“Eat.” Snape stood behind Ron, his eyes focused on Harry across the table.
“What do you think I’m doing here?” Harry gestures sarcastically to the table where food is piled high.
“Pushing your mash around the plate and pretending, now eat.” He doesn’t let Harry get another word in and he stalks off towards the head table.
Harry scoffs and mutters ‘bloody bat’ under his breath as he shoves a spoonful into his mouth. Hermione and Ron were both silent, looking at him in surprise.
“Mate….why did Snape just come by to tell you to *eat*?” He stared at him incredulously and Harry just shrugged.
“He seems to think I have an..a problem. And is sticking his abnormally large nose in my business.” He rolls his eyes and ignores the looks on their faces. The meal passes easily after that, and Harry even manages to not look at the head table, as if he was seeking praise for eating.
Pathetic.
The walk to the tower was filled with chatter and he allows himself to relax as the portrait hole comes into sight.
Foolish.
“Mr Potter,” Harry’s shoulders tensed and he turned to face the defense professor.
“Professor Umbridge.” His voice was tight but he gestured for his friends to head on, no reason for them to stick around for this.
“Just here to check on you,” she gave an irritating titter and covered her mouth almost girlishly. He hated her so much.
“Check on me, Professor?” Before he could think to react she reached out and grabbed his wrist, flipping his hand around and staring at the area where a scar was beginning to form.
“Hmm,” she presses her thumb hard against the forming words and he clenches his jaw as to not wince or pull away, “another-“
“Potter.” Snape turns the corner and eyes the two of them, his face carefully blank. “You are about to be late to your detention with me.” Umbridge drops his hand and steps away with a sweet smile towards Snape.
“Severus, I was just about to hand out my own detention to Mr Potter.”
“You will have to have him a different day,” he barely spares her a glance and steps around her, gripping Harry’s shoulder and steering him away from the portrait and towards the dungeons.
Once they were out of ear shot Harry jerked his shoulder out of Snape’s grip and glared up at him.
“I don’t need you to save me,” he sneered at the man and stopped walking.
“Your hand tells me other stories,continue to my office.”
“I have work to do.”
“You have detention”
“For what?!”
“Disrespect to a professor,”
“I was nothing but polite to her!”
“To me, potter, or have you already forgotten the first thing you said to me?” Snape raises an eyebrow at him and then nods toward his office door.
Harry sets his jaw before stalking off and slamming the door open and tosses his bag onto a chair. “I can handle her on my own”
“Your definition of handle leaves much to be desired.”
Harry glares at him and then looks away. “I don’t need your pity.”
“Pity?”
“Ever since…that…day you keep being weird. People are noticing.”
“Gods forbid people see someone caring for you”
“Caring? You don’t care about me.”
“Oh please, Potter, enlighten me more of my own feelings." Harry growls at his words and tugs a hand through his hair.
“You just feel bad! Poor Potter and his sad life. I preferred when you were a cunt-“
“Language”
“-to me every day.” He finished his words without acknowledging the interruption.
Snape sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, sitting in his office chair and watching Harry pace about.
“You cannot mean that.”
“Of course I do! I don’t- I don’t know what to do with you when you’re telling me to eat or sleep or checking in on me!”
He looked genuinely distressed, Severus observed. The thought of him actually checking in on him, of him making sure he was caring for himself, seemed to be making him more upset than when he had thrown him against a wall.
Gods the child truly had some issues.
“I will not stop.” Harry made a wounded sound and stopped pacing, looking towards Snape.
“Why?” Their eyes locked and Harry could tell the moment Snape saw whatever was flying through his mind. “Stop that.”
“It is not my fault you project your thoughts for just anyone to see.”
“Well you were shit at trying to teach me how to stop that.”
“Whatever you are doing is beyond anything Occlumency can help.” Harry just scoffed and began pacing again.
“I think you are still trying to punish yourself for something,” Snape spoke up after another moment of silence.
“Excuse me?” His pacing stops again for a moment so he can look at Snape with a raised eyebrow.
“You have allowed Umbridge to put you in detention after detention for unfair reasons and you have taken it time and time again without telling anyone.”
“I’m not going to let her know she’s gotten to me.”
“So this is about your pride?” Snape sneers at him and Harry glares right back.
“McGonagall told me to keep my head down when I tried to tell her. I didn’t even WANT to tell you, you bloody bastard.” The last sentence was snarled at him.
“Language, Potter.”
“I don’t give a bloody FUCK about my language,” he finally stilled and fell back into one of the chairs across from Snape. “The ministry sent her. There’s nothing to be done about it. Drop it.”
“I will not ‘drop it’. I have told you that I am taking it upon myself to insure your well-being. And that includes not allowing you to be abused in these halls. Or outside of them.”
“I am not abused,” his voice was harsh with his denial but Snape just raised an eyebrow at him.
“Mistreated then.”
Harry huffs and looks away from him, cutting off the flashes of hots pans and flying fists. The feeling of hunger stretching on for days.
“Harry.”
“I hate it when you do that."
“It is the only way to get your attention.” Proving him right, Harry looked back at him. “I will not allow this to continue.” His voice was steady, sure. “You will not serve another detention with her. And you will not return to your relatives this summer.”
Harry shakes his head and stands. He grabs his bag and steps backwards towards the door. “You’ll get bored. You’ll realize this is a lost cause. I am a lost cause.” He left then, not saying around to hear whatever Snape had to say.
“I have misjudged you, Harry. And we all have failed you.”
He waves his wand and locks the door. He would help him, Harry can resist it as much as he wants but Severus is not giving up on him. Not now that he knows everything going on. War be damned, Severus would fulfill the only oath he is under that matters.
Protecting Harry Potter.