"Ah," Black said, looking at the pensieve in Severus' arms. "This makes a lot more sense now."
"Was the charm successful?"
"I assume so," Black said, showing far more confidence in Potter's abilities than Severus had. "Not really a way to test it though, is there." He glanced at the pensieve again. "Well, now there is, but-"
"Are you going to get out of the way so I can come inside?"
"So this is how you're going to do it?" Black asked but stepped out of the doorway of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Severus stepped over the threshold.
"You wanted me to evaluate the contents of Potter's mind," Severus said.
"Yeah," Black said. "I'd sort of assumed that'd be from inside it and the charm was just to prime it-"
"I'd rather not be inside Potter's mind," Severus said, "for several reasons, the prominent one being that I'd rather avoid running into the Dark Lord in there." Black blanched.
"You think that's likely?"
"I think that's possible," Severus said. "We know Potter and the Dark Lord have a connection. What remains to be seen is how much, and how often."
"Will you be able to tell?" Black began to lead the way upstairs.
"Not from this," Severus said, adjusting his hold on the pensieve. "The first question to answer is if, not how."
"Right," Black said.
They passed Black's elf on the stairs; it squinted at Severus as it passed, barely bobbing its head in acknowledgement; despite numerous visits in the years since, and despite the fact that many of them were with Draco whom the elf seemed to like, it had never completely forgiven Severus for the visits he'd made in the very early days of Black and Potter living there, back before Black's name had been cleared.
Black held up a hand to stop Severus, then poked his head into the library.
Potter and Granger's low voices stopped, and then Black lowered his hand, which Severus took as permission to come forward. The pair were sitting on the couch, surrounded by books and rolls of parchment. Granger looked her usual self and had a large, orange, and very ugly cat that seemed to be missing an ear on her lap. Potter, for the first time in Severus' memory, bore no resemblance to James Potter because Severus had never known James Potter to look so rundown. Potter looked like he was existing through sheer force of will. Severus had only seen him a few days ago, before term ended, and perhaps he'd looked this bad then - Draco had certainly made comments to suggest he was worried - but his decline had been a gradual one, harder to notice. Now, having gone a few days without seeing him, it was staggering how far he looked from his usual, insufferable self.
"Professor Snape," Granger said, and glanced uncertainly at Potter, who, in turn, was watching Black with a rather resigned expression. Granger cocked her head, expression turning thoughtful. Doubtless she'd read all about the dreamcatcher charm as soon as Black told Potter they'd be using it overnight, but if she had any thoughts - which, being Granger she doubtless did - she was at least able to show uncharacteristic restraint and not offer them.
Severus set the pensieve on the table in front of the couch Potter and Granger were seated on, beside the small, stoppered phial of silvery white thoughts that was already there.
"This is your way of working out how?" Potter said to Black, very reluctantly.
"Snape knows minds and thoughts and memories," Black said. "And, more to the point, he knows Voldemort." Severus curled his lip. Black and Potter both rolled their eyes. "You said you'd try whatever you needed to…" His voice was equal parts stern and cajoling, like he thought Potter would be resistant to the idea. Granger seemed to think so too - she was chewing her lip, eyes flicking between Potter, Black, Severus, and the pensieve.
"Fine," Potter said, and it was tired rather than terse.
"All right," Granger said slowly. She carefully dislodged the cat, which stretched and walked with a slight limp over to Black, winding itself around his legs. "I suppose you'll go into the meeting right after?" Potter nodded once, slowly. "All right." She reached out to squeeze Potter's knee and then stood, gathering up a sketch of a jar that was covered in runes and scribbled notes and tidying it and several of the books and other bits of parchment into a pile, which she tucked under her arm. "Floo us when it's all done and we'll come over." Potter nodded and Granger smiled uncertainly at Severus then fondly at Black - who'd scooped up the cat - before disappearing into the Floo with a clear, "The Burrow."
"How much did Black explain?" Severus asked Potter.
"Not much," Potter said in a voice equal parts dark and stiff.
"You didn't want to know," Black said.
"You didn't mention-" Potter made an annoyed sound and ran a hand through his hair. "Whatever. What do I have to do?"
