Remembrance and Renewal by Nigel Tatsuya and Avatar Arkmage
Chapter Two: Perigee

After quickly assessing his surroundings, Professor Severus Snape decided that sneaking through a window of an unoccupied room would be the most unobtrusive course of action. He crept to the side of the Dursley house, and carefully peered into the window.

A disturbance within the house prompted him to take refuge in the flowerbeds under the living room window. After hearing only the muffled sounds of Potter's muggle relatives shouting, and no arrogant Potter shouting back, Snape concluded that the Dursleys were having a family argument amongst themselves, and decided to give it time to resolve before seeking out Potter. In all likelihood, Potter was probably staying out of their way, and hopefully working on his summer assignments.

Crouching low, so as not to be seen from either the street or from within the house, Snape continued listen. Or at least to make a whole hearted attempt to do so. He cursed the loudness of the transfigured broom for his lack of hearing acuity now, as he could not make out what the voices were saying. Straining even harder, he thought he heard the sound of a pressure change in the house's plumbing system and realized it had to have been caused by some one opening a faucet. Whomever had turned it on, had turned it on all the way.

Without warning, one of his long repressed memories forced its way to the forefront of his mind. It was as though some one had cast a legilimens upon him, and he was ill-prepared to deflect it.


"No, father! Please..." a six year old Severus whimpered as he backed away from the man approaching.

"You've been making potions again haven't you?"

"No father, I was studying my duelling books." the young boy said shielding his head from the blow he knew would be coming.

"Do not lie to me!" the elder Snape yelled as his palm smacked the boy's shoulder. When the boy lowered his arms to soothe his burning shoulder, he was slapped hard across the cheek. "I can smell the ingredients all over you!"

"It was only burn healing paste...and I was trying to make a potion that r-re-generates broken tissues... " the young Severus sobbed, tears beginning to spill over his stinging face.

"And why exactly were you making burn healing paste and developing a new potion?" Lucien Snape grabbed a handful of his son's hair and snapped his head back.

"Because you hurt mummy!" screamed Severus. "I wanted to make her all better!"

Severus continued to scream as his father dragged him to the washroom by the hair. He hastily filled the tub, then held his son's face millimetres above the scalding water. Severus wailed even more when he felt the steam on his cheek, which wasn't sallow yet, but the colour of bisque porcelain. "I did not raise you to be a weakling, Severus!" The white-blonde haired man shouted. "Spending all your time studying those worthless potions when you should be learning to defend yourself. I want you to kick a Gryffindor boy's arse every day when you get to Hogwarts! Two would be even better."

"Okay, Father." Severus said without a shadow of conviction.

"But since you've been making potions today, instead of studying what you've been instructed to," the elder Snape removed his belt and motioned toward the tub. "Let us see how well your burn healing paste and skin re-grower works. Get in the tub boy!" Severus looked at the belt in his father's clenched fist, and then at the scalding tub, determining which of the two would be more bearable. If he climbed into the tub, he'd be burned. If he opted to tangle with the belt, he'd be flayed raw and forced into the tub anyway, but the water would have had a chance to cool slightly.

Severus decided to climb into the tub straightaway, but would stall by struggling more than he needed to with the fastenings on his robes. He jumped in when his father waved the belt threateningly close to his face, and was relieved that the water, while uncomfortably hot, was not hot enough to cause more than the most superficial burns.

"I will not have a milksop for a son!" Lucien Snape shouted as he grabbed Severus's long hair and plunged the boy's head under the water. "And furthermore, you will learn to keep to your own affairs when it comes to matters between your mother and me. Your mother will heal on her own, without interference from a potion brewing whelp like you! Is that clear?"

Severus only cried when his father allowed him to come up for air,

"Is that clear?"

"Don't hurt mummy then, and I won't-"

"How dare you!" Lucien hissed, rasing his hand once more to the terrified child.


Professor Severus Snape pushed the horrible memory far into the most secluded section of his mental shelves, wondering why it had resurfaced so suddenly, and without warning. There was apparently no one in the immediate area who could have cast a legilimens on him, and he did not sense the spell upon him besides. Why had that memory suddenly resurfaced?

Berating himself for being distracted so, he stealthily crawled through one of the living room windows of the Dursley house. The room was unoccupied, for the family had congregated in the kitchen for their evening meal. Severus crept closer to the kitchen and listened intently, but heard no indication that Potter was even amongst them. Was it possible that Harry was abnormally quiet when he was home for the Summers? Odd, since he was always so annoyingly boisterous with his friends at Hogwarts. Even whilst conversing with a know- it- all like Granger during meals in the Great Hall, Potter was observed to at least be speaking some of the time.

