Chapter Text
On the walk down to the dungeons Harry was struck by a sudden thought - was he supposed to bring a date to Slughorn’s Christmas party? He had taken that line on the invitation to mean that people currently in relationships could bring their significant other to the party - because that was what people in relationships did. But if he wasn’t in a relationship, was Slughorn still expecting him to show up with a plus one? Probably, otherwise he wouldn’t have included that line on the invitation in the first place. So who was Harry supposed to invite?
He wished he and Hermione could just go as friends, but given that they both got their own invitations - and the friction between her and Ron when the topic came up - he didn’t think it was wise to suggest they go together, even as friends. There was Parvati, who had - mostly - forgiven him by now for the way he ignored her during the Yule Ball fourth year, but even if she had moved past that, he didn’t think she would take kindly to him inviting her to be his date for one night, again. Cause he wasn’t going to ask her to be his girlfriend, just his date for the party. And his history with Parvati basically ruled out the possibility of asking Padma or Lavender.
Who else was there in his year to ask? Maybe Hannah Abbott would go with him? She was nice and had pretty red hair - not as vivid as Ginny’s, but soft and shiny, and she smiled a lot.
His thoughts wandered - against his better judgment - to another redhead.
Ginny.
Harry frowned, shaking his head almost immediately, but the thought lingered. There was no denying she was pretty - loads of people thought so, boys in other houses couldn’t stop talking about her these days. And confident, too. Ginny had this sharp, fiery wit, the kind that made people pay attention when she walked into a room. And she’d definitely hold her own at a Slughorn party. Probably better than he would.
But she was Ron’s sister. And Ron was already bent out of shape about not being invited, so how would he take Harry inviting his sister as his date? Probably not so well.
Before he could ponder his date-dilemma any longer, Harry realized he was at Snape’s office. Heaving a great sigh, Harry raised his hand to knock on the door. The entire walk down to the dungeon his mind was too preoccupied with thoughts of Slughorn’s Christmas party, and wondering if Ron was going to end up going as Hermione’s date or not, that the nerves didn’t hit him until he was right in front of Snape’s door.
He shook his head and tried to banish any thoughts of dates and Slughorn’s Christmas party out of his head. He was in front of Snape’s door for a reason, and he needed to focus on that.
Dumbledore seemed to think this secret ‘new approach’ he had cooked up with Snape was going to make all the difference. But then why had Dumbledore refused to explain it to him yesterday? Was he worried that Harry would refuse when he heard about it, and would rather have Snape explain it to him, once Harry was already locked in Snape’s office? A small part of him felt that the fact that Dumbledore wouldn’t give him any warning or insight on this new method was a bad sign. But then if Snape was planning something painful or something that Harry would vehemently disagree with, Dumbledore wouldn’t have given his blessing for them to continue their lessons - right? Harry’s head hurt trying to figure out what Snape and Dumbledore’s intentions were with this.
And if Dumbledore seemed confident that this new approach would be more successful than what Snape had been doing previously, why didn’t he suggest it in the first place? Harry assumed that Snape had been giving Dumbledore some sort of progress reports on their private lessons, or at least keeping the Headmaster in the loop of how he had been faring with his (lack of) speech progress. Those lessons were weeks of failure, yet Dumbledore didn’t have a better approach all those weeks either. For one of the smartest wizards in the Wizarding World, the man sure didn’t always act like it.
“Enter,” Snape barked, breaking Harry out of his thoughts.
Feeling more than a little apprehensive, Harry walked into Snape’s office, eyes darting to every wall looking for some sort of clue about what this ‘new approach’ could be as he walked to his usual seat in front of Snape’s desk. But he didn’t see anything in Snape’s office that he hadn’t seen before, which didn’t ease his growing nerves. What were they going to be doing if this “new thing” wasn’t something Harry could see?
The professor was seated at his desk, quill flying across a stack of essays with mechanical precision, the scratching sound loud in the otherwise silent room. His eyes did not lift when Harry entered; he merely continued marking with an almost surgical focus, as though determined not to acknowledge Harry’s presence for as long as possible.
