Remembrance and Renewal by Nigel Tatsuya and Avatar Arkmage
Chapter Fourteen:When A Servant Dares to Rebel
Professor Severus Snape, who wore his customary billowing black robes more tightly around himself than usual, advanced spectre-like into the spacious warehouse.
"Snivelly!" Wormtail stammered, hardly believing that Severus had arrived so soon, yet there he was. Unless Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had developed both motility and cognizance in the last thirty or so minutes, and had transported itself to London, there was no readily apparent way Severus Snape could have arrived so quickly without the use of magic.
Just a little over a week ago, Peter Pettigrew had watched his fellow Death Eaters drag the trounced form of Severus Snape into the parlour of the dark manor after subjecting him to hours of torture. Peter had even led the others in a chorus of laughter at 'Snivellus,' as the wounded man tried desperately to right himself whilst being so unsteady on his feet. It was with an even greater amusement that Peter had watched Voldemort pry Snivelly's mouth open and pour the louche Interventio Interferus potion down his throat. To make sure that Snape could not spit the potion out before it could have taken effect, Voldemort enlisted the assistance of two eager new-inductees, who held Snape down while Voldemort compressed the dark haired man's nose and covered his mouth.
Wormtail was dumbfounded. How had Severus done it? The Interventio Interferus potion would surely cause his demise if Severus even attempted the quantity of magic required to apparate. Even if travelling by broom for such a distance were even feasible in the allotted time, the magic the broom required would have caused Snivelly severe injuries. Severus would have died in the floo network if he had attempted to use it, and a portkey would have yielded similar results. Unless the muggles had developed a method of ground travel which far superceded the velocity of sound waves, or else the basic laws of physics had been drastically altered in the past half hour or so, Severus Snape had somehow safely used magic to apparate from Hogwarts to London.
Yet Severus Snape stood just a few metres away, watching with barely repressed anger as The Dark Lord manhandled his mother.
Without a note of prelude, unless enraged caterwauling could be construed as such, Severus closed the distance between them . He struck Voldemort where his nose should have been with such force, that the repulsive sound of fracturing bones filled the silence of the vacuous warehouse with its grisly refrain. The glamourie charm on Voldemort's features faltered, showing a very broken, reptilian face beneath. Copious measures of oddly-coloured blood splattered in all directions, making the surrounding area quickly resemble an executioner's domain or a slaughter house.
Before the Dark Lord could recover enough to retaliate, or even to utter a shielding charm to defend himself, Severus smote him again, his fist glowing eerily with his magics like a heated chunk of steel. He was seated on the Dark Lord's torso less than a tenth of a second after his fist had hit home, and was striking the cloaked figure with a rapid succession of glowing, clenched fists.
Mervidith Snape, whose white hair now bore red splotches from where the Dark Lord's blood had tainted it, neither flinched nor made to move away from the carnage. The meek woman merely stared straight ahead with her sparkling, yet distant crystal black eyes. She neither grimaced at the sound of the Dark Lords groans, nor the sounds of his bones fracturing. She just remained on the precise location Voldemort had tossed her just moments before, like a living corpse. Alive, but not living. Living, but not alive.
'Snivelly got his magic back!' Wormtail thought in terror to himself. 'But how? And could it be that he's actually stronger than he was before? Snivellus never put his magic energies behind his fists like that!'
Wormtail could not remember Severus ever dueling with his fists. Sure he exchanged blows with Sirius and James when they were teens, and had struck out at them fiercely in self-defense. but he had never put so much magic behind his fists while doing so. Severus was a proficient dueler to be sure, but hand to hand combat was not his customary method of operations. At least it hadn't been until today.
Severus temporarily ceased the onslaught on Voldemort to tenderly push his mother out of the line of fire. Then he turned back and continued to pummel the confounded Dark Lord as though his mission was to literally beat the Dark Lord to death. The magic in the air around them was so heavy that Wormtail could feel the scintillating energy pulses from his vantage point several metres away.
The Dark Lord had no choice but to back away, in the hopes of acquiring enough space between them to utter a countercurse. Strike that, he had to get away if he hoped to survive. Severus did not permit him the luxury, and matched the Dark Lord's every step backward with two steps forward. Voldemort had barely wriggled centimetres away, when Severus wrapped his slender, glowing fingers around Voldemort's serpentine throat and lifted him off of the floor.
