Before the Dawn – Chapter 11

By jharad17

Disclaimer: Who me? Nah, I'm not responsible for these characters. Only for the mean things I do to them.

Warnings: Language. Reference to abuse.

-HPSSHPSSHPSS-

Previously on "Before the Dawn":

"When you realized Professor Lockhart was not going to be any help, why did you not seek out another teacher?"

Harry's eyes went wide.

"Professor McGonagall, for instance, given your House, would have been an admirable choice. Or the Headmaster, or even myself . . ."

"I didn't . . ."

"Stop and think?"

"Yeah."

"Just so."

Harry frowned, even as he agreed with Snape. That wasn't the way he remembered crises ever happening. He never had time to think about stuff like that. In the instance they were talking about, Ginny might not have survived if he'd gone asking around for other teachers when Lockhart ended up being a wanker. Besides: "It's not like I had much choice," he said.

Snape lifted an eyebrow - something he clearly practiced, as he was so good at it. "I should not even dignify such a preposterous statement with a response, but I imagine you must have a reason for making it. So tell me, what is it?"

"My reason?"

"No, your shoe size."

Harry rolled his eyes. "You don't have to be all sarcastic about it."

A spark of humor lit the professor's eyes. "Clearly, I do."

This time, Harry had to smile. Snape was right, after all; without sarcasm, he would be nearly monotone. "So, anyway, my reason for not going to find McGonagall or you-"

"Professor McGonagall, Harry."

That particular error was something he was taken to task for quite often, and he honestly wasn't sure how to stop doing it, and how to start using titles of respect for people he didn't really respect all that much. But he knew he had to, at least around other professors . . . and especially around his new guardian. Snape didn't tolerate any forms of disrespect from students, and especially not from Harry. At any rate, he huffed a breath at being interrupted and said, "All right! Why Ron and I didn't find Professor McGonagall, or Dumble- rather, Professor Dumbledore, or Professor Yourself-" Snape's eyes glinted in humor again - "or any of you, to tell what we knew about the Chamber, besides there likely not being enough time to save Ginny if I had, was that I'd tried to, before. But no one ever listened. You know what they say about doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result? How that's like a definition of insanity? Well, I was sick to death of being insane and wanted pure, unadulterated sanity for once."

Snape's eyes narrowed, not amused anymore. "Explain. Who did you tell, about what problems, who then ignored you?"

"Do you want a list?" The frank look Snape leveled at him spoke quite loudly for exactly that. "Fine. Once I realized my home life wasn't like other kids', I told teachers in my day school, about not having a room, not getting enough to eat, and not having clothes, whenever they asked why I wore raggedy things that were too big for me. Never once did anything good come of it. Instead, I was smacked around, starved and locked in the cupboard. Just like every other time I opened my mouth or made a fuss."

Snape nodded solemnly. They had spent several tea-times going over the Dursleys' hateful behavior towards him. He wasn't "over it" by any means; their treatment of him for most of his life wasn't something a person just got over. But at least he had relegated the issues he had with his aunt, uncle and cousin to a back burner, now that he had other, more pressing issues to deal with, like Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy.

"These teachers you told . . ."

Harry gripped his teacup, hating that he had to talk about this stuff again, but Snape had told him before that the more he talked about it, the less it would hurt. Harry wasn't sure that was true, but he was game to try. "The first two or three years I attended school, I tried to let them know what was going on. I mean, damn, I was covered in bruises some days from Dudley's 'games,' and I never had a lunch with me, nor was I allowed to go home for meals, and I don't think I ever wore new clothes, or ones that even remotely fit, except when someone from Child Services was due to call. And then I got clean clothes and a reminder to mind my tongue and tell them nothing was wrong, or I'd never see food again, once the caller was gone. I learned to keep my mouth shut."

Snape pursed his lips, looking thoughtful, then gave a single curt nod. "Continue. Why did you think you could not approach your Head of House about the Chamber of Secrets, a topic which has nothing to do with the Dursleys?" Harry was glad to see Snape's mouth twist sourly on the name of that accursed family, but he still had to answer the question.

"Because of the Sorcerer's Stone."

"I beg your pardon? What has one to do with the other?"

"Just that when I knew . . . someone was going to steal the stone," Harry said, skipping over the fact that, at the time, he and his friends had thought Snape was the thief, "I went to . . . Professor McGonagall and told her. Me, Ron and Hermione. I asked to see Professor Dumbledore, and she said he had been called away to London suddenly and wouldn't be back for hours. So we knew the call to the Headmaster was a ruse, and the thief would try to get the stone that night. When I tried to tell her so, she said we didn't know what we were talking about, and the stone was perfectly safe. I told her someone was going to steal it, but she still didn't believe us, wouldn't even listen. She dismissed our concerns and made us go outdoors since it was 'such a nice day.'"

