Before the Dawn – Chapter 12

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":

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.

-HPSSHPSSHPSSHPSS-

After lunch the two of them went into the basement, and Snape showed Harry the potions lab he had set up down there. It was eerily reminiscent of the lab in Snape's quarters at Hogwarts, except the walls were less dungeon like. Full shelves of bottled ingredients lined the walls, and at least a dozen cauldrons of different sizes took up two more large shelving units. There were two distinct work stations, but each had room for two people to work together on one potion, if needed.

"Wow. You set this up in just minutes yesterday."

"Yes," Snape said.

"How . . .?"

"Did I manage it so quickly?" Harry nodded, and Snape gave him a small smile. "I have packed and unpacked my traveling lab many, many times. Now it rarely takes more than a few minutes to put everything to rights." After a pause, when Harry was going to ask "How" again, he added, "With magic, Harry. A few special spells I created, and with a wave of my wand, everything is put away."

Harry grinned. "So wand waving is good for something in potions after all."

"Cheeky."

"That's me."

A tiny smile curved the corner of Snape's lips. "I would like to start working on the first of several dream potions for you today. Are you up for it?"

Harry stared, stunned. "You want me to help? On a potion?"

"Of course."

"But . . ." Harry didn't know what to say besides, "Don't you think I'm incompetent?"

Shape's eyes narrowed. "No. I do not. I think sometimes you don't pay as much attention as you could. But I think, at least in part, you were incapable of adhering to minute details. I have noticed that, since your brush with strong mind magic this summer, and the subsequent lesions on your brain, your attention to details in potion making has increased substantially."

"You think the lesions have helped, then?"

"Yes. I do."

Harry bit his lip. "I don't know about that, sir. I think . . ."

"What is it, Harry? Do you disagree?"

"Somewhat." Before Snape could yell at him - not that he would, necessarily, but Harry could hardly tell - he rushed on, "I think I'm better at potions 'cause I don't have to worry about you blaming me for everything that goes wrong in class. Not to mention, I don't have Slytherins sabotaging my potions, and you're not standing over me and glaring all the time. I'm not as nervous about making them, now."

Snape was quiet for more than a minute, rubbing his index finger over his lips, as he often did when he was thinking, Harry had noticed. Finally, he nodded slowly. "It is possible," he admitted.

"That maybe my troubles weren't just due to brain damage?" Harry pressed. "That maybe I could've done well in your class these last five years, if I'd just been given the chance to?"

"Indeed."

Harry felt like he had won something, though he wasn't sure of what, exactly. "So . . . what's this potion?"

Snape went into a long explanation of the particulars of the experimental potion, and how certain ingredients would interact with others, and Harry was surprised to find he understood at least half - if not more - of what he was talking about. Not that he could have come up with such a thing on his own, but he didn't feel so completely out of his depth as he usually did when listening to Snape wax on about his favorite things.

"The first stage needs to rest for ten hours after it is done, so we may as well make it now, and we can start the next stage tomorrow morning."

"Sounds good," Harry said, and the two of them started the potion, with Harry in charge of slicing the valerian root thinly while Snape got the base of armadillo bile and syrup of hellebore going.

When it came time to add the shredded Jobberknoll feathers, Harry added the first pinch of five while Snape stirred. He had a sudden thought. "When you first gave me that journal, you know?" he offered quietly. "I didn't want to write in it. Didn't know what to write. I thought it was stupid."

"Mm," Snape said, noncommittally.

Harry took it for a good sign, regardless. "But then you attached it to flying, and when I could fly . . ." He stopped briefly, pining again for his broom. At lunch, Snape had told him that earlier, while Harry was still sleeping, he had gone out and Accio'd the Firebolt. Surprisingly, when Harry looked it over, the broom was more or less intact, though a good quarter of its bristles were bent, and the handle had a decent rock-shaped gouge in it. Despite the fact that his broom could fly again, however, Harry could not. He was grounded.

"I do recall as much," said Snape, breaking into his thoughts. Just as well, too, since he was starting to dwell on things he could do nothing to change. Again. Snape's opinion was that, sometimes such ruminating made Harry more anxious or upset than a situation warranted.

"Yeah, so . . . er, I mean, yes, sir. So, because I wanted to fly, but didn't want to write, I decided to write lists instead of feelings." He put as much distaste as he could into the final word.

Snape ignored his tone, as he often did when acknowledging something would only lead to an argument. "Lists of what?"

