Blackbird Fly

- Blackbird Fly. -

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these sunken eyes and learn to see

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to be free

- The Beatles

His feet felt heavy lately; so did his hands, specifically his fingers. His breathing tended towards too even, but grew shallow in bursts, like he'd been running nowhere in particular.

His best friends did everything but feeding him by hand, and it wasn't that he didn't appreciate it, except he didn't. Everyone seemed to be swathed in some sort of mantle of grey when he looked at them, and nothing they said or did mattered. He would do what he had to do, but he wasn't going to care. Ever. It was as good a plan as any.

Either the task was too easy or it was impossible. Harry could have made a list of both, though he didn't bother. It would've went something like:

Too easy -

a) avoiding Ron,

b) catching the Snitch,

c) staying awake,

d) ignoring Dumbledore,

e) hurting Hermione,

f) shutting Malfoy up (all it took was a look, these days).

Impossible -

a) lifting his head,

b) keeping his breakfast down,

c) pretending he cared,

d) paying attention,

e) sleeping without a potion,

f) walking straight.

Somehow, it almost balanced out, he thought.

Harry had a new policy: he didn't rise to the bait. That was easy, too. If someone wanted a response, they could bloody well earn it. There were people who deserved nothing, and that's what he would give them. A whole sodding cauldron of it to choke on. Nothing.

A part of him was only waiting for the opportunity to tell the first person who was convenient. Do you know what you are? he'd say. It would almost feel good, he was certain. Nothing. That's all. Nothing. He wanted to see the look on their face, see if they believed him. He hoped they didn't, but people believed him more often these days.

It would probably be so easy, too. It wouldn't take anything else, because as soon as he said that, it would be like magic: they would be dust settling on the ground. No hexes, no spells, nothing.

Do you want to die? he'd say to his enemy. Because I'm good at that. Born to serve, actually. He would laugh, because it was funny and because-- because. What else was he going to do?

Right.

Snape was different, though. With Snape, he had make a continuous effort just to keep him the hell out of his mind. For some reason, the idea annoyed him more than Voldemort knowing his secret thoughts and fantasies. Snape was just-- no.

He was getting better of course, he knew he was, but Snape was only getting more persistent. "Training" was the last thing it was. Mental torture, more like, which was why Snape kept on, no doubt. Harry would wonder what had crawled up his bloody arse to give him that extra edge lately, but he didn't care. He would deal with Snape too, eventually. He could be patient when he wanted to be, contrary to Snape's beliefs.

And it wasn't like he didn't know Snape had been watching him throughout the whole bloody lesson today, anyway. Harry didn't have to look up to know that those vicious little eyes were focused on him, waiting for the first tiny slip. Well, Harry wasn't about to give the greasy bastard the satisfaction. They were both trapped, but Snape wasn't going to get to take his frustrations out on him.

Snape's eyes were heavy, weighing on him like some sort of physical presence, but then, that terrible seething mind pressed from behind them, pushing at Harry's own like a force of nature. He knew that Snape was just waiting for him to snap and push back, and then he'd have him. Just like that, he'd be back to dealing with Dumbledore. He was nothing if not blessed with a wide array of attractive choices.

It was almost like there were tangible tendrils of-- something-- peeling back his eyelids. He supposed he was meant to feel grateful those tendrils were Snape's rather than Voldemort's.

Snape didn't bother pretending any of this was meant to 'teach' Harry. They both understood how things were; there was a price for everything.

What do you want? he thought without much rancor. A part of him was curious, if anything because Snape did want something, and Harry wasn't so arrogant as to feel certain about what that was. The least you could do is tell me.

Harry didn't lift his own gaze from his parchment, but he could feel that weight on his shoulders and temples, settling behind his eyes. He smirked, wondering if the git was testing him even now. Maybe he got off on seeing what Harry didn't want him to see. Maybe he liked to look.

Slowly, Harry met that sour look. They were supposed to be working, and Harry was, slowly but surely. Snape couldn't fault him for being precise, could he?

