Serpent's wing 21
Well and truly overdue I should think... I'm trying something different with the way this chapter is written. Let me know if you think it's easier to read. It's not really been betaed so be warned. As usual, any and all suggestions welcome.
AC196 Dec-11
He fell out of his deep trance with a violent start. He sat stiffly on the bed he’d been assigned and only after several seconds of shocked confusion did he attempt to reassert control over his body. Reluctantly, his breathing evened out and his heart rate slowed but the effects of the unexpected adrenaline remained in his thoughts, making them slower, less rational and harder to control than they should have been.
He had dreamed and he hadn’t technically been asleep. He shouldn’t have dreamed at all in such a meditative state which is why he used it more than sleep. The subject matter was as unwarranted as his dreams tended to be, previews of possibilities that he would kill and die to prevent eventuating. So much had been lost to make the current peace, he could not let what happened in his dreams happen in reality. Not even if it meant he had to kill another little girl to ensure it.
~*~*~*~
AC196 Dec-13
The youth stepped aside before Draco Malfoy’s hand had a chance to touch his shoulder. He turned to stare coldly at the offending appendage until the younger teen drew it back. The blond sniffed impatiently.
“Lower those hackles, Mudblood. I was just trying to get your attention.”
“Do not touch me,” he ordered the other. The reactions he had been desensitising had returned to the extremes he had possessed when in active combat zones. Only others with equally heightened abilities could approach him in such a state and only because their own reflexes enabled them to evade his potentially lethal responses. In his experience, only his fellow pilots and a small number of combat veterans he had encountered possessed the necessary abilities and none of the individuals were present at Hogwarts.
Three mornings before, he had acknowledged his state was that dangerous that he could no longer participate in the one on one training with the Weasley Twins and had since relegated himself strictly to observation as the two sparred each other. He could spot many deficiencies from the sidelines but that was not an adequate replacement for hands-on instruction. The current situation was not optimal for teaching. If there had been an alternative option, he would have recommended that his students find another teacher.
He was very much aware that he was not in a combat scenario. Hogwarts was, to a certain extent, safe and, even when it was not, the situations he would encounter did not require lethal force. Neither his instincts nor his body agreed with what his mind knew. He was exercising extreme control of himself at all times but even he could not do this every moment of every day. He had discovered that his humanity was asserting itself in a very undesirable manner as the constant press of students and teachers around him made it that much harder for him to remain under control. Inevitably, the older the Slytherins would attempt to resume the persecution that Draco Malfoy had begun or even just attempt to assert their dominance over him. His own reaction was no longer predictable and that made him aware that it was almost at a point where he should designate his mission as a failure and retreat before the damage was irretrievable.
It was not yet at that point but it was nearer than he was comfortable with and he had considered whether he should simply not return from the winter break. The situation he expected to develop in the Earth Sphere over that period would provide the final decision but, until that time, he still needed to endure Hogwarts which mean a collection of stresses which persisted in inflicting themselves on his already taxed system.
It had made him more antisocial than ever. All but Ardagh Lithaniel, Beth Winton and Mara Chang of the Slytherin first years now avoided him. The Weasley twins persisted in their unarmed defence lessons but had ceased their joking, a definite indication of something wrong, even to him. And, yet, Draco Malfoy persisted in attempting to invade his personal space despite having the experience to know not to. Considering their history, he had good reason to expect the blonde to be involved when the situation reached critical and nothing he had done to keep a distance between them had thus far succeeded. The demands made by Professor Snape acted only to keep them in proximity and he was considering attempting to explain the situation to the teacher in an attempt to prevent himself from doing something undesirable.
In the meantime, he still had to contend with Draco Malfoy’s almost constant presence out of class.
“Touchy aren’t you, Mudblood?” Draco drawled with what could only be identified by the former pilot as derision.
He could endure that though, verbal insults were nothing he could not ignore, it was when the interactions began to become physical that his instabilities would reveal themselves. “You desired something?” he replied, unaffected.
Draco sniffed disdainfully. “You haven’t been eating in the hall again.”
“Aa,” he agreed without hesitating.
“I haven’t been able to find you around meal times either.”
“Aa.”
“You’ve been avoiding me!” the blonde accused heatedly.
He saw no need to deny it. “Aa.” The other’s face flushed angrily and he watched the clenched fists warily. It was a small measure of relief that the blonde’s wand seemed to have been elsewhere and was not currently another factor to consider.
“Argh!” Draco shouted, throwing his clenched fists up, his eyes following them intently. “When you’re failing every spell casting course you take, I’m suffering through Professor Montague’s apparently nonsensical idea of what muggles do and Professor Snape is on both our cases, why?!”
He considered explaining some of his concerns but he doubted Malfoy would either understand or even really listen. With nothing he saw worth saying, he decided to say nothing at all. When it became apparent to his companion that he wouldn’t answer, the Malfoy growled.
“Annoying… aggravating… stupid! You… you mudblood!” More almost incoherent descriptors were spat at him but no hint of the vicious and violent anger that Malfoy sometimes demonstrated surfaced. After a few minutes, the ranting trailed off and the fifth year glared at him, the anger fading as he seemed to notice something about him.
“You don’t look well,” he pointed out.
