Chapter Text
Most of the neighbors on Privet Drive had suspicions about what was happening at number four. Some even had first-hand information to back them up, but it was such a serious accusation that they couldn’t help but wonder: what if they were wrong?
The Dursleys always seemed like such nice people. Maybe the neighbors had misread the situation, or only knew part of the story, or perhaps the boy had brought it on himself. After all, he was enrolled in a school for criminal boys, and those institutions don’t accept just anyone…
And so, as often happens, no one did anything—or, to be fair, they did some things out of pity and guilt. They just didn’t do enough.
They did the same things anyone would for a bright-eyed, cute little kitten abandoned in a box in the park.
For the kitten, they left some food and milk in a cup they wouldn’t miss, some treats, and not much else. For the boy, they saved a smile, a crayon or two when he was little, an old pair of sneakers now and then, the opportunity to weed their garden for more money than they would usually pay, a few pitying glances over the years, and plenty of blind eyes to the telling bruises and swollen lips.
They didn’t call for help. For either.
“Did you hear, dear? The lad—Harry, Petunia’s nephew? Yes, the boy with that hair. Well, it seems he ran away! Patti told me that Penny’s older boy heard some yelling about him running away. Good for him, I say. Poor love, always looking so lost, but ready to help all the same. What? Oh, yes, St. Brutus? I heard that too, but my Tommy once had a girlfriend who worked there as a psychiatrist. I wanted to send him some of my homemade biscuits that he loved so much, my mother’s recipe, God rest her soul, but there was no Harry—oh, what was his last name? Porter?…”
Petunia lifted her nose even higher and walked right between the two as if she hadn’t a care in the world, and as far as she was concerned, she didn’t.
All was good in her life. Dudley had gotten good enough grades in all but one or two subjects, Vernon was about to get a car even more expensive than the Thompsons’, her roses might be looking a little under the weather, and the weather itself wasn’t agreeing with her hair, but those were small things.
Regular, everyday things.
Normal things.
So what if Harry had run away? It wasn’t her fault. He was a big boy now. She had done all she could for him. Despite everything, she had seen to his education, fed him, clothed him, and kept her word: she took him in.
She walked a little faster to escape the dark thoughts.
She took. Him. In.
Moreover, if after a whole month she hadn’t heard a word from that other world, chances were he was with them. Again.
It wouldn’t be the first time he took off like that, but it would be the last. Dear Vernon was furious, and rightly so. The boy had said some truly nasty things that night, upsetting poor Vernon and putting him off his food, all with untrue accusations and outrageous lies.
Just the thought of it made her hand twitch to slap him again.
They had done all they could. They had to use a firm hand with him, but he still wouldn’t learn, the half-witted boy!
She walked even faster, strident and sure, her shoes slapping against the sidewalk, ready to burn off some frustration, but the memories were persistent and soon caught up with her.
They had tried to show him the ways of polite society, but he kept making up stories. Elaborate lies of fairies in the garden—her garden, for the Lord’s sake!—and telling tales at school about flying bikes and giant people, and drawing the world in unnatural colors.
“He has a great imagination,” the teacher told them when she asked if it was normal for a boy his age to draw such filth and a green sun, but she knew better.
So they took him to the church, and the Father confirmed all her fears. She had good instincts, he had said. The boy was possessed, and it was up to them to free him.
“This particular demon,” the Father told them, “feeds on our young ones, and, like many of his kind, is afraid of confinement.” The cupboard was the solution. “Pain,” Vernon took a deep breath and said he would do it. “Hunger,” she nodded, taking up the task. “And above all, our Lord.”
They paid a small fortune out of the boy’s stipend for the Father’s help, and over the years, he taught them how to keep the monster at bay. But the monster wouldn’t leave the boy’s body. He still conjured toys for himself, grew his hair back, talked to things in the dark.
“Kinship,” the priest called it, and knowing Harry’s roots, Petunia wholeheartedly agreed.