The air in the N.E.W.T.s Potions classroom was full of smoke and noxious fumes, but Harry had no problem discerning those deep-set, burning dark eyes. Perhaps the good Professor thought he could kill him with the look alone. Sorry, he thought with a smirk. Going to take a bit more than that.

The sudden dizzying rush of nausea was utterly unexpected and almost debilitating. Harry doubled over next to his cauldron, retching dryly and clutching at his work-knife with sweaty fingers. Ron was asking him if he was all right, but all Harry could think or feel through the flashes of cold sweat and the sickening jolts of mental dissonance was, You bloody arsehole!

Snape had to be enjoying this. Harry still hadn't broken through his barriers more than once, but there was no doubt in his mind.

You are sodding well going to pay attention, Potter!

Harry panted, his stomach trying valiantly to rise to the occasion, right up his burning throat. To what? Your deeply meaningful silence? Fuck you! he thought with all his strength. You think you can get away with this? Who the fuck do you think you are?

"Detention tonight, Mr. Potter," Snape said with relish, not taking those fucking evil eyes off him. Harry couldn't look away anymore, though the nausea had abated, or at least ceased swelling any further.

"Am I allowed to ask what for?" Harry gasped out, while Ron hissed something at him. He wasn't paying attention.

A slow, oily curl of a smile spread along Snape's mouth. "Why, for not paying attention; what else? Had you had your head screwed on correctly, you would have noticed that I had been attempting to ask you a simple question for the last two minutes, Mr. Potter." Harry heard a defeated sigh to his side. Oh.

Why are you surprised? he thought viciously, not caring a whit for consequences. Some things were always worth it. You're the one who unscrewed it, aren't you?

"Don't test me, Potter. Believe me, you do not want to know where you'll find yourself, should I quit showing you... mercy."

Malfoy sniggered behind him, and Harry's fists clenched. Well, he didn't care. So what; another detention. Not like it was unexpected.

"Understood, Professor," he said stiffly, looking away.

When Snape's gaze lifted, his shoulders didn't experience the expected wave of relief, but Harry would be damned if he let Snape get away with failing him. He needed this, and not even that vile excuse for a man would stop him from passing N.E.W.T.s well enough to become an Auror after this stupid war was over.

He showed up precisely on time, unable to keep a slight smirk from his face. It wasn't that Snape was startled, exactly, but it was still satisfying to know he'd thwarted him in that small way, since the bigger ones were going to have to wait.

Snape was behind his desk already, marking parchments with a sneer of pure distilled disdain. Something sour and quite familiar swirled in Harry's stomach; he remained unable to withstand the sight of Professor Snape without that lingering disgust he'd felt ever since he was a first year. Snape's sallow, spidery fingers were clamped around a black-feathered quill, and Harry's eyes followed the jerky scratches before he caught himself staring and snapped his eyes up to meet Snape's poisonous glare.

"Something caught your interest, Potter?"

Harry tossed his hair back out of his eyes, resisting the strong urge to reach for his wand and topple the inkwell at the very least. "Your nose did hook me in. Sir." He was barely aware of his mouth twitching as Snape's whole face contorted in a most satisfactory manner. There was no feeling which could quite equal taunting someone whom both parties knew was similarly trapped. No matter what airs Snape liked to put on, there was no doubt in Harry's mind as to who would win if there was ever a need for a real contest between them in the future. Snape might be old, bitter and twisted, but Harry would be fighting for Sirius, which made all the difference in the world. Especially after he'd sucked Snape dry of whatever stupid tricks he had up his sleeve, there would be no question.

Harry wasn't arrogant; he just knew the truth. And yet, looking at Snape sometimes, he forgot that for a bit, which was what made moments like this all the sharper.

"You think you're so clever, don't you, Mr. Potter? You think you can get away with anything if you walk the line, I presume. Very well, then." He steepled his fingers in front of him, looking maddeningly serene-- for Snape. "Let's say there is a line between our minds you are to walk flawlessly. If you stumble in the slightest, you forfeit completely. If you don't, we keep playing."

