The Flickering

by Sentient Dawn

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Summary: Harry Potter has an unusual magical gift – one he fears and therefore, has kept hidden for many years. When an unfortunate accident forces his secret to be revealed, a new chapter in Harry's life begins. Harry/Snape mentor fic.

Rating: Rated T due to occasional language, mild graphic descriptions of violent happenings and dark themes.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to J.K. Rowling.

A/N: This story begins just before Christmas during Harry's fourth year. It more or less assumes cannon up to that point. I'm not entirely certain how long this story will be yet, but it will run at least 25k. OK. Here's chapter one. I hope you enjoy it!

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The Flickering

Chapter One

Of Faith and Fear

"Its a cardinal – an American cardinal – I'm almost positive."

"No, Ginny, it can't be. Those birds don't migrate overseas," Hermione lectured. Tilting her head in further consideration, she took a step closer to the large pine tree just outside Hogwarts' entryway doors where the vibrant red bird in question sat poised on one of its low, snow-covered branches.

"I suppose it could be a finch," she continued, her voice hushed yet still fervent, alive with that same avidity it possessed while discussing academics. "Either that or it's some type of tanager. Yes, I think it is a tanager – a scarlet tanager. Although those aren't seen in Britain very often either"

"It's just a faith bird," Ron announced dismissively as he turned away from them, taking the first few steps leading up to the school entrance. When no one followed he turned back around and sighed in irritation. "Come on, you guys. The Christmas Eve feast has already started and I'm starving!"

"What do you mean... it's a faith bird?" Hermione asked. "I've never even heard of such a thing." She was staring at her retreating friend, hands on hips and eyes narrowed with skepticism.

"Dunno," Ron said, shrugging as he took another reluctant step down. "It's what Mum always calls any red bird that shows up around Christmastime. I think she said it has something to do with the magic of the holidays. Ya know... it being a time of faith and optimism and goodwill... or maybe it's just 'cause the bloody thing's red like Father Christmas' suit. Who knows? Look, can we just go already? I don't want that Durmstrang lot to hog all the Christmas pudding!"

Standing stock-still between Ginny and Hermione, Harry was only half-listening to his friends' avian debate. The sight of the small vibrant bird had set his mind adrift, causing memories from his childhood to surface unbidden. One memory in particular – involving the last time he had seen a bird like this – blazed more brightly and in more detail than the others, pushing itself to the forefront of his swirling thoughts.

Disengaged from his friends' conversation though he was, he was still able to glean bits of it – something about the bird representing faith and the magic of the holidays. Those last few words alone were enough to cause his consciousness to slip further into his painful past... to a time when his own concept of Christmas magic differed considerably from everyone else around him.

Even as a small child, Harry was aware of what most people meant when they spoke of the magic of Christmas. He knew, or at least suspected, that the majority of the celebrating masses considered that magic to be generated from the brightly-wrapped packages topped with ribbons and bows, decked-out trees aglow with fairy lights or the gluttonous offerings of roast turkey, potatoes and cranberry sauce. He reckoned others had an altogether different take on Christmas magic, believing it to be engendered from the precious time spent with loved ones or from celebrating the birthday of mankind's savior – a savior of both Muggle and Wizard alike.

Harry however, believed in none of these things.

Not at the time, anyway.

Back then, Christmas held no magic for the underweight, messy-haired boy from number four Privet Drive, at least not in the way it did for everyone else. For him, the Christmas season was a time of scathing glares, hurtful jeers, measly scraps of food stolen when backs were turned and attentions diverted and a sizable increase in his already lengthy list of daily household chores. The yearly increase was meant to further maintain the Dursleys' carefully kept facade of the perfect family living in the most pristine and orderly household and as their holiday guest list increased, so too did Harry's inescapable drudgery. As it were, more chores meant less time spent in exile in his cupboard, which in turn meant fewer opportunities to practice his own kind of magic...

The only kind of magic Harry believed in as a child, Christmas or otherwise.

For it was only there, under the dark seclusion of his spider-infested safe haven, that he dared to perform his most secret and inexplicable skill. It was real magic – Harry was sure of it – though he had no idea how he was able to do it, where it had come from or even what it was called. He only knew that if his aunt or uncle ever caught him doing it, he would be punished and severely. For this reason, he only did it in private and only while locked away in his cold, drafty cupboard where secrets were born and magic revealed itself, where hopes and dreams thrived and love was permitted to flicker within the depths of his forsaken heart.

That's actually what he called his wondrous skill: flickering.

Harry had been able to do it as far back as he could remember, but it wasn't until he was six years old that he finally gave it that name. He had decided to call it flickering after hearing his aunt use the word to describe how a lit candle in their sitting room reacted to the evening wind blowing in through their open window. He remembered watching with wide eyes, mesmerized, as the tiny flame danced about – flaring and withering intermittently as the breeze wielded its erratic control over its tenuous heat and light.