From time to time, she could still see that thing lurking deep in Harry’s eyes, wearing defiance as a cloak and they knew they were being too soft on the boy, and it was time to tighten things up.
“Please stop! Stop! I’ll be good, I swear, please don’t!” The demon would plead through his nephew’s sobs, but her Vernon was a strong man. He knew better than to listen to the lies, and he’d strike again
Demons fear pain.
Harry did too.
—*—
Meanwhile, Harry was running as fast as his legs would allow, shouldering past people and knocking over trash cans and boxes within the labyrinth of the back alleys of London. The stench of rotting garbage mixed with the acrid smell of the city assaulted his nostrils and he made a motion as if to help straighten things up, but the sound of running feet close behind him made him keep moving.
“I’m sorry!” he yelled over his shoulder to Mr. Carlson who had come out to see what the commotion about. The old man waved his filthy rag at him, but Harry didn’t have time to stop and help. He would make it up to him after his next shift.
The Order had found him, and they were sure to send him back. “I’ll come back later,” he breathed out as he finally made it to the main street and was momentarily blinded by the glaring sun. He almost got run over by a car. “Ow, dammit,” he breated, then spoke louder to the cabby, “My bad, sorry!” while still running and rubbing an now elbow.
The sound of brakes screeching and the driver’s angry yelling drew the attention of a patrolling officer.
Behind the officer he saw the unknown faces of people with familiar-looking sticks in hand who had been chasing him all the way from the park where he had been delivering errands for Miss Coenn.
The officer blew his whistle at Harry, but all of Harry’s attention was on the oddly clothed men, he was too far away to hear what they were saying, but he didn’t need to.
He wasn’t going back.
He had packed all his things and left them at Mrs. Figg’s door with a note a few weeks ago.
“I’m fine, please don’t look for me. I’ll be at the train on September 1st. -HP”
He had made a new life for the summer. He had a job, a new name, a friendly dog who would follow him the first seven blocks to almost everywhere, and he even had gotten himself a boxroom with his own bathroom on the top floor of a pub, which made him feel all grown-up every time he had to pay the rent once a week.
Maybe at first things hadn’t gone so well, and he had even thought for an insane half-second about going back, but he was all right now.
The Order had found him twice before, and as many times he had managed to best them, but they were growing bolder every time, coming back in greater numbers.
This time, they were many and he was one,
they had magic and he was tired,
they were grown-ups and he was just a kid,
they were mad and he was scared,
they were closer and he was hurting,
they just fired,
and he just fell.
The next time he woke up, it was to the unwelcome familiarity of a house that was no one’s home. The air was musty, and the old wooden floorboards creaked under any movement.
A temporary solution, to be sure; these wards were no match for those of Privet Drive. Dumbledore had told him so at the end of last year when Harry had asked again for the chance to stay somewhere else during summer. Anywhere but Privet Drive. Even Grimmauld Place without Sirius was better than number four.
He almost told Dumbledore that time when he had asked for a reason. He had almost told him all of it, but he got tongue-tied in the middle of the thought, and the words just wouldn’t come out.
He was ashamed of himself, of letting his relatives make him cry…. of being so weak and stupid that they—
Besides, he argued with himself while Dumbledore explained that he only had to stay for a fixed number of days for the wards to build up. If he had gotten this far, perhaps he could take on just one more summer. Next year he would be of age, he made it this far, he just needed to endure one more lousy summer.
He was older now, he had reasoned with himself while ignoring the headmaster. He could even maybe fight Vernon back, or at the very least no make him mad, and if he could manage a good preservative charm on some snaks, perhaps he could keep some food. And Dudley would be easy to outrun; he always was.
It wouldn’t be so bad.
He could take it,
he could do it!
He would do it!
He found the charm, and hid some food, he kept out of Vernon’s way as much as he could, he did his chores, and hid from Dudley and…
He didn’t last even a week.
With a ringing ear and a tender wrist, he had stuffed his things in a duffel bag, left the rest in his trunk at Mrs. Figg’s, and set off.
