It's gone. Well, not gone. It didn't grow legs by itself. It's missing. That's worse than the possibility of a definitive inanimate object’s sudden gaining of consciousness. 

Missing is worse than his journal thinking therefore being and choosing to walk away from him. 

He knows he shouldn't have brought the thing out of his dorm. Out of his locked trunk. Out of its cocoon of bunched up clothing passed down from Dudley. 

Harry's usually good at curbing temptation. He's good at telling himself off the way Marge barks back at her dogs. He's good at denying himself, putting his fiery furnace of a spirit locked under the proverbial stairs where it belongs. Resolve, some might call it, discipline, according to Hermione, and being bonkers according to Ron. 

Harry's heard it all. 

He doesn't need to try every food, buy every item of clothing, or have fun with his friends every day. He doesn't need to tend to stupid Quidditch injuries every time. There's no need to have bread twice in the same day. No need to bathe when he can shower. 

There was absolutely no need to take his journal out of its safe nest and fling it in his school bag as though it's just any other book. No need to leave his bag unattended during lunch because he was studying for the potions exam they have this Wednesday. No need to be such an idiot. 

Except there was. 

He was tired last night. Nightmares have been holding him against the wall in a chokehold lately. It's a part of him that he cannot silence. A residue of pain and misery that won't wash away. He stays awake most nights, for as long as he can, knowing that the ungodly quidditch practice hours will finish him off like a cruel yet benevolent master does a crippled horse. This is the routine: he gets tired. He gets fatigued. He gets so exhausted that he can't even form words or sentences. He carries on throughout the day by the sheer pulling and grinding of his teeth. 

He gets to his bed. He lies down. His eyelids flutter and fritter and his body jostles as he tosses and turns and hugs his pillow. And then the pillow turns into Cedric's dead body. 

Acrid terror is injected into his very veins, most nights. He doesn't even need the pillow for the routine nightmares to work. His mind is that creative. It's on its feet, bubbling with unnecessarily vivid images of violence and torture. It's insane how well he remembers the touch of a corpse. The pain wracking his own body. The Crucio. 

But anyhow. He was tired. Usually, that doesn't make a difference because he's good at imitating Marge and Petunia and denying himself for long enough that he can write a sentence or two in his journal. He needs it. He needs to write in that demented Notebook that is almost out of pages. 

He got it from his primary school teacher. A Miss Emily something. She was fresh out of uni, one could tell. Just married, just moved to the suburbs. She had that annoying glow of a young scholar about her. And all she got were smelly brats between the ages of five to seven who couldn't even count to ten. 

Not something she imagined doing with her degree in education. Or maybe it was. Harry doesn't know what Emily the muggle teacher thought about. He loved her smile. People really didn't smile at him when he was a kid. They don't smile at him now. 

She gave it to him. Because she said it wasn't good for a boy his age to be so quiet—this happened as he was regularly punished for opening his mouth at any encounter that involved the Dursleys and ended with a belt—and that young lads like him should express themselves more. 

Bless her soul, she had no idea. Harry could ramble. He curbed his tongue to avoid a painful pinch or slap or hair pull. But he couldn't curb his thoughts. He could barely write. But he could write better than Dudley. He could draw better too. To this day he still has a magnificent and yet fiendish rendition of Vernon Dursley’s face with the body of a walrus that he drew when he was six. Still makes him crack up sometimes. When he was locked in his cupboard, even in the dark, he would write. With off-beat spelling and nonsensical words he churned his way out of the pain that wrapped around his incomprehensibly small mind. His first words on those pages were: 

I wants to ran away. 

Probably why he still has problems writing essays to this day. His penmanship, whilst extensive, leaves a lot to be desired lexically and semantically. He grew older. His spelling improved. He knows how to spell people's names. How to name his own feelings even though he doesn't understand them yet. He writes every night before sleeping. Even if it's a sentence. And most nights it's a randomised version of the following paragraph: 

I am tired. 

I hate Cedric's face. I'm sorry, I killed you Cedric. I have classes tomorrow. I hate everything, including myself. 

He's good at paraphrasing. 

Last night. He was really tired. Like so tired that Ron had to carry him up to the dorms like some heroic wizard does with the damsel in distress in a book or something. Or in Ron's case, when handling a sack of potatoes. 

He wants to write. He wanted to. He even had the words ready in his head. His version of please let me die already had many colourful alliterations in it. But he was so tired. He fell asleep. He was so tired that he knew he had nightmares even though he couldn't remember them. 

So in his naivety, he wakes up in the morning. Takes out his journal and thinks I'll write something in it before noon, and then chucks the thing in his bag. Suffice to say, he does not get to do so. They have a surprise quiz in their Charms class, which goes swimmingly since he didn't even know what they were being quizzed about. Then there's the mess at the transfiguration class and Harry is given detention for zoning out—he does this regularly enough that it's become a problem—and by lunch, he remembers—Hermione tells him—that they have a potions exam on Wednesday. 

Now, since it's Snape, Harry is tempted to leave it be. In fact, between Umbridge’s reign of terror and his own distorted sense of reality due to the barrage of fucking trauma, he is most definitely tempted. But it is an established fact that Harry doesn't do temptations. 

He takes out his textbook like a good lad that he is, at lunch. Actually right over his untouched plate. He leaves his school bag open because of course, no one is fucking insane enough to snatch something out of the Harry Potter’s schoolbag at lunch. With at least dozens of people around. He props his book open, looks at the pages, registers almost nothing and then lunch is over and they actually have a double potions class during which he is barely lucid. 

Now, it's long after dinner time. He's panicking on his bed, going through his upturned and emptied-out bag as though the damn journal is going to manifest out of thin air because of his tear-soaked face. Ron is rubbing his back with one hand and uselessly going through the emptied out contents over and over again. 

“We can talk to McGonagall—” 

“It's missing. Ron—” 

Ron nods quickly, probably panicking because Harry is being stupid and unreasonable and it's just a stupid notebook. Except it's not. If anyone, even a single person reads out a single sentence out of those pages… Harry's life will be over. His chest heaves with great difficulty as Harry's disaster scenario escalated to a crescendo. What if Malfoy has it? What if he takes it out, reads it for others like some great joke? What if it's Umbridge who took it? She will torment him. Have him expelled for being so disturbed. She will get the ministry involved and the Daily Prophet will—

Everyone already hates him. He cannot. He cannot cope if it's—

“It's just a notebook, we can help look for it tonight, Hm? We'll check the classes and the Great Hall—Hermione and I have patrolling privileges.” 

Harry isn't even hearing him. He's going over his day in his head, and the day is somehow merging with the previous days, weeks, months. He's trying to think as though thinking hard enough would conjure his diary in his shaking hands. He closes his eyes, rather tightly, and hears only the blood rushing in his ears. 

They don't get it. They don't understand. No one gets it. That notebook was the most precious thing he’d ever owned. The only thing keeping him tethered to reality. Possibly the only thing that helped him not throw himself off a high tower before breakfast every morning. 

