Seeking the Star

Ch.16.

Waking the morning after was hard, and he spent the day leaning heavily on his walking stick. Apparently, it had taken more out of him than he expected to complete the complex spells, and it took a few days for his body to recover. Despite his shaking hands, no one noticed the new scars. He apologized again to Severus, who seemed to wish to forget both their argument and the previous intimacy of their bond. They still had their lessons, ate dinner together on Occlumency nights, and Severus was even willing to admit that Harry had become rather knowledgeable about many subjects. However, they rarely touched anymore, and Severus felt Harry\'s presence in his mind less and less.

After he made the marks, Harry had begun spending more time in Gryffindor Tower, if only to be with Hermione. Since he left the Infirmary, many of the other Gryffindors had been treating him oddly. Harry had never inquired about what the rumor mill was circulating now, and he found he didn\'t much care. There was something comforting about sitting by the fire with Hermione, each of them absorbed in their separate studies.

He was doing exactly that when Ginny, her Quidditch robes covered in mud, jumped through the portrait hole and practically ran over to him. Hermione\'s parchments barely missed being showered with clods of dirt as Ginny pulled her gloves and armpads off.

\"Madam Hooch said that Madam Pomfrey cleared you to play, Harry! Isn\'t that wonderful?\" Ginny\'s face was red from the cold, and she looked positively delighted with her own news.

\"But Ginny,\" Harry managed. \"I thought you were happy playing Seeker.\"

Ginny smiled and shook her head. \"Oh, I am, Harry. It\'s great fun. But you\'re the Gryffindor Seeker, not me. Besides, you\'re much better than I am.\" She pulled a chair over to sit between Harry and the fire, and began working at her boots.

Harry felt a stab of guilt. He did love Quidditch, and at this point he even supposed he was strong enough to play. It just didn\'t seem quite so important anymore. His other studies were interesting and far less tension-filled than he expected his return to Quidditch would be. After his ban from the sport last year, returning to the House team was exciting; now, considering how Ron seemed to feel about him, it seemed far less so. He pasted a convincingly pleased smile on his face anyway. It wouldn\'t do to disappoint Ginny.

\"Well it\'s great news, Ginny. I\'m glad. But don\'t forget that you\'re a pretty good Seeker yourself.\" Harry\'s words made Ginny grin again. The smile faltered when the portrait opened again and Ron stomped through, even muddier than histeister and looking like a thundercloud. He walked over to Harry and Hermione\'s table, avoiding Harry\'s eyes.

\"You\'re to report to the next Quidditch practice ready to resume your position as Seeker.\" Ron\'s voice was devoid of all emotion, and Harry guessed he had practiced his delivery repeatedly before the actual performance.

\"Okay. Ron--\" But Ron had stalked away from the table before Harry could even form a proper sentence. He sighed and slumped back in his chair. It would be another night of sleeping in his rooms instead of in the Tower. Hermione touched his shoulder comfortingly.

\"What a prat!\" Harry was startled by Ginny\'s vehement exclamation. \"I can\'t believe he\'s still being like this.\"

\"Well I\'ve tried talking to him, but he just won\'t listen to me.\" Ginny\'s expression softened when she saw the hopelessness in Harry\'s face.

\"Aww, Harry, it\'s not your fault. I don\'t know why he\'s being so awful. But he\'ll come around. He\'s your best friend.\" Ginny placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

Harry gave her a small smile. \"I hope so, Ginny. I miss him.\" Ginny gave his shoulder a squeeze and headed up the stairwell to the girls\' dormitory. Harry found that he was unable to go back to his book. He gathered up his parchments and books, quietly bid Hermione good night, and started for his rooms. As was becoming usual, the corridors he walked were deserted, and the trip was short.

Harry flopped down on his bed, nearly dislodging Phecda from her customary place in his hair. It was getting quite long, and he was going to have to start tying it back. There had very nearly been incidents with his hair falling into cauldrons, and he wasn\'t too keen on finding out what hair of Harry Potter did to Dumbledore\'s Protection Potion. The risk of such accidental experimentation was greater given the fact that his hair blew around entirely of its own volition. It was probably beginning to look rediculious, as well, but he hadn\'t spent much time in front of mirrors lately.

