What Might Be Done

Chapter 9: Delving One Yard Below
In which everybody digs at Harry and Snape is skewered with his own weapon.


"Let it work;
For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard; and it shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines.
And blow them at the moon."
-- Wm. Shakespeare: Hamlet, iii. 4.

The look on Draco Malfoy's face when Harry walked back into Potions class on Monday morning was priceless. Really, it was the best thing that had happened to Harry all year. A number of people began whispering to each other, looking at Harry and then quickly glancing away. Even his fellow Gryffindors were shocked. He had said nothing about his altercation with Snape immediately after it happened, and he had said nothing since. He hadn't even said anything to Hermione and Ron, and he was very grateful that they hadn't tried to pry anything out of him.

The classroom door slammed opened and a clearly irate Snape stalked to the front of the class, roaring, "SILENCE! This is a classroom, not a quidditch pitch. Potter, two points for wearing again Muggle clothing to my classroom. You will at least dress like a wizard, even if I can't make you act like one.

"Your instructions are on the board. There will be no talking. Miss Granger, Mr Goyle, trade places."

Harry groaned.

"Two points, Mr Potter. Your feeble-minded opinions have no place in my classroom."

Harry's mouth opened and then snapped shut. Why was Snape on him? What happened to ‘something better than enemies'? Bastard.

Ron leant over and whispered, "Lover's quarrel?"

Harry paled with shock but was saved from having to say anything by, of all people, Snape.

"I SAID ‘SILENCE!'" Snape screamed. "Weasley, trade places with Parkinson."

Ron's freckles stood out in stark relief as most of the blood drained from his face. He gathered up his things, flashed a glance at Harry, and then stalked across the room and took his place next to Vincent Crabbe. He looked over at Hermione who was now partnered with a smirking Malfoy. Malfoy whispered something to Hermione that made her jaw tighten.

"Five points, Mr Malfoy. I would expect people in my house to accord me more respect in my classroom. I said ‘silence', did I not, Mr Malfoy?"

"Yes, Professor. I was just asking Miss Granger–"

Snape rolled his eyes and sighed. "Detention, Mr Malfoy. With Mr Filch, this evening. Don't look like that. I did warn you."

Harry wondered what was going on in Snape's head. Four points from Harry, but five points from Malfoy. And a detention with Filch! Harry only barely stopped himself from pumping his fist in the air. Still, there was nothing at all friendly in Snape's demeanour.

"As I said, your instructions are on the board. I expect absolute silence until such point as it is absolutely necessary to inform me that Mr Longbottom's cauldron is about to explode."

***

Snape sat down behind his desk, grateful to see the last of the day's worth of dunderheads, and put his head in his hands; fingers scratching at his scalp, just itching to wrap themselves around Potter's scrawny neck.

With a sigh, he stood up. Monday morning staff meeting in five minutes, and wasn't that going to be a treat.

Snape was the last to arrive. Minerva smiled broadly at him and he scowled in response.

Hagrid stood up, grinning happily, and for a moment Snape was terrified he was about to be hugged, but Hagrid only gave him a clout on the back that made his knees buckle, and said, "I knew there were a heart in there somewhere."

Snape poured himself a cup of tea with shaky hands and sank gratefully into his preferred chair, refusing to make eye-contact with anybody.

Flitwick approached him cheerfully. "I hear you've accepted Potter back in your classroom without an apology, Severus. Frankly, I was quite surprised."

"What goes on in my classroom and how I choose to mete out discipline, are none of your business."

"You must be joking," Professor Hooch chortled, "you let Harry Potter back into your classroom without an apology?"

Snape's ears burnt as if he'd just swallowed a double dose of Pepper-Up. He should just tell them the truth and be done with it. But somehow, he felt he couldn't do that to Potter. Let the boy bask for the moment, he had a hard enough time. Snape thought he might be sick. He couldn't possibly be feeling this way.

"I suppose the Headmaster requested it of you?"

"No, Filius. Fine! Yes. Albus asked me to take Potter back into my class and I have. Are you satisfied?"

Minerva gave him a knowing look and smiled again. "Sooner started, sooner ended. What's our first order of business?"

