Breaking Forwards

Chapter Seven – 'Journey' Pretty Well Describes It All Right

Harry didn't go to his dorm room to clean up at the designated time, but went back to the room of requirement instead. There, he took a quick shower, changed clothes—urgh—and then collapsed into bed to get in as much rest as he could before he needed to go and meet with his professor.

For their journey, he thought, not particularly liking the sound of that idea.

Besides, when had Snape ever called him Harry?

Something was up.

And the sheer number of possible reasons for it frightened him very much.

HS

Harry was waiting at the prearranged hallway precisely at six o'clock when Severus arrived there.

"I'm glad that you decided to be on time. Your previous appearances in past years had led me to wonder if you understood the concept at all."

"It's entirely possible that you were correct, sir," was the young man's cool response.

"No reaction to the implications in my statement?" He couldn't help asking as he began leading the way down the hallway.

"I'm fully aware that I have been—and still am—an idiot."

"Perhaps that statement is less true this year though," Severus amended for him.

Harry briefly turned and quirked an eyebrow at him, but otherwise said nothing.

"What allowed you make that realization?" Severus asked.

"Oh, I've always known it, sir," was the younger man's somewhat disturbing answer.

"I would have thought that your younger years would have been steeped in praise for you," Severus asked, digging deeper.

"They were certainly steeped in something, sir. I'll give you that," the teen said with a slight bow towards him.

They continued on in silence until finally Severus spoke to tell the lad they had arrived at their destination.

The entrance to Severus's rooms was guarded by the Hogwart's Potions Master from two centuries prior; a rather formidable man with even less regard for humans—or children—than Severus himself had. Severus knew that Albus thought it rather amusing that he had chosen Professor Ogsworth as his guardian then, all considering.

Ogsworth's portrait had been painted about ten years into his tenure there; a decision that ultimately had turned out to be a very good thing, since the man completely disappeared during a random potions' explosion during his seventh year advanced potions making class, only a few months afterwards. According to the legend, the man had been gone by the time the smoke cleared, yet no one in any of the surrounding hallways had seen him leave; while all of his belongings had remained as well.

As a testament to the legend, some of the books that now resided in Severus's personal library were signed with the name, "Ardous F. Ogsworth." Furthermore, the books had come with the rooms, leading him to wonder more than once on what exactly had really transpired on that fateful day to that Potions master of the past.

He did not share any of this with the boy, feeling that he could always bring it up later should he need something to change the subject with.

He said his password in a very low voice—False prophets—and the portrait opened up, allowing him to enter his quarters with an underweight, scrawny fifth year Gryffindor following directly behind.

Behind them, the door—for that was how it looked from the inside—shut with a heavily muffled thump. He looked to his side where the younger man was standing and decided that the time was right for unraveling one of the mysteries of the boy's life.

"As you may have already noticed, I keep my rooms at a very comfortable temperature. Thus, there is little reason to wear robes inside these walls." That said; he began undoing the buttons on the front of his own black robes; all the while keeping half an eye focused on the smaller teen beside him.

He watched in interest as Harry gritted his teeth hard, while breathing deeply through his nose for an entire breath in and out. Then the boy's face became bland and seemingly disinterested as he began unbuttoning his robes as well.

It was only as the boy got them off of his thin form did Severus finally began to understand the lad's hesitation regarding the topic.

What on earth was he wearing, and why?

He took the robe from the boy and proceeded to hang it up on one of the many hooks that hung on the wall beside the door. Next to the boy's own smaller robes, he hung his significantly longer ones, and then he turned to Harry and indicated that they should walk into the room itself proper.

His rooms were quite adequate for him; their underground placement merely giving him a further feeling of protection every time he was there. The first room that they walked into was not simply a space designated for only one activity, but rather an area that played host to several purposes at once.

To the left sat a small kitchenette and a small wooden table surrounded by four chairs of similar design. In the middle of the room, sitting at a right angle from one another were two soft black, fabric covered couches; both long enough for him to lie down upon without needing to curl his legs in the process.

On the far right wall sat his fireplace, which was currently crackling brightly with more than warmth to combat the ever present chill of the dungeons. In the back of the room stood a long table with more than one project sitting atop it. Around it were two stools—and there were more hidden in the corner, shrunk down to save space.

