Harry was certain about one thing: the Professor was going to kill him. Or, at the very least, finally make good on his threat of sending Harry away.
Harry stared miserably down at the mess of ink and parchment spread before him. Why, oh, why couldn't he use the stupid feather thing the Professor had left out for him? It shouldn't have been that hard, not really, but for some reason he couldn't get the hang of it.
He'd really tried, too. He'd dipped the feather-pen into the ink and tried so hard to copy the words the Professor had painstakingly written out for him. Not words about Harry being a stupid, selfish, thoughtless little boy or a burden. Words about safety and respect. Complicated words, too, like the Professor thought that Harry wasn't as dumb as his aunt and uncle liked to say. And all he'd managed to do, after blotting ink everywhere across the parchment and smearing it on his hands and clothes when he tried to mop it up, was scratch out a single, childish copy of the line. Barely legible, and he'd pierced the parchment in several places—and the ink of his script was uneven, fading in some places and far too thick in others.
The sight of the botched mess before him made his throat tighten unpleasantly and his stomach churn, and tears pricked in his eyes as he thought about how the Professor would look when he came upon this. Not only had Harry failed to make any progress on his punishment, but he'd made another mess of things. He'd even stained the table in some places, though he'd vigorously tried to scrub the ink away, both with his sleeves and a dampened rag from under the sink.
Harry cast another nervous glance toward the sitting room, wondering how awful it would be to go get the Professor now. He could see the man's face darkening in his mind, maybe turning purple like Uncle Vernon's, and he would shout about how worthless Harry was, and how awful it was to have him around….
No, Harry decided, he was going to fix this before the Professor even found out. If he only knew how to clean up ink…. But that was just the thing with this black ink. Every time he tried to wipe it away, it only seemed to spread. Water didn't work; it only diluted the stuff. And besides, he'd already gotten it all over most of the clean parchment the Professor had provided. There was no way to fix that.
If only the Professor had given him a ballpoint pen….
Harry stared for a moment longer at the hopeless mess, then scurried over to the cabinet beneath the sink. That was where his Aunt Petunia always kept her cleaning supplies, so there might be something….
"Merlin, Potter, what…."
Harry whipped around, startled to his feet. His heart started pounding out a painful rhythm in his chest as the terrible scene he'd been imagining for the past hour started to unfold before his eyes.
The Professor was standing at the entrance to the kitchen, massaging his forehead with the tips of his fingers. His other hand rested unpromisingly on his hip.
"I'm sorry," Harry choked out, dropping his eyes to the ground and twisting his ink-stained hands into his oversized shirt. How he wished he could just do something right for a change so that he wasn't always apologizing so pathetically to the man.
Harry could feel the man's gaze piercing him, stripping him to the bone, though he couldn't bring himself to lift his head.
"You've gotten ink on your face—in your hair…."
Harry closed his eyes tight and waited, feeling very much like a prisoner awaiting his sentence. "Sorry," he repeated in a frail whisper.
"You couldn't be bothered to do your punishment, so you decided to finger-paint with the ink instead?" Snape demanded frostily.
Harry forced himself to swallow, even though his throat was so tight it ached. "I—I didn't mean to, I just couldn't get the feather to write like a pen, and I thought I needed more ink, but then I got too much, and it blobbed on the paper, so I tried to get it off, and then I got some on the table, so I tried to wipe it away, but that just made a bigger mess, and—and I didn't know what to do, but I was going to clean it up—"
"Muggles," Snape muttered irritably, sounding as if he were speaking more to himself than to Harry. "Muggles don't use quills, of course…."
Harry suddenly found his head tilted sharply up by the Professor's long, cool fingers. The man was staring down at him, his expression strangely impassive for as angry as he'd seemed just seconds before. He'd lifted his wand to Harry's face.
Harry flinched back automatically, sure that the man was going to use magic to punish him somehow. He was pretty sure the Professor knew some awful spells he could use if he really wanted to….
