Among The Gemini Trees by JAWorley
Past Featured StorySummary: COMPLETE. Harry and Hermione go to a prestigious summer school, where Snape is a teacher. Unfortunately for Harry, Snape has spoken to the other staff and is on his way to turning the whole school against Harry.
Categories: Healer Snape, Teacher Snape > Trusted Mentor Snape, Teacher Snape > Professor Snape, Parental Snape > Guardian Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Draco, Dudley, Dumbledore, Hermione, McGonagall, Original Character, Other, Petunia, Ron, Vernon
Snape Flavour: Snape is Angry, Snape's a Bully, Canon Snape, Snape is Cruel, Snape is Kind, Snape is Loving, Snape is Mean, Snape is Stern
Genres: Action/Adventure, Angst, Drama, Family, Fantasy, General, Hurt/Comfort
Media Type: None
Tags: Adoption, Hospitalization, Injured!Harry
Takes Place: 6th summer
Warnings: Abusive Dursleys, Neglect, Physical Punishment Non-Spanking, Romance/Het, Violence
Prompts: Another School, Other wizarding cultures
Challenges: Another School, Other wizarding cultures
Series: None
Chapters: 30 Completed: Yes Word count: 171578 Read: 311221 Published: 20 Jan 2014 Updated: 31 Jul 2020
Alone by JAWorley
Author's Notes:
Not edited, you have been warned. Some angst in this chapter and then a funny little bit for you right at the end.
Harry was aware that Snape was still watching him, and so was Adeline. Harry could never catch him at it, but he was certain Gan was keeping an extra close eye on him now too. Why? It couldn't have been because he'd gone after August. Draco had done the same thing and they weren't watching him as he walked around or studied out on the lawns in the sunlight with Hermione or Axle or Ernie. If he felt like he stood out before, he felt even more alone now, despite being surrounded by students who seemed to be comming around to him one by one.

"Hi Harry," a girl he didn't know from Beauxbatons waved as he sat crosslegged on the grass with Draco and Axle, and the three boys watched her as she passed.

"That's the third one in five minutes," Draco said, sounding a little disgusted.

Axle smiled. "They all seem to like you now."

No, Harry thought, they don't like me, they like what I did. They like the idea of me. He was certain it was true, just like the way Ernie seemed to think he was Harry's best friend now. People were inviting him down to the bonfires at night and trying to sit next to him at meals and in classes, but they didn't want to be his friend, they just wanted to be associated with him and how he had saved August. Look at me, I'm friends with Harry Potter. Harry sighed. At least Acel and Nikolas were still shunning him. He didn't like that they did it, but it was normal.

Draco scoffed. "Hogwarts all over again," he said with a roll of his eyes. "I jumped in to save you Potter, but what do I get? No accolades, no waves. Nothing at all."

Axle laughed and said, "I could send google eyes at you if you want." Draco only scooted another foot away from him in response though, making him and Harry both laugh.

"Lets make google eyes at him together," Harry said, and he and Axle both stared at Draco, batting their eyelashes and putting their hands up under their chins.

"Stop it! People will get ideas!" Draco said, and when they didn't he picked up his notebook and pen and hurried away, shooting them an irritated look as he went. Harry and Axle laughed again.

"The student girls aren't the only ones giving you looks," Axle observed, and Harry followed his gaze to the porch of the medical building where Adeline stood and watched them.

"I don't know why they have to do that." Harry looked down at his notes and pretended not to be paying attention.

"Well, she is pretty..."

Harry picked up his notebook and slapped Axle on the shoulder lightly with it. "She's not looking at me like that."

"Ok ok. Besides, I think she gives her google eyes to Snape."

Harry frowned and shook his head at Axle's strange English. "No way. No one likes Snape."

"I thought you got along with him ok? Other people seem to like him. He's a lot nicer than Blazhe."

Harry gave him a look that said 'really'? "You haven't seen him at Hogwarts. He wears these big black robes that billow out behind him in the halls, and most of the younger students are terrified of him."