Harry recalled what had happened right after that: he and his friends had been standing in the hall, trying to decide how to protect the stone and keep Snape from it, when Snape had come up behind them and threatened Harry with expulsion if he were caught in the halls again at night. Of course, Harry had thought it was another mark against Snape's innocence, but really, he'd just wanted to make sure Harry was safe in bed while Quirrell-mort was wandering around. Probably.

"She treated us like we couldn't possibly know anything about the stone that she didn't. Like we were children," Harry finished.

"You were children," Snape said. "No more than eleven or twelve years old, all three of you."

Harry gave Snape a hard look, reminding him that Harry, at least, had never truly been a child, except for his first fifteen months. "So we knew then that none of the adults would listen to us and we had to stop the thief ourselves. And we did, by going through a maze. I still can't figure out why all the professors thought it was so secure, if a couple of Firsties could get through all those traps in an hour. But anyway, at the very end, I was all alone in front of the mirror, and I faced Old Voldie by myself and cast him out of Quirrell's body-" nothing was going to make him call that man Professor, "-and killed Quirrell. So, in my second year, when faced with a similar situation, I chose sanity."

Snape studied him for a moment more before shaking his head minutely. Then he rested his forehead on the palms of his hands before rubbing temples briefly. He drew a slow breath and let it out, but he still sounded pained when he said, "Every time we have our talks, I think we've come to the last time this will happen, the last instance in which I learn how we failed you, Harry. The last wasted opportunity to gain your trust, when we instilled mistrust instead. And every time, I am proven wrong again." He looked up then, and caught Harry's gaze. His dark eyes were soft and sorrowful, and Harry did not understand why. "I must once more marvel at your resilience, your ability to still find, somewhere deep inside you, the where-with-all to trust me even the dearest little bit when, as you say, you have been taught over and over that adults are untrustworthy louts who will betray you, the first chance they get. I am so sorry, Harry."

Harry shook his head. "Don't. Please. It's not your fault."

Snape grasped Harry's hand and held it, not letting go, and neither would he look away. "Perhaps not all of it, but I am certainly at fault for my share in your misery, in your inability to share your troubles with the adults in your life, and in the difficulty you have asking for help. And I am sorry, for my part."

Frowning, Harry nodded quickly and took his hand back, wanting to move on, away from the discomfort of anyone apologizing to him. He didn't deserve anything like that, no good, ungrateful wretch that he-

"What is it, Harry?" Snape asked.

"Just hearing stuff in my head." Even as he said it, he knew it was a mistake.

Snape sat forward, looking worried. "The Dark Lord? Is he invading your-"

Harry shook his head again. "No, not like that. I meant, I was thinking, but it was with my uncle's voice, thinking I didn't deserve your apology, that no one as screwed up and unloved as me deserved anything like that." He shrugged, then stopped, knowing Snape hated shrugs, and muttered, "Sorry. But I never really realized that before, how what he said to me all the time . . . that stuff really messed with my head."

Snape looked pained. "Of course it did."

"What's wrong?"

"Where do I start?" Snape asked.

"Oh, great. You're saying I'm a total basket case then?"

"No, of course not. All I meant was, my paradigm has shifted again, and it's going to take me a bit to get back on the broom, so to speak. I am the one who is feeling out of place and out of sorts." Snape spent the next few minutes pouring himself a fresh cup of tea and doctoring it to his tastes, though he seemed to usually prefer it black. After taking a slow sip, he leaned back in his chair. "Tell me more about this voice which sounds suspiciously like your uncle. When is he at his loudest?"

Harry considered the question, though he didn't really need to. He knew when Uncle Vernon's criticisms were all he could hear. It was just embarrassing to talk about, especially with an adult. Especially with a guy.

"You know, don't you," said Snape, perceptive as always. "But you don't wish to say."

"Yeah," Harry agreed, but at a look, amended the answer to, "Yes."

"I want to remind you," Snape said quietly, "that I will not judge you on anything we talk about during tea time."

"I know."

"Do you, honestly?"

Harry knew what he meant, and he could only shake his head a little. "Sometimes he's louder than you. And he doesn't think so. He's always judging me."

"Yes, that's what I thought." Snape waited patiently and, after putting down his cup, steepled his hands on his chest. The dark curtain of his hair covered part of one eye, and Harry thought it was a clever way to hide; no one could see him full on. Snape often swept the hair away when they were talking, but not this time. "When is it worst?"

Harry swallowed and stared into his teacup, unable to meet even half of Snape's gaze. "When anyone tells me they care."

"About you . . . ?"

Harry nodded. "About what I think or do or say or feel. No one cares, he says. . . . He said. All the time. No one could ever care about an nasty little freak like me, not even my parents, who were lay about drunkards who deserved what they got, just like I deserved what I got, which was nothing. No one cares about an in-the-way nothing like me."

