Chapter 2
See Saw Margery Daw
Johnny shall have a new master
Every one of Grimmauld's magical defences prickled uneasily through the soles of Harry's trainers as he crossed from the library into the main hall.
"Ssh!" he stroked the handrail of the staircase, trying to soothe it like a restless thestral. But the wood creaked and groaned with unknown grudges and bristled with a million splinters. Harry jerked his hand away. "What's the matter?" he grumbled aimlessly at the ceiling. "Y'weren't this bad even right after I inherited. Yes, you're being lived in again, get used to it!"
Something scuttled in response behind the skirting board. A serpent candelabra on a rickety table jittered like a rattlesnake.
Harry hmphed and traced the fifth mark, for Hufflepuff's cup, in the dust of Mrs. Black's sleeping portrait, just to spite the whole bad-tempered bloody Place. He winced; headache and nausea lingered, as persistent as a hangover.
"Up already?"
Harry whirled, startled by the venomous, surly drawl from the direction of the staircase behind him. Snape! How'd he get in? No wonder the house was acting up: it wasn't angry, it was trying to warn me!
"Kneazle got your tongue? Well, now that you're at least semi-conscious, I suppose we can begin."
"Begin what?"
"Remedial Potions." Snape strolled down the stairs, giving Harry the same haughty sneer he always had in the classroom.
Get a load of him! Cheeky sod! What happened to 'piss off, Potter'? "Remedial what?" Harry did a mockingly exaggerated double take. "Oh, yeah, very funny, ha-bloody-ha! What're you gonna do if I don't want any damn lessons? Give me detention? Y'know what, we're not at Hogwarts, you're not my teacher, you're not welcome in my house, so you can just sod off out of it! I've got better things to do than listen to you."
"Potter," Snape spat Harry's name as though it was an insult, "your 'manners' are only exceeded by your aptitude for learning."
"So? Go whinge to the Headmaster!"
His way upstairs was cut off, so Harry turned for the front door until strong fingers twisted his ear sharply and yanked him back against a bony chest.
"Do you think this is a joke?" Snape hissed into Harry's abused ear. Harry stumbled back into the portrait niche, sending new swarms of dust motes billowing from the curtains.
"Lemme GO!" Harry roared, twisting in Snape's grasp, but it held.
Underneath the grey layer of dust, Mrs. Black's eyes snapped open and she screamed "INVADERS!" Then her dust-blurred stare went from Harry to Snape and her screams abruptly stopped. She peered. "Oh, Severus."
Bloody typical, Harry fumed. Should've known those two evil gits'd get along.
Snape eyed Harry and tapped the side of his mouth with one finger, as if deep in thought. "Let's see, shall we? Should I allow you to run free and compromise my cover the first time Voldemort decides to rummage though your minuscule mind? I don't think so."
"There's still one more Horcrux out there! I need to find it."
"Seems to me, all you've managed to do so far is to almost get yourself captured. I'm surprised you lasted a day on your foolhardy treasure hunt."
"That's all you know! I've got to destroy them all!"
"You've 'got to' stay right here, until you learn to keep your mind closed." Snape told Harry flatly.
Greasy bastard's probably pissed off that I got to see him at his weakest, Harry scowled, and now he's taking it out on me.
"I spent years waiting in servitude." Snape continued, "You can damn well wait a bit longer and learn."
"Learn? From you?"
"Yes! Who better to teach you the skills you'll need to defeat the Dark Lord? Now will you stop…"
"Severus?" Mrs. Black's portrait interrupted suddenly. "Have you seen Regulus?" She sounded so normal, Harry couldn't've been more surprised if she'd asked Snape about the weather.
Harry tried to shout the portrait down. "You show up here and think I'm going to do what you say like a good little boy?" He glared furiously and took one step closer, itching to punch Snape right in that bloody big beak. "Just who the fuck do you think you are?"
But Snape never even glanced away from the portrait; he stepped up to the frame, shoving Harry completely aside. Harry'd never seen him, or anyone stare at a portrait like that: as if a ghost had suddenly floated out of the canvas, and Snape had no idea what to do about it. "No," he finally murmured, quiet and careful, "I haven't seen him. Not for eighteen years." He raised his arm and gently rubbed the sleeve of his robe down the entire canvas, cleaning it of dust (and Harry's Horcrux tally) in one stroke. He absentmindedly wiped the worst of the grey, feathery dust off his sleeve and drew himself into a more upright stance, by a sudden clutch at the curtains. His face had gone sickly pale.
"Come along, Potter," Snape said softly. "We have work to do."
"Work?" Harry stared at him. Snape rising from the dead would've been less shocking than Snape chatting politely with Mrs. Black's portrait and pestering Harry about lessons. Just yesterday Harry had seen him get carved up like a Christmas goose. Yeah, and I was the one doing the carving. Hastily, he shoved that last thought aside. "You're gonna keel over where you stand. How can you even be walking with that…" He gestured at Snape's chest.
"That's none of your concern." The contrary sod sidestepped so swiftly, it was as if Harry'd drawn a wand on him. The movement ended rather abruptly with Snape leaning against the wall. He glared irritably, refusing to let on that he hadn't meant to end up like that all along.
Stubborn git! He's going to fall, and even if he doesn't break his neck I'll still have to stop the yeti skin in the hallway from trying to maul him. Harry imagined the woolly beast chomping Snape's nose off in one bite. Maybe I won't stop it after all.
oOo
The hall Snape marched him into was in perpetual twilight: the grey, furry dust on the windowpanes dimmed the light. A row of heavy curtains covered alternating windows and mirrors with similar frames. Occasionally they switched places: more than once when Harry tried to look out a window only his own reflection stared – and startled – back.
But now when Snape approached one of the niches and parted the curtains with the tip of his wand, there was no mirror or window inside. Instead, on a cracked pedestal with a cobweb-anchored base, there was a basin of black marble: as glossy and free of dust as its base was not. Harry was almost convinced Snape had snuck it in while he was sleeping, but the family crest on its curved front – greyhounds supporting a shield – indicated otherwise.
"What's that for?"
