Chapter 25 — Crimson Regret
June was by far the best weather for Quidditch at Hogwarts. The cloudless sky backdropped the colorful stadium, tipped with stands full of eager fans who were wearing and waving maroon or green.
Harry sat between Ron and Hermione on a bench that had more space than the previous match due to the thinner clothes needed in the warmer weather. Beside Lavender, who was with Ron again, sat Vineet with Nandi, whose hand he held tightly. Nandi asked for another clarification of the rules, which Ron was happy to fill in. Harry had the oddest sense that Hermione was intentionally keeping her gaze forward and he thought that perhaps he should talk to her the very next time the opportunity arose.
The teams took flight and circled. The Slytherin Beaters looked even larger than the previous match and they eyed the smaller Gryffindors with malice as they flew by them, jackets flapping. The Gryffindors were shouting last minute instructions to each other and pointing, clearly lacking leadership but not lacking competitive spirit. The Slytherin Beaters closed ranks around their Seeker, who was wearing her silvered, wrap-around sunglasses today, which were sparking curious conversation around the stands.
The teams continued circling as Madam Hooch directed the Ravenclaw Beaters to place the trunk of balls in the center of the pitch. The grass expanse cleared of extra personnel and Madam Hooch blew her whistle to attract the teams' attention. The teams dodged dangerously and tauntingly around each other to swing into position, and then hovered in the breeze, waiting.
— 888 —
"Severus?" Lupin queried upon entering Snape's office. He had entered because he could hear his colleague inside and Snape had strangely not responded to his repeated knock. The door had only been sealed with two layers of closure spell, which Lupin waved off. Snape stood by the last tall window, staring out. The closest window stood open, allowing the sound of the crowd to drift into the office. As he crossed the room, Lupin hesitated upon noticing that the one student desk in the room had been badly bent by something— most likely the heavy stone Pensieve that lay on its rim resting up against a bookshelf. Rounded beads of pearlish silver, like glowing mercury, lay scattered around it.
Lupin bent to upright the bowl; it scraped loudly on the stone floor as he set it right. Snape didn't move, so Lupin also used a cleanup spell to return the memories to the cradle of the Pensieve. He left it on the floor and stood, not wishing to intrude more than that, but compelled to at least organize that much to help sort things out, if possible.
"Severus?" Lupin prodded again at the stone-like figure. The crowd roared out on the lawn, indicating that the teams had come out. Lupin approached the desk and noticed a screw-top jar lying on its side beside the tray of old potion bottles McGonagall had brought down the previous weekend. "These are the potions from Albus, aren't they?" he asked.
Snape's lip twitched into a sneer. "Bloody Dr. Frankenstein," Snape muttered.
Lupin puzzled that. "Albus you mean?"
Snape did not clearly respond. He said, "Pieced what he wanted together and pretended it was human." His eyes dropped then; the first real movement he had made.
Lupin glanced back at the Pensieve. "Was one of Albus' old memories in there?"
Snape again stated the nonsensical. "The truth. That is all the old fool cared about . . . thought it had some kind of power."
Lupin considered looking into the Pensieve but instead asked, "What was in the memories, Severus?"
Snape snorted. "I stupidly thought perhaps it related to the ingredients. Do you know what they are? Look at the label on the stone jar."
Lupin moved quickly to find the jar in question. "Flamel," he read off. "These are Nicolas Flamel's ingredients. That means . . ."
"Presumably," Snape muttered. He turned then, displaying his dark countenance full on.
"Severus, what's wrong?" Lupin demanded more sternly.
"Everything." Snape picked up a cylindrical jar made of heavy masonry. As though far away, he said hopelessly, "A few of these are nearly inert with age, but they are perhaps salvageable for a very small stone."
"You're going to Alchemize a Philosopher's Stone?" Lupin asked in surprise.
Snape held up a bottle of something clear and tilted it through a circle as though checking the viscosity. "Do you know the original story of the Philosopher's Stone?" he asked. When Lupin shook his head, Snape said, "A kindly old wizard, long of beard and tall of hat, comes to see the king and he tells him that he can create a magic stone that not only grants nearly eternal life, it can transfigure lead into gold." Snape placed the bottle back on the tray and turned the tray around a few times as though looking for something in particular. "The king gives the wizard riches and then more riches with which to fund the production of the Stone, but it is all a lie . . . in the end the old wizard is nothing but a common thief in disguise."
"You are making no sense, Severus," Lupin criticized.
Snape's eyes narrowed to slits as he graced him with a look unlike any Lupin had seen on him in several years. A knock sounded on the door and Lupin turned sharply. Ginny Weasley stood there.
"Professor, I was wondering . . ." she began.
Lupin swooped to her and herded her out of the room. She glanced back but stepped willingly into the corridor. Lupin closed the door to Snape's office and ignored her questions about what she might do for her detention because she needed a distraction from thinking about the match she was required to miss. The open window at the end of the corridor inspired her to flinch with its continued sporting venue noises.
"Go fetch Harry," Lupin said.
"What?"
"Something is bothering Professor Snape and I can't get anything straight out of him."
"I'm not supposed-" Ginny began.
Lupin sharply interrupted. "It doesn't bloody well matter if you're banned from the match. Go fetch Harry, I expect he is in the visitors' section."
Ginny closed her mouth at his unusually forceful words. She stepped to the window and, leaning on the sill, transformed into a hawk and leapt into the updraft.
In the cheering visitor's section, a large bird of prey swept down and grabbed hold of Harry's cloaked shoulder. He turned with a jerk and immediately relaxed upon seeing that it was a red-tailed hawk. "Shove aside, Ron; make some space," Harry insisted.
Ginny appeared between them, holding both of their shoulders to stabilize herself from reappearing sideways. "Whoa," she breathed, gazing across the pitch. "Gryffindor's up thirty to zero already!"
"They're playing inspired Quidditch, I think," Harry observed.
"Or the twins really did . . . never mind." She leaned close to Harry and said, "Professor Lupin said to fetch you. Something is irking Professor Snape."
"Maybe it's being down by thirty," Ron commented, apparently overhearing.
Harry tried to read Ginny's expression. "What's going on?" he asked her.
"I honestly don't know, Harry. I'm just the messenger."
To his friends Harry said, "I have to go." He followed Ginny as she climbed up the row of seats above them and leapt over the rear railing, transforming as she fell. Harry did the same, heart pumping in the second of free-fall before his wings came into being, caught the air, and directed him forward in a surge.
Ginny drifted in bird form nearly all the way to the castle doors, so Harry did the same, overtaking her in the last twenty feet and pulling up hard before putting his heavy claws into the lawn. Transformed back to himself, he mounted the stone steps and entered the dim entrance hall.
"He's in his office," Ginny supplied when Harry turned to her with a questioning expression.
At the top of the second floor staircase stood Lupin, apparently waiting. "Why don't you ask Professor Trelawney what you can do for detention, Ms. Weasley; she rarely goes to the matches." He said this without looking directly at Ginny.
