Dark Beginnings

Having seen Dr Litworth to the school gates, Harry paused before the Potion master’s office door and hesitated before knocking. His knuckles barely grazed the surface when the door was yanked open and Snape stared at him.

A moment later and the man sighed before stepping aside and allowing Harry to enter.

It still seemed weird in a sense to Harry, to think that just a few months ago, neither hell nor high water could have dragged him down here; that at the end of last term, he had hated Snape with a passion and the feeling seemed to have been entirely mutual. Now, after…well, he wouldn’t think about that…but he felt strangely calm with this coldly acerbic man in his cheerless dungeons – more so, in fact, than the bright and noisy Gryffindor common room.

Snape followed him in and tapped the kettle that stood on the edge of his desk.

“Coffee?” he asked, fishing out mugs and spooning coffee into a cafetiere.

“What, no scotch?” Harry raised an eyebrow as he sat uninvited in the chair beside Snape’s desk.

Snape gave him a long look and then poured the boiling water over the coffee. “For your information, Mr Potter, that was a fifteen year old single malt whisky. And, as you know full well, it was for a boy in shock. You looked half dead and so I -”

Harry held up a hand and interrupted with a grin, “All right, yes. Jeez, can you not take a joke? Ever?”

Snape gave him another long sour look and turned to gather a bundle of scrolls.

“So, good day then?” Harry enquired genially.

“Tolerable.” Snape sniffed, “I had two first year classes this morning, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw in the first, Slytherin and Gryffindor in the second.”

“Did you make any of them cry?” Harry asked with a bit of a grin.

“Two.” Snape nodded with a satisfied gleam in his eye.

“Well done.” Harry smirked and then leaned backwards a little to see into Snape’s private quarters, through the half open doorway.

Something there caught his eye and he got up to go and look further, moving with a confidence that he’d never had six months ago. Inside Snape’s sitting room, lying on the hearthrug before a bright orange fire was the sleeping figure of Draco Malfoy.

He lay, sprawled and loose limbed, all long lines and elegant, effortless grace; as relaxed as a sleeping lurcher puppy. As he lay on his back with his head resting on one arm, his pale face and white blond hair appeared to pick up the warmth and colour of the fire beside him.

Aware of Snape standing just behind him, Harry turned his head a little whilst keeping Malfoy in sight.

“Has there been any change?” he asked softly.

“If you mean, has he spoken, then the answer is no. And nor will he.” Snape responded in a low, tense voice, “The damage to his vocal chords is irreparable.”

“Has he been here all day?” Harry wondered, following Snape back into his office and sitting down again.

Snape waved a casual dismissive hand as he used the other to push the plunger on the cafetiere. “Hmm,” he replied with a one-sided shrug. “He didn’t sleep last night – appeared on my doorstep at three o’ clock this morning. Then, after keeping me awake while he paced and refused to communicate, he collapsed in a heap before the fire when I was just about to leave for lessons.” He shrugged again, “I left him to it and, as far as I can tell, he’s slept all day.”

Snape poured two mugs of coffee then and pushed one along the desk towards Harry. Taking a sip, Harry promptly burnt his mouth and put it down again.

“And what are you doing down here, Potter?” Snape asked then, giving him a long, calculating stare.

Harry sighed and rubbed wearily at his eyes. Malfoy wasn’t the only one who didn’t sleep.

“Fancied some company.” He muttered and stared down at his hands in his lap.

“Indeed? Then why not seek out your little Gryffindor chums?” Snape demanded with his usual sneering bluntness that would once have made Harry glare.

Now it only made him shrug with casual indifference. “Because I don’t feel like talking about my ‘experiences’.” He said shortly, “And you never ask me – either directly or in an irritating, roundabout manner.”

“Ah.” Snape said, watching him closely over his coffee mug. “And Granger and Weasley do?”

Harry nodded tersely. He took another sip of his coffee, found that it had cooled but also found that Snape had made it particularly strong. Perhaps the day hadn’t been as good as he’d claimed and the Potions master needed the caffeine? The coffee was dark and bitter, not unlike Snape himself and Harry stood to retrieve the sugar bowl from the shelf above him. Snape watched but made no comment.

“And now I have regular sessions with Dr Jenna Litworth, Magical Psychologist and old school friend of my mum and dad!” Harry added with a sneer of his own.

For just a moment, Snape’s expression turned curious and then he shook his head, “Potter, people are just worried about you,” he began.

“Are you?” Harry asked, with a forced casual air.

