Chapter 79: A Lifeline he never Had
"Albus… It's been so long." The raspy voice issued from the deep recess of a black stone chamber. The monochrome light that filtered from the shuttered and caged window carved shadows, deep and foreboding. The world of memories held no colour, but it made next to no difference in the frigid black stone backdrop of Nurmengard.
Snape watched on as Dumbledore stepped forward. A colourless doppelganger who looked no younger than the man whose memory he stepped from.
"It has been a while, Gellert." The headmaster stepped forth. Upon his hunched shoulders laid a wariness Snape had seldom seen.
Snape gazed upon the decrepit form of Gellert Grindelwald, struggling to mentally align this haggard balding man as the dark wizard who had once been on the brink of bringing all of Europe to its knees.
The ancient wizard smiled, a smile more gum than teeth, his mismatched eyes the only familiar remnant of that dark soul. "Time has not treated you kindly, old friend."
A sentiment unrebuked, "Nor you."
One might have mistaken this meeting as truly that of old friends, had it not been for the unspoken burden that laid between them unsaid. No twinkle touched those eyes, robbed of their blue. Perhaps their last encounter lingered in their minds. That fateful battle. Or perhaps of more painful battles buried deeper in their past and in their hearts.
"Why have you come?" Those words that passed from Grindelwald's lips seemed to shatter that stall in time.
The headmaster's weary eyes blinked a fraction longer, perhaps to dispel the sentiments that dwelled with memories shared. "I seek your knowledge on the dark arts."
The skeletal wizard grinned, showing a mouth with more gum than teeth. "The dark arts do not suit you, Albus. You have never had the heart for it. And I did not succeed in granting you one."
"And had I been seeking an instructor I would turn to no other than you," Dumbledore answered brusquely. Far more brusquely than Snape was used to hearing from the man. "But as it were, I seek advice."
Grindelwald gestured for Dumbledore to continue. If the once scourge-of-Europe was in any way as rattled as his former friend, then he did not show it.
"What do you know of Horcruxes?"
The question this entire encounter boiled down to was the very same that started all this.
Those mismatched eyes narrowed, as too did that toothless smile falter. "You come seeking dark knowledge indeed. Is this just a general question, or do you have specifics in mind?"
There was a moment's pause. Even in monochrome, Snape could tell that behind the headmaster's eyes, his mind was weighing up his words. Testing the risk of allowing this dangerous wizard a glimpse into the war they were fighting, and potentially letting slip information that would render their work undone.
"Is there a way to protect an artefact from possession?" Dumbledore finally asked, giving up all pretence at subtlety he may have planned. Truthfully, Snape had never seen the great wizard's calm so shaken save for those glimpses into his memories. But even then, he had chalked it down to a disparity in age.
The confidence that Snape had long known of the headmaster wavered in the face of this emaciated wizard who had barely the strength to lift his head and look his old friend in the eye. Instead Grindelwald leaned back, resting the back of his head against the cold black stone and watched with an unnerving calm. "If you seek to destroy a Horcrux then it is too late to seek protection for the artefact. Before Horcrux possession, however… there are few spells that can touch the soul. One of which being the very spell to create one's Horcrux."
"What curse would take upon Goblin Silver?" Dumbledore asked, his eyes still piercing in these muted greys.
That dark wizard laughed a horrible hacking laugh, "Goblin silver only imbibes what makes it stronger. Come now, Albus. You know better. If it could touch a soul, I doubt it would want to keep one that was maimed by dark magic. You cannot curse Goblin Silver. As impossible as passing back from the barriers of death. It is not done."
A glimmer came to Dumbledore's eyes but it fled before Snape could recognise its source. "Perhaps you are right. Impossible things tend to stay impossible, don't they?"
The conversation lapsed as Albus Dumbledore appeared to turn away. In Snape's mind, that brooked the end of this encounter. A signal to cut losses in this unenlightening consultation and seek wisdom elsewhere. But he had not expected to see Dumbledore draw his wand, his eyes cast in steely darkness.
"One last request," he uttered in a hushed voice, wand gripped in a shaking hand. "I am seeking an artefact. One that reveals itself only to those with the truest of Gryffindor hearts."
"Now, Albus. You know I've never attended Hogwarts," Grindelwald said softly. "And even if I had, I would not be a Gryffindor."
"Oh, I am well aware." From within the folds of Dumbledore's robes bleached grey appeared a patched and dishevelled hat that needed no help from the filter of memory. A hat that had dictated more destinies than any soothsayer in history.