Harry really felt like having a bath and mulling his new Quidditch predicament, but he had Potions and Transfiguration homework still to do, and he wanted to formulate some ideas to discuss with Professor Flitwick about creating one\'s own charms. Harry heaved his body off the bed, groaning at the stiffness in his muscles. His mental and magical stamina appeared to know no bounds, but his body lagged persistently behind, and the end of the day always brought aching exhaustion. He sat down at his desk, put a cushioning charm on his chair, and settled down to work.

The small fluctuation of magic within the room that occurred in the middle of his Potions essay didn\'t even give him pause. Albus often used powerful magics, and their effects occasionally penetrated his rooms. The blinding pain that ripped through him as he was opened his Transfiguration book, however, knocked him from his chair onto the floor. Hy thy there gasping, attempting to process what had happened, when the pain ripped through him again.

It took Harry long minutes to come back to himself. The pain hadn\'t been his; it was Severus\'. There must have been another Death Eater meeting. He lay on the floor attempting to recover his strength until he felt the faint pull of Severus\' return to Hogwarts. Only then did he haul himself off the floor. He could meet the Potions Master in his chambers. Severus would need him there, to help speed his recovery. He limped to the door.

It was locked. This was unusual. He requested that his door guardians let him out. They attempted to unlock the door; it remained stubbornly closed. He threw unlocking spells, attempted to destroy the wards on the door, attempted to destroy the door if. Hf. He even begged the castle for assistance. Through it all, the door did not budge, though it gained several scorch marks. Harry could see the powerful locking spell on the door, but he could not undo it. Every thread he attempted to sever was not the one he needed; every time he attempted to pull it apart, there was another knot. He surrendered, and decided to try the fireplace.

The handful of Floo Powder he threw into the flames exploded with such force that Harry flew across the room and hit his head against the far wall. Stars bloomed behind his eyelids, and he slumped to the ground, barely clinging to consciousness. Through it all, his mind kept going, churning over the possibilities with a lucidity that would have shocked him if he had cared to dedicate time to metacognition. As his vision cleared, his mind pounced upon the answer.

Albus. Albus had done this. Albus had locked him in his room, away from his bonded. It made no sense, but it was happening. The want to be near Severus, to touch him, to calm the pain that ripped through them both, was itching strongly in his consciousness and creeping over his skin. This was wrong; this was not how it was supposed to be. Even Albus\' worst training was not this cruel. He knew the consequences of seperating bonded in moments of crisis.

Harry crawled over to the door. It took him a few long minutes to realize that he was screaming. He hurled spells at the door, screamed curses and hexes at the door, at Albus, at himself. He screamed until he had no voice left, pounding his fists uselessly on the unyielding wood.

Long hours later, he ran out of curses and energy. Harry collapsed against the door and slid down to the floor, sobbing with fury and hurt and helplessness.

\"Why, Albus? Why?\" he whispered over and over to the cold flagstones, until sleep claimed him.

***

All through Potions, Harry\'s head pounded in the insistently dull way that made him aware that the pain was not all his own. His joints ached, and his skin felt strange, almost itchy. The sides of his hands and forearms were covered in deep purple bruises, and his knees and feet were scraped. He had not bothered to heal himself in the morning.

Snape was in an especially foul mood, and he looked rather pale and peaked under Harry\'s careful eye. When class ended, he hung back purposefully, waiting for the rest of the class to depart before approaching the forbidding desk and the man behind it. He wanted to explain what had happened, and help heal his bonded.

\"What, Potter?\" Severus\' voice was more irritated than usual. There was a strange bite under it. The meeting last night had been particularly painful, and Potter had been prevented from coming to his quarters for some bloody reason. He had assumed that his pain would be enough to bring the stupid boy running, but he had stayed away, and Severus could no longer access his thoughts to determine his excuse. The effects were now most unpleasant. He had a pounding headache, his entire body felt as if it was being used as a pincushion, and his joints felt as if they were lubricated with shattered glass.

