#v. something wrong

[enoughtroubleforalifetime]

I should draw clarinet!player Harry.

Just.

I have feelings about this little lad. Him being like his mum. Him figuring out music and an instrument through a ridiculous amount of determination. Him using his lil clarinet to control a morgue full of undead. Just him in his skirt and jumper and doctor's coat raising the dead for a nice chat.

[aheroic]

A Bit of an Incident

[[ @corda-comminuta invited this disaster, for some reason

Hari blinked. He didn't remember doing anything that would result in being thrown across space, but admittedly, he was a little fuzzy on what any of the details of what he'd been doing were. He blinked again, then pushed himself into a more sitting position and looked around. He was in a house and it wasn't his.

He managed to push himself to his feet to get a closer look at some of the photos he'd spotted, and he about fell back down again in shock. And then, of course, because he was him, there was a wand to his back.

"Erm. I can't really explain, but there is an explanation. If I turn around, are you going to curse me?"

[aheroic]

Honestly though? Dr. Hari Potter, D.O., owner and operator of New Life Funeral Home, makes me so happy I could cry.

[aheroic]

The Detention

(fifth year Detention with Dolores, as it goes in Something Wrong verse, where Hari didn't get in trouble for the Voldemort thing because he was too pissed about Umbridge being racist and sneering at Pavarti and refusing to use his birth name when taking roll.)

"There," said Umbridge sweetly, "we're getting better at controlling our temper already, aren't we?"

Hari ground his teeth. He might have been getting a little spoiled by Severus' idea of consequences, which was something he doubted anybody would be able to relate to. His parent had never asked him to do anything more than make up for his mistake by fixing the problem though, unless he was doing lines as well, due to a two-way problem. This being treated like a toddler thing, where he was the only one who had done wrong, even though Hari was still entirely sure he was in the right, was well past infuriating, and he was already struggling not to break something.

"Now, you are going to be doing some lines for me, Mr. Potter. No, not with your quill. You're going to be using a rather special one of mine. Here you are."

He looked at the sharp, long quill with a great deal of wariness and resignation. Sure, it wasn't uncommon for other teachers to be picky about using a quill, but he'd gotten away with a pen for most of his worst lines sessions. He took the quill.

"I want you to write 'I must not tell lies'," she told him.

"How many times?"

"Oh, as long as it takes for the message to sink in," she answered, her voice sickeningly, artificially sweet. "Off you go."

"You haven't given me any ink," he reminded, as soon as he set about to get started. Her reassurance that he wouldn't need any wasn't reassuring at all.

Hari set the point of the quill to the paper, then wrote. I must not tell lies. Then he gasped in pain and stared in horror at the back of his hand while the words, which had appeared there as if sliced into his skin, healed over. He looked back at the parchment, where what was fairly clearly his blood was still shining, then looked up at Umbridge.

She was watching him, grinning. "Yes?"

"No," he responded, making up his mind and standing up. It took all of three seconds for him to throw his bag back over his shoulder, shove the chair back out of his way, and open the office door, the parchment crumpling in his hand. This awful, terrible woman was not allowed to make him feel powerless.

"No?" She sounded as angry as he felt, as she scrambled for her wand. He didn't want to know what she was going to do with it. "Harry Potter! You do not get to just-"

"My name is Harith," he said one more time, just before kicking the door closed behind him and breaking into a run. He was almost to the dungeons when he realized his cheeks were wet with tears. Clearly, his anger hadn't been content to just roll around in his stomach. But it didn't matter.

He knocked on Severus' office door with a familiarity that was almost comforting in itself, taking a deep breath to try to slow the racing of his heart or the shaking of his hands or something.

But then the door was open and he was being invited in and pulled into a warm hug and asked what had happened and everything felt a little more manageable.

He sunk into the hug, hiding his face in Severus' shoulder for a moment to try to compose himself. "She-" he swallowed, then took another deep breath. "She had this quill. She was going to make me write lines in my own blood. I couldn't- I couldn't stay. Papa, all I did was ask that she use my actual name, and-" He hugged him tighter, clinging almost desperately.

“She was going to make you injure yourself. For detention,” Severus repeated, to clarify, holding onto Hari just a little bit tighter.

"Yes. I know walking out of detention is not good, but-" he cut himself off, biting his lip.

“Harith, look at me, please?” Severus’ tone was firm, the kind he had when there was something very important happening, but still gentle, and he made eye contact when Hari looked up, gently touching his cheek. “You were well within your rights to ask something so important from her. You did not deserve any sort of detention. But you certainly did not deserve to be hurt. What she did was very, very wrong. Do you understand?”