However, perhaps the most overwhelming thing about his main room was the simple abundance of books lining the many shelves that had carefully been carved from the very walls themselves, many centuries prior. It was those walls that he found his student staring wide-eyed at; even as the smells from their dinner sitting atop his dining table began wafting tantalizingly under their noses.

"I see that you're admiring my collection of books," he commented dryly.

"Yes sir," the awe still clearly evident in his voice.

"Let's eat first and then perhaps later you can look at them more in-depth."

HSHS

Hermione blinked her eyes and looked around her surroundings very slowly. It felt as though she was awakening from some kind of strange dream, but without any memory of having fallen asleep in the first place.

Well, she was in the Gryffindor common room; that much she could tell just from the visual clues within her vicinity.

She moved her eyes to the window and saw with a touch of discomfort that the sky was already dark.

How—? Was her disjointed thought. It had been daylight only—only moments before. She frowned and tried to think backwards, but the persistent weight in her limbs and brain continued to distract her.

"Hermione?" A voice murmured from beside her. After what felt like ages, she managed to turn her head and look into the worried eyes of Ginny Weasley.

"Hermione? Are you okay?" Ginny repeated at her from what felt like a long ways away.

"I'm fine," she said, trying to smile but feeling that she was not doing a very convincing job of it.

"Are you sure?" Ginny's eyes clearly indicated what she thought of Hermione's lackluster reply.

"Just—," she fought her brain to find the right word. "Just tired," she said, smiling her lie a touch easier this time.

Ginny looked as though she didn't quite believe her, but wasn't willing to press it quite yet—especially not in front of the rest of the common room.

"You'd best get to bed then, understand?" Ginny told her firmly, the worry not quite gone from her eyes.

"Just heading there, Gin," she smiled quickly, her facial muscles finally coming back under her control.

After the younger girl had left her, Hermione once again tried to understand what had happened to her that evening. Her body had continued to feel uncomfortably heavy; almost as though her limbs had all been shot full of something like Novocain.

HSHSHS

Harry did not know what to make of the man sitting across the table from him. He was being downright civil to him, after years of not.

It had struck him earlier that evening that perhaps Snape was only doing all of this because Blaise had talked to him after all. The more he thought about that possibility, the more he realized the likelihood of it. It had occurred to him that he ought to be mad—or maybe even horrified at what his friend had mentioned about him—but the new Harry chose not to.

If he could trust him enough to tell him the truth, then he could trust him enough to make his own judgments. Not only that, but this gave Harry a chance to find out if the character judgments he had made about certain people were to be trusted or not.

Besides, this sudden change in Snape had helped him further his agenda, and at a much quicker rate as well.

"I must admit that I am surprised that you haven't yet accused me of trying to poison you," Snape said in an even voice to him from across his own plate of chicken, rice and assorted vegetables.

"I'm no longer worried about such inane trivialities," was his dry answer.

"At one point it would have bothered you very much," was the inquisitive reply. Snape's dark eyes were looking at him carefully, nearly without pause.

"I suppose it comes down to a couple of factors then," he answered as he sliced another piece of chicken off for himself.

"And they would be?" Snape prompted.

"First of all, if I get poisoned by you—or anyone else for that matter—then I never have to go back to the Gryffindor dorms," he said.

Let him chew on that one for a bit, he thought with almost a wild sense of glee.

"And second of all," he said, continuing before he got prompted again. "You're a good man. You're good at what you do, and you understand the rules of the game. If you really wanted to get rid someone, I have little doubt that your patience would be substantial enough to last until they were graduated. After all," Harry looked up at him with a hard look, "if they die after they have left Hogwarts, it is a great deal harder to trace it back to you, as compared with if they had died here under your tutelage. Sir," he finished before reaching for his pumpkin juice as a way to look at the man's reaction to his reasoning.

He watched as his professor blinked his eyes a few times before looking at him in a new and calculating manner.

"What is it about the Gryffindor dorms that you find so distasteful?" Snape's voice was hushed.

"Mostly it's the thought that someone will kill me in my sleep that bothers me the most," he answered with a grimace towards the older man.

