A/N: I intend to write a novel about Harry and Snape continuing from the Deathly Hallows. I'm currently out of ideas for the plot. Any ideas for the storyline is greatly appreciated. Also, the writing is very crude. Any edits or suggestions is also welcome. Thanks in advance!
A/N: Hi, I decided to change up the story a little so I could paint a clearer image of what Harry is going through. As always, any suggestions/changes are welcome and appreciated!
The Hero's Return
Prologue: The Midnight Walk
It was a crisp spring night in a small region many, many miles away from the little town of Surrey in England. The crescent moon, its soft light casting pure radiance for the first time since myriad vicious storms, cut through the dense thickets of the a certain forest, illuminating the nondescript leafy floor. The "Forbidden Forest" was the name of the small piece of wilderness.
A great, stone castle called Hogwarts resided beside the Forbidden Forest. Despite its age and the battered appearance, Hogwarts stood proudly, never waning the slightest. Moonlight shone through the numerous enchanted windows of the castle's countless corridors. Hogwarts, the castle, not so long ago, had been magnificent, filled with the merry voices of chattering students. But that had changed. Ever since a certain dark wizard had taken control of the school, everything had changed. Hogwarts was no longer the safe haven, a place for sanctuary, the representation of light and innocence. It was turned into a school full of dark magic and dark practices. The wizard – everyone in the wizarding world knew his name, but only very few ever dared to utter it – was Lord Voldemort.
In May of 1998, it seemed as if Voldemort was finally going to have the complete magical world in his clutches, when Harry Potter, a young man of mere seventeen years, struck him down from his regime, forever.
Days have flown by after Voldemort's demise. Bodies that had once littered the Great Hall of Hogwarts, resulting from the final battle were taken away by families and friends, buried with sorrow, respect and sometimes – guilt. The survivors saddened with the casualties but relieved of the death of the dark wizard, prowled through the halls of Hogwarts. Whether young and inexperienced or old and wise, they put the castle together with what simple spells they knew and erected monuments for their friends and loved ones.
Everyone, though heart heavy with remorse, were freed of a heavy burden.
That is – everyone but Harry Potter.
A mere day and night after Voldemort's demise, Harry was anything but what you would expect the savior of the wizarding world would be like. Sad, angry, confused, Harry resembled greatly of a moody adolescent, mopping through the castle, speaking very few words to anyone.
This behavior did not go by unnoticed by his closest friends, Ron and Hermione. Hermione, credited by many to be the brightest witch of her year, was the first to notice Harry's depressed demeanor. After trying unsuccessfully to share her thoughts with Ron, she tried to talk to Harry herself, only to receive a half-hearted attempt at brushing her off in return. She then attempted to find Ginny, hoping she could talk to Harry, but was met by a fervently working Ginny administering potions and care to the countless patients in the Hospital Wing. Seeing the dark circles under Ginny's eyes, Hermione changed her mind to alert Ginny and kept her observations to herself.
Hermione, however, was not the only person in the castle that noticed the change in Harry. Professor Minerva McGonagall, newly instated – or rather, reinstated – as the Headmistress of Hogwarts, considered Harry to be another of her grandsons. Formerly a stern, but fair Transfiguration professor, she had a sharp eye and was usually the first to notice anything out of ordinary. It was long before she picked up Harry's mopping and rather unnerving behavior. Promising herself that she'd force it out of Potter before he turned into the next – albeit Gryffindor – dungeon bat, she resolved to carefully tail him until she could find a time and place in his daily routine where they could talk freely. That, however, was not easy. Harry Potter was simply invisible. Even swarms of reporters couldn't find a single hair of him to write stories on.
Ironically, Harry did in fact spend a lot of time under Disillusion charms or his invisibility cloak. Between the two, he made sure he could slip by under the noses of Rita Skeeter's clones, but could be found easily by an unsure student asking about repairing spells, or in several cases, a distraught Hermione inquiring his well-been more times than he'd have liked. After a fateful encounter in the Owlery with a concerned and babbling Hermione, during which Harry rather forcefully shoved her aside with less than kind words, Harry felt that everyone and every portrait in the castle seemed to have their eyes on him. Meanwhile, Hermione didn't seem to get the message that Harry wanted to be left alone, so she kept on pelting him with questions. It was quite unnerving hearing someone else's observation about one's self, right down to the way one eats. Hence, Harry started living under his cloak and wandered about the castle more and more, alone.
