Chapter Twenty One: The Things We Cannot See

The smell assaulted him first. A warm, raw stench that leaked into his stomach and clung to his nostrils. Severus trailed behind Doherty Gibbon, ignoring the stiffening of his scalp, ignoring the odor. He let his eyes travel over the mold on the walls that seemed to cringe away from the circles of wandlight.

Severus had noticed the snake—or the absence of it—as they had made their way to the cellar, but he did not speak of it. He had even looked past the boy's locket, still hiding in a cobwebbed corner.

It was the suckling sound that he couldn't ignore.

Dark figures were huddled around a crate. None of them spoke, only shifted in their paper bag clothing.

Peter Pettigrew was the first to turn; his eyes glittered at Severus in the candlelight; his thin lips twitched. A snake slithered around his feet. Pettigrew opened his mouth to speak but, changing his mind, leaned forward into the crate instead.

Still, no one spoke; no one smirked. Dolohov's face was stone; tiny shadows danced across his nose, his forehead.

Severus could feel Gibbon's stare.

A minute passed, and, then, as gently as if he were lifting an infant from its cradle, Pettigrew straightened; a bundle of rags squirmed against the crook of his elbow. A glass baby's bottle dangled in his grasp, two-thirds of the way empty.

A film of unicorn's blood—and something else, something thinner—stained the bottle, trickling down the inside. A limb, scabbed and pink, no wider than Severus' thumb, quivered its way out of the blanket.

Severus didn't need to see the face. He didn't need to hear the gasping flutters of Parseltongue. He had known the second he had felt the burning pain flaring in his forearm that afternoon.

"We need the boy, Severus," Pettigrew rasped. "He says we need the boy."

He had been gnawing on his fingernails for fifteen minutes. Harry hadn't bitten them like this for months, and, now, he had shortened them again. Chewed them to the quick.

Snape would scold and threaten to coat Harry's fingertips with something foul-tasting. He would point out the dried blood at the nail beds, would babble on about nervous habits and indications of feebleness.

Harry shifted an invisible trainer, watching the floor move with it. He started on the other hand. His teeth pulled at a fingernail until it stung.

A door clicked shut. Someone was on the stairs.

Harry could taste his heartbeat.

The stairs groaned. Shadows leaked onto the corridor walls.

Harry's hands trembled and tingled all over. But he knew the danger of moving, even to grab his wand. Snape hadn't said it, but his eyes had reminded him that Harry was weaker than every man in that building. It was the bluntest lesson Harry had been forced to swallow over the past year. And, now, he was choking on it.

Harry didn't breathe; he quivered instead. He clamped his eyes closed and waited to die.

He didn't want to die.

Harry felt rather than saw a body enter the room. Footsteps invaded the darkness, charged at him.

You tosser, Harry thought. You are so stupid and you were so wrong. And Harry wouldn't even be alive to tell Snape that, for once, he had made a mistake.

"Finite." A mere whisper. A breath, even.

Harry could just make out the blue-gray of his jeans again when a blur of robes pinched him hard under the arms, dragging him up. Harry tried to take a breath; he drew his foot back to kick; his fingers scrambled for his wand. But before he could do any of those things, the room spun and sucked him up into a pool of black.

The fingers were still bruising his arms. Then, suddenly, the stinging was in Harry's kneecaps as he hit the ground on all fours. His lungs ached with foul-tasting air that made him cough and sputter and spit onto the floor. Harry's glasses were gone.

Blinking at the frayed rug under his hands, Harry tried to sit back on his heels, but the hands were back—around his ribcage this time—steadying him on splintered, wobbly legs.

"You're all right."

The voice had Harry's head snapping around; he gawked up at the hooked nose.

A hot surge of blood rushed into Harry's face. "You stupid—" He barreled forward, his knuckles thrashing at the buttons on Snape's shirt. "—you bastard." Harry felt himself wrenched around, his elbows pinned to his sides, the muscles in his shoulders straining to break free. "Why did you do that?"

"Enough, now."

"Let me go!"

"Potter."

"I hate you!"

"Get—" Squash. "—Control."

"Oh, fuck off!"

"Petrificus Totalus."

Harry's head bounced against a cushion; the rest of his body clattered down like an oar into an empty boat; a cloud of sofa dust swirled around his ears and settled onto his cheeks. Harry's knuckles throbbed with white-hot pain. He could feel his breath tickling his nostrils, but he couldn't control it. Waves of panic zinged through Harry's arms, his legs, even his toes.

The ceiling floated over him like grimy cotton.

"Do not—" Snape's voice swam toward him. "—make me do that again."

