Before the Dawn – Chapter 10

By jharad17

Disclaimer: Who me? Nah, I'm not responsible for these characters. Only for the mean things I do to them.

Warnings: Language. Reference to abuse.

Previously on "Before the Dawn":

An actual smile appeared for a few brief seconds on Harry's face, before it slackened in sleep as the potion won. Quietly, Severus returned to the bed, and tucked the blanket in more securely - something he would never do were the boy conscious - then lay a hand lightly on his forehead. "Sleep well, Harry," he murmured. "Tonight, at least."

From the Journal of Harry J. Potter:

September 18, 1996 9:45amI really and seriously screwed up. Snape is probably going to throw me out on my arse, and he'd be right to, considering the way I treated him yesterday. I remember screaming at him that I hated him, but I didn't mean it, not really. He was just . . . he took away my broom, or said it was broken or . . . something, I can't even really remember. And my head hurt, and I used that damn spell, the one I said I wouldn't, but I can't help it. I don't want to sleep, 'cause the nightmares are so bad, and that spell helps me stay awake. Except that it didn't, and I crashed into that tree. I don't even remember doing that, but Snape said I did, and he never lies to me, even when I wish he would. I remember going outside, and starting to fly, and then I woke up on the sofa in front of the fire, and then I was yelling at him. Something weird happened in my room last night, when I tried to cast a spell, though I'm not even sure what spell I wanted, just that it was going to be messy. But Snape said the house is protecting me, or protecting itself from me, or something. He said I wouldn't be able to cast spells that hurt it, or him, or me. Weird house.

Snape didn't seem angry last night, though, when he gave me the Dreamless Sleep potion. And I finally had a decent night's sleep. But he'll probably punish me for being stupid about that Excito spell, and I can't blame him. I just wish I knew what the fuck was wrong with me.

I'm just so tired. I just want it all to stop.

Though Severus rose around 6am, as he always did, he let Harry sleep in the next day, hoping the boy could make up some of the deficit he had been creating, by getting little or no sleep for the last several weeks. Last night's dose of Dreamless Sleep had been enough to knock the boy out for twelve hours, if his sleep wasn't interrupted, so Severus did not even consider waking him until almost noon. He would not allow that sort of lying in everyday, of course, but this once would be good for Harry's health.

He was in the sitting room, reading a book on Muggle child psychology when the door to Harry's room eased open, and the boy sidled into the hallway, as if he feared punishment. And though Severus was certain the boy deserved something for the hash he'd made of yesterday, he had already decided that Harry breaking his bones in the crash, and losing his broom to the tree was punishment enough this time. Especially since Harry's lack of sleep had been playing havoc with his ability to apply rationality to virtually any situation.

"Harry," he called. "Come in here, please."

Harry obeyed, and entered the sitting room with his head down, obviously contrite. Severus took a breath, but before he could say anything, Harry surprised him by speaking first. "I'm sorry, sir. I wasn't thinking, yesterday, and um, I didn't mean it, what I said to you out here."

Lifting an eyebrow, Severus waited until Harry glanced up at him through his fringe. Catching the young man's eye, he said, "I forgive you."

Half of Harry's mouth quirked up in a sardonic smile, but he looked away again. "Yeah, okay. Good."

Severus nodded. "Breakfast is available for you in the kitchen. I put a warming charm on a plate of eggs, bacon and toast. The cabinet next to the sink has a cooling charm on it; you'll find juice in there. I want you to eat and then come back in here, all right?"

"Okay." Harry bit his lip, eyebrows coming down as he frowned. "Are we going to do exercises again?"

"Not today. I don't think your body is ready for that, yet, after yesterday's accident."

Harry nodded, drawing a heavy breath. He met Severus' gaze for an instant, then looked away again. "About that . . . I really am sorry-"

"I know, Harry," Severus said, making his voice as gentle as he could. "We'll talk about that later, though. Please go eat some breakfast."

"Yes, sir." He headed into the kitchen, and Severus could hear him moving around out there, opening cabinets and pouring juice. Then it was quiet but for the almost inaudible sound of cutlery on porcelain.

For most of the morning, Severus had been considering what they were going to do, how exactly they were going to get past this addiction of Harry's, and also deal with the underlying causes. He had consulted a number of books, not just the one he was currently perusing, and hoped he was on the right track.

When Harry returned, he slipped into the room as quiet as a mouse, and with all the self-confidence of one, as well. He was frightened, Severus realized, but of what, he could not divine. He watched the boy for a few moments, as Harry eased himself onto the sofa as if it might break, then nibbled on thumbnails and cuticles, flexed and tapped his sock-covered feet on the floor, and bit into and released his bottom lip over and over. Nervous, definitely. Scared and self-flagellating, certainly.

