Part of him hopes Madam Pomfrey won’t clear him for class the next day--the first time he’s ever hoped that. Madam Pomfrey doesn’t seem to want to let him go--she checks his temperature four times, makes him track a little floating light with his eyes, and recite all the potions ingredients he can remember in alphabetical order. He does miserably on this last test, and Madam looks about to pounce on it, but Ron had shown up with his school bag and a change of clothes, and he did even worse. Reluctantly, and with orders to return to her immediately if he felt unwell, or any time he ‘needed to talk’, he makes his way from the infirmary to class.

The whole day he feels as though he is wrapped in cotton wool, thick and dull and fuzzy, and nothing seems to penetrate except to notice that time goes too quickly. It isn’t the first time he hasn’t paid attention in History of Magic, but it is the first time that  the class doesn’t crawl by. Hermione and Ron are a constant presence all day--sitting on either side of him, protective. He begs off of lunch, taking a nap in the dorm under Ron’s watchful eye, but Hermione herself comes to chivvy him out of bed for dinner. At the table, Hermione tries to question him, gently, and he shrugs. 

“I just didn’t feel so well, during...Remedial Potions. So Snape made me go to Madam Pomfrey. I’m fine--she let me out, didn’t she?”

“Well--I’m sure that you’re fine physically, if Madam Pomfrey says so,” Hermione says, slowly, as if not wanting to give any ground. “But--I mean, emotionally--”

“There’s nothing wrong with me emotionally!” He says that louder than he originally intends, and Seamus, sitting two seats down, doesn’t even try to stifle a snort. 

Ron glares at him, then looks back at Harry, who is picking at his food with nervous, shaking hands, and who keeps looking at the Head Table, at Dumbledore. At Snape. 

“Aw, lay off, Hermione,” Ron says, taking a bite of his bangers. “There’s nothing wrong with Harry.”

Hermione shoots him an incredulous look--has he seen Harry today? Of course there’s something wrong!--but then Ron gives her a Look, and she shuts her mouth and begins instead to talk about the History of Magic paper, which Ron completely missed hearing and which Harry couldn’t care less about. When the table begins to empty out, Harry looks at his plate, filled with mangled bits of sausage hidden by lumps of mashed potato, and it pops out of existence. Now he has no excuse. He leaves Ron and Hermione and goes to the dungeons, feeling for all the world like he is marching to his death.

000 000 000

Severus Snape sits behind his desk and wonders how exactly to prepare for a lesson he doesn’t want to teach. Is not qualified to teach, really. He knows about himself that he does not have the capacity for kindness some people have. He falls short, always, not just against Dumbledore, who has a capacity for kindness that outshines almost everyone, but against even brutes like Lucius Malfoy, who, though capable of immense cruelty, could and did truly care about his family. Snape has no family, though; none that he would claim. He doesn’t count his father, who may be dead or drunk or who knows where, or his mother, whose location he knows exactly, in the pauper’s grave in New Mills. He has never found it easy to truly care for anyone--it has always been a struggle, though some people, like his mother and Lily, seemed to be worth the effort. Since they died, no one else had been, especially a boy like Potter. Does he need to care, to do the job? To do it right, he suspects he does. But he can’t care. Not for Potter. Not for anyone. It just isn’t in him.

The knock on his door is hesitant and soft, as though Potter is hoping he won’t be in, or won’t hear the knock. He finds himself sneering, tries to stop, but can’t. He opens the door, sensing that if he said ‘come in’, Potter would contrive not to hear him, and when he does he is confronted by how much he does not want to do this. The boy is standing there, looking as jumpy as a jack rabbit, fear in his eyes, but a scowl on his face. His hands are tangled around the strap of his school bag. He hesitates, the scowl flickers, but then it returns and he looks down at his hands and Severus does not want to do this.

“Well? What are you waiting for, an owl of invitation?” Snape turns his back and doesn’t watch the boy enter the room. It already feels out of control. He doesn’t watch Potter enter but he can sense him as he takes out his wand and turns around.

Potter visibly flinches. The door is closed, and Potter bumps into it--he hadn’t entered the room any further than strictly necessary. He clutches his school bag harder, one hand groping in his pocket for his wand. Severus bites his tongue on the speech about constant preparedness that tries to force it’s way out of his throat, and instead gestures towards the chair with the wand.

“Sit, Potter.” He does.

There is something Snape should say, he knows, but he doesn’t know what that is and he doesn’t know how to be kind and he doesn’t know how to help, not now, not with Potter. And so he leans against his desk, feeling unspeakably tired all of a sudden, and does the best he can.

Somehow, he isn’t sure it will be good enough.

