Harry Potter and the Secrets from the Past

Chapter 28. IN TROUBLE

...

How can a rock-cliff

Embank the sea?

Even if I don't want to

I start flying again...

...

"I'd like to, no I won't like to, but if you want to..." by Lucio Battisti

The room was half wrapped by obscurity, just illuminated by the feeble moonlight filtering from the dismantled windows.

"Finally, we meet again, Mark!"

The Dark Lord was standing in the middle of the room, glaring satisfactorily at his prisoner, who was forcedly bent in front of him, with wrists and ankles tied. The curious thing was that Mark kept staring Voldemort directly in the eyes, as if he hadn't any fear of him.

"I have been deeply disappointed by your behaviour fifteen years ago. Running away like that wasn't such a nice to do!"

"Too late I realized the horrible mistakes I made, but I did my best to find a remedy."

"How? BETRAYING YOUR LORD?" thundered Voldemort and the others Death Eaters in the room jumped in their places.

"I should kill you right now, Mark! But I've got other plans in mind."

Mark stared at Voldemort with endless hate.

"I want you to do something for me."

"NEVER!" Mark shouted, wriggling himself with anger.

"You're forgetting that I may change your mind in many different ways."

The Dark Lord pointed his wand toward him and said an atrocious magical word.

"Crucio!"

Mark fell on the ground shouting and trembling in the unbearable pain he was feeling through his whole body.

"Noooo!"

In the same moment, several kilometres away, a sixteen years old wizard had just woken up abruptly, panting heavily and feeling his scar throbbing painfully.

Instinctively, Harry put on his glasses and looked at the clock: five in the morning. Without waking up his room mates, he jumped out of bed and rushed to his trunk. When he found the two way mirror, he exited the dormitory and hurriedly reached the deserted common room.

He pointed his wand to the fireplace and said the magical words.

"Incendo!"

A crackling fire appeared, lighting up the room. Harry sat on the sofa and stared at the mirror with trembling hands.

"MARK! MARK EVANS!"

He pronounced the name several times, but nobody replied. Disappointed, he forced himself to remember every slightest detail of his dream, but he couldn't; it was as if his mind has become cloudy and the only thing he recalled was that Voldemort had just cast the Cruciatus Curse on Mark Evans.

"I'm sure about what I saw! It has happened for real. I must tell Dumbledore about it!"

Harry stood up immediately and exited the common room heading down the stairs to Dumbledore's office.

He had just arrived in front of the gargoyle's statue when he found himself face to face with a furious Professor Snape, who was coming from the opposite corridor.

"Why are you wandering around the castle at this time of the morning, Potter?" the teacher asked with a disgusted look in his eyes.

"I need to speak with the Headmaster, Sir," replied Harry nervously.

"How fascinating! But it's impossible to bother Professor Dumbledore at the moment. Do you believe that your foolish matters are so important as to legitimate disturbing the Headmaster at any time of the night?"

"These aren't foolish matters!" Harry replied, starting to lose his temper.

"Of course they are!" Snape insisted threateningly.

"Why don't you let me judge it myself, Severus?"

Harry turned, and was deeply surprised to see Dumbledore in person peeping out from behind the gargoyle's statue.

"Both of you come to my office, please" said the Headmaster leading the way.

Soon Harry was standing in front of Dumbledore's desk, with Professor Snape at his side, still frowning at him.

Albus Dumbledore sat in his huge armchair and stared at Harry from above his half-moon spectacles.

"I'm ready to listen to you."

"I just had a vision!" Harry's words rushed out from his mouth, mostly because he was still feeling deeply worried. "I saw Mark Evans and Voldemort was torturing him! You should do something immediately, otherwise..."

"Are you sure that your vision was authentic?"

Harry was astonished by that question; he thought a few second about it, then he replied energetically.

"Of course it was!"

"Potter, control your temper!" Snape scolded him, and then the teacher turned to the Headmaster.

"If I can tell you my opinion, Sir, I'd like to point out the fact that this boy still keeps getting odd dreams and visions about the Dark Lord. The only meaning of this is his short attention span during my Occlumency lessons and his lack of practice."

"It's not true!" affirmed Harry angrily, glaring at the teacher directly in the eyes.

"HOW DARE YOU, YOU LITTLE IMPERTINENT..."

"Severus, please!"

Snape forced himself to regain control, and then spoke again with a light tremble in his voice.