"Not you though, you're Harry Potter! Anyone who dives into an abyss isn't afraid of Snape. Besides, look." Axle pointed back to Adeline and Harry saw that she was no longer watching him, but was looking across the compound, eyes following Snape as he stepped out of his building and stretched in the sunlight.

"I don't want to think about it. Is this what you do at Boden? Talk about professor's personal lives?"

"In a small school like ours, you underestimate how boring it can get," Axle said. "What do you do at Hogwarts when you get bored?"

Harry thought about it. He usually didn't get bored at school. There always seemed to be a mountain of homework, a tournament, Quidditch, teachers out to get him, or something along those lines to keep him occupied.

"Fly," Harry said. "Or get in trouble," he added as an afterthought. And then a third thought came to his mind unbidden: or I lead my friends into trouble and get my Godfather killed. He was surprised that the negative thought hadn't come to mind in Snape's voice but his own.

"You will show me Hogwarts at the end of the summer?" Axel asked. "The Quidditch pitch and all that you've told me about?"

"Will you be going to Hogwarts to visit?"

"We will all go to visit Hogwarts. August told us last night."

"I haven't heard anything about it," Harry said, and he wondered if Snape would round all of the Hogwarts students up to tell them later at some point.

"It's tradition. On the last two days of school everyone visits the other attending schools. We'll spend a half day at Hogwarts and the Hogwarts students get to show everyone around. And then a half day at another school. Then the next day everyone visits the other schools. I don't know which days we'll go to which schools though."

"Huh. Yeah, I'll show you around. There's seven of us from Hogwarts, so I guess they'll split everyone up into seven groups." Harry tried to do the math in his head figuring out how many people would be in a group if there were 28 other students not from Hogwarts. He supposed Snape would lead the professors around. "That's only like... four people per group. Just make sure you're in mine."

"Me and Basia and two girls who will give you google eyes the whole day," Axle laughed.

"Let's hope not," Harry said with a laugh of his own. The end of school was still two weeks away so he had some time to think about where he would take a group of people at Hogwarts and how the tours would take place. He hoped people would be able to choose their own groups so he didn't get stuck with Acel or Nickolas.

"Lets go to Healing," Axle said, sticking his books and notes into his bag. Harry looked up and noted that people were changing classes, so he put his things away too and stood up to go to Healing. It had been one of his favorite classes all summer because of Gan and Adeline, and he always looked forward to going.

As Harry set his bag down on one of the beds next to Axle's and Basia's he took note that Gan wasn't teaching today. He gave a smile to Adeline but she turned away without returning it. Well that was odd, he thought.

"Today we'll be out on the grounds collecting common plants that can be used as disinfectant. Leave your bags here. Everyone take one of the collection jars." She handed one to Axel and one to Basia, and Harry moved forward to get one but she wouldn't look at him as she held it out for him to take. What was going on? Was she mad at him? Snape had been acting odd, and Gan was just Gan, but what was going on with Adeline?

She lead them on a walk through the tall grasses and to the forest and then down to the beach, lecturing as she went and asking questions, though she didn't call on Harry once. After class was over Harry felt bothered by her change in attitude. Was she changing sides? Some of the other teachers were still ignoring him, even after saving August, and he didn't want her to ignore him too.

When he went to tutoring with Gan later he didn't say anything about Adeline for fear that whatever her issue was, Gan would talk to her and then change sides too. Then the only one he'd have left would be Snape, but even then he wouldn't really because he'd already told him he wasn't going to tutor with him anymore.

After dinner Harry went with Hermione and the others down to a bonfire and tried not to feel lonely as everyone laughed and joked and sang songs in different languages. He was there with his friends and it was his first bonfire of the summer, but he couldn't stop thinking of the cold shoulder Adeline had turned to him that day. Finally after a nudge from Hermione, Harry decided that he was just imagining it and that it would all be better tomorrow, and gave his friends a smile.

The next day was the same as before however. Gan was in healing today and he called on Harry when questions were asked, but Adeline still wasn't looking at him or speaking to him. Harry's stomach felt like it was full of butterflies as Axle's words from the day before came back to him. She liked Snape, and Harry worried that the man had been telling her lies about him, turning her against him like he'd done to the other teachers at the start of the summer. He tried to hang back at the end of class hoping to talk to her so he could defend himself, but she left right away.