"It feels like I must have done something wrong. I know- I know I didn't- but everything feels awful and my stomach hurts and why should I have to feel bad when she's apparently perfectly okay with torturing children?" He broke the eye contact and handed Severus the parchment with the one smudged "I must not tell lies," then rubbed the back of his hand where it still itched a little, still leaning heavily against his papa.

[aheroic]

He’d failed at the promise he’d made to himself, to keep Lily’s son safe. He’d trusted Dumbledore, and he’d been terribly, terribly betrayed. He’d been a complete and utter fool. “That’s-- Most people are very, very dim-witted. Despite everything, you are not most people.” Severus awkwardly stopped again, very much wishing for a vastly different skillset - not for the first time in his life. “You deserve your basic needs met in a way that fits you as an individual. I am sorry that you have not had that consistently in your life,” he decided on saying, and promptly regretted that. Severus sighed heavily looking far older than he was. “I’ve made you uncomfortable. For that you have my sincere apology.” Despite his efforts, he wasn’t sure he achieved ‘sincere’.

Harry did not understand what was happening and he hated it. But Snape had just apologized to him. And said that he deserved something other than someone teaching him manners. And- and Harry had been waiting for almost a decade for anyone to notice and be willing to listen. Even if they didn't do anything, just to not have the horror that was his home life dismissed as a child blowing things out of proportion or just lying for attention… but Snape had accused him of being attention seeking for much less than this. But maybe if he shared, Snape would be shocked enough that he could get away or angry enough that things would go back to how he was used to them being.

He was probably silently staring for far too long before he said, "Hand-me-downs don't really feel like an injustice compared to going without food for days and sleeping in a cupboard." Then he waited for exactly two seconds before turning and walking briskly away.

Severus wasn’t sure what reaction he’d expected from Harry, but a staring contest wasn’t really one of them. An off-hand comment about starvation and being put in a cupboard also weren’t expectations, though knowing Petunia, it wasn’t all that surprising, really. He let Harry go, waiting until he was out of ear shot to murmur: “10 points to Gryffindor for bravery in the face of adversity.”

[[ an excerpt (edited slightly for clarity) from an off-tumblr rp with @afflantesmusae which I will never stop having feelings about

[aheroic]

Open Starter: Harry

Harry stepped into the common room to the sounds of loud, overlapping conversation. But it all cut off almost immediately. It wasn't surprising. Harry had, in the moment of panic after Sirius Black's nighttime attack, used the portrait in the common room to call for Snape instead of for McGonagall. Then, sometime after the chaos, he'd left with Snape and had been gone all night and most of the day. So, there were bound to be questions for him, even if Ron was receiving most of the attention now, as a result of him being the one who was in the center of the attack.

He moved further into the common room, then sighed as someone immediately moved to intercept him, though he stopped politely to talk. "Hi."

[fyr-rphub]

[[ semi-plotted starter for @weaselknight

Harry... had regrets.  Frankly, he should’ve told Ron before they even left for summer break after first year.  But he didn’t.  Then, he should’ve told him at any point between then and the big incident with the basilisk.  But he didn’t. When his parent took him to Israel at the same time Ron was going to Egypt with his family, Harry should’ve shared.  But he didn’t. And with every missed opportunity, it felt like an even more insurmountable task.  But then they’d been attacked, in their own dormitory, and Harry, as though everybody already knew and he hadn’t been carefully hiding his entire personal life for no good reason, called Snape up to help.

There was no hiding it now.  He avoided any confrontation that night by disappearing to the dungeons, but when breakfast came, he knew there was no getting out of it. So, like the Gryffindor he was supposed to be, he faced it.  Finally.

Harry was rumpled and tired and it was obvious to anyone who knew him that he hadn’t been the one to braid his hair back into the tight pigtails he’d quite forgotten about, but he grabbed an egg sandwich and an orange, then a whole bunch more easily-carried food for Ron, and caught his friend at the entrance to the Great Hall.  “Hey. I- I’m really sorry I left last night, but can I talk to you? Please? I’ve got food.”

[fyr-rphub]

“ how bad is it this time? ”

Hari shrugged. "I think some people might argue that it's even good. I'm still here." He was also sporting some chemical burns, though, which kind of ruined his efforts at seeming casual. "It was just a minor explosion. Or three. But as far as potions accidents go, this could've been a lot worse."