With hat still clutched tightly, the headmaster drew his wand. Those mismatched eyes followed the motion, a tremor upon those dry thin lips. Perhaps fear. Perhaps anticipation. Perhaps greed.
For that wand had once been held in those fingers, rendered claw-like by waste and time. The Elder Wand of legends.
There was no value in striking a defenceless foe. Not to a Gryffindor.
But then that wand fell from Dumbledore's grasp. A fall slowed by magic, and by that same merit it came to a rest by the dark wizard's bare feet. Snape could only watch on with horror as Grindelwald's fingers found the hilt of that dangerous wand with almost a caress.
But when those mismatched colour-bleached eyes arose, it was not malicious intent that laid behind them. "Was I the demon you felt you had to face to prove your Gryffindor courage, Albus?"
The fingers curled tightly about the cloth of that time-worn hat. Tension writ upon the form of Albus Dumbledore that his voice did not betray. "Gellert. You were never the demon in my life."
"No. I wasn't, was I?" Grindelwald stared so insistently. "It was not me that you had feared to face such that you would run and hide for so long."
But suddenly the intensity bled out of those dual coloured eyes. The insistent grip he held on that fabled wand slackened as his head dropped, his apparent lack of interest confusing the tension in the room. Slowly, those claw-like fingers turned the wand between them so that the handle was held outwards. "I believe this is yours now, Albus."
There were no questions or second guessing when Dumbledore reached forth the reclaim the artefact. Only a muted silence that bode of unvoiced regrets.
"Be careful, my friend," whispered the decrepit wizard who had once been the darkness that threatened the world. "That wand's heart is as fickle as my own. It betrayed me on my defeat, as it betrayed Gregorovitch when I stole it right from under his nose. It will betray a wizard as easily as one breathes. Know that it will betray you too, one day."
"One day, perhaps," Dumbledore agreed as he turned the wand ponderously between his fingertips. "There are a great many things that I am still blind to, you for one. I thank you for opening my eyes, Gellert."
"What a poor impression on your life that I have left that you would think that half a century could not teach me wisdom."
Dumbledore's piercing eyes softened. "Perhaps it was not you that I feared that wisdom would not grace."
The dark wizard turned his eyes up searchingly, perhaps sensing this goodbye would be their last. "Please, Albus. Before you go. I wish to give you one last gift. Perhaps, the only gift I have ever given you worth keeping." The dark wizard rose to his unsteady feet, pulling himself upright to his formidable height. In his youth, Gellert Grindelwald must have been an imposing man to be able to look the towering Albus Dumbledore in the eyes even when age and waste had claimed him. "It was me who struck that fatal blow, Albus. Her life was never on you."
With those words echoing in that ghastly chamber, the memory dissolved into a mist of grey and faded away. With a gasp, Severus pulled himself from the Pensieve and shook off the dizzying shift in reality.
Before Snape sat again the same man who he had followed through that frozen castle of black stone, no longer outlined in grey. Those blue eyes, no longer muted by the filter of memory, peered at Snape through those half-moon glasses. His fingers knitted in patience, Dumbledore waited for Snape to gather his wits.
"You are right. Half a century did not teach you wisdom," Snape muttered through his clenched teeth. "For what sort of fool would risk releasing a second darkness upon a world that can barely deal with the one."
The headmaster had the audacity to smile, "I sometimes wonder that myself."
"What were you trying to accomplish by handing him that damnable wand?"
With a mere wave of his hand and not a word past his lips, Dumbledore summoned the sorting hat from its perch upon the cluttered shelves behind him. "Legend has it that this hat had once belonged to Godric Gryffindor himself. Perhaps the last item we possess that we can be certain belonged to that great founder. Perhaps this is why the Sorting Hat has the capability of granting the sword to a Gryffindor who calls for aid. Certainly, it is the only method that I know of."
"Was that your plan? To draw the sword from the hat and attempt to trade blows against a wand held in the hand of one of the most dangerous wizards alive?"
A soft smile touched Dumbledore's eyes, his words soft but heavy with implication. "Perhaps that is the necessary risk to be taken."
Snape felt his mouth go dry. "Is that what needs to be done to find that sword?
"Life or death, Severus," Dumbledore confirmed in the tone of a man that knew he condemned another.
A knot of fear formed in Snape's stomach. Fear of what he might be asked to do. His courage had been tested again and again, his scars accrued, both mental and physical. His silver fingers flexed, an involuntary motion beckoned by those terrible memories. He did not know if he could summon the courage to face it all again.