Nothing but punctured breaths.

"Ever." Snape again.

Harry lay so long in the silence that he could feel the blood draining from his cheeks, his heartbeat slithering away.

After a while, Harry's ankles loosened; one hand slid to the floor. He blinked toward the cold fireplace. Snape was bracing himself against the mantel as though he were going to grind it into the wall.

They were in Snape's parents' house. That much was for certain. Harry couldn't quite forget those spider webs. Couldn't forget that smell.

Like a million yellowed books left out in the rain.

The cushions dipped as Snape sat next to Harry's feet. Wordlessly, he placed a pair of glasses onto Harry's stomach. Reaching down, Harry traced the rims with his thumb. But he left his specs where they lay, choosing, instead, to blink at the fuzziness of the ceiling. It was easier to hate Snape when Harry couldn't see him.

"Do you truly think I would have left you in that room if I thought you would be so easily discovered?"

More blinking.

"Have you learned nothing? Do you listen to anything I tell you?"

Harry stabbed his teeth into his bottom lip. The insults that had strutted so carelessly out of his mouth a moment ago had turned coward.

Still. Snape couldn't make him speak.

Chewing during mealtimes would keep Harry's mouth busy. And he could talk to Hedwig; her hoots almost sounded like words. Hermione's latest letter needed answering, and Harry had yet to write back to Ron once this summer. He could practice his spells, finish his homework. Stare cross-eyed at his homework, that is.

There was always Professor Lupin.

Harry swallowed hard and kept his brain pumping. Conveyer belt thoughts.

And then, all of a sudden, Snape's hair was dangling over Harry's nose. Harry flinched at the hands that snatched his shoulders, lifting him, depositing him arse-first into the corner of the sofa as if he were a throw pillow.

Fine.

Snape could make him speak. But he couldn't force Harry to look at him.

"Where's the soap?"

"…Soap."

"Yeah, soap. Might as well just get it over with." Harry picked at a tear in the sofa, hating the wobble in his voice, hating the taste of suds. That word, however—the word had tasted good, tingled on his tongue. Fueled him. Harry savored its flavor.

It was better that way.

"Well," Harry dared, "shall I get it or not?"

"No."

Harry stopped picking; he peeked up through his fringe.

Now Snape was the one who wouldn't even look at him.

Pushing his glasses onto his nose, Harry scraped his fingers through his fringe, digging his elbows into his knees. "I'm not doing anymore Defense lessons. And I'm not reading anymore of those stupid books. It's a waste of time."

Snape rubbed his face into his hands. He said nothing.

"I've been studying all this time. Studying and practicing…and then you just had me sit there, like a frog."

Silence.

"You pinched my bloody arms off and shoved me through a black hole," Harry accused, "but I'm the one in trouble. Brilliant."

"…you are not in trouble." Snape dropped his hands; he stared into the hearth.

"Yeah," Harry muttered. He glanced away. "Right." Harry's heart was a shell. "I said I'm not—I'm not doing those lessons."

"Suit yourself."

Gulping against the sudden tightness in his throat, Harry's fingers shook as he stuck them into the top of his shirt and fumbled for the locket around his neck.

This wasn't right.

"We don't need that."

Harry pulled his hand free, remembering. "I don't even have it. I lost it."

"I have it."

Harry frowned over at Snape.

Snape glanced at the hands that were deadweight on his lap.

This certainly wasn't right. Not a bit of it.

"Where is it?" Harry mumbled. Mumbled to the side of Snape's head, that is. "Look. Professor… I didn't mean—"

Their voices had collided. There was a sigh.

A bitten lip.

"I said," Snape let the words crawl out, "we need to send you somewhere safe."

"Hogwarts is safe. Dumbledore's there. You're there—"

"Under normal circumstances, yes."

"Sirius isn't a criminal. I told you that."

"I know."

"You said you believed me."

"I did—"

"You said it twice."

"This has nothing to do with Sirius Black."

Harry stared at Snape; the air tightened around them. "How come you won't look at me?"

Snape blinked slowly. He dragged his eyes over.

"You must go back to Little Whinging."

It was only after Harry had been staring at Snape for a good part of minute that he realized his mouth had fallen open. He felt his lips trying to crack into a grin. "Right," Harry sniffed, cocking his fringe away from his eyes, as if the gesture would encourage Snape to do the same with those tangled twigs he passed off as hair. "That's not even funny. Where are we actually going?"

But Snape wasn't smirking.

Harry's grin melted away; a faint ringing was in his eardrums. "You're joking."

Not a twitch.

"You're serious."

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose.

"SAY SOMETHING!"

"Calm down."

