"Well, let's go, then," Hermione said with forced cheer. Her hand was gripping his elbow as if she were prepared to keep him from apparating away.
As they left the Weasleys' quarters and started down the shifting stairs for the Great Hall, Ron's hand settled softly on Harry's shoulder.
Cocooned in their caring, Harry followed them down to the hall. It was only as they approached the teachers' table and Harry saw that familiar, black-clad figure sitting next to Hagrid in what Severus sometimes playfully referred to as the Gryffindor Ghetto that his steps faltered.
All that hurt and fury raged through him like a tornado as he met Severus' cautious black eyes.
The three seats they normally sat in were there on the other side of Severus. Even though Harry knew he could take the one furthest from him, it was just too close right now.
Already, the most sensitive among the teachers were beginning to look up as Harry's magic swirled through the room, making the wall sconces and candles floating midair flicker ominously.
Knowing that he'd explode if he had to sit close enough to hear or touch Severus, Harry turned to the other end of the table, to the isolated corner where Severus hadn't sat in months.
Hermione's steps didn't even falter. She turned with him as if that had been their destination all along, but Ron gave a totally confused, "What's happened? Why aren't we sitting with Severus?"
They were close enough that Harry knew Severus had overheard Ron's comment. He could feel those dark eyes on him as he turned to Ron and suggested, "Ask Severus," before taking the seat at the farthest end of the table, Hermione at his side.
Visibly confused, Ron settled into the seat on her other side.
There was so much tension in the air and so many unasked questions that Harry could barely breathe.
"Here, Harry, have some pumpkin juice," Hermione said, handing him a tall glass of their childhood drink. She looked as worried as Ron.
With good reason, Harry realized, only then noticing that his magic was still swirling through the room, wreaking havoc with the lighting and unnerving everyone powerful enough to sense the thaumaturgical disturbance. A lot of gazes were beginning to turn his way.
Harry sucked in a deep breath, and then another. After a moment, the candles and sconces stopped flickering and began their usual steady burn. He took a couple of sips of the sweet juice Hermione had handed him, and the menacing magic rocking through the Hall vanished like a will-o-the-wisp.
"There, that's better now," Hermione approved. Harry could hear the relief in her voice and knew how badly he'd shaken her as she suggested with that same forced cheer, "Have some mashed potatoes, Harry."
Doing his utmost to defuse, Harry let her fill his plate.
He could feel Hermione, Ron's, and another dark, equally familiar gaze watching him as he forced himself to tuck into his meal.
As he chewed the food he wasn't really interested in, Harry wondered if he'd ever get to the point where he wouldn't feel Severus' gaze on his skin the way he would another wizard's hand. Recognizing that he was going to have to work on getting to that place, he swallowed. The food sat like a lump in his stomach as he took another forkful.
His world had crumbled around him enough times in the past for him to know the routine. He just didn't know if he'd be able to fake normality this time.
*~*~*
"All right. You're going to tell me what's going on, and if the word 'nothing' passes your lips, you won't have to worry about waiting for Harry to lose control and blast you to perdition," Hermione Weasley said as she entered the empty Potions classroom Monday morning during their shared free period. "What did you do to him?"
Severus looked up from the papers he was grading. He wasn't surprised to see her. He'd been expecting such a call since dinner last night.
Breakfast this morning had been marginally better. At least Harry's power hadn't been swirling through the hall, waiting to strike like a ravenous panther. Still, Harry had looked like he hadn't slept in days. For that matter, so did the worried woman in front of him.
Trying to keep a handle on the situation, Severus gave an urbane, "Good morning to you as well."
"Don't!" Hermione warned. "I've been up with him all night. He won't tell me what's wrong, but I know it's got something to do with you. Have you any idea how close he was to losing control in the Great Hall last night?"
Once he would have toyed with her or done everything he could to avoid a scene. But since his own guilt had been eating at him like acid since Harry's visit in the early hours yesterday morning, he met her gaze and softly said, "He has more than sufficient cause."
