Summary: Harry had always been their strength. When they found out how Dumbledore had been hurting him, they decided to be Harry's strength too. Even if they had to abandon everything to do it. Time Travel
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Categories: Time Travel, Abuse, Slash, Het
Chapter Summary: Snape didn't know why Gryffindor strays kept turning up, but he knew that there was one stray that mattered more than the rest.
Chapter 10: Their Migration
Severus Snape was more than a little annoyed when Neville returned in the middle of the night with the Weasley twins in tow. The timid boy cowered and avoided eye contact as the older man glared at him accusingly. Severus's eyes trailed over the youngest boy, noticing the hand gripping his shoulder and following it back to its owner. Both of the redheads glared at their former professor with open hostility, and Neville was overly conscious of the tension in the air because of the force behind the hand gripping him. The potions master's first instinct was to attack the boy for revealing their location, but the trembling of the child's jaw gave him pause, and he thought of Harry who would take criticism even when it was undeserved. It was important to consider alternatives instead of lashing out without restraint, he was learning, and it was very possible that Neville had been bullied into giving up their location to the older boys.
Suddenly shifting, Severus strode forward from beside the fire, dark cloak flowing gently as he went, his suspicions transforming his face into one of calm assurance that disguised the full extent of his anger. He was a tall man, and he towered easily above his unwanted guests, who held their ground and tried to look brave, but nonetheless let their uneasiness show in their eyes. When he finally addressed them, his voice was frosted and sharp even while kept it low out of respect for his sleeping student.
"Just what do you think you're doing here?"
A collective shudder ran through all three of his former pupils at the restrained anger they perceived in his voice. The man inwardly smirked as they looked everywhere but at him, reacting the same way they would have if he had caught them after curfew. They were still children, dropping out of Hogwarts or not, and he could manipulate the flux of their emotions as easily as he could the course of a potion. Fred and George decided at the same moment to respond, and both opened their mouths, only to fall silent when they saw their jaws move simultaneously. It was a sign of extreme nervousness that the twins, famed for their coordinated speech, could not even begin to respond.
"T-they say that there's something important about H-Harry, sir." Neville spoke first, his voice breathy and small in the still of the night.
Snape was struck again by the boy's courage, which he had been noticing in small instances ever since Neville had first discovered them. Here was undeniable proof that what he had been seeing was correct; the young Gryffindor had outperformed even some of the most famously reckless Gryffindors, demonstrating his courage even under these tense conditions. Trying to cut the boy some slack as a reward for his response, Snape shifted his head just slightly and raised an eyebrow expectantly at the flabbergasted redheads. Still twitchy with nerves, the twins seemed to take heart from Neville's bravery and stood just a little straighter, trying to meet Snape's eyes but quickly averting their focus to elsewhere on his face.
"Harry's not crazy." The Weasley not gripping Neville's shoulder blurted. "We know you think he is, but he's really just getting mixed signals from you and Voldemort and Dumbledore and…"
"It's confusing him. That's all." The more aggressive twin concluded, the fingers on Neville's shoulder shifting compulsively but not releasing him.
With only a slight movement of his head, Severus turned the full force of his glare at Longbottom, eyes burning with rage at the thought that he, a Gryffindor whom Severus had decided to trust, would go and tell the twins about his fears for Harry. Neville squeaked a little and hugged himself, his lips pressing together in both fear and grief at the thought of losing the man's trust. But the twins stepped forward, their own courage finally surfacing with the need to defend their friend.
"He didn't tell us." Said one, stepping in front of the other boy as if to guard him from the surely fatal power behind that glare.
"We used a listening device to track him, and when we realized that you were going to condemn Harry as insane…"
"We had to act, so we told Neville we were worried about Harry and there was something urgent we had to tell you. That's all."
Severus studied the boy for a moment, wondering why he continued to stare at his feet, never stepping back out of fear or freeing himself from the older boy's grasp. He paused a moment longer, watching the boy's trembling jaw and realizing that it wasn't natural. Severus Snape usually ignored his protective urges, but seeing his ally trapped and recognizing that touch for what it was, a new kind of anger bubbled to the surface. He shot forward with a snarl, and the sight of the tall man moving so quickly, shadowed face contorted ferociously, startled the boy into releasing his shoulder. Snape didn't hesitate to seize the freed child and wrench him away from his counterparts, pulling him back and apart from them roughly. Neville's trembling was fierce now, but the unnatural twitching had stopped, confirming Severus's suspicions.
