Chapter 20- Harry
He didn't want to talk about it. It was that simple. He didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to think about it, didn't want to do anything.
So, he didn't.
How one conversation with someone could go from causing him extreme, uncontainable joy and hope and relief to making him want to strangle that same person, he didn't understand. The anger he felt at being betrayed, once again, was palpable. He felt stupid for letting something like this happen. Hadn't he known? Hadn't he known way back at the beginning that this would go horribly, catastrophically wrong?
He hated Snape.
Except...he didn't. He wanted to. He desperately wanted to. But every time he tried to conjure up that sneering face, all he could see was a half-hidden smirk behind a chipped mug and his hot anger morphed into stabbing grief. Snape had robbed him even of his ability to hate the man, which made the whole situation worse.
But he didn't want to think about it.
He couldn't even tell Ron and Hermione about it. Unlike all the other times they'd griped about Snape together, this felt a thousand times more personal and it didn't feel right. So, even though Hermione had asked at least four times a day for the last however-many weeks, he'd refused to tell them anything.
He had talked about it briefly with Ginny. She had suggested, of course, that Harry talk to Snape about the whole thing. He refused flat out, and she didn't push him about it. But neither did she start talking badly about the man, seeming to sense that it wouldn't help Harry feel any better. She took her cue from Harry and started to pretend that Severus Snape simply did not exist.
Oh, they all still went to Potions. And though Snape was slightly less pleasant than he had become over the last few months, he did not return to his old ways, which Harry was privately frustrated by. If Snape had returned to the foul, evil git that Harry used to think he was, it may have been easier to hate him, but clearly the new Snape was here to stay, and, once again, it made the whole thing that much harder.
Snape attempted to talk to Harry on a couple of occasions, but after Harry brushed him off without a glance, he stopped trying. In some dark corner of Harry's mind he recognized that he was doing to Snape what Snape had done to him back at the beginning of all this. He recalled how much that had hurt him at the time, but, so long as he didn't dwell on it too long, he didn't particularly care that he was causing similar pain to Snape.
He didn't particularly care about anything, really.
Time passed. Hours turned into days, which turned into weeks. He went to class. He played Quidditch. He spent time with his friends. He spent time with his girlfriend. And he met with Dumbledore.
It was at one such meeting that Dumbledore approached Harry with a proposition.
"I believe I am in need of your assistance, Harry."
"What for?"
"Severus and I believe we have located one of the Horcruxes. With his permission, I'd like to take you with me to help destroy it. Tomorrow evening would be best."
"Why do you need his permission? And why wait? We can go now. I'm ready."
"Nevertheless, as you are underage and he is your parent, his permission is needed if I am to take you off of school grounds. Please speak with him about this before tomorrow evening."
"Yeah, sure. I'll get right on it. So, can I go?"
"Yes, you are dismissed. I will see you tomorrow."
"Yeah, see you."
Harry debated just not going. He didn't really need Snape's permission to do anything. He'd done plenty of things without his permission before. But, seemingly without his knowing it, he found himself on the path to the dungeons.
He stood outside the door longer than he'd care to admit. Finally, he knocked. After a moment, the door swung open.
Snape stood there in what Harry knew were his attempts at casual clothes. He had his black shirt untucked over his trousers, though he still wore both socks and shoes. His sleeves were held tight against his wrist with worn leather wraps that Harry knew the man often used to prevent any fabric from trailing through the potions he was brewing, probably indicating that he'd just come from his lab. He looked at Harry with surprise before sweeping his arm wide in an inviting gesture. Harry shook his head and remained where he was.
"How can I help you, Harry?" Snape asked quietly.
Harry regarded him carefully. His anger still boiled beneath the surface like a potion ready to bubble over, but standing here, in front of the man, knowing him as he now did, he couldn't stifle the insane desire to simply walk in, sit down, pour some tea into a well-used mug, and begin a game of chess.
He could not stand here and do this.
"Nevermind," he said-the first word he'd said to his father in months.
"Wait, Harry!" Snape called behind him as Harry quickly took off the way he had come. He wasn't running. Running was for cowards, and he wasn't a coward. But he certainly did not stop. If he did, he would have given in, and he couldn't. Not after what Snape had done.
