Yesterday was the Welcoming Feast, and Harry Potter had exulted to be back among friends at the Gryffindor table. Today, however, he was headed to the library for as frantic a "finish my homework" session as he could possibly stomach. It was remotely possible that he could finish everything except Potions. Curse that Snape for assigning so much work! Up to the library (he hoped he could find Hermione and work with her.)
As he went up the stairs, he heard a scratching sound below - he bent around to look backwards, curious as to what it could be.
"Catch!" was the last word that Harry heard, his face turning upward entirely too slowly, as his ear collided with a falling metal ball./p
Up a flight of stairs, Draco Malfoy smiled, that particular mean and nasty and satisfied smile he rarely used at school. With catlike feet, he leapt down, kneeling beside Potter, and casting a well-practiced series of spells. "Gotcha!" He said, grinning. His hands slid under Potter's shoulders and knees, and he - with pronounced care, picked the light boy up, and, with a triumphant sigh, started up the stairs.
Harry Potter came to in a room he didn't recognize - but of what he could see from the quick blink he took, Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape were having a very emphatic argument. The odd thing was, it was entirely silent, except for the sound of skin on skin. They were talking with their hands, exclusively.
"Didn't mean to wake you, Potter," Malfoy drawled, spoiling any hopes that Harry might have had, that he could somehow escape, or at least pull a fast one by pretending to be asleep.
Snape cut in, his slender fingers flashing in the universal symbol for "cut" before he turned to Malfoy, seeming to continue their argument.
His ruse foiled, Harry sat up, looking around befuddled from the hit to his head. Moving his head hurt, stabs of pain flashing over his eyes. "Ow." He said profoundly, "Where am I?"
"Welcome to Sanctuary." Draco Malfoy said, self-importantly - though he wasn't leaning on the name, which Harry found odd. "Have a care what you say. You cannot lie here." All through this, he made repetitive gestures at Snape.
"What. Are. You. Saying." Harry Potter said, drawing himself up, though having the good sense to stay seated on the ground.
"Repeating things you already know. Things you've said." Malfoy said shortly, his focus purely on Severus Snape, whose looming presence showed that he was unwilling to cede ground in the argument.
Finally, Snape took a step back, saying shortly, "Fine. You were right. I was wrong. I should have listened." Snape stared at Malfoy for a long pause.
Unintimidated, Malfoy flourished a scroll at Snape, and said simply, "Read it."
"What is that?" Harry asked, curious almost despite himself. He had the feeling that he should feel like he was in deep trouble - being alone with these two Slytherins, particularly when no one knew that he was there... Or even where he was... But his confounded curiousity would not stay quiet. It never had, not even with the Dursleys.
"Medical Patient History for one Harry Potter. In full." Malfoy said, his sharp grey eyes looking down at Harry's green ones. He squatted down, suddenly, until he was only a head taller than Harry's seated form. "You do realize they're not supposed to be multiple feet long?"
Harry Potter gulped. This just got better and better.
"Where is this place? Why am I here?" Harry Potter whispered, his green eyes turned towards Malfoy, whose gaze remained trained on Severus Snape, Potions Professor otherwise occupied with reading the scroll. Malfoy noted, though Harry did not, the way Snape's hand shook, beneath his wrought iron control. Those weren't the questions Harry wanted to ask, but it never did do to ask "Am I in mortal danger?" - if you were, they wouldn't tell you, and otherwise it was an insult.
"Hogwarts - just a part you've never been before." Malfoy said softly. He opened his mouth to say more, but Snape cut him off without saying a word.
"Mister Potter," Snape said in a gravelly voice that sounded like he spoke through ground glass, "It would appear that I owe you an apology. I would also like to welcome you to Slytherin House."
Harry, his head still throbbing, barely caught the smirk of victory on Draco Malfoy's face. He was too busy being astounded by what Snape had just said. And then baffled. "What?" he croaked, "But I'm -" he started to suck in some ... outrage, or something like that.
Snape's voice overrode his, out-volumeing him while retaining the character of a normal speaking voice. "For quite some time, the Sorting Hat has missorted many that should have been in my house." Harry felt a chill through his bones - Snape couldn't know, could he?
"House Slytherin is a house for the ambitious, it is true, but it is more a house for those who cherish the ability to see others as they are. Kenning, true understanding. Often, that sole ability is what's kept members alive." Snape looked at Harry, a question clear in his eyes, "Was that the case for you, I wonder?" Harry clung to his silence as if it was a liferaft, and Snape, somehow, did not seem perturbed. "You may speak, or choose not to, as you wish, of course."
Harry found himself looking down at his tie, still stubbornly Gryffindor gold and red. "But, what of my - I was sorted in Gryffindor! My friends -" Harry's eyes echoed confusion, and desperation.
"You aren't the only Gryffindor in our ranks, Potter, or weren't you listening?" Malfoy drawled, "You may think of this as an additional affiliation, not one that supercedes or obliviates your other."
Harry felt his head spinning, and he was sure it wasn't from the konk to the head. He wouldn't have dreamed that Malfoy could speak like this - the bastard had always seemed so proud of his house... Harry felt his thoughts drifting away from himself, like a web unraveling into a thousand paths that he couldn't all follow at once.
"O-okay," Harry said, inching his way away from the two Slytherins nearly on top of him. "Can I go now?" He asked, and he hated how weak he sounded, even after a blow to the head.