Afraid of what would happen, but wanting to save his master even more, Wormtail drew his wand and moved towards the two contenders. Severus sensed his motions, and raised his palm in the cowering man's direction.
"Noooooo!" A pulse of pure energy thrust Wormtail across the vacant warehouse and into a wall on the far end.
"Severusssss," Voldemort hissed, his red eyes looking glazed in death as he felt his windpipe nearly close.
"You...you bloody pillicock!" Severus shouted. "You stole enough from me!" As an emphasis to his last word, Severus slammed the Dark Lord into the concrete floor and pounced on him again. As though there had been no intermission, Snape resumed his onslaught, this time adding stout slaps and backhanded blows to the hand to hand combat arsenal.
Voldemort's immediate concern was simply to survive. Defence and retaliation were only distant aspirations, luxuries for another time, if there were another time at all. He was suffering now, but more so, Voldemort was perplexed. In all the years he had known Severus, the man had not seemed more violent or more out of control than he did at this moment. But there was no doubt that this was indeed Severus Snape. Voldemort could feel the signature of the Dark Mark on the man's arm. The Mark could be felt no more than a heartbeat away.
Not willing to yield entirely, Voldemort clenched a fist, and attempted a similar attack; the magically powered blow impacted deep in Snape's lithe belly, knocking at least some of the wind from him. Oddly, Severus apparently regarded the blow as though it were no more incapacitating than a maple leaf blown in the wind, and continued his relentless assault on Voldemort.
It was a blast from Wormtail's wand that knocked Snape off of his lord, and sent him sprawling to the concrete floor. That moment's respite was all The Dark Lord needed to regain some semblance of the advantage he was accustomed to holding over his victims. He pointed at fallen man and uttered an incantation, but he had too much blood in his eyes to see clearly, and the spell barely grazed the intercoastal spaces of Snape's ribcage.
Snape cried out as searing pain flashed and echoed through his left side. He rolled onto his opposite side and somehow dragged himself to his feet. The side of his robes were quickly saturated with blood, but its black colouration betrayed nothing of the severity of his bleeding.
Had Voldemort's aim been more accurate, he would surely have been mortally injured, Severus reminded himself. His anger not abated, his bloodlust unsated, Severus launched himself back at the Dark Lord, his spelled fists ripping and tearing the evil wizard's flesh, and crushing his bones.
Wormtail interfered once again, but this time, it was not to procure his master time to gain an advantage. Wormtail bashed Severus over the head with a discarded plank, and dragged the wounded Dark Lord away.
"Damn you, Peter Pettigrew!" Severus growled smacking his former classmate in the temple, whilst he himself was still markedly dazed. "Always backing the biggest bullies!" Snape punched him again, and this time, Peter fell. "Well what do you think now? Thinking of changing sides yet, turncoat?"
Before Snape could strike him again, Peter Pettigrew jumped to his feet and sprinted out the door of the warehouse. Infuriated anew, Snape took off like a shot after him. There was nothing he wanted to do more than to kill Voldemort and Wormtail...yes both of them, in precisely that order.
"Petrificus Totalis!" Snape shouted, effectively halting Peter and sending him skidding several yards down the sidewalk from the inertia of his subsequent fall after running. Too angry to utter the mobilicorpus charm coherently, Severus grabbed one of Peter's still outstretched ankles and dragged him back into the warehouse.
Snape was met by a powerful blast when he reentered the vacant building. The charge sent him reeling backward, striking his head against the warehouse door. Severus did not realise until too late that the severed arm he had been carrying in an inner pocket of his robes, fell to the warehouse floor.
Voldemort and Wormtail stared aghast at the grisly object. It was indeed an arm, evidently severed from its body at the elbow. Its finger tips twitched slightly in the clear fluid surrounding it, in its transparent and pliable package, which Voldemort concluded had been manufactured in a muggle factory. On the severed limb's forearm, was the Dark Mark, still glowing from Voldemort's earlier summoning.
"You are not Severusss Ssssnape, but that isss hisss arm, issn't it? " hissed Voldemort. "Who are you? How did you acquire my loyal servant'sss arm?"
"Your SERVANT?" 'Severus screamed.' "I'm your ruddy demise, you mean!" 'Severus' was now so obviously dazed from the blow to the head that his aim would be about as accurate as Voldemort's had been several minutes ago. Fortunately, the Dark Lord was also too wavering in his posture that he was not likely to be able to duel properly. He had taken too many blows to the head and had too much blood in his eyes to see clearly. Whomever the Severus Snape imposter was, he was still at an advantage,
They would have to fight at another time.