He was not surprised by this. His insomnia was becoming progressively worse, his stress levels were rising and some of that would have started being evident in his physical condition despite both training and control of facial expression. “Hn.”
Malfoy leaned closer and he tensed. “You’re having nightmares again, aren’t you?”
He stared back coldly. He was aware that Malfoy had noticed his interrupted sleeping patterns earlier in the school year but he had never used them against him prior to attacking him. If Malfoy was wise, he would not try to do so now either.
“Have you seen Madam Pomfrey?” he was asked, “Or Professor Snape…. He’s been giving you potions…”
Potions that Malfoy had attempted sabotage, unsuccessfully due to interference by the house elves, though Malfoy was unlikely to know that. He had to wonder if Malfoy had decided what his opinions actually were and which parts of what he had once thought was actually the influence of his wand. Until he knew that, Malfoy’s motives were uncertain and every action was suspect.
He did not require more suspicion in his already paranoid mind. “It is none of your concern,” he informed the blond in a tone meant to end the conversation. The blond did pale and step back, a small relief to his frayed nerves, but he did not leave.
“Whatever,” Malfoy agreed, swallowing in a manner that indicated anxiety. “But what about my tutoring? And you need it desperately as well!”
He did not need more attempts at anything that would only result in failure and aggravate the training J had instilled in him. However, he did have a responsibility to ensure that the other student was properly educated, even if he wanted to spend some time trying to reinforce his weakening self-control.
“Do you have the necessary study materials with you?” he demanded, knowing that the blond was carrying at least some of his books in the bag he had with him.
“Yes, of course. I wouldn’t waste my time co-”
“Then follow.” He stalked to the end of the hallway they had been blocking and through the passage behind the portrait at the end. Malfoy’s exclamation was rude as he hurried to catch up and then he said no more as he led him to the top of the astronomy tower. Even when their path crossed that of the irrational professor of divination, the blond just raised a blond brow and followed him out of ranger of her incoherent rambling. He took the most deserted route he could devise. As it was daylight and the ambient temperature was approaching freezing and the weather was threatening and early snowfall, no one was present in the area that classes were usually held.
The cold, while debilitating in the long term, was something he could endure for up to two hours without deleterious side effects. It would, in the meantime, actually serve as a balm for his conditioning that, while it could not easily cope with a magical school while stressed, could assert itself so that he could function efficiently in the low temperatures despite inadequate clothing. The small measure of successful self-control would help offset all of the threats to his trained control on the larger scale.
Malfoy just swore, pulled his robes closer and cast what he recognised as a charm designed for warming on himself, he did not offer to do the same for him and he did not ask him to.
“Very well,” he began, “what do you wish to discuss?”
“Muggle transport,” Malfoy declared, fumbling for some blank parchment, a quill and some ink in his bag.
“Land, sea, air or space?” he asked for clarification.
Malfoy blinked at him in surprise. “Space? What’s that?”
He regarded the other with a small amount of confusion. “Space meaning the transport utilised out of the atmosphere and between Earth, the moon and the colonies.”
Malfoy stared at him in disbelief. “Colonies? What colonies?” And I thought they’d only just started using, what are they called? Roc-kettes or something? Are you implying that they do that kind of thing on a routine basis?”
He was justifiably suspicious of Malfoy’s ignorance. The Weasley twins certainly knew of more than the early attempts to leave the atmosphere that had occurred well over two hundred and fifty years ago. “The first manned moon landing succeeded in 1969 by a nation called America.”
“America? No, don’t bother explaining some old muggle country, but that was over two centuries ago!”
“Human presence in spac3e began well over two hundred years ago. In the real world, decades after the first moon landing, the calendar was changed to reflect the new step in human development when the first space colony was established at Lagrange point one. It is currently AC, after colony, 196.”
“You’re lying, muggles could not possibly have made it that far. They’re not capable of that kind of skill!”
While still sceptical, his ability to read people still uncertain, all sign seemed to indicate the other was honest in his surprise. He would need to analyse this new development later, at the moment, he needed to get through what was obviously going to be a long lesson..
~*~*~*~
AC 196 Dec-14
This was not George’s favourite way to spend a Saturday morning, especially not a really, really cold one but he finished the stretches in his cool down, glad that the lesson was over. On the upside, he’d only had to fight Fred recently and Fred, and him as well George admitted, did not have the sheer physical strength that Hero did. That meant the punches that connected, and there were less of those too, hurt less. Of course, they were still getting at an unwizardly hour in the morning and that showed in the naps they’d started taking in their spare moments to preserve their energy for late-night pranking but fortunately, they had moved the lessons indoors now that winter had arrived. The exercise was also starting to pay off in regards to their general fitness levels not to mention their physiques. That was not something George or his twin had considered but they definitely enjoyed the feminine approval they were receiving. That didn’t make the process of acquiring it any more pleasant, though.
“Done!” he announced, pulling his robes and cloak on, despite still feeling warm enough not to need them.
“Me too,” Fred seconded, doing the same.
Hero nodded and continued with his push-ups and George watched for a few minutes with a fascination that never seemed to fade. Hero was like a golem, he never seemed to get tired, though the shadows under his eyes would imply otherwise, and he never slowed when he went though his own exercise routine. George wondered if he and Fred would ever be able to make it through the same series and guessed it would take years, if ever, before they reached that stage.