"How dare you!" He roared, voice deep and loud enough to wake Harry with its rumble. "Do you realize how dangerous it is to put people under compulsions? If one thing went wrong, he could have gone brain dead, or developed a permanent tick at the least. Listening to things that don't concern you is bad enough, but at least it's well-intentioned recklessness. Putting your friend under a compulsion, stripping him of his will and making him betray my trust, however, that's recklessness that could only be expected of the greatest fools."
All of them flinched as his words rained down on them, familiar with the intensity of their professor's unrestrained anger. The three boys looked alarmed at the thought of what might have happened, but Neville soon began to smile. He reached up and put a calming hand on the tall man's arm.
"Thank you for worrying about me, professor." He murmured, voice thick with relief and cheer at the thought of someone growing so ferocious on his behalf. "But if it was for Harry's sake…"
"What was for my sake?" the boy in question spoke up, his footsteps across the clearing having been hidden by the boom of his caretaker's anger.
Forgetting everything at the sight of their friend, the twins rushed at him as if to embrace him, remembering only at the last moment that he was likely traumatized and shouldn't be touched. Harry didn't look alarmed in the least, but watched with open curiosity as they halted right before him, hands twitching with the need to touch him and confirm his presence with their other senses, and finally settled for leaving the appendages to swing at their sides.
"It's good to see you, Harry." The nearest twin greeted gently.
"Well, it's good to see you two too, but what exactly are you doing here? You realize they're hunting us? If the Ministry catches you conspiring with us, your whole family will be in trouble!"
"And so will we!" Snarled Severus, leaving Neville standing behind him as he strode closer to the trio. "I wouldn't be surprised if they were watching all of you, waiting to see where you went to track us down. Harry, we'd best leave before daylight. Merlin knows these imbeciles could have led him directly to us."
Harry looked alarmed at the thought as he froze, his whole body seeming to turn to stone as he contemplated the return of his abuser. Some small part of him told him to calm down, insisting that they should go close their camp and leave immediately, but the majority of his mind was locked in place by fear. He could feel his heart rate speeding up as if from a long way away, and he knew that his chest had begun to heave enough that it would be noticeable to his companions. Seeing Harry consumed by panic, and familiar with the symptoms, Severus knew better than to let the other boys continue yelling his name at him to get his attention. Harry was distancing himself quickly, and panic would completely overtake him in only a minute if it was allowed to continue. Neville was still standing behind the rest of the group, hands clasped together helplessly as his own, much milder, panic began to shadow his mind. Severus was dimly aware of the other boy's state, multitasking abilities honed as both a teacher and death eater alerting him to his surroundings even as he plunged his own mind into Harry's.
Harry's mind, he had discovered through their practice sessions, was more like quicksand than the fortress of most trained minds. He guarded himself not, as most people Severus had known, by building walls around his memories, but rather by overwhelming intruders with flashes of small and, on the surface, meaningless memories that nevertheless meant a great deal to Harry. Intruders were likely to be pulled in by these, the kind of memories they expected to see, until they were overwhelmed by the sheer force of them and retreated, thinking themselves successful. In reality, however, one had to ride out wave after wave of these memories, knowing to push them aside or slip through them quickly, in order to reach Harry's consciousness, along with his truly secret memories. Severus quickly followed the shudders of panic flowing outward, sending ripples through the boy's entire consciousness, and buried it. It would still be there, but at least Harry would be able to retain self control through the haze of panic. Severus would be able to move him to safety more easily.
Fred, George, and a short-breathed Neville watched as the imposing man placed his hands on either side of their hero's face, staring into his eyes with his own dark gaze, until Harry's breathing suddenly calmed. His eyes were still glazed over, but he looked calmer, like he had just been given a potion. Severus ignored them as he guided Harry to the fire, instructing him to collect anything he wanted to keep even as he began to transfigure their bowls and benches back into stones. Finished with that part of the clean up, he snapped his fingers a couple of times to help activate his magic, sending the stones gathered around the fire pit flying into the surrounding trees. Harry collected the herbs they had stolen and put them in his trunk, tapping once on the lid to shrink it wandlessly, and stuffed it in his pocket. He didn't want anything else, which was unsurprising, and followed his teacher's example of transfiguring various things back into what they had been originally. He finished transfiguring a practice dummy back into a pile of debris and returned to the fire, from where Severus had been waiting for him to finish.