With that, Voldemort turned tail and apparated away, taking Wormtail with him.
"Come back here at once! Come back and fight, you todgeless..!"
'Severus Snape' looked everywhere in the vicinity, but could not find his quarry. After a few minutes passed, he returned to the woman on the old rags and collapsed next to her, his body too spent to do much else. Within the next twenty minutes, he felt the polyjuice potion start to wear off. He felt burning behind his eyes and realized that the potion wearing away in that region first.
"So," he felt rather than heard Mervidith's voice somewhere deep in his mind. "You survived, my precious grandson. Little Green Eyed Angel."
Harry looked up excitedly at Mervidith Snape, his grandmother. It was with great desolation that he realized that she had apparently not moved, and couldn't have said anything. Her dark eyes still stared straight ahead of her, unseeing.
Did he long after a family for so long that he was imagining things? "Oh, grandmother!" Harry cried out, his previous anger and fury turning to grief and horror as the magnitude of the night's events came flowing back to him just as the tears flowed from his eyes. He threw his arms around the slight form his grandmother, and just held her for a long, quiet moment.
To an onlooker, the scene would appear to be a cruel paradox, Harry mused. An echo of a scene he himself had witnessed as a spirit, in which his own father clung to this very woman, in very much the same way. Now, without all the effects of the polyjuice potion gone yet, the scene must have looked like a horrible rerun.
"Can you not respond, grandmother?" Harry implored, feeling tears threaten as he clutched the woman's fragile form tighter. "Grandmother!" Unlike his father had done all those years ago, Harry did little to restrain his tears, and cried freely when they overpowered him. He allowed those quiet tears to relieve him of some of the anguish that had plagued him for most of his life, and his sobs free him from his anger at being deprived of first his parents, then his father and grandmother. None but his grandmother' silent and empty shell would hear him anyway. If she were even aware of him at all.
When he had composed himself somewhat, Harry gently took the woman's limp hands and wrapped them around himself. He thought he felt the woman's fingers lovingly caress his still long, black hair for a moment, but realized that he must have only imagined it. Mervidith Snape was no more. "I guess you're probably wondering what this is all about, eh Grandmother? And what I'm doing here?"
Although Mervidith did not respond, Harry continued notwithstanding. "I guess I should probably tell you why I'm doing this, then. I hope you're not too disappointed that it is only I, Harry, and not your son... You're probably wondering why I'm posing as my own father." Harry glanced at the severed arm, still laying on the floor within its sterile package. "Yes, and I'll tell you what I'm doing with my father's arm as well."
"CHO!" Harry cried as he entered the infirmary carrying the damp, limp form of Professor Severus Snape.
Oddly, 'Cho' did not readily respond to her name, but helped Harry place the wounded form of Severus Snape on an empty triage bed.
"Not that I don't trust you or anything, Cho," Harry said, standing protectively between his father and the other, "but where's Madam Pomfrey?"
"She's asleep at the moment. Poor dear, she's been on duty for so long," 'Cho' replied, whilst hastily reading Professor Snape's chart.
"But Cho, you're only a year older than I am! You can't have learnt enough to heal him!" Harry cried frantically. "Wake Madam Pomfrey! Actually I'll wake her..."
"You'll do no such thing, young man!" 'Cho' forestalled him firmly, charming Harry into a chair just outside the triage area, "now calm yourself, and tell me exactly what happened to Professor Snape."
"But, Cho..." Harry wanted to hick himself again. While this woman was similar to Cho Chang both in height and build, and had similar, long, glossy black hair, she was indeed not Cho. She wore the lime green robes and the insignia of St. Mungos Hospital, indicating that she was a mediwitch. She also appeared to be somewhat older than Cho.
"While it's rather flattering that you've confused me with my own teenaged daughter, I'm not Cho Chang." The mediwitch explained. " I'm Ayame Chang, of St. Mungos Hospital. Now tell me what's happened, so I can know how best to help him."
Headmaster Albus Dumbledore arrived a few minutes later and looked pityingly at both Harry and his father in turn. Despite the fact that Dr. Ayame Chang recommended that Harry wait outside the triage area, he refused to leave his father's side.
"I thought he would have known better than to attempt to use his magic?" the headmaster stated to no one in particular.