“How’ve the other snakes been treating you lately, Hero?” Fred asked. “You haven’t seemed to need any spells removed.”
“They avoid me.”
That was good news, George supposed. Although he had to admit he was surprised that things had settled so easily. A month without Malfoy making things worse could do that, he guessed. It wouldn’t do Hero much good in developing those people skills, though.
“Are you okay with that?” he pressed, “I know you probably don’t want any as fiends but they are your housemates. Being given the cold shoulder can be a bit rough.”
“Some of the first years still talk to me. And Draco Malfoy.”
George snorted. Joy.
“The rest are nervous because I have been… irritable of late.”
George blinked and exchanged a look with his twin. If that didn’t say something about the state of things in the Slytherin dorms, Fred was a Hufflepuff! “Do they have reason to be nervous?” he asked hesitantly. “Does it have something to do with why you want spar with us yourself anymore, Hero?”
“Aa,” the Slytherin answered, not pausing in his push-ups and he had to have done over two hundred already. “My self control is currently of uncertain status and I do not wish to test it. It would be unacceptable if a student were injured because I overreacted.”
George did not doubt that it would be bad if it had happened. He had seen Hero in action, he knew that Hero did not need magic to hurt someone. The Slytherins would not and, even if they were warned, would probably regard the warning as a challenge, making things even worse.
“What’s wrong?” Fred asked.
George thought about it and answered instead. “He’s not sleeping again.”
Hero agreed after a pause. “Aa.”
“We take it, you’ve seen Pomfrey about getting a potion or something.”
“There are only so many potions and sleeping aides I can use. I have almost reached the limit,” Hero admitted calmly.
“So what are you going to do then?” George insisted.
Fred nodded. “You can’t do this to yourself forever!”
Hero finished his push ups and stood. His blue eyes were definitely tired as he looked at them. “It will hopefully be resolved after the term ends.”
“You’re not staying here over Christmas, are you, Hero?” Fred asked thoughtfully.
“Iie.”
George sighed and hoped that whatever Hero planned to do would help him. He did like the little, in stature only, Slytherin. “So how’re things with Malfoy going?” he asked, changing the subject.
Hero frowned, letting them see his perturbation. “He is ignorant of things I did not expect and I am concerned that he is merely lying for unknown reasons.”
George had to raise his eyebrows. Not that it was beyond the arrogant little snot, but he didn’t think Malfoy was playing games like that anymore, or at least not yet.
“What didn’t he know?” Fred asked, just as curious as George.
“Approximately the centuries of history regarding space exploration and colonisation,” Hero answered suspiciously and George had to force himself not to laugh at the Slytherin’s frank disbelief.
“Ah, that’s not so surprising, Hero,” Fred chuckled.
“Malfoys like to act like the purest of the pure,” George added. “They don’t lower themselves to learn about muggles.”
Fred snorted. “He’s probably the first one in his family to even take muggle studies.”
“Besides, I bet you’ll find most wizards don’t know much about muggle history,” George continued, “Not important enough to them.”
“And since magic is apparently hard to do in space,” Fred added, “It’s even less important. To most, space is something only muggles should worry about.”
“And who cares what muggles do?” George mock-sneered.
Hero looked at them quizzically. “I am surprised by that attitude but it seems prevalent.”
George shrugged. “We only really learned about it because of Dad.”
“We’ve told you have his muggle obsession,” Fred interjected.
“Muggle gadgets, anyway,” George specified. “He did go through a stage about space technology but lost interest after he couldn’t get a hold of a shuttle.”
“And he did try.” Fred and George grinned, remembering their father’s attempts and their mother’s exasperation. The muggles had not been accommodating to the Weasley patriarch.
“So he eventually went back to his plugs.”
“I think he got the Ford Anglia after that.”
And that went a long way to explaining that car, George thought. “But it meant we learnt some things most other purebloods don’t, well, British ones anyway.” Fred paused. “I think there were some Chinese wizards that actually went to live in space, but it’s not something we were ever taught about in class.”
“Hn. So I have discovered.” Hero didn’t sound impressed.
George shrugged. “It’s a magic school, Hero. If it’s not magic, Hogwarts probably doesn’t teach it.”
“Which may be criminally negligent as secondary schooling is supposed to play a role in preparing students for life as an adult outside an institution.” Hero sounded quite dissatisfied. “Considering the state of the education offered, I am no surprised in the quality, or lack thereof, of critical thinking and logic evidenced in this society.”
George snorted, not particularly insulted on behalf of either his school or his world because it was just Hero being Hero. He wouldn’t be surprised if there was a lot of truth in what Hero was saying too. “We’re wizards, we don’t use logic.”
“That is not rational.”
“We don’t need ration either!” Fred grinned.
Hero smoothed the disgust off of his face. “I do not know how your society functions considering prevalent attitudes,” he told them flatly.
“Hn,” Fred murmured. “It must be magic.”
“That is nonsense,” Hero disagreed.
“On day, your scepticism is going to get you into trouble, Hero,” Fred warned him teasingly. “And it certainly makes things more difficult for everyone at times.”