Instead of a reply, Snape dipped his hand in and pulled out a handful of squirming, wiggling worms, no thicker than a hairsbreadth. He threw them down on the dimly lit strip of rug, where they stilled and dissipated with a hiss. Pensieve memories, Harry realised, as Snape repeated the task several more times. They must be years old. Each time the memories looked like a hair knot dripping with grey slime. Snape examined the bowl carefully and then used his wand to extract one silvery, wiry strand of thought from his temple and guide it into the bowl. Occlumency, Harry groaned inwardly, and here I thought I'd never have to suffer through another lesson again. As far as I'm concerned, the paranoid git can hide all the thoughts he wants. See if I care!
On the opposite wall hung the portraits of Blacks long dead: captured amid the excesses of wealth and fashion: miles of silk and satin and even more lace than fabric. The oldest portraits were frozen forever, even their magical existence expired when the charms finally faded away; others, on the verge of fading, took their decade-long naps; and the newest, only a few centuries old, moved freely in shiny gilt frames. They were the ones that glared at Harry or each other when he ran too fast by them or knocked their frames askew.
Some of the portraits talked, like the bloke Harry's age, who never stayed in his own frame for long, abandoning it for neighbouring canvases. He looked a bit like Sirius, only Harry suspected Sirius never would've been caught in such a swotty pose: poring over Hogwarts: A History open in his lap as he sat on a stack of thick books. Mind you, for a portrait, he's pretty good company. Wonder if he ever gets bored, with only sleepy old relatives around?
"Well?" The impatient question distracted Harry from seeking out the bloke and waving at him. "I don't have all day."
Harry blinked. Snape gestured at the bowl.
"Y'mean you want me to look at your thoughts?"
"Sometime this century, one would hope."
Harry shrugged and stepped closer, looking in. He cautiously dipped one finger in, then the wiggling strand of thought grabbed him and he was tumbling deeper and deeper in. It would've been great to see some sort of explanation of why Dumbledore thought Snape wasn't an utter arsehole, but instead Harry landed somewhere already familiar: an alleyway not far from Grimmauld Place. A slender figure in a dark cloak – Mrs. Malfoy – crouched in the shadows of the rubbish bins, spying intently into the dark.
The real Snape landed silently in the memory and stood, wand out, beside Harry. Mrs. Malfoy held the same dark wand in her slender hand. She impatiently clawed her fine, blonde hair back out of her face. Polyjuice, Harry thought. "Did you kill her?" The question got out before he could stop it.
"Surely not!" Snape snapped. "I haven't harmed a hair on her head."
Harry looked round and saw an especially unpleasant smirk on Snape's lips. I'm trying to understand you, you prickly sod, really trying. But you've just got to make everything so damn difficult!
There was a movement in the alley, and Harry saw his memory-self stumbling slowly through the shadows. It was a shock, to see himself in a way he'd never seen himself in a mirror: skinny and sickly, with the shaky, twitching walk of a spider. Even Harry's grip on the cup seemed feeble, as if the thing had weighed like a stone. Bloody hell! I look half dead! Was I really that worn out? Harry frowned stubbornly. No! No, it's got to be 'cause this memory's Snape's. Typical of his twisted mind: seeing me in the worst possible light.
"Idiot," muttered Snape, almost as if he'd overheard Harry's thoughts, but he was glaring at Harry's memory-self instead. "I'd Apparated there just seconds before. I deliberately made a hasty job of it: my arrival must've been clearly audible." He rounded on the real Harry, "That sound alone should've been more than enough warning for you to flee, if only you'd paid attention!"
Too late. With a dry pop, the looming dark shape of Bellatrix appeared right before memory-Harry. He fumbled for his wand, fell.
"There! You had ample time to Apparate away! But you didn't even have your wand out, you cretin!" Snape hissed. 'Mrs. Malfoy' stalked over to memory-Harry who lay sprawled on the footpath, and Snape followed, dragging the real Harry with him.
"I couldn't think!" Harry protested. "I was sick, everything was spinning."
"Of course you were sick; you were holding a Horcrux in your bare hands! No doubt at the same time as your tiny mind was full of nothing but plans to destroy that very same Horcrux. Doesn't the great Harry Potter know even the most basic facts about defensive curses: that their two most common triggers are proximity and intent to attack?"
Harry winced at the green flash of the curse that caught Bellatrix square in the chest. The next moment Snape's words caught up with him, and the discomfort of a moment before, sharpened into a more painful, personal fear. "It cursed me?"
Snape peered at 'Mrs. Malfoy' as she kicked the cup away from Harry's limp grasp. It bounced once with a tinny clang, rolled, and came to rest beside Bellatrix' body. "Of course. The cup's curse resembled acute alcoholic poisoning. Another few minutes of direct skin contact and the process would've been irreversible."
"And I'd be dead," Harry breathed.
"Of cirrhosis of the liver," Snape replied with a certain degree of ghoulish enthusiasm as he and Harry followed 'Mrs. Malfoy' back to Bellatrix' corpse, "But by that time your brain would've been so badly damaged you probably wouldn't have noticed."
Harry gulped.
"Do you understand now, just how fortunate you are? Horcruxes are not to be trifled with!"
"But they can be broken." Harry said flatly. He thought back to Dumbledore's blackened hand. That was a curse too, wasn't it: from the ring. If even Dumbledore couldn't manage to reverse the damage, then… "How'd you do it?"
"Sacrifice," Snape's reply was as calm as if he were reciting instructions during a lecture. "To destroy the soul-fragment a Horcrux holds, a similarly large loss is required."
Harry blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Sacrificial magic: a life for a life, a soul for a soul."
Less than an arm's length away from them, 'Mrs. Malfoy' pointed her wand at the cup, encasing it in a glowing bubble. She chanted; quick, harsh words that caused a silent, angry flash of an explosion within. When the light dimmed, there were only shards of twisted gold. There was something strange about the way they floated, lining the edges of a precise sphere: as if some invisible bubble was the only barrier that kept them from flying apart like shrapnel. It seemed 'Mrs. Malfoy' couldn't maintain the barrier for long. With an audible crack, the protective bubble disappeared. The shards rained down on the footpath, and as if compelled by some magnetic force slithered closer together; 'Mrs. Malfoy' doubled over them, as if their curse affected her too. Yet she knelt on the footpath at Snape's and Harry's feet, collecting the shards one by one, and with every one she touched her gloved hands shook more and more, as if with some horrible palsy. Huddled into herself and swaying, she crouched over Bellatrix' corpse and tilted its head up.
