Now, the man wasn't specifically doing anything. In fact, his behavior had been spectacularly normal since that day, upholding his habit of sneering about Harry's incompetence at the regular, expected intervals. However, it was precisely that fact which disturbed Harry the most. Snape hadn't once mentioned what he'd witnessed. And for someone with a history of latching onto the slightest inspiration for ridicule, his discretion was scarier than anything else.
"Potter."
The professor's voice interrupted his thoughts. Harry came back to himself, trying to focus his eyes on the man, but to no avail -- the night was far too dark.
The surrounding forest wasn't especially dense, but whatever moonlight could have been in attendance was obscured by clouds and fog. They stood on the gradual slope of a large hill, the road at the bottom behind them. A lazy rain dripped from the sparse canopy above, the intervals between icy droplets just spaced out enough to be annoying.
"Potter," came the strict prompt again, off to his left. "Do you intend to keep pace, or would you prefer to continue your loitering?"
The professor had opted out of using any lighting charms and, though he hadn't provided any reasons, Harry could guess why. They stood in the footsteps of Violet Ayers and, by extension, Barty Crouch Jr.; there was an indisputable danger underlining their every action.
Dead leaves crunched underfoot as Harry made his way toward Snape, withholding any complaint he might have had. As he approached, he could discern the vague outline of the man's crouched form.
"She was in this area for some time," Snape said, more to himself than to Harry. "Scattered signature, faint but consistent."
He had no real clue what Snape meant by that, nor did he understand how tracking spells worked at all, but he could at least infer the purpose for the comment. "Does the trail end here?"
"Perhaps," Snape conceded, though he still seemed intent on his work.
"What does that mean?"
"It means the circumstances are rarely so simple."
Harry looked around, squinting at the skinny trunks of the nearby trees. "This is nothing like the Forbidden Forest," he commented. "The road is just there, so it's almost… out in the open."
"It would not be an ideal location to linger, no," the professor murmured, standing to full height. Suddenly, he went incredibly still, staring straight ahead; Harry followed his gaze, tense, but could see nothing of import.
Instinctively lowering his voice to a whisper, he said, "What is it?"
For a moment, the man ignored him, watching and waiting. Then, his gaze flicked to Harry. "There is a ward up ahead."
"What?" Harry said, straining his eyes to look. "How do you know?"
Without warning, Snape began walking further up the hill. With a sigh, he swallowed his questions, feet nearly slipping into a murky puddle as he ascended the same way.
As far as Harry could tell, there was nothing to see. Nothing but damp ground and swaying branches, dark shapes crafted from the shadows of leaves. He clutched his wand out of habit, the feel of it comforting despite the fact he knew he couldn't use it.
The professor stopped as abruptly as he'd started. "Ostendo."
Just as the last time Harry had seen the spell performed, a cord of white light emerged from between the trees and attached itself to his sternum. However, that time, instead of it being thread-like, it was as thick as a braided rope.
He looked at Snape. The man's face was cast in harsh light, illuminated by the glow of the magic. His cord was scrolled outward and he was frowning down at it, expression otherwise unreadable. Leery of copying the action, lest he attract Snape's considerable ire, Harry drew himself closer to the professor to chance a look, but…
It was blank. Where before Harry had seen row after row of runes and shapes and connections, now there was nothing there at all. Just an empty, glowing space.
"What does that mean?" he asked, attempting to break up the oppressive silence.
Snape ended the spell, drenching them in darkness yet again, and walked further ahead. This time, Harry didn't follow; before the light had gone out, he'd spotted something peculiar. Stepping over a puddle, he made his way to the place, sorting past the leaves to pick up the abandoned object.
It was a torch, he realized straight away. Clicking the button revealed that the batteries were dead.
Snape was watching him when he turned back. "Found a torch," he murmured by way of explanation.
The man lost interest in him and Harry turned the object over in his hands, a restless gesture. He wished he knew what was going on. The more time he spent out with Snape on these excursions, the more out of his depth he felt. He'd long had the habit of investigating and sticking his nose in where it didn't belong, but when confronted with a trail gone nearly a month old and unfamiliar magic, he was at a loss.
A thick droplet of rain hit his glasses as he wandered back to where Snape stood, the torch clutched tight in his hands. The professor was still and silent in the center of a small clearing, and beside him was--
"What is that? " Harry blurted.
Lifting up toward the sky was an enormous, irregular funnel. He’d nearly mistaken it for a tree, since it was made up almost entirely of leaves and forest debris. The similarities ended there, however; the foliage all appeared to be frozen in midair, as if they had stuck onto some invisible structure. Like a motionless tornado, it stood as a monument, towering far above their heads.
Snape didn't spare him a glance as he said, "The foundation."
With a murmured incantation, he bade the rope of magic reappear, except that time the cord which was connected to him and Snape now had a definite source: The middle of that ominous thing.
Harry gulped. "Is warding magic normally this, erm…?" He wasn’t at all certain how to describe what he was thinking.
The older man glanced at him, his impatient glare visible by the light of the cords. "No."
"Maybe…" Harry ventured, "This was a trap? One that's already been triggered?"
"Set by whom?" Snape shot back. "Regardless of his condition, Barty Crouch Jr. is not in the habit of setting elaborate traps for a mere student."
Harry's stomach plummeted. "I, uh. Think he is, actually."
There was the barest of pauses before Snape's next reply. "Taking someone from the fortress of Hogwarts is quite the considerable venture, whereas taking a child from an obscure patch of wood, without her wand, is hardly an effort at all."
He had a point. But Harry still felt rattled, thinking about what Crouch was capable of. "Well-- Then, why's this here? Is… is she--?" Dead, he didn't say.
Snape didn't reply, lifting his wand instead. "Pertento."
Nothing happened, but Snape spoke as if something had. "The entire way, there is no evidence anyone was here except her."
"What are you even looking at?!" Harry erupted, unable to endure any longer.
The man turned to sneer in his direction. "What exactly has that useless oaf been teaching, that you fail to grasp even the very simplest of tracking charms?"
For a moment, Harry was confused about who he was referring to, but when the realization hit him he snarled, "Don't talk about Hagrid like that!"
Snape's eyes narrowed. "The fact you assumed I was referring to him instead of your Charms professor rather proves the point, doesn't it?"
Harry flushed with anger and embarrassment; it was a cold comfort that Snape probably couldn't see it in the dark. "Don't make it out like--!"
"Pertento. Clear visualization. Steady wand." The man turned his back, an obvious dismissal. "If you cannot manage even that much, then I fail to see how you will amount to anything."
"I can't cast any magic out here, in case it slipped your mind!" Harry snapped.
The man snorted as he walked away. "That has hardly stopped you before."
It was infuriating, he decided, just how quickly Snape could turn his mood. A few well placed words and Harry felt ready to burst. Teeth clenched, he whirled to face the opposite direction, glaring so fiercely at the trees that a headache started to form.
"Potter."
The stern way his name was said was a contrast to the man's smug words, but Harry stopped himself from answering. The last thing he needed was another stupid fight; if Snape thought that he could--
"Potter! " That single word lashed out at him like a whip. "Here. Now. "
There was a distinct edge to his tone, a strange something which suggested urgency, despite the even and precise way the words were said. He couldn't place it, but Harry knew it should be obeyed.
Snape stood at the opposite end of the clearing. Harry approached with a suspicious glare, looking about, but there was still nothing much to see. Folding his arms, Harry gazed into the distance as if he were in contemplation just so he wouldn't have to look at the professor.
Despite his efforts to appear aloof, the man's next words drew his attention immediately.
"He was here."
Snape's voice was eerily calm. Like it was something he said every day. A casual observation. He was here. Like it was nothing. Perfectly comfortable announcing the arrival of a monster.
Harry shivered, pulling his arms even tighter across his chest. He wasn’t in the habit of asking questions he already knew the answer to, and this was no exception.
“Don’t lag behind,” Snape ordered, continuing forward. Harry tamped down the urge to glance over his shoulder and followed the man’s dim outline further into the forest. They crept forward at a much more cautious pace. Where he’d been moving more normally before, Snape was now making absolutely no sound. Harry tried to silence his own movements, but did not have much luck before they reached the second clearing.
Beyond Snape, he could see a wood cabin, the back of which was visible by scant moonlight. Sequestered within a small hollow, the building stood squat in the short grass, quiet. The feature that most drew his eye, however, was the collection of hundreds of gravestones which fanned outward from the cabin in a wide, irregular circle. They were densely packed, each marker a different shape and size, but they were lined up perfectly in their respective rows.
Though the cabin was small and overgrown, the place still had the look of recent use; as they drew closer, Harry could see laundry hanging out to dry, fences with new coats of paint, and headstones with clean, well-kept facades. His last trip to a graveyard had been less than ideal… The image of Cedric, pale and still, was conjured to his mind before he could fully quell it. The mental comparison set him on edge, despite how cared-for his surroundings appeared.
As he and Snape passed halfway through the sea of gravestones, a hideous smell accosted him. He blew out of a puff of air to get rid of it, but his next inhale was worse than the previous. Harry coughed; the short noise got him a glare from Snape, but did nothing to help him escape the smell. Covering his nose and mouth with the sleeve of his robes, his voice was muffled when he said, “Can’t you smell that?”
The man wasn’t looking in his direction. “Yes.”
The pungency made his eyes water, his throat heavy and constricted as he croaked, “What is that?”
Snape stopped, using an arm to block Harry’s path. “Stay here,” he demanded. “Do not come any closer to the house.”
“What?” Harry frowned, though the expression was entirely hidden behind his hand. “Why?”
