“What in Merlin's name were you thinking?” Snape growled quietly, his arms crossed as he threw himself gracefully into the nearest chair. Harry could do nothing but sit where he was on his transfigured bed in a similar position, leaning against the cool wooden headboard with his head bowed and his legs crossed.

It had nearly been noon when an exhausted Harry had finally awoken, except for a brief semi-conciousness during which he took Snape's earlier advice and put the empty potion vials to good use. He felt drained, as though he had spent most of yesterday in an activity akin to the first task of the Triwizard Tournament, when in reality he knew he had spent no more then a quarter of a minute within Snape's head. That thought alone was disturbing in and of itself.

Snape hadn't taken the venture inside his cranium too well either and had refused to acknowledge Harry for yet another hour and a half after the Gryffindor's re-emergence into the land of the living. Ironically, Harry was now the one doing the ignoring.

“You knew nothing of the risks, of the damage you could have done,” spat Snape angrily as he stood up and began to desperately pace the room. “Yet you were still so confident of your own abilities that you had no qualms with performing a spell you had no control over,” Snape turned and sneered at him, “...nor even the slightest knowledge of what it might entail, on someone,” Snape turned back around and continued to pace, “...who was completely unaware and without their consent!”

“It wasn't like that,” Harry muttered into his arms as he shifted position, uncrossing his legs as he brought his knees up and leant upon them. Harry wasn't even annoyed that he was being lectured in such a manner by the likes of the Potions Master. He knew he deserved it. Snape instantly stopped pacing and stared darkly at him. He hunched slightly where he stood, attempting to catch Harry's eye.

“You will tell no one of what you saw,” he all but whispered dangerously. “Not one. Living. Soul, Potter.” Harry nodded into his arms without hesitation. “Or you may find yourself begging to be taken to the Dark Lord so that he may give you a swift and merciful death.”

Harry met Snape's narrowed, glittering eyes then, his own eyes wide. The Potions Master looked deadly serious. “Do I make myself clear, Potter?” Harry nodded quickly but Snape continued insistently. “Potter?”

“Yes, sir,” muttered Harry quietly. He quickly broke away from the leering gaze and focused on the fabric of his sleeves. Neither of them moved for a tense moment, until Snape lowered himself into his chair again.

“What was it like?” Snape asked quietly. Harry glanced towards him uncertainly. “You presume to tell me that my analysis of the situation is incorrect. Do put me in my place and tell me exactly how it actually was.” Despite any situation, Harry was sure Snape would find some way of using sarcasm to belittle everyone else. This wasn't to be an exception, it seemed. “This is your one and only opportunity to put the git of a Potions Master right, Potter. I expect you'll take full advantage of it.”

Harry shook his head. He wasn't going to allow Snape to bait him like this. “Is that a no? Then you prove me correct,” goaded Snape, and Harry could do nothing other then note the irony of the situation.

“I never meant -”

“But you did,” Snape cut across harshly. “Don't even dare attempt to stage this as an accident. You removed your wand. You cast the spell. No one else.”

“Having pronoun problems?” shouted Harry angrily. “You're emphasising them too much.”

“Believe me, Potter, this has everything to do with pronouns and the emphasis thereof!” barked Snape furiously.

“It's 'Harry'!” yelled the equally enraged Gryffindor. “My name is Harry!”

This didn't seem to be what Snape had expected. He glared at Harry a moment, Snape's dark eyes ironically burning him as much as the midday sun. The Potions Master's expression darkened even further as he glowered at him.

“You will never be anything more than a Potter,” he muttered harshly as his hands began to spasm anxiously.

“How would you like it if everyone compared you to your father, Snape?” Harry inquired just as coldly. He no longer cared that this was one of his Professors, or even someone that could easily hand him over to Voldemort. Hell, he didn't care that Snape was a powerful wizard capable of besting him in a duel without much effort. All Harry wanted was for him to know exactly what it was like to have people misjudge you.

“Don't you even dare use what you learned yesterday -”

“Against you? I don't see why not you bloody hypocrite! You use what you know about me every flipping lesson!” Harry screamed, all of the frustration in every one of his Potions lessons seeming to be released in this one moment. “You never gave a damn about using it! As long as you had your fun!”

“Don't presume to -”

“All because you thought it was a way of getting revenge on my dad! At least he learned from his mistakes! You're just repeating the cycle. I don't know what he did to you when you were kids but, you know what? I'm glad! I wish it'd been worse! I wish you'd bloody died!”