"Oh, thanks," Ginny snipped a bit sarcastically and shuffled off.
Given Lupin's expression, Harry held off on expressing his opinion on Ginny's assignment. "What's going on?" he asked instead.
"I don't know. Severus is in a dark and mysterious funk about something," he said quietly as though afraid of being overheard. "He's nonsensical, going on about Dumbledore's obsession with truth and his playing Dr. Frankenstein and-"
"What?" Harry blurted, but he didn't wait for an answer. Now thoroughly concerned, he headed for Snape's office.
Harry opened the door without knocking and found Snape staring down at a tray full of strange potions on his desk. "What are those?" Harry asked, seeing hazards in anything out of place. He glanced around carefully before closing the door behind him and heading to the desk across from Snape.
Snape replied, "They are the ingredients of immortality, should one wish to torment oneself with more of a life than one would normally suffer through."
"Severus, what's going on?" Harry asked. "Lupin said you were ranting about Dumbledore."
Snape's gaze remained distant as he said, "I lied to you."
Harry pursed his lips before quipping, "Lupin also mentioned that you were being nonsensical." The sound of the match called Harry's attention back down the room where he spotted the Pensieve on the floor beside a half-destroyed desk. Thinking it a better clue than the old potions, he went over to it and peered down into the small pool of ethereal liquid drifting lazily in the bottom of it.
"Go ahead," Snape snarled, giving Harry a start.
"What is it?" Harry demanded.
Snape had lifted an orange bottle from the tray. "Rare liquid amber," he stated as though wishing potions was the only topic. He set the bottle down hard and said, "A memory," like one betrayed. "A memory Albus took from me." With that pronouncement he began to pace behind his desk. "Thought he could make me something I wasn't by taking me apart like one of his bloody magical contraptions."
Harry, unbalanced by seeing this now-unfamiliar disturbed side of Snape, asked carefully, "When was this?"
Stopping to glare at Harry, he replied, "When I refused to adopt you."
Harry tried to swallow when his mouth went dry. "Oh," he muttered, feeling dark dread settling upon him, hard enough to make breathing difficult.
Tossing his arm which made his wide sleeve wave wildly, Snape went on. "Idiot should have just thrown it away. Blasted slave to the truth. Why keep it?" he asked no one in particular.
"Dumbledore did like the truth," Harry said in a commiserate tone.
Snape came to a scuffing stop on the stone floor and gesturing at the Pensieve, said, "Go ahead! What are you waiting for? You certainly never shied away from one of those in the past."
Harry considered refusing. "Severus," he said, placatingly. Snape spun away with a huff of disgust and paced again, stopping before a cabinet of odds and ends, and Harry for a moment believed that Snape was considering tossing its contents across the room. Snape's shoulders fell and he instead sat between the tallest bookcases, on top of the step stool used to reach the upper shelves. He looked defeated; himself shelved in the narrow space.
"Why are you tormenting me?" Snape asked dejectedly. "Just get it over with."
Harry knelt on the floor and pulled out his wand. "Why your sudden commitment to the truth?" he asked, stalling.
"Because everyone knows, I now realize. I was the only one made to forget." Then after a pause. "Manipulative bastard."
Harry, who could remember thinking similarly about the old wizard, but had long since decided he had done all right, stared into the iridescent pool before him. But if Dumbledore had manipulated Snape that much, well . . . Harry disturbed the surface with his wand, setting up a clockwise flow that raised the level of the sparse liquid at the edges. Glimpses of Dumbledore and Voldemort flickered by in many disparate scenes connected by a twisting web of pearlish strands. Harry leaned in farther, his chest sick with dread, but seeing no alternative.
Harry walked along the corridor he had just walked down the weekend before on the way to the Order meeting, but this time he was following a figure in a hooded cloak, moving stealthily. The figure stopped at one door and listened before moving in ghost-like silence to the next and listening there. Starting when voices were heard within, the figure tugged his hood back to listen better and Harry recognized a much younger version of Snape, with fuller hair and smooth, sallow skin. Harry listened too, trying to piece together what was being discussed. A clearer voice rang out, one that made Harry quiver when he recognized Trelawney's voice discussing her great-great-grandmother. When her voice suddenly went hoarse and her pronouncement nearly filled the corridor, Harry pulled his head back out of the Pensieve. He stared fixedly at the cabinets behind the desk without really seeing them.
When he found his voice, he said, "You overheard the prophecy."
Snape didn't respond. Harry turned his stare on him from inside a personal pool of numbness. He felt nothing. He was drifting somewhere else even though his body was clearly in Snape's office. Grabbing hold of the next thought that occurred to him, he said, "You told Voldemort." With that, heat seeped in, burning the numbness away like an acid. Harry forced himself to breath. He bit his lip hard. He wanted nothing more than to throw the Pensieve across the room, but clearly that had already been done.
Harry realized that he was gripping his wand, which was growing damp with his own perspiration. He almost put it away on automatic, but then didn't. He wanted to hold it.
"What did you do?" he asked rhetorically, finding the pathways of suspicion easy to follow. "Run off to your master in glee at the thought of your reward."
"No," Snape answered. He crossed his arms and said cockily, "I never do, and never did, anything without due deliberation. And besides, I had to hide from Dumbledore."
Harry laughed viciously at that thought, prompting Snape to say, "Thought you'd like that."
Harry stood up off his knees, again needing to resist tossing the Pensieve against the wall in the vain hope that the solid stone of it would shatter. He felt as though he were bleeding to death and that any moment he would collapse from loss of blood. Again, he forced himself to breathe past the betrayal tightening his chest. The burning inside was becoming an unleashed living thing snaking through his limbs, devouring him from the inside.
The sound of cheering wafted in on a breeze and Harry raised his wand in his left hand and threw a too-powerful charm at the window to close it. The window banged hard, deformed, and three of the panes shattered, letting the next cheer float in as well. Angry beyond reason, Harry changed hands and waved a Reparo at the bottom opening and then another above it. He hesitated, though, before casting the third because he was noticing now the grey oddness of the first two sheets of new glass. Too angry to care long, he lifted his hand to cast the third, but Snape restrained his wrist.
Harry didn't fight him, he felt too weak to. He swallowed, forced himself to breath, and watched Snape step over to the window to peer at the odd grey glass. It wasn't just grey; wraiths twisted inside of it. Harry blinked, distracted from his anger enough to squint at the panes. Snape waved a repair at the top open light and the crowd noise quieted. He then cast series of breaking curses at the grey panes, none of which had the slightest effect on them. He jabbed his wand handle into one even, but the window merely rattled, the glass unbreakable.
Harry decided that he didn't care if he had left Snape with something annoying to take care of. He turned away, swallowed the urge to scream or kick the Pensieve, and stalked toward the door a little drunkenly.
"Harry," Snape said, causing him to hesitate.
