Breaking Forwards

Chapter 10 – Resorting

"Albus," Poppy said emphatically after Severus had left the office.

"Perhaps you should leave, Minerva," he suggested softly to the other woman present.

"Are you out of what's left of your mind, old man?" She hissed back angrily to him, crossing her arms stubbornly.

A look crossed between Poppy and Albus, and finally the headmaster gave a reluctant nod.

"A female Gryffindor student—," Poppy began, only to be cut off by Minerva.

"Who, Poppy?" The older woman interjected tensely.

Poppy hesitated for a split second before replying softly, "Hermione Granger."

Other than a slight widening of her eyes, Minerva did not react.

"What happened, Poppy?" Albus asked.

"She has been raped, Albus," was Poppy's blunt response. A thump was heard from Minerva's direction as she dropped rather suddenly into the chair behind her.

"Who is the perpetrator of such a crime?" Albus's voice was strained, his eyes hard.

"She doesn't know," Poppy answered stiffly.

"What do you mean?" Albus had a death grip on the edge of his desk, but was otherwise calm.

"She has been obliviated."

"What?" Minerva answered furiously, her color quickly coming back after her shock.

"If I were to make a guess from what she has told me, I would say that your 'perpetrator' is a Gryffindor," Poppy added.

"How do you know that? If she was obliviated—," Minerva began before being cut off by a stern look from Albus.

"Every time she lost time, she always came back around in the same place: the Gryffindor dorm," the smaller woman answered with a spark of anger only visible in her eyes.

"What do you mean, 'every time'?" Albus said, catching onto her phrasing and leaning forwards. "Do you mean to say that this has not been a one-time event?" The man's eyes were burning with murderous destruction towards the unknown guilty party.

. . .

When Harry awoke, he did so without opening his eyes or making any sounds. He could hear the swish of robes somewhere nearby, which meant that his professor was back from his Harry related business. It both comforted and unnerved him to know that the man had gone to speak to his head of house about him.

He wondered if he could get away with going back to the safe confines of sleep, but before he really had gotten a chance to consider it, Snape was speaking to him.

"You've been awake for at least five minutes now, Harry," his professor said knowingly from nearby.

"Yes sir," he answered quickly, his voice still tired despite his nap. Slowly he sat up, wary of any lasting injuries. Despite the fact that they still hadn't healed the welts on his back, he felt much better than he had before falling asleep. He was a bit stiff, but that was a welcome change from the diet of steady pain that he had experienced for so long.

"Feeling better?" Snape asked, from the armchair beside him.

"Yes sir," he said, blinking slowly as he took in his surroundings.

Snape was holding onto a vial of some kind of cream, and he—rightfully—assumed that it was for healing the wounds still present on his back and upper torso.

"Then let me finish the job," the man said calmly, standing up and moving towards him slowly.

Snape's touch on his skin was gentle, and his motions were sure and steady as he worked around on his remaining wounds. Soon, almost too soon, the man was done with his job and Harry was carefully putting his shirt back on.

To Harry, being touched had almost always been linked with pain, but his professor's hands were anything but that. It was with little wonder that he found himself craving the contact after it was over.

It was also strange to think of a man as abrasive as Snape as being someone that he wanted to be around more, let alone feel more or less comfortable around.

. . .

Severus noticed the boy's change in temperament as he began applying the salve and was intrigued by the burgeoning trust that was slowly beginning to appear between them. The teen had seemed almost disappointed when he had finished with his wounds and put the salve away.

In order to easily reach all of Harry's wounds on his lower back, Severus had sat down on the couch directly next to the boy. He had planned on standing back up and putting some distance back between them, but seeing the lad hunched over and momentarily vulnerable somehow changed his mind.

"How do you feel now?" He spoke quietly, given their proximity.

"Much better," the boy said, turning green eyes towards him. "Thank you."

Severus could see the hesitant gratitude showing in the teen's face and was forced to look away briefly while something clenched hard within him.

"If you become injured again, you are to tell me immediately. Do you understand?" He added after turning back towards the boy.

