cxxv. grieve it on its way
Growing up, Harriet remembered there came a time when anything the Dursleys said or did ceased to have any effect on her.
It'd been different when she was little, when she would peer into the kitchen or the den and see Aunt Petunia with Dudley and would wonder why she wasn't allowed in there, or why her Aunt never kissed her forehead or smoothed her hair. She eventually learned to accept that invisible line between herself and others; normal people deserved kindness, sincerity, and affection, and Harriet—whatever she was—did not.
After that, nothing mattered. She took Aunt Petunia's cold scorn and Uncle Vernon's rude remarks with numb acceptance, forging a specific understanding of the world, one that allowed her to find spots of contentment in an otherwise drab, cruel existence. She lived for those moments when Aunt Petunia would say something half-way kind, when Uncle Vernon would tell off Dudley for being a bit too rough on a girl, no matter how scrawny and freakish she was. Harriet hardened her heart from a young age, and though she wasn't happy, she wasn't sad, either. When she decided to stop being surprised, to stop expecting more, Harriet felt nothing at all.
Then, she came to Hogwarts.
Somewhere along the line, Harriet's heart lost its flinty exterior. It softened, and Harriet started accepting kindness into her life with gratefulness rather than desperation, eager to meet new people, looking for and seeing the best in them whenever she could. Somehow, she'd forgotten the simple, quintessential fact that people, for all intents and purposes, were the same. They were all people, and they shared between them similar strengths, follies, and faults. They were liars—just like the Dursleys. Just like Sirius Black. Just like her god-sister.
Harriet returned from Hogsmeade and tried, for hours, to make sense of what she'd learned, to twist reason out of the agonized bramble taking residence in her heart—until she decided it best not to try, best to push the tangle of emotion down into her belly and ignore it. People were liars. Thinking otherwise had, apparently, gotten her parents killed.
"Because he was their best friend! Because he sold them out to the Dark Lord!"
It was easier when she didn't try to unwind the threads from one another. It was easier not to listen to Hermione, to toss Elara's notes into the fire unopened, to ignore the ravens Mr. Flamel sent and the Headmaster's passing concern in the corridor. She spent time with Livius, or with the portraits, or forced herself to run on the track until her shins hurt and she vomited in the bushes. It was easier to surround herself with reptiles and dead people and to punish herself than it was to accept Elara Black's betrayal.
Harriet stood outside the Great Hall and listened to the sounds of dinner commencing within. Her stomach had turned to lead in her middle, and so the smells drifting through the open doors did nothing to entice her appetite. The warmth pressed into her, too heavy and close, and Harriet felt smothered by the idea of going inside and pretending everything was all right. She turned and walked away.
It was easier this way.
x X x
Something was wrong with the Potter girl.
It didn't take a genius to see it. The whole of the staff realized an inexplicable riff had driven Potter and Black apart, and neither had taken the division well. For the week, Potter's presence in the Great Hall had been a rarity, the two sat apart from one another in lessons, and Potter refused to contribute to any classroom discourse. The homework she turned in lack depth or care, parts of it blatantly plagiarized from the book—and Black was no better, when she actually deigned to appear in class. The girl was dejected and ill, Pomona reporting that she'd shattered a wall of glass in one of the greenhouses on Tuesday.
Had he been in his right mind, Severus would have nipped the issue in the bud. He had neither the time nor the patience for whatever juvenile strop Potter and Black wanted to throw, not with Sirius Black on the loose and Slytherin breathing down his neck—but Severus wasn't in his right mind, not since he heard Potter say, "My mum begged him to spare me, but she wouldn't stand aside, and she screamed when he killed her."
Even thinking the words now, sitting behind his desk in front of his class, had Severus squeezing his eyes shut.
