’t believe how fast the situation seemed to have spiralled out of his control, especially given what they were discussing.  Watching Snape warily as the restless man stood only to pace before him, Harry felt unaccountably teary and cornered and it made him lash out, “None of this matters, I’m fine and I don’t need... whatever it is you think I do.”  Harry stood to leave but as soon as his back was turned a hand was fastened around his arm and he made an odd sort of noise as he tried to wrench it free.  He’d deny that he was ever able to make that kind of sound but he knew he’d made it before; years and years before.  Snape’s hand flexed and loosened on his arm at the sound but he didn’t release Harry.  There was silence for a long moment which went unnoticed by Harry as he struggled futilely with his weak attempts to break free and Snape kept a firm hold of his arm.  When Snape broke the silence it was very quietly and in a different tone than Harry could remember ever having heard from him.

“Whatever it is I think you need is irrelevant but there are some certainties.  You are not well Mr Potter and as such you need to be in the infirmary at the very least-” Harry spun around and cut him off.

“What do you mean at least, you want me sent to St Mungos?  Or home?”  Harry’s voice broke on the last word and standing this close he saw the odd change of expression – just for a moment – on Snape’s face that he found impossible to decipher.

“I meant that at the very least you need to be in the infirmary,” Snape said in a quiet, oddly soothing voice, and didn’t that realisation just make Harry’s head spin.  “More than that I think you need supervision and more powerful diagnostic scans to find out exactly what is wrong.”  Harry had been temporarily calmed by Snape’s words but at that he remembered that, no, he had something he hadn’t had yesterday.  Something that branded him as a freak.  As Umbridge’s toy.  And he couldn’t have Pomfrey finding that... could he?  Yes!  I could!  It would get me away from Umbridge for good!  But inside him something squirmed and revolted against the idea, making his stomach flip as though he might be sick again and making him feel with certainty that no, he really couldn’t.  Harry shook his head a little wildly, feeling as though it wasn’t entirely under his control.

“No, no I can’t and it doesn’t matter.”  With renewed efforts Harry managed to wrench his arm out of Snape’s hold for a second before it was back, firmer than before.

“Potter you are clearly not well and possibly delirious.  I am not asking for your approval in this, we are going to the infirmary.  Now.”  Snape seemed to be losing the patience he’d had all evening if his tone was anything to go by and he gave a tug towards the door to his office through which Harry could see a fireplace.  The man seemed surprised by the panic that seemed instinctive and overtook Harry at the sight.

“I’m fine, stop it!  Let go!” Harry twisted backwards in an effort to release his arm and gasped as he felt the telltale pull and snap of skin on his back and the warm gush over one of his shoulder blades, shivering as it began pooling in the small of his back.  The sensation caused him to freeze up and Snape could tell immediately as he turned Harry back to face him and searched his face which Harry tried – and failed – to relax out of the scrunched up expression of disgust he now wore. 

“What just happened?  Potter!”  Harry was ignoring him as much as was possible when the man was a foot away and holding his arm in a pincer-like grip and Snape’s frustration was tinged with something unnameable as he shook the arm he held, clearly having to reign himself in from shaking Harry properly. 

From between gritted teeth Harry ground out, “I’m fine,” before Snape was pulling him bodily through to his office where Harry finally managed to squirm away.  Not stopping his long strides to the fireplace, Snape snatched up the pot of floo powder only to immediately drop it.  A shower of shimmering green fell to the ground as the Potions Master held his forearm in a fierce grip scowling furiously as he flicked his eyes up to meet Harry’s which had opened wide at the sound of the pot hitting the stone floor.  Once more Harry felt oddly that Snape’s fury was not aimed wholly at him, though the man was clearly irritated with him still. 

“You are to go directly to the infirmary from here.  You are not to stop or take any detours.  Straight there, you hear me?”  Snape had been walking around the room and waving his wand at the fireplace as he ground out his order through his own pain but at the last order he turned and fixed Harry with a piercing stare as he waited for acquiescence.  Harry could only nod dumbly before Snape was snatching a fistful of floo powder from the floor and stepping into the hearth before turning.  “Get out.”  The words were harsh and reminded Harry of exactly who this man had been to him for the past five years.  He didn’t need any more encouragement as he spun and left the room and the classroom beyond it as fast as possible, not hearing the murmured destination spoken behind him.

As he reached the corridor he leaned back against the blessedly cool stone and took stock of those last hectic minutes.  Making a split second decision to go straight to the infirmary as directed he took a step forward before crumpling in pain as what felt like a white hot knife pierced him from the inside.  On hands and knees Harry pressed his forehead into the ground and groaned as the pain only intensified.  He tried to breathe in and found he couldn’t, his throat was closed and any attempt to open it only forced that low, pain-filled groan to rumble from his chest.  He began to feel the dizziness of air deprivation and he felt quite sick as his insides were left wrung out from the pain before he was abruptly let go, a fierce ache taking the place of the agony and he convulsed and shivered before he was still.  Coughing as he finally breathed he felt wetness on his hands where they held him up, spread on the ground by his face, and slitting his eyes open he saw a spray of red across the backs of them.  He was coughing up blood.  Crap, crap, crap, crap...

He couldn’t deny that he felt scared any longer.  His body had turned on him in so many ways and people were asking questions he didn’t want to answer, except he did... but no, he didn’t.  He needed help so badly.  He wanted someone to help and every time someone did they interfered or they got called away or they stopped caring... but no, that was before.  Before Hogwarts.  No one had stopped caring here.  But... Sirius.  Dumbledore.  They’d all stop eventually.  But they hadn’t.  But they would.  Harry groaned and the dizziness didn’t abate and one thought seemed to transcend all the rest as though it was coming from somewhere entirely outside his own uncertain mind.  From somewhere completely sure of itself.

I have to get to detention before I’m late.  

Harry stood slowly with his new sense of purpose sitting like a cloak upon his shoulders and purposely ignored all else.  Ignored the fear.  The pain.  The dizziness and sickness and his own bone-deep sense that something was so wrong.  Ignored the fact that not ten minutes ago he had been in a room with a man who was probably even now in the presence of a dark wizard and any number of people who wanted him dead.  Through the sheer strength of his will Harry ignored it all and pushed himself up flights of stairs, through corridors, past windows showing only curtains of swirling snow and, before he knew it, he was at Umbridge’s door.  Without any visible hesitation despite the roiling inside his gut and the persistent feeling that this isn’t what I want, Harry knocked.

“Come in dear.”

Harry shivered even as he pushed the door open.

Severus shivered in the cold despite the hateful robes he wore, noticing with a blank face the way the rain of the last few days had become what looked to be a snowstorm of epic proportions, the ground already blanketed with layers that crunched satisfyingly underfoot and left a lonely trail from the castle to where he stood.  With the picturesque image of Hogwarts in the snow in mind he took a moment at the very edge of the wards to compose himself and bolster his mental shields; it wouldn’t do to be thinking of Harry Potter as anything other than something to be destroyed.  Certainly not from the perspective of a teacher who had failed – again – to make the boy seek medical help and was actually worried for his wellbeing; certainly not.  Then Severus apparated.  As he was soon to discover, it was a wasted effort. 

 “Good evening Harry,” Umbridge cooed, looking up from her work as soon as he entered the room.

“Good evening Professor.”  Harry spoke quietly, mindlessly, as he kept a wary distance and fought through the block in his mind to remember the previous night.  He could feel the uncomfortable sensation of not knowing enough – not remembering enough – now that he was faced with the room it had to have happened in.  The words on his back shone in his mind once more and he took a step back, wondering what on earth must have possessed him to have him coming back here willingly.  As if she hadn’t noticed the movement, Umbridge waved him to a chair on the opposite side of the desk to where she sat.  Without any conscious thought Harry was moving to take the seat.

“Now Harry, as I said, you will be using this once more,” and she pulled out a very large, very familiar, red feathered quill.  Harry hated the fact that it was probably barely dry from the night before.

“I explained last night I believe?”  At Harry’s blank look Umbridge sighed, her great pink tweed chest rising and for a startling moment Harry thought he’d inflated her like Aunt Marge.  His euphoria left him like the gusty breath left the toad... –like woman.  “I do believe we have already discussed the issue of focus, but if we must do so again...” she left the sentence hanging and Harry was too used to such devices not to respond with the mandatory, “No ma’am.”

Umbridge nodded imperiously as she passed the quill over the desk and Harry tried to hide a full body shudder as his fingertips brushed the plume of the feather before he grasped it properly.  Unlike the night before, Harry found he was suddenly hyperaware of everything for a brief moment and felt filled with dread and fear and a childlike anxiety that gripped his stomach in a tight fist before leaving him feeling completely empty.  He felt more numb than ever and he didn’t think he was really thinking straight as he watched with a vague kind of attentiveness as Umbridge slid a piece of parchment across the desk to him, the rasp of paper on wood loud in the otherwise silent room.  Her voice slithered past any defences he may have had and transcended his thoughts and feelings like a thick, pernicious smog, trying to find and suffocate the life and freedom from him.  And for every second it invaded him and tore him down, Harry found he couldn’t quite keep up; as though he had only a few seconds of memory before a thought or feeling was lost.

“You may begin Potter.  I believe you know what you are to write.  Do you remember, brat?”  Her words were level and almost but not quite calming.  Lulling him like something dangerous.  The kind of voice a hunter might use to coax an animal closer before they cut its throat.  He was vaguely aware that the things she said didn’t match her tone but he couldn’t be sure and then the thought, a mere wisp, was gone like all the rest.  Everything was insubstantial and the only thing he could grasp fully...

The only thing that was true in all of this...

“Useless freak!  If you don’t stop mutilating Dudders’ clothes you won’t get any at all, now get in there and shut it or I’ll tell your Uncle.”  Darkness.

“What the hell is this, boy?  You think this is ‘mown’?  You think that is ‘painted’?  You’re staying out here ‘til you get it right and don’t think you’re stepping foot in my house until then.”  Cold.  So cold.

And why were these things true?  Why did this always happen?  Why him, every single time? 

Why wasn’t ‘Harry’ good enough?

Because you weren’t born to be good enough.  You weren’t born to be anything.  You shouldn’t have been born and you know it, don’t you Potter.