"C'mon Harry," Axle said, wanting him to go with him to lunch with him.

Unable to concentrate through the rest of his classes that afternoon, Harry decided that he had to know and went to the infirmary building after dinner instead of to literature. He knew there was a late healing class in half an hour and that she'd be there preparing for it.

Harry pushed open the door and Adeline turned to see if it was one of her students there early. "Are you injured?" she asked.

Harry shook his head and she turned away, busying her hands at the counter with her back to him.

"Then you'd better get to your last class or you'll be late."

Harry turned and reached for the door knob, feeling more and more confused, but then stopped and turned back again. "A-Adeline? What did I do to make you mad?"

She stopped putting corks in the medicinal bottles, but didn't look at him.

"I'm not mad Harry. You need to go to class."

"I'm sorry," Harry said, throat feeling tight. "For whatever I did." He reached for the door and opened it and said, "I just didn't want you to hate me too." He took a step out but Adeline grabbed his wrist and pulled him back inside gently and shut the door.

"I don't hate you Harry."

"I thought maybe you'd been talking to Professor Snape... like the other teachers. You wouldn't look at me or call on me in class."

"Harry," she paused and looked close to tears like she had been after he'd been pulled out of the crevasse days ago. "I care about you. So do Gan and Professor Snape. But it's very hard to care about someone who hurts himself constantly. Every week you're in here with new injuries that could have been prevented, and every day I wonder if it will be the day you're injured too badly to heal."

"Prevented..." Harry repeated. Yes, he supposed he could have prevented spraining his leg by not jumping into the crevasse, and not entering the competition for the certificate, but what others? He'd been attacked by the other boys on the cliff shelf, made sick by not having proper clothes or bedding, and beaten at home. Those injuries were about as preventable as being born.

"You are very wreckless Harry. You don't seem to care about your life at all."

"Professor Snape already read me the riot act for jumping into the creavasse," Harry said quietly, thinking that maybe she was just upset about that incident.

"It's not just that Harry."

"I hid and tried not to fight in the tournament, and Snape wanted me to enter that. The only thing I could do to prevent those injuries was to be better at defense..." he trailed off as she held up her hand.

"Harry, I'm not talking about those things. I think you've been hurting yourself. You put yourself in situations that are dangerous over and over and the only reason I can think of is because you want to be hurt. You come to school covered in bruises, and after seeing what you do here, I can't help but wonder what you do to yourself at home."

Harry felt like he was about to see red and he wondered if this was how Ron felt when he got so angry that he lost control over himself.

"Right," Harry said, "I put myself in danger. I could prevent my uncle and cousin from throttling me because I didn't get my chores done quick enough or because I burned their bacon at breakfast. It's not like I ever beg teachers at school to let me stay over the summer so I don't have to go back. And I could prevent professor Snape from taking away my blanket, the only one I had and from not having warm clothes to wear so I don't get sick. I didn't tell him it was all I had or anything like that. I could prevent the boys from other schools from following me and pushing me off a cliff into the water too, and stop Professors from chasing after me through the dark. I could prevent them from ganging up on me during the tournament and beating me while I was stunned and unable to move. Well guess what, I try to prevent myself from getting hurt every day, but when everyone is intent on beating you, drowning you, making you sick, killing you, it's real hard to stop yourself from getting hurt. Go ahead and be like everyone else and blame everything on me. I can take it. I'm Harry bloody Potter, everyone's scapegoat!"

He threw open the door and stormed out, ignoring her calls for him to stop. He was so mad he was shaking. He knew he was supposed to go to meditation in the woods with Gan, but for the first time that summer he didn't want to go. He didn't want to calm down. His anger was so firey hot that he just wanted to be mad and stew over the things that had been said for a while. So instead of going to find Gan, he wandered the grounds, making sure to stay away from Hermione's cabin or the dining hall so he didn't run into any of his friends. He didn't want to be mad at them and he didn't want to be invited to a bon fire where they would try to cheer him up.

