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The Serpent's Gaze, Book Four: Betting On Blood	By : DictionaryWrites Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male Views: 3021 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and the characters therein belong to JK Rowling; I'm playing in the sandbox, as it were, whilst claiming no ownership and making no money.

Chapter List
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"Didn't know you could speak German," Harry says some time later, picking at little pieces of a ham sandwich and eating barely a mouthful at a time as he looks not at his Head of House but at the newspaper discarded on the table; Snape is holding his head in his left hand, pinching the bridge of his nose. Snape's thin, pale lips are pressed together in a very thin line, his black eyes closed, and although he's almost perfectly composed, Harry can feel the fury radiating from him. "So, yeah, Lockhart's, like... Building an, uh, army. And I-"
"What do you think would have happened, Potter," Snape says, in a very quiet, very measured voice, and despite the position of his hand it isn't muffled in the least: Snape's tone is cool and his vowels are clipped, making it all-too-easy to understand him. "Had Lockhart discovered you?"
"I-"
"Or if one of his lackeys had?"
"Well-"
"Or if you had been spied in Hogsmeade by a follower of the Dark Lord?"
"But-"
"Shut up." Harry does. It's actually difficult to tell whether Snape is tired or not, most of the time, because the man always has dark circles under his eyes and gives the impression of one of those genius types that doesn't sleep much anyway and just gets by on a mix of black coffee and loathing for everyone around him, but Harry would guess that he's tired now - tired of Harry if not in general. "I find it difficult, Potter, to even conceive of what manner of idiocy you must hold in that head of yours."
"It's not all bad, though," Harry says, speaking quickly so that Snape can't shut him up. "I know it was dangerous but I found out something really important and I-"
"Potter, do you think the Order was not already aware of Lockhart's plans?" Harry stares at him.
"You knew? Why wasn't I told? I'm a member, I-"
"Do you wish for me to spell you silent, Potter?" Harry shuts his mouth. An icy cold shiver runs down his spine, and Snape's hand slides slowly down to his chin: he looks at the low fire in the hearth before them, the flames reflected in his black, black irises. Harry's never seen a Muggle with irises as black as Snape has - maybe only wizards can have eyes like that. "For the duration of the next month, without my express permission, you are not to leave the castle. Should you need to train with Mr Diggory in the grounds, you will ask me personally for the privilege."
"Are you serious? I'm not allowed to go outside?" Harry stares at the other man, utterly taken aback - what sort of insane punishment is this? What happened to detentions, or taking away points? "With due respect, sir, just because you have a vitamin D deficiency doesn't mean I should have one too!"
"For your lack of understanding as to what the phrase "due respect" might entail, Potter, I will remove twenty points from Slytherin house. You will be serving detention with me every Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening for the next month also." Despite Harry's rudeness, Snape seems to become calmer by the second, his posture remaining stiff but not as plainly furious, and there isn't as much tension in his tone.
"Sir, come on-"
"Do you truly wish to add to your punishment, Potter?"
"It's just-" Harry sighs, putting his head in his hands. "Professor, isn't this just punishing you as much as me? You don't want to hang out with me for three days a week for the next month." He doesn't think he imagines the momentary twitch of Snape's upper lip before it thins into a line again - he might not have convinced him, and he knows it's not in Snape's nature to be soft on anyone, but he maybe managed a half-second of amusement.
"We will not, Potter, be "hanging out". You will be scrubbing cauldrons, silently, and thinking on your very deserved punishment, and I shall be continuing my usual business." Taking a miserable bite of a cucumber sandwich, Harry looks into the fire, leaning back in his seat. "One would think you might have realized, Potter, that your life is not about yourself only. You must be aware of those around you: those who might have grieved your loss had you been killed or attacked, particularly given the prophecy you released - you cannot afford your usual stupidity, and ought borrow the use of someone else's sense of self-preservation if you cannot muster one yourself. Go to bed."
"Yes, sir," Harry mutters, and reluctantly, he stands. He hesitates for a few, long seconds, and when he meets Snape's gaze, the Potionsmaster arches one eyebrow expectantly. "You going to tell Dumbledore?"
"I can leave the privilege to you, if you'd rather."
