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Other People's Choices	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 24374 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
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Chapter Five—Spitting Anger
Harry stiffens when he sees Professor Snape coming towards him at breakfast. It’s not really the greasy git that makes him do that, though. It’s because Professor McGonagall is walking next to him and looking at Harry with sad eyes.
They’re going to do something I don’t like. Harry’s first guess is that they’re going to tell him he should play Quidditch for Slytherin after all. Oliver didn’t have any luck with asking them. They might have decided on their own, though. Professor McGonagall is all about fair, and Snape would keep talking at her to get her to agree.
Harry’s hand tightens on his fork.
“If you would come with me, please, Mr. Potter?” McGonagall asks it as if she’s really giving him the choice, looking him in the eyes with deep compassion. Harry hates it when she does that.
But he stands up. All his Housemates—his real ones and the Slytherins—are staring at him. They might find out what it’s about if they stay here.
“Yes, professor,” he mutters, and follows McGonagall out of the Great Hall. Snape falls into step behind him. Harry wants to snort. They can’t really make it clearer that I’m a prisoner, could they?
But he’s been like that all his life with the Dursleys, too. He got through it. Vernon could threaten Harry and lock him up in the cupboard, but he’s never been able to make him do what he wanted otherwise. Harry hoped Hogwarts would be different.
It’s not, that’s all.
Harry doesn’t lower his head like a prisoner the way they probably want him to. He keeps it up and looks all the students hurrying late to breakfast full in the face. They turn around and gape at him. It’s Snape who sends them running with some soft sneers and hard words.
He never changes. He thinks that I’ll believe him or something when he says he wants me to get healed in the hospital wing. Harry shakes his head as Professor McGonagall opens the door of her office. Now I know why he did that. He knows I won’t be as good a Seeker for him if I have a broken collarbone.
Doesn’t matter. They can’t force me to play Quidditch, either. Harry turns around and sits down in one of the chairs, the one that’s been his before when McGonagall talked to him for some reason. He looks her straight in the eyes and waits for what she’s going to say, and then what Snape is going to say. They’re both going to be horrible. Harry’s going to be hard.
That’s the way it is.
“I want to know what kind of home life you have with your relatives, Mr. Potter.” McGonagall’s the one who starts, while Snape stands by the door like a hinge with a bad attitude.
Harry starts, and stares at her. “Why do you care about that?” he blurts out. “I thought you were going to talk to me about Quidditch!”
He feels stupid immediately, but he really did think that, and they’re trading amused glances now. He folds his arms and decides he might as well say nothing. He’s going to end up saying nothing anyway. That’s the way it is.
*
He really does think there’s nothing he can say to change things.
Severus holds his irritated twitch inside. No surer way to alienate Potter than showing it now. He’s already wishing that he hadn’t smiled with Minerva. It probably made the boy feel they saw him as a child.
And that is true. But an abused child has to be handled, at least some of the time, in different ways. Severus nods to Minerva and waits, watching as she holds out a hand towards the boy.
Potter doesn’t move, only glaring at her as if he’s a rat watching the cat she can become. Minerva finally pulls her hand back and says neutrally, “Professor Snape was concerned about some of your injuries that he observed, Mr. Potter. Or rather, the way you reacted to those injuries.”
“It was Malfoy who injured me! Not my relatives!”
Severus is truly unsure how much of this is Potter being deliberately obtuse and how much is him misunderstanding the situation. He shakes his head, the motion drawing Potter’s eye to him. “We did not mean that. I meant that you were obviously used to pain, and even a broken bone did not hurt you enough.”
“Of course I don’t react to pain the right way, sir. The Slytherin way. I should have come whining to you right away, right?”
“No,” Severus says. He was waiting for Minerva to speak up, but she is leaving this to him. After her sympathy failed to win a reaction out of the boy, Severus supposes this is best, at least for right now. “I did not mean that. I mean that it indicated to me that you have often been in pain in your life.”
“Only ordinary pain.”
Severus meets Potter’s defiant gaze—always so defiant, and that was another clue, if Severus had only paid attention—and slips gently beneath the surface of the green eyes. He can see the dark shape of a low door under a staircase, and Potter emerging from it, adjusting his glasses and brushing dust and spiderwebs out of his hair.
“They kept you in a cupboard,” he says, and he can hear the shock in his own voice. Minerva glances at him sharply, knowing how he obtained that information.
Potter freezes for a long moment. Severus almost thinks the boy is going to bolt past them out the door, and shifts subtly so that he can grab him if that happens. Grab him gently. Now that he knows something about how Potter grew up, he understands how he might interpret sudden movements.
Then Potter lifts his head. “And? What are you going to do about it? The Dursleys are my legal guardians. You can’t do anything.”
*
Harry can feel his palms sweating, but he ignores the way he wants to bolt. Snape is standing in front of the door, anyway.
On purpose, the slimy git.
