Chapter 3 : The Old Man, the Promise, and the Vow


"I see." Albus's blue eyes were not twinkling. He peered at Severus over the rim of his half-moon spectacles.

Severus stayed silent. He just finished delivering his report, and didn't feel there was anything to add.

Albus sighed. "Thank you, Severus. It will be taken care of."

Good. He could put it out of his mind now. His conscience was clear.

He nodded curtly, and as he was not needed for anything else, turned smartly on his heel and left the Headmaster's office.

There were potions to brew and lessons to plan, classes to teach and detentions to supervise, and it was four weeks before he knew that he could not put it out of his mind after all. His conscience prickled uncomfortably.

There was something that still bothered him, he supposed, about the fact that Albus had appeared to have never checked on the boy in all the past years.

On a moonless night in early February, while the Headmaster left to handle an urgent call from the Minister, Severus stole silently across the school grounds and Apparated to Privet Drive once more.

He stood for a long time on the sidewalk, staring at the house. He felt guilty being there. Did he not trust Albus Dumbledore? What did he hope to find here? It would be all very well if he found the boy in changed circumstances, because then he would only have his own lack of trust to castigate himself for, but what if...? That twinge in the back of his mind was back again, asking him what he would do if he opened that door and found what he didn't want to find.

He let himself in. He didn't cast any spells, but simply forced himself to not pause, not think, not doubt, but to walk over to the cupboard and throw open the door.

He stared.

What did it mean that he felt no shock? No surprise. Not even disappointment. It was like he had already known what he would find when he opened that door.

The boy slept on the same dingy, broken mattress, under the same dingy, thin blanket. There was still a box in a corner, filled with rags and a tin cup and a tattered book held together with tape.

The boy was shivering. Most charms tended to wear off with time, even strong ones, and his had not been overly strong. He had not thought they would need to last so long. The cupboard was like an ice chest. The blanket was just a blanket again, neither warm nor soft, and the mattress was full of sharp, protruding springs.

He turned his head, fearing that the photograph, too, was gone, as were all the other signs that he had ever visited the boy. It was still there, and Lily still smiled, like an angel watching over her sleeping child. Her brilliant green eyes seemed to pierce his and look down into his very soul.

It was a final, desperate move, because he he still didn't want to believe, but he cast a spell to find out if any magic had been done in the cupboard or on the boy since he had been there. There had not.

The boy stirred and sat up, rubbing his eyes, though Severus had made no sound that could have woken him.

"Oh," he breathed. His eyes were slightly clouded, and it was not from sleep but with fever. "Oh, it was true... it was." He stared at Severus as if he could not stare at him long or hard enough. "The magic."

Whatever he was going to do now that he had opened the door, he had best begin it.

He waved his wand and the warming spells were set again. He summoned potions, food, and hot drink. He felt like he was in a sort of dream, acting mechanically while his mind whirled in a thousand different directions.

"I knew you'd come."

Severus came back into himself with a jolt. What had the brat said? Oh. He frowned. "What?"

"She asked you to come." The boy smiled in a way that suggested to Severus that he was more ill than first thought, or that the potions hadn't had time to work. "I understand now."

"Understand what?" Severus asked irritably. He was trying to remember where precisely he had placed the milder restorative, which was the only kind he dared use on such a small child without a healer present.

"Why you came, of course." The dreamy smile got dreamier still. "It's the magic. The magic doesn't let the very worst things happen."

Severus stared at him, dumbfounded. "Er... Lie back. You need more potions."

He finally remembered where the potion was, on the third shelf next to the frog legs, and summoned it. Potter's eyes took on a more normal appearance.

"Eat. I suppose your relatives still don't feed you properly?"

He didn't need the boy to answer. He could see quite well for himself.

The boy stared at the wall while chewing hot buttered toast. He didn't answer at all.

"I will leave more food this time," Severus said. He supposed he could manage to add a false bottom to the box the boy was using to store his meager belongings, and ward it against Muggle eyes. It was a complicated set of transfigurations and charms, and not at all his area of expertise, but he did know the basics of creating wizard space, and it was just a small box. "The blanket will stay warm longer, too."

"Oh." The boy twisted the corner of the blanket in question. "Aunt washed it."

"That won't matter. The magic will be stronger this time."

The boy's eyes watched him as he worked, taking it all in. He no longer seemed to be terrified of the magic. He just watched silently.

"There," Severus said when he finished. He said it more because he was growing uncomfortable under the boy's gaze than to signify that he was done working, because the boy could see that for himself.

"Thank you." He said it very softly. His eyes had grown large again. Large and haunted.

"What is it?" Severus asked, frowning at him.

"You won't come back anymore, will you?"

Severus opened his mouth to say that no, he wouldn't need to, but the words didn't come. He would need to. He couldn't, and wouldn't, confront the old man again, now that he knew the truth. The food he had left would last a week, maybe two if the boy made it last, which with such a young child was unlikely. He would have to come back then.

"It's okay," the boy assured him. Only his eyes said otherwise. "Thank you for everything. I'm glad Mum asked you to come."

He swallowed and turned away. He couldn't stop himself from squeezing his eyes shut. He could hear her voice echoing in his mind, and the knowledge that her face was looking at him out of the photograph on the wall added a layer of pain to the ache already settled in his chest.

I forgive you, Sev, I do. Oh, I wish things could be the way they were before, but we are on different sides, and how can I trust that you won't hurt the people I love? I know you would never hurt me. What about my child, Sev? Would you let them hurt my child?

He had promised her, then, that he would never let them hurt the child she carried. The thing that was only a small lump under her dress had not been real to him then, and he was already working for Dumbledore. They were on the same side, though she did not know it. It hadn't been a difficult promise to make, when it meant that for a brief moment, Lily smiled at him again like she used to when they had been young. That had been the last time he had seen her.

It hadn't been an Unbreakable Vow. He had made that later, to Dumbledore, and it had been easier to do so because of his promise to her. He always thought that it would be far easier to break the Vow than to break that promise, though the terms of both were the same.

Protect her child from harm.

That's what he had promised to do. Not one of them, not Lily or Dumbledore or Severus himself, had thought he was promising to protect the child from the Light, but neither his promise to Lily nor his Vow to Dumbledore had specified whom he had to keep the child safe from. Only that he would not let her child be harmed.

With a shiver, he wondered if the feeling that had been nagging him since that day in the Headmaster's office, not letting him rest, not letting him forget, was not the Vow asserting itself. Telling him he was dangerously close to breaking it. Pulling him back to Privet Drive. He was feeling it now, still.

He opened his eyes, but not before Lily's voice drifted one more time across his memory.

I believe you.

"I will come back."

A smile lit up the boy's face. It was the first time Severus had seen him smile, and it was with a fresh stab of pain that he recognized the smile as hers. Lily's smile.

Disturbed, he stood up quickly. "Good bye."

"Good bye," the boy echoed. He sat on the mattress and watched Severus leave.

When the door had shut and silence had fallen once again over the house, Harry allowed himself another happy smile. He wished he had someone to share this wonderful new feeling with. This feeling of someone caring enough to come to see how he was doing. "I like him. Do you like him, too? I hope he'll come again soon."