"That would be an exceedingly unwise decision, Mister Potter," Severus Snape said, "As such, no, you cannot go now."
The door opened, and Slytherins slid through the door, eddying around the three people who were about five feet in front of the door, finding places near the edge of the room.
"But-I was-homework!" Harry said, his words almost dying in his mouth under Severus Snape's weighty gaze.
"Stay," Snape said shortly, and he turned and walked towards a particular Slytherin, standing away from the others. A young one, Harry didn't know her name.
"What is going on?" Harry Potter asked, more to himself than to Malfoy, who stood like a guard dog between Harry and the door, "What am I doing here?"
Almost as if Harry hadn't asked a question, Malfoy said, more to himself than anything - his eyes most certainly nowhere near Harry's, "Do you know what Sanctuary means, Potter? This place is a refuge. Space safe from the lies we tell each day."
"We?" Harry said, softer than a whisper.
Draco Malfoy's grey eyes wheeled, turning towards Harry, as he practically spat, "You lie too, Potter, don't you dare tell me otherwise." His normally light grey eyes looked dark as a thundercloud.
More people entered - Harry vaguely picked out a few Ravenclaws... and was that a Hufflepuff?
They seemed to be avoiding ... both Malfoy and Potter, Harry thought. Strangely, this was the one place where no one stared. Was that Malfoy's doing? Harry wondered. Snape certainly wouldn't want his house glorifying Harry Potter Famous Boy Who Lived, but that wasn't often the stare he got - not around school. No, around school he was Quiddich Star, or Evil Incarnate, or even Troublemaker...
But not here.
Harry... wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, really. The room seemed half full of Slytherins, but ... there were a lot of Ravenclaws, and a handful of Hufflepuffs. More than a handful of Gryffindors, of the flavor "Harry Vaguely Realizes You Exist."*
And then Neville Longbottom walked in. Or, more accurately, hustled in with a huff and a bit of a stumble. But that was Neville, sure as Sunday.
Now, in the normal course of things, Harry didn't say much to Neville on a regular basis. He fit in that vague category of "quasi-friend" that you didn't share dire secrets with, but that you could generally go to for advice or help on a project. Harry had asked him some Herbology questions when Hermione didn't know, that sort of thing.
Now?
Neville Longbottom was an angel, in a sea of uncertainty. Besides, he knew Neville. Ron, he could see being involved in something morally questionable. The twins? he had verified proof. But Neville Longbottom? He'd have walked out, and not returned. Sworn to secrecy, or whatever Slytherin thing they wanted, but they couldn't force people to participate, right?
Harry quickly refocused his attention on Longbottom, before he thought about the possibilities enough to drive him crazy.
"Neville!" Harry cried out, running over at the point of giving him a hug, before realizing two things. First, Harry wasn't really sure how to hug people - they were always hugging him. And second, that he probably wasn't that close. So, he settled for grinning like Neville really was his sunshine.
"Hey, Harry," Neville said, in that quiet tone he often used, "Glad you made it." He carefully looked Harry up and down, and said, "Actually, I was expecting you a while ago, what took you so long?"
Behind Harry, he heard a most undignified snort. Confused, Harry turned around, to find Malfoy smirking at him. Who knew Malfoy could make a noise like that? With a voice like crushed ice, Malfoy responded, "You know that was Snape, Longbottom, don't try to tell me otherwise."
Harry, taking a step back to be "not between two people talking", and saw Neville grinning.
What Was Going On?!
"Welcome, Welcome," Snape began, his grave and gravelly voice taking all the cheer out of the words, turning them stone-cold. "You will note that we will celebrate a new member joining us today." Harry at last found people's eyes looking at him, but - for once - they didn't seem more than slightly curious.
Draco Malfoy spoke up, looking small and pallid beside Snape's sallow complexion, "Remember, all that you say here is truth. Here, It is most unwise to try to lie."
"We will speak now, and tell the tales that need to be told, so that we do not repeat them." Snape said firmly. "None need feel forced to speak, although we will all listen without question. None need feel forced to reveal, though we will not speak of this outside this room. None need feel forced to feel, although we will look away if you come to tears." The last lines had had a peculiar cadence, and Harry wasn't at all surprised to see three circles come to life around the crowd. What he hadn't expected were the circles to be offkilter - like a drawn atom's triple circle around the nucleus. What sort of spell did that?
"Our newest member may begin." Snape said, although it took Draco Malfoy walking over and discretely elbowing Harry in the side for Harry to realize that he was wanted. The look of amused exasperation was enough to make Harry Potter want to hide. If Snape wasn't upset or horribly angry at Harry Potter, something was wrong.
Harry wasn't sure he wanted to know what.
He didn't have anything to say, so he stood firmly, trying to look like a soldier, as people looked him over.
The next person to stand up actually had something to say. He rolled up his sleeves, showing rope burns that looked like they'd taken ages to heal. Harry immediately chided himself for thinking too Mugglish, as magic could heal anything, and it was often quick with non-magical injuries. "Failed my History of Magic Exam." He said, and then he rolled up his shirt, showing off what was on his belly. They were... scars from punctures, Harry was pretty sure. "For pretty much existing."
Harry had been just listening, but those last words? They were cracking his resolve to... well, anything. Anger gleamed through, well-banked anger that he'd used before, to ill effect and good. "What do you mean existing?" Harry snapped out, his anger turning his voice hard as emerald. He saw the flinch, the way the kid - and he was just a second year, try to fade into the background - nevermind he was in the middle, and it wouldn't work.
