64 Chapter 64- one move fight and confrontation
Harry's POV
As Harry went past the gargoyle he saw a lousy fist coming toward his face, and with reflexes worthy of his purple belt, and shamelessness worthy of a Malfoy, he ducked and punched him back with half his strength, only in a lower and more painful zone.
As he looked up and saw the redhead with tears in his eyes, he almost felt pity toward the prick, almost.
"W, what the bloody hell?! You hit me! In the nuts!"
His hard breathing, squeaky voice, and look of pain made it impossible to maintain an angry look on his face and not to laugh without using occlumency.
"And you tried hitting me in the face!"
"Well, even if he did, you deserve in Harryl!" Hermione screamed. "Ratting on us to Professor Snape just so we wouldn't find out who is the heir of Slytherin. Why did you do it? Is it becouse Slytherin brainwashed you to hate Gryffindor, muggles and muggleborns? Maybe you are the heir?"
Harry was truly upset, telling him he hate muggles is really dishonoring his parents.
"Me? Does being Gryffindor really kill brain cells, just like everyone says? Or did I not notice were you always that dumb?"
"Don't call her names you filthy slimy snake!"
"Shut the Fuck up you red headed nazi! As for you Miss Hermione Allways-The-Victim Granger, as some one who lived in the non magical world, and shouldn't have the bigotry of the wizarding world you sure have embraced the idiocy of this world. Tell me, as someone who told me at the beginning of first year about how, before knowing about magic, you were planing on being a doctor, when is the last time you learned any non magical subject?"
After a few seconds of silence, he went for the kill.
"Not only you abandoned the non-magical world, you are dumb enough to take everything you learn here from people who believe they are much more superior than the muggles, while having no idea about it as the holy truth."
Taking a moment, Harry shifted his gaze toward Ron.
"As for you, if you start a fight and the other person hit you back it is called self defense, you bloody idiot."
Saying what he had to say, the two who talked to him with tears, Hermione because she felt insulted, and Ron because of the punch to the balls. he turned to the left, trying to walk away, when another fist was about to meet his face, this time he ducked to the side and used his full strength to kick the attacker in the ribs, making him smash into the wall, and by the sound of it, cracking them.
This time it wasn't only tears and squeaky voice that came out of the boy, but full on crying.
Which was when he realized the attacker wasn't the redhead but his best friend.
Of course with his luck, it would be that moment that the gargoyle moved again and the voice of the headmaster was heard.
"Marcus? What happened? Who did it?"
'Just my luck.' Harry thought when the other three Gryffindors pointed their fingers at him.
Severus's POV
As the students were leaving the headmaster's office, Severus was thinking about his little Slytherin.
The boy managed to keep an innocent and naive look on his face but he Severus knew it in his bones that the story the boy told wasn't 100% true.
There is no way he just happen to be in the right place in the right time to catch the group of Gryffindors is impossible, especially with the fact he looked into Ms. Granger's mind while she was confessing, and he hasn't seen any shadow of mr. Peverel in her memory of the day.
But as much as he would like knowing the true story of the boy, the boy knows basic Occlumency and would know if someone got into his mind, something he knew was the reason why Dumbledore didn't ask him to escort the cat-girl to the hospital wing.
And there was no way he would be the one to start talking about that subject.
"I can't believe you wouldn't kick them out of school! They stole ingredients worth hundreds of galleons!"
"You know I can't do it, Severus. Marcus is our only hope against Voldemort and he can't do it alone, he needs his friends."
He sneered at that, prophecy had ways to fulfill itself without outside help.
"Well, I won't allow them to get back into my potions class!"
"Yes, you would!" Dumbledore raised his voice, and for a second he could see something he only saw a few times.
He could see the man behind the mask of a loving grandfather and behind the mask of a mercifull yet firm war leader.
He could see the man who told a young man who was sent by his bullies to die by the hand of a werewolf only to be saved by them that "it was a joke", a man who condone making a man to get tortured just to make sure his cover as a spy isn't reviled, a man who tell others he believe in second chances and in love but when someone comes to him, begging to save his loved one and him, he laugh in his face, a man who truly believe in the greater good and is ready to make others do whatever it take to accomplish it- as long as his hands are clean.