“Freak!”

“Boy!”

“No good, waste of space; should have died with your worthless parents...”

“Disgusting dirty thing!”

“Filth; out of my house now!”

“Foolish brat.”

“Idiot.”

“Less like your father than I thought.”

“Selfish prat.”

“Golden Boy”

“He’s too weak, he won’t be able to save any of us, you’ll see.”

“Did you see what he did to Cedric...?”

“Sinner.”

“Murderer.”   

“He’s the Boy Who Lived.”

Harry didn’t know the quiet sobbing was coming from him, tearing out of his chest with jagged edges.  He couldn’t feel it, too lost in the maelstrom in his mind.  He couldn’t feel the blood he was now completely covered in.  He couldn’t feel the pain that was piercing most of his skin.  It was only skin.  Skin deep.  It wasn’t supposed to hurt him.  Can’t hurt me.  Sticks and stones...

He couldn’t feel the smiling eyes on him, the hungry, smiling, satisfied eyes intent on his torn flesh, and he couldn’t feel the prickling in his scar or the anger leaking into him through it, reacting horribly with his stomach as thought the two halves of him were at war.  All Harry could feel was a guilt so deep, so pervasive, that it struck holes like punches through his chest and stomach and neck and head until they all hurt so badly, bled so fiercely, releasing everything he was in torrents; yet still it wasn’t enough because he deserved so much more pain and so much less of anything else.  He held the quill to the parchment with numb, quivering fingers, the feather fluttering in the air from the vibrations. 

He couldn’t breathe and was happy with the justice in that.  Content with the unbearable restriction in his chest and the tears it forced from his eyes.  Cedric couldn’t breathe either.  His parents hadn’t breathed for years.  How could he continue to?  The world tilted, just a bit, and then the quill was slipping in a flash of feathered crimson and though he missed the pain he felt the blood because it was gushing now, coating his arm in sickening, familiar warmth and running over the page and the desk and his clothes and he could feel it smearing and sliding as he moved and lifted his heavy arm to look at what had happened before misty eyes.  His arm looked so strange.  Almost inside out.  All red and white and the white struck some deeply disgusted chord in him that made him want to vomit even though he couldn’t quite make sense of what it was.  That wasn’t right was it?

A sigh caught his attention and he looked up to see a disappointed looking Umbridge and on instinct he ducked his head before someone swatted him for making eye contact.  He wasn’t allowed eye contact. 

“It seems that even this is beyond you.  Dear me, what are we to do with you boy?  So very difficult.”  She shook her head, ashamed.  Of him.  Difficult.  He reached for the quill without thinking but it was plucked from useless fingers before he could put it to soggy parchment.  “No, just go.  We’ll sort this out tomorrow.  Make sure you clean that up,” she added, nodding at his bloody self as an afterthought.  “I doubt you want anyone knowing how utterly useless you are do you?  Go on, out.”

Ducking his head, ashamed of himself as well, Harry stood and teetered before staggering his wobbly way to the door.  S’pose I need a bathroom ‘gain, he thought blearily as he tottered down the corridor towards one of the rooms he’d been hiding in so much lately.  He didn’t realise he’d gone one floor too many until he caught a glimpse of Myrtle floating lazily around the sinks on the second floor and backed away, abruptly deciding he didn’t want company – even undead company. 

Moments went by like dimming flashes from Colin’s camera and Harry couldn’t keep up.  Myrtle was replaced by corridors and frozen windows with frosted glass and the endless white beyond before it changed to a portrait of fruit and the thought of Dobby.  The sight of the portrait beginning to open had Harry spinning and stumbling in the opposite direction.  No.  No people.  No people or elves or teachers or uncles or aunts or cousins or evil wizards making his head threaten to split.  No parents. 

No parents. 

No mum.  No dad.  No Sirius.  Not anymore.

Cold. 

He hadn’t meant to push the doors so hard that they banged into the walls but in the next moment the thought was gone and white was all he could see.  There was only white and Harry took a mindless step forward, wanting to be part of that white.  He wanted nothing so much as to disappear into the endless nothing in front of him.  He thought he’d never wanted anything so much as he wanted that.  If he could just vanish, just be gone...   Safe.  Away.  Away from everything.  He took a step.  And another.  And another.  A part of that endless white.  And he smiled.

“You can’t honestly believe his word over mine Master; I’ve been yours and only yours for-”

“But that’s just it, you haven’t been!”

Up until that moment it had seemed like a civil conversation, could even have been mistaken as a calm and friendly debate, but the moment Voldemort raised his voice and hissed his refusal to listen to anymore of Severus’ excuses the Potions Master knew his life was forfeit and likely to end at any moment.  Voldemort didn’t like anyone to make a fool of him and to find out that Severus had been doing so for fourteen years, well, there wasn’t a bigger kick in the teeth than that.  Voldemort had suspected – as anyone of intelligence would – that Severus, his ‘loyal’ spy in the other camp, was playing the field to his own advantage, having formidable connections on either side as he did.  It would be ridiculous to assume otherwise and Voldemort had always known not to confide too much in the compromised man.  However, the dark wizard had never dreamt that Severus would so blatantly have betrayed him; had wanted so wholly for his enemies to win the war, had been so wholly Dumbledore’s man.  It should have been obvious in hindsight but that only served to infuriate the dark wizard more and Severus could see his time rapidly drawing to a close in that sallow, purpling face.

It was only the two of them in an unused, slightly ruined building on the outskirts of a small country town, miles from anywhere.  As soon as Severus had arrived and seen it was only himself and Voldemort present he had known he was in trouble.  Even when he was being given the most confidential instructions Voldemort would bring Wormtail, even if only to make clear his superiority.  But for this Voldemort would suffer no witnesses; no one would see the result of the dark wizard’s stupidity.  And later, much later when it could be used only to his advantage, the Dark Lord would tell his followers that the traitor had been dealt with and would let their imaginations do the rest; scaring them all that much further into submission.  For this, only Severus would know Voldemort’s rage. 

Even as the first curse flew from the thin lips, cursed words forming on the stale breath of one not truly alive, Severus was shaping his body to fall on his front.  On his top button.  Where his writhing hand might reach it inconspicuously.  Where he might cover the whisper of a spell on a shaky exhale between one unforgivable and the next.  It took longer than he would have liked but no spell was sent to immobilise him, his foe to confident – as always – in his own abilities.

And when Severus Snape vanished into thin air without so much as a whisper to give him away, no one was there to hear the Dark Lord scream.

Severus found it very undignified for his spying career to end with him hobbling like a weak old man through the gates of Hogwarts and struggling up the hills and across the grounds, out of breath and clutching at ribs that had been thoroughly bruised and battered.  He felt winded but not broken.  No, certainly not broken.  Not the way he knew he would have felt if left to Voldemort’s tender mercies for too much longer.  Not the way he had been expecting his career as a spy to end.  And he had Voldemort’s overestimation of himself and Dumbledore’s forethought to thank.   Snape smiled, then laughed at the hilarity of it all.  Despite his less than perfect state, Severus was in a rather good mood.  A rather great mood.  He was free.  Completely and wholly his own man once more, free to do what he wanted – to an extent – and free to stay away from a man who frequently took out his frustrations on him in the form of rather painful magic.  He was free.

Had any students been around at three o’clock that Thursday morning their friends would have thought them pitiful liars, because who would have believed Severus Snape, feared potions master and the man with no life outside the school could possibly be grinning.

Needless to say, as it was Severus Snape and not someone more fortunate who was in his first good mood for years, it wasn’t going to last long.  And it probably should have been obvious too who it would be who abruptly jerked him back down to earth but at that point the Potions Master was unaware that he wasn’t the only one facing demons that night.  Surprisingly when Severus saw the elf running down the slope from the double doors of the castle towards him, the man’s eyes didn’t harden again and the laugh lines didn’t disappear.  He only straightened as much as he was able with a long suffering sigh and a suspiciously good natured “what now?” and waded his way through snow drifts towards the panicky elf.  At least all this running around kept him busy.

As Dobby ran as fast as his little legs could carry him – actually significantly faster, and he fell face first into the snow many times because of it – he tried to stop himself from punishing himself because he knew it would only slow him down and Harry Potter needed him.  He had seen Harry at the door to the kitchens, had seen him look as he never had before and had seen the stumbling trip in his limbs and the shaking and the blood, so much blood.  He hadn’t known what to do – had dithered for an interminable time – before following.

It was only at the castle doors that he realised he had no idea where Harry might have gone and the flurrying snow had covered any tracks he might have made in seconds.  Stumbling down the sloping grounds and frantically trying to sense the warmth of a body anywhere close by, he whirled and spotted a patch of black against the snow only to realise he’d found one of the professors looking back at him.  He started, his pointed ears quivering with cold and surprise and anxiety and he just about fell down the slope in his attempt to get to Professor Snape as fast as possible.

“Professor Snape sir!” Dobby screeched when he was barely close enough and saw the man wince at the volume of his voice but there was no time to be wasted.  “Professor Snape sir,” he repeated when he was close enough to twist his knobby fingers in the folds of Snape’s sleeve, holding on when the man tried to shake him off and tugging him even though he didn’t know which direction he was supposed to be going in.

“What?”  The man growled out the word and Dobby could tell he wasn’t in a very good mood.  Oh.  Oh well.  It couldn’t be helped.

“It’s Mr Harry Potter sir-”

“Of course it is,” Snape muttered.

“But it is!  He’s hurt and lost and Dobby looked but Dobby can’t find him!”

“Then how can you possibly know he’s hurt?” Snape growled, a little urgency creeping into his tone.

“Dobby saw him!”

“And yet you claim not to know where he is.”

“Dobby lost him!”  The house elf was openly sobbing now, having released Snape’s sleeve and resorted to twisting his fingers together in the front of his pillow case until they made popping sounds.  “Dobby was going to follow but wasn’t sure if he should and when Dobby decided to, Harry Potter was gone!”

The Professor rolled his eyes and Dobby barely refrained from screeching that there wasn’t time for the rolling of eyes!  Harry Potter was gone!

“Can you sense him?” Even as he asked, the Potions Master was pulling his wand from his sleeve, his movement jerkier than the house elf remembered the Potions Master’s movements ever being in the past. 