Harry nodded slowly as though he understood the underlying meaning of what Severus was trying to say.

"Yes sir," the lad said softly, looking seriously at him.

"Your presence is required in the headmaster's office," Severus said carefully, silently wondering how the child was going to react to his news.

"May I ask why?" The boy hadn't moved, but something had shifted in his eyes, making him seem older once more.

"I have requested that you be resorted," he said, before standing up. He turned back towards the lad in time to see a tiny wrinkle of surprise flash across his face.

Severus watched as Harry broke his gaze to briefly look down at his now healed hands.

"What are you thinking?" He asked, dropping back down into a crouch before the boy.

"Do you think things would be better if I weren't in Gryffindor?" Green eyes stared intensely back at him.

Could it be that this boy really trusted him?

"I do," he nodded, still holding the lad's gaze. He chose not to mention the Sorting Hat's feelings on the matter.

"What if—," Harry broke off, clenching his jaw and fists almost simultaneously as he looked away from Severus.

"What if what?"

The boy didn't answer, and Severus responded by reaching out a hand and pulling the lad's chin in his direction. Miserable green eyes stared back at him, silently begging him to let the matter drop.

But he couldn't.

"Harry," he said in a more commanding voice, his hand still on the boy's face.

"What if no one else wants me either?" The words were spoken in a rush, almost too quiet to be heard.

Severus swallowed and narrowed his eyes in anger toward the headmaster, as well as the whole of Gryffindor.

"That will not happen," he said forcefully, lightly stroking the boy's face with a potions stained thumb as he waited for the inevitable argument.

"But what if it does?" The child was blinking hard at him, a mixture of bitterness, fear and anger present on his face as he waited for Severus's answer.

"If the Sorting Hat could find somewhere for me, then it most certainly can find somewhere for you," he said with a bit of a smirk, hoping to lighten the lad's attitude. Severus took his hand away and stood up again, this time followed shortly by Harry.

"Now go and get your shoes and robes on and we'll go to the headmaster's office together."

"Yes sir," the teenager said somberly before moving to comply.

. . .

"Albus," Minerva hissed after Poppy had left the room to go back to her infirmary. "You cannot be serious. The boy is my responsibility. How on earth can you possibly consider letting him change houses?" Her eyes glared at the man sitting across the desk from her.

"I didn't have any power over the decision," he answered wearily; the day's events already beginning to wear on him.

"You could have," she argued back angrily.

"Minerva, if the hat decides that someone ought to be resorted, then that person ought to be resorted," he said with a bit of fire in his eyes.

"So the whole ordeal of voting was nothing but a charade?" She exclaimed, ignoring his rising level of annoyance.

"Not charade—stall tactic," he corrected, standing up and putting his hands behind his back as he walked to the window.

"Don't tell me that you agree with them!"

Not looking away from the peaceful scene at the window, he answered, "You should be happy that he lasted as long as he did in your house, Minerva. The hat initially wanted to place him elsewhere." He finally turned around, staring back at her with a warning in his face.

"Where?" She demanded hotly.

He didn't answer; instead choosing to continue giving her that look.

"Hufflepuff would have been a joke to the boy," his colleague reasoned aloud. "Ravenclaw might have worked out in the long run, but certainly not at the start. And Slytherin—," here Albus raised an eyebrow and then returned to his seat.

"Slytherin—," Minerva tried again, only to be stilled by the tired look in his eyes. "Albus, you cannot mean it," she said helplessly, wringing her hands with the insanity of it.

"The only reason that the Hat did not sort him there to begin with was because he specifically asked it not to," he answered gravely.

"And now that has changed? Why?"

"I don't know the specifics of his past summer experience, but I fear that something drastic may have occurred," he admitted slowly.

"His muggle relatives were the worst sorts, Albus," she answered in a soft voice, her eyes going wide with the possibilities.

"Anywhere else and he would have been raised as a prince," he answered testily, going back to their old argument.

"You could have raised him, Albus! Or I could have! Even Severus would have been deemed fit for the job," she huffed.