And now it's gone. No. Not gone. It's missing. When did he lose it? Did he lose it or was it taken? Why did he have to be so stupid? Why is he like this? Why is he—

“—is he okay?” 

“It's fine, Neville,” he hears Ron say, “Can you just make sure the dorm stays empty and keep him company? I'm going to go look for what he's lost—” 

Harry's heart slams itself against his ribs with resounding thuds. Like the echo of a great wail that rippled through water. His eyes remain closed, he remembers the words on those pages with vivid clarity. Words of pain that carried his youth. Apologies and bashings addressed to himself and Cedric. Depraved thoughts of freedom and death and pain and blood that he could never fulfil. Letters to Aunt Petunia, in childish hopes that she would love him someday. The yearnings for someone to love him. To have a mum. 

The same letters written and never sent to padfoot. In hopes of having someone to love him. To save him from others and himself. To have a father. 

How he wished at the age of eight, to sleep and not wake up the day after because he was sick of chores and pain and getting beaten and pushed around.

Petunia had swung at his head with a frying pan. She missed the first time. But not the second. He remembers wishing he had died.

And someone now has access to all those things. They know everything. 

“—can help look for it.” 

“No, no!” Ronald rushes to say, possibly sensing the way Harry’s body goes impossibly rigid under his touch, “Just keep him company here. And um… don't touch him.” 

Harry loses touch with himself. He can only feel Ron's body heat removed from his side, and Neville nervously and silently settles on the floor near Harry's bed. 

Lunch. He remembers seeing it at lunch. He got his textbook out of the bag and the journal was there. He cannot remember if it was still there when he stuffed his textbook back in the damn thing. No one approached him. People don't approach him in general. No one looks at him or talks to him or smiles at him. The only company he has are Ron and Hermione. The only people who even sit near him during meal times are Ron and Hermione. And they've been busy trying to calm him the fuck down since he realised that the notebook is missing. 

It's been at least three hours already. More if it went missing at lunch. 

Not missing. Hermione went to look. It wasn't there. It was taken.

Ron and Hermione return that night, probably after hours of scouring the castle, empty-handed. By that point in time, Harry had already reached the conclusion that the journal was not even missing. It was taken. It was most definitely, indubitably, taken. 

And now, he has to spend the rest of his days here in dread and breathtaking pain, until someone lets something slip and tears his vicariously fragile life apart. Hogwarts, as tumultuous as it is, is his safe space. And that's saying something, since the large majority of the people here currently either think he's crazy, or killed Cedric Diggory. They're frightened of him. They don't look him in the eyes. His house mates think that he's insane. 

And now, if that someone publishes the damn diary…those suspicions will be proved true once and for all. Everyone will know about the abuse. The beatings. That he's unloved and unwanted. They'll know about the nightmares. About how much he hates himself just like they hate him. They'll know his deepest secrets, his darkest thoughts. 

He cannot eat. He can barely sleep. He did neither of those things properly before, but in the coming week, his health takes a deep dive to the bottom of an endless pit. His friends are worried, even the twins, whom he barely has any interaction with keep throwing concerned glances at him. His professors look at him with something akin to severe disappointment and pity when he fails to procure any of the assignments they've been given the week prior. Above all, his anxiety in keeping the missing journal secret is positively eating at him. He has nothing to grasp onto. No suspects. No chances of asking anyone whether they'd seen the notebook. No shots of finding what has been lost. 

“I wrote to my parents last night,” Hermione is telling him, diligently piling his plates with roasted potatoes, “They can buy you a new muggle notebook from the markets and send it over next week.” 

Ron clasps a hand on his back, “Thank Merlin. See? It's all fine, Harry.” 

But it's not fine. They don't know that the notebook was his journal. They don't know that Harry poured his heart and soul into what that primary school teacher gave to him in order to escape his humanity. And now he's stuck with it, like a bite of food lodged in his throat and suffocating him. The words are trapped in his chest, piling up, building sediment, and Harry's not quite sure much longer he can live in this constant state of panic. 

He thanks Hermione, silently and looks down at his chicken and potatoes. They might as well have been served raw, for they don't look appetising to Harry at all.

It's Wednesday. Miraculously. He wants to say that he barely felt time pass in his haze, but that is just simply a lie. He felt every agonising second. It's Wednesday. They have double potions with the Slytherins. Harry has detention with Umbridge afterwards right until dinner. 

He cannot even remember what he did to get that detention. He cannot remember much about the things that he's done during the week. He blinks his eyes several times, and he's suddenly not in the Great Hall anymore. He's in the dungeons. The potions classroom to be exact. 

Sluggishly he looks around, and Hermione is by his side, her hand a warm little thing on the small of his back. Harry swallows the bile in his throat, “Where's Ron?” 

“Behind us with Dean.” Hermione doesn't force him to physically turn and see for himself, “Are you unwell? I think I need to take you to the infirmary—” 

The door is thrown open in its usual fashion when Snape enters the classroom. Hermione cuts herself off as the billowing robes brush past their station and the man strides to the head of the class by the board. A stack of parchment papers are floating behind him in a more graceful manner. 

“Students,” Snape turns, his voice the same stuffy and deep baritone it always was, “Your exam papers were corrected.”

The parchment papers start floating off the pile and flying to random students—well, not exactly random. Snape stands with his arms crossed as students gasp or pale or flush as they inspect the disgrace. Snape watches on impassively. And Harry wants to throw up. 

“It is quite curious,” Snape says as the pile grows smaller and smaller, “The inadequacy and the sinking of the intellectual property of students who should know better than to disappoint me.” 

Hermione gasps next to him as he parchment paper lands into her hands, almost entirely covered by red scribbles and corrections. Still, Harry is sure she got a higher mark than those around them. He cannot even remember taking this exam. 

“One wonders how you students manage to find your way about and take care of your bodily functions with this distressing performance of your inability to conjure logic,” Snape drawls on, his voice deeper and deeper and venom dripping from every word. He starts walking between the rows of students. The Slytherins surely with bowed heads and stiff backs, and Harry is sure, the Gryffindors are slouched and glaring at the man. 

He drops his own gaze on the desk. He feels so tired. 

“Abysmal. Simply and indignantly so. I would deduct points for this embarrassment of a result received from this class, but I'm afraid neither house has enough points for me to prove the gravity of my point.” 

His shoes click on the stone tiles, his robes shuffle. Harry can feel the man behind him but doesn't turn to check. He hopes that Snape keeps rambling the whole class. His eyes flutter as the very last parchment lands right in front of him. Hermione gasps again, peering at the empty parchment.

Harry stares at it too. The only indicator that this is his paper is the name. No red ink. No black ink either. He vaguely recalls turning it in blank and it makes sense. He doesn't even remember writing his name. Snape comes to stand right by his station, peering down on him numbly looking down at the empty exam sheet. Harry braces himself for the jeer. The barrage of insults. Snape snatching the parchment and showing it off to class with a sneer. 