But when the Professor flicked his wand, Harry just felt a strange, warm fizzing across his face, like thousands of tiny bubbles. It was almost pleasant.
"Hands now," the man commanded, gesturing with his wand to indicate that Harry should lift them. Another flick and more almost-pleasant fizzing and the ink that had stained Harry's hands had vanished.
Harry pressed himself into the corner as the Professor set the rest of the kitchen back to rights. The man seemed more weary than furious, but Harry thought that meant nothing. His aunt and uncle could go from shaking their heads quietly in disbelief to spitting fire (or close to it) in just seconds.
Finally the Professor turned back to Harry. His brow furrowed slightly as Harry instinctively pressed further back into his corner. The man looked as if he might sneer and make some snide comment for a moment, but in the end he closed his mouth and simply crooked a finger at Harry, gesturing for him to come forward.
Harry tried to straighten his shoulders and spine and at least face the man's wrath with some dignity. He hated when he hunched down before his aunt and uncle just before they announced some cruel punishment, or launched into a tirade on how terribly useless and ungrateful a boy he was. It felt a little better if he could stand and take it, and act like the sharp words weren't really hurting him. Even though they felt like they were cutting him to ribbons every time.
He shuffled forward a few feet until he was standing directly in front of the Professor.
"Is there some reason," the man began slowly, one long finger tapping impatiently against his black-clad arm, "that you did not seek me out as soon as you began having difficulties?"
Harry bit his lower lip hard. That was a stupid question, though he would never say as much to the Professor. Harry hadn't wanted the man to find out about this at all…. "I thought I could clean it up," he replied, trying to speak clearly. His uncle hated it when he mumbled.
"And how, exactly, would that have helped you with your inability to use a quill?" the Professor demanded sharply.
Harry shifted his weight restlessly. He didn't understand the Professor's questions—or, at least, why the man was bothering to ask these things. Did he want Harry to apologize for being so clumsy and useless too? For not being able to write with the stupid feather pen? "It wouldn't, but—but… Professor, I really did try to write my lines, honest. I did my best but I just couldn't… I'm real sorry that I'm no good at writing with—with the feather—"
"Quill," the Professor corrected, his tone still piercing. "And I am not asking you to be sorry for you lack of skills, you foolish boy. I am asking why it did not cross your feeble brain to tell me that you had no idea what you were doing. Did you honestly believe that I could reasonably expect you to be able to write your lines when you'd never so much as seen a quill in your life?"
Harry felt a flush steal over his face. The Professor sounded like he thought Harry was especially dense. And maybe he was, because he still didn't quite understand why the Professor wasn't yelling at him for making such an awful mess and making no progress with his work. "I didn't want to bother you, sir—"
"Yes, it was much more practical for you to simply struggle on your own. The results speak for themselves." The Professor shook his head in irritation. "Or did you think that I would prefer you to coat yourself and my kitchen in ink?"
Harry shook his head. "I should have been more careful—"
"You should have spoken up!" The Professor grabbed Harry by the arm then, and steered him over to the table, forcing him back into the chair he'd been sitting in all morning. The parchment was back to normal then—clean, miraculously, except for the sheet Harry had tried to write on, and stacked beside the inkwell. "If you do not know how to do something, Potter, the logical thing to do is to ask for help. Is that clear?"
Harry bobbed his head once, stunned. Wasn't the Professor more upset about the disaster Harry had created? Sure, it had been easy enough for the man to clear up, just a few waves of his wand…. And that wasn't all. It had been ages since the man had set him to writing lines, and Harry had barely scratched out one. Why wasn't he yelling about that?
No, instead he was lecturing Harry about asking for help. As if he would have given it. As if the Professor expected Harry to need help in things, and wouldn't be annoyed—or, at least, not too annoyed—if Harry went to him. As if it were okay to admit that he couldn't do everything by himself.
