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“Legilimens.”
Umbridge’s sickly pink office unfurls in Harry’s mindscape. Harry’s stomach drops.
Harry pushes at Snape’s presence frantically, but Snape seems to realize that this memory is one Harry doesn’t want him to see– which, of course, makes him dig even harder. In the memory, the sharp quill flashes silver in the light. Harry feels nauseous.
I must not tell lies… carved over and over on Harry’s hand, and damn it really looks gruesome from third person. Snape rifles farther back, uncovering hours worth of memories of the punishment. Harry is unable to throw him off, and his shields are trying and failing to slam down on the intrusion.
After he’s seen Harry’s detentions for the past five days, Snape withdraws on his own, surprisingly gentle. Harry pants, disoriented from the forceful invasion of his mind. When Harry chances a look up, he’s dismayed to see Snape’s face is contorted in wrath. Harry says nothing, and he clenches his shaking fists to hide their trembling, staring at the floor.
“Potter.” Snape says, and Harry jerks his head up defiantly. Will Snape continue Umbridge’s punishment? Is he going to whip out a sharp quill of his own, go for round two of Harry carving into his own skin? Harry’s eyes dart about wildly, looking for any sign of a quill and parchment. When he focuses on Snape again, there’s a strange crease to the man’s brow that Harry’s never seen before.
“Explain.” Snape’s voice is clipped, as though he’s exerting a terrible amount of control.
“Er. Well.” Harry starts, unsure. What’s so hard to understand? “It’s my detentions with Umb– Professor Umbridge, sir.”
Snape looks ablaze with rage, even more so than when he saw Harry’s memory of the stealing potion ingredients incident. Harry has to resist the urge to take a step back.
“That explains nothing.” Snape says dangerously lowly. Harry wrings his aching hands. What more does Snape want? “Blood quills are extremely illegal, not to mention Dark. That one is present in a school, let alone used on a student– it is unacceptable.” Snape is spitting by the end of the sentence, and Harry shrinks back.
“I… didn’t know that, sir.” Harry says slowly, and Snape glares even harder. Harry averts his eyes, feeling a weird lump in his throat that’s making it hard to swallow.
“Why, pray tell, did you not inform someone of this– this torture, Potter?” Snape nearly splutters, and Harry frowns.
“Hermione told Professor McGonagall, sir.” He says, lost. If she didn’t think it was a big deal, then… is it, really? Snape, however, nearly blanches. “Really, sir, it’s not that big of a deal. I can handle it.”
“Whether or not you can handle it is of no consequence, idiot boy.” Snape says, suddenly looking very tired. He pinches his brow with his fingers. “If she can do this to the precious Chosen One, imagine what she will do to other students.”
Snape… has a point. Harry hadn’t thought of that.
“I see.” Harry says quietly. Snape looks wrong-footed.
“That is not to say… that is not to say that this should have happened to you.” Snape grinds out, and Harry tilts his head, questioning.
“But sir, I deserve it.” The words slip out without Harry’s permission, and both of their eyes widen. Snape can’t seem to figure out how to respond to that.
“Potter,” He seems a bit lost. “No one deserves it.” Harry blinks.
“Oh. Right. Sorry, sir.” Harry feels a bit stupid. Snape rubs his eyes tiredly.
“…Do not apologize.” Now Harry’s the one who’s lost. This is not going at all how he expected it would. Not to mention he didn’t even mean to tell Snape his true thoughts. A thrill of anxiety shoots through Harry’s gut. He’s been doing that a lot, lately, telling the truth. Well. The real truth. The uncomfortable truth.
Snape has an unreadable look on his face, probably due to Harry’s atypical honesty.
“Potter,” Snape starts, uncharacteristically careful, “why are there five locks on your door?”
Harry freezes. “I snuck out, sir.” He manages to stop the sentence there. But Snape narrows his eyes.
“Why, precisely, did you sneak out, Potter?” Harry’s throat constricts, and practically forces the words from his mouth.
“I– was hungry.” His eyes dart towards the door, and Snape just looks unhappy once more.
“Why were you hungry, Potter?” This conversation is like pulling teeth. Harry grimaces, and he speaks without wanting to.