Clearly, Fame isn't everything.

Harry remembers crying the night he heard that sentence out of the man's mouth. He recalls ranting about it in his notebook. Writing furiously under his covers as he cried, feeling the tightness in his chest, the aching behind his eyes that was all too familiar to him. He was only eleven. A child without a bedroom. Without his own clothes. A child who was so eager to learn that he took notes of every word out of his potions professor’s mouth. A child he hated. A child who killed Cedric Diggory. 

Fame isn't everything. He wrote, Fame ruined me and I don't even have it. I just wanted to do well. 

Years later Cedric dies and Harry writes the same words. 

I don't want anything. I never wanted anything. I just wanted to do well. I just wanted to survive. 

Well, he's here now. Having survived. It's an unpalatable concept now. Surviving for what exactly? For empty exam sheets and crippling depression and everyone hating him? Surviving for Snape and Umbridge to torment him? 

There's a gaping hole in his chest and he swallows. He can feel Snape's unnervingly quiet presence right by his side and the tepid silence that is kept by the class and its terrified students. 

He holds his breath, and finally looks up as the elongated silence stretches on. Snape has an unreadable expression on his face, and he's looking at Harry, not the parchment. 

“See me after class in my office, Mister Potter.” He says, very softly, and then walks away. As he makes his way to the board, the man raises his voice, “And as for the rest of you,” he sneers and turns to look at the flabbergasted students, “I will make you write so many essays on the qualities of the dried dragon daffodils that your fingers will bleed. I will not tolerate laziness.” 

His eyes barely flitter across the class to meet Harry's. And Harry drops his gaze once again with a new ball of anxiety in his stomach. Snape knows. 

Harry doesn't know how or why or…he saw it on the man's face. The shadow crossed his face. The look in his eyes that barely lasted a second. 

Snape knows. Snape knows. Snape knows.

The boy looks like an absolute wreck. Just as an unattended cauldron is left to simmer to its basest form, the boy looks dried out from all life and essence. He looks like a victim of a Dementor attack. A wandering child in the rubble. Severus himself, after a thrashing from his father.

He does not notice it when Severus stares at him. He does not see the concerned glances his friends throw at him. He does not hear the staff gossiping behind his back.

“I don't know how much longer we can allow this to develop without intervention.” Minerva briskly sets her teacup down on the table. Other professors click their tongues and sadly nod in agreement. Severus looks out the windows, his crossed arms nestled on his chest and his eyes tracking a crow flapping its wings against the strong wind howling outside.

It is a bitter autumn. A bitter year. A dampened existence. Blanched of colour. And it is not as though he particularly cared for colour, but still. The grim dog looms over them, and the Dark Lord lurks beneath their feet in silence, like a snake.

Time itself seems to be waiting.

“It seems like a recent development—” Pomona is saying but Severus cannot be bothered to keep track of the conversation. He is taking a break from correcting Wednesday’s exam papers. Potter's empty paper is on top of the unfinished stack.

“A breakup? An argument? I heard he threw quite a show in Dolores' class.”

Severus rolls his eyes.

“The others might be bullying him. I've seen some incidents—”

“With those muggle relatives of his, it is no wonder—”

“It is only recent though, he was much livelier last term—”

Recent? Severus narrows his eyes. He wouldn't think so. Potter has been, for the lack of a better word, a walking corpse for more than two years now. One can feign depression only for so long. Severus is slowly starting to accept the fact that this may not be a show for attention.

It's begrudging acceptance. Severus’ fingers twitch on his arms. He keeps fighting…well, resisting a familiar temptation.

It is true that Potter has been noticeably unwell since the start of the term, but his dramatic exacerbation is not without reason. Potter seems like a trapped bird, a restless, starving thing. And yet, he seems to consume himself in silence. The silent suffering above all, intrigues Severus. For it’s not as though Potter lacks company or others fawning over him. It is true that the bullying has worsened viciously, but so has the wave of his fans.

“What do you think, Severus? Has he been acting out in your class?”

Severus blinks at Minerva, then deliberately, he moves to slip Potter's empty exam paper underneath another pile, “Not that I have noticed,” he says, calmly, “He was always a nuisance.”

And that's that. But not truly. Because what the others do not know is that Severus may have an inkling of why Potter looks inches away from throwing himself off one of the towers.

He's restless because he's lost something. Something of deep value. Something that was tethering him to self-control. To autonomy and stability.

And that something is in Severus's possessions.

He has contemplated it very carefully, these past few days. The implications of this thing in his possessions seem so intricate to him. It seems almost laughably comic, that Potter is as attached to this, as a baby to their favourite blanket.

And Severus is depriving him of it. He would feel guilty, deep down, had he not already been plagued by a morbid curiosity instead.

He has yet to go through the adolescent’s muggle notebook and has yet to see the embarrassing high tales it contains. He can guess. But of course, guessing things about Potter is not necessarily his favourite pastime.

The thing is safe, in a drawer of his locked-up office desk. Underneath a few potions journals of his own. Any other staff member would have felt it essential to return the lost item to its frantic owner. As a matter of fact, Minerva would've gone above and beyond when returning the notebook.

Severus has yet to feel strong urgency. His opinion, as blunt or lame as it may seem, is that he cannot return the notebook just yet. There is no logical reason for Potter to be so emotionally attached to this object unless it contains sensitive information. Severus has not read it yet, but then again feels that leaving the notebook to be found could pose more of a danger to Potter.

Pomona was right, the majority of the students old enough to bully Potter, were bullying Potter. If one of them stumbles upon the notebook Severus left out for the boy, things will escalate rapidly in a downward regression. Potter looked like a dung bomb about to go off. Severus would not want to be blamed for the eventual mental breakdown and defamation.

This being considered, the idea of turning the notebook to Potter himself seems… unseemly. Turning it in to another staff member will risk exposure again, and Severus refuses to do that while not knowing what the content is himself.

He takes the corrected papers back to his office, and scolds two running Slytherins to have some dignity for Merlin's sake— “You are not a Hufflepuff! No running in the corridors!”—and then proceeds to lock up the office for the night.

It is currently Monday. He has a class with Potter on Wednesday. And that brings up the matter of temptation. Should he read it? Should he just get a glimpse?

Then again, they may be just class notes, and he is overreacting and misunderstanding Potter's plight. Teenagers can be very dramatic after all, even those who were traumatised.

Severus takes the notebook out of the drawer very carefully and spends some time just looking at the worn cover as he sips his tea. There's nothing special about it. In fact, the only reason why he picked it up from underneath the seats in the Great Hall in the first place, was the initials.

A childish H.P. was scraped on the cover with a muggle black marker.

Severus weighs the thing in his hands, and turns it over, inspecting the signs of wear and tear. Some water damage in the left corner. Sentimental value. There would be no other reason for Potter to keep this. Unless of course, he could not be bothered keeping his class notes elsewhere.