“Dobby is trying but the ice is covering any warmth Harry Potter might have.”  Dobby watched as the Professor balanced the wand flat on the palm of his hand.

“Point me Harry Potter.”

The wand spun as though unsure before settling tentatively to somewhere left of the castle and Snape swept forward with long strides, cutting a path in the snow with Dobby following, popping his fingers the whole time. 

Harry was drifting in a sea of white, lost and away and safe.  Nothing could touch him here.  He swore he could feel the ground shifting beneath him, tilting and swaying and he felt as though he was being cradled and rocked and he wanted to stay here forever.  He felt a heaviness slowly descend on him, covering him completely in layer after barely-there layer until he was swaddled in warmth and encompassing comfort and he was safe. 

But something wouldn’t let him sleep.  Despite the feeling that he could fall asleep and happily never wake again, Harry was restless and, not knowing how to fix it he wriggled, pressing the palms of his hands against the ground – not trying to push himself up but as though he wanted to push the ground further down, to fall further down, deeper and deeper and safer and safer.  Despite the ground, so solid beneath his palms, rough against his skin and somehow even more comforting for it, the world continued to steadily sway and tilt and Harry revelled in the feeling.  The cold didn’t exist; he was warm and so comforted.  Nothing existed outside of this, this complete belonging and the feel that he was so completely lost to everything and everyone but himself, that nothing could intrude on this and nothing could touch him and that he was gone from the world and life; just here.  No one could make him leave.

No one except for that one person whose hand was curling ever so slowly and carefully around his own against the ground like it was something priceless and fragile, lifting it away from the dirt, causing him to roll ever so slightly, lying entirely on his front with his other arm trapped under him so he could turn his face up and meet the eyes hovering close over his.  Eyes so like his own, glittering and sad and happy and there was a hint of fury there that stopped his heart for a brief moment but then it was gone and Harry breathed once more.  He didn’t say anything.  She didn’t either, gazing down at him with her expression so mixed, so full that it was difficult to look at – blinding and overwhelming, like staring at the sun; irresistible – but Harry couldn’t have looked away if he’d tried.  Despite the emotion joining them, linking them like a shining strand, tangible to the two of them; their faces were relaxed, only their eyes speaking.  It was all they needed; they knew each other so intrinsically, on such a deep level, that they needed no more than that.

And only one thought spiralled and swirled and danced in the empty space in Harry’s mind as he let out a little sigh and the hand left his.

Not yet.

Scrabbling fingers ignored the biting cold to dig and break through the sheets of ice and brush away snowflakes and he tried not to despair prematurely; just because Harry was buried beneath half a foot of snow didn’t mean the boy was dead and when did the brat become the boy and Potter become Harry?  Why was the boy here?  Hadn’t he sent him to the infirmary?  Ordered him in words not even the most imbecilic child could misunderstand straight to the infirmary and Madam Pomfrey?  A questing hand finally found a handful of ice-crusted cloth and Severus pulled as hard as he could with what little leverage he had on his knees in the snow and found himself with one Harry Potter sprawled over his knees.  Heart in his throat, Severus tipped and turned the prone body until Harry was nestled in the crook of one arm in his lap and he froze completely as he saw how deathly pale the boy was.  How very closed his eyes were, how very still he was.  How still his chest was.  How no misty breaths rose into the air before his face like they did Severus and how Harry had one arm folded over his chest, covered in blood.  So much blood.  No wonder he’s so white...

Stuttering back into action with jerky movements, Severus lifted the heavy arm away from Harry’s chest, expecting the worst – a deep bottomless hole of blood and darkness where the boy’s heart should be; something unfixable, something to explain the deathly stillness that he could feel even through all the layers of clothing – and staring disbelievingly at the skin he could see through the boy’s drenched, bloodstained shirt.  It wasn’t whole or unmarred, in fact it looked terribly bloody and torn somehow in odd, stabbing strokes, the sight of which Severus filed away in his mind for later.  Harry’s ribs were more than visible where they clung to his shirt in wet peaks, his face bloodless, his clothes saturated in the stuff; but it was fixable.  Harry was fixable.  Severus couldn’t think otherwise.

Breathing.  He had to get Harry breathing.  Leaning down Severus placed his head carefully over the boy’s chest and stilled until he and the body he held could have been two parts of the same statue.  He unfroze a little inside when he detected very faint movement – Harry was breathing – but it was shallow and slow and, placing an icy hand over Harry’s forehead Severus failed to understand how it could possibly feel colder than the snow around them.  His eyelids and lips were blue and... even as Severus watched, turning bluer.

Ignoring the blood as something that could be dealt with afterwards, Severus willed his bent legs to move despite having fallen asleep in the short time he was on the ground and icy from the snow; willed them to take his weight as well as Harry’s.    He just had to get Harry indoors, just had to make him safe and warm and breathing properly again.

If anyone had been awake at three o’clock that Thursday morning and had thought to look out a window their friends would certainly have thought them lying, because who would believe that Severus Snape would hold Harry Potter; cradling him close to his chest with concern written in every line on his face even as impassivity fought to take back control, moving with strides that would put his usual speed to shame as he headed up the snowy slope for the doors to the castle, a house elf hurrying in his wake.

Floating.  He was floating.  The world moving in rippling waves, swimming before his barely open eyes before the effort became too much and they closed again with a tickle of lashes against his prickling cheeks.  The warmth and comfort were still there, though the heaviness was gone and he was just... floating.  Floating with strange swaying, jerking movements.  Floating... in such a strange position.  Hadn’t he been lying flat a minute ago?  On his stomach?  He could dimly feel his body and how he was, in fact, floating on his back in a sort of upwards-facing foetal position.  Oh, he was being carried.  Well, that was good too.  Being held.  It had been so long since he’d been held, and he didn’t think he ever had been held quite like this.  He would have lifted his head if it were possible but it seemed to be made of lead and was throbbing like an open wound so he left it hanging limply where it was, neck braced on something warm and sturdy and face open to the cool air and the night sky. 

He was comfortable so there wasn’t much point in trying to move.  Somehow, he just knew he was safe.  He trusted in that safety the way he was trusting his weight to the arms of whoever was now carrying him; not entirely consciously but implicitly regardless.  He didn’t need to get away from this, he was safe and warm and comfortable and he really didn’t want to be anywhere else.

He missed that hand that had held his though.  His own felt so cold without it, in stark contrast to the rest of his body, as though it lay outside the warmth of a blanket that had him enveloped.  Something inside him thought that maybe he’d always missed that hand on his, and he always would, but the ache for it wasn’t going anywhere and was so familiar it felt like a part of him, so he didn’t fuss over its loss.  He was content enough here.  He was being held... and rocked.  Just slightly.  His eyes were closed and his breathing was slowing and he was melting into those arms that had him safely ensconced and he was being rocked and swayed.  Where the wind blows, the cradle will rock... Yes, he could happily stay here forever.  As long as he was warm.  So very warm.

Severus was a flurry of movement, striding down corridors and, after a moment of thought for the many stairs between him and the infirmary, into his rooms (fastidiously ensuring that he shut the door in Dobby’s face and hearing the squeak when the house elf didn’t notice in time), slipping his cloak from his shoulders and juggling the lax body in his arms as he did so. 

He slowed only long enough to deftly summon a towel and have it spread on the dark couch in his living room before using infinite care to lay Harry down on it where it lay before the fireplace which he had roaring with a word moments later.  With another flick of his wand the couch was morphing, collapsing and melting beneath the body it cradled until it was high enough for Severus to not have to bend at the waist to attend to Harry and the back of the couch shrunk and the opposite side grew until Harry was surrounded by padded safety rails, just in case the boy moved – Severus didn’t want him falling.  He then cast a slightly more complicated warming charm than usual on it that would heat slowly so that he didn’t send Harry’s body into shock and cast a stronger one on the padded barriers either side of the boy until he could feel the warmth radiating from them if he held his hand to where Harry’s skin came closest to them.

Peeling away the ice crusted robes and shirt that were twisted around the bloody body, Severus tried to stem the tide of admonishments in his head, berating Harry for not heeding him and Poppy for not seeing this and Dumbledore for his silence and Voldemort for his timing.  In his desperate search for the source of the bleeding he realised once the boy’s torso was bared that the blood covered him almost evenly, as though he had dozens of smaller wounds instead of one critical one, and he couldn’t fathom what could have done this or why Harry would choose that over the infirmary, avoiding the medi-witch even after being so badly injured – the boy had been outside for Merlin’s sake!  Severus was also at a loss for a moment as to how to start fixing this but, after a glance at the boy’s face which had regained only the slightest bit of colour, he reasoned he would just have to go by what he could see.  He’d heard enough of Poppy’s complaints about how standard diagnostic charms wouldn’t work.  No, not on Harry Potter.  Severus decided to ignore the fact that the thought filled him with naught but amusement and... no, just amusement.  Amusement was reasonable but he was not fond of Harry Potter so the thought couldn’t possibly have filled him with fondness.

Moving to the fireplace, satisfied to feel the prickling in his limbs that signalled the return of heat and circulation to his frozen hands and feet, Severus snatched a handful of floo powder from the mantel and threw it into the grate, calling for the infirmary before sticking his head in and calling, “Poppy!”

She appeared after a moment looking flustered.  “What Severus?  Can it wait, I’m rather busy.  And if this is about that list of potions I need, I’ve told you already that the flu season is coming and-”

“That isn’t why I’m calling.  When you have a minute I need you to come through.”  He pulled his slightly frustrated head out before he could fully register her vague look of horror at having to leave the infirmary for the dungeons.

Easily finding a cloth and filling a basin he usually kept handy and used for the preparation or application of topical potions with water which he heated with a wave of his wand and tested on the inside of his wrist, Severus moved to stand beside the makeshift bed Harry lay upon and set to work cleaning him up. 