Snape's mind ventured back to his horrific memory momentarily, and something compelled him to immediately run to the door of the upstairs washroom. Moving closer, he heard the bath water running. Not wanting to frighten the bathroom's occupant, even if it was Potter, he tapped lightly on the door. After receiving no response, he knocked again. Although he could have used magical means to see inside, he did not want to do any unnecessary magic in a muggle house, for this location was surely being monitored by both light and dark sides. When water began to puddle in the hallway, Snape cracked the door and peered in.

"Potter!" Snape yelled in a voice barely above a whisper at the spectacle that greeted him. Harry was laying at the bottom of the tub, his eyes staring sightlessly, yet longingly at the water's surface.

Heedless of the consequences, Professor Snape threw a few towels from a nearby rack on the floor, then knelt at the edge of the tub and lifted Harry out of the water, realizing only too late how broken the youth's body was. Snape took great care to stabilize Harry's head and neck as he began rescue breathing.

When Harry did not readily begin breathing on his own, Snape spelled whatever remained of the bathwater from Harry's lungs. "Come on, Potter. You did not survive this long, only to drown whilst bathing in an overfilled bathtub!" Snape whispered silkily while resisting to the urge to shake the boy awake, feeling the ghost of a violent father lurking like a spectre in the darkest corners of his consciousness. "Potter! Potter! Breathe you, dunderhead!"

Evidently, that was the gentle push that Harry needed, and he began to breathe shallowly and cough intermittently. Feeling immense relief, Snape placed Harry in a modified body bind, which stabilized his neck and shoulders. He carefully examined the boy further, noting any bruises and binding the deeper wounds with bandaging materials he found in the cabinet over the sink. Professor Snape then lifted Harry into his arms. He transfigured his leather jacket back into his frock coat and wrapped the unconscious youth in it before descending the staircase, no longer observing the guidelines of stealth.

The Dursleys and the two boys were just exiting the dining room and froze at the sight of the long haired biker moving through the foyer with Harry in his arms. If Uncle Vernon's face could simultaneously turn three shades of purple previously, it appeared to have gained one or two more shades now.

"Who the bloody hell are you?" Vernon said, standing in Snape's path, "and what the Hell are you doing in my house?"

"Be assured that I would take greater pleasure in being slowly digested in the alimentary canal of a giant crustacean, than to be here in your place of residence." Severus stated in an even voice. "And I would no sooner remain here a moment more, than I would tread barefoot on a floor made of glass shards."

"W-where are you taking Harry," Aunt Petunia stammered.

"You were unconcerned about his well being a heartbeat's time ago, do not feign concern now." The professor replied, wrapping the injured boy more securely in his frock coat.

Harry awakened to great pain from the professor's ministrations, and started moaning. "Please," Harry whispered, his words barely comprehensible. "No more. Please...no more...I'll finish my chores earlier next time, I promise...just please stop. I can't take much more."

Harry stared blankly at the professor's face, obviously not seeing him. Something was very different about the boy now. Aside from his longer and straighter hair, and increased height, there were no significant changes to note. There was no change in the hue of his eyes, although there was something more intense about them, even in Potter's fragile state. At first, Severus thought it might have just been due to the fact that Harry was not wearing his glasses, but dismissed the idea soon after, realizing that even with his glasses back in place, the boy's gaze had an intensity not present before. Potter's lips were less full now, as they quivered in despair.

Severus gently checked the binding around Harry's neck once again, and Harry flinched. "Please don't hit me anymore!"

"You may be an arrogant twit, Potter, but I have no intention of striking you." Severus stated simply, lowering his hand momentarily then slowly beginning the procedure again.

Dursley inhaled deeply as if to speak, but Severus cast a silencing spell on him and calmly walked out the door.

"Be assured that the appropriate people will be informed of this." Snape hissed at the silent man, his shuddering family, and the guests as he walked back to his parked eckelectric two wheeled vehicle.

Harry's gaze moved slowly to the vehicle in wonder. "No Potter, if I were to transport you back to Hogwarts with this, at this time of night, we'd risk waking more than the dead."

Snape dragged the chopper and Harry a safe distance from Number Four Privet Drive then ended the incantation on it, turning it back into a school broom, which he shrunk and put into his pocket. He then held out his wand and summoned the Knight Bus. After laying Harry on a comfortable bed on the second level, and giving him a once over to make sure his condition was stable, he lay on the bed adjacent to it and pretended to be asleep to avoid any unwanted attention from the other passengers aboard.