"Why would he have 'known better?' " Harry said, anger creeping into his voice.
Ayame Chang, who was currently suturing a long tear along Severus's side in the muggle manner, swallowed hard. "Did Professor Snape not tell you?"
"NO! He didn't tell me anything! He never tells me anything! I'll bet if all the toilets in the UK exploded, and the International Space Station were going to crash in Hogsmeade because the UK toilets in it exploded, he wouldn't be the one to tell me about it!" Harry shouted at Dr. Chang louder than he had intended.
"Come along Harry, and leave the Mediwitch to it." Albus said, attempting to coax Harry from his father's side.
"NO!" Harry shouted even louder, startling the already startled Dr. Chang, and causing her to drop a tube of surgical adhesive. Harry made to hold his father's hand, but Severus's arm spasmed violently, then fell off at the elbow.
Severus Snape opened his eyes wide, the expression of pure agony on his face markedly apparent. He screamed and passed out again.
"Good Heavens!" said Madam Pomfrey, entering the room whilst yawning. "What is the meaning of all the shouting? I'd not be surprised if all the patients in this ward are..." She saw the severed limb in Harry's arms. "Oh dear, better give that to me quickly, we'll have to reattach that."
"Poppy, it would probably be safer to wait for a while." Dr. Chang motioned to her case of muggle medical supplies. "Better preserve his arm for the time being."
"WHAT?" Harry shouted. "But...!"
"...the magics from his Dark Mark itself will do his body more damage." Dr. Chang finished, apparently not overly disturbed by Harry's frantic behaviours.
"Been inhibiting his healing all this time too! Probably exactly what the Dark Bastard is hoping to accomplish!" Poppy uncharacteristically cursed under her breath as she rifled through Dr. Chang's large black bag, and withdrew the items she would require. Madam Pomfrey cleansed the severed arm with gauze soaked in antiseptics. Then she put the arm and the contents of two bottles of a clear fluid into a soft plastic sleeve. She nervously added what looked like a magical potion which interacted badly to Snape's arm, but the damage was inconsequential when compared to the damaged caused by the magics already coursing from the Dark Mark. Poppy then sealed the package, uttered an incantation, and placed it in a portable cooling unit.
Harry looked into the unit, and noticed that the potions within the bag appeared to be pumping through Snape's arm, as though it were acting as a blood substitute. No doubt, that would keep the arm alive until it could be reattached. The arm continued to twitch strangely, like some display at a muggle haunted house.
"Come along Harry," Dumbledore led Harry out of the room as both Madam Pomfrey and Dr. Chang continued working on Severus's injuries, which were all bleeding heavily.
Dumbledore, perplexed as to why Severus had not said anything to his own son himself, explained to Harry about the Interventio Interferus potion and its effects, and why magic could not be used on or around Severus.
"Oh NO!" Harry could barely disguise his anguish. "I asked him to heal me!" His voice broke as he started to cry in earnest. " I asked him to heal me!"
The rest of the evening's events went by in a great blur for Harry, as though he were merely an observer, and his body had been taken over by another entity. He watched as he calmed himself, and promised Albus that he was going to retire to the dungeons and attempt to sleep. But the moment Dumbledore left the dungeons, Harry doubled back to the infirmary.
He saw himself, not return to his father's bedside, but to YiChung Chang's. The real Cho Chang was seated in the chair next to her grandfather's bed, her head resting on the old dragon/man's chest as they both slept. As before, there were tears on her face, and Harry guessed it was because she was so worried for her Grandfather. Now that he had a relative of his own, he could empathise somewhat. He was at least as concerned for Severus.
Harry was astonished as he watched himself roughly lift Cho off of her grandfather, and shake her awake.
"Hunh?" she asked, her chocolate coloured eyes glazed over in slumber. At this point, she probably thought Harry to be nothing more than a dream.
"Cho," Harry whispered. "Listen to me, I need your help. Help me, please!"
"Help you?" Cho asked incredulously. Her expression softened to concern at the sight of tears in her former love interest's eyes. "Oh alright, sure, Harry, I'll help. I'll help you first thing in the morning. Good night." She made to return to the warmth of her grandfather's chest.
Harry pulled her to her feet. "Cho? Cho please, I need your help now." Cho had been in such a deep sleep when Harry had roused her that she wobbled, rather than stood, on her legs. "Come along."