"Now would be a good time to not impulsively ask questions, Potter." Snape said, his velvet voice sending an urgent warning. Which, in of itself, was odd. Snape had never, not ever, hesitated to call Harry Potter out... and sometimes, for just existing. Harry's outraged eyes met Snape's, who looked impassively back, and at that very moment, Harry hated Snape for self-control, more than any other reason. How could he be so calm?! He was a teacher, for God's Sake!
By the time the altercation had concluded, another thready boy was standing. "I survived. I kept my head down. I miss my sister." And Harry was abruptly aware that some people had more dire concerns than someone hating them for existing. What had happened? The question pressed at him, but - unlike earlier - Harry made the concerted effort to keep it down.
A first year stood, said nothing, and sat down again. Then another. The third first year pulled off her robe, and Harry could see the scars, like raised tattoos on her flesh. "I survived. I passed, I said nothing, and I screamed." She gave an unwilling shudder, and then sat down.
Harry's eyes were slowly growing wide, as he looked around the room, in slowly dawning realization. Malfoy and Snape had called this place Sanctuary. That implied they were in need of protection...** There were a lot of faces out there, he realized, that rage in his belly growing to the point where his hands were shaking.
It only took five stories before Harry Potter was literally quaking in anger. He was so wroth that he'd stopped listening, though occasionally he'd see something that took his breath away. Like the girl with the hole in her chest, magically carved, so that her father could bang it. It was the sort of thing that he wanted to just drop his jaw at. But he was here, in Slytherin... Sanctuary? He was not going to look the fool, or the easily disturbed.
It might have been his imagination, but he thought he saw dozens of boys doing the same thing. The girls looked grimmer, as if they hadn't the spirit left to boggle.
Harry kept quiet, not saying a word, as people swirled up to speak, and then returned, like waves on a beach. He only raised his eyes, in curiosity that nearly overwhelmed the anger when Draco Malfoy stood up.
Draco Malfoy went to the center of the floor, and said simply, "No stories today. I survived, and that's what matters."
Harry Potter couldn't have really found himself disappointed, even though he had been curious. Had he been in Malfoy's shoes, he'd have thought twice about talking. As most everyone in Malfoy's year talked, Harry was reasonably certain that Malfoy's silence was because of him.
Well and dandy, Harry and Malfoy had been fighting for ages. Harry suspected that Sanctuary would not change that fact of life.
The oldest people in the room rose one by one, and Harry finally found himself listening closely to what they had to say. He tried to keep a leash on his anger, but he wasn't sucessful. By the time Snape stood in the center of the room, Harry'd nearly lost it more than once.
Severus Snape had reached the middle of the gathering. With a simple tug of a string, he unbound his black teaching robes, their thick cloth dropping to the floor, leaving him standing there clad only in shorts. Or, at least, that's what Harry assumed he'd see.
The reality was that Snape was covered in scars, in wounds, in burns... and there were some things Harry didn't even recognize. Snape didn't look nearly nude - he looked battered, and as if he'd been coated in decorative wheals, applied by some mad painter.
"He took his sleeves off," Neville says softly, beside Harry. "He never takes his sleeves off.
And that was the moment when Harry began to feel something ... indescribable. It felt a little like anticipation, but not a hot, Gryffindorish glee. More like cold Slytherin anticipation - the sight of a marvel moments from its collapse. The feeling twisted in his stomach, and he wanted to ... to stop it.
Snape started to speak, pointing first at something that no one could actually see, because it was covered by the dark curtains of his hair, "The neighbor's cat tried to kill me. I have a hole in my skull from that. I survived."
Snape pointed towards a belt-shaped wound on his back. "I told my father no. He was too drunk to find my rear end. I survived."
Snape had this matter of fact voice to him, as he said this - it sounded like these were just... normal... to him. Hell, they were normal to everyone here, weren't they? Hadn't I just listened to a litany of people with...
Merlin! Had he just - yes, that scar, wrapping around his clavicle, was for accidental magic.
Some of the marks were small - the next one sparkled, like silver - it turned out to be one from some schoolchildren, who'd pushed him into a scrap heap. It hadn't been a cleanscrapheap. And no one had ever cleaned the wound, just let it heal over as if sparkling was a natural thing for children's flanks to do.
The list went on, and Harry had little context for each wound - he wasn't quite sure how old Snape was when he'd busted his knuckles trying to defend himself from a four on one attack in a shortcut-backalley.
Then Snape's eyes met his, inscrutably looking at me for just a moment.
"Tried to defend my mum's honor, what little of it she had." Snape said, pointing at a scar on his arm, "Potter and Black showed me that two versus one is unlikely to let the one be the victor. I survived." As Snape said those last two words, his eyes flashed. Defiant.
Shite. If Snape'd been telling stories... is it any wonder that Malfoy hated me so? Snape sitting there saying I was the same as my father, too. Just as arrogant... well, sure. maybe. But... I was never a bully, was i?
Harry rather abruptly had to ask himself if Crabbe and Goyle counted as magical opposition when wands were drawn. Maybe, they didn't? Harry thought he maybe ought to feel bad, then, for cornering Malfoy. But, he really, really didn't.