Harry approached quietly and slipped into the chair opposite the desk. The man had told him to enter and could obviously hear and see him approaching, but still did not yet address Harry. Only when he set his bag down with a soft thud did Snape finally glance up. The professor's expression didn’t shift, but his eyes - sharp, black, and unreadable - rested on Harry, studying him.
Snape’s lips curled ever so slightly. He placed his quill down at the side of his desk then gave a minute flick of his wand to stack the papers he was grading. Once his marking was out of his way, the man leaned forward in his chair and steepled his fingers under his chin, holding eye contact with Harry.
“Well. Well. Well. Here we are again Mr. Potter,” Snape said snidely as he narrowed his eyes to look down at Harry, even though they were both sitting down. “How ever did I get so lucky to have you gracing me with your company again this evening?”
Harry eyed the professor warily in response, but managed to hold himself back from making any other facial expressions that could be construed as rude.
“Oh right, because the Headmaster refuses to send you out of the castle to St. Mungo’s even though it is severely needed to try to remedy whatever is going on in that thick skull of yours,” Snape said, answering his own question.
“Nevertheless, the Headmaster does have the absolute authority presiding over the students of this school. No matter my opinion on the matter,” Snape said with a sniff. “Which brings us to where we are today.”
“As the Headmaster has informed you, today we are going to attempt an ah- different approach in these sessions. Our previous forays into Legilimency were unsuccessful for a number of reasons,” Snape paused to glare at Harry. Harry glared right back, knowing that Snape was thinking Harry was the only one at fault for not making any progress speaking. But if they were going to play the blame game, Snape had more than his fair share to go around.
Harry broke the glare first to take his notebook and quill out of his bag as Snape went on.
“This time, instead of having you try to block off your memories, I want you to pick a very specific one, open your mind, and allow me to view it.”
Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise as he wrote: “Any memory? And why?”
Snape glanced at Harry’s notebook before he continued. “You were making very little progress with the Occlumency method of shielding your mind from outsider penetration,” Snape said matter-of-factly. “Generations of students have learned Occlumency that way and have been so successful that they are then able to teach others. However, with your lack of success in this practice, I would like to try another method, the new approach. This would involve you recalling a memory of yourself casting a spell verbally, and as you and I see the memory of yourself, you attempt to mimic your memory self with your wand in hand.”
“But doesn’t ‘letting’ you view my memories make my ‘mental shields’ weaker? The past few weeks I was trying to prevent that, now you want me to do the opposite,” Harry wrote, feeling more confused at Snape’s explanation.
“Yes and no,” Snape said, as he leaned back in his chair slightly so he could cross one leg over the other. “There are many things that can make mental shields weaker. Your’s were never all that strong to begin with,” he said bluntly as Harry scowled. “But that means if you allow me to view your memories, it won’t necessarily undo any work you’ve done in fortifying your mind. You will let me in your mind, I will neither be invading or attacking it, so your defense systems should not register my presence as one that wishes to harm it. Any mental shields - regardless of how feeble I believe them to be - you have constructed in attempts from previous weeks will therefore not be damaged, but rather remain intact. ”
Harry rubbed a hand over his forehead, thinking this whole ‘having Snape enter his mind but now intentionally letting Snape view his memories’ didn’t sound much different from what they basically had been doing for weeks. Snape pretty much always ended up viewing his memories the past couple weeks, no matter how hard he tried to keep him out.
Snape’s eyes went right to Harry’s scar, which he didn’t even realize he had begun to rub. “Are you having a vision?” Snape asked sharply.
Realizing what he was doing Harry swiftly dropped his hand and shook his head as he picked up his quill, eager to change the subject from having Snape analyze his scar.
“But why do you have to be in my head when we do this? Can’t I just think of a memory and that’s it?” Harry wrote.