"Fortunately for both of us," Snape murmured, "Bellatrix found you before the curse had time to really get to work on you. And I've never been one to waste… resources."
Harry watched as 'Mrs. Malfoy' pressed the shards of the cup, one by one, into the mouth of Bellatrix' corpse. A particularly long shard protruded from between her teeth, and for a moment Harry saw a golden badger's paw twitch and writhe against her slack lips before 'Mrs. Malfoy' shoved it further in. Harry swallowed against a wave of nausea. "Are you mad? What were you doing to her, you sick bastard?"
"Shut up," Snape snarled, "and be thankful I lacked the time to perform the traditional ritual: opening the chest cavity and packing the remains of the Horcrux around the sacrifice's heart." As more and more of the shards were tucked away, 'Mrs. Malfoy' seemed to gain strength again. When the last one was safely out of sight, 'Mrs. Malfoy' closed the corpse's jaw with a click of teeth and staggered to her feet, clutching her wand.
"Why are you showing me this?" Harry cried.
"So you can see exactly what you did wrong, and hopefully, how not to make the same mistakes again."
"Dumbledore still got himself cursed. Did you murder anyone to save him too?"
Snape's eyes narrowed. His face was unreadable. Harsh. So different from the man who just yesterday summoned a phoenix Patronus to prove his allegiance.
"What did the ring do to him?" Harry asked quietly.
Behind the rubbish bins, fire ate away Bellatrix' body. Snape turned away from Harry to watch it: lurid blue flames glazed the black mirrors of his eyes.
"A Horcrux for a Horcrux," Harry persisted. "I'll answer your questions if you answer mine."
Snape turned abruptly on his heel and strode toward the flames, as if determined to immolate himself on Bellatrix' pyre.
"Wait a minute! Where're you going?"
Too late. Snape's walking silhouette faded out of the pensieve, leaving Harry alone inside the memory. And as 'Mrs. Malfoy' dragged his memory-self's swaying, stumbling weight inside Grimmauld, Harry surfaced from the memory too.
He turned away from the bowl of silvery liquid, expecting to see Snape walking out the door, but instead a summoned scroll of parchment hit him square in the face. A black quill flapped after the scroll and hovered over Harry like a vulture.
"I want three feet listing all of your mistakes that night, and the three best ways you could have avoided each, by tomorrow."
"Three feet? Bloody hell!"
"And not another word out of your mouth unless it's a wandless spell." Snape loomed, every bit as menacing as Neville's Boggart. "Speaking of wandless spells…"
Riddikulus, damn you! Harry thought. Why not? No other curse seems to affect the miserable sod. This one didn't affect him either, of course, but spite gave Harry enough hope to keep him from doing in reality what he'd been doing in his dreams for years: hexing Snape to bits in the middle of his latest insult-laden lecture.
oOo
"I'd rather deal with a herd of raging erumpents than another hopeless halfwit. I distinctly remember having more sense than that when we were young."
Twelve-year-old Regulus peeked over Sirius' shoulder and shrugged; Sirius gave a charming grin and tweaked the fringe combed over Regulus' ear. Sirius couldn't have been older than six when he sat for this painting; perhaps that was why his portrait managed to escape Walburga's wrath unscathed, the way his name on the tapestry had not. The fact that Sirius' canvas was hung in an inconspicuous corner of an out-of-the-way stairwell must have helped.
'Sirius wasn't anywhere near as bad before he went off to Hogwarts,' Regulus always used to say; but the only Sirius Black whom Snape himself had ever known was a bully and a braggart. Snape deliberately glared over Sirius' head, his gaze fixed only on Regulus as he muttered: "Your mother's asked about you. You should pay her a visit."
Regulus shook his head and backed into the shadows near the edges of the frame.
Snape arched a menacing eyebrow. "She's worried about you. Go on."
Regulus rolled his eyes and shoved Sirius off the tall chair he'd been perched on, before taking off. Snape watched him run from frame to frame down the stairwell, rousing his sleeping relatives. As he watched the still-rambunctious child, Snape wished that – even when he had been a child himself – he could have felt the childish belief that things would work out for the better.
How good it would be, for one brief moment, to believe that there was still a way out for him: that everything he'd sacrificed (his good name and his future) and everything he'd become (the monster he'd been most terrified of turning into) and everything he'd done to keep an incompetent wretch safe from the Death Eaters (a thankless and despicable chore that no one among the living would ever acknowledge) would not be in vain.
Oh, but it was in vain. All of it.
Severus Snape no longer felt any hope for the Wizarding World. Whatever chance he himself might've had for a future was as dead as Dumbledore, but he'd realised that back when he'd first been told of the Headmaster's plan. Since then, he'd had the time to… if not exactly accept his fate, at least to stop constantly tormenting himself with it. But his last spark of hope for the future of his world had died when Potter – regardless of the disorientation he'd felt at the time – had invited the wife of a known Death Eater into the former headquarters of the Order.
Tantamount to suicide. Dumbledore would've been horrified. Even when Potter was still determined to fight, he never stood a chance of survival, not on his own; but now, no one opposed to the Dark Lord has a hope, if the idiocy I saw from him yesterday was any indication.
In an effort to stop himself from simply giving up and putting the little bastard out of everyone else's misery, Snape had left Potter stewing and pretending to write, and had gone to do some exploring of his own. Inevitably, his restless wanderings led him back to the library, with its endless aisles of bookcases towering overhead and its scent of parchment and paper, leather and wood, wax and webs. The floor was dustier than before, but other than that it was just as he remembered: clearly the books were still willing and able to look after themselves. He knew this room and its occupants like the back of his own hand; he'd known it almost as long as he'd known Hogwarts' library, and the memories associated with this place were rather better than the school. The whole collection here would've qualified for the Restricted Section at Hogwarts; yet here there'd never been any prissy Madam Pince to get in a huff when he exercised his boyhood knack of making friends with even the nastiest-tempered grimoires.