He'd lived with the guilt for years, the grounding knowledge of his own culpability in the deaths of Lily and James Potter. It'd perched like a gargoyle on his shoulders, heavy and crushing—but like a gargoyle, the guilt had been a static thing, unmoving, and he could shift it about to better accommodate his day-to-day life. Potter's words had struck the burden with an Animation Charm, and it thrashed with the same verve and fury it had in the beginning. It was one thing to conceptually acknowledge Lily's death—but to have this understanding? To know she'd screamed in the end? That her daughter had witnessed it all? He—.
Bile crawled in his throat. It was his fault. A mistake born of a desire to learn, to grow, a willing ignorance, just wanting to survive—fear, cowardice. It hadn't been his hand on the wand, but it'd been his words in the wizard's ear. Severus woke in the dead of night wishing, wishing he hadn't been so fucking stupid—.
But, as the Muggle expression went, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Potter sat in the back of the room, alone, and a mere glance in her direction had Severus grimacing. He couldn't Occlude; doing so exacerbated the sentiment and would, without proper amelioration, drive him to the edge. He'd been there before, time and time again, but not in recent years, and never without Albus' hand there to drag him back and remind him of his duties. The Headmaster was not above gas-lighting and guilt-tripping if it kept a broken man from throwing himself off the Astronomy Tower. Severus couldn't bring himself to be grateful at the moment.
He needed time. He needed—.
He needed Potter to not blow up his bloody classroom, which she was well on the way to doing at the moment. Severus watched her crush snake fangs in her mortar, lacking the stabilizing, standard ingredient measures, the flame under her cauldron far too high, the odious liquid frothing in warning. Severus didn't bother to say anything; he flicked his wand and vanished the concoction before Potter could dump the chunks of fangs into her Wideye Potion and douse the room in noxious, poisonous gas. The fangs clattered into the empty cauldron, and Potter scowled.
Longbottom, seated at the table next to her, snickered.
"Five points from Gryffindor, Longbottom."
"What? Seriously?"
"Would you like a zero for the day as well? You're well on your way to that all on your own, though."
The boy had the sense to shut his trap, and Severus pretended he didn't see Longbottom's insolent muttering to Weasley. On another day, he'd delight in smacking the dunderhead in the face with a heaping scoop of humility. He always had cauldrons in need of manual cleaning and barrels of fresh—and fetid—ingredients requiring preparation. Today, however, Severus didn't have the energy for suffering Longbottom's presence. He turned a deaf ear to the noise.
In the front row, Granger worked at her cauldron, whispering soft nonsense to Black, who'd done nothing aside from stare at the desk for the duration of the double period.
Severus rolled his eyes to the ceiling, beseeching the universe to either send him patience or put him out of his misery.
One by one, potions got decanted and set in the labeled rack on his desk, the chatter increasing as more students finished their tasks. Potter packed her potions kit and satchel and would have been the first out the door when the bell rang had Severus not fixed her with a steely glare. "Stay behind, Potter." When she made a move as if to disobey, he sent a silent Sticking Charm in her direction and stuck the insolent girl to her stool. The others departed with the usual fervor—aside from Black and Granger, the former watching Potter, who refused to lift her head and acknowledge her presence.
Severus stood and swept to the front of his desk, stopping Black before she could go to the back of the room. "Get out," he told her and Granger.
"No," Black retorted, hardly pausing to consider him. The Potions Master, for his part, simply seized a witch in each hand and marched the pair from the dungeon. "Detention. Tomorrow, with Filch."
He slammed the door closed in their faces—but not before hearing Granger wail, "But I didn't do anything!"
Potter didn't move while her friends were thrown from the room. Her shoulders loosened once Black vanished from sight, but she kept her head down, fists grasped tight on the stool's edges. Severus steeled himself, mind dipping into the stilling calm of Occlumency's disassociation, and looked.
The girl had missed too many meals, evidenced by her thinning face and the dark smudges below her eyes. Frankly, she had a mean look about her, like a kid off the streets of Cokeworth pretending they weren't out nicking papers off stoops or throwing rocks at car windows.
