Once Harry had told the entire story, both for the benefit of Dumbledore and Draco, he sat quietly awaiting the verdict. Dumbledore looked quietly disconcerted. Draco was more open with his amazement, eyeing Harry the way Ron eyed the latest of Hagrid’s creatures.“I believe I will call both your Heads of House,” Dumbledore said finally. “It is best, perhaps, that they decide your punishment between them.”

Harry paled. Professor Snape. Deciding his punishment. Oh, god.

“And, Harry, it hardly needs to be said that I am incredibly disappointed in you, and more than a bit startled you would let yourself be goaded into the use of an Unforgivable.”

Goaded, Harry thought, seizing on the concept. Yeah, Malfoy goaded me. Right? I mean, he started using Crucio...

Atop the first voice, a second was speaking: you know you’re faster than him, you’ve always been faster at wandwork, he never would’ve gotten that Crucio through, he knew it and you knew it, and he even knew you knew it, and he was only doing it to play child-Death Eater, to make sure everyone knows how bad he is... He eyed Draco, whose skin looked the color of snow. But it was easy, it shouldn’t be that easy, I can throw it off, shouldn’t he? I must’ve taken him off guard, yeah, but that’s still no excuse, if he can’t throw off the Imperius Curse, even for a moment, he’s easy prey for –

Well, said the first voice, what did you expect? He likes crawling for Voldemort, most likely...

Two or three minutes later, Severus Snape and Minerva McGonagall were both staring quietly at the pair of them.

“I am afraid,” Professor Dumbledore intoned sadly, “that these boys have become a bit overenthusiastic in their Defense Against the Dark Arts duel today–”

“Relashio?” Snape inquired of Draco, sternly, but not without a trace, Harry noted, of fond amusement. “Serpensortia?”

“Cruciatus,” Dumbledore replied quietly.

Snape went quiet and cold. “On Mister Potter?”

Draco shook his head. “No,” he replied truthfully.

“No,” Harry took up. “It never hit. He knew it wouldn’t hit. It’s my fault.”

Professor McGonagall stared incredulously at Harry. “It’s your fault Mister Malfoy cast the Cruciatus Curse?”

“No,” Harry replied, biting his lower lip. “It’s my fault I countered with Imperius.”

There was a moment of ringing silence, followed by Snape’s voice, as cold and deliberate and full of darkness as Harry’d ever heard it. “Harry. James. Potter,” he whispered sibilantly.

Harry shivered, knowing he was quailing under the blackness of Snape’s gaze, but he didn’t care. “I’m sorry!” he whispered. “I’m sorry,” he said to Draco, who didn’t bother to reply.

“Do you have any idea what it is you have done?!” Snape roared, all dangerous quiet ripped from him in his rage.

“Imperius,” Harry replied faintly. “An Unforgivable.” He paused. “I should be sent to Azkaban.” He couldn’t help but shiver again.

“Very luckily,” said Professor McGonagall in a shaky voice, “you are underage for such a sentence. Merlin knows what should become of the wizarding world were you to...” She trailed off, looking lost.

“Go corrupt,” Harry supplied. “Lose my mind. Become my own Dark Lord.”

“This is no time for flippancy!” Snape shot back.

“I’m not being flippant,” he said, trying to convey honesty through his eyes. “Abyss. Gazing. Battling with monsters.” He rubbed his temples. “Ugh.”

“Aftereffects,” Snape was saying coldly, “of your first time truly casting an Unforgivable.”

“My head,” Harry moaned, then clamped down on his complaints at Snape’s disgusted glare. His scar felt as though it were going to burst open from the pressure, and he felt simultaneous urges to vomit and scream. The power was building in and running through him, now, suffusing every nerve ending, every heartbeat. Snape was still lecturing him, he could hear him, but it was all so far away... he remained oddly aware of Draco, seated three feet to his right, but he supposed that could have been due to their recent mental contact... everything else was falling apart around him, the power was...

“Stop it!” Draco suddenly shouted, standing and whirling to face Harry. “Don’t do that, whatever it is you’re... ugh, it feels like you’re filled with... with worms and maggots and dead things trying to claw their way out!”

The energy fell from Harry – no, he realized, not in the fashion that was becoming usual, with its explosion of power and subsequent emotional blankness. Instead, it seemed like Draco himself had done something, although Harry could not begin to guess what. His breathing was shaky and heavy, so he took a moment to gather himself before glancing up.