The professor’s glare swiftly turned more severe. “Do you, or do you not, know how to do as you are told, Order member? ”
It was the first time he’d ever seriously called him that. Taken aback, Harry stayed silent.
Snape’s arm shot out toward him so quickly that he flinched, but after a moment he saw that the man was holding out a wand, the same he’d given Harry before. He reached out automatically, but stopped before he touched it, his fingers curling back inward.
“Take it,” the professor snapped, impatient.
Harry looked him in the eye. “Whatever’s in that house, I have to go with you.”
“Your sense of entitlement truly knows no bounds,” Snape spat, his grip on the wand tightening.
“It’s not--” Harry cut himself off, grimacing. “I have to go, not because-- not because I want to, but--” He paused, searching for his words. “Isn’t it my duty? As an Order member?”
“That title is spurious at best when applied to you-- ”
“If I were anyone else,” Harry interrupted, resolute, “would you still treat me like a burden?”
Snape stared at him. "Now is not the time for theatrics."
"If I was Tonks, or Kingsley, or-- or Remus?" Harry soldiered on. "Would you tell me to stay put?"
"Excepting Lupin, they are experienced professionals." This was accompanied by a glare. "You are not."
"They got that experience by doing things," was his firm counter. "If I wanted to wait around in safety and security, I'd be at Hogwarts right now!"
"Then perhaps you should be."
Snape's gaze was piercing. Harry opened his mouth to object, but all that came out was a cough. The smell seemed to build up, clogging his nose.
The professor jabbed the handle of the wand into Harry's chest; he grabbed it on reflex. "Take it and go back."
"You said if I couldn't manage this much, I wouldn't amount to anything--!" Harry accused.
"Are you as thoroughly incapable of understanding context as you are following orders?"
"I'm not leaving!"
He'd practically shouted it, gripping the borrowed wand hard enough to make his fingers ache.
Snape glowered at him before he straightened, looking down his nose as if Harry were an insect. If it was meant to be intimidating, he didn't waver.
The professor's anger and disgust was evident in his tone when he turned away. "Never let it be said that I gave you permission."
With that, he walked away, leaving Harry standing alone, tense and troubled. He sucked in a breath of fetid air, struggling to make sense of the exchange.
Snape's behavior was becoming less and less predictable… What did he care if Harry went in the house? Did he expect him to blunder in and ruin evidence or something? If that was it, then why did he bother giving Harry a wand? If he went back to Hogwarts early, wouldn't it reflect badly on Snape, from Dumbledore's perspective?
His head hurt. Best to just focus on the task at hand.
The stench grew worse and worse the closer they got to the cabin. The windows on the back side were as dark as Snape's silhouette and, as they rounded the corner, a foul wind sent bile rushing to the back of his throat. He clamped his hand harder over his nose, but it did nothing to quell his mounting nausea; the smell was so strong that he could taste it.
There was a soft, squishy contact with the sole of his shoe. The feel of it alone sent a shiver of revulsion straight up his leg; another wave of odor flowed up to him -- enough to nearly knock him flat on his back.
Lifting his foot revealed the horror beneath: A cracked skull lay beneath him, a dark hole where an eye should have been. The patchwork of soft flesh sliding from the dead creature’s head was clinging to his heel as if it intended to pull him down to the ground with it.
Harry violently reared back, the torch landing into the grass with a dull thump as he dropped it, his disgust so absolute that it seemed to take control of his body. He swallowed the thick lump in his throat as the clouds parted and moonlight flooded the surrounding area.
Bloated. Deformed. Rancid. The bodies -- all of them, scattered amongst rubble from obliterated grave markers. The remains were smeared across the ground in a wide circle, dotted with jagged pieces of stone, splintered wood, and blackened grass.
He thought they were human at first, until he spotted one with a vague facsimile of four legs. Its limbs were hitched up toward the sky, propelled there by the rest of the body’s bloat. Its fur -- matted, damp, and hideous -- lay in clumps atop its skin, and the chest appeared concave, spilling into itself. Half devoured, half decayed.
They looked like… massive dogs. Bigger even than Sirius -- a thought which made his stomach churn all the more. And the smell. It was unbearable. All of it was. He'd seen death, he'd seen violence and torture, but he'd never seen… this. It took everything in him to not wretch up there and then. He couldn’t say what kept him together, other than Snape's looming presence; he didn't need to hand the professor any more weapons to use against him.
He inched forward, not only terrified of taking a wrong step but also of being left behind. Navigation was difficult; the bodies were numerous and the scene was saturated with them, though the greatest carnage was found closer to the front door.
Snape was a mere ten feet away, stopped at the front stoop of the house. The dark outline of his body obscured whatever was beyond, and Harry wondered if it was really something he needed to see. He grimaced, the expression tight on his face. Perhaps it would have been wiser to do as he'd been told, to return to Hogwarts. But he'd come this far -- If he couldn't manage to brave this, how could he possibly hope to be of use to the Order? How could he say he was ready to fight, without witnessing just what that would entail?
It took four careful strides to reach Snape's side. Despite his determination, he wished he hadn't moved at all.
This one was unmistakably human. Or-- as human as one could reasonably appear to be, having suffered so much damage. The man, if his clothes were anything to go by, lay across the stoop. His long jacket was in tatters, a million tiny holes collecting together across the fabric. There were insects everywhere, hundreds flying or crawling, burrowing in to take any piece of the body they could find.
The… fluids -- an appalling array of orange, black and yellow -- had spread outwards from the husks of unraveling flesh that had once been his legs and arms, haloing him and soaking into the wooden front steps of his doorway. The wood itself appeared so warped and corroded that the weight of the body had caused a divot beneath it. It was as stained as his skin, so marred and discolored that it appeared to meld into the dark.
Harry shuddered as his eyes were drawn to the worst part: The man no longer had a face. Most of it had sloughed off onto the front steps as well, connected only by spindles of decay so fine and delicate they looked like webbing. There was nothing left to identify him as a person anymore. Nothing that could spark recognition or set him apart.
Just a body come undone.
He stared with wide eyes, unable to look away. Was… was this what it looked like? To rot away? If he'd left Cedric's body in the graveyard, would he have become--? Could this be what Sirius looked like, on the other side of the Veil?
“Breathe. "
The command wrested his eyes from the scene to look at Snape. He blinked, confused at the directive until he focused on the task, and realized he was hyperventilating.
That knowledge did nothing to help him, however. He seemed to have forgotten how to control his lungs. All he could do was fix his eyes to the buttons on Snape's neck, helpless.
"Potter."
He couldn't reply. It was too much. It was too much, and he should never have--
Snape grabbed his arm very suddenly, wrenching it away from his face. On instinct, Harry moved to twist out of his grip, but the man held fast.
"Ad Aliud Aura Amplexus."
He was released just as suddenly. Harry instantly raised his hand again to plug his nose, afraid he might truly sick up if he didn't, but this arm passed through something. Looking down, he saw the lower half of this face was encased by a clear barrier which clung to his skin, reaching down past his neck.
When he finally allowed himself to breathe, Harry was greeted with clean air, entirely devoid of the stench. Though his breaths were still erratic, the interruption of his thoughts allowed him room to steady somewhat.
It helped that he could look at Snape instead of the corpse. "Isn't the Bubble-Head Charm a self spell?" he asked, inane, his voice shakier than he might have liked.
"Normally." That was all the professor said, turning away to return to his own business. Harry couldn't help but feel grateful; Snape's scrutiny was uncomfortable at best.
Rooted in place, Harry shoved his face into his hands, rubbing his eyes with the blunt end of his palms until shapes blossomed behind his eyelids. He had to hold it together. As… as horrifying as all of it was, he couldn't fall apart. If he did, so many more would die…
He sucked in a quick gasp, eyes flying open. "Violet!" he exclaimed, though he had the presence of mind to look at Snape instead of the ground. "Is…" His voice petered out to a whisper. "Is she here? "
Snape was standing beside the entryway when he answered, "She was."
"Was?" Harry latched onto the word.
"From what I can piece together," he began, peering toward the treeline. "Miss Ayers was wandering the forest alone before she was captured."
Harry frowned. "But-- we saw her leave with Barty…?"
"Perhaps she managed to elude him," Snape commented, though his tone suggested he didn't think it likely. "The ward in the forest was rife with her signature, but we know she did not have a wand."
"Accidental magic, then?" Harry surmised.
"Possibly. Instinctive magic is invariably linked to heightened emotion, and a chase may have provided just such conditions," came his reply. "In any case, there was no trail but her own… for the majority."
He was here. Just the memory of those words made his skin crawl. "Why would Voldemort leave her alive?" Harry asked, his eyes drawn to the dark blotches on the side of the house.
Snape did not answer immediately, instead stepping over the rotted husk of one of the creatures to examine the epicenter of the destruction; it was the only patch of ground that wasn’t blackened or bloodstained.
"Both trails end here. If Miss Ayers's body were nearby, her signature would linger, but there is no sign of her at all. It would be plausible to assume a Disapparition occurred."
"Is Apparition, er, I don't know… traceable?"
Snape glanced his way. "Not several weeks after the fact."
"Then," he murmured, distraught. "It really is a dead end this time. All this… was for nothing."
"An end, but not a loss." Snape's gaze fell on Harry. "The Dark Lord does not make appearances for nothing."
He sounded much too familiar with the concept for Harry's comfort; he shivered, half from cold and half from fear, and that was when he heard it: A shuffling, scraping sort of sound, followed by a ragged exhale. He went on instant alert, whirling to stare at the opening that lead into the house.