Harry gave him a wry smile. "Potion ingredients." He sprinkled in the last pinch of feathers then put on a pair of gloves so he could hand Snape the special pure-silver stirring rod and take the regular brass one from him.

"Potion ingredients." Snape sounded so deadpan, Harry wished he had a joke ready.

"Uh-huh," he said, since that word was not on the list of banned ones. "Ingredients. Alphabetically, by potion. I started with the Aging potion, then Amortentia, and worked my way down the list."

Harry glanced up to see Snape staring, mouth open, before the man caught himself and stirred the potion correctly before it was ruined. The stirring started in a figure eight, which he repeated three times before he spoke again. "You had all those memorized?" He sounded so doubtful that Harry had to correct him.

"Yes." Harry cleared his throat. "The main ingredients in Aging potion are asphodel, powdered bicorn horn, chopped daisy roots and rat spleen. The main ingredients in Amortentia potion are ashwinder eggs, lacewing flies, lovage, and-"

"All right, all right, you know them." Snape's eyes were wide, but his hand kept stirring a perfect figure eight.

"Well, only the First through Fifth year potions."

Snape was quiet for another few minutes. "I'll say again, there seems little wrong with your long term memory."

"I know." It was not the whole truth, but it was all Harry wanted to admit.

Snape finished the required sixteen figure eights before he added three slices of valerian root and stirred thrice clockwise, then thrice counter-clockwise before motioning to Harry to add three more slices. "Tell me more about your shelves."

Damn. Just what he didn't want to talk about. Harry sighed. He'd known he wouldn't get out of that discussion, but still. Of course, if he had not brought up the memory of his early journal writing, which had been jogged by working on potions, he probably wouldn't be stuck answering questions about his freakish memory now. He watched the slow movement of the silver stirring rod as it slid through the thick, bubbling liquid. He was not looking forward to ingesting this damned concoction, either, but at least it didn't smell too bad. He had until tomorrow anyway, he reminded himself. At least.

Sighing again, Harry said, "I spent a lot of time inside a cupboard, didn't I? Most of my world was the underside of the stairs and the shelves in that tiny space. When I was really young and didn't take up much room, Aunt Petunia kept cleaning supplies in the cupboard. She had to take out some of that stuff when I was older, so my bed could fit, but the shelves stayed. I put my own things on them. Both in reality and in my mind."

Snape nodded, obviously listening, even as he continued stirring three times in one direction, then three times in the other. All the valerian root had been added, and the potion was meant to turn eggshell blue before they moved to the next step. Right now the thinning concoction was the color of sapphires. "Go on."

"It's hard to explain," Harry told him. "But it makes perfect sense in my head. I mean, sitting on my bed, I could see everything in the cupboard, right? On every shelf. If I wanted to remember something, well, I'd just figure a way to attach it to something on one of the shelves, and then attach the next thing I want to remember to the next thing on the shelf. But, um, sometimes I can put imaginary things on the shelves, too, so I'll have something to attach things to, ideas or items I want to remember.

Er . . ." He bit his lip, worried he was confusing the professor. He'd known this was a bad idea. Maybe a specific instance would help. "Okay. For example, the Aging Potion. Aging is like old, so it could be represented by a bottle of my aunt's Old English furniture polish on one shelf. Beside the bottle could be an old mop head with yellow strings, which would remind me of the yellow tube-like flowers of the asphodel, see? So asphodel is attached to the mop head. Next on the shelf might be a picture of Ron's Dad, because the bicorn devours kind-hearted and devoted husbands, and so the picture becomes powdered bicorn horn. Then a few used up BBs, for the Daisy roots, and then some mouse or rat turds, not too uncommon in the cupboard, for the rat spleen. So, if I want to remember the ingredients of the Aging Potion, all I have to do is picture the shelf with the Old English polish in my mind, then go down the shelf in order to recall each item and what ingredient is attached to it. On the next shelf, I'd figure something to attach Amortentia to, and each potion ingredient would have a stand-in there, too."

Snape had that nearly blank thoughtful expression he occasionally wore, the one with no tells as far as Harry knew. Harry hitched up one shoulder, just in case. Of what, he could not say. But all Snape said was, "Bee Bees?"

"No, BBs. From my cousin's Daisy air rifle. He got one for Christmas when he was six." It was not a fond Christmas in Harry's memory. Of course, none of them had been, not until he came to Hogwarts. But that one particularly . . . he'd had so many little red blisters from where Dudley had shot him with the air rifle BBs at close range, it looked like he had a pox when school resumed. The school had sent him home, and Aunt Petunia had been livid! Not with what Dudders had done, of course. . . .