***

Harry, Ron and Hermione wandered across the grounds towards Hagrid's hut. Spring had finally arrived, almost six weeks late. Tiny flowers popped up out of the grass and larger ones danced rings around the trees. The breeze was pleasant, the sun was shining, there was only a little more than a month before school let out, and Harry was miserable.

"Would you please stop sighing and tell us what's wrong? You've been moping around for weeks." Hermione asked.

"I have not been moping."

"You have, you know," Ron said. "We thought if we left you alone –" Hermione rolled her eyes and Ron amended what he was saying, "Hermione thought if we left you alone you'd eventually come to us. I thought we should just sit on you until you confessed." He gave Hermione a superior sort of grin. "Looks like we should have done it my way after all. I tried to tell you it was different for us guys."

Hermione tilted her head and looked at Ron from under her furrowed eyebrows. "Fine. You were right. I was wrong. Are you happy now?"

A soft, "Uh oh," was Ron's only response.

"So, Harry," Hermione said archly, "tell us what's been bothering you."

Harry sighed again and then shook his head. There was no hope for it. He'd finally admitted he had apologized to Snape, although he hadn't wanted to; it had been too tempting to enjoy the cheers and congratulations of his classmates, who had for some reason assumed Snape had been the one to give in. But he'd held off telling Ron and Hermione about what was really bothering him, and if he couldn't tell the two of them -- his best friends -- then he really was alone, and he couldn't bear that thought.

Harry sighed, searching for the words for everything that had been spinning around in his brain for months. He stopped walking and stared out over the grounds as if the answer could be found outside of himself.

"Do you know what I'm afraid of?"

"We could probably guess some of it, but why don't you tell us," Hermione coaxed.

"That I really am like the Wizard of Oz. That one of these days, Voldemort and the Death Eaters are going to pull back the curtain and discover there's nothing behind it but one ignorant boy."

"Oh, Harry, don't. You really are a great wizard."

"No I'm not. You're loads better than I am at almost everything. So's Malfoy for that matter."

"Would someone care to explain what we're talking about?" Ron asked grumpily.

Hermione glanced at him and smiled. "Sometimes I forget you're not a Muggle."

"Don't know whether to feel smug or insulted."

Harry laughed. "Well, if Malfoy or Snape said it, it would be an insult. Coming from Hermione, it's a complement. I think."

"It's neither," Hermione said primly. "It's just a statement of fact. Sometimes I actually do forget that Ron doesn't have the same reference points you and I have. It's no different than when a pureblood doesn't comprehend how someone could never have heard of Quidditch."

"No lecture," Ron begged, "just explain what you're talking about, please? I'd like to stay up with the conversation."

"There's a famous Muggle book called "The Wizard of Oz". A movie was made of it. The story's too complex to tell it all right now, but basically it's about a girl from Kansas..."

"What's Kansas?"

"Hermione, let me tell it, or we'll be here all day."

"Fine." Hermione made a disgusted noise and looked away, arms crossed.

"All you need to know, Ron, is that there's a man everybody thinks is a great and powerful wizard but it turns out he's a fake."

"And you're afraid you're a fake?"

"Yeah. I mean, I know I'm really a wizard, but everyone has these expectations about how I'm going to be the greatest wizard of the age and I'm going to destroy Voldemort and everything. But what if it turns out I'm just a boy? A wizard, but just an ordinary one? I don't feel like the greatest wizard of the age; I just feel like Harry, a trouble-maker that slacks off on his schoolwork."

"But you're always saying you are the greatest wizard of the age."

"And you believe everything I say?"

"Of course," Ron said stoutly, "you're the bloody Boy-Who-Lived."

"Liar." Harry laughed.

"Well, yeah, I am a bit. Because, you know, you're my mate, and it's hard to think of your best friend as something out of the ordinary, but you're really good at magic, Harry. Better than me, that's for sure. I know we cut-up and screw off on doing our work, but you've got some kind of, what's the word? innate talent."

"Yeah, right."

"Seriously, Harry. Look, I never could have conjured a Patronus third year, no matter how much private tutoring I had."

