East of Eden

Chapter 5

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Disclaimer
Everything, every location, every character belongs to JK Rowling, Bloomsbury Pub., Warner Brothers or whoever might currently hold the rights of Harry Potter. There are exceptions- The title is taken from a John Steinbeck novel, the Life Shield Charm and the transmitter owl are mine. I swear, I don't make money out of this.

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Thank you, Darkwing, for beta-reading this! (Hey, two commas in one sentence!)

Chapter 5

A Thin Cover of Ice

by Clio
Spring 2001


Dumbledore coughed. "See Harry, Severus used Voldemort's wand when cursing your father. The very same wand which was later picked up by Peter Pettigrew and kept till the day of Voldemort's return. Now, every wand fits the personality and the magic of its owner. This wand, the twin of your own wand, was stamped to do bad deeds by its owner. Severus wasn't willingly choosing the kind of spell he was using against James. He killed your father in self-defense. It was an accident."

Harry angrily jumped to his feet. "I strongly doubt that!" He pointed accusingly at Snape. " He killed my Dad. He is a dark wizard, a MURDERER." Harry was now shouting at the top of his lungs.

Dumbledore opened his mouth to respond, but Snape cut in. "Who are you to judge that?" he yelled, his usually sallow face red with emotion. "Do you think you know it all, only because you have faced Voldemort once? Do you think you can tell good from evil, right from wrong? Yes you do, because you are Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. Who only lived because I knew some ordinary muggle First Aid, by the way."

Snape took a deep breath and continued: "You're like your father- quick in judgement, always right. Perfect Potter, the role model, Gryffindor's golden boy. The whole world seemed to have eyes only for him. Us lesser mortals could try all we wanted, but we would never reach his height. He would outperform us with a smile on his face at any task, every given day."

Snape gripped the arm rests of Harry's chair and leaned forward until his face was level with Harry's. "Maybe, Potter," he hissed, "if I was in the same situation, I would kill James again. And maybe I would smile then."

Harry sat paralyzed by the time Snape released his chair and straightened. He turned towards Dumbledore. "It was a mistake to burden the boy with this, Albus. It is beyond his comprehension." Snape said in a matter-of-factly voice.

Dumbledore sighed. "No, Severus, please give him time. He will understand, and he will learn from the past."

Snape shot Dumbledore one of the cold looks that he usually reserved for Harry. "Look who is talking. Look how much time you needed, Albus. And look at the price for your lately acquired infallibility and wisdom, that your are so generously sharing with us nowadays. Half of the cells of Azkaban and half of the graves on Tintagel South Cemetery are filled with your ex-pupils."

Snape's words were laced with a sarcasm that surprised Harry. He had never seen Snape talking so disrespectfully to the Headmaster.

"Please Severus, don't say things you will regret later." Dumbledore said. Obviously he was struggling to stay calm.

Snape cocked an eyebrow and forced his mouth into a smile. "Me, regret anything? You seem to forget you're looking at the infamous Severus Snape, who is incapable of any human emotion. That includes remorse, doesn't it?"

"SEVERUS!" Dumbledore seemed to be very annoyed.

Snape stubbornly continued with his rant. He was blindly enamored to bitter sarcasm now. "What if it had been the other way around? What if James had killed me? He would have been the hero of the day - a brave father in defense of his family, who had faced Voldemort and one of his evil minions; worth the order of Merlin first class. And how very touching he had lost his wife in the attack. It adds some melodrama to our hero. Don't you agree, Headmaster, that it would have been the more convenient ending? Tell me, would you have gotten me a nice marble tombstone at Tintagel or would my body simply have been removed by a Vanishing Spell? "

Snape stared at Dumbledore for a moment, as if daring him to argue. Then he slowly turned towards Harry. "Believe me Potter," he was whispering almost inaudibly, "if I could change the past, I would." With that he turned on his heel and left the Headmaster's office. The door fell shut behind him with a loud BANG.

Dumbledore sighed deeply and closed his eyes. Fawkes, his phoenix, left his perch and fluttered onto his shoulder, where he started to nibble at his master's earlobe. Dumbledore pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers. " Good bird, " he said absentmindedly.

Harry wasn't sure what to do. He was still shocked by the exchange between his two teachers. Maybe he should leave, too? He was already getting up, when Dumbledore looked up again. He seemed to be very tired and he looked every single one of his 150 years. "Don't leave, Harry! You must be so confused, poor boy. Maybe I can help you to sort out some of your thoughts." He smiled cheerfully at Harry, but his smile was too painful to be convincing.

A million questions at once where whirling through Harry's head, each of them equally inappropriate to ask the headmaster. Finally Harry stuttered: " Why... why is Professor Snape so ...err, angry at you?"

" He has every right to be angry with me. You see, what happened was partly my fault. I should have researched that fateful Shielding Spell better. And I shouldn't have left Lily and Severus alone with their difficult task. We were planning no less than killing Lord Voldemort, the most feared wizard in England. The whole situation was too much for them to handle, especially when it got so out of control. Severus and Lily were both powerful mages, but they were so young and inexperienced. And Severus was well known to be a short-tempered young man. As was your father. Sending those three into a life-threatening situation together was like setting the stage for a classical tragedy. I should have been there. I should have had better cared for all my students."