Harry's hands were clenched around his cup now, and he felt such desperate sadness and immeasurable longing, all at once. "I wanted so much to belong," he whispered, "to be part of their family. I would have done anything - I did do anything, anything they wanted, whenever or whatever they asked or demanded of me, and all I wanted was for them to treat me like one of them, for them to look at me and see me, see Harry. For them to want me, even just a little, to care what happened to me, and maybe even love me. But they never did. They couldn't stand the sight of me. I was just so alone . . ."

At some point, Snape had come and sat down beside Harry on the sofa, and he now offered one thing the Dursleys never had: a shoulder to cry on. Harry accepted the offer, even if he didn't deserve it. Hot tears ran down his cheeks and over his lips, tasting salty, as he pressed his face to the front of Snape's shirt. Snape's arms went around him, and one hand rubbed up and down his back, soothingly, the other cupping the back of his head, as Harry cried himself out.

How many times had he wished Aunt Petunia would hold him as a child, when he fell and hurt himself, or when he woke with nightmares about his parents' death? How many times had he watched as Dudley's hurts were tended and his own wounds were ignored and left gaping?

Too many, came the answer from deep within his core. Too many to make up for now.

But Snape soothed him and continued to let him sob on his shoulder, and Harry did so, for as long as he had tears. By the time he finished, his bones felt watery, and the skin on his face ached from salty tears and tense muscles. But . . . he felt better. Lighter. Less weighed by stress, as if a long crying jag was somehow cathartic. Harry had heard of such a thing, but had never experienced it for himself.

Snape continued to pat Harry's back as his breathing returned to normal. "Feeling better?" He didn't even sound sarcastic.

"Yea, er, yes, I think I am," Harry replied, surprised.

"Good." Snape eased back and peered into Harry's eyes for a few long moments before nodding. "Good. I think we've had enough tea for one day, yes? Let's have some lunch, then I'll show you the rest of the basement."

Since the previous day's trip to the basement had not been on Harry's list of Things I Want to Repeat, he tensed immediately.

Snape shifted on the sofa to see his face. "Harry, talk to me. Tell me what just went through your mind."

Giving a one shoulder shrug and looking away was not enough of a reply, apparently, since Snape followed that with, "Don't do that. Don't shut me out. Tell me what's troubling you about the basement."

"You think I'm weak."

"What? Where did that come from?"

"You do. I couldn't do the exercises yesterday and you knew it!" The words kept tumbling out of his mouth, as if he couldn't stop them. "Then you told me to go away. You didn't think I was even trying, and I was, I swear! I'm sorry I'm so stupid and brain damaged and everything, but I was trying-"

"Stop, Harry," Snape said sharply. At a glance, the professor's face was troubled, and maybe surprised, like this was all new to him. "Look at me. I'm not sure what gave you the impression that I thought you were weak or that you weren't trying your best."

"You were right there!"

Snape did the pursed lips thing he did when he was trying to recall something, then shook his head. "Why don't you tell me what you remember. Perhaps I said something that you interpreted in a way I did not intend."

Harry shook his head. "I don't know. Just forget it."

"I won't," Snape said, and he probably wouldn't, Harry thought with a sigh. "How will I know if I've pushed you away in the future, when you don't tell me what I've done to push you away in the past?"

Stupid logic. Harry sighed again. "I was tired, that was all. I wasn't, I didn't need to leave or anything, but you didn't want me to stay. When I offered to go, you just said to go. You were angry about the stuff I asked about Old Voldie, and didn't want to work on my legs anymore."

"Seems like your memory is up to snuff," Snape said laconically.

"I've always thought it was."

"Except when it comes to your lessons."

"That's harder to remember. I can't . . . um, I don't know how to explain. School work doesn't fit into one of the shelves."

Snape cocked a brow. "Shelves?"

"Where I put memories. Don't you . . ." He trailed off. Of course no one else used shelves in their minds for memories. He was the only freak who did.

"Tell me about these shelves. They sound interesting."

"Yeah, right."

"What is with this attitude, Mr. Potter?"

"You're not supposed to call me that."

"Only when I'm angry, and I'm not angry. I am, however, concerned."

"About me?" Harry scoffed.

"Of course about you, silly child. Have I not done everything I can, these last few months, to take care of you, to care for you? Know this, Harry: I understand why you don't believe me. I understand that your relatives drilled into you the fact that no one could ever care about you. But I do. I find you an amusing, caring, kind and wonderful young man, who I hope will one day realize his own potential and find happiness as an adult. I will not give up on you, even when you want me to, and I will tell you I find things interesting about how you think, because the things you say and think are interesting, and I'll ask you about your school work, or how I could better be there for you, because that is what a true parent does."

A bit overwhelmed by this outpouring, Harry could only duck his head a little, with a pleased smile on the corners of his lips.

"All right?" Snape asked.

"All right," Harry agreed. And for a little while, it was.

TBC….

A/N: Thanks to all who read and/or review! You're the Best! Harry and Snapalicious hugs for everyone!