Severus is furious when the boy doesn't show up for Occlumency. He had watched the boy all day - seen Potter in better spirits, had thought that meant that the boy had seen sense, had understood that the pensieve was the only way, for both of them. Had even given the boy a few minutes grace when the clock struck seven and still no sign of him - while Potter was constantly insolent, he was rarely late. He waited five minutes, then ten. Had even contacted Minerva to see if the boy were ill or injured, which he had not been. Minerva, who hadn't seemed to care that Potter was skipping a lesson and had flat out told Snape that he was working the boy too hard and that he should give Potter the night off.
He did not give Potter a night off. Instead, he went searching the castle methodically, using all the knowledge at his disposal to try and find the boy. He had been almost about to concede defeat - had started to wonder if the boy was just holed up in the Gryffindor dorms and had gotten his friends, or even Minerva, to lie for him, when he had practically ran into the boy.
"Well, Severus, I've found Potter," Minerva said in an infuriating tone.
She had a Ravenclaw girl in her grip, and Potter was trailing behind the two, looking shell shocked. For a moment, Severus was - not concerned, of course not, but curious. Having repeatedly been plunged into the boy's memories night after night, he had seen many expressions on the boys face, but not this one.
"I can see that. Well, Potter? What are you lollygagging about behind Professor McGonagall for? You know you have - " Here Severus felt his lip curl, out of his control
" - Remedial Potions. Don't want to fall behind, do we?" His tone was sharp, but the boy didn't make eye contact. His whole body tensed, however, enough for Minerva to notice.
She scowled at him. "Honestly, Severus, both Potter and Edgecombe have been through an ordeal! The headmaster..." For a moment, Minerva looks at a loss for words, but not for long. "The headmaster is, as they say, on the lam. There is much to be done tonight."
Severus nods. "Indeed. Potter, for example, has a Remedial Potions lesson to do with me tonight."
Minerva gave him a swift, piercing look. "This can't wait one night, Severus?"
The thought of one more night with those images, the noises, the thought of one more restless sleep almost makes Severus scream. Instead, he says "It cannot," and reaches out and grabs Potter. The boy tenses even further, like a clockwork toy being wound too tight, but Severus does not care. Let the boy be uncomfortable; Snape had been uncomfortable for two weeks, and it ended tonight.
"Potter, I will see Miss Edgecombe to her common room and then I will come and collect you. All right?"
Snape is already halfway down the hallway, Potter securely in his grip. The boy has not said one word.
"Severus? I will be down to collect him!"
Tonight. It ended tonight.
One way or another.
000 000 000
Snape is touching him and Harry can't get free. He's afraid to really fight, afraid of what Snape will do - he's angry in a way Harry hasn't seen for a while, the kind of anger that makes him unpredictable, that makes him frightening. He wants to kick him or scratch him, tear the man's rough hands off of him and run away, but he has nowhere to go, nowhere that Snape can't find him, and it'd be even more awful to try to get free and realize how trapped he really was. He twists his shoulders and drags his feet but they end up at Snape's office anyway, and Snape throws him into the room like he used to get thrown into his cupboard, but Harry catches himself before he falls, his hands digging into his robes, pulling out his wand - it makes him uncomfortable not to have the wand in his hand with Snape like this - but Snape doesn't attack him right off. Harry wishes he would. Instead of Snape snarling at him, hexing him, wand out, the first thing he sees is Snape striding to stand behind his desk, scowling at a pensieve.
This was what made Snape change. This is why all of this is happening in the first place. This was what made the memories come. The words tear themselves out of his mouth before he can help it, even though he knows it won't change anything, even though he knows it will make things worse. "I'm sorry."
Snape looks at him, mask in place, eyes black. Harry wants to say more, wants to say how he wishes he'd never looked because memories are private, he wishes that he'd never looked because he thought he wanted to know everything and he didn't, he doesn't, he wishes and wishes he never had. He wants to say that he's being punished enough, isn't he, don't punish him more, don't make things worse. He wants to tell Snape he can't see it again, he can't see it for real, he can't let it happen all over again and just watch and not stop it. But he doesn't say any of these things because Snape's face is still and his eyes are unfathomable and Harry doesn't know what Snape would say and so Harry says nothing.
He backs up a little, wand still out, and says again, in a voice that squeaks in a way that would embarrass him any other time, "I'm sorry. Please." He opens his mouth, but nothing else comes out, so he shuts it and lets the silence hang in the air. He won't say anything else. It won't help.
Snape doesn't say anything either. Harry stands near the doorway, waiting, gripping his wand so hard he's afraid it will snap, as Snape looks back at him and at the pensieve and then, suddenly, draws his wand. Harry flinches, bumps his head against the wood of the door, but Snape just taps his temple with his wand. A memory comes out-not silvery like Dumbledore's ones, more an iron gray, and uneven, lumpy. Snape deposits it in the bowl, gentler than Harry has ever seen him, then looks at Harry.
"Extract your memories for the pensieve."
Harry shakes his head furiously. "I can't. I can't do that."
Snape's eyes narrow, but otherwise his face stays the same. "Potter-"
"No. You've seen it in my head, isn't that enough?" It has to be enough, because even that is too much for Harry, he can't watch it - what if he can see it all, in the pensieve? What if Snape can see it? He won't do it. He won't.
He can't.
000 000 000
The boy is refusing and Severus doesn't care. He's not caring about a lot of things, about never being like the man his father was, for one, because suddenly he's grabbed the boy from where he is by the door and is hauling him to the pensieve by the scruff of his neck. The boy seems almost paralyzed for a moment, then starts to kick and thrash, but Severus is determined. In this, Potter will not win.
He grabs the boy's hand, forces it up towards his head. Potter tries to let go of his wand, but Severus forces his fingers around it again, and, not so gently, pulls out the memory. It is foul, degraded, corrupted - the very sight of it makes the boy shudder and Severus want to retch. Severus does it again; the boy almost slips right out of his hands with the force of his shaking. With one last jerk, he drops the last of the memories into the pensieve.
And, with a wrench, the two of them fall, head over heels, into the darkness of the past.