He quickly realised while working on the blood crusted on the boy’s neck and chest that blood was dripping from Harry’s arm to splash in a dark puddle on the stone floor and he diverted his attention to cleaning that up first.  It only took a moment to realise he was cleaning a long and very deep cut down the inside of Harry’s forearm that made the limb look almost mangled and that even though the snow had slowed Harry’s blood flow and stopped his from bleeding out, it was a very near thing and Severus wondered at the boy having any blood left.  Working quickly on the arm lest the bleeding pick up in speed again – the boy had somehow managed to cut through several veins and a huge amount of flesh besides and Severus refused to acknowledge the glimpses of shining white he saw as he cleaned it – Severus cast a hasty disinfecting charm and quickly but with infinite care wrapped the arm with gauze to stem it from bleeding any further.  Satisfied that it wouldn’t need any more immediate attention Severus moved back to Harry’s neck to clean him up and determine what else needed patching back together.

It was within minutes of his careful swabbing at a patch of bloodied skin that he found the first of what he realised must have been many small incisions.  Unable to think of what could have made the cut beyond a knife he continued sweeping the cloth in the lightest of circles over the skin, turning it pink from the watery blood he was washing away and fighting the tightening in his stomach at the sight of the water in the basin becoming dark after one rinse of the cloth.

“What have you gotten yourself into this time?” He muttered to Harry as he swept lightly at the painful looking skin in a tone fraught with longsuffering forbearance, sounding far gentler than he’d meant to.  He froze, stunned, when the small cut he’d been cleaning high on Harry’s chest just below his collarbone flowed smoothly into another one at a right angle to it.  Cleaning under it as carefully as possible he found another parallel to it.  It looked almost like...

He lost none of the care from his movements but some of the efficiency as he left the skin washed in diluted blood in his haste to... what?  Prove himself wrong?  Prove himself right?  Surely no one would have... surely no one hated the boy enough to do something so horrible.  Not even ones from Slytherin.  Surely.

But there it was.

“Oh Harry.”

F.  and right beside it; R.  Next to that an E.  And pressed into the tightly drawn skin: A. 

He didn’t want to know.  Severus really, really didn’t want to know.  But before the blood had come away Severus couldn’t deny that he already knew what the last letter carved into Harry’s skin would have to be.  What else could it be?  And then he was done and he could read the word on Harry’s chest, as though someone had stamped him, branded him, just beneath the almost obscenely protruding collarbone.

FREAK. 

Someone had carved a word into Harry’s chest.  Either that of Harry himself... no.  He wouldn’t.  Someone had done this to him.  The Harry Severus had watched over his whole life wouldn’t have done this to himself.  Someone had carved words into Harry’s skin by force.  Severus’ outrage at that fact almost eclipsed just what word it was.  No one carved words into his... what?  Charge... yes, because Harry was his charge.  He had been charged with the care of Harry Potter when he was a baby and, as such, had become his charge and to say that Harry was his boy wouldn’t be right, would it?  To feel so defensive of the child he’d been protecting for almost as long as said child had been alive would only be natural.  None of that mattered half as much though, and was swept aside far easier than the blood Harry was caked in because whoever had done this to him would pay and holy hell, Severus had just found another cut. 

His fury was such that he was sure he’d never felt its like before, his hands shaking with it and he longed for something to take it out on but he had a job to do and that was to take care of Harry.  Harry came first.  As Severus read the words carved into the boy’s skin he vowed that Harry would come first.

He only got so far as dabbing at the second set of cuts once before his floo was spitting Poppy onto his hearth and he was hurling a wordlessly transfigured bed sheet across Harry, feeling a fierce surge of protectiveness that wouldn’t allow Harry to be seen in the state he was in.

“Alright Severus, what was important enough to warrant leaving a wing full of students with house elves?”

Severus stepped away from Harry – ignoring his own reluctance because Harry needed all the help he could get and Severus feeling possessive was utterly ridiculous – and allowed Poppy to see him.  Even with the sheet covering him from the neck down and Severus’ ministrations, Harry looked terrible; still deathly pale, lips still a little blue and face smeared here and there with his own blood.  The mystery afforded by the sheet only made the image worse but Severus knew nothing Poppy’s imagination could provide would be worse than the reality of what had been done to the boy.

“Oh, not again,” Poppy muttered and Severus bristled a little – she was blaming Harry?! – but her tone was full of compassion and self-recrimination more than anything as she bustled her way to where Harry’s head lay and began performing routine diagnostics out of habit.  “Where was he when you found him?  How long ago?  Hypothermia...” she added muttering, “Don’t tell me he was out there in that blizzard?”

She began to lift the sheet before Severus’ hand stopped her.  She turned surprised eyes on him.

“The state he’s in Severus, I have to examine him.”  Severus looked at her a moment longer before sighing a little.

“I know,” he said, removing his hand from hers.  “You should brace yourself.”

She gave him a funny look but nodded before lifting the sheet, far more tentatively than before.  When she saw the cleaned letters on his chest and the amount of blood still to be washed away her eyes threatened to bug out of her head and her voice became breathless.  “Merlin...” 

“Until I knew what else was under the blood I thought it would be best to avoid magic,” Severus said, lifting the basin of water and the cloths draped over its edge and flicking his wand once it was set down to replace the dark run off with cleaner, warmer water.

“Yes,” Poppy agreed faintly, eyes fixed on Harry’s chest where the only uncovered word was beading blood sluggishly, the vertical lines written in Harry’s own hand shining in the firelight.  Transfiguring herself a stool on the opposite side of the cot to where Severus was standing she sat beside the makeshift bed and began cleaning Harry of the blood with faster, well-trained strokes that belied the shell-shocked look on her face as Severus started swabbing almost tenderly at Harry from the other side of the cot.

“Harry said you let him leave the infirmary on Tuesday.”  Severus tried not to sound accusatory, he really did.  Judging by the look Poppy sent him he assumed he’d failed.  It wasn’t anger or irritation though; she looked guilty. 

“I didn’t let him leave,” she said, sounding as if she was trying to justify it to herself and failing.  “I meant to catch up with him after the horde was dealt with.”

“He mentioned having slipped away while you were busy with a Quidditch accident.”

Poppy nodded, her eyes faraway as she dabbed and wiped away the blood soothingly with the odd reassuring pat despite knowing Harry couldn’t feel it in the state he was in.  “I should have known he would leave at the first opportunity.  I would have sought him out the next time he was in the Great Hall but I haven’t been to any meals since.  Before the Hufflepuffs hurt during Quidditch were ready to leave I had an outbreak of stupidity in the dorms.  Fifth year, Ravenclaws.  If it’s not one thing it’s another.”

Severus rolled his eyes.  “Was it the boys experimenting again?”

“No, they haven’t tried anything since the eyebrow incident.  It was the girls this time.  Fused their stockings to their legs in an attempt to create the next fashion revolution.”  Severus lifted an eyebrow and Poppy regained enough of her equilibrium to give him a scathing look.  “Obviously not the most pressing issue but with a skin transfiguring potion in their systems I couldn’t leave them alone to attend a meal where Harry may or may not have been.”

Severus sighed.  “I apologise, you should not always be solely responsible for Harry’s welfare.”

“Careful Severus, you’re letting your concern show again.”  He graced her with a glare that held no heat causing her to chuckle before directing her attention back to Harry again.  “How does this keep happening to him?” She despaired absently.  Severus didn’t answer.  He didn’t know.

By the time Poppy declared that Harry could be moved to the infirmary, the sun had risen – though it was still quite early – and Severus had made them both three cups of tea, deciding that the more of Harry that was uncovered by his own blood, the more they would need.  He hadn’t been wrong.  Seeing the sheer amount of letters that had been carved into his charge was disturbing – infuriating, rage inducing, and, in Poppy’s case, tear-jerking – enough without taking into account what the words were.  Someone would pay dearly for this. 

They had been over every inch of the boy’s body and both felt like they were drowning in their shared mire of guilt and grief and disgust at who could have done this to a fifteen year old.  Though Poppy was the most outwardly effected in that her face was noticeably tear-stained, Severus was equally pale, his eyes were hard and his jaw stayed perpetually – and rather painfully – clenched to repress anything but those feelings might help Harry.  He could indulge in his own reactions later. 

In any case his mind was entirely occupied with what he’d found on the boy’s back.  The serious, dangerously far along infection was bad enough and had taken Severus quite awhile to clean, drain, disinfect and bandage.  Poppy had seen the raw, weeping wounds (the words unreadable through the infection) and had needed to excuse herself, leaving Severus to finish Harry’s back alone for which the man was grateful because he hadn’t been able to control his expression as easily when he’d cleaned the words enough to make them out.

 If the words were to be believed, the state of Harry’s body might be the least mangled part of the boy.  He had been freezing to death under a mound of snow when Severus had gotten to him.  Why?  Just how much of Harry would be left if... when he woke?  Given another few hours he may well have succumbed to blood poisoning if not for the hypothermia slowing his blood flow considerably;  now he would almost certainly wake and eventually recover, though even magic had its limits.  But his mind... Severus could only imagine what could have been done to his mind and, on anyone other than him, Severus’ expression at that moment might have been labelled fear.  I will not attempt to close my mind.  Severus was beyond fury and the anger was now something solid and cold and bitter in his chest that would be remedied only when he was able to take it out on whoever was responsible.  Violently.  And he had a feeling, after much introspection – necessary to calm himself as he worked on Harry – that he knew who that ‘person’ was.  Especially considering the fact that obtaining blood quills – and there was no doubt one had been used here, Severus knew Harry’s handwriting after five years of Potions essays – was easiest for ministry employees, what with the amount they still managed to find and confiscate and keep where only they could access them.

Before Poppy could lift her wand for a locomotor mortis Severus was drawing a still-limp Harry carefully into his arms and at Poppy’s look of incredulity he raised a brow and she understood perfectly; both of them had reached new levels of protectiveness for the boy in the last few hours; neither had been immune to just how fragile he’d looked in his emaciated state while bodily covered with someone else’s cruelty.  Severus waited as Poppy threw floo powder into the grate and spoke their destination before he stepped in, shielding Harry’s head against his shoulder so that the boy didn’t inhale any soot or hit his head on the mantel.  And if his hand stroked through Harry’s hair and cradled Harry’s head in his large palm for longer than necessary, well, that was completely accidental.

