Secrets

Snape paced the halls of the school that night, thinking. He did this fairly often. There were some nights that he was unable to fall asleep at all. On those nights, he would wander aimlessly around the school, until he wound up at the astronomy tower. There he would stand, staring into space, and letting his mind wander.

Tonight was different, though. First of all, it was much earlier than usual. Secondly, he couldn’t shake the image of Potter from his head. He didn’t know why. All he could think about were those dark green eyes, lacking any spirit, any fire. He wanted to know what had happened, why Harry was acting the way he was. He never ate; Snape had observed his eating habits in the great hall. Potter seemed to become more withdrawn every day. It was as if he was wearing a mask.

Snape turned to walk down a different hallway. Recently, he had taken to sneaking into the dorm common rooms, to observe the students. Part of him found this interesting, as if the young wizards and witches were unique species to be studied. Generally, he was disappointed by what he saw. Slytherin girls gossiping, Hufflepuff boys arm wrestling and generally being overly nice to one another. Ravenclaw was probably the least interesting of all, because the students there were all so quiet and studious. Once, on a Saturday night last year, Snape had sat in there for three hours and had seen nothing more exciting than a game of wizard’s chess. He’d been disappointed. Occasionally, though, he saw something interesting. Last term, for instance, he had crept into the Gryffindor to see Granger and that Weasely boy being…intimate. He shuddered. There was nothing more repulsive than hormonal teenagers. On another occasion, he had seen a heated debate take place between Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zambini concerning the rights of homosexuals in the wizarding world. Today would be different, though. Snape whispered the invisibility spell before he entered the Gryffindor common room. For a moment, he saw nothing. It was a Saturday, which meant that many of the students were probably out using the room of requirement for something unsavory. He admired the décor of the room. The colors were not to his liking, but all of the furniture looked very comfortable. Suddenly, he heard a noise coming from the stairwell. Instinctively, he jumped, and then scolded himself for forgetting that he was invisible.

Not surprisingly, it was Harry Potter who came down the stairs, looking around the room to see if anyone was there. “The boy always did have a penchant for breaking the rules,” thought Snape. When he was content to see that no one was there, he dashed back upstairs and returned with an instrument case and a small bag of some sort. Snape was interested to see just how scrawny the boy looked in his pajamas. Apparently, the school uniforms added about fifteen pounds. Smiling to himself, he realized that he’d heard Pansy Parkinson complain of just that not so long ago. Funny to have her proven right for once. He turned his attention back to Harry.

The boy who lived had settled himself down in front of the fireplace, the golden light playing tricks with his hair. He opened the instrument case and removed a battered guitar. Automatically, the boy’s hands moved to tune the guitar. Snape watched in wonderment, as he possessed the musical talent of an oyster. The boy began to strum for a while, playing what seemed to be random nonsense. Suddenly, he began to sing. Snape stared in disbelief, as the voice he heard coming from the boy’s mouth was clear, strong, and laden with pain.

“There must be some kind of way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
There\'s too much confusion
I can\'t get no relief
Business men they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line
Know what any of it’s worth
No reason to get excited
The thief he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I we\'ve been through that
And this is not our place
So let us stop talking falsely now
The hour\'s getting late
All along the watchtower
Princess kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants too
Outside in the cold distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl
All along the watchtower
All along the watchtower
All along the watchtower.”

After the boy ceased singing, he continued to play random tunes for quite a while. Snape was mystified. He had never seen this side of Harry before. He looked so relaxed, so comfortable, so free. It was as if all pretension fell away from him and left him exposed for all to see. Suddenly, it occurred to Snape that he had invaded an extremely private moment. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to leave. He found himself captivated by the boy, watching his every move, taking in all of his parts.

Abruptly, the music stopped. Harry sat still for a moment, holding the guitar and staring into the fireplace. He seemed to be deep in thought, which, Snape thought, was probably a rarity for him. The shadows from the flickering flames accented the angles in Harry’s face, making him appear even more delicate than usual. “He’s unusually beautiful,” thought Snape. Then, he caught himself and scolded, “Moron, he’s just a student.” His eyes detected movement, and he saw Harry put the guitar back in its case. Then, the boy took a small, blue candle out of his bag and lit it. He sat there for a moment, and stared at the candle, as if he was mentally fighting with it. Then, Snape saw him take some substances and place them in a spoon. The boy was soon heating the stuff over the candle. “How strange,” Snape thought, having never seen anyone do this before. He waited, along with Harry, to see what the results of this experiment would be. He was horrified when Harry, instead of bottling the makeshift potion, retrieved a syringe from his bag and promptly injected the substance into his arm.

Harry went back to playing the guitar.

Snape hurried to Dumbledore’s office, uncertain as to what he had seen, but knowing that he needed to tell the headmaster what the idiot boy had done. He simply couldn’t shake the image from his head, the image of Harry Potter, doing something to himself. Finally, Snape reached the end of the darkened hallway and turned into the staircase.

“Jello Jigglers,” he muttered. The door promptly opened.

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A/N: \"All Along the Watchtower\" is by Bob Dylan.