After another unsuccessful attempt of freeing her backside from her seat, Potter ceased her efforts and glared at him. "Why am I here?" she demanded, and when Severus didn't reply, his arms crossed and expression impassive, she added on a halfhearted, "Sir?"
"It's called a detention, Potter."
She stiffened. "That's bollocks. It's lunchtime."
"As if you planned to actually attend," he snapped, arms uncoiling. "Don't play me for a fool, Potter. I have far better things to do than tend to you and your idiot tagalongs."
Potter's jaw flexed, and her mouth moved, something suspiciously like, "Bugger off, then," escaping in a low murmur.
"What was that?"
"Nothing, sir."
Severus canceled the spell holding her in place, and Potter toppled to the floor, regaining her feet with remarkable dexterity. "Rikkety!"
The house-elf appeared, popping into existence on one of the other desks. She wrung her hands together as she considered the professor and student staring each other down. "What can Rikkety be doing for Professor Snapey?"
"Sandwiches, Rikkety. If you would."
The requested sandwiches appeared after the house-elf returned to the kitchens, and Severus dropped the plate before Potter. "Eat."
"I'm not hungry."
"Eat anyway. Before I summon the Headmaster to have one of his obnoxious, heartfelt chats." Huffing, the girl sat but did nothing aside from pick at the bread and roasted turkey. Severus pulled on years of handling recalcitrant teenagers to keep his voice level, lest he began shouting. "You wished to learn the Patronus Charm, did you not? Finish your meal, and I might be persuaded into teaching you the incantation."
Potter ate then, her appetite increasing as she went, though she only managed half a sandwich and part of a glass of water. Severus leaned against a desk and waited, saying nothing, only stirring from his inner thoughts to order Rikkety to grab Potter's cloak from her dorm and to remove the dishes when the girl finished. Potter wrinkled her nose in confusion as she accepted the garment from the house-elf.
"What's this for?"
"For wearing."
"I know that! Why are you giving it to me?"
"Because we are going outside." Severus Summoned a burlap sack from his storage, as well as his own cloak. He threw the empty sack at Potter, who caught it before it could land on her head. "Take that and follow me."
"What's the bag for, then?"
"You'll be needing it."
"But what about Defense? I have that after lunch."
"I'm certain Professor Slytherin can live without your presence for one class period." He cut her off with an irritated swipe of his hand. "It's a detention, Potter, not time for a bloody question and answer session."
She followed him without another word, if only because she was curious and keen to avoid her friends and Slytherin. They ascended through the dungeons and the entrance hall, the cold bracing when they crossed through the main doors and felt the first gust of wind. The snow had turned to ice where exposed to the worst of the elements, so Severus' boots barely sunk into the surface. He did slip, twice, Charms and magic on his treads only doing so much, and Potter had to grab him by the arm on the second occurrence to save him from hitting the ground.
Not that he'd ever acknowledge that.
"What're we doing out here? It's bloody cold," she complained once they reached the forest's edge, the branches' cover sparing them further exposure to the snow. Severus flicked his hair back from his eyes and squinted into the gloom.
"If I have to repeat myself again, girl, I'll hand your detention off to Filch and rid myself of the nuisance."
They walked in silence, the world muffled by the snow, ice cracking where the tree branches swayed, the sound like the soft groaning of some giant beast's shifting limbs. Winter had yet to begin, but it had already set in hard and fast in the highlands. The academic part of Severus' mind wondered if the drastic ambient temperature shift had anything to do with the ring of horrid, soul-sucking fiends surrounding the castle day and night—but, mostly, he didn't care about the weather. He just wanted the Dementors—and the Ministry—to sod off.
The worn path took them to a clear glade well-away from any of the forest's dangerous territories, but Severus still cast a Detection Charm toward the surrounding trees before telling the girl to stop. He gestured at the ice-covered field, the lone post of an ancient, rotted paddock the only structure left in sight. "Here. We will be harvesting potion ingredients. In the spring and summer, Hagrid utilizes this glade for foaling the Thestrals—but it'll suit our purposes now."