That did it.

Suddenly Harry's feet buzzed with warmth as he found himself seething down at Snape, his chest aching with every breath. "You lied to me! You said I never had to see my uncle again or his bloody cow of a sister—no, don't touch me!" The backs of Harry's knees banged against the coffee table. "I won't go. Get away from me! I swear to God, I'll run away if you make me go back. I hate them. I hate you! LET ME GO!"

Snape's arms were crushing his shoulders again. Harry's forehead scratched against Snape's robes.

"You may scream—" Snape's voice rumbled above like broken thunder. "—and cry and scratch and kick. Do whatever you must. But when you tire of it all, you are going to sit down and listen to me."

"I'm not crying! Get off of me!" The words were muffled against the thick robes. "…you lied."

"I lied."

Harry froze. He gaped up at his professor's chin through fogged lenses, watched a swallow work its way down the stubbled throat. Avoiding Snape's gaze, Harry stumbled backward, once he was free, and fell into the sofa, smashing the springs. Yanking the smudged glasses off of his face, Harry threw them onto the cushion beside him. Elbows on his knees again, Harry pressed his thumbs against the corners of his eyes.

"You can't be serious." Harry breathed carefully through his nose, not trusting himself to say much more. "You can't make me go back there. I hate them so much."

More crunching springs.

"I'm not going."

"It isn't for long."

"I don't believe you."

A pause. "I understand."

"I'm not going."

"You must."

"I WON'T!"

Snape let the shout echo throughout the sitting room. Harry's hands dropped.

"I promise I won't swear anymore," Harry spoke to the floor. "I'll eat that bar of soap under the sink. You can thrash me for what I said earlier. Just, please, let me stay."

"Harry."

"I don't hate you." Harry clamped his eyes closed; he couldn't stop the tears even if he wanted to. "I don't hate you at all."

Harry felt Snape's hand on his neck. "I know."

Neither of them spoke. Snape sat there, squeezing Harry's neck, letting him cry.

Harry wiped his nose on his sleeve. Snape didn't scold him.

"Put these on."

Taking his newly cleaned glasses from Snape's grasp, Harry obeyed.

"Are you ready to listen?"

Harry sniffed. He nodded.

"I need you to look at me."

Harry did.

Snape's lips were pale. "Your mother," he began slowly, "was very brave. I cared for her..." He stopped, swallowing around the words that crackled like dry kindling. "I knew her when we were children. You wouldn't have known that. When she died, it was her lightness that saved you. Do you understand what I am saying?"

Harry didn't. But he couldn't even open his mouth to tell Snape so.

"There is a darkness in all of us. There is a darkness in anger. In revenge." Snape dipped his chin, his hair sliding forward; his lips trembling. And, then, almost as suddenly, he straightened, inhaling, his eyes glowing. "You are so like your mother. Do you hear me?"

Harry tried to nod.

"You are going to need to be brave—not in the manner you believe you already are. You are going to need to be strong. And strength is not always superficial. Do you understand?"

"Not really."

"No more tears."

"I'm not…crying."

Snape stuck his thumbs under Harry's lenses. "No more tears," he repeated.

Harry bit his lips together, hard. He gulped. Twice. And then he lifted his chin, breathing steadily—in and out—the way Snape did.

"The men you saw today—are you listening?"

"Yes, sir."

Snape moved closer.

"The men you saw today are not brave men. They are despicable. They are cowards. They have rejected all lightness in their lives. And that is why you must stay close to your mother's sacrifice—her blood protection. It exists in your aunt. It exists in you. No one can harm you then."

"But Hogwarts—"

"The wards are not sufficient."

"Of course, they are—"

"Listen to me." Snape raised his brows. "Do you believe the Headmaster would have kept you in Surrey for a decade if it weren't necessary?"

Harry's eyes trailed over his kneecaps. "…Who wants to harm me?"

"If you disobey me—" Snape continued. "—if you run away from this safety, I cannot help you avoid the same mistake by punishing you. I may not be able to protect you. Not this time. If you want to be normal, as you say…if you wish for me to help you at all, you must do as I say. Your mother—" Another swallow. "—Your mother died so that you could live." Snape held Harry's chin in his palm. "Your heroism is in your living, not in your dying."

Harry's lids fluttered; for once, he didn't pull away.

"And as for your vile tongue, you will not speak those words to me—to anyone—again. You will not be consumed by your anger, as those men have been. You will not drown in your darkness. I will not have it. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir." The words tumbled out in obedience.

"You will do as I say," Snape reiterated. "You will stay safe in Little Whinging—for your mother. For me. You will obey me, and I will come back for you. I will come back."