Professor McGonagall was staring at him with the blank, expectant expression of one awaiting explanation. Professor Dumbledore looked suddenly ancient as he stroked his beard, looking from Draco to Harry with sad blue eyes.

Snape looked livid, but beyond that... frightened. Terrified, behind it all, in some fundamental way. Draco looked the same, only his terror was inward, self-directed. Draco was horrified, either at what he had seen in Harry, or what he had done to dispatch what he had seen.

“Sorry,” Harry repeated numbly, rubbing his forehead again, absently this time. “I... sorry, Malfoy, I didn’t mean...” He wasn’t even certain, by this point, what he hadn’t meant. “That’s been happening a lot lately... accidental magic...”

“Accidental magic, Potter?” Snape said blackly. “That,” he added, “is a blatant falsehood. Do you see any physical manifestations of your power? Any wounds on my person? For it is most certainly what you attempted earlier today in my class.”

Harry shook his head slowly. “N-no.”

“Nothing external,” Snape said, his voice brittle behind the calm. “What, then, is it?”

“O-Occlumency?” Harry said in a small voice.

“Very good, Potter. Excellent. Gold star,” Snape ranted, still in that frighteningly quiet voice. “What have you been doing to yourself?”

“Doing to myself?”

“Magic not expended externally is expended internally! And so I must repeat! What have you been doing to yourself?!”

“I – don’t know,” Harry admitted.

“Severus, it’s obvious the child isn’t the slightest bit aware,” McGonagall supplied in a would-be calm voice. “Right now, the best thing is to get the both of them into the hospital wing so they can be observed.”

“Me?” Draco inquired.

“He’s still in a bit of shock from the curse,” she tacked on, as though Draco had not spoken. “As for Harry...”

When the two professors turned assessing gazes on him, Harry shrunk slightly back into his seat.

“Very well,” Snape said in a deadened voice. “Come, children. Follow me.”

Draco fell into bed protesting all the way, but the moment his head hit the pillow he began to snore. Harry couldn’t help but grin weakly at the other boy, the presence of Draco going farther and farther away from his sense of self. Imperius finally seemed to be falling away completely.“He is not yours,” Snape said.

Harry blinked. “No! No, I mean, of course he isn’t.”

The Professor glared at him with eyes as dark as coal, searching Harry’s own eyes for almost a full minute. Harry figured he was using Legilimency, but didn’t care: I’m sorry, he thought, I didn’t mean to, I was rash. I want Draco to go, I don’t want to command him, I’m not that sort, what Voldemort does to other people is terrible, I’m just a kid who screwed up –

“All right, Mister Potter, that’s enough,” Snape announced.

Harry ceased the mental chatter abruptly with an audible sigh. “Will he be all right?”

“I believe so,” Snape said, gazing back at Draco’s sleeping form. “As for you...”

Harry met Snape’s glare, unflinching. “Lost cause,” Harry said suddenly.

Snape flinched. “Very good. But I was only wondering it. I have been since I heard you tried to cast the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix Lestrange.”

A cold anger built in Harry’s chest, but it seemed very faraway. “She killed Sirius,” he replied in a soft, dangerous voice.

Snape nodded. “Well-spotted, you idiot. So she did. And?”

“And so she deserved to pay!”

“And you were going to be the one to make her.”

“Yes!” Harry shot back. “Yes, I am! She’s a murderer...”

“So am I. Do you decide whether I ought to be tortured? Killed? And do you decide it is by your hand that these things occur?”

Harry stared at him blankly.

Snape sighed. “Mister Potter. Dumbledore is, in a way, very lucky you are still such an innocent – and, in a way, very unlucky. You cannot have the wisdom to understand the Unforgivables, not really.”

“I’m not an idiot and I’m not naive,” Harry snapped.

“You’re both,” Snape countered, “if you don’t understand the simple truth behind them. Do you suppose the Dark Lord started off using Cruciatus and the Killing Curse on his friends?”

Harry blinked. “N-no.”

“No,” Snape repeated, nodding as though praising a reluctant child. “They were his enemies, as Bellatrix and Draco are yours.”

“Draco’s not my enemy,” Harry said abruptly.

“Oho,” Snape replied, amused. “True of yesterday? He’s not yours, Harry.”

Harry frowned. “No,” he agreed, but now he felt a bit less certain of his answer.

“In any case, the Dark Lord moved onto his allies, in time,” Snape pointed out. “The same will happen to you.”