"No," Harry says immediately, shaking his head, and then says, "Thanks, sir." He walks at speed from the kitchen, feeling from pure instinct that Snape isn't bothering to watch him leave, and he makes his way down towards the Slytherin common room. Draco is already fast asleep in bed, despite it not being very late, and Harry quietly takes off his boots and slides into his own bed, blowing out the candles. Closing his curtains, Harry lies on his back in bed, looking up at the filtered moonlight coming in from above. With the lake acting to colour the light, his bed is bathed in soft, green hues that shift with the wind above on the surface of the water, and usually this would soothe him, but it doesn't tonight.
Harry stays awake for the longest time, lying in his place in bed and barely moving. Snape was just being dramatic - he'd had the cloak on nearly the whole time, and he'd charmed his hair at one point anyway, so it's not like anyone would have recognized him even if the cloak had come off for some reason.
And when had the enchantments fallen away from his glasses, from his hair? He hadn't even noticed, but when he'd come into the Slytherin common room he'd noticed in a mirror that they were completely gone - and maybe it was stupid of him not to keep an eye on them.
Harry sits up in bed, setting his candle alight and looking at the small clock upon his bedside table: coming up to two in the morning. That means there are two days now, until the final task - he has today, and he has tomorrow, and then he and Cedric face up against whatever's going to meet them on the dirt ground of the arena.
Harry sighs, blowing out his candle and lying on his belly in bed, pressing his face into the pillow.
Whatever it is, it can't be as bad as a misfit army captained by Gilderoy Lockhart, or worse, a blind basilisk.
---
"You look terrible," Hermione says when Harry sits across from her at breakfast, settled as she is next to Ginny Weasley; Ginny gives Harry a sympathetic wince, shaking her head.
"Didn't you sleep, Harry?"
"Not really," he admits, shrugging his shoulders a little. The shadows under his eyes are very dark, as he'd seen in the mirror that morning, and his eyes feel very, very dry. He'd planned to sit alone at the Slytherin table for breakfast, having come down very early in the morning, but he'd seen Blaise sat there and--
Well. Harry had thought better of it.
"We should go for a walk after breakfast," Hermione says quietly. "Do some training for the Task on Tuesday."
"Can't," Harry mutters, and Hermione's bushy eyebrows furrow in confusion, her head tilting slightly to the side, until Harry says, "Snape's banned me from going outside without permission." Hermione stares at him, opening and closing her mouth as she tries to think of some way to respond, but Ginny just sniggers.
"Merlin's beard, Harry, you really know how to piss that man off. Even Fred and George have never got a punishment like that." Harry gives Ginny an awkward, self-deprecating smile, and she shakes her head, laughing, before pushing her empty bowl of porridge aside. She lingers at the Ravenclaw table for a few moments, talking with a girl Harry's seen Luna talk to, and then the two of them walk off together.
"We can just walk through some of the upstairs corridors," Hermione says, her voice quiet. "No one wanders high in the castle on the weekends anyway." When they stand, they walk together; Harry's hands settle in his pockets, and he moves slowly beside Hermione as they walk up the moving staircases - it's better not to move too fast anyway, so you can't lose your balance. They walk in silence until they reach one of the landings on the sixth floor, on the opposite side of the hall of staircases to the Fat Lady's portrait - Harry can see her squinting at him and Hermione as they slip off and into one of the well-carpeted, warm corridors.
They walk until they reach one of the outer walkways, where the wide windows let in the bright, summer sun and make motes of dust dance obviously in the air, dragged up from the carpets and rugs and pulled out of the tapestries and quilts hanging from the walls. The sixth and seventh floors aren't bare as a lot of the lower corridors are, but seem to be the place to store the knitted or sewed or embroidered things, just as hundreds of paintings and portraits hang about the hall of staircases.
Harry's sure that there'll come a day when Hogwarts is just so full of magical artifacts and knick-knacks and ornaments that they'll have to actually start chucking some of it out, but that time won't be for a while yet.
"You didn't sit next to Blaise this morning," Hermione says softly.
"No," Harry says, "We kind of, uh, broke up. I broke us up." Hermione is silent for a long time. Their boots don't make any noise on the mismatched, colourful carpets covering the stone floors, and their steps are synchronized. "Yesterday, I left him in this clearing by the gate, and then I talked to Fleur, and then- A lot happened."
