Disclaimer
This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the Harry Potter world, which is trademarked by J. K. Rowling. I do not claim ownership for the characters. This story is my own invention, and while compliant with the canon, is for entertainment only and not part of the official story line. I do not intend to profit financially otherwise from the creation and publication of this story.
BLURB
McGonagall looked up at him and her eyes scanned Snape's face. She would find it aged, which was not just the result of time. While a wrinkle or two betrayed his forty-fifth year, and he was discovering an increasingly steady arrival of grey in his temples and whiskers, it showed mostly in his eyes. They had seen far, far too much. But what she said was: "By the goodness of Merlin: here you are, back from the dead, and you don't look a bit different."
In the Battle of Hogwarts, Snape is left to die in the Shrieking Shack - only to be rescued by a mystery woman from his past who knows a secret about him that even he does not. In her lifesaving care at a secret location, Snape recovers...but the world he left behind has assumed he's dead, including the son he knows nothing about.
For eight years Snape recuperates in secret, then in 2006, when the position of Potions Master becomes vacant at Hogwarts, he decides to come out of hiding. Snape is ready to rule the dungeon again.
What he doesn't know is that his eleven-year-old son (to murdered Charity Burbage and raised as a Muggle) has just been invited to Hogwarts to become a wizard.
And his son has questions of his own.
Where have you been?
And what happened to my mother?
Just when Snape thought life might go back to normal, he is thrown into a post-war Hogwarts in turmoil: with a headstrong, rebellious son, Slytherins run amok, de-railed Malfoys, a vengeful Neville Longbottom, a closure-seeking Harry Potter, Unionised elves and even a ghostly love from his past who isn't ready to rest.
Can our broken, Half-Blood Prince possibly come out on top?
WIP - updated approx fortnightly. Sequel to The Uneven Orbit. While reading that story first will provide better context for the events in this story, it is not essential.
Longfic; Chapters average 8K words
Pro-Snape; Severus Snape POV.
Canon-respectful; curative. Some OC's necessary, but no Mary-Sues. High quality production.
Please check out my reviews, but caution, may contain spoilers
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
Frederic Douglas
PROLOGUE – 2nd May 1998
It had been a battle. There was yet a battle, and Hogwarts Castle was burning. The residents of Hogsmeade who hadn't joined the fight were watching from their homes and gardens, at a distance, silent, afraid, as the flames and spells ignited the evening sky. It was impossible to tell from afar who was winning, if anyone was really winning, but if Hogwarts fell, then Hogsmeade would be next.
Diaphne was of the Hogsmeade Coven, and she was watching from up the branches of a stout elm, one she routinely harvested for wandwood, and she had constructed a rudimentary ladder up the main trunk to scale the tree easily. The sturdy branch on which she sat, nobbled and gnarled from decades of pollarding, not only provided a vantage point to watch the battle, but also unfettered view of the Shrieking Shack, although to the Coven it was simply referred to old Okey Gander's place.
As it was late spring, the elm was in flower and with every movement she made, a small shower of petals drifted to the damp grass below. And despite the warmth of the day earlier, she now shivered slightly in the cool of the evening, and pulled her wool wrap up closer to her neck. While the distant scenes of Hogwarts Castle under siege had been gripping, she had been more recently intrigued by unusual activity at the Shack, the ineffectually boarded windows of which had been lit from within for several hours now, and shadowy figures passed them, sometimes pausing, as if to look out.
It was too far away for her to discern anything unique about the silhouettes she saw, but she wondered why they were there at all. Was it people from Hogsmeade, she speculated, perhaps using the shack as a hideout in case the worst became their new reality? Or something – and this was the version her intuition was starting to lean towards – more sinister. It could only be people who didn't have a natural aversion to the Shack, people who were restless, people who paced back and forth and frequented the window, clearly waiting for news.
There was something else, too. Something that didn't resemble a human and yet moved independently – this was the thing that Diaphne couldn't look away from, squinting into the darkness in futile hope that her sight might become telescopic as a result. Her only conclusion, after resigning to a numb rear and freezing toes, was that if she was going to solve the puzzle, she would need to get closer than the tree.