Snape passed by him with wand drawn. For a tense few seconds, they stared into darkness, watching. Then, a familiar sort of sound, like the bright ring of a handchime, echoed out to them. In the scant moonlight, Harry spotted the shape of another dog-creature, only this one was moving.
"It's alive," Harry gasped, gripping his borrowed wand tight as he moved closer. When the thing opened its maw to let out another rambling jingle, he could see rows and rows of thin, sharp teeth filled the creature’s mouth, bared and gleaming. The very sight of it gave Harry pause, and he remembered-- he’d seen this kind of creature before.
"A bellhound," Snape intoned, passing his wand light over the creature.
"A what?"
"Bellhound," the professor repeated with a touch of impatience. "Magical creatures which feed on spiritual energy."
Harry grimaced. "If all it eats is 'spiritual energy', then what's it need hundreds of teeth for?"
"To tear you limb from limb," Snape replied, droll. "They hunt in packs, searching out wandering spirits and ushering the dead by eating their bodies and burying the bones. If a spirit remains tethered to a body, and the hounds are starving, they are known to separate them by force."
The grotesque surroundings ought to have been a fitting meal, then, but the creature certainly didn't look well fed. Its body was gaunt; it hardly looked able to stand, much less attack. Harry's wand drooped in his hand as he assumed a neutral stance, inclining his head over his shoulder. "So… you suppose that’s the rest of the pack?"
"That seems likely."
He stared at the creature curled up on the floorboards, watching its every rattling breath. Its eyes were pure white, lacking pupils, but somehow Harry knew it was looking directly at him. Like it knew who he was. What sort of creature was this, really? Despite its off-putting appearance, Harry felt as if it were drawing him in, leading him closer…
Snape's voice disrupted his reverie. He was crossing the gap between himself and the hound, drawing his wand up. "It would have been better for it to die with the rest."
Harry's gaze snapped in the professor's direction. "What?" When the man didn’t stop, he took a step forward, an urgent breath escaping him. “Wait!”
Thankfully, the man stopped, but it was only to glare at him. “Save your objections.”
“Are you mad? You can’t just kill it!” Harry snapped, disturbed that Snape wasn’t aware of the obvious.
"You are naive if you think it will last the night."
"I'm naive for not wishing death on an animal?" he shot back, heated. "Right-- here's hoping I stay 'naive' forever, then."
"You lack understanding," Snape informed him, tone crisp as he gestured toward the creature. "Without its master and its companions, it will either starve to death or begin attacking the local Muggle population. As it has yet to do the latter, it’s been wasting away. For weeks, perhaps. Do you intend to let its suffering continue, Potter?"
"No! But that doesn't mean it has to die! " Harry's fists clenched as he strode forward, placing himself between the hound and Snape. "It deserves to live after-- after everything it’s been through, doesn't it?"
"Does it." The man's tone was flat.
"Of course it does!" Harry insisted, growing more upset. "How can you call yourself an Order member if you don't even think people's lives matter? ”
Snape scowled, his grip on his wand tightening. "It is not a person."
"IT'S ALIVE!" He felt close to panic; he couldn't stand to see any more death. Not then, and not ever. "Don't kill it. Don't. "
"It would be a mercy, Potter,” was the man's caustic reply. "Nothing more can be done."
Harry lifted his chin, stalwart and unwavering. "No."
Snape was livid; Harry could tell by how still he was, the intensity of his hateful glower. He expected retribution -- Harry had clasped the wand in his hand in anticipation -- but all he received was a snort of disgust as the man turned away, pacing out toward the gravestones that were still intact.
Harry's posture deflated. When he lowered the wand, he realized his hands were shaking.
A sluggish, tinkling sound started up behind him, and he turned to look at the hound. Its massive head rolled to the side, as if it was too exhausted to hold it up, and its eyes were fixed to Harry's feet.
Casting a wary glance at Snape, who had stopped a short distance away with his back turned, Harry moved to approach the beast, his footfalls careful on the steps. It merely watched, blinking and breathing slowly, as he entered the house. Lighting the wand, he could see its hind legs were long and spindly, but therein laid the problem: They were badly broken, and a large, crusted gash across its back matched the trajectory of a slash, as if someone had cut through it with a sword.
He'd felt confident in what he wanted to do, right up until that point. The damage was… extensive. Who was he kidding, really? He didn't have the first clue how to treat wounds deeper than a paper cut. Did magical creatures even react to healing spells and potions the same way wizards did? Harry had no idea.
Still. He had to try.
The creature had claws the size of his head. He swallowed his fear, kneeling beside it as slowly as he possibly could, and raised the wand over the hound's legs.
His incantation was feather light. "Tergeo."
The blood lifted from the creature as expected, but, unfortunately, it was all made up of hard, crusted bits which were clumped with fur and clinging to sensitive skin; the animal flinched and Harry dropped the spell instantly. Bad idea.
"Sorry," he whispered on impulse. The creature released a gusty sigh.
Harry had a vague idea that the wound should be clean before it was bandaged up, but didn't know any that were gentle enough not to hurt. However…
He rose to his feet, turning his wand light further into the house. There, through a door on the left, was a kitchen. Harry retrieved a dirty cloth from the counter, a quick Scourgify rendering it like new, and turned on the tap. The water was very cold, so he filled a pot and set it on the gas stove to warm. Harry next set about looking for something to use for bandages, but there was no tablecloth, no curtains. All he could find in the cupboards were canned vegetables, a sack of rotten potatoes, and a cast iron pan.
Taking hold of the pan, he turned it over in his hands. The metal was dense, heavy; something like that would create quite a lot of cloth for bandages, if he could manage the transfiguration. In principle, it was a lot easier than the human transfigurations McGonagall was having them do… Harry blinked. Thinking of Hogwarts, his friends, his classes… It was all very distant, to him. As if it had happened years ago, instead of yesterday. His prior challenges and worries, all barely of import.
He frowned. The water was boiling. He turned off the flame, staring at the surface of the water as the bubbles trickled out and it became still. Dipping the hand towel into the water, he laid it by the sink to cool, steam rising from its surface in gentle curls. That done, he took the pot and pan in both hands, traveling back to deposit them beside the hound.
When he emerged back into the entryway, he saw Snape crouched beside the creature’s head. A shard of fear spiked through Harry, and he barked, “What are you doing?!”
He cursed himself for not suspecting the man’s betrayal. Shite, he’d even left the wand in the kitchen! How stupid could he possibly be? “Get away from it!” he demanded, striding quickly forward with every intention to give the murdering arsehole a face full of boiling water--
But the bellhound’s massive ribcage expanded before it let loose another sigh, its breath hitting Snape’s face and displacing his hair. The man performed a squinting grimace first and glared at Harry second.
He stopped, the hot water sloshing a bit on the floorboards, but his suspicion did not abate. "What were you doing," he repeated this time, his voice having gone dead flat.
The professor did not grace him with an answer, his expression altogether sour as he rose from his crouch. "I could ask you the same, Potter."
Harry set the pot and pan on the ground, watching the scene carefully. "I'm cleaning its wounds."
Snape's eyes looked entirely devoid of color, dark as the night was. "Her."
He frowned. "What?"
"She is female," the man commented, looking down at it. "And those wounds are festering."
Harry looked. It was hard to tell in the dark, even harder with all the blood-caked fur clumping around the cuts but… When he squinted, he could catch the slightest hint of pus curling around the edges of the wounds, the skin red and raw. He didn't know much, but "festering" certainly sounded bad. If he wasn't sure how to handle normal wounds, he was even less certain how to deal with that.
Still, eyeing Snape once, he went to retrieve what he'd left behind. When he returned, the professor was standing in the same spot, wand held loosely in one hand. Harry placed his own wand on the ground, allowing it to light up the space, and approached the bellhound with warm cloth in hand.
Snape watched him, displeased. "Did you not hear what I just said?"
"I heard," he confirmed, his tone snotty. "But I have to do something, since you won't."
"Your efforts are pointless," came the reply, “and will accomplish nothing but prolonging the hound’s anguish."
"I don't care what you think." Harry's movements were slow and careful. He touched the cloth to the wound on the animal's abdomen; it did not react.
"She is beyond saving, Potter."
"Nothing is beyond saving," Harry murmured, defiant. He dabbed at the dried blood and pus, placing his free hand atop the hound's thigh. Her fur was coarse and wiry, but her skin was warm.
There was quiet for some time. He couldn't say for how long, but he was at least able to towel off some of the dirt and grime from the bellhound without interruption from Snape. Such was the filth and rot that Harry had to Scourgify the cloth several times throughout the process. It was a strange situation, Snape glaring a hole through the back of Harry's head while a dozen corpses rotted outside. He tried not to think too hard about it.
At length, it was Harry who spoke first, tired of the silence. "How did you know she was a girl?"
The pause was long enough that he gave up on expecting an reply, but Snape, oddly enough, did answer. "Her memories."
Harry dipped the cloth in the pot again; the water wasn't particularly hot any longer, but at least it wasn't freezing. "You can tell that from someone's memories?"
"She gave birth to most of the pack," the professor explained.
"Oh."
As he wiped the gash on her leg, her clawed foot twitched. Hesitating, he continued on, until Snape addressed him.
"What is it you intend to do with this creature?"
Harry sighed. "Not kill it, if that's what you're asking."
"Will you leave Hogwarts to nurse it back to health?"
He shot a glare over his shoulder. "No. I'll find her a good caretaker."
"Where?" Snape scoffed. "It is nigh impossible to find someone with enough benevolence to take in a beast such as this."
