Breaking Forwards

Chapter 9 – Doing Something
Ron was annoyed.

That little twerp, Dennis Creevey, was nowhere to be found. He had planned on shagging him that afternoon, but now he would have to make other arrangements.

HP

As soon as Ron had finished with him that morning, Colin had grabbed Dennis and made a run for it. Well, run might have been too strong a word, given that he could barely walk. Luckily for him, Dennis—despite his diminutive size—was remarkably strong, and with his brother’s help, they had managed to get away fairly quickly.

Unfortunately, he now had no idea what to do next.

“Col, are you okay?” Dennis asked him worriedly, the second year looking up at him with a touch of fear in his eyes.

They were taking a breather in one of the many hidden passageways that existed throughout the castle. Colin had his eyes closed and was resting his head backwards against the cool stone wall behind them, trying to get his heart rate back under control before they got moving again. It didn’t help that his rectum felt as though it were on fire from where Ron had buggered him the night before and then again that morning.

“I’ll be okay,” he said with only a slight grimace; he opened his eyes and smiled reassuringly at his younger brother.

. . .

After a substantial breakfast with his professor, the man asked had him to move to the couch and remove his shirt. Harry was a bit impressed that Snape had been serious about healing him that morning, but he managed to keep his surprise from showing in his face. Instead, he simply took off his shirt and then stared off into space as the man took in the sight of the many wounds and scars that littered his back and chest.

As a result, he missed the look of pained shock that briefly appeared in the other man’s eyes as he took in Harry’s injured body. Snape quickly gained control of his emotions and set to business, but he couldn’t help but wonder how the child before him had slipped through their awareness for so many years.

Harry was roused from his stupor as Snape handed him a vial of potion, which he looked at and sniffed carefully in return. Snape, for his part, did well not to say anything about his mistrust for him, and instead chose to take comfort from the boy’s wariness.

Harry flinched a bit as Snape’s fingers touched his bruised ribs, and although his professor shot a mildly apologetic glance at him, the man did not remove his hand. He watched as Snape crouched down before him, and valiantly tried to push the anxious feeling that arose in his chest from having the man so close to him.

“Two cracked ribs,” the man said in a quiet voice. “Harry, do you know how this happened?”

“My uncle,” Harry said quietly, turning his head away in shame.

His professor’s hand moved to lightly touch his own hands, which were balled together in his lap.

“Tell me,” Snape’s voice was smooth—intense—as he looked steadily at him. “Why are you still hiding your injuries from me?”

Harry half-heartedly tried to pull his hands out of the man’s surprisingly steady grip, but gave up after only a moment. He had wanted Snape to find out about his injuries, all of his injuries—if he were being honest with himself—but he had not truly prepared himself for what would happen if the man actually did.

“I—,” he tried to say, already knowing that any excuse he came up with would ultimately be futile and a waste of energy. “I—,” he started again, only to angrily roll his eyes at himself. “Finite incantatem,” he very nearly growled.

It was a bit interesting to watch Snape’s eyes widen in surprise as the burns on his hands became visible.

“Who?” The man’s question was sharp.

“My aunt,” he answered angrily.

“Petunia did this to you?” His professor sounded shocked, but it was hardly noticeable against his own feeling of surprise.

“You know my aunt?”

He felt oddly betrayed by the knowledge.

“Your mother and I,” Snape’s voice was strained. “Your mother and I went to school together.”

“You knew my mum?” Harry whispered; ignoring his professor’s discomfort as he figuratively leapt upon this new information.

“A long time ago,” Snape admitted quietly, his dark eyes looking pained at the recollection.

Harry broke eye contact with his professor and looked down at his hands once more. He didn’t want to piss the man off anymore; his being present in the man’s quarters was probably already doing enough of that.

He closed his eyes against the sting of bitterness in his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself.

“She held my hands down on the stove after I accidentally burnt some toast—.”

“Toast?!?” Snape growled in disgust, standing up swiftly and summoning some burn cream. The ointment in hand, he sat down directly next to Harry, causing another flinch to go through his body.

“She did this to you over toast?” The man’s voice was incredulous as he began to gently rub the cream into his hands.

. . .

Bloody muggles, Severus thought angrily as he continued to heal the wreckage of the boy before him.
Looking at the child before him, his thoughts drifted over to Blaise Zabini. His snake had looked somewhat like this a few times before, but even that experience had paled in comparison with what he had seen thus far with Harry.

