As Harry glanced around the room, he couldn't help but start to feel a bit apprehensive. There were breakfast dishes on the table; two dirty plates proving that Snape and Draco had breakfasted together, and not invited Harry to join them. When had that ever happened? At least there was a plate for him, and plenty of food left over. He didn't want any of it, though; he wasn't hungry in the slightest. Actually, just looking at the table made him feel a bit ill. Was his presence so distasteful that Snape didn't even care to share a meal with Harry any longer?
Even stranger than not calling him for breakfast was the fact that neither Draco nor Snape had summoned a house-elf to clean away the debris. It seemed they'd left it to him to take care of the dishes. He could have yelled through the Floo for an elf to come get them, he supposed, but Harry decided he'd rather leave the dishes unattended. If he was too upset to eat, he was certainly too upset to clean up after the people who had.
Moving away from the table, he found himself once more hovering outside the door to the Potions Lab. He wanted to go inside, to work things out... but he was afraid to. Afraid of that terrible frost in Snape's black eyes, afraid of hearing again that Snape found Harry a complete disappointment.
But he wasn't a Gryffindor for nothing, so fear or no fear, he laid his fingers on the doorknob and began to turn it... only to discover that the door was locked.
Another first. He'd never been locked out of where Snape and Draco were working. He'd always been welcome, but clearly he wasn't welcome now.
Voices drifted to him as he stood there.
"The powdered lichen now, Draco," Snape said, sounding entirely focused on the task at hand. As if he'd forgotten Harry completely, in fact. As if in all the world, nothing mattered except the Potion underway...
"It didn't turn quite that shade of orange last time, did it?" Draco said after a moment.
"Spell the cauldron warmer until the hue approaches rust..."
Draco really did connect with Snape on a level that was beyond Harry. No matter how hard he tried at Potions, he'd never have the enthusiasm and drive for it that Draco had. It hadn't bothered Harry before, or not much, since Snape had seemed to like him well enough as he was.
But now, things were back to where they'd been before this year had even started. Harry had done something unforgivable, and Snape didn't like him at all.
Resolutely telling himself that he didn't care, Harry snatched up Sal's box and took it back to his room.
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His room wasn't a cupboard of course, but Harry couldn't help but feel a bit the same as he had all those times he'd been punished at the Dursleys. It was the isolation, he supposed. He'd been shoved under the stairs as a child to teach him a lesson, true, but more often, the sole motive had been to keep him out of sight.
Get out of my sight. I don't want to see you..
Depressed, Harry slept a while, Sals wrapped around his wrist.
When he awoke it was just noon, as the enchanted window showed, but peeking out into the other room revealed that the breakfast dishes had yet to be cleared away. Draco and Snape were still working on some Potion or other, obviously. Harry told himself he didn't care. What was it to him if he was left out?
It occurred to him that it was probably bad strategy to just let those dishes sit there. Snape being so Slytherin, maybe the dirty plates were some sort of test. Harry couldn't figure out just what the purpose of that could be. Of course, given the way Harry had been raised, he figured it was actually more likely that extra chores were being given as punishment. He knew that was a stupid conclusion, since Flooing the dishes down to the kitchen wasn't really much of a chore at all, but what else could he think?
Well, whether the dirty plates were supposed to be a test or a punishment, Harry decided he'd better just play along and take care of them. Snape and Draco were still in the Potions lab; he could hear them. Maybe Snape wouldn't realize that Harry had waited until noon to do the job he'd apparently been assigned.
He went and fetched his wand from his room, deciding that if he was going to magic the dishes away, he might as well try to avoid lifting them by hand while he was at it. Wingardium Leviosa didn't work, though. Maybe it would have, Harry thought, if he'd have said the words with more force, but he didn't want to speak above a whisper. He didn't want Snape to hear him trying magic and failing. Harry hadn't been ashamed of his lack of strong magic, not before. He'd just been frustrated--at times even wondering if Draco might be right and his inability to use his magic really did hint at some deep psychological problem.
Now, though, he realized he was ashamed. Actually, he felt worthless. He was no good as a son, and not much better as a wizard.
Well, at least he knew he could use the Floo, though after the burn he'd gotten he wasn't too eager to put his face in there again. Still, Madame Pince had Flooed books through for him, more than once. Amazed by that the first time, Harry had asked Draco how on earth the books managed not to burn up on the way. Draco, predictably enough, had scoffed at Harry's "Mugglishness" and had explained in a voice dripping with scorn, Well, it is called magic, Harry....
The memory sort of stung him, making him remember all kinds of other things Draco had said over the last few weeks. The Slytherin boy might not be as vain about his looks as Harry once supposed--all that fussing over his hair was apparently some form of overcompensation--but he was definitely vain about his magic. Most of the time he was pretty patient with Harry's lack of any, but once in a while his real feelings came out in force. He was impatient with how long it was taking for Harry to get over his "whatever." He held Harry pretty much in contempt for letting himself become so very vulnerable.
Harry told himself that none of that should bother him. He didn't care what Draco thought, did he? Trouble was, some tiny little part of him actually did.
Even more discouraged than before, Harry piled the dishes--including all the congealed food--into the fireplace, then tossed in some Floo powder and shouted for the kitchens. He wasn't actually sure that was the right way to go about things; Snape and Draco seemed to know how to contact house-elves; more often than not, the dishes simply vanished straight off the table when the meal was through. It did work, though. Or at least, the dishes went somewhere. As long as they weren't in sight any longer, that was good enough for Harry.
He went back to sitting on his bed, letting Sals slither through his fingers as he poured out all his troubles to his pet... making a snake his confidant just as Draco had said. But who else was there? Snape didn't want to talk to him; that much was obvious. So Harry talked and talked to Sals. He explained how Ron had said a bad thing but had been punished more than enough already; how Snape just wouldn't listen to reason. How Draco had blown it all out of proportion, and then Snape had too, taking five hundred points for something that wasn't a school matter at all.
How the points really worried him because of the way Snape had taken them. Off Gryffindor only, even though any son of Snape's would be in Slytherin, too. So where did that leave him?
Sals listened. She didn't understand about the points, and no amount of Parseltongue could make it clear. What she did understand was that Harry needed a warm place to curl up in. Warm places always made her feel better, Sals said, adding that her new box was very nice.