"The dreamcatcher charm - if you cast it correctly-" Severus couldn't help but add, and Potter's eyes became slits that were so very like Lily's that it took him aback for a moment. "-will have recorded any thoughts or memories you formed from the moment it was cast, through until when you cast the countercharm this morning. Using the pensieve, we will be able to review them."
"We?" Potter asked.
"We," Severus agreed, no more enthused by the prospect than Potter looked or sounded. "As Black said, I know minds and thoughts and memories-"
"Yeah," Potter said, "I got that. But why do I have to do it with you?"
"Because I have no desire to get lost," Severus said, voice clipped. "There is no one to follow in a dream as there would be in a memory, so you will need to lead us through. Additionally, I am not familiar enough with your mind to know the feel of your thoughts and memories, and so it may not be immediately obvious to me whether something originated from you or from the Dark Lord-"
"But you know his mind," Potter said, tone challenging. "Or so Padfoot said. You should be able to tell if they're his-"
"And I can," Severus snapped. "However, the Dark Lord is a subtle and talented Legillimens and so his touch may not be immediately obvious." Following the loss of his leg, it had taken Severus days of watching and rewatching and pulling apart his own memories to find the Dark Lord's involvement, and he knew his mind incredibly well. "You, however, may be able to point out things that are obvious to you so that I may focus my attention on them and search for inconsistencies in the quality of the thought."
"Fine," Potter said, tersely this time, and pushed himself forward on the couch.
"Want me to come-"
"No," Potter said firmly, and Black eyed him but surprised Severus by not arguing; instead, he sat down in the armchair and settled the cat on his knee. Severus uncorked the phial and tipped Potter's dream in:
"Lower your face to the pensieve when you're ready," Severus said. Potter set his jaw, bent forward, and disappeared into the pensieve's silvery surface.
"Any idea what I ought to expect?" Severus asked Black, kneeling down beside the pensieve.
"Not really," Black said, idly stroking the cat, though the skin around his eyes was tight and worried. "Nothing good. Be careful."
Severus glanced at where Potter had just disappeared somewhat doubtfully - Potter had been reluctant, but not so reluctant he hadn't dived right in when Severus gave him the instruction - and leaned into the pensieve himself.
Strands of colour and indistinct noise ran like rain down glass alongside Severus as he sank into the penseive's depths. Potter was waiting at the bottom of it, watching with wary curiosity as the memory formed around them, first with a glimpse of what was presumably Potter's bedroom, and then with the sort of darkness that came through closed eyelids. Severus could hear Black and Granger exchanging a murmured goodnight - it was so clearly audible despite their muted voices that he assumed they were right outside Potter's door, but then Severus heard footsteps… also clear and loud and yet not. They grew clearer and louder - someone coming up to the same floor as Potter was on, perhaps? There was another murmured goodnight - Black (who must have been responsible for the footsteps) and the elf - then footsteps and two doors closing, both close by, and then, shortly after, more footsteps and a third door, also surely close… but it couldn't be because Granger hadn't come upstairs and so must be at least a floor below.
Severus gave Potter a hard look; James Potter had been an animagus, and while that wasn't heritable, perhaps aspects of it had been. Severus had never heard of such a thing, but animagi - especially animagi who had had children after becoming one - were so uncommon that it stood to reason there might not have been many opportunities to research it. It seemed unlikely, though, yet the alternative was that-
"It's starting," Potter interrupted, glancing around, and sure enough the sounds faded and the eyelid-darkness around them shifted into the dark, silent, shapelessness of sleep.
"As the dream progresses, we must keep pace with it," Severus said. Potter glanced at him. "Where an ordinary memory is enhanced and expanded by subconscious observations and assumptions, a dream does not capture subconscious observations, and the assumptions a mind makes within a dream are not constructive, nor do they tend to be logical."
"And that means…?"
"Do not wander off or allow yourself to be left behind unless you wish for the both of us to spend the rest of our lives trapped in a pensieve." Potter blinked and looked around with obvious trepidation.
Around them, the silence changed - it was still silent, but- sharp. Like the fact that it was silent was important. Another moment later, heavy breathing started.