And now here he was, back in Grimmauld Place as a prelude to somewhere else.
For a long time, he just sat on the bed, feeling naughty for running away and claustrophobic at being caught.
The sun filtered through the windows through some holes in the purple curtain, filling the room with golden specks of dust.
The gloomy feeling that radiated off the house didn’t help his defeatist mood. The creaking of the house, the dim lighting, and the constant sense of being watched by the portraits made him feel like a prisoner at his ally’s hand.
Inevitably, the door cracked open and Professor Lupin stepped inside.
Ever since Sirius’s death, Remus had become what others would call an uncle of sorts. Harry cared for him enough to call him anything but.
He called him Professor.
Potter swung his legs back and forth, sitting on the side of the bed, too ashamed to look at anything else but the tips of his socks and noticing idly that a little hole was forming over the big toe. Someone had taken his shoes off.
He heard the sound of a chair being set into place in front of him—
He would have to stitch it up, the little hole in his sock. These were his favorite socks. They were his only pair that weren’t grey, and he really liked them for that. They had been Neville’s, but he had outgrown them. They still had Nev’s initials stitched on them.
The groaning of the old chair under the professor’s weight sent a swirl of air that disturbed the dust—
He had a needle and some thread in his bag. It wasn’t the right color, but it would have to do. Maybe he could stitch his own initials too while at it. He never had anyone sew his name on his clothes, but then again he didn’t need to; he could do it himself.
“Harry.”
What he didn’t have was his bag. And his shoes.
He swung his legs faster, the motion bleeding frustration, his sock-clad heels making a soft noise against the bed.
He liked not having elephant grey socks and being his own man. He just needed his bag, and the thread, and his shoes, and he’d be all set to—
“Harry.” He felt an insistent, soft finger pulling his chin up, and he closed his eyes harder, trying fiercely to just think about the needle, and the little hole, and the stitch, and the missing bag.
“Harry, look at me.”
Remus wasn’t yelling, but that just made it worse.
He should be angry, disappointed, mad, furious beyond words. Harry had disobeyed and ignored his letters and counsel, and whenever he had written back, it was with silly letters full of nonsense about his day—nothing important and nothing in response to what the professor was asking of him.
But he sounded just like Remus.
Nice old Remus.
“Please?”
Feeling much like a child, he opened his eyes. “-lo,” he whispered, then cleared his throat and repeated louder, “Hello, Professor.”
Remus looked older than when he had last seen him. Not because of the wrinkles or the white hair or even the set of his shoulders, but because of his eyes. His eyes looked tired, duller, darker. Just as his letters had read with his pleas to come back.
Harry felt even worse for running away and knew he would say yes when Remus asked him again. He wouldn’t be a burden to Remus; he wanted Remus to like him.
He would go back. Again.
He felt an implosion in his chest, and the sheer terror at the knowledge made his heart skip a beat, but when Lupin asked if he was okay, he just nodded, feeling betrayed and very much alone.
“Thank you, Harry. It will be okay, you’ll see. Albus has already spoken with your aunt, and they are ready to take you back.”
He patted Harry’s leg, mistaking terrified worship for willing compliance. “Good lad.”
—*—
“It can’t be that bad,” said Tonks, who now had a firm grip on Harry’s arm and had reinforced the tracking charm on his shoes for good measure after Potter’s second attempt at running.
It was a good thing he didn’t know how to Apparate yet, or she would have never caught him.
Harry was too busy hard-boiling his resentment to answer, but then again, Tonks wasn’t waiting for an answer, so she just kept on talking.
“Professor Dumbledore spoke with them. I thought Remy told you? Sure, they are mad, but so are we, and we aren’t throwing you to the wolves, now are we?”
A pause showed this time she was waiting for an answer, but Harry just gave her a side-long glance that the Auror wouldn’t learn the meaning of until much later.