Lithely she descended her ladder and her dragon-hide slippers found the ground silently. The rumours and legends surrounding the Shack were nothing more than childhood bedtime stories to her, she had no fear as she hurried up the overgrown path of sleeping daisies, dandelions and clover, then through the collapsed wire fence towards the Shack's front entrance, careful to keep in shadow. Occasionally a flare of light from the Hogwarts Battle would glare down upon the landscape, and the darkness that cloaked her would shrink away as if scalded, and then she would freeze, pretending to be nothing more than a tree-stump or bush, hoping against hope that this was not the exact moment the inhabitants of the Shack would be looking out.
Twice she startled rabbits from their supper, stoic against the unnatural sounds and sights that disrupted the evening, and again allowed a few moments for calm after the animals scampered away. At last she stole into the shadow of the Shack's back porch, and, as she had done numerous times as a dared child, creaked open loose panel in the back door enough to slip inside.
As if a shadow herself, she backed up immediately against the dark, peeling wall of the long-abandoned, cobwebby kitchen and concentrated on what she could see and hear. This plan had already gotten away from her, she realized. She hadn't expected to find herself inside, she hadn't really thought much beyond getting a closer look, but now she was in here and the Shack hadn't resisted; it seemed as if other forces had compelled her. Too often in her past this was exactly the way she'd gotten into several shades of trouble: spontaneous was her middle name, and the term she preferred to impetuous, which was how she was often described. She was a girl with granular instincts.
She heard voices drifting through from the main, front room next door, a conversation: one high voice, one deep. The high voice, she could tell, was in charge, only because the deep voice betrayed obvious concern, reservation, uncertainty. She couldn't make out the words, and even she didn't dare to move closer, there was something ominous about the discussion and something about it that stirred a sense of familiarity. She instead allowed her eyes to rest upon the rough, uneven floorboards, tracking the footprints she could see in the dust. Through the doorframe of the kitchen, she could see how they all seemed to source from the same place – she knew from previous visits that there was a trapdoor in the main hall of the shack, a hinged square of floorboards which could be lifted and laid flat, concealing a passageway beneath in complete darkness. She had stood at the very edge of the trapdoor, curling her toes over the roughly-sawn rim of board, but her nerve always failed her at that point, she had never gone into the tunnel, none in the Coven had, they were far too superstitious.
As if her contemplations had triggered it, there was sudden activity within the tunnel and she shied away into the shadows where she could watch. She saw a light blink out and waited to see if a person or people would emerge, but none did; she could sense them however, she could tell a presence at the entrance of the tunnel, obscured by a crate. She began to feel nervous and exposed and understood completely that these were not kindly, anxious wizarding folk from her village in hiding: she had entered some kind of battle lair, she had become witness to some kind of unfolding strategy, that the men in the next room were so absorbed in the tension of their engagement they were unaware that people mere feet away watched and listened.
Footsteps moved in the front room, creaking on the wooden boards, and there was a flash of light and then Diaphne saw another movement, a strange rotating glowing sphere seemed to roll pass the entrance then out of sight again. She couldn't comprehend what she'd seen, it was unlike anything in her frame of reference. She wanted to inch forward, to get a closer look, but terror kept her rooted to the spot. She didn't know if the owners of the light in the tunnel were friend or foe, and if she revealed herself, what they might do.
A muttered, hissing noise could just be heard and then…then a shriek of pain and fear, strangled choking noises, bone-chilling sounds that made the hairs on Diaphne's neck stand up, made her put her hand over her mouth to stop herself screaming in turn. There followed a heavy slumping, what she assumed was one of the men falling to the floor, and then quiet.
She didn't dare breathe, her heart was tripping so fast she could feel all her pulse points throbbing. Her mind cast wildly about to how she could escape without being noticed, whether she could sneak once more through the broken back door without making a noise. She'd gotten away with a creaky entrance while the men were deep in conversation, she doubted she would be so lucky twice. So she glanced to the corner of the tunnel, where the crate was, to see what those people were doing.