Stepping into the infirmary, the first thing Severus did was summon screens from the far wall and shield the nearest bed which happened to be empty before carefully setting Harry down on it.  While under the pretext of positioning the unconscious boy’s head and neck to avoid muscle strain his hands lingered on Harry’s head for a moment, briefly ruffling his hair and hovering as if to protect the boy’s head from any further hurt.  Severus, with no intention of leaving, summoned a straight-backed wooden chair and seated himself close beside the bed while Poppy, who said nothing of the uncharacteristic behaviour, readjusted one screen from the outside of their enclosed haven to afford more privacy then fluttered off to check her other patients.

It was still early, the sun sending out weak buttery rays, when there was a small pop near where Severus sat and a dejectedly floppy ear and a large eye peaked around one of the screens.

“Professor Snape sir?”  It was the quietest Snape had ever heard a house elf speak and, in an odd moment of compassion for the little being – and while despairing that Harry had obviously managed to make him a more sympathetic person all round– Severus felt compelled to answer the unasked question.

“He should be fine.”  He didn’t expect a sleeve-full of sobbing elf but he supposed ruefully that he probably should have so he allowed it for a few seconds – which for him felt like a few seconds too long – before shaking his sleeve out and unobtrusively pushing away the elf.  Said elf seemed to realise something as he popped away before reappearing almost instantly with his arms full of a tray containing a full English breakfast on it which he set down on the bedside table beside where Harry lay.  The elf bowed low to a nonplussed Severus before popping out of existence again.  “Of all things Harry, a house elf?” he asked the unconscious boy quietly as he stared at the air where moments before an annoying elf had stood.  He looked at the unmoving, still too-pale face and his own softened markedly before he turned to his breakfast.

It was another hour until Minerva McGonagall stepped into the infirmary.  Severus heard her calling softly for Poppy and listened from behind the wall of privacy screens as the two women began conversing quietly.  With a whispered spell Severus was privy to every word.

“That woman is still after him.  I can’t be sure what he did to her but one would think he murdered her entire family the way she goes after him.”  Severus was surprised by how vicious Minerva sounded – especially for seven in the morning – and he looked at Harry, a smile twisting his lips as he thought, only you.

“That woman barely warrants the title.”

“Believe me; I’ve heard all the invectives from the students.”

“I’m sure Severus could fill you in on one or two you haven’t heard; your lions aren’t the only one’s she victimises.”

“But Harry is the most frequent.”

“Yes, it does seem so.”

“She’s been asking for rights to him,” Minerva murmured after a moment and despite her angry disbelief Severus could feel even through the screens as well as that bubbling inside himself, she continued, still quietly. “Access to him every night after classes for detentions she hasn’t any excuse to issue, assignments she hasn’t given and insists must be done with one-on-one tutelage.  I’ve blocked her every time but I’m afraid I may have taken my temper out on the wrong people these last few days.”

Silence reigned as both women seemed to ponder the injustice of life and Severus would have rolled his eyes on any other day but instead he was fighting down the cold fury.  Umbridge had asked Minerva for access to Harry, had been denied and had inflicted herself on the boy regardless and no one had known.  No one had known other than Severus who hadn’t thought to investigate further.  But he would make reparation and he would make that woman pay.  The thoughtful silence on the other side of the partition had Severus restraining his fury; he hadn’t spoken of his theory to Poppy yet and was fairly sure that, had the medi-witch thought of the possibility that Umbridge was the cause of the boy’s hurts, she would be more openly furious at the mention of the woman.  As for Minerva...

“He is here then?”  Severus stiffened at Minerva’s query and wondered briefly at the flare of possessiveness he’d felt at the probability of her appearing from behind the screens at any moment, ready to take over his position at Harry’s bedside and watch over him.  He decided that whatever happened, she couldn’t make him leave.  For the boy to have ended in the infirmary in this condition surely showed that Harry needed far more protection and guidance than he’d been receiving and Severus would be damned if he would leave that job to someone else again; incompetent fools or distracted ones, he wouldn’t leave his charge to their dubious care any longer.

“He is, but...” Severus couldn’t help feeling sorry for Poppy.  For all her distance, Minerva was notoriously passionate about her lions and that Harry could have become so sick under her watch boded ill for them all – Minerva’s temper was just as notorious after all.

“But what Poppy?”

“Perhaps we should discuss this in my office.”

After another moment’s silence Severus heard retreating footsteps and braced himself while keeping his eyes trained on Harry’s wan face.  The barest flicker of movement behind pale eyelids had Severus leaning forward and murmuring, “you’re alright, everything’s alright,” finally able to push away the unease he felt at his own actions.  It was foolish of him to think himself unchanged after all.  Far more sensible to accept it and do what he could to rectify the situation he’d had a hand in creating, however unwittingly.  He hadn’t done his job, hadn’t protected one of his students; his charge, the boy he’d sworn to protect.  He’d failed and it wouldn’t happen again, not now that he didn’t have to split his loyalties or maintain a front of hatred for followers of his old master.  Not when he could see for himself the vulnerable, fragile wisp of a boy he had allowed to be hurt in so many ways to the point that, when Severus found him in the snow, he was sure he’d been laying eyes on a corpse. 

No one would have the opportunity to hurt him again, not now that Severus’ vision of the boy was unfettered and his time and loyalties were his own.  He was his own man and he would use the chance to be something better than he had been.  And those who had hurt his charge would pay.

Though Severus hadn’t expected anything less, Minerva was like a tornado in her fury as she suddenly slammed her way out of Poppy’s office and pulled the closest screen back so harshly it nearly fell to the floor and only stopped when Poppy caught it.  Standing before Severus and Harry, breathing harshly with her lips in a pale line, her eyes spat venom at the world.  It took her a very long time to get herself under control and Severus and Poppy gave her all she needed as Severus continued to watch closely over Harry and Poppy fluttered around the wing agitatedly. 

“You know who did this?”

And just like that Severus’ mind was spinning because he had been keeping his tenuous composure by attempting to push aside his many thoughts of vengeance other than the term in its most abstract in the face of healing Harry.  At Minerva’s furious whisper Severus’ eyes became endless black tunnels promising pain.  His mind whirled as, in the space of seconds, all the marks and wounds and words on Harry’s body imprinted themselves behind his eyes and the possible culprits came to mind.  He knew what had caused the injuries and he knew who had to have done it and the empty tray from his breakfast shook briefly on the bedside table before he was able to restrain his magic once more behind iron walls in his mind, because blowing apart the hospital wing wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying as one woman’s head.  His voice was clipped and harsh from the effort his forbearance was costing him when he spoke.

“Do you?”

“I have a strong suspicion.”  Minerva’s voice was breathy and almost weak from the effort her own fury was clearly costing her to contain.  Severus couldn’t help himself.

“And you decided to stand aside regardless,” he hissed.  Minerva’s eyes flashed but not with her usual fire, as though her fury was warring with the guilt Severus could see if he looked hard enough.  “What kind of Head of House are you?”  Faced with an outlet Severus was unleashing an unwarranted amount of anger and knew it somewhere in his mind but didn’t want to acknowledge it because it felt so right to let it out.

“Apparently I’m in good company,” Minerva hissed back and Severus bristled but stopped himself from saying anything further for a moment; long enough to realise Minerva wasn’t any of the multitude of people he wanted to be raging at.  His colleague seemed to realise the same and they saw it in the other’s face and no more was said on the matter, especially since a better outlet for both of their anger entered a moment later.

When the infirmary doors opened again it took all of Severus’ effort not to have his wand drawn on the person as Minerva’s was and the fact that it was his employer did very little to calm his rage. 

“An impromptu staff meeting?” Albus asked and Poppy, Minerva and Severus stared for a moment at the man whose eyes weren’t as bright as usual in his concern but weren’t nearly as dark as they should have appeared had he known – and he should have known! – before Poppy’s wand was moving, transfiguring curtains around the beds of every other patient in the ward before they were drawing themselves closed to block the private conversation out with silencing charms.  Severus absently noticed Poppy using a one-way charm to ensure she would be aware of any change in the condition of any of her other charges before redirecting her attention.  By then Albus’ eyes had fallen on Harry and the concern deepened the frown creasing the Headmaster’s brow but there was still no anger on his face and it only heightened Severus’ sense of outrage.

“Did you know?” Severus wasn’t used to growling at his employer but this time he couldn’t have stopped himself if he’d wanted to – and he really didn’t – and the look he received was more gratifying than anything else.  He didn’t know it from his vantage point behind her but Minerva was equally gratified and equally furious and Albus was quite taken aback by the expressions he was being greeted with from two of his most trusted employees.

“I’m afraid I seem to be rather out of the loop.” 

Severus sneered and Minerva hissed at Albus just a little before Poppy, attempting to diffuse the situation despite her own disbelief that the usually all-knowing man could know nothing, spoke in clipped but quiet tones.  “I think we should discuss this in my office.”

“You can discuss it out here.” Severus said glaring at Albus whom he knew to be playing incredibly stupid and he caught but ignored the nod Minerva gave his suggestion in favour of watching Poppy shake her head.  He went to interrupt her disagreement before she cut him off.

“Think Severus.  My office is warded.”  And Severus deflated just a little because Harry’s protection came first, before Albus’ stupidity and Severus and Minerva’s anger and their shared desire for vengeance; Harry had to come first.  He nodded once and Poppy led a stunned Albus away, leaving two very frustrated professors to stew at the boy’s bedside.

The Headmaster and the medi-witch hadn’t been gone for long, Severus and Minerva attempting to calm themselves to the sight of Harry’s stillness and his slow, deep breathing, when the doors burst inwards and the hated voice rang through the white room, shattering any semblance of calm that might have existed.

“Poppy!  Poppy!  I demand-”

In a flash Severus and Minerva were on their feet standing between Harry’s bed and the door but Umbridge had already seen and her face twisted until it looked inhuman.  Before she had the chance to do more than open her mouth once more Albus was striding majestically from Poppy’s office, followed closely by the matron as they both moved to stand beside Severus and Minerva, a united front between the one they suspected and the one she’d hurt; the one they would all die to protect.  The sight of her had Severus’ jaw clenching as he struggled not to spring forward and beat her bloody against the flagstones.

“What is the meaning of this?”  Umbridge’s voice was shrill and demanding as ever, as though she still had the right to demand anything within these walls.  Severus smirked hatefully; he would have fun tearing strips off her, one way or another.  Preferably the way that would draw an awful lot of blood. 