000 000 000

“What do you remember of the memory we uncovered yesterday?”

Harry stiffens, then forces himself to shrug. His eyes, on Snape’s hands, anything better than his face, note how they twitch on seeing the shrug. Good. 

“When I ask questions, I expect to hear an answer, Potter. I, unlike some, do not talk to hear myself speak.”

Harry feels his cheeks flush, and he shrugs again, then speaks. “Lupin and Moody and Sirius. They were in the memories from yesterday.” He pauses, watches Snape’s hands clench. “Sir.”

“You know that is not the memory I am referring to.”

His throat is a wasteland all of a sudden. He clears his throat, licks his lips, then stops. He scrubs at them with the back of his hand. He clears his throat again. All the while, he sees Snape’s hands get irritated--the tip of the wand starts to tap on the table, he grips his wrist--but this time he isn’t doing it to get a rise out of Snape. 

“That wasn’t a memory.”

“Then what was it doing in your head?”

Harry feels his cheeks flush. 

“No. I mean...that wasn’t a real memory. It was just...” He doesn’t know how to say it, and he feels his blush deepen, staring at Snape’s hands. “I guess it was more like...feelings.”

The tapping stills. “What type of feelings?” 

Harry feels his breath start to quicken and he doesn’t know why. He shakes his head. “It was...I don’t know, it was a nightmare. It must have just been a nightmare.”

There is a loaded pause, and Snape sighs. Harry hates it. He hates it when Hermione sighs at him, like she’s disappointed, or Ron’s sighs, which are more like explosions of frustration. He hates it from them because it makes him feel small, but he especially hates it from Snape. Snape isn’t his friend. He isn’t nice, he isn’t thoughtful, and his sigh just sounds vexed and frustrated, but his tone is still that same fake polite neutral voice that makes Harry nervous, and he wishes he were anywhere else but sitting in front of Snape’s desk in a room with a closed door.

“Do you recall ever having this nightmare before?”

He starts to say no, then he stops. He can’t remember. He isn’t sure. But it didn’t feel new, what happened. His forehead starts to itch, and he reaches up to tug at his fringe. 

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t remember. I--So no, I guess, no I don’t recall--”

“Watch your tone.” Harry stops talking. Snape sighs again. “The contents of this memory--”

“It’s not a memory--”

“Do not interrupt me!” A pause. “The headmaster has decided that our time together would be most useful if we chose to pursue the contents of this memory--” Harry opens his mouth to object, and Snape raises a hand, “--or whatever it may be.”

“Why does Dumbledore--”

“Professor Dumbledore to you.”

“Why does Professor Dumbledore think--it isn’t like those other dreams, those don’t even seem like dreams, I think it’s just a dumb nightmare--”

“As has been ascertained previously, there is particular concern about the Dark Lord gaining access to your thoughts, and we have prior evidence that he has influenced your dreams. The headmaster has decided the route we should take in this next course of our lessons, and we will take that course. It may be a precaution, but that is the decision that has been made.”

The room suddenly feels very small. He wants to get out of the chair but he can’t. His breath still feels fast, and he starts rubbing his forehead.

“I--I want to talk to Dumbledore about this. Professor Dumbledore, I mean.”

“He has relayed all the information to me. I can answer you questions.”

“Wh--no, I don’t want you, I--sir, please, I need to talk to Professor Dumbledore, I can’t--”

“Potter, that is enough.” Snape has stood up and the force of his rising has knocked the other chair over. Harry jumps, looks at his face even though he doesn’t want to. Snape’s nostrils are flaring, his lips are thin. He looks furious, and even though Harry feels frightened and uncomfortable for reasons he doesn’t know why, he suddenly feels a little less frightened of Snape. This is how Snape is supposed to operate. This is who Snape is. “Do you believe either of us are pleased with this little arrangement? Do you think I have nothing better to do than pick around in that empty head of yours for children’s horrors? I assure you, were the headmaster willing to take on this job, I would have gladly handed it off to him! Situations as they are, you and I are in this position, and whinging to the headmaster will not change that. 

 “So stand up, Potter.”

Harry does, wordlessly, and is inordinately relieved to put some space between him and Snape. He has his wand out, ready, when Snape turns. He’s pinching the bridge of his nose, then he shakes his head and and assumes a more defensive position.

“You may attempt to clear your mind.” The man’s voice is mocking, low, and Harry feels himself flush and his face pull into a scowl but his hands are shaking, he doesn’t want to see it again, because when he’s in it he can’t see anything, just feel those hands--he scrubs at his forehead with the back of his hand, and Snape takes that opportunity-- “Legilimens!”