He would only know if he opened the thing and went over it. He intends to do it. He wants to know. And yet, he feels forbidden to do so.

He looks at Potter's empty exam sheet and rubs at his temple. He can just unburden himself and turn the thing over to Albus. He can toss it in Potter's school bag somehow.

But it seems like a thing of fate. Potter dropped this and Severus was the one who found it. Like a cry for help. Or maybe it is all inconsequential and Severus is delusional. Maybe Lily wanted him to help his son somehow, but that's unlikely, he spent years tormenting Potter.

He doesn't open it with the intention to start reading. He opens it with the intention to take a look and roll his eyes at his own idiocy and overactive imagination.

The journal flips to a random page. The spiky handwriting is nearly unintelligible. But Severus’s eyes widen as they inspect the very first word. The very first sentence. The hate that emanated from the paper and ink.

It should have been you.

His eyes widen and his hands almost tremble in his hurry to mark down the words that follow.

It is as though he has discovered doom itself. Intrigued, and yet terrified.

He finds himself terrified for Potter's life.


... ... ... ... ...


Harry doesn't know how his feet carry him from the bench, down the rows of students and towards the front of the classroom.

He knows that Ron takes his bag, and knows that Hermione whispers something about being right outside, in case he needs to call for help. He knows that the others look at him like he is some circus attraction on the stand. A mixture of disgust and fascination. As he stands for the class to empty, he thinks about how there should be a word for this. For disgusted fascination.

Snape knows. Snape knows. Snape knows.

He holds onto the edge of the man's desk, and feels his presence behind him, as he is quietly instructing two Slytherins about something.

Ron and Hermione linger by the door, ignoring Snape's glaring. But Harry doesn't notice. He's staring at his chewed-up nails, digging into the wood, the hazy light-headedness, and the nausea that bubbles up in his throat. It overwhelms coherent thought.

How would Snape know? Why would Snape know?

Harry didn't make a mistake, did he? He recognised the look in the man's eyes. He thought that he recognised it.

“Follow me, Potter,” Snape says once the class is fully empty and the stations cleared. He brushes past Harry and opens the door to his office, “Potter.” he prompts again.

Harry forces himself to breathe. He clenches his frozen fingers into a fist and nods meekly as he follows the man inside.

Panic claws at him like a terrified, drenched cat. It is quite surprising really, that he can even walk without falling over.

Snape holds the door open for him, and then quietly closes it once Harry is standing in the middle of the office, shivering even as the fireplace is merrily flickering. The many jars of ingredients and neat stacks of books close in on him, and though the office is quite spacious, and though Harry is familiar with the general outline due to the many detentions he's served here, he cannot help but feel claustrophobic.

The room feels like his cupboard. Harry screws his eyes shut and tries to dispel the imagery. He opens his eyes when he feels Snape shifting past him.

The man looks down at him again, “Potter.”

“Yes.”

The man gestures at the armchair set in front of his desk, “Sit down, please.”

Sit down? Harry gulps, feeling the way his heart basically pounds against his lungs. He wants to bolt. Actually no, he wants to fly away. Far away from here.

His feet drag across the floor, and he expects Snape to throw some snark at him. But no. The man quietly waits until Harry is seated. He sits down behind his desk, his fingers are looped under his chin. Harry skirts his gaze away from the man's searching eyes and uncomfortably shifts in the chair.

Is he supposed to say something? Usually, when Harry is called here, he is expected to apologise and then receive his detention itinerary, and that’s the end of that. However, in this particular instance, he cannot quite pinpoint what he is supposed to apologise for. Obviously, his empty and unmarked exam sheet is reason enough. But Harry has a feeling that Snape didn’t call him here for this particular academic failure.

So he squirms in the armchair in silence, and wishes desperately, that he could push his fingers down his throat to physically shove down the urge to start bawling. He stares down at his lap, the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight, he sits alert for the lecture to commence.

But it does not come.

Snape stares at him and his evident discomfort, and moments that feel like hours pass before the man clears his throat, prompting Harry to look up. His glasses are smudged, but his hands shake too much for him to take them off.

“The reason I called you in my office, Potter…” the man pauses, “Well, your other professors and I have noticed a decline in your well-being, Potter.”

Harry looks at the man, blankly. The unexpectedness of the moment grips him with such intensity that he wants to laugh. He expected this from someone at some point, maybe Dumbledore, most likely Professor McGonagall. But Snape?

“—your condition seems to have exacerbated over the previous week.”

Harry opens and closes his mouth, and the shock is so great still, that he feels the anxiety momentarily shrinking away. He can handle this dialogue coming from most professors, but Snape’s almost sympathetic eyes are making it difficult to take this seriously.

“I'm sorry about the exam.” Harry blurts out. Five years, he has attended Hogwarts, five years, he spent in this man’s classroom, shivering to his very core, subjected to every kind of jeering and ridicule and pain…and now. Now, this happens. This is not normal.

“You are not.” Snape waves him off, “Tea?”

“I'm sorry?”

There is an exasperated sigh, “Tea, Potter. Do you want tea?”

It could be, that the lack of sleep, or just the fact that he’s fucking lost his mind, has prompted a hallucinatory episode. Because there is no way in any hell from any religion, that Snape just offered him bloody tea. He pinches his palm as hard as he can, and feels his nails dig into the flesh, and yet he does not wake up.

“No…”

“Very well.” Snape nods, “As I was saying, a student in distress concerns all of the staff involved. If there is a current stressor in your life—aside from the obvious—it is prudent to notify your head of house or the matron.”

What should he say? Severus Snape is currently the current stressor in his life. The entire castle is a current stressor in his life. And what is the matron going to do? Tell him to relax? Tell him that nightmares are just dreams and cannot actually hurt him? Have a biscuit?

“Okay,” Harry says. He really wishes that this show comes to an end soon and Snape gets to his scolding already.

Snape nods his head once again, awkwardly pursing his lips as though checking off an item on an imaginary list. Knowing him, he probably has one. ‘How to deal with Potter in a way that makes him question his sanity’ would be a nice title.

“You have been missing assignments.” the man says eventually, “Losing sleep by the looks of things. Do you wish to elaborate?”

Does he wish to elaborate? Harry feels the anxiety vanish into incredulous anger. Does he wish to elaborate? Yes, actually, he does wish to elaborate on the reason why his academic life is down in the sewers, why he looks like an actual corpse, and why his social life consists of his two best friends preventing one breakdown after another.

“Why am I here?” he snaps just because his tone might frustrate Snape out of this act, “Is it going to be detention? Because I have several with Professor Umbridge and—”

“No detentions.” Snape cuts in amicably instead of calling him an ‘arrogant, attention-seeking fool’.
“Potter, look at me please.”

“Yes, Professor.”

There it is again. The knowing look. The one he gave Harry in the classroom. It is quite different from typical concern or pity. It is as though he is peering through Harry’s soul and into the other side.