His aunt and uncle hated when Harry needed things or didn't know how to do things. Learning chores when he had been little had been awful for that reason. Asking for help was the equivalent of asking to be berated and insulted, called stupid and lazy and worthless….
But the Professor was different. How many times was Harry going to have to learn this same lesson? He should know by now. After all, hadn't the man given Harry really good medicine and sat with him after his nightmare, and made him a night light to keep by his bedside? And hadn't he bought Harry toys, and let him read his books, and not sent Harry away, even when he'd disobeyed the Professor and caused all kinds of trouble and almost gotten himself killed?
"Potter!"
Harry snapped out of his reverie and glanced apprehensively up at the Professor's face, which was now lined with impatience.
"An answer, if you will."
Harry swallowed thickly. "I'll… I'll ask for help, sir, if I need it."
The Professor's lips were still thin and unhappy, his arms still folded tightly over his chest. "Even when your foolish pride demands otherwise, yes?"
Harry didn't really see what pride had to do with anything. He just hadn't wanted to make the Professor mad if he could help it. But he answered "yes, sir" in his meekest tone anyway.
"Good," the Professor approved, though his voice was still cold. "Why don't you practice now?"
Harry's head snapped up, startled. "P-practice?"
"Abandoning your ridiculous pride and admitting you need help. Your stubbornness forms a disturbing pattern, Potter, with destructive consequences. Need I remind you of the glass you broke just last night because you were too proud to wake me?"
Harry shook his head, dropping his eyes again.
"Let's hear it, Potter, while I'm still young."
Harry wetted his lips, drowning in uncertainty. "Professor," he began hesitantly, "w-would you help me with the feath—with the quill?"
In his familiar sarcastic drawl, the Professor replied, "I would be delighted."
Harry could not help but marvel a little at the Professor's patience with him. The man sat him down for a good half an hour and showed him everything from how to sharpen and maintain his quill point to how to keep from getting ink blots on the paper. He even demonstrated how to control the width and shape of the line, and had Harry write out the alphabet, capitol and lower-case, in order to make sure that the boy had a decent grasp on writing. The man continually adjusted Harry's grip on the quill, occasionally covering Harry's hand with his own and guiding it on the parchment so that he could demonstrate the motions.
Finally, after Harry had written out his first actual line—much more legible, though still far from perfect—the Professor seemed satisfied with Harry's abilities.
"Now," the man sighed, straightening from where he'd been bent over the table, observing Harry. "I think we have that sorted. Continue your lines. I will be working in my lab until lunch. If you need me for anything, Potter, you are to come and get me. Anything. I want no more disasters in my home because you foolishly thought you could manage on your own." Without waiting for a response, the Professor stalked from the room, deigning to cast one final glare of warning at his young charge.
The hours ticked by slowly. Harry knew that his punishment could have been much worse than having to copy lines with the finicky, old-fashioned writing instrument he was still fighting with, but as the minutes ticked by, and as the numbered list of the meticulously-copied lines grew, his hand started to cramp and his body ached from the hard chair. He had to stop, set the quill down—carefully, Potter, so the ink doesn't seep everywhere—and shake out his hand just to combat the writer's cramp that seemed to be growing at an exponential rate. Too, he found himself fidgeting in his chair, shifting this way and that, experimentally leaning his weight forward and back and eventually drawing his legs up beneath him so he could rest on his calves.
At least the tremors didn't return. That would have been a real problem, given how easy it was to make a complete mess of things with the dark, tacky ink.
By the time the Professor entered into the kitchen, Harry's hand was aching and his whole lower body felt painfully stiff. He hadn't dared waste too much time stretching out or flexing his hand, since he'd already lost so much time that morning and wanted to have a good amount of lines done to show the Professor that he was taking his chastisement seriously.
The man said nothing, only stepped quietly behind him to observe him at work. Harry continued to scratch out his latest line, working to ignore the Professor's piercing gaze.