"I could take her to Lovelle," Harry argued. "She had one in--”
“The animal cannot even stand, much less traverse the length of the wards around her residence,” was his counter. “And that is assuming she can be trusted to keep it alive.”
“Well then-- Hagrid! He would know how to take care of--”
“A dark creature, on school grounds? Amid children as young as eleven? He would be relieved of his post immediately, if not returned to Azkaban.”
Frustrated, Harry shouted, “There has to be someone! The-- the Order medic--”
“-- is trained to tend to humans, not animals.”
“Dumbledore must know someone who--”
“You are grasping at straws, Potter,” was Snape’s cruel reply. “There is no one.”
“Fine! I’ll-- I’ll do it.” He could feel moisture gathering in his eyes, but he stared fiercely at the hound’s body beside him, determined not to look weak in front of Snape again. “If there’s no one else, then there’s me.”
He sucked in a bracing breath; the air was clear, thanks to Snape’s spell, but he could hardly find it in him to be grateful when the man was so utterly devoid of compassion otherwise.
Harry ran a hand over the bellhound’s fur, patchy as it was. It was a soothing gesture, though perhaps more for him than for her. The creature shivered, turning her head to the side to stare at Harry with one milky eye. He wasn’t sure how he could tell, but, sitting there next to the beast, his hand on her back, he felt… connected to her. He felt certain that she knew he was trying to help.
He also knew she was in horrible, horrible pain.
Stepping away, he searched his mind for something, anything he could do. If Hermione were there, she would know, but Harry? Despite all he’d been through, despite all his years at Hogwarts, he was helpless.
Harry picked up the wand and the pan. Even if he had no idea what he was doing, even if it really was pointless, as Snape had said, giving up wasn’t an option. The pan unraveled in his hand, turning to linen as instructed. The sheet was quite large and thick when it emerged, much more than he needed, but he tore strips from it anyway.
As he settled beside the bellhound once more, Harry felt rather than saw Snape's approach. Tensing, he clutched the strips of cloth in his hand, as if he might snatch them any second, but the man merely knelt beside the creature, waving a hand to soundlessly conjure a wooden bowl.
Wary, he watched as Snape pulled a glass bottle from a pocket, pouring its contents into the basin. The liquid was goopy and speckled with plant matter, color a pastel purple; Harry had never seen a potion like it.
There was also a lot of it, he realized as the bottle emptied, the potion filling the bowl nearly to the rim. Then, Snape's hand shot out, upward facing, as he offered Harry a bland, expectant look. He gripped the cloth in his hands tighter.
"What are you doing?" he questioned for what felt like the hundredth time that night.
Snape’s reply was impatient. "What does it look like, Potter?"
"It looks like you've spent the last hour drilling into my head how useless I am and how this is all just some big inconvenience for you."
Snape glared. "I am hardly the villain you're looking for."
Harry snorted. "Right. If you say so."
A heavy silence passed between them, brief but palpable. He stared the professor down, unmoving and, much to his surprise, the man relented.
"If you must know," he spat, "it is a numbing agent."
Harry frowned. "Why?"
"The answer to that should be plainly obvious."
"No, why are you doing this?"
"Every moment you spend interrogating me is passed in agony for this creature, you understand."
He grit his teeth, strangling the strips of cloth with the force of his anger. "You think I don't know that? I don't trust you!"
"You have made that abundantly clear."
"Well if that's so clear, then why don't you--?"
The professor dragged the tip of his wand diagonally across his palm, an incision splitting the skin. He scooped a glob of potion onto the cut before returning the force of his glare to Harry.
"Will that suffice, Potter?" he uttered, anger underpinning his words. “Or do you believe me unhinged enough to poison myself?”
Harry seriously considered it, and that deliberation must have shown on his face, since Snape made a noise of disgust. "It seems to have eluded you that my original conceit was to spare the hound the miserable existence you hope to preserve."
"That's not--!"
"In lieu of that solution, this one is second best,” he interrupted, closing up the cut he'd made on his hand.
Disgruntled, Harry stared first at the professor and then down at the bowl. It was his choice, he supposed -- to take Snape's word or not. He probably wasn't lying; that much he could surmise from the fact that Dumbledore wouldn't be pleased to hear he'd murdered an animal in front of Harry. Still, it was the principle of the thing, wasn't it? Snape wasn't the sort to do anything that didn't directly benefit himself -- so, what was all this, really? The warning to stay away from the house, the Bubble-Head Charm, the potion… The fact that he'd yet to say a single word to anyone about Harry's meltdown… Even if it was all just incidental, the more Snape defied expectations, the more Harry felt like he was walking into an elaborate trap.
The bellhound released a shaky, tinkling whine, and he placed a hand atop her ribcage. Snape was right about one thing, at least: Every second of indecision was hurting her. Confused as he was, there was really no choice at all.
"Fine." He unclenched his fingers, passing the cloth strips to Snape. "What do you want me to do?"
Rather than answering, the man showed him instead. Taking a two-finger scoop of the potion, he administered it directly to one of the smaller wounds on the hound's leg. When it was fully coated, a murmured Ferula wrapped the cloth around it securely. Without further prompting, Harry copied the procedure.
Side by side, they administered the potion to as many abrasions as they could find. There was no question that it was working as intended; after completing the first bandaging, he couldn't feel his fingers at all. Regardless, it was worth it; he continued on, every swipe of the potion releasing a bit of tension in her frame.
Before long, the bellhound was coated in enough bandages to appear mummified. When there were no longer any wounds to tend to, Harry sat back on his knees, eyes glued to the edge of the bubble at his neck. Snape was finishing the smaller cuts and scratches when Harry spoke. “What did you see?” he asked, subdued. “In her memories?”
The professor’s gaze flicked momentarily in his direction. “A massacre.”
Harry winced, eyes unwittingly drawn to the gruesome scene outside. “I don’t mean-- You said she was a mother. So… What else did you see?”
Snape concluded his ministrations with a wordless flourish of his wand, wrapping the affected area with linen. “I do believe I made it clear that the subtle art of Legilimency is not mind-reading, Potter.”
Subtle? He about beat Harry over the head with it for a solid six months! “I know that!” he retorted. “But-- still…”
“It is not a parlor trick; it is a weapon.”
“What does that even mean? ” he balked. “Look, all I want is-- is a memory. Just one. A good one. A memory… worth remembering.”
Snape’s expression was blank. “And you expect me to provide one?”
“I’m not expecting anything,” Harry sighed, drained. “It was only a question.”
With that, he stood, going to the kitchen to rinse off the gooey potion from his hands. The water from the tap was freezing on his wrists and his body suddenly remembered how cold he felt, goosepimples spreading up his arms. Drying his hands on his robes, he returned to the hound’s side. Snape was standing again, the bowl and potion gone. With no preamble at all, he began speaking.
“This creature is three hundred years old.” His eyes were trained at the ground in front of him. Harry sank back down beside the bellhound, stroking whatever fur he could find amid the swaths of bandages, merely listening. “She lived on a bloody battlefield, as most of her kind do, but she wandered alone, feeding on scraps. A century and a half ago, a Barghest rescued her from hunters and gave her a home, gathering many other solitary creatures whose packs were broken by human expansion.”
“A Barghest?”
“A wizard, of a sort. They are shepherds of spirits, masters of strange creatures. Their order is both secretive and solitary; as such, the sight of one is considered an omen of death.”
“Oh.” Harry swallowed, his throat feeling thick.
The bellhound turned to look at them both, her eyelids drooping low as Snape continued. “Her strongest memories are of her master. Even in death, she refused to leave his side.”
A sinking, sorrowful feeling fell right into his stomach, and Harry’s hand twitched against the hound’s fur as he contemplated the pile of rot fallen in the doorway. Despite not being able to smell it any longer, Harry felt sick all over again.
“Her memories confirmed my suspicion that Miss Ayers was taken alive. Otherwise, there is nothing more to tell.”
The horrible feeling grew about ten times worse. “Then-- If he took her, she’s… dead.”
"That would entirely depend on the purpose for her capture," Snape remarked.
"Well, she's Muggleborn, right? What other reason does he need?"
"If he had intended to kill her for a reason so banal, he would have done so here and sent the Dark Mark into the sky."
He sure seemed to know a lot about it, Harry mused, uneasy. A shiver overtook him, and he crossed his arms, trying hard not to cry. The sentence had been spoken so clinically, but the horror was far too fresh. He could still see the putrid mess outside; without the distraction of taking care of the hound, Harry was left with nothing but his swirling thoughts.
They were dangerous company already, but they grew even worse when Snape announced, "You will need to make your own way back, Potter."
The cold hand of dread seized him, then; Snape’s expression had gone fully blank, entire frame wound tight. "What do you mean?"
"I am not at liberty to accompany you."
What? Harry's confusion and fear mingled. "You're leaving me alone? Where are you going?"
"Do not linger, do you understand? This place is not safe."
Harry stood up, chest heaving. "Where are you going?!" he questioned, afraid. He took an aggressive step forward, but Snape took a mirrored step back, his next words measured and precise.
"When you give your report to the Headmaster, you will tell him I was called."
Harry felt like he'd had the breath sucked out of him. "What did you just say?" he intoned. "Called by who? "
No answer came and Harry’s shout boomed across the space, “Who?! ”
Snape’s stare bore down on him, pinning him in place. Without another word, he vanished, his Disapparition silent, carried by the breeze. By the time Harry's shock and terror had abated and he was able to tear his eyes away from the space where a Death Eater had stood, the bellhound was already dead.
He couldn't get over it.
Days later, the smell lingered. No matter how many times he aired out a room, cleaned his robes, scrubbed at his skin… It was always there, every breath a reminder.