Harry recognized that his own magical skill acted nearly the same way as that dancing flame. It flickered. It played and frolicked. It pulsed and struggled and quivered. It was alive, yet tenuous and fragile, susceptible to the elements surrounding it.

He remembered the one and only time he'd ever evoked the magical energy outside the protective enclosure of his cupboard. It was on a Christmas morning. He and Dudley were both nine and the latter had just received his very own Super Nintendo game system. After all the presents were opened, his uncle had let Harry out of the cupboard – whether out of a sense of guilt or Christmas goodwill, he was never certain – but Dudley soon pitched a fit when Harry sat down on the sitting room carpet to watch his cousin play his new video game, Street Fighter II. Looking back now, Harry supposed the blissful smile stretched across his own face as he watched the fight unfold on the screen was the thing that had set the selfish prat off. God knows, Harry wasn't ever permitted to share in any of Dudley's enjoyment. Needless to say, he was banished from the sitting room as soon as Dudley's wails and whines reached his aunt and uncle's ears. He ended up spending the rest of the morning out in the backyard.

Ambling around the small snow-covered yard, Harry had occupied his time kicking up chunks of ice and frozen earth with his threadbare trainers to temper his frustration until suddenly, a flash of color amid the blanket of white caught his eye. Kneeling down, he bent over the small speck of bright red, using his bare fingers to brush away the fresh fallen snow covering it until at last the mysterious object was revealed.

It was a bird – the very same kind of bird his friends were busy arguing over right now – small and fragile-looking, with charcoal-tipped wings and a vibrant shade of red covering its head, back and belly. Unlike the sentient creature adorning Hogwarts' grounds at present, this bird was stiff and motionless. Its spindly legs were curled up and rigid, bits of ice clinging to its feathers, its black eyes frozen and vacant. It was dead, of course. Even as oppressively reclusive and sheltered as his life had been up to that point, Harry knew death when he saw it. So to this day, it remained a complete mystery to him as to what had possessed him to do what he did next.

With hands that shook a little, Harry scooped up the lifeless creature and brought it to his chest, pressing his palms gently to its frigid plumage while his fingers wrapped around the tiny body. Eyes shut tight in concentration, he summoned the flickering – calling it forth and letting its familiar warmth swell and churn within him. He felt it unfurl from the center of his chest and spread out to his arms and legs, all the way to his freezing cold feet and hands and to his numb fingers still embracing their demised bundle. He recalled panicking slightly when the flickering changed, becoming stronger and more intense than ever before. Eyes snapping open in shock and uncertainty, Harry looked down at his hands, his panic escalating to new heights when the normally subtle yellow glow that always encompassed his hands whenever he did this, flared to a blinding white. The dazzling luminescence was accompanied by a burning sensation, his hands suddenly searing with pain. Terror surging through him, he dropped the bird, plunging his stinging hands into the snow for relief.

Unfortunately, those burns on his hands were not the only painful wounds he would endure that day. Just seconds after dropping the bird, a huge, meaty fist grabbed the collar of his coat, its owner dragging Harry bodily across the snowy lawn and up the steps leading to the back door, obscenities screamed into his ear the whole time. The word 'freak' rung out more loudly and more often than any other and even now, five years later, Harry found it was the only word he could remember out of the many shouted at him. Harder to remember was the beating he suffered at the hands of his livid uncle the moment his feet crossed the threshold of the house. Although he still bore several scars on his lower back from the man's belt buckle, making the experience undeniably real, during most of the ordeal, his mind had fallen into a kind of protective detachment, allowing his subconscious to drift into self obscurity.

What would forever remain within his long term memory however, never to fade away completely or wither into unmindful indifference, was what he glimpsed from the kitchen window just as the first lash of cold leather struck his delicate skin...

It was a small blur of bright scarlet that shot straight up from the snowy earth. With wings outstretched, it soared around the small suburban yard twice before disappearing amid the falling snow, swallowed up by the thick clouds of the overcast sky.

That was the last time Harry had performed what his childish mind had dubbed flickering all those years ago. At the time, he told himself that his uncle's retributive measures, as well as those painful burns on his hands, were what deterred him from doing it again. His real reason for never returning to the magic however, had nothing to do with physical self-preservation. No, the truth was not nearly so basic or simple.

The truth was, Harry was terrified of what he was capable of. Terrified of the magic itself.

Every time he thought about what he did that Christmas morning he felt sick and panicked, a deep, debilitating dread sweeping through him, his heart racing and pounding. Flickering had been something wondrous and awe-inspiring when it was just a warm ball of energy emitted from his hands, its life force giving out a soft yellow glow that cut through the pitch-black of his cupboard, but this... this was too much. It was far beyond the kind of magic a young boy was even able to dream up, let alone handle. It wasn't right. It was unnatural. It was... well... freakish... and the panic he felt anytime he even considered it was all-consuming. So Harry did the only thing that made sense to his nine-year old way of thinking.

