Chapter Text
Harry was breathing quickly, hands on his knees, trying very hard (and almost failing) not to vomit. Snape meanwhile leaned nonchalantly against the side of his overly large desk and pinched his nose bridge between his fingers.
“And what, Potter, do you think of your current performance? Are you amused, perchance, at how thoroughly you have managed to waste my time -- yet again?”
Harry grit his teeth and shook his head. He found the strength to straighten and panting, stood up to his whole height. He was still rather short. And skinny. He found it amusing sometimes that the boy-who-lived was also the shortest fifth-year boy around, almost the same height as Susan Bones who people generally agreed was roughly average for a girl and decidedly too short for a boy.
“No.” Harry paused. “Sir.” Snape raised an eyebrow at the addition. Snape’s eyes flashed.
“Then perhaps Potter you could explain why you have flagrantly disregarded all my instructions and failed so utterly and completely to occlude, I am beginning to wonder if you don’t have enough mind for me to try and protect.”
Harry clenched his fists. He wants a reaction. I will not give him a reason to further antagonize me. I’ll be honest. I have nothing to hide.
“I do better with practical applications.” Snape looked at him seemingly unimpressed.
“Is my invading your mind not a practical demonstration?” Harry did not reply. Snape's eyes glinted with amusement. “Speak up Potter, I would hate for you to fail to explain yourself simply because your idiot mouth stayed silent.”
Harry fingernails dug into his palms. “What I mean to say, Professor, is that well--”
“Yes, Potter, please enlighten me and finish your sentences.”
“When I was learning the Patronus, I was told again and again, “find your happy memories and then cast,” but I couldn’t, I mean it didn’t help. Because I thought my memories were happy, you see? But then it wasn’t working and then Lupin brought out the boggart for me to practice with, and I started sort of being able to see what worked and didn’t work. I saw that--” He looked at Snape, but Snape seemed interested and willing to let Harry keep speaking. “I saw that a memory where I felt happy, me on the Gryffindor sinking couch with Hermione and Ron while wearing a Weasly sweater, wasn’t always enough. It felt warm but then I would lose it around the cold of the dementors. So I learned the trick was finding the memories that were already cold around the edges and had just one big burst of warmth and then I could make Prongs, that’s what I call my Patronus because he’s a stag, come out and fight.”
“Fascinating, Potter, but I fail to see the relevance.”
Harry smiled slightly. If it weren’t for the man’s scowl, he might have thought Snape was being civil.
“Well, that’s the bit about me doing better with something practical. I keep being told I need to ‘clear my mind’ but clearly whatever I’m trying to do isn’t working. I need something to visualize. If I can tell what kind of thing I’m defending myself against, and what I need to feel like to do it, I think I could have better success. I need to understand the ‘what,’ I guess, but also the ‘why.’”
Snape was staring at him now, and not in a “Harry Potter is the maggot I killed so many times and yet still haunts me” kind of a way but in a “Harry Potter is a potions ingredient that has expired but I’m trying to figure out if he has a use” kind of a way. Harry didn’t mind the look so much.
Snape cleared his throat.
“Perhaps you should visualize how you feel when you make a Patronus. The emotions you feel could very well be powerful, and you seem to identify with your Patronus more than is typical, even going so far as to give it a name. Perhaps you should envision ‘Prongs,’” Snape sneered as though he were disgusted, “running around protecting your thoughts and then focus solely on your Patronus. Clear your mind of everything else.”
Harry nodded. He could work with that. “So I’ll just think about making my Patronus then.”
Harry began to think of the best memory to use but before he could get to the Patronus Snape had already said, “Legimillens.” He tried to think through to the end anyway. If Snape saw, then, well, he hopefully wouldn’t see the memory for too long.
...
Severus was in the kitchen of a muggle home. The kitchen was a blinding white with pale blue accents, there was a granite island in the middle and two burners. Harry looked around the same as when Severus had last seen him, so he assumed that this memory was from the past summer.
Outside of the kitchen, Petunia, how Severus hated that woman, was sitting and eating what looked to be a rather good piece of lasagna. Next to her sat the fattest man he had ever seen, mustached and purple in the face. The man seemed to have been feeding his mustache the same amount of lasagna as he was eating himself.
On the other side of the table sat a boy far larger than Harry, pudgy but also bulky in a way that suggested perhaps he had a use for his bulk. A picture on the mantle of the boy holding a trophy for boxing seemed to clear that away.
Harry was not seated at the table but he was in the kitchen, cleaning up what appeared to be the pans used for the making of the lasagna and the garlic bread. Snape could feel how hungry Harry felt. Why had he not eaten? He was too picky, perhaps. Harry was feeling faint at the moment, and he turned behind him warily, making sure his family was occupied with their food.
He turned the water from the hottest it could go to the coldest, and then he cupped his hands and drank. He gathered water in his cupped hands and drank three more times before continuing to wash up. His aunt, Petunia, had wandered into the kitchen while he was cleaning. She looked at him.
“Don’t run up the water bill taking so long, boy, we already pay too much for you as it is.”