It should not be a surprise to most where Harry disappeared off to between his duties as a "Repairer" – in other words, his job was to spell the wards on the damaged parts of the castle – and as one of the potion brewers. With Slughorn's insistence at Harry's talent and with the help of a certain potions textbook that Harry retrieved from a seemingly untouched Room of Requirement, he was one of the lead healing potion brewers of the infirmary. Harry chuckled to himself as he realized that Snape would probably be rolling in his grave when he hears about Harry's new occupation – that is, if he had a grave to roll in.
And that was the reason Harry had been spending a lot of time nearby a certain destroyed tunnel. Charming a tree branch to stick to the knot on the Whomping Willow, Harry spent days turning over every stone and wood plank of the Shrieking Shack, but he found nothing. Snape had simply disappeared, both body and wand, leaving behind a few bits of tattered black cloth as the only evidence that he had been there before.
Snape's body's disappearance greatly disturbed Harry, so much that he spent hours mulling over the possible reasons the dead would walk off with his wand. He had been so sure, so sure, that when Snape's hand thudded to the floor of the Shrieking Shack, his former nemesis was dead. But could Snape have lived? Blah. Impossible. However, Harry was not so sure then, after checking and rechecking the list of buried dead, paying a personal visit to the shrouded identified bodies and the mutilated unidentified ones, and after repeatedly muttering summoning charms under his breath, earning him strange looks from passerby.
Unfortunately, Snape was not the only rock in Harry's mountain of a heart. He had assumed many months and even years ago, that after the downfall of Voldemort, he would be happy and relieved. Indeed, that was the case in the immediate moments after the dark wizard's body fell to the ground in the Great Hall. However, as time passed and the shock wore off, a new emotion settled in Harry: guilt. It was not long before Harry realized that it was unbearable passing through the corridors without something to distract himself with. As his footsteps echoed through the halls, he couldn't help but think of the innumerable wizards that had fallen there. His friends; Colin, Remus, Tonks… and others, others that died so he could have a chance at defeating the Dark Lord. Others that died because of him.
As the new sense of guilt settled itself in Harry, he began going out of his way to avoid his friends, a reminder of who was not among them, who couldn't be among them because of Harry's selfishness. Voldemort was right. Harry let them die for him. He had let them die to protect him, just like his parents, just like Sirius, just like Snape, who had to risk so much to ensure the less-than-grateful-Harry's survival…
The clock struck twelve in the Gryffindor common room and Harry sat bolt upright. He looked up from the Defense textbook that he had been scribbling furiously on, making notes on the edges and suggesting different wand motions for each spell – not unlike the Half-Blood Prince. Unmistakably, he had been immersed in the book for the past few hours after dinner (not that he went to eat in the Great Hall in the first place), and therefore missing the looks his friends gave him as they retired off to bed some time earlier.
Stretching, he was not the least bit interested in continuing writing till his hands fell off, nor was he particularly sleepy, so throwing on his invisibility cloak, Harry climbed out of the portrait hole, deciding to take a midnight walk.
Other than a demanding "Who's there?" from the portrait of the Fat Lady, the corridors were completely silent. Harry wandered with no real purpose, occasionally stopping to repair broken parts of stairs and walls, and vanishing loose stones blocking his path. Mindlessly, Harry reached the third floor, passed by the Room of Requirement without pausing, and turned right to another hallway. Suddenly, he stopped. A cloaked, dark figure stood before a window, looking out at the view.
Heart pounding, Harry gripped his wand and clutched his cloak in his other hand, prepared to throw it off at any sign of attack. In his panic, his shoe hit a rock, and it rolled away down the corridor. The figure turned, face hidden by the shadows.
"Who's there?" An extremely familiar voice called.
"Professor McGonagall?"Harry breathed a sigh of relief, pulling off his cloak, and walked toward the professor. "Professor, I'm Harry, Harry Potter."
McGongall, however, did not move.
"Potter, what did I tell you to take the first time you were in my office after that Umbridge woman sent you there with a note?"
"Er… A ginger newt, was it?"
McGonagall stepped into the moonlight. Harry saw that she wore a dark green dressing gown, and for the one of those rare times, had her hair down past her shoulders.
"Oh, thank goodness it's you, Potter, I was thinking that it was some Death Eater…"
Then sharply, she turned to Harry, gave him one of her sternest looks, and Harry's heart sank at her next words, "What on earth are you doing wandering the castle this late, Potter? There're still people supporting You-Know-Who – oh, don't look at me like that. Fine, Voldemort – that still want you slaughtered and tortured for your bravery. I suggest you take care and look after your own skin. People will definitely miss you while you're gone, you know."
"Professor, I think some people are going to want to capture the Headmistress of Hogwarts, not to mention Dumbledore's second in command." Harry retorted.