He climbed the stairs possibly faster than he had ever climbed them. He did not stop in the common room, though he saw Ginny waiting for him, as she always did. He did not speak to anyone in his dorm, though Ron tried to ask him what was going on. He simply climbed into his bed, fully clothed, pulled the curtains, charmed them shut, and fell back against his pillows. How long he lay there before he finally fell asleep he did not know. Time had sort of become meaningless to him lately, anyway.
Some time later-perhaps he had slept, perhaps he had not, he wasn't quite sure-he decided to get up. He went through his day mechanically. He smiled when he was expected to smile. He laughed when he was expected to laugh. He kissed Ginny when she kissed him and ignored the concerned look on her face afterwards. He counted down the hours until he could meet with Dumbledore-until he could do something, something meaningful.
And when the time came and he stood in the Headmaster's office and the wizened man asked him, "Did you speak with Severus?" Harry said, "Yes," because he had spoken with the man, after all. They had technically exchanged words...just not about this, or about anything, really.
Dumbledore must have known he was lying. He knew the way things were between them. Harry was nearly certain that he'd send him back to his dorm and the whole thing would have been a waste, but, instead, he grabbed Harry's arm, said, "You must agree to follow my every command, no matter what it is. Do you agree?" Harry nodded. "It will be quite dangerous," he continued. "Prepare yourself." Then, without further ado, he apparated them out of the room with a pop.
They landed on a cliffside, staring out into a raging sea. The wind whipped their hair back from their faces and sent waves crashing against the cliffs. Behind Harry, in the gloom, there were some lights, as if from a nearby fishing village, or maybe a camping site. Ahead of him wound a narrow path, down to a lower part of the cliff. Dumbledore led him down this path, passing by a crooked, weatherbeaten sign urging them to be careful of falls or loose rocks.
After a moment, Dumbledore led Harry into a shallow cave, little more than an indentation in the cliff face that might offer some shelter against a pop-up rain shower, but seemed to do very little against the spray being tossed up by the waves. But Dumbledore was inspecting the cave closely, running his hands over every inch and casting spells Harry had never heard of. After one such spell, a part of the wall glowed briefly red. Dumbledore immediately pricked his finger and pressed it against that space.
To Harry's surprise, the rock surface shimmered and vanished. In its place was a narrow, jagged tunnel leading deeper into the cliff face. Dumbledore and Harry entered, though they only traveled a few short steps before Dumbledore put his arm out to stop him.
They stood at the edge of what Harry imagined must be a great black lake. Dumbledore's wand light shimmered on the surface of the water, and an eerie green light filtered towards them from a small landmass in the center. Harry could not tell how far the lake stretched or how deep it was. That something so vast could be concealed underground at all was a marvel to him, though even he could tell that the cave was, at least for the most part, a natural phenomenon. Large stalagmites stretched down from the roof and the sound of dripping water echoed in the darkness.
The two continued their journey, Dumbledore explaining all the while about magical traces and Voldemort's hubris, but not in a way that struck Harry as being particularly useful, nor was Harry paying particular attention. Ordinarily, this sort of thing would have perked him up and set his nerves tingling, but he only felt slightly less numb than he had been. And Harry still didn't really know why he was there. Dumbledore seemed to have everything well in hand on his own, and though he was talking to Harry every step of the way, he wasn't saying anything important. He did not, for example, show Harry how to detect those magical traces, nor how to tell when an object that seemed particularly mundane, such as an underground lake, actually harbored mass numbers of terrifying creatures, which Harry strongly suspected were Inferi, but which Dumbledore refused to acknowledge as a real problem, brushing off his casual mention of "untold dangers" as if this were all some perfectly normal stroll around a lake shore.
Eventually, they docked the little boat Dumbledore had somehow found and enchanted to carry them across the inky lake. The little boat made not a single ripple in the water as it glided silently across the expanse, banging into the rock on the island with a sharp tap before falling once again unnaturally still and quiet. Harry tried to ignore the strangeness of it. Besides, there were more pressing issues. It had become immediately clear to Harry where the greenish glow he'd seen earlier had come from. In front of them stood a plinth of some kind with a basin at the top. The liquid in the basin emanated an eerie dancing green light as it moved as if stirred by an unseen hand. At the bottom lay a golden locket.
Dumbledore made as if to reach into the basin, but stopped short and drew back his hand.
"Why didn't you take it?" Harry asked.
"I could not. Perhaps you can."
Harry reached out, but his hand encountered an invisible barrier which prevented him from touching the basin.
"As I suspected. It is never as simple as it seems."