Harry nodded slowly. “Of course Aunt Petunia.” She pursed her lips and continued to watch him clean then methodically dry the pans. Her son and husband were still eating at the table, separated only by the island. Harry had finished cleaning and was clearly waiting for the other two to finish up. Harry was so very hungry and Severus could see, even beneath his horrid baggy clothing, clearly castaways from the boxing boy, that he was thinner than he had been at Hogwarts. And Harry had always come across as thin, waifish really, but in this memory, his wrists were so skinny Severus felt they would snap.
Harry breathed deeply as though trying to gather courage. He could hear Harry thinking, “Gryffindor. You’re a fucking Gryffindor.” So Harry squared his shoulders. If Severus could have leaned forward he would have. What did the baby lion need his courage for?
“Aunt Petunia,” Harry said, voice barely a whisper, “might I have something to eat for dinner?”
Petunia glared at him. “No.” Severus felt out of his depth all of a sudden. Clearly something in the entire dynamic of the home was very wrong. “You may not.” She turned her head away and made eye contact with the large mustached blob.
Harry slumped and Severus watched as the oaf of a man stood and stomped into the kitchen. Harry flinched and the man grabbed Harry's hair and slammed him into the edge of the countertop. Harry’s head began to bleed.
“Been talking to my wife have you?” The man grunted and slammed Harry into the counter again.
“No.” Harry whispered. His left arm was twisted behind his back as his uncle violently pushed Harry's face onto the island.
“No what, freak?” Harry shuddered.
“No, sir.”
The man let go of Harry and he toppled like a house of cards and fell to the floor. The man looked down at him in disgust.
“We put a roof over your head and you think it’s your right to question us?” The man kicked Harry’s ribs. “You think you get to ask for things?” Another kick, “you ungrateful swine.” The man stepped on Harry and continued out of the kitchen. “Leave my wife alone you little shit” He warned before going upstairs.
Petunia walked over to where Harry was still lying on the ground, his forehead bruised and bleeding, his oversized shirt torn and matted with blood. She pushed a small box into his hands. Harry stared at it unseeingly. “Raisins,” Snape noticed.
Petunia looked at him. “What do you say, boy?”
Harry seemed to realize he was holding food. “Thank you.” It was disgustingly sincere, given the circumstances. Petunia sniffed.
“It is far more than you deserve.” Petunia also left the kitchen and went up the stairs. Harry pushed himself up and calmly cleaned up his own blood from the floor and went to clear the table. He froze when he saw that his cousin, the boxer, was still seated. They made eye contact.
“It isn’t.” His cousin said. Harry blinked.
“What isn’t, Dudley?” Harry sounded unbelievably tired.
“It isn’t more than you deserve.” The boy said. The boy, Dudley, seemed to be fighting to find words. He swallowed. “It is far, far less, I think. For whatever that’s worth.”
Harry blinked again and then Severus felt this bright burst of warmth and felt himself feeling as though he were wrapped in a thousand blankets as a heavenly choir sang the words, “Expecto Patronum.” The room dissolved into a large stag and for a moment all Severus could do was stare. Then he began to push, to try and find an opening into Potter’s mind, to access his thoughts, but all he could see was a large stag trotting towards him and then he thought if reached out perhaps he could touch an antler and then the stag was too close and --
...
Severus found himself abruptly back in his own mind. He felt sad and warm, and utterly confused. About everything, really. He had never seen occlumency like that before. He clearly needed to reconsider all the things he imagined made up Harry Potter. For that single moment of, you couldn’t even call it kindness, but perhaps decency from his cousin, to make Harry so warm, spoke to a deep need for affection that one didn’t grow overnight.
Harry seemed to be asleep. Snape sent a stinging hex and Harry’s eyes opened slowly. The green eyes appeared to be glowing. Harry rubbed his cheek. Snape muttered the counter.
“Did I do better this time, sir?” Potter asked.
“Professor.” Severus said. “Don’t call me sir.” Severus shuddered remembering the boy bleeding and saying, “no sir.” Potter would never call him that again if he could help it.
Potter looked at him confused and then his eyes widened in understanding and his cheeks flushed with shame.
“So you saw then. It didn’t work.” The boy’s voice was flat.
“I saw a great deal, Potter. I should hope that next lesson I will not need to see a full memory before you can produce your mental Patronus.”
Potter was staring at the floor. “I don’t understand.”
“Potter,” the boy continued looking down, “Potter look at me.” The boy raised his emerald eyes and Severus saw hopelessness that no teenager should have ever worn.
“I saw a disturbing memory of you in a kitchen with an oaf of a man and a horse of a woman,” Potter’s lips twitched, “but after your boxer of a cousin said very limited words in your defense, all I could see was your Patronus. The stag became the only part of your mind I could see, and then it chased me out.”
Potter shrugged. “Is that a good thing?”
Severus pinched his nose bridge once more. “It is unusual. I’ve never seen anyone do anything like it and I’ve never read about it anywhere. But to answer your question, it was adequate Potter. I believe we may have found your ‘practical’ guidance.”
Potter was grinning so widely Severus feared his face was stretched to canvas. “Why are you smiling Potter?”
“Adequate, professor. You told me I was enough.” Harry continued to grin.
...
Long after Potter had left, Severus leaned against his desk puzzling over the lesson. He thought of the boy’s home life, of the immense stag and of the immense joy the idiot boy had felt at being told he was acceptable, not even remotely resembling exception. “ You told me I was enough.”
Why does that matter to him so much? “You deserve more.”