Snape spoke in a voice like dead, dry leaves, that soft sussuration. It was hypnotic, like dust in a sunbeam...
Harry Potter refused, however, to let it lull him, to let it gull him.
His godfather had spoken of pranks, of jokes, of laughter. Harry hadn't dreamed that his father's laughter had left scars. In his soft, childish face, his eyes had gone cold, and his hands had curled into fists.
Harry repeated to himself, as Snape showed yet another scar, this one a clear rope burn on his ankle, I am not my father. I did not do this. I would not do this.
He took a steadying breath, and admitted, quietly to himself, that he wouldn't even do this to Malfoy. Nor Dudley, nor even Uncle Vernon, and the old fart did deserve punishing. Harry didn't... wouldn't... trust himself with punishing his Uncle. There was such a thing as too close, and his Uncle was that for him.
Snape paused for a moment, and Harry was abruptly aware that both Draco Malfoy and Neville were watching him carefully. Everyone else's eyes were on Severus Snape.
Snape began, slowly, to speak of his service to Voldemort. He started with the Dark Mark, and Harry was abruptly aware that - even in a room with so many children of Death Eaters, most hadn't seen the mark - from the spellbound way they looked at it. Snape spoke of pain unbounded, of the release of the ravages of pain - giving escape from remorseless eyes.
A Mistake, Snape said, showing off a wheal, "The Dark Lord does not look kindly on failure."
Again, and again, Snape showed marks, some small - some nearly invisible, like the shaking of his hands from the Cruciatus curse.
And then, it was as if the pale winter sun shot through night-dark clouds, leaving a precious, soft sunbeam in its wake. "This was the first time a dunderhead blew up my classroom." Snape said, showing off glossy skin that was a never-healed burn.
The room laughed in an explosive release, as if they'd quite forgotten the Potions Master for the Death Eater.
Snape went on - there were even a few etchings from the Weasley twins***, although Harry could tell by the force of Snape's eyes, that it wasn't personal... on either side. Not like he'd been with James and Sirius. Never like that.
And Snape came to the Dark Lord's return, his skin a map showing the growing instability of the man turned monster. Cutting curses - with those straight, straight lines, neatly bisecting other scars. Bloodlettings - round, circular punches in Snape's skin, coming in bright white.
Snape had seemingly reached the end of his recital, the last of his wounds still weeping and seeping - and yet, he stood tall.
"I survived."
Severus Snape had that gift of moving without moving - at least while he was wearing robes.
Today, he was not. In his skivies, it was oddly easy to see his lanky form moving through the crowd.
In moments, he stood before Harry Potter - by virtue of Harry being somewhat near the center of the room.
"Not in my wildest dreams, Mister Potter - nor even in my darkest nightmares, did I dream to see you standing here." Snape said. "Slytherin stands around you now - the snake in the grass, the knife behind the back, and the tongues that speak only the sweetest of lies."
Professor Severus Snape smiled, then, and it was a terrible thing - yellowed teeth, sure, but it was that look in his eyes, of an almost vindictive satisfaction, Snape bent over, until his nose was nearly on top of Harry's, as he said, "Welcome home."
Snape pivoted, speaking to the crowd, his back towards Harry (who was tempted, but not stupid, enough to make faces), "The Dark Lord Voldemort has returned. Can any of you, knowing the truth of it all, make the same choice I did?"
Harry could see, out of the sides of Snape's robe, wide eyes from the crowd, and a low, gathering murmur.
Snape spoke, his voice as ever soft and yet cutting through the din, "Here stands the Child of the Prophecy, foretold as the one who shall bring Voldemort low. He stands here as one of our own. I bring you House Slytherin, you may wield us as you see fit."
And then Severus Snape knelt before Harry, his head looking down, his hair hiding all semblance of expression. Around him, others knelt, first years and ones older than Harry, Neville kneeling with a soft smile. Slowly, everyone was kneeling, until the only one standing was Draco Malfoy, who caught Harry's eyes, nodded simply, and knelt.
Severus Snape has created a cult.
Harry Potter tried to speak. Actually, he tried to think, and that was slogging through mud too. He hated being the center of anything - attention moreso than most. And here everyone was... waiting for him to say Something!
So, he started simple, "Thank you, House Slytherin. Rise, that I may see your eyes." He found himself saying, the words like those of an old book on King Arthur he'd read ages ago, and had forgotten he remembered.
The room stood, almost as one, and Harry relaxed, just a bit. It felt easier when he could see their eyes - their reactions to what he said.
"Today, obviously, is the first day I've heard of Sanctuary, and I find myself both..." Here Harry paused, and considered his words carefully, "humbled and raised up at once - for together, we can be that bundle of sticks that no man can break. I hope to prove myself worthy of your trust."
It wasn't a pretty speech, it certainly wasn't a polished speech. Yet, every person there knew that it was unvarnished truth, and its rough-hewn quality suited the Gryffindor in their midst.
The room did not cheer, it did not clap, it simply moved - hands were touching upper arms and shoulders - Harry's included, Snape's included! It was a physical sort of bonding, not personal enough to be hugs - not close enough to make people flinch. And always from the front, Harry noticed, as he slowly began to reciprocate.
Slowly, the hum of movement began to die down, as circles of people formed seemingly spontaneously out of the general din. "Harry," Snape's voice slid into Harry's consciousness as smoothly as a sharp knife, and Harry pivoted, to stare Snape straight in the eyes. "A moment of your time, if you please." Harry nodded, following along after his Professor, completely missing the look that Draco Malfoy was shooting them both.