“Well, the Dursleys don’t really love to feed me, do they?” Harry says crossly, before freezing. Snape’s eyes have a dangerous glint to them.
“Don’t lie, now, Potter,” Snape warns, and Harry– explodes.
“I’m NOT LYING!” Harry nearly shouts, before ripping the bandage off and thrusting his left hand in Snape’s face. It agitates the wound, which starts bleeding once more. “I have the marks to prove it!”
I must not tell lies. It looks even worse up close, all half-crusted over and slowly oozing red. Snape’s expression has frozen with a strange twist to his mouth, and Harry pants with the force of his emotion.
“Potter,” he begins, looking on the verge of an epiphany, “tell a falsehood.”
Harry blinks, and he doesn’t think he understands.
“…Sir?” Harry wants clarification, which of course makes Snape impatient.
“Attempt to lie, Potter.” He says shortly, waiting.
“I– okay.” Harry is still wrong-footed, but does what he’s told anyway. “My favorite color is r–“ He chokes off, coughing slightly. His eyes widen in alarm. He catches his breath and tries again.
“My favorite color is b–“ Harry’s words fail. He has a sudden moment of clarity. He looks up wildly at Snape, who seems to have reached the same conclusion as Harry.
“My favorite color is green.” Harry finally manages. “I– can’t lie–“ Harry gasps, and oh god the implications– Being unable to wiggle out of answering invasive questions–
Snape says something about a curse, but–
A terrible, overwhelming ringing fills Harry’s ears, and his hands drift up to cover them. His movements are slow, dazed. Hazy. He can’t see clearly, his vision webbing with black static, pulsing in an ever-growing crescendo that coincides perfectly with the ringing in his ears.
“Potter?” Snape’s voice filters through the thick webs clogging Harry’s ears. He pulls his eyes up– he hadn’t realized he’d lowered them– to meet Snape’s uncharacteristically concerned face.
“Something’s wrong.” Harry speaks calmly, as though miles from his body.
“What is– wrong?” Snape forces out, and Harry has to remind himself to inhale and exhale with difficulty.
“I feel– weird. Something’s happening.” Harry intones, and he lists backward, suddenly severely lightheaded. Snape, with surprising reflexes, snaps an arm out to catch Harry’s bicep, keeping him upright. Maybe all that blood loss is catching up to him…
“Um.” Harry says. This feels like the quiet place in his head he goes to when Uncle Vernon yells at him, and that unwitting comparison makes Harry even more unsettled. The ringing reaches a fever pitch, and Harry’s face scrunches in discomfort. He hasn’t uncurled his hands from his ears, so it’s difficult to hear what Snape says.
“Cease your dramatics, Potter.” Snape intones, though not as harshly as Harry would’ve expected. Harry forces his arms down through molasses.
“Sorry. Sir.” Harry says, eyes sliding down to the floor. The ringing is dying down, but his vision is still strained and cracked all over. The stone brick floor looks like ants are crawling all over it.
“It won’t h–“ Harry’s throat chokes off the sentence. Harry pauses to clear it. “I’ll try not to do it again. Sir.” Harry amends the sentence so he’s telling the truth, and Snape somehow looks pained, not considering, when Harry looks up to see if this is acceptable. Snape closes his eyes, rubbing his temples like Harry does when he’s staving off a migraine.
“This is most worrisome.” Snape says, and that’s the understatement of the fucking century. “If you are unable to lie, the secrets of the Order are not safe.”
Harry’s heart sinks. Will the Order ever trust him with their plans now? Harry’s heart jackrabbits in his chest.
“How did you not notice this sooner?” Snape’s voice is incredulous, and Harry glares.
“I don’t– I try not to lie, sir.” Snape’s face is pained.
“So when you said you were a child delinquent…” Snape looks searching.
Harry winces, eyes roving around shiftily. “Okay. That was a lie.”
“Then why did you say it, Potter?” Snape prods, and he must hate Harry. Must want to wring out his darkest secrets for all the world to see.
“I– I–” Harry fights to find a satisfactory answer. “I mean– Uncle Vernon did want to send me to a delinquent school…”
“Yes, Potter, why?”
