They didn’t notice the old man standing in the doorway as they shouted at each other. They didn’t hear much of a word the other one said. All they could hear was the sound of their own anger and hatred pulsing through their veins and throbbing in their ears.
“That’s not fair!” Angry voice echoing around the empty room, Harry pointed his finger at Snape from the other side of the long Hufflepuff table in the Great Hall as snow began to fall outside the tall windows.
“Potter! I caught you red-handed!”
“You didn’t catch me at anything! I wasn’t doing anything!”
“Really, is that why half my stock of dreamless draught has gone missing? Didn’t think I kept tabs on my potions during Winter break?” He smirked as if this was enough evidence to convict Harry.
“I didn’t steal anything! I’m tired of you accusing Gryffindor’s of crap they haven’t done!”
“Watch your tone Potter! Gryffindor is already in the negative from you and Weasley alone and it’s not even Christmas yet!”
“What are you going to do, take points from next year?”
“Already keeping tabs for next year Potter! You’re going to start out in the negative!”
Harry threw his hands up in the air. “I hate you!”
Snape laughed before he gave a gruesome sneer and said, “Don’t think the feeling isn’t mutual Potter. You’ve been a menace since first year!”
“Says you!”
“That’s right, says me. For some reason I’m the only one who sees your delinquency run rampant! And therefore you will continue to earn doubly hard punishments from me!”
Unable to think of anything else to say, Harry heard Ron’s voice in his head helping him out, and shouted, “Your mum!”
Snape shook his head in amusement. “Oh so witty Potter. You’re a real winner.” His sarcasm was so thick you could cut it with a knife.
Suddenly their quiet observer cleared his throat from the entrance to the large room drawing attention from Harry and Snape. When Harry saw the Headmaster standing there, hands folded in front of him, he suddenly felt very ashamed.
Trying to regain his composure Snape ran a hand through his hair and said curtly, “Headmaster.”
Dumbledore seemed to be deep in thought, and Harry wondered if Snape would be in trouble… he really wished he would be for torturing him so. The man didn’t care what Harry’s problems were, he only cared to try to punish Harry in any and every way possible.
“This is unacceptable I’m afraid.” He let it stand there in the air, thick with tension.
“My apologies Headmaster,” Snape said quietly, suddenly sounding cool and composed, voice void of any sarcasm.
“I’m afraid your apologies to me will not be enough this time Severus. There is more at stake here then you know. Your position is too great to compromise, and Harry is in too great a danger as it is. Something must be done to remedy the situation.”
Snape glared at Harry momentarily, wondering if the brat had gotten him in trouble and possibly lost him the job he’d had for 20 years. Harry returned the glare, feeling a renewed heat in his face from the look he’d received, as if all the world’s problems were once again his fault.
“What do you propose Headmaster?” Snape waited with baited breath. Now was the time to find out if he would be leaving Hogwarts or not.
“Detention.” Harry groaned and Snape allowed a victorious smile to appear on his face. So Potter would get detention after all. But before Snape had too much time to gloat, the other shoe fell, and Dumbledore finished his sentence, “For both of you.”
Harry’s mouth dropped open in shock a little and Snape frowned. “I’m sorry Headmaster, I didn’t hear you right. Potter will be serving detention under me?”
“No Severus,” Dumbledore shook his head, a sad look in his eyes. “This is way beyond giving just one of you detention. You will be serving detention together.”
Some joke the old man was trying to pull on him, Severus thought to himself, laughing out loud. “Very funny Headmaster. You almost had me… is this revenge for the April Fool’s joke Minerva convinced me to help her with?”
“Alas, I wish it were. Your detention together is of utmost importance I’m afraid.”
The smile vanished from his face and Harry’s eyebrows raised.
“And just when is this supposed detention supposed to start?” The holiday had just started and he had end of term tests to grade and lessons to prepare for the start of January classes.
“Right now.” With this Dumbledore backed out of the Great Hall and into the Entrance Hall, closing the massive double doors with him. Inside the room, Harry and Severus heard a distinctive booming click that announced they had been locked in together.
Severus strode to the door. “You don’t pay me enough for this old man,” he said loudly through the doors.
“I’m afraid it is the only way. Two members of the Order cannot be so compromised by feelings of hatred for one another. As with any detention there will be tasks for you to complete. Until you finish them, you will remain locked in this room. Do not try the floo, for I have already taken it off the network. The windows have been sealed so they will not break, and the secret entrances to the room have also been sealed.”
Harry felt panicky now. He hadn’t had any sleep the last few nights and he was bound to fall asleep sometime… he couldn’t be locked in a room with anybody right now, little lone this anybody. He ran to the door where Severus stood.
“Sir, please let me out. I’m very sorry sir. I promise to do better!”
From the other side of the thick wooden doors Dumbledore could hear the panic in Harry’s voice.
“I’m truly sorry dear boy, but you will have to endure once again. I’m placing a silencing charm on the door now, please step away.”
Harry did as he was told and took a step back, suddenly feeling like he was having a hard time breathing. He’d managed to get to the end of the term without having another panic attack… the last one a month before had been so bad that he’d had to hide in a concealed corridor on the fifth floor half the day because suddenly he just couldn’t handle being around the other students.
He continued to back away shaking his head. No, this couldn’t be happening. No, this wasn’t happening to him… he just couldn’t handle it. Heart pounding in his ears Harry wished another emotion would overtake him so that he could stave off the attack. This had worked the last few times, albeit now his friends thought him prone to anger attacks and thought him likely to go off at any moment.