Harry didn't want to listen, deliberate thought had fled him. He spun and demanded, "What's the matter with you? Leave me the hell alone." He wanted to accuse him of all kinds of things, such as killing his parents in order to get him, but even in his current state, that sounded absurd. The betrayal flailing inside him urged him to strike out with something though, to transfer the pain, if possible. "I hope Voldemort tortured you a few times; you deserved it." He waved his hand at the Pensieve at Snape's feet. "Got any memories of that I can watch; I'd like that."
Snape's only response to that was rubbing his forehead.
At the door Harry paused to say, "You're right, Dumbledore was a manipulative bastard. And an idiot to boot."
The corridor was silent. Harry wished not for the first time, that he could just Apparate himself away directly. Torn between going down to McGonagall's office, which was much closer, and walking, or even flying, to Hogsmeade, Harry didn't move immediately. The door to the office opened and Snape stopped in the doorway upon seeing Harry still standing there. Harry raised his wand and pointed it at him.
"So help me," he murmured, feeling deep down satisfaction in knowing Snape believed Harry could best him. "Leave me alone."
Snape didn't react, simply remained frozen where he had stopped. Harry, the pain and writhing in his core spiking to nearly intolerable, stalked off in the direction of the staircases. Out on the lawn, with no memory of the rest of the journey out, he glanced in the direction of the pitch when it came into view, wishing he were still in the crowd, still naïve.
Harry was still moving on a strange automatic instinct when he reached home. The house was blessedly empty, which meant that Harry could wander his room to pack a trunk without being disturbed. Halfway through tossing things into it, however, he sat on the bed and stared into the trunk's depths. He was supposed to protect Candide, not run away. And back at the Quidditch match, his friends were probably wondering where he had gone off to. It would be much easier to pretend this didn't matter, and for long minutes he stared at the floor trying to make it so. But he couldn't. The betrayal of it cleaved him down the center to the point where if he let his control slip at all that violence would result. If Snape had pushed him at the end just a little bit more, Harry would have unhesitantly hit him with a curse, just to keep him away.
The room screamed the lie of the last two years at him so much that he could not bear to stay. He tossed open the wardrobe and used a pack spell on his shoes. The shoes zipped to the trunk but in their wake they left inky black wraiths that only dissipated slowly from the air. The shoes themselves looked all right when he picked them back up out of the trunk. Harry, more determined than confusingly alarmed, dumped his spare jeans and shirts in by hand and closed the lid. Trying to hover the trunk created the same bizarre effect of leaving square black outlines floating in the air and when Harry let the trunk settle beside the door, he caught a whiff of dry rotted earth. Sitting on the trunk, Harry tried to pull himself together. From her cage, Kali hissed at him.
"You can stay," Harry said to her. "I don't care." And with that, he hefted the trunk by hand and carried it down the stairs. Physical training at the Ministry had made it an easy task, even though it was his largest trunk. But at the hearth, he again had second thoughts about what he was doing. He decided that what he was doing was getting some space to think clearly, which he desperately needed. If Snape was so worried about Candide, he could move her into Hogwarts.
Harry was sitting on Hermione's couch, his feet up on his trunk, when Hermione came in.
"Harry! Here you are. Everyone's looking everywhere for you. It was only Lupin insisting that you and Professor Snape must have had a row that kept us from calling the Ministry and reporting you missing."
"Sorry," Harry said, only vaguely sorry in reality because from the depths of what he was feeling he could not dredge up significant concern.
Hermione, in her fashion, appeared to read all of this in his response. She sat down on the trunk, facing him, and asked, "What happened?"
Harry told her everything about what he had discovered in Snape's office about the prophecy.
"Merlin," Hermione muttered.
"Did you know?" Harry asked, voice half-hardened against another potential betrayal. "Did you know it was Severus who had overheard the original prophecy?"
"No." She held up her hand. "Well, I suspected it once. But Voldemort was gone and it didn't seem to matter. Something McGonagall said when I was helping her set up the first party the night you destroyed Voldemort made me wonder."
"No wonder she seemed so surprised that I'd agreed to the adoption," Harry said.
Hermione rested her elbows on her knees. "You forgave Professor Snape rather a lot, Harry. Not that much of a stretch to assume you'd forgive him that too."
"Yes, it is," Harry snarled. "He killed my parents."
"Voldemort killed your parents," Hermione corrected him.
Harry sat forward. "Whose side are you on?"
"Yours, of-"
Harry interrupted her. "Or are you on the side of Dumbledore's effing truth?" He couldn't sit still, so he rose to pace, making Crookshanks hiss at him from his bed on the bookshelf. Harry eyed the half-Kneazel to make it back down and indeed it turned in a circle and curled up facing the back of the shelf.
"Harry," Hermione said calmly. "Sit down. I'll make some tea. I am of course on your side. Everyone is. Sit down," she repeated when Harry remained standing in the middle of the room.
She filled the teapot and set it in the middle of the table. When she returned with cauldron cakes she was surprised to find the pot still cold. Harry said, "Sorry, didn't feel like heating it." In truth, he was worried how the spell would really turn out and couldn't bring himself to try it. Remembering how odd his magic had been when he had moved his things around, not to mention the strange grey glass, made Harry's arms go numb with fear and the snaking pain seemed to feed on it, making it worse.
She gazed at him with an dubious expression but tapped the teapot with a simple heating charm. She munched on a cake saying, "Wish I had some chocolate. You can stay here if you like. I'm assuming that's why you have your trunk with you."
"Thanks," Harry said, feeling better at her invitation, well enough to unwrap a cake for himself.
"I need to owl people to tell them where you are, Harry. Everyone was worried." She didn't move though. She asked, "All right?" with unusual care.
"Yeah. Go ahead."
— 888 —
Snape numbly stared out the window for long minutes before focusing on the strange glass Harry's repair spell had set into the leading. Dark shadowy things alternately swam and creeped inside the glass, or more correctly just beyond the glass, as though it were a window onto another world. Swallowing hard, Snape tapped on the glass with the tip of his wand. One of the wraiths jerked as he did this, although it may have been coincidental. If it were a window onto the Dark Plane, he should get rid of it. If it were something else, something even stranger and less understood, then he truly needed to be rid of it.
Thoughts of demons drew Snape to his hazardous ingredient cabinet, still ajar from his earlier investigation of the tray of potions left behind by Dumbledore. From the back of the bottom shelf he extracted a small sandalwood box. He had not opened it since returning with it the evening Harry had given it to him for his birthday. Inside, amongst the fine glass powder, were a few larger shards, still with shiny silver backing. The clusters of iridescent rainbows shimmering in the pebbles of glass hinted at their power to attract and redirect energy. Kuromakyo—a mirror a demon has peered into without breaking it—and, ironically, then ground into a powder for easy use. With deft fingers accustomed to fine, persnickety ingredients Snape plucked out the largest of the tiny cleaved shards between his fingers and held it in the sunlight. Glaring metallic rainbows scattered from the tiny chip as he examined it before carefully rotating it to align the silvering parallel to the wraith-filled window pane. A long ten minutes ticked by, punctuated by the distant noises from the pitch where the crowd sounded as though it were losing energy. Finally, one of the indiscernible charcoal black forms twisted violently when a rainbow struck it. The figure halted, expanded as though approaching rapidly from a great distance and then the window shattered, leaving behind tiny shards that sizzled and dissolved until only fine sand remained. Snape brushed the sand out of the window, calmly repaired the empty pane properly, and then patiently held the shard of Kuromakyo up to the second grey window.