When Monday came, the thought of attending classes was daunting at best. He didn't feel up to any of them, really, but the primary source of his dread was Potions. He couldn't endure Snape's presence. Not that day… perhaps not any day, ever again. He'd had his suspicions for a long while, but to have them confirmed? It made even the distant sight of him at meals turn Harry's stomach.
Still, Hermione wasn't pleased.
"Harry," she was saying, her tone quite stern as she plucked an apple from the breakfast table. "We're harvesting Snargaluff pods today, and there's that Potions essay due… You need to come to class."
He pushed his eggs about his plate, not looking at her. "I'm not feeling well."
"I think you know Snape doesn't care for excuses," she pointed out. Then, after a pause, her voice softened. "Harry… are you sure you're alright? You've been really…"
She didn't finish her sentence, but, considering he'd hardly strung three words together the entire weekend, Harry had an idea what she meant. It made him feel like a horrible friend. "I'm okay," he lied. "If I get a note from Madam Pomfrey, I won't get in trouble."
"There's still the essay," she reminded him, fretting. "I can turn it in for you--"
It had been so far from his mind that he hadn't even picked up a quill to begin with, but he was saved from having to tell her that by the arrival of Ron. It wasn't much of a reprieve; the atmosphere between them turned instantly frosty.
"Morning Harry," Ron greeted him, his omission of Hermione plain. "Pancakes today? Nice! "
Across the table, Hermione's lips were pressed into a thin line. Harry, in an attempt to bridge the gap, said, "Hermione's here too."
Ron's bland gaze fell on her. "Oh, yeah? So she is."
"Good morning, Ronald, " she addressed him, her shoulders squared. "This is quite an early start, for you."
"Yeah, you know, I'm full of surprises."
Hermione's smile didn't reach her eyes. "I was just telling Harry here about how going to his classes is important. You wouldn't have any input, would you?"
Ron took a swig of Harry's untouched pumpkin juice. "Not really. But say, do you suppose your next club meeting will be as much of a debacle as the last?"
Hermione turned a horrible shade of red, looking about ready to throttle him. Harry jumped up from his seat, tense. "I'd better be off to the Hospital Wing."
The redhead turned a look of concern toward Harry. "Alright, mate? She didn't say you were sick. " This last word was uttered with a glare toward Hermione.
"It's fine, nothing that serious," he insisted, shoving his hands in his pockets.
Hermione let her arms fall akimbo, staring at him pointedly. "If it's not serious, you should go to--"
"No! " he snapped, tired of it. "Stop asking. Please."
Her face fell and he quickly regretted his attitude. "Hermione, I'm--"
"No, no," she replied, stepping back. "You carry on here. I'm going ahead to Herbology."
An angry sort of confidence possessed her as she turned on her heel and strutted away, head held high. Sighing, Harry rubbed his eyes.
"Smooth," Ron commented. "But whatever, she's been mental about school this and school that--"
"You don't have to be such a prat to her, you know," Harry countered, irritated. "She's only worried about us, but you get hostile with her all the time--"
"Says the bloke who just shut her down," Ron argued. "Don't act all high and mighty when you know she annoys you too!"
"I didn't mean to snap at her; it's you always picking a fight!"
Ron paused to glare at him. "Weren't you going to see Madam Pomfrey?"
Harry snatched his bag off the table, glad for the opening to quit the situation entirely. As he was walking away, Ron sarcastically called after him, "Have fun!"
He didn't go to the Hospital Wing. Not much point and, besides, he just wanted to be alone, somewhere removed from… everything. A headache was already in full bloom on his skull, and he'd only just got out of bed.
He wandered for a short while, but that palled; there were too many people about, most especially staff who might send him off to class. Then, a singular thought lifted his mood: He could visit Hedwig. Life had been so hectic and busy that he hadn't made much time for her… Bit terrible of him as her owner, he thought with a frown, but not even that could dampen his enthusiasm for the visit.
The Owlery smelled of cloves and refuse. A hundred owls were gathered on perches, fluttering about the rafters, or eating insects or mice. Hedwig was hard to pick out of the crowd, despite her bright white coloring, but it didn't particularly matter, since she ended up finding him.
Alighting on his shoulder, she leaned down to nibble at his pocket, looking for treats. Too tense to laugh or smile, Harry merely reached up a hand to stroke her head, admiring the feel of her feathers against his fingers.
From off to his left, he heard a voice wilt in his ear, breathy and wistful. “Oh! Harry.”
A quick look around revealed the source: Lounging in nearby windowsill and haloed by early morning sunlight was Luna. With one leg dangling over the edge and the other curled underneath her, she appeared to be comfortable, despite her precarious position. Her back was pressed against a large, half-opened window, though which dozens of owls were swooping in and out. Quite high up, Harry guessed that her knees would match the height of his shoulders.
Most notable, perhaps, was her attire. Her school robes were entirely white, as if the pigment had been drained out of them. Even her Ravenclaw crest was devoid of color. Lopsided atop her mass of wavy hair was a crown of flowers. They were made up of two different shapes, unevenly arranged, and possessing pink and yellow hues. The only bit of color she wore.
Harry felt bad for staring so long, but he wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. Not waiting for him to respond, her lips twitched into a small smile. “Hello.”
"Hallo," he parroted back, eyebrows lifting.
He observed as her eyes swept over him, pensive. “You’re rather dim today.”
Dim? Bit rude of her to say, wasn't it? He frowned, adjusting Hedwig's stance on his shoulder. "Um. Sure?"
Her head tilted slightly, upsetting the daisy-chain and letting it fall against her shoulder. “You glow, usually,” she told him, frowning. “So I can catch you long before you arrive. Not today, though. Hm.” Her eyes glanced toward the ceiling. “I’m sorry for that.”
He didn't have the faintest clue what she meant, but Harry supposed he didn't really need to. "What're you doing up here?" he asked.
She leveled in with a look, one borne of both confusion and incredulity. “I’m in mourning. Can’t you tell?” Her words belied no sorrow or grief whatsoever.
He cast his gaze at her robes, perplexed. "Not really," he admitted as Hedwig walked down his arm to perch in the crook of his elbow.
“Weird.”
The audacity of that word, coming from her, wrested a light snort from him. "Right, uhm… What is it I've missed?"
She gestured to her attire as if it was somehow supposed to clue him in and, when he stared at her blankly, she tilted her head. “White’s for mourning,” she informed him, her voice going dreamy again. “So are tulips and carnations.”
He assumed those were the flowers at her shoulder. "Right. Guess I've never been to a wizard funeral, so… I wouldn't know."
She blinked. “What makes you think it has to do with wizards?”
It occurred to him he'd never been to any Muggle funerals either. "Er, think I saw on telly once that Muggles wear black when they're mourning?" he commented, unsure. "I don't really know much about it."
“Maybe the English,” she murmured, appearing thoughtful. “But other countries have different colors that mean mourning, too. I just happen to agree with white.”
"Seems as good a color as any," he mused. The owl on his arm trilled, unhappy with being ignored, and he smoothed his fingers over her wings. "I think Hedwig agrees."
“Owls would know,” she agreed, her eyes drifting to Hedwig with a bit of reverence.
He stared at his pet, eyes meeting hers. "Whatever she knows, she hasn't told me," Harry remarked, wry. "But-- anyway, I didn't mean to uh, interrupt your…"
Her head shook, the delicate movement shifting the flower crown to the girl’s lap, a few strands of blonde hair clinging to it. “Oh, it’s no interruption, Harry.”
"Your ehm… flower… thing," he made a vague gesture in her direction, cringing as his sentence ended lamely: "It's falling."
Her brow furrowed at him as she peered his way. “I know.”
"Oh." Harry shifted his weight.
She glanced between the flowers and him before asking, “Would you come here, please?”
Intrigued by the request, Harry complied, drawing closer to Luna's window perch. When he reached her, gaze expectant, she sat up and placed the flower crown on his head.
“That’s better,” she announced with a warm smile.
Surprised, he held his neck very stiffly, willing it not to fall off. "Um… thanks. But, are you sure-- I mean, you mentioned they were part of…?"
“Part of?” she echoed.
He had no idea what the etiquette was, here. "Your… I don't know. Mourning outfit?"
“I can share,” she told him, her voice so light he was surprised he could even hear it. “You look a bit like you’re in mourning, too.”
He had no idea what his face must have looked like in that moment, but Luna's concerned expression told him he hadn't done a very good job hiding the jumbled thoughts which had surfaced in his mind. "I'm…" Harry's voice faded; he couldn't muster the energy to lie. Beside that, it felt incredibly wrong to do so, when Luna herself was generally so candid. "Yeah."
She was staring at his hands, oddly enough. “That must be hard.”
“I’m used to it,” he remarked, trying not to sound so grim. Harry leaned his elbow atop the windowsill as Hedwig nudged at his pocket again. “If you don’t mind me asking, what is it you’re mourning for?”
“Oh, well,” she sighed, though it sounded more… whimsical than sad, “six years ago today, my mother died.”
He frowned, his brow creasing with sympathy as he looked at her. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
She laughed. It sounded off, considering the subject matter. “You already knew that, Harry.”
“Well, I-- I didn’t forget, I just mean--”
“That you’re sorry for my loss?” she filled in for him, eyes bright. “Thank you. I am too.”
Despite Luna’s general serenity, he couldn’t help but feel like he was mucking up the conversation with his weird mood. “Sorry-- I’m not usually this bad at talking,” he mentioned, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand.
She laughed again. “What a silly thing to say. How can someone be bad at talking?”
