Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Chapter 10 – The Prince's Tale
"The monster in the Chamber of Secrets is a snake!"
"Small miracle he figured it out even once spelled out for him." Snape muttered but Harry ignored him and pulled out his mirror.
"You got all that?"
"And have already called father, he and Uncle Sirius will be here momentarily." Draco answered before barging into the room. He had heard everything, Harry having opened the channel on their communications mirror when he'd stepped into Snape's office.
"Draco?" Snape actually seemed surprised by this development.
"Hello godfather." He replied with a smile.
"Godfather?!" Ron and Hermione gasped before looking accusingly at their friends.
"It wasn't my secret to tell." Harry defended himself.
"And Uncle Severus asked me to be discrete about it, so I couldn't tell just anyone."
"But we're not just anyone…are we?" Hermione asked, sounding hurt. Draco's eyes widened and he immediately began making assurances.
"Of course not! I didn't mean it like that, I just…" He continued rambling and though he raised an amused eyebrow at his godson's flustered denial, Snape came to his rescue.
"I asked him not to tell anyone, Miss Black. I'm sure Draco meant no slight." The blonde nodded empathetically and Hermione took pity on him.
"Alright." Draco breathed a sigh of relief but it didn't last long as his father and uncle strode in, one who's only visible sign of surprise at Snape's presence was a raised eyebrow of his own while the other pulled his wand.
"What are you doing here, Snape?" Sirius growled.
"This happens to be my office, mutt." He sneered back, also having pulled his wand on his childhood nemesis.
"Enough, both of you." Lucius snarled and snatched both their wands, not at all in the mood to cater to their childishness.
"Professor Snape is helping us, Sirius." Harry explained. "He thinks the voice I heard-"
"You told him about the voice?" Sirius asked incredulously.
"Yes, and I'm glad I did." He replied firmly. "Why didn't you tell me I'm a Parselmouth?" Sirius and Lucius exchanged a look.
"How do you know that?" Sirius asked.
"It came out today when I got near a snake."
"My fault, I'm afraid." Draco admitted. "We were duelling at a club Lockhart set up and I conjured one." Sirius sighed knowing there was nothing for it; he wasn't going to outright lie to his godson.
"You were very young, Harry, when you ran in all excited that a snake had talked to you. I knew the stigma surrounding Parselmouths and didn't want to add anything else to your already heavy burden, so I told you to forget about it."
"And ensured I never saw another snake?" It wasn't really a question.
"No…well not really. I only asked the elves to make sure no more snakes could get into the garden." He said. "I certainly never scouted out where we were going to make sure you didn't come across one or anything like that." This seemed to mollify Harry who got back to the task at hand.
"Professor Snape was there when my ability came out and he thinks the voice I heard was a snake That's why only I heard it, because it was speaking Parseltongue." The two newly arrived adults thought on that for a moment and came to the same conclusion as Snape.
"The emblem for Slytherin house is a serpent." Lucius said, looking to Sirius. "Sealing one within his hidden chamber would be quite poetic."
"And would almost guarantee that only his heir could control it." Sirius agreed. "The gift of Parseltongue is usually hereditary, so it is a relatively safe assumption that only his descendants would be able to speak it and would know the location of the Chamber."
"But what snake can petrify people?" Draco asked, having never heard of such a serpent.
"I don't know." Lucius told his son. "But I am going to call your mother so she can start scouring the manor's library. And then I think we need to have a talk with your godfather."
"You too, Harry." Said Sirius. "I'm calling Moony so he can also start looking as well, but after that we talk."
"Ron and I will also go look in the library here." Said Hermione.
"You're a member of this house, puss, you don't have to leave." Sirius said. "Neither do you, Ron, official member of this house of not."
"It's ok." Ron agreed with Hermione. "This is going to be awkward enough as it is." With that the two left. Lucius and Sirius pulled out their mirrors to call Narcissa and Remus, promising to explain everything shortly, and turned back to their children and the potions master. It was the latter that spoke first.
"So this is why you have been distant and secretive for the last ten years." Snape said to Lucius.
"I have not." The Malfoy patriarch defended.
"Please, Lucius, do not insult my intelligence. I am a spy, there is very little I do not notice as my life often literally depends on it."
"We could not be entirely sure of your allegiances." Lucius sniffed, no longer denying that he hadn't been as open with his friend as he once was.