After the second window was properly in place and the last traces of sand Expunged away, Snape systematically re-shelved all of the rare potions and ingredients. If he had stopped to think of whom they had belonged to, he may have shattered them all and regretted it later, if not immediately.
Cabinet locked and spelled closed, Snape continued to clutch his wand as he left his office. Singlemindedly, he strode down the corridor and around the corner to the alcove where a stone gargoyle slept. "Darjeeling," Snape snarled at the crouching figure, making it immediately raise its head and move aside. The helical staircase beyond turned ponderously; Snape stepped doggedly up as it turned.
At the top, the door was latched but opened with the simplest of cancelation spells. Snape stalked into the empty office—which still held traces of the calming aura of its previous occupant—and aimed his wand at the painting of said headmaster.
"You bastard," Snape said, wand wavering as he considered simply burning the canvas through to the wall.
The painting blinked at him and stroked its beard. "I take it something is the matter, Severus," the image observed mildly.
"You were a doddering old fool at the end. Why couldn't you, for just once, leave well enough alone?" Snape demanded.
The other surrounding paintings were waking up and inching to the outer edges of their frames. "Now, now, Severus, I almost always left well enough alone, many more times than I should have in hindsight. You know that."
Snape was breathing heavily as he faced the avatar of his former mentor with nothing but all-consuming anger. "I should reduce you to ashes," he threatened.
"I suspect that that will accomplish nothing," Dumbledore commented in a helpful tone.
Snape snarled, animal-like, and lowered his wand. He trembled momentarily with the effort of controlling the pain and fury inside him that sought an outlet, any outlet.
"I failed your last test . . . your last task. You set me up to fail it. You made me into something I was not," he said through clenched teeth.
The image of Dumbledore steepled its fingers. "I did that a very long time ago, Severus. Anything recent is incidental."
"Not this," he snapped back. Snape clutched his head before pacing away and leaning on the desk. "You do not know what Harry has become . . . how much danger he is in . . . how much help he needs." He turned a glare back to the painting. "And now I cannot give it!" he shouted. "Why did you give him to me just to take him away again?"
The painting fell thoughtful, or seemed to, and as aggravatingly as the real Dumbledore—could not be Legilimized. Snape said, more quietly, "You truly cannot understand what he has become. He has bizarre powers I cannot find in any books . . ." Snape froze and re-raised his wand, almost mechanically. "You know what you did, don't you?" Snape demanded rhetorically in a low voice. "That damn hat told him he would be great if he were in Slytherin. He chose otherwise and you put him in Slytherin in the end anyway."
Snape leaned against the desk and bowed slighting, dropping his wand hand into his other hand and clutching it desperately. "Did I turn him into that?" he asked the empty room.
The door to the office opened and McGonagall stepped in followed by Lupin. "Everything all right, Severus?" she asked.
Snape gestured with his wand as he explained, "I was just having a little chat here with doddering old Albus."
She removed her gloves while giving Dumbledore's portrait a curious glance. "What is happening? Ms. Granger came up to me in search of Harry, who apparently disappeared after coming to speak to you."
Snape said dismally, "He is off somewhere; I don't know where."
McGonagall took that in and asked, "Did you two have a fight?"
Snape pointed or more accurately aimed his wand at Dumbledore. "Only with him. Him and his bloody manipulation. Bending me to his will was one thing, but he's destroyed Harry this time, using me to do it."
"What are you talking about?" McGonagall asked sharply.
"I am talking about making me forget it was I who overheard the prophecy that killed the Potters. And then leaving the blasted memory where it could be found."
The painting said patiently, "The truth is not something to be disposed of lightly, Severus."
Snape continued to aim at the man's bright blue eyes. "And Harry's future is?" he snarled.
"You were the only one who could assure Harry future. If I did something untoward to accomplish that, it would have been worth it."
McGonagall moved to hang up her cloak. "Well, in that case, we need not contact the Ministry to search for him."
Snape turned to Lupin. "You knew?" he snapped at him. Lupin nodded. "And you, of course?" he asked McGonagall by half turning his head over his shoulder.
"Yes, Severus. Probably why Albus kept the memory, to sort that out should it come up again." She took a seat. "Do you even wish to know how the match turned out?" she prodded.
"I don't care," Snape muttered, crossing his arms.
"Your House cares dearly and I am certain they will expect you to make an appearance for the party they are assembling for Ms. Zepher."
Snape didn't turn around, but he asked, "So they won?"
"Yes, but only by 160 to 140. I honestly think your Chasers were tampered with," McGonagall said. When this did bring Snape's gaze around fully, she said, "But since the result is as it should be, I expect, and Madam Pomfrey cannot discern any health issues with your team, I may let it drop. But it is up to you."
"Perhaps I will make some inquiries," Snape said darkly.
McGonagall said, "The Gryffindors have also lodged a complaint regarding Ms. Zepher's unregulated, Muggle equipment, which is an easier violation to prove."
Darkly satisfied, Snape said, "Point out to them that they were a present from Harry Potter and I believe that will shut them up."
McGonagall nodded, mildly amused. "And on that topic, do you know where Harry may have gone?"
This gave Snape pause, as he was already traveling down the more pleasant path of devising a trap for certain Gryffindor students whom he was most suspicious of. "One of his friends' I expect, if he is not at home." The last came out unintentionally faint.
"Well, I asked Ms. Granger to owl if she locates him and, if not, we should contact the Ministry Auror's office, obviously."
Snape waited for a bout of dizziness to pass before leaning forward off of the desk. "I will be in my office," he said, and exited without meeting either of their gazes.
— 888 —
Early that evening, Lupin knocked on the door to Hermione's flat. Harry sat, obsessively reading a book on introductory criminal law from the shelf rather than one of his assigned books. As Lupin greeted Hermione, Harry taunted from across the room, "You're an unexpected emissary from a Death Eater." He felt his face twisting into a pleasing sneer as he said it.
Lupin and Hermione gave each other wide-eyed looks. Lupin clutched his small pointed hat in his hands and stepped into the sitting area, saying, "Yes, Harry, I am." Hermione gestured for him to take a chair, so Lupin did so. "And to think, Minerva offered to come in my stead and I declined her offer." He said this pleasantly which bore more sting.
"Why didn't Professor Snape come?" Hermione asked challengingly.
Lupin appeared uncomfortable a moment before clasping his hat and hands between his knees and saying, "He resisted suggestions that he do so." He turned to Harry and said, "I can only assume you threatened him because I am quite certain that he would be willing to step in front of a Crucio for you yet does not wish to come speak with you."