They were as still and quiet as she was. And they remained hidden, as she did, when the man from the front room emerged and she saw, but couldn't quite believe, that she'd eavesdropped on a conversation held by Voldemort himself, the Dark Lord. Even in the gloom of the unlit hall he entered, she registered his pale, hairless, snakelike features, his red eyes, his long, clawed fingers holding his wand, and she sensed with her witch intuition the evilness of him. He was focused in his movements, he betrayed no concern, no regret, not even any uncertainty about what he'd just done. He walked with purpose from the front room to the main door of the shack, which had been unbarred to give him access, without looking back, and there was no risk of him observing anyone in the shadows. Following him came the bizarre, starry, spherical cage and within it, she ascertained with a gut-clenching shock, was a huge snake, a great writhing, floating snake, so strange and unexpected her eyes began to sting from staring so hard.
Voldemort exited the shack, and she could tell by the way the sphere followed him that he wouldn't be returning. There was some finality to it, a kind of disregard to his attitude that when a thing had met his needs, fulfilled a purpose, outlasted its usefulness that he didn't bother with pleasantries such as shutting the door or turning off the Gaslamp. In fairness, Diaphne thought, there was a war on. She realized her horror at his contempt was inspired by sympathy for the – presumably – dead man left in the front room.
The Healer in her stormed to the fore and she had actually lifted a foot to rush to the aid of the hurt man when she detected the crate at the trapdoor levitating up and to the left. She froze and watched. Her eyes saw strange flittery movements and then, suddenly, there was the Famous Harry Potter, immediately recognizable from a hundred newspaper photos, wanted posters, magazine articles, even postcards she'd seen for sale in Diagon Alley. Voldemort and Harry Potter within minutes of each other! – Diaphne could hardly believe she wasn't dreaming. He emerged from beneath what was evidently an invisibility cloak – the likes of which she'd heard about but never witnessed before - and then he leant down to assist a friend – a girl – emerge from the tunnel. She was followed by a red-haired boy. She'd seen all three once or twice in Hogsmeade, dressed in Hogwarts uniforms.
The three didn't spy her at all. Her eyes huge with amazement, she watched as they ran instantly into the front room. In the ruckus of creaking floorboards as they hurried, she used the moment to swap walls in the kitchen, giving her a better vantage point to see through. Her movement created a cloud of dust, which tickled her nostrils and for a few, dread seconds her eyes watered as she pinched her nose to stop from sneezing.
There wasn't much talking. She could make out Harry Potter kneeling and attending to the man on the floor. Diaphne could see the legs and boots of the injured person, but that was all. The prostrate man was spluttering, trying to speak, and she could see the girl and the boy standing, watching, their faces aghast and confused as they strained to listen. There were no exclamations of despair, no tears, no attempts to console or embrace the injured man – whoever he was, he had earned concern but not distress. They knew him, knew him better than a common war enemy, knew him enough to go to him, but he was no friend.
The girl conjured something with her wand, a vial or a bottle which she gave to Harry Potter. Diaphne couldn't see what was happening, but for a couple of minutes, they stood silently, their eyes fixed on the fallen. The injured man had gone still and quiet. Then suddenly there was a high, cold voice that was both invisible and omnipresent at once. It filled the shack, and from the words Diaphne understood it was Voldemort, calling an armistice. Potter had jumped to his feet with the flask in his hand and Diaphne melted back against the kitchen wall.
"You have one hour," Voldemort was saying, to everyone, everywhere. "Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured."
Harry Potter and his friends muttered some words amongst themselves, then leadenly returned to the entrance of the tunnel and once more covered themselves with the invisibility cloak. She saw the last footprint in the dust and then there was silence once more in the shack.
Diaphne exhaled and waited, waited a full two minutes before moving. And then healing instincts in overdrive, almost in obeyance to the Dark Lord, she crept quickly from the kitchen into the front room to find the injured man. She had a feeling he was dead, that it was too late and that the famous Harry Potter wouldn't have abandoned a man to die even if he didn't like him that much. But even if he was dead, at least someone could be sure to check his eyes were shut, murmur a few last words, perhaps leave a note about what had happened. Evidently the man was not one deserving to be disposed of with dignity, judging by how he'd been abandoned.
