Getting to Know You

Harry tried not to fidget as his father was getting his wand ready. He still didn't like Occlumency. He was slowly getting better at it now that he took it seriously - I miss you, Sirius. I'm sorry I didn't do it sooner - but he didn't like it. He hated the invasion of his privacy, hated the idea of his most embarrassing moments being seen by Severus, hated the thought that Voldemort would use Legilimency as a weapon against him.

"Legilimens."

As always Harry tried to block his father, as always he couldn't manage it right away. Two brief flashes - Uncle Vernon screaming, Voldemort emerging from the cauldron in the graveyard - and his father was out, Harry staggering slightly but staying upright.

Well, at least, he was getting better.

Slightly.

"You need to do better than that," Severus said.

"I know."

"I shouldn't be able to enter at all."

"I know!" Harry yelled. He took two deep breaths. Anger was counter productive, and yelling at Severus now wouldn't accomplish anything.

"Again."

Harry screaming at Umbridge, I must not tell lies shining red on the parchment, searing pain in his hand -

And without transition, his father was looking at him, his expression unreadable.

"What was that?"

The clipped words made Harry nervous. "Er..."

"Po-Harry, what was that?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing!"

Harry struggled not to take a step back, unsure who the cutting tone was directed at.

He was thinking about what to say, and suddenly wondered why he wanted so hard for his father not to know. Umbridge was gone, what did it matter?

Dumbledore's voice, coming from the fireplace, saved Harry from his father's scrutiny.

"Severus?"

"Yes?"

"I need to speak to you, if you would."

Severus shot a look at Harry. "We will discuss this later." And he was gone, his robes billowing around him.

I must not tell lies.

Harry shook himself.

She was in the past.

She was nothing.

***

Six hours later, Harry woke up with a gasp, clutching his hand. He groaned. Why did he have to have nightmares about a *detention,* of all things?

It all seemed so... insignificant, in the light of everything that had happened. And it was so pitiful that it disturbed him, when there was probably worse in store for him.

He had avoided thinking about her after the Ministry. Sirius had hit him hard, then the letter had arrived. He had had other things on his mind. Umbridge was just... an annoyance, really.

Did it make him hopelessly naïve, that he was still surprised to see that such people existed?

He straightened up and a book fell on the ground. He had fallen asleep in a chair, waiting for Severus to return. Whatever the headmaster had had to tell him, it had taken time.

He picked up the book and was about to get up and place it back on the shelves when Severus's voice startled him.

"Harry?"

He blinked. "Hey. 'd you just come back?"

"Five minutes ago. And we have something to discuss."

Another thing to keep in mind about his father, Harry thought ruefully. The man was nothing if not persistent. In his hatred as well as in his concern.

"There's not much to say, really," he tried.

Severus snorted. "Bloody Gryffindors." He went to the kitchen, leaving Harry on the couch, and came back with two steaming mugs - one chocolate, one tea. Harry accepted the mug his father handed him with a nod. Severus sat in the chair next to him, and pointed his wand at the fireplace. Flames came to life, and Harry stared at them for a moment, mesmerized by the shadows they projected on the ground.

"So?" Severus said, bringing him back to the present.

Harry sighed. "Umbridge gave me, er, a few detentions last year." He wasn't quite sure what else to say, so he waited.

"There were... rumours," Severus offered. "Last year, about what happened in her detentions."

"Yeah?"

"I didn't believe them, because, honestly, most of the times, the rumours I hear about you are ridiculous."

Harry didn't know what to make of that, so he sipped the chocolate, feeling absurdly like a four-year-old. He felt a brief pang of regret at the thought that he had never had hot chocolate with a caring adult when he was that young, and pushed the thought away forcefully. Now wasn't the time to think about his solitary childhood.

"So, what did she do?"

Harry stared at his hands. When it was really bright, the scar was visible. Now, in the relative darkness, it was almost invisible - you had to know it was there to see it. But he knew and to him, it was glaringly obvious. He had seen Hermione sneak a few glances at it on the Hogwarts Express, in June, when she thought he wasn't paying attention to her. Back then, he had been too much in shock to appreciate her concern.

Hermione had always worried about him, always said he didn't ask for help enough.

"She had a quill," he said at last. "It... It was enchanted so that it cut whatever you wrote into your hand, and it used your blood as, well, ink."

His gaze focussed on the flames, and the sense of unreality he had felt last year, all these evenings in Umbridge's office, came back full force. These hours seeing the darkness grow outside, writing the same line over and over again, the look on Ron's face when he had learned the truth, Hermione's concern, Umbridge's satisfied smile...

He didn't look in his father's direction - there were few things about his fifth year that didn't make him feel weak, or stupid, or petty, or capricious, or all that at once. At last, he heard a muffled curse, and a mug being placed on the table with slow, careful movements - which was enough to tell him that Severus was mad.