“As I’m sure you must’ve realized by now, the mind is a fickle thing. We all think we have a perfect recollection of our memories, but that isn’t always the case. I’m sure you can relate, seeing how often your Potions essays in past years would neglect to include information you should have absorbed from the assigned readings or the lectures in class,” Snape said disdainfully. “And as wizards, we have spells like Legilimency that allows us to enter another’s mind and delve into their innermost thoughts and memories. As you remember from our previous sessions, for a wizard of your… skill level, it would be impossible for you to distort your own memories while someone is actively viewing them. Which means that as I’m in your mind viewing the memory with you, it will ensure that you are watching the correct memory of yourself casting a spell. And because we are going to go back to the basics of first-year spell casting, it’s crucial that the memory we watch is truthful in its entirety.”
Harry removed his wand from his robe pocket and held it in his hand as Snape continued. “The idea is that while you undoubtedly have muscle memory between your brain and your spell-casting arm - allowing you to cast spells nonverbally - the memory connection between your brain and vocal cords has been severed. In viewing a memory of yourself casting a spell verbally and then attempting to do so in your physical form here, we will work to restore that connection to your vocal cords.”
Harry was shocked. Could that really work? Was viewing a memory of him casting a spell going to be enough to restore his voice? And did his vocal cords really have memory, similar to how his arm had muscle memory when casting spells?
Snape cleared his throat, breaking Harry out of his thoughts. “I would suggest trying to focus on pulling up a memory of yourself casting a simple spell, one you’ve been able to successfully cast for years. For the sake of this initial attempt, I would recommend a first-year spell, ideally Wingardium Leviosa?” Snape asked with a subtle quirk of his eyebrow, no doubt remembering Harry’s nonverbal Wingardium Leviosa on the first day of Defense this year.
“Why does the memory have to be of me casting a spell? Shouldn’t I just think of memories where I’m speaking out loud?” Harry wrote.
Snape sighed loudly and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Potter, you are a wizard, regardless of the fact that at the present-moment you are a mute one. As wizards, we all have magical cores inside of us that are activated when we engage in wizardry, such as brewing, or riding a broom, or verbally incanting spells. As shown by your ability to cast spells nonverbally, your magic core is still intact. You need to utilize your magical core, drawing from that power to give strength again to your vocal cords. Which is why we will be viewing a memory of you casting a spell verbally, and not just viewing any old memory of you speaking. Understood?”
Harry nodded, and began visualizing the memory in his head. He was thinking of his first Charms lessons as a first-year, when Professor Flitwick had them cast Wingardium Leviosa on feathers. He was doing his best to picture that memory, where he was sitting, what the classroom was like, what Professor Flitwick had said to them that day…
“Do you have the memory at the front of your mind?” Snape asked.
Harry nodded.
“Good. Now when I cast Legilimens I want you to focus on the sound of your own voice in the memory. Do your best to block out any other distractions so your voice is the only one you are paying attention to. As you watch yourself in the memory cast the spell, you need to remember that it’s just a memory, and that your physical body is still here, in my office. As the memory-version of you speaks, you need to imitate that behavior in your physical body.” Snape paused to see how Harry was taking all that in. “Any questions?”
Harry had a million questions, but mostly he was just eager to see if this worked. He shook his head and then sent his notebook levitating up and down a few inches before looking back at Snape.
At Snape’s questioning look Harry grabbed his quill and wrote: “Wingardium Leviosa. Just wanted to do it myself first before we look at my memory.”
“Right then,” Snape said. “Quill down and pick up your wand. Remember as you are watching your memory that the memory-version of yourself is still a part of you. Search for that connection in your wand movement and do your best to cast the spell verbally.”
“Wand in your hand. Prepare yourself,” Snape instructed. “Legilimens!”
And just like that, Harry was watching himself back in Flitwick’s classroom as a first year, and although he couldn’t see Snape in his memory, he could feel the man’s presence watching. “It’s LeviOsa, not Leviosar,” Hermione announced to Ron as she gave a shake of her head. “You’re saying it wrong.”
Ron grumbled under his breath and turned his back to Hermione as he continued waving his wand and unsuccessfully chanting the incantation. Ron’s feather remained still as he continued to raise his voice with each Wingardium Leviosa. Harry could see the frustration growing on his face with each swish and flick. Meanwhile Hermione lowered her feather back to her desk with a pleased smile on her face as she turned over to Neville.