"A child that precocious at our ages? Really, Minerva," he smiled knowingly at her.

"Precocious you say?" She answered by crossing her arms at him. "Tiny, shy, underfed boys are rarely all that precocious."

"So you did believe that there was a problem with his home life," he answered thoughtfully. "Why did you not ever speak to me of it like that?"

"You told me to trust you, so I did," she sniffed, standing up with a regal air.

"And do you now regret making that decision?" He asked carefully, narrowing his eyes at her.

She paused, looking at him thoughtfully before quietly admitting, "I believe that I do, Albus." Moments later, she exited the room without another word.

. . .

"Sir?" Harry asked him after a few minutes of walking together in silence.

Severus turned to look at the boy. "Yes?"

The boy was chewing his lip, eyes flickering quickly between him and the walls behind him.

"Harry," Severus said calmly, reaching up and pulling the child's lip out from between his teeth. A small blush appeared on the lad's cheeks, but his eyes quit their constant nervous roaming.

"Would it be possible for me to be known by my mother's maiden name, instead of Potter?" Harry blurted out quickly, his eyes now fixed steadily upon Severus's own dark amber ones.

Of all of the possible questions he had been expecting, this one managed to take him by surprise.

"Because of his betrayal to your mother?" Severus asked curiously.

"Amongst others," the teen's eyes had darkened once more and Severus found himself frowning against the change that it wrought in his face.

They continued on in silence for awhile longer, until Severus found himself speaking again.

"It wouldn't be too difficult to make such a thing happen," he said slowly, watching the boy carefully from the corner of his eye.

"Could you help me?"

Severus met Harry's eyes once more and was a bit undone by the hopeful look staring back at him through those familiar emerald orbs.

"Please sir?" The lad asked when he didn't immediately answer.

"If you want," he grunted.

"Thank you."

. . .

From the shadows, Ron Weasley sneered in disdain for the display he had just seen Harry put on for Snape.

Put on? He thought with an internal laugh. More like he was putting out.

So Potter didn't want to be Potter anymore?

Fine. He could handle that. In fact, it might fit in with his plans better than before.

With that thought in mind, he snuck back to the dorms and called an inter-house meeting.

As it happened, he just happened to call one on a day when both of his twin brothers were in the infirmary recovering from a nasty bout of food poisoning.

Was he lucky? Hardly. He made his own luck. He grinned at the thought and then moved on. His face was the perfect example of serious determination by the time the common room was full.

"Thank you all for being so prompt," he said, speaking smoothly before the large crowd of adolescents. "I called this meeting in order to make you aware of a few things. First, Hermione Granger—your other prefect—has been taken to the infirmary for reasons unknown." Here he smiled to himself, but managed to keep his outer face somber.

"At least, that's the official story," he added with a scowl.

Several people—especially the fifth through seventh years—nodded knowingly. They knew just how adept Dumbledore and his cronies were at keeping things from them.

And if they didn't know, they will soon, he thought with another mental snort.

"I've called you here today to let you in on the truth," he continued, his eyes scanning the crowd for anything resembling dissension.

"Hermione Granger was attacked, and if that weren't bad enough, I'm sad to inform you that she was attacked by one of her own Gryffindors," he snarled, looking around the room angrily. Everyone knew that they were an item, and therefore had the right to act the part of an upset boyfriend.

"Who by?" One of the third years called out.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, trying to make himself look pained. It wasn't too hard to do, all considering.

"It was Harry—Harry Potter," he said quietly before the room exploded into a chaotic hubbub.

. . .

The ride up the stairs to the headmaster's office was made in silence. Harry kept his mouth shut, feeling that he had already said too much to the normally taciturn man still standing beside him.

When the door opened to reveal a somber looking Dumbledore, he couldn't help but sneer at the man.

"Ah well, Harry my boy," the older man said, moving to place a grandfatherly hand on his shoulder. He skillfully dodged it and went to stand next to his professor, hoping that Dumbledore would quit with the concerned looks he was sending him.