“I feel we are in need of a little chat Delores.”  Severus nearly erupted before he saw the look on the Headmaster’s face.  Quiet fury.   Absolute power.  He knew and he wasn’t happy and Severus relaxed the way Voldemort relaxed in a torture chamber because they would have their justice now.  Umbridge seemed too stupid to realise as much.

“I don’t have time to chat Headmaster,” she almost choked on her own derision, “what is that boy doing in bed?  He should be in class!”  Severus was filled was a burning need to see this woman reduced to ashes and perhaps reburnt until she literally ceased to exist.  He felt his stomach twist at the sheer hatred on her face when her eyes skittered to Harry lying prone and so small in his hospital bed behind his wall of defenders.  The same defenders who hadn’t defended him when he’d needed it.  Severus moved to block her view of the boy further, to stop her gaze tainting him, and Umbridge scowled at him as Minerva did the same; closing any gaps in the wall they made between the vile woman and their student and stopping her poisonous glare alighting on the defenceless boy.  Not defenceless.  Not anymore.

At the movement Umbridge’s eyes became positively feral and there was a madness tinged light of possession there, as if she owned the boy and knew it and that more than anything had Severus drawing his wand on her, the tip poking harshly into her tweed covered chest when she stepped forward to physically move them from her line of sight.  It registered somewhere in Severus’ fury that Minerva had her wand in a similar position and that even Albus – the peace-lover of them all, the one to calm tempers and the ultimate advocate for ‘talking things through’ – was standing by and saying nothing about the drawn wands between his employees and there was a touch of satisfaction to his expression that mirrored Poppy beside him, though hers was almost overwhelmed by her rage at the DADA teacher. 

“He should be in class,” Umbridge screeched again, incensed now at her own comparative lack of defenders and the wands now half-way embedded in her large chest.  “I will not have him skiving off classes just because he can hoodwink all of you.”  She raised a pudgy hand to the shoulder Severus held against Minerva’s to move him aside and a split second later her eyes were crossing to see the point of the dark wand in his hand directed between her eyes.  Her eyes widened, making her look more toadlike than ever then narrowed to the tiniest of slits.  “I will not have this,” she hissed. 

“You are sorely mistaken if you think you will have anything from him ever again,” Severus hissed back, his voice much lower and colder and so much more impressive that Umbridge could have been a newborn kitten in the face of a viper for all the terror she inspired.  Though, of course being the dim-witted woman she was, she failed to realise this.

“And might I add Miss Umbridge, you may also not have a post at this school once the morning is through.”   Albus Dumbledore’s voice was a calmly genial as ever but there was such fire and ice in his eyes that his words could have been taken no other way than as a threat.  The incensed – and rather bright red – woman puffed up her chest indignantly until she looked like a large pink balloon and Severus eagerly awaited the moment he would burst her to minute, Umbridge-y pieces.  Later, must keep her away from Harry first.   Umbridge turned on her employer with the air of an empress and the bearing of an ape.

“I think you will find Professor,” she said in tones that strove vainly for sickly sweet, “that you aren’t able to terminate my employment at Hogwarts.  I was stationed by the Minister himself and only he can remove me.”

“Of course you are quite right.” Severus turned his eyes – though not his wand – on Albus, waiting for a ‘but’ and practically thrumming with his fury from the possibility that Albus would leave Harry – again – at the mercy of this woman.  Umbridge turned victorious eyes on Severus and then Minerva who growled menacingly back.  “However,” Albus continued in a carrying tone and Severus’ faith was restored, “you may find that the Minister will soon be inundated with letters from parents who aren’t entirely pleased with some of the methods of punishment being used on their children, no matter how much you may think them in need of such measures.  Especially not when the Minister himself is seen to be approving of those measures, since, as you so astutely pointed out, he placed you here himself.  One might even say that you embody the Ministry in this school and that your actions are those of the Ministry’s.  But surely not many of those unhappy parents will be voters and the next election is a good few months off isn’t it?” 

“I have done nothing that wasn’t necessary.”

And just like that she was flying across the room to land with an almighty bang against the far wall of the infirmary.  Albus’ voice was resigned when he sighed, “Severus, I happen to know for a fact that your accidental magic has been well under your control since you were fifteen.”

“I hardly know what to say Headmaster.” 

Albus hummed but left it at that as they kept their eyes on the slightly more dangerous-looking woman shakily finding her feet across the room.

“Did you see what he did?” She cried waving a pointed finger wildly in Severus’ general direction as Albus regarded her with his normal calm and Severus raised a wry brow, the edge eased from his anger for a moment thanks to the outlet he’d indulged in.  “I demand you control him!  I will not be... be thrown!”  Despite her still evident rage, Minerva let out a chuckle at that, though it was rather dark and foreboding and the first hint of wariness finally started to creep into Umbridge’s expression.

“As much as I would like to, we are all adults here with the exception of Mr Potter, and he isn’t really part of this conversation, being as he is still unconscious.  I can no more control Severus than I can control you.”  With that Albus’ eyes turned steely and Umbridge, though monumentally stupid much of the time, recognised the threat this time because, for all his denials, Albus Dumbledore had more power than almost anyone in the Wizarding world and, as with Severus, that power extended to Umbridge.  She swallowed heavily.  “Speaking of Mr Potter,” Albus continued in a shiver-inducing tone that had Severus glad he was not the one it was aimed at. “I would like to ask; you said earlier that you did nothing that was not necessary.  What exactly did you do?”

“Mr Potter earned every single detention he had with me,” she declared obstinately, sounding more and more the petulant child.

“His actions aside, what did those detentions involve?  Cleaning cauldrons, writing lines, training mice?”  There was no humour whatsoever in Albus’ voice and his eyes bored relentlessly, unnervingly into Umbridge’s.

The woman smiled and her eyes sparkled with malevolence.  “I had him write lines.”

Severus eyes blazed and his fury rekindled in between one second and the next as images of Harry’s torn body – of words and phrases gouged into flesh – ran before his mind’s eye.  He had been forced to write those things into his own skin.  If Severus had been capable of taking his eyes from Umbridge to look at Poppy he would have noticed her eyes fill with tears of pain and rage as she realised the truth behind Umbridge’s words and while Severus fairly vibrated in his fury and his efforts not to send Umbridge flying once more, no one thought to stop Poppy as she took two steps forward and backhanded the hateful woman hard across the face.

“You dare speak to me-”

Severus wand once more found its way between Umbridge’s eyes and she once more went cross-eyed trying to keep it in her sights.  “I confess I find myself more surprised at your daring.”

“I have no idea what-”

“Do not dissemble with me woman, both myself and Poppy have seen your handiwork.  And here was me thinking blood quills had been illegalised over two hundred years ago.”

Umbridge blustered for a moment as she fought for a comeback and came up with nothing.  Meanwhile, at the mention of blood quills, Albus’ eyes had become distinctly colder and were now practically spilling over with venomous intent.  Apparently Poppy hadn’t had the chance to fill him in on the words on Harry’s body before the interruption.  With his quietest, most deadly voice that had everyone in the room in no doubt as to why Voldemort should be afraid of him, the Headmaster looked down his crooked nose at Umbridge – managing to make all the adults present feel like they were still students themselves – and murmured, “You used a blood quill on one of the children I placed in your care?”

“No! I-”

“DO NOT LIE TO ME.”

“I didn’t... I...” even now she was clearly trying to justify to them all what she had done, was trying to persuade them to her way of thinking as she resorted to pleading.  It made Severus sick.

“A student, a fifteen year old boy that I allowed you to teach – in defending himself of all things! – and you see fit to use illegal dark artefacts on him in a way he is unable to defend himself from?  You are responsible for his current state?”

“He deserved it, he needed it!”

Everyone watched, frozen in place with eyes wide as Albus took an imposing stride towards Umbridge before stopping abruptly, wizened white hands clenched at his sides.  There was utter silence as he fought valiantly to find his calm, drawn tight as a bowstring and clearly on the verge of breaking, and when Umbridge took that as an opening and drew a breath to speak every window of the hospital wing shattered, flinging tiny shimmering shards of glass into the clear morning air beyond, glittering prettily for all that they would have been deadly to anyone in their path.  Albus remained unmoving, his head bowed and hidden but there was no question as to who had caused the unrestrained – frankly enormous – burst of magic.

At the noise Severus noticed Harry stir.  As Albus was wandlessly, wordlessly hovering the shattered glass back into their jagged jigsaw where the cracks flowed seamlessly out of existence while keeping his eyes on Umbridge lest she make a move to do or say anything; Harry pulled himself up, noticeably gritting his teeth against the pain he had to have been feeling as he braced himself on his extended arms.  His eyes, Severus saw, looked dull and rather dead, the way a victim of a long sickness might look once they’d given up, and they flicked around the room somewhat disinterestedly, taking everything in as though he was surrounded by inanimate objects as opposed to several arguing professors, as though he was distanced from it all in some fundamental way; as though he wasn’t really there anymore.  His eyes didn’t linger on anything in particular and Severus felt the renewed stirrings of alarm about his mental state when those eyes passed over his own without any kind of recognition.  Severus had to trust that Albus had Umbridge well in hand because he’d meant what he’d decided hours before.  Harry had to come first.

Unsure of what to say and finding himself irritated at how adrift he was, Severus found that he couldn’t help years of practise and what should have been a solicitous inquiry came out sounding almost like a demand.

“Mr Potter?” 

Several things happened rather quickly at that and Severus was dismayed that throughout it all Harry’s blank expression didn’t change once.  Severus had very little time to take note of Harry’s empty stare before Umbridge took notice of the newly awake boy and her eyes flashed with, of all things, triumph.

Umbridge’s eyes swivelled until they locked on Harry, flashing malevolently though Dumbledore, after the swiftest of assessing glances at Harry, kept his on Umbridge.  Poppy spun and was at Harry’s side before anyone else could move and Minerva couldn’t seem to decide whether to hug Harry or attack Umbridge.  Severus remained still and watchful.  Even though his desire to do something as embarrassing as Minerva wanted to do was warring with his good sense, he couldn’t stop himself from crossing the room with carefully measured steps to stand beside the bed Harry was in. 