Just as he disembarked with Harry at Hogwarts gates, his dark mark burned sharply, almost causing him to drop the already wounded youth on the wet Earth...


The grounds of Hogwarts glowed in the light of the full moon of July 30th as though the very stones which forged its walls, and the blades of grass which adorned its grounds, had developed the capability of bioluminescence. The forms of the staff members, who had either remained, or had returned earlier than usual, moved about darkened grounds like ghostly shadows, as they enjoyed the relative warmth of the Summer's night.

A werewolf, bearing a basket of glowing fungi in its snout, loped behind the figures of a pleasingly plump woman with fly-away hair, and a man who seemed too large to be fully human.

"Do you think Professor Snape will appreciate some perigeeraniums too?" Professor Sprout asked, lightly touching the faintly glowing petals of the large purple flower.

"If he don,' I reckon I can try bakin' 'em in some rock cakes." Hagrid said, smiling at his two companions.

"BUFF!" Lupin bayed.

"I don't think they would make good rock cakes," Professor Sprout said, acknowledging the werewolf's concern. "The perigeeraniums contain a powerful hallucinogenic compound. Because they only bloom during the full moon, and only when the moon is at perigee, it used to be believed that the bright, full moon caused insanity. In reality it was the pollen from these flowers floating in the air that caused the lunacy'"

"Won' we go crazy too?" Hagrid motioned to another patch of the purple flowers as he lightly stroked the werewolf's fur.

"Only if you try to sniff these flowers, or if you run through a field of them. I don't think we'll be outside long enough to go crazy just from the pollen in the air" Sprout said as she began to fill her basket with the plants.

Due to improvements Professor Snape had made to the wolfsbane potion over the years, Remus Lupin was no longer relegated to his chambers adjacent to the Defense Against The Dark Arts classroom during the nights of the full moon. He no longer felt ill or uncomfortable in his lupine form and retained an even greater degree of his human sentience, while at the same time enjoying the more exquisite lupine senses of smell and sight.

Rubeus Hagrid enjoyed the companionship during these nights, and often accompanied Professor Sprout into the Forbidden Forest, both to help her gather plants and fungi, as well as to run interference should Grawp, or any of he other creatures in the forest show aggression. The addition of Remus Lupin was even better, as few creatures would willingly grapple with a werewolf.

As professor Sprout knelt next to a large yew tree to examine a promising patch of fungus, Lupin nudged her with his muzzle and yelped.

"What's troublin' ya, Remus?" Hagrid asked, scratching the werewolf's ears comfortingly.

Lupin had been startled by the faint of scent of blood...human blood. Had one of the witches who had remained at Hogwarts been menstruating, or having the lochia discharge after having given birth, or even if one of the boys cut himself whilst learning to shave, the scent would not have worried him at all. The smell of venous blood in the air was heavy, and Lupin immediately loped over to investigate, motioning for Sprout and Hagrid to follow.


The Dark Mark burned relentlessly.

Although his face betrayed nothing, Severus Snape felt as though his left forearm were being held over a torch after having had a flammable substance smeared on it. The memory of the day his father had taught' him the fear of fire threatened, but his skills as an Occlumens forced it away like a demon condemned to spend eternity on the side of the moon that never faced the Earth.

"A'right Prof'sor, Snape?" Hagrid asked when he came upon Severus, who held a youth wrapped in his black frock coat.

Without prelude, Severus deposited Harry into Hagrid's arms and dropped to his haunches, as though to adjust one of the chains near his ankle. Unnoticed by Sprout or Hagrid, Severus whispered near the werewolf's head: "Lupin, tell Dumbledore that I've been summoned."

Lupin whined in response and licked Severus's seldom exposed arm, as the sallow man was still dressed in short sleeves. Severus scowled and looked reprovingly at his fellow order member.

Sprout and Hagrid had needed no further instruction, and were already ambling back toward the castle with Harry. Lupin nodded one last time, and followed. Satisfied, Severus doubled back out of the gates and apparated away, cursing that he did not have enough time to change into his Death Eater attire.


"Good Heavens!" Minerva McGonagall gasped at the sight of Hagrid placing the unconscious teen on one of the triage beds. "What happened?"

"Dunno, M'nerva." Hagrid sighed, helping Madam Pomfrey position Harry and remove the oversized frock coat. "Prof'sor Snape jus' appeared with Harry near the gates when me and Sprout and Lupin were gatherin' plants and 'e just handed 'im to me."

"He did not say anything?" Dumbledore, who had just entered the infirmary, asked.