Perhaps the books knew a kindred spirit. Even now, as he wandered down the aisles lost in reminiscence, the volumes were riffling their pages and bouncing on their shelves in shameless bids for attention, rather than simply leaping off to bash out his brains or eat his limbs. As he walked he stroked his fingertips softly along one leather spine after another, and the susurrus of parchment sounded like delighted sighs as the books shouldered each other aside to crowd to the front of their shelves.
The sound and the waft of musty air brought a particular memory to the forefront of Snape's mind. Himself, still in uniform, having skived off from his first Hogsmeade weekend with Regulus. Sitting at the foot of a bookshelf, grimoires sidling slyly off their shelves and plopping to the floor left and right, so they could huddle up against his sides, leaning into him like cats angling for a scratch. He was only dimly aware of Regulus sitting across from him and watching with a smile, as he patted Severus' Monster Book of Monsters (which tended to get jealous). For his own part, Severus was almost completely absorbed in his communion with the large and leathery volume currently filling his lap. Its parchment rustled happily under the scratching of his quillpoint as – drunk on knowledge – he scribbled obsessively in the grimoire's margins.
As always, any moments of happiness or peace in his life – then as now – were doomed to interruption by the powers that be. "What the devil do you mean by it, boy?" roared Orion Black as he strode down the aisle toward them, "Defacing my volumes!"
Severus remained still and looked up, daringly, but inwardly he cringed: the shouting reminded him of his own Dad when he got into one of his vicious moods. Dad was bad enough, and he was only a Muggle; who knew what an angry wizard could do? He'd laughed when Regulus had told him how furious his parents were when Sirius had sorted into Gryffindor, but right now, he didn't feel like laughing at all.
Mr. Black snatched the grimoire away from him as if it, not Regulus, was his favoured son, and scowled down at the minutely-annotated pages. The scowl shifted to a blink. Severus held his breath.
"Oh, I say, that's rather subtle," Mr. Black muttered under his breath, before glaring at Severus, "Chimera venom? Are you quite sure?"
Severus nodded, not daring to reply aloud. Regulus bragged once that his dad was nothing compared to his mum at doling out punishment when Regulus himself got in trouble, but right now Regulus' dad was terrifying enough.
Mr. Black harrumphed. "Get up, boy. Up, I say!" Severus (reluctant to disturb the books huddled up to him) hadn't moved quite quickly enough. Mr. Black seized him with a hand that closed entirely round his scrawny upper arm, and frogmarched him down the aisle to a locked escritoire which loomed only slightly less ominously than a volcano, and whose pigeonholes, Regulus had once assured him, would eat any bird, up to and including ostriches. "Sit down, boy. Sit!" Mr. Black ordered, dumping Severus on the seat in front of the escritoire as he unlocked it. "Here's some proper quills and ink, so you can write legibly."
Severus let out a sigh and exchanged relieved glances with Regulus, but after that day he vowed never to write notes in anyone's books but his own. In the long run, his belated caution hadn't mattered: it hadn't stopped Regulus' father from bragging about 'his heir's best friend, the Dark Arts prodigy' to the Lestranges and the Malfoys, and from there the rumours hadn't taken long to reach the ears of the Dark Lord.
Snape dismissed the memory with a headshake. No matter how happily any of his memories started, sooner or later they all led back to Voldemort.
A worn leather spine nudged against his fingertips; Snape glanced down and nodded hello to an old friend. He lifted the volume off its shelf and into his arms, his spidery hands turning its pages swiftly as he searched for a specific reference. His finger paused and he lit his wand, reading intently in the brighter light. For a while, he thought over what he'd read, as his fingertips stroked the wrinkled cover by way of thanks. In reply, a red ribbon bookmark curled around his fingers like a pup's tongue. At last, he closed the book, and gave the tall aisle of shelves one last parting look, before turning quickly and striding out, carrying the book in his arms.
It's high time that ingrate learns to do his own research. Whenever I try to teach him anything, he's furious enough to power a Cruciatus. Ahh, if only hatred alone were enough to kill. If it were, Voldemort would've been dead for good, before you'd've even heard of him, boy. I'd've personally ensured it.
oOo
The git's mental, and he's slowly driving me that way out of sheer spite: it's the only possible explanation! Harry had spent an entire evening checking every nook and cranny, combing though Grimmauld's wards, ensuring the whole Place's cooperation so that no one, not even Snape – especially not Snape! – would slip in through the cracks somehow. The next morning, instead of an alarm just slightly short of a siren, Harry was woken up by the sound of distant knocking.
As he staggered downstairs struggling his way into a shirt, he could hear it was coming from the front door.
He opened it and peered out blearily through a haze of dirty lenses and bedhead and general morning muzziness. Snape stood there on the doorstep, as calm and collected as if he was paying a courtesy visit on the Blacks.
"About time!" he spat, instantly ruining the calm facade. "Do you have any idea how much risk it was to…" He strode inside and slammed the door shut. "Out of my way."
Harry should've known then, that this would be the final straw. But it wasn't yet. He lasted longer: about two hours into the lesson.
oOo
"Focus, dimwit!" Snape hissed for what seemed to be the tenth time.
"I am," Harry grated out, sparing a moment to think, Yeah, and 'focus' you too, you sarky shit, before gripping his wand tighter and trying to visualise the spell in his mind: Impedimenta, Impedimenta!
"Honestly, of all the idiots I've taught – and there've been far too many of those – you have to be…"
'What?' Harry wanted to yell, 'The only one desperate enough to put up with you?' But he stuck to his resentful silence, knowing that if he bit back, then Snape's rant would only last longer.
"…the most scatterbrained of the lot. I wonder if you've managed to include a single actual thought in the three feet you wrote." Snape stuck out his hand for the scroll; when Harry didn't summon it immediately, Snape's expression somehow managed to become even sourer. "You did do as you were told, didn't you?" he inquired in a thoroughly pessimistic drawl.
Harry didn't answer. What was there to say? Three feet? He's off his chump!
