TBGCTBGC
He Defines Me
Chapter Five
‘Talk to the boy, explain things.’
God damned sage like advice. If Albus thought it was so easy, he should give it a try. ‘Well, Harry, you shouldn’t point those things out because it’s inappropriate.
‘Inappropriate?’
‘Yes, it might make someone feel uncomfortable.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it just does. Not everyone goes around doing whatever it is you’ve done that’s in that book. Where is that thing anyway?’
‘So, I should lie?’
‘No, not lie, just not talk about it.’
‘Isn’t that as good as lying?’
‘Well, it’s not the same. Sometimes it’s better to just not say something.’
‘Like when?’
‘Like when it might hurt their feelings.’
‘Hurt their feelings?’
‘Make them feel sad or guilty, or just upset them.’
‘Did I hurt Draco’s feelings?’
‘No, I don’t doubt you made his day.’
‘Then why should I have said nothing?’
It was like talking to a three year old, and Severus had never been good with children. The conversation had gone on for nearly thirty minutes before Harry had given up trying to understand what Severus meant and went to bed for a nap. By the time dinner rolled around Severus’ stomach was growling angrily at him. It was something he was used to, Death Eater meetings often left him with little to no appetite for days after, but his own stomach’s anxiety forced him to remember that if he had not eaten, Harry had not eaten, and as a growing boy, he would most assuredly be hungry.
Setting aside the red ink and quill he’d been using, he glared at the five essays left to grade. Sometimes he wondered why he bothered assigning them, they were far more trouble for him than it was worth. Harry was curled like a cat around a pillow in the middle of the bed, hair falling over his face, pale legs gleaming in the dim candle lit against the black bed coverlet.
He had only the shirt on, half unbuttoned down the middle. Where the hell had his pants gone? "Harry, get up, we’re going to dinner. Are you wearing anything under there?"
Sitting up, Harry rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and looked down at his legs, "Hmmm, yes, shorts."
"Well, put the pants on." Severus found them at the foot of the bed and stood up to hand them to the boy when the ‘shorts’ caught his attention, "Those are my boxers."
He looked down at the underwear disdainfully, "Yes, Draco told me to put them on. They feel funny. Can I take them off?"
Blushing slightly, Severus hastily flung the pants at the boy, "No, it’s inappropriate. Just, meet me in the other room when you’re dressed."
From the living room it took Severus nearly ten minutes to convince Harry to go out the door, and another twenty to get him down the first hall. The boy kept stopping to look behind him, or touch the moving painting, who didn’t seem to be appreciating it very much. Severus tried to explain this, but it went about as well as the previous conversation, "Harry, stop touching the paintings.
"Why?" He touched another one, getting a dirty look from the man inside.
Grabbing the boy’s hand, he shot the painting an apologetic sneer, "Because it annoys them."
Harry reached out with his other hand to touch another as they past it, but Severus managed to jerk him slightly, and he missed. "Their not alive are they?"
"No."
"Does it hurt their feeling?"
"No."
"Then why does it matter?"
Shoving him in front as they reached the doors to the Great Hall, Severus tried to reign in his temper, "It just does, Harry. You’ll eat with me at the head table, so just walk to the front, and keep your mouth shut."
He gave the man a dissatisfied pout before pushing open the doors and stepping through. His feet stopped of their own accord as his brain tried to register the number of people in the room. There had to be hundreds of them, his age, older, younger, all wearing similar black robes, sitting at four tables stretching the length of a room the size of which Harry could never have imagined. Not that he’d spent a great deal of time imaging rooms, he preferred board games.
For a moment his eyes moved to the ceiling. It looked like fluffy clouds swirling past night time stars. He loved the stars, sometimes when Master was asleep he’d sneak into the bathing room and look at them. It was more of a morbid curiosity than anything else, he’d often wished he could touch one. But the people had begun to notice him, and the noise of the room was dying down.
As more eyes focused on him, his chest became tighter, and he felt his throat restrict. In the back of his mind somewhere he noted Draco sitting to the far right, he saw Professor Dumbledore, and he was fairly sure he recognized two of the women as having been the ones in Severus’ room the other night. However, that information was stuck behind the far more prominent notion that, besides them, he knew no one. Not a single person.
