"I think you're supposed to slap someone who's hysterical, Professor."
"That would go over well, after the way your lout of an uncle used to treat you."
Good point...
For a moment more, Harry concentrated on breathing again, because really, he couldn't think what else to do. His light magic was gone, just like that? All he had left were the dark powers that were so... well, powerful, that they scared even him?
Then it came to him that Snape was wrong, that he had to be. Harry fetched his wand out from beneath his pillow, and held it as though intending to cast a spell, and once again, he felt a warm honeyed glow climbing along his spine, heating him up from the inside out, the feeling so thoroughly good that he couldn't be discouraged. Could he? "This feels the same as the first day I held it," he told his teacher. "I can just tell my magic's back inside me, sir."
"You're feeling your dark powers trying to make themselves useful."
"But it's the same as in Ollivander's--"
"Yes, it would be," Snape agreed. "Because you're the same as then, without any access to light magic. Then, it was because you didn't know how to reach into yourself and grasp hold of it. Now, it's because there isn't any to call forth."
"But my wand feels the same," Harry repeated, feeling like he didn't really follow Snape's argument.
His professor paused a moment. "The same as when you first held it, yes. I understand. Has it always felt that way to your hand? Third year, for instance, when you would take it out to practice Defense spells with Lupin, did it light you up inside before you even began to work the charms?"
"No..."
"Because by then, it was well-wrapped in the light powers you had used it for, year after year. It wasn't drawing energy from the deepest well of all, the dark powers at the bottom of your soul. Now it is again, just as when you first purchased it."
"You have got to be wrong," Harry insisted, the idea unthinkable, really. Magic was all he was. Oh, sure, he'd spent eleven years thinking he was a Muggle, but it wasn't like he'd done all that well as one, was it? Not being a wizard meant being hated and despised. Being one was all that made him... well, him.
"Harry, I would like to be wrong," Snape admitted, a heavy sigh interrupting his words. "You don't know how much. But just as with the condition of your eyes, I thought you would want to know the truth, no matter how unpalatable it may prove to be."
"Unpalatable?" Harry echoed, outraged. "You just told me I'm as good as a squib, after all!"
"Would you stop using that word?" Snape rebuked him, rising to stand. "I told you no such thing. Now, listen!" He leaned over Harry, planting a hand on either shoulder, his face so close that Harry could feel as well as hear his words. "You. Are. A. Wizard. You have not lost your magic. You have, in point of fact, far more magic than any other student in this school! You, and you alone, are the Dark Lord's equal, you gibbering fool!"
"Geez, calm down," Harry stammered, a little freaked out. It wasn't that he thought Snape would do anything if he lost his temper, but he didn't much like getting shouted at from six inches away, either. Or being called a fool. That one wasn't a good insult, like you idiot child.
"I am not the one periodically forgetting to breathe," Snape sneered. "You calm down!"
"Okay!" Harry shouted, backing up a little. "I'm a wizard, not a squib. But see, that hardly makes me feel better, considering. Squibs at least get to know where they stand. They don't go blowing out windows whenever they get upset!"
"Neither will you, once you gain control over your dark powers," Snape assured him from what sounded like the chair, again. "The balance inside you has changed. You simply need to learn to compensate, and you will be able to direct the flow of magic both through you, and through your wand. In fact..." Snape paused a bit. "You've seen me do a charm or two without a wand. I wager you'll be able to do a fair sight more than that, once you know how to force your dark powers to do your conscious bidding."
"Wandless magic?" Harry breathed. "Me?"
"You're the Dark Lord's equal, and he's no stranger to it," Snape explained. "Moreover, you've done it already, though it was certainly uncontrolled. The windows, making the stones here fade to transparent--"
"Transparent?" Harry squeaked.
"You wouldn't have seen," Snape realized. "But they were, yes, when you made them blaze."
Harry remembered then, those surges he had called forth from his anger when he'd been in that tiny stone cell. He'd made the stones there fade, too, although only halfway...
"Um, were they see-through all the way, or just kind of half there?" he asked.
"We could all see the bailey outside, though it was quite a feat through the glare the stones were putting out."
"Then my dark powers have grown since S-- Samhain," Harry concluded, hating the way he stumbled over the word. He had to say it twice more as he explained his reasoning to his teacher.
"Postulate the following," Snape suggested. "Each time you experience a grave trauma: the marrow extraction, your aunt's burial, Samhain... your dark powers become more accessible to you, though it takes time for you to be able to reach into them. A few weeks after the extraction, you were able pull them forth out of your fear in that cell. That was even consciously done. A handful of days after Samhain, your emotions here again dragged the powers forth, to much greater effect. But that was not consciously done. The pattern would suggest that with more time, you can bring it to the conscious level, as you did when you were imprisoned."
"A few weeks, then?"
"I would speculate that the greater the trauma, the more time you may need to accept the powers being cleaved open inside you."
"But even when I controlled them, I didn't really," Harry pointed out. "I wasn't trying to make the stones vanish. I was just trying to do something."
Snape must have leaned forward, for his voice sounded nearer. "Your level of control is non-existent to abysmal, I agree. But that will improve. You have already gone through this process once, I hope you realize. When you started Hogwarts, you had no talent with a wand. Then we taught you to channel light magic to do your bidding. Simple charms, wingardium leviosa. Any wizard can accomplish as much, because surface powers are so near the wand hand; they are easily siphoned off. What you need to learn now will no doubt be harder. Consciously channeling your deep powers into your wand, or channeling them without it, is not something most wizards can achieve. But Harry, they are not the Dark Lord's equal."
"You do realize you sort of harp on that?"
"Hmm," Snape murmured, clearly lost in thought for a moment. "Yes. I think that is because for most of your time here I've thought you rather arrogant, as I'm sure you know."
It took Harry a minute to follow that. "Oh. Um, you mean now you maybe think I'm not quite as arrogant as you supposed?"
"You are not your father, any more than Draco is his," Snape quietly affirmed. "You're actually prone to believe that you could not be the Dark Lord's equal. Yet is it your magic, Harry, that nullified his wards and defenses that night."
"My accidental magic, you mean."
"Exactly. So we are back to what matters. You must get your dark powers under conscious control, because then, you will be more than his equal."
Harry drew in a shaky breath. "You don't mean..."