He’d thought that from a distance it wasn’t unreasonable that Harry should look so very small sitting amongst – swimming in – his blankets and sheets, but once he stood beside the bed he was incensed to see that from where he now stood very little had changed except that Harry looked that much smaller than himself.  So impossibly young, so breakable.  But no one so young could wear such a blank face.  And Severus was incensed – surely not concerned, not worried, not anxious and wrung out and unnerved – because the cause for that blank look and that dead stare was across the room staring back in satisfaction and Severus wanted to rip her face off with his bare hands and glory in the blood and gore and pain and justice of it.

Unfortunately he doubted that Albus would allow that despite his own formidable show of power and rage and so Severus simply stood beside the bed and glared fiercely across the room at Umbridge, making his stance perfectly clear.  Harry was under Severus’ protection and no one would hurt him again.  Not while he was there to stop it and he wasn’t going anywhere.

Harry was a little bit bothered.  Where had the white gone?  The white that had been everywhere and had brought calm and comfort and warmth and where had it gone? 

Somewhere along the way it had fallen to black and he’d been smothered by it and sleep had claimed him again but now, oh!  Now he could hear voices and shouting and oh!  Smashing glass!  Well that was unexpected.  And he’d been so comfortable.  Comfortable and warm and held and rocked and now he was still and unmoving and his hand felt so very empty and he didn’t know how to fill it.  He didn’t like this. 

He opened his eyes and couldn’t really tell the difference.  The black became lighter and colourful but it lacked something vital and he remained disinterested.  No matter how he moved his eyes, no matter which direction he looked in, he couldn’t see anything that could capture his interest because all he wanted was the white or that hand or the warmth to return but all of that was gone now and he was so cold and so empty, just like the world around him.  Somehow, without really feeling it, he knew he was lying on his back and so he pushed himself to his elbows and up, up to sitting.  He might as well have been seeing from the same angle as before though... or perhaps he was... they continued to lack what he was looking for.  He heard some kind of mutter that he knew was supposed to mean something to him but it just... didn’t.  Why was he so cold? 

And he’d been happy.  So happy.  Surrounded by white and warmth and that hand... that hand that had briefly held his... and the eyes... the eyes that were so... familiar...

He shivered and felt a slight weight settle around his shoulders and he hunched them in a half-hearted attempt to remove whatever it was but it didn’t really matter now did it?  Everything was gone.  The eyes, the hand, the warmth.  All gone.  He sighed, dispirited, and vaguely felt his shoulders droop as he gave up trying to sit properly.  There wasn’t much point was there?  Not anymore.  Not when so much was missing.  He let go of a previously unfelt tension and relinquished himself to the murmur in his mind that he realised had been there for quite awhile now.  The one telling him not to think, not to argue, not to protest or react.  He relinquished himself hoping that in this surrender he might find peace because he didn’t know where else he could possibly look.

Poppy was being as attentive as was possible to a Harry who might as well have remained unconscious for all his responsiveness.  The boy had sat himself up and stared into space, completely vacant, as she checked his vitals and smoothed blankets around his shoulders – which he seemed to idly try to shake off before giving up – and prepared potions while Severus stood guard on the other side of his bed, scowling fiercely at Umbridge while underneath the layers of raw hatred for her there writhed the concern for the boy in the bed.  The wizard and witches across the room hadn’t moved, frozen in their tableau as much as Severus and Harry.  Only Poppy was afflicted with restless motion as she tried to fix what was broken.

Umbridge, somehow missing the way the most powerful wizard of the age was glaring at her after having shattered and immediately repaired any number of glass windows in his ire, stepped toward Harry as though she owned the room and everything in it and Severus growled, “Don’t even think about it.”

“I think you’ll find as High Inquisitor-”

“I think you will find,” Albus began deceptively softly, “that that title has no power here anymore.  In fact...” Albus visibly drew himself up and his hands, with nary a twitch, resonated with an ominous boom that seemed to visibly ripple the air around them before he continued as if nothing had happened, “the material evidence of your input in this school no longer exists.”

Umbridge became increasingly flustered in the face of his continuing dismissal and seemed to puff up even as her face turned deep pink, clashing horribly with her attire.  She opened her mouth – clearly to continue raging – and with another, faster movement of his hand Albus had her silenced.  Despite rapidly turning an alarming shade of red she didn’t utter a sound for which Severus was incredibly grateful.  He hadn’t been sure how much longer he could have held off silencing her himself, and in far more stress-releasing ways that he doubted his employer would have approved of.

“I am afraid, Delores, that we will have to continue this later.”

Severus was pleased to note that Albus didn’t sound ‘afraid’ at all and watched gleefully – though of course he tried hard not to let it show – as Albus continued to release his angry, pent-up magic and Umbridge was suddenly sucked from the room – presumably to Albus’ office – as though through a vacuum cleaner, mouth open in a soundless, outraged scream.  Severus found he couldn’t quite suppress his smirk.

Turning to look at Albus he found that his mirth wasn’t shared and the old man’s eyes were already fixed on the still unresponsive Harry and the bandages that, due to his earlier movements, had become visible above his hospital gown.  Only he and Poppy knew that they currently covered large swathes of the boy’s body to allow one of Severus’ salves to keep the numerous open wounds that refused to heal disinfected.  It would take some time for Severus to develop something to heal the words magically cut into his skin.  He wouldn’t allow himself to consider the possibility that he might not be able to.  No one deserved what Harry had endured; for there to be such a poisonous physical memory was just too much. 

Albus inhaled, clearly about to speak but instead closed his mouth again with a sudden smile though his eyes never left Harry.  Severus looked at him, baffled, until he heard a quiet knock at the door at the same time as hearing Minerva’s surprisingly good-natured mutter of, “why am I surprised.”  She looked to the Headmaster and he nodded with a smile, small but more genuine than any he’d worn that morning.  

When she opened the door and stepped out of the Infirmary Severus caught a glimpse of bright orange hair and Hermione Granger’s earnest face and realised he shouldn’t have been surprised either, and wasn’t so much with their presence as he was with the warm feeling he experienced when he saw them.  At least Harry hadn’t been completely alone.  Which brought to mind something else important.

“Albus, I...” his employer turned twinkling eyes on Severus and the Potions Master fought to find the words he wanted.  I want to keep him hardly suited the situation... unless Harry became a puppy sometime in the near future.  The knowing look his employer was directing his way was supremely irritating but was ultimately of little importance.  It wasn’t as if Severus hadn’t seen – and ignored – that look before. 

“Albus,” he began again, “the boy clearly needs someone... several someone’s,” he added under his breath, though the sad little chuckle told him Albus had heard anyway.  Even so, he struggled to find the right words and the Headmaster finally took pity on him.

“You wish to be there for him.”  It wasn’t a question and Severus didn’t offer the – rather obvious – answer.  “I would not object to the help,” Albus continued.  “Though I am rather curious about this change of perspective you’ve adopted so very recently.  It will be hard when he hasn’t had the opportunity to come to the same conclusions as you evidently have.”  He looked thoughtful for a moment.  “Regardless, he could use the support, particularly with his healing.  He will need much that Poppy cannot provide for him.”  Severus cast him a dubious look.

“I am perfectly capable of handling many of Potter’s medical needs and I can do my best with his psychological ones but even I can’t rival Poppy.  If it comes down to who would be better for Potter-”

The Headmaster held up a hand to stop Severus.  “No, there is nothing that Poppy is able to do for him that you can’t; in reality there is little that can be done for Harry without the involvement of St Mungos.”

“You think his state of mind so precarious?”

“Not necessarily.”

Severus swore he could feel his blood pressure rising.  This wasn’t the time for riddles.  “Albus, what...”  And then Severus really thought about it.  It wasn’t Harry’s state of mind that Poppy was unable to help so it had to be medical.  Physical.  Poppy had all but disregarded diagnostic charms when Severus had first called her to his rooms.  St Mungos were needed and hadn’t been called.  Albus had known for some time if his sudden weary resignation was any indication.  Even as the pieces fell into place Severus watched as the wizened old man ran the lightest of touches over Harry’s quilt covered foot as if in silent apology, eyes glazed and twinkle-less. 

“How long have you known?  How long has help been needed for him that was but a floocall away and that you didn’t enlist?”  He shot a brief glance at Poppy – now across the room.  “How long has she known?  How long have her diagnostic spells not been enough and nothing been done about it?  And for Merlin’s sake, why?”  There was quiet fury in Severus’ voice and the fact that Albus accepted it as if he deserved it only angered him further because Albus would only ever accept blame he knew he deserved.

“There was nothing to be done.  Poppy’s scans have never worked for Harry and I’ve always known that there are specialists at St Mungos that might have helped.”  Those wrinkled, paper-thin eyelids shuttered the swimming eyes and Severus wanted to hit something.

“And your excuse?”  He gritted out and the eyes opened with new resolve.

“Is just as valid as it always was.”

“Enlighten me.”

Albus met Severus’ gaze steadily, willing him to understand.  “Both of us felt it in his best interests to adopt a more... muggle way of diagnosing anything medical whenever possible.  Anything done in this infirmary by Poppy for Mr Potter is able to slide off of his medical documents.  Outside of this infirmary I cannot guarantee the same impunity and any drastic change to Harry’s medical records – say, an inability to magically diagnose a common illness due in large part to outside influences – would catch the attention of the Ministry.  Cornelius Fudge has always been rather interested in Harry and this school, both of which would be that much harder to keep from his grasp and out of the media if it should leak that either was vulnerable.”

“Am I to believe that is why that woman was given such a long leash?”

“Partly.  I admit it was easier to allow her and, by extension Fudge, some liberties to avoid a direct confrontation.”  Severus opened his mouth and Albus correctly interpreted the vitriol on his tongue and reassured him with another sad pat to Harry’s foot.  “I would not have allowed this though.  Never.”

Barely mollified Severus looked at the boy in the bed as well; digesting the information he’d just been given.  “In light of... everything, the boy will stay with me.”  He looked up, prepared to see a rejection of his idea (demand), expecting to have to fight, only to see Albus nodding thoughtfully, old eyes still on Harry’s glassy, sightless ones.  When he slid his gaze to his surprised Potions Master he smiled. 

“You were right, the boy needs someone,” he explained simply.