“Hn.”
George chuckled at the very disbelieving grunt. “Ah well, I wanna go back to bed,” he told Hero, “See you tomorrow?”
“Aa.” Hero nodded and starting doing sit ups.
Knowing they would get no more of a farewell than that, the twins left but had no sooner closed the door to their converted training room behind them than they had spotted Draco Malfoy himself. He made no move to approach the door they had closed so they just watched him carefully as they slowly moved away. To their surprise he followed them.
After a couple of minutes of his silent but persistent presence, Fred confronted him. “Oi! Malfoy! What’s your problem?”
Malfoy regarded them arrogantly and George wondered if, considering Malfoy’s current troubles, he and his twin could get away with rearranging that snooty profile a bit. Well that or using him as a test subject for some of their longer-lasting wheezes.
“I want to discuss the mudblood with you.”
George narrowed his eyes, irritation becoming something a little angrier. “You had better not be bothering Hermione again, Malfoy!”
The blond twit’s eyes widened in genuine surprise which startled George out of his aggravation. “Granger? Who cares about her?”
“Then what ar-” George started.
Malfoy cut him off impatiently. “I don’t mean your mudblood! I was referring to my mudblood!”
George heard his brother choke and had to check what he thought he’d heard. “Excuse me?”
Malfoy sneered. “You heard me, I’m not going to repeat myself because you lack the basic brainpower to comprehend simple English.”
“Your mudblood…?” George repeated it for him.
The blond had the grace to look uncomfortable. “If you listen to the rest of my house…”
Not that that was something George was accustomed to doing. “And that has what to do with us?” he demanded in annoyance.
Malfoy rolled his eyes to tell them he thought they were being slow. “You are,” he sneered, “His, dare I say it, ‘friends’, or as close to as a socially retarded mudblood can have-”
“Get to the point, Malfoy!”
The blond sniffed derisively. “I would if I were not constantly being interrupted…” Fred and George loomed over the slighter wizard, though they had to rely more on their recently increased muscle mass than height, in an attempt to intimidate him. To give Malfoy his due, they weren’t completely successful. He seemed to acknowledge that they were physically more powerful than him and magically too, considering they had him outnumbered, but it didn’t seem to scare him.
“Please,” he retorted scornfully, “Two irritable Gryffindors are hardly that terrifying when I have all of the sixth and seventh year Slytherins completely pissed off and out for my blood.”
George stepped back and quit posturing. Malfoy was right, he did have bigger problems. “So how does that relate to us?”
“It doesn’t,” Malfoy replied, “What does is that, for some reason, you have not only struck up a friendly association with a Slytherin noticed for his… ability to be difficult-” George snorted at that delicate description of Hero and Malfoy ignored him. “But are also Gryffindors, Weasley ones at that, and noted for your loyalty and al that rot.”
“I think you’re confusing us with Hufflepuffs, Malfoy,” Fred remarked sourly.
Malfoy waved it off. “Same difference. Either way, you’re disgustingly sentimental where your friends are concerned. I thought perhaps it may do some good to mention to you, his oh-so-precious friends, that the mudblood is not sleeping.”
“We already know that,” George informed the brad coldly. He did not appreciate Malfoy’s snotty attitude, especially when the blond was probably contributing to the problem.
“Not sleeping. At. All.” Malfoy clarified, his face surprisingly serious. “I do share a dorm with him, he can’t cast a spell worth a damn, let alone set up a privacy ward. He used to meditate when he couldn’t sleep. Last night he couldn’t even do that.”
George listened and worried despite the source of the information. “What do you expect us to do?” he asked when Malfoy finished.
The Slytherin stared at him. “Whatever you Gryffindors do when one of you wakes screaming from nightmares. Get him to talk about it and then do the hugging thing or whatever it is you do.”
“IT can’t have escaped your notice that Hero is a Slytherin,” Fred pointed out, “He’s not exactly the type to cry on someone’s shoulder either.”
“He’s abnormal for a Slytherin, too,” Malfoy muttered petulantly.
George snorted. Like that was news. “What do you care anyway, Malfoy? He’s a ‘mudblood’, remember? Scum to scrape off your expensive shoes. Someone you tried to torture if the rumours are true.”
“House solidarity.”
“That would be more believable if you hadn’t just admitted over a quarter of Slytherin were out to get you,” Fred told him pointedly.
“Snape, then. He’ll make certain my life’s not worth living if I don’t take care of the mudblood.”
“More believable,” George gave him. “If we thought you wouldn’t find a way to worm out of any responsibility.”
Malfoy glared at him, fist clenched around his wand and both Fred and George braced themselves for an attack. It never came. Instead, Malfoy merely snarled malevolently, “Well then, how about that, if I decide I want the mudblood crawling and crying at my feet, it will because of what I do to him, not because he has a few bad dreams. Do you believe that?”
“Yeah,” George assured him, “That sounds about right to me.”
Fred nodded, “But we’re Gryffindors and Weasley ones at that.”
“It’s bred into us to think the worst of a Malfoy.”
“Snape is probably more likely though.”
“If we were to be objective,” George qualified.
“If we were to be objective,” Fred agreed.
George eyed the wand. “Are you going to try to curse us?”