Lily’s child, was his mind’s painful reminder.

The teenager’s face was hard and nearly emotionless as he continued to rub the healing salve into the burns on his hands.

And these are only his physical wounds. Who knows what will come out of this thanks to the mental scars he is left with?

Having finished with Harry’s hands for the time being, Severus picked up another vial of healing potion and asked, “Do you recognize this?”

He watched as the teenager carefully sniffed the open vial.

“Skele-gro?”

“A very mild version to help your broken bones knit back together. The rest of your physical wounds can be healed with the healing salve.”

He watched as Harry shrugged and then tossed the vile tasting concoction back without even grimacing. Severus raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything as he summoned a glass of water for the teen to drink afterwards.

“Thank you, sir,” the boy in front of him said softly.

“I suggest that you lay down while those work,” Severus said, standing up and scourgifying his hands wandlessly. “I will finish the rest of your back after your bones and the other internal injuries have healed. For now though, I must inform your head of house as to your whereabouts, as well as a few other pertinent details regarding your situation.”

He watched as Harry closed his eyes without any hesitation and stretched himself out on the couch, still unclothed from the waist up. Severus looked at the young man’s body with a critical eye, and then with a small frown, he reached for the afghan adorning the back of the couch, and pulled it down over the Gryffindor’s thin form.

“Don’t leave my quarters. Do not try to open anything that is locked, understand?”

“Yes sir,” the boy murmured, curling up tighter under the blanket.
Severus stood and looked at the boy for a few moments more and then added another comment.

“Harry,” he said hesitantly, causing the child to look up at him curiously. “I will not betray your trust to her, do you understand me?”

“Yes sir,” he was awarded by a slightly more positive look on the lad’s face. Feeling better, he turned around and went back to his quarters to finish getting ready for the day. He had a meeting to go to.

. . .

His situation, Harry thought to himself sourly. He wondered exactly what his professor would say to the woman. He knew—well, he believed—that the man understood how dense McGonagall could be at times, especially regarding things that she didn’t want to know about.

He was rather glad that Snape had added something about not betraying his trust. He hadn’t really thought that he would cross that line with McGonagall, but he had known better than to believe in it.

Of course, the man could still turn against him, but Harry doubted it—especially now.
Especially after last night, he thought to himself. He knew he hadn’t imagined it when Snape had held him at the end of his tirade.

I’ve got you, Harry, he heard in his mind.

The proof was in Harry’s tingling hands, in the warm feeling in his belly as his stomach began settling down after ingesting the various healing potions. Hell, he was laid out on the man’s own couch! In his quarters, no less.

He wondered what Snape would say, but now he also wondered what his head of house would say.

Oh, to be a fly on that wall.

A wave of sleepiness came over him and he yawned against it. He heard the soft footsteps of his professor move through the room, and he heard the accompanying swish of his robes.
The sounds moved closer and he tried to open his eyes to see, but they wouldn’t respond to him.

“Sleep, Harry. You’re quite safe here, I promise,” he thought he heard just on the other side of his consciousness.

Had he nodded? He had tried to, but his body was so very heavy now. A hand touched his forehead lightly, more like a feather or a misremembered dream, and then it was gone.

But then again, so was he—lost to the world of sleep.

. . .

Severus strode up to Minerva’s quarters quickly, not really wanting to be away from his quarters with a Potter alone there—unconscious or not.

Well, that was a bit harsh, really. He was seeing more and more that Harry wasn’t really anything like his father. Harry was far more truthful, and until this last unfortunate bout with young Mr. Weasley, the boy had always been loyal.

Unlike James and Sirius, the thought of them cheating on his kind Lily turned his stomach, and he very nearly had to make a side trip on the way across the castle.

. . .

They were on the seventh floor. Colin hadn’t ever been up here, but then again, that might just be what saved them.

“Colin?” His younger brother stared at him, appearing far younger than he could remember him ever looking.
He was focusing on not gasping aloud with the pain he could feel pulsing through his body. He was nearly positive that he was bleeding, given that his trousers seemed to be damper than their circumstances warranted.

“Just give me a mo’,” he said in a low voice, slumping against the stone wall tiredly. There was no one there besides them—not anyone they could see, at least.