“No.” Snape sighed as he watched him spoon three sugars into his coffee, “I only worry about the state of your teeth.”

Harry glanced up at him through his eyelashes, “You made it too strong.” He pointed out.

Soft footsteps made him look round then and he saw Malfoy approaching the desk and last remaining chair with a wide yawn.

“Morning,” Harry commented sarcastically.

Malfoy responded with a cheerfully raised, rude, one finger salute and then helped himself to Snape’s coffee, pouring it into a mug decorated with green frogs.

Snape regarded the blond youth with a carefully blank expression and then sighed, apparently coming to a decision. “Well,” he said then, “you two can’t hang about, cluttering up my office all evening. I’ve got papers to mark and a test to write for Tuesday.”

“It’s the weekend, though.” Harry pointed out. Beside him, Draco took one sip of the bitter coffee and shuddered. Harry silently pushed the sugar bowl towards him and continued, “Students never do homework on Friday evenings, so professors shouldn’t have to mark homework either.”

“So you’re suggesting I take an evening off to do what exactly?” Snape asked, raising one dark eyebrow, “Do some needlework? Take up yoga? Or perhaps go boozing in the Three Broomsticks?”

Malfoy’s shoulders trembled a little, indicating that he was laughing, although no sound came out of course. It seemed to Harry that it was saddest when Malfoy laughed.

Harry still didn’t know all the details, but he knew that, following his rescue, while Madam Pomfrey, Dumbledore and Snape had treated his assorted injuries, Malfoy had been hexed and dragged out of the school by several of his fellow Slytherins. As yet, there was no clue as to who was responsible and so far no one had come forward. Probably, no one would.

Only when Snape had gone to check on him, did they realise that Malfoy was missing and if Snape hadn’t been so fast, the Prince of Slytherin would have lost a lot more than his voice.

Harry remembered waking in the hospital wing and seeing Malfoy in the bed next to his. He was under a Stasis spell, with his throat wrapped in bandages because whatever had been used on him wouldn’t allow the wound to close. It had taken Snape a day and a half to perfect a potion that would stop the bleeding and allow the wound to heal over.

Now, two weeks later, Malfoy had only a thin, silvery pink scar over reformed flesh to show for the fact that he’d once had half his throat removed.

“Well,” Harry said then, looking back at Snape, “if you were to go to the Three Broomsticks, you could take us with you. Call it an educational field trip.”

One corner of Snape’s mouth quirked up into a half smile/half smirk. “And what – exactly – would you learn from it?” he asked quietly.

Harry exchanged a look with Malfoy and the other young man smiled, his pale grey eyes glittering.

“You could teach us how to differentiate between the good whiskies and the ones only suitable for paint stripping,” he began, “or you could teach us how to play pool.”

Malfoy reached for his pad and wand then and words magically appeared on the clean white sheet.

“All right,” Harry nodded, “so Malfoy already knows how to play. But you could also teach us the finer points of staggering back to school and avoiding Filch in the middle of the night.”

Malfoy conjured more words on his pad: ‘You already know how to avoid Filch, Potter!’

“True.” Harry conceded, “But only because I have an invisibility cloak.”

Malfoy nodded, looking impressed.

“No.” Snape announced, distracting them, “No, nothing doing, I’m afraid, Potter. You and Mr Malfoy will just have to find your own amusements tonight.”

An image came to Harry’s mind for a moment and he flushed a little, still uncomfortable with the ideas that had been coming to him lately. It seemed that at some point, he’d ceased to notice girls and had started to notice boys. Or rather, he had started to notice Malfoy.

But that wasn’t the only thing that had been on his mind lately.

“Actually,” he said then, feeling suddenly nervous and hesitant and hearing these emotions in his own voice.

Snape evidently heard it too and looked at him.

“There was something else you could teach…um…me – or us.” Harry bit his lip, wondering if he dared continue. This topic could have him thrown out on his ear.

“Indeed?” Snape asked while Malfoy frowned a little, trying to guess what Harry was getting at.

Harry took a deep breath, “I want to learn how to use the Dark Arts.” He held his breath and forced himself to meet the Potions master’s questioning stare.

After a minute or two of silence, Snape stood, his chair scraping noisily against the floor. This is it, Harry thought, I’m about to be thrown out. And he damned his own tongue, watching as the Potions master stood in contemplative silence.

“Potter,” Snape said then with a little frown as he turned to look at him, “where does this come from?”

Harry blinked, looking uncertain.