On the floor, on his back, completely still, was the man who had screamed. As she stealthily approached, Diaphne could see the blood that drenched the man's neck and the floor immediately beneath him. She saw he was dressed all in black; fine, tailored clothes not the rough, poorly fitting trousers and shirts of local workmen. Heart hammering, she drew closer, eyes coming to rest on the man's face, trying to make out his features in the flickering of the lamplight. And then at last she saw, she realized with a gasp of incredulity, that the bloodless, prone face belonged to the Professor, her Professor, the Professor at whom she'd cast a thousand sneaky glances across the Three Broomsticks, the Professor whose picture she'd cut out of the Daily Prophet when he became Headmaster of Hogwarts, the Professor whose heart she had felt with her own fingers, whose hair she had brushed away from his black eyes, who somehow, indelibly, imprinted on her mind the standard against which all other men had been compared, it was he, Severus Snape, dead or dying and at her mercy.
She fell to her knees beside him and lay her hands on his face, hoping for a response, a sign that he was conscious, or at least alive. She was appalled at how pale he was, and that his lips were drained of colour also, that there was no movement behind his eyelids. The snake – what had it done? Was it simply blood loss or venom that had robbed him of life? She found the buttons at his collar and tore them away, and beneath that was his cravat, which was dark red with blood, but which, indirectly, had served to act like a bandage and had helped to clot the blood where fangs had punctured his skin. Not enough, though, not enough. She drew forth her slim, Elmwood wand and cauterized the wounds she could find, and then carefully unwound the damp, sticky material from his neck, examining the skin carefully.
"Professor?" she said softly, all the while, watching his face. "Are you there? Can you hear me?"
She searched for a pulse, gently pulled back his eyelids to check his pupils, listened closely for breathing. Yes – there was, there was life here, barely a thread, she had but minutes. More intently now, she wrestled with the buttons on his coat and rent it apart, then, fearful, she simply tore at the shirt beneath, time seeping away constantly, worse than his blood. Then, finally with access to his chest, she placed her right palm above his heart and incanted the healing charm her aunt had taught her, carefully palpitating her fingers until they slipped through his skin, through the muscle, the bones of his ribcage and delicately probed for a movement, even a flicker of a heartbeat. And there – there it was – his heart, his weary, loyal, broken heart – wanting to rest now, wanting to act on the instruction it had received that it could go to the green eyes, it had served well, it had worked hard, and though by wizard standards was incredibly young, seemed to suffer the burden of much older and battle-worn men.
"It's not your time to go," whispered Diaphne, looking into Snape's eyes, but they were closed, still. And with her left hand, she raised her wand above his chest and began a melodious incantation, and with her right hand she imbued the slightest pressure, a rhythmic massage, reminding his heart what to do.
There was little response, her Professor was fading, he was being willed away. "Severus…," said Diaphne, feeling a little unsure, she had never used his name before. "Stay with me, it's not your time to go. Come awake, Professor."
His heart fluttered beneath her fingers, and her eyes widened. She paused, waiting to see what his heart would do, loathe to interfere to much. Her aunt had taught her that, like a small animal, they could simply die of shock, overstimulation.
Another vibration and then – she smiled unconsciously – his heart began to beat: slow but strong, steady, reliable.
Biting her bottom lip, she very carefully withdrew, eased herself free of him and relaxed back to watch his face. While she waited for his system to recalibrate, she took up her wand again and swirled it and said, "Expecto Patronum!" A silvery, misty cat leapt from her wand tip, a sinewy, slinky animal with large pointed ears and it wound itself around her, lifting onto its back legs to rub against her in apparent ecstasy. "To aunt," she told the cat. "Come quickly, to Oakey Gander's old place in Hogsmeade, I have a critical patient." The cat's head tilted a little to listen, then it trotted away and bound out of the boarded up window into the night.
Snape's chest had begun to rise and fall as his lungs processed air, but he was otherwise lifeless. Diaphne lifted his hand and rubbed it, willing warmth into him. At times like this she missed her sister, Imogen, who for so long had been her compatriot and her accomplice. Imogen would have ideas, she was the sensible one, the applier of process, the instruction-reader. But she was at home now and protecting her newborn, closely guarded by her husband, awaiting the outcome of the war. Diaphne would not disturb her, she and Aunt would save the Professor.
"Professor?" she said, leaning forward. "Can you hear me? Please wake up."