A space near the wall had seemingly spontaneously cleared itself. Snape didn't bother with a privacy spell of any sort - which was why it was so noticeable that Malfoy was nearby, not quite eavesdropping, but his presence there was part of some strange social dance that Harry reassured himself he couldn't possibly understand, so he probably shouldn't waste time thinking about it.
"Harry," Snape said, and Harry looked up at him. "I have a suggestion, though it is not without risk."
Harry Potter looked at Snape's grave face, and tried, for just a moment, to think of it uncreased with care, perhaps even with a smile. He couldn't do it, couldn't really picture it. "Yes, sir?" Harry asked, his tone less respectful and more that of an equal. Harry'd always been bad with authority, his tone was nothing new.
What was new was Snape's response to it - which was blankly nothing at all. "There is a nameless spell, that I found in a spellbook ages ago. I think it may prove useful in vanquishing the current Dark Lord." And that was Snape, in a nutshell. Stepping carefully around Harry's feelings about murder, and at the same time giving veneration to a man who didn't deserve it. That they both knew didn't deserve it. Unlike Harry, he was rather big on respect.
"How does it work? What are the risks?" Harry asked.
"My reading suggests that it is in many ways the opposite of a Patronus. A Patronus draws on happy feelings to protect the caster." Snape swept his hand through his hair, a mark of his agitation that Harry did not miss. "This spell draws on a person's survival instinct. In some sense, it projects survival at all costs, turns it into a physical manifestation with spiritual aspects."
Harry looked at Snape, wide-eyed. He hadn't dreamed that a spell like that could exist, let alone did. "And you think this could defeat him?"
"From what I've read, it strikes on a plane that the Dark Lord is illused to fighting on. It is certainly a spell the Dark Lord has not encountered before - I read of it in a book that was crumbling, and certainly hadn't been touched in centuries."
"A plane?" Harry asked, trying to imagine what sort of spell this really was.
"The urge for survival, made manifest and physical, is wrath incarnate - ready to mow down any opposition." Snape spun away, looked up, and then spun back. "The spell does not differentiate between friend and enemy."
"Then how does the caster survive?" Harry Potter asked.
"If one person casts it, fairly easily - the conjured being will not kill its own power source." Snape smiled thinly, "But that's not what I'm proposing." Harry Potter waited in reasonably respectful silence. "For anyone to be near these conjured beings - even as summoned, they need the inbuilt resistance - an ability to look someone in the eye and watch them perish."
Harry Potter paused then, "That's not a common skill, is it?"
Snape raised an eyebrow slightly, and said, "You've met my house. What do you think?" Before Harry could get a word in edgewise, Snape continued, "Most of them have such rage inside, that they could let particular someones die and not lose a wink of sleep."
Oh, Harry thought, and remembered to times he'd fantasized about killing Dudley. He'd never have done it... right? And yet, looking around at the faces nearby him, etched cold with pain and fear - he suddenly wasn't so sure. Particularly if Dudley happened to just fall in the swimming pool and not know how to swim.
"We could, if you desire, use my house. This spell requires two people for each manifestation - one to anchor the body, and the other to cast the spell." Snape said.
"To... anchor?" Harry asked.
"Ironbellies, in other words." Snape snapped, and then at Harry's obvious incomprehension, explained in more detail. "They need to be able to resist the call. It will be strong - I cannot think of a Slytherin's heart whose desire to survive is not deeply rooted."
Harry Potter nodded, thinking back to his own time at the Dursleys - or even second year. Needing to survive was nothing new for harry. "What are the risks?" he inquired.
"Threefold - first, you must make this choice. You cannot take anyone with you who is not here." Snape said, almost as an aside, "There's ten more years of my former students, so don't worry about numbers." Snape's toothy grin seemed almost feral, "You cannot take a Hufflepuff, or a Weasley. If we do this, we stand alone - and together as one." Snape said, "If you want to be a hero, this is probably not the choice for you." His face had turned darkly sardonic, "But what sort of Hero is in House Slytherin, hmm?"
"A pretty shoddy one, honestly," Harry said, oddly relieved to be able to make fun of his own fame with Snape of all people. So long as Snape stopped seeing him as James reincarnated...
"The second risk is a terminal one. This is what the Ministry would call dark magic. Use of this is unlikely to win you acclaim, and may well win you fear." Snape said sternly, "If you need anyone to have your back, you ought to arrange it ahead of time. Slytherins value careful planning more than flying by the seat of your pants."
"And the third risk?" Harry asked.
"If I've miscalculated, if we are not strong enough, we may lose everyone. And with nothing to show for it, either." Snape said. "On the plus side, you needn't pretend with us that you would be hurt more by a Weasley dying than by one of us."
Harry bit his tongue rather than say anything to that, because it was true. "I still care." he said simply.
"Let me think about this," Harry Potter said, and Snape retreated like smoke, fading into the knots and curls of Slytherins throughout the room. Harry Potter watched briefly as Snape worked the room, burnishing ties and strengthening bonds. It wasn't something Harry Potter had ever expected Professor Grumpy to do - let alone with such style.
Harry Potter doesn't particularly like thinking. It's too easy for the ghosts to find him, when he thinks. He'd rather go through this world spending most of his time listening to Hermione tell him what to do (and going along with it), or being merrily distracted by Ron Weasley, who pretty much only thinks when he's playing chess.