A low crooning note from the phoenix upon its perch pierced the air, stirring the hearts of both who sat there. Dumbledore broke the silence first, clasping his hands as he stood to regard his pet with an affectionate stroke of its flourished crest.
"Nothing needs to be done just yet. There is a fair number of other issues to take care of first. Else we would have gone to all that trouble for something no better than elaborate bait. But I need to find it fast." No twinkle touched those deep blue eyes. "Tom's grip tightens over the location of the final Horcrux. He searches desperately for the pieces that are already gone. I fear our time may be running out."
Snape scowled, not in the least appeased by that answer. "And you played dice with Grindelwald for a half-cooked plan?"
"Perhaps that is simply the Gryffindor in me needing some air," came that infuriating reply.
A thought touched Snape's mind. A flicker of realisation of what was said and what was implied. The lengths he would go to for the sake of secrecy.
There were certain people you simply could not Obliviate. Those with a knack for Occlumency for one, for they had the power and the skill to evade invaders of their mind. For a wizard with as dark a reputation as Grindelwald, Occlumency would undoubtfully be within his realm of abilities.
"Tell me, Albus. Is it still considered nobility when you premediate another's death?" Snape asked, his black eyes fixed and judging. Unable to fathom this leap in logic when all his life he had been lectured until his hair turned white about even thinking dark thoughts.
Those blue eyes did not waver. "Godric Gryffindor was a famed duellist from an archaic era. I believe his measure of nobility requires only that the challenge be agreed upon and made fair."
Snape grimaced, not at all sated by that answer. "You may think you have the measure of the situation, Albus, but one day you'll get it wrong and there will be disastrous consequences for all."
"I know that well, Severus," Dumbledore said in a hush but steady tone, brushing his fingers gently through the down on the back of his magical bird. "Not one day passes when I do not think of all the lives that hinge upon my decisions. You would know firsthand of such a mistake that I made and the lives that it cost."
All too well. Snape closed his eyes to the unpleasant memories those words evoked. It was a reminder he did not need, for the pain still burned. His own fears born of selfishness melted away in the face of that devastation branded into his soul.
With a gesture from the powerful old wizard and nary a spoken word, the Pensieve lifted from the table to settle back onto its holder, the memories flitted their way back to the mind that birthed them. Those blue eyes oddly distant behind those half-moon spectacles, his hands brushing the crimson down of his mythical bird.
"People can change. Whether by will or by serendipity," Dumbledore uttered without turning his blue eyes away from his phoenix. "I never truly believed it possible for some." He shook his head, a slow weary motion. "Gellert had always been a man with a silver tongue and many masks. I It would be foolish of me to believe his words or his actions. Even his choice to not strike me with his advantage could be construed to his shrewd and manipulative nature. Yet I feel … heartened at his parting words. He had no reason to lie as he did. And I know that had been a lie." Those blue eyes turned to Snape as his fingers found that black-stone upon the ring he wore. "I had exchanged my words with Arianna and made my peace. I know the fatal blow had been mine."
The sun set early in winter, and with the dying of daylight so too went Lily's motivation. With a heavy sigh, Lily fitted candles in a brass holder. She set it on an end table she had moved near the window-side dining tabl,e buried by her mound of marking, and lamented the natural light retreating behind the white-peaked mountains.
As with most work throughout her life, she had left her marking a little too late. The new school term was only a weekend away and she had only thought to put her quill to vellum now. It had been naïve of her to gauge her holiday work as she had with her weekly load. For one, Horace Slughorn held the holiday in a special place in his heart and took great pains to clear his work from his holiday schedule. The result of which ended up on Lily's plate, which she in turn failed to schedule appropriately.
With bleary eyes, Lily turned her eyes from the monstrous pile of work to do to her considerably smaller pile etched with red ticks and crosses. A day's work amounting to but a scratch on the surface, mocking her for her terrible habits adapted from her studying days. All she could see was midnight oil in her future.
She only had one chance to make the deadline.
"Severus. You're finally home!" Lily called out joyously as her husband's form slipped through the hidden wall that was effectively their front door.
He glanced up at her as he slipped off his shoes, an activity made far easier by his restored hand. "I'm sorry, I wasn't aware I was expected home sooner."
"Alas, I've found the only mind-reader in the British Isles who refuses to read minds," Lily jested as she charmed the kettle to put itself on the boil.
"I think you'll not find much enjoyment from the alternative," Severus muttered with a wry smile as he stripped off his cloak and handed it to the coat rack that reached out to take it.