Harry shakes his head. “I’ve been asking myself the same question for fourteen years, sir.” Ha. So he can avoid questions by saying things that are technically true…
Snape looks annoyed that Harry is dodging his questions, even with this strange compulsion to tell the truth.
“And that memory I witnessed of you preparing a whole meal– cooking an entire steak– you mean to tell me you were denied any of it?” His voice is disbelieving, and Harry blinks at the sudden topic shift. Harry stares, eyes bright, jaw working. Does he really want Harry to say it?
“None, sir.” He grits, and Snape suddenly looks very, very pale.
“And the memories you hid with darkness? Tell me, Potter: what’s trapped beneath the blackness?”
“I was.” Harry says, throat tight. His fingernails are cutting into his palm with how hard he’s clenching his fists, and he hasn’t stopped trembling since he raised his hand to knock on the door. At Harry’s vague answer, Snape’s eyes narrow.
“How were you trapped?” He asks lowly, and Snape is either cruel or just plain dense. He can’t put two and two together? The Dursleys obviously don’t particularly care for Harry’s presence. The obvious thing to do is stuff him out of sight and pretend like he doesn’t exist. For the first few years of his life, that’s exactly what they did.
“Well, it’s not easy to get out of a locked cupboard, now is it?” Harry spits icily, tired of these mind games.
Snape nearly rears back, clearly shocked. Harry blinks. Maybe… Maybe Snape didn’t know…? Shit. Harry may have miscalculated. Of course, Harry thinks, he should have known. Had Snape been aware of the true circumstances surrounding Harry’s childhood, he would have doubtless spread the rumor around the Slytherins. Now that he knows, he’ll probably add it to his repertoire of insults to throw at Harry while he’s supposed to be teaching.
Harry’s heart sinks horribly, and he feels startlingly off balance. Snape is still staring at him, almost aghast, and shit if that doesn’t make Harry want to throw himself out the nearest window. Only, they’re in the dungeon, so Harry’s unable to make a quick getaway via defenestration. He shuffles his feet, thinking maybe he can slip out while Snape is still strangely silent.
“A locked cupboard?” Snape asks quietly, and Harry feels lightheaded again. He says nothing, instead fixing Snape with his fiercest stare, daring him to comment further.
“Answer me, Potter.” Snape says, and the annoyance coloring his tone is familiar, at least.
“Why should I?” Harry bites out, throat tight. “So you can make my life Hell, too? So you can tell the whole school that my life is a pathetic joke?!” His throat is constricting, and Harry is heaving with the force of his anger.
He suddenly goes very, very cold when he realizes that he just shouted at a teacher after directly disobeying them. The last time he did that, he ended up carving words into his skin for a week. Harry’s breathing goes a bit funny. Like he can’t quite take a full lungful of air.
Snape notices his sudden stillness and silence, of course, it would be hard not to after Harry’s outburst. Harry’s teeth click together with how hard he clenches his jaw. Snape seems at a loss for how to proceed, but visibly pulls himself together. He takes one last sideways glance at Harry’s shaking limbs before speaking.
“Potter. I realize we have a… sordid history.” Harry giggles hysterically. Sordid, to say the least. Snape ignores him. “However, I have a duty to protect all of the children at Hogwarts, including you.”
Harry cocks his head. He certainly hasn’t seen Snape’s inclination to protect… He’s well-known as the biggest bully in the school.
“I’m aware that I… that I haven’t been upholding my duty to a satisfactory degree.” Snape looks extremely unhappy to be admitting this, which could account for the uncharacteristic hesitance in his words. “Do not assume my course of action, Potter. I have no desire to see you humiliated this way.”
“Could’ve fooled me…” Harry mutters, crossing his arms over his chest tightly and averting his gaze. Snape sighs, a shadow passing over his face when he looks back at Harry. In fact, he looks quite ill.
“Potter, the level of abuse you are describing– that I witnessed in your memories– that is not something I–“
“Woah, woah, abuse?!” Harry splutters, arms clenching tighter around his torso. “I’m not abused!”
“Call it what you will.” Snape doesn’t let Harry get them off topic. “The fact remains: it is unacceptable.”