“Both of us?”
It was as if the Malfoy hadn’t realised he was holding his wand. He looked down and started, almost dropping it. He paled, confusing the twins with the look of fear on his face. As much as they might have wished otherwise, that expression was not due to them. They did not say anything when Malfoy shoved the wand into his robes.
“No, I’m not going to curse you,” he told them and then added hastily, “Not that I don’t want to.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” Fred assured him.
Malfoy sniffed. “So you’ll take care of the mudblood?”
George twitched, Malfoy’s use of that term was a little irritating. “Not much we can do,” he replied coolly.
Fred nodded. “Just give him space and let him work through it.”
“That’s a point,” George realised and addressed the blond prat seriously. “Give him space. Don’t crowd him or touch him. Get the other snakes to leave him alone too.”
“That’ll be enough to help? Most don’t speak to him anyway.” Malfoy didn’t look as though he believed them.
George tried to explain what he understood of the situation. “Hero likes his space. If you crowd him, he has to be more careful so that he doesn’t accidentally break someone’s arm…”
“Although, if you consider how’s he been treated recently, he’s just as likely to break someone’s neck,” Fred remarked.
“And stopping himself from those justified reactions takes concentration,” George continued.
“All the time,” Fred added, “And that makes him irritable and tense.”
“Which makes it hard for him to relax at all.”
“Which makes the no sleep thing worse.”
“But how does that help with his nightmares?” Malfoy insisted.
“It doesn’t,” Fred admitted. “It just means no one gets hurt in the meantime.”
“Which means he doesn’t get another thing to stress about.”
Malfoy regarded them thoughtfully. “You think he’s really that dangerous?”
“You tell us,” George drawled. “You aren’t half bad with a wand-”
“When you pry it out of your arse-”
“How’d he do-”
“When you tried him?”
Malfoy reddened. “I hate you Weasleys!”
“But you get the point?” Fred persisted.
“Yes, I get your point. I did think that you’d do more than just tell me to back off him. So much for Gryffindor friendships.” Malfoy snorted and stomped off.
The twins let him have the last word and go in peace. “Well, that was different,” Fred muttered when the blond was out of earshot.
“Think it’ll help?” George wondered.
“Hope so. Interesting bit of news about Malfoy and the higher years, though.”
“Verily. Going to be interesting to watch even though I don’t know who I’d rather have come out on top.”
“Some of them can be downright nasty.”
“Not good for Hero if they win.”
“Not that Malfoy was much better.”
“Strange that.”
“Hmm?”
“I do believe he might be growing a conscience.”
“I think I saw hints of a backbone, too.”
“Huh.”
“Mmm”
~*~*~*~
AC196 Dec-18
He was weary enough that he had begun making avoidable errors. It annoyed him but there seemed to be no alternative to simply enduring the exhaustion and continuing his daily routine regardless. With or without potions, his sleep was disturbed. The images that welled up from his subconscious mind were horrifying to even his scarred psyche. Blood and death were the least of the demons that haunted him, by far the worst was the persistent, taunting image of his failure and sin. Time after time, he watched himself lost to his training and commit acts that, in his right mind, he knew he could never excuse, no matter what the expedients of war might say.
He would fail to prevent war and, so, he would spread it. He failed to save Relena and, by his hand, she died. He failed to support his fellow pilots and before him they fell. The world died in a conflagration begun by Wing’s beam cannon. The truly terrible thing, the factor that made these unending nightmares so unacceptable, was that, in each instance, he saw and understood the progression that his dream-self followed and so knew that the abhorrent outcomes were not impossible.
And, still, sleep drew him. Despite knowing what awaited him if he lost consciousness, he found himself betrayed by a body finally nearing its limits. His judgement was impaired, as evidenced by things as simple as misremembering his class schedule. His coordination was suffering and he suspected the house-elves were subtly helping him in small ways. He considered himself fortunate that the other students in Slytherin were all giving him a wide berth, whether of their own will or because a few individuals were running interference. Ardagh’s little coterie of first years fielded the younger students and he suspected Draco Malfoy had enlisted some of their dorm mates for their aid. It was a small relief of the stresses on him but nothing helped with the noise.
There were children almost everywhere and they were all loud in often inconceivable ways. Laughing, yelling, crying, it all battered against his senses. There were flashes of light from spells and odd smells from all sorts of causes with so many pubescent and prepubescent humans housed together. Everything had combined to degenerate a bad tension headache into a migraine that would not end.
At times, despite his formidable tolerance for pain, it was all he could do to just listen to the blood pounding in his ears. Only that same unequalled tolerance allowed him to function in any capacity at all.
If he had been able to think clearly, he would have decided not to attend his classes that day. He should have instead used the time to get away from the student masses and regain some of his equilibrium. He would, perhaps, have considered requesting a headache potion from Professor Snape but, as unclear as his thoughts had become, he considered all potions as ineffectual for him as sleeping potions. So, trailing behind his fellow first years, he was late to his defence class.
He did hear the bell that signalled the start of the lesson, but, as he was in the door and just trying to find his seat his disregarded it. Just as he disregarded the professor’s annoyed comment. His situational awareness was becoming ever narrower and, had he been fully functional, his status would have immediately been identified as critically impaired and worsening. As it was, he had decided to endure for the remaining few days of class.