Dumbledore regarded the basin for a moment and waved his wand over it in increasingly complex patterns. Nothing he did seemed to have any effect on the locket or the liquid whatsoever. Then an expression of surprise came across Dumbledore's face as he waved his wand in the air and conjured an ornate cup with a handle.
"Sir?" Harry asked.
"It has become apparent that the liquid cannot be removed by magical means. I strongly suspect, therefore, that it must be drunk."
Harry rather thought there were quite a number of logical steps between "reach into the liquid" and "guess I'll have to drink the scary potion," but who was he to question the wisdom of Dumbledore? Still...he had to ask.
"But sir, what if it's poison?"
"Oh it is most certainly poison, my dear boy. But I do not suspect that it is the sort of poison that will kill the drinker immediately. Rather, I suspect it is the sort of thing that will leave me incapacitated in some way. It will keep me alive long enough that Voldemort will be able to question me and determine how I found this place. So, apart from the risk of intense pain, or extreme befuddlement, or some other such unpleasantness, there is little risk in my drinking of it."
Strange how he considered those "little" risks.
"But why do you have to drink it? You're the one who knows what's going on here," Harry replied bravely. "I can do it!"
"Alas, Harry, Severus would never forgive me if I allowed you to imbibe an unknown potion, one which will almost certainly cause you harm, even if it may not kill you. And besides that, I am older and significantly less valuable than you. No, I will drink it."
Harry opened his mouth to protest, but Dumbledore simply held up a finger in his direction and continued.
"And it is at this time that I would like to remind you of your promise to me. You must do as I say. And here is what I say: you must make me drink this potion in its entirety. Regardless of what I may say or do after this moment, you must not allow me to stop until it is finished."
Harry hesitated. This was turning out to be rather more than he'd anticipated. "I understand," he finally muttered.
And then, it began. The first drink seemed fine, until suddenly it wasn't. Dumbledore doubled over and began to beg, and yet Harry did as he was told and forced down cup after cup, all the while listening to Dumbledore's anguished cries, which seemed to go on forever. Harry privately cursed the man for not conjuring a larger cup as he went back again and again for more of the potion, forcing it drop by drop down the old man's throat. At long last, and just as Harry was beginning to wonder if it ever would be, the basin was emptied. Harry snatched the locket out of the bottom and placed it carefully in his pocket.
Dumbledore was now begging for water, but Harry was having a hard time filling the cup with Aguamenti. It wasn't one of his better spells, he knew, and his spell work had been a bit wonky lately anyway, since the incident with...well, anyway. But he was confident that he should have been able to fill this absurdly small cup with water, even if he wasn't going to be putting out any fires with his spell. And yet, it wasn't working.
Abruptly, and with a sinking heart, he realized what he would need to do, what Voldemort had designed the whole thing to do.
He'd never intended anyone to come here alone, not even himself. He'd always meant to bring some sycophant with him, some young, eager wizard, desperate to do whatever it took to gain favor with the Dark Lord before he even came of age, or perhaps even some other subservient thing, like a house elf. Someone who had no choice but to obey. He'd force them to drink the potion, then leave them here to die, slowly, and agonizingly. But Harry wasn't like Voldemort. He couldn't just leave Dumbledore to die. And despite Dumbledore's assurances that he would not perish, he strongly suspected that the only antidote to the potion that had been emitting light and never stopped moving was the water that surrounded them-the water that seemed to be sucking up the light and that was unnaturally still, even when they crossed it in the boat-exactly the opposite of the potion.
So, with the full knowledge of what was probably about to happen, Harry drew his wand in one hand, and with the other, he plunged the cup into the untold dangers of the water, filling it to the brim with clear liquid.
He thrust the cup at Dumbledore who grasped for it greedily, even as the water began to roil as the Inferi broke the surface. He remembered learning about the Inferi in Defense, and that memory brought with it the memory of talking further about the creatures with his father. It's how he had identified them in the water earlier when he caught the first glimpse of a skeletal face that seemed to follow him as he moved. The fact that only the face followed him and not the body told him they were trapped under the water, waiting for something to activate them. Dumbledore's care in avoiding making any contact with the water had given him the clue that this is what would do it. When he plunged his hand into the darkness, he had suspected that would be the catalyst. And though he had hoped otherwise, he was right. They emerged now in droves, far more than he had thought. The lake must be very deep indeed. Finally, his senses seemed to wake up and the familiar tingle of adrenaline rushed through him. His senses sharpened and his mind snapped to attention. At this moment of near death, finally, Harry felt alive again.