Hermione gave Harry a dark look, which he ignored, uncaring. Lupin went on, shaking his head, "You have put me in the rather unexpected position of pitying Severus Snape."
"It was all a lie," Harry said, feeling that cleaving pain rending his chest as hard as ever as though the words were a spell.
"But of course," Lupin said. "In which case, we all live lies, Harry."
Harry gave him a glaring look. "That what you came to tell me?" he asked sarcastically. When Hermione rolled her eyes and went to straighten up in the kitchen, Harry prompted, "What?"
"You sound like Malfoy," Hermione explained loudly, so as to be heard.
"Harry," Lupin began as though leading into a lecture, but then he trailed off. "Well, I think you should think about things. Get a little perspective. Mostly I was sent to verify that you were safe and sound, which you clearly are." He stood and, as he turned, put a hand on the chair back. "The only thing I'll mention is an observation of my own and given Severus' and my history I think it carries some weight. I truly do believe that Severus is sorry."
"Sorry for what, exactly?" Harry asked, still clinging to sarcasm.
"There are rather a large number of possibilities, I'll admit," Lupin said. "He's possibly sorry for most all of them."
Harry didn't have a response to that; it wasn't an objectionable assertion as much as he would like to object.
Lupin sighed. "Well, take care, Harry. I'll leave you in Ms. Granger's capable company. And do remember that if you need anything you may always ask me or Minerva."
Harry nodded grudgingly and Lupin departed. Hermione took the seat Lupin had just vacated. "You're thinking, right?" she verified.
"I'm thinking I wish I could start everything over yet again . . . like I always used to."
Hermione frowned. "I'm sorry for that, Harry." She seemed to want to say more but didn't and eventually they both settled back into their reading.
Later, she asked, "Something you want to do tonight?" which jolted Harry out of his complacency.
"Shit, I have field work tonight." He glanced at the clock and sank back in relief that he had three-quarters of an hour. "Almost forgot," he breathed.
"That will be a good distraction."
Harry stood to open his trunk to find something to wear. "Tonks is not a good distraction," he commented.
"Still holding a candle for her; are you?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah, what's it to ya?" Harry came back sharply.
"It's not good to do that too long, Harry."
Harry wanted to snap something along the lines of not caring what she thought, but realized it wasn't true before the words formed. "I can't help it," he said instead. "There's something about her that . . . still is hard to make less interesting, even when I try to."
"And does she feel the same?" Hermione asked.
"I have no idea," Harry returned. "She's very professional around me."
"Well, good for her," Hermione said.
Harry paused in digging through the highly disorganized pile of his possessions and stared at her. "And you?" he pointedly asked. Hermione drew her lips in, so Harry added, "What IS happening between you and my fellow apprentice, Vineet?"
"Vishnu, Harry. Everyone in the world but you calls him Vishnu."
"Did you have a nice dinner the other evening?" Harry asked in a forced easy tone that still sounded accusing.
"Of course," she said primly, but something about her tone made Harry think she was still in the same situation he was in. "You're going to be burning that candle as long as I am," he stated.
She apparently decided a change in topic was in order. "I'm going to join my office mates at the pub then if you are busy. I'll see you back here, when?"
"2:00 a.m. or so," Harry replied, carrying his clothes into her bedroom to change.
Hermione tapped her foot. "I'll get used to those hours, I'm sure." More loudly, to be heard through the door, she said, "Be careful, Harry. Don't let your temper get the better of you in the mood you are in."
Harry didn't reply, and when he had changed, he came out looking glum and withdrawn. "Right," he uttered without any real feeling. He wanted to test his magic, but didn't want her to see it should it come out dark and strange, so he held off, thinking that rarely did he use any during field work.
In the Auror's office, it was bustling. Harry stood off to the side, out of the way, while Shacklebolt ran in and out to the file room and then the break room to talk to Rodgers. Harry normally would have tried to eavesdrop, but this evening he allowed the hurried and abbreviation-laden conversations to roll by him.
A broad figure shuffled toward him down the corridor with a distinctive and familiar limp. Harry waited until the approaching figure was at the doorway and paused before raising his gaze, which he felt certain held enough emnity to speak for him. Moody grunted doubtfully and shuffled into the back of the office behind the cubical wall, while Harry suppressed his disappointment that the old Auror hadn't started something that could be escalated into a nice violent spell exchange.
Tonks eventually came in. "Ready to go?" she asked, collecting her cloak. She took his arm and the next instant they were in the Leaky Cauldron, where a few patrons eyed them curiously. Tonks flipped her cloak off one shoulder, glanced at him, and then immediately asked, "Something wrong, Harry?"
Quietly, Harry answered honestly, "Everything's wrong."
This reply caused her to push him up the stairs of the inn to the quiet corridor that led to the rooms. At the landing she said, "What's up?" in an official tone, although her expression belied real concern.
Harry explained what he had learned about Snape and the old prophecy. He skipped explaining how odd his magic had become since then. Tonks stared at him.
"Dumbledore really did that?" she asked, pained.
"Apparently," Harry said.
She traced the grain of the wood paneling beside her with her finger. "You know he used to have his hand in everything. When I first started at the Ministry I learned to watch for it—Kingsley would sometimes comment about some action someone took—and I was pretty good at spotting it by the end. But Dumbledore was rarely ever directly involved. He pulled other people's strings through . . . almost a kind of blackmail, except it was more like whitemail. He'd just gently remind someone of their own virtuous vision of themselves, or their youthful optimistic view of the world, and of course he knew everyone's from when they were in school." She fell thoughtful, staring at the wall, her hair cycling through various shades of pink and orange. "This is a twisted version of that, all right. He kept Severus in line all those years. I never understood how."
"He didn't want to be a Death Eater anymore," Harry heard himself explaining. "But death is normally the only way out."
Tonks' orange brows bunched together. "It was more than that. It was something to do with a mistake he made or something he regretted. I could never get a decent guess out of anyone and I never had the guts to ask Dumbledore outright, although I hinted at it enough times." She finally looked at him. "I'll admit, Harry, he made me a little nervous."
Feeling pain anew, Harry said, "I don't think he'd have considered getting my father killed a mistake."
"You sure about that?" she asked.
Harry didn't reply, even though his lip twitched as though an answer were right there.
Tonks gave his arm a hard pat on the arm. "Well, Harry, good training night for you, then."
"How's that?" Harry asked, wounded.
"This will happen all the time. Things are going wrong in your personal life, but you have a shift to do. You put it all aside." She gestured with her hands as though grabbing something invisible and pushing it away. "You put it aside and you do your job. You have no option; let it interfere and it will get you killed."
Harry found having an excuse to put his pain aside highly appealing. His heart was sore now as though it continued to receive a battering and and it felt like the damage couldn't possibly heal, no matter how long it had to do it.
"Come on, Harry," Tonks said in an official tone. "We have a call about a theft last night on Knockturn Alley, and then we'll do patrol."