Sadly, this is not Harry Potter's life.
Snape has just landed him in the position to make a decision. A big decision that may lead to the deaths of everyone in this room, and more graduates besides.
Harry truly hates thinking.
And, so, Harry does what Harry does best. He gets other people to think for him. Harry's quite aware this isn't exactly the most Gryffindor thing to do, but hell, he wasn't put in Ravenclaw, and it wasn't like Sirius Black seemed to think for a day in his life, anyway.
His eyes cast around the room like fishhooks, freezing when he catches sight of Neville, busy talking with a younger Slytherin girl Harry doesn't recognize. She's quite pretty though, in an elfin, "porcelain I break" sort of way.
Harry approaches them, his determination to not think pushing away his usual trepidation. "If I can steal Neville for a moment-" he says to the girl.
She smiles prettily back, and Harry abruptly wonders if she thinks he knows her name. She's got a look on her face that makes him feel kinda funny...
"Neville," Harry says as he draws the portly boy into a rarification in the crowded room. "Snape thinks he knows a way to kill Voldemort. It's... um... kinda dangerous, though." Harry says, his resolve trying to drain out of him, "It... might kill everyone here, if things go wrong."
"And if things go right?" Neville asks, and Harry remembers exactly how much he's admired the boy for his level-headedness, even when he was just a first year.
"Then Voldemort, and all or most of his Death Eaters would be dead." Harry Potter said.
"Have you thought of other choices? Do they seem better? Safer?" Neville asked.
Harry frowned in thought, "No, they really don't-" Putting Hufflepuffs and Ron Weasley (and he loved Ron but...) in battle just didn't seem to be something to gamble on.
"Then go with the best plan you've got, same as Quiddich." Neville said, his kind smile making Harry Potter grin back at him.
Had Harry Potter bothered to think (which, again, he hadn't) he would have expected Neville Longbottom to give that answer. His father and mother were in long-term near-comas at St. Mungo's after all. But he knew these people, and seemed to... trust them. That wasn't the response you'd give if you thought for a moment this group of children would squeal.
And Harry Potter had to think about that, too. There were first years here. A lot of first years, not just the Slytherins. As Harry looked around at them, standing in little clumps or merged in with the second years, he started to wonder just how long he'd managed to slip being here.
He needed another opinion, Harry thought, his eyes reaching around the room, looking for people he knew. His green eyes met Draco Malfoy's grey. Perfect Not that Harry wantedto talk with Malfoy, that was generally an unpleasant business. But he was going to, because he couldn't stand doing this without it.
Harry Potter moved between people, passing through the crowd as if it wasn't there. Long practice in elementary school, mostly. Nobody had wanted to sit with him there, either, thanks to Dudley. So, without friends, he'd learned to just... not be there.
"Malfoy," Harry said, striving for some semblance of normalcy.
"Harry," Draco Malfoy said, and there went the normalcy out the window.
"Snape's got a plan..." Harry Potter started, and half froze, with actually having to explain it to Malfoy. How the hell did you explain a plan that was likely to kill his father? Malfoy's father, when all and sundry knew he'd worshiped the bloke?
"When hasn't he got a plan?" Draco Malfoy asked rhetorically, "Out with it, Potter." He said, seeming to use the last name more to put Harry on a more stable footing than to push Harry Potter away - and Harry appreciated it, along with the shove.
"It's a plan that is a little dangerous - as in it might kill us all, but that's not so likely if we practice, but if we choose to do it, it might get rid of Voldemort and most of his Death Eaters." Harry Potter looked at Draco Malfoy, searching in vain for some sort of reaction.
"And, what do you think?" Draco Malfoy said finally, long after the acceptable time for a pause was over.
"I'm not sure," Harry said, uncomfortably trying to bury his hands in pockets that didn't exist. "What do you think?"
Draco Malfoy looked Harry Potter up and down, "I'm surprised you're asking me, we haven't exactly been friends - up until this point."
"Need another perspective," Harry said in a low, oddly urgent voice, "And I at least know you."
Draco Malfoy let his eyes scan across the Slytherin crowd, noting that most of the called-Gryffindors weren't near Potter in age. "Fair enough." Draco Malfoy said, and then began to speak even slower than his drawl normally accounted for, "Look around you. You've heard their stories, some of them in full, even. You've heard Snape's story, and if there's an inch of him that's not accounted for, frankly, I don't want to know." Harry, for his part, remembered that Snape had been down to his skivvies, and immediately wanted to turn his attention elsewhere too. "If you don't take the puncher's chance at this, how many of these students are going to be forced to swear allegiance?"
The words came out of Harry's mouth before he thought, "Too many," and as his mind caught up to his mouth, he realized that it was true. Even just one was too many - of thesekids? They'd lived through enough already. Malfoy had called this place Sanctuary - these were kids who truly needed it. Like Harry'd needed it, even if he'd just realized precisely now.
"And your father?" Harry Potter asked.
Draco Malfoy shrugged, seemingly uncomfortable with words - which was a strange thing for the normally eloquent Slytherin. "Kate Scrivener, over there - the one in blue and copper. My father killed her parents. She's too young to know, but I heard him boasting. I don't think anyone's told her."
"Why'd he kill them?" Harry Potter asked.