But like the other times, this gleam of personality, which made him detest the headmaster, disappeared and the wise look returned.
"Yes, you would." this time he said it quietly.
"They need to learn it and you need to have a way to interact with Marcus when Voldemort returns."
Knowing this was his chance to get another thing from the headmaster, after a few seconds Severus said "fine, but the private lessons stop! He doesn't deserve them and I don't trust him in the lab."
When he saw the man sigh, he knew he got his wishes.
"Acceptable. Now, there was another thing I wanted to discuss with you about, Harry Peverel."
He really hoped the old man forgot about it.
"What about him?"
"I looked into his mind while we were here, and what I saw was deeply disturbing."
"Really?" 'Could he have gotten better in Occlumency without outside help?'
"What did you see"
"His memory of his adoptive parent's corpses."
"His parants died?"
"No, his adoptive one did. James and Lily are very much alive."
"You know what I mean, when did that happen?" 'Are those the people I saw Dead in his mind on Halloween?'
"Half a month before his first year."
"And why wasn't I told about that?" Severus was truly enraged.
"I didn't see how was it relevant, they weren't his real parents and I told you about James and Lily cutting ties with him."
It was this kind of idiocy Snape hated the most in wizards. The kind that he tried to be part of when he joined the death eaters and the kind he tried to get away from when joining Dumbledore's order.
The magical world has the idiotic idea that blood matters the most.
The blood purists believe only those who has magical blood in them matter and only those who are pure bloods are truly important, while the 'light' side has the absurd notion those from dark families will have to be dark, unless of course they sort into Gryffindor or marry a muggleborn.
But Snape knew the truth since the first time his father hit him and his mother didn't say anything. He knew it since the time a young redheaded girl became his first friend, he knew it since he saw his pure blood so called friends killing family members for not following the dark lord, and he knew it since his first friend became the person she is today, a person he dispise - Blood doesn't matter, family are the people you love and that love you, which means the boy lost his parents and had no one to talk to about that.
"How did they die?"
"They were killed."
"Wait, so where does he lives now?"
There was an awkward pause for 10 seconds.
"I'm not sure, as his letters go to the post office in Diagon ally in the summer.
I was planning to put this year a tracking charm on his clothes to find out."
'This is just getting better and better.'
Severus couldn't talk with Dumbledore about this right now, he needed time to think how to approach the boy, as it has been over a year since their death.
"So this is what you wanted to tell me? That it affects him more then you expected?"
"No, I wanted to ask if you taught the boy Occlumency, as this memory was the only one on the surface while you were telling about Ms. Granger's cattish situation and he was smiling."
This made Severus go through a couple of stages in his feelings.
First, he was proud, as it meant Mr. Peverel managed to perfectly conceal his emotions, then he was worried as it meant the boy was probably kept thinking about the deaths of his parants, which quickly turned into astonishment as what Dumbledore said sinked in and he understood the boy didn't only detect the invasion into his mind, but pulled out a memory that would make Dumbledore get out quickly enough for the man to be unable to see anything else.
'While he hasn't reached the point of creating false memories, and he should have pulled a memory which won't give away his Occlumency, he did progressed extremely well on his own.'
As Severus didn't have any good excuse about how the boy knows Occlumency, and he knew that telling the truth would only get him in some shit he didn't want to be in, Severus was about to deny any knowledge about the boy's Occlumency.
But just as he opened his mouth, the gargoyle in the office's door shook and a cry was heard from outside of it, sounding a lot like the Potter brat.
A quick look between them, and the headmaster ran down the stairs, the potion's professor just behind him, a little astonished at the speed the old man ran at.
"Marcus? What happened? Who did it?"
Severus heard Dumbledore says just as he arrived to the end of the stairs and saw three of the Gryffindors, out of which only one looked fine, as the girl had cat ears, tail and tears, and the redhead was holding his ballads with one hand and also had tears in his face, even though Severus believed it was for a different reason than his bushy haired friend.
All three of them was pointing their finger at his now even more of a favorite Slytherin, as he didn't only saved him from giving an answer before he had time to think about the right answer, he also kicked the 'boy who didn't have enough decency to die's ass.
'I really need to think about a way to thank the boy for today.' He thought as he helped Dumbledore take three out of four of the Gryffindors to get help from Poppy.
