MINDSCAPE - The Healing Journey by chrmisha
Summary: When an Occlumency lesson goes wrong, Snape learns more about Harry’s past than he ever wanted to—and it changes everything. But change doesn’t come easily, especially for two who have spent five years loathing each other’s very existence. Can Snape and Harry come to a mutual understanding of sorts to defeat their greatest enemy—themselves? Spring of 5th year, A/U. Completely written and posted in chapter installments.
Categories: Healer Snape, Teacher Snape > Trusted Mentor Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Hermione, Original Character
Snape Flavour: Snape is Angry, Canon Snape, Snape Comforts, Snape is Kind, Snape is Stern
Genres: Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort
Media Type: None
Tags: Injured!Harry, Snape-meets-Dursleys
Takes Place: 5th Year
Warnings: Abusive Dursleys, Physical Punishment Spanking, Neglect, Rape, Romance/Het, Torture, Violence
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 40 Completed: Yes Word count: 98424 Read: 234321 Published: 26 May 2017 Updated: 31 Oct 2017
Chapter 30 by chrmisha

“Boy,” Uncle Vernon hissed, “get off that thing at once!”

Instantly, Harry landed, not even rebounding into the air after coming down from a height well above the treetops. Vernon’s face had gone from purple to white in an instant and Harry, who didn’t yet understand physics, couldn’t understand why.

Vernon’s fists were clenched, his beady eyes trained on Harry, the vein in his temple pulsing. “How did you get out of the cupboard?” the livid man breathed.

“I… I don’t know,” Harry whispered, his legs beginning to shake. “It just opened. All by itself. Like ma…”

But Harry felt a hand clamp hard around his ankle as he was dragged bodily off the trampoline and toward the back door of the house, which was still open.

“Ouch, ow, let go,“ Harry protested as he was dragged out of the opening, down the ladder, and along the ground, Uncle Vernon’s grip still tight on his ankle.

They passed the flower gardens, the whiskey barrel trailing strawberries, the cricket bat and dirty shoes leaning beside the back door.

“I told you that you were not allowed on Dudley’s trampoline,” Vernon seethed, dragging Harry over the threshold and into the kitchen.

Harry had never seen Vernon so angry, and he’d never been so scared in his life. 

“Didn’t I?” Vernon snarled.

Harry was shaking violently now. He had no defense. What could he say?

“Answer me, boy!” Vernon roared.

When Harry didn’t speak, Vernon picked the boy up and threw him across the kitchen. Harry’s face smashed against the edge of a worktop, his nose instantly gushing blood. Harry cried out but said nothing. He tried to squirm his way back toward the cupboard under the stairs, hoping to gain some distance from the violent, unstable man.

But Uncle Vernon was having none of it. He stood, his chest heaving like a bellows, as a gleam of something that made Harry feel sick to his stomach glittered dangerously in the man’s cold, cruel eyes. Vernon took a step back, his gaze never leaving Harry’s, and reached around the back door.

“Maybe this will teach you to listen,” Vernon said, swinging the brightly painted wooden cricket bat into view.

Harry’s eyes went wide with terror as he cowered on the floor. “I’m sorry, Uncle Vernon, please, I’m sorry. I won‘t do it again. I promise,” Harry cried.

“This will teach you to disobey my rules,” Vernon said, raising the bat.

Harry shrieked and instinctively covered his face but it did no good. The first swing struck Harry on the side of the head. Harry felt his skull crack as the bat sank in. Pain exploded behind his eyes, through Harry’s head, ear, and jaw.

“And this will teach you not to do any funny business in our home,” Vernon bellowed, as the bat came down again, this time on top of Harry’s head, bones crunching ominously in its wake.

Harry heard screaming in the distance—terrible, heart wrenching, agonizing screams. He grabbed at his exploding head, only to find his hair wet and slick. The blows kept coming, smashing his fingers, shattering his eye sockets, cracking his skull wide open. The pain was beyond anything he’d ever experienced. He couldn’t keep it all in. The last thing he remembered as everything faded to black was the taste of blood and bile in his throat, and the distant realization that the screams he heard were coming from his own mouth.

Rapt with attention, Snape was caught in the web of images that played mercilessly through Harry’s mind, and now his own. He couldn’t stop them, he couldn’t Occlude them. He was forced to experience them along with the boy himself.

For a short time, everything faded to black. Slowly, the room came back into focus. Now, instead of seeing the images play out from the boy’s perspective on the ground, Snape was floating near the ceiling, looking down at the horrifying, gruesome, blood-drenched scene below. Glancing to his side, he saw nine-year-old Harry Potter, floating next to him, watching as his uncle continued to pummel the small, unmoving body with the painted bat.