"Nor I of yours." Snape admitted with a sigh. He was not a friendly person by nature, or a very open one, but Lucius had been a true friend to him since their time at school together. He had been a first year while Lucius was in his fifth, but the Slytherin prefect had taken to protecting him from the worst of his housemates bullying on top of taking great delight in assigning detentions to his top tormentors, James Potter and Sirius Black. After leaving Hogwarts and joining the Death Eaters Lucius had looked out for him, had even tried to warn him off joining, but he had been young and brash and no one was going to stop him from finding glory alongside the Dark Lord. Still, Lucius, and Narcissa both, had taken care of him and they'd grown close enough for the new parents to name him godfather to baby Draco. Aside from Lily Evans, they were the only friends he could boast having.
"Then perhaps it is time we were." Snape nodded but before they could say anymore, Sirius spoke up.
"You will make the Unbreakable Vow, Snape, before even one more word is said."
"I will not you insufferable-"
"He is right, Severus." Lucius interceded. "For the safety of your godson, if not for Harry. They are too closely linked for us not to ensure that no one, not even a skilled legilimens, can extract the information." Snape was still uneasy, but he knew that Lucius was right. An Unbreakable Vow meant that no one, not even Voldemort himself, could extract the information from his mind; with his life on the line should the vow be broken, his magic would see to its protection even if he was no longer able to consciously do so. Finally Snape agreed and Lucius acted as bonder for the vow between Snape and Sirius. In the end he was quite surprised at exactly what the vow entailed as he had expected much more to be asked of him. He swore never to cause any true harm to Harry, nor to help anyone who wanted to hurt him. He swore to protect any information he was given and never to reveal it to someone who did not have prior knowledge of it. Nothing else was asked of him and Snape even found himself surprised at the wording Lucius chose for it meant that he could still play his part as a spy. Magic was a finicky thing and often derived meaning from intent. The wording Lucius chose meant that he could return to the Dark Lord, supposedly aid him in gaining power and could even curse Harry if his cover required it, so long as the curse was cast solely to keep his cover and not because he wished to harm the boy; his magic would be able to tell the difference.
"You believe the Dark Lord is not truly gone." He said when the binding was over with.
"We know he's not." They told him everything then, from how Lucius had changed sides during the last war before Voldemort fell, all the way up to what they knew from what happened last year with the Philosopher's Stone and what they suspected with what was happening now. Once they were finished Snape sat pensively for a time until finally he came to a decision and turned to Draco.
"You have always had my allegiance." He said to his godson, looking as well to Lucius, before turning to Harry. "And now you have it as well." Lastly he turned to look at Sirius. "You, however, mutt, I will have your own vow that you mean me no harm."
"Just me, not all of us?"
"Them I trust, even Potter I trust more than you." Snape growled. Sirius opened his mouth to retort but a single look from Lucius quelled him, something which Snape took note of.
"A wizard's oath will have to do." He muttered taking out his wand. "I will not make the Unbreakable Vow in case one day you find a way around yours and I have to kill you."
"Sirius!" Harry hissed.
"You will not sway me in this, pup." He said without even looking at his godson. Reluctantly, Snape agreed and the oath was given, along with a similar oath of his own towards Sirius' safety, which he'd demanded.
"They're never going to get along, are they?" Harry muttered to Draco who shook his head.
"I think working together without firing curses is all we can hope for." Lucius hid a chuckle, knowing exactly how right his son was. With the last of the oaths out of the way, Lucius asked to hear Snape's tale since their own had been told.
"When I saw I was wrong about the Dark Lord I went to Dumbledore." He began. "The Headmaster made me into his spy and it was through his testimony that I was no longer a Death Eater by choice that kept me out of Azkaban. I worked for him diligently, and still do all these years later. I was unsure of your allegiances, Lucius, after your claim of the Imperius Curse when we both know you took the mark of your own free will."
"That is all well and good, Snape, but you haven't told us anything we don't already know." Sirius interrupted. "And I don't see what help you can be to us now."
"By doing what I do best, mutt." Snape sneered in return. "I am a spy and a damn good one to have fooled the Dark Lord for so long. Dumbledore trusts me implicitly and it is no secret that you do not trust Dumbledore." That got Sirius' attention.
"You would spy on him?" Snape nodded.
"But can you?" Lucius asked. "I find it hard to believe that the old fool took you into his confidence without first ensuring your loyalty to him."