Neville’s face was screwed up in concentration as he kept aiming his wand at his own feather and unsuccessfully saying the incantation.
“Psst, Neville,” Hermione whispered, “Loosen your grip on your wand a bit, you don’t need to hold it quite so tightly. Try to relax your shoulders too. Now, when you say the incantation, make sure you enunciate on each-”
“Focus on yourself, Potter,” Snape’s voice commanded from somewhere inside Harry’s own head, breaking Harry away from watching Hermione and Neville.
Harry glanced around the Charms classroom, and couldn’t see Snape anywhere, but knew the man was still seeing everything that Harry was seeing because of the spell.
Harry forced himself to focus his attention back to his first-year self. His first-year self had heard Hermione’s tips to Neville, so he too relaxed his grip on his wand and rolled his shoulders back. First-year Harry took a deep breath and incanted Wingardium Leviosa and sent his feather levitating a few inches off the table. First-year Harry’s face erupted into a smile, and as he turned to tell Ron he did it, he dropped his wand arm and the feather fell back down to the table.
“Remember how you felt casting that spell,” Snape’s voice came into Harry’s head. “Concentrate on your posture, on the movement, and how the words felt coming out of your mouth when you verbally incanted them.”
And with that instruction, Snape ended the spell, pulling them both out of the memory and into the professor’s office. Desperate to imitate his past-self, Harry brought his focus to his physical body and the feeling of his wand in his hand. Making sure he didn’t grip it too firmly like first-years tended to do, and that he kept his shoulders relaxed. He stared at his notebook and felt like he was a first-year again, staring at a feather willing it to levitate. As he began waving his wand, Harry could feel the words at the tip of his tongue. Something strange was happening in the back of his throat - it was like the beginning of a laugh was forming, but instead of a chuckle, another noise started to emerge from his mouth.
“Wah - Wah,” Harry began in a low, croaky voice, widening his eyes in surprise at how there was audible sound leaving his mouth. He clapped his hands - his right still holding his wand - over his mouth in utter shock as he brought his eyes up to meet Snape’s, whose own dark eyes were watching Harry unflinchingly. Harry dropped his hands, then pointed vigorously at his throat and mouth and said, “Uhh - I - I…” before his voice cracked and he had to clear his throat.
“Attempt the spell again before trying to say anything else,” Snape urged quietly.
“Wah- Wah - Wah,” Harry continued stammering, this time slightly louder than the last as he pointed his wand at his notebook, willing it to levitate just as he was willing the rest of the incantation to leave his lips.
“Concentrate Potter.” Snape commanded. “Think back to the memory that you just saw of yourself successfully completing the spell. Allow your arm to use muscle memory to create the motion, and then try to recall how it felt to speak the incantation,” Snape said in a low, firm voice. “Think about how it felt when you heard Professor Flitwick saying Wingardium Leviosa for the first time, and then when you heard Miss Granger complete the spell as well. After you watched her the words came right out of your mouth - you know how to say the spell, so work on verbalizing the incantation again. Visualize it in your mind. Wingardium Leviosa!” Snape waved his non-wand arm in the motion resembling the one needed for casting Wingardium Leviosa.
“Wah - Wah - Wah,” Harry kept sputtering, pausing to reset every few seconds, only to keep waving his wand and continue sputtering. His notebook on the desk in front of him remained motionless, as Harry hadn’t even completed half of the incantation.
“Again! We will view the memory once more,” Snape instructed as he drew his wand and leveled it at Harry. “Legilimens!”
“You’ve got them cut too square-like, they’re supposed to be cut more rectangular,” Hermione seemed to be saying to Neville.
A miserable look overcame Neville’s face. “I think I already added an extra dash of cowbane essence, if I can’t get these ginger roots in the right shape I’m doomed!” He looked over to Snape, who was instructing something to Pansy on the other side of their first-year Potions classroom, and hadn’t seem to have heard Neville’s melodramatics.
“No no, you can fix it - well, most of the ginger roots anyways,” Hermione soothed. “Here see mine? Now take your own knife and trim off some of-”
“What is this?” Snape’s booming voice came from inside of Harry’s head.