Spittle and curse words flew from Vernon’s mouth in time with the blows Vernon landed against Harry’s now caved-in skull, the jaw now hanging at an odd angle. The boy’s body wasn’t trembling anymore. He wasn’t even moving. He was slumped against the tiles, limbs splayed out and relaxed, a wet spot gathering between the legs of his too-big trousers. Blood was everywhere—covering Harry’s head and face and neck and chest, pooling on the floor, splattering the cabinets, the worktops, the walls. There was even some on the ceiling.

“Vernon!”

It was his aunt’s voice.

“Vernon, stop!”

Vernon looked to his wife, the bloody bat still clutched in his beefy hand.

“What have you done?” she gasped.

“The boy,” Vernon heaved. “The boy, he was… jumping… on the…. trampoline… higher than… the treetops!”

Petunia surveyed the badly beaten boy as well as the state of her kitchen and made a sound between annoyance and disgust. “If you kill the boy, his kind will surely notice,” she said, looking unnerved.

Vernon, who was sweating profusely, grimaced. “The last thing we need is his kind snooping around here.” He wiped his brow with a sweaty forearm and finally lowered the bat. “What should we do with him?”

Petunia pursed her lips. “Take some gauze from the first aid kit under the kitchen sink and wrap up his head so it stops bleeding. Then put him in his cupboard. His kind seem to be able to heal themselves.” Petunia looked around her kitchen in disgust. “Then clean this mess up and then change your clothes. I’ll distract Dudley. We’ll wait for you in the car.”

Harry and Snape watched from above as Petunia left the kitchen, leaving his uncle to deal with the mess. Vernon roughly wrapped Harry’s disfigured head in gauze, wiped down the boy’s bloody face with a wet hand towel, and then picked up the small child and carried him to the cupboard where he laid him on the mattress.

“You better not die, you worthless rat. I don’t need your kind nosing around here, you hear?” Vernon said. Then he slammed the cupboard door shut and went to find a mop to clean up the kitchen.

Abruptly, Snape was ejected from Harry’s memories. He fell back on his arse, panting. He felt sick and stunned and murderous. How could anyone hurt a child like that? Death Eater killings were ruthless, but at least they were quick. This slow torture of a child for wanting to be a child was beyond anything Snape had ever experienced.

Teenage Harry lay on the floor, tears running silently down his swollen and bruised face. He didn’t reach out for comfort. He didn’t complain about how unfair his life was. His hand no longer held onto Snape’s for dear life; instead, it lay limp on the floor, an inch away from Snape’s own.

To say Snape had misjudged the boy had been the biggest understatement of the century, second only to how much he had failed Lily Evans. Snape bowed his head in regret. He didn’t think it was possible to screw up as badly as he had.

“Harry,” he said, reaching out to squeeze the boy’s limp hand. “Let’s get you to your bed.”

Potter either didn’t or couldn’t move. Sighing, Snape cast a Featherlight Charm on the boy, scooped him up off the floor, and carried him out of the water closet. He laid Potter on the mattress, where the boy immediately curled into the fetal position and buried his head. The boy’s hand lay flat on the mattress and Snape took it in his once again. He wasn’t one to give comfort but, after what he’d seen, they both needed it.

“I am very sorry, Harry. You did not deserve that, any of it.”

Harry muttered something into the pillow.

“What did you say?” Snape asked, leaning closer.

“He tried to kill me.”

Snape closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “He did kill you, Harry. It was only your magic that saved you.” Snape vowed to do everything in his power to see that Vernon Dursley never saw the outside of Azkaban again.

“I tried to behave,” Harry said. “I really did. But nothing I ever did was good enough.” A sob escaped the boy. “Not for them,” Harry gulped, “Not for you,” he whispered, pulling his hand away. “Not for anyone.”

Potter’s voice rang with desolation, yet all Snape heard was: Not for you.

Snape put his head in his hands. He hadn’t meant to abuse the boy too, but he had. He might not have laid a hand on him physically but, to one who’d spent a lifetime being abused, the insults and cruel accusations Snape had made would certainly have left their mark on an already scarred child. Not to mention the last horrible week where he’d been short with everyone because Voldemort was breathing down his neck for a damn potion that may not even be possible to create.

“I misjudged you, Harry. Badly. I was blinded by my hatred of your father. It is no excuse. I was wrong.” So very very wrong, Snape thought. “I should have told you this long before now.” Snape ran a hand through his hair.

“I am not a nice man, Harry, not even at the best of times. I am impatient, exacting, and terse. I have no time for the niceties of life.” Snape paused. What was he trying to convey to the boy? He was tired, his body ached from the Cruciatus Curse, and here was this child, the son of the woman he had loved and the man she’d chosen over him.