Snape sighed, “I mean, why the sudden interest in the Dark Arts?”

Harry pursed his lips and stared down at the desk for a few moments. When he looked back up, Malfoy was communicating something to Snape and the man was staring at the pad, looking ashen faced.

Perhaps Malfoy had told him a little of what they’d done to him over the holidays, Harry thought with a twisting coil of fear and dread. A tendril of anger spread slowly from within. This summer had been the worst months of his entire life and Harry didn’t want anyone to know what had happened. But Malfoy had been there – at least for part of it – so he would know, of course. But that gave him no right to share the information with Snape.

With a glare at Malfoy, Harry reached out as if to take the pad but found that Malfoy had already wiped it clean.

“What did you say?” he demanded, glaring at Malfoy, “What did you tell him?”

Malfoy gave him a look that might have been sympathetic but was really quite impossible for Harry to read.

Snape, meanwhile, was silent and pensive. He continued to stare at Malfoy’s pad even though there were no longer any words there. Then he looked up at Harry and Harry felt that coil of dread again, seeing the intense look of anger and abject sympathy in the man’s eyes.

“I -” he started to say, even though he had no idea what he was going to tell him. Malfoy had clearly told him something about the summer and his abduction; after all, nothing else could draw quite a reaction, he was sure.

“Potter, leave this with me.” Snape said then. “I’ll talk with the Headmaster and see what he says.”

Oh. Well, that was better than being thrown out on his ear, at least.

Taking the hint, Harry stood up and moved towards the door, even as Malfoy followed suit. Once there, Harry looked over his shoulder at the Potions master and offered a weak smile.

“Thank you.” He said and left.

*~*~*

Realising that dinner in the Great Hall had already started, Harry and Malfoy went in and moved to their respective tables, giving each other the barest glance before sitting down.

“Harry, where’ve you been?” Hermione demanded as soon as she saw him.

“Ginny said she saw you heading towards the Slytherin dungeons,” Ron added, helping himself to a second helping of fish pie but foregoing the peas or broccoli. Further down the bench a little way, Harry saw Ginny glance up and offer him an abashed smile.

Following his release from the hospital wing, Harry had found himself cornered by Ginny. It seemed to him that his friend’s kid-sister had grown up over the summer and, as she calmly propositioned him, he was forced to reassess the way in which he viewed her. As yet, he hadn’t given Ginny a reply but she evidently had it in mind to keep tabs on him.

“Hm.” Harry mumbled, not looking at Ron. He busied himself with filling his plate with slices of ham and then adding sautéed potatoes and a handful of green salad. “Pass me the mayonnaise, please?”

“Has Professor Snape had a go at you?” Hermione asked gently.

Harry was about to shake his head and vehemently deny it when he noticed that Hermione’s right hand and Ron’s left were casually entwined on the table. Feeling his gaze, Hermione abruptly pulled her hand free and flushed scarlet.

“It’s all right,” Harry gave her a lop sided smile, “I kind of guessed already.”

Ron looked thunderstruck at this, “What? When? How did you work it out?”

Harry could have pointed out that his two best friends only missed him during classes or mealtimes but never during the periods when they might be in the common room together or out walking across the grounds. As it was, thoughts of walking the grounds only brought thoughts of Dr Litworth and he didn’t want to contemplate that right now.

So he shrugged and grinned and neither Ron nor Hermione saw that it failed to reach his eyes. “I take it this happened over the holidays?” he asked and then promptly cursed himself for dropping himself in it by reminding them that he hadn’t been there. That he’d been holed up in the dungeons beneath Malfoy Manor.

Fortunately, he was saved yet more sympathetic looks or ridiculously ham-fisted attempts at drawing out the truth of what had happened to him. Over on the Slytherin table, Malfoy had, for some reason attempted to communicate with one of his housemates – perhaps just asking for the salt. What he got, however, was a violent torrent of verbal abuse and a knife was hurled with magical force and deadly accuracy right at his face.

Harry didn’t think. He didn’t consider the spell or even find time to draw his wand. Reaching out with his hand as if to snatch the knife from mid-air, he shouted, “Ast il y a - stasis!”

The knife froze mid-flight and hung suspended. The entire Hall fell silent and several of the Slytherins stood up to look across, even as Harry’s fellow Gryffindors looked around at him in silent shock.

*~*~*

Following the boys’ departure from his office, Snape rubbed the side of his face and finished his coffee with a grimace. Potter was right, it had been too strong.