"Inferno!" he shouted, knowing the fiery spell would do the most damage to the skeletal creatures. Dumbledore had warned him against casting magic unless it was strictly necessary, given that he was underage and it would make them much easier to find, if Voldemort happened to be looking, but at this point, he felt they'd reached the point of "strictly necessary." And if he didn't...well, it wouldn't matter if Voldemort found them or not, as they'd be dead already.
A jet of flame burst from his wand, lighting up the cavern and sending the Inferi in his way scrambling back to the water. But it did not stop them from approaching from behind or to the side. They were standing on an island, after all, and the threats were coming from all angles. He backed up until he stood next to Dumbledore's weakened form and began to spin in a circle, defending them from all sides as best as he could. As soon as he'd cleared enough of a path, he gripped the old man under the arm and hauled him up. He was relieved to see that the old man appeared to be able to support his own weight. With a shake, Dumbledore seemed to come to and added his own flames to Harry's. Despite his weakness and the fog still in his eyes, Dumbledore's magic came out of his wand like a whip and encircled the entire island. The Inferi not trapped outside the barrier were immediately torched by a blast from Harry's wand. The burning skeletons cast dancing shadows on the cave walls, revealing it to be much larger than Harry had first thought. There would be no outlasting the Inferi, and the only way out was the way they'd come in.
Harry began to guide Dumbledore towards the boat, now banging noisily against the rocks as the once-peaceful lake continued to churn with skeletal forms rising from the deep. The flaming circle followed them as they climbed back into the boat and began the return journey across the water. Dumbledore was shaking with the effort of maintaining his spell and his breath was still coming in short, painful-sounding gasps.
As the boat ran aground on the opposite bank, Harry hauled Dumbledore up beneath the arms again and dragged him ashore. He half-carried the old wizard back to the entrance of the cave, smearing blood from a cut on his forearm that he didn't even remember getting to reopen the entrance. They emerged out of the cave and back into the salt-spray of the crashing waves and the relentless wind, a stark contrast to the fiery heat and stillness they had just left behind. Harry pulled Dumbledore back up the narrow, crumbling path to the top of the cliff before collapsing onto the sodden grass.
He surveyed the old Headmaster. Whatever strength he had regained in the cave seemed to have been lost again. His usually sparkling blue eyes were closed and heavy with shadows as if he hadn't slept for days. His face seemed at once immeasurably old and his withered hand where it stuck out of his robes appeared to have darkened even further. As Harry watched, the man's chest rose and fell shallowly and unsteadily and a pulse beat erratically through a bluish vein in his neck. They needed to get back to Hogwarts. He needed to get Dumbledore to Snape.
Though Harry had learned to apparate, he did not trust himself to do so with an injured Headmaster, especially over what he suspected was a very vast distance.
"Professor Dumbledore, where are we?" Harry asked, giving the man's shoulder a gentle shake.
"Seaside near where Voldemort grew up," he mumbled in a hoarse voice. Harry was alarmed at how weak it sounded.
"But where, specifically? Like, on a map?"
"Isle of Wight," he whispered. Harry dropped his head back in dismay. This was absolutely the furthest he could possibly be from Scotland and still be in England proper. Distance wasn't supposed to be a factor in apparation, but Determination certainly was, and he just didn't believe that he could do it, not as his first time apparating side-along, and certainly not with the way his magic had been behaving lately. Another thought came reluctantly into his mind. He may not be able to get to Scotland, but he could probably make it to Blackpool. It was still a long way, and it was the last place he wanted to go, given what had happened the last time he was there, but it was significantly closer than the Scottish Highlands and probably his only reasonable option. And if he could get the Headmaster there, he could floo back to his office. After all, that's where he'd come out the last time.
Determined, he lifted Dumbledore and wrapped his arms around him tightly. He focused on his Destination-the little sitting room with its twin couches, half-filled bookcase, and wall-to-wall windows. Then, with all the Deliberation he could muster with the wind raging and Dumbledore's weight hanging distractingly limply against him, he turned on the spot and popped away from the top of the hill.