I will obey all adults and rules set by—
Blast it! Harry felt a deep crimson blush burning on his cheeks. He'd lost his concentration. He resisted the urge to steal a glance up at the Professor; he didn't want to see the man's sneer or disapproving look anyway, he reminded himself. Instead, he dipped his quill back into the ink pot, fighting to keep it steady—now, he knew, the tremors were from nerves, nothing else—and carefully struck a line through the botched sentence.
Focus, he ordered himself. I will obey all rules and strictures… he dipped the quill again, carefully to allow the excess to drip off back into the pot, just as the Professor had showed him. … set by adults, as disobeying… Ach, that last word was running together, and his letters were so ugly. The Professor had to be scoffing at him and shaking his head right now. … not only endangers my life but also… demonstrates a marked lack of respect for my elders. There. He'd finished, and the sentence was larger than the others, and crooked, and less legible—and, frankly, less than legible in general, except maybe to Harry, who knew how to decipher it.
Shaking his head to himself, he thought it would be better not to even count that line. No way would the Professor think that Harry had done it up to his standards…. He dipped the quill to strike through that line too, but the Professor interrupted him.
"Good enough for now, Potter. Stopper the ink and stack everything neatly over on the opposite side of the table, and then go wash up."
Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He was ready to be done for a moment, and if the Professor hadn't noticed his atrocious writing…. Well, sure the man would notice later. He wasn't the kind of person to let little details slip by him, Harry knew. But it was nice not to have to deal with it just now.
So Harry murmured a quiet "yes, sir", and did as he was bade.
"And change your shirt!" the Professor added just before Harry made it out of the kitchen.
Harry glanced, abashed, down at the dark ink blots that marred his sleeves. It hadn't really bothered him, since this was a really old shirt from Dudley, one that already had too many tiny holes in it to count, and stains on both sides as well as on the sleeves. Harry thought that the new dark stains might even be covering up some worse-looking spots, blotches of something rust-colored that looked nasty against the yellow cream fabric.
Besides that, Harry hated yellow. Especially this incarnation of the color. He'd dye the whole shirt black with ink if he didn't think the Professor would just murder him for that kind of tomfoolery.
Well, he would change. Though he was out of clean shirts now. But he could just do like he did at the Dursleys, start rotating shirts. Which meant he would probably be stuck in that horrid mustard-yellow jumper that he'd worn on his first night in Spinner's End….
Well. No use in dwelling on it, Harry figured.
Minutes later he was washed and changed, once again in the mustard jumper, with the sleeves rolled up so far that they formed ridiculous bulky cuffs at Harry's wrists. There was simply too much excess sleeve to leave them unrolled, though.
The Professor studied Harry quietly for a moment from his place at the sink, his lips pursed in a small frown. He said nothing, in the end, about Harry's attire, instead ordering brusquely, "Come, up by the sink. I assume you can handle washing a few fruits and vegetables?"
Harry did as he was instructed, carefully rinsing two apples and scrubbing a handful of carrots beneath the ice-cold water of the faucet. He didn't know if the Professor thought of this as a chore or a part of his punishment—after all, he had announced that Harry could help with the meals that morning, but it had sounded more like a concession than anything. But whatever the man thought, Harry was quietly pleased to be working alongside the Professor.
After all, it was nothing like making meals at the Dursleys. Had he been back with his aunt and uncle, his aunt would have hovered over him, her shrewd eyes darting over his work, speaking only to disperse criticisms and admonishments to work faster or harder or more efficiently. But here… here, the Professor handled most of the work, even though it was just slicing bread and assembling their sandwiches, then peeling and cutting the carrots, most done with a lazy flick of his wand.
But there was something comfortable in the silence they shared, which was broken only when the Professor asked if he wanted any condiments on his sandwich. Which were, the Professor explained with a mild glare as Harry stifled the urge to giggle, things like mustard and mayo, and not anything inappropriate.