"Like I did today, I swore that I no longer followed the Dark Lord by choice and never would again. It was only a wizard's oath that would cost me my magic if I broke it, but the fact that I kept my magic went a long way to gaining his trust; Dumbledore always wants to believe the best in people and give them second chances."
"And…?" Said Lucius, too much of a Slytherin to believe that was all it took.
"And I swore to do everything in my power to stop the Dark Lord. Dumbledore had stipulated loyalty to him, but I refused to make that vow." Lucius actually looked surprised. "When I went to him I asked him to help me protect someone I cared about." He looked in pain as he said this, though whether it was because of the memory of that person or because he was actually divulging this information with his nemesis in the room Lucius didn't know. "I never hid the fact that my loyalty was to that person and would not swear loyalty to anyone else. The person I cared for…died anyways, near the end of the war and so Dumbledore instead had me swear loyalty to the person best suited to stop the one responsible for their death. The Headmaster did not believe there was anyone else better suited than he, and until today, I agreed with him."
"But now you think otherwise?" Sirius asked. Snape turned to Harry.
"Dumbledore never hid the fact that he expected that one day my loyalty would be to you, Mr. Potter." Again he looked in pain but this time Lucius knew it was because he was saying this to a Potter with Black in the room. "He has believed for many years that only you can ultimately defeat the Dark Lord, but he thought it would not be until he was finished with you. After he'd trained you, after he'd made you into a weapon, and after you had served whatever purpose he has for you that he divulges to no one, not even me." He explained. "Even though you made clear last year that you would not be his puppet, I still thought he was our best shot and would one day get his hooks into you, until I learned your refusal to the Headmaster was not simply an adolescent fit, but because you genuinely do not trust him and have your own plans in place. As such my loyalty is now to you and Dumbledore has no hold on me anymore." Everyone was silent as he declared his loyalty to Harry Potter, something none of them ever thought possible. Draco was the first to break out of his stupor.
"I'm sorry, can you say that again? I mean I want to be absolutely sure that I have the image of my godfather, Severus Snape, the horrifying and never cheery bat of the dungeons, declaring his loyalty to someone imprinted in my mind." The young Malfoy was now laughing quite openly.
"Draco!" Lucius scolded his son, while Snape merely raised an eyebrow. It was the latter that sobered Draco up from his laughing fit. Although to most it would appear that nothing about Snape had changed except for the raised eyebrow, Draco had learned the subtle differences over the years and knew he was treading on very thin ice.
"Sorry, sir." He muttered quickly. Staring his godson down another moment Snape then turned to Sirius.
"Do not think that this extents to you as well, mutt, nor the wolf."
"Wouldn't dream of it, Snivi-Snape." Sirius stopped himself from using the old nickname he and James had given Snape at school. This did not go unnoticed by Snape who made no further comment where he usually would have had the nickname been used.
"That's quite alright, as long as you can work together in a manner that does not drive the rest of us mad." Said Lucius, staring them both down as Snape had Draco a few moments ago.
"Fine we can work together." Sirius caved first under Lucius' stare. "I'll be damned if Snape of all people is more mature than I am." He added in a mutter that only Harry heard. He let out a snort as he laughed but quickly turned it into a cough as Sirius glared at him. Rolling his eyes, Lucius took charge again.
"Now, what we need to do is-" He was cut off as he felt the ring on his little finger grow cold. Not two seconds later Harry, Draco and Sirius felt the coins they carried do the same.
"Hermione!" Harry and Draco shouted in worry. Without thinking they took off, running out the door and in the direction of the library, the three adults following close behind.
"Ice cold…" Sirius muttered, looking to Lucius, who's expression was grim.
"It is supposed to turn hot if she is in danger, but to ice if that danger puts her in mortal peril." Lucius muttered in return. Sirius cursed and they sped up, Snape following behind having figured out that they had some tracking device on Miss Black, though no one had told him. They had made it up from the dungeons and were hurtling up the grand staircase when the mirrors they carried began screeching at them, the signal for an emergency call. Taking out his mirror even as he continued running, Harry was greeted with Ron's panicked face.
"It's Hermione, she's been attacked!"
A/N - I honestly didn't know what I planned for Snape when I started this story, but I decided that ultimately he's a good guy like in the books/movies, just with a somewhat different storyline. I also tried hard not to make this chapter too mushy, which is not at all a word that can describe Severus Snape, but the truth needed to come out for everyone to move forward from here. Rest assured, this tense yet heartfelt discussion is about as OOC as Snape's gonna get.
Review please!