Harry frowned as the Headmaster stared out into the winter rain. "Back in the and 70's during Voldemort's first rise, I was biased against the Slytherins, as everyone was at that time. I had once been in Gryffindor myself, and so it seemed only natural to me. I always prided myself on being a just Headmaster, yet I had shut my eyes to them becoming the outcasts among the four houses of Hogwarts. No one trusted them. Slytherin was synonymous to dark wizard. That made it easy for their then Head of the House, Tiberinus Lohman, to use Slytherin as a recruitment camp for prospective Death Eaters. Too many of the young wizards and witches were easily convinced to turn against the Magic Society. The Death Eater movement offered them power and the feeling of community.
"And in the beginning it was not as violent as it was in the end. It started out as a tempting idea of an alternative style of magic, a renaissance of the Old Ways, the non-wand magic. A fancy ideology, like there were many among the more intellectual wizards and Muggles in the 70's. People tend to forget about that. All they kept in mind was that the most Death Eaters came from Slytherin." Dumbledore sighed heavily. "I might have prevented a lot of bloodshed, if only..."

Harry felt fury rise in him when he heard his beloved Headmaster blame himself for Voldemort gathering supporters among the Slytherins. "No, it can't all be your fault. I mean Snape, ... he is an evil man. He is always so mean to me, and he's such an unfair teacher. And he is a killer. Why is he still walking around as a free man? My parents ..."

Dumbledore interrupted him. "Let the dead rest, Harry. No punishment can revive them. And Severus has already paid dearly for the sins of his youth. And for the events of that fateful night I truly bear my share of guilt, too." He looked at Fawkes, who was still sitting on his shoulders. "And guilt also weighs heavily on Severus' conscience. You must understand, that this is the reason for his unfairness. A guilty conscience would drive other people to feel sympathy with you or they would try to befriend you, but it's simply not Severus' nature. Instead he tries to keep you away from him, and the memory with you. He doesn't really hate you, he hates the whole world and most of all himself.
"You should know that he is always volunteering on the most dangerous missions against Voldemort. Every time he has to spy on the Death Eaters, he fears for his life, but still he forces himself to do it. Maybe he sees gambling at this high risk as his personal road to redemption. You never know the ways that man's mind is working."

Dumbledore paused for a brief moment." He would never talk about it, but I'm sure every time he teaches you, he feels like a part of him is back in the ruins of Godric's Hollow and at Azkaban. That's what makes him so cruel towards you."

"Azkaban? Snape was in Azkaban?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore nodded. "As I said, he paid dearly for the sins of his youth. He was there for eight weeks before his trial. The very night of Voldemort's downfall, rumors started spreading about a baby killing him. As Severus stated earlier, we had no reason to make people believe otherwise. So all credit of what he had worked so hard for, and almost died for, was placed on a little child. You. And the only person besides me, who knew otherwise, was Severus himself in his cell far away in Azkaban. Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, Hagrid and all the Ministry officials only came to the ruins of Godric's Hollow later, when Severus was already gone.
"It was the easier story to believe. Plain black and white. Not shades of gray . And people needed heroes so dearly then. They were grateful for the tale of Lily and James and their fabulous baby-boy. And after the trial we couldn't change that story anymore without exposing Snape as a high ranking Death Eater and the killer of James."

"Why? Wasn't Snape cleared of all charges in his trial?"

"Yes." Dumbledore seemed to consider his answer for a moment. "Ah, I don't feel able to explain that to you right now. Tomorrow you shall come to my office, and then we will discuss this matter further. Its already late tonight, Harry. You should already be in bed for hours."

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Deep in thought Harry shuffled through the abandoned hallways of Hogwarts towards his dormitory in the Gryffindor tower. He was one of the few inhabitants there during the Christmas break. Only two girls were staying in the first year's dorm, but he assumed they were sound asleep by this time of the night. He felt no urge to talk to them right now, anyways.

When he lay in bed he couldn't sleep. Blurred images whirled through his head. He saw the face of his father contorted with rage, and his mother dying in the arms of Snape. He heard Voldemort's high pitched laughter and then he heard him scream.

So Snape had been the legendary wizard who killed Voldemort ...
Somehow Harry was relieved that after all it hadn't been him, who defeated the Dark Lord. He was just an ordinary wizard child, not the savior of the whole Wizarding World. Very deep down he was a little bit disappointed, though. Quickly he dismissed this thought.

Harry was confused. What was he supposed the think and feel about what he had seen?

Thanks to all my readers, especilly to those who reviewed.

CL: Personally I think JK Rowling has an even wilder plot for us in store. Unfortunately I also believe, that we will have to wait till book 7 to know all details of the Halloween night in Godric's Hollow.
Darkwing: Snape seems to have a really complex background, but we don't know too much about it. Maybe that's why so many fanfiction writers are fascinated with him; you can let your fantasy run wild.
Morrighan: I have heard those rumours, too, but I truly believe that the wand scene in book 4 was not a mistake, but a clue.
As for Snape- I was toying around for a while with different schemes of redeeming Snape within my plot. They didn't really work out, so I decided to keep him an unhappy and ambivalent character. You are pointing at the important question of this fic- why did Snape kill James? (Hint: go back to the prologue) Currently I'm thinking about a real Snape redemption fic, but I don't know if I will ever write it. It might turn out too cheesy, and yes, it's way more fun to let him suffer *grins evilly*.
BTW, I'm dying to read the next chapter of Road to Damascus !!! I adore your story, it's my all time favourite! Post it soon, please.
Snidget, Rons Mine: Thanks guys! The story is going to slow down a bit in this chapter, but there will be another interesting scene later.
MMM: Gotcha ! ; ) You're not sure anymore what to think? - Great, that's exactely what I want you to be.