“Now, I’m serious, Harry, no more running away, okay? I know it must be hard being cut off from magic, but take it as a holiday of sorts, will you? We don’t have the spare men to chase after you, so I want you to promise me you’ll wait here for us. A magical promise this time, okay? A binding one, all right? Now promise, promise, and I shall trust you, warrior…”
In the end, Harry was bullied into such a promise. Who knew Tonks could be so sneaky?
He had felt with awed wonder as the magic closed around him like a bubble, filling his nose with the sweet, odd smell of very old magic. Always the older the reckless, and this one seemed fit to be a true Gryffindor.
In a roundabout sense, the use of such magics was Tonks’ compliment to Harry, for in the old days it was used only on those who knew better than to try and challenge it.
To Harry, it would grow to be an unforgiving prison, binding his magic to his very core, hurting him with growing emptiness, filling him with stone-heavy despair.
Leaving him bare to the care of his relatives.
Stealing his voice and blurring his eyes.
To Tonks, they were just old words for a simple promise to keep; to listen to his relatives, to be good and behave.
But the spell still had a month to run through his magic, and until then, Harry just felt boyish wonder at the smell and, funnily enough, tried to remember a story a tree fairy had once told him while in the park about a toad and a promise and a sword, some sweet berries, and the long road home.
Soon they were in front of number 4, Tonks was ringing the bell, and Uncle Vernon answered it, his features set in stone.
Without a single word, he just pointed up the stairs with a finger.
“Mister…Dudley!, hi,” she started cheerfully enough, happy to have remember his name, but at Vernon’s glare just barely finished in a dropping voice, “…I’m Tonks.” With a gulp and perhaps remembering she was an Auror, she shouldered on. “I’m told Professor Dumbledore owled you ahead, explaining this, uh… little misunderstanding,” again she trailed off under the force of his glare, and Harry was glad he wasn’t the only wizard afraid of this man.
“Upstairs with you,” were Uncle Vernon’s only words, gruff with unmitigated fury.
Tonks gave Harry a little pat on the shoulder right before a little shove that made Potter remember he was being left behind.
“Well, umm… see you later then, Harry, and remember: you promised!” The last word Harry heard was yelled from behind the door so rudely shut by Uncle Vernon.
Deep breath, you can do this, he cheered himself mentally.
One month was a short time. Four weeks, well, five really, but he could shorten that time if he could gather some things and…
Think!
Deep breaths and think.
In through the nose, out through the mouth like Snape had made him breath before occlumency.
Fill your lungs, clear you mind and focus, Potter!!
One month and one week were just five measly weeks, and each week had seven days, but Vernon worked five of those, and he usually came in late, so maybe he could lay low. Pretend he wasn’t there and didn’t exist.
Or maybe… he thought, filling his lungs, clearing his mind, and focusing on the here and now. See, Snape? I totally can do it!
Maybe… he thought forming a plan
He didn’t have much money left, but he could cut his expenses in half this time. Perhaps a smaller room, or maybe no room at all. If he moved around, he would be harder to track for Death Eaters and Order members alike.
He started up the steps to his room, thinking he would lay low a few days before taking off.
The days could be fractioned into hours. He just had to endure some hours. He could do that. Maybe stay in the park most of those? Could he go out?
But even if they locked him in, if he picked the lock like the twins taught him, he could sneak out some nights to get some fresh air. And maybe a sandwich. He didn’t need that much sleep anyway. He didn’t need much of anything, really. He could take care of himself. He would go deeper this time. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes. He wouldn’t see other people or make friends with anyone. He would go really far and…
He stopped in his tracks at the distinctive smell of burning incense.
In through the nose and focus on the here and now…
A ritual incense?
He knew that smell.
He stopped mid step and his body reacting before his mind finished procesing made a mad scramble for the front door, all planning forgotten, calling Tonks’ name, but Uncle Vernon caught him. It was a mighty struggle and some scratches later that he freed himself from the meaty hands and made it to the back door.
He could hear Vernon yelling even if he didn’t understand the words. The door wouldn’t open. The lock wasn't on, but it wouldn’t open!
