Chapter 26

                                    

                                          
In his dungeon office, Severus Snape stood aghast between two students, both of them sprawled on opposite sides of the stone floor. The first was Draco Malfoy, wandless after hurling his into a shelf crammed with bottles, shattering several, their contents splattered on the wood, smoking and fizzing. Draco didn't see or hear it, his eyes clenched shut, his voice a tearless sob.
The other student was Harry Potter, rolling on his back with laughter. The sound chilled Snape. The laughter did not sound like Potter. It did not sound like any young person. It hardly sounded like a person at all. It sounded like -- no it couldn't be.
Frantic to end it, Snape swooped at him, grasping Harry by the front of his robes, pulling him to standing, both of them shaking. "Potter!" he called out. "Stop that at once. Open your eyes. Potter. Harry Potter!"
The infernal laughing had almost completely faded. Harry was coming back, as if out of a stupor, mumbling as Snape held him upright.
In the new quiet, the door to Snape's office clicked closed. Draco had retrieved his wand and was letting himself out.
Snape swore and dropped Harry into a chair. "What was it, Potter?" he snarled. "What did Draco see? Tell me or I shall find it in your mind myself."
Harry looked exhausted, perhaps spooked, but not sorry. "I'd just been talking about it, so it was right there when he rushed in. Maybe you should have expected this, Sir."
"What was it?" Snape's voice was loud, furious, but somehow, Harry wasn't afraid in the least.
He answered simply, "It was the graveyard, last year, at the final task of the tournament."
Snape's eyes widened. "How much did he see?"
The strange coldness that had seized Harry was ebbing away, leaving him unsettled. He swallowed as he said, "He saw Cedric get attacked, and Voldemort return..."
Snape stepped closer. "Yes, and did he see the others?"
The others -- Harry knew who he meant. Snape didn't care about Draco seeing any of the Death Eaters Voldemort summoned to the graveyard but one. He nodded. Yes, Draco had seen his father groveling for mercy from the Dark Lord.
Snape sniffed, "And yourself. Were you quite yourself during the exercise, or did you feel -- overtaken?"
"What do you mean, Sir?"
"The laughter."
Harry knew it was strange, and dangerous to talk about sharing Voldemort's feelings to someone he did not trust. He would wait to talk to Ronald and Hermione about it later -- maybe Sirius. For now, he merely squirmed as he asked. "What about it?"
"Did it spring from your own anger, your own useless hatred of your classmate?" Snape asked. "Or was it from -- him?"
Harry's mouth opened, but he didn't answer.
Snape threw both his hands up. "For stars' sake, Potter, practice between our lessons. If slips like this don't convince you that nothing is more important than your study of Occlumency, then I don't know what would. Should you mistake anything as more important -- any other classes, infatuations, illicit clubs, anything -- I will see that they are taken out of your way."
Summoning Harry's book bag, Snape sent it crashing into the boy's stomach. "Now get out."
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Snape found Draco in the courtyard, sitting in the cold without a cloak, the pale flesh around his lips darkening to blue. "Come inside, Draco," he said. "I will answer your questions as best I can indoors. Your mother will not like to hear that you're suffering needlessly with cold."