Who is the master? Who is the slave?

Treat me like a curse
Then tell me I'm your saviour
I'm never with the stranger
I used to know so well
Waiting for your answer
Is a kind of torture
Could I grow accustomed to this kind of hell?

Voices~ Madonna

"Well, well… Look who decided to show up. .."

"But sir, we are only two minutes late."

"A pity, Miss Brown. Twenty points from Gryffindor. Detention, Mr. Potter! Meet me in my office at 8:00 tomorrow night."

"But sir, I am going to miss the feast."

Snape smirked and walked to the front of the classroom and put the instructions for their assignment on the board. Harry and Trinti sat down behind Ron and the bushy-haired girl, Hermione. Harry grumbled and set up his cauldron.

"How come he gave you detention and not me?" Trinti whispered.

Harry just shrugged his shoulders and proceeded to do his potion. He didn't even need to look at the board because he had studied this on his own weeks ago.

Harry was beyond upset. Ever since he had heard about the Halloween feast, he had been looking forward to it. He would have loved to been around all his friends and eaten until he thought that he would explode but now, there wasn’t a chance of it happening.

Thirty minutes later, Harry was almost complete with his potion. As per usual, the potion was perfect. The consistency and color matched the description in his text. He wouldn’t except anything less from himself. He was determined to win this battle with himself and the potions master. No matter how hard it seemed, he was going to get his father to love him.

Through his ruminations, he didn’t notice the pungent odor permeating the dungeon class room. Trinti's potion had started to bubble over and sent out acid green smoke which made the people around her slowly move away, trying to avoid Professor Snape’s ire. Harry covered his nose and looked at Trinti. Her blue-gray eyes were filled with tears that were threatening to spill over into her cauldron.

Keeping his voice a mere whisper, he hissed at her, “I don’t think tears are an ingredient in a boil curing potion.”

Trinti roughly rubbed her eyes and shot Harry a withering glare, “I’m not crying.”

Harry felt sorry for her because she couldn’t seem to get this potion stuff right. She was at a total loss at the art even with the extra tutoring she was receiving from a seventh year.

"Hmm…Looks like this is going to suck…Mum is going to literally skin me this time…She told me that if I didn't get good grades that she was going to make me work all summer and not be able to visit anybody…."

Suddenly, a loud hissing filled the dungeon and the potion started sweeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people’s shoes. The whole class began standing on their stools while Trinti moaned in agony as red boils sprang up all over her arms and legs.

"Don't worry Trin. It's only the beginning of the year… I am sure that you will get better…" Harry murmured.

"I wouldn't count on that, Mr. Potter."

Startled, they looked up to see Professor Snape standing over them. Harry shuddered with an unexpected feeling of loathing, which he didn't seem to understand. Trinti held a blank face and just kept glancing back and forth between her potion and the professor.

"Looks like you messed up yet another potion. You idiot child! I did not believe that there could be someone worse then Longbottom! Alas, I believe I stand corrected.”

Trinti gulped and paled as the red boils on her arms and legs began to fester. She bent down and started to wipe the mess up off of the floor.

Professor Snape cleared the mess up with a wave of his wand and snarled, “Weasley! Take her to the hospital wing.”

Ron glared at the overgrown bat with every inch of hatred he could muster.

Harry, however, went back to his potion and bottled it, not wanting to get into even more trouble.

XXXX

Deciding to skip dinner, Harry retreated to Gryffindor tower after classes. He didn’t want to be around his friends. He needed time alone to think.

He had hated how Snape treated Trinti but he couldn't help that. Well, maybe he could….But that was only a last resort. He swore to himself. Why couldn't anything ever be easy? He hadn't asked to be what he was. Sometimes he wished that he had never been born. It was awful to think something like that but he felt that if he had never been born then maybe everyone would still be happy and alive.

He stopped at the window and watched as the rain came pelting down onto the glass. The weather seemed to fit his mood at the moment. He was tired, so very tired….

He stayed there awhile just watching the rain, filling his mind up with ideas on what could have been, when he jumped as he heard a voice behind him. He spun around but there was nobody there.

Odd.

He looked up and down the hallway he was on but he couldn't see anything or anybody.

Then, the voice came again but louder this time. There were too many voices now.

Way too many..

Not again, Harry thought. He covered his ears but to no avail. Whatever these voices were, they wanted to be heard.

Harry whimpered and bit his lip. Sliding down the wall, he mumbled in a strange voice that was not his own….

Must protect and serve. The stone is precious….Must protect and serve. traitor…traITOR…. TRAITOR!.

Harry began breathing in and out with slow, methodical breaths. He didn't understand what was going on but he knew something bad was going to happen. When exactly, he wasn’t sure, but he knew that it will be soon.

Shakily, he stood up and shook his head to clear the fog that was surrounding his mind. Harry walked to the loo, feeling unusually queasy.

XXXX

"Hey mate, where have you been? You all right?"

Harry walked into Gryffindor tower to find Ron sitting in the abandoned common room near the fire. He was writing his Transfiguration essay that was due tomorrow, first thing in the morning.

"Yea. I'm fine. Just exhausted. This weather isn't helping either. Ron, that is due tomorrow. Why are you just starting it now?"

"I was busy."

"With what?"

"Ummm..you know… things…"

"Ah. I see. Sleeping and eating must take up so much of your energy. I would hate to see you fall apart."

Ron made a face at Harry and stuck his tongue out. "Whatever Harry. At least I do those things…"

Then, it was Harry's turn to make a face. He went up to the boys dorm and got the book on Gringotts that he had been reading. He was almost finished with it. When he finished, he would start on Hogwarts, A History. Harry went down to the common room and handed Ron some caffeine pills that had been keeping him awake all those late nights.

"What is this?"

"Muggle medicine, Ron. One night, a fifth year girl and I were the only ones awake and we were both studying. She took a pill and offered me one. I was hooked. She gave me a magazine where you can order them through owl post. They help you stay awake but don't take more than one. It will be enough. Trust me."

After explaining on how to take them, Ron drunk one down and continued on his essay. Harry, also, took one and started to read. Around 11, Trinti walked in the portrait hole and waved to them. She looked worn out from her tutoring session with the seventh year. She sleepily walked up to the girls dormitory after yawning a good night to them.

They were in for a longgg night.

XXXX

Severus Snape was currently tossing and turning. Trying, in vain, to get some sleep.

He had always been a haunted man. Those beautiful green eyes….He couldn't chase them from his mind. He threw back the covers and laid there looking at the ceiling. Slowly his eyes closed…

Waste away, I'm crawling blind

"Severus, do you remember me?"

"Lily?"

"Severus….Severus….Remember me…He needs you…"

"Lily. LILY!"

I will run and hide til'

"Don't forget the past so easily, Severus…"

Visions of his childhood….His mistake….his darkest and most deep memories…

A lily grew up from the hard earth beneath his feet and twisted around him, binding his limbs together.

Without warning, a fire began to consume him and those green eyes stared at him, lifeless. Those eyes transformed into those of a familiar boy who looked so scared…so hopeless…so gone..

Close my eyes, these voices stay

"Daddy. Oh daddy… Forgive me…"

The little boy touched his forehead and Severus felt a pain he could not even begin to describe…

He looked down and reflected in the pools of blood that had gathered at his feet was a lightening shaped scar placed in the same spot as the little boy…

He touched it and looked up….everyone was gone….

He cried out into the darkness, mourning the loss of his flower.

I will run and hide

Severus snapped awake. Breathing in deeply, he looked at his clock and saw that it was time to get ready for his day.

He got up with the last of the disturbing dream fading from his mind.