“I may have a clue,” Snape slowly reaches for his desk drawer, “regarding your state of discomfort and discontent. Do you hear me, Potter?”

His hand disappears into the drawer, and Harry knows. He knows what is about to happen, even before Snape withdraws his hand and pulls out Harry’s journal with care. His breath catches, and he prays to every god out there, that he is dreaming. There is no way that this nightmare is real.

He wishes it was Malfoy who had found it instead. He wishes that the thing had gained a conscience and abandoned Harry by itself. He wishes that Voldemort had him, and had tortured him to insanity, and this was his purgatory. Because if this is real life, then Harry’s lungs cannot keep up with the beating of his heart.

“It seems that you dropped one of your belongings in the corridors of the Dungeons leading to my office last week,” Snape says, delicately lowering the journal on his desk, “I put it in my drawer for safekeeping and forgot about it due to your class examination.” his black eyes flash at Harry’s slack face, “Is this your notebook?”

Is this his notebook? The anxiety that had left him before, comes back like a Kraken, tenfold in intensity, and something so monstrous that Harry could not bear to call it stress anymore. It was pure, uncurated terror. He needs to dispel his soul, throw it up, and throw it away.

“Oh God.” he croaks, even though what he really wanted to say was, ‘Please, wake up.’

“I assume that is an affirmative.” Snape drawls out, “Rest assured, Potter I did not go through the contents. Your name was already on the cover. Go on, take it.”

Harry is nailed down to the armchair, his limbs cold and numb with that coldness. He looks at the journal, at the initials that Miss Emily Something had written down for him with her black marker, and his heart flutters. He remembers everything in those pages. And to think, that his most vulnerable thoughts, his recounting of childhood anguish, his pain and his desire to die… were in Snape’s hands. For a week. For seven days. Seven days.

“That's not—it’s not mine.” he stutters and is amazed that he even has the ability to speak.

Snape startles, arching an eyebrow at him. They both know he’s lying, they both know and Harry cannot for the life of him, understand why he just lied, “Are you sure?”

Harry drops his gaze on his lap, and hugs his midsection to physically force his intestines to remain still, “I don't want to do this with you.” he mutters in a voice too low for Snape to hear, “Why did it have to be you?”

“What?”

Harry shakes his head, “That's not mine.”

Snape watches him in bewilderment, perhaps aghast that Harry has decided to keep up such a ridiculous lie. He holds up the journal, his other finger tapping on the initials and with narrowed eyes, the man eventually sighs.

“Then you wouldn't mind it if I destroyed it?” he asks. Almost like a dare.

Something in him snaps. Like a rotten rope, like a loose knot. It just snaps. Fat tears roll down his face in stunned silence, as his chest rattles to take in enough air to suppress his sobbing. He looks at Snape, with a deep betrayal the man is undeserving of. Of course, Snape had called him in here, not as a concerned teacher, but to torment him. He cornered him, for this show. A power play? He could have done this silently, he could have destroyed it, burnt it and never told Harry about it. But he didn’t. He is dangling it in front of Harry, taunting him with it, feigning concern. Threatening to destroy it. Like it is a joke.

He sobs into his hands, and he is embarrassed yet so angry at Snape, that he does not care how infant-like the action is. Violently, he is reminded of his solitude, of how he doesn’t have a parent, and because he does not have a parent, men like Severus Snape get to call him into their office and humiliate him within every inch of his life. The man probably had a laugh over the journal and all Harry’s moaning for seven days. He probably saved his favourite bits. He probably jeered at most. At the pampered prince.

His heart lurches, jabbed and violently clenching. Harry tries to have composure, but it is so difficult to remain level-headed. He barely even notices Snape, getting up from his seat, rounding the desk, and crouching by him.

“Potter, calm down. Breathe.” the man’s hand hovers by his elbow, but he does not touch Harry, “I apologise. That was insensitive. I will not harm you or the notebook. It is yours to take. I did not read it.”

Harry lowers his damp hands, tears his glasses off his blotchy face, and stares at the man’s blurry face with all the hate that he can muster. He may not have a mother or father, he may be claimless and alone and in pain…but Snape cannot get away with lying to him.

“You're lying.”

“I did not—”

“I lost it at lunch.” Harry grits out, sniffing and furiously wiping his face with the rough fabric of his cloak, “In the Hall, not the dungeons. You or… someone took it.”
They took an opportunity, not just the journal. He took Harry’s dignity in his fist and crushed it like a worthless bug. And he has the audacity, to drag Harry here, feign sympathy and dangle his pain in front of him like he is a dog asking for a treat.

Snape’s blurry face makes it difficult for Harry to see the man’s expression clearly, his hands shake so violently on his lap that his glasses rattle in place. Snape is still crouched by the armchair, and there is a brief silence.

“No one will blackmail or disturb you about this.” the man says, softly. The audacity, to say this softly, “You have my word. However, regardless of the content, if you are in need of help to stay safe from an adult—”

“You hate me. Why are you doing this?”

Actually, there is no reason for Harry to ask this. He is doing it because he hates Harry. This charade. This act. It’s all a set-up. Nausea churns within him like a trapped wild animal. He physically turns away from Snape, too numb to reach and wipe away the fresh batch of tears off his face. The man already has enough dirt on him, what difference does it make, if Harry cries like a baby?

“I know we do not see eye to eye,” Snape pauses slightly, “but I do not hate you. You are a child, and I am an adult. You are a child, and you saw things no boy your age has to see or endure. You are not okay.”

“You don't know anything.”

“It's not your fault, Potter. None of it is your fault.”

Harry cannot stay here. He has had enough. Though he knows that his knees will strain to hold his weight, he attempts to stand, barely flinching as his glasses shatter in his hold when he presses down his fisted hand on the armrest to get to his feet. He physically shies away when Snape stands with him. He ignores the sharp shard of his broken lens slightly digging into his palm.

“I need to go.”

“No, look at me. I need you to understand. Diggory knew he could die. You did not deserve—”

“You said you didn't read it!”

Why would Harry believe him? He turns to face the man, with all the indignation he can conjure. Because what gives this man a right, to tell him what he should understand? Harry has already understood enough about his life. He has understood the lies, the neverending abuse, his sum in this life. He is at the bottom of the bloody food chain, he always has been and he has understood that. He has understood that people like him wouldn’t get help. People like him would not stumble upon happiness. People like him were horrid omens. Harry understands just fine. He understands that he does not deserve to have temptation or luxury or Merlin forbid, a shred of self-indulgence.

“I haven't,” Snape says quietly and the denial almost, almost seems sincere, “It is not that difficult to tell what plagues you.”

Harry bends down to pick up his school bag and violently stuffs his broken glasses inside. He doesn’t even look at the journal. It is dead and gone. Harry remains, beaten down like a dog. And what matters anymore anyway? Who cares what happens to him if his pain is evident for all to see?

“Potter, sit down.”

Harry tries to forcibly body his way past the man, but Snape resolutely blocks his path.

“Leave me alone!”