Harry sat down on a familiar high stool that stood against the wall furthest from Snape with the usual tired half-sigh. "I could say that those terms are unfair, Professor, but I reckon that won't get me very far."

"Indeed it won't. When you enter my offices, 'fair' ceases to be an issue, Potter. The question of how to stay on your feet would be the only one you need concern yourself with."

"Can't I just lose and be done with it already?"

"Whatever makes you think your other opponents would grant you that mercy? Or do you believe they will lay down their wands and get down on their knees in awe upon realizing they were in the presence of the famous Boy Who Lived?"

Harry barked a dry laugh. "How much of a fool do you take me for?"

Snape's mouth twisted sourly. "Do you really desire-- or need-- an answer to that question?"

"If you think I'm so useless, why do you bother with--" he gestured widely, "all this? Tell me that, Professor."

"It's not what I think of your so-called abilities that matters, Potter. Try and keep up: you've got a job to do, and it matters little whether or not I like it or you, for that matter. Whatever you might think, this war isn't about one stupid, naive little boy with a regrettably sized ego. You're a tool for battle, and so am I. Make no mistake, the only difference here is that no one is allowed the use of me but myself, whereas you'd allow every half-decent witch or wizard into your supposed mind, wouldn't you, Potter?" Snape sneered. "You can't hide it from me."

Snape seemed to be attempting to press Harry flat against the wall with the power of mental intimidation alone, like he was some sort of insect to be pinned. Harry's heart raced wildly; he knew he should feel angry, maybe even enraged, but the empty pressure just left him with a gnawing sense of hopeless dissatisfaction.

"I'm done for, Professor," he said with a flat certainty. "It's not what I do that matters. It's what I am, not who I am that they all need."

"You ungrateful little brat! Defend yourself!" he snarled. "Legilimens!"

For a second, Harry's whole world went dark, and then Sirius was falling and falling, that awful startled look on his face, and Harry's heart felt like it was being ripped in half like so much tissue paper. He could always tell the final rip would be this easy; he could almost have laughed at himself if he wasn't about to puke what there was of his meager supper. There was no way Harry could reach him in time. Everyone was fighting and casting a variety of brightly colored spells all around them, but he only had eyes for that one, precious figure.

At the same time, Harry was conscious of being barely perched on the hard little stool, Snape's black eyes searing into his with a suffocating intensity. He was mouthing something Harry couldn't hear, and for a moment it looked as if he were there as well, right behind Sirius. Pushing him-- pushing--

Harry might have screamed or he might have only imagined it, but the next thing he knew, his wand was out and pointed at last, and the heat that always flooded him whenever he leveled it at the Potions Master swooped through his belly, spearing down his arm. "Protego!" he yelled, gasping for air. His mind overflowed, propelled across the line between them on a tidal wave of sheer rage.

He saw Snape sway in his chair as if from a great distance, those creepy fingers clutching at the edge of the desk with what appeared to be considerable force. Harry's vision clouded over completely within seconds, however.

Snape's hands were covered in blood, and he was on his knees in some sort of clearing as tears slid silently down his face. Harry's stomach gave a sickening lurch. There was a dead body of a slight dark-haired man crumpled in front of him, whose hair mercifully obscured his face. It looked to have been brutally murdered only a short while ago-- the stomach was slashed open and the guts appeared to be on the verge of spilling. Snape was shaking his head from side to side as if in denial, but the thing that must once have been a man remained gruesomely dead.

A harsh twist, and Snape now stared at a hooded figure standing over him, clutching his bared forearm to his chest as he gasped repeatedly. The Death Eater was only one out of the circle around them, but Snape's eyes never left the one closest to him. He reached out with his other arm, but the hooded one shook its head in an eerie parallel to Snape's earlier gesture. The movement dislodged the black hood a little, so that a strand of pale blond hair Harry had previously only seen on a Malfoy was revealed. Lucius Malfoy pointed a wand at Snape, and the kneeling man convulsed upon the ground, his favored arm thrown wide open to show a bleeding, swollen-looking Mark, covered in seeping infected-looking fluid and leaky ink.