To his immense relief, he arrived in one piece, in the middle of the very room he had just envisioned. He checked Dumbledore for injuries and was relieved to find that he seemed no worse off than he had been before. Flicking his wand at the grate and thinking of the spell that had saved him from Inferi only a few moments earlier, though it already felt like much longer, he lit the fire. Opening the familiar box on the mantle, he threw in a handful of shimmering green powder and stuffed the Headmaster unceremoniously inside. He clutched the man next to him and called out his destination.
"Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts!"
They spun dizzily past an array of sitting rooms, pubs, and offices, each flashing by too quickly for Harry to take in the details. Then, Harry felt it all start to slow. He braced himself as he was ejected into the floor of Dumbledore's office, a graceful landing entirely out of the question with him still supporting the weight of the elderly wizard. They crashed onto the carpet together.
The crash seemed to rouse Dumbledore as he came to and began heaving himself up off the floor. But something was wrong. A sickly green light filtered in through the windows, and some of the trinkets on Dumbledore's shelves seemed to be knocked askew. One was emitting a high pitched screech that rattled Harry's already frayed nerves.
Dumbledore flicked his wand at it, which mercifully silenced it. But then, Harry heard other things. Screams, spellfire, and crashes. A sharp smell burned his nostrils. He strode to the window and looked out. The Dark Mark glittered tauntingly above them, casting a sickly pallor over all the grounds.
"Professor!" Harry called.
"I know, my boy. We are under attack," he rasped, chest heaving with the effort of standing, but looking a bit stronger than he had a minute ago, as if being back at Hogwarts was strengthening him. "Quickly, help me to-"
But whatever Dumbledore was about to say was cut off by the sound of his office door blasting apart. Wooden shards flew over them both and Harry felt splinters lodging themselves in the exposed skin of his arms, which he'd instinctively thrown up to cover his face.
Through the door walked Draco Malfoy, white-blond hair dirty with what Harry imagined was probably stone dust from the battle he could now clearly hear raging below. One of his trouser legs was torn and blood trickled down his leg. But the most incongruous thing of all was the black and yellow Hufflepuff tie that hung loosely around his neck.
Draco surveyed the two in front of him and his eyes took on a feral gleam when he saw Harry.
"Draco, dear boy. I had not expected to see you here again," Dumbledore called out. Harry was amazed at the amount of steadiness he was able to project into his voice when Harry knew him to be so weak he could hardly stand.
"Shut up, old man. I'm not here for a chat. I'm here to kill you."
"Are you now? Well, that's unfortunate." Dumbledore paused and drew in a breath. "I'm sure we could have quite a lovely chat, if you wanted." He breathed again. "But there's a bit of a scuffle going on at the moment that I really must address."
"Yes, I know. It's all my doing."
"Your doing?"
"Of course. And why shouldn't it be? I'm capable. I'm valuable. I'm worthy of such a task. The Dark Lord set it only for me, you see. And this is just the first piece. And I accomplished it!" Draco's voice had risen as he spoke and he now smiled an eerie sort of smile and laughed in a way that reminded Harry uncomfortably of Bellatrix Lestrange. Just as suddenly, the smile dropped from his face and his voice dropped into a threatening growl. "And I'll have the second done in just a moment. Now, if you could just hold still…"
Draco raised his wand towards Dumbledore. Harry moved to step in the way but before he could, a familiar voice froze him in his tracks.
"Mister Malfoy," Severus Snape drawled from the ruined doorway. "What a surprise."
Harry's eyes snapped to the ruined doorway where Snape now stood, his robes still swirling around him after his abrupt entrance. He was covered in the same fine layer of dust as Malfoy, but Harry was frustratingly relieved that he didn't appear injured. He finally looked into Snape's face, only to see those dark eyes roving frantically over Harry's own body, before snapping up to meet his. Though Snape was talking to Draco, his attention was wholly fixed on Harry, and the look Harry saw in those dark eyes left him reeling.
In the few seconds that father and son surveyed each other from across the room, Malfoy whirled to face Severus, though he kept his wand trained on Dumbledore.
"You! How dare you show your face in my presence!"
Severus at last dragged his eyes away from Harry. "I was unaware that you found my face so offensive."
"Ever since you took up with him-" Draco spat in Harry's direction, "you're worthless to me."
"Worthless? Come now, Draco. Surely I am not completely worthless. You were never worthless at all to me."
"Of course I was. I was a pawn. Useful, but only so long as I could play a part in your schemes. But now that you've been found out as the despicable traitor you are, I've been discarded. Replaced. By that foul Potter who you used to hate. You took his side over mine and banished me. Kicked me out-"
"I never kicked you out. You left on your own. You made your own choices."