“No, I –”

“Yes,” the Professor snapped angrily. “Yes, you will. Unless you stop – now.” His eyes suddenly met Harry’s. “Will you?”

Harry thought it all over, thought of getting into a situation like the one with Bellatrix, where he almost had her in his grasp – “I won’t until I see her again,” he vowed.

“Not good enough, Potter. There will always be one more. One Death Eater important enough, one situation dire enough. And before you know, it is second nature.” Snape’s eyes bored into his own. “Swear. Promise me.”

Harry thought he saw flits of memory behind his Professor’s eyes, realized that he was somehow reminding Snape of his own first slow steps into the Dark Arts. “Y-yeah, I promise,” Harry replied, suddenly gaining a vision of himself ten years down the line, altered nearly beyond all recognition from what he had done to defeat Voldemort.

Sweet Merlin, he could almost picture that.

“Yes, I definitely promise,” Harry repeated, more vehemently. “Never.”

Something relaxed in the lines of Snape’s face. “Good, Potter. Very good. Now – let us see what it is you have done to yourself, Mister Malfoy aside.” Snape perched on the edge of the hospital bed and reached a hand towards Harry, who flinched away.

“Hold still, Potter, it’s just easier this way,” the Professor sniped irritably, his fingers shifting around at Harry’s temple, seeming like they were looking for something. Harry closed his eyes tightly, trying not to focus on the fact that his Professor’s cool fingers felt very good on his gathering headache. Then, Snape stopped, apparently having found what he was looking for, and –

Harry gasped aloud as he felt the Professor’s presence in his thoughts, pawing through a wealth of information at once, faster than Harry could have dreamed of doing, sifting and sorting with incredible ease. The motion through his own thoughts was far too quick for Harry himself, who floundered, attempting to grab hold of each thought as it whizzed by, which only served to make him dizzier.

A warm wash of reassurance flowed through him, and he heard Let go.

Oh. Harry stopped attempting to grasp for the memories, and the process began to move even faster, fast enough so that he was no longer tempted to make a grab for the now-blurring images and stray thoughts. He felt as though he were floating on some kind of sea, and remembered that Draco’s thoughts had been like a cool ocean, an ocean with incredible monsters in its darkest depths.

How many commands did you give him?

It took a moment for Harry to realize that the thought was not his own, but less than a tenth of a second to call up the memory and offer it quietly

Just the one, the voice said in something like relief, and then the presence was withdrawing, then gone.

Harry sighed, his eyes fluttering open. “That was sort of nice,” he admitted in a hushed voice. “Weird, but nice. What was it?”

“Occlumency, Potter.”

“The same as before? It can’t be. It used to feel awful.”

“Perhaps. You were attempting to resist me, then, were you not?”

Harry nodded, leveraging himself up so that his back was pressed flat against the headboard of the infirmary bed.

“As to what you have been doing...” Here Snape frowned, looking more perplexed than before. “It is incredibly advanced. Given your skills in Occlumency, or lack thereof, I would have supposed you incapable of it.”

“Incapable of what?” Harry murmured, raising his hands to rub again at each temple. It didn’t feel as good as it had when Snape was doing it, but at least it was something.

Rather than reply, Snape continued to stare at Harry thoughtfully. “Do you remember discussion of a technique called Obscura?”

“No,” Harry replied. “We definitely didn’t get as far as particular techniques.”

“You have figured it out on your own then,” Snape continued, looking puzzled but unabashed. “It is a technique that contains and reigns in strong emotion. I myself have used it many times...” His eyes went faraway for a brief moment, focusing on a spot beyond Harry, but his attention abruptly returned. “It is a very uncommon discipline, and considerably dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?”

Snape paused in thought. “Most directly, you hold all that is dark within you until it can no longer be contained. At that point, you go mad.”

Harry stared.

“In a more general manner, it is unhealthy to have no mode of release when you are angry or upset.”

“Why would anyone want to use a technique like that?” Harry demanded, picturing all of that darkness festering somewhere inside him.

“Surely you can imagine situations in which it would be advantageous to stifle aggressive emotion,” Snape replied sharply. “A skilled practitioner of Obscura releases the darkness slowly over time, when it is once more safe to do so.”

Harry considered this. “So I should do that.”

“Considering your ineptitude and your all-or-nothing nature, I am not certain you are capable of doing that,” Snape corrected, his expression sour.

“So I go mad then,” Harry confirmed. “Go corrupt. Lose my mind. Become my own Dark Lord.”

“Flippancy again, Potter.”