Harry sat panting for a moment as his mind tried to recall what had just escaped his mouth unchecked. He didn't know what else to say as they sat facing each other in a silent battle, both seeming unsure as to the next move. The Gryffindor couldn't help but feel as though he'd just played dirty in this game of wits, he wanted nothing more then to take most of it, not all, back. Some of it, Harry thought, was something Snape needed to hear. Though the death wish might have been a tad overboard.

Just a tad, Harry mused forebodingly. He was watching Snape carefully for a response but the man seemed to be miraculously containing himself, either that or thinking of the best possible hex to curse Harry with.

“Are you quite finished, Potter?” Snape asked, dangerously quiet. Harry could do nothing other then nod his head meekly, but couldn't help but notice the threatening flexing of Snape's hands. The Potions Master must have been itching to grip his wand. “Make no mistake, you impudent brat, if that door was unlocked you would be out on your ear in a heartbeat. As the case may be, I will not hesitate to cast something particularly unpleasant upon you. One more word, Potter, and I swear, if you give me reason to, I will break you.”

“Dumbledore wouldn't -”

“The Headmaster is neither here nor watching. I can do as I please, Potter, or have you only now noticed that you are beyond his protection during the entirety of this situation?” Snape sneered at Harry as though he were a complete imbecile.

A heavy weight seemed to have fallen into the pit of Harry's stomach, cold and unnatural. It wasn't fear. It was something else, something alien. It was something that he shouldn't have been feeling. The uncomfortable pressure seemed to claw from his stomach, forcing out all of Snape's words as it grew steadily more powerful. Harry could feel the heat drain from his body as something far beyond pain started to creep through his limbs, a poisonous venom that was deliberately coursing through him and damaging him from the inside out. If only he'd known how right he was.

Harry's body seemed frozen, he couldn't move and even breathing was becoming painful. With each minuscule twitch of a finger or rising of his chest a burning jolt quivered through his veins. As suddenly as the cold set in it receded, granting him a moment of relief. That was all he was given. That one, singular moment.

The rest was a burning hell as his insides ignited, licking at the underside of his pasty, clammy skin. His lungs seemed to be inhaling a thick black smoke, which was slowly smothering him. His heart beat desperately to an all too quick tempo, one he couldn't keep up with as it sought the blood his body needed so, but was unable to find. The blood seemed to have evaporated with the heat and his mind along with it. Organs crumbled within him, his blood disappeared and his own body being eating away at him from the inside. Conciousness quickly gave up the battle as his body fought in an entirely different war. His vision faded to black as it grasped hold of his only means of escape.

Throughout it, he was unaware of the Potions Master trying to regulate his breathing and Snape's attempts to save him.

---

Harry had had quite enough of waking after being forced into unconsciousness, and had experienced enough of it to last a life time. Another thing he'd had enough of was having Snape glaring at him while sitting at his bedside when he awoke. Leering eyes and a lecture at the ready was not what he needed when he was drowsy, disorientated and generally feeling as though he'd fallen off his broom from a height of one hundred meters.

“W-what happened?” Harry asked groggily, ignoring the freezing glare of Snape that could have turned his own feverish body to ice.

“I was bitten by an adder as a child. You experienced what it is like to have your body dismembered by a hemotoxic venom,” said Snape stoically, without granting Harry the mercy of removing or softening his even-worse-than-usual loathsome glare.

“What-o-toxic ven -?” Harry began to asked, completely flummoxed.

“Hemotoxic,” Snape cut in impatiently. “It destroys red bloods cells, causes organ degeneration and general tissue damage. Simply, your organs were slowly collapsing as the venom ate away at your body from the inside out.”

“Why did it happen? It's not like I've been outside -” Harry stopped what he was saying and turned his head to glare suspiciously at Snape.

“Don't look at me like that, Potter. I had nothing to do with it. After effects of the spell, I imagine,” snapped Snape accusingly.

“Thought it had nothing to do with you?” asked Harry defensively.

“It didn't. I wasn't the one who cast it, now was I?”

Harry glared at him a moment, not having forgotten the earlier argument. “Would it kill you to have a bit of sympathy?”

“Possibly,” Snape snapped back.. He sighed before continuing, “there was no physical venom within your body, you were simply reliving my memory of the pain.”

“Was that all?” Harry inquired sarcastically. “And here I was worried that something bad might have happened!”