Harry straightened his back and nodded that he was ready.
They stepped out into the alley, striding with matched purpose. A roof of darkness hung over the alley and the normal sounds echoed louder as though it were a real one. Everything Harry saw assaulted his determination to keep his pain at bay. The Apothecary's reminded him of potions he was given to cure his ills. Flourish and Blotts reminded him of buying textbooks for Potions and Defense class. Even Eeylops reminded him of the first room he had graciously been given to keep his owl in without trouble. By the time they turned at Gringotts and went down a few steps into Knockturn Alley, Harry had to work hard to remind himself why he was there. He copied Tonks and pulled out his wand; the feel of which helped to hold him centered.
Down here, the streetlights were dim and grimy, casting glaring, rather than useful, light across the cobblestones. Hooded shadows shied from their approach. Tonks stopped before a shop with a long sign reading Clipper & Clydewhistle where the ampersand was surrounded by the outline of a sloop as though they might sell ship's tack. The sign had been repainted, but the outlines of the previous letters spelling Borgin & Burkes were still visible beneath the white. Despite the shop's lack of light, Tonks knocked and moments later a candle flickered to life within.
A worn looking man in his thirties unlatched the door and stuck his nose out.
"Aurors," Tonks whispered.
The man stepped back to let them in, saying, "Didn't think you'd come tonight . . . if at all."
The shop still contained many of its previous items, such as the cursed sarcophagus and a row of stuffed blackbirds, which loomed grotesquely in the light of the single candle. Harry's sense of cursedness made him walk on his toes as though ready to jump away. It required immense willpower to follow Tonks as she stepped in farther, and they were completely surrounded by putrefied magic. Her spiked hair haloed her head as though she too were a candle.
"So, are you Clipper or Clyde?" Tonks asked the man as they wove a path to the back of the shop.
"I'm Hummus Borgin, nephew of the former proprietor. Clipper and Clydewhistle are my backers. Thought a change in name might be in order." At the rear of the store behind the counter, he indicated a door in the floor that had been tipped upward, jagged-edged by the varying length floor boards making up the cover, which masked its location. The candlelight didn't reach the bottom and the sense of entrapment was acute.
"So what happened?" Tonks asked.
"This was sealed," Borgin said, gesturing so that melted wax from the candle in his hand dropped onto the floor and into the hole. "I'm the only one who knows how to open it. Even my uncle, retired to Spain somewhere, doesn't know how anymore. But I come in to open up this afternoon—don't open early on weekends, you know—and this is open, just like this. Didn't even try to hide that they'd got in." He sounded insulted.
"So what's missing?" Tonks asked.
Now Borgin hesitated and rubbed his hand on his robe as though to dry sweat from his palm. "Here is where it gets difficult for me, you know?" he said, clearly hoping for some understanding of his business. "I do not wish to say, but the value of this thing would not be clear to anyone. It was part of my uncle's personal collection and only he and I know why he kept it."
"So, what is it?" Tonks demanded, clearly losing patience.
Borgin shrugged, "It is just a watch, and a poorly running one at that."
"What did it look like?" Tonks asked and it seemed to Harry that she had interrupted something Borgin was about to add.
"Gold case; gold Albert chain; full hunter." The man shrugged again as though these were meaningless details.
Tonks scratched her head and leaned over to peer into the squarish hole in the floor. Harry said, "I'll go down."
She eyed him thoughtfully and Harry was certain she was about to deny his offer, but instead she gestured for him to use the ladder. As Harry lit his wand with a Lumos—which carried a dark halo that went unnoticed in the dark shop—and stepped backwards into what appeared to be a bottomless pit, he thought perhaps that he was feeling a bit reckless this evening, and he also believed that that was not surprising. By the time his foot hit dirt rather than another rung, his breath had grown rapid in the dank air which had a dry rotted odor not unlike the Dark Plane. Harry shook his wand to renew the Lumos and turned away from the ladder to face three rough stone shelves full of glittering objects.
Harry froze, not breathing. This was his last odd dream, this place. Jarring himself from this heart-stopping reverie, he moved to study the shelves and their objects. Oddly, fewer were cursed than those up above. Most appeared to have more intrinsic value, such as a sceptre with a massive ruby mounted in a gold claw. Harry cast a footprint detection spell that sent wisps of ink around him and made the air even more dank. He saw his own footprints and two others, each older than the next. Harry assumed the ones that took the shortest path were the thief's, who had only been looking for one thing, as opposed to the shop owner who would have verified that everything was present. Harry crouched down to renew the spell and study the prints more closely. They were made by shoes with pointed toes and significant heels on them, Harry could see the physical imprints they left beneath the magical ones.
Harry climbed back up the ladder and confronted Borgin. "The robbery was two days ago," he stated, knowing this from his dream, but thinking it could be explained by the footprints too, had he run the right detection spell.
Tonks didn't speak, just waited for Borgin to find a response. Harry tried to Legilimize the man, but he hid his thoughts well.
"I wasn't sure I wished to report it," Borgin said carefully, leaning back away from Harry fractionally.
"Why did you report it at all?" Harry then asked, giving no ground, not even to Tonks.
"I was concerned who the thief might be." He stammered then. "For example . . . I thought, perhaps, Mr. Burke had escaped, or something of that sort. You know. He would know how to get into the cellar."
He was lying; Harry could tell, but he also made sense. Harry didn't know what tack to follow with, because accusing the man of lying when he made sense would lose him his stronger position.
"We'll check on that," Tonks assured him. "No one else would know?"
"No," Borgin replied, but beads of sweat had formed on his upper lip.
Outside on the street, Tonks asked, "So, you volunteered to go down in the hole why?"
"I felt like being useful," Harry replied, which was partially the truth. Mostly, he had felt reckless and as though a little bout with danger would take his mind off things. "The shoes of the thief were odd, fancy, like a woman's with pointed toes and small heels."
"The thief left footprints?" she asked in shock. "I think someone is just jerking Borgin around. It makes no sense. To have the skill to get into the floor vault but not bother to hide your trail . . . that's really mad."
They walked to the other end of the winding alley to patrol, and Harry mulled as they went whether he should tell Tonks about his matching dream. He held off while he considered whether he perhaps was sleepwalking as Rodgers had suggested. He didn't believe so, but a nagging doubt held him from explaining anything until he could think about it more. He certainly didn't own shoes like that, which was a relief.
As they turned at the crumbling brick wall that dead-ended Knockturn Alley, Harry bumped shoulders with someone. This hooded someone cackled, jerking him to the here-and-now which he had accidentally slipped out of when he really shouldn't have.
"'Tis the Nones of June," the figure crowed in an elderly voice. "Caesar beware the Ides of June," she added, poking Harry in the chest with a long, boney finger. "All of your enemies will be after your blood on that day."
"Harry, come on," Tonks said, because Harry had stopped, rubbing the now-painful spot on his chest. "Harry."
"All right," Harry said, pulling his cloak tight around him. "What day is the Ides?" he asked.