000 000 000

Part of Snape wishes that he had found this memory at the very beginning of their lessons, because Potter is putting up a fight now where he never had before. It is not that Potter has cleared his mind--Snape senses that the real objective is to bait him, to distract him, to tire him out, rather than eject him, and perhaps that is the tactic he should have been taking all along. He sees snatches of Professor Dumbledore, his halfmoon glasses gleaming, for the well organized mind, Christmas at Hogwarts, Potter’s lone black head with a mountain of red haired Weasleys, Pettigrew’s drawn white face and bloody stump, bottle fame brew glory stopper death, flying, looping around the Quidditch goal posts with the wind whipping past, the youngest seeker, letters filling up the small sitting room, are you a witch or not, a grey, scabby hand opening the door with coldness rushing in, stale cake and cats, the werewolf demonstrating the Patronus, a happy memory, peering over the edge of a rooftop at angry teachers far down below, we’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss, a glittering mass of fluttering keys, The Chamber of Secrets has been opened...

Suddenly everything becomes frantic and panicked. Severus seizes on that, follows the fear down a rabbit hole. Enemies of the Heir, Beware, dueling club, seeing his own self sneering, ghosts floating through platters of rotten food, Granger with cat eyes peering up at him--pixies swarming, charging--bars on the window, a gaggle of Weasley’s looping a rope around--for full details, see my published works...

Finally, he sees it dart past, dark and ungainly. He snares it like a fish in a net, and it struggles to break free, but he will not let go. He plunges in, and, with a lurch of his stomach, realizes right away that this isn’t right. Or, it is right, but it means something terrible.

It’s similar: still distorted, still broken, the sounds going unnaturally slow while the movement is fast and blurred and twisting into and out of each other. But it isn’t the same. The colors have changed, the sounds in the background are not the same. In one way, this is better. While he still feels sick and disgusted on every part of him, the sounds seem--almost normal. It sounds as though he is hearing it under water, though--he can tell it is voices, human voices, but the rest remains a mystery.

The problem is, this means there is more than one memory that has been tampered with. And that means that however innocent this memory could have been, it feels sinister and slimy to Snape’s mind. And he cannot stay there long.

000 000 000

Part of Harry wants to be proud of himself. He held out for a while, for longer than before, and if these were still just lessons, he would be happy with that. These weren’t lessons anymore though, they were something else, something dangerous, and when Snape pulls them into another memory that is twisted and dark and awful, he finds himself so ashamed and disgusted that he can understand almost every word.

“You mustn’t let it happen, you understand? Harry, Harry, Harry.”

He wants to be sick. He hates his name, all of a sudden, feels that grime from before suddenly working it’s way over his hands, his back. He feels himself--is he really, or is it all in his head?--pulling in on himself, hunching his shoulders, contracting. But the voices do not stop.

“I understand, of course--fame is a powerful mistress. But you’re too young for all that, don’t you see? You aren’t ready--”

“Professor, I’m not--”

It’s him, he realizes with a jolt, though it should have been obvious from before. It’s his voice but it’s so young. It feels almost like watching a video tape of him when he was younger, except Aunt Petunia never taped him, only Dudley. He closes his eyes and tries to keep breathing.

“What, Harry? Not too young?” Suddenly the air is too close, too thick, he really can’t breathe, he can’t, it’s like he’s drowning and he tries to breathe but all he gets is this memory. The air is buzzing in his ears but it’s not buzzing loud enough, because he can still hear the next part.

“No, maybe you’re not too young. Let me see...”

When he comes back to himself, even before he looks to see where Snape is, he throws up. Not having eaten much that day is good--it’s not much of a mess. It burns against the back of his throat coming up, and when he finishes he looks around for Snape, maybe to apologize, maybe not. Snape is standing in the corner, his lips still pinched, but this time with disgust. Harry feels disgusting.

Snape clears the mess with his wand and regards Harry. Harry tries not to look at Snape, but it’s hard. He can’t tell how much Snape heard, or saw.

“Potter.” Pause. Harry feels like he may need to heave again. “Harry?”

“Don’t!” he says, and he thinks Snape will take so many points, for his tone and his cheek and throwing up on his floor and the door is locked and he can’t get out and maybe it will be worse than points, maybe a detention, and he can’t--

“Potter, then.” There is a glass of water in front of him suddenly. “Drink this. Then, I feel a trip to the hospital wing is in order.”

Harry doesn’t say anything. He looks at the glass, wonders what’s in it other than water, wonders if he cares. He doesn’t. He feels his limbs straighten out, relax, and his head feels like it’s about to fall asleep, and the last thing he sees is Snape activating the floo in his office and sticking his head into the fire.

Maybe there really is something wrong.