"Nope, e looked bit pale m'self though." Hagrid lamented. "I figured he wanted me ta' get Harry to the infirmary so we didn' waste time. And when I looked back fer im e was already gone."

The Headmaster and the Deputy Headmistress exchanged nervous glances.

Madam Pomfrey concluded her initial assessment and exhaled deeply.

"How is he, Poppy?" McGonagall asked without any yearning to hear the answer.

"Mr. Potter has a concussion, a broken nose, a fractured clavicle, several cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and because he nearly drowned he is suffering also from hemodilution, hyponatremia ..." Madam Pomfrey sighed as she adjusted the sheets over Harry's still form, and pressed on as though reading some grotesque inventory list.

Hagrid was already sobbing uncontrollably at this point, and both Dumbledore and McGonagall grew a shade paler with each injury Pomfrey declared.

"I really need some room to work here," the harried nurse stated, as she gathered potions and instruments and moved them to Harry's bedside.


The humans and the werewolf reconvened in a meeting room close to the infirmary. Lupin, though he could not speak, still was able inform Dumbledore of Snape's summons through a series of head movements, whines and paw tapping which Dumbledore seemed to understand.

"Yes," Dumbledore said, rubbing his lined forehead and shielding his eyes from view in the process. "I suspected Mr. Potter's relatives had not been protecting Harry as well as they should, despite the warnings they were given. I only wish Severus could have given details of what he observed within the Dursley home. In the future..."

"Albus!" Minerva said with admonishment heavy in her voice. In normal circumstances, she would not interrupt her superior in mid sentence. These however, were far from normal circumstances. "Surely you can't even consider sending him back there...not after what..."

"...Minerva, we do not know the true cause of Harry's injuries," Dumbledore said. "Are we even certain it was the Dursleys themselves and not an accident..."

"ALBUS!" McGonagall shouted, her glare practically putting the best effort by Snape to shame. "Unless the accident involved falling down five mountain sides and landing in a lake at the bottom, I would not recommend Mr. Potter ever going back to his relatives! If they can't even keep their own flesh and blood safe from harm. ..."

"Minerva," Albus stated in a voice that sounded as calm as if he were commenting on the weather. "You are aware that the wards at Privet Drive depend largely on Harry's being in the proximity of blood relatives."

Won' it work with more distant relatives?" Hagrid said after the group had fallen silent. "Don' Harry have a fir' cousin once removed or a granduncle?"'

"Even if were able to locate such a person, the blood would be too diffuse to use for wards." Dumbledore sighed.


Severus Snape moved the caldron from the flames, and set it next to the others to cool. He had been surprised hours earlier to find that no other Death Eaters, save for the ever present Peter Pettigrew, seemed to be at the manor. When he had apparated into what looked like a large lord's, or else a colossal humbug's estate, Voldemort immediately ordered Severus into a makeshift laboratory and set him to work on potions which did everything from healing cuts to causing haemorrhagic fever. Snape deduced that the next raid would be carried out within the next two nights, as the embolism inducer potion would lose its potency after fifty hours.

"SSSo my, dutiful sssnake," Voldemort began as he watched Snape ladle a potion into vials. "Why are you wearing such curiousss muggle clothessss?"

"I was doing research earlier in a muggle university library and needed to be inconspicuous, Master." Severus hoped that Voldemort wouldn't realize that dressing in tight clothing with clanking chains would only have drawn more attention to him in more conservative muggle environments. Not wanting him to think too much on this topic, Severus went on. "Did you know that the muggles have now created a blue pill that can reverse the effects of erectile dysfunction?"

"No, SSSeverussss." the Dark Lord answered. "Though I dare sssssay muggles reproducccce themselvesss quickly enough without the help of their potionssss and blue pillsssss."

The potions master placed more vials on the table and began to decant the contents of the next caldron. As he was stoppering the last container, Voldemort continued as though there had been no pause in the dialogue. "Sssso, did you manage to procure some of these blue pillsss from the mugglesss?"

"Regretfully no, Master." Severus replied, momentarily wondering why the Dark Lord would even care. "The worker in the muggle apothecary was quite a twit about it."


Harry found himself in a parlour lit only by torches and a fireplace. Although he himself wanted to pull back, he felt a strange sense of anticipation as a group of masked people in black robes filed into the room. An unremarkable door to the right of the group opened, and none other than his hated potions master entered the room.

There was something very odd about this. If he was indeed a Death Eater like the others, why was he dressed so...strangely? He had never seen Professor Snape in anything but black billowing robes. Harry strained to look twice as he began to doubt that this truly was Severus Snape. Snape would no doubt balk at anything more form fitting than robes, yet here he was, wearing ripped jeans which looked to be a few sizes too small.