"When you were both six," Snape said. "You're the same age, aren't you?"

"Dudders is about a month older, but yes. Mostly."

For another few minutes of stirring, Snape didn't say anything, but Harry knew he would, when he was through processing whatever he was processing. He was not disappointed. "You use these shelves for everything?"

"Mostly," Harry repeated with a rueful smile. He was currently dropping Moly petals into the eggshell colored potion, one by one, as Severus continued stirring. "I have a couple of shelves full of Quidditch stuff: Players and their stats, various teams, tricky plays and specialized equipment, like types of brooms. Another shelf or two is for everything to do with Old Voldie; everything he's said to me or done - that I've read about - since he got his body back."

He looked away when it appeared Snape was going to say something comforting. Harry didn't like comforting platitudes.

"And your other school subjects?" Snape asked instead. "Do they occupy shelves as well?"

"They do now." At Snape's, "Hm?" he continued, "I don't think they just popped into being, but . . . like with the potion ingredients . . . now I can access those shelves, when I couldn't before, no matter how hard I tried."

"Perhaps you will do better in school work now."

"Perhaps," Harry agreed. He could honestly say that, apart from the discomfort of talking about stuff dangerously close to feelings, he was enjoying himself as he worked with Severus today. And he was glad his guardian seemed to understand about the shelves without asking him too many questions. He wasn't sure he could explain it better than he already had.

-HPSSHPSSHPSSHPSS-

Less than an hour later, Severus extinguished the flame under the cauldron and set a stasis spell around it so no dust or other contaminants could fall into the cauldron. The potion had to rest for ten hours before they could add the ground scarab beetles, then let it simmer for another two hours. In the meantime, he and Harry could have dinner, and - hopefully - get some sleep. Severus wasn't too certain about Harry achieving the latter goal, but the boy needed to try. Tomorrow afternoon, they would try the potion on him, to see if they could induce dreams while he was awake and better able to deal with them, and with Severus by his side to help.

If the potion did not work, Severus - with Harry's help - would fine tune it over the next few days, until they made it work, or else they could try a different potion.

Severus was pleasantly surprised to find that Harry honestly knew more about potions than he had demonstrated in class to this point. His knew understanding of the art might be due to the magical lesions having unleashed his ability of recall, using those shelves of his, which had eluded him until now. Or there might be something else at work. Severus did not know.

The shelves, now, he was surprised about Harry using that method of recall, and rather impressed, too. It was a bit of ingenious work for someone so young, not to mention without a classical education. He said as much to Harry. "Your shelves, as you explain them," he started, "remind me of the ancient art of loci memory, first described in the Rhetorica ad Herennium in 85 BC, quite possibly written by Quintus Cornificus. The Rhetorica is not only a treatise on rhetoric, but on the method of loci, which is a mnemonic device." He gave Harry a look. "Do you know what those are?"

Harry nodded. "Hermione told Ron and me about them once. They're dead useful. "

"Just so. This particular mnemonic, the method of loci, is the use of locations to recall details. The classic is a palace of some kind, where each room or corridor is 'attached,' to use your wording, to something you wish to remember."

Harry's expression was midway between confused and bemused, and Severus gave him a rare smile. "In other words, you figured out an ancient form of memory retention at a very young age and without Latin tutors. Well done."

Severus was pleased when Harry smiled back. Perhaps this would lay to rest some of the boy's fears about being a "freak." How he loathed that word, especially coming from Harry's lips, when he knew Harry was just parroting his Muggle relations. It would take many years, quite likely, before Harry ceased to think of himself by those words. No child, left alone in such an environment, could do more than Harry had to overcome such pervasive, insidious programming from the age of one onwards. But he had high hopes for Harry; he had already overcome so much.

"Thank you, Severus."

Severus nodded. He had given permission to Harry to call him by his given name when he became the boy's guardian, and yet Harry rarely took advantage . . . only when he was feeling secure, Severus realized. Hm. They'd have to work on that. But in the meantime, it was a good monitor for how safe Harry could be feeling at a particular time, since the boy was so reticent about actually saying he felt nervous or insecure.

Over the next few minutes, Severus described the last few steps of the potion, which they would undertake tomorrow, and then they headed upstairs where they started preparing dinner together. Harry shredded lettuce then cut up tomatoes, mushrooms and radishes for a salad, while Severus reheated the minestrone from the night before. When the soup was hot, he sprinkled a good portion of shredded cheddar cheese on top of each serving before bringing them to the table. The cheese melted in nicely, forming long strings back to the bowl with nearly every bite.