Ignoring Potter's confused glance, Severus flicked his wand into his hand and directed a single, powerful Warming Charm toward the snow nearest his feet. The water melted, revealing beneath it the brown, dormant grass—and the white, flowering tops of what appeared to be several chanterelles. Potter leaned in for closer inspection—until the exposed fungi began screaming in unison, attempting to uproot themselves and flee.
"Ah!" Potter gasped, jerking back. "What in the hell are those?!"
"Morchella miser," Severus drawled, Summoning the caps into his outstretched hand. "Or the Miserable Morel. They grow beneath the ice in composted soil rich with carnivorous animal scat."
"That's gross."
"If it was pleasant, it wouldn't be a detention, now would it? Open the bloody bag, Potter. Don't just stand there like an idiot, for Merlin's sake…."
The girl held out the bag, and Severus dropped what he'd collected inside, the mushrooms wailing all the while.
"Why do so many kinds of magical flora scream? I don't get it."
"Life is suffering, Miss Potter. Perhaps the plants understand something we don't." He hit the ground with another Warming Charm, and the uncovered Morels screeched. They wriggled out of the soil and wobbled about on legs formed of fibrous roots. "Hurry, girl, before they escape."
For two hours, Severus paced from plot to plot, unfreezing the earth, and for those hours, he watched the girl scramble about catching mushrooms—cursing and stumbling the whole time, stubbing her dirty, half-frozen fingers, landing face-first in the snow more than once. He never said anything; he simply waited and marked the time by the weak, watery light filtering through the low-hanging clouds.
Severus had shite for patience, but actively spying for over a decade had taught him the value of waiting. In particular, waiting for the right situation to extract information—and, if such a situation needed help presenting itself, he had no difficulty providing it. For Death Eaters, this typically meant getting them sloshed; a rat-arsed follower of the Dark Lord couldn't keep his tongue his head worth a damn. It was almost embarrassing the amount of clandestine work he undertook in seedy pubs across Britain.
However, for Potter, Severus didn't need Blishen's or Old Ogden's—or, well, it would probably work, but Minerva would quite literally murder him for getting the girl pissed. Instead, Severus opted for the far more reasonable path of waiting for her to spend her anger and frustration on the mushrooms, and only then did he pose a single question;
"Why aren't you speaking with Black?"
Potter jumped as if she'd forgotten he was there. She wiped the sweat from her brow and extracted one of the mushrooms that had somehow managed to find a home in her hair. "It's none of your business," she grumbled, squeezing a Morel too tightly. Its cries cut off with a gurgle, and she unclenched her fist, looking at the pulp with an aggrieved expression. "She lied to me."
"About what?"
"About—." She paused, eyes bright and suspicious as she looked up and met his flat gaze. "About Sirius Black. About him—about him being my godfather."
Severus' lip curled, a flash of dazed memories curdling in his head like lurid spots of color: the gray of smoke rising from the Potter house, the pale white of James' dead face, the red of Lily's hair fanned across the carpet, the green of Harriet's wide, wide eyes. Black had been there. The bastard had been there that night to see his handiwork, and if Severus hadn't been holding the bloodied child, he would have killed him where he stood.
He knew Potter would discover the truth one day, whether it was now from some ignorant pure-blood child or later in life, perhaps perusing a book about her family. It had not been a question of if she would find out—only when, and Severus had warned the Headmaster as such. It appeared Black was paying the price for her inadvertent deception.
"And? Is this all your pointless strop and histrionics is over?"
She dropped the half-filled sack. A few Morels escaped to freedom under a convenient drift. "You knew!"