He thought then about what Potter had said: ‘I want to learn how to use the Dark Arts’. He took a deep breath and scowled. The idea was both ludicrous and tantalizing; under normal circumstances, the Headmaster would never agree to it. But these weren’t normal circumstances – in fact, if what Draco had hinted at was true, the circumstances couldn’t be any further from normal!

And perhaps, if Dumbledore allowed him to teach Potter… Well, perhaps he could prove to the Headmaster that Dark Arts weren’t necessarily to be feared.

Snape cleared away the three mugs and mused some more on the situation. He recalled the way that Potter behaved lately; the way he felt at ease to come in to Snape’s office, peer in at Draco sleeping, help himself to sugar. He scowled, remembering the quiet confidence that allowed Potter to bring his own slightly irreverent humour with him. He wouldn’t have stood for that from Harry Potter last term. Indeed, he wouldn’t stand for that from anyone other than a Slytherin – and then only the chosen few…like Draco.

And yet, it wasn’t Snape that had begun this, it was Potter. Potter had changed, had been altered…

But what would cause such a monumental shift in a person’s entire personality, tastes and behaviour? For a sudden development of confidence and bare faced cheek weren’t the only remarkable change, were they? There was the whole desire to be down here in the cold, dark dungeons instead of the bright, warm Gryffindor tower. And then there was that indefinable air of darkness around Potter…

Recalling what Draco had told him via the spelled words, Snape shuddered as the image of the Dark Lord came to mind. Up until that point, he had been fairly successful at not imagining the horrors that had been visited on Potter during his abduction…

Draco had written one phrase: ‘The fusion and coalition of power.’

And that, Snape thought, explained so much about what was going on with Harry Potter.

Coming to an abrupt decision, Snape turned and marched towards the door. He hadn’t made two paces up the corridor however, before he met Dumbledore coming the other way.

“Ah, Severus, just the man I was coming to see.” The Headmaster smiled.

“Indeed,” Snape inclined his head, “I was actually on my way to see you too, Albus.”

Dumbledore’s smile widened, “Dinner has already begun, if you’re hungry. Perhaps we could talk and eat at the same time?” Then, however, when Snape hesitated, he added, “Of course, if you’d prefer, we could take dinner in my office.”

“That would be favourable, Albus, if it wouldn’t be inconvenient.” Snape responded. Sometimes the other members of staff could gossip worse than the students and this was not a conversation to be shared with the rest of the school.

With a nod and another smile, Albus then led them up the stairs and was about to head straight for the Griffin guarding his stairs, when something suddenly drew both men’s attention to the Great Hall.

It wasn’t a noise, for the Great Hall was always filled with noise at mealtimes. Instead, it was a sudden and complete cessation of noise.

Catching Dumbledore’s swift frown, Snape then led them into the Hall and found a strange tableau before his eyes.

Be it student or professor, every head was turned towards Harry Potter and several people were on their feet to get a better look. Some few turned to look enquiringly at Snape and Dumbledore but then returned to stare once more. Hovering over the Slytherin table was a frozen knife and its path of trajectory was leading straight to where Draco was sitting, staring hard at Potter.

There was, however, something different in the way that Draco was looking at the boy, Snape noted but decided to think on that another time.

“What is going on?” Dumbledore asked, his voice quiet but calm, and it seemed to break some sort of tension in the air.

All of a sudden, the air was filled with voices; some loud, trying to explain, others quiet as the children attempted to fathom for themselves what had taken place.

“Headmaster,” Snape said quietly in his ear, “it might be best to remove Potter and Malfoy.”

Dumbledore nodded once and Snape immediately summoned both boys to his side. Draco came immediately, leaving his full plate and giving the knife a quick glance as he passed.

Harry, however, moved slower. His friends, Snape saw, were trying to talk to him – the Granger girl was asking him questions and demanding answers – and in a second, Potter turned and snarled something. It was too quiet for Snape to hear but the effect could be seen a mile away.

She immediately went white and still, staring at Potter in shock, as if he was a total stranger. Potter, in turn, shook his head, looked swiftly at Weasley and then walked away, heading straight towards Snape, Draco and Dumbledore.

The Headmaster, meanwhile, was conferring with Professor McGonagall and Snape caught the occasional words or phrases: “…no wand…Dark Arts…saved his life…”

At length, Dumbledore nodded wearily and turned to follow Snape and the two boys from the Hall.

“My office, Severus.” Dumbledore instructed, sounding weary.