A female. Severus waited for a long second, then turned to Potter, thinking that if this was not a nightmare but a dream driven by Potter's pubescent mind then Severus might well have to kill Potter and then himself-
But Potter looked neither amused or embarrassed; his jaw was set and he was very still and his eyes were hard. The breathing grew shaky and strained and then-
"Doesn't want to scream, apparently." And then Severus recognised Pettigrew's voice and realised what was happening. "What about you, Ron?"
"Oh uh orsell," Weasley replied, muffled, then grunted and fell silent.
"Don't." Beside Severus, Potter twitched at the sound of his own voice, echoing in the darkness around them. Weasley's silence broke then, in the form of panting breaths. Severus glanced around into the darkness, thoughtful, and watched as it began to lighten and take on a greenish-grey tinge. Weasley's breathing grew louder, and louder, then cut off with a gurgle right as the pensieve resolved into what was clearly the depths of the lake. Severus almost fell over when he attempted to kick and stay afloat; his feet remained firmly on solid- something.
"Well?" Severus asked, ignoring the sideways look Potter was giving him. Potter strode forward through the sandy murkiness.
"Ron?! Point me!" Once again, Potter's voice came from the dream and not Potter, but Potter seemed to have expected it this time. He walked forward, Severus in his wake, but it was Delacour not Weasley they encountered first, insensible and sinking slowly as she cradled the pale, unmoving form of her sister.
"This is different," Severus said; he'd seen this through Potter's lenses, and Delacour had been with Potter.
Potter said nothing, leading them unerringly through the dream until they did find Weasley, floating in the water and very obviously dead. Potter stopped then, and swallowed, face the colour of chalk.
"Well?" he asked after a moment, voice stiff. "Mine or Voldemort's?" Severus hissed quietly at the name, then more loudly: the water, while hard to see through, was taking on a distinctly hazy quality; the dream was moving forward and they were not moving with it.
"Keep moving," Severus said. Potter set his jaw and did, leading the way over to Weasley's body. The dream was clearer there, and when Severus glanced at Potter, Potter was not looking at anything at all, least of all Weasley.
They remained there beside him for a long time, longer than Severus might have expected; doubtless in his dreams Potter would be trying to revive Weasley, would check him for signs of life, or, perhaps, would just cradle him and grieve the way Delacour - still keening - was with her sister. The time gave Severus time to examine the dream; the clarity of it was a little unusual, but not unheard of - though that sort of clarity usually came from a well-organised mind and strong attention to detail, neither of which Severus would have expected Potter to have - and there was the fact that they were still standing and not swimming. But, if the Dark Lord had had a hand in it his touch had been incredibly light, light enough that Severus couldn't feel it in the dream.
Finally - because Severus had expected Potter might find the pensieve visit unpleasant but he'd not considered that it might be cruel - the sand swirled and seemed to become dry, a cloud of dust now. Potter's breathing hitched as a shadow appeared through it, as it settled a little to reveal Black - perhaps a bit younger than he was now - standing before a stone archway with a tattered black veil hanging from it. Black's eyes widened and he stepped back, eyes darting briefly to a wand - his wand? - which was on the floor by his feet. Then he was stumbling back as if pushed, falling, falling…
Potter made a small sound as Black - eyes startled and still locked on them - disappeared through the archway, behind the veil and was gone.
The veil fluttered and the room spun and then the veil was the tattered black of a dementor's robe.
"That was not your memory," Severus said, as dementors closed in on them. Potter, still staring at the place where Black had been - shook his head, and then eyed the nearest dementor with resignation. Imagination, then, Severus wondered, or a memory planted in Potter's head by the Dark Lord?
The dementors were so thick that Severus couldn't see anyone else, but he could hear a girl - Granger? - sobbing nearby, and Pettigrew's desperate attempts at a patronus. The pensieve went cold in a way Severus had never felt the like of and then Granger was lying on the ground at their feet, breathing, but blank-eyed and not reacting at all to the rather monstrous manacle around her arm, or to the blood that was steadily dripping from her ruined wrist onto the leafy forest floor.