What would they do if he just left the school? They had put wards at the edge of the grounds for the competition to keep contestants from wandering too far, but were they still there now? He couldn't possibly be in any more trouble than he had already gotten himself into, so he might as well just leave. He turned his steps towards the dirt lane where they'd initially portkeyed in at the start of the summer and decided to just drop his bag on the ground. He wouldn't need his heavy books anymore if he was leaving, and at this point he didn't even care to go back for any of his things.

The sun was almost all the way down as he made the dirt lane. As a cool breeze from the ocean picked up he felt chilled without his sweat jacket or coat but he was determined not to go back for any reason.

Harry walked for ten minutes and couldn't see the school compound anymore and hadn't hit a barrier yet so he assumed he was off of school grounds. He wished he knew how to apparate so he could go to see Ron. He was sure the Weasleys would let him stay the last few weeks of summer with them if he could get there. He was done with this place. It had been a mistake to come here. Yes he'd learned things he wouldn't have otherwise, but he'd also learned that there were too many people against him in the world. It wasn't just people from Hogwarts, it was people from other schools. He'd rather spend his time with the few people he knew actually cared about him. It was just too bad that Hermione would still be at Gemini and not at the Burrow, not that Harry had any idea how to get off of this island so he could somehow make his way South to Ron's house.

"Potter." He heard Snape calling for him in the distance and in the darkness saw the dark haired professor jogging to catch up with him. "Potter!" he called again when Harry didn't stop walking. After another minute, the man caught up with him and put a hand on his shoulder to stop him but Harry grunted and turned to shrug it off.

"Where are you going?"

"Away from here," he said angrily.

"And how do you plan on getting off of the island?"

"I don't know but I'll manage."

"I see." Snape was able to keep pace without hurrying because of his long legs.

"Don't try to stop me."

"I have not yet attempted to do so," the professor pointed out.

Harry frowned. It was true enough he guessed. He'd followed him and called after him, but hadn't told him to go back.

"Might I ask what has caused you to decide to leave so suddenly?"

"I'm tired of everyone hating me. No one bothers to ask my side of things, they all just assume."

"Have things not improved in the last few weeks?"

"No," Harry said. Well they had, but not for the better, not really. More people were being nice to him, but it was a fake kind of nice because of his celebrity status or because he'd saved August. He wasn't convinced that August was actually thankful that he'd gone in after him either. He'd apologied but Harry didn't trust him. Still angry Harry stopped suddenly and turned to face Snape down in the darkness.

"You think just because you bought me clothes and blankets it makes up for all you did? You don't really want to help me, you only do it because you feel bad. That's for you, not me."

"You are mistaken."

"Am I? You told me time and again that I just wasted your time. You think I'm worthless like everyone else thinks." He started walking again, anger radiating from his very steps, and Snape followed.

"Like Gan and Adeline?"

"Gan's ok," Harry said, but then he spit out, "but everyone's got their own preformed opinions of me and I've never been able to do a thing to change them. Adeline's no different."

"I was under the impression that she was quite fond of you."

"Fond," Harry scoffed. "As fond as you are of me. She wouldn't even look at me or talk to me for the last two days because she's mad at me and I didn't even do anything wrong."

"Because?"

"Because I'm Harry Potter and no one gives me a chance to just be me. Either people pretend to be my friend because of my status or they hate me because they've got things in their mind that aren't true. Either way that leaves me alone."

"So you are running away to stop being alone?"

Harry turned and frowned hard at him. "I'm going to Ron's. I shouldn't have come here this summer."

"But you did."

"The Headmaster told me to. I'm supposed to learn something to get an advantage over Voldemort."

"Have you?"

"It doesn't matter. If he doesn't kill me someone else will. You should know that by now after this summer." Or even after the years he'd spent at Hogwarts Harry thought darkly.

"You do not help matters by putting yourself in danger."

"Stop following me. You're just like Adeline."

"Am I?"

"And the others too. You're not following me being nice to me for my own benefit. You have some other motive."