"Master?" Snape asked in his customary silky voice, thereby settling any question in Harry's mind that this man, and his hated potions master were indeed one in the same.

"Sseverusss..."Harry heard himself say in Voldemort's voice. "You've done your potionsss dutiess mosssssst commendably, but you delayed in responding to the ssssummonsss earlier tonight and you arrived improperly dressssed."

Although taken aback, Snape bowed submissively and said: "Yes, Master."

Harry saw himself caress Snape's chin with his spidery fingers and force the long haired man to look at him. "Your explanationsss for your actionssss are not only weak, but susspect. You will be punissssshed for your liessss."

Professor Snape looked as though he wanted to protest, but knew that doing so would only earn him more punishments. Death eaters were often were punished for the mildest infractions. Even though Snape's tardiness had not been more than five minutes at the most, Harry could sense the Dark Lord's suspicions, and great displeasure with Professor Snape. It was also clear that the Dark Lord would not allow it to go unpunished.

Even though it was the shared aspiration of most of the students at Hogwarts to see their cruel potions master being punished, Harry shivered as he knew it was coming to pass. He did not want to watch this man, or indeed any man receiving this kind of treatment from Voldemort.

"You will all have your turn with the little sssssnake," the Dark Lord said to his robed minions. "You may do anything you desssire except blind him, crusssh his hands, or impair his potionsss ssskills in any way. And you cccccccertainly may not kill him, BEGIN!"

The death eaters each stepped forward in turn and assaulted Professor Severus Snape. Some of the robed figures did little more than kick the man in the backside, while others like the robed figure Harry knew to be Bellatrix Lestrange hit Snape with a string of curses, including the cruciatus. Lucius Malfoy beat Snape with his snake-headed stick, while another called took out a knife and cut deep gashes right through the potions master's clothes.

Goyle Sr also did not use any magic whatsoever. He pounced on Professor Snape and proceeded to pummel him. If Harry could have looked away, he would have done so, as the sight of the large man hammering on the smaller one reminded him painfully of the events of earlier that day, when Dudley and his friends had done the same to him. Goyle finished by slamming a knee into Snape's testicles, causing every man in the room, and apparently even Voldemort, to wince.

To Professor Snape's credit, he was mostly silent throughout his punishment, although Harry heard few guttural sounds escape him. Harry begged every deity he could name to not have to watch any more of this cruelty, but he was only met by sounds of his own applause and accolades in that serpentine voice.

A man he assumed to be the other half of Lestrange approached Snape next,pointed his wand at the victim and uttered a curse Harry had never heard before. The chains on Snape's jeans began to glow like red coals, and caused smoke to rise from the material in contact with them. The smell of burning flesh followed soon after.

Crabbe Sr's assault was so similar to Goyle's that Harry wondered if the two large men were a product of some covert experiment in human (or rather goon) cloning. The elder Crabbe even finished he same way, causing Snape, who had still not fully recovered from the crushing pain in his groin, to vomit all over himself. This time all but one of the people in the room turned away in revulsion.

Finally the last death eater approached, introducing himself as some one named "Bacterian." He went on to tell Snape about time he spent in muggle prisons in several nations and stated his intention to use one of their many forms of torture on him, as it would serve both to cleanse, as well as teach him a lesson.

Bacterian dragged Snape to a tiled room and threw him against the wall. He then pulled out what looked like a watering hose the fire department would use and turned it on.

Highly pressurized, icy water pinned Snape to the wall. He desperately tried to move away but the jet of water followed him leaving heavy bruising in it's wake. Where the jet caught one of the chains on Snape's jeans, it would leave a chain-shaped welt concealed beneath the coarse material. Being fully unprepared for this previously unknown onslaught, the potions master screamed and slowly slid down the wall, eventually laying in a protective ball on the floor. The cries continued, although they were muffled by the thundering of the water.

Harry watched in horror. The unfamiliar sound of Snape's cries only heightened his terror and he begged whatever deity who may have been listening to either stop those people from hurting Snape, allow him to wake up, or to at least grant him a means to not have to witness these events any longer.


Harry saw the scene before him fade, as though dissolving into a white mist. Soon everything around him was white. Harry realized that he was in a kind of white abyss. He felt no surface below him and there were no walls, or indeed any objects at all for as far as he could see. Oddly though, he neither had the sensation of floating, nor standing.

An ethereal being with shining red hair and bright green eyes was the only flash of colour in the stark whiteness. The being morphed into a woman's form as she seemed to float ever closer to Harry.

"Mother!"

End Part Two