Chapter Text
Severus nodded curtly to Potter when he walked through the door of the office. “Get into the side room, Potter.”
Ha, that stopped the boy and broke some of the air of arrogance that he paraded around with. He blinked. “What, sir?”
“Into. The side room. There are cauldrons that need to be scrubbed.”
“I thought—Occlumency—”
“Maybe when you have disciplined your mind through some menial labor,” Severus said, delighting in the insouciant way that he managed to speak with Potter’s spawn in the room, “I will determine you fit to return to that lofty study.”
Still giving him an odd, shocked look, Potter stepped into the side room, and paused. “Are you sure that you want me to scrub the cauldrons, sir?”
“I have given you clear instruction,” Severus said. “Don’t make me come in there, Potter.”
There was silence for a moment more, and Severus did indeed start to rise from behind his desk. But then he heard the clang of a cauldron, and the sound of water running as Potter filled the scrubbing bucket, and sat back down with a long sigh of satisfaction.
He intended to keep the boy here until his hands were so wrinkled he could barely use them. Maybe he would think better of not practicing Occlumency and clearing his mind before he went to sleep then.
*
“I’m done, sir.”
Severus looked up, shocked and hiding it. He had listened intently for complaints during the first hour the boy had been in the other room, but then honestly lost track of the brat as the essays from his NEWT students absorbed his attention.
He glanced at the clock. Two and a half hours had passed—a respectable amount of time for a detention, but not nearly enough to allow a pampered child to clean all the cauldrons Severus had had waiting for him, particularly the ones with the stubborn stains of exploding newts on the inside.
Almost luxuriating in the anger pouring through him, Severus stood. “I will be the judge of that,” he announced.
“Yes, sir.”
Severus stared, but no, Potter truly did not seem apprehensive. Severus stalked past him. He would fix that. The boy might be so arrogant as to think that a light scrub would satisfy a professor, because the others would undoubtedly have coddled him, but Severus would—
He stalled in the doorway and stared at the sparkling cauldrons drying in a row near the far wall.
They were clean. Every one of them. And not just what one of his colleagues or a stupid Gryffindor would call clean. Severus’s eyes moved slowly back and forth across them, trying to deny his shock, or change it into something else. Trying to dissipate the image of the cauldrons by the sheer force of his rage.
Nothing happened. They were clean.
“May I go, sir?”
Severus whirled around and faced Potter. “You may not,” he snarled. “Not until you give me your wand and then listen to me assign you another detention for using magic to clean the cauldrons.”
“I don’t have my wand on me, sir. I never bring it to detentions.”
And that was true, from what Severus could remember of the brat’s behavior in past years, which made it all the more infuriating. He still thrust his wand out and snarled, “Accio Harry Potter’s wand!”
There was no response.
Severus turned and sneered at the boy, who was watching him with a silent face and a twisted mouth. “Get out.”
Potter left.
*
Harry walked into Potions that morning with an odd determination flaring in the bottom of his stomach. He hadn’t told Hermione or Ron about the strange twist his last Occlumency lesson with Snape had taken, and he didn’t intend to. That was—private. How much better it had made him feel was also private.
And he hadn’t told them about what he intended to do this morning. Let them just think he was losing his temper. It would be better for them to think that, in case Snape tried to read their minds.
(Harry wasn’t really worried about Snape reading his mind and discovering the source of his plan. No matter what, Snape would never believe that Harry was anything but a lazy lay-about).
“Mate, are you all right?” Ron whispered as he set up his cauldron next to Harry’s. “Only, you’re smiling.”
Harry nodded absently. He would have to try and tone that down. But he felt so odd right now, floating between the calm he’d discovered last night while scrubbing the cauldrons, the murderous rage that had been his mood so often this year, and the determination to get the calmness back.
“Harry?”
Now Hermione was asking. Harry turned towards her with a smile that he hoped was softer and looked more normal. “Yeah, Hermione?”
“Are you all right? You look…”
“Two points from Gryffindor for talking, Miss Granger.”