Draco laughed a manic laugh.
"Left on my own? Made my own CHOICES?! You were the one ally I had. You were the only one helping me! And it turned out to be all a lie! You were undermining me the whole time! Playing mind games with me! What other choice did I have? Had I remained with you, my own family would have disowned me. The Dark Lord would have punished me. WHAT CHOICE DID I HAVE?! You took that choice away from me. You ruined EVERYTHING I HAD!" Draco stalked towards Snape, still keeping his wand pointed shakily at the old man as he yelled at his one-time mentor. "Once I was gone from Hogwarts, I couldn't even complete my task, the ONE task I'd been given, the task only I could do, the task that would have saved my family. But then, I figured it out. I could do it. I just had to be smarter about it. So, at Valentines, I tracked down the loneliest idiot I could find. I took his clothes. I polyjuiced into him. I Confunded his friends, and I finished my task. Me. I did this. I came up with this plan all ON MY OWN! Without any help from you or anyone else! I fixed those vanishing cabinets ON MY OWN! And, in the end, I'm going to kill Albus Dumbledore ON MY OWN! And the worst part for you, you who have actually been on his side all along, is this: you can't stop me."
Draco's lip curled up into his characteristic sneer, but there was something off about it, something darker than what Harry was used to seeing there.
"I know all about your 'Unbreakable Vow,' Professor," Draco spat. "Mother told me when I first arrived back home. At first I was furious with her for believing I would fail and enlisting your help, but now I thank her, because, in this moment, you can't stop me from what I'm about to do, not without losing your own life. I will kill him...and you will watch." Draco paused as he turned his crazed gaze back to Harry.
"But I think I'll make you watch something else, first."
He shifted his wand point a little to the left, and suddenly it was pointed right at Harry's chest. But Harry was prepared for this. He hadn't stood around like a lump while Draco had been distracted. At his side, his own wand had been trained on the blond boy all along. He could have acted sooner, but that bit about the Unbreakable Vow...Harry had wanted answers. But it wouldn't stop him from acting now.
"Incarcerous!" Harry shouted as his hand snapped up into position. Ropes spun out of the end of his wand and snaked toward Malfoy, but the blond boy merely waved his own wand and they vanished. Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise. He'd clearly been practicing.
The smirk returned as Draco boasted, "I learned some new tricks while I was away. Like this one!" Wordlessly, Draco cast a bright orange spell at Harry. Harry flicked his wand and thought Protego and his shield shimmered in front of him. The orange light dissipated harmlessly. Harry flicked his wand to return a nonverbal body-bind curse, but Draco's own shield absorbed the blow.
Draco's next curse came with a complicated wand movement Harry had never seen before. He raised his shield to defend against it, but suddenly found himself thrown to the floor, the hem of a dark cloak swishing in front of his face as Snape stepped into the path of a shimmering, dark blue jet of light. It slammed into his side. He dropped to one knee as he let out a cry of pain.
Draco howled animalistically.
"YOU AREN'T ALLOWED TO INTERFERE!" he bellowed.
"My Vow said that I would help you complete your task," Snape hissed as he picked himself up gingerly and straightened as much as he could. He kept a hand pressed against his side. "This is not your task. So long as you are attacking my son, you are not working towards your goal. And I will not allow you to cause him harm."
"What about causing me harm!? Didn't you used to care about that?"
"I still care about that, but I learned long ago that you cannot save a person from themselves." He regarded the boy with a pained look. "You can make a different choice, here, Draco. You have had that power all along. But I cannot make that choice for you, nor can I protect you from the consequences of the choices you have already made. I will help you complete this task, or, if you should make a different choice, I will complete it for you. But you must make the choice."
"It's always choices with you," Draco snarled. "Well, some of us don't have any. And even if I did, if my options are him or you, so it isn't really that difficult. I choose to turn my back on you the same way you did to me. Long live the Dark Lord. Avada Kadavra!"