“If your body and soul were in mortal peril every moment of every day, you’d learn to laugh,” Harry replied.

“It is, and I do not suppose I have.”

Harry blinked. “We’re bound to have different reactions to the same things, Professor.”

“I should hope so,” Snape replied neutrally. “I was not suggesting you succumb to madness, Mister Potter, although it appears you are already halfway there. I merely meant you will likely require... aid.” The curl of his lips indicated distaste, now, Harry noted.

“From you.”

“Mmm.”

“And we know just how well that all went the last time.”

“Better than we had thought,” Snape replied coolly, “as you appear to have revived a long-dead branch of the discipline.”

Harry didn’t know quite what to say to that, so he remained silent.

“In any case, I am less concerned with your mastery of Obscura than your abandonment of it,” Snape continued. “It is Dark Arts and more than Dark Arts; it is a submersion of the self. I do not recommend you pursue it – even though it is, on some occasions, useful,” he added grudgingly. Snape surveyed him, then, as though weighing Harry’s worth with his eyes. “You will meet me every Saturday evening for the next two months, at least,” he finally said. “After that, we shall take note of your progress and decide on our next best course of action.”

Harry wasn’t sure he wanted to agree, but then, he wasn’t sure his agreeing would matter to the black-haired Potions Professor.

“As for your punishment, I believe I have just the thing,” Snape tacked on.

Harry stiffened. He’d actually almost forgotten.

“For the next week, starting tomorrow, you will be under the control of Draco Malfoy.”

“Sir, I resist Imperio,” Harry countered. “I can’t help it, it’s just something I do, like the Obscura–”

Snape turned the full force of his glare on Harry. “You are a naive fool if you would believe for a moment’s time that I would suggest you put your will in the hands of the son of a Death Eater,” he hissed, gripping the edge of the hospital bed with whitened fingertips.

“But you just said–”

“You will be under his control. You must – willingly – do all he tells you to,” Snape clarified, his face still white, the two spots of brilliant color on each cheek the only indication of his fury.

“Oh.” Harry considered this. “I won’t hurt any of my friends or put myself in more mortal danger than usual.”

“Considering the mortal danger you blithely wander into on a daily basis,” Snape replied coldly, “you will indubitably leap off a cliff if Draco Malfoy tells you that is his wish.”

Harry almost wanted to laugh, but he clamped viciously down on the urge. “Sir, you know what I mean.”

Snape sighed, the fury leaving him. “Here.” He placed a small stack of paper at the edge of Harry’s bed.

Harry looked down. It was his summer assignments. “...Professor?”

“Reconstitutio,” Snape said absently. “For your information, number seven on your anemone paper is quite incorrect. Although your analysis of medipotion ingredients was...” He cleared his throat. “Insightful.”

Harry stared.

“Your grade is an ‘Outstanding’, Mister Potter.”

“What?” Harry was certain he couldn’t have heard properly. “I mean, what happened?”

Snape shifted slightly in his seat. “The grade was altered, but after I had already received my list, and before you had received yours.” A pause. “When they heard you wanted to be an Auror, one would presume.”

Harry felt the color drain from his face.

“Perhaps I was incorrect,” Snape continued silkily. “Perhaps fame is, in fact, everything...”

Harry’s gaze couldn’t help but travel to the summer work he’d spent so long on. His fingers grazed the low-quality parchment, enjoying, in some small measure, the texture. So much time, patience, and energy... he’d been so absurdly proud of that completed stack. He’d been reveling in the fact that the Professor had been wrong all these years, that he was ace at Potions so long as Snape wasn’t in the room, with his greasy hair and hook nose and condescending smirk... and the truth was, the test proctors had merely been as interested as the rest of the wizarding world in the fact that he was Harry Potter, whose intentions could not be thwarted, heavens forefend we defy our little celebrity in any dream he may have left, poor dear...

Professor Snape placed one finger atop Harry’s unconsciously stroking hand, effectively halting the motion. Harry’s eyes jolted upwards in surprise.

“You are still in my class, Mister Potter,” he added. “Your most recent grade is, in fact, an Outstanding, and I take those few students who receive such a coveted mark. It is only my assumption that your grade has been altered because of who you are; I can easily imagine a half-dozen other possible reasons.”

Harry took in a shaky breath. “O-oh.” He looked down at the papers again, the sick feeling still drowning him, but mere moments later, his native stubbornness rose again. “You won’t be sorry, Professor.”

“That, Mister Potter, remains to be seen.”