Snape had come into the room without them even noticing. Hermione’s eyes widened, and Harry felt a brief flare of fury at Snape. Well, luckily his plan meant that he would both get what he wanted and be able to take revenge for Hermione.
So Harry smiled at Snape and drawled, doing his best to imitate Malfoy, “Wow, didn’t know that you hated Gryffindors so much you would take points for talking before you even said anything. No other professor does that.” The classroom was already going quiet, but Harry kept his eyes fixed on Snape and the way his face was paling.
“Your point, Mr. Potter?” Snape’s voice was low.
“I suppose that shows you’re not a real professor. Sir.”
The silence was so thick in the classroom that Harry could hear his own heartbeat. Even the Slytherins were gaping at him. Malfoy was actually holding his cauldron so loosely that it slipped from his hold a few seconds later and clanged against the floor.
Everyone started except Harry and Snape. They just kept staring at each other, and finally Snape moved his lips and whispered, “Detention, Mr. Potter. Tonight, at seven.”
It was an hour earlier than their Occlumency lessons were set to start. Harry just nodded, abruptly satisfied, and turned around to put his own cauldron on the table.
“Oh, Harry, why did you do that?” Hermione whispered in the chaos of talking that erupted. “He’ll be harder on you than ever.”
“Cover for the lessons,” Harry lied smoothly. “He asked me to.”
Hermione gave him a narrow-eyed glance, but Ron was already ranting in an undertone about how stupid and unfair Snape was, and Hermione got involved in scolding him to use Snape’s title and shut up. Harry was the one who looked back at Snape when the man stared at him, and who smiled a little.
Snape’s eyes narrowed.
Let him suspect anything he wanted, Harry thought happily. He wouldn’t take back the detention he had assigned in front of the other students, and the worst thing he might do to Harry was also the best, giving him more menial labor.
Harry wanted the calm state of mind he’d achieved the other night, and he would do anything to get it.
*
“Why did you do that, Potter?”
Harry paused when he stepped through the door into Snape’s office. The last thing he’d expected to hear was a civil question from Snape.
Sort of civil, anyway. Burning anger lay beneath the surface. But it was still calmer than shouting.
Harry half-shrugged. “Because I wanted to, sir.”
Snape stalked from behind his desk and loomed over Harry. Harry tilted his head back to stare at him, and didn’t even try to stop the smile from playing on his face. Snape wouldn’t understand it. He would probably just think that Harry was stubborn and arrogant.
Or mental. And half the school thought that, anyway. Maybe three-quarters.
“I will give you cauldrons,” Snape whispered. “Floors to scrub. You will plead for mercy by the time I am through with you.”
Harry fought down his eagerness. Snape might not understand what was really going on, but he would deny Harry this “punishment” if he thought it was something Harry wanted. So Harry tossed his head a little and rolled his eyes. “Of course, if you think so. Sir.” He sneered a little, for effect.
“Get in there!” Snape roared, suddenly losing his temper and snapping an arm out to point towards the room with the dirty cauldrons.
Harry ducked his head and pretended to cower. It was hard to do it, the same way it had been to pretend that he’d been upset when his uncle ordered him outside to garden.
“Yes, sir,” he whispered, and scuttled into the room.
The cauldrons were waiting. The stains were waiting. Blessed peace was waiting.
Harry began to scrub, and forgot to think.
*
Severus stared after Potter. There was something very wrong, he was starting to think, and it was either with Potter or with him.
Be generous, Severus. Why not both?
Severus shook his head in disgust. The only thing that mattered, he told himself, was that he no longer had to teach the brat Occlumency, which was sparing him some literal headaches. And when Albus inquired as to their progress, Severus could be noncommittal. He doubted the brat would tell the Headmaster differently.
But as he walked back towards his desk, Severus couldn’t shake the feeling that Potter’s performance in class had been just that, a performance. In search of—something he wanted.
But how can he want detention?
*
“What are you doing out after curfew, Mr. Potter?”