"Don't be ridiculous. You can cast Patronus now."

"Yes, but Harry, don't you see," Hermione burst in excitedly, "we didn't learn to cast Patronus until fifth year, and you taught us, and we don't even know if we could cast one when we really needed to."

"So?"

"There are plenty of adult wizards and witches who can't cast one, but your power is such that you not only learned to cast one at thirteen, you fairly easily taught a bunch of teenagers to cast it. You have real talent, Harry."

"Well, maybe," Harry still sounded unsure. "Maybe I'm worrying over nothing, but what if I'm not?"

"All you can do is keep training. You'll be ready when the time comes. I just know you will."

"We'd better hope, or we're all doomed." Harry frowned and looked morosely down at his feet.

"What else is bothering you?"

Harry looked at his friends from the corner of his eye. There were some things he really wasn't sure he could talk about; admitting he was afraid had been hard enough.

"Come on, out with it," Ron said.

"Three guesses, the first two don't count," Harry said, trying to make a joke of it and failing.

"Stop. Right here." Hermione ordered. "We'll sit down here and talk. You obviously haven't told us everything."

Hermione's superiority was very annoying, but she was right, he hadn't told them everything and this thing with Snape had been eating at him. Still, he tried to stave off the inevitable: "We've got to feed Fang."

"Fang will not starve if we're 30 minutes late."

"No," Ron laughed, "but he might help himself to a chair. Hagrid won't be half angry."

"Hagrid," Hermione said repressively, "will probably think it was cute. Spread your cloak out, Ron, would you?"

"Yes, dear," Ron said.

Harry laughed and Hermione didn't. "That was funny the first two hundred times you said it, Bilius, but it's not funny any longer."

Ron scowled at the use of his middle name and then laughed. "Harry still thinks it's funny. You have no sense of humour."

"As I recall, you don't like it very much when I'm not speaking to you."

Ron opened his mouth to retort but Harry cut him off. He was very, very tired of their bickering. "Can you two just not? Not right now." He smiled. " I don't know much about girls, Ron, but I know if it were me, I'd prefer to be treated like a lady."

Ron laughed.

"Spread your cloak. You were the only one dim enough to carry one on a day like this." Harry said.

"I'll be the only one dim enough to sit on it if you don't shut it," Ron said amiably as he spread his cloak out and the three of them sat down. "Now, what's really eating you, mate?"

"Snape told me he was interested in me," Harry said flatly.

Ron exhaled sharply and fell over backwards, both hands pressed to his forehead.

"When, Harry?" Hermione gasped.

"The day before everyone thought I disappeared."

"Is that why you disappeared?"

"No!" Harry exclaimed. "Don't be daft." He sighed. "Well, yes, that was part of it. But only part," he added in a hurry. "It was that and everything else. The debacle at the Ministry."

Harry couldn't say, "Since Sirius died." He couldn't even think it. ‘The debacle at the Ministry' was his euphemism for everything. His Voldemort-given dreams, Sirius's death, the prophecy, Sirius's death.

"I don't understand why Dumbledore won't get us a decent Defence teacher," Ron said.

"Ron, stay on topic, can't you?"

"He is on topic, Hermione. That's part of it. I'm supposed to kill Voldemort and I proved at the Ministry that I'm nothing more than a stupid kid. I need to learn Defence. The DA is all very well, but I need to learn more. I need to learn everything."

"That's not the topic, Harry. The topic is Snape telling you he was interested in you."

"Oh, that."

"Yes, that. What did he say? What did you say? Are you going to tell Dumbledore? How's he been since he told you?"

"Whoa! Slow down. One question at a time, Hermione," Ron scolded.

"He said he was interested. I said he was crazy. I ran away. Dumbledore knows. And Snape's been a complete bastard since - as you both know, so I don't know why you bothered to ask - but he hasn't taken very many points, and he hasn't given me detention. I've barely spoken to him since."

"You told Snape he was crazy?" Ron asked, sitting up and doubling over with laughter.

Harry loosed a half-smile. "I told him I didn't even know if it was legal."

"Why wouldn't it be legal?" Ron asked.