“Sit back down, Potter.”

Harry throws his school bag down on the ground, he pushes the armchair with the force of a manic man, “Why?” he screams as the chair crashes onto the stone tiles, “Just so you could humiliate me more? I don't need you!” he struggles to breathe, to find the words, “I don't need pity or help or your damn understanding.”

Snape does not react. He does not rage over Harry damaging his property. In fact, his posture almost makes it seem like he wants to give Harry limited space to cause more destruction, or to prevent further harm. Harry doesn’t care. It is not as though things can get any worse than this. Everyone hates him. People think he is a murderer and he is one. Some maniac wants to kill him and no one cares. No one wants to protect him. They just left him to rot, with his abusive relatives, locked up in a cupboard in the blistering heat of July. It is horrible, how close he is to throwing up.

No one sees his misery with the intention to do something about it. It is either pity or ridicule and now this mixture of both that Snape has somehow come up with.

“I understand your frustration with authority—”

“I'm just trying not to die.” Harry cries, “And you amongst others are making it so bloody difficult for me to just fucking be. I just…I don't want to die.”

“I understand. But I do wish you elaborated on this.”

Harry laughs. He does find it hilarious. It’s not Snape’s fault. It’s all of them. They say they get it, and then they don’t, and then Harry explains, and they make it all about themselves and leave Harry in the dust and squeeze his shoulder and say: ‘Tough luck, buddy.’

That’s what Sirius did. Remus before him. Hagrid before that. Dumbledore from the very beginning.

“Elaborate?” Harry sniffs, he can feel his temples pulsating with the heat and pain and pressure, “Elaborate. Okay. Every night I go to sleep, I do it in hopes that I somehow die before I wake, because the next morning I'll have to see your face and tolerate your voice, and sit in your class. You wonder why we don't see eye to eye? It's because you stole my damn journal!”

He draws in haggard breaths and Snape faces him in absolute silence. It’s as though the man is waiting just in case Harry has more to say. But Harry has already said enough.

“This outburst is justified but misguided,” the man says eventually, because of course he does, “Are you quite done?”

No, Harry realises. He is not done. As a matter of fact, he needs to pour out a week’s long worth of misery into words that Snape’s little adult brain can understand. Maybe then he can report all this back to Dumbledore, or better yet, bloody Voldemort so they can all get it over with. Snape thought that his actions were a kindness because, of course, he did. He is so benevolent, so selfless, for stealing Harry’s journal, for keeping it to himself and now being surprised that Harry is a wreck over it. Maybe he needs to enlighten Snape, on why he is exactly reacting the way he is, just in case the damn ranting in his journal did not quite paint the right picture.

Maybe Snape should know, what it feels like to battle the desire to die, every single day, being surrounded by things that can kill him if he wished it to. Maybe Snape should know that his little antic, almost cost Harry his pathetic health, his pathetic life, his pathetic whinging. And then Snape can jeer about it.

“Every night I write a death wish, just to take the edge off a brimming cup a little. It's like emptying out a bloody ocean with a teaspoon. And you took it from me, for a week! And you just expect us to be mates? Do you think it's a kindness?”

Snape hangs his head in silence. The tension between them is so brittle, that it might break with a single wrong word at the wrong time.

“Is kindness what you need?” his teacher asks him quietly.

Need? Harry scoffs, rubbing at his eyes with bloodied hands.

“It's certainly not something that I'm going to receive.” and Harry gets it. It is why it’s so easy for him to curb his urges. To just forget about the things he wants and be content with the things he gets. Because even the concept of “Need” is extravagant for a person like him.

A person who is always on the edge, the brink of just allowing darkness to swallow him whole. A person who is so flippant about his own health. The truth is, Harry doesn’t really care, what happens to him. He is in pain either way. And nobody cares either, so why should he?

“You're frightened.” Snape says.

Harry’s eyes snap open. He looks up at the man, a bile stuck in his throat.

“You don't know that.”

“You're frightened. Of yourself.”

He is. Harry clasps a hand over his mouth and coughs a bit wetly. He is afraid of himself. He is terrified of himself and his thoughts. He is horrified by his dreams. He feels death so keenly and so close at times, that even the idea of sleep terrifies him. He cannot be alone with himself. He looks at sharp things and imagines a bloody end. He looked into Umbridge’s eyes, and he wished she was crazy enough to kill him in a classroom full of students. He doesn’t eat enough, hoping that one day, his body will give up. Knowing that it has long adapted to malnourishment and starvation.

“I'm leaving,” he mutters and bends to pick up his school bag again. So what if Snape figured it out? It doesn’t matter. The man had his journal already. It would not take a genius to figure Harry wanted to die and yet was scared of it. Why else would he write in a damn journal, to begin with?

“You're scared of your thoughts. You don't want to die, but the urge to hurt yourself is strong, isn't it? You have no one to talk to—”

Oh, for Merlin’s balls’ sake, Harry thinks and rolls his eyes, stepping over the chair to body his way past Snape. What a genius, he thinks bitterly. Snape must be so proud, of making such an outlandish discovery. All by himself. After a week alone with Harry’s journal. A blind rat, stranded on a driftwood in the middle of the ocean could have concluded as such.

“You should be proud of yourself, sussing it all out.” Harry snaps.

Snape’s hand darts out and grabs his arm, “I will not let you walk out of this office. My hands will not be bloodied. You are a child. You will not die, not by your own hands.”

The touch burns through his sleeve and Harry recoils, closing his eyes and feeling the familiar sensation spread all over his body like venom. Vernon manhandles him like that and grabs his forearm to get a good grip before yanking and pushing and lurching him against furniture. Harry holds his breath and forces himself to open his eyes.

Snape’s and his empty words, Harry has heard variations of them before. And who are they both kidding? Harry can tear at himself, bite away chunks of himself as much as he likes; as long as he is still alive and fighting, no one would care. Then either Voldemort kills him, or something else will. What would be the difference?

He curls his mouth at the man and yanks his arm out of his grasp with as much force as he possibly can. He staggers backwards, almost knocking over a precariously arranged stack of books. Instead, he finds his balance near a shelf of potion ingredients, reserved in a base solution.

“Potter, I apologise—”

“What do you want me to do?” Harry rubs his forearm, as though he actually felt the burn. And maybe he did, maybe there was a phantom something.

“Pardon?” Snape asks.

“What shall I do? Cry to Dumbledore about it? To useless professors like yourself? To my benevolent guardians?” Harry huffs, no, it’s not a huff. He feels like an animal that snarled. He feels cornered and wild, untamed and yet drenched in rage and panic. He would draw his wand if it escalates from here, and Then… then he does not quite know what he can do. It’s not like he can curse Snape. But then again, what difference is there between this state and his being expelled? Less time at the Dursleys, sure, but at least they don’t treat him like this. At least, they’re not confusing. At least, they don’t pretend that they care.