He felt it again, the faint sweet smell of magic mixed up bellow the incense and that he would soon learn to hate them both.
He took his wand, more afraid of his relatives than the Ministry,
“Don’t you dare!!” shrieked Aunt Petunia, but he still tried an Alohomora, and when that didn’t work, he started casting hexes, spells, and charms to no avail. Each word hurt deeper than the last, stealing his air until he could just barely gasp a final jinx that, like the others, stank of that nauseatingly sweet smell.
Aunt Petunia joined Uncle Vernon, their faces twisted with determination. They were both steadily walking toward him, emboldened by his non-functioning wand, chanting something with feverish belief.
He dropped his wand to the floor and covered his eyes and ears with trembling hands, trying desperately to remember the tale of the fairy, choking back a sob at the feel of rough, brute hands taking him by the arms and dragging him up the stairs, to the stuffy air of his room and the everlasting promise of darkness, hunger, and pain.
—*—
As promised, an eternal month later, the Order finally granted him his freedom. The wards weren’t at their fullest, the letter had warned, but they would have to make do.
They had owled ahead with the date but left out the time for safety. Aunt Petunia refused to allow another wizard inside her house, so Harry was left waiting outside since dawn, trunk and all.
The shadow of the full moon overhead signaled that Remus wouldn’t be among the rescuers, and in a detached sort of way, Harry was glad. He needed a bath, a meal, a full night’s sleep, and time to pull himself together—he didn’t want Remus to see him like this.
Defeated to the Muggles, with the unknowing help of magic claimed as the hand of the Muggle Lord. In times past, he had burned the hands of priests who tried to hold him, bent bloodletters, and once made his bed shake, but this time, there had been no magic to call upon.
So, there he sat for hours, filling his lungs with clear air for the first time in weeks. He felt exposed being outside his room but happy to be finally free. Yet, he couldn’t shake the shiver at the thought of being outside the protective wards. Would the spell still hold? If being good meant no magic at Number 4, would it extend to Hogwarts as well? He frowned, remembering Tonks and wondered if she had extracted the promise as punishment.
The sun came and went, and still no sign of the Order. Was this a test? Had he gotten the wrong date? Vernon had confiscated his letter, and he had been too weak to fight for it—he had only read it in passing. Perhaps it was another date, even closer to September 1st.
He lifted his head at the sound of footsteps, but they stopped two houses short of Number 4. Neighbors passed by, some nodding greetings, but most ignoring him.
He didn’t know what he would do if the Order didn’t show up. He wasn’t going back, that much he was sure of, but he wasn’t running away either…
He fretted over what he would do until they finally—finally!—arrived.
From a distance, he could distinguish them from Muggles by their clothing. It wasn’t anything outrageous, but if you knew what to look for, it was obvious.
Shacklebolt, Moody, and a third man he didn’t recognize approached quickly, casting suspicious glances over their shoulders.
For the first time, Harry wondered how they would travel and if magic would still hurt.
“Up, lad, shadows are following. Up, up, up,” Moody grunted, and Harry felt a sudden lightness as he finally walked away from that place, forgetting his pains and aches as he always did, pretending his summer hadn’t happened.
As far as he was concerned, it was just another nightmare—one that, unlike the others, wouldn’t haunt him again; he would soon be of age, and Uncle Vernon had declared they were done with him, tearing up some formal-looking papers before his eyes. He would have scoffed at the word “welcome” then, but experience had taught him better.
He was done with them too.
Shaking his head to clear the tangle of thoughts, Harry gathered his things and followed the group to the park. They had to find something that “looked out of place and answered to the name Howland.”
“Accio!” the third man called, clearly unfamiliar with Dumbledore’s style—it wouldn’t be that easy to find this Howland thingy.
Grumbling about idiots and his rotten luck, Mad-Eye crouched among the bushes, trying his wand on completely normal Muggle items.
A plastic blue shovel, a girly musical rope, a broken tape, a poker card—each one was subjected to “Replidiostyhupirum Howland,” and the joke grew stale after the twelfth time.