Snape let the resulting silence drag on before erupting suddenly, "I don't believe you! What do you…" The sentence trailed off as Snape's angry flush faded with startling suddenness into a deathly pallor. Only then did Harry spot the clawlike clutch of Snape's fingers, digging into his forearm. "I'm summoned," he hissed through gritted teeth. "I expect you to use this reprieve productively, and have your homework finished by the time I return."
All thought deserted Harry, leaving only a twist of fear behind. Harry had never even thought about what Snape did when he wasn't invading Grimmauld Place. He'd certainly never wondered whether, after everything that had happened, Snape was still spying on Voldemort. "Are you gonna be back today?"
"Good question," Snape snapped. "Would you like to come along and ask the Dark Lord yourself?"
Git! He didn't have to mock me.
Snape Disapparated from the front door, his expression tight with anger, his skin still pale, his hand still clutching his forearm. I reckon even if he's in Voldemort's good books for his last murder, he still gets the same summons as everyone else.
'I spent years in servitude,' Snape had said to him that first morning. Years! I don't understand how anyone could do that. I'd go spare just from the waiting. Put in those terms, it was almost too easy to think of Snape as a normal bloke like Harry: sick to death of it all, but hanging on anyway; just waiting for Voldemort to be gone, for everything to be over. Only it'll never be that simple for Snape, 'cause as well as Voldemort he's also got the Aurors and the rest of the world to worry about. But that's his problem, Harry reminded himself with a frown, not mine.
oOo
Snape crashed into the wall, elbows striking stone one painful moment before his spine hit. His head tilted back, his teeth clenched behind his mask in a silent snarl. His woollen robes were stifling hot; if it weren't for the mask, the torch would have burned his face, set his hair ablaze. The dull point of Macnair's fire-heated blade gouged into his shoulder, sizzling and smoking as it carved his flesh, reopening the old wound, retracing the scar as a reminder, his own particular brand of shame to bear.
He directed all of his strength to maintain Cruciatus-weakened Occlumency. Focus. Disconnect. Life was pain; he'd learned that lesson so thoroughly and so long ago that it didn't really trouble him. Only his body cried its instinctive, animal protests. He let it do so on its own; as he had done too many times before, he left the cruel current reality behind, in favour of a dark, quiet corner of his mind. There he hoarded, more jealously than any dragon, the few pleasant memories he'd ever known.
The Quidditch stands were bloody freezing. In the two hours of the game, the sleet quickly turned to snow. As a final insult, when the Gryffindor Git shoved Narcissa Black out of the way to get to the snitch, stealing sure victory from her, only the green and silver quarter of the stands booed the cheating thug.
"It'll be all right." The firstie trailing after Severus back to the castle sniffed into his scarf. "Well we're better than they are anyway! We're Slytherins."
"Slytherins?" Severus turned around and glared down his nose at the unfortunate sprog. "Do I know you?" he drawled. Severus did know, of course: who could forget the spectacle of the Sorting Feast, and the firstie who craned his neck to stare at the Gryffindor table every chance he got. Inexcusable, older brother or not. The chance to bring nosy, Pureblood know-it-alls like this one down a peg or two was too good for Snape to miss.
"Regulus Arcturus Black. Of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black," the firstie declared, in just the sort of toffee-nosed accent that got on Snape's wick something fierce. "Officially that is. But you may call me Reg."
Resentment seethed in Snape: at silver-spoon-sucking gits like the Blacks and the Potters, at the stands full of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws (they at least should know better) all cheering on those cheating Gryffie bastards; resentment at the whole damn world. His 'ugly-Muggle' face twisted into a particularly vicious snarl. "Well, Black," Snape spat, throwing the implied offer of friendship right back into "Reg"'s face, "Lemme tell you summat 'bout th' Houses." He was surprised to find himself shaking with the sheer force of his pent-up rage: abruptly the simmering resentment boiled over and he roared, "It's SHITE bein' in Slytherin! We're th' lowest o' th' low! Th' scum o' th' fuckin' Earth! Th' most wretched miserable pathetic trash ever shat out on th' Wizardin' World!"
The firstie gaped at him, flabbergasted, but Severus was too far gone to care or even notice his reaction, or who else might've been listening. Borne away on a frothing torrent of fury he ranted, "Y'd reckon ah'd hate Gryffindors, but 'appen ah don't. They're just wankers. We, on th' other hand," Severus waved one arm at the pitch, "just let ourselves get thrashed by wankers! Can't even find a decent team t' get beat by. Nooo, we gotta get our arses handed t' us by effete gobshites like Potter an' your fuckin' brother, while th' rest o' th' school cheers th' bastards on!" He kicked the ground and a pebble flew from under his boot, round and bouncy, about the size of a snitch. "Nah," he sneered, in a low, bitter growl, "Slytherin's a shite House t' be in, Black, and all th' pure blood in th' world," he positively spat the word 'pure', "don't make a tinker's fart worth o' fuckin' diff'rence!"
The firstie stared up at him, awkward and blinking, and it was so obvious the kid had missed two words out of three. But what else could be expected of Mr. Pureblood Pride when hit by a rant like that? Especially when – after all Severus' efforts to lose it – the Tyke accent had crept back into his speech like an oil stain, until it was just as thick as Dad's in one of his drunken rages.
This little Pureblood prat would never know why Severus had begged the Hat last year to sort him into Slytherin. How could a spoiled little sod like him ever understand the bitter truth: that though Mam could've altered her old third-year robes by hand to fit her eleven-year-old son, she didn't have enough bloody magic left for a single spell to change the green trim to Ravenclaw blue. So, Severus reckoned, it was either Mam's House at Hogwarts, or back to Muggle school for him.
Of course this rich kid'd never understand. So he'd just dismiss Severus as an ugly Muggle-tainted git, like all the rest.
But instead of the contemptuous look Snape expected, the firstie gave him a wide smile. "Call me Reg," he repeated, and then he actually had the gall to reach up and pat Snape on the shoulder. "Don't worry, the Gryffindors will get what's coming to them, you'll see." he confided in contented tones. "Cissy'll be positively livid, and she's mean when she's got a grudge. All my cousins are," he added proudly. "I say, do you know where the library is in this place?"
