CHAPTER 21 – Ashes to Ashes

"Yes Potter, I fucked him. For the life of me though I cannot imagine why you should be so desperate to know the sordid details."

Harry looked on, pale-faced and aghast. "Did you even care for him?"

Snape threw him a sneer. "For your information, Potter, the word 'fucked' is not synonymous with the word 'care,' hence the reason I used it. Why should you give a damn, anyway?"

Harry flushed. "I...just..."

Snape stepped closer. "Just what?"

Harry closed his eyes, suddenly fearful the Slytherin would read his thoughts and mock him for them. And why not, he reasoned suddenly, they were ridiculous for Merlin's sakes...! This was his ex-Potions professor twenty years his senior, his one-time harshest critic who never missed a single chance to belittle him. Why would he even care to look twice?

Feeling utterly foolish, he stepped away and back, still avoiding the Slytherin's penetrating gaze. "Just nothing, forget it... I should be going."

As he turned, Snape swept quickly around him, and barred the door.

"No Potter, I won't just 'forget it,' he hissed. You have been avoiding these dungeons for weeks, you've ceased with your incessant pestering regarding Quidditch. Now, inexplicably, you're back loitering outside my door again. Why are you here?"

"McGonagall wanted to see me about mediating and Inter-House relations," said Harry focusing intently on an interestingly grooved stone just to the left of the door.

Snape's eyes narrowed and he leaned closer. "So, the Headmistress arranged for you to meet her outside the door to my private rooms? A rather odd place for a formal meeting, do you not think?"

"Okay, okay...!" Blurted Harry, unable to bear it any longer. "Okay...just...sit down and I'll tell you."

"Unfortunately, I don't feel the need to sit down at present, Potter, so why don't you confess here and now?"

The Gryffindor swore nervously under his breath. He didn't feel quite sane, his brain seemed to have jammed, and his stomach was doing somersaults...

"I just care...you know?" He confessed in the end, heart hammering. "I just wanted to say I cared."

"Cared about what?"

Harry set his jaw. "For you."

There was a moment's pause, in which Snape's mouth curled mockingly. "How very touching. Wouldn't a notecard have been more appropriate? Perhaps one with a pleasant little floral scene I could prop up on the mantlepiece?"

"No," the Gryffindor muttered. "I didn't mean it like that." Considering recent events, Harry had really hoped Snape would be a little more perceptive and quick to catch on to his meaning; unless of course he was being deliberately obtuse...?

"I meant...friends...like friends...you know?" he trailed off, feeling a little despondent, cursing himself inside for even entertaining a scrap of hope...

Snape was staring peculiarly at the Gryffindor, as if he had just sprouted wings or launched into speaking fluent Persian. When Harry finally turned his head to meet his eyes, however, Snape quickly looked away. He walked swiftly across to the fireplace and threw himself into his usual armchair.

"I have little faith in people who proclaim to care for me, Potter," he said quietly. "I suspect this can likely be attributed to past 'carers' really having nothing but their own interests and agendas at heart, and not mine."

Harry's thoughts leapt unavoidably to Dumbledore.

Snape bit the edge of his thumb, and peered up at him. "If, however, you do actually give a damn, then I figure you will not object to assisting me in the search for Pucey's torturer. Unlike you or your happy cohorts, I do not believe him to be dead, or locked away in Azkaban."

"Right, okay," said Harry, somewhat thrown. This had not quite been what he had meant, but still...he could see Snape confiding his plans to him was a step forward in the trust direction, at least.

The Slytherin rose from his chair and began to pace in agitation. "So; the details: I have been frequenting Diagon and Knockturn Alley of late, in several different guises, trying to pick up more information about a small but increasingly emboldened group of wizards who like to refer to themselves the PBA, or the Pure Blood Alliance. I hope you have heard of them?"

Harry nodded. "It sounds familiar."

"Well," continued Snape. "Late last night, I finally overheard a conversation detailing a possible meeting place above an empty shop. My intention is to attend a gathering, disguised, with an interest in joining-"

"But...Haven't you had enough of spying?" Harry interrupted in dismay.

"Yes Potter...enough for one lifetime, let alone two." replied Snape darkly. "However... spying very unfortunately happens to be one of the things I excel at."

Harry looked thoughtfully at him for a while. "Well...you could go ahead and infiltrate this place, be a spy, but I reckon there's probably a much quicker way to find this guy without having to do anything like that."

Snape raised a critical eyebrow. "Somehow I doubt that The Charge of the Potter Brigade will be an appropriate method for dealing with this situation. These people are not likely to be your typical Deatheater henchmen, they will be politicians, twisted wordsmiths. They are looking for funding and new ways to spread their ideology."

Harry paused a moment, but then decided it was worth explaining his idea anyway.

"Well...I have to say I have heard far more moronic plans from the mouth of a Gryffindor," remarked Snape grudgingly once the younger man had finished speaking. "The essence is workable, once I add some more subtle touches..."

Harry afforded himself a small smile. "Tomorrow then?"

As Severus sat alone that evening he found his thoughts lingering on the Gryffindor's visit. He'd sensed that something funny was going on with Potter for some time, but had been unable to put a finger on it. Normally he prided himself in being able to read the boy, but the behaviour had been so unprecedented.

The boy wanted to be friends. With him. With the man responsible for his mother's...

True to habits of old, Snape immediately began to occlude his thoughts, but the effort was only partially successful. Like other parts of his body, Pucey's brain could not seem to apply itself to such a level of concentration and restraint. He managed a ten second barricade, 'til the memory of Lily Potter forced its way in again. Letting out a snarl of frustration, Snape picked up the fireplace poker and hurled it at the wall.

As the poker rebounded and clanged deafeningly loudly back down on the flagstones, he flinched, and immediately regretted throwing it. Who the hell was he; a spoilt brat throwing a tantrum because he couldn't do something? A thug?

His father?

Letting out a ragged sigh, Snape stood and went to retrieve the poker from where it had rolled, and as he did, something else occurred to him; did he even need Occlumency anymore?

He stood, poker in hand, and made himself revisit the thought he had tried to occlude. The crushing realisation that Lily, Harry Potter's mother had died, his father had died, that it was down to the Prophecy he'd heard, his selfish bargaining and Dumbledore's manipulation into bringing the best possible outcome from it.

He let the concurrent memories run then, unhindered and unblocked, and saw his bitterness, unpleasantness, cruelty, pain, suffering and grief written in every one.

He also saw that the universe had not maliciously dealt him bad cards at birth, they were just cards, nothing more. He had had many choices beyond that, most of which he had been free to make. The world owed him nothing, Potter indeed owed him nothing, no pity, certainly no time...but the boy had been here at his door offering friendship, as his own mother had done as a child.

Harry Potter knew of his basest deeds, had suffered by them, had seen his worst memories, and yet.

And yet.

Feeling distinctly sobered, Snape crossed the room to put the poker carefully back in its place by the fire. The fire, he noticed had now gone to ashes, save for a few orange embers.

"Ashes to ashes," he murmured.