"Of course I knew. It's a small society, Potter; everyone tends to know everything about everyone, especially in regards to parentage or guardianship." He crossed his arms and sniffed. "I don't care for your accusatory tone, girl. Do remember to whom you speak."
Flushed, the girl opened her mouth several times before gritting her teeth and grabbing the sack again.
"So Black failed to inform you of something that is common knowledge," he said, snide, observing how the color rose higher in her face. It wasn't common knowledge, precisely, especially so many years after the Potters' deaths. It was, however, something any idiot with a current genealogy text could look up. "And this overrides years of loyalty and friendship? My, my. How very fickle of you."
"No, it doesn't," she retorted. Her fists tightened again.
"Did she not apologize? Or was that touching display I interrupted in the classroom her first attempt at reconciliation?"
"No, it wasn't."
"Then what is it, Potter? Did she hurt your feelings?"
"I'm tired of everyone telling me how I should feel!" The girl rounded on him, her voice echoing on the thickly packed trees enclosing the glade. She kept her glassy eyes lowered, her shoulders trembling with her uneven breathing. "It's not all about what Elara did! I'm tired of everyone telling me how I should feel or think—telling me where I can live, where I can go, who I can see. I can't bloody do anything without someone having to give their stupid opinion! I feel like everyone's got their thumb on my head and I, I just—." She hiccuped. "I didn't want to come back to Hogwarts this term. I wanted to stay in Trefhud—because it felt like home, which is shite, because it's not and I don't have a home! Elara's the closest that I've got to that, and if she can go and keep something like this from me, then—."
Potter stopped talking and subsided into quiet, broken sniffles, her face streaked with silver tears.
Oh, fuck.
"It's like living with the Dursleys again," she sobbed. "Always having to do what they said, them always telling me what I should and shouldn't feel. They'd lie to me and I'd get upset and it was always my fault for being like that, for overreacting. I had to sit there and take everything they said and did. I don't want to be told that I need to be the better person and pretend I'm not hurt. I just want to be angry!"
Severus stared. He took a breath to speak, then let it out, a paltry white ghost lingering in his mouth.
He'd come out here with the intention of resolving whatever spat had split Potter and Black. He meant to tell Potter she was an idiot and force things back to the status-quo—but his life rarely allowed itself to be so convenient.
The girl started to rub her face, smearing the skin with snot and tears and filth. Sighing, Severus strode over to her and crouched, taking hold of her wrists, pulling her hands down. "Stop that," he muttered. He retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to her. "Clean your hands, girl, and then your face. Take a breath."
Potter sniffled again and dragged the cloth over her grubby palms. It did little good against the mess on her face.
"Listen to me," he told her, still crouched to her eye-level. "If you want to be angry, then be angry." Potter blinked in surprise and almost dropped the handkerchief. "Be angry for all your life, if you want, but ask yourself if it's worth the misery. Because people who don't let go of their anger—." Like the Dark Lord. Like me. "Make stupid mistakes and get to be stupid, miserable creatures. That's the consequence of it. So be angry if you want, but don't be angry forever, girl."
Potter nodded and wiped her nose. Tears still gathered and clumped her lashes, but they'd stopped streaming down her cheeks. "Okay, Professor."
Satisfied, he stood and put distance between them. He took the sack of Morels for good measure, tying it off before more could escape. The serious, emotional nature of their conversation discomfited him, and Severus sought better equilibrium over his own thoughts. "Good. Take out your wand, Potter."
She did so after wiping her nose on her hand again.
"Don't point it at me—doesn't Slytherin teach you lot anything about wand safety? Face those trees."
Again, she did as told.
"The Patronus spell requires one semi-fluid half-twist parallel to your heart, widdershins. The difficulty in the Charm lies not in the movement or the incantation itself, which are both rather simplistic. The Patronus relies entirely on the caster's emotion, on the encapsulation of sheer, unfettered joy."
Potter glanced over her shoulder, her eyes still red with tears, the question clear on her face.
