By LastCrazyHorn

Word Count:

Rating: PG-13 for brief language, violence, and depictions of abuse

Summary: A disabled Harry comes to Hogwarts story. Everyone expects him to be like his dad, but how can he be with such a different past? A Slytherin Harry takes on Hogwarts in an unusual way.

By the time Harry came for his “detention” that evening, Severus was more than a little anxious to see what ideas he had come up with for signing the spells.

Clearly, the boy was excited as well, for he began speaking almost as soon as he entered Severus’ classroom. Throwing his stuff down on a bench, Harry walked directly up to where Severus was sitting at his desk and looked at him expectantly.

“What ideas have you had?” Severus prompted, and then he merely sat back and listened.

“I think it’s best to stick with the most basic signs for basic ideas,” Harry began, looking for any kind of dissent from Severus. Receiving none, he ploughed on. “I checked both ASL (American Sign Language) and BSL (British Sign Language) and saw that the sign for a light turning on or just the reference to the sun is almost the exact same thing in both languages,” he said animatedly.

In demonstration, Harry brought his left hand up in front of him and brought his fingers and thumb together, his digits extended towards Severus.

“This is off,” Harry said. He opened his hand suddenly, imitating the suddenness of a light as it came on. “This is on. It’s simple, you know?” Harry pulled out his wand and then looked at Severus seriously.

“The information I’ve found in the library on non-verbal magic has been very specific in explaining that one’s intent must be focused firmly on what you want to happen. It’s not the how that matters so much, but the belief that what you’re going to do is make something happen.”

Unbeknownst to him, Severus’ lip curled up with just a touch of a smile as he listened to Harry put words to what he had learned. It was enthralling to behold, especially from someone so young.

“I haven’t tried this yet, because I don’t really know what’s going to happen. Technically, although this is silent magic, it’s not really the same thing as regular non-verbal magic, because the signs themselves are still language.”

Nodding in understanding, Severus stood up and held out his wand, ready for anything or nothing to occur.

“Please proceed,” he instructed softly, fascination for what they were undertaking lighting his eyes.

A look of extreme determination came across Harry’s face. He held his wand in his right hand and then put his left hand at the base of his right wrist. It was closed in the off position he had shown Severus only moments before.

A strange feeling in the air made Severus shiver as he watched the boy attempt his first controlled magic.

Moving his right hand along his wand hand and then along the length of the wand itself, Harry pushed his right hand forwards suddenly, splaying his fingers wide open by the time he reached the tip. Just as suddenly, a light flared in the tip of his wand, lighting the area around him like a strong torch.

“Hah!” Harry yelled out, jumping in the air with an amazed grin on his face.

When the light had appeared, goosebumps had appeared over the majority of Severus’ flesh before disappearing and leaving him with a tingle in the edges of his nerves.

“Well done Harry,” he said, nodding to the boy with a pleased expression. “Well done.”

“Did you see, sir! It worked!” Harry said gleefully.

In that moment, his snake was every bit of the eleven year old boy that he should have been. It both warmed Severus’ heart and made his throat constrict painfully.

Harry’s joy dampened a bit as he looked thoughtfully at his still lit wand.

“It seems to me sir, that to make it go dark or nox, all I have to do is take it back the other way. Like this,” Harry said, almost moving his hand back along the wand towards his chest, closing it as he went.

Just like that, the light was gone, but the grin on Harry’s face was no less brilliant.

After a moment of smiling stupidly at his wand, Harry dropped his head and hastily ran a hand under his glasses. Severus took a step forwards, but stopped as the child began speaking again.

“You were right sir. I am a wizard,” Harry said, looking up at Severus in bewilderment.

“You are,” Severus confirmed with a pleased nod. He stepped up to the boy’s side and crouched down in front of him.

“You belong here as much as anyone else does, Harry. Perhaps even more, considering what you have managed just tonight.”

Silently, Harry nodded back at him, his face uncertain but his eyes finally dry.

“Now,” Severus said, standing back up, “Try it again.”

He made Harry repeat his movements until the spell was flawless and then he made him switch hands.

“Sir?”

“I’ve watched you in and outside of class, Harry. Everything you do, aside from your crutch, has been worked using your left hand. Why then, have you been holding your wand with your right hand this evening?”

A strange flush came over the boy’s cheeks and he ducked his head briefly before speaking. “I didn’t . . .” Harry trailed off and then looked back up at Severus. “I don’t like people looking at my right hand, sir,” he finished. “They stare.”

“They will stare regardless, child. Will you live the rest of your life worrying about how others view you?”

Harry bit his lip and stared back at Severus with a thoughtful expression. “Did you, um, did you get stared at a lot when you were younger, sir?” His green eyes easily piercing through Severus’ adult facade.