He wanted to say something, anything, maybe that he liked the ceiling, but it was far too silent, painfully silent. Holding his breath, Harry stepped back, his mind focusing only on returning to the safety of Severus’ chambers. Not that he was all that sure he could find his way back, but trying had to be better than staying here with so many people. Within two steps he bumped into Severus, and found himself turning around, gripping the man tightly around the waist. The warmth crept into him, and he wanted nothing more than to breath in the scent as he had the night before, to feel protected from the eyes threatening to burn wholes in his back.
He felt hands grip his shoulder and try to pry him away, but he refused to let go. Severus looked down at the messy black hair, and the arms so sudenly wrapped around him making it hard to breath. Looking up at the headmaster he shrugged, trying again to unsuccessfully dislodge the boy. "What’s wrong?" He whisper was barely audible, but the silence in the Great Hall made it sound more like a small explosion.
The boy shook his head desperately into the man’s shirt. Leaning down with some difficulty Severus managed to pick up two words that Harry was repeating over and over, "Too many. Too many."
Shooting Albus a piercing gaze that meant he’d speak with him later, Severus put his hands on Harry’s shoulder and backed him out of the hall, waiting till the door closed to let go. "Harry, I need you to look at me." Bright green eyes the size of saucers reluctantly looked up, "We’re going back to my rooms, okay? You’ll have to let go."
With great effort, Harry looked around the hall, relieved to see no one. He nodded, his chest unpleasantly tight as he unwound his arms but took an instant death grip on Severus’ hand.
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It had taken him nearly an hour to calm Harry down. When they’d gotten to the rooms, he’d reattached his arms around the man’s middle, only this time he had refused to let go or so much as speak again. They had ended up on the bed, Severus rocking Harry in his lap, rubbing his back in lazy circles, praying that he would stop shaking and let go.
Eventually, he did let go, his grip slackened, breath evened, and Severus found himself holding a sleeping child. He set Harry very carefully on the bed and arranged the covers around the slight shoulders before slipping out to find Albus waiting patiently on his couch, "Is he feeling better?"
Sitting down heavily next to the headmaster, Severus put his head in his hands, "He’s asleep, if that’s better. I’m still not entirely sure what’s wrong with him, though."
"I believe it may have been related to something muggles call agoraphobia, a fear of being in public, or in crowds. I doubt it’s a true phobia. With time Harry could become used to it, but I get the feeling he’s never been around a great many people, and it must have been rather shocking to walk into the Great Hall without knowing what to expect."
Severus sighed, trying to resist the urge to drink. It was against the rules to do so during the school year, but as he was one of the year round tenants he was permitted a small store for summer use. Right now seemed as good a time as any to break the rules had Albus not been sitting right next to him. "You know I can’t take care of him. I am not good with children, and he acts like he’s five years old one minute, and says something that floors me the next. Besides my own capability, he’ll get bored, I have nothing here for him to do, and I can’t very well find a babysitter to keep him company."
Albus laughed softly and conjured tea, much the Severus distaste, herbs were no substitute for stiff liquor, "I am sure you can come up with something for him to do. However, I do have a favor to ask." He didn’t know why he was surprised, tea always came with tense situations such as needing advice from the old fool or being asked a favor. "I need you to get him used to people. Eventually I want him to be taught magic, preferably as soon as we can convince him to take he collar off, but it won’t do any good for him to go to classes as he was today."
"And how, exactly, am I supposed to do that?" Screw the old man, he needed a drink. Standing up, Severus walked to his liquor cabinet in the far corner and set about removing the locks. "Speaking of which how am I to teach my classes with him here? I can’t trust him not to get into anything, and don’t think for even a moment that I’ll take him with me. Tonight was bad enough, I’ll not have him clinging to me while I’m trying to teach. Not to mention should he open his mouth I would probably be mortified by whatever came out. He has no concept of what’s appropriate, the first thing he said to Malfoy was that he was ‘Tom’s pet.’ Thank god he said Tom and not Master, or Draco would have already told his father where the boy is. I don’t want to die because he doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut."
"I’m... I’m sorry." Both men turned to see Harry standing in the half open doorway to the bedroom, tears forming in his eyes, "I don’t mean to say things like that... it’s just that I don’t understand, and... and I’m sorry." The tears started to fall, and he slipped around the doorway, leaving a stunned Severus staring at the empty spot he’d been standing.