Once they'd sat down to eat with their plates, Harry began to seriously contemplate the Professor's current mood. Despite the awful night and all the things Harry had messed up that morning, the man did not seem too irritable. In fact, he seemed pretty even-tempered.
And it was probably a good idea, Harry decided, swallowing past the sudden lump in his throat, to take advantage of the Professor's knowledge while he still could. Because if he was going to a new family at the end of the week—which now seemed wholly inevitable, Harry thought, because there was no way the Professor would even consider letting him stay after all the trouble he'd caused—he might not have a chance to ask all his stupid questions about wizards and magic. If he got it all out of his system, maybe he could make a good impression on his new family by not asking too many questions and seeming like he already knew lots about everything.
"Sir?" Harry asked tentatively, testing the waters.
The Professor finished sipping his water and set it meticulously down on the table, leveling a bland stare at Harry. "What?"
Not too angry and biting, Harry decided. That was a good sign. "I was wondering, sir…. Do you know why wizards use feath—quills—instead of normal pens?"
The man arched a brow at Harry. But it wasn't a how can you be so stupid look, Harry knew. It was more of a where do you come up with these questions look. "Generally speaking, the ink used with quills takes to spells easier than the mass-produced rubbish Muggles put into their ballpoint pens." Snape sneered the last two words as if he regretted letting them touch his tongue, so palpable was their taint. "Too, I think you will find that the wizarding world tends to be old-fashioned, and clings to its traditions with an unnatural ferocity. Heritage often takes precedence over convenience or practicality." The Professor paused, his gaze shifting far beyond Harry for a moment. "And one might make the argument for aesthetics, I suppose… the calligraphic script produced by quills is by far superior to the scraggly little lines those Muggle devices create."
Harry nodded to himself, storing the information—or, the gist of it, at least—away for future contemplation. "Thank you, sir."
The Professor nodded marginally in acknowledgment, his customary response to Harry's expression of thanks. Harry got the impression that, even though the Professor didn't show it, he liked it when Harry was overly polite and respectful, so he made sure to thank the Professor for everything. At the very least, taking that precaution would keep him from sinking any lower in the Professor's estimation. He hoped….
Deciding that he was feeling brave, and bolstered especially by the Professor's lengthy and thoughtful reply, Harry decided to try his luck. Besides, he only had a few days left with the man… and he had to know. The man's mention of his mother had been niggling at the back of his mind all morning, threatening to distract him from the task of writing out lines.
The man had known his mother, and made a promise to her to help keep Harry safe. And that was more than anyone had ever told him about his mum. Except, well, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, but they'd said awful things, and Professor Dumbledore had said that all of them were lies, that they hadn't died in a car crash, that they hadn't been drunks or unemployed or mooches, that they had been brave and good and kind.
But those were all general things, the kinds of nice things that you said about people after they'd passed away. They didn't mean anything.
But the Professor had known his mum somehow, which meant he could tell Harry real things, like her favorite color and foods, and what she liked to wear, and what her best subjects in school had been, and maybe even what her voice had sounded like.
"Sir?"
The Professor lifted his eyes to the ceiling for a moment before dropping them back to Harry. "Yes, Potter?"
Uh oh. Sounded like the patience was wearing thin now. Maybe that last question had taken a lot out of him. Well, better to ask his question and see what he made of it. If the man snapped at Harry to stop pestering him, well, he could clam right up.
"You said you knew my mother."
The Professor's face hardened. "I did," he replied carefully, his words clipped and his dark eyes dangerous.
Harry almost stopped there. But he just had to know, if there was the slightest chance that the Professor might share something with him…. "I… I was wondering…. Could you maybe… tell me about her? Please?" Harry hoped his voice didn't sound too wheedling or desperate, but he knew it must, because he could barely contain himself.
Maybe it was stupid to want to know things about parents who were already dead and gone. After all, learning more about them wasn't going to bring them back, and knowing little details about them couldn't possibly do Harry any good. For a long time now Harry had known that it was just better to forget about them and concentrate on the future, because thinking about what might have been would only hurt him and make him miserable.
