Cursed Escape
CH 5: The Teachings of a Demented World
(Not a flashback ;) )
AN: Special thanks to Duj for all the reviews and to lovethelab and Sofia7 for their review!
"Those boys did what? How long have I left you two alone!" Kingsley said to Harry and Hermione, looking between the two. "You lot broke into the Ministry and stole things multiple times, and you are ridiculous enough to hide a confiscated, illegal Time-Turner in a bookcase in your office?"
It had taken some time for everything to be explained to the former minister and Auror, and for him to give them a piece of his mind over what had been done. Still, they were right to contact him. This was a sensitive issue and situation magically, politically, and personally.
Kingsley had to attempt to be the objective party. There were cautions that needed to be taken, seemingly harmless child or not. From the talk so far, this other world where Voldemort ruled was quite heinous and full of Dark Magic, students torturing other students. Killing even, if the Malfoy boy was to be believed, and he seemed significantly traumatized enough for it.
From what Malfoy said, Snape remained on their side even to that bitter end, so one would not think his child any sort of a conscious danger. Even a boy of that age, though, could do and be many things.
Being one of few wizards who could blend with Muggles, he understood what culture shock was, and it was mind-wrecking for an adult, let alone a child going from two very different realities. Unlike going from the Magic world to the Muggle world, there was no return to what he was used to for the boy. Hermione and Minerva told him that the kid was holding it mostly together, but that he was clearly petrified and had already cried; they seemed somewhat concerned his large size might be a little intimidating.
He opened the door and looked at the boy, he realized why. The young Mr. Snape was small, especially in comparison to Kingsley himself. The boy was at that awkward stage before hitting a growth spurt.
The boy got up when Kingsley came in, and Kingsley was unsure if it was from politeness or startle. He put on a smile and said in his best soothing voice, "I bet your head hurts and you are tired of talking."
"Yes, sir," the boy replied to him, in a quiet sort of boyish voice that had yet to change, eyeing him steadily. As Kingsley moved, so did their former spy's son, keeping his back turned away. Someone else might not have noticed, but the former Auror did. The kid was not stupid or too scared to think.
He's ready to defend himself. While being on guard might be appropriate for the world he came from, the last thing the former minister wished was for this little Snape to be afraid of him. He was probably afraid enough, though doing a bang up job of holding it together. Kingsley wanted him to relax.
"I am Kingsley Shacklebolt. I was Minister for Magic before -, before." Kingsley awkwardly avoided mention of Hermione. He quickly added, "I was an Auror for a long time before that."
He caught the look of recognition the term Auror brought to the boy's face; he obvious knew what Aurors did, if it was the same thing in both places, or if they even had Aurors anymore.
The boy did not seem to know quite what to say and replied with a polite, "An honor, sir." Those charcoal eyes were closely watching Kingsley's movements as surreptitiously as possible.
"You know what Aurors do? Did you have them in your world?" His goal was mostly to just get the boy talking. He sat down and put his hands on the arms of his chair, catching those eyes watching for any movement toward his wand and wishing the little guy to be at ease. "You can sit if you want."
"They deal with Dark magic and Dark wizards, sir. And no, sir. They were not, erm, precisely looking to get rid of any Dark wizards or Dark magic in that world, sir." No move was made to sit. Instead the child of their former fellow Order member stood there straight, facing him rather unmovingly, with his hands behind his back. If the Auror side of Kingsley bet, the boy kept his wand in his sleeve and had his fingertips on it despite looking respectfully innocuous.
"No, I would not expect so."
Kingsley tried to catch what images of that world he might from the boy, but did not find anything, and he had not expected to given Snape's paramount ability to control his mind. The boy was very closed. Most people in emotional situations gave off all sorts of imagery. He sat back some in his chair. "Your father taught you Occlumency I see." This was surely not a normal child.
"We would not have lived very long if he did not, sir. I can use it against Veritaserum as well..."He was well-aware that such things could be a notch against him, as you could not trust him with those skills, but he'd rather tell them than have then eventually figure it out. If they were as worried about him as he was about them, he did not wish to give a reason to...do anything to him or keep him holed up somewhere. Once shock had worn off, fear and practicality were moving in together in his mind.
Things began to fall into place for Kingsley. "Your father trained you as much as possible to hide the truth. You had memories and experiences that would have betrayed you all the moment you set foot in Hogwarts. He had to make sure you could survive."
"Yes, sir, even memories I'm not consciously aware of with my mum would have been a death sentence for me." There was a long pause. "The Dark Lord probably would have sent me to her in pieces, with me and my father as aware and as present for as much of it as possible."
The dispassion for the macabre nature of that scenario spoke to how desensitized the boy had become, how it seemed like a normal notion, to be sent to one's mother in pieces.
"How old are you, son?"
"Thirteen, sir."
"You would know a lot of spells past your age then? They said you have a corporeal Patronus, conjured around enough of a swarm of dementors that they blocked out the sky."