The three intruders watched this process with astonishment, being unfamiliar with the wandless prowess of either of the fugitives. Without the use of a wand, their classmate had just used both the shrinking spell and transfiguration, and he looked neither tired nor surprised by his accomplishment. Instead, his eyes remained clouded, and the twins began to suspect that whatever the man had done to Harry was similar to the compulsion he had just berated them for placing on Neville. They were both rather chagrined at the whole situation, in hindsight realizing that they would not have lost anything by waiting until the morning to drag Neville out of bed and seek Harry. They really hadn't intended to put anyone in danger, and they hadn't even considered that their presence might give away the location to the ministry. Neville had not considered the danger either, and though he knew he was not really at fault for the twins' actions, he felt as though it was his actions that had brought this panic upon the peaceful campsite. Snape took one last look over the clearing and doused the blue fire, sending them into darkness.
The moon's pale whiteness was shining, but without the supplementary light of the fire, the forest seemed full of unexpected dangers that they had failed to consider lurking in the shadows. What manner of forest was this? The trio began to imagine that the slightest gust of wind was caused by creatures moving within the darkness and subconsciously stepped closer to each other, seeking to shield themselves from the stirring of the air. Snape and Harry ignored them as they held out their hands and easily created large orbs of light, reestablishing the unearthly blue glow that putting out the fire had erased. For a moment the twins simply stared at the orbs, which were shocking not only because they had been created wandlessly, but also because they were the largest lumos orbs the twins had ever seen. Neville had seen this trick during a previous visit, and so did not suffer from the same shock as the twins. The light sparked inspiration in him, and he reached for his wand to add his own small lumos to the others.
"Stop." Severus hissed, seeing the movement and guessing at the child's intentions. "I take it you all intend to come with us?"
Fred and George nodded determinedly, darkened brows threatening to cause a fuss if the man objected. Neville nodded hesitantly. "Gran would be alerted if I came home this late anyway. Is it acceptable for us to go with you?"
"You shouldn't." Harry muttered. "You'll just be in more danger, especially if they're going to come after us."
"We should be fine if they don't use any magic. Only wandless magic is untraceable." Severus wanted Harry to be around people who cared about them, even if those people were blubbering fools. It was unlikely that the twins would be followed, and this move was more precautionary than anything. The former professor considered admitting such, but the chagrin still coloring the boys' faces stopped him. He would rather they suffered from the belief that they had endangered their friend, and acted more carefully in the future, than admit to an overreaction. Harry looked smaller than ever, being the shortest one among them, and Severus felt rather guilty for frightening him when he was already in such a fragile state. One twin whispered to the other, and they both snickered, distracting him briefly. Severus's lip curled. Never mind guilt, he thought, those damn Gryffindors were probably a danger to them all, and it was in Harry's best interests that he was frightened just to have them nearby.
"Come along then." Severus instructed, and they began walking.
He strode forward, content with the sound of eight feet behind him as he began moving through the forest in a random direction, not yet knowing where they would end their sudden journey. He was moving them to a new location within the same forest, wandlessly collapsing the wards around their old campsite and draping them around the party so that they would leave no footprints behind. Knowing the limited competencies of Aurors, Severus had prepared for such a necessity. The magical hunters could follow footprints, but relied on magic for tracking beyond that. Severus's wards were beyond them. Ideally, he would have liked to move to an entirely new location, but with such a hunt out for the pair, he did not yet know where a safe location might be. One pair of footsteps behind him grew fainter than the rest, and the man paused to investigate.
Neville and the twins automatically flinched when he looked at them, finding him even more intimidating than usual amidst the shadows of the dark forest. The tall man ignored them and focused his gaze on Harry, who was watching the ground, once again, as if unsure of his ability to walk without tripping, and had not noticed that the others had stopped. He was trailing along behind the group, calm but very unaware, incapable of functioning alertly with the veil Severus had placed over his mind. It was the only immediate solution he had though, and it was better than leaving the boy to a panic attack. Severus strode past the unwanted guests and reached Harry, took his wrist, and resumed his original pace forward.
Harry glanced up at him with dazed confusion when he felt his caretaker grasp his arm, blinked for a moment, and returned to gazing down. He kept pace with the older man, however, and the party resumed its journey without another delay. Neville gazed at their backs, his gaze sparkling with its usual warmth at the sight of their touching, confirming to himself once again that Harry had found a mighty protector in Severus Snape. The twins, still under the belief that the Slytherin was abusing their friend, stared at the point of contact with barely restrained anger. One sign of pain from Harry, or of inappropriate action from the professor, and they were ready to lift the wands grasped in their fists and whisk their friend away. But nothing of the sort occurred, which they suspected was because the man knew they were watching, and the group continued through the eerie, dark forest without a sound.