Meanwhile, Shacklebolt kept his wand at the ready, searching for shadows without bodies, his stance tense.
Bored and feeling somewhat useless, Harry glanced around until he spotted a bright purple toilet seat with yellow stars hanging from a knotty branch on the oldest tree.
Now that, he thought, smiling openly, was definitely Dumbledore’s style.
—*—
“Are you planning to drown in there, Potter?” came the reproach, followed by a heavy banging on the door.
It wasn’t the first time, and as Harry was neither in a hurry nor in a charitable mood toward Tonks, it certainly wouldn’t be the last call either.
“Come on, Harry! I really have to go… Don’t make me beg,” Tonks pleaded, and after a brief pause, she did just that. “Please, I’m begging you, Harry Potter. I’ll give you my firstborn child, a strip of bacon, my share of candy, and lend you my favorite quill. But please, please, I have to go.”
“Use the one downstairs!” he yelled from within the bathtub, blowing bubbles as he spoke.
“It’s haunted and you know it! Please, pleeease,” she added accusingly. “Remus says you’ve been in there forever. Come on, I’ll lend you my snooty quill, a whol—”
Tonks stopped when she heard some grumbling and the sound of draining water through the old, noisy plumbing. She would have cheered had it not been so urgent.
After a minute or two with no sign of Harry emerging, she realized his mistaken belief of changing clothes inside the bathroom instead of doing so in his room just across the hall, and letting her in.
“Oh, no, you won’t,” she whispered to herself, frustrated with the urgency and mad with need. Louder, she said, “Cover up with a towel or something, I’m coming in!” and opened the door.
In the middle of the damp, old bathroom stood the Boy Who Lived, wearing only his pajama bottoms, his new scars bared to the world—thousands of tiny scars and scabs from which the demon inside him was supposed to escape, driven by his blood. Prominent ribs spoke of hunger, and bruises that any sane person would recognize as signs of abuse…
At the door stood Tonks, one hand still on the doorknob and the other firmly over her closed eyes. “Are you decent yet?”
—*—
Harry had a mere three days to prepare for school.
Someone had procured his textbooks, a robe, some quills, and parchment. Apparently, even Diagon Alley was no longer safe for him.
Or for anyone else, according to the papers.
The Prophet warned its readers of an unexplained surge in petty thieves and dark magic practitioners, mentioning odd disappearances and rising prices for protective services, but Voldemort and his followers were conspicuously absent from the reports.
Bored with the newspaper, Harry flipped through his Defense Against the Dark Arts book, trying to gauge what this year’s professor would be like.
It was an advanced text, heavy on the darker aspects of the subject, densely written with footnotes in small, cramped font and very few illustrations or practical spell instructions like those Professor McGonagall favored.
Whoever had taken on the post this year was clearly not messing around.
It promised to be a challenging and undoubtedly lengthy academic year. He absentmindedly rubbed the back of his right hand, feeling the embossed letters under his thumb.
—*—
"Is that the best we can expect from you, Mister Potter?” sneered the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, his voice dripping with condescension. “It seems my predecessor’s notes weren’t exaggerating about your… abilities,” he remarked, not unkindly, though the words cut deep.
Harry seethed with resentment.
“Come on, Harry, show him!” urged Ron in a barely audible whisper, furious with Snape but taking it out on his friend.
Harry attempted again, feeling the magic coalesce within him, inside of him, whirling through his veins, cascading all the way down to his fingertips but stopping short of his wand.
“It’s a rather simple spell, Mr. Potter. Should I summon a third-year to demonstrate?” Snape’s words dripped with malevolent faux-helpfulness as he paced around the classroom, heels clicking against the stone floor, appearing bored except for the cruel twist at the corner of his mouth.
The Slytherins snickered their noxious little laughs, agitating the nerves of the Gryffindors, thickening the tension that permeated the classroom almost every class now.