"Fifteenth, thirteenth, something," Tonks replied absently. "Not that it matters . . . she's just a mad old bat."
"Thirteenth," the crone countered loudly from behind. "Everyone's lucky number . . ." She trailed off into another cackle.
They patrolled up and down Diagon Alley for an hour before heading off to Devon to walk patrol there. Along a relatively busy road, Tonks stopped and put her pointy nose in the air. "Chips. Let's get some food."
They followed the scent around the corner and ate while sitting in cracked chairs around a battered table in a little shop lit too brightly for their dark-adjusted eyes. Harry at first ate with gusto due to the walking and stress, but his appetite faded quickly and his fifth bite required great effort to swallow. He pushed the plastic basket away with a comment about not being as hungry as he had thought. In truth it was worse than that, and as they departed, he was certain his throat was full of fur and that he was choking on it. Breathing rapidly, he ducked behind the dust bins and was sick.
"Harry, you all right?" Tonks asked in concern.
Harry leaned hard on his hand propped against the brick wall beside him. Disorientation made it impossible to stand straight. "Yeah, hang on," he managed to say levelly. He pulled his wand to clean up his mess and realized that he couldn't, or more accurately: shouldn't. He wondered if he could Apparate home from here, it was a bit farther than from London. "I need to clean up," he explained to her. She had approached and was looking him over with a Lumos.
"I'll come along," she said.
Harry realized then with a stab that he had been picturing the house in Shrewsthorpe as home and had to amend that. "I don't want to bother Hermione this late . . . I'm going to have to wake her up later as it is. Can we go to your place?"
At Tonks' nod Harry Disapparated, and Tonks appeared behind him as he bent over the sink in the small all-white toilet which glared as painfully as the chips shop had.
"You want to just call it a night?" Tonks suggested. "Go home and sleep?"
"No, I just need a minute," Harry insisted, certain that he could regain himself if he just tried hard enough. He stepped by her into the main room, sat on the couch, and pressed his fingers into his eyes. Occlude your mind, you know how, played in Harry's mind, unfortunately in Snape's determined and exacting voice. The pain this caused inspired more determination toward blocking all the pain out and moments later he was free, breathing easily, feeling almost himself.
"Better?" Tonks asked when Harry sat back. "Want some tea?" At his nod, she went to the stove. Between spelling cups into a clean state and heating the teapot, she said, "Talk to me a bit, Harry. What's going on?"
"I don't know. I haven't felt this awful . . ." he trailed off, not wanting to risk his newfound equilibrium casting his mind back that far. "I felt like I was choking on fur or something."
Half a minute later, he complained, "Everything's going wrong." Thinking of Snape's destructive revelation, added, "It's not fair." He immediately moved to Occlude his mind again by tipping his head back and closing his eyes, and Tonks was smart enough not to interfere. She handed him a cup of tea when he lifted his head. The strong fruity scent of it did wonders for his state of mind, as though it were alien to whatever was dogging him. Sensing that she was again going to offer to escort him home, he prepped an insistence for wanting to complete his evening duties, but then considered that he had been lucky so far not to need significant magic and perhaps he should not push his luck.
Harry stood and checked that he had his things, and only then realized he didn't have his coin purse. He checked his pockets again. "My money's gone," Harry said flatly, holding control of himself.
"Oh," Tonks said. "Grizzie must have it . . . the crone you bumped into. She used to be a pickpocket." Tonks sounded level and casual about this, which Harry was highly grateful for given that she could legitimately scold him. Tonks swigged her tea and huffed comically to get rid of the burn in her mouth. Harry took another long renewing sniff of his before setting the full cup on the counter.
Tonks said, "Leaky Cauldron," and Disapparated. Harry followed and had to catch up as she strode out the back door. The wall was already open and he rushed to leap through before it closed again. Harry was grateful for the rapid walking that meant his missing money would be resolved quickly. With some distress he was realizing that his purse constituted almost half his money and that without Snape there wasn't any more. They turned at Knockturn Alley and Tonks nudged Harry to be alert, drawing him out of an alarming realization of how very dependent he had let himself become for nearly everything in his life.
Tonks spelled opened a metal door about halfway down the alley and at the top of a narrow, crooked staircase, knocked on a half-rotted wooden door.
"Coming, coming." The crone opened the door. "Took you long enough," she criticized. She ducked under a low beam holding up the angled, sagging ceiling to move back around to where a table was arrayed with brewing apparati. "I was just fixing my favorite drink. Care to join me?" On the table lay Harry's small leather purse, its drawstring loosened. The crone dropped a Galleon into a bubbling glass of milky liquid. Instantly the liquid turned shining and golden, and she tipped it up and swallowed half of it. Smacking her lips, she said, "Golly, I do miss that."
She grabbed the purse up and tossed it to a surprised Harry. "Here then," she said, the detailed wrinkles in her face accentuated when she taunted, "Training not going so well, I've read. You scored a Needs Improvement on this as well."
Harry looked to Tonks to see if the old woman was serious. Tonks gave Harry a roll of the eyes. "Grisley Teaberg here is simply far too familiar with us from being hauled in so many times." Tonks propped her fists on her hips. "She's looking to get hauled in again," she threatened.
"Eh," the crone waved the threat off. "I insisted on getting paid for my services, is all. Off with you,"
Tonks shook her head and led the way out. At the door Harry turned back. "Since I have paid now, what exactly happens on the thirteenth?"
Grisley raised one long-haired, grizzled eyebrow and said, "I told you already, boy. Out!" She waved her hand and the door slammed in Harry's face.
On the stairs down, Harry asked Tonks, "Can she really foretell? She looks more the Potions type."
Out on the dark, quiet alley, Tonks replied, "She does whatever she can get paid to do." At Harry's insinuating look, lit by the lamp at the corner with Diagon Alley, Tonks laughed and said, "Yes, even that. She's pretty good with potions." As Harry checked the contents of his coin purse to assure himself that only a Galleon was missing, Tonks went on with, "If she stuck to selling beauty potions she could buy Knockturn Alley. She gets jealous too easily to do that though."
— 888 —
Lupin stood before Snape's desk and looked down at him. Snape sat with his hands interlaced, his knuckles flashing white as he moved his fingers spasmodically. The corridor outside the closed Defense office door was unusually quiet—the students sequestered rather than fomenting trouble, revising heavily as the term drew to a close.
"Severus, can I get anything for you? Dinner, for example?"
Snape ignored him.
Lupin said, "I almost pity you. Although, you're lucky that your inner darkness is kept at bay most of the time. Some of us face it every moon."
Snape exhaled loudly and admitted in a monotone, "I was gleeful to learn the prophecy—Harry was right. Gleeful to know something only Dumbledore knew." His chair creaked as he leaned back and apparently needing to explain to someone, said, "But I didn't run off and tell Voldemort. I wanted to know for certain who it might refer to. Although partly this was to be ready with that answer when asked by my master. Partly it was to increase the power that rare knowledge held." He turned and stared at the candle burning beside the lamp, which had run out of oil. "It was clearly the Longbottoms. Alice Longbottom's continued work as an Auror despite carrying a child was well known." Snape slapped the desk. "I didn't know the Potters were expecting. No one knew."