His honesty seemed to deflate her anger. Taking a deep breath, Hermione approached his desk and asked in a pleading tone, "Severus, what did you do?"
"You know what I did. Or you suspect it. That's why you came to me Saturday morning," Severus said.
"I came to you on Saturday because Harry didn't seem to remember that he was involved with you . . . . " Hermione said.
"He didn't remember because I blocked off all memory of our involvement when he asked me to remove the things Burke had told him about my past from his mind," Severus said. He didn't mean to hold his breath afterwards, but he knew he was in as much danger of being cursed by this woman as he was with Harry. Merlin alone knew what her husband, the Auror, would do once he learned of his transgression, providing, of course, that he survived long enough to face Ronald Weasley.
"Oh my God. No wonder poor Harry is . . . ."
"Ready to kill, and justly so," Severus said.
"How could you do that to him? He loves you!"
"It was quite easy, actually," Severus said, knowingly baiting the she-bear before him which was intent on protecting its cub. "He left himself totally open."
"And you took advantage of that trust," Hermione said, her voice and gaze as cold as his bed was now that Harry had left it for good.
He knew he should apologize. He knew he was in the wrong here. If he threw himself upon her mercy and explained the insane state of mind that had driven him to do what he'd done to Harry, he knew she would, if not forgive him, at least counsel him on how to get through the disaster he'd made of things. But his pride wouldn't let him do it. Pride was, after all, the only thing he had left. His sanity was obviously long gone.
He'd done what he'd done, and there would be no undoing it. He'd follow this through, no matter where it ended.
"I am Slytherin, after all," Severus said in what he knew to be his most arrogant tone of voice.
Her eyes sparked with the same kind of incandescent rage Severus had seen several times before being blasted by instantaneous magic. She wasn't nearly as powerful as Harry, but she was a force to be reckoned with all the same. He could feel her power swirling through the room the way Harry's had in the Great Hall last night. For a minute, he saw his death in her eyes, and he welcomed it.
Then, that fury was firmly clamped down. She took a deep breath, and contempt replaced the anger hardening her features. "No. That would be too easy, wouldn't it? You're going to have to live with this, Severus."
He wasn't able to hold her gaze. He heard her rise to her feet. He jerked in his seat as a small white rectangle of parchment popped into being on the desk in front of him. Startled, he recognized it as the calling card of that Squib analyst she was friendly with.
"Do us all a favour and get yourself some help before you kill someone," and with those clipped words, she stormed out of the Potions lab.
Startled, Severus realized that he was shaking as badly as he had been after Harry had left his chambers for the final time Sunday morning. He hadn't thought that losing her would hurt this much.
Not knowing if he had the strength to pull himself together before his next class arrived, he stared down at the white card on his desk out of burning eyes.
*~*~*
Water dripped somewhere in the darkness, echoing through the stone chamber. Every breath brought with it the unbearable reek of an open sewer. The place was cold as a grave.
Harry shivered and thought some wall sconces into existence. Their warm, flickering light filled the dungeon. Normally, there would be some Death Eaters entering the scene about now, but tonight there were no Death Eaters. There was only the rack on the far side of the chamber, and the bloody horror that lay shackled to it.
The dripping sound was not water. It was blood, Severus' blood. Only, the skinless carcass on the torture table bore no resemblance to the man Harry remembered. The ghastly remains looked worse than Ron had after Burke had taken out his team. Unlike Ron, there was no sign of life in the near-skeletal remains. The bared ribcage was unmoving.
He'd come too late.
"Nooooo!"
His shout woke him.
Wild-eyed, Harry stared around the room. Sweat and tears were pouring down his face and he was shaking all over.
He took a deep breath as he recognized the blue velvet curtains draping the bed. His bed. His room.
It was just a dream. Severus was safe down in the dungeons below.
Harry ran a hand through his drenched hair. It wasn't fair that he could be so very angry at Severus, and still be tormented by those kinds of dreams.