His wand flicked out into his silver hand in a motion so smooth that one might have been excused to believe the silver limb was part of his natural state of being. He took over the tea making, magicking the measured quantity of leaves into the teapot and directing the whistling kettle to meet it. Within minutes, two steaming cups of tea sat on the coffee table in front of the couch. One black and one touched with sugar and cream.
Lily slid onto the couch, taking to her cup with a grateful sip as Severus took his seat beside her. His dark eyes drew to her, then immediately over her shoulder, taking in the sight of the disaster building up upon their dining room table. Then those same black eyes flitted back to her which she met with a sheepish smile. "I may have… left things a little too late."
One dark eyebrow arched dangerously. "Then I feel casual conversation may not currently be the most responsible use of your time."
Lily grimaced sheepishly, "I was… kind of hoping you could help. You know. Since you have such extensive experience as a potions professor and all."
"Lily. You've had all of two weeks to do this. Why am I only hearing about this in the last two days?" His tone took on that of a disappointed professor. Not all that surprising now.
"Alright. I messed up," Lily readily conceded. "With our anniversary and Marlene's wedding, it kinda just slipped my mind."
"I'm sure the school board will be pleased to hear." But despite his sarcasm, Sev set down his tea and summoned a scroll from Lily's considerably smaller pile of marked work. "I see Slughorn believes you're ready to take on sixth year marking." Then he promptly scowled when he glanced to the remainder. "As well as a majority of his holiday work."
"You see? I was at a disadvantage," Lily appealed.
But Severus' dark eyes flickered to her without a shred of pity held within. "A professor is ordinarily expected to handle the entire workload by themselves. Though a sizable portion, this is still just that. A portion. If becoming a professor is your end goal, then you are expected to do as much and more."
"Okay I get it. I messed up," Lily huffed, feeling thoroughly chastised.
Those dark eyes flickered back to the scroll held in those mismatched hands, black eyes scanning down her comments scrawled in red. "Using an outdated marking rubric too. I expected nothing less from Slughorn. I cannot believe this paper could get a passing mark."
With a grimace of annoyance, Sev allowed the scroll to roll back up and returned its pile then returned to his tea. "Finish your tea and we'll go through it. I'll take half of the marking off your hands. No more than half."
Lily smiled, visibly relieved. "Dad was right. You're all about tough love. Must be the old cranky professor in you."
"Don't make me feel our age-gap," Sev muttered into his tea.
With a giggle, Lily drew up against her husband and brought her hands about his torso, almost unsettling his tea in her grateful squeeze. His tea and saucer settled back on the table as his hands found their place about her. His silver hand bracing against the small of her back as his flesh and blood pressed against her shoulder.
She could feel his warmth radiating through the thickness of his winter robes. She could not help but smile at the thought. Intimacy was no longer a mystery between them, yet Sev was still at the mercy of a loving touch.
"Did you want to take an extended break first?" Lily asked innocently, feeling her husband heave a sigh in her grasp.
"Priorities, Lily," Sev muttered but made no motion to untangle them. His automatic response to her teasing was no longer that of embarrassment. "We take tea and then we get to work. If we can get through a decent portion of it, then we think about indulgence."
No one could ever fault him for his self-control.
With the new school term upon their doorstep, students and staff alike were making their way back to the grand castle. The pleasantly quiet castle slowly filled with childish chattering and laughter as children reunited after a small separation ready to exchange stories about whatever inane happenings they considered newsworthy.
Snape's hand drew attention. Something he knew he could not avoid. Eyes followed him wherever he walked, voices trailed behind. How he loathed the attention and the prickly memories the whispers invoked. Had Snape not the need to put out spot fires, both metaphorical and literal, that popped up in the recently repopulated Slytherin dormitories, he would not have strayed out from his private quarters. Finding his feet back into the fickle world of alchemy was difficult enough without having to drop his work mid-stride.
Ordinarily, the alchemical table snugly tucked into the corner of his living room formed by the thick wall fireplace-lined wall separating the living room and the bedroom and the outermost wall against which the square dining table was pressed against. It had to be moved out into a more spacious position each time it was needed. Evidence of its usage by Lily in her newly brokered position as a potioneering teaching assistant was evident in the stains it had accrued upon its runic surface. Accidents was expected from a potioneer, but as Snape had never expected to find his way back into the complex world of alchemy, he had never thought anything of it. After a morning of creative applications of a multitude of cleaning spells, Snape had finally set himself up to give alchemy a shot before duty demanded his attention.