He suppressed it.

He drove the whole idea of flickering, magic, warm glows of energy and any other freakish notion from his frightened mind. He buried it so far and so deep into his subconscious that in two years' time, while being informed he was a wizard by Hagrid in that rain-soaked cottage atop that rocky island, the shock on Harry's face was almost genuine. Of course, the memory did surface every now and again – once later that same day when Hagrid informed him that as a baby, he had lived through a curse that should have killed him, making him the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry was quick to shove the memory back from whence it came. But a year later, it breeched his consciousness once more, brought about by the stunning realization that there was yet another magical talent he possessed that no one else at Hogwarts did. He soon convinced himself however, that being able to talk to snakes was not that bad; in fact, it was rather benign in comparison to being able to bring something back to...

No!

No, he wouldn't allow himself to think about that. So back it went, deeper this time. Further into his most secret place where dreams are hidden and love is quelled, where hopes and needs are restrained, ignored, denied.

He wasn't a freak.

There was no such thing as flickering. It was only ever a childish fantasy – a bizarre and twisted hallucination. It wasn't real. That bird was dead.

And it had stayed that way.

"Fine!" Hermione blurted out, her exclamation yanking Harry from his grim reflection and causing the bird to fly away in a flutter of vivid scarlet. Whirling around, she stomped over to the impatient red-head, her eyebrows drawn together, brown orbs blazing with vexation. "Fine! We'll just rush on over to the pudding then since that's what's most important! But are you certain it's the pudding you're so interested in, Ron? Are you sure you're not just hoping to get a good long look at a certain blond Triwizard champion?!"

"I-I'm not… I… no! I'm just hungry!" Ron stammered, voice rising in pitch and face reddening.

"Hmph" Hermione huffed. She folded her arms across her chest and blew past the flustered red-head, making her way up the entryway steps and into the castle, Ginny hastening to catch up with her.

"What is her deal?!" Ron shouted, sounding much more self-assured now that Hermione had gone. He was staring at the closed castle doors she and Ginny had disappeared behind seconds ago. "What does she care if I look at Fleur? I mean – it's got nothing to do with her!"

His disgruntled words were met with silence, prompting Ron to turn toward Harry, still fuming.

"You know what, Harry? I don't think she really has a date for tomorrow's ball. I think she's just pretending she does. And now she's lashing out at anybody who does have one and… Hey. You OK, mate?"

"Huh?" Harry gave himself a mental shake, finally looking away from the branch where the bird had been perched moments before and meeting his friend's worried gaze. "Sorry. Um… yeah. Yeah – I'm fine. Just dreading my detention with Snape tonight, I guess."

"Some friend I am! Going on and on about Hermione's oddities when you've got to face hours of cauldron scrubbing with that greasy git," Ron said, draping his arm across his shorter friend's shoulders in consolation. "I still can't believe he's making you serve detention on Christmas Eve. Heartless, that one is."

"Yeah," Harry intoned in a weak, lifeless voice. He swallowed past the tightness in his throat with a grimace and then forced a small smile on his face, hoping it would be enough to hide his panic from his friend. He hadn't thought about that Christmas morning in a long time and now that the memory had surfaced so abruptly and with such intensity, he was having a difficult time shoving it back from where it came. His mind was a whirlwind of anxious ideas and racing thoughts, heart thumping against his ribs, his skin hot and sweaty, despite the December cold.

Ron removed his arm from around Harry's shoulders and turned to face him directly, his worried expression becoming more so.

"Harry, are you sure Snape's detention is the only thing bothering you? You don't look so good."

Meeting Ron's concerned blue eyes head on, Harry tried for a more convincing smile, forcing his panic down deep and burying his fear.

"Seriously, Ron, I'm OK," he replied, voice steadier now, stronger. "Come on, let's go eat. Christmas pudding awaits, right? And Hermione's bound to have cooled off by now."

"Yeah right! I think we have a better chance of being awarded house points in potions class than we do of encountering a calm and pleasant Hermione when we walk through those doors but... yeah... the pudding will be worth it."

As they climbed the steps leading up to the castle and passed through its heavy oak doors, Harry felt his facade slip once more, the memory of a blinding white light and the awakening flutter of charcoal-tipped wings flashing through his troubled mind, refusing to stay hidden any longer.

Chapter End - To Be Continued.

A/N: FYI, I hope to update this story once every week or so, depending on my hectic life! So, hopefully I'll have chapter two posted by the end of the month (fingers crossed).

Reviews are greatly encouraged! ;P