Snape’s voice wasn’t unexpected, exactly. Harry had got out of detention with Umbridge half an hour before, and he should have headed straight back to Gryffindor Tower.
Should have. But he didn’t want Hermione’s fussing or Ron’s muttered, helpless promises of getting revenge on Umbridge. There was no revenge to be had on Umbridge. There was nothing anyone could do, if Dumbledore himself hadn’t thrown her out of the school the moment the first detention with the quill had happened.
So Harry had gone down and wandered around the dungeons until he found Snape, because that was familiar and he knew he could manipulate Snape in a way he couldn’t with Umbridge. Umbridge was too stupid.
Harry managed to turn a little sideways as Snape stalked out of the corridor that faced the one Harry was in, and adjust his position so that he lounged against the wall. “Causing trouble, sir,” he said.
Snape’s eyes flashed. Of course they did. At the moment, Harry was doing his very best impression of Sirius without the actual insults. “What does that mean, Potter?”
“The Slytherin common room isn’t far from here, right?” In fact, it was several corridors away, but it wasn’t like Snape could say that without revealing its true location. Harry tried to smile the way that he’d seen his dad do in some of the photographs in his album. “Just thought—well, maybe I’d manage to Stun one, and hitting his head against the stone might make him see a different point-of-view.”
Snape hissed as if he was the Parselmouth. “You are intolerable, Potter.”
Harry snorted. “What are you going to do about it?” That was another good thing about baiting Snape instead of Umbridge, he thought distantly. He knew there was no way that he was going to end up with his hand bleeding from lines.
“Detention, Potter.”
Harry just nodded and then shifted. He assumed that Snape would scold him before marching him back to Gryffindor, and he wanted to be in a more comfortable position for it.
The motion scraped his bloody hand against the wall, and Harry bent over with a cry.
That might not have been the best idea, Harry thought idly to himself as he watched Snape’s hand snap out. He caught Harry’s wrist and turned it over hard enough that Harry thought for a second it might break. But instead of breaking it, Snape just stood there, staring at the bloody lines with his mouth slightly open.
Never thought I’d see the day I stunned the dungeon bat, Harry thought, straightening up and thinking the words as hard as he could to beat back his panic. Especially without a spell.
“What did this, Potter?” Snape whispered, not looking up from the lines on Harry’s hand.
“Oh, you know how it is,” Harry said, as flippantly as he possibly could, while panic battered at him and he ignored it. “You try to make sure that you have the sharpest quill possible, but sometimes it’s a little too sharp, if you know what I mean—”
“A blood quill? This is a blood quill?”
Harry winced. He hadn’t meant to lead Snape to the right conclusion. “Of course not, sir,” he said, and his bitterness leaked through where his panic couldn’t. “Why would I have something like that? This is just Potter being his stupid, idiotic, wanker of a self again!”
He yanked hard, and nearly sprained his wrist. Snape didn’t let go, and didn’t sway in place.
“I am stronger than you, Potter, content to starve yourself as you are,” the professor whispered. He spoke so softly that Harry couldn’t make out any emotion in his voice.
The bitterness pressed against his teeth. I don’t starve myself, you complete tosser—
But telling Snape about the Dursleys would be a completely stupid move. Harry bared his teeth. “Going to let me go?”
“No,” Snape said. He twisted his head around to stare at the lines on Harry’s hand, and then Harry’s hand itself again, as if he thought the lines would read differently with a different angle. “Tell me what happened.”
His voice was distant and soft, his eyes disturbed. Harry took advantage of that to snort again, determined to drive the expression away from Snape’s face.
He’d gone to McGonagall. All she had said was for him to be quiet. And Dumbledore wasn’t looking at him. If they couldn’t help him, Harry was damned if Snape would be able to.
It made sense in his head.
Snape only lifted his eyes back to Harry’s face, and Harry looked away on instinct. Snape gave a rusty-sounding laugh. “I am not going to use Legilimency on you, Potter,” he said, and shook Harry’s wrist several times, sending shocking jolts of pain up his arm and down through the bloody wound. “Tell me what happened.”