"They were in the way in the Ministry. Had a sterling reputation he couldn't tarnish - and enough smarts not to get caught up in anything dirty." Draco Malfoy's tone was admiring, oddly enough. He'd seemed so ... infatuated with his sire. Perhaps the gold paint was wearing off...
Harry Potter waited there, more listening for Malfoy to say something than actually thinking. But apparently Malfoy had said all that he was going to.
Harry had to decide. He couldn't push making the decision off on other people. He nodded abruptly, and headed over to Snape, who was currently talking to some sixth year Slytherins.
"Let's do it." Harry Potter said as Snape turned towards him. Snape merely nodded, and then said, "It will take some time to practice. Expect some dislocations, in the meantime."
It was a week later, and Harry wasn't quite sure how he'd gotten himself bundled off to... Sanctuary. But, it had happened - more in the lines of being surrounded by peers and older boys pushing him until he got himself turned around and heading in the right direction.
A year ago he'd have been scared starkers to be pushed anywhere by a pack of Slytherins.
"I cannot tell a -" Harry found his tongue tied, unable to say something. Because he could tell a lie, and thus it wasn't truth when he said he couldn't.
Harry wasn't surprised when Neville joined him - tumbling into the room late as usual. He was surprised, however, when Malfoy stood near him. Theo Nott, too of all people - Harry was certain he hadn't said a word to the quiet boy in his entire time at Hogwarts. They were stiff, and weren't looking at him so much as looking out at the crowd, which suddenly seemed to have a good deal more upperclassmen - Harry Potter saw Higgs, and then he realized - Snape had said that there were older people in this... and they'd all been invited back.
To Practice.
Harry Potter felt a frission of energy jet through him, and then his eyes locked on someone else. Gavin Malfoy - someone he recognized from his visions. He said softly, as he stood there, "There are death eaters here."
From behind his shoulder, Harry heard Snape's velveteen voice, "More my fault than theirs, I'm afraid. I could have warned them, but I thought they'd be of more use there. You've proven me wrong on that count." And Harry thought it was almost his imagination, but he could almost hear Snape's voice softening at that last. Harry was glad that he'd managed to suppress the urge to jump that Snape always seemed to elicit when he appeared behind Harry's shoulder.
Abruptly, Malfoy and Nott's stance clicked in his head - they were guarding him! From the death eaters? Fuming, Harry hissed, "You're guarding me. Did Snape tell you to do that?" Harry hated people thinking he couldn't do things for himself. Hated even more when it was "because of his Celebrity."
Malfoy looked back with a smirk, "Didn't need to." Which, just topped off everything, Harry thought, inchoate rage pulsing in his veins.
Nott replied, just as quietly, "Nobody here would hurt you... intentionally." And if that wasn't a recipe for Harry thinking of a lot of possibilities, Harry didn't know what was.
Neville appeared and Harry gave him a grin that he swore had all the uncertainty of Oh, I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm bloody terrified. But, you know, being a Gryffindor, he rather enjoyed the situation.
Snape snapped out, as the last of the Slytherin stragglers entered, "You have one spell to learn, and a month to learn it. It will not be easy, as the primary thing to learn is how to protect yourself and others from the spell." Snape paused, his black eyes darting around the room. "I will demonstrate. Malfoy, give me a count of sixty, and then wake me out of it. Do not stop until I address you by name." Snape's eyes caught Malfoy's with abnormal seriousness. Harry felt a chill.
The sound of the spell was hideous, nails on the chalkboard screaming - and yet, it had whispers of words in it, like a child screaming for help. Harry Potter had to ground himself, tell himself not to run towards it.
And then it was Harry's turn, along with half the room.
Did you know that spells could make the whole world go monochrome?
Harry hadn't know either, until they started practicing this spell. It felt like the whole world had melted, turned dun and gray. Even blacks and whites were muted.
Neville had to shake Harry out of it.
Harry only realized when he wasn't casting, that people were practically insensate when they had cast the spell.
The worst part was listening to the keening - the awful wail like that of a baby, crying out, demanding help. The sound of someone so young that they can't do for themselves.
A trap, one of many, Harry thought, recontextualizing it as a huge cat, purring as it revealed it's belly. Just another trap, nothing to pay attention to.
It still grated on his ears, on his mind. Harry wondered if it was the same for everyone else. From the glare that Snape sent, well, everywhere, it appeared not. Snape had that peculiar flexed crouch that said he was being hunted, and was ready to strike back - was listening for the attack, really.
It wasn't something you'd look like, if you were hearing a baby's wail. Maybe what he heard was Desperation and Drive.
And it was time to shake Neville out.
There were Death Eaters ariound, Harry knew - he could see them, going just as pale and quiet as he had. They were, for as much as he liked it, in this together.
Trust. Harry looked around, pulling out something to say to these people - peope who were about to defy someone who had branded them - and Harry could almost smell the piggy odor (he'd burnt himself on the Dursley's cast iron more than once - without his magic to protect him, he'd have lost the use of both hands).
The first, and even the second, and then the third time through, they'd been working with people they'd trusted. People they'd automatically paired themselves to.
Snape was about to change all that, "Harry, Draco - work together."
Harry couldn't even bring himself to be very surprised. For this to have any chance of working, they had to be like sticks - bound together in a bundle. They couldn't be separating each other out, squabbling with each other.
