"Sure you were," Harry shot back. "I know what you really think of me. You make it clear every time I go to your class, not to mention at random times in the hallways, and don't you tell me that it's all just some show. You started it back when Lucius Malfoy didn't have anybody to report to."
"The events of your second year should show you the error of that conclusion."
Snape waited until Harry had climbed past him and their faces were on a level. Then he leaned close, his eyes gleaming in a way that actually called Snape, not Remus, to mind. His voice thrummed with confidence in his own words.
"Allow me to share what I really think of you, Mr Potter. At the hospital today, you called yourself not normal, and made up stories about what Muggle Studies really is. You subjected yourself to insult and abuse, and said hardly a word to refute it."
"So what?" Harry retorted, standing his ground even if it did seem like Snape was breathing down his neck. He felt like Snape was calling him a coward, which just went to show how little the man understood. "You're the one who said I'd better get on their good side!"
"You bought those flowers," Snape resolutely continued, "in a deliberate bid to provoke an argument about money so that you could claim that someone else was working you like a house-elf. You knew your uncle would like that idea. You lied, Mr Potter. You manipulated. You manoeuvred. It was positively Slytherin."
Harry stiffened and spoke through clenched teeth. "That's hitting a bit below the belt, don't you think?" Of course it was. Snape was a Slytherin, himself. Since when did they fight fair?
"What I think, Mr Potter, is that you should have let the Sorting Hat do its job!"
So much for clenching his jaw; Harry's mouth dropped completely open. "You know about--"
"Of course I know; I was there," Snape softly returned, finally backing away. "Gryffindor valour and honour, such noble traits. I suppose they have their place. But to bring the Dark Lord down will take a great deal more. It requires cunning, something you'd have mastered by now if you'd been placed in my house."
"Gee, thanks, I always wanted to be a cheat and liar," Harry drawled, shaking his head. He didn't want to think about what would have happened to him in Slytherin, he really didn't.
"You are imprudent to exclude any battle tactic that might win this war." With that, Snape strode down the hall to gaze at the series of locks outside Harry's door, no expression whatsoever on his face. That was pretty hard to pull off with Remus' features, Harry thought.
When Snape opened the door and stepped in, Harry decided he'd had just about enough. "Look, this is mental. I don't need a nursemaid, and even if I did, there's only one bed in there--"
"Do you think I plan to sleep?" Snape enquired, chin lifted a bit in challenge. "No. You will sleep; I will keep watch. I truly do not think your aunt will die tonight, but I am not willing to risk you if she does."
"I can't sleep if you're going to sit there and watch me!"
"Yes, you can. I have potion--"
"Stuff your potion!"
"Harry," Snape said quietly, his voice completely level, "Stop this idiocy and go to bed."
Maturity could go hang, Harry thought. "Look, the couch is sounding better and better--"
"You will sleep in your bed," Snape flatly announced, "or you will sit up with me and explain the black energy in the cupboard under the stairs. No? I thought not."
Harry crawled under the covers fully dressed, and snapped his eyes shut, his whole face scrunched up into a scowl so fierce it actually strained the muscles. He wasn't going to go to sleep with Snape watching, he just wasn't. It wasn't obstinacy, or idiocy as Snape had said, it was just the truth. He couldn't relax, not even if a soft spell drifting through the air made the sheets smell slightly like a meadow. Not even if his eyelids were getting heavier, and the faint noise of a chair scraping on the floorboards seemed like it was being woven into a dream, and the room was slowly being swallowed in a rush of warmth . . . and comfort . . .
Not even if . . .
"Hey," Harry murmured sleepily, rolling onto his side, his hands hugging himself beneath the bedspread. "You called me Harry . . . um, I think, when nobody was around to hear it."
"Somebody was around," Snape quietly replied. "Hush, now, Harry. Let yourself sleep."
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Coming Soon in A Year Like None Other:
Chapter Nine: Miss Granger May Be Right
~
Comments very welcome,
Aspen in the Sunlight
Chapter 9: Miss Granger May Be Right
http://archive.skyehawke.com/story.php?no=5036&chapter=9
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A Year Like None Other
by Aspen in the Sunlight
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Chapter Nine: Miss Granger May Be Right
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When Harry opened bleary eyes the next morning, it was to see Snape leaning back in the desk chair, a book propped open on his crossed knee, his black eyes rapidly scanning text.
Harry shook his head, his hair flying wildly as he tried to think past a fog of early-morning confusion. Something was wrong, something beyond the fact that Severus Snape would be in his bedroom at all, or that Harry would be at Privet Drive in October. Something else . . . why was Snape wearing Remus' clothes, which didn't even fit him?
The Potions Master glanced up as Harry shoved the covers aside and sat up. "Good morning."
It was Snape's voice . . . It took Harry only a second longer to put it together. "Your potion!" he accused.
Snape brushed a long strand of black hair away from his eyes. "No need to panic," he chided. "We're safe in here." Setting his book aside, he fished in a pocket for a small metal flask much like the one the false Mad Eye Moody had used. "I'll take more now, though. It does seem to make things . . . simpler."
Harry ignored that remark to focus on the one before. "We're safe, you said. So Aunt Petunia's still all right?"
"She's still alive."
Harry looked away as Snape sipped from the flask. He remembered the flavour of rotting cabbage, the awful nauseous feeling sliding down into his stomach as he'd drunk that same potion, then the wrench of the change, itself . . . But the potion didn't seem to bother Snape. Either the man was used to drinking horribly noxious substances, or his formulation had improved on more than mere duration.
It was Remus' familiar voice again that said, "I found this book downstairs. Read this part."
Harry took the proffered tome, Leukaemia: Diagnosis and Treatment, and ran his eyes over the paragraph Snape had pointed out. "I . . . I don't really understand this, Professor," he admitted when he'd read it through twice. Without even realizing he was doing it, Harry braced himself for a caustic comment.
"No doubt you don't. It's badly written," Snape succinctly replied. "Muggle publication, so what can you expect? Pity they can't even write to the level of the average Hufflepuff, but still, after wading my way through the extraneous verbiage, I gleaned a few useful things. Get up, we'll discuss them over breakfast."
Remembering all they had discussed in the kitchen the night before made Harry wary. And resentful. But he didn't know how to broach that, so the resentment spilled out in another direction. "Are you going to let me make breakfast," he sniped, "or will it be another pizza?"