"It's been more that one year that Potter has been taking private lessons with me, but he isn't making the slightest effort in closing his mind to the Dark Lord's interferences. It's for this reason that I'm asking you the permission to stop with..."

The Headmaster cut him off with a sign of his hand, then sighed deeply and spoke with an almost unnatural calmness.

"Harry, I'm going to ask the wizards from the Order to start immediately researching Professor Evans and I'll keep you informed about future developments."

It wasn't a case to argue over and Harry nodded reluctantly.

"Severus, I'm strongly requesting that you carry on with your Occlumency lessons."

At this explicit request, Snape couldn't do anything else but giving his consent; he lowered his gaze, resigned.

Out of the window, the sun had already risen and was lighting the mountains' peaks with its golden rays.

"I believe that it's time to go back to your rooms now." Dumbledore put an end to their brief meeting.

When Harry came back to his dormitory, he found his mates already up.

"What's happened, Harry?" asked Ron worriedly, but Harry was feeling completely lost and didn't want to speak.

Without saying a word, he slowly reached his bed and collapsed on it heavily. He couldn't believe that Mark was in Voldemort's hands in that very moment.

Neville, Seamus and Dean peeped out from their bed curtains, staring at the scene deeply surprised; Ron slowly came closer to his best friend's bed, fearing the worst.

"They've caught him, Ron! They've got Mark now!" Harry whispered, staring intensely at the ceiling.

***O***

Winter had already come to an end, leaving its place to spring and its beautiful sunny days, but Harry didn't have the time to realize it yet. Several weeks had flown away since the night in which he had dreamt about Mark Evans.

Dumbledore had told him that the wizards from the Order were still doing their best to find Mark, even if they didn't know where Voldemort's headquarters were.

Harry was demoralized because of the whole situation and not even Hermione's lovely attentions could make him feel better. He was always nervous and touchy with everybody.

It was unbearable for him to go on with his classes as if nothing had happened, while in his brain he still saw Mark Evans, twisting and shouting from pain under the effect of the Cruciatus Curse.

On top of everything, Snape was doing his very best to make Harry's life a real hell: the teacher kept punishing him in the most absurd ways and during their Occlumency lessons, he was unleashing his entire resentment on the boy.

On a Friday afternoon in late March, during the last two hours of Potions, Harry was carefully reading Snape's instructions on the blackboard. As usual, he was sitting close to Hermione in one of the farthest desks at the end of the classroom.

It was a really complex Truth Potion and Snape had asked for his students' greatest care.

Despite his efforts, Harry wasn't able to concentrate and kept his mind somewhere else.

Right in the middle of the preparation, Hermione realized that Harry had just made a mistake. His potion was still too liquid and wasn't boiling at all, while hers had just started to crackle sonorously.

"NO! You shouldn't have used the essence of moonstone, but the powder!" she whispered to him, alarmed, and Harry stared at his cauldron, motionless.

"Wait! Let's put some asphodel to let it reduce a little bit more."

Hermione raised her head and stared at Snape for a second; the teacher was slowly pacing the room a few metres from them, critically observing his students one by one. When she was sure that Snape wasn't looking in their direction, she poured the powdered substance into Harry's cauldron; he sighed for relief and smiled at her thankfully.

In that moment, Snape came closer to them, glaring at Harry's potion in disgust, but luckily it had just started to boil. The teacher didn't say a word and turned on the other side.

Both glanced at each other feeling relieved and went back to work.

Another half an hour passed by and again Hermione noticed something wrong.

"Careful! Don't use the snake's eye yet, you should mix the potion three times clockwise first!"

Harry stopped just on time, with his hand remaining in mid-air; then he put down the little vial and mixed the potion three times clockwise, while his forehead was starting to become sweaty.

"MISS GRANGER!"

Harry and Hermione jumped in surprise, hearing Snape's menacing voice coming from his desk.

"I don't remember having told you to help Mr. Potter! This is the second time it happened this afternoon. Ten points from Gryffindor!"

Harry frowned at the teacher, forcing himself not to answer him back. Evidently Snape realized the boy's internal battle and he didn't like it at all.

"Potter! Take all your belongings and come to the first desk!"

Harry couldn't believe it; he turned to Hermione and stared at her with mouth open, but she nodded in silence. Reluctantly, he slowly packed his things, while Snape levitated his cauldron to the first desk.

When Harry was ready, he sighed deeply and stood up, then walked to the head of the class. He had just reached the first row, when something really unexpected happened.

"It's not fair!"