But he still had to know. And he couldn't change that longing.
He watched the Professor's face very carefully, searching for the barest shifts and hints in the man's expression. If it turned stormy and angry, like he feared, Harry was ready to apologize profusely for bothering the man. Then he would promise to never bring it up again, and he would eat the rest of his meal in perfect silence. And hopefully that would smooth things over.
But there was no flash of anger, as Harry had feared. If anything, the man's features grew more drawn and a touch paler, and something like sorrow emerged in the Professor's dark eyes. He did not speak at first. His gaze shifted to a point beyond Harry, as it sometimes did.
After a few moments of his heart pounding in his ears amidst the ominous silence, Harry was on the verge of blurting out his apology and returning to his meal.
But then the Professor spoke. "What would you like to know?"
Harry felt a special warmth flood through him. The man was going to tell him something, not just dismiss him completely. And what would he ask? What did he want to know the most? There was no way to organize the chaos of his thoughts. Did his mum have many friends? Was the Professor one of them? Did he look like her at all? What did she look like exactly? And what had she done for work, or did she stay at home with Harry?
Then Harry realized that he had no idea how the man knew his mother. That would be a good place to start. "Did you teach my mum in school, sir?" he asked shyly.
For a moment Harry thought he'd really screwed up. The man looked appalled, his brow furrowing darkly as if Harry had seriously offended him. And Harry didn't know what he'd said. The man was a professor, right? Wasn't it reasonable for him to assume that he might have taught his mum? Because his mum had been a wizard—no, witch, Harry remembered, girls were witches, the Professor had told him—and he knew the Professor taught at Hogwarts, which was the only magical school he knew of.
But the Professor's fury ebbed as quickly as it had flared, though his words were still terse with irritation. "Just how old do you think I am, Potter?"
Oh. Harry hadn't figured on that, had he? Because he didn't know how old his mum would be now. Younger than his Aunt Petunia, he knew. But he had no idea how old the Professor was. He studied the man surreptitiously from beneath his fringe, but that was no help. The man was older, but how old, Harry couldn't say. Not too old. Clearly not so old that he could have taught Harry's mum.
Harry swallowed thickly and mumbled, "Sorry, sir."
The Professor let out a breath rather noisily and rolled his eyes to the ceiling, his favorite gesture as far as Harry was concerned. "No, I didn't teach your mother, Merlin forbid. We were the same age. She grew up in the same neighborhood as I did."
"Here?" Harry asked breathily, unable to contain his excitement.
Snape winced. "Close to here. A little ways away, in a much… nicer… part of town."
Harry almost asked if the man would show him his mum's old house, but stopped himself. He was only going to be here for a few days more, and on punishment. It would be stupid of him to ask for such a large favor, and he would just irritate the Professor with his request anyway.
Harry was just sifting through the myriad of other questions he longed to ask, trying to decide how best to steer the conversation, when the Professor spoke again. His words were soft, musing, almost as if he'd forgotten entirely about Harry's presence.
"Well, I suppose it is incorrect to say that I didn't teach her at all," he murmured, resting his elbows on the table and steepling his fingers. His eyes were still fixed on a distant point. Maybe the past, Harry thought. Some adults seemed to be like that, seemed to see the past as a physical place way out on the horizon somewhere. "Your mother had no idea that she was a witch, and she came from a family of Muggles. She knew nothing of our world—not about Hogwarts or owls or even wands. I taught her everything I knew. She was always full of questions…."
For a moment, Snape's eyes drifted back to Harry, and they were not keen and piercing as they normally were. They were soft, unfocused in a way, as if he were seeing Harry through a thick haze. And in that look Harry could read the unspoken like you.
Harry swallowed hard, fighting down the strange, warm sadness that was rising up in him and forcing tears to prickle at his eyes. Despite clearing his throat, though, his words were still rough. "Did she have to learn to use a quill too?"