Severus wondered how long the Gryffindors would be able to last without breaking the silence, expecting it wouldn't take long. Sure enough, one of the twins was unable to bear the quiet, and asked in a low voice where it was they were going. Feeling rightfully annoyed at the boys for making this trip a necessity in the first place, Severus kept quiet. Normally the Gryffindors would have demanded answers, but because Harry was too out of it to have even reacted to their words, and because of the shadows moving in time with the cloudy sky far above them, even their abnormal courage failed them. It was a spooky night, the kind that would have been perfect for Halloween, and they felt as though disturbing the silence again would be asking for whatever menacing creatures that dwelled in the forest to come out and attack them. Neville was equally frightened, but, being Neville, was too terrified to even fathom doing more than placing one foot forward at a time, rhythmically forcing himself to push through the darkness and will it away.
The two orbs of light bobbing through the air at the front of the party were not comforting in the least either, as they resembled ethereal creatures themselves, and provided just enough light to keep the shadows around them shifting at their every motion. Severus ignored the shadows, instead peering ahead with an assured confidence that was comforting only to the boy at his side, looking for a clearing or cave or something that could serve as their new campsite. As the group walked into the early morning hours, the temperature continued to drop. The members of the party unskilled in wandless magic began to shiver as dew settled onto the forest, seeping into their clothes until even their skin was damp and clammy, like cold sweat that lingers after a long run. Severus briefly considered warming them, but decided to let them endure, knowing that the cold would cause no lasting harm and wanting them to suffer just a little more for making this trip necessary in the first place. He made sure that Harry had cast the charm on himself, however, and cast an extra charm of his own to make sure the boy didn't overpower himself with warmth.
Severus despised Gryffindors for many reasons, the least of which was their annoying tendency toward arrogance. As a teacher, it was his duty not only to provide instruction in potions, but also to help his students develop the proper mindset they needed to face the world. In Slytherin, he took naturally mistrustful and ambitious children and taught them how to live in a world of manipulation, how create alliances and trust the help of others despite their wary natures. That was the purpose of a House, to turn weaknesses into strengths and overcome vulnerabilities. But Gryffindor always failed its students; it took children who were inclined toward martyrdom and rage and deceived them by telling them that those were good qualities. It exacerbated weaknesses, taught its students to encourage each other to take extreme risks, to diminish the value of their own lives in the face of grand ideals that meant nothing if you ignored their underlying rage to begin with. By leaving them to suffer the cold, some part of Severus hoped that the lesson would tame them a bit; it would remind them of their own mortality and make them just a little more cautious when they were thinking about doing something reckless again.
Children weren't that different when they came to Hogwarts with only 11 years of life experience to their names. They could be lumped into four categories; those sorted into Slytherin were mistrustful of others, those in Hufflepuff were too naïve, those in Ravenclaw either too afraid of failure or too socially challenged, and those in Gryffindor, the worst of the lot, lacked self-worth. It was Hogwarts that determined whether they stayed that way. Severus certainly wasn't inclined to help the other houses, but, being a teacher, some part of him was always looking for lessons that he could teach those ne'er-do-wells. His lessons, he thought, were a bit more practical than the rest of those offered at Hogwarts. He glanced over at his charge again, checking for signs of panic or exhaustion breaking through, and nodded to himself when he saw that the boy was faring well. He was perfectly capable of looking after a child when he wanted to, it was clear, and his own experiences had prepared him to deal with a victim like Harry.
It wasn't all that surprising, with his luck, that Severus had picked up additional strays from the house with the most problems. He was aware of Neville shivering behind him, and began to feel a tad guilty for making the boy suffer; it was like refusing to play with a persistent puppy when you were annoyed with it, even though you knew that it would never be mad at you. He twitched his pinky finger backward in the boy's direction and sent warming magic washing over him. Neville stopped in his surprise, reveling in the unexpected warmth, and correctly guessed who had cast the charm on him.
"Thank you, Professor." He spoke in a half-whisper, afraid to disturb the stillness, and let his arms fall from where he had been rubbing them warm.