Was he ready for a talk?

Severus pursed his lips for a moment, then waved his wand in a figure eight, then a square. Moments later, a tea set floated into the room, complete with sugar bowl and tongs for the cubes. He suppressed a smile when Harry groaned softly from his seat.

"It's been a while since we had tea," Severus said, and waved the levitating set onto the table in front of the sofa.

"There's a reason for that," Harry replied.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I don't like tea." He huffed when Severus gazed at him in silence, and lowered his eyes. "Not this kind anyway."

"It is my belief that this will help us both figure out the best way to help you."

"I don't need any help," Harry said, but his heart didn't seem to be in it.

"I think you do. So does the Headmaster. And your friends."

"Sod my friends!" Harry's fists clenched in his lap. "They won't even come and visit me anymore!"

"Language, please, Mr. Potter."

"Don't call me that," Harry snarled under his breath.

"Don't give me cause," Severus countered.

There was silence for a few minutes, as their battle of wills filled the space between them. "I don't like tea," Harry repeated at last, pouting slightly. When Severus merely raised an eyebrow, he amended, "Tea time, anyway."

"I know. But it is necessary."

"Is it really? Or do you just like torturing me?"

Severus gazed at Harry for several long moments. "You and I both know," he said quietly, "that what happens in our talks is not torture. We have both seen - and been through - actual torture."

Harry hung his head. "I know. Sorry."

"Why do you say these conversations are like torture, though?"

"I dunno."

Severus was not going to let him off the hook this time. "Of course you do. Tell me."

Harry merely shrugged and looked away.

"Harry," Severus said, his tone a little sharper this time. "Tell me."

A one shoulder shrug, and quiet words, "I don't like talking about my feelings and stuff. It's stupid."

"Stupid?"

"Lame. Makes me feel like an idiot. A wanker. Like I can't handle anything on my own."

"What can't you handle?"

"Anything."

"Be specific, please."

"I don't know."

Severus shook his head. "If you can't come up with a specific thing you don't want to talk about, how about we just talk until you do?"

With another shrug - which Severus was becoming heartily sick of - Harry agreed. Sort of. "I guess."

Severus was willing to accept that as a go-ahead, no matter how half-hearted it was. "Excellent. Let's discuss your recent nightmares."

Immediately, Harry hunched in on himself and shook his head. "I don't want to."

"I imagine this might be one of those things you feel you can't handle."

A sigh, and a small nod.

"If you want, I can go inside your mind and look, instead of having you talk about it," Severus offered.

The blood drained from Harry's already pale face. "No! That's . . . No, I'll tell you. Just don't do that." Severus nodded in acquiescence, but another ten minutes passed before Harry spoke again, long enough that Severus was tempted to bring up another topic, but he really wanted for Harry to pull himself through this one. For ten minutes, Harry twisted his hands together, clenched and unclenched his hands, changed his position on the couch, looked out of the window, and then down at the rug, and drew a number of very heavy breaths, just to sigh them out again. Finally, the boy whispered, "I'm a monster."

"In your dreams," Severus said, making it not quite a question.

"Them, too."

"Why do you think you're becoming a monster?"

"You mean, why am I a monster."

"No. You are not one."

"I am."

Severus frowned. Harry seemed so certain. "Why do you think so?"

"You saw what I did."

Recalling what Miss Granger had told him, he said, "To Lucius Malfoy, you mean?"

"Yes! Even Hermione thinks I'm dangerous. That I'm a monster. And she's right! I'm dangerous. A killer. I almost killed him, and I wanted to. I wanted to-"

"Harry. You're hyperventilating. Slow down. Take one slow breath, easy . . . let it out . . . good." Severus waited while Harry's breathing returned to normal - or as close as it got these days - before he continued. "I have spoken with Miss Granger, and she is concerned-"

"Concerned! She's scared spitless-"

"No, Harry. She is concerned that you are blaming yourself for what happened to Mr. Malfoy. She informed me that you were avoiding her and Mr. Weasley because you were afraid of hurting them."

Harry nodded. "Because I could. I would. I hurt Malfoy-"

"You kept Lucius from kidnapping you. You acted in self-defense."

"And almost killed him."

"But you did not kill him."

"But I wanted to! Don't any of you understand?" Harry rubbed his hands over his face. "Can't you see? I'm dangerous. I can't be trusted. You should lock me up in Azkaban and throw away the key."

