A Darker Form of Magic, book three: Dementors

Chapter Four

Books strewn around him, parchment rolled up around his feet, and a transfigured pen in the boy's hand is how Snape finds the boy a few hours later, scribbling away at the summer assignments that the students had been set to complete over the holidays.

The door was open wide when the Professor walked over to it, the boy sitting on the ground inside of the office with his back to the wall as he read and worked at what seemed to be his transfiguration assignment, a cold look on the teen's face as he did so. The potions master hadn't realized how quiet his steps were until he'd knocked on the open door to draw the boy's attention and there was a knife pointed at him, ready to tear the older wizard apart.

Harry had heard his Professor coming, had felt the way that the magic twisted in the air as another that held it drew near, shifting as it was awaiting to be called upon. He pointed a blade at the man still to remind the man of its presence, of the damage that he could do even without the pull of magic.

He watches as Snape eyes him and his blade warily, hands held out at his side in what Harry was sure was supposed to be a surrendering motion. Harry wasn't quite sure that he believed it as he knew that the other man could cast as easily as he could breath and likely knew spells that could still push through a shield of Harry's making.

"Lunch is ready," Snape says slowly as he watches the boy.

Harry only nods and pushes himself to his feet, biting back a grimace as his knee protests the movement. But it always did so he didn't pay it much mind. What he did pay attention to was the way that his Head of House's eyes seemed to linger on the blade in his hand, looking at it with an emotion that he didn't recognize, but wished that he did.

The teen watches as the older wizard walks slowly further into the room, over to the desk within it and opens one of the drawers facing away from the younger snake. The wood creaks at the movement, protesting it, and Harry wonders - not for the first time since coming here - why the home is in the shape that it is when the man living inside of it holds the power that he does.

Those thoughts are torn apart when Harry sees the object that was taken from the desk.

The dagger is beautiful, the metal of it shining in the summer sun as Onyx runs down the middle of it, black and silver contrasting shining in the sun's light like the moon at night. The handle is made of a dark wood with the same black stone running through it, as if it were woven into the wood. A small stone rests at the top of the handle, a milky blue color to it, moonstone.

Harry would have enjoyed the sight much more if the dagger wasn't in the hands of another, someone that he knew that he could trust at school but not in a setting such as this.

"Here," Snape says simply, as if reading the boy's thoughts, holding the blade out by the metal.

Harry walks slowly across the room to the older snake, watching the potions master with careful eyes, magic gathered at his fingertips if needed. It wasn't as the teen reached out and grasped the handle of the blade, feeling the smoothness of the wood war with the chill of the metal. The weight felt right in his hand - more so than the switchblade often did - as the magic within the room seemed to swell as he held it, as if the dagger was once touched by it and had been waiting to be used once more. The Slytherin gave the blade an experimental twirl, relishing in how light it felt even as he knew that it should be much heavier to hold.

He brought himself back to reality before he could covet the blade too much, something that felt hard to do as the magic that flowed through him seemed to buzz with satisfaction as Harry held it.

"Why?" Harry asks, looking up at his Professor with an almost defiant gaze. Suspicious. It wasn't thanks, not yet. Not when he didn't understand the motives behind such a gift. Because there were always motives, and prices too.