“You truly have no idea how lucky you are, Potter,” Snape argued irritably. “That's all it was, luck. You seem perpetually blessed with it for some ungodly reason. Anyone else would have been killed or worse.”

“What could possibly be worse?” Harry challenged incredulously.

“Being trapped within your own mentality for eternity whilst your decaying body sits, rots and awaits the mind's return. Medi-wizards insist on keeping the body alive for as long as possible for this purpose, without realising the torture they could be inflicting. The body cannot live without the mind, Potter, or vice versa,” Snape was gazing at Harry intently as he spoke, as though urging him to understand.

“You think death is mercy?” asked Harry dubiously.

Snape's expression didn't change but there was a glint of something within his usually fearsome eyes. A touch of remorse, of ... longing? Harry wondered for a moment before the harsh lilt of the Potions Master's voice tore into his thoughts, and that one glint of darkness that was more then simply black disappeared.

“Yes, never fear death, Potter, it is inevitable. The Dark Lord fears it beyond anything else on this Earth. He has tried his utmost to escape it and has thus far succeeded. Become Death, embrace it and you will find the means to defeat him,” said Snape quietly and as surely as though it were something as simple as two plus two equals four.

“H-how does someone become Death? It's not possible,” asked Harry hesitantly. The thought alone, that someone would declare themselves something akin to the Grim Reaper was disturbing, but he asked anyway. Call it morbid curiosity, Harry thought to himself.

“If you make yourself more then a man, you will become something else entirely. Do not learn how not to be seen, learn to be invisible. Do not learn the most powerful spells available to you, learn to go beyond them. Do not learn how to fall gracefully, learn how to fly. Master this and you can become anything you wish to portray, even Death itself,” Snape muttered softly, as though cherishing those words, a wisdom that rivalled Dumbledore's in his fathomless eyes.

“More then a man?” Harry asked, enthralled by the possible idea.

“Yes, Potter. You are the hope of the Wizarding world, you can lead our people to freedom. Become the symbol you were born to be, strike fear into the hearts of mortal men and conquer all. Have no fear and you will become immortal. That is his weakness, his fears. He fears the Headmaster, and therefore cannot defeat him. He fears death and therefore will not defeat it. Become what the Dark Lord is terrified of, and he will not defeat you. Ask yourself this, how do you become his fears?”

Harry shrugged. He really had no clue where Snape was going with this. What unnerved him more than anything was that Snape asked the question as though they were in Potions, albeit less belligerently. How could a Death Eater treat something like Voldemort in such a trivial manner? Should he not be quaking at the very thought of him?

“By not fearing him,” Snape answered his own question. “That is how he gained his power in the first place. He used the fears of those around him to fuel his energy and his influence upon them. Do not let him create that same feeling within you. Do not think of him as the Dark Lord, as someone above you. He is a lesser being. Barely even human at this point.” The Potions Master sounded utterly disgusted at the thought.

“And with Unforgivable's at the ready,” Harry said dubiously.

“It's thoughts like that that gave him the power he has. Do not allow him to hold sway over you. He is nothing more than a vile narcissistic egomaniac. He has nothing. He is nothing.”

“I'm only fifteen -”

“That doesn't matter, Potter. Age, gender, power and riches matter not. They mean nothing. Surely, you have learned that during your time here. What truly matters is strength and wisdom and the courage to do what is necessary. As for learning, Potter, I have tried. Occlumency I have not been doing for pure enjoyment, I promise you that. It is nothing more then a necessity,” said Snape slightly irritably. Memories of their last disastrous Occlumency lesson still on his mind, Harry guessed.

“That's where you courage came in handy, Professor?” inquired Harry with a grin. Snape glared at him sourly.

“No more jokes, Potter. It is time for you to grow up.” Snape paused, and sighed, “Though.. as much as I loath to admit it, we're quite similar, you and I.”

“How so?” Harry asked defensively, insulted by the very idea of being anything like Snape.

“We are both agents in this war that rightly should have nothing to do with us. We are both manipulated by the people we trust so that they may use us to their advantage. We are both pawns,” said Snape tiredly, staring emptily at something over Harry's shoulder.

“Not quite peas in a pod though.” Harry said sardonically.

“I said similar, not family.”

Harry decided not to comment and went down a different road, one that had been raising questions in his mind for some time.

“Why did you decide to teach me Occlumency, sir?” inquired Harry curiously.

“It is my payment,” muttered Snape darkly. “I ensure that you survive this war by any means necessary, and my debt will be settled.”

“With who?”

“Your father.”