Harry Potter was surprised, though, when Snape started pairing Muggleborns and Death Eaters together - the youngest with the oldest here.
The training seemed to go on forever, and Snape ended it with a chocolate banquet - mostly dark, but there was a smattering of white, here and there.
Lord Voldemort was in Draco Malfoy's childhood home. He heard a mysterious sound, and went to investigate it, because in his experience, mysterious sounds don't just come out of nowhere, like this one seemingly had.
Stepping out of his bedchamber, he was enveloped in darkness so thick no one could hear his screams. As it drifted away, his skeleton stood there, for only a moment, before it fell in a clatter of bones.
Bella Black ran to the darkness, shrieking and singing in her madwoman way, arms wide and ready for the embrace. She hadn't expected to meet death cloaked in shadow, but meet it she did.
Her bones fell in a clatter, and a shatter, as her bones, weakened by extended bouts of malnutrition, shattered into chunks and pieces.
One and all, the Death Eaters fell.
Narcissa, now Black, no longer a Malfoy, walked towards her doom with her unfailingly cold smile and colder courtesies. "Child, tell me, what is wrong?" She asked.
And then the long shadows, dark and cold, turned around, and looked towards they who had summoned them. They who would, if allowed, kill them, by absorbing them back into those lifeless shells.
Never Again.
Never Again.
Astride the storm, amidst the wind, Severus Snape stood, as the darkness ringed its summoners like a salt circle. His robes snapped like a flag at full extension, and he shouted, "Now!"
The youngest, the smallest of them there - who'd been given the more difficult task, make no mistake - struck their elders - slaps across the face, punches in the gut.
Anything...
Anything to break the spell.
Flickers.
Flickers of light penetrating the shadows, as they who had given of themselves woke, retaking their motivation, their simplest drive - to survive.
And then the sun struck in full force, and everyone looked around, unsure and uncertain.
It was Draco Malfoy who raised his arm, and then Severus Snape. Their left arms, of course - now pristine.
Harry knew they hadn't fixed all those scars - but once, just this bloody once, it was nice to take one away.
"What now?" Harry Potter found himself asking when everyone was back in their proper bodies and the sound of baby's wailing had completely ended.
"To Diagon Alley!" Snape proclaimed. "And ice cream - but first, we'll have to make an announcement of course."
Harry was, by this point, not at all surprised that Snape had "What To Do After Lord Voldemort And His Death Eaters Kick The Bucket" Plans. Hell, he'd have made some himself, if he'd ever thought that far ahead. He'd, instead, just worried about, well, everyone. Including people who weren't even going to be there. Because Tonks might accidentally wander by - or Moody, or half a dozen other people he cared about.
Harry just nodded, and they all apparated (by which, Harry of course means that the eldest took the youngest, and there were enough past the Age of Majority to actually transport everyone).
Apparently, when one was to give a Grande And Massive Announcement in the Wizarding World, one did not go to the Ministry, or to Hogwarts, or even to every single village. One went to Gringotts.
Largely because Gringotts had a proper set of stairs, and thus an impromptu stage.
One Snape glare at them, and the goblins retreated to "just in front of the doors" - spears at the ready, but somehow acknowledging that Snape had just taken the stage, and that would be that.
"People of Wizarding England," Snape said, and somehow Snape could belt the words loud enough to be heard, and yet not be yelling at all. Oh, right, magic. That was a Sonorus charm, though Harry was pretty sure Snape had cast it silent. "Lord Voldemort, formerly known as He Who Should Not Be Named and also Tom Riddle, is dead." At a glance, some of the students behind him stood by his side - by both his sides.
As was prearranged, it was Harry on his right, and Neville on his left - past them stood Malfoy and Greengrass, and bunches more people Harry couldn't remember their names - some death eaters, some not.
There was a cheer from the crowd, and a scream, and suddenly Rita Skeeter was running toward the Stage.
Snape merely smirked, as if he was telling the Entire Country - What, you were expecting someone else?
Rita got roughly pushed aside by Alastor Moody, who vaulted up the stairs like a bouncing ball, "Say what, you scum?" And before Snape could even retreat (not that he could, there were students behind), Moody had pulled up his sleeve, revealing ... pasty white flesh beneath.
Moody, of all people, paled, looked consterned, and then whirled around, yelling to one and all, "Constant Vigilance!" As he left the stage Harry Potter clearly heard him mutter, "I'ma need a good stiff drink."
They went off for icecream - Snape somehow managed to find a Charcoal flavored one that he said was quite good, if bittersweet. Harry Potter just wanted vanilla - with all the sprinkles! And Neville managed to find some Pickle Flavored Ice Cream, to which, when Draco asked, Neville affably blushed and said, "It's just dill flavored, really."
Dumbledore learned about it the next day of course, and was a good sport about the whole thing, although he did affably confess that he was sorry he missed the whole thing.
*Seven years of kids. Harry comes into contact with his year on the regular, and the year below him since Ginny's in it. If he, as a seventh year, knew details about all the firsties, there would be something wrong with him. ... not that I've mentioned which year this is, yet.
**Gryffindor!
***These are mostly fuckups. Occasionally mass chaos that turned a bit bad. Nothing specifically targetting Snape.
[a/n: Yes, of course kids don't say anything their first time. All the ice cream really exists.
Epilogue exists in the short fragment form only, for those interested. I've also trimmed authors' notes, as they feel excessively chatty if I go over a page.]