The room was utterly silent. Severus was trying desperately to process the information. It the twenty four hours since he’d taken Harry away from Voldemort he’d gotten the impression that Harry didn’t get upset very easily. He seemed more likely to be confused or curious, but not upset, in fact, the way he acted the great majority of the time indicated that he had never been truly angry or hurt.
Albus broke the silence, standing from his seat and placing a hand on Severus shoulder, "I believe I shall go and have a talk with him."
Severus grunted his consent, and Albus walked tentatively through the door to the bedroom. Harry was sitting just on the other side of the it, his knees drawn up to his chest, shaking violently. With far less difficulty that one might imagine for a man his age, Albus sat down next to the crying boy and waited patiently for him to calm down.
It was a while before Harry stopped shaking enough to look up, his face tear stained, eyes puffy, "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hang on to him like that, but I’ve only ever known five people and they weren’t ever in the same room together at the same time. There were too many of them, and he felt safe, and warm, and I just wanted to be protected. And I don’t mean to say things like... like that, I suppose, but I don’t know what I can and can’t say, and all I can do is try and understand, but it’s so hard."
Putting his arm around the boy’s shoulder he let Harry lean against him, "Harry, Severus did not mean what he said, he’s just has no patience, and he doesn’t know when to keep his own mouth shut."
A snort came from the other room, "Just like some old fools I could name that don’t know when to keep their nose out of other people’s business."
Winking at the confused boy, Albus smiled, "See what I mean?"
Giving a half smile, Harry sat up, "So he should have done what he told me to do this morning?" At Albus questioning gaze, the boy seemed far more sure of himself, "He said that sometimes it’s better not to say anything at all, because you could hurt someone’s feelings."
Albus nodded and found himself ruffling Harry’s already messy hair, "Very good, it looks like he’s not a total lose as a teacher after all."
Frowning, Harry leaned against the wall, "So, that means I got my feelings hurt?" When Albus nodded the boy sighed, "I don’t think I liked it very much. It made my chest feel all tight, and my stomach go funny. And I don’t remember ever having cried like that before, but it just hurt so much."
Albus helped him to his feet, brushing the boy’s shirt straight, "Well, Harry, that’s why sometimes we keep our mouths shut. Severus, I’ll be leaving for the night, and I’ll have dinner sent up, I don’t doubt you two are ravenous."
Once Albus was gone, Harry stood in the dark room for a few minutes, deciding if it was all right to leave. Part of him was afraid that Severus might not want to see him, the other part was terrified of it. No one had ever been so mad at him before, and it was disconcerting that it should be the man who made him tingle and shiver every time they touched.
He was just about to forfeit and go to bed when a familiar popping sound caught his ear, "Master Severus sir, Mimi is bringing you dinner."
Severus was just about to tell Mimi to put it on the desk when he was caught completely off guard by Harry rushing from the room kneeling in front of the elf, "You’re a house elf!"
Mimi blinked a few times, "Who be you, young master?"
Harry shook his head adamantly, "Not master, pet, I’m Tom’s pet. Do you know Tibby?"
"We is not associating with Tibby, sir, she works for the Dark One."
Harry’s bright face downcast, but he seemed fairly determined, and Severus gauged the encounter, both trying to judge what Harry was talking about and whether he should break it up. "But could you, Mimi? Could you get word to Tibby, because she’ll be worried about me."
Then it clicked. While Voldemort may have lived in a muggle house, and a muggle town, but he had not lived the muggle way, and Severus knew of at least one house elf in the Riddle House, though he had never heard her name mentioned. It occurred to him at around the same time, that Voldemort could not have always been there for a baby or a small child, there were battles that had lasted two and three days, someone would have had to take care of Harry. Apparently that someone was a house elf named Tibby.
Stepping in front of the two, he knelt down, "Harry, she can not tell Tibby, Voldemort could find out where you are." He paused for a moment before adding, "And that would be bad."
Harry pouted, "But she’ll be worried."
Severus shook his head, an idea forming in his mind, "Mimi, I’ll have to ask you a favor."
"Yes, Master Severus sir, anything Mimi can do."
"Monday morning you will come here and keep Harry company until I return at night."
Harry’s eyes lit up, he grabbed Severus around the waist, holding tightly even as the man tried to shove him off. He bid Mimi goodnight and managed, with great difficulty, to dislodge the boy. Some part of him realized it was going to be a long week.
-tbc-