Barely aware of the world around him, he didn’t notice when Dennis began pacing fretfully up and down the corridor. He did notice an interesting tapestry just beside him, under which were written the words ‘Barnabas the Barmy.’

“Weird,” he muttered, closing his eyes against the light.

. . .

Dennis was very worried about his older brother.

He knew that someone had threatened them, and he knew that Colin didn’t think McGonagall could help, but he wasn’t sure of very much else. He had suspicions galore, but none of them could be easily substantiated in their current state.

Colin was almost certainly injured, but he didn’t know what kind of injury would cause the sorts of problems that his brother was currently dealing with.

He was tired, but unable to sit still like his brother. He needed to be doing something, anything at all. As he walked up and down the hallway, he idly found himself thinking about what kind of place would be ideal for them to hide out in until their situation was more stable.

If they couldn’t go to McGonagall, then could they go to Dumbledore? No. Dumbledore and McGonagall were tight; everyone knew that.

What about Flitwick or Sprout then?

Like Neville Longbottom, Dennis Creevey had discovered that he had quite a flair for plants, unlike his classmates or even his much revered older brother. He had found that time spent in the greenhouse, especially with Professor Sprout, was always time well spent.

He took comfort in her presence, and sometimes late at night, or those few times that he was alone with the woman, he would pretend that she was the mother he had never had.

Their own mother, a woman named Barbara, had disappeared when they were young. He knew that Colin had some memories of her, but he couldn’t remember anything about her; no matter how hard he tried.

He had been all set on going to Sprout, but Colin had reminded him that the Badger’s dorm was in the basement like the Slytherins, and therefore was inaccessible to them. If it hadn’t been a Saturday, they could have found Sprout in her office, sure enough.

“We need somewhere that has a bed,” he muttered softly to himself, looking back at his brother to see if he had seen him talking to himself.

Of course, going to Snape hadn’t even been a consideration, not even for a moment!

“Someplace like a dorm, but one that has food and a bathroom even,” he said just under his breath as he moved back up the hallway again.

If they had known where Harry Potter was, he knew that Colin would have gone to him in a heartbeat. Harry was good. Harry was the vanguard of the Light, for Merlin’s sake!

“Somewhere that Harry can find us, if he needs to,” he said, still thinking out loud, walking back down the corridor for the third time that afternoon.

Well, likely it’s late afternoon, now—Dennis was stopped in mid-thought as a door that had not existed before suddenly appeared in the wall beside him.

“Colin?” He whispered, whirling back to look at his brother in surprise.

. . .

Severus sat in Minerva’s quarters, a cup of tea in his hand and a scowl on his face.

“He is where?” The disgruntled woman in front of him said icily.

“In my quarters, as I believe I have already told you twice now,” he said, his face getting darker at the way his colleague was arrogantly wasting his time. He had very nearly had it with her idiotic behaviors!
Gryffindors, he thought angrily.

“I thought that we had agreed that he should stay in his dormitory,” she said with a look of distaste back at him.

“And until extenuating circumstances occurred, I had agreed with you,” he said, putting his tea down with an audible CLUNK against the hardwood table sitting beside him.

“Those would be what precisely?” Her words were short, her gaze deathly.

“Health concerns,” Severus answered testily, standing up with a whirl of his robes.

“This conversation is not over, Severus,” she had yet to rise.

“Oh but it is, Minerva,” he said, stalking to the door.

“He is still my student, Severus,” she said, finally standing and moving towards him, ever graceful, even in her anger.

“You are willing to allow harm to come to your precious student then?” He snapped back at her.

“What harm?” She pressed two wizened hands to her hips.

“He is not safe here, in your house,” he said in a low voice, thinking back to the atrocities that the child had admitted to him just in the previous twenty-four hours.

“What do you mean by that?” She asked, color coming to her cheeks.

“I mean that if he had been sorted into my house, I for one would have never allowed him to ever go back to those vermin that Albus calls his family!”

“I know that they are not warm towards him, but surely—,” she was cut off by his increasingly irate temper.

“Has he told you anything about them whatsoever? Admitted anything about their treatment of him?”

Silence was his answer.

“You wonder why he is acting the way he is now, Minerva? This is why. If he cannot trust you to keep him safe, why should he bother speaking with you at all???”