"Expecto patronum," Pettigrew whimpered. "Expecto patronum!"
The dream didn't move on, though the dementors seemed to become a less immediate threat. Would Potter usually spend this time trying to save Granger's life here - what little it was worth if she'd been Kissed - or would he decide it was kinder to let her bleed out and die? Severus looked over, morbidly curious, but Potter didn't seem any more able to look at Granger than he had been able to look at Weasley.
"Do they change?" Severus asked. Potter's head moved toward him before his eyes did, and when he did look at Severus, his eyes were ancient. "The dreams. Is it always these?"
"No," Potter said. "They cycle through. Sometimes it's the Fiendfyre from last year. Sometimes it's Ron falling in the second task, other times it's-" The dementors faded and the trees around them turned to stone. The blood on the forest floor became water. Ahead of them, Ginny Weasley was trying to find her way through unfamiliar tunnels in a stumbling run. Potter started after her. "-this."
Weasley's strained breathing echoed off the damp walls and every now and then there was a crunch - animal bones, it seemed - beneath her shoes. This was the Chamber of Secrets, Severus realised, or some part of it, though he wasn't sure how it fit into the timeline.
"Is this your memory?" he asked.
"No," Potter said. "I was only in the main chamber with her, and Ron was with us until Fawkes got him and Ginny out." Potter looked around at the otherwise empty tunnel as he walked.
They caught up with Weasley easily and the moment they were close enough to reach out and touch her if they so desired, she spun, flailing weakly. Her hair fanned out as she turned, a coppery orange that darkened into a rich red:
"Not Harry!" she said, and Severus glanced at Potter because that was an unexpected thing for Weasley to say, and Weasley didn't sound like herself. "Please… have mercy… have mercy. Not Harry!" And then he placed the voice - how had he not recognised it the moment he heard it, how could he ever forget her voice - and recoiled. "Please- I'll do anything-"
Severus couldn't not look as green light haloed Lily and she crumpled to the ground at Potter's feet, but his own feet didn't stop, first stumbling back the way they'd come - except it wasn't a tunnel anymore, it was a doorway leading out onto a landing in a cottage - and then catching himself and surging forward to seize Potter's wrist.
"Ow, what-" And Potter looked at him with her eyes and Severus thought he might vomit.
"Enough," Severus said, and barely recognised his own voice.
He pulled Potter up, up, up, and out.
Sirius sprang to his feet, dislodging Crookshanks who gave him a squinty, unimpressed look and sauntered out, tail in the air; Snape was the first to emerge from the pensieve, then Harry, the former's hand white-knuckled around the latter's wrist. Both landed very ungracefully on the carpet, which Sirius might have expected from Harry, but not from Snape.
Harry looked wrecked - wan, and his scent was a jumble of relief, grief, pain, anger, confusion, and a whole lot more that Sirius couldn't process quickly enough - but Snape looked worse; white as a sheet and jaw clenched so tightly Sirius thought he was going to crack a tooth. Harry wrenched his arm free and stood, rubbing it, a wary look on his face. Snape didn't move, so Sirius offered him a hand up and just about fell over himself when Snape took it.
Harry went to curl up on the far corner of the couch - Sirius suspected he'd have been a wolf if Snape hadn't been there with them - but Snape remained standing and tense.
Sirius was desperate to ask what had happened, but Harry hadn't ever given details about these dreams and probably wouldn't now, and Snape - though he was already back to looking sallow instead of ghostly and had tucked any visible emotions behind his usual impassive mask - was probably not receptive to questions just yet. With a deep, forcibly patient breath, Sirius sat down beside Harry, and gave his ankle a comforting squeeze. Harry looked at him with tired eyes, then went back to frowning at Snape.
"Do you have memories that would fit with the-" Snape's eyes flicked to Sirius. "-theme of the others, but that are not in there?"
"... yeah," Harry said after a moment.
"Yes, possibly, or yes, you can think of specific examples?" Snape pressed.
"Specifics," Harry said stiffly. Snape nodded.
"Are they memories that the Dark Lord would have access to? That he was there to witness?"
"No," Harry said, after another moment.