Too tired to protest or argue, Cho allowed Harry to lead her out of the infirmary and into one of the school's fireplaces. Once in the dungeons, Harry guided Cho towards the racks of potions in Snape's labs.
"Cho, you're in Professor Snape's advanced potions class, right?" Harry asked.
"Uh huh..." Cho said, barely suppressing a yawn.
"Did you study the polyjuice potion?"
"Uh huh?" Cho's eyes opened a bit wider, but she still did not appear to be fully awake. "You needed help on that? In the middle of the night?"
"Well," Harry stopped to gaze at the racks behind Cho. "Did he ever mention in class about making any modifications to the potion?"
"Oh yes. Professor Snape often improves on potions, even develops new ones himself." Cho said, leaning on the rack for support. "He even has the patents on..."
"Did he do anything to the polyjuice potion?"
Cho looked slightly more awake now. "Yes in one of the last classes of the year, he showed us some variants of the polyjuice potion. One is a delayed potion. You don't change into the other person so quickly, but gradually, and when you do, you stay as that person for several hours as opposed to only one hour."
"Anything else?" Harry pressed.
"Two variants require the other person's blood." Cho said, yawning again. "One of them lasts and hour and acts quickly, while the other causes you to change gradually, but you stay as the other person for longer."
"Could you show me? Are any of these potions the Polyjuice Variants?" Harry asked, motioning to the racks. "Does Snape have any already made?"
Without a verbal response, Cho moved down the racks, examining each bottle as she passed, her long black hair brushing the racks as she passed. Harry's heart sank when she reached the end of the row and sank to the floor. There must not have been any polyjuice.
Cho suddenly rose to her feet again, holding a bottle of a lime-coloured substance marked PJ4. "This one, is an experimental polyjuice potion Professor Snape said he was developing."
Harry dropped to examine the rack Cho was at.
"This is the only one. There's no more." Cho sighed.
"What does it do?" Harry asked, taking the bottle from her.
"I believe the 4th formulation changes you over several minutes and lets you stay changed for...sorry Harry, I do not remember exactly how long. I'm so tired." Cho looked about ready to fall back to sleep.
"Thanks Cho," Harry figured he'd better lead her back to the infirmary before she was alert enough to think to start asking questions. With any luck, she would not remember these events at all. He knew at once why he had asked Cho for help and not anyone else. Any of the Weasleys would have questioned Harry too much, even whilst tired, and Ron didn't study potions enough to be much of a help anyway. If Hermione had been here, she would have been a great help, but would have tried to stop Harry once it became apparent what he planned to do. No doubt Hermione would tell Dumbledore, Madam Pomfrey and any other adult who would listen about what he was up to. That would have been disastrous.
Once Cho was sleeping soundly on her grandfather's scaley chest once more, Harry stole into the triage area. He tiptoed past Dr, Chang and Madam Pomfrey, who were asleep side by side in their chairs, and leaning on each other for support. Both women were exhausted from the endless line of patients that required their care, and neither stirred as Harry passed.
Harry looked in on his father, and noticed that he appeared to be in a very deep sleep, possibly tranquilised with muggle medicines. He was completely motionless, except for his shallow breathing, but otherwise, his wounds were bandaged and he looked to be in good hands. Harry moved closer to the cooling unit, and covertly withdrew the arm from within.
"You're still calling him, aren't you, you bastard?" Harry said at the sight of the Dark Mark, which was scintillating faintly. Although Harry had not learned to apparate yet, he figured it was easy enough to do. Once he was outside of the gates, he held the arm close to himself and touched the Dark Mark, which was still glowing. He concentrated on where it willed him to go...
"And that, grandmother, is what happened tonight and how I got here." Harry confessed, never once releasing his precious grandmother from his embrace. In turn, Mervidith Snape never once loosened her hold on her grandson.
"I know what I've done was stupid! And weak! And thoughtless!" Harry went on. "Now father will be in more trouble because of me. I was too soft on Voldemort! I hesitated when I shouldn't have! He was alone, except for that human suction cup, Wormtail, but they were only two people! I should have killed Voldemort!"
The feeling of shame over his actions was overpowering, and Harry lowered his head, glad that his grandmother could neither hear, nor see him. "You're probably thinking: 'what a weakling of a grandson I've got.' I can hardly blame you though, if I had been stronger, Voldemort would be dead."
"But I'm not thinking that at all, my brave little angel-grandson," Harry heard his grandmother's voice again.
End Part Fourteen