At less than optima performance, he may have been, but what capabilities he had left were enough to detect the large threat that had just moved into unarmed striking distance. He could not currently identify it, but he did recognise it as a previous threat not fully neutralised. Its posture and voice were not non-aggressive and he lost control of his reflexes when a large hand closed over his arm.
He slipped within the other’s reach, snapping at the arm attached to the hand in a moved designed to shatter the wrist. His fatigue dulled his speed and the other was able to evade the attack with no damage and then it growled as it attempted a second, more violent, grab.
He finally recalled the identity of the aggressor as Simba, a non-human with superior senses, speed and strength. He possessed the advantage in size and reach and, due to his current disabilities, likely in speed as well. He would need to end the encounter quickly.
Adrenaline had begun to offset the dullness of exhaustion and he allowed his mind to fall into the state where there was only him and the enemy. The enemy acted with strong, smooth and experienced moves. He blocked initially, quickly gaining a pattern from which to predict the other’s attacks. Then he left the defensive and fell into an offensive patter of his own. His tactics were instantly calculated to strike at the weakest points perceived on the enemy.
The enemy growled and snarled and raged. He was silent. He accepted the damage he could not avoid and needed to take if he wished to win. The enemy seemed to want to restrain him, capture him alive. He did not care if he lived so long as his enemy was destroyed. His ribs were cracked, his side was severely bruised and two of his fingers were broken but his knife was paced for a perfect strike to the enemy’s heart.
“Duo!”
Someone called to 02 but he had not known that the other pilot was nearby. That was advantageous, retreat w0uld be more likely to succeed with support.
Mad blue eyes met feral copper and the taste of blood filled his mouth. He could not breathe and his vision had turned red, the red of fire as the world burned around him. His knife began to move.
“Duo Maxwell!” Elizabeth Winton screamed as she pulled at the huge fist tightening around his throat.
Sensibility returned and blue eyes widened as hints of rationality began to win through. The hand hold the knife fell back in retreat as he began to realise that Simba was not his enemy. His larynx was still being crushed and the knife flashed, slicing through the teacher’s hand, some of his own jaw and would have removed several of the professor’s fingers had he not flung him across the room. He twisted in mid-air so that his feet hit the far wall first. His knees bent to absorb the shock of the impact and then he pushed off, throwing himself into the direction of the door. He hit the ground, somersaulting before he rolled to his feet and ran. The class behind him was still screaming and he heard Simba begin to follow him but it was a simple matter to lose the larger fighter in the maze of halls and secret passageways that Hogwarts contained.
He did not stop running when he knew he was free of pursuit. Eventually these halls would be filled with students again and he simply could not cope with their press at that time. What he had feared happening had eventuated and he had almost killed a man unnecessarily. He would have died too, for Simba had been very close to strangling him and could likely have broken his neck before his blow had killed him. His breath was still more painful than it should have been but, against the pain in his head, it barely registered.
He had lost control.
He had expected it.
He had done nothing to prevent it.
He had miscalculated his capabilities.
He had lost control.
His ribs hurt, his fingers needed to be set and he should suture the cut on his jaw or it would scar visibly.
He had tried to kill a teacher.
The teacher had tried to kill him.
What did he think he was doing here? Why was he at a school? To learn magic? That was self-deluding nonsense. To over come his training? He had just made himself dangerously unstable.
He had lost control.
He stumbled to a half, well inside the borders of the forest and, for several minutes, just concentrated on breathing. His heart rate was higher than he remembered it ever being outside of battle. It pounded in his head, possibly because of the exertion, possibly just another extension of the migraine that still plagued him.
What was he doing? What was he going to do?
First and foremost, he need to properly revaluate his status, both mental and physical. He orientated himself by glimpses of the wintry sun through the canopy and moved to where the forest met the lake. Nothing approached him as he walked and the shore was equally deserted when he arrived. He stripped off the robes he wore as well as the jacket, jeans and shirt he wore underneath before he waded into the frigid water. He did not intend to stay in there long, he just wished to remove the blood from his face and hands and shock his mind back into order. He did not expect to be confronted by a scaly face peering up at him from the water.
He stepped back, startled, slipped and fell beneath the surface.
~*~*~*~
The last thing Severus Snape expected when he had reluctantly crawled out of bed that morning was for two of his first year Slytherins to barrel into his fourth year Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff class babbling incoherently. Nor had he expected one of them, Elizabeth Winton to be exact, to have blood all over her hands, more on the fornt of her robes and a smudge extra on her cheek.
“What the blazes?” he thundered, silencing both his suddenly chattering class and the two hysterical preteens.
Making a quick decision, he snatched both of the first years by the back of their robes. “Lovegood,” he snapped at the class and then prudently changed his mind, “Forget that! Argyle, Morrick! You are both responsible for getting your fellow simpletons cleaned up and out of my classroom! Should I hear anything displeasing about your conduct or see a trace of any of you in the form of poorly cleaned work stations, I will remove one hundred points from each house. Understood?”
“Sir!”
“Yes Sir!”