"It is hardly fair to accuse me of being 'nice'."

Harry kicked at a stone in the dirt lane and frowned. Only Snape would say he was being 'accused' of being nice.

"Whatever. Are you just going to follow me around the countryside all night? I'm not going back." Even as Harry said it he was very aware that the man was powerful with or without a wand and could take him back forcibly if he chose to. He was also aware that it wouldn't be pleasant.

"Until you give me a satisfactory answer to my question. What has caused you so suddenly to want to leave. You have endured up to this point."

It was so dark Harry was having a hard time seeing now. He stopped and put his hands on his hips as he tried to make out Snape's features to see what kind of expression he had. He could light the tip of his wand, but he didn't know if he really wanted to reveal the man's countenace or not.

"People don't give me a chance. They take every opportunity to think bad about me so they can treat me like rubbish. Just when I think someone's going to really be nice to me, it turns out to be a lie."

"Whom are you speaking of?"

"Everyone."

"Specifically."

Harry could tell that the man who had so far shown more patience than Harry had ever seen him show to anybody, was starting to sound irritated.

"Adeline. She accused me of hurting myself and said that I could have prevented being hurt all these times." In the last few minutes the firey hot feeling Harry had had earlier had started to cool off, but remembering the conversation suddenly stoked the coals again. He threw his hands up into the air for dramatic effect even though it was too dark to really see him do it, and stalked off again. He was irritated that Snape followed. He'd given him an answer hadn't he?

"Explain." Snape said after long quiet moments, where the only sound was their shoes against the gravel in the road and the breeze through the tall grasses on either side.

"Why should I? I don't even have to ask what you believe to know I'm not going to be given a fair chance."

"I am giving you that chance now."

"I hate being hurt or sick. I go out of my way to avoid those things. Just because I can be thick sometimes and jump into situations without thinking of all the consequences first doesn't mean I want to be hurt. That's a terrible thing to accuse someone of who gets hurt all the time while trying to avoid it." Harry shivered again and wrapped his arms around himself trying to keep the goosebumps away.

"Did you tell her that?"

"More like screamed it at her. Sort of. Maybe." Harry mumbled something else but Snape couldn't make it out.

"With your track record at Hogwarts of putting yourself in danger, that is hard to believe."

"Right, see, I told you," Harry said, shaking his head. "You didn't want to really know the truth. You just want to think what you're going to think like you always do, like everybody always does. You're as bad as the Headmaster." He sounded disgusted and he knew Snape could hear it in his voice too.

"The headmaster believes he is preparing you to fight for your life by sending you here."

"That's not what I'm talking about," Harry said. His arms were covered in goosebumps now and so were his neck and back and he was starting to regret his decision not to go back to his cabin for a coat. Harry thought Snape would ask him to explain further but he didn't as they walked. The silence was uncomfortable though, and so far Snape has listened, even if he wasn't willing to change his mind, so Harry clarified for him anyway.

"I tell him the truth and he doesn't want to hear it. I tell him every summer I don't want to go back, but he won't listen. This is the only summer I got to get away, but I didn't really get away from anything. It's the same wherever I go."

"You are speaking of the injuries you received at home before you came here."

Harry stopped and stared up at the man. The sky was clear and millions of stars twinkled in the sky above them, Harry noticed. Adeline and Gan had taken pictures of his injuries before treating him and put them in a record of some kind. Snape was a healer too and he supposed he must have seen them and put things together.

"I didn't want to empty my vault to come here or sell my Firebolt to Draco. I just wanted not to go back." Another bad choice on his part, he thought. Maybe if he'd just gone back to four Privet Drive and kept his head down, he could have gotten hurt less often than he had here.

"Do you still wish not to return?"

Harry gave a nod, and then realizing that his professor probably couldn't see it, said, "I don't want to go back."

"I will find a way for you not to return between Gemini and Hogwarts, but you must return to the school until it is over."

Harry knew that he didn't really have a choice in the matter and wondered why Snape was trying to make it seem like he had one. Dumbledore would never let him just wander off and Snape knew it too. As a teacher responsible for him here at Gemini or as Dumbledore's right hand man, or as an Order Member, he couldn't let Harry just leave.