For a while, they ate quietly together in silence, until Severus said, "Would you rather spar in the mornings, or the evenings?"

Harry seemed to consider his words before answering, which Severus always preferred to rash decisions. "If I choose mornings, can we still spar tonight?"

"Certainly."

"Mornings, then. Please."

"Very well."

After dinner, they cleaned up together, with Severus washing up and Harry drying the bowls, plates and utensils before wiping down the counters. "This is so much easier with two than one," Harry said as they were finishing.

"Most jobs are," Severus replied.

"Well, yea- er, yes." Harry gave him a shy smile. "I just mean, with this job in particular. I used to hate doing it."

"At the Dursleys?"

Harry nodded. "Sometimes . . . most times, I had to clean up when I hadn't even gotten to eat. It sucked." He pressed his lips together and looked down. "Sorry."

"It's alright, Harry," Severus said quickly. "I don't appreciate vulgarity, as you are well aware, but sometimes, especially when you are expressing your emotions about past circumstances, we can have a bit of leeway with vocabulary."

A quick nod. "Okay. Thanks."

"Now, about the suckiness of doing-"

"Can we not do this now?" Harry interrupted. "I'd rather not get into it, if it's all right with you. I'd rather just spar tonight. Can we?"

Feeling indulgent after the day's work on the potion, and Harry's fairly good attitude throughout the day, Severus acquiesced. "We can. But we will continue this conversation at some point."

"At tea, right?" Harry said with a cheeky grin. "But tomorrow?"

"Yes, tomorrow. Go on now, get into your sparring robes."

During the ensuing hour or so of sparring, Severus took note of the fact that Harry was more on track than he had been for several weeks. Perhaps even one good night's sleep had done him good. Afterwards, they both opted for showers and a little relaxation time in front of the fire before an early bedtime. Though they were not as far north as Hogwarts, darkness came on quickly here after the sun set, and Harry's yawing was making Severus feel tired.

"Can I have more dreamless sleep tonight?" the boy asked before going to bed.

"No, I'm sorry. You just had it last night."

Harry gave him a sneer worthy of a Malfoy. "So I'll have nightmares then. Thanks."

"Harry-"

"No, it's okay, if you don't mind being woken by my screaming, who'm I to object?"

"Harry!" The sharp tone brought the boy up short. Severus stood and moved toward him, but stopped when Harry flinched back. He held up his hands and spoke softly. "Try occluding tonight instead. I know you haven't been practicing much Occlumency lately. It might help stave off the nightmares. Would you like me to help you meditate tonight?"

Looking ashamed at his outburst, Harry almost shrugged, but then nodded instead. "Yea- I mean, okay. That'd be good."

"Very well. Get into bed, and I'll be in there in a few minutes." He watched the boy go, feeling again like he was walking a very thin wire with a very dangerous boiling cauldron below, just knowing the wire was going to snap, or that he might miss a step. Harry was still - and would be for a long time - on edge, because of his addiction and the lack of decent, regular dreaming sleep. Severus had to remember that, and make the appropriate adjustments.

A few minutes later, he had composed himself well enough to go into Harry's room and pull a chair up beside the bed. For the next half hour, Severus ran through one of the more complicated, but far deeper meditations, from which he hoped Harry would naturally enter a deep sleep.

The meditation seemed to work, as he did not get any signal from Dormenhause during the night that Harry needed him, or that the boy had suffered nightmares. But soon after he rose at 6AM, the house did alert him to someone arriving by portkey in the same field as he and Harry had arrived two days ago.

The alarm did not feel urgent, and Severus realized why when he caught sight of who their "guest" was a few seconds later: Albus Dumbledore moving as fast as his old legs would carry him towards the front door.

Severus sighed. Could they not have more than two days to work on Harry's issues without the grand meddler coming to meddle?

But Albus' news - when he deigned to give it, after being plied with tea and eating half of a pastry he had brought from Hogwarts - was more dire than mere meddling.

"Draco Malfoy is in danger at Hogwarts, and from Voldemort," Albus told him, while shaking iced scone crumbs from his beard. "I'd like you to take him in."

TBC….

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A/N: Cheers to all who read and/or review! Harry and Snapalicious hugs for everyone! And for today only: a special sneer-filled hug from Draco!