“Younger, older,” Severus shook his head as he tried to quell the pang of remembered misery that was raised with the boy’s perceptive question. “It didn’t matter. If not the reviled professor, then I was the worthless classmate.”

And terrible friend, he thought, but did not say.

Harry’s right hand clenched around his crutch. “I know what it’s like to be worthless, sir,” Harry said, nodding up at him.

“But we are not any longer, Harry. We are Slytherins. That makes us family, for better or worse. Now, enough dilly dallying. Show me that spell with your hands reversed.”

Tentatively, Harry switched his wand to his left hand and performed the ‘light on’ motion with his right hand; his three exposed fingers trembling ever so slightly as he moved them up the expanse of his wand.

This time, when the light flared, it did so with nearly twice the brightness and Severus felt his shoulders relax as his silent theory was proven correct.

Harry’s eyes goggled wide at the much improved light, and Severus allowed a small smile to briefly grace his lips.

“Your wand hand is the hand that is used the most; that you have the most control over. It would make sense that you would therefore have more control over your magic as well.” Once more, he had Harry perform the movements until they were flawless, and only then did he allow them to move on.

“Now, you said you had ideas plural?”

A half-smile of his own came across Harry’s face and his back straightened with excitement as he set himself to explain something else.

“Yes sir,” the boy responded crisply. “I thought some more about Wingardium Leviosa. It’s really been gnawing at me that I couldn’t make the spell work verbally, you know?” Harry’s eyes flicked at him and Severus nodded.

“Well, I looked up the spell itself and the history too,” Harry continued, while inwardly Severus marvelled at the amount of work the first year had already put into his studies.

“The spell means to take flight, to take wing and fly, sir. I thought of this during our flying lesson with Madame Hooch this afternoon. She told us that we could just say ‘up‘ to get our brooms into our hands, you know sir?”

Severus gave another nod, intrigued at the direction the boy was working in.

“Well, ‘up’ is a lot like ‘lift.’ They cause the same effect, but up is a direction while lift is the action itself,” Harry’s eyes were distant as he thought about how to explain his idea to his professor.

“The direction ‘up’ is easy to sign,” Harry explained, taking his left hand and pointing upwards with his index finger extended and the rest of his fingers closed. “Basically, you just point up. I figure that brooms—magical ones, sir—already have a levitation spell of some kind already working within their skins, within their wooden bodies. So then, up is just like a release mechanism, you know? It allows a broom to move into your hand or towards your hand, at least. I wonder how high a broom would go if you didn’t hold out your hand?” Harry paused and looked at him.

“I haven’t a clue, Harry, but perhaps we’ll try that sometime. Together,” Severus emphasized with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes sir,” Harry answered with a buoyant grin. “Well, the BSL for ‘lift’ is pretty easy too. You just take both hands and mimic picking up something. Like this, sir,” he explained; putting his hands palms up and lifting them towards the ceiling.

“Just for clarity’s sake, the sign for flying is crossing your hands, well rather your wrists and then flapping your fingers together and moving your arms back and forth like a bird. I figure that I can’t really do that with a wand—well, maybe I could—but I think it’s too much trouble for what I’m trying to do. Maybe though,” Harry’s speech quickened as he theorized. “Maybe if I ever made brooms or put enchantments on things, I’d have to use that more specific spell to clarify what exactly I wanted it to do.” He stopped and grinned a real smile at him and Severus couldn’t help but smile back.

It was hard to see this Harry and think of how much had been taken from him.

Which was the real boy? The serious, morose child? Or the innovative excited one?

Or perhaps they are one and the same?

“And then, I looked up the sign for fly; just to be doing the actual thing like Wingardium Leviosa seems to be doing—at least with the first half of the instruction. And that’s done the same way that you say ‘I love you’ in ASL, oddly enough. You put out your thumb, index finger and pinkie and move your hand out into the air as though you were playing with a plane or bird or something. Does that make sense, sir?”

“It does. Now how will you manage to incorporate all of this together?”

“I was thinking, I was thinking sir,” Harry bit his lip and flexed his fingers a few times as he began pacing back and forth in front of him. “I was thinking that since the direction ‘up’ is what I want, but I also want it to lift, to fly, then I could hold my wand—it’d have to be in my right hand no matter what, sir. Because I don’t have, I mean, my pinkie, I—.”

Severus cut him off before he could get anymore flustered. “I understand, Harry. Show me what you mean to do,” he patiently suggested.

Harry shot him a nervous smile, somewhat less radiant than before. “Do you have a feather, sir?”

Severus chose not to explain that the spell did not have to be worked on a feather. Instead, he transfigured one for Harry out of a broken quill that he found in his desk. He turned and found Harry staring back at him with that same excited gleam in his eye.

“I have ideas about transfiguration too, sir,” the boy admitted, somewhat shyly.