"Basically, you need to think a happy thought, Miss Potter."
Snorting, she replied, "I don't think I have many of those lately, sir."
"No, I would guess not. It doesn't matter. It is a feeling more than anything, one captured through the conceptualization of a happy memory. Theorists and Charm Masters postulate the chemicals released by the brain during this moment charge a witch or wizard's magic with a so-called positive energy, and is the closest example of Light magic Wizarding society has ever seen. It will take time, effort, and dedication to discover the proper memory for your personal usage." Severus cleared his throat. "Though, it remains to be seen if you're actually capable of the spell. The magic is advanced and far beyond the skills of most. I won't hold my breath for a miracle here. The incantation is 'Expecto Patronum.'"
Potter repeated the spell under her breath and gathered her thoughts. "Expecto Patronum," she whispered—and then again, louder, performing the proper wand twist. "Expecto Patronum!"
Naturally, nothing occurred—and, naturally, the girl despaired, letting out a loud, aggravated sigh.
"What'd I do wrong?"
"Nothing, you idiot. What part of 'advanced magic' did you not hear?"
Scowling, Potter tried the spell a second time—and a third, putting a half-step into the motion that kicked up the snow with the sheer force of her magic, though the Patronus still failed to manifest.
"Stop. You're needlessly exhausting yourself. As I said, you will need time to actually use your head and consider the proper memory before perpetuating all this pointless wand-waving." Severus pulled his cloak closer around himself and lifted the sack of Morels under his arm. It wasn't night yet, but evening set in quickly during this time of year, and already the falling snow had begun to thicken, replacing the melted patches in the glade. "Come, Miss Potter. We're returning to the castle."
The pair followed the same path back the way they'd come. Severus felt the steady weight of Potter's curious gaze at his back like a physical presence but didn't pause to tell her off.
"Thank you, Professor."
"For what?"
"For teaching me. For giving me something else to think about, if only for a little while. I appreciate it."
Severus breathed out through his nose. The castle waited ahead, dark walls framed in the mouth of winter branches, turrets white as spear tips raised to the sky. "I haven't a clue what you're talking about," he said. "I merely gave you a detention."
x X x
Later, the fire's final embers smoldered and coughed sparks in the hearth. Severus remained in the shadows, pale hands posed around his empty goblet, the chill settling in his bones like an old friend. The carriage clock on his mantel chimed the hour, midnight having come and gone long before.
He set his goblet aside and withdrew his wand, studying the length of black wood poised between his fingers before taking proper hold of it. He gave it one exaggerated twist and whispered, "Expecto Patronum."
The weak, spidery light gave him no comfort. He'd tried a dozen memories, all to a similar result, malformed, non-existent shapes hovering between him and the dying fire. Why? he asked himself. Was he losing conviction? Was he losing himself? What did it mean?
"My mum begged him to spare me, but she wouldn't stand aside, and she screamed when he killed her."
He could still remember the texture of the carpet under his knees when he knelt by Lily's corpse. He had a scar on his thigh from a piece of the wreckage gouging the flesh.
"Your Patronus has changed," Dumbledore said, Severus too drunk to stand, collapsed against the dungeon wall, more a boy than a man and too anguished to care. "The doe was Lily's, wasn't it?"
"What does it matter?"
"Oh, Severus."
Even now, he didn't understand the pity he'd heard in the Headmaster's voice that night.
The doe had faded, and Severus didn't know when exactly, or why. He simply grieved its death.
A/N: I don't think Harriet would have any kind of healthy coping mechanism for dealing with conflict—which is why her first instinct is usually violence (punching Ron, hexing others in the hallways, no matter how mild), or simply ignoring the issue and its potential triggers altogether. She's not, at this time, emotionally capable of trying to look at the problem from Elara's perspective.
Snape, his soul slowly escaping his mortal shell: "….."
Dumbledore, sneaking up behind him with a butterfly net: "Oh no you don't."