Harry wanted to stop, pull his mind free, but some sick fascination kept his attention completely riveted, and he thought he might even be stifling Snape's attempts at a struggle. Snape in pain was-- he didn't know what it was. Hard to tear one's eyes away from, at least.

Another wrenching transition, and Harry saw a nearly normal and healthy-looking-- for Snape-- teenager with a shoulder-length lanky black haircut which must've been unfashionable even then.

He crouched behind a low stone wall that bordered the Hogwarts lake, peeking at-- at first it seemed like it was two first-years rolling about on the sand like puppies, but after a second it became clear that this was-- Sirius!-- and Remus-- who grappled wildly and laughed.

A small black bird with a pointed bright yellow beak had suddenly landed on the old wall with a whoosh of wings. It hopped to and fro, apparently pecking at nothing, while Snape tore at the dead grass and Sirius-- Sirius nuzzled at the juncture of Remus's shoulder and rolled onto his back to wrap his arms around Remus.

They were both fully clothed, of course, but Harry couldn't help but feel like the world had tilted. The fact that the two of them were lying motionless now did nothing to improve matters, and soon the wind was lifting Sirius's long black hair and throwing it up into Remus's face.

Snape's expression was... unbelievable. It wasn't murderous or hateful or even spiteful. He seemed... Harry found he couldn't put a finger on it, and then there was another rush of wings.

As the blackbird flew away, Harry gasped, mesmerized, especially when he saw the fierce splash of bright red and orange at the tips of its wings.

Get out! Snape screamed from deep within his own mind, and Harry's head knocked back against the stone wall he sat next to. He would've tumbled to the ground without his quick reflexes to steady him, but even so Harry shook, dizzy and completely adrift.

His mind swam, so he was hugely unprepared for Snape to start ranting in that hoarse, oddly unsteady voice. "Are you satisfied now? Going to tell all your so-called Gryffindor mates about what you saw, aren't you Potter? Get some sympathy for your martyred suffering of the pathetic failed-- Death Eater--" he hissed the words, "isn't that right? Tell me the truth, Potter! I think I deserve at least that much!"

"N-no," Harry stammered. He never told anyone about what he saw or found out through these sessions, though of course Snape didn't need to know that.... "I-- um--"

The chair Snape had been sitting on toppled backwards with a crash as the man advanced with a crazed glitter in his eyes, but for some reason Harry had forgotten to be afraid. His chest constricted as he watched Snape approach; his robes didn't seem to fly behind him like a bat's so much as twist around him like a straightjacket.

The scenes he remembered were thankfully growing fainter with every passing moment, but the vision of the blackbird remained, along with the image of Snape crouched miserably as he watched-- Harry flushed.

"Well then, what's it going to be, Mr. Potter?" Snape drawled in an ugly mockery of his usual silk-smooth tones, looming over Harry in a disconcertingly reminiscent fashion. "You're not going to say you're sorry, are you? Because that would be quite disappointing."

Harry could never look away now, not from that look. Snape's dark, sunken eyes seemed to consume his entire field of vision until there was absolutely nothing left to say. Except, perhaps, "I'm not sorry."

Snape's vile, coldly raging face was a mask; a mockery. So ugly it hurt. So sharp it cut him just to look at it, but in a small, secret corner of Harry's mind, he welcomed it. This was different, he knew, and that meant he couldn't ignore it.

"Good," Snape spat, actual spittle forming at the edges of his nearly bloodless mouth. "Neither am I." His lips formed an expression Harry had never seen before, and it was almost frightening in its intensity if nothing else. He never had a chance to study it, however, because then that mouth collided with his own.

The sheer force of Snape's descent onto him kicked any remaining sense free from Harry's mind. Snape's fingers pinched his cheek like pincers, the nails cutting into the soft skin of his face. Lank chin-length hair tickled madly against his temple, and Snape's breath seemed ridiculous-- impossible-- but he felt it.

