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“SHUT UP!”
“What did you say, Potter!”
“I SAID SHUT UP ABOUT MY DAD –”
Like a flashbang in the dungeons, Harry’s vision whitened; he was transported to another time, the realm of a future he wasn’t sure they would come to see. He was in the Great Hall, where hundreds were taking an exam, and he saw a teen Snape, and his father, and who looked to be his friend… He only saw flashes… but that was all he needed… In a fraction of a second, he had learned everything again.
“What is it, Potter?”
Harry woke up on his knees, at the bottom of the chair. His ears were ringing, his eyes half-blind still, and yet, he could hear Severus Snape perfectly, know what his face looked like this very moment.
“Had another of those… prodigious visions? What did you see, I wonder?”
When he looked up, Snape’s mouth was pulled in one of his most malicious sneers yet. What he said next wiped it off his face
“You. I saw… you.”
Part of Harry’s mind was amused to see Snape’s victorious hatred morph into sideration. It wasn’t as if the git hadn’t had it coming... Memories emerged one more time to the front of his mind until at last Harry could see clear. He rightened himself into the chair. He was feeling a lot of things right now, things that left him more stunned than Snape himself. He was barely registering his new knowledge, and how Snape’s reaction confirmed that it had really happened. Minutes could have passed in silence, that Harry would have experienced as mere seconds.
The more he internalized those visions, the more he… understood. The more he… felt.
Snape’s face was pale like he’d seen a ghost, his eyes wide and his lips pressed thin, in a sort of barely-restrained murderous rage.
But Harry was a Hufflepuff, and honey badgers ate snakes for breakfast. Where people saw the devil, he saw a frail creature scaring others to defend himself.
“You will tell no one,” Snape hissed.
Harry blinked.
“I never did.”
The way those words naturally fell from his lips… it felt like speaking a prophecy.
“I’m sorry.”
Harry immediately regretted his words when he saw Snape snarl like an animal.
“And I’m sorry for saying sorry –”
“I don’t need your pity, Potter!”
“It’s not pity! I’m just sorry my father did that!”
“That is pity!”
“You’ve never heard of empathy, have you?”
“QUIET!”
Harry couldn’t help but see the irony of Snape’s cry, but this time, he was smart enough to stay silent. The Potions Master was breathing hard, clearly enraged – clearly afraid. His pride had taken a blow. But…
“I don’t understand. You keep telling me how horrible my father was, and now you’re angry that I see why?”
“What do you not understand in the word quiet, Potter?”
A long moment passed in silence. Harry had lots to say, unlike Snape who seemed lost for words.
“You know, professor…” he tried. “Taking revenge on me won’t change the past. What happened, happened.”
“Potter.”
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything about it. After all, the best way to take revenge on those who wronged you… is to try and not let them change you into a miserable version of yourself.”
“Ooh, what an outstanding philosophy you have there. You’d make a great candidate for Ravenclaw’s House if you weren’t so dumb as to call me miserable. That’s twenty points from Hufflepuff and detention. Now get out of my office.”
“Sir –”
“Quit it with the emotional talk. You think the world revolves around you just because you can see a little farther from your nose… Well, I hate it to break it to you, Potter, but you’re no one. Let alone to me. Now get out before I make it fifty points. And remember boy, I will know if –”
“But that’s a lie.”
Snape rose an eyebrow, ready to lash out again – but he was faster.
“You’re saying I’m no one but you keep trying to protect me. You’ve saved me. Right now you want to save me from Sirius Black, and you’re angry because you think I don’t care that everyone’s trying to protect me…”
“Fifty points, Potter…”
“You hate me because of my father. And I understand why now. But you’re still out there, worried for me, and we both know why. It’s because you care. Despite everything – everything they’ve done to you – that part of you remained. You hate me, but you care even more. Why else would you do all this?”
Snape smiled, slowly, one of those cruel smiles that could reduce a child to tears.
“Because that’s my job. You think you’re so special, don’t you? You think because I spend half of my time trying to keep you alive means you’re so important? The only reason I try so hard, the only reason you think I’m saving you so many times, is because you’re throwing yourself in harm’s way equally as many times. Because just like your father, you expect everyone to slave themselves away for your enjoyment. But make no mistake, Potter. I will treat you no different than anyone else in this school, and the more you step out of line, the more chance I have to have you expelled for good.”
Snape advanced; Harry was forced to flat himself on the door. Their faces were inches apart; the black eyes, the coldest Harry ever knew.
“I do not care. I never did. James Potter has disgraced us with his offspring before departing from this world, and if it weren’t for Dumbledore, I swear I would make it my every day’s greatest pleasure to absolutely ruin you.”
Snape smiled, his yellow crooked teeth in full display. Harry… wanted to cry.
“Because you want justice,” he said anyway, to his own surprise.
“If you say so,” Snape purred back.
The door behind Harry opened, leaving him flailing his arms to catch himself.
“Good day to you,” and the door slammed shut.
There were two ways to know the truth. Visions or a Ravenclaw.
“Think! Why would Snape care so much to keep me alive if he hates me and my dad so much? Why is he pretending not to care about me?”
“Maybe he doesn’t, Harry,” Lola said. “I’m sorry, but some people are just like that. Maybe he really just hates you and there’s nothing more to it.”
“I’m calling BS. He’s hiding something. He was horrified that I saw what happened and he went on the defensive. What he said – it doesn’t make sense. If he wanted to ruin me –”
“Wait.”
All eyes turned to Circe.
“He wanted you to know that your father was a horrible person but freaked out when you said you saw him. That’s explainable… whatever you saw was humiliating. He says he’s just doing his job in saving you, which sounds weird because he seems too concerned…”
She fidgeted with the chocolate frog in leaping between her hands.
“Let’s say his lie is that he does not care about you. Why would he care about you? Caring for your job doesn’t mean caring about someone… And if he hates you because of your father… then he cares for you because… because…”
Bingo. She’d stopped in her movements.
“Did you see anything else? Any-body else?”
Harry didn’t want to tell. He hadn’t explained what had occurred, he’d promised to Snape…
“No need to tell us who,” Circe added. “We know there was your father, and him… who else?”
“...His friends, and… and…”
Now it was Harry’s eyes to widen.
“Your mother, was it?” Circe smiled softly. She continued when Harry didn’t deny. “It’s a typical trope in tragic stories. He wishes you didn’t exist because of your father. But he will sooner die than let you killed, because he loves your mother too much. Harry? Harry!”
“After all this time?”
A silver-white specter of a doe.
“I wish… I wish I were dead…”
“We are, Sev.”
“Always.”
He was meant to die for the world to be saved.
…Yet Harry smiled. The shock of that realization was worth seeing Snape’s face when he’d let him know how he knew of his great love. It was just sad to think that his mission to keep him alive was all for naught. Harry knew how Snape would react…
“I do not care”, my ass…