Severus slammed the door behind him forcefully and stalked off down the hall, intent on getting to Dumbledore’s office before Minerva did.

He had an idea of where to go with this, and he did not want the Gryffindor head of house poisoning Albus’s mind against him even before he had a chance to speak.

. . .

Hermione knew that something was wrong. She was, after all, a very smart girl; one of Hogwart’s brightest, even.

Time was moving oddly around her, reminding her somewhat of the year she spent with the time turner, only worse.

At least in that scenario, she had been in charge of the insanity; now, however, was another story altogether.
Besides, with the time turner, she had never lost any time; if anything, she had gained it.

She could only think of one thing that caused lost time, but she had always thought that having multiple personalities disorder was a muggle thing. Not only that, but she was fairly positive that MPD manifested early on, with some sort of traumatic event. Her childhood—so far as she could tell—had been fairly benign regarding such occurrences.

Then again, how could she know if she were the one experiencing it all?

There was only one other piece of the puzzle for her to base any theories on, and that was the strange lethargy that she found herself in after one of those lost time sequences. Ginny had noticed it that evening a few days prior, and she had garnered a few other odd glances from her house mates over the last couple of days as well.
Could someone be obliviating her?

It was an utterly mortifying and chilling thought. Was someone forcefully removing memories from her? And if so, how could she find out?

Not willing to wait any longer, Hermione set out from the dorm to find some answers for herself, lest she lose any more time on top of what she had already lost—or had taken from her, was her mind’s frightening addition.
Anxious to be on her way, she did not notice the pair of eyes that followed her as she left the dorm. Nor did she notice that the portrait of the Fat Lady opening and closing an additional time directly after her exit.

First she tried McGonagall, but to Hermione’s great dismay, her head of house was nowhere to be found. If she
had left only minutes earlier, she likely would have run directly into the woman as she tore out from her quarters to head to Dumbledore’s office.

But as it was, she did not and therefore completely missed her.

Something is wrong with me, she thought with a panicky feeling spreading throughout her body.

Where does someone go when something is wrong with them? She thought to herself, already heading in the correct direction.

The infirmary of course, she thought with a grim smile.

Her follower saw her smile and it made his blood boil. He resolved to follow her.

Nearly in a run, she made it to the infirmary in record time. She slowed down as she came within the sight of the infirmary doors, and then forced herself to calm down somewhat as she went through them.

“Madame Pomfrey?” She called out in a tremulous voice.

The woman she had most been hoping to find came out into the main area with a concerned expression on her face.

“Miss Granger? Is something the matter?” The short woman came quickly to her side and she nearly collapsed with the relief.

Quickly she explained all that had been happening to her—so far as she knew. Madame Pomfrey had indicated that she should sit down on a bed when she first began speaking, and now she instructed her to lie down altogether.

She was glad that someone was doing something, and that her fears had not been completely unfounded. In fact—she hadn’t even discussed her concerns with the infirmary witch!

. . .

Initially, Poppy had been worried when the distraught girl had come into her domain, but now she was more than a little frightened at what the child had told her. Running a few diagnostic tests did not help her fear; in fact, they only made it worse as she started to become aware of the physical oddities present within the teenager’s body.

It didn’t take her very long at all to figure out that someone had been sexually abusing Hermione Granger.
And like Hermione, Poppy’s mind quickly went to the idea that someone had been obliviating her to make her forget about it. It was also apparent that someone had also been healing the girl of the worst of her injuries, but as Poppy’s scans easily showed, that unnamed person was clearly not a healer.

Outside the infirmary, Ron’s eyes were narrowed as he carefully thought through all of his actions for the term thus far. He had little doubt as to why his girlfriend had gone to the infirmary. However, he was determined not to let it get in his way for his plans for that year.

. . .

“Severus, my boy! I must admit, I wasn’t expecting to see you today,” Albus stated jovially as he strode in without so much as a knock.

“Lemon drop?”

He sneered at the offer and for once, the headmaster didn’t keep after him. Instead, he put the proffered tin back inside the desk—after retrieving one for himself, of course—and then sat back down to look thoughtfully up at him.

“I need to speak with the sorting hat,” Severus said bluntly.

Surprise filled the other man’s blue eyes.

“I must say Severus; that is an unusual request,” Albus leaned back in his chair thoughtfully.