"Perhaps you are reading too much into the situation," Snape mildly suggested to him.

Perhaps you are not reading enough into the situation, he thought with sudden abandon.

"Perhaps—however, since you did not personally hear the threat I received from the Weasel, I can hardly fault you for not understanding the severity of the situation at hand," Harry replied calmly.

His professor raised an eyebrow at that statement.

"What kind of threat?"

Odd, the man actually sounds actually concerned.

"A lewd and unpleasant one, sir," he said, taking his last bite of dinner and pushing the plate away in satisfaction.

"It would help if you would explain."

"I don't want help, sir—not with this," he added.

"May I ask why not?" Snape's tone had abruptly gone cold with those words.

Apparently he thinks me a bigger moron that he's been letting on.

"Because I don't want any witnesses, sir," he said with a feral grin.

He was satisfied to see his professor's eyebrows rise in response to the implied threat.

"Has he truly hurt you that badly?"

And abruptly Harry felt that he was done with their particular conversation, and began feeling the itch to move around.

"Is this how stage two always works, sir?" He diverted.

"Not always," the man's dark eyes glittered at him. "Perhaps I should ask the question in another way. Is Weasley's offense against you heinous enough that you are willing to risk Azkaban over getting your vengeance on him?"

Harry found that he had no good answer for the man, so he merely smiled at him in a way that suggested darker things than punishing Weasley were on his mind.

"I see," Snape said, leaning back in his chair and narrowing his eyes at him.

"Let's take this conversation to the sitting area, shall we?" He said to Harry, the command clear in his voice.

HSHSHSHS

Severus was beginning to see why Blaise had brought the boy's situation to him. There was a cold darkness lurking behind the boy's polite mask that reminded him somewhat of the Dark Lord himself. It was the need to hurt those around him that Snape could see looking back at him when he looked into the teen's face.

Severus looked at the young man sitting to his left.

"How did you get that scar on your face?" He asked.

"How did you break your nose?" the boy responded with an upraised eyebrow.

"Fair enough question; which time are you inquiring about?" Severus asked.

"The first."

"My father hit me," Severus answered none too quickly.

"Why?"

He looked at the boy sitting on the opposite end of the couch from him. The fifth year was sitting with his back against the arm of the couch with one leg curled underneath him, peering up at him with a rather intense and calculating expression. However, Severus found his eyes most drawn to the boy's hands. They were the only moving part of him; sometimes in his lap, sometimes hidden at his sides, but never still, never calm.

"Because he was drunk," Severus answered matter-of-factly.

"And angry at you?"

"I was simply the most accessible outlet for his rage," Severus answered; his mind thinking back over those horrid days with more of an objective eye than he would have originally thought possible.

When the boy didn't answer immediately, Severus turned the question back around again.

"What about the scar on your face? How did you acquire your newest addition?"

Severus watched the boy chew the inside of his cheek for a moment before responding.

"My uncle used me as an outlet for his rage," the teen said with a smile that did not touch the icy green orbs staring back at him.

"How did the actual injury occur?" He asked interestedly, watching as Harry smiled that worrisome smile back at him.

"It turns out that wizards really do bleed," he answered coolly, skirting around the actual inquiry with ease.

"Your uncle was trying to ascertain that?" Severus asked incredulously.

"I'm—I'm not entirely sure," the boy admitted in a halting voice, narrowing his eyes as he looked away.

"How did you keep yourself from bleeding to death?"

"Ah, that," the grin suddenly returned. "I cauterized it."

"You did what?" Severus exclaimed loudly, completely caught off guard.

"Wild magic set my wound on fire, allowing me to survive," the boy said coolly, as though he were merely commenting on the weather and not the insanity of cauterizing his own flesh.

Severus found himself at a brief loss for words.

"And your aunt?" He asked softly after some silence had passed with the boy adding anything else to his account.

"Yelled."

"At your uncle?"

The boy choked out a bitter laugh that could have rivaled one of the dark lord's frightful own.

"What could she have possibly yelled at you for?"

"For bleeding on her nice clean floor," the lad said with a dark smile.

"Surely you are joking," Snape answered with a look of disbelief.

The boy smiled bitterly back at him, and Severus knew in that instant that he had spoken the truth.