\"You hurt.\" Harry said simply. He reached up towards the high temple, ready to pull the pain away, ready to soothe his bonded. His fingers brushed into the ebony hair.

The sound of Severus\' long, potion stained fingers contacting Harry\'s face seemed to reach him before his nerves registered the contact. His fingers involuntarily closed, bringing several long strands of hair with them when Harry flinched away. His cheek flamed red, but he didn\'t bring a hand up to soothe the burning skin.

\"How dare you.\" The words slithered acidly from Severus\' mouth, twining in the air like snakes, wrapping into Harry\'s ears. \"How dare you presume, you insufferably egoistic little boy.\" His eyes were like stone, like two cavernous holes that had no end, that led to nothing. \"Get out. I. Do. Not. Want. You.\" \'\'Now,\' the silent addition to the sentence. Severus had wanted him last night, to balm the pain. And Potter had never come.

Harry was torn between anger and sorrow. His bonded, one he had sworn to protect, one he had bled to protect, was rejecting him. It wasn\'t his fault he hadn\'t come; in fact, he\'d tried so hard his hands and forearms were bruised nearly black. \"Severus,\" he began, ready to explain, when Severus made a dismissive gesture, as if he could banish Harry from the room with the mere flick of his fingers.

In spite of his fury, the Potions Master was surprised by the blank hardness in the suddenly shuttered emerald eyes. He didn\'t even have to prepare his sneer. \"Be gone, boy.\" There, there was the flinch again, an instant of memory in Potter\'s eyes. It disappeared just as quickly. Severus gloated.

\"Fine, Severus. I\'ll leave.\" He had never heard Potter\'s voice so hard, but in the depths of his rage, he didn\'t bother to process the meaning of the tone.

The grey wall that suddenly descended in his mind was startling. He felt strange, isolated, alone. Then he realized what Potter had just done. He had closed his mind, put his Occlumency skills to use, finally. Severus Snape was blessedly alone in his own mind. He smiled wickedly, though the pain in his body had intfiedfied.

That seemed to be the sign that Potter was waiting for. Green eyes appraised him for bare seconds before the boy turned and stalked out of the room. Severus leaned back in his chair, his head aching too badly to comprehend fully the exchange. He hadn\'t noticed Potter\'s bruises, or the hand still clinging desperately to the strands of his hair.

***

Harry stalked down the corridor, brushing the fingers of his left hand along the stone wall. He murmured so quietly that the words were more thought than sound. Lately, the castle had been more than helpful in assisting his movements, and he fully intended to take advantage now, before he broke down in the hallway. Moments later, he turned a corner and found himself near the gargoyle that guarded the Headmaster\'s office. He said the password, his voice cracking, and hurried up the stairs. Albus Dumbledore sat peacefully at his desk. He almost looked startled when Harry practically flew into the room, doing a fair imitation of the Potions Master\'s swoop-and-billow.

\"What can I do for you, Harry?\" He gestured to a chair, and Harry sat. The young Wizard\'s eyes were blank, as was his face. There was a red mark across his cheek, and one of his hands was tightly balled into a fist. Where the skin was not whitened with pressure, it was purpled from the tip of his smallest finger down to where it disappeared into his sleeve.

\"You didn\'t let me go to him. And now this.\" Harry\'s voice was shockingly calm, terribly smooth. \"He blames me for not helping him. You betrayed his trust in me.\" Harry sighed, and suddenly looked terribly close to tears. \"I need you to make me a talisman.\"

Albus just barely contained his shock. The \"Pardon?\" escaped before he could restrain himself.

\"I cut him off.\" Harry\'s voice was low. Albus dropped the quill he was holding, causing ink to splatter over the parchment.