Snape’s classes had become a battleground of house rivalries. The outside world was going mad in fear of an imminent magical war, and inside the castle everyone was taking sides or being forced to.
“Show us a spell, Mr. Potter, any spell,” sighed Snape, as he added myrrh to to one of the vessels at the front of the room.
The vessel, an ancient incense burner, a new acquisition to the classroom, was Dumbledore’s solution to override the sickly sweet scent that lingered on the very walls of the castle even after Umbridge’s departure. The odious stench persisted in the room itself despite the elves best efforts.
To this very day Snape continued to argue with the headmaster about a change of classrooms. Tradition and convenience be damned, Severus missed his loved dungeons.
The moment his brain caught up with the scent, Harry forgot it all: who he was with, where he was.
In an instant, he was back on Privet Drive, in his room, back to summer.
He couldn’t take another summer.
His heart imploded in a thousand pieces inside his chest, he felt his body fill with energy born out of pure terror, terror itself flooding his veins. He had to get out of there, he couldn't take another beating, he wouldn't survive another summer, he had to get out of there!
In a panicked frenzy, he made it to the door, blind with panic, deaf to the Slytherins mocking laughter, oblivious to Snape’s locking spell.
Footsteps approached from behind, slow and deliberate, bringing only pain.
He didn't hear Snape taunts, he never listened to the words anymore, they where always the same, and if he let them, they hurt worse than any cane ever did.
The tone was enough.
He got the whole message out of just the tone.
He had to get out of there. He had to escape.
He rattled the door on its hinges again but it wouldn’t open.
He sensed the magic pulsating through the wood, and he focused harder thinking hard.
Closing his eyes he leaned his head on the door, he could feel his own magic inside of him too, it was always there, trapped inside his skin, carving new patterns, looking for a way out but finding none.
Eyes still shut, he pressed his head harder against the door, wanting to bang it in frustration and.
His magic, was always within him, seeking release. Aching.
Only this time it wasn't trapped and though he didn't know it, purple sparks of magic were sparkling all around him, mist of pure magic was forming all around him, spiking up his hair, cracking up the air like static, summoning a soft storm that tousled ties, feathers, and hats. Making the students hold onto their parchments and blowing Snape’s robes
The footsteps quickened, approaching with fury. Heels against stone, each step making Harry’s heart beat faster, his thoughts grow wilder, he felt his blood run faster, his fear rose higher, his magic swelled thicker almost touchable now, it poured out of him to protect him.
The wind howled louder.
He was calling on a magic storm.
“Of all the foolish things, Potter! Get back in there and cast the bloody spell,” Snape started to say, but before he could finish, as he grabbed Harry’s arm, intending to shake some sense into the defiant boy who dared challenge him class after class.
Up to that point, up to the contact, Harry had been at bay in his own adrenalin rush, tilting precariously between fight and flight. Trapped in a panic that didn’t let him think rationally.
At the touch, two things happened: Harry startled and looked back at Snape hardening further in his resolve to flee, and for a brief moment before the magic hurled him backward, Snape felt the raw terror emanating from Potter.
This was no mere teenage embarrassment at his own ineptitude, this was something else.
For the first time that day, Snape didn’t just look at the boy; he saw him.
His eyes where hued with the same color of the magic that was cracking the air. Potter turned back to the door before Snape could decipher the meaning of the eyes and the whole door exploded into a million splinters.
Meanwhile, Harry was seeing the magic: a vast, pulsating network of energy, each color a different spell, each spell a form, a scent, even a taste. He could tell which of the threads was the binding the door to the wall, trapping him in Privet Drive and with more resignation that any real feeling he just wished it away resigning himself to whatever came.
He was tired.
He was so very tired of this.
Upon the first backlash, Snape yelled “Duomodoro!” waving his wand hastily, conjuring a protective dome of intricate shadows around himself and the startled students.
Some splinters breached the shield before it solidified, but Snape managed to contain most of the exploding door.
In moments, the chaos ceased. Wooden dust was all that remained of the ancient barrier, of an age old gate.