He nodded, “Class dismissed.” Then he dragged the two younger students into the hall, slamming the door behind him. Mindful that the hallway would soon be filled with overeager ears attached to the empty heads of his last class, Severus got straight to the pint. “What happened? Are you hurt, Miss Winton?”
“No, Sire, it’s-”
“Duo attacked Professor Simba!”
Severus could feel a headache beginning that had nothing at all to do with fumes from failed potions.
“Miss Winton, explain, Mr. Lithaniel, let her speak.”
She sniffled and obeyed with remarkable clarity considering her red eyes and tear-stained cheeks. Whatever had happened had obviously scared her badly. “Duo wasn’t feeling well and he didn’t sit down as fast as he should have. Professor Simba yelled at him and Duo just stood there. The professor shouted again and tried to shake him. Then Duo just attacked him!”
Lithaniel nodded in corroboration. “Duo’s been off for a few days but today’s been the worst. His headache must have been terrible because I swear there’s been times when he hasn’t been able to hear what’s going on. He’s got bags under his eyes and he was pale and sweating. I don’t think he heard us at first when we were shouting his name. Beth was practically screaming it in his ear before he reacted. By that time he was a bit knocked about and the professor was trying to strangle him.”
“Duo had a knife,” Winton put in.
“Dear Merlin, please don’t tell me that he killed Simba!” Severus groaned.
“No,” Lithaniel disagreed, “But he did nearly take off some of his fingers.”
“He got himself too,” Winton reminded her companion. “It’s their blood,” she informed her head of house.
“Cutting anywhere else would have meant Duo would have hurt Beth,” Lithaniel added, “She was trying to make the professor let go.”
“And where are the two savages now?” Severus inquired sharply.
The first years shook their heads in ignorance. “As soon as the professor let him go, Duo took off.”
“The professor followed but lost him pretty soon.”
“He was wandering around on the second floor when we came down here.”
“Wonderful,” Severus sighed wearily. “Very well, go to Professor McGonagall, calmly and with no chatter on the way!” He retrieved his wand from his robes and cast a hasty cleaning charm on the blood covered girl, rendering that particular problem null.
“Explain to her what you have just told me and tell her I will take care of Maxwell. She’ll be in her office at the moment, now go.”
The children scrambled away hastily. Severus felt no guilt at all for leaving Minerva to deal with Simba and the undoubtedly frightened class. He felt Maxwell, an obviously irrational Maxwell at that, was balance enough. He ran down two doors and into his office where he snatched a collection of several medicinal potions and a few of his own personal stocks that would likely come in handy before he performed a simple ‘point-me’ spell. It took longer than he liked to finally locate the intractable miscreant in the forest at the edge of the lake, yet another crime to add to the list.
Of course he arrived just as the brat tried to drown himself.
“Fuck!”
He stumbled over roots and uneven rocks, almost breaking his ankle to reach the little monster when said monster burst from the water, gasping. Severus stumbled to a halt at the edge of the water and watched the drenched brat stagger back to shore, coughing the whole way.
“Congratulations, Maxwell,” Severus sneered, concerned by the young man’s pallor and unusual unsteadiness. “I do believe you have done what I had previously considered impossible and outdone Potter for sheer suicidal stupidity!”
Maxwell squinted at him, obviously in pain and Severus realised that Lithaniel had actually been understating matters when describing Maxwell’s condition. Torture and a concussion had not caused the brat to blatantly show that much pain and Severus could barely comprehend the severity of the headache that did.
He found the relevant potion in his bag and offered the brat the entire vial, three times the normal dose. Maxwell didn’t hesitate to even ask, accepting the offering and swilling it instantly.
The moment the potion began to work was easily seen as Maxwell’s forehead un-creased and he sighed in relief. Another sign of how bad things had become that Severus could so easily see the changes in the stoic youth.
“Ari-thank you.” The gratitude was evident and sincere though the voice was hoarse and strangled.
Severus then cast a drying and a warming charm on the brat in quick succession and motioned for the little idiot to get dressed. “You are an imbecile, Mr. Maxwell. What were you thinking?” he demanded, noting the discoloured patches of skin amidst the pallid especially on his throat. The brat had not escaped Simba without extensive bruising.
“At which point?” the brat had the temerity to ask.
Severus glared at him. “Let’s start with you attacking Simba.”
“I was not. I simply reacted.”
“You reacted?” Was that all he had to say?
“Aa. In hindsight, my judgement over the last two days in particular has been suspect. I have not been operating at my best.” The brat almost sounded contrite.
“Obviously,” Severus sneered. “And how long since you’ve last slept?” He couldn’t miss the bruising under those eyes and that was not something he had gained in a fight.
“A full night? Several weeks. At all?” The brat paused to think and then shrugged. “I am unsure, possible a week.”
Good grief. Severus retrieved another potion and a small metal cup from his bag. He made some quick mental calculations regarding the youth’s probably weight and the extent of his condition before filling the cup three quarters of the way and handing it to the youth.
Maxwell stared at it blankly and Severus sighed. It was a pity that the paranoia seemed to have returned when the headache had departed. “It will rid your system of the accumulated fatigue toxins. Not something you can use frequently without consequences but very obviously necessary in your case at the moment.”