"What happened to make your uncle act in such a way towards you in the first place?" Severus asked, watching the boy closely.

He certainly wasn't expecting the reaction he got.

HSHSHSHSHS

Harry couldn't help but laugh at Snape's ridiculous question. When he finally gained control over himself, he looked up to find the other man in the same position he had been in before Harry's miserable bout of mirth had taken over; only now, the concern in his eyes was almost palpable.

"I was born," he finally managed to say, his face still twisting from some kind of unidentifiable emotion.

"And why does your uncle find that so distasteful?" The man asked him, raising an eyebrow coolly.

"You really don't know?" Harry asked, looking critically at his professor.

"Enlighten me," Snape's face was hard, almost angry looking, but Harry no longer gave a damn.

"I'm a freak," he said, repeating the word that he had heard thrown at him from so many people throughout his life.

He watched Snape's eyes narrow at his description, but decided not to wait for the man's response.

"You know, a freak? A weirdo? A bloody waste of space? All those things you and everyone else has been calling me my entire life?" He asked, getting to his feet and beginning to pace.

"And how does your aunt feel?" If anything, Snape's voice had gotten only colder.

"She hates me; they both do," he ground out bitterly, his green eyes flashing with long buried emotions.

"They wish I had never been born, and they hate that they had to get stuck with me; a worthless, little nobody freak. To them, I have about as much charm as a bloody skunk," he spat, leaning against the far wall and crossing his arms. He could feel himself smiling, and he imagined that it was a frightening sort of smile.

HSHSHSHSHSHS

Severus looked worriedly at the boy-who-lived as he paced before him. The teenager's face was tinged with pink, and his normally bright green eyes were dark with barely controlled rage. As Harry had hoped, Severus was finding his smile to be very discomfiting indeed. It reminded him greatly of Lucius Malfoy, directly before the man began torturing someone. It was also similar to the type of smile that he had seen on the faces of serial killers and psychotics.

"Have you spoken to the headmaster about any of this?" He asked in a calm voice; loathe to set off the lad off any farther.

"Tried."

"And?" Severus probed.

"Old man didn't want to hear about it. Said that all families," the boy spit the word out like a curse, "have their problems, and my ability to withstand these stresses will merely build my character," Harry sneered distastefully at him.

"And has no one ever checked up on you?" Severus was having trouble believing that no one had ever noticed any of the things the boy was talking about.

Harry smiled down at him with that dreadful smile again and Severus instinctively moved his hand closer to his wand.

"Dumbledore insists that the blood wards at my aunt's house are there for my protection. Sometimes I see mysterious people around the neighborhood, but I don't think the old man really has any concept of what my life is really like," the boy said, turning away and adding in a very quiet voice, "No one does."

"And why should they bother with me? I'm Gryffindor's fucking little golden boy. I must be getting treated like a bloody prince!" Harry said, pointing a finger angrily at him.

Severus stood up then, feeling the need to try and regain control over the situation before it got any more explosive.

"You know what I am though?" Harry bit out in a very low voice—perhaps a man's voice, even.

Severus shook his head wordlessly, curious despite the rising danger.

"A pariah—a scapegoat for every single person around me," the teenager said in an almost dead voice.

"Harry—," he tried, but a sharp look back at him warned him off from interrupting.

"Vernon gets yelled at while at work? Blame Harry," the boy was whispering hoarsely now, his eyes unfocused as he watched some kind of horror folding out before him in his mind. "Gryffindor loses popularity? Blame that fucking Potter boy. Someone's potion gets botched?" Harry looked at him briefly, a small lost smile on his face. "Blame that dunderheaded Potter boy who looks so much like his fucking, worthless, wretched excuse for a sperm donor father."

Severus swallowed, abruptly ashamed of himself.

But the young man's tirade wasn't over yet.

"Some people believe that the worst man in our world is ol' Voldy himself," the teen said, his eyes still unfocused. "But they're wrong," Harry laughed bitterly, hugging his arms around himself tightly in a moment of self-comfort.

"Who is it then, Harry?" He asked, feeling fairly positive of what the boy would say.

HSHSHSHSHSHSHS

"Me," Harry finally looked up at him again, his eyes finally focused for the first time in several minutes.