Harry peered at her, shrugging. "I don't kn-- Ow! " One of Hedwig's talons pinched through his robes, the fabric not hardy enough to withstand it. Harry deposited her onto the windowsill, rubbing his arm as the owl sulked about.
He watched as Luna proffered her leg to the bird and Hedwig, pleased to be offered a perch, climbed on. “Hedwig is right,” she told him, casual, before glancing to him again. “You’re too hard on yourself.”
The corner of his mouth twitched downward and his eyes fell to the floor. "Going to have to disagree with Hedwig, there."
She frowned at the owl, almost as if the two of them were conferring on a different wavelength. “That’s very unfortunate,” she murmured. “But I understand.”
He'd expected her to argue, or at least refute his claim… Perhaps he had gotten used to a daily lecture from someone or other, Harry mused. After all the sneering comments from Snape, the crushing reprimands from Dumbledore, the zealous haranguing from Hermione, the insanely heavy expectations of the Wizarding World in general -- Luna's gentle compassion felt… nice. Simple. Light.
Reaching up to stroke Hedwig's head, Harry found himself asking, "Do you… have any good memories? Of your mum?"
“Very many,” she informed him, head tilting. “What about you?”
"Me?" Harry shifted, his shoulders feeling stiff. "Um. Not really, I suppose."
She squinted at him. “Why not?”
"Well--" He frowned, not used to having to explain the particulars. "I mean, she died when I was a baby, so it's not like I remember anything…" Aside from her dying screams, came his brain's unhelpful reminder. The moment he thought it, the memory blended with the carnage he'd seen in the woods; he'd never really given it much thought, but was that what his parents had looked like after Voldemort was finished with them?
He must have looked quite ill, if Luna's frown was anything to go by, but her words indicated she wasn't following his line of thought. “You mean, no one’s ever told you stories about her?”
Taken aback, he found himself saying, "Don't think there's many people to ask."
“They’re still people to ask, though,” she pointed out.
"Most of my parents' friends are dead."
Seeming to take note of his cynicism, Luna directed her attention to Hedwig, thoughtful. “Every year, my father likes to send me letters of stories about my mother,” she recounted. “Things she’d done, places she’d gone, things she liked. It keeps her alive, I think. I still have my memories intact, but sometimes it’s nice to have people that can fill in the gaps. It’s like I get to know her better, even though I’ll never actually be able to.”
He looked her in the eye, letting out a small sigh. "It's good that you have your dad to help you," Harry remarked, doing his best not to sound jealous. Because he wasn't. "What was your mother like?"
“Like a mother,” she replied, as if this notion encapsulated the entire concept as a whole. “Warm and bright and serene and kind and loving and compassionate and--”
Her voice petered out suddenly, eyes catching on his face like she’d seen something. He waited for her to pick up again, but she didn’t. “She sounds lovely,” he volunteered.
Luna leaned forward, brushing past Hedwig as she reached into her boot and pulled something out -- a bit of parchment, all folded up. She held it up to him. “This is this year’s story,” she told him.
“Yeah?” Harry wasn’t sure if that was an invitation or not and, when he held out his hand, she only stared at it. In a moment, she pulled the folded page back against her chest; Harry used his abandoned hand to scratch at Hedwig’s feathers momentarily, as if that had been the plan all along. To cover up the odd moment, he asked, “Hey, er, when’s your mum’s birthday?”
She blinked. “Why?”
He shrugged, the motion stiff. “I don’t know. It was, um… It’s gone just over a week since Sirius’s birthday,” Harry mentioned, his eyes wandering the room rather than looking at any one thing directly. “So. I just wondered.”
“Happy Birthday Sirius,” she said quietly, glancing toward the window. There was a tender grin stretching her lips.
A sheen of moisture blanketed his eyes, unbidden. He turned away, staring at the fluttering packs of owls and hoping it would go away on its own. “You, uh--” Harry cleared his throat. “You never met him, did you?”
“I didn’t,” she confirmed, sounding wistful. “You should tell me about him.”
He'd expected to shy away from the topic; Harry hadn't spoken about Sirius to anyone in a long while. Every time he was even vaguely referred to, Harry felt chilled to the bone and on the verge of tears, the very thought of his godfather unbearably painful. It would have been easy to claim he didn't want to talk about it, but… what came out of his mouth was quite a different story. "He was… a lot of things. He always treated me-- The first time we properly talked, he invited me to come live with him. Just like that, like he’d only been waiting for a good opportunity. Talking to him was so easy, and he cared about what I had to say, and he believed in me when no other adult would. He wasn’t actually… y’know. A murderer. Like everyone said in third year.”
“Of course not,” Luna uttered as if this were a foregone conclusion. It struck him that he hadn’t really known her back then. Even so, considering the type of person she was, he could easily envision her sincerely believing in Sirius’s innocence when no one else would.
"Sirius, he was-- my godfather. My friend. He was funny and kind and daring… I-- I knew he would do anything for me. Anything. And… that’s the worst bit, isn’t it?” Harry commented, pained. “That he loved me right into his grave.”
Harry swallowed, his gaze fixed to the floor as he admitted, “I miss him.”
She nodded, though her attention was still directed out the window. “I think that made him happy,” she observed. “Dying like that.”
He frowned. “His life was just getting started again; he wasn’t happy to die, Luna.”
“No, but,” she paused, looking at him again, “we all die sooner or later, Harry. And we don’t often get to choose how. I think he was happy to know that if he had to die, he did it protecting you. It’s not a waste, because it means you’re still here.”
On the side of his face Luna couldn’t see, a tear finally did escape his eyelashes. He let out a huff, pretending to scratch at his temple so he could wipe it away. “I wish we’d never gone, that day.”
Considering her last few statements, he’d expected some form of disagreement. Instead, her smile turned somber as she reached over and grabbed his hand, giving his fingers a light squeeze. “You’ll see him again someday, Harry.”
He stared at the point of contact, unsure how to feel about it, but not breaking away. He really didn’t think he’d ever see Sirius again, but to say as much would really only be hurtful to Luna, wouldn’t it? She had people to mourn too.
So, instead of voicing his thoughts, he pointed out: “You never did tell me when your mum’s birthday was."
“April first.”
"April fool's, huh?" She nodded and Harry offered her a small smile. “You know, I really like birthdays,” he admitted. “It’s a day for… I don’t know. Congratulating someone for being alive. So-- I suppose I like that better… Y'know, celebrating the bits of people's lives that are worth remembering.”
She tilted her head, inquiring, "Didn't you know already what birthdays were for?"
'Well-- I…" He paused, fingers stopping on Hedwig's back. "Suppose I just never gave it that much thought."
His eyes met hers when she mused, "Thinking is my favorite thing to do. I make time for it whenever I can."
Harry expelled an amused breath, taking her words as a joke, but her unbroken composure clued him in to that she was serious. "Ehm, that's… good?" he commented, trying to make up for the gaffe.
He needn't have bothered; Luna appeared completely unperturbed. "You know, Harry," she addressed him, "I believe you have good thoughts."
The compliment was so honest and sudden that Harry felt at a complete loss how to respond. After a short delay he replied, quick and automatic, "You too."
"Oh, I don't know about that," she remarked, pensive. "I have a lot of brilliant thoughts, quite a few clever, some warm, nice, or interesting, and, of course, many that are silly. But you have good thoughts, Harry. Those are a lot more rare."
While her meaning wasn't entirely clear to him, he could venture a guess. "My thoughts aren't anything special," he argued, finding it a touch odd that he had to say so. "Everyone has all sorts."
“I think you underestimate how difficult those good thoughts are to have when you’re so sad.”
Her words were sincere and simple, striking his heart, but they still required refutation. "I may sound like I know what I’m talking about, but I don’t," Harry insisted. "I haven’t exactly been doing a great job remembering Sirius in the way he’d want me to.”
“The best thing about the present is that at any time we can start doing the things we regret we haven’t started yet,” she told him. “That’s what my father likes to say, anyway.”
"Smart bloke, your dad," Harry observed with a sigh. "I'll… think about it."
“You’ve done enough of that, I believe,” she remarked, before her shoulders lifted into a shrug. “But thank you.”
His answering smile was rueful. "Yeah. Um, thank you, too."
He didn’t realize that she’d been holding his hand the entire time until she let it go. Harry sighed. “Well, s’pose I should be doing something, even if its not class. Maybe I’ll do a lap around the pitch.”
“Maybe it should be class,” she suggested. “You look a little tired from running.”
"Running?" Harry blinked, looking down at himself. "I haven't been running."
“Away,” she said as she rose from her stoop, plopping down beside him. Before he could say anything else, she took his hands again, though this time her touch was much more exploratory. Her eyes screwed up and her nose scrunched before she dropped them, leaving him with one more piece of advice before she picked up her things and walked away. “You should wash those.”
Bemused, Harry hastily glanced at both sides of his hands, finding nothing amiss. But, by the time he glanced up again to ask what she meant by it, Luna was already gone.
For the rest of the period, Harry spent a while wandering circles around the courtyard, worrying at the petals of Luna’s flower crown in his hands, while Hedwig swooped about the garden trying to catch mice. Breathing in the fresh air felt rejuvenating, but his eyes kept catching on the distant treeline of the forest, the sight of it accompanied by unpleasant thoughts.