"Did you tell Harry that?" Lupin asked.
Snape shook his head. Condemning himself, he said, "I was gleeful. I was expecting a reward." He fell silent and the candle sputtered and flickered. "Most of all I was gleeful that Voldemort was not indestructible. 'The one with the power to vanquish.' Tormenting though, given how much time one could expect it to take, unless there was some trick to the prophecy as there often is."
Lupin looked Snape's angular face over in the equally angular light. "So, Voldemort asked you whom you thought it would be referring to . . . the prophecy that is?"
"Yes. But he either disregarded my opinion or assumed I was misleading him. He began hunting for the Potters soon after, in September or so, to the dismay of his other followers who did not know why he had grown so singularly obsessed." His lip twitched. "Being the only one who understood made me gleeful as well and it made me a closer confidant of the Dark Lord, which made me safer . . . ironically. And the Potters hid well, until they were betrayed."
Snape stared at his interlocked fingers, holding them up in the light to look them over.
"Shall I go speak to Harry again?" Lupin offered.
Snape shook his head. "If he wishes to speak to me, he knows where to find me."
A knock sounded and the door creaked open. Snape squinted across the room into the even dimmer corridor. "Candide?" Snape queried, making Lupin start and quickly go to the door to usher her in before leaving them alone.
After the door clicked closed she said. "Your owl wasn't very detailed . . . what is going on?"
"Harry moved out," Snape explained.
"He only took a few of his things in that case. There isn't much missing. His little pet seems lonely but won't let me near her."
Snape's eyes widened. "He left his Chimrian behind?"
"The bright violet thing? Yes."
"Feed and water it and bring it to me when you can. I will take care of her. I am surprised he didn't take her."
"I was worried he'd left because of something, well, I was quite certain I hadn't done anything to upset him. We seemed to be getting along jolly well enough . . ."
"It wasn't you." He said this tiredly and stood up. "I thought I made that clear in the owl I sent."
She followed along the other side of the desk and met him at the end. "You look terrible, Severus."
"I have lost far more than I realized I could possess," he said. "Harry's younger self was right. I do have to answer to my Harry."
He doggedly explained everything to her: about the lost memory, informing Voldemort, Harry's dismay upon learning all of this. He sounded flat as he recited it all as though he grew unfeeling through the retelling.
Candide stroked his arm, trying to elicit something more than a monotone from him. "Let me make sure I understand this . . . Harry knew before that you joined Voldemort willingly?"
Snape nodded. "He denied the significance of it to himself. I could see him doing it. And his fierce defense of me was symptomatic of this ingrained uncertainty."
"Maybe it's just that you did so much for him . . . it was worth ignoring," she suggested, sounding additionally meaningful.
Snape's eyes came into focus finally. "You sound sanguine about all of this."
She tapped her fingers on the desktop beside her, bit her lip, and said, "Of the things I expect you did, or fear you did, this one on the face of it is relatively benign. It just had rather larger consequences." His gaze on her didn't waver over the next half minute and she held her side of it.
Snape took the half step forward that separated them. "You can overlook this?"
"It isn't a matter of overlooking. If you regret what you've done, I've already decided I'm prepared to overlook more than this."
Snape's hand reached up and brushed her hair back. "I'll confess that I've grown overly accustomed to having company."
Her eyes flashed with sympathy before she glanced down. "Harry will come around," she said. "He seems like such a good kid."
Snape's hand grazed her shoulder as it dropped. "He's hurting. He does not behave rationally when that is the case. I wonder now that I did not have the sense to throw the memory away and beg for a Memory Charm from one of my colleagues."
She raised her chin again. They were standing about as close as they could be without actually touching. "Why didn't you?"
"Why didn't Albus?" he demanded angrily. "I did not know . . . I feared the memory had some critical meaning." He hesitated before saying, "Albus Dumbledore was my master for far more years than the Dark Lord, and in many ways he was a much harder master, demanding in more complicated ways and far more difficult to understand on top of it all."
He stepped away, prompting her to say, "If you want me to speak to Harry, I will."
Snape shook his uncombed head. "Leave him be."
"Shall I move out again?" she asked.
"Only if you wish to; although, you may be safer if you do."
"I'll stay. Harry may come back to collect his things." She joined him beside the bookcase where he was staring through the volumes before him. "And your house-elf may get lonely," she added, stroking Snape's back.
— 888 —
Harry's stress at his dependence dogged him the rest of the patrol he insisted he was fit enough to complete. The last thing he wanted was to be babied, especially by Tonks. Although, he did let her escort him to Hermione's place at the end of shift.
In the corridor beside the door to Hermione's flat, Tonks said, "I'll see you on Monday, Harry." She brushed his arm and added, "I'm sorry for what's happened between you and Severus."
"Thanks," Harry said, feeling his walls coming down, which made him hurry her off and get himself inside, out of sight.
Sitting alone on the couch, which he could not safely transform into a bed, Harry felt pain returning despite his best efforts otherwise. Crookshanks jumped down from his perch and blinked at him, irises pulsing larger and smaller in the light of the electric lamp beside the couch. Harry scrubbed his forehead and rested his head in his palms. He needed a memory charm, a huge one. He dearly wanted to stop remembering being cared for, worse yet, by someone who never cared for anyone before and had to put a serious effort into it, which made it impossible to disregard.
Harry tangled his fingers in his hair and tugged. He was losing control to emotion brought on by memories and he was irresponsibly doing it in the flat of his friend who had no idea how very dangerous he could become. Harry raised his head and looked around. Crookshanks had lost interest and now reclined in the center of the floor, paws tucked neatly under his breast. Harry blinked in confusion. He didn't feel as though he were losing control, instead he felt better, despite the aching heart. It was as though this pain of losing his family was different from his previous pain of betrayal, even though they were intertwined. Taking out his wand, he tried a simple hover spell on the book before him on the table. At first it appeared normal, but black ghostly outlines began appearing and Harry could just discern black tendrils reaching for him from the far side of the floor, except here they had no barrier. Crookshanks tore the carpet in his bid to escape into the kitchen and hide under the sink. Harry cancelled the spell and caught the book so it wouldn't strike the table. The inky air drifted slowly away and he wondered with despair what the hell he was going to do.
Author Note:
26 just made it to rough draft form, but I will try very hard to have it on time next week.
Chapter 26
Hermione gave him a low stare. "You learned so many blocks that you forgot how to do a heating charm?"
Harry stared bleakly at the tea-streaked white teapot that didn't appear to have received a thorough wash in many rounds of use. "My magic isn't working right."
She stared. "Harry, that's terrible." She closed her book and set it aside before clasping her hands before her. "How in Merlin's name are you managing at the Ministry?"