Harry felt a jolt and the spell ended, sending them back into Snape’s office as Harry looked at his furious professor.
“Do you enjoy wasting my time, Potter? Perhaps you think it’s amusing to have a walk through memory-lane of all the times Miss Granger has given you or your little friends the answers during an assignment? Proving to me just how little work you Gryffindors are capable of doing! Copying off Granger for assignment after assignment, ever since your first-year!” Snape spat, his eyes narrowing and his greasy hair swaying in front of his face as he placed his hands on the table in front of Harry and got even closer to him.
Harry shook his head back and forth, becoming nervous at how fast Snape had lost his temper. He was getting uncomfortable flashbacks of Uncle Vernon when he would accuse Harry of doing something freakish then lock Harry in his cupboard for days. Harry pushed his chair back from the table - to put some space between him and Snape - then crossed one leg over the other to put his notebook on his knee and quickly wrote:
“No sir, we don’t cheat off Hermione, and I didn’t show you that as a jest! When you said focus on what Hermione said, that memory just came to the front of my mind before I could remember the Charms lesson.”
Snape read Harry’s notebook then seemed to be studying the boy’s wide green eyes, looking for traces of deception. He apparently found none, because he placed Harry’s notebook down and turned slightly away from Harry, seemingly trying to regulate his own temper through a series of deep breaths.
“We will try that again then,” he said slowly, still not looking directly at Harry. “You are to imagine that first memory; your first Charms lesson with Professor Flitwick.” He paused. “It seems your mind is highly attuned to remembering instructions from Miss Granger during class, so if it is easier to recall her explaining the spell than Professor Flitwick, then do that. But be sure to focus on your completion of the spell, how it felt to cast the enchantment, and how the words felt coming out of your mouth.”
Snape raised his wand once more, finally looking back at Harry. “Ready, Potter?”
Harry took a deep breath, thought about that memory, then nodded, and when he looked back at Snape, the man cast Legilimens.
“Make sure you enunciate on each syllable, but don’t go too fast or too slow. You have to say it at the perfect cadence - Wingardium Leviosa,” Hermione explained to Neville, sending her feather up in the air again and gesturing for him to do the same.
Harry once again watched his first-year self take the advice Hermione gave Neville as he relaxed his grip on his wand and rolled his shoulders back. “Wingardium Leviosa!” First-year Harry said, sending his feather floating. His first-year self had just broken into a proud smile, and he was remembering how good that felt and the sense of accomplishment he had felt in that moment when the memory disappeared and he was back in Snape’s office.
Snape leaned over and plucked Harry’s notebook right out of his hands and placed it on the table.
“Cast the spell now, Potter. Draw from that memory. Recall what you heard Miss Granger explaining, but more importantly how you felt during and after you successfully cast the spell. You got your feather to levitate before Mr. Weasley and Mr. Longbottom, both of whom are pureblood wizards, raised around magic their entire lives. Don’t you remember how accomplished you felt in that moment?”
And yeah, Harry did. After learning in his first-year that the majority of his classmates had grown up around magic, Harry had been extremely nervous that they would all have the leg-up on him, and all had been being trained in wizardry already while Harry had been clueless at the Dursleys. Every time a classmate had referenced something magical, Harry would have to note what they were talking about, and ask Ron about it later. Going into Charms, he assumed Ron would be one of the first to cast Wingardium Leviosa correctly, seeing as he came from a big magic family, with brothers older than him who already knew the Hogwarts curriculum. Because of that, he thought they would’ve told Ron what to expect on his first day so he could practice before-hand and show off, as Hermione seemingly did. But even if Ron knew the spell and had practiced early, he struggled to get it right in the classroom. Hermione got it first, then Harry was able to successfully levitate his feather, which had eased some of the anxieties he had.
He was a wizard, a good one, and he belonged at Hogwarts.
It had felt really good to say Wingardium Leviosa when he was a first-year, Harry remembered. And it would feel good to say it - out loud - as a sixth-year as well.
Harry aimed his wand at the feather and opened his mouth. “Wah - wah - wah,” he stammered.