"For most of my life my mother had been on the dementor's list. She had not been outside in-." He stopped. He heard what must have been her screams over again, from when he had first started his run and had gone looking for them. After a few moments, he shook his head and took a shaky breath. "There was always a horde of dementors around the school. It was one of the first advanced spells I learned from my father, sir. It can send messages too." He mustered a small smile, knowing that the Order had used that particular bit of magic and really still apprehensive that this man take him the right way.
The boy was direct, so Kingsley took the same approach. "What else did your father teach you, son?"
The boy looked down and then at the wall and then back at his face. "Everything, sir. Everything he could. Everything that was...required."
"Dark Magic?" He prompted, to keep the boy going, though he already knew the answer. It was as much as how the answer was delivered than the answer itself.
"Yes, everything," the boy replied, again. "He would rather I learn it first from him than someone else who would not teach me to respect it or the consequences at the same time."
Those words had surely come from the professor, who had learned first hand about the consequences. "And you used it?"
"That's a compulsory part of being taught it, sir," he answered in the same quiet voice, although somewhat impertinently. "Dark Arts was a class. Everyone used it who did not wish to be beat, tortured, dead, or worse, sir."
"Worse?"
"There was worse where I am from, sir." His face was rather impassive, but inside he felt a bubbling discomfort. They won't understand here...
"Unforgivables?" Kingsley asked, knowing in the year that the Death Eaters had taken over Hogwarts such things had happened.
"Were not called such, sir," he replied. "But yes, sir."
"All of them?"
"I said everything, sir," he replied, again quietly. While he had tried to maintain his calm and impassive demeanor, shame slowly creeped into his voice. I've used them, they've been used on me before. Many times."
Kingsley blinked. It was hard to fathom a world where a boy this age would be forced to deal with such things with such frequency to not be outwardly phased by them.
After the pregnant pause, the boy went on, "Even being of enough value to be treated above the rest, that is what happened."
"Because of your father," Kingsley surmised easily.
"Yes, sir, all the Dark Lord's original Death Eaters had some level of notoriety, but my father's ability in Potions and other things gave him more consideration than most."
"And they made you use Unforgiveables on others and other spells to hurt?"
"I did what I had to do, sir. I know right from wrong, and I've always done what was right when it was remotely possible. That is what you truly wish to know, isn't it?" The boy looked at his hands. "I know you can feel Dark Magic on me. I know you can see residue of it with detection spells. I know it's going to cling to me. I can keep it out as easily as I can keep you out of my mind, sir."
It was hard to know what to think when faced with a child from what sounded like some sort of Apocalyptic scenario. On one hand, how could he be blamed for either knowing what the school required of him or knowing what his father taught him to stay alive. On the other hand, the level of Dark Magic that could have abounded in such an exponential situation was vast and not inconsequential. Dark Magic left marks and not always the visible sort like the Dark Mark.
As Kingsley thought, the boy added, "My father raised me to respect magic, sir. No matter what he taught me, and he would not have tolerated me using it for anything beyond what was either absolutely necessary or in the right. Not even in that world. If you have a pensieve, you can watch me if you like, Minister. That would probably better tell you what you wish to know. You wish to know if I'm dangerous, if I am who I say I am, and that, sir."
The boy's thoughts and words betrayed how scared he was but also how guarded and controlled he was now that he had a few hours. He was already thinking of what was going to happen to him and how he wanted to influence that outcome, and he had obviously thought of what the potential outcomes could be already.
Knowing the world he came from, Kingsley knew he had to set the boy more at ease. "You are among friends, son. I know you do not understand that, but your father was one of us in the worst times we had. Whatever we need to do, we will do. We just need to know how to help you, what you've been through, and that is going to take us some time to figure out and for you to trust us enough to tell us."
The boy seemed skeptical, because he did not answer for a few very long moments. His other answers had been far faster. "I, I do know who you all are, even if I don't know who you are, sir. I've just...you don't know what it was like..."
"I don't," Kingsley replied. "I know I was ready to die to prevent that, though."
"In my world, you did, sir." He looked at the wall, always caught between the differences between the worlds, and he hadn't been there even a day. He had a life of this yet to live.
"I would do it here, so if you do not want that world, son, you're never going back to it, and you know every reason why we can never allow that to happen here."
And one thought entered the boy's head at that declaration. It was not fully formed, but it floated around his mind. What would it be like to wake up the next day not worrying if it would be the day that he died, they all died? What would the value of that be if he did escape that feeling? The worst of it had already happened; the screams from the dementors would be added to the memories that fueled his nightmares, and his parents were gone. Beyond that what purpose did he have now, and what was he supposed to do?
He knew one thing. He felt it deep down inside to where the cold of the dementors still clung to him. He had been left behind. Alone.
AN - Someone asked me in a PM what his name is, catching that he said he goes by his middle name, Severus, so are there any guesses what his first name is before I reveal in the next few chapters?
If you enjoyed it, please leave me a review! I'm getting to the part of things where I don't have the chapters mostly written already, so give me some writing fuel!