At least, they don’t steal. Well, they do. They did steal his youth. But what does it matter anymore? He’s almost grown anyway. He clutches his arm, hard enough that if he really wishes to, he knows he could snap the bone. He does have restraint in many things, but that little voice inside other people’s heads that prevents them from biting their fingers off is oddly quiet when Harry is rough with himself.

“Potter, stop doing that to your arm.” Snape’s voice, there’s a surge in his tone, a tone that Harry has never heard before, not in class, not in detention… nowhere really. He thought Snape was incapable of emotions. And now…

The man has the gall to try touching him again, and Harry has had enough of this.

“Piss off” he growls, slipping back, trying to yank his school bag back into his arms, but the damned strap is stuck. “Let me outlive my use and never,” he pulls with all his might, in a sudden lurch, “ever touch my belongings again!”

Pain explodes in the back of his hand and he gasps. So does Snape. And it takes Harry a moment to realise what has happened. The bag is dangling in the air now, but there are shattered pieces of glass stuck in the back of his hand, and blood running furiously down his arm in rivulets. He looks at the shelf, and the jar containing salamander tails has been…well, shattered to a hundred pieces. The base solution lazily drips down the shelf and Harry falls to his knees just like a droplet.

He clutches the bloodied hand to his chest and breathes through the throbbing pain. The glass was slathered in the base solution, and now it’s stuck in his hand. Of course, it bloody stings. He whimpers against his better judgment, then whimpers again, holding onto his hand, feeling like the orphan that he is. And it’s as though a dam breaks. He looks at the blood, and he cries. It’s not because he’s afraid of the blood or anything, it’s something more primal, something deep in his heart that is terrified. He did this to himself and it hurts.

He’s so consumed by it, so taken by the sound of his own sobbing and the reddened vision, that he barely notices the sweeping of Snape’s robes right next to him. The man is there, kneeling right beside him on the ground.

“Don't move it.” he orders gently, his hands carefully cradling the injured hand and nudging it out of Harry’s clenched hold, “Let me see.”

“Stupid fucking jar!” Harry cries, watching with glazed eyes, as Snape slowly inspects the wound. He is practically blind without his glasses, so it’s hard to tell whether the man has a frown on his face. Harry wipes his face with the hem of his other sleeve as Snape hums.

“It's okay, this needs medical attention—”

“Yeah, no bloody shit!” Harry cries.

“Language, Mister Potter.” Severus drawls lightly, and then using his wand, the man conjures a piece of gauze, or maybe transfigures it out of something—Harry cannot bloody see, “Hold this tightly over the wound, but don’t push the glass shards. I will take them out in a moment.” he gingerly presses the gauze over the wounds and Harry purses his lips. The man’s other arm snakes around his shoulders, gently pulling him towards his chest. Harry struggles for a moment and Snape immediately stops. His arm hovers around him.

“I want to relocate us to the armchair unless you prefer to bleed over my floors crouching.”

Harry doesn’t snap. Doesn’t scream like he wants to. He wants to bite. He wants to destroy the illusion that he needs help. That he is not a pathetic little baby. But the truth is… he is. He wants to be pathetic so badly. He wants to be a child. He wants to be held. He doesn’t flinch because the touch hurts. He flinches because his body is not used to a touch that does not inflict harm.

He lets Snape help him stand, almost carrying all his weight, as they slowly hobble over to the armchair. Snape lowers him on the cushion with care and then orders him to remain still as he begins rummaging through the drawers on his desk. Harry looks at the frantic blur, the man seems to be inspecting vials, and furiously transfiguring bandages out of…parchment.

Usually, when an accident occurs in his class, no matter how gruesome, Snape’s barking order is to be sent to the infirmary. Harry watches, as the tear tracks dry on his face and Snape almost runs back to the armchair. He uncorks a vial and hands it over, “Drink this, it should numb the pain. I will remove the shards of glass then, so you won’t be in pain.”

Harry smells the vial and then stares at Snape. He is not sure whether it is in shock or scepticism. Snape gently reaches over and moves the vial towards his mouth, tilting it over so Harry can drink it. It’s a pain reliever, or at least, Harry thinks so. It tastes slightly sweeter.

“It’s from my own batch,” Snape explains, “it is a bit stronger than the standard issue ones in the infirmary.”

Harry drops his head, looking down at the mess left of his hand, and guiltily feeling the barest hints of relief as the agonising pain starts ebbing away, “It's fine.” he mutters.

“You may feel it prudent to burden yourself with unnecessary pain,” Snape sounds stern, “but I will not. Potter, look at me.”

Harry doesn’t. Not at first, anyway. He feels like a deflated balloon. All his rage channelled into his pain, and now the pain is numbed, just like his insides. He’s cried…twice in front of Snape now? What an embarrassment. The man taps a gentle finger on the gauze and Harry’s eyes travel up to the man crouching in front of him again. Silently, Snape pulls the gauze away and inspects the bloody mess again. Still sluggishly bleeding. Harry watches with hollow eyes, as Snape sets about removing each shard with his wand. His stomach rolls, but he cannot feel anything else.

Funny, how his body can contain so much anxiety at some point, and absolutely nothing in the next instance. Snape dabs his hand with another liquid out of a weird-looking vial, “Just so the wounds close up without scarring, Potter.”

Harry doesn’t react. There’s nothing to say.

His eyes follow Snape, as the man carefully cleans his wounds and starts bandaging his hand. Snape’s hands tremble very slightly, Harry notices bleakly but isn’t quite sure why he does not derive any satisfaction from this.

After he’s finished dressing the wound, Snape holds Harry’s hand between his own, “I owe you an apology.” the man says frankly. His tone is not authoritative, nor is it composed, like before. He sounds shaken, like Harry himself.

“For stealing?” Harry mutters.

There is a small pause. Snape sighs.

“I know you were taking notes of my words. That very first day.” Harry’s head snaps up, Snape continues, “I could read the scribbles upside down. Yet, I did what I did anyway.”

Clearly, fame isn’t everything. Harry opens his mouth and then finds it difficult to say what he really wants to say. He was eleven. He was only eleven. He cried for days over this. He wrote page after page. He hated himself. There is no reason for Snape to have done that if he didn’t…if he didn’t—

“You hate me.” Harry breathes, “You actually hate me.”

Snape has enough grace, not to contradict this, not like he did before, “I…I was misguided. I did not take your notebook. I found it as I was patrolling. I saw your name, and I thought they were class notes. I did not take it out of spite,”

“Then why—”

“I kept it because I wanted to read it, I admit. I was curious why you were receiving such lacklustre results in my class despite your efforts to take notes—”

Harry finally has a trace of rage, blooming in his chest, “Because you bully me!”

“Because you are careless in following instructions.” Snape counters easily, “But that is not the point. I only read that page.”

His admittance should be doing something to him. Maybe spark anger, maybe prompt some dark amusement. Even righteous hatred. But it’s not doing anything. Because at the end of the day, what difference does it make if he read one page or the whole thing? Why would it matter if he did not read it at all? He knew…he knew Harry was only eleven.