“Focus, Potter,” Snape said tersely.
Again, Harry thought back to first-year Harry. Made his mind try to connect that ability he had a first-year to his physical body, now in Snape’s office. He thought about how the words felt coming out of his mouth that first day of Charms, and how shocked he was to cast a spell correctly, and even proud that he had managed it before Ron.
“WING-ardium, WING-adium,” Harry kept picturing in his head. He was thinking of WINGarium Leviosa, but why wasn’t Wing coming out?
“Wah - wah - wah!” Came out again.
Harry closed his mouth and looked helplessly up at Snape.
Snape studied Harry for a few seconds, not saying anything, but obviously trying to figure out what direction they were supposed to go in. And it struck Harry in that moment, that even though Snape was his professor and his instructor in these private lessons, he was almost as clueless here as Harry. Harry looked to him expecting an answer, but the man probably had just as little of an idea if this method would even work on Harry. Sure, Snape and Dumbledore must’ve gone through it together and deemed it important enough for Snape to resume his private lessons with Harry, but Dumbledore basically admitted Snape had never tried this approach with a student before, but at Dumbledore’s insistence he was willing to try.
Even though it should’ve unsettled him to realize that Snape didn’t have half a clue what to do next, it oddly comforted Harry. He was so used to Snape having answers for everything and in their previous Occlumency lessons seeming to know what Harry would do or what he was thinking before Harry even did. Despite how hard he tried to appear, Snape wasn’t all-knowing, and Harry had found an area that the man wasn’t as self-assured in as he normally would be.
An idea seemed to have struck Snape, because he waved his wand and summoned a snowy white feather from his stores, and brought it close to his eyes to examine.
“This,” Snape said as he placed the feather down on the table right in front of Harry, “Is a swan’s feather plucked from the exact same swan Professor Flitwick uses to procure his feathers for the Wingardium Leviosa lesson with first-years. This one looks to be about the same size and shape as the one from your lesson with him. It may be worth it to attempt the exercise again, except this time casting Wingardium Leviosa on the exact same object you cast it on in your first lesson.”
Harry picked up the feather to examine it, then looked up at Snape, whose face betrayed nothing. Shrugging, Harry placed the feather down and took a deep breath as he closed his eyes.
“It’s LeviOsa, not Leviosar, you’re saying it wrong.” Hermione’s voice echoed through his head.
Winggardium LeviOsa, not Leviosar, Harry thought to himself. LeviOsa, not Leviosar. He opened his eyes and aimed his wand at the feather.
“Wah - wah - wah!”
He rolled his shoulders back, readjusted his grip then aimed again.
“Wah - wah - wah!”
And on and on they went. Snape casting the spell so they could view the first-year Charms lesson together, then ending it so Harry could attempt to cast Wingardium Leviosa. But Harry didn’t get any further besides the verbal “wah”s.
After what was surely more than an hour of this, a disappointed Harry dropped his arm and looked up at Snape, expecting to see the man sneering at him.
But he wasn’t. Snape was simply stroking his chin thoughtfully. “Well no miracle occurred tonight, that’s for sure. But it does seem we are making progress in the right direction. While “Wah” is not the correct inflection associated with WIngardium Leviosa,” Snape said, stressing the beginning of the word, “It does appear your vocal cords are working with your brain on the memory of speech. Your brain seems to have remembered the w-sound in ‘Wingardium’, but your vocal cords are not yet able to remember how the word itself is supposed to come out. You are remembering how w most often is used in sentences to make a ‘wuh’ sound, but the connection has not been fully restored yet to allow you to remember the ‘wing’ sound. Hence…” Snape trailed off as he gestured to Harry.
“But W in Wingardium Leviosa makes a ‘wih’ sound, and the sound I’m making is ‘wah’. I know how to say Wingardium Leviosa, yet ‘wah’ is what comes out.” Harry wrote.
Snape’s eyes were on Harry’s notebook for far longer than it took for the man to read the two sentences. After a minute, the man turned the page and plucked a quill from his own desk and began writing quickly. Harry watched him with a mix of amusement and curiosity. When Snape turned Harry’s notebook back around, he could see six words written in Snape’s spidery handwriting.
