Walk the Shadows

talks. He didn't like the out of control feeling he had when Snape maneuvered him into saying more than he wanted, nor the sick churning in his gut when he felt like the git was prying plasters off his carefully hidden wounds and exposing them to the air.

So he was almost pleasantly surprised when, after taking his first sip, Snape said only, 'Tell me about the Sorting Hat.'

'What?!'

'You mentioned once that the Sorting Hat had a different idea about where you belonged. I am curious as to what you meant.'

Harry stared at him for a long moment, then shrugged. What could it hurt? 'The hat wanted to put me in Slytherin. I didn't want to, so it sorted me into Gryffindor instead.'

With cup halfway to his mouth, Snape froze, and his dark eyes were wider than Harry had ever seen them. 'Why, pray tell?'

Sighing, Harry admitted, 'Well, Hagrid told me all wizards who'd ever gone bad came out of Slytherin, and I had just learnt that day that my parents were killed by a Dark Wizard, so I didn't want to become like him.' It was hard, very hard, to keep every thought of that monster shielded under the thick layer of stone, but if he didn't, he was going to crack up, no lie.

'And besides, Malf--' He sucked in a breath, feeling acutely dizzy. The room tilted, and sweat coated him as he strained to reach the stone. He was going to vomit, he really, really was . . .

'Breathe, Harry.' The voice was so close he could feel the air move on his face. 'Take one breath, come on. Breathe in.'

He struggled to obey, but his gut hurt, and he pressed his hands to his stomach and heaved all over the floor. He drew a breath, but only so he could retch again. The stone, he had to reach the stone with this memory, or he would hurl up his intestines next. He scrabbled towards it, in the morass of memory that clung to him in the darkness. He barely registered the whispered, 'Scourgify,' nor the continuing encouragement from nearby to 'Just breathe, dammit,' as his fingers at last found pitting on the stone sized for him to grip, and he shoved the latest horrors away and underneath the gray slab.

And then he breathed.

Choking on sour bile until someone -- Oh, yeah. Snape -- handed him a glass of water to wash out his mouth, Harry pressed a hand to his eyes. He hated this. He hated Snape, and tea and stupid, sodding memories and, and everything!

The glass was very smooth under his fingers, and he gripped it tight, wishing Snape would just go away and leave him alone.

'All right now?' Snape asked, and Harry almost threw the glass at him.

'Yeah, I'm great. Thanks for asking.'

Silence greeted his sullen words, and he chanced a look up. Snape was frowning -- big surprise there -- but didn't seem to be angry, just . . . concerned?

'Really,' Harry said, trying to move it along. 'I'm okay now.'

'Today's episode was much shorter than yesterday.'

'Oh yeah?' Harry didn't really want to know, but he was a little curious. Morbidly, one might say. 'How long then?'

Snape regarded him coolly. 'Yesterday, almost half an hour before you recalled where you were. Today, only fifteen minutes.'

'Well, good. By the time classes start again, I'll only be crazy for a minute or two every day.'

'You're not crazy,' Snape said, and his frown deepened.

'Coulda fooled me.' Harry took a long swig of water, which helped alleviate the burning in his throat. 'Look, could we not talk about this anymore?'

'Of course.' Snape's lips curled in his ever-ready sneer. 'But you will finish explaining to me why you did not wish to be sorted into my House.'

Harry took an experimental breath. He just had to remember that Draco was not his father. Okay, he could do that. He let the breath out and stared into his half empty glass. 'I met . . . Draco when I was getting fitted for my first robes, and he was a lot like my cousin, Dudley, going on about how he'd get a broom at school if he pestered his parents enough, even if the rules said he couldn't, and then he was making fun of Hagrid, who, like I told you before . . .' His throat closed and he couldn't continue.

'Bought you your first present. I remember.'

'Er, yeah.' Harry shook his head and stuffed the memory away. 'So, Ma -- Draco was certain he was going to be sorted into Slytherin, where all good non-Muggle-raised Wizards should go, since 'the other sort' didn't even deserve to go to Hogwarts. And after he said a couple other nasty things, I decided I didn't want to be there at all if there was any way I could help it. So I let the hat put me where it wanted, so long as it wasn't your House. I didn't need to be hated at a new school, too.'

'I see.' Snape had returned to his own seat, Harry saw, when he looked up again, and had his hands laced together on the table top. 'I assume you have realized by now that not all 'bad' wizards come from Slytherin.'

'Well, yeah. Like Pettigrew.'

'Yes.' Something had changed in Snape's eyes, and Harry couldn't put a name to it. 'Likewise, not all Slytherins are going to go bad.'

'I know that.' He didn't bother to add the 'now,' as he was sure Snape heard it anyway.

'Mm.' Snape leaned forward and held Harry's gaze until he had to look away, then just as suddenly, leaned