“You're going to… what? Tell Dumbledore?” Harry croaks. He feels a headache coming, well, he cannot feel the pain, but he can tell from the pressure behind his eyes. It is not a new ache.

“I believe that you need help,” Snape says, his voice a whisper like Harry’s. Like they’re not alone. Like the demons are watching them. Like they might spring out of their hiding spaces and take Harry away, “It is quite insistent, isn't it? The urge to punish yourself for existing.”

Strong? Harry wants to laugh. It’s almost all he can think about.

“How would you know?”

“I would,” Snape says firmly. Harry cocks his head at the man, daring him to glare back at his dead-eyed gaze. He believes Snape. Snape has a darkness within him that Harry sees in himself. He believes that everyone hates Snape including himself. He believes that if there is anyone in this castle, in this world, who would understand the concept of self-loathing, the strong nausea that comes with coping with himself…it’s Snape.

“I know,” Harry tells him. After all, who could hate Harry just as much as himself if not Snape?

The potions professor, strokes his thumb over the bandages, almost thoughtfully, “The truth is, I kept the journal because I meant to read it because I… sympathised with the way you felt. I realised we were not so different. I was arrogantly hoping that I could help you.” he is looking at Harry now, square in the eyes.


“I understand what it feels like to be fifteen and alone.”

He is being honest. Harry can tell. It’s not like before. Snape is actually telling the truth. Harry releases a shaky breath, feeling the man’s warmth through the gauze.

“Did you read it?” he asks with wide eyes. Like a child. Because he knows, how his heart will break if Snape says yes. That journal is so private, and so precious to him, that Harry cannot fathom another soul grazing it. And now…he will never recover. He will never forgive himself. He will punish himself even more harshly than before. He will do something extremely stupid with himself, he knows.

“No. I did not even finish the page.” Snape shakes his head, “Fifteen-year-old me would've… been murderous if I had violated his privacy as such. I know you feel similarly.”

Harry almost snorts. The idea of Snape being fifteen is just simply ridiculous to him. To think that Snape was not only fifteen once but also felt a shred of the thing that Harry is feeling now…Well, Harry is not sure what he should think of it.

Snape carries on, “I'm sorry that you had to see Diggory die. And I'm sorry for the aftermath.”

“It's not just about that—”

“I know.” they both do.

His words…Someone finally telling him sorry, someone finally telling him that it’s not okay… Harry feels sick with the weight of those words and how they make him feel young. No one ever told him sorry before. He’s always the one apologising. Always the one who has to answer for things. Always the one who has to grovel, serve detention, and cry himself to sleep.

“I know how you feel.” Snape tells him, “But I will let you tell me the rest yourself if you are inclined to do so. And if I can help then I shall.”

Harry slowly draws his hand out of the man’s hold. He swallows and is surprised that there aren’t any lumps or nausea present. He doesn’t have to hold back, he doesn’t have to control the urge to fall apart. He swallows again and breathes, a deep inhale, a shaky exhale.

“You won't judge me,” he tells Snape, not as a question, but maybe a statement of facts.

Snape shakes his head again, and there’s some shuffling, as the man rifles through Harry’s bloodied school bag for Harry’s broken glasses. “I will not.” Snape says after a small beat, holding out Harry’s broken glasses and tapping them with his wand, “Judgment of pain is the lowest form of misery.”

He puts the glasses back on Harry’s face and Harry gulps, avoiding the clarity with which he can see Snape. It’s not just about the minutes of his expression, the look he is giving him. It’s more than that. A mutual understanding.

Harry pushes his glasses up his nose, running his own hand over the bandaged hand, “You didn't give me a failing grade.”

“I did not.” Snape stands with a muted groan, and Harry can actually hear the man’s knees creak as he does, “You did not fail. You will retake the exam of course, once you are feeling better.”

Once. Harry scoffs. That’s so stupidly optimistic of a man like him. To think that Harry has the chance to live peacefully enough to miraculously feel better someday. But maybe it’s in the way he says it, Harry does not have the heart to snap at him.

“I'm never going to feel better,” he says instead, and he cannot help how his voice is tinged with disappointment and resignation.

It’s something he had accepted long ago. People like him don’t get better. People like him are pushed to a point of no return. They either die or are killed. People like him don’t just recover. And even if they do, they’ll break again under the weight of expectations. He isn’t just Harry Potter after all. He is the boy-who-lived.

Snape clicks his tongue, “Do not be silly, you will. And I know that because I do feel better.” the man says casually like they are discussing the weather, “No matter how hard things get, the world does not end when you're fifteen.”

Harry’s eyes open properly, and he looks dumbfounded as the man once again sees occupied, rummaging in his drawers, almost as if he did not just say those words. Harry feels something becoming loose in his chest, and he gazes down at his hand again. The world is not ending.

He breathes, deeply, unobstructed.

“Now, this should be fine.” Snape comes back to him with a balm jar, “It'll heal overnight with the balm, but if you feel any pain or discomfort, have two drops from this vial.” he hands the green jar and another vial over to Harry, and bends down to pick up the dirty school bag. Harry watches on mutely, as the man waves his wand and the blood just…vanishes. He turns, aware that Harry is watching his every move, as he puts Harry’s journal inside the bag and zips it up.

Harry numbly takes the bag as it is handed over. Then he stands, because he has nothing else to say and because he needs to lie down. He needs to be back in his own bed. Not sure whether to sleep or because the lifted weight of the anxiety is making him go boneless and he needs to collapse somewhere. He holds onto the bag’s strap, under Snape’s watchful gaze, and shoulders the bag.

He wants to turn. Or…walk away. He stands a bit aimlessly, looking at Snape until Snape himself is jolted out of his thoughts.

“Oh and Potter,” he says, with a tone so light it can almost be called jovial, “I noticed the journal is running out of pages.” he leans back towards the desk and straightens back up with a leather-bound journal in his hand, “This may come in handy. I acquire these in bulk for my recipe notes,” he explains and Harry takes the thing with a stinging behind his eyes. Snape nods a bit awkwardly, “The leather is quite sturdy and you can add pages to it as you write along.”

Lethargically, Harry reaches for his bag, unzips it again, and slips the leather-bound journal right next to his old beat-up notebook. It looks expensive. Leather is never not expensive. And Snape just…he just gave it away like that. He holds the man’s gaze for any hints of regret or ridicule or something. There is nothing. Only that bit of awkwardness.

“Thank you.” he tells the professor. Actually, referring to him as a professor, in his head for the first time in five years.

He must be coming down with something, Harry thinks faintly.

Snape smiles. He smiles at him. Harry’s mouth drops open, at the tiny tugging of the man’s lips, as he waves Harry off towards the door of his office.

“You will be fine.” the man orders him, “I promise.”

He opens the door for Harry, his hand on Harry’s shoulder, a warm, comforting weight. Harry releases a breath he has been holding in his chest for a decade and a half.

“Okay.” he promises back.