He felt a little better than he had before, Harry supposed. Bit less like his head had gone through a cheese grater, at least. But that didn't change his distinct aversion to being in the Potions classroom, chained to a cauldron for two hours while Snape shot generic insults at him from point-blank range. Harry could barely eat, barely sleep… He knew he was functioning even less than usual, to the point where he was concerning his friends, but Snape? He was no more or less grumpy than usual, and performed all his typical duties with thoroughly unremarkable aplomb. As if his weekend had been just as uneventful as all the ones before, as if he hadn't witnessed the scene of a brutal murder or answered the call of a genocidal maniac.
How could he possibly act as if nothing had happened?
A twinge of pain in the center of his forehead threatened to bring his headache roaring back, and Harry was quick to put those thoughts away. Depositing Hedwig back in the Owlery, he determined that he'd probably do better by preparing himself for Charms instead of shuffling about the grounds for ages hoping nobody spotted him.
Besides, the quiet was starting to get to him.
Crossing the courtyard for the final time, he sighed, entering the castle once more. It was nearly the end of the break between classes, and that meant very few people were roaming the corridors. Good. Just as he'd begun wondering where on the first floor he should set himself up, a voice carried across the Entrance Hall. A familiar voice.
“You finished?” Hermione was saying, her voice loud and strained. “Get out of our way. I’m not telling you again.”
Harry was torn between staying hidden and seeing what was going on; it was stupid, but he really didn't want to fight with Hermione again, and he knew if she saw him she'd try to drag him off to Potions. On the other hand, if someone was giving her trouble…
He peeked around the corner to have a look at the door to the Hall. At the same instant, he heard a reply which identified the speaker immediately.
“How very uncouth, Miss Granger. I don’t think I’m inclined to acquiesce when you are so lacking in manners.”
Harry could see the back of Malfoy's head, partially obscured by a stone pillar and clearly blocking the doorway. Inching forward, Harry watched and listened.
Another voice entered the fray, just as familiar. Croft’s laugh was sardonic. “Are we five, Malfoy?” With her hand at Hermione's elbow, the two girls stepped up directly in front of Malfoy, but he moved to block their progress, his perch at the top of the steps steadfast.
“I wasn't finished having a little chat with Granger.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“Oh, are you chummy now?” Malfoy’s attention hoisted itself on Hermione. “On good terms with the drop out? Let her speak for you?”
"Don't talk to her like that!" Hermione demanded. "You've no right!"
“I’m aware that with your upbringing this may be difficult for you to grasp,” he practically purred, every word dripping with condescension. “But to the well bred, it is understood that when speaking to your betters, you do so with respect.”
Harry's fists clenched, unable to endure Malfoy's pompous cruelty any longer, and he was halfway across the space before he even realized he was moving. With an almighty lurch, he approached the boy before he could react, shoving him sideways into the entryway door, hard.
"Out of the way, Malfoy," he sneered, casting the boy the most withering glare he had.
The Slytherin, to his surprise, didn’t seem all that scandalized by the assault. Once he recovered, he stood tall and amused, his laugh seeping out of him in a way that made Harry’s skin crawl. “Well there he is,” he drawled. “Your knight in shining armor, Granger. How fortuitous for you.”
“Harry--! ” Hermione spoke his name like an epithet, her arms held taut at her sides. “What are you doing?!”
His gaze didn't leave Malfoy's face. "Just tidying the hallway."
"I thought you were--" She stopped herself, making a slashing gesture of frustration. "You shouldn't be here!"
That time, Harry did glance at her. “I’m trying to help--”
“We don’t need help,” she shot back, irritated. “We can handle this ourselves!”
Malfoy’s eyes caught on Hermione in a way Harry didn’t like. “Trouble on the homefront, Potter?”
His glare returned to the boy. “Shove off, Malfoy.”
“Don’t think I will,” Malfoy returned, breezy.
“What’s your angle, anyway?” Harry questioned. “Lost your bodyguards, so… what? You’ve stooped to targeting girls?”
“Targeting,” the boy balked, the sound of his chuckle grating. “How utterly conceited. As if I’d bother myself--”
Croft was moving again, ushering Hermione further up the stairs by the arm. In a second, Malfoy was stepped up in front of her, his height on the steps lending him more room to look down at the girls, despite he and Croft being near equal in stature.
Croft’s mouth went taut. “We don’t have a lot of time before we’re late for Potions,” she brought up. “And considering your last run in with Snape--”
“Oh, you’d know about that, wouldn’t you?” Draco seethed, his lip curling upward in disgust. “You and Snape, thick as thieves. You should be careful. One might begin to think-- ”
“Think what?” Hermione retorted with a grimace. “That she’s better than you? Anyone can see that plain as day.”
Malfoy’s expression suddenly contorted with rage. “You impetuous little Mudblood--! ”
Harry’s wand was in his hand in an instant, inserting himself between them. “Say that again, and you’ll regret it.”
Malfoy didn’t appear one bit intimidated. His wand was out and drawn at him in a second, lips curled in an unsettling grin. “Don’t start something you can’t finish, Potter.”
“Stop! ” Hermione shouted directly by his ear. “What is wrong with you?!”
“What, you want him to call you that?” Harry rounded on her.
“What I want is for you to drop it. ”
“Hermione--!”
“I can handle this,” she insisted, expression stern. “I’m not twelve, Harry.”
He knew that, but that wasn’t really the point, was it? He couldn’t just stand aside while Malfoy harassed people! Especially not his friends! The very thought of backing down set his blood boiling.
Still, as he stared at the wand in his hand, it reminded him that he still had the borrowed one from Snape stowed away in his trunk. The memory of those cruel slashes on the bellhound… He never wanted to do that to anyone. Even someone as hateful and infuriating as Malfoy.
Perhaps it would be better to let Hermione deal with it. Harry wasn't exactly in a fit state to duel anyway; he was caught between anger and nausea, his headache returned with a vengeance.
He lowered his wand with a hateful glower at Malfoy. "You're not worth the time," Harry murmured, casting his gaze at the wall. Hermione visibly unwound her shoulders in response.
“No, I wouldn’t be, would I?” Malfoy drawled, his free arm maneuvering toward his trousers to produce a length of silver chain from his pocket. He palmed the pocket watch that was attached to the end, eyes dropping downward in a casual flick as he opened the face. “Have to ration out what little you have left, eh, Potter? ”
Hermione reared back. "That’s sick, Malfoy--"
A blind, searing rage propelled Harry forward, pushing past her before she could finish her sentence. He didn’t see it, but the sound of a body colliding against the stone steps clanged in his ears, a sound that normally would have stilled him. Instead, his arm shot out, his spell bellowing out of him so harshly it resonated out into the grounds: “Bombarda! ”
A sickening thwumping noise boomed as Malfoy’s body flew and twisted in the air, landing on the bottom steps.
Seeing him crumpled down there caused an odd feeling to sing through his muscles… It just wasn't enough, was it? The lesson really needed to sink in. And that feeling guided him down closer, wand pointed. When he noticed Malfoy shakily lifting himself up, his voice lashed out like a whip: “Confringo! ”
Malfoy, blasted sideways, skirted across the dirt, a loud grunt seeping out of him.
The girls were hovering above him, screaming. Hermione’s pitched above the other. “Harry, stop! He's had enough--!”
But his own voice drowned out hers as he continued to shout the same spell over and over. Confringo, Confringo, Confringo, Malfoy’s body convulsing and writhing as every invisible blow struck him. Still not fighting back, the coward--
And when the first sign of blood trickled from the boy's arm upon the Diffindo Harry hadn’t realized he cast, he felt… satisfied. Frenzied. He wanted to see more. His wand sliced through the air, patches of blood seeping into the boy’s white blouse with every swipe--
He felt a pair of arms wrapping about his shoulders, pulling his arms back, disrupting the flow of his casting. His back was taut against his jailor's chest, the voice at his ear, infuriatingly calm, belonging to Croft. “Harry, it’s done. You got him. Stop.”
The satisfaction he'd felt a moment prior turned abruptly in the opposite direction, morphing into a rabid fury.
What did she know? She hadn’t seen what he had. The malice. The degradation. The absolute carnage wrought by someone Malfoy called "Master". If she only knew what that little worm was capable of -- she wouldn't dare to stop him. She would understand how long overdue this punishment was. This was justice; this was mercy. If anything, Malfoy deserved so much worse--
And he told her that.
Or, he thought he had. He could imagine himself saying it, could feel the impulse writhing in him. But the hollow heaviness of his screams were lodged in the pit of his throat -- body responding before his mind could catch up. Suddenly, he was on the ground, punching, scratching, pinching.
This wasn’t right. He’d only wanted to make her see.
She was disturbingly limp under his body, his knees digging so hard into her sides that they threatened to crush her. His hands were on fire. They were wet. Smelled like copper. Disgusting.
But he couldn’t make himself stop--
Until a scream blared from his left and he felt the sharp sting of a spell taking hold of him, striking like a bolt of electricity, deadening his nerves -- and forced him to.
"Do you understand why you are here, Harry?"
He stared into space, eyes unfocused. Every breath felt painful. His arms were in agony, as if his own muscles were rebelling against him. The Headmaster’s office was oppressively warm, but the atmosphere was far less so. He couldn’t decide which pain was worse-- that of his body or his mind.
His knuckles were raw. Though the caked blood had been cleaned off hours before, they still felt dirty. Not to mention painful. His fingers were bruised and battered, a horrible purplish shade; Madam Pomfrey had refused to heal them.
"I suppose," Harry replied at length, holding himself stiffly amid the pain which seemed to be circulating around him.
Dumbledore peered at him from across his desk, his hands threaded together atop his desk. "You suppose?" This was spoken very quietly, the undercurrent of disappointment in his voice like a dagger to Harry's heart.
"I… I hardly know what happened," he admitted, frowning.