Several detention orders later, Snape was striding quickly up the Grand Staircase. Adamantly wishing to avoid the intrigue from a pair of first years that were descending from the upper floors, Snape turned from the stairs early and alighted onto the first floor. His intention had been to slip into his office through his expectedly empty classroom. Unfortunately Gryffindors had a way to subvert expectations.
When Snape pushed open the heavy oak doors to his classroom, he found Potter sitting at his desk, feet up on the table and rocking back on his chair, chatting away with Lily, who had apparently abandoned her efforts to recoup her half of her workload.
"… So there we were in Spain. Not a lick of Spanish between us. And lost in the heart of a crowded muggle town centre when-"
Snape cleared his throat causing both Gryffindors to jump. Some things didn't change no matter the lifetime or generation.
"Feet. Off the desk. Now," Snape barked, gleaning a sliver of satisfaction as James Potter did as he was told. Snape then turned to his wife, dark eyebrows arched dangerously. "And you. Don't you have work to do?" Especially when Snape had effectively, and graciously, cut her workload in half. He had even helped her set up and organise her work in his office so that she might set to task with fewer distractions.
"I was taking a breather," Lily replied sheepishly.
"She's almost done," Potter promised, though Snape was exceedingly doubtful he knew enough about marking to know what qualified as 'almost done.' Snape hadn't set him any significant holiday tasks for that very reason.
Potter stood from Snape's desk, offering it to Snape as if he was inviting him to join this unwelcome waste of time. "I was just talking about my honeymoon. Five days in the Mediterraneans. Food, wine and a close encounter with a Hippocampus. Great time."
"Thrilled," Snape muttered, not in the least emulating the word in any shape or form. He purposefully refused to step forward and entertain any notion of joining this wasteful misuse of time. "Now if we're done here, I would rather return to my work." That was not entirely true, for Snape had well and truly finished his new term preparation within the first week of his holidays. Lily had complained bitterly about not seeing hide nor hair of him, but in the end, he was not the one pulling his hair out trying to play catch up.
Not in the least dissuaded, Potter stepped forward from Snape's desk. "That's kinda what I wanted to talk to you about. Your hand's good again… I… do I still have a job?
"You do realise you're still under contract, Potter?" Snape stated, "And had I the mind to terminate that contract, that's not my decision to make."
An odd smile flickered across Potter's face. "Aww. You're not of a mind to terminate my contract."
"That is not what I wanted you to derive from my statement," Snape muttered, not at all enjoying the beaming smiles his unintended words had elicited.
Snape turned away, irritated but in no mind to burst any bubbles. His antagonism to Potter had long since been outweighed by his love for his wife. And that there was a time that it was not the case has long since been an epiphany of where his mistakes had laid.
Snape motioned to the steps, knowing full well if he left Lily to indulge in her idleness, that she would never meet her deadline. He had no issues assisting her when she required it but refused to perpetuate a bad habit. He understood that Lily was a different sort of creature to him and needed her company, friends and conversation, and a holiday spent as a teacher at Hogwarts had starved her of all three, but she also needed to shake her Gryffindor attitude of procrastination and a last-minute scramble of lacklustre work. Especially if her ultimate goal was to step into the role of a professor. There were certain habits she had that she simply could not afford to keep.
Lily, too, seemed to concede his un-argued point. He liked to think she knew full well and was making efforts on her end to meet that ultimate goal. With a sigh and a grimace, she turned to Potter and said, "Well, break time's over. Nose to the grindstone."
"See you at dinner then," Potter offered and Lily waved back as she climbed the steps and slipped through the doors to Snape's office.
Snape turned to Potter who stood as if expectant of the conversation to come. "Well? I assume you're here to drop off the first-year assignments I tasked you to mark."
Evidently not by how the young man blanched. "Umm no. I forgot to bring it up. I'll get it to you before their first class on Wednesday, promise."
"A whole two weeks and you leave it all for the last few days," Snape muttered scathingly. A trait he always knew was disappointingly common among Gryffindors. "I'll hold you to that promise."
Potter grinned without a hint of shame before that smile withdrew into an expression more thoughtful. "Hey, Snape. Have you thought about coming back to the Order?"
"Who said I ever left?" Snape muttered as he paused by the stairs. He wanted to give his wife a moment more to get herself comfortable in his office before passing through. She was easy to distract as it was.