He can also feel his breathing speeding up, but he tries to calm down. He tells himself that if Snape starts spreading rumors around the school, well, Professor McGonagall is here, too. She’d be able to tell where the rumors came from, and she would probably insist that Snape stop.
Probably. Harry has to admit that it was disappointing last year when he tried to tell McGonagall about the Philosopher’s Stone and she told him it was none of his business.
“They keep you in a cupboard,” she says now, and leans forwards as if she thinks she’s going to make Harry run like a mouse. Harry glares at her, too. “They may be your legal guardians, but they are hardly fit ones.”
“Every time I try to complain about them, nothing happens,” Harry says bluntly, and watches as McGonagall’s face melts into shock. “Teachers at my other schools laughed at me and said they didn’t believe me. And I know there’s some special reason I have to stay with them. Some special protection my mother’s blood puts there. So you can’t change anything even if you want to.”
“Were you always this distrustful?” Snape sounds as if he’s thinking.
Harry only stares at him and says nothing. What does Snape think?
“We can certainly do something. Make them realize that it is ridiculous to treat a child like this—”
“They have to know that,” Harry says, and sinks back into his chair. He did feel a bit of hope for a moment there, he realizes when it dies. But everyone wants to be reasonable, and none of them understand that the Dursleys aren’t. “They’re obsessed with being normal. They have to know it’s not normal to treat me this way. But they keep on doing it anyway. They hate magic too much. They call me a freak. You can threaten them and they’d still never change. I can’t defend myself because then I’d be expelled. Is this over, can I go now?”
“I still have two days to give you detention,” Snape says. “Or make sure you have one for cheek when you come back at the beginning of next year.”
Harry laughs at him. It makes his face twist up, but so what? Like he says, there’s only two days. And then Harry will be back at the Dursleys, and Snape can’t do anything to him there.
“That is hardly the proper way to handle this, Severus!” McGonagall hisses at him, and turns to Harry, the expression on her face uncomfortable. “It’s true that you can’t use underage magic, but you shouldn’t have to. Your relatives should know they can’t treat you that way.”
“Like I said, they know.” Harry knows his voice is dull, but honestly, there’s a weight of lead in his chest. McGonagall is going the same route his primary school teachers did. She knows there’s something wrong, but she also thinks she can just talk to the Dursleys and that will be enough. “They won’t change. That’s the way it is. Can I go now?”
McGonagall and Snape look at each other again. Harry wonders what they’re thinking. It’s beyond him to guess. Ron and Hermione are really the only people who make sense to him most of the time, and sometimes the twins.
“It cannot be left at this,” says McGonagall, but Harry doesn’t know if she’s talking to him or Snape. He chooses not to answer if it’s him.
“I know,” Snape answers. “But he must be willing to speak in front of an authority.”
“What authority is going to do anything?” Harry demands. “The Ministry just cares about me not doing magic outside school. Dumbledore thinks I’m safe there. So who?”
“It will be a different matter if you are willing to speak of some of the details in front of a Ministry official from the Department of Children’s Services.” McGonagall’s voice is so hesitant that Harry snorts. Even she doesn’t think this will work. McGonagall blinks at him and shakes her head, her voice rising. “No, Harry, it will. I don’t think anyone has contacted them before. A lot of people didn’t know you were living in the Muggle world. And if both your former and your current Head of House indicate they have noticed concerning signs, then you’ll be granted an interview. But you still have to say something yourself.”
Harry squeezes his eyes shut. “And will people gossip about it?”
“Why would they?” McGonagall sounds astonished.
Harry can only look at her. “Because they gossiped about me being the Heir of Slytherin this year? I can only imagine how Malfoy would laugh and laugh if he found out that a cupboard used to be my bedroom.”
“If Mr. Malfoy does such things,” Snape says, “I will deal with him myself.”
*
The boy only glares at him. Severus controls a sigh. This will work better if he can remind himself that the boy’s lack of belief and trust in him is common to all adults. Perhaps Potter does hate him with an especially strong passion—Severus does not think he could have imagined all of that—but he doesn’t believe even Minerva will help him.
“Your situation would be kept confidential if we have the meeting in the Ministry offices,” Minerva interjects. “There are spells there to twist someone’s tongue or hands if they tried to speak or write about it outside the office. Not if we discussed it here or at your relatives’ home, no.”
Potter sets his jaw. His eyes are distant, and Severus realizes, with a jolt, that he recognizes their look of calculation. Can he trust the people who are trying to help him? Can he afford the investment of time and emotional energy, or will the disappointment when it all comes crashing down cost too much?
Severus knows that look because he used to do it himself.
Severus swallows. He is right, and that means they must make every effort to get Potter away from the Dursleys as soon as possible.
“I want it to be someone who doesn’t want an autograph,” the boy says unexpectedly. “And who isn’t going to take pictures.”
“These officials can collect memories,” Minerva says, still sounding a little stunned that Potter might agree. “They don’t need pictures.”