“Great Potter… just fantastic. I get to spend who knows how long in here with you.”
And there it was… Harry’s way out. If he could just get angry enough at Snape then he could fight off the attack and not be embarrassed enough to die.
“Yeah, thanks Snape, thanks for getting me into this!” He spun around and faced Snape who was still standing by the door, arms crossed. And yet, this wasn’t enough. He needed more provoking than that to truly feel angry.
“Don’t blame this on me Potter! If you hadn’t stolen from my stocks…”
“This again!? I DIDN’T STEAL FROM YOU! GET THAT THROUGH YOUR TINY LITTLE BRAIN!” Yelling seemed to help a little more and the weight on his lungs lifted, making it easier to breathe. Unfortunately the price of getting rid of his panic attack was pissing Snape off royally.
“DON’T YELL AT ME POTTER! THIS IS YOUR FAULT! AND IF YOU INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE ONE MORE TIME YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE A FIGHT ON YOUR HANDS THAT YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO HANDLE!” The man’s voice boomed through the hall and Harry wondered if yelling helped him as well, although it didn’t seem to. Instead Snape’s face was red and angry.
Harry shook his head and turned his back on Snape, sitting heavily on the end of Ravenclaw table.
“Think you can turn your back on me do you!?” While he wasn’t yelling anymore, Snape was striding over to him. He stood directly in front of Harry and demanded that he look at him.
“I don’t think so,” Harry said. “You’re in detention with me, that mean’s your not in charge of me until we get out.”
He turned the other way and let his legs hang off the other side of the table, although he felt uncomfortable with an armed Snape at his back.
Snape walked around the other side of the table to face Harry again. More calmly than expected, he said, “I will play the Headmaster’s little game Potter, but only because my time is valuable and not to be wasted here with you. You will do whatever I tell you so that we can get out of here, or else you will suffer the consequences, am I understood?”
Harry didn’t look up at him. Instead he jumped off the table and began to walk away, wishing now that he could even be angry at the fact he had nowhere to escape to, but instead just feeling numb now that his anger had subsided. “Just kill me now and get it over with. I’d be better off dead anyway.”
When Harry was nearly across the hall, Snape said just loud enough for him to hear, “Be careful what you wish for,” just before he retreated to his usual seat at the staff table and sat with his head in one hand, long dark hair falling into his eyes.
Harry leaned heavily against a wall behind Gryffindor table and sank down to the floor. If only Snape knew how little regard he had for his own life anymore, Harry mused. And that was one of the things that scared him and sometimes threw him into panic attacks in the middle of the night, or even on his way to classes. His first-ever panic attack occurred two weeks after the start of term when he walked by a tall flight of stairs and entertained the idea seriously of throwing himself off the top and hoping that he didn’t survive. He had approached the top of the stairs as he thought about it and was startled to find himself preparing himself mentally for the jump. And then suddenly it was as if he had woken from a dream and had panicked, and ran as far from the stairs as he could before sinking to the floor, where Ron later found him when he had not returned to the common room before curfew.
Of course killing himself wasn’t the only thought that brought on the attacks… thinking of that last night at Privet drive was enough to send him over the edge. If only he hadn’t gotten mad at Uncle Vernon… if only he hadn’t left his wand at home when he’d wandered out into the dark to go to the park… and damn, now that feeling like the world was closing in on him was crashing down on him again and he had nobody to be angry at but himself to keep it from choking him and trying to squeeze the air from his lungs.
Quietly he pulled at his hair with both hands, wishing he had some stairs now, or the top of the North tower, or anything at all. He didn’t even have his wand to use on himself because he’d left it in his room, not caring if somebody attacked him. Not that anybody would… he was the only student that volunteered to stay in the castle this Christmas… people’s parents were too afraid to let them stay after Voldemort’s last attack on the place at the end of their fifth year.
Silent tears welled in his eyes, as he was suddenly unable to stop the flow memories that flooded his mind. He desperately wished that Snape would stay on his side of the Entrance Hall for the night, because he just couldn’t handle him seeing him in the middle of one of these incapacitating attacks. For the life of him Harry didn’t know how he was going to survive another battle with Voldemort. Some part of him wanted to survive, and yet another part of him wanted to be rid of his disgusting life. He wanted to stop feeling disgusted with himself. Some part of him hoped Voldemort would bestow a merciful death upon him.
An hour had passed when Snape pulled out his pocket watch and read ten thirty. He was getting bored and thought that he might as well sleep. He used his wand to conjure a comfortable looking bed and soft green blankets and pillows. The last he’d seen of Potter was the boy heading to the other side of the hall. He was confident that he was still there though he’d not heard a peep from him. Thinking of conjuring a second bed, but remembering why he was there in the first place, Snape muttered to himself about what a “Stupid brat,” Harry was, and climbed into his own bed. The little wretch could sleep on the cold stone floor for all he cared. It would be better if he did and caught sick anyway, because then Dumbledore would have to let them out of his stupid little game.
Snape drifted off into an annoyed, uneasy sleep, but Harry did not. Harry did not sleep at all, and sat rigid and shivering against the stone wall under the window, hidden from view. He couldn’t trust Snape not to hex him or do worse while he slept, and so he stayed awake through the night, listening for any sound of anybody approaching him.
Outside snow continued to drift peacefully down over the grounds, giving solace to no one save Dumbledore, who sat in his office quietly watching it fall, convinced he was doing the right thing.
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