"Teacher student isn't acceptable in the Muggle world, and Harry's not at the age of consent yet."

"What's ‘age of consent'?"

"Seventeen. Eighteen. I don't remember," Harry said. "I was only ten my last year of Muggle school. We hadn't got that far yet.

"I didn't mean what's the age, I meant what's the age of consent?"

Harry opened his mouth to speak but Hermione cut him off. "That question wasn't clear at all, Ron, but," she turned to Harry, "he doesn't know what the whole concept is. The wizarding world doesn't have an age of consent."

"No?" Harry asked at the same moment Ron said, "What's an ‘age of consent’?"

"It means the age where a person is old enough to legally have sex."

Ron just looked blank.

"Nevermind, Ron. I'll explain it to you some other time. Just take it as given that in the Muggle world, there are laws about how old someone has to be before they can have sex with an adult, or an adult can have sex with them. And things are more stringent where the older person has authority over the younger person."

"Wizards don't have laws like that?" Harry asked.

"Well no, not exactly," Hermione sounded very exasperated. "Can we just talk about that part later?"

Harry shrugged but Ron insisted, "At least explain about the teacher/student thing."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "In the Muggle world, a teacher could use his authority to coerce a student who didn't want to have sex with him or her to do it or risk a bad grade or something."

"That's ridiculous!" Ron spouted. "The student would just tell someone."

"Well, we don't have all the same things to protect us," Harry said. "We don't have Veratiserum, we don't have pensieves, we don't have ways of proving who's telling the truth unless there's more than one witness telling the same story; that doesn't happen often when people are having sex."

"Yeah we do, Harry." Ron was utterly confused. "We have Veratiserum, we have pensieves."

Harry and Hermione looked at Ron in confusion and then Harry laughed. "Uh, I meant Muggles. Muggles don't have Veritaserum or pensieves."

"Forgot again, did you, Oz?" Ron was gleeful.

"I hate it when I do that," Harry muttered.

"That was a very nice try at derailing the conversation, you two, but I, for one, haven't forgotten what we were discussing."

"Hermione," Harry said in exasperation.

"Harry," Hermione responded in the same tone. "You shouldn't have told Snape he was crazy. That was stupid. He must be livid."

"Think about it, Hermione. How would you feel if any one of our professors said that to you? Any one of them, let alone Snape!"

Ron shuddered and even Hermione couldn't hide her discomfort. The three of them fell silent.

Eventually Harry said, "We should go feed Fang before he eats Hagrid's hut. Then I've got ‘Remedial Potions."

"When did that start up again? You didn't tell us," Ron complained.

"Today. It starts again today." Harry answered miserably.

***

He knew it was a very bad idea to be late but dread made Harry's footsteps slow. He looked at every portrait in the corridors, touched every suit of armour. Occlumency. Snape looking into his mind again. On the whole, he'd rather face Voldemort.

But, there was no putting it off any longer. Dumbledore had insisted to both Harry and Snape that lessons be resumed, and, after a long delay, today was the day. Truthfully, a little piece of Harry was relieved - he was afraid to trust his dreams anymore, and the prickling in his scar was nearly constant - but he wished Dumbledore wasn't too sick to teach him himself. Oh God, he didn't want Snape in his head again.

"You're late, Potter," Snape snapped when Harry finally entered his office. "Which doesn't surprise me in the least. Your arrogance knows no bounds."

Harry bit his tongue to keep from hurling a retort. He looked at Snape's desk, noticing with surprise that there were two pensieves sitting on it. One he recognized; it was the Headmaster's, the same one he had loaned to Snape the year before. The second was new to him. It was beautiful and he felt drawn to it, in a completely different way than he had previously been drawn to Dumbledore's. He didn't know whose memories swirled inside it. He didn't care.

It was of a shiny, dark green stone, and though Harry couldn't see them clearly from that distance, he knew runes were carved all around the bowl.

"The Headmaster indicated I should give you a pensieve of your own. I will continue to use his. Although the pensieve is yours to keep, you will leave it in my office until you leave Hogwarts for good. You will not risk giving anyone the opportunity to have a look."

