Walk the Shadows

'No, I'm not.'

Harry glared at him. 'What do you care what I write, anyway?'

Snape's face remained impassive, and Harry wanted to hit it. Hit him. Hard. He barely had a check on his temper, and had spent a good portion of the last couple days in his room, banished there for 'acting like a three-year-old.' Ha! Fat lot Snape knew. If he'd threatened violence or had a 'temper tantrum' when he was really three, he'd have been knocked flat. Sent to his room was nothing.

Besides, now he had his summer homework done, and had even read ahead in several classes. He'd passed all his OWLs except for Divination and History of Magic, and had received Os in Defense, Transfigurations, and, surprisingly, Potions, with Es in everything else. Snape had been . . . kind enough to loan him texts for the coming year, since he hadn't been able to stomach the idea of going to Diagon Alley to buy anything yet.

'Since you have not been able to put your journal to use for the last three days—'

'I did so! I wrote yesterday—'

'And promptly removed all traces of that writing, yes?'

So what, if he'd torn it out, and torn it up, and then burned it to ashes in the fireplace. 'So?'

'So, you will now be required to tell me what was on those pages.'

'What? No! You said I didn't have to share that with you.' Harry was on his feet now, and if he could break things in half simply by glaring at them, Snape would be in pieces. 'I can't believe you're going back on your word!'

Snape crossed his arms over his chest and his eyes narrowed, but he didn't yell, which was . . . amazing actually. 'I told you I would not read your journal. And I will not. However . . . Harry, we have barely more than two weeks before classes are due to begin again, and you've not even been able to step into the Great Hall yet, with just the other professors.'

Harry mirrored Snape's stance, though his shoulders hitched up a fraction. He didn't what that had to do with anything, but he still bristled. 'You said I didn't have to, till I was ready.'

'I did,' Snape agreed.

'And . . . and I'm not ready.'

'I know you feel you aren't, but if you're going to go back to classes on time, you will need to get used to being around other people besides me, and in a less controlled environment. And the first step in doing that is to trust me with what has been bothering you the last couple days.'

Harry was trembling by the time Snape finished, and his hands were sweaty. He balled them into fists. 'No, I don't care!'

'Don't care about what?'

'Going back to class. I don't need stupid Charms and Magical Creatures and all that rot. I can . . . I can just go to the library and read on my own. How about that?'

Snape shook his head, and Harry's fists were clenched so tight he wasn't sure he could uncurl them again. 'I'm sorry, Harry. You'll need to be enrolled in regular classes, or at the very least, have a tutor who can take you through the curriculum, in order to do your NEWTs.'

'What if I don't care about NEWTs?'

Snape considered him for a moment, expression barely changing beyond a slight cant to his head. 'What do you care about?'

There it was, the moment to tell him, and admit that he'd become a monster. It almost felt good to be able to get it off his chest. 'Killing them. Making them suffer like they did to me.' He paused. 'But mostly, killing them.'

Snape nodded, once, as if he'd expected no more and no less from the stupid, arrogant Gryffindor who'd annoyed him for five years already. But Harry wasn't going to take back the words, no matter how it made him look. They were the truth, and he was sick of lies.

He held the potion master's gaze for a long time, and was surprised that Snape didn't try Legilimency on him. But he didn't, and they stared at each other and nobody shouted.

Finally Snape said, 'Sit down. I'll make the tea.'

Harry could have screamed. But he didn't.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Several hours later, they were still at the dining table. Snape had made four pots of tea, in total, and Harry felt like he was floating in it. He'd used the loo a couple times already, and each time, while washing up he stuck his head under the tap and ran cold water over it.

He felt hot and a little sick, with shame and embarrassment, and it was the only way he could stay cool enough to continue their 'conversation.' Though their talk wasn't really a conversation, he thought. Snape asked questions, like he always did, and Harry had to answer them.

He hated it.

But he'd still told Snape about the nightmares he'd been having, the ones with Lucius Malfoy in them, and the laughter than made his skin crawl, and how now Draco was in them, and Avery, and in the worst ones, the dream added in Ron and the twins, and even Sirius, and all of them knew, and were mocking him and hurting him, and he was running, but he couldn't get away, and he always woke screaming.

And he told Snape about the nights when his scar erupted in agony like he was under the Cruciatus again, and Snape nodded and said they were going to work on Occlumency again in the morning, now that he had most of the worst memories in the pensieve and had finished reading that book.