"So," Sirius said, unable to keep his mouth shut any longer, "you think everything in Harry's dreams are Voldemort's memories?" He didn't look at Harry; it was bad enough he couldn't keep the horror from his voice.
"I do-"
"That's wrong," Harry said. "Voldemort-" Snape twitched. "-wasn't there when-" Harry glanced shiftily at Sirius. "-for the first bit, or in the forest, or in- with Ginny."
"No," Snape agreed, terse. "But Pettigrew was."
"And Riddle," Harry said slowly. "So it's not- he isn't getting them from me?"
"No," Snape said, but not with a lot of conviction.
"No, you don't think so, or no, definitely not?" Harry asked, echoing Snape from earlier. The look on Snape's face strongly suggested Harry would have lost points, had they been at school.
"No, I don't think so," Snape said. "If he had access to your memories, your dreams would have a larger repertoire. Additionally, when we were underwater, we weren't swimming. Dreams in a pensieve are traversed with the same mindframe as they are created in; in this instance, with solid footing. If the memory shaping it had been yours, we should have been swimming. We were not."
"But I swim in the dreams," Harry said.
"The dreamcatcher charm does not capture what you do or how you react, else you'd have a dream-self, as we discussed earlier. I suspect the implanted memory retained some of its creator's mindframe." Though he didn't say it, there was enough smugness in Snape's voice to suggest he thought this was rather sloppy of Voldemort.
"Unfortunately, the good news stops there," Snape said. Sirius gave him a sharp look. "Just because the Dark Lord has not been sifting through your mind to create these does not mean he could not if he so desired; to implant a memory, a Legillimens must have a way into their target's mind. Usually, this is facilitated by close proximity to that target."
"Harry's not been near Voldemort, though," Sirius said. "Not for months. We'd know. You'd know, right?" Further down the couch, Harry brushed his fingers over his scar and nodded, uncertain.
"I expect the Dark Lord is using the connection between himself and Potter," Snape said. "Unsurprising - Potter has exploited it accidentally in the past, to observe the Dark Lord, and we know the Dark Lord has been exploiting it deliberately to plant information in Potter's mind. The dragon, for instance."
"So we close the connection," Sirius said. Harry made a soft noise that might have been a protest and Sirius gave him a look that said this was not up for discussion. "Occlumency-"
"-should do it, yes," Snape said.
"Will you teach him?" Sirius asked, and this time the noise Harry made was definitely a protest, but Sirius gave him the exact same look as before. Harry shoved off the couch and stalked out of the room. Sirius sighed and glanced at Snape, expecting a snide comment, but Snape didn't look like he was holding Harry's behaviour against him. "The Occlumency I know wouldn't be right for this sort of thing, I don't think, and I can learn more but we need a solution now, so that'll be too slow."
"I'll consider it," Snape said.
"Snape," Sirius said.
"I'll consider it," Snape repeated, and his voice came out rougher than Sirius had expected. His face was still blank, but his scent was… frayed.
"Thank you," Sirius said, backing off. Snape's lips thinned. Sirius ran a hand over his face. "Let's have Kreacher bring a cup of tea up before the meeting, eh? Firewhiskey in yours?" He'd have Kreacher take Harry a hot chocolate, too.
"No. I need to go."
"The meeting's in under an hour," Sirius said.
"And I will return for it," Snape said, and bent to gather up the pensieve.
"All right…" Sirius studied the other man. "Well, thanks for helping." All he got in reply was a grunt. "What… what did you see? You looked… rattled when you came out; Harry I expected to, but-"
"This is not a discussion I'm going to have with you, Black," Snape said wearily.
"I take it it was bad."
"Leave it," Snape snarled.
"All right," Sirius said, putting his hands up. "I'll walk you down-"
"If you're unable to overcome your need to coddle something, I suggest you try Potter," Snape said, curling his lip, then turning to stride to the door. Sirius cocked his head, wondering if that was a genuine rebuff, or Snape's own, prickly way of suggesting Harry might need it. "I very much doubt he'll be receptive but I can still guarantee he'll have far more patience for it than I do."
"Noted," Sirius said, to the empty room.