"No one but you, you mean."

Harry was shocked when Snape kept his temper. "You're being rude, Mr Potter. Two points from Gryffindor, and detention. An actual detention this time. I've been too lax with you for too long. It's beginning to show."

"Detention's not the best place to take a guy on a date, Snape." Harry grinned.

"Do not let my having indicated my interest in you lull you into a false sense of familiarity. You will not mock me. Legilimens!"

Wrestling with Ron. . . Catching the snitch . . . ‘I'm taken with you, Potter' . . . Lunging at Crookshanks to keep him from batting Trevor across the room . . . Sirius falling through the veil . . . The burrow, in Ron's room by himself imagining Bill Weasley while he. . .

"NO!" Harry screamed and cast the same stinging hex he had used the first time he had ever managed to repel Snape. He dropped his wand. He didn't want to go any further. He didn't want to know what was in Snape's head.

Snape cursed and grabbed his wrist, almost dropping his own wand in the process.

"Very good, Potter. Very quick."

Harry blinked.

Snape rolled his eyes. "Oh do get over it, you simpleton. Yes, I complimented you. The Headmaster suggested it would be . . . beneficial." Snape grinned broadly. "That last thing, Weasley Number One, if I'm not mistaken. I'd recognize that . . . earring, anywhere."

Harry blinked again and then felt himself flush six different shades of red. Miraculously, Snape was not looking at him.

Snape spoke to the ceiling. "The serpentine pensieve, as I said, is yours to keep. I will not look in it. You don't need to store your memories in it when you're not here, although you may if you like. Of course, you're young and don't have as many things coursing through that thing you call your brain as an older person would, so you might not feel the need."

"Do you think it would ever be possible for you to say more than two sentences without insulting me?"

Snape thought about that. "I didn't insult you until the fourth sentence."

Harry laughed.

Snape continued sourly, "I suggest you store memories such as that last I caught a glimpse of. There are certain things I have no wish to see."

Liar, Harry thought.

"However, I would also suggest, that you not store every petty embarrassment in your pitiful life. We must, after all," Snape sneered, "leave you something worth exerting yourself over.

"The pensieves, both of them, will be locked in a cupboard when not in use. You will not have the opportunity again to invade my private thoughts, other than whatever success you have with Legilimency, which apparently you have some innate talent for. The cupboard has been spelled to unlock only when both of us are present. At the beginning of each lesson, we will take them from the cupboard, store whatever memories are necessary, and when we're done we will lock up the pensieves. Is that clear?"

"Believe me, I'm never looking in your pensieve again. I didn't much like what I saw the last time."

"Your insulting manner is becoming tedious."

"My insulting manner? No, that didn't come out right. Look, when I peeked in your pensieve, I didn't like what I saw of my father, all right? Happy? I'm sorry I looked in your damned pensieve, and not just because I didn't like what I saw."

Snape was silent for a moment and then smiled thinly. "Yes, I suppose your father and Black didn't come off too well, did they?"

"Oh shut up," Harry said, without any real venom. He still felt guilty about looking in Snape's memories and even Snape's snarking wasn't enough to ameliorate that. Apologizing didn't seem to be enough either.

"I wish we could pretend it never happened," Harry sighed.

"No hope for that. What you did was unconscionable."

"I know. But I apologized, what else do you want?"

"Saying ‘I'm sorry' doesn't change what you did."

"I KNOW!"

"Temper, Potter."

"Yeah, right, well, all I can do is say I'm sorry and assure you it won't ever happen again."

"Fine. We'll drop it for now. Legilimens!"

Images fleeted by so quickly, Harry wasn't even sure what they were. A voice in his head, sounding very much like Snape, was saying, I have been told that you have already shown aptitude at resisting the Imperius Curse. . . You will find that similar powers are needed for this.

No, another voice said. I don't want you to see anything."

Suddenly, not even knowing how he did it, Harry pushed and pale blue light soared from the tip of his fingers, enveloping Snape who staggered backwards as his wand flew out of his hand.

"Oh yeah, that's a good look for you," Harry said, laughing in triumph because this time Snape was the one on all fours on his office floor.