“Then may I?” Severus asked with a bit of urgency in his voice.

“Please,” Albus waved him on interestedly.

Quickly striding over to the shelf where the hat was kept during the school year, Severus reached over for the magical object and promptly put it on his head. He hoped that at the very least, Albus might have cleaned the hat in between sortings, but he also knew better than to get his hopes up.

“Severus! How is Slytherin treating you these days?” The hat said brightly to him.

Severus sneered at the thought that the hat genuinely sounded happy to—er—see him.

“Better than some,” was his short mental response.

“So you’ve finally gotten over your anger regarding Harry Potter?” The Sorting Hat sounded interested.

Severus despised having people—or things—rooting around in his brain, so he opted to answer truthfully in hopes that their conversation might be short.

“For the most part,” he answered, barely holding back another sneer.

“Enough to help him even? My my, Severus, things certainly have changed since last we spoke.”

“Gryffindor has no concept of how to protect him,” Severus responded with a mental growl.

“I had wondered as much, but it is a pity that they have failed him as much as they have,” the hat said, sounding sorrowful.

“If it was not the correct house for him, then why did he go there?” Severus asked, quickly latching onto the uncertainty that he had heard in the hat’s voice.

“Because he begged me not to put him in Slytherin to begin with,” was the hat’s surprising answer.

He was distracted from their conversation as Minerva chose that moment to suddenly burst into the headmaster’s office.

“Albus! Severus is interfering in the running of my house!” He heard the older woman shout out.

“Call for a resorting of the boy,” the hat wisely suggested, amidst the hubbub around them.

“Can I do that?”

“Any head of house can, provided that the student is not in his or her sixth or seventh year,” was the Sorting Hat’s answer.

“Even if I am not the boy’s head of house?” He asked, trying to make sure before he put the hasty plan into motion.

“Yes,” the hat said emphatically in his ear.

With the hat still on his head, he turned and looked at Albus and Minerva, a new look in his dark eyes. They instantly quieted before him, and he took their silence as an opportunity to speak.

“Headmaster,” he said, stating Albus’s title formally in order to make the situation as official as possible.
“I hereby do request that the Gryffindor student, Harry Potter, be resorted as soon as possible, this term.”

The hat had fed him all of the words, and now his mind and the room were silent as the other two occupants stared back at him in open mouthed shock.

“A request of that severity must be seconded, Severus,” was Albus’s shakily spoken reply several heartbeats later.

“Severus, what are you trying to—,” Minerva’s indignant response was cut off as a voice interjected itself into their argument.

“I, speaking as the Sorting Hat of Hogwarts, do formally second the request made by one Severus Snape, potions professor and head of the Slytherin house,” was the booming voice of the usually taciturn Sorting Hat.

“As the head of the Gryffindor house, I vote no!” Was Minerva’s fiery comeback.

“As the headmaster of Hogwarts, I also must vote no, Severus. The boy is where he belongs. Why are you trying such a thing, my boy?” Albus turned grave eyes onto Severus’s face.

“—Because something very bad is happening within the walls of Gryffindor, and the child is no longer safe,” a new voice interjected, causing them all to turn and face towards the door.

Poppy had made her appearance.

“And like Severus and the Sorting Hat, I must also add my voice to this and vote in favor of the Resorting,” she added with a somber expression.

“The majority has ruled,” the Sorting Hat boomed into the empty silence of the headmaster’s office. “At the next opportunity, the child called ‘Harry Potter’ will be resorted into what will hopefully be a better fit for
him.”

Severus gently pulled the Sorting Hat off of his head and placed it once more on the shelf. And then, in with a dramatic whirl of his robes, he left the still silent office and went back to his quarters.

Behind him, Albus turned back to Poppy and asked softly, “How exactly do you classify ‘very bad’?”

His blue eyes were no longer twinkling.

. . .

Across the castle, across the hallway from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, Colin and Dennis had stolen away within the room that no longer had an entrance. Dennis had made Colin lie down. He had not had much trouble with making his older brother obey him, but then again, he hadn’t known the truth about Colin’s state either.

Colin, for his sake, was more than thankful to have a reason to curl up in a fetal position, his back to the wall, as he lay on one of the two beds that were present there within the room.

It didn’t even occur to him to wonder how it was that they had found such a perfect place to hide.