Taking a deep breath, he threw off the bedclothes and climbed out of the big four poster bed. There would be no more sleep tonight. Not that he'd gotten more than an hour or two.
He thought his clothes on and grabbed his cloak. It was the green, sable lined one Severus had given him for Christmas. The mere sight of it made him ache, so he transfigured it into plain black wool and made tracks for the door.
"Harry?" a sleepy voice called from the open door to the Weasleys' quarters.
He turned to see Hermione standing there in the dark doorway in her long white nightgown.
"Hermione, what are you doing up at this hour?" he asked.
"Are you all right?"
She'd been up with him until he'd finally turned in. He knew she had to be utterly exhausted.
"Did you put a monitoring charm on me?" he asked. It was the only thing he could think of to explain why she'd be up at this ungodly hour. He'd had a silencing spell on his room for years, so he knew his shout couldn't have wakened her.
"Um . . . ."
"I'm not a baby," he said.
"I know. I'm just worried about you," she answered.
"I'm okay, really," he assured.
"It's two a.m. and you went to bed less than an hour ago. You're not okay. Come sit down by the fire. We'll -"
"You're going back to bed," Harry said, moving over to where she stood in the doorway. She was shivering in the castle cold and looked ready to drop from exhaustion. He took his cloak off and put it around her shoulders. "I really appreciate your looking after me the way you have this last month, but you need to rest now. You know if you don't go back to bed, Ron will be up in ten minutes. He's still recovering. You know he needs to sleep."
"You need to sleep," she protested. "Please, go back to bed?"
"I can't. I'll go crazy in there. Walking is the only thing that helps when I get like this."
"I'll go with you, then."
"You'll do no such thing. Back to bed. Go on, luv," he insisted, giving her cheek a fast peck, "Go to bed. I'll be all right."
"Harry . . . ."
"I know you want to help me, but there's nothing to be done right now. It's just going to take time. Please – don't make me feel guilty on top of everything else?"
"All right," she conceded at last. "Just . . . be careful. And wake me if you want to talk when you get back."
"I will," he said, even though he knew he'd do no such thing.
She and Ron had been amazing this last month. They'd practically moved into his room with him. Any time he wasn't in front of a class teaching, one or both of his best friends were there with him, doing everything in their power to distract him and lift his spirits.
That the last was a sheer impossibility was becoming increasingly obvious. It had been over a month since he'd had that big blow up with Severus, but it still felt like the whole thing had happened yesterday. He couldn't remember the last time that anything had hurt him this badly. Maybe the final battle with Voldemort, when they'd lost Professor Dumbledore, Remus, and the Weasley twins in one fell swoop, but he honestly thought this felt even worse than that.
Once Hermione had turned back into her quarters, he headed out into the dark halls. The corridors were even colder than his rooms, so he transfigured another cloak.
The figures in the paintings lining the halls were all asleep, some snoring noisily. He stepped lightly past them, not waking even the lightest portrait sleeper.
He never had any clear destination on nights like this. He just went wherever his feet led him. As he passed a wall of bevelled windows near the Ancient Runes classroom, the full March moon shone in on him like a spotlight. In the distance, he could see the trees of the Forbidden Forest shifting madly in the winds.
It looked cold as hell out there, but maybe that was what he needed to finally get to sleep. Quickening his steps, he turned the corner and ploughed right into a wall of living shadows. He had no idea what he'd hit, but he was moving so fast that he bounced off it like he'd run into a cliff and would have measured his length if strong hands hadn't come out of the darkness to steady him.
Harry stepped back into the moonlit corridor behind him, a polite, "So sorry," on his lips.
The words died as he stared up into Severus Snape's sharp-featured face.
He supposed it was inevitable that this would happen. Severus and he had been running into each other for years as they roamed Hogwarts' dark halls and grounds when everyone else was asleep. Still, the sudden sight of Severus there before him was shocking.
Harry couldn't help but note how rough Severus looked. More than exhausted, the man seemed haunted. There were dark circles under his eyes that made his own purple bags look like rank amateurs.
