Recnac Transfaerso

9 - Detention Discoveries

Without the fever to distract him, Harry awoke the next morning barely able to move in result of his injuries on his back, ribs, and stomach. He even had several gashes on the backs of his arms from the glass.

After everyone had gone to breakfast, Harry took off his shirt and looked over his shoulder into the bathroom mirror. It didn't look good. The cuts all looked angry and red.

He pointed his wand over his shoulder and aimed at one shard of glass embedded in his skin and nervously said "Accio." The piece shot upwards out of his back, cutting it even more. Harry had to clamp a hand over his mouth to muffle a scream.

"Well that's not the way to do it," he decided, cleaning up the blood with toilet paper and putting his shirt back on. He would need to find another method.

He focused on walking normally down to the Great Hall. He was very hungry, not having eaten well since the Stenson's and losing any scrap that was in his stomach the night before. It greatly pleased his two friends to see him eat so much.

He made it through his classes, hiding any pain caused by sudden movements and such. He was having a relatively good day, but his mood diminished when they began trooping to Potions, the last class of the day.

Potions went fairly normally. They were brewing cleaning potions that would lift out dirt from carpets and such. Later there would be much joking about how Snape should use it on his hair and talk of slipping it into his shampoo. (Of course the mere thought of entering Snape's bathroom destroyed this plan immediately.)

At the end of class, when everyone was hurrying to get their things, Snape watched as Neville accidentally bumped Harry into a desk, apologizing as he passed, eager to get out of the class. Nobody but Snape noticed Harry's stomach bang into the desk. It wasn't that bad of a hit, but Harry gasped in pain, his knees nearly buckling. His hands gripped the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turned white while he breathed deeply as though trying to relieve some kind of pain. He quickly got control of himself and grabbed his bag. Snape knew something was wrong and followed his first instinct: giving detentions.

"Potter, you will see me for detention at 7:00 sharp."

"Detention? What for?" Harry asked confused. What had he done wrong?

"We will discuss that tonight." Harry started to protest but Snape cut him off. "Now leave. I don't want to see you again until detention." He pointed a finger toward the door and Harry realized he was defeated. He walked out the door and began grumbling to his friends, gaining much sympathy from Ron especially. Snape tried to put the boy out of his mind but couldn't get the picture of him leaning over the desk out of his head.

At 7:00, Harry found himself entering the Potion's room still confused about Snape's reasoning. It wasn't unusual to get detention from Snape, but he always received some explanation, no matter how untrue or unjust. He approached his teacher and asked why he was there. Snape ignored the question.

"Well Mr. Potter, today I observed something quite unusual. Since when does bumping into a desk hurt one so incredibly much?"

Harry was dumbstruck. "Er...excuse me Professor?"

"I think you know what I'm talking about and I'd like an explanation."

"Listen Professor, I don't know what you're talking about, and if this is why I'm down here I'm going to be going now."

Harry turned to leave but Snape reached out and grabbed his shoulder to stop him, his finger landing right on a piece of glass. Through Harry's shirt, sweater, and cloak, Snape didn't realize what he was doing, but in grasping Harry's shoulder, he pushed the piece of glass further in.