The youth looked at him ruefully before drinking the dose. He handed the empty cup back, this time without a thank you. This particular potion took longer to work and Severus waited silently and the brat used the time to re-don his discarded clothing.
“Well?” Severus demanded impatiently after what he judged was the appropriate interval. “Is that much you call a brain working yet?”
“Aa,” the brat definitely looked chagrined.
“Then what the Hell were you thinking to allow your condition to deteriorate so badly. Why the Hell didn’t you ask for help?”
“I thought I could last until the end of the term but was in error. I did not take into account how badly I was already affected by sleep deprivation before making that judgement, obviously another result of the deprivation.”
“Obviously,” Severus repeated sourly. “And what did you intend to do after the term had ended that you can not do now?”
The youth sighed heavily. “The core of my problems is my nightmares and they now occur whether my sleep is drugged or not and even encroach on my mind during meditative trances meaning I get little to no restful sleep when I even try. The causes of the nightmares are numerous. I have been many things in my short life and no few of them unpleasant. Nightmares were not unexpected, it is the severity and persistence that I never anticipated. Nor did I consider how what I dreamed would affect me.”
He grunted and met Severus’ eyes sourly. “My past, I can deal with, it can not hurt me. It is the future that troubles me.”
Severus repeated that to himself and then asked, just to be certain, “You dream of the future.” If the boy was a bloody seer, after all, Severus would throttle him! In that case, they had been going about the entire problem in completely the wrong way.
“Don’t be foolish.” The brat had the nerve to retort. “I do not see the future. I simply dream of different possibilities where each successive decision I make leads to disaster. Interpreting them is simple, I fear failure and that is not a surprise to me.”
That was more likely than Maxwell following in that bat Trelawney’s footsteps, so Severus accepted the explanation. That didn’t prevent him from pointing out holes in the brat’s other conclusions. “And the Christmas holiday is going to accomplish what in ridding you of the nightmares?”
“The events that are rousing my fears of failure will occur over the next few weeks.”
So simple, it was probably too good to be true. “And that will stop your dreams?”
“I doubt it, but it should render them manageable.”
Severus sighed and retrieved a general healing potion and passed it to the brat who waiting for him to name it before consuming it. The cut on the student’s cheek disappeared in seconds, not even leaving dried blood as a reminder that it had been there.
“Do you trust anyone, Mr. Maxwell?” Severus asked after several long moments of silence. “Can you not ask for help when you obviously need it or do you just not trust me?”
Maxwell stared at him blankly and Severus sighed, unexpectedly exhausted. “Why didn’t you come to me when you knew you had a problem sleeping? Forget trying to last until the holidays. Not to mention that you should have come to me when your headache grew so sever that you could no longer see!”
Maxwell didn’t appear at all apologetic. “Potions do not appear to be an effective long term solution in my situation.”
“Of course they don’t! Severus snapped furiously. “They’re not supposed to be! In your case, they were supposed to temporarily alleviate the symptoms that I did not knew were as severe as they were. I would have used other methods had I known! I ask again, do you have no faith in me?”
“Iie, I trust you as much as I am able. I trust you to act in what you believe to be my best interests. But there are limits to what you can do.”
“So it’s not me then.”
“Iie.”
“You just don’t believe in magic.” Severus snorted in weary mockery at the startled cast on the blank face. “Magic may not be able to solve all the world’s ills, but you don’t think it can solve any, do you?”
The brat hesitated and then answered, “Iie.”
Severus snorted again, sourly. “Have you seen nothing here at Hogwarts to make you believe?”
“Everything I have seen can be counterfeited with slight of hand or technology.”
Severus mind boggled at the level of paranoia such thinking must encompass. “Then how do you expect to cast a spell if you don’t believe in magic? How do you think to become a wizard if you don’t believe?”
He sighed when the youth offered no answer and, indeed, showed no indication of even caring. There was only so much pandering to anyone that Severus was willing to accommodate. Indeed, he had willingly done more for this ungrateful mudblood than he had for the dark lord when he was still a death eater. For all of the wretch’s potential, for all of his brilliance, Maxwell may as well have been a flobberworm for all of the reward Severus was getting for his efforts. His patience exhausted, Severus decided it was time to cut his losses. It took only a moment’s thought to decide the manner in which to do so.
“As punishment for your repugnant behaviour today, consider yourself suspended until the end of term with permission to return at the beginning of the next term pending until you can prove that your attitude has changed. Why don’t you go to your space station or wherever you intend to go and get your head sorted out. When you’ve done that, you can ponder why you’re even attending Hogwarts and, if one of the first reasons is not because you believe in magic and want to learn to use it, then don’t bother coming back next term. Go to a muggle university and become a scientist or a bloody taxi driver, I don’t care. Just be a muggle and stop wasting my time.”
Severus regarded Maxwell challengingly through narrowed eyes but found no hint of a reaction on the youth’s face. There was no sign of any kind that this sentence affected the brat. Fed up, he turned and started trudging back to Hogwarts. Maxwell followed behind without argument. “We’ll stop by the dormitories so you can gather your possessions and then you can use my office to floo to Diagon Alley,” he informed him coolly.
“Aa.”
Still no protest. Severus didn’t bother to sigh again. He expected that, once he left, he would not see Duo Maxwell again.