"So were the rumours true?" Harry asked. He had aimed for a light tone, but didn't think he had quite managed it.

"Yes."

"First time it hap -"

"Why. Didn't. You. Say. Something?"

Harry raised his eyes to the ceiling. "Because.... I don't know. I had a lot of good reasons, but I can't remember what they were, now. After a while, it wouldn't have helped anyway. She was in control, and I didn't want anyone sacked for trying to confront her."

"That wasn't at the beginning," Severus said, and Harry shot him a quick look. His father's face was inscrutable and he wondered if he was using Occlumency right now.

"No. At the beginning, that was just me being stupid, and... I was angry at pretty much everyone, especially Dumbledore, and I..." He had a bitter smile. "I think, mostly, I wanted them to find out by themselves, and feel bad."

"I see." His father's voice was recovering its inflections, now.

"Sometimes I caught her looking at me, and she was enjoying every minute of it. She was creepy."

He thought he heard a chuckle. "Creepy?"

"She was... yeah, creepy. Dudley used to do that too, that 'I love to hurt people for fun' look, but he was just being a stupid bully. Umbridge was... I don't know if it's the fact that she was in power, or the fact that she was behaving like a schoolgirl and then she lost it and suddenly she looked like a raving psychopath, but she was a lot more disturbing."

Harry, thought back about her tone while she was trying to make him drink veritaserum, thought of her smile when she said, "As long as it takes for the message to sink in." He didn't know if he should laugh or scream.

The thought that Fudge, having put someone like her in charge of children, was still Minister, made him want to punch something.

"It's not that I don't know people like her exist," he said. "I just... I don't know, the hours I spent in her office aren't exactly my fondest memories."

"You should have talked to someone."

"McGonagall was mad at me for not keeping my mouth shut, Dumbledore wouldn't even look at me, Hagrid wasn't there, and I'm not that close to Filch." And he didn't think he needed to tell his father about the state their relationship was in last year.

"McGonagall, angry as she was, would have done something."

"I know."

"So would Dumbledore."

"Yeah. I... It was between me and her. I didn't want to show her that she was getting to me." His father looked vaguely incredulous, and Harry added, "I know, I know... stupid Gryffindor."

"I was more thinking, 'Everyone could see she was getting at you' Harry. Are you quite sure the hat wanted you in Slytherin?"

He straightened, vaguely indignant. "Yes! Well, not 'want', per se, but it offered. Said I'd do great there."

"If last year was any indication - "

Harry cut him off. "Last year was an indication of me being really, really, angry."

"I see."

"I'm... I *am* trying to do better."

His father nodded. "We've all noticed that. And we're all grateful for it, believe me. But Harry, next time something like that happens, please, talk to someone. Anyone."

Harry met his father's eyes. "Okay."

"Not that I expect Albus to be forced to take another DADA teacher as bad as Umbridge, but still - "

Harry half-expected his father to complain about Lupin, so he said quickly, "Yeah, brilliant track record there."

"Quite."

For a while they were silent, each drinking and staring at the flames. When Severus talked again, Harry started, so peaceful had been the silence.

"Does it really bother you? What she did?"

He shrugged. "No."

"You were... you seemed agitated when I came back."

Harry was suddenly glad for the relative darkness of the rooms, which was probably hiding his blush. He hoped he hadn't talked in his sleep. "It was nothing."

His father didn't comment, and after a while, Harry said, "What was her excuse anyway?"

"Excuse?"

"I can see how Vold - how Tom got how he is, and I could even sympathise, in a way, with what he's been through as a kid. Plus, he's, well, evil. But what was Umbridge's excuse to do what she did?"

The question struck him as childish as soon as it had left his mouth, and he back-pedalled. "Not that I don't know normal people can be pretty twisted too, or anything, I just... Never mind."

His father sneered, and Harry felt oddly comforted by the familiarity of it. "Is it a Gryffindor trait, to always wonder why people are so unkind?"

He raised his head haughtily, and waited for his father to take a sip of his drink before saying, "We don't wonder why people are 'unkind', we'd just like everyone to be as virtuous as we are."

As expected, his father sprayed his tea over his robes.

"You know it's remarkably easy to make you do that," Harry observed.

Severus lips twitched, and Harry raised. "I should go to sleep."

"By all means."

Harry hesitated at the door.

"What?" Severus asked.

He swallowed. "Thanks," he said quickly, and fled the room without waiting for an answer.

As he cleared his mind that night, he wondered at the peculiarity of Occlumency as a means to get to know someone. Given his and Severus past, and their notorious tendency to keep things to themselves, it was probably speeding the process along. But it wasn't a very smooth process - for either of them.

On the other hand, Harry thought, it was doubtful anything could have helped smoothing the process over - not with the history they shared.

And, after all, every day they spent without killing each other was probably a good day.

THE END