Severus boggled down at the cheeky brat. "C'mon." he muttered. "I was going there myself anyway," he added, to save face.
Perhaps it was worthwhile cultivating a firstie shadow, if only to stick it to Sirius Black. He and his gang would be belching slugs when they saw Black's precious ickle brother following Snivellus around. "Didn't your cousins show you where the library was? Oh, wait, of course, they've got house elves to get their books, and probably to read them for them as well."
He took Regulus the long way, past the Restricted Section. It was against the rules, of course, but Severus wanted to show the brat what he was missing.
Regulus gaped at the chains attached to the thick volumes, reached out to tug at one of them. The book attached to the other end snarled. "It's not right," Regulus mumbled. "Keeping them all chained up like that. Books ought to be free."
Severus blinked at that, but covered it up with a shrug. "I saw one of the books in here gnawing on a human clavicle last week. Probably a firstie about your size." He stared meaningfully at Regulus, even though he himself wasn't all that much taller.
"Can't be human," Regulus protested. "They only ever eat those who can't read. I bet it was a house elf. My books ate one once."
"Your books."
"Yeah. And Dad's. We've got a library at home. Dad says it's the best library of Dark Arts around. Enough for a dozen of this Restricted Section, and no chains at all."
Boastful little bugger, Snape thought. Yeah, the Black's've probably got a library but I bet it's not all that good. "What kind of books, precisely?" About time I called your bluff.
"All kinds!" Regulus puffed out his chest and started to rattle off titles. "The Necrotelecomnicon. The Liber Paginarum Fulvarum: the deluxe edition, where the fingers on the cover really do the walking. Armageddon Some: Mass Destruction For Fun And Profit. How to Win Fiends and Inferius People. Culmuggles' Herbal. The Oxblood Dictionary of the English Curse: the long edition, you know, the one with the Appendices. And the tails. And then there's…"
"The Joy of Hex?" Severus cut him off mid-list, fixing the boy with a cynical smirk.
"The illustrated edition!" Regulus beamed proudly up at him.
Severus gave him the smile of a shark. Perhaps there was another reason to let a firstie follow him about.
oOo
Somewhere far away Snape heard a cry of pain, weakened, hoarse: perhaps even his own. A boot thudded into his stomach and he folded up around the impact, but the pain was almost drowned out by stronger agony. On his shoulder, the brand burned.
One half. Unworthy. Disgrace. One half a wizard; one half a beast.
But Snape was not there anymore, not in that dark and dingy dungeon of a room. He was at Hogwarts: a surly boy with his forearm not yet sullied by the Mark, his shoulder unmarked by the brand. Still a Prince more than a Snape: at heart, he was free.
He spent hols that winter with Regulus, basking in the shocked and insulted glares of Sirius Black. For that reason among others, his stay there was the best Christmas present he'd ever had: worth every moment of the trouble he'd had explaining to Dad why he had to Floo to London, and what the Floo was. Amid all 666 volumes of the Encyclopaedia Satanica and a multitude of other, even more interesting volumes, Severus felt at peace; at home in a way he never had in the pollution- and conflict-poisoned atmosphere of Spinner's End. He knew all of the authors better than family, since Mam had told him about them all his life. She spoke of people like Urquhart Rackharrow and Herpo the Foul far more often than she ever mentioned the family that'd disowned her for having him. He stroked the musty pages and thought, I could live here, in this library, with these books.
Years later, when Sirius Black was long gone from Reg's house, Severus still stayed. He kept visiting under the excuse of seeing the famous library again. It wasn't as if he'd had to pretend very hard. It was almost the truth.
The whole truth was Regulus: of fourth year and of fifth and that – something – between them. The thing manifesting in the scribbles on the margins, the notes hidden amid the pages, and this raw and comfortable sensation, as natural to Severus as his love for books, that took over his only experience in friendship and turned it inside out, taking on a new life.
"Hang on, Reg. Let me copy this at least."
"It can wait."
"And that… Hey, give me that back!"
"You've got the rest of your life to spend with your nose in a book. Relax. Mum'n'Dad are at the Lestranges'."
"Reg…" Severus flipped the page. Underneath his most recent theory-scribble, another hand – a very familiar one – had written:
Dearest Severus,
I can't stop watching your hands as you write.
I had the most exquisite dream last night…
By the next line, Severus blushed and was tempted to cover the single rotating eye on the book's cover, and all of its ear-marked pages, to prevent it from seeing or hearing what Regulus' writing and voice were suggesting.
"We've got this whole Place to ourselves." Regulus breathed in his ear. And Severus knew that the library definitely wasn't the reason he kept coming back.
oOo
Harry liked the staircase; he could read there by Lumos light without catching the disturbing whispers or clacks from the top library shelves, or feeling the draught that seemed to trail from one bookshelf to another for absolutely no reason but made the hair on the back of his neck stand up all the same. At times Grimmauld's library was still a bit too creepy for his taste. Yet today there was a different reason for Harry's hair to bristle like the staircase's handrail in a bad mood.
It wasn't enough for the bossy bugger to show up yesterday and demand three feet of homework; before he swanned out today he'd assigned (Assigned!) Harry a reading: some nasty book on Dark relics, which had a temper almost as bad as Snape's and a taste for human flesh. The bloody thing had snapped at Harry's finger five times in the first hour.
Harry wasn't about to be caught napping by Snape again: figuratively or literally. He woke at first light and camped out on the staircase all morning, watching the front door like a hawk. Harry wasn't one to sit still, so by ten, he was sprawling upside down on the staircase, his head on the bottom step, his feet up against the railing. "Let's see if the words run to your Preface before the blood runs to my head," he grumbled at the damn book. It rustled grumpily back at him, but at least it didn't bite. By noon he'd finally trained it to trust him enough to stay open as he stroked its spine.
