Hoping For a Better Future

II - The Vanishing Glass

Hoping For a Better Future

BOOK ONE

II – The Vanishing Glass

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"You have such a way with words," Sirius commented sarcastically, while Harry gave a sheepish grin.

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There was another pause in the reading while the people in the room turned their glares on one, at the moment very uncomfortable, Headmaster.

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"Actually, that's a memory," teased Sirius. Harry glared at him mockingly.

"Thank you, Sirius, I had no idea," he replied in kind.

"But it is amazing that you would remember such an early memory," said Hermione quietly. Harry stared at her for a moment, then around the room. Almost everyone looked quite impressed with him. He blushed and ducked his head, making Snape raise his eyebrows. He had expected the boy to become arrogant under such praise, but the boy had – once again – crushed those expectations. The more they read, the more he found himself wondering just who the boy was. Because, obviously he wasn't the carbon copy of his father, like he thought he was. It was quite a bitter potion to swallow, but Snape was good at swallowing bitter potions – literally or not.

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Ron shuddered and both Hermione and Harry couldn't stop the bout of chuckles that attacked them at that performance.

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"Could you read that part again?" Sirius asked slowly. "I think I didn't hear that correctly."

Tonks repeated what she read, without any teasing remarks.

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Harry was staring at his hands which were squeezing his school trousers, red-faced with shame. He never wanted them to find out about his cupboard, but knew that it would come up sometime.

There was a poisonous silence in the room as everyone tried to calm down before they murdered the Headmaster. Dumbledore himself was sitting in his armchair and looked quite gloomy at the book in Tonks' hands. He knew that the boy wasn't happy with his family, but he didn't expect them to treat him quite so bad.

Severus on the other hand was experiencing a paradigm shift. Everything that he thought of the boy – being a spoiled prince, being arrogant like his father – everything slipped away at the sentence that was just read. He did the only thing that he could think of at the moment – he put his elbows on his knees and leaned his head on his palms with a deep sigh. Harry (when did he become Harry and not Potter, anyway?) was more like him than Snape thought possible. While his father did not stick him into a cupboard, he did have to live in a small attic room where it was cold most of the time. He wouldn't be surprised if in the books to come there would be some mention of physical abuse as well.

However, it was the mental abuse that Harry had to suffer from for all these years. It was no wonder he had so little self-preservation and such a big hero complex. And yes, now that he thought about it – the boy never stood up for himself when Draco had a go at him, but he always stood up for his friends. Snape realized that Harry probably never had friends before coming to Hogwarts. It was a bitter realization that Snape's own childhood was better than Harry's in him having a friend, his Lily.

While this monologue was going on in his head, the others were shouting at the Headmaster.

"Could we please continue reading the book?" Harry finally said with a quiet voice – that was heard nonetheless.