\"I think you had best explain this to me more clearly, Harry.\"

Harry sighed again, his eyes brightening further with tears. \"You didn\'t let me go to him last night. He hurts, so badly, and you didn\'t let me go. Don\'t think I don\'t know that it was you who locked my door and warded my Floo. I don\'t know why you did it, but I hope you\'re quite satisfied with the results. I tried to help him, after Potions, but he was so angry at me. He slapped me. He rejected me. So I closed the link for him. He can\'t feel me anymore.\" Harry held his forehead with his left hand, his right still curled into a tight fist. \"I\'m not going to trouble him with the bond anymore. He doesn\'t want me. He wanted me out of his head. But I still feel him. The bond won\'t really disappear. So I need a talisman.\"

Harry looked up. His face was tired, almost old. His eyes certainly looked ancient. \"I don\'t want him to know.\" He held up his tightly fisted hand, and Albus could see for the first time why he held the fist. Long black hairs, about ten of them, hung between his fingers, waving gently. Harry\'s mouth twisted into something like a sneer. \"Lucky accident. But fortunate. I want a ring, with the hair braided and inlayed to lie against my skin. You could do it much more quickly than I, and I haven\'t metalworking tools, anyway.\"

Albus nodded gravely. Harry had been locked into his rooms for his own safety, and Albus had not thought it wise for him to leave safety to tend to Severus, though the possibility of this particular repercussion had not escaped him. The possibility of the boy being kidnapped again had been too great. He watched the situation tear against Harry\'s resolve. He could feel how much the boy wanted to run to the dungeons, to throw himself on Severus\' legs and beg for mercy.

But the lessons of the summer held fast. Harry would beg nothing, no matter how he felt for his bonded, and his course of action was firm. Albus stilled his urge to comfort the boy. Now was not the time for Harry to break. He studied the clenched fist, bearing the hair. Albus read the message etched across it in neat Latin, and found himself somewhere between pride and nausea. He had wondered what the strong waves of magic had been, but he had not inquired. Harry\'s sense of duty was as strong as the spells he had inlayed into his own skin. Albus chuckled at the idea that Harry believed he needed further protection, even from this endless wellspring of a boy, but it certainly proved that ideoideologies were firmly in place. He didn\'t need to guess as to the source of the bruising; Harry\'s distress had been evident, even if the silencing spells placed around the room made it silent to the rest of the world.

Pity surged through the aged Wizard. Harry Potter deserved better than this puppetry. He only hoped that this manchild he loved like a son would survive the strings that everyone pulled for him. He hoped that he had left some potential in the boy for recovery, for healing, and for life after this deadly game, if indeed there was one.

Nothing played across the Headmaster\'s face. He stood, and Harry stood with him. They walked together, not a word between them.

***

Harry had to admit that the ring was rather beautiful, in its way. It was a thin band of platinum, just thick and wide enough to encase the coil of braided black hair that lay on its underside. Harry could feel the hair, magically charmed never to degrade and to retain the essence of Severus Snape, brushing gently at the skin of his finger. It was entirely plain, but there was something more lovely for the austerity. Harry twisted the ring absently around his finger, feeling the minute bumps of the braided coil against his skin. It was soothing. Harry and Albus had come to the conclusion that it would be wisest to hide the ring from the great majority of eyes. Only Harry, the Headmaster, and Severus Snape would be able to see it. Any other person would only be able to see the ring if they knew it was there.

The crafting of the ring had taken most of the afternoon, causing Harry to miss his classes. Dumbledore wrote him a vague but unquestionable excuse, and Harry retrieved his assignments before returning to his rooms and collapsing on his bed. He was utterly exhausted, and it wasn\'t even time for dinner. All Harry wanted to do was sleep, but things demanded his attention. After last night, he was determined to set complex wards on his room that would prevent such a thing from happening again. He also obviously needed to ward the Floo. On top of that, he was in pain, he was upset about Severus, and he had a considerable pile of homework.

He pushed it all aside. There was an hour and a half until dinner; he was going to take a bath. A plan of action could be better developed once he was in the water.

Harry stripped perfunctorily as the batlledlled. His body still felt like a great aching mass, and he didn\'t even want to consider how he looked. He slipped into the water, letting his body slide under and surface again. Staring up at the skylight, he let awareness of everything but the darkening sky bleed away into the water.


a/n-
thrf swf swords- the sorrow of separation, a temporary seperation to mature or gain perspective. weaning from a deep attachment. the releasing of expectations about other people; letting others make their own way in the world.