With a flick of his wand, Severus dissipated the dome into powdery black sand at his feet as Potter half stumbled half ran out the classroom. Snape followed swiftly, leaving behind a scene of overturned desks and scattered parchment amid stunned silence.
He found Potter a short distance down the corridor, leaning against the wall, back turned to the now-doorless classroom.
“What in Salazar’s teeth was that?” Snape demanded, furious and rightfully so. “Look at me when I speak to you!” If the headmaster hadn’t frowned upon it, he would have hexed Potter then and there.
He was seething with anger after that display in his classroom, that tantrum!
Grabbing the boy’s shoulder, he slammed him against the wall, the action a release of his pent-up fury.
“What gives you the right to cast such spells at me? What kind of imbecile—” Harry still wouldn’t meet his gaze, lost in his own thoughts, staring at his hand but seeing beyond.
That’s when the professor noticed the markings for the first time.
Once again, that peculiar hue, snaking up the boy’s arm in a pattern like ivy, moving fast, swirling up his hands and into his sleeves, down his ears and neck and again into the robe, where Snape suspected more patterns were hidden.
Forgoing anger momentarily, he traced the lines with his eyes, the patterns teasing him with elusive familiarity. He had encountered this before, or read about it, or heard of it—
He grasped one of Harry’s arms, needing to see more of the lines.
The first touch startled them both.
Audible crackling filled the air, raising the hair on the back of Snape’s neck.
He scrunched up Potter’s sleeves, but the lines were fading fast and instead he spotted dotted lines of tiny scars and bruises that could easily be explained with how many other things had Potter needed to explode before mastering such a curse as the one he had just unleashed.
Blotching indeed, he thought darkly.
He would speak to Dumbledore about the illicit magic and this time he would make the headmaster heed his concerns.
Harry meanwhile was caught up in some sort of shock of his own. This was the first time he had done magic ever since they— Ever since summer.
It felt….weird.
Different.
Wrong. Bloated.
and dark.
“I saw…” he started, attempting to explain the door, the wards, the net, but halted before revealing too much.
He didn’t fully understand what he had seen. He felt something, saw something, but how could he explain it without sounding mad?
Suddenly recalling where he was and with whom, he felt himself getting all over red pipe hot out of embarrassment.
“Those lines,” Snape said, firming his voice and his grip on Harry’s wrist, “what spell did you cast?” It resembled dark magic; nothing else would etch such marks into flesh or wreak such destruction. He turned Potter’s arm, back and forth looking for the lines again, but they had vanished.
“Where did you learn that spell?” he repeated, inspecting the other arm with the same result: no visible marks except for scabs and a blister or two…
Something caught his attention and he took Potter’s right hand again, noticing faint lines, no longer purple but white. Raised.
They weren’t the same markings; they were… words? Distinctive words etched into the skin. A spell, perhaps? A trigger point to anchor the magic?
He traced a thumb over the lines, and like a shifting tide of emotions, his anger waned.
“What is this?” he asked, no longer furious and already suspecting the answer, however improbable.
They had dismissed the rumors about the blood quill as gross exaggerations by students, but Snape recognized Potter’s handwriting in the clean lines of the wounds.
Embossed in the skin were the same curly chicken scratches Snape could remember from tedious essays: ‘I must not tell lies’
"Why didn't you say?" he was bone deep tired "Minerva would have—" Snape began, but before he could finish, the boy’s hand slipped from his grasp. Not resisting, merely limp.
The brat was passing out.
If Potter had been conscious, Snape would have lectured him relentlessly on his recklessness until the idiot’s skull softened enough for the notion to take root in that empty cranium.
However, hearing sixth-years approaching and seeing heads peeking out of the now-doorless classroom, he swiftly cast a spell to prevent the boy from hitting the floor and summoned an elf to inform Madam Pomfrey
He should have instructed the elf to summon Dumbledore as well, he thought while going through the motions, but knowing the headmaster, he would likely already be on his way if needed.