Chapter Three: Avada Kedavra

"I'll just fucking bet you'll knock me teeth down me throat! Why you can't hardly stand, let alone…"

WHAM!

Harry commonly didn't hit punters as hard as he could, but just to test his strength, to see how his recovery was coming, he let this one have it.

Teeth flew through the air like red and white Chiclets, and Blaise Zabini flew across the Hog's Head like a spell had been cast on him, and hit the wall.

Hard.

Harry watched with satisfaction as his enemy's unconscious form slid down the wall to the floor like the snake he was.

"Brilliant. Fucking brilliant." He crowed.

"Blimey, Harry that was a good one!" Ron exclaimed.

"Nice blood spatter an' tooth distribution." Ginny agreed.

"That's the old stuff, Potter. Glad to see you're on the mend and off the hard stuff. Here's the night's pint of Merlin's, you've earned it." Aberforth encouraged him.

Harry's hand felt like it had been stung by a nest of bees, but a little "episkey" fixed that.

"Yeah. Looks like I got the old right hook, back."

Harry drank his beer and talked to Ron, but the whole time, he was thinking about what else he'd gotten back.

After he was done, he handed Ron a golden galleon.

"Here you go, Ron. Pay for mine, an' yours too. Let's go home, Ginny." He said.

"Well, you don't have to ask me twice. G'night, Ron."

Ron decided not to think that Harry was talking about his sister, and bought three butterbeers, one for himself and one for Fred and one for George.

"Nice to have the old Harry back." Fred said.

"The girls will be happy." George agreed.

"Can we not talk about that? I mean, Ginny's our sister." Ron said.

"I meant the rest of them." Fred said.

"Oh, that makes me feel better!" Ron countered.

***

Albus Dumbledore hated to be so at odds with Severus, but he knew what had to be done.

"It will only be for a few months. Harry's doing fine, now. In a month or so, he'll find out the truth and everything will be alright."

There was so much anger in Severus dark eyes that they looked completely black, like a shark's.

"Fine? Albus, he's not fine! He's still on methadone! He's only just begun to look like a human being again, to be able to get back to eating and walking and fucking and speaking and all those other normal motor functions! Potter has a long way to go towards fine! And he's begun to trust me, which is important if I'm ever going to get him ready for normal life, let alone war! He's fine because he's had no opportunity at all to get drunk or score and he's not ready to go out on his own and stay sober! The tinest shock could undo every gain he's made in the past month and a half. And seeing his Potions Master murder his Headmaster in cold blood before a gang of bloodthirsty Death Eaters is a rather large fucking shock!" Snape raved.

"He has to see it."

"Fine! Then let him in on the plan!"

"I can't."

Snape exploded.

He smashed both of his fists down on Dumbledore's desk, screaming, and then flew into a wild rage.

"Damn you, Albus! Fuck me, damn you to Hell, you stubborn old bastard! You and that fuck, Tom Riddle, you've been playing fucking draughts with me life since I was younger than Potter! Now you're doing the same with his! Well fuck you, and fuck your fucking war! If that boy dies, it's on your head, Albus! Him and Lily and James! You've got blood-- blood, yes, blood!-- on your saintly old hands, and you're about to have a lot more of it! I will desert you, Albus. I'll leave this school, and this war and I don't care who wins and who loses and the only time I'll come out of hiding is to murder whichever of you or Tom Riddle isn't killed by the other! I'll make you and every witch and wizard and familiar that walks or crawls or flies sorry you were ever born if Potter dies! Do you understand me, Albus! Do you?"

"Severus, please…"

"No! Goddamnit, to Hell, no! I am Death, Death d'you hear? Behold, a Pale Rider! I am Death, and Hell's coming with me! Hell's coming with me!" Snape fired back.

He swept out of the office in a paroxysm of rage, leaving Albus Dumbledore in shock and dismay.

He spoke to his secret wife about it later than night, unable to sleep.

"He's never spoken to me like that, Minerva. You can't imagine how horrible it was to hear our Severus speak to me like that."

"Albus, he's afraid for Harry's life. You don't like to face these things. I told you and told you when Severus was a lad and he was mixed up with Tom Riddle and with drugs that I was afraid for his life and you didn't want to face that, either. Perhaps you should let Harry in on your plan."

"I can't, Minerva. At this point in his life, not only can't poor Harry be trusted, he's much safer not knowing than knowing. Drugs and all."

"I just wish it was all over, Albus."

"So do I."

***

Hermione was in the library, studying for her finals when, abruptly, Treacher apparated in front of her with a crack.

She spilled ink all over herself.

Before she could ask him what was going on, the usually calm house elf began tugging on her arm and babbling.

It was something about Snape and him being in trouble, but Hermione was not prepared to see him sitting on the floor in his grubby, greying y-fronts, with his head in his hands, motionless.

"Severus?"

She wasn'r even sure what she should do, so she went and sat beside him.

She'd never seen him so upset; she was afraid to touch him.

"Severus? Are you sick?"

He was quiet for quite some time before he replied.

"Yes. I'm sick. And tired. Hermione, what if I was to suggest to you, that we grab Harry, go home to Liverpool, and quietly live like Muggles for the rest of our lives?"

"If that's what you think is best, Sev, I'll knock him out, pack him up, and we'll go. I'm with you. Up the 'Pool."