Potter, however, seemed to take Snape's lack of a hasty withdrawal as an indication that conversation was welcome. "
"Well then, there's an order meeting tonight at the Hogshead. I'm hoping you'd consider coming," he paused, before adding, "Both you and Lily."
"Should there be any pressing items on the agenda for a castle-bound member such as myself or a non-member such as my wife, I expect you shall be more than sufficient a messenger."
Potter grimaced and shuffled awkwardly on the spot, as if he was internally debating the matter on his mind. Finally, Potter straightened himself, or at least it seemed that way simply because he took his hands out of his pockets. "I get it. You two have been through a lot and, you don't owe the Order anything. You've stuck your necks out enough and just wanna lay low. I get it," the Gryffindor quickly said, as if he understood even a measure of the burden. "The Order's just… we've had a few bad losses. You don't know how much the sight of you walking back in with a hand did for us, those of us who saw you at my wedding. It did us a world of good, just knowing neither of you were beaten by what happened to you."
Snape did not answer, the refusal had been upon the tip of his tongue. He had never found his place in the Order useful. Even now, when his position among them was no longer a tightrope between two deceptions, he found himself in no place to contribute. His position was one that had no discussion points or make any wider impact to the war on the surface. But as with many faucets of his new life, his existence had become more symbolic than pratical.
"I have work to do, Potter. Though I'm sure you have your own interpretation of your job responsibilities, I know mine have a little weight to it. I have no intentions of spending my evening in the secret attic of a seedy pub the night after so many are returning from a household of foul ideologies." But he relented, his tone a touch softer. "But I don't speak for Lily. I'll leave that decision to her and how much work she has yet left," Snape finally conceded eliciting a smile from his rival.
Where once Snape might have feared Lily's recklessness incensed by the news she heard, he would have adamantly shielded her from that world. Lily was no longer the innocent youth that she was. Trauma had a way of robbing that from people. He no longer feared her Gryffindor nature would get the better of her. She had learned the hard way that reality was not a fairy tale.
As if beckoned by the mention of her name, her head popped through the door. If Snape hadn't known better, he would have thought the Gryffindors had planned this, but Snape did know better. Gryffindors were not planners and it was not an uncommon notion for Lily to be simply pressed up against the door for she was a notorious eavesdropper.
But she wasn't grinning as he expected over minor victories won. Worry touched her brow as her voice called out in a hushed tone as if trying to be discrete. "Sev. A student's here to see you." She paused before adding. "It sounds important."
Without a word, Snape strode up the staircase. Lily sidestepped quickly and allowed him through, peering curiously after him through the door. But as soon as Snape stepped through the door, he knew Lily's presence was not welcome. Not for the secrets that would be spoken, but for the fact that these secrets were not Snape's to give.
"Lily. Go down and speak to Potter. You have one more day to finish your work, but I believe tonight your presence may be better spent elsewhere." From the frown that touched Lily's brows, Snape knew he wasn't fooling anyone, but she said nothing as she retreated from the door.
With a flick from his wand, Snape had the door shut and the room encased in a silencing spell to thwart eavesdroppers, not that he didn't trust his wife. She did not have the best track record of honouring that trust if he was to be honest. A folly of youth more than nature.
But this conversation was not something Snape could risk reaching unsavoury ears.
Turning his dark eyes to his charge, Snape asked, "Mr Black. What can I do for you?"
Regulus Black, the legal heir of the entire Black family in both fortune and ideals, stood in his office, his face pale and clammy, his ordinarily neatly gelled hair in disarray. He said nothing at first, his grey eyes cast to the floor. Snape could see behind the boy's normally shrouded mind a chaos of emotions and doubt, questioning if what he was doing was right.
But an image flashed past and held, clenching his wavering heart about it. The image of a wretched house elf, the very same that would haunt his household long after all members of the household would be dead and gone. The creature was held in his arms as it writhing in pain, but no injuries marked its form.
Those grey eyes turned to him, that image of that wounded elf burning like a red-hot brand in his mind. "You once said that if I ever decide this path I walk is not for the man I wanted to be, that you'll help. Do you still mean that?"
"I do," Snape answered, sweeping away the fear from the boy's roiling mind so all that remained was shame, regret and hope.
A/N: When an Australian has to write about an Englishman, stereotypes abound. Thus teatime ranks higher priority than deadlines. Even for Snape.
A thank you to my Beta readers Sattwa100 and cookeroach for your work on this chapter.
Next Update: Saturday 29th February 2019
Chapter 80: The Unseen Hope
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter universe and do not seek to profit in any way, shape or form from this fan work.