"And what horrible things have you done?" The other man inquired; disbelief evident in his face.

"I figure that I must have done something awful in a previous life—maybe I was Hitler or that Italian dude, Mussolini or whatever his name was, and this is my payback. Why else has my life been filled with such utter shit?" Harry took a step towards the other man.

He could feel his fear coming on strong as he prepared for the misery of explaining his life to the only person who had ever bothered to ask.

"After killing off old Voldy the first time, I then spent the next ten years as a worthless house elf for my only remaining relatives. When they weren't beating me or breaking my bones, then they were starving me and working me to death," he stated, seeing the other man's eyes widen slightly.

"They lied to me about my heritage, about where I was from. And then, when I finally made it back to the wizarding world, I found out that everyone knows more about my story than even me. Dumbledore can pretend all he likes that he's looking out for what's best for me, but if that's true, then why the HELL did he LEAVE ME with the DURSLEYS TO BEGIN WITH?" He shouted, and looking down, he realized with some surprise that he had the front of Snape's robes in his fists.

"Everything he does to me is supposedly for the 'Greater Good,' but that's a crock. It's all a crock. He's out to hurt me, to make me suffer. He lies to me, and then lies more when I ask him about it. He doesn't talk to me before making decisions about my life for me. It's his fault that I had to grow up in that hellhole. It's his fault that I don't know anything about myself or about my family. It's his fault that I spend the summers wishing for death, wanting to murder that fucking bastard who tries to break whatever is left of me after Voldy gets done exacting his revenge on me at the end of the school term!"

Nearly blind with rage, he threw himself at Snape and up against the wall, probably with enough force to cause the other man to bruise. His professor wasn't reacting though, and for some reason, that infuriated him even more.

"Are you listening to me? Can you hear what I'm saying? The bastard broke me, left me to die, doesn't give a shit about me or my life! Thanks to him, I'll never know what it is to be safe, or to have a home. He's a fucking worthless old demented bastard!" Harry's eyes were streaming tears, but he couldn't be bothered with them. He needed to get this out before he exploded, before he cut his own damn throat because he simply couldn't stand it anymore.

"I don't give a fuck that everyone thinks he's so wise! I hate him! I hate them all! I hate my uncle! I hate my father! He didn't even love my mother! He was fucking Sirius on the side!" He gasped for air, letting his head drop for a moment and therefore missing the brief flash of rage that passed through Snape's eyes at the mention of what his father had done.

"And Sirius," he gasped again, letting go of Snape's robes and falling to the floor at his feet. "S-S-Sirius thinks I'm him. Sirius thought I was him, and I couldn't get—couldn't get away," he sobbed, cradling his head in his hands.

He didn't notice the wide eyed look of horror that had affixed itself to Snape's face; nor did he notice when the other man crouched down beside him.

"My uncle tried," Harry sobbed as he tried to make his words keep coming. "My uncle tried to make me see—make me understand what it was I was g-good for, but I wouldn't believe him. I c-couldn't. But my uncle, please, my uncle," he completely lost it, and allowed himself to be pulled into the arms that had suddenly appeared around his thin body.

"It hurt so bad, please sir, I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he begged, not knowing why anymore; just more than aware that he must have done something horrible to be treated so badly by all of those around him. He didn't want to make the same mistake with the man who was still holding him as he cried out his sorrows for the first time in years.

"I've got you Harry, I've got you now," the man's voice was whispering softly in his ear; his anguish only increasing with the kindness that his professor was treating him with.

"You're supposed to be angry. You're supposed to hurt me," he whispered brokenly through his sobs. "Why aren't you?"

"Because I give a damn, because this isn't right. No one should have to live like that; no one," his professor said, pulling Harry's face to look up at him.

"Not even me?" Harry asked weakly.

"Not even you," Snape said with a stern look as he continued to hold him tightly.

"Not even you," he repeated when Harry didn't respond.

Harry finally nodded and then closed his eyes against the tears still spilling out over his cheeks. He even allowed himself to lean more fully against the shoulder that had continued to support him.

He knew he couldn't trust the other man, but he desperately wanted to. He was just so very tired of trying to survive on his own.