"I don't believe you. People don't keep promises," he said, but he turned and started walking back towards the school anyhow.

Severus followed a few paces behind, trying to give the teen time to think. He was glad Harry wasn't going to fight him about returning to Gemini, but also disturbed at the admissions the child had made, both about being mistreated at home, and about not trusting him that he'd make things right.

It was also unsettling that the child had apparently told Albus about his home situation and the man hadn't done anything to rectify the situation. There were only three possibilities he could run by the Headmaster for Harry not returning to the ward safety of his relatives in two weeks. He could ask that Harry go to the Burrow, but he knew that the Weasley's had been asking Albus every summer for four years. He could ask that Harry return to Hogwarts, but Albus would say no because the child needed to spend a certain number of weeks with the Dursleys in order to continue being protected by the wards placed on their home. No, his best chance was to make a case for Harry to go home with him at the end of Gemini so that he could continue to give him extra training in Occlumency and magery. He doubted that Potter would like going home with him but knew he would accept if he truly did not want to return to his relatives. He would send an owl to the Headmaster in the morning detailing a rigorous training schedule for Harry for the two weeks between Gemini and Hogwarts. It was a schedule he did not intend to keep but that would be convincing enough to get Albus to agree.

He followed Harry back to school grounds and made certain that he was safely in his cabin before going back down to the base of the hill, intending to turn in for the night. There were a number of students still out and about down at a bonfire on the beach, but it wasn't his night to patrol and make sure that things were running smoothly and that students weren't getting too carried away with their summer romances. He pushed open his cabin door but heard Adeline call his name and paused before closing the door again. She hurried to his porch and stood there looking anxious and guilty.

"Did you find him Severus?"

"I did. He was almost to the B8072. He is in his cabin now."

She shook her head and held onto her left shoulder with her right hand. "I feel awful. I accused him of hurting himself and he shouted at me that he couldn't stop other people from hurting him. Severus, I think something awful has happend to him. You didn't see the injuries he came to school with."

"I saw the photos. He will not be going home at the end of school."

"He'll never forgive me, not after what the other teachers have put him through this summer."

Severus felt trapped inside himself for what seemed like eternity then but was only a moment. He wanted to reach out and touch Adeline's arm or face to comfort her, but did not know if he could bring himself to do it. He was fairly certain that she enjoyed his company and had feelings for him, but not certain enough to act on those beliefs. He felt cowardly for a moment and then remembered Harry's words about sometimes jumping into situations without thinking through the consequences completely. Maybe he was over thinking this and should take the chance. He reached out and touched Adeline's soft cheek, bringing her eyes up to his.

"If I have observed one thing about Potter, it is that he seems too willing to forgive others too easily. Case in point, he and Draco Malfoy have been enemies since their first day of school, yet they now seem to be friends." His hand was still on her cheek, holding it, and she hadn't pushed it away yet. Their eyes were locked and he felt foolish because his heart was beating erratically wondering what she would do next.

"You are not one of the other teachers. You are not like me. He was upset primarily because you have treated him well to this point and he believed you were going to stop."

"You seem capable of change too," she said, and he dropped his hand slowly, uncertain if he was creating an awkward moment by holding one side of her face for so long. "You came here with a strong conviction against him, but I've seen you sticking up for him, protecting him, admitting you were wrong."

"Not a common occurence," he assured her, but she moved in closer to him and their faces were only inces apart as she stared into his dark eyes.

"I believe you're a good man Severus Snape."

He wanted to correct her; to rid her of that notion, but it was too tempting to lean in and kiss her, and the thought faded from his mind as he closed his eyes and gave into temptation.

The End.
End Notes:
I'll leave that up to your imagination what happened or didn't happen with that last bit, I'm not telling. I don't know if I will develop Snape's relationship more further down the line because the story really isn't about that, I haven't decided yet.


This story archived at http://www.potionsandsnitches.org/fanfiction/viewstory.php?sid=3017