McGonagall's eyes flashed dangerously behind her square glasses and for a moment, Harry thought he'd gone too far. But then, she smiled.
"I really wonder when you're going to lose that witty tongue of yours, Potter. It's too bad you're not in school anymore so I cannot take any points from Gryffindor. Not that Gryffindor can really afford losing any more points after your adventures with Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger."
Harry felt emotions flood over him with the mention of his best friends. He didn't say anything and stared out the window, at the moonlight dancing on the shimmering lake. His silence and uncomfortable demeanor did not go unnoticed by McGonagall.
"Potter?" She inquired.
"Points…points didn't matter…that's what I said to Ron and Hermione in our first year… when we decided to stop Snape from getting to the stone." Harry said shakily, trying to suppress his emotions. "We thought it was Snape at first, because of his hatred toward me. But it was Quirrell…and Voldemort."
"It was brave but a foolish act on your part, Potter." McGonagall tried hard to keep her voice even, knowing Harry could break apart at the slightest slip of a tongue.
"Our second year… the basilik. We overheard the teachers saying Ginny was captured, and Hermione figured out it was the pipes."
"You nearly gave me a heart attack when you knocked on the door to my office with that fool of Lockhart, Mr. Weasley, and Ms. Granger safe and sound, albeit a bit wet and bloody."McGonagall gave a small smile unnoticed by Harry, remembering.
"Third year, I was told that Sirius murdered my parents, but we found out the truth in the end. I might my godfather for the first time. For a very short time, I finally felt like I was wanted, but Pettigrew escaped, ruining my all my chances of actually having a family that want me."
"Po –"
"Fourth year," Harry continued quite forcefully. He had no idea why he was recapping all the events of his previous years at Hogwarts. But it seemed important that he talked everything out. He didn't care what McGonagall thought of him. He just needed to… talk.
"My fourth year the fake Moody put my name in the Goblet of Fire. Ron almost stopped talking to me but eventually he came around. Moody helped me so I could get through the tasks. It was my suggestion that Cedric and I both take the cup. I – I got him killed –"
"Nonsense, Potter! Peter Pettigrew killed Mr. Diggory!"
"I could have prevented it. If I only could have… Voldemort took my blood to make himself a new body. The Ministry…they didn't want to see the truth. They were too scared."
"Fifth year, Fudge was scared, so he appointed Umbridge to make sure Dumbledore wasn't doing anything to overthrow him. But he didn't. We did; Dumbledore's Army." Harry smiled a little at the memory. "Then, Voldemort got into my mind. I couldn't throw him out. I didn't pay attention to my Occlumency lessons with Snape because I wanted to see his mind. I didn't think he would plant false images…so that he could get what he wants. The Department of Mysteries. And Sirius…Sirius…I – I barely knew him…He was all I had."
Again, Harry was forced to pause to choke down his rising sobs.
"Sixth year, Dumbledore showed me memories during parts of Voldemort's life so I could understand him better, so that I would know the objects he used to hide his Horcruxes in." Harry glanced over at the nodding McGonagall. He had told his closest friends (with the exception of Ron and Hermione, for they already knew), and the remaining members of the Order about Voldemort's Horcruxes.
"At the end of the year, Snape killed Dumbledore, under his orders…"
Harry gulped, and the memory of Snape's voice filled his head Clear your mind, Potter. Clear your mind.
"This year, so much has happened. So many, so many that has risked their lives to protect my hide died. Moody, even Scrimgeour died keeping my location secret, Fred, Remus, Tonks, Snape, and Colin…I – I could remember the first time he disarmed a dummy in D.A…."
Harry's voice cracked, and the sobs rose from his chest. Tears trailed down his face, and McGonagall drew him close, patting his back.
She whispered, "…it's ok, Harry, it's ok…"
"I – I feel like I failed them. I could have struck him down… sooner. So many died… to protect me."
"Potter! That is not true!"McGonagall's angry voice cut through Harry's sobs, but he just ignored her.
"I – I'm just an arrogant, self-centered brat like my father. Snape was right… I used them as my shield…shield." Another sob.
McGonagall's voice was the stiffest and sternest as Harry had ever heard her as she said, "Really, Potter, what you're suggesting is completely absurd…"
Harry gulped and tried hard to keep his voice steady, "But Professor, Voldemort's right, I let them die for me…"
"Harry Potter! Are you possibly listening to He-Who- alright, Voldemort?"
There was a pause. Then, Harry spoke so softly that McGonagall had to strain to hear him, "I don't know… I don't know…"