“You didn’t deserve my wrath. Not on the basis of your father’s failings, and not this last week when my problems had nothing to do with you.”

Snape noticed that the boy’s tears had stopped, but his eyes were still closed.

The boy raised a hand to wipe his nose and winced.

“What happened tonight, if I may ask?”

“I had a nightmare,” Harry said. “I got up to use the loo. I got dizzy and fell and hit my nose on the basin. I’m pretty sure it’s broken,” Potter said, touching it lightly and wincing again.

Looking at Potter’s two black eyes and swollen face, Snape silently agreed.

“Then I saw the blood everywhere and everything just sort of came back to me.”

“Why didn’t you call for me when you hurt yourself?” Snape inquired.

“I…”

“Out with it, Mr. Potter.”

“I thought you were mad at me. I thought I did something wrong. You told me not to bother you unless it was an emergency.” Harry swallowed convulsively. “And then tonight, I felt… my scar… I saw…” Harry ran a hand through his hair. “I saw him torturing you.”

Snape sucked in his breath. Clearly the connection between the Dark Lord and Harry Potter was still alive and well.

“I told Covey. Well, I mean, she saw me react and asked what was wrong. I had to tell her something,” Harry said in defense of himself. “Anyway, I heard you when you came through the fire, and I knew. I knew he’d used the Cruciatus Curse on you. I knew you had enough going on.” In a much quieter voice, Harry said, “You didn’t need me to add to your troubles.”

Snape let out his breath. He deserved that. He’d never let the boy think anything more than that. Snape shook his head.

“I shouldn’t even be here,” Harry continued. “If I hadn’t shown you those memories in Occlumency in the first place, none of this would have happened and you wouldn’t be stuck with me.”

“Is that what you want?” Snape asked, his voice low, feeling the fury build in him. “For things to go back to how they were? For me to treat you as I did before?”

“I…” Harry scrunched up his face, then cried out in pain.

“Wait one moment,” Snape said, summoning a pain potion and handing it to the boy. “Drink this, it will ease the pain.” Potter drank. “Now, you were saying?”

“No,” Harry admitted. “I don’t want it to go back to the way it was. You and every other adult either hating me or using me, but not really caring about me one way or the other.”

“Surely Molly and Arthur Weasley don’t hate you.”

“No,” Harry said, a fondness flitting across his features. “No, they treat me like a son.”

Harry sighed and rolled onto his back. Earl Grey, who’d been lying at the foot of the bed, ambled up next to the boy, climbed on his chest, and curled into a ball, purring. Harry stroked him absently. “But I was a burden to them, too. They had to have extra security when I was there and all.”

“I doubt they see you as a burden,” Snape said.

“What about you, sir? Do you see me as a burden?” Potter challenged.

In truth, Snape had. He’d understood it was necessary, but he hadn’t wanted Potter in his quarters. He hadn’t wanted to be part of his healing, but he understood the necessity of it. Somewhere along the way, though, that had changed. He’d stopped seeing Harry as his father and had started seeing the troubled, struggling young man that he was. “Not anymore,” Snape said softly.

“Please, don’t,” Harry said. “Don’t lie. It’s bad enough knowing the truth; it’s worse to have hope only to have it taken away.”

Snape sat stunned. “Why would say that?”

“Because you were civil to me for a while, kind even. But then you went back to being your cruel self. I thought I did something wrong but I didn’t know what. It wasn’t okay to come to you for help anymore, and once again I had no one. And that would have been fine except I…” Harry swallowed, and Snape got the impression he was fighting back tears. “I got a taste of what it was like to have an adult who cared, or at least who I thought cared. But it was just an illusion. And now… now I don’t know what to think. I don‘t know what this is,” Harry said, gesturing between the two of them. Then he rolled back onto his side, facing away from Snape. He took Earl Grey with him and curled around the cat.

“I don’t know who the real you is and I can’t take the disappointment again.” Harry took a deep, ragged breath. “So thank you for coming to me tonight, but please, just go. I can’t do this again.”

Snape was dumbfounded. Thoughts tumbled over each other in his mind. He was hurt, he was angry, he was confused, he felt unappreciated, and yet he also knew he deserved Potter’s estimation of him. Most of all, he didn’t know what to say. Standing up, he said, “I will send Covey in to heal your nose.”


Snape had abandoned him. Harry curled further in on himself and began to sob. Yes he’d told the man to leave, yes he’d said all those things, but what he’d really wanted, more than anything, was for Snape to tell Harry that Harry was wrong. That he was there for Harry. That he did care for Harry. But Snape, like all of the other adults in his life, had just up and left without a backwards glance. Harry felt his world crash down around him. If this was living, he’d rather be dead.

 

The End.


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