"'Three feet listing all of your mistakes. Three best ways you could've avoided them. Three thousand points from Gryffindor for breathing!'" Harry mocked Snape's scornful tone and snatched the flapping quill out of the air. The bastard had charmed it to follow Harry around. It was a strong charm too; the quill resisted Harry's strongest Stunners, repaired itself, and when Harry tied it up with curtain cord, the damn thing just sliced right through it with its nasty sharp nib, leaving the curtain looking very down indeed.
"Detention with Filch until the end of term, Potter!" Harry spat the name as he groused to himself in an unnaturally low tone, curling back his lips from his teeth in a parody of a well-remembered sneer, "I said slice finely, not mangle, Potter! On your feet and let me probe your mind 'till your fucking head explodes, Potter!" Harry tried to take back the roll of parchment he'd given that horrible beast of a book (to distract it from chomping his fingers off) but the book wasn't about to give it up easily, and it took a long and growly tug of war before the chewed end of the scroll tore. Luckily, Harry was left with the lion's share: he smoothed out the war-torn scroll while the book groused and grumbled and gnawed its bit into confetti.
I'll show that bastard! Harry spread the parchment over the book and scribbled: 'First (and only) mistake: Ran into Severus Sodding Snape. Three best ways to avoid:' Now, let's see… 'Invisibility Cloaks, skiving off Potions, keeping away from any dark dingy corner only fungus would lurk in…' Bloody hell, how do I use up three feet just explaining the obvious?
A single candle had kept Harry company ever since he'd passed the entire flock sleeping round the biggest candelabra on his way downstairs. Now, when Harry was absorbed in a really furious scribble, the candle peeped around his elbow. Unfortunately, it leaned a tiny bit too close; its flame caught a torn corner of the scroll and spread like wildfire. Harry jumped. The quill flapped out of the way and the Beastie Book threw itself off his lap and thump-thump-thumped all the way down the stairs, coming to rest in a corner where it cowered with a Snape-like snarling curl to its pages. Harry waved the scroll around madly until the fire was out, then he glared at the sad and smoking scrap in his hand: the only thing left of his essay. Just as well, anyway, Harry sighed to himself, Snape would've set me on fire if he'd read that lot.
He squished the scrap of scroll into a snitch-sized ball and chucked it down the stairs. The book and the yeti skin both lunged for it, but the book snatched it out of thin air mid-bounce, devouring its catch with a chomp, followed by a satisfied belch of smoke and ashy confetti. The move was so startlingly agile from such a large volume, it made Harry wonder Did that book ever eat any of the smaller ones? If it had, would their text show up inside it, in an Appendix or something?
He was brought out of his odd reverie by the flickering and waning of the light. The tiny, quivering candle had sheltered behind him from all the commotion of the burning scroll; now Harry could see two clear waxy tears trickling down its front. It shied away from his gaze, trying to make itself smaller still by huddling down into its wax drip skirt. As a result, its flame diminished to a mere spark. "S'allright," he found himself consoling it grumpily, "Looks like I've got loads of time to find another scroll. The greasy git probably never meant to come back soon anyway. He just wanted me to think he would. I've worked all morning and he isn't even going to turn up!" Harry complained to the candle. It let out a long, smoky sigh of relief that Harry's ire wasn't directed at it, and its flame stilled, tired out from all the excitement.
oOo
Harry took to sleeping during the day. It was better to wake up to grim daylight instead of a dark, sinister house that creaked and groaned more than a haunted dragon carcass as Harry's nightmares hit. He contemplated doing some more of Snape's homework but even the thought of it sounded boring; he quickly said "Sod it," and stretched out on the downstairs sofa, staring at the webs and cracks on the ceiling. The sofa's armrest was soft and comfortable. The whisperhiss of the silvery serpents on the chandelier lulled him to sleep.
The only part of the Potters' house in Godric's Hollow left standing was the front door. A door to nowhere, it cast an ominous shadow across the ruins, like the sharp arrow of a sundial. It seemed so small and purposeless, without the house around and behind it. Harry picked his way toward it over the rubble: bricks and broken glass. At first, he thought there was a twig or a plant poking through the keyhole, but no – when he came closer, he could see it was a key. That's weird. Still locked.
It didn't seem right, after all these years – with all four walls crumbled and gone, like the residents within – that the door should still be locked, as if it was locking someone in, or keeping something out. Harry reached out for the key then, and turned it, or tried to. The key was stuck: and really, what else did he expect, after so many rainy seasons and winters of snow? But Harry hung onto it and twisted it with all his strength, because suddenly he couldn't bear to see that particular door locked.
Harry awoke with the orange light of sunset streaming through the downstairs windows. The dream left him with a sinister and dark feeling of not being quite over yet. But it is over! The key was the first Horcrux we destroyed together. It's gone for good. Harry remembered breaking it all too well.
With a sharp, brittle sound, the key snapped in the keyhole. Fuck! A deep gash in Harry's palm welled with blood. It didn't hurt at first. Just shocked him. In a burst of temper he shoved at the door, trying to push it open with all his strength. No luck. His hand left a gory print on the boards. It must've bled more than he thought. He shook his hand. "Hermione, c'mere."
"What is it?"
Harry held up his wounded hand. "You're good with healing spells'n'all. See if you can mend this?"
Hermione winced. "You've got to be more careful. And learn the basics! I can't believe with all your trips to the Hospital Wing you haven't even bothered to learn a simple – Episkey!"
Harry hmphed. His hand felt the same.
"Odd," she said, giving her wand a tap. "Let's try again."
"Ow! Don't poke it, just stop the bleeding," Harry hissed.
"Oi, mate, what's that?"
Harry spun around.
The place where he touched the door was hissing and black. A handprint. As if Harry's mere touch was like acid, charring and crumbling the wood, like Quirrell at the end of Harry's first year. A burn mark still spread with a poisonous hiss and smoke, like an oozing bloodstain.
"H-harry, this is as creepy as spiders!"
Ron stepped away from the door. But as Harry looked, it wasn't the handprint that attracted his attention. It was the keyhole: as the remainder of the key disintegrated leaving the keyhole open. A beam of orange sunlight shone through.
"Ron, back away," Hermione called out wide-eyed. "Something's wrong … I think it's a Horcrux. Think about it! Where better to hide something like that? And in Godric's Hollow. Something of Gryffindor. Step away from that door!"