Walk
Watch
Wave
******
Wild
Wiper
Wink
“Look at these three first,” Snape said, pointing a finger at the words walk, watch, and wave. “Your brain and your vocal cords are mistaking the ‘win’ sound with the “wah” sound, hence the “wah” that is emerging from your mouth. Now, watch my mouth as I say these three words,” he said, as his finger moved to wild, wiper, and wink. “Wild. Wiper. Wink. It’s a wih noise. See how my mouth moves when I say wild?” He asked, gesturing to the corners of his mouth. “The wih noise is not quite as long as what wah makes.”
Snape went through the words once more, ordering Harry to keep his eyes on his mouth as Snape continued saying the words and pointed out the difference his mouth and cheeks made with each sound.
“Now, even if you can’t verbally say any of these words out loud, I want you to practice mouthing each of them. Making your mouth familiar with the movements associated with these words will be helpful for the next time you attempt to cast a spell and want the spell to come out of your mouth the right way.”
Snape then watched as Harry’s mouth made the movements associated with the six written words. Once Harry had mouthed each of them once, Snape directed him to do it again, this time, “Lift your mouth into a smile after each wih sound.” Although he felt a little silly smiling at Snape after mouthing words, Harry did it. Again, and again, and again. Until his cheeks finally started to hurt and Harry splayed his hands out in front of him in a “what now?” expression to Snape.
“We will end the lesson there I think,” Snape said. “But you have homework before our next lesson.”
Harry’s eyes widened slightly in surprise.
Snape tapped Harry’s notebook with one long finger. “Besides practicing mouthing these words, I want you to think about that memory of you casting Wingardium Leviosa for the first time and practice the wand movement as well as the verbal incantation. I do not expect it will be easy, but that is why you are required to verbally practice this spell - with caution - whenever possible.”
Snape fixed Harry with a look that said he expected Harry to do as he was told. “Am I understood?”
When Harry nodded Snape said, “Good. That’s all for tonight.”
Harry wasn’t sure if he was supposed to write thank you, or apologize to Snape for the inconvenience of him having to teach Harry again, so he settled for a weak smile then turned it into another nod which then became a duck of his head when his smile was met with nothing other than a stare from the professor.
*****
Later that night when he was back in his dorm, Harry situated himself in his bed - curtains drawn - with the Marauders' Map, holding his wand ready. Remembering what Snape had told him earlier that evening he cleared his throat and tried to verbally unlock the Map. I solemnly swear I am up to no good. He kept saying the words over and over in his head, carefully aiming his wand at the Map, willing it to unlock even though nothing more than an “uh - uh” was coming out.
After more failed attempts than he could keep track of, Harry sighed and closed his mouth, resigning to just unlock the Map nonverbally. He would need to practice his verbal Wingardium Leviosa later, as it seemed that was all he was (barely) capable of at the moment. The light transferred from his wand to the Map, and it became alive, the faded parchment transforming to a vibrant yellow, the pages unfurling to show footsteps of students and staff all throughout the castle. Snape, Harry noticed, was still in his office, even though McGonagall and most of the other professors were in their private quarters at this hour.
Harry spent some time scanning the Map before he found the name he was looking for - Draco Malfoy. He frowned when he saw that Malfoy was on the fifth floor in a corridor where there weren’t any classrooms, mostly storage closets and holding rooms. What was Malfoy up to in a deserted corridor after curfew?
Harry cast a nonverbal Lumos to shine more light on the Map and see who it was Draco was meeting - was this where he was communicating with his father? - but as he brought his wand light up to the Map, Malfoy vanished. Harry gasped, lifting his wand higher so the light was distributed more evenly as he looked under the surrounding pages of the Map for the little dot that said Draco Malfoy, but he couldn’t find it. He flipped through the pages until he got to the dungeons, and saw that besides Snape in his office and Draco’s missing dot, all other members of Slytherin House were in their dormitory or common room.
So where in the world had Draco Malfoy gone?
*****