"Well, allow me to enlighten you."
Harry watched as Dumbledore laid four parchments on the desktop, lined in a row at the edge.
"These are the accounts of Misses Granger and Croft, Madam Pomfrey, and Mr. Malfoy. You will note the last is left entirely blank, so as to not interrupt his recovery."
His gaze fixed itself to the empty page. He said nothing.
"According to those who witnessed the event, you entered into a confrontation between Mr. Malfoy and the young ladies aforementioned which culminated in his sustaining multiple injuries, including but not limited to: Multiple fractures to his ribcage, shoulders, and left hip; multiple contusions to the chest, neck, back and stomach; multiple lacerations across the chest and stomach, some dangerously close to the throat; and internal hemorrhaging."
Dumbledore's stare was solemn and pointed. "Those injuries were all inflicted by you."
Harry cringed. There was no way he'd done that…! He could not possibly be expected to believe that it was him who had caused that kind of destruction to another person. Even the thought of it made him feel queasy!
But the Headmaster wasn't done. "When Miss Croft attempted to intercede during the attack, she also sustained injury from you: Fractures in her jaw and nose, alongside multiple contusions across the face, chest and shoulders."
What? What? He would never, ever do something like that! This was all wrong. Everything was wrong! Dumbledore's insistence was as absurd as it was disturbing; Harry wasn't… he couldn't…
"Miss Granger stated that you were unresponsive to her pleas, and thus performed a Stunning hex to stop you."
He stared at the back of his hands, horrified. What… what had happened? How could things have turned out like this? Harry couldn't understand it at all. Couldn't connect the pieces together. It was all a jumble in his mind.
"Have you anything to say for yourself?" Dumbledore prompted, as stern as Harry had ever heard him.
"I… I don't know how…" Harry murmured, shaking his head.
"Anger is a powerful emotion, Harry," the man said. "If I had known how ill equipped you were to handle it--"
"That wasn't me!" Harry said at once, sick to his stomach. "None of that had anything to do with me!"
Dumbledore's expression was deadly serious. "A lie will get you nowhere, Harry."
"I'm not a liar!"
"You lied to Miss Granger, did you not?"
"That--!" Harry huffed. "I just wanted her to stop pestering me about class--"
"I think you know that is not what I am referring to."
"What? Then what are you--?"
"If you can lie to your friends, you can lie to anyone, Harry." His mien was weary as he gathered up the papers before him again.
"It wasn't a lie!" he insisted, sliding to the edge of his seat. "I really wasn't feeling well-- I just didn't want to go to the Hospital Wing--"
"Harry." The way that single word was said caused him to fall silent immediately. "It occurs to me that I have made a grave error in judgment in regards to you."
Harry's throat closed up, his whole body poised to curl inward and shrivel in the face of this impending rejection. His bruised fingers twinged horribly as he clenched them tightly together. "Am… am I being expelled?" he croaked, his eyes trained at the floor.
When Dumbledore did not reply right away, Harry took that for a confirmation. His limbs felt like lead. He knew he couldn't be totally abandoned -- he was the Boy Who Lived, after all -- but he'd have to go back to the Dursleys’, wouldn't he? Go back to months and months of no news, no friends, no life. There would be no summer homework to keep him sane, nothing to look forward to. If he got expelled, would they even let him keep his wand? He may as well not be a wizard at all, then.
God, he wanted to cry so badly, but he was so beyond spent already that he just felt… paralyzed. Trapped by his dismal thoughts.
When a hand landed softly on his shoulder, he actually jumped. Dumbledore was standing right next to him, close enough for Harry to see the worry lines on his face in detail. "My boy, please calm yourself."
Only then did he realize how heavy his breathing was. He took a gulp of air, holding it. Whatever was going to happen, he couldn't just freak out in front of Dumbledore. No need to make himself look even more mental.
"Harry, did you hear me? No one is being expelled, least of all you. Do you understand?"
He couldn't really get his mouth to function, so he just gave the man a feeble nod. Even so, he was having a hard time calming down. His heart was still furiously beating.
"When you are ready." Dumbledore held out a glass of water. Harry took hold of it with shaky fingers.
A few sips in, he felt more normal, though still incredibly disoriented. The Headmaster settled in the armchair adjacent, grunting as he lowered himself down and then gazing at Harry once more.
"Better?"
He cleared his throat, embarrassed. "Yeah."
"Harry," the Headmaster addressed him after a small pause, "I owe you an apology."
That wasn't at all what he'd expected to hear. "Why?"
"I prioritized your learning and progress over your well-being, and for that I am deeply sorry."
Harry frowned. "What do you mean?"
Dumbledore regarded him with sympathy. "These last few months cannot have been easy for you. I had thought that allowing you some occupation with the Order would prove to ease your mind a little, but in the process it seems to have taken a further toll."
He was halfway through a sip of water, but that had him rushing to say, "It has been helping! I don't… I mean, I've learned something new every time--"
"And that is the issue, is it not?" the man replied. "Real world experience is, of course, invaluable, but Harry -- a sound mind is even more so."
"There's nothing wrong with my mind," he murmured, clutching the glass in his hands.
"Indeed not," Dumbledore admitted, patting Harry's shoulder. "But I knew from the start that you struggled with an instability of emotion."
"I was fine," he lied. "I am fine."
"No, in fact, I do not think you are," the Headmaster called his bluff. "The terrible scene you witnessed Friday night-- anyone would be affected, Harry. But you, who has been through so much already? I fear it may have pushed you a step too far."
"It's not the first time I've seen a dead body, Professor. I'm dealing with it--"
"If your method of 'dealing with it' is violence, then I'm afraid I cannot allow you to continue."
"It's not!" Harry grimaced. "Look, what happened this morning, it wasn't me. I don't know how, but it was like I was possessed-- "
"When we let ourselves be led by our anger, it can indeed feel that way."
"No, that's not what I--" Harry mediated his tone. "Professor, you have to believe me. There's something strange going on. Some dark magic or, or… I don't know. But Malfoy-- he must have done something to me."
"Harry, I can understand why you would rather suspect foul play than admit wrongdoing, but it is imperative that you own your actions," the Headmaster admonished him, expression grim. "I have, perhaps, enabled you by rewarding your rule-breaking endeavors in the past, but this is a far more serious matter. You have harmed two students, and that is unacceptable."
"I know that, but--"
"No, Harry. There is no getting out of this. Considering who you have attacked, this may well get out to the Daily Prophet. If you are not prepared to take responsibility, this event could discredit you among your supporters."
He stared at the older man. "You're not listening," he accused, his voice quiet.
Dumbledore surveyed him a moment. "Magic leaves traces; dark magic even more so. But in the Entrance Hall, the only traces that exist belong to you." He adjusted his spectacles on his nose before saying, "I am listening, Harry. But there was no magic propelling you to act as you did-- only your own volatility, and my thoughtless allowances."
"I'm not…" Harry stopped, his words turning to ash in his throat. There was no point arguing, was there? The Headmaster had already made up his mind.
"Until further notice, I cannot in good conscience allow you to undertake further missions with Professor Snape."
He felt so exhausted that he couldn't even muster up an objection to that. His mind felt completely empty. Was this what Snape had been trying to tell him in his Occlumency lessons last year? To become so void of feeling that he hardly felt like a person at all? After all, how could someone take advantage of his thoughts and emotions if he didn’t have any?
In that case, ironically, it seemed that Dumbledore would have made a better teacher.
“I hope you understand this is not a punishment,” Dumbledore intoned, his words both careful and sad. “I so often forget how young you are -- how striking the realities of war appear to the uninitiated. In truth, Harry, I should never have subjected you to such things so early. It is an error which I shall work toward rectifying."
Harry's eyebrows drew minutely downward. "Fine."
"I trust you to do the same with your own mistakes, hm?"
His only response was a noncommittal hum. Dumbledore seemed to sense that he was unlikely to make any definitive statements in that regard, since the man did not press Harry further.
“I’m afraid that’s not all,” Dumbledore mentioned, retracting his hand back into his lap as his expression became grave. “Although barring you from Order excursions is, in earnest, not done out of spite -- that does not mean your actions can pass without consequence.”
The man rose from the seat beside him to return to the one behind his desk, folding his hands in front of him. “For the duration of November, December and January, you will be attending daily detention, weekday evenings and weekends. As such, your visits to Hogsmeade will be temporarily disallowed. This schedule will, of course, necessitate your removal from the Quidditch team for the remainder of this year.”
Just when he thought he couldn’t sink any lower, Harry felt the cold sting of every good thing in his life being snuffed out one by one.
“As for the matter of points, one hundred have been deducted from Gryffindor’s total.”
Maybe everyone would hate him again, just like fourth year; it was hard to muster the energy to care.
“As well, I will be requiring you to deliver personal apologies to Miss Croft and Mr. Malfoy.”
Pointless. All of it.
"You will report to Mr. Filch tomorrow night for your first detention, but, for now-- go. Get some rest. Your initial act of making amends will be to take care of yourself. Can you do that for me?"
Harry had the urge to shrug, but he feared that might prolong the lecture; so, he forced out a muttered, "Sure."
As he rose to leave, Dumbledore's parting statement lodged itself uncomfortably between his shoulder blades: "Harry, I expect this to be your last altercation with Mr. Malfoy. You will leave him to the adults."
His hand paused on the door handle, and he stared back at the older man, hunched over in his desk chair.
"Do you understand?" came his insistent prompt. Dumbledore's grey eyes were trained on Harry, unwavering.
He met the Headmaster's stare for the briefest moment before he walked out the door without saying a word.