Potter looks as if he wants to ask how someone can collect memories—Pensieves are not a topic that would come up in any second-year classes, Severus thinks—but he just nods. “Then when can we meet with them?”
“We have a decision to make before we can do that,” Minerva says. “We can remove you from the Dursleys’, but not without having somewhere for you to go. Your father’s parents, alas, died while he was still young, and your mother never had any other relatives that I heard of. Where could you go?”
Potter immediately leans back and tries to put on a look of indifference. Severus won’t insult him by telling him how insufficient it looks. “Then we might as well not do it. I know that I don’t have a place to go, and I don’t want to beg for one.”
“You don’t want to get away from there?” Minerva looks genuinely shocked.
“What’s the point of starting the procedure if I’ll just be put right back there?” Potter speaks softly, as if he’s whispering confidences to himself in his bedroom in the dark of night—something else that strikes Severus in the face with the force of its familiarity. “There’s no point. So. Thanks, but no thanks.” He stands up and turns towards the doorway like he’s forgotten Severus is in front of it.
Well, I was letting Minerva do the talking, Severus thinks, and meets the boy’s gaze again. “There is an option you have not considered.”
“What’s that?”
Potter already sounds more sullen than he did with Minerva. Severus curbs his impulse to snap that the boy ought to remember who his Head of House is. Potter will not give his respect yet, and any attempt to cow him into it will end badly.
Severus does want that respect, the same that every member of his House gives him automatically. But here, he wants to earn it—because that is the only way.
“The Weasleys. I do not think they would turn you away because you are no longer of their House.”
Potter ignores that. “But I can’t do that to them. I mean, the Dursleys were always talking about how much I cost to feed, and I know the Weasleys—”
“There is money in your trust vault that can pay for that,” Minerva says. “For any food you eat, for your Hogwarts supplies, for clothes. Haven’t you been using it for that already?”
Potter blinks and seems to think about it. Severus has to control the sneer again. There are so many things the boy is ignorant of. And yet, it is not his fault.
Severus knows now that he has made a mistake equivalent to the one that left him thinking of Potter as a perfect Gryffindor. He somehow assumed his title would confer a sort of supernatural knowledge on him, that of course he would know all about the wizarding world even if he grew up with Muggles. Someone would have to visit him. He would use accidental magic and awaken memories. The boy’s aunt would tell him because she couldn’t help herself.
None of that happened. Potter, and they, must deal with the reality they have.
“Am I going to spend the summer with them, then?” Potter’s voice is soft, concealing his emotions, and maybe his knowledge. He keeps his green eyes away from Severus’s as if he has figured out that Severus can read his mind by looking into them. Of course, if he has, then he is the first student not tutored in Occlumency who has.
“You may have to spend a little of the summer with your relatives,” Minerva concedes. “We’ve left this late.” Her mouth tightens as if she remembers why, and she shakes her head. “But it can’t be helped. In the meantime, I’ll set up an appointment with a senior official in the Department of Children’s Services. The senior ones take oaths as well as having to obey the spells, because they handle so much confidential information.”
Potter nods, and then sits silently. Minerva seems to think the conversation is done, his agreement secured, and opens her mouth to dismiss him. But Severus intervenes. He can read that silence.
“Speak your objection.”
“Not an objection,” Potter snaps, his eyes swiveling up, so that Severus can see the brightness of the blaze of hope in them. “Just—a practicality. Dumbledore won’t want me to go there.”
“Headmaster Dumbledore.”
Severus lets Minerva make the correction, necessary at this point, but also not something Severus wants to say. He simply gazes into the boy’s face and says, “He is not aware of the brutality of the situation.”
Potter only looks at him, and Severus knows he wants to keep his faith in the Headmaster. It may be true, completely, and not only half-true, a compound of knowledge and something else, like the slag left inside one of Longbottom’s cauldrons.
“Oh.” Potter drops his head.
He will not believe things are changing until he is walking through the Weasleys’ front door with his trunk and his owl, Severus realizes. He can push it no further right now. He nods to Minerva. “Set up the appointment. I will escort Mr. Potter to his first class.”
Potter doesn’t look up at him as they pass through the corridors. Severus studies him, and when his breath hitches a little, his hand rises to scrub hastily at his face, Severus pretends not to notice.
But he will remember.
*
Kain: Yes, poor Blaise. But next chapter, now that he understands how deep Harry's issues won, he makes a more determined attempt.
Well, part of the problem is that Harry is making a choice not to be a Slytherin. :) If people can get him past that, then he'll react better when people like Blaise reach out.
Yeah, Harry isn't thinking that practically yet. He'll just hang out with Gryffindors always! ...What do you mean, that's not possible? But Blaise will do one thing in particular that's going to win Harry over.
Luckily, both Severus and Minerva were patient enough to get through the defenses Harry tried to use to drive them off.
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