LOST PERSPECTIVE 7

PAYBACK TIME

By Bellegeste

Author's Note: This story follows on directly from LP6 (DECK THE HALLS). There are a few references back, but I've tried to add footnotes etc so that it can be read independently. It's more of an expanded one-shot than a whole Potter saga. The plot is unashamedly melodramatic, but I wanted the story to be primarily character led - I'm more interested in how they all react to what happens than the plot itself…

All you really need to know is:

The setting is just after Christmas in Harry's 6th year. Snape is Harry's father (but I've done enough bonding angst before so there isn't much of that here); there is no romantic SS/HG in this one. Braque is Snape's pet Giant Tuatara; Quig is his deaf, Australian house elf. At the end of LP6, following a Death Eater attack on his home, on Christmas Day Snape ended up in St Mungo's…

Chapter 1 is a short introductory linking chapter, just to recap on the events that led Harry, Hermione and Snape to be in the hospital.

CHAPTER 1 : A Hard Day's Night

"Can they grow new heads too?" Harry asked in a sleepy voice.

"Oh, absolutely! And legs. It's a primitive survival mechanism. One advantage of being stuck in an evolutionary backwater," Hermione replied, too glibly for that time of night. Then she realised that Harry was taking her seriously, dreamily enchanted by the idea.

"That's so amazing. Isn't it? Well cool! You wouldn't think to look at him that - "

"No, Harry. Joke? I was joking." She shook her head, knowing he'd hate to appear gullible.

"Oh." He sounded genuinely disappointed. "So you're saying Braque's tail won't grow back?"

She sighed, wishing she had stuck to the facts. It was too late for teasing. They were both too tired. It had been a very long, hard day.

"Yes, his tail will, but not the rest," she clarified hurriedly, propping herself up on an elbow as she looked over at him. "It's like this, Harry. Many lizards have the ability to shed their tails when they're attacked - the vertebrae have special built-in cracks where the tail can shear off. In an emergency."

"No kidding!"

"Then, when it regenerates, it's just cartilage - the tail bone itself doesn't grow back. But it's better than nothing."

"Wow! What if you gave him Skelegrow?"

"What? Honestly, Harry, how am I supposed to know?"

"Well you seem to know all this other completely daft stuff."

"Haven't you ever been to the zoo? Don't you bother to read the labels? That's what they're for. It's fairly basic reptilian anatomy, if you must know. But I'm no expert. Tuatara might be different. Ask Quig. Ask Snape."

Snape was in the adjacent room, asleep at last, exhausted by the evening's stream of (unwanted) visitors.

Harry stretched out full length, flexed his hands behind his head, fingers interlocked, and then relaxed them with a huge, jaw-splitting yawn. For someone who had spent Christmas Day in St Mungo's hospital, and was now preparing to spend the night on the couch in the Day Room, he looked remarkably content. This Christmas may have started disastrously, but things were looking up.

"He was pleased, wasn't he? About Braque? It's about time he had some good news for a change." Hermione gave the topic another gentle nudge. She felt like a kid at her first 'sleepover', not wanting to be the first to accept that it was 'lights out' - time to stop talking and go to sleep. However tired she was, too much had happened that day for her to be able to switch off just like that - she needed to wind down slowly.

"Hmm. It's like… you've not seen them together, have you?" mumbled Harry drowsily. "You know how some people are totally useless with people, but they're devoted to their pets? Well, Snape's not like that…"

"Oh, well that's a big help. So what are you saying? That he's a complete misanthrope - well, we've known that all along - and now you reckon he hates his pets too?"

"What? Look, I'm too tired to know what I'm saying. What am I saying?" Harry yawned again. His thoughts were sagging in all directions like a newly washed jumper. "Did you know, Braque's older than he is? Had him all his life. What's the phrase? They go way back. Anyway, um… it's a bit weird really. It's not like he's gooey about him or anything; not soft, you know… ugh, can you imagine that? - but you can tell he's fond of him. It's not anything he does in particular…"

"What then?" Hermione asked, impatient with Harry's rambling.

"I think it's more the way he lets Braque touch him. I mean, have you ever seen anyone touching Snape? The way he avoids us you'd think we were lepers…"

Hermione couldn't envisage anyone ever wanting to touch Snape anyway.

"Aha! Now, you see, a lot of people make that mistake…" she pointed out, pleased to be able to share another interesting gem of information, not realising how much it niggled Harry to be corrected. "In actual fact, leprosy isn't a particularly contagious disease at all. You can have quite prolonged physical contact and still not catch it…"

Harry dragged a cushion over his ears and let out an exasperated groan.

"Aaargh! How did we get on to this? Know what, Hermione? I really don't care! Forget the lepers. I was saying… about Snape…? Well, the first time I saw him letting Braque lick his hand… yeah, pretty gross, I know, but it was, sort of, nice…" Harry's voice mellowed with the memory.

"It was so lucky Quig found him," said Hermione, not entirely at ease with the way this conversation was going.

"Quig? No, it was - Oh, you mean found Braque? Yes." Harry's thoughts had switched back to Snape. It was Arthur Weasley who had discovered his unconscious body in the trampled ruins of the herb garden at Snape Cottage, half-frozen, choked with smoke, unable to breathe. Arthur had Apparated with him directly to St. Mungo's. It had been touch and go.

Hermione caught the ripple of distress as it eddied in the silence.

"He's OK now, Harry. They'll probably discharge him tomorrow, and we can go back to Hogwarts. Dumbledore's lent us that Portkey…"

"But the Cottage! All his things! Our things… all burned!"

"You don't know that. Kingsley said Snape salvaged some stuff, didn't he? But try not to think about it. There's nothing we can do now. The important thing is that Snape's safe. Anyway, we'd better shut up and go to sleep."

"Yeah. Goodnight, Hermione."

"Goodnight." She shifted her position on her couch, loosening a strand of hair pulling tightly behind her neck, rolling away from an upholstery button which was digging into her hip. Earlier she had been too shattered to bother with Transfiguring it into a more comfortable mattress - in retrospect, a poor decision.

"Oh, Harry?"

"What?"

"Merry Christmas!"

"Yeah."

End of Chapter. I said it was short! More of an introduction really. Action kicks off in the next one.

Next chapter: STRANGLED! Not such a happy Christmas after all then...