“You would entrust him to my care after... this.”  Severus waved a hand in the air in no particular direction in his effort to encompass everything.  He didn’t wish to jeopardise Albus’ approval but he was struggling to continue thinking the best of the man in light of so many mistakes made when it came to this particular fifteen year old.  The Headmaster’s face grew solemn as he regarded the younger man.

“If anyone besides that woman is at fault for this it is me.  For my own reasons I have had to take a backseat with Harry this year and I missed the signs that you, and only you, caught.  If not for your intervention I doubt Harry would be here.”  They both looked at the pale boy in the bed and wondered if he still was, if they hadn’t been too late after all.  Albus had a very soft look in his eyes when he glanced back at Severus.  “I can think of no one better to entrust Harry to.”  Severus was at a loss and Albus patted the foot under his hand again before turning to leave the infirmary.

“Albus,” Severus called and the man turned on the spot, looking very much like he had had an emotionally gruelling day for all that it was barely time for breakfast.  “I have a report to make concerning my whereabouts last night and how I came upon Harry.”  Albus was perceptive enough to catch on without anything more obvious needing to be said and nodded.  Severus regarded him steadily.  “You will not continue to ignore him as you have.”  It didn’t come out as a question but Albus shook his head tiredly nonetheless.  It wasn’t an answer to his statement; it was the gesture of a man who didn’t know what to do.  

The only answer he did give was, “we will talk later,” sweeping out of the infirmary doors as soon as he finished speaking.  Severus watched through narrowed eyes before he turned back to Harry and noticed as Poppy fluttered about him, a large white butterfly with starched wings.  When she noticed him watching she shot him a look all hopeless anxiety.

“I don’t know why he won’t respond,” she murmured to him and with that he was moving forward to reclaim the chair he’d sat in earlier and, after a moment’s hesitation, grasped Harry’s hand in his from where it rested on the bed.  The skin was cool and the fingers didn’t even twitch but something shifted behind Harry’s eyes when Severus’ warmer hand encompassed Harry’s small one and Severus felt some small hope that no matter how much damage might have been inflicted, he could get Harry through this.

Warm.  Harry’s hand was warm.  No, it was cold but it was surrounded by something warm, by another hand.  It wasn’t the one from before, the one he’d been missing, but it was... nice.  Big, callused and a little bit rough but in a way that assured Harry that he was well-protected.  These hands would keep him safe even while they emanated heat through his chilled skin making him feel safe.  He liked this hand, he decided. 

So, happier for the new feeling of security, Harry closed his eyes – it didn’t make much difference but it felt right – and slumped into something not unlike sleep.

After Harry had apparently fallen asleep – with the suddenness of coming to a decision that left Severus concerned and Poppy fluttering more agitatedly than before – Severus decided Poppy had done as much as was possible for the moment and suggested she take a break, assuring her that he would keep both eyes firmly on Harry in the meantime.  She hadn’t been thrilled at the suggestion but had eventually agreed that a nice cup of tea and some quiet time in her office would be beneficial to her own state of mind and fluttered off. 

“Rather more peaceful now isn’t it?”  Severus murmured to a dozing Harry as he found himself tracing veins and lines across the back of Harry’s hand and along his fingers while still enveloping it in his, noting how much larger his was than the child’s and feeling the protectiveness welling once more in his chest; a new feeling that somehow fit perfectly inside him like it had also meant to be there.  He didn’t have much experience with this sort of thing and he didn’t know why it was so, but keeping Harry’s hand in his, keeping him from drifting away like an errant balloon and trying to warm the thin fragile-looking fingers seemed like the best possible way to spend his time.  As though it was what Harry needed most right then, so Severus went with it.

What he did not need, Severus thought with frustration, was the commotion going on outside the hospital wing.  He glanced through the arched windows that showed the corridor beyond the hospital wing and saw Minerva with Harry’s friends, both of whom looked on the verge of panic attacks... or storming the infirmary.  He never thought it would happen but Severus found himself admiring the expression of concerned obstinacy on Weasley’s face. 

His eyes strayed back to Harry like magnets, unable to have his eyes anywhere else for fear of missing a change in the boy’s condition.  He stroked the hand in his again, the skin like tissue paper beneath his fingers, as he murmured, “with friends like that how did you possibly end up here?”

“We’re only trying to help and if you weren’t so bloody stubborn and set on lying to us and starving yourself and hiding away from the world you might be able to see it!”

The words wouldn’t leave Ron’s head.  Hadn’t since he’d first uttered them and their echoes had only gotten louder as time had passed and Harry hadn’t returned to the common room after his detention with Snape.   The entire day Harry had avoided him like the plague – clearly uncomfortable with the way Ron had seen him the night before in the bathroom, huddled in on himself and numb to the world – and when Ron was finally able to speak to him in Divination Harry had, well, scared him.  He hadn’t been the Harry that Ron was used to.  The Boy-Who-Lived.  The Saviour.  The kid who had far too much to deal with and always managed to find a way to deal with it anyway.  Instead, Harry had looked like a scared, hunted child and Ron had been scared too.  It was so obvious in that moment that whatever was going on was so much bigger than a few detentions with Snape and somehow he had missed it.

He hadn’t meant to say what he had at dinner; truthfully a lot of the emotion behind the words came from the fear he’d been harbouring over the very real possibility that maybe whatever was happening was beyond him and Hermione.  It was clearly beyond Harry.  So when Harry had exploded, Ron had responded in kind; driven by the tension and the fear and the concern and the sheer frustration of not knowing enough.  Harry had gone to his detentions, Ron had calmed and Hermione had rubbed her hand after hitting him too hard for the way he spoke to Harry, the two of them resigned to waiting until Harry returned from his detention before speaking to him. 

But he hadn’t returned.  Once it reached midnight Ron had had enough – visions of Harry huddled in a bathroom in the dark somewhere plaguing him relentlessly.  He retrieved the invisibility cloak from the top of Harry’s trunk, ignoring Hermione’s protests that he should stay put, and would have left then; would have searched the whole castle – or as much of it as any one person could – if not for the fact that the portrait wouldn’t open.  Ron had been dumbfounded for an embarrassing amount of time before realising that Hermione had used a sticking charm to keep him from leaving – ‘and if Harry comes back on his own before you do you know he’ll go looking for you while you’re looking for him and one of you or both of you will get caught and you know it isn’t always safe and I’m not letting you!’. 

He had been forced to tell her (sparing as much detail as possible for his friend’s sake; Harry had no privacy at the best of times) of the previous night.  She had been horrified and nauseated and close to tears but after needing some time to digest what he’d told her, she remained adamant that he should stay put.  He came so close to using a blast hex on the portrait from sheer anxiety until he realised that perhaps some parts of Hermione’s arguments made sense.  A bit.  But they couldn’t do nothing. 

He and Hermione spent hours deciding what to do.  Considering the possibilities of Harry’s recent behaviour.  Thinking about the past few years and all the times Harry had behaved similarly and if his current disappearance had anything to do with Sirius and Sunday night’s conversation.  No amount of ruminating and discussing got them anywhere and eventually the two of them, anxious and exhausted and quite without meaning to, fell asleep.  They practically vaulted from the common room the next morning upon waking and, after finding Professor McGonagall’s office empty and not knowing Dumbledore’s password, they went to the next logical place – Hermione clinging to practicality like a security blanket and Ron just about shaking with the need to know where Harry was already.  Because if Harry was gone and there was no one to ask, where else would he have landed himself other than the hospital wing?  Ron almost hoped he was there, safe and secure and wrapped up in bed because at least it would mean he was safe.

Of course he’d never expected that the conspicuous disappearance of professors was due to their being at Harry’s bedside.  He caught the briefest glimpse through the tiny crack in the door of his friend lying amongst infirmary sheets just like he’d imagined, surrounded by McGonagall, Pomfrey, Dumbledore and, of all people, Snape.  As comforting as he’d thought it would be to see his friend safe he suddenly wasn’t so sure that Harry was.  What was going on?  Why was he there and why was he surrounded by professors and why was Snape standing so sodding close?  Snape had a look on his face that Ron had never thought to see there and on those features he found he couldn’t quite decipher it because it was just too foreign.   It was all ridiculously confusing.

Hermione was jostling him a little to look in as well and in the next moment McGonagall was swooping down on them, hustling them out the door and closing it behind them.

“We went to your office before we came here,” seemed to fall in a jumbled mess from Hermione’s mouth in her effort to explain and Ron was disconcerted to see that McGonagall looked almost amused or relieved or something... as well as very, very tired.  “We didn’t mean to interrupt but why is Harry in the infirmary at all?  Is he sick?  Will he be okay?  Is he-”

“Miss Granger,” McGonagall cut in with a hand raised for silence.  Her eyes crinkled as she smiled at them both and it was just too bizarre for Ron who opened his mouth to demand answers – as politely as possible – when she continued.  “I cannot tell you much, it is his place to tell you when he’s ready and I must ask that you don’t pressure him.  He will need some time to recover but I am sure you will be able to see him soon.”

Ron was thoroughly bewildered and from the look McGonagall gave him he was sure it showed on his face but right then he couldn’t care less.  What on earth was all that supposed to mean?!

“But Professor, what does that mean?  What’s wrong with him?”  She had that sad look that teachers sometimes got – usually before a lot of sighing – when they knew they were going to have to repeat something unpleasant over and over again because a student was being purposely thick.  He jumped in before she spoke.  “Why can’t you tell us?”  And then she was sighing.  Fantastic.

“It is not a matter of being unable to tell you, Mr Weasley.”  She sighed again, suddenly looking as though she might fall over from exhaustion.  Ron noticed Hermione looked more disconcerted than he felt.  “Harry has been through a lot and whilst I can’t give you details I must say I am very glad he has such good friends.”  Ron was only becoming more worried as her explanation produced more questions than answers and it didn’t help when McGonagall put a hand on his shoulder, the other finding Hermione’s.  “In a few days Harry will likely need both of you very much; if you are patient I am sure you will soon know everything.”  She patted their shoulders once before walking away down the corridor, her robes swirling around her forbiddingly despite the emotional look on her face.

Ron looked to Hermione and found that she looked close to tears, though of frustration or sadness he didn’t know.  Probably both.  Just like him.