With a muttered oath, he shot to his feet, mashed his test paper into a crumpled ball, and announced, "Professor! This grade isn't fair! I didn't even know the test would cover the alternate readings! I wasn't prepared!"
Snape barely spared him a scornful glance. "Does it break your Gryffindor heart that life isn't fair, Potter?" Then he stood, robes swirling. "Get that insolent look off your face before it's ten more points from beloved Gryffindor. Now, you have a potion to brew, do you not?"
One gesture of a wand, and the instructions for Scaradicate Salve appeared on the board.
Harry set to work, burning his exam paper as asked. When he set his finished vial up front on the professor's demonstration table, Snape didn't say a word. He just looked up, and nodded, and went back to marking papers, but his gaze returned to Harry as the boy walked up the aisle and left the room.
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Coming Soon in A Year Like None Other:
Chapter Eleven: Obliviate
Comments very welcome,
Aspen in the Sunlight
Chapter 11: Obliviate
http://archive.skyehawke.com/story.php?no=5036&chapter=11
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A Year Like None Other
by Aspen in the Sunlight
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Chapter Eleven: Obliviate
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The owl came during lunchtime, a week and a half later.
Harry stared at the Muggle envelope, half-afraid to open it. He didn't want to know the test results, not really. He didn't want to go back to Frimley Park and have a big needle stuck in his hip, all the way through to bone, and lie there as his marrow was sucked out. Sure, he'd told Snape that if he'd survived the Cruciatus curse he could survive anything, but looking back, that sounded like bragging. Like arrogance.
Strange that Snape hadn't called him on it, considering all he'd had to say in years past regarding Harry and arrogance . . .
Well, bragging that he could take anything was well and good, but now that he had this letter in hand, he was realizing that he really didn't want to follow through on what he'd promised back in Surrey. No hope for it, though, right? Not unless the letter said he wasn't compatible, after all. But what chance was there of that? Harry doubted that Uncle Vernon would bother to write, were that the case. This letter had to mean what he thought; it just had to.
Without really intending to, Harry found himself glancing up towards the raised platform where the teacher's table was. Snape was leaning over, deep in conversation with Madam Pomfrey, something he'd been doing a lot, lately. Well, what had he expected? The Potions Master wasn't going to pay any attention to Harry in public --well, not any attention except the thoroughly negative kind, that was.
"Don't let the Muggles get you down," Ron said by way of sympathy. "Your last visit went all right, it seemed. Yeah?"
"Sure," Harry agreed, slipping a knife beneath the flap and drawing out a sheet of paper. What he saw there made his eyes bug out a little.
It wasn't a letter from Uncle Vernon at all, it was a single page of densely typed medical information summarizing, Harry supposed, all his test results. He couldn't make much sense of it, except for a few lines at the bottom.
Compatibility factor: .93 (.85 is the minimum threshold for transplant.)
Please report to Frimley Park Hospital at 8:00 a.m. on October 22 for the extraction procedure. If you are unable to make this appointment, inform us in writing at Frimley Park Hospitaclass="underline" Oncology, Portsmouth Road, Frimley, Surrey GU16 7UJ or ring us at 01287 408965.
It all sounded so . . . official, Harry thought, as he felt the blood in his face rush down towards his stomach, which was twisting itself in knots already. The letter slipped through his fingers to flutter to the floor.
"What is it?" Hermione asked at once, her fork clattering to her plate as she put an arm around Harry and turned him to look at her. Lowering her voice, she barely breathed, "Your scar?"
"Er . . . no," he croaked, wondering what on earth was wrong with him. It was just a needle, right? It was just a big, long, needle spearing through his pelvis, going all the way into bone, six times, or maybe eight . . .
Ron had leaned under the table to scoop up the letter, but he didn't try to read it, just handed it back across the table to Harry.
Hermione had no such compunctions. Snatching the letter from Ron's fingers, she scanned the page, her eyes rapidly assessing the text. "Harry . . ."
"Not here," Harry hissed. Yanking the letter back, he stuffed it into his pocket and stood on unsteady feet. "Room of Requirement. Now."
He didn't notice Snape's black eyes watching as he left the dining hall, his two friends in tow.
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"Are you going to explain?" Hermione challenged, hands on hips as she stood on a Persian carpet. All along the base of the walls, incense holders, some of them shaped like Aladdin's lamp, were sending pungent smoke aloft. "And what sort of room did you wish for, anyway? This place looks like . . . a . . . a harem!"
"I think the room's just trying to calm me down," Harry murmured. "I'm kinda worried about--"
"About your transplant?" Hermione demanded. "Harry Potter, you will tell me right here and now just what is going on!"
"No, he will not," another voice smoothly answered as Snape slid into the room, closed the door, and crossed his arms. After only a moment more, however, he was turning back towards the entrance and casting several silencing charms upon it. Then he strode forward, black robes swirling as though a tempest were spinning inside him.
"Look, I have to tell them," Harry explained, feeling defeated by the whole situation. "Hermione saw the letter. She's going to figure it all out, anyway."
"Not after Obliviate," Snape mercilessly sneered.
Harry jumped to his feet, all apathy vanishing. "No!" he shouted, but Snape was already pointing his wand, an ugly light in his eyes as he began to twirl it in a way Harry recognised, for all the motion was less theatrical than the one Lockhart had used down in the Chamber of Secrets.
Hermione was fumbling in her robes, trying to draw her own wand; Ron's was out already, and pointing; Snape at once incanted, "Accio wands!"
Harry's wand flew out of his pocket.
Snape deftly caught all three as they sailed his way, and tucked them away in his cloak as he continued to stare at Hermione, his wand still swirling in that disturbing arc that meant Obliviate might be only a heartbeat away.
Furious, Harry stomped up to Snape and tilting his face up, yelled, "Don't you dare, don't you fucking dare, you got that?"
Ron's eyes went huge. "A thousand points from Gryffindor," he moaned, though points were the least of their problems at the moment.
"Oh, shut up," Harry spat. "He's not going to take points, and if he does, it'll be well worth it." Then he spun his head back to face Snape. "Just read it for yourself, all right? And then we'll figure the rest of it out."
With that, Harry thrust the sloppily folded letter up at his teacher, and ignoring that damned wand, still pointed, turned to look at Hermione.