Snape's eyes shifted to the beyond again, and a sad smile tugged at his lips—just a faint lift at the corners, but on the man's normally dour face the change was as noticeable as a full-blown grin. "Yes, she did. She shared some of your complaints. Though she did manage to keep from getting ink everywhere on her first attempt."
Harry blushed. "You showed her how to write with one?"
Snape closed his eyes lightly. His head tipped forward a little toward his steepled fingers. "I did. Our first summer… she asked how wizards wrote letters. So I told her, and then showed her. She sent me a letter every day after that. I lent her a quill and ink, but no parchment, so she used the pathetically thin paper that you could buy from Muggle print shops. The ink soaked through horribly, and her penmanship was atrocious…."
"But it got better?" Harry asked quietly, almost afraid to interrupt. It was like a spell had settled over the Professor, and Harry was afraid that reminding the man of his existence would shatter the whole thing. And then he would never learn anything more about his mum.
Snape dipped his head slightly in affirmation. "It improved, yes, with practice." And then the man's eyes snapped open, just as Harry had feared they would. They were cool and present again, polished onyx rather than concentrated black smoke. "Enough reminiscing. Finish your lunch, Potter. You have chores to complete this afternoon."
And with that the Professor rose rather jerkily, clearing his place—though he'd only finished half of the food on his plate—and noisily consigning his dishes to the sink.
"You can start with tidying up in here. Wash and dry the dishes by hand, wipe down the counters… then, I think, you can tend to some weeding for a bit." And with that the Professor swept out, dark robes fluttering behind him.
Harry stared unhappily down at his half-finished turkey sandwich. Well, he told himself, it was more than you thought you would get. And it wasn't as if the Professor had made some snide, cutting remark as he sometimes did when he was in a particularly prickly mood. He'd only shut down and left, nothing more. No remarks about how Harry was an uncouth little cretin, prying into private memories as if he had a right to them….
Well, that sentiment was definitely more Dursley. The Professor insulted Harry, but never quite as nastily as his relatives. For Snape, it seemed it was more sport or an outlet for frustration, never a means of cutting Harry off at the knees and reminding him of his place.
Still, even the absence of harsh words did nothing to quell the painful longing left in the absence of Snape's words. The first time that someone had bothered to really tell Harry about his parents—even just about his mum—and now he felt an unquenchable thirst. To know more. Everything about her. He wanted Snape to talk for days, for him to drag every last tiny, insignificant detail out of his brain, as if all those memories could somehow make up for Harry's mother's eternal absence.
It never would. Harry knew that. It felt like a very adult thing to know, that no matter how much you knew about a person and how much you wished they were still alive, it wouldn't make a difference. Harry knew he longed for something that would forever be just out of his reach. Like the Greek guy they'd learned about in primary, when their teacher had told them lots and lots of stories about the gods and goddesses. Tanta-something-or-other, who was sentenced to stand in a pool with a fruit tree above him, starving and thirsty. And for all eternity he would try to drink but never be able to lower his head to the water, or try to eat but never be able to reach the fruit.
Except Tanta-whoever had actually done lots of awful things to deserve his punishment. Harry didn't remember exactly what, but he was pretty sure it involved stealing and killing. And Harry hadn't done anything. Some crazy evil wizard had just decided to kill an innocent baby, and Harry's parents had just happened to be in the way.
Harry pushed himself violently away from the table, suddenly deciding that he was no longer hungry. That, and he was suddenly in dire need of a distraction. Even chores.
But as Harry scrubbed their plates (there really wasn't much to clean up, given how simple their lunch had been), his thoughts kept drifting away to daydreams of a red-haired girl and a dark-haired boy and lazy summer days spent beneath a large tree, parchment and ink spread before them, as the dark-haired boy explained, See, if the angle isn't correct, the line will be sloppy….
Chapter 11