Severus watched Harry for a few minutes. The young man really believed what he was saying. Severus realized he would need to say the same words over and over before they would hopefully, eventually, sink in. Harry was wrong, but it would take a good while before he accepted that. "You did not kill him. You didn't kill anyone."

"I wanted to."

Severus smiled, just a little. "I've wanted to kill a lot of people. I daresay most people want to kill someone else, every day. But you did not kill Lucius Malfoy," and he held up a hand to keep Harry from interrupting again, "and the important part of that statement is to consider the question: Why didn't you kill him?"

That stopped him. Harry's hands were twined together around his tea cup as he stared at them. "Because you . . . because you told me to stop."

Severus sat forward and waited till Harry met his gaze. "Tell me, Harry, would a monster have listened to me? Would a monster have stopped because I asked him to, when he had his enemy in his grasp? Or would a monster have killed anyway?" He could see Harry wavering, so he pushed, "Lucius Malfoy hurt you in the most vile way possible, and no one would have blamed you if you had killed him. He tortured you. He raped you. He was going to kidnap you to quite possibly do even worse, and yet you did not take his life when given the chance. You took the higher ground, Harry. Lucius Malfoy was the monster in that situation. You were not."

Staring at his hands again, Harry hunched his shoulders. But he looked like he was at least considering Severus' words instead of dismissing them outright. They sipped their tea in silence for a while before Severus said, "Has that been the primary issue with your nightmares? Turning into a monster?"

Harry nodded. "Mostly. Some other stuff, too."

"Such as?"

Harry shrugged.

"Please don't shrug, Harry. All that tells me is that you don't care enough about the conversation to think about an answer."

Harry clenched his jaw this time, but gave a jerky nod. "Okay, fine. I sometimes feel like I'm choking."

"Such as what your uncle did to you."

Nodding, Harry gripped his tea cup hard and stared into its depths. "I never really thought that what he did hurt me, though."

Severus barely kept his jaw from dropping. "He choked you into unconsciousness. Several times."

"Yeah. But it didn't hurt, really."

"Except that it did," Severus pointed out hotly. He still could not fathom what few morals a man had to possess that he would repeatedly choke his much smaller nephew until he blacked out. How did a man come to be like that? "Even if you didn't feel as much pain as other people might have from the abuse, what he did caused you damage."

"Brain damage," Harry said bitterly.

"Among other things." Severus took a long sip of tea, then refilled his cup. He glanced at the boy as he prepared it to his liking, watching the lip gnawing and cuticle picking continue. "Did you understand what Madam Pomfrey and I talked to you about the other day?"

"I guess so. She said my uncle caused some brain damage, and it's why I had a hard time concentrating on school work, right?"

"That, and the difficulty you have curbing your impulsive behavior. It's possible that, many times, when you might have stopped and thought about what you were doing, and perhaps considered other possibilities than the course you took, you did not stop. You did not even think about stopping to reconsider. That part of your brain was damaged. Does that make sense?"

Harry started to shrug, but with a frown from Severus, turned it into rubbing his ear against his shoulder, as if it were itchy. He muttered, "Sorry. I don't know. I guess so."

Severus pursed his lips, ran his index finger along them as he did when he was thinking. "Let me give you a concrete example, shall I? When you were a Second Year and learned what kind of creature was causing students to be paralyzed-"

"The basilisk."

"Yes," Severus said, and tried not to bristle at the interruption. It was another part of the brain damage, he reminded himself. Impulsiveness was difficult to counter. "When you heard that Professor Lockhart was going after the creature, what did you do?"

"Ron and me went to tell him what we knew - that it was a basilisk, and that we knew where the entrance to the Chamber was."

"And what did you find out when you saw him?"

"That wanker was going to run away! He was packing and everything, and he wasn't even going to try and save Ginny. He didn't even care that she was dying!"

Severus ignored the vulgarity, and went on, "What could you have done then?"

"Well, me and Ron took out our wands and made him go into the Chamber of Secrets anyway. I figured out the entrance was in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, so we made him go down the tunnel with us to rescue Ginny."

"That's what you did. The end result was that you had to fight the basilisk alone and nearly died, and Miss Weasley nearly died as well. But what could you have done instead?"

"Huh?"

"When you realized Professor Lockhart was not going to be any help, why did you not seek out another teacher?"

Harry's eyes went wide.

"Professor McGonagall, for instance, given your House, would have been an admirable choice. Or the Headmaster, or even myself . . ."

"I didn't . . ."

"Stop and think?"

"Yeah."

"Just so."

TBC….

A/N: Thanks to all who read and review! You're the Best! You're like a purring cat on my lap, like chocolate ice cream in a waffle cone, like a day at the beach, body surfing in the waves. Hugs and stuff for all!