The cupboard

by Enahma

Written for the HP_SS_Gen_Fest challenge 1, 5 and 21: Harry has to serve detention in the dungeons with Snape; Must include the line, “You know Professor, I think you are the best friend I have ever had.”; Harry gets O to his Potions OWL. Snape doesn't want him into his class nevertheless. Harry shrugs and decides not to fight. Snape becomes suspicious…

Warning: post OotP, spoilers ahead!

Pairing: none

Rated: PG

Category: Drama (non Angst? *looks around* But how?? :-D Very, very unlike me! It has to do something with Christmas, I guess…)

Beta: Barbara

The night was freezing cold, because it was already autumn: they were deep in October, almost in November, and, moreover, there were no clouds in the sky and a fierce wind was blowing from the North, so that it chilled the body of the sixteen years old boy sitting on the stone floor of the Astronomy Tower, but the boy, Harry Potter didn’t seem to mind it. Quite the contrary: he sat there in a t-shirt and simple, thin trousers, without trembling as he stared at the sky.

Harry thought that somehow, the biting coldness would give him a certain feeling of living: a feeling he had scarcely had in the last months since Sirius had died. He normally felt light-headed as if he was floating; the months had passed in a blur and he just let them carry him without real concern. He didn’t live, he just existed. Existed and survived: he had survived the long, boring summer with uncle Vernon, aunt Petunia and Dudley; they had left him alone until September, when he had finally returned to Hogwarts – but he couldn’t think of the school as his home any more… Everything seemed empty and meaningless. Here, he could really feel that his life had been lost somewhere along the way.

He couldn’t even feel guilty or sad about the happenings of the last year. He was simply empty. A mere shell, without a soul, as if a Dementor had sucked it out of him. It had, at least, one advantage: he didn’t have to make a big effort to empty his mind before sleeping: an exercise he had decided to do every day before going to bed. His mind felt always blank, even during his now advanced lessons. His marks were terrible, and Hermione was always harassing him about them, but he couldn’t help it. He wouldn’t live long enough to get a good job after school anyway. Voldemort would kill him in the end, so he had given up struggling for better marks.

His eyes wandered over the bright constellations until they stopped at Canis Maior. The Dog Constellation, and Sirius, the brightest star was winking at him merrily… Harry’s breath hitched, but he didn’t cry. He didn’t cry, because he basically couldn’t cry, not any more. Crying was a part of living, and he wasn’t alive. He couldn’t even remember when he had cried last.

His eyes wandered from the sky to the angrily glowing red end of his cigarette, and he took another draw. The glowing red turned to crimson for a long minute, then faded again.

The surrounding coldness slowly entered his body and he shuddered.

“Mr Potter,” a cold voice broke the ice-silence.

Harry rolled his eyes and put his cigarette out on the stone floor.

“Yes, Professor?” he looked up at his Head of House with a tired expression on his face.

“It’s after curfew,” the stern woman said sharply. “Again.”

“Yeah, I know,” Harry muttered preparing himself for the usual conversation. His professor’s next question would be about his well-being, he would answer that he felt absolutely excellent, then the Transfiguration Professor would chide him about his rule-breaking and irresponsible behaviour and accompany him back to the Gryffindor common room trying to elicit a real reaction from Harry and giving him some warnings about the possible negative consequences of smoking and lurking outside after curfew. Harry would dismiss her worries and, in the end, they would bid good night to each other.

Oh, and there would be another restless and sleepless night, but that wasn’t part of their conversation, it was just another usual pattern these days.

He stood up and looked at the professor showing that he was ready to return to the Gryffindor Tower. But McGonagall didn’t move.

“I’ve already warned you not to behave this way, Mr Potter,” she said with a tad bit of impatience in her voice. “Your repeated misbehaviour has earned ten points from Gryffindor and a week of detention.”

Harry sighed and shrugged lifting his shoulders almost invisibly, but McGonagall caught it. Her voice suddenly snapped even sharper.

“And you will serve your detention with professor Snape.”

Harry’s face darkened and he clenched his hands into fists in anger.

“You can’t do that, ma’am,” he whispered hoarsely.

The professor lifted her eyebrows annoyed.

“I assure you, Mr Potter, I can and I will,” she said and she pressed her lips together so strongly that they became a narrow, angry line on her face.

Harry leaned against the wall and looked at his teacher.

“I hate Snape and he hates me, you know that. I don’t want him breathing down my neck for a whole week, ma’am.”

“That’s professor Snape to you, and if you don’t want to lose more points from your House, don’t ever use this tone when you talk about your elders, Mr Potter. Whatever you feel towards professor Snape, he is a professor of this school, and you will serve your detention with him anyway.”