What the hell difference does it make? Harry asked himself. He’s already seen the lines. He could already bring them to up to mock you with in Potions if he wanted to. He’s already stopped the Occlumency lessons. And he’ll just assign you detention.
“Umbridge,” Harry said, and looked back at Snape, daring him to read his thoughts right then. “She assigns me more lines to write so that the message will sink in.” He gave one tremendous yank as Snape’s fingers seemed to relax in shock, and got his hand back. His wrist ached in a way that made him hope he could go to Madam Pomfrey for a healing potion for that, even if he would never tell her about the lines. “What, upset that she’s made me suffer more than you have this year?”
“This hurts more than the headaches from Occlumency?”
“Bloody hell,” Harry said, startled into it, “you are upset that she’s more sadistic than you are.”
“Ten points from Gryffindor for language, Potter. Come with me.” Snape whirled and stalked off down the corridor.
Harry debated not following him. What was Snape going to do, put him in detention? But in the end, he shrugged and followed. Maybe compliance right now would keep Snape from being an arse about the bloody wounds in public.
*
Severus spoke the password to his office with a voice that did not tremble, because he had better control than that. But he kept his face turned from Potter as he walked towards the storage cupboard that held potions he had created under stasis charms.
He had once invented a potion to totally cure the effects of a blood quill. Since he’d created it half-mad from pain when one of the older Slytherins had used the Imperius to force him to write the lines, Severus did not think he could have duplicated the effort. But he had brewed so much of the potion on that blurred night which still slipped from his memories like a vial through a clumsy first-year’s fingers—well, the potion was here, years and years later.
It wasn’t like he had ever needed it again.
Severus picked up the vial of thick green potion and turned around. Potter was leaning against the wall near the door, swaying a little. With his head down, he let some of the vulnerability seep through.
How did I not see this? How did I not know?
Severus was left in silence as to those answers. He should have seen the wound when Potter had come for his scrubbing detentions. But more to the point, he should have heard about it before this because Potter’s squawks of indignation should have echoed down the corridors.
Why had they not done so?
Severus wanted to find the answer to that question as much as he wanted to stop watching Potter’s wound bleed in slow droplets onto the floor.
“Here,” he said, and held out the potion.
Potter looked at him with cool green eyes and didn’t move.
Severus restrained a curse with difficulty. “It is a potion that will heal your hand, Potter. Take it.”
“Why should I? Umbridge would just be upset that the effects of my detention disappeared, and she’d force me to write more of them.” Potter clenched his hand and opened it again, and the speed of the dripping blood accelerated. “And then things would probably be worse.”
“You believe that I would only do this once?”
“I don’t believe that you’re doing this at all,” Potter said, staring at him. “I’m dreaming or you’re going to demand some price from me.” He tilted his hand and squeezed again, and the scribbled words welled with blood that looked darker than it should. There must be a curse on the quill, Severus thought distantly, probably to make it hurt more when used. “I shouldn’t get used to it.”
“Take the bloody potion, Potter.”
Maybe arguing was another thing Potter had given up on. He ended up accepting the potion and drinking it. There was a sharp green glow around his hand for a moment, and then the words faded, as did the blood on the floor.
Potter stared for a moment. Then he lifted his eyes to Severus’s face and asked, “What is this going to cost me?”
Severus swallowed and said nothing himself for a moment about the same length as Potter’s. Then he said, “The story of why I haven’t heard of this before now.” He felt absurd pointing at the now unmarred back of Potter’s hand, but the words had been there.
They had both seen them.
There was no pretending now.
*
Okay, fine. Why not? It’s less than he could have demanded.
Harry wished, with a feeling that lanced through him like the Blood Quill, that he was scrubbing cauldrons right now. He flexed his hand again, for all that it didn’t hurt, and said, “I went to Mc—Professor McGonagall when it started happening. She said for me to keep my head down. I know the Headmaster is avoiding me for whatever reason.” His voice was low and he hated how much anger came through, but it probably wouldn’t be news to Snape how angry he was at Dumbledore. “I don’t want Sirius to get in trouble, so I can’t bring him into it. Hermione’s been helping me with Essence of Murtlap, but she can’t get Umbridge to stop, either.”