He longed to say something to the old man, something that would put him in his place, but he feared that Snape wouldn't appreciate a blunt Gryffindorish display of disrespect, so he kept his mouth shut.

Though it didn't change his desire for revenge.

"I must say Harry, I had not expected to ever have to find myself in this situation with you," Dumbledore said slowly, ignoring the dark looks both Harry and Severus were now sending him.

"Then perhaps we could get on with it?" Professor Snape interjected nastily.

Dumbledore shot them both a mournful look, and it was all Harry could do to refrain from rolling his eyes at the ridiculous display of faux sympathy.

"I know that this is a very trying time for you," the headmaster continued on, apparently not willing to be swayed from his meandering course. "But I have every faith that you will succeed in this new set of trials, just as you always have done so honorably in the past."

Harry snarled back, and would have reacted in a more noticeable manner, if not for the steadying hand that had just appeared on his shoulder.

"Harry," his professor murmured in a low voice, giving him a warning glance.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to let it out slowly. As he did, the feeling of tension within his muscles relaxed and Snape's hand was removed from his person. Luckily for them both, Dumbledore had turned to retrieve the Sorting Hat, and in turn had missed both his anger and the Potions Master's warning.

. . .

They were all still shouting when Ginny stood up.

"SHUT UP," she roared, unconsciously doing a fair imitation of her mother, Molly Weasley.

They shut up and stared at her incredulously.

"Are you all seriously thinking about this dribble coming from my brother's mouth?" She scathed with a dangerous look in her eye.

Ron shot her a nasty look, but she ignored him.

"Harry is our friend. He's a Gryffindor, same as us. He wouldn't attack Hermione. That's insane."

There were others nodding their heads in agreement with her and she felt somewhat relieved. For a moment there after her brother had made the announcement about Harry, she had felt as though reality had just taken a nosedive of the side of the castle, never to be seen again.

"What about Cedric?" Someone muttered.

She whirled, trying to catch the offending person with her eyes, but it was to no avail.

"What about Cedric?" She replied scornfully.

This time, someone else answered her with, "Well, how do we know that Cedric was really killed by You-Know-Who? All we have to go on is Harry's word."

They were left looking thoughtful at that, and Ginny very nearly screamed aloud in frustration.

"The professors believed him," she said, gritting her teeth against the urge to hex them all.

"The professors are always on Harry's side," her brother answered, sounding far too calm, far too composed for her liking.

Ron had always been her least favorite—after Percy—but that hadn't meant that she would have ever thought him possible of something like this.

"What about Snape?" She countered, staring back across the room of students at her brother.

"I don't give a shit what Snape thinks, and I don't think that any self respecting Gryffindor should either!" He shouted, getting a round of applause from those around them.

"Slytherin slime!" Someone shouted out, raising a cheer from the room.

"Death eater wannabes!" Someone else shouted, raising a louder cheer.

"Dark wizards, the lot of them!" The room was on its feet, shouting as one.

Ginny looked out over the crowd with a feeling of helplessness bubbling up in her. Had everyone gone crazy?

There! There in the corner, she could see a crowd of tiny first years sitting morosely, watching the proceedings of the common room silently.

Fred and George, on the other hand, were nowhere to be seen. Why was she not surprised that they had chosen to miss an official house meeting?

"Harry's had detention with Snape for the past week," Ron suddenly announced in a lower voice, causing miraculous silence to abruptly appear within the common room. "How do we know that's all it is?"

The room was shaking their heads scornfully at this news.

"Why don't you ask him yourself!" Ginny yelled out to her brother angrily.

"I already tried talking to him! He petrified me and then beat the shit out of me! Like a coward, like one of those bloody Slytherins!" Ron shouted, just as the room burst into renewed shouts of outrage.

"Has anyone else tried talking to him?" She tried again, knowing in her heart that Harry wasn't bad. He just had a lousy life, but was that truly any reason to turn against him?

"You can't talk to him this year. He won't let anyone near him," Seamus said, causing her to shoot an angry glare towards him as well.