Slow, silent tears dripped into Harry's eardrums. "Where are you going?"

"No questions."

"But Professor—"

"Absolutely—" Snape leaned forward. "—no questions. Trust."

Erasing the slick trails on his cheeks with two quick wipes, Harry nodded.

"Bravery."

Another nod.

"Obedience. Yes?"

"Yeah."

"Yes, sir."

"Yes, sir."

"Stand up. Take out your wand."

Harry's muscles were jelly, but he stood all the same. Swiping his sweaty palm across his seat pockets, Harry gripped his wand, startling only a bit when Snape grabbed the fist that clutched his holly wand and held it front of Harry's nose.

"I care very little about an impending expulsion, and I do not care if your uncle has been warned by Albus Dumbledore himself to leave you alone. If that swine of a man treads within five feet of you, you use this on him. Understood?"

Harry nodded jerkily. "What about Aunt Marge?"

Snape's fingers tightened over Harry's knuckles. "What do you think?"

"…Right."

"That, young man, that rationalizes your Defense lessons. I do not ever want to hear you taking them for granted again. Is that perfectly clear?"

"Yes, sir."

They stared at each other. The seconds ticked by. Snape loosened his grip.

Harry's hand dropped to his side.

"Very well." Snape cleared his throat. "Are you quite ready?"

Harry stood there, saying nothing, his arms, his chest—everything—filled with lead.

Snape sighed. He reached around, gripping the back of Harry's head, pulling him into his chest. "I know." He circled his fingertips in the untidy hair.

Harry grasped handfuls of wool in his fists, counting his heartbeat For as long as it took.

Before Harry could prepare for it, Snape arms had tightened; he had Apparated the both of them. When they landed, Harry kept his eyes closed. He didn't have to see a thing. The musty smell of Dudley's old bed sheets and the second-hand wardrobe wafted into his nostrils.

When he did open his eyes, he saw his trunk at the foot of his bed. Harry's Nimbus popped into thin air; the handle clattered onto the trunk.

Almost immediately, Snape was moving around the room, his robes swishing around his ankles as he slashed his wand through the air. Harry watched as the walls glowed a dull orange before morphing into stone, sprouting lanterns at each corner. Crimson scrollwork appeared on the rugs beneath Harry's feet. His lumpy mattress lying crooked on the wonky bed frame with the missing wheel was suddenly plump. The bedposts stretched toward the ceiling; velvet curtains fell from the canopy that emerged overheard. His trunk had snapped open, sending a dozen books flying over the bed and onto the bookshelf that now hung over his night table.

Harry's gaze travelled over the red and gold comforter and pillows—his pillows. He lifted his chin, still watching as Snape pulled the locket from the pocket inside of his robes.

"Hold this."

Gulping against the tightness that gripped his throat, Harry let the locket rest against his palm while Snape tapped it twice and muttered a spell Harry had never heard him speak before. The metal glowed purple and warm against Harry's skin fading back to dull silver. The latch had clicked open. Harry's thumb snapped it closed.

"Where will it take me?" Harry croaked.

Snape hesitated for the briefest of seconds, sliding his wand back into his holster, twitching his hair out of his eyes. "Nowhere."

Harry curled his fingers, pressing the chain into his palm, his stomach aching. He held it out to Snape. "Here."

"It is yours."

"But it's useless."

Snape ignored this, choosing instead to steer Harry toward his newly transformed four-poster bed and guide him to sit on the mattress. He crouched down and took Harry's shoulders in his hands. "Eyes up."

Harry took his time, but eventually, he raised his chin.

"You are not alone." Snape's eyes gleamed. He jostled Harry's shoulders. "Do you hear me?"

"I hear you."

Snape opened his mouth as if to say something else, and then he clamped his lips shut. He nodded tightly.

A crack split the silence of the room. Snape was gone

Harry sat very still. He glanced down at his shoestrings. He watched the lantern flicker on the wall. He let his thumb trace over the edge of the locket now imprinted into his palm.

Pulling his wand free, Harry tapped the locket twice with his wand, muttering the incantation. He waited—he already knew—but he waited nonetheless.

Another two taps.

Nothing.

Harry threw it as hard as he could against the wall, the chain clattered against the floor. Lying down on his side, Harry listened to the whoosh of a car passing by his window. He listened to the shouts of the children across the street playing cricket in their front yard. The house buzzed with silence.

His eyes found the open locket again. He looked at it for a long time, blinking, breathing. His mother's tiny trimmed portrait was staring back at him.

Harry had just begun to lean over to retrieve it when a muffled crash sounded from the first floor.

TBC…