"I didn't see you," Hermione admits, "I thought something must be wrong. I was desperate to interrogate you about it, but I thought you might tell me before I needed to." Harry laughs. The sound is muffled a little by all the fabric hanging from the walls and covering the ground, and he nudges Hermione in the side. "What did you do? To make Snape say that?"
"I snuck out of the castle." Hermione's eyes widen, and her light smile fades away, replaced by an expression of mixed indignation and horror.
"You didn't, Harry!"
"Wait, Hermione, just listen..." And Hermione, reluctantly, does.
---
By the time Harry's done telling her everything, having suffered only very minor interruptions and threats upon his life for having risked his life, he and Hermione are up in one of the attic-like corridors just above the seventh floor - there isn't really an eighth floor per se, but there are a few little walkways with low ceilings and cobwebs all around, where the House Elves don't bother to clean and virtually no one ever goes.
"I'm not surprised they didn't tell us," Hermione murmurs, bowing her head to duck under a low-hanging beam as she follows Harry into a right-turning. They stop, holding up their illuminated wands, and Harry watches as Hermione traces the ancient, musty books scattered along a shelf in front of them - a shelf that seems to be held together with mould and spiderwebs rather than its original nails. "If they're basically putting a spy in with Lockhart's group, I mean, and they could hardly put it in a letter. That's so weird, though - Lockhart getting together his own- his own army. He's an idiot. Did he really look that different?"
"Completely different," Harry says with a nod of his head, and they begin to walk again as Hermione abandons the books in front of them. They have to walk slowly here to make sure they don't step on any loose boards or on anything that might break or shatter, but it's nice to know they probably won't run into anyone. "With the scar on his neck, with the long hair... I think he's even put on a little bit of muscle. I mean, he's not a body builder or anything, but he definitely looks more solid than before." The two of them duck under a low beam, and they come into a little attic room with a round window to one side, decorated with stained glass: the Gryffindor lion is in its centre, and when Harry looks out of a piece of red glass, he looks down into the grounds below. "I think we're in the Gryffindor tower, between the common room and the dormitories upstairs."
"Mmm," Hermione says. To the edges of the room are a few stacked crates, and when Harry glances in one he grins. "What is it?"
"Gripton's Firewhiskey," Harry says, taking out a bottle and examining it. "Bottled as of 1977." Hermione laughs, taking another bottle from the crate and looking at it before glancing around the room. It's thick with dust, and other than the crates stacked in the corner and a few books, there's just a table with two chairs either side of it, and a half-finished chess game. Harry doesn't know much about chess, but he can see that the white side is winning, as the black has lost its queen, its queenside rook and both knights, as well as half of its pawns, and the white side still seems pretty strong.
"No one's been up here since the seventies or the eighties, I'd bet," Hermione murmurs, and she crouches on the ground, looking through the stack of books. She pulls out a magazine from the pile and shakes of the dust, and then she groans, throwing it to Harry.
"What?" Harry asks, and he looks at the cover. Harry laughs so hard he breathes in a lungful of dust, and he ends up trying to cough it out even while laughing. On the magazine's front is a young, oiled-up wizard, being made love to by a centaur. The enchantment's died a little from the pages, and so the movements of the man and the centaur are a little bit stunted, but the scene is still pretty filthy. "It's porn."
"Of course it is," Hermione says, putting her head in her hands. "Centaur porn!"
"It isn't all centaur porn," Harry murmurs, trying not to laugh for the sake of his sore throat, looking through the pages. "I think it's just Ancient Greece themed." He drops the magazine aside, looking back to the chess game, and he frowns slightly, drawing his thumb over the side of the board. There, engraved in a thick cursive, it says, To our son, Sirius Black, on the auspicious day of his thirteenth birthday.
There's no signature.
"Come on, Harry," Hermione says, smiling at him, and Harry follows her back into the little walkway - though not before grabbing three bottles of the Firewhiskey and shoving them into his bag. After all, with the Tournament nearly at a close, they're going to be celebrating or commiserating, and he knows he'll want some alcohol to hand either way.
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The Serpent's Gaze, Book Four: Betting On Blood