The twins glanced at their friend as he resumed walking behind them, wearing questioning expressions that suggested they thought he was mad for the display of gratitude. Severus huffed, exasperated at the the mere presence of bumbling stupidity they filled the air with, but said nothing. The boys took his exasperation as a signal that they were permitted to begin noisemaking, to the man's dismay, and began competing to see which of them could sound the most aggrieved. Grinding his teeth, Severus decided to ignore their decidedly immature display of arrogance instead of expending the energy to silence them. They walked on for hours in only a couple of minutes, and the tired man was nearly at the end of his patience when Harry let out a small giggle from beside him. It said something about the state of the group that every one of them stopped at the small sound and waited, gazes riveted to the back of the small boy's head, to see whether another sound would follow. Sure enough, Harry continued to chuckle, voice soft and musical like the trickle of water over stones.
The orb of light floating in front of him bobbed up and down in time with his laughter, making the shadows around them dance in sync with Harry's joy. Suddenly, the forest didn't seem nearly as frightening as it had before; it was neither big nor full of enemies, and instead it was merely a backdrop, a setting meant to change and reflect their moods. With only a sound, Harry had reestablished himself as the center of their worlds, and everything was brighter for it. Severus carefully probed at the boy's mind, and found, to his pleasure, that his student had regained complete control of himself. There was plenty of pain and wariness and alarm, but it was tinted strongly with the love the boy felt for the people around him.
Severus felt the goodwill infecting his mind as well. Without thinking too much, he magnanimously granted the twins warmth in exchange for the warmth they had sparked in their housemate. They glanced around in confusion, but didn't bother to question it in their distraction. Back to his senses, Harry began asking the twins about their joke shop, listening attentively and laughing at all the right times as they regaled him with tales of disastrous negotiations and friendly pranks on the neighboring stores. The conversation continued even as Severus found a grove of trees suitable for taking shelter in and began to set up camp. The unwanted guests ignored him as he did most of the work, but Harry, he was pleased to note, had the decency to begin creating a fire pit where they had settled, transfiguring benches out of pine needles and bark so that they would not have to sit in the itchy grass.
Finished casting new wards, Severus settled down in the empty space the boys had left beside Harry, and without a thought to the child's personal space, he let his elbow brush against a small arm. He was cruelly satisfied at the flicker of consternation that crossed the redheads' faces at the sight, but he gave no sign of it as he nodded in response to the boy's careful smile. He knew Harry was just caught up in the moment, and would likely return to his suspicious, traumatized shell after a good night's sleep, but it was something of a relief to see traces of happiness in his eyes after so long. It was if rain had just washed away long-accumulated dust from an old fern, and the leaves were again vibrant and glimmering with life.
Something dark had risen in the twins at the sight of Harry trusting Snape, however, and they made a decision that they quickly came to regret. They didn't know the man too well, for all of the hours they had spent in his classroom, but they knew him well enough to understand that Harry was confiding in the wrong person. Harry should be trusting them, instead — they had understood that he wasn't crazy. With great satisfaction, they set off a series of flashy firecrackers in the forest around them, delighting in the series of small explosions bursting through the air and getting gradually closer to them. Severus reacted to the noise by pulling Harry to him and casting a shield charm in front of them. Then, after casting a homing charm that was meant for moving targets, he fired a series of stunners and quickly put a stop to the assault. The twins were shocked, never having seen Snape react to a prank with quite such efficiency. Neville broke the silence with a small whimper, attracting everyone's attention.
"Neville, don't be scared." One of the twins soothed before he could help himself, sympathetic as they all were to the boy's obvious fear.
"That's right. They were just firecrackers. We wanted to fool Snape a little, is all."
Neville took several deep breaths and calmed himself, but for every breath that settled Neville, Severus took another one that fed his anger. He stood, dark eyes and snarling face freezing them all with its rage, the likes of which they had never seen from him before. Suddenly, he wheeled about and the light flickered, the force of his anger threatening to extinguish the fire in the pit between them. They watched him warily, trembling as he let his black cloak settle around him until they could see little more than his eyes, hard and menacing as they imagined one of those scary forest creatures might be. Then, without a word, he whirled about the rest of the way and walked out of the clearing, not stomping like an angry teenager, but with enough force that they knew following him would bring about their early deaths.
"He didn't have to get so mad." One of the twins muttered weakly as he disappeared and left them in darkness.
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So I intended this to be complete Severus POV, but the twins have sort of been asserting themselves throughout. This is likely to happen more often, as there are more characters together than there were earlier on, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
As before, if you review and specifically request a drabble with a topic (related to this story) of your choice, I'll be happy to write it for you!
Even if you don't want one, please review! Tell me what you like, hate, want to read about, etc.