Harry clenched his fists so hard that his nails dug into his palms. He didn’t want to see the git!

“Professor I don’t think it would do any good to me to be with professor Snape for a whole week. You know, he and Sirius…” he tried the whining tone: that had always been successful.

“That’s not relevant now, Mr Potter,” McGonagall’s tone turned even chillier. “Apparently, treating you in a forgiving manner didn’t do you any good either. You have to regain yourself.”

Harry pushed himself angrily away the wall.

“You know, professor, I think you are the best friend I have ever had,” he said sarcastically unable to hide an ugly smirk from his face.

“That’s another ten points from Gryffindor, Mr Potter.”

Harry shrugged again.

“I don’t care.”

“I can arrange another week,” the Transfiguration professor growled menacingly.

Harry lowered his head, but in his chest, the anger was at its boiling point.

Deep inside he was ashamed about his own behaviour, but the anger he felt whenever Snape’s name was mentioned, suppressed any feeling of guilt or remorse. He hated the disgusting git more than anybody else in his life, more than he hated Voldemort or Umbridge: Voldemort was above his hatred or love and Umbridge was just a stupid and cruel Ministry pawn, but Snape… Snape was another thing: a man Dumbledore trusted, a man who was allowed to hate Sirius and Harry, a man Dumbledore had always defended even while the old man had the nerve to blame Sirius for his behaviour towards Kreacher, the blasted house-elf, and for his own death less then one hour after his death… And he had never had a bad word about Snape – Snivellus, the filthy piece of shit, who was a bigger bully than James Potter had ever been, and was always forgiven and no one had never defended Harry’s or the other non-Slytherin students’ case against him or had reprimanded the git for his unjust and cruel behaviour!

Harry smiled bitterly. He remembered the day when he received the results of his OWLs. He received four Os: two for his Defence exams, one for his Divination (it had turned out that Professor Marchbanks had really met a round, dark, soggy stranger who had informed her that her tea she had missed drinking on a certain Tuesday had been indeed poisoned, so she really ought to have died on that Tuesday – which had been precisely the Tuesday Harry had mentioned to her in his exam) and one for his written Potions exam, while the potion he had brewed earned an E, like his Transfiguration, Charms, Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology practicals… His final Potions mark had been an O, as McGonagall had informed him in that letter, yet Snape had refused to take him into his class because of his “failure” in the practical.

Harry hadn’t fought though. He had written back that he wouldn’t attend Potions anyway, to McGonagall’s utter desperation, but he hadn’t cared. He had been, and still was relieved he didn’t have to attend the class, where he would have been ridiculed and humiliated on a daily basis. He didn’t miss that, thank you very much.

As he followed his Head of House back to his dormitory, Harry was thinking about the events of the new school year. His Quidditch ban still hadn’t been lifted – but he wasn’t surprised, he suspected that Dumbledore didn’t want him to play: it was all too dangerous, but he didn’t care. Quidditch had somehow lost its attractiveness to him when he thought of himself carrying the snitch, his hair tousled… Even if he hated Snape, he couldn’t help but be repulsed by the sickening way his father had behaved: worse even than Malfoy to Harry’s way of thinking. A bullying git, the Marvellous Seeker… No, no more Quidditch, he had decided.

He remembered, though, when Dumbledore had informed him about the ban: he, Harry had been standing as close to the door as it had been possible to be, his eyes had been fixed to the floor, deliberately not wanting to look at the Headmaster – not because of Voldemort, but because he had known that Dumbledore was a good enough Legilimens to discover Harry’s feelings towards him: anger and hatred. He had nodded at the mention of the ban and hurriedly refused Dumbledore’s offer to teach him Occlumency. He hadn’t needed any more people to read his mind: Snape and Voldemort had been enough. The Headmaster had tried to convince him about Occlumency’s necessity, but Harry just hadn’t cared. He had muttered something about “some wounds, which run too deep for the healing” in a mocking and acid tone, and when his sarcastic remark had hushed the old man, he had bolted out of the room without looking up once. Since that day, they hadn’t talked.

The only adult who seemed to care about him (other than Hagrid, of course, but he didn’t really count in Harry’s opinion) had been McGonagall until this evening, but now, her latest decision to hand him over to Snape was too foul a blow to forget.

They bid good bye to each other as icily as the North Pole at the Fat Lady's portrait, and Harry had to do his best not to murmur some scathing remark after her, losing hundred points from Gryffindor.

Ron and Hermione were waiting for him to return, as with every evening like this, but Harry just nodded shortly at them and fled to the dormitory. He didn’t want to talk, even though he knew that his friends were quite worried about him. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, he would sit with them and they would have breakfast together. Everything would be all right between them.

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