"S'OK," Harry said. "I think the door's fine. I think – I maybe sort of touched it. And the key broke. See?"
Ron was still pale after Hermione's shout, but he took one look at the remains of the key in Harry's hand, and beamed all over his freckled face. "Wicked! Let's just hope the rest of You-Know-Who's You-Know-Whats are that easy to break."
"Ron!" Hermione rolled her eyes at him before turning back to Harry. "All right, let's take care of your hand now."
The scratch stopped bleeding after the second time, and scabbed over a few days later. It was rather slow to heal, sore and seeping blood. Harry shrugged it off. It didn't hurt that much. "Thanks, Hermione," he smiled. It was nice to have someone to count on.
oOo
Snape trudged up the narrow street, past the row of boarded up houses to the one at the end. He pressed his palm to the shabby door, hoping his exhausted magic was still strong enough for the wards to recognise. When the door opened with a screech, he half-stumbled, half-fell in.
Not having the strength to make it up the staircase, he toppled onto the sofa downstairs. Snape closed his eyes to block out the Muggle drabness and poverty of his childhood home, and took a slow, ragged breath of the mould-sour air, willing his racing heartbeat toward calm. He tried to shove the endless taunting litany of 'half a wizard' out of his mind, groping for something else, anything else, to think about. It was that or the temporary – and addictive – relief of Draught of Living Death, if he was to have any hope of getting even a few hours of more-or-less pain-free oblivion (not counting the inevitable nightmares, of course). He had to dig decades deep, but at last his inner search for peace ended, as it had done so many times before, back at Hogwarts: with books, with Regulus.
While the rest of the third-years were savaged silly by their books, Regulus' Monster Book of Monsters lolled about at Severus' feet with its pages spread shamelessly wide, angling to have its binding tickled.
"Stop screaming," Severus ordered Regulus. "You'll frighten it."
"I'LL frighten IT?" Regulus squeaked. "Are you mental?" He waved his arms emphatically "It'd take the whole library of my grimoires to scare that one."
The book snapped at Regulus with a warning growl, but when Severus glanced down at it, it quickly flopped to Severus' side with a soft, page-rustling purr. Severus patted its cover with a smirk. "As I said…"
Regulus pouted as he glanced between Severus and the book. "Why didn't you sort into Ravenclaw again?"
Severus thought of a surly firstie acting years older than he looked, worrying about his robes being the wrong colour, too ashamed to confess his desperate poverty or his mam's near-Squib status to anyone, much less ask the teachers for help. Then he thought of all the good things: Potions, the Library – here and at Grimmauld – Mam's old textbooks and all those new books. Being able to use a wand – even if it was Mam's, even if they couldn't afford a new one of his own – somewhere where Dad wouldn't find him and go spare.
Severus' glance inadvertently strayed toward the chair in the common room where Lucius Malfoy used to sit and hold court. The tall Prefect with the shining hair was long gone, but Severus remembered his first-year hero-worship like yesterday. Even now he stayed close to upper-years like the Lestranges or Rosier, hoping to catch any word of Lucius' doings from them. "Less benefits," he finally answered, and eyed Regulus in turn, smirking, "Why didn't you sort with your brother?"
Regulus snorted and pretended to gag. "Same," he said, and the gaze he turned on Severus was serious and affectionate and wistful. It was the same look Severus thought he might've had as a firstie, watching the popular, rich, impeccable Lucius stroll through the common room. Only Regulus was no ordinary firstie; Severus'd known that ever since his reaction – or lack thereof – to Severus' rant. What he didn't know was why Regulus – a Pureblood, a rich boy, more popular already in Certain Circles than Severus with his questionable heritage could ever be – would choose to look at him like he was just then.
Yet Regulus kept eyeing him with that soft, wistful smile, even when Severus looked down, hiding his confusion under the curtain of his dark hair. Regulus, he admitted to himself, makes Slytherin House bearable.
"I'm a Slytherin to the core, mate," Reg said. "And so are you. Admit it."
Severus looked up at him, and nodded. "Was there ever any doubt?"
oOo
Harry couldn't sleep. He saw Riddle growing from every shadow during his nighttime wanderings through Grimmauld's corridors, heard Voldemort's sinister whisper in every Parseltongue comment from the doorknobs. He passed Walburga Black's portrait and that was practically the first time he'd seen her act like a normal Wizarding portrait instead of a disgruntled dungeon ghost. Perhaps it was because she was focused on a boy no older than a firstie who was sharing her canvas; both of them ignored Harry completely.
"I hate my name!" the boy scowled. "Did you just stub your toe one morning, and think 'That'll do, I'll just name him after my left foot!'"
"Who told you that?" Walburga asked. When she wasn't screaming fit to beat a banshee, she had a rather pleasant, low voice.
"Sirius. He said that's what 'regel' meant: a foot, a nasty, smelly one with big toes." The boy glared down, as if contemplating the size of his own toes.
"You know better than to listen to your brother!" Walburga murmured softly. She bent down, holding a metallic tube with multiple cogwheel-controls and thin spidery legs. It was a wizarding telescope, and she aimed it off the canvas, possibly toward a window only those two could see.
"When I wondered what to name you, I went looking at my stars. There – keep it steady and point it over there by the moon. See that bright star in Leo? That's Cor Leonis, the Lion's Heart. Nicolaus Copernicus called it Regulus, for 'Prince'."
The boy peered, fascinated, through the telescope, then turned to look up at his mother's face. His own face brightened. "Y'mean I'm not a foot?"
She smiled, which made her seem a decade younger. "No, dear. You're not a foot." She reached out, ruffling the boy's hair softly. "You're a star, about three hundred and fifty times brighter than the sun."
Harry felt like he was intruding, so he went upstairs where the portraits were mostly asleep, so they couldn't be bothered if he looked at them or not. Even the portraits in this place have got somebody. Never before had Harry felt so alone in the world. His previous life seemed so far away. He wandered aimlessly, on and on, as if he could return to that life just by looking around the next corner, or the next, or the next. But in his heart he already knew the truth: no matter how many corners he turned, there'd be no turning back.