Harry heard Hermione's comment behind his back and felt his blood freezing; anyway, he took a seat quietly, strongly hoping that Snape hadn't caught her affirmation.

In that instant, the teacher stood up and dangerously pointed his long noise in Hermione's direction.

"I'm sorry, Miss Granger, what did you say? Could you please repeat it aloud, so that the whole class will be able to hear?"

Harry turned to Hermione abruptly, making "NO" sign with a light shake of his head. The girl looked around and felt her classmates' eyes on her. Not at all intimidated, she stood up and frowned at the teacher.

"I said, that the way you always treat Harry Potter isn't fair!"

Harry feared the worst; horrified, he turned to Snape, noticing that the teacher had become paler than usual.

"Ten points from Gryffindor!" Snape said with extreme satisfaction, but Hermione didn't move a muscle.

"There is still something you'd like to share with us, Miss Granger?"

A minute of silence passed by, in which all the students remained motionless, with their gazes going in turn from Hermione to Snape.

Clearly the teacher was provoking her, but instead of stopping there, as Harry had warmly hoped, Hermione enforced her words.

"We weren't doing anything bad, and you know it!"

Harry widened his eyes and looked at her, meaning "please stop it!"

"Another ten points from Gryffindor! There is something else?" a devilish smile lit up Snape's face.

Malfoy and the others from Slytherin were sneering loudly, while the Gryffindor's students were staring at Hermione furiously. Nevertheless she spoke a last time.

"With all that is happening out there, I thought that you'd have changed your attitude. On the contrary, you keep treating Harry and the other Gryffindor students badly!"

"Miss Granger, detention! Tomorrow night, in my office."

Hermione lowered her gaze and got slowly seated, mortified. Harry turned to face Snape, glaring at him with deep hate.

"How could you treat her like that, you clammy poisonous snake!" he thought.

Snape seemed really satisfied with himself; he turned to the other students, who in the meantime had stopped working and were still staring at him, deeply shocked.

"What are you looking at? Go back to your potions, ALL OF YOU!"

At Snape's order, they started to concentrate on their cauldrons again.

Harry tried to go on with his work, but it was almost impossible; he was feeling upside down and his hands were trembling in anger.

When the bell rang, most of the students had obtained an awful result: instead of being transparent and crystalline, their potions had taken the most various selection of colours, from the dark grey one of Seamus Finnegan, to the lit up red one of Ernie McMillan.

Harry's potion was acid green, but he didn't care at all. He was just worried about his girlfriend and wanted to comfort her.

Hermione had rushed out of the class room before anyone else and Harry was pushing everybody with his elbows, trying to reach the door as soon as possible. Passing in front of the Slytherins, he forced himself not to turn toward Malfoy, who was sneering at him.

"Has your girlfriend gone mad, Potter?"

"Run to her, Potter! She's probably hiding in a lost corner of the castle now!"

Those were the kindest comments which came to Harry's ear. Without losing time, he exited the class in a fury.

Hermione was already at the end of the corridor when Harry came to her side.

"Hermione, wait! Hermione!"

"I'm trying to put as much distance as possible between me and that clammy, dull, disgusting sort of teacher!"

Hermione was still walking fast and Harry was doing his best to keep at her side.

"I've only one question for you! Why? You know that it's useless arguing with him, he's never going to change!"

"I couldn't help myself!" Hermione tried to justify her actions, but Harry wasn't able to understand yet.

"But why didn't you just stop it?"

"Since I was already in trouble, I wanted to tell him what I really thought!" she explained, crossing the Great Hall's entrance and Harry rolled his eyes.

They sat at the Gryffindor table, but Hermione was still mad at the potions teacher.

"I can't believe that he put me in detention!"

"What were you expecting from someone like Snape?" said Harry, giving her a stern look.

"Hey, what's up? Did you get a bad grade?"

Ron had just taken a seat at their side and was looking at them amusedly, but when Harry and Hermione frowned at him, he became silent and lowered his gaze to the empty plate in front of him.

"I-I'm sorry! Please go on with your quarrel, don't pay attention to me."

"Snape just gave Hermione a detention!" Harry told him in detail what had just happened and Ron made a disgusted grimace.

"Detention with Snape? I'll never forget when he put me in detention. I remember that he made me clean a thousand dirty cauldrons, full of snake's entrails and without using magic. I don't want to be in your place Hermione." Ron sighed deeply and stared at her with pity.

"Thank you for the information, Ron. I'm feeling much better now!" she said, even angrier than before.

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