Snape picked up his head from his hands.

"Hermione, in a few days, you are going to see me do something shocking and unforgivable, and it might just destroy Harry, completely. I'm going to have to ask you to trust me, to say nothing to no one, and wait, maybe for a month or so, for me to call you to go to war. Can you be involved in that?"

"Tell me what you're going to do, and what you want me to do, and I'll do it." Hermione promised.

Snape told her of Dumbledore's plans, and of what he intended to do if Harry lived, and then, what he intended to do if Harry died as a result of them.

Hermione agreed.

Completely.

***

Harry left Privet Drive in Uncle Vernon's car, and he drove into Muggle London, to a certain pub he'd been to the previous summer.

He bought six bottles of whiskey, three grammes of cocaine, four grammes of heroin, and two dime bags of pot.

Money was no object; Harry had nothing but money.

Living was no object; Harry had nothing but contempt for life.

He wanted to be drunk, he wanted to be high, and in-bewteen he wanted to get his cock into as many bints as he could and get his fists into as many faces as he could.

He wanted to drive Uncle Vernon's car as far and as fast as it would go, and he didn't care if he lived or if he died.

Harry wasn't sure if what he had seen in the tower was real or a show, if it was true or false. But it meant that either Snape had betrayed him and Dumbledore or Dumbledore had betrayed him and Snape and he was tired of it all and no longer gave a toss about anything.

"Harry! Harry James Potter, where do you think you're going in my car?" Uncle Vernon was yelling.

Kind of funny, him wheezing and running his fat arse down the path.

"Straight to Hell, if I'm lucky. Don't worry about the car, I'll pay for any damage."

"I'm not worried about the bloody car! Harry! Harry!"

***

The days seemed to run into one another.

Often, Harry went to Muggle London, where he wasn't known, and he fought and caroused and picked up women and was picked up by women and sometimes he brought them home, sometimes two or three of them, and they drank and got high and all fucked one another in his room, if they were capable.

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon never said anything to Harry.

They were terrified of him, now; he had become all the things they feared he would become and it terrified them.

Eventually, Harry ran out of the money he took from his account at Gringotts, and someone had frozen his account.

Only one thing left for Harry to do.

He began stealing from Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.

She caught him, eventually, and when she tried to stop him, Harry wrenched Aunt Petunia's arm around and he hit her.

Her face went all grey and she looked bleedy and fell on the floor.

Harry supposed Uncle Vernon had every right to blow his top, and he thought he might have broken one of his Uncle's ribs, but Uncle Vernon surely broke one of his, but then again that could have happened later when Harry was driving to town in Uncle Vernon's car that he stole.

It was like that Jethro Tull song about being too old to rock and roll and too young to die and Harry took the curve too fast and the car went arse over teacups and arse over teacups and arse over teacups and Harry hurt all over, especially in his leg, which was all smashed and bleeding and crushed and twisted. But he used his other leg to kick out the window and blagged them on the Knight Bus that he was nobody and he was drunk and they took him to the Horntail's Nest in Knockturn Alley.

The good old Nest, and Harry holed up there, in one of the rooms over the pub.

He sold his spare pair of glasses to an American collector of Potterbilia and sent the money to Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, for the deductible on the car and to make up for the money he stole from them. He got Dudley on the phone when they were out and met him in London, walking with a cane, one of those with the hollow where you could hide your wand, or a sword, with a silver gryphon head.

Spent just a little of the money on himself, had to save just a little.

Dudley called him back a few days later and he met Harry at the same pub, and he had some food and clean clothes from home.

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon weren't mad at Harry.

They didn't want him to come home but they had found a place for him at a rehab.

Harry wouldn't go, so he kept meeting Dudley and sending his dirty clothes to Privet Drive and got them back clean with more food.

With Harry back in the Wizarding World, a newly-loyal Kreacher and the always loyal Dobby immediately went to his side.

The two elves were somewhat shocked and disgusted at the squalor in which Harry lived, and worried about his condition, but they said nothing of it to Harry and refused to be sent away.

They looked after him and cleaned up as best they could, hoping that help would come soon.

Sometimes, Harry thought of Ron, and Ginny, and Hermione.

Lying on his bed, he missed them all.

Taking off his belt and tying off his arm, pulling it tight, real tight.

And he knew they would be really upset when he died.

Patiently holding the spoon over the candle, he had all the time in the world.

Time for a drink while he was waiting, green smoke out his nostrils, the burn while the viscous liquid slid down his throat.

But Ron and Ginny had their family, and Lord Malfoy was on their side, somebody told him, and when he bought or weaselled his way out of Azkaban, he'd see to Ginny, and he'd look after her.

It was one of those old-fashioned metal needles; he'd bought it in an old scrumdum dump in Knockturn Alley, but it worked well enough.

Hermione had her Mum and Dad, and if it turned out he wasn't a villain she had wicked old bastard Snape, and she had Ron and the Weasleys.

And they all had each other, didn't they?

And Harry had Horntail and heroin, and he was going to be fine, and so were they.

Harry flexed his hand, and made a fist, and slipped the antique spike into his vein, and pushed the plunger in.

"Oh shit!" he gasped.

Easing back into the pillows on the lumpy mattress, feeling the rush spread through his whole body.

A little blood when he pulled the needle out, but he felt fine, just fine.

Everything was going to be just fine.