The last Draco shouted as he turned his wand back to Dumbledore. Harry expected the man to fight back, to defend himself, to at least step out of the way, but he saw, with horror, that he hadn't even drawn his wand. As the sickly green light sped towards Dumbledore, Harry reached out as if to stop it, but a warm hand closed over his arm and pulled him back to the ground, out of harm's way. He looked up into Severus Snape's face to see his eyes trained resolutely on the aged face of the Headmaster, a man who, Harry now realized, was probably his father's truest friend. Their eyes met as time seemed to slow, then, impossibly, Dumbledore's eyes drifted shut mere moments before that green light struck the center of his chest, as if he was accepting it. He crumpled in a heap on the floor of his office.
Then, time seemed to speed up. Harry screamed and lunged for the old man, but he was wrapped tightly in his father's arms and couldn't budge. With a growl, he turned to aim his wand at Draco, but the boy was already gone, calling out his victory as he ran cackling down the stairs. Harry struggled to rise, but Snape still held him steadfastly.
"Let me go!" he yelled at the man, straining against his arms.
"There is nothing you can do."
"I don't care! Let me go! He killed him! He has to pay!"
"Not like this."
"YES! LET ME GO!"
"NO! There is nothing more you can do for him. Do you think he would wish you to go on this vendetta? Do you think he would want you chasing down a classmate with murder in your heart?"
"You're just protecting him!"
"NO! I am protecting YOU! Draco did not come alone. Are you prepared to face them, all of them, by yourself?"
"I'll do whatever I have to! That's what I do!"
"I will not let you sacrifice your life in the pursuit of vengeance!"
"You don't get to make that choice!"
"Yes! I do! I am your FATHER, and you are my SON, and if I have to tie you to this floor and snap your wand to keep you here, then I will do it, because I may have survived losing your mother, and I will also survive losing my closest friend, but I will not survive losing you. So, though I know you may hate me for it the rest of your life, at least you will have a life. No, I WILL NOT LET YOU GO!"
Severus roared these words over Harry's head as he still held the struggling boy. Harry could hear him grunting with pain every time he twisted his body, could feel the man's chest heaving with heavy breaths when he spoke, could even feel the arms that encircled him begin to tremble. And, worst of all, he was pretty sure he could feel Snape's warm blood seeping through Harry's own shirt. It was this, more than anything else that brought him up short.
Harry slumped to the floor, defeated and broken. All the hurt of the last few weeks, all the stress and adrenaline of the day, all the grief and heartache of this moment came ripping out of him all at once. He wanted to be angry, but all he felt was pain. He let out a choked sob and gripped his father's robes in clenched fists as he turned in his arms. He buried his face into the man's shoulder and felt Severus relax his grip into something more comforting. He had a passing thought to use this moment to escape, but it was buried immediately in the heaviness of his sorrow. The thought that replaced it was one of never wanting to let go, of wanting to stay in this embrace forever, of finally, for the first time in his life, going through an ordeal and coming out and finding not just bottomless despair on the other side, but an actual shoulder to cry on.
And he never wanted it to go away.
All the things he'd been avoiding thinking about for the last few weeks all paled in comparison to this, to the love that he knew his father had for him. Whatever he had done and whatever the consequences of those choices had been, it didn't change the fact that in this moment, Severus Snape was clinging to Harry Potter, his son, as if Harry was the most important, most precious, thing in the entire world. And no one had ever done that to Harry before. At least, not that he could remember.
"Please stay," the boy whispered.
"Always," his father replied.
A/N: What!? Another update!? But it has only been three days!
Indeed, readers. You're welcome.
Also, I hate cliffhangers so I really didn't want to just LEAVE YOU with one for ages and ages.
ALSO, also, I really liked writing this chapter. I took some liberties with the Horcrux hunt scene (also maybe with some locations, but they were necessary for the plot!) but I feel like it works for my story, so I'm not sorry about it. And, as always, please disregard any British idiosyncrasies. I am not British, but I am VERY good at research, so hopefully I did okay, and if I didn't, constructive criticism is always welcome.
I hope you enjoyed it! Can't promise when the next update will be. I have the chapter written, but I don't love it, so I need to go back and tweak it a bit. The first half is great! The second half...
And finally, I added a chapter to the overall chapter count (there will now be 23), but don't worry, it'll be a one-scene epilogue. The way it was before, the last chapter would be a Harry POV chapter, but there is one important piece of info that HAS TO be in a Severus POV chapter, and I don't want it revealed until the VERY end...ergo, epilogue. And the epilogue will set it up for the sequel (gotta defeat Voldemort, after all), which I haven't even STARTED. But the writing bug has bitten me once again, so maybe I'll make some progress soon? Here's hoping!