She heard a sort of rattling gasp issue from his lips, but still no movement. Could his lungs be flooding, was he slowly drowning here on dry land, on this dusty wooden floor of the shack? Diaphne knew she wouldn't be strong enough to move him herself, but she went behind him and, with a grunt, heaved his shoulders until he had rolled onto his side, hopefully easing some of the pressure.
There was noise from the front entrance of the shack and she heard her name called out. "In here, Aunt, quickly!" responded Diaphne, leaving Snape's side long enough to hurry through to the hall. She almost ran headlong into her great Aunt, the Wicce, who had crossed the decrepit threshold and was glancing about her with an expression of disapproval and unease.
The Wicce wore her usual black shawl, heavy damask robes in bronze and claret, and fine, rabbit-leather black gloves. In one hand she carried her carpet bag and in the other, her black, mandrake wand.
"Diaphne, why have you summoned me here? There is a battle raging -,"
"I know, Aunt, and one of the wounded is through here – he needs our help. I have stopped the bleeding and de-fibrillated with my hand, his heart is beating normally now - ,"
As she spoke, Diaphne urged the Wicce through to the front room where Snape lay. The Wicce walked with great reservation.
"Why is the patient in here? Is this safe?"
"We are quite alone, Aunt. Harry Potter was here just before but he has gone and…and the Professor was left here, I think they assumed he was dead -,"
"Professor?" said the Wicce, turning to look sharply at her niece. "Harry Potter?"
At that moment, the Wicce was taken to the side of Severus Snape and Diaphne didn't point, she just looked at the form, on his side, one arm flung forward.
"Remember the Professor?" Diaphne asked softly. "From Hogwarts? Professor Snape?"
A long moment of silence while the Wicce stared. "Memoriam Delens?"
"Yes. He has just been murdered by Lord Voldemort. Except he didn't die. And he's alive now. A huge snake bit him."
The Wicce seemed to find the whole thing incomprehensible. She wasn't accustomed to walking into scenes that hadn't been prepared well in advance. "Then he is quite a survivor."
"I know. I said it wasn't his time to go."
"A huge snake? Then Voldemort didn't kill him?"
"In a floating ball, it belonged to Voldemort. Aunt, it is too strange to explain now…please help me save the Professor, I don't like how he's breathing…"
Diaphne crouched down and bent her ear towards Snape's mouth, listening. "It rattles, Aunt, there is liquid on his lungs."
The Wicce had continued to stand, immobile, seemingly cogitating on the information she'd been given, the scene before her. Then she said, still without moving, "Professor Snape is a Death Eater, I remember."
Diaphne, didn't reply, but looked up at her Aunt, waiting, wary.
"Perhaps there is a good reason why he had been murdered."
"By the Dark Lord, Aunt. If he is a Death Eater, then he was struck down by his own master. Not in battle."
The Wicce considered this, trying to think why Voldemort would kill one of his own. Failure and betrayal were the only reasons she could think of. Unless the snake had bitten him by mistake. She hesitated.
"Please, Aunt," said Diaphne, slowly rising. "This man suffers. He is not evil, he is not meant to be a Death Eater, you have seen how he loves."
This was irrefutable. Not just how the man himself had paid, dearly, with his heart, but how it had been reciprocated, how much another had loved him. Cold, dark, truly evil men did not have that capacity. But still she hesitated. She had vowed to take no part in the Death Eater cause however much she knew about Dark Arts.
Diaphne placed a hand tentatively on her Aunt's arm. "Please…I have no husband, no child, my childhood friends have grown and left me behind. Let me have Professor Snape. I can tend to him. I can learn and he will be redeemed. Please Aunt?"
The Wicce had yet to put on her mask and Diaphne saw her Aunt raise a skeptical brow. "He will be redeemed? My dear, you've been reading too many romantic novels. If you put aside those fantasies and start thinking like a true healer, maybe I can be convinced. Now, you tell me, what would you do next to aid your Professor?"
Diaphne didn't hesitate. She knew she'd won. "I would clear his lungs immediately. And Phoenix tears on his wounds."
A huge, doubtful sigh through her nostrils and the Wicce opened her bag. "Alright. Urgent work here, and then we apparate him back to the infirmary for recuperation. Now…describe this snake? Venomous or constrictor?"