Harry's eyes scrunched shut so tight they hurt. He was utterly convinced that if he didn't try to hold on, he'd have toppled the bloody stool by now, and of course Snape wouldn't have bothered to catch him.

His lips moved sluggishly and without conscious volition, scraping dryly across that bitter, unyielding, startlingly patient mouth, and Harry thought he was going to choke the next time he tried to swallow. He knew what this was about in his bones, and pleasure had nothing to do with it, but somehow-- maybe it was all the rapid breaths being puffed against his skin, or maybe it was the fleeting impression of teeth that sunk down briefly on his mouth-- Harry's hands shook and his heart raced and his trousers had become so impossibly tight it hurt.

He clutched at Snape's shoulder, fingers tangling tightly in his robes. There was no tongue or wetness or softness of any sort (not yet), and Harry had to fight the horrid drive to drench Snape's wide foul mouth with saliva. Snape's misshapen teeth pressed against his through a thin layer of flesh, and Harry couldn't breathe. His entire body pounded with the rhythm of his bewildered heart, and the whole world spun and twisted along with his stomach.

It must only have been another minute, maybe less in real time, before Snape nipped at his mouth harshly one last time and tore away.

Harry panted wildly, his heart galloping along without him, and vainly tried to finally swallow all the way. His mouth was a bloody lake. Everything swam in the dark, and Snape was a burning presence at the very edges of his mind. The kiss, that was nothing; the aftermath might just do him in.

He licked his lips, tasting a now-familiar tang of copper. Oh, he thought distantly. Blood.

"Get out," Snape rasped again. "Get the hell out, Potter! And don't come back until you stop playing these idiotic hide-and-seek games with yourself, because I'm not going to bother teaching someone whose only goal is to throw it all away."

Harry said nothing, and Snape's presence got a touch more painfully sharp in his mind, like a hedgehog unfolding its lengthy spikes. "Do you understand? This isn't a game, you sorry little child!"

His eyes snapped open, the ball of hate in his stomach roiling. Snape's unwelcome mental presence was in another universe entirely now, and he felt like his whole mind was a burning buzzing vat of overheated gas. He practically leaped off the stool, barely stopping himself from drawing a wand on a Professor. "Don't think I don't know," he jeered. "I know very well what this is; trust me. I know."

Snape inclined his head in a sort of half-nod after a tense half a minute. "You may indeed. Perhaps in time for it to be useful, at that. Good on you, Mr. Potter," Snape said briskly, turning away. "That will be all for today." He turned his back to Harry, sweeping his robes behind him.

"Don't you bloody turn your back on me, you-- you--" He shook, incoherent with a flare of blinding rage. Harry realized he should really learn some better insults. These were just not doing the job any longer.

"Something the matter, Potter?" Snape drawled something that could've passed for the normal soft, sibilant tone. "You wish to tell me something?"

Staring at Snape's ramrod-straight back, Harry began to deflate. While his feet remained on the verge of stomping, the sensation rose steadily rather than sinking under its own weight. Kind of like it might be good to make some noise.

Harry's eyes narrowed, and he exhaled through his nose. "Not right now, Professor," he said finally.

After a short pause, Snape did nod before continuing on his way to his personal work-room, if a bit stiffly. "Indeed," he said in what might have been a neutral tone in another man.

It seemed unbelievable-- impossible-- but Snape shut the door firmly, leaving Harry to his mess of roiling emotions.

He stared at the closed door, dumbstruck, until it became clear Snape wasn't coming out. Did Snape-- run away?

A short, incredulous laugh bubbled up in his throat. Not bloody likely. As usual, there was something Snape wasn't telling, but that was all right. Harry would find out.

He could be persistent as well as patient. He could clearly also be frankly baffled.

Best not to think of it.

Harry found he could breathe a little deeper after all, so after a few dazed, halting steps towards the exit, he ran the whole way back to Gryffindor Tower.

~~