"Can I go outside?" Harry asked quickly, taking a small bite of his potatoes.
"It is raining," Snape answered flatly.
"Yeah, I know . . . but I’ll only stay under the . . . what’s that thing called? The thing next to the garden?" Harry rebutted, messing up by not remembering what it was called. Snape told him (several times) what it was, but, although he had been sleeping a little better now, he just couldn’t remember. If Harry learned anything in the past week, it was that Snape hated to repeat himself.
Snape just gave him a glare, not answering to the request or the question. Harry hated when the man did that. If he didn’t want to answer a question, he would just stop the conversation and pretend that Harry didn’t exist. Of course, during the times that Harry didn’t want to speak, he was always forced to. Especially when it came to Snape’s interpretations of the dreams.
It wasn’t that what Snape talked about didn’t make sense (it did, mostly), but Harry really had trouble believing that understanding them would stop his nightmares. It did help that Snape went into more detail on how to clear his mind (mostly), but it didn’t help that Harry forgot nearly every other day and when he did remember, his mind always got ‘uncleared’ by the time he actually fell asleep.
"So, can I?" Harry asked, not letting this go like he did most topics. He hadn’t been outside since his second day here, when he went out to the garden without Snape’s permission.
"You will bring one of your old text books out with you to read. One that you haven’t gone through already," Snape answered, and Harry outwardly groaned. Snape had made Harry read through many of his old school books within the past six days, and he would ask questions to make sure Harry really did read. He really did hate it.
"Fine," Harry relented after a few minutes of thinking about it, standing up to go find a book so he could go outside, hoping that Snape wouldn’t realize that he only ate three bites of his food. Snape didn’t say anything, but Harry swore he could feel the man’s eyes burning into his back. The evil git.
Grabbing his Potions book (it was either that, History of Magic, or Divination), Harry grabbed his cloak so he could protect himself and the book for the short distance it was to the . . . whatever it was called and headed for the back door of the small house.
When he left the house, it felt so good to be outside that he just stood in the rain for a minute, not bothering to make a progress toward his ultimate goal.
"Get yourself to the gazebo!" Snape yelled from window on the second floor and Harry turned to glare at him. Or tried to, anyway. He couldn’t see Snape from his position on the ground.
But he knew what it was called now. Gazebo. Gazebo. He was going to have to remember that. It was such a strange word.
When Harry got to the gazebo (honestly, who would name something that?), he sat down on one of the swings, laughing once again at how strange it was for Snape to have a swing. Snape had told him, several times, that it came with the house, but Harry still found it funny. He’d have to tell Ron that once he got back to Hogwarts. Imagine, Snape sitting on a swing on a warm, sunny day, in his black robes and with a potions book.
Harry sighed. The two images really didn’t work together very well.
One chapter into the book, Harry was bored. The rain sounded so soothing it was annoying, especially when he was trying to concentrate on the book in his lap. The addition of porcupine quills did absolutely nothing to hold his attention . . .
It was raining something of a dark color, but there was not enough light to be able to tell what it was. Dark, unrecognizable shapes spotted the ground in every direction, only seeming to stop at the horizon. The dark gray clouds were bright against the black sky, and there appeared to be no source of light in the sky except for those clouds.Looking around, he noticed a patch on the ground a distance away in the middle of many of the dark shapes. For the lack of a better goal, he started walking toward it, making sure to avoid any of the dark shapes, some of which were moving.
After a few moments of walking and getting no closer to the light, he started to notice that a few of the dark shapes were circling him, their circle getting smaller and smaller. Nervous, he started to walk faster, and faster, until he started getting desperate and he broke into a run. The spot of light refused to get any closer.
Having to pause for a break, he noticed that it wasn’t him that the dark shapes were after, but another dark shape, which appeared to be laying on the ground. This dark shape, he realized, was connected to him by a slimy, dark rope.
Trying to disconnect himself from the grounded dark shape without much luck, he looked around at the other dark shapes desperately. They were closing in fast, floating just above the ground.
When the floating dark shapes reached the grounded lone one, they began to merge with it, causing it to grow and bleed. Seeing that the blood from the dark shape was the same color as the rain, he realized it was raining blood. Suddenly, he realized how strong the scent of blood was and he looked thirstily around for shelter, but all he saw was the patterned sky, the growing lake of blood, and nothing else but darkness . . .
"Potter!" Harry heard, waking up with a jump and dropping his book to the wood floor of the gazebo. Realizing that Snape wasn’t any sort of dark shape, for the most part anyway, he relaxed a little and picked up the abused book.
"You were sent out here to read, not to sleep. I suppose you did not even clear your mind before taking your nap," Snape continued.
"I wasn’t expecting to fall asleep!" Harry argued. "The rain kind of put me to sleep."
"Then you will go inside, and you can be happy that you just wasted your time outside sleeping. It is dinner time anyway."
"I’m really not hungry," he replied.
"You have no choice in the matter, as you have only a total of five bites of food today," the Potions professor spat, starting to walk away.
"No, I mean I’m really not hungry," Harry emphasized, trying to avoid any dry heaves. It was still raining, and, although it was light out and it was perfectly clear that the rain was nothing but water, he couldn’t help but image it being dark red blood falling from the sky. It didn’t help much at all that Snape looked like one of the dark shapes out of the corner of his eyes. "I think I’m going to sick up."
"I will give you a stomach calming potion, because you will eat. I baby sit you enough as it is, I don’t have any want to have to feed you by hand when you get so weak from the lack of food that you are unable to make it to the table yourself."
Forgetting about the book, Harry ran inside, trying to get away from the rain. Right now, he didn’t care if he had to eat. As long as he got out of the rain.