"Always sneaking out under that blasted cloak of his as though the rules are just there for everyone else!" Dean added with a sneer.

"He's even on a first name basis with some of the Slytherins this year," Ron added, making them think of the fight that Harry had intervened in earlier that year. "And sticking up for their first years against our own!"

Uneasily, Ginny noticed that the small group of neutral first years had dwindled quite a bit, until there were only two students sitting over there by themselves.

"He quit the Quidditch team," Angela Johnson called out testily, her face set in a scowl that was far too similar to one of Snape's own.

Gasps came from the majority of those in the room, and Ginny rolled her eyes angrily. Because of Harry's choice to quit the team, she had been given the opportunity to play Seeker. It was something that she had always wanted, but had known would never happen until at least her seventh year.

Likewise, she had known that while she would likely never be a favorite player of anyone's, at least she would still be given the chance to do her bit and make her mark. However, the idea of using her lucky break as an example of his disloyalty—well, that just riled her.

"—Know he'll never get charged with hurting Hermione," Ron was saying as she tuned back into conversation still going on around her.

She could hear the room grumbling, and quite suddenly, she found herself wondering where their head of house was. Why wasn't McGonagall there, doing something to stop all of this—this mutiny of her peers?

"We should go to the papers!" That was Andrew Kirke, a wannabe Quidditch beater. Ginny scowled mightily at him and he wilted before her glare. "Or not," he corrected himself in a strangled voice.

"No, for once my sister is correct," Ron smiled at her with a dark grin and she felt a small shiver go down her back. "This is Gryffindor business. All others need not apply," he said, unconsciously borrowing a muggle phrase.

"I've got an idea about what we can do to make him understand just exactly why he can't get away with hurting one of our own, but I can't do it by myself. I'm going to need everyone's help," he said encouragingly to the room.

Ginny was torn. On one hand, she didn't want to know about whatever awful plan he had for getting revenge on Harry. Other the hand though, she needed to know so that she could help her friend prepare for whatever was coming his way. He had already been through so much; surely he didn't need this piled on top of everything else.

. . .

When the headmaster handed Harry the Sorting Hat, he took it with steady hands, even though inside he was quaking with barely suppressed fear. He remembered his anxiety from his first year all too well; his trepidation for not being placed at all coming back with full force.

Just before he put the hat on, he caught a look at Snape's face and was rewarded with a nod from the stern professor. Snape believed in him, strange though it was. Well, if he could convince Snape, why should he be afraid about the rest of everyone else? His Potions professor had always been his most staunch opponent, after all.

With another deep steadying breath, he pushed past his fear and set the hat atop his head. Idly, he noted that it fit a touch better than it had as a first year, but that was all the time he had for such thoughts before the Hat began speaking in his mind.

"Ah, Mr. Potter—or rather, it's just Harry now, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Harry answered softly from within his mind.

"Have you finally decided to stop running?"

"I wasn't running," Harry argued back half-heartedly.

"Hiding then," the Sorting Hat corrected with a mental smirk.

"I don't hide—I survive," was his angry reply, his emotions bubbling through him fiercely.

"Perhaps it's time to do more than just survive," the Hat added softly. "I wish you good luck, child. I believe that you're going to need it."

"SLYTHERIN!" It bellowed out loud then to the anxiously awaiting room.

Harry took off the hat, blinking a bit fiercely at the sudden light—not because of any tears I'm trying to hide, he thought angrily at himself.

Dumbledore's sad visage was the first thing he laid eyes on, and he scowled at the old man. He handed the hat back to him and then turned to Snape—his new head of house— and instinctively reached out his hand towards him, and waited to see if the man would respond.

He didn't have to wait long, because soon Snape's hand was shaking his formally and he felt himself breathing a much needed sigh of relief.

"Welcome to Slytherin, Mr. Evans," was his professor's quiet greeting.

"Mr. Evans?" Dumbledore spluttered from beside them.

Oh yeah. That.

Harry shared a private smirk with Snape, feeling that he should take advantage of any chances for mirth before this got out to everyone else. It was likely to be the last laugh he ever had.