“Perhaps you should discuss them with Professor McGonagall. I’m sure she would be interested in hearing them,” Severus suggested, frowning at the sudden sombre expression that had developed on Harry’s face at his idea.

“Sh-Sh-She” Harry stuttered and then shook his head, pressing his lips together almost angrily. “She doesn’t want to hear from me, sir.”

Severus’ eyes opened slightly in surprise. “Your parents were some of her favourite students, Harry. I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t feel the same way.”

A bitter moue came across the lad’s face as Severus silently swore to have a talk with Minerva.

“Well she doesn’t. Sir. Maybe she has something against freaks,” Harry’s body was nearly trembling with tension and Severus felt it safer to continue on with their previous conversation instead of pressing this explosive topic any further.

“I doubt she thinks of you as a freak, Harry. You are not anything of the sort,” he said, not blinking as he stared back into his student’s angry green eyes.

“Yes, sir,” were the only words the boy said.

“Now show me your sign for Wingardium Leviosa. It is nearly curfew. I will walk you back to your dorm room after this myself.”

“Yes sir,” Harry answered again, but this time his posture had relaxed slightly and his knuckles were no longer white with barely suppressed emotion.

Not speaking, Harry grasped his wand with his right hand and then formed his left hand into the sign for fly. He swished his wand as Severus had instructed him to do, and then with a look of concentration, he flicked his wand towards the feather, pushing his left hand off his wand and straight up into the air.

The white of the feather flashed before them as it skyrocketed to the ceiling. Instantly, Harry’s entire demeanour relaxed and he let out a bark of laughter. Slowly he dropped his hand back down to the top of his wand and in turn, the feather dropped with it and then settled back down on the tabletop in front of them.

Severus began to say something, but Harry interrupted him as he collapsed onto the hard student bench behind him. Propping his head in his hands, Severus watched as Harry’s shoulders began shaking and then he began rocking back and forth; his sobs just barely audible in the quiet classroom.

Severus tried to give him a moment to contain himself, but the boy seemed incapable of calming, and instead his cries only grew louder and his motions more agitated the longer he wept.

Breathing in deeply, he moved across the space separating him from his snake and slowly sat down on the bench beside Harry. Hesitantly, he reached out a potion stained hand and rested it on the boy’s shoulder.

“Good for nothing freak,” Harry gasped out, leaning ever so slightly into Severus’ hand. “Never good for anything; never be worth anything,” Harry swallowed hard and looked up at him. “Not worth feeding.” The tears were down to a trickle as he continued. “Not worth loving,” his face crumpled as he valiantly fought against losing his control again. “Not worth saving,” he finally added, shaking his head back and forth as another tear dripped out of his vibrant green eyes.

Lily’s eyes.

“Not worth keeping,” Harry spat, biting his lip hard enough to create visible dents. “And Dumble—,” he choked off, unable to speak the man’s name. “He left me, sir. He,” Harry’s tears were coming back again, but the boy seemed determined to get his words out. “He says he loves me,” Harry trembled violently beside the wizard, and a hot breeze smelling of petrol and blood brushed past the side of Severus’ face.

“Says he loves me, bloody bastard sent me back. He sent me back to them!”

Harry’s fury expelled as the entire blackboard erupted in bright blue flames. Severus only glanced at it, feeling that it was better to keep his eyes on the boy in front of him. Harry needed to calm down before they all burned.

“Did he know?” Severus didn’t have to clarify what.

“I told him. And he,” Harry looked away, and seemed to notice the burning board for the first time. In the flash, the flames were gone and the blackboard was fine. The smell that had been present seconds before was gone and Severus felt a strange chill go through his centre at the possible implications of such a power.

“He. Looked. Into my eyes, sir. And he saw,” Harry trembled again but managed to keep himself under control. Taking a deep shuddering breath, he continued. “He saw, I know what he saw and he sent me back, sir.”

Abruptly, Harry’s face became very calm and his eyes went dead, although they still shone somewhat with leftover tears. Shaking his head, he continued, “And everyone can think he’s great and wonderful and bloody god-like. But he’s only like one god I know of, and they say it’s hot there,” a bitter grimace overtook Harry’s lips briefly and then that too faded as he suddenly slumped towards Severus, the fight completely gone from his limbs.

Gently, Severus guided Harry’s head up towards his face and upon seeing the boy’s eyes were still open, he began speaking. “I won’t let them hurt you ever again. Dumbledore can say what he wants, but you’re my responsibility now and I take care of my own.”

His brow knotted as he touched the back of his fingers to Harry’s still wet cheek.

“I’m very proud of what you’ve managed tonight, little Snake. You can go to sleep now. I won’t let him touch you.”

At his words, Harry’s eyes slid shut finally, and before long Severus could hear the deep slow breaths of sleep coming from the child. Picking him up carefully, he carried him back to his quarters and transfigured his couch into a bed.

He had a lot to think about.

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