Snape was silent. Then he said, “You would not speak to anyone else…?”
“Who? Sir.”
“Filius would have helped you. Pomona. Anyone who knew of this!” Snape gestured with a long hand as if he would pluck someone else who could help Harry from the air. It would have made them both relieved, Harry thought. “Why are you bleeding and doing nothing?”
“My own Head of House wouldn’t help me,” Harry said simply. He wondered if Snape had missed that part or just thought someone else was more courageous than McGonagall. “Everyone else acts cowed and scared of Umbridge. Some of the professors probably think that I’m as mad as most of the students do. Why would I go to them?”
Snape stared at him, then turned and began to pace around his office. Harry leaned against the wall and looked towards the room where Snape usually had him serving detention, wondering how many dirty cauldrons there were.
*
I cannot help Potter. Not more than I’ve done. Not without endangering my standing in the Dark Lord’s eyes.
But then, Severus asked himself abruptly, why not? Albus had asked him to teach the brat Occlumency without thinking that it would make life more dangerous for Severus (or at least not intolerably dangerous). He and Potter could use the same cover that they did now to interact, detentions and animosity.
“You will come to me from now on when she makes you do this,” he said, and was pleased by the steadiness of his voice.
Pleased until Potter stared at him with an open mouth and incredulous eyes, at least.
“Have I not helped you this evening?” Severus asked, and his voice seemed to wake Potter from the stupor like the tap of raindrops might. He shook his head and stepped back as though he wanted to put some distance between them. He was still flexing his hand, Severus saw.
“Yes, of course you did. But I assume it’s the shock. When you think of the idea again, then you won’t be able to believe that you helped James Potter’s terrible spawn. I can’t rely on you.”
Severus narrowed his eyes to slits. “Do not bring up you father to me.”’
“As if you aren’t imagining him every time you look at me!”
Potter’s voice had already risen and echoed around the room as if he was tossing splinters of glass. For a moment, Severus stood with his eyes locked on Potter’s, and then the boy shook his head and turned to reach out for the doorknob.
“Potter.”
“What.”
Severus was tempted to give in to the same dynamics that the boy so obviously sought to reestablish between them. He could let Potter go, and the next time they saw each other, they would be sullen brat and more sullen professor once again.
But that very thought reminded Severus of how much had changed. They had already moved past the point where he could think of himself uncritically in his interactions with Potter. He had been sullen, and he had had good reasons for it, but he did not enjoy the portrait of himself as an immature, petty dictator.
“Wait, Potter,” he said quietly, and maybe it was the tone, maybe it was the words, but Potter quit twisting against the door like a fish on a hook. He didn’t turn to face Severus. Still, it was progress, of a sort.
“Yeah, professor?”
“You will come to me when you are injured again. Do you understand? I will not speak with the Headmaster about this, but I will not be understanding if I find that you have been hiding injuries from me.”
‘
Potter turned around then, and his eyes were wide and his face pale. Severus did not think it was from blood loss.
“Yeah?” Potter whispered. “And why the fuck would you care?”
Severus gathered himself against the immediate response he wanted to give. He was sure now that this was part of the same way that Potter had manipulated him in Potions the other day, using Severus’s own ingrained reactions against him.
“You have detention,” he said quietly. “With me at six tomorrow evening.” He watched closely, and knew he wasn’t imagining the way that Potter’s slumped body relaxed a little, how he tilted his head back and nodded as if he was listening to a faraway song. “We will talk more about why I would care then.”
Potter opened his mouth for a moment as if he would argue. Then he simply nodded and slipped out the door. It closed and locked behind him on its own, as it was enchanted to do. Severus was glad of that. He was not sure he could have moved his feet from their place or taken his gaze from the doorway. He was seeing the memories of what had just passed rather than anything in front of his eyes.
I do not understand him.
But perhaps it is time I did.