Warning: Language and TMDP(Too Much Damned Plot)
Spoilers: Books 2 and 3, and I suppose 1 for the cupboard thing.
********************************************************
Worksheet #11: I Don't Know How to Let You Go
********************************************************
If you'd never really met your mother, hadn't seen her since you were one year
old, you might have accrued a few expectations over the years as to how the
reunion would go. You might have imagined tears.
Laughter.
Hugs.
You'd never been hugged before this, remember.
So this is your situation: starved for human touch, brutalized by human experience,
an empty hole in your gut where your mother's love should be, desperate to catch
even a glimpse of her long longed for face.
You expected the relief.
The gratitude.
The sheer giddiness of having found her.
You might not have expected the anger.
***
He followed her home that afternoon to a small suburb of Epsom, an incongruous
daylight stalker. The late light streamered her world in honey-thick, dust-danced bars.
Their neighborhood was perfect in a way the Dursleys' block could never achieve:
it breathed in the late-summer sun, alive with children and dogs and well-kept but
well-used houses.
Their house, brick with white and green trim, practically glowed beneath the sun.
Of course, he could have just been sensing the various wards and charms and
protections that layered it like luminous gauze. Even so, the Muggle aspects alone
looked like a fucking Hallmark card.
There were definitely kids. He'd trailed their late-model Volvo sedan, dark blue, to a
yard cluttered with the various paraphernalia of young children, the toys and game
pieces and bits of swim gear that he'd never had. Aside from the toys, the yard was
immaculate, small but trimmed and landscaped. Either one of them had a green thumb
or they hired out a lawn service.
He ditched the stolen BMW -an older model, gray - a block or two down and walked
back, keeping to the shadows, to stand across the street beneath a drooping-limbed
cedar. As he skulked attentively, a small girl, blonde and healthy-thin--unlike his
own starved frame-- ran out through the lawn. She was shrieking and laughing, and
Lilly ran out after her, caught her up in her arms, and hauled her bodily back indoors.
They were both red-faced with giggles.
Harry shivered.
An eternity spent alone, and he was still separated from them.
She was happy.
Voldemort hadn't touched her life in the fourteen years since their separation.
She had a new life, a new husband, new children. Her hair had even been dyed
a lighter shade of red. Nothing was the same. Nothing *could* be the same.
He wrapped himself in a hug as the sun descended a scree, and a cold mist
rose over the tiny square lawns. By this time, the moon had ripened overhead;
it silvered the mist and cast his tree into numbing shadow.
Their lights squared yellow and ochre over yard, gate, and street. A car trundled
by a block or so away, only its rumble reaching him.
Their world was quiet.
He was about as alone as it's possible to be.
Right then is when the anger began.
**********************************************
Worksheet #12: Now Everybody Knows
**********************************************
*HaRrY*
He was standing in the middle of downtown London, near the river; before dawn, it
was a barren moor of a cityscape, all wind-tossed newspapers and roiling fog. He
was surrounded by concrete and steel and wood, and he appeared to be completely
alone.
*hARry*
He turned into the stiff wind, letting it streamer his hair and throw back
Dudley's oversized hand-me-downs like a cloak. The rising sun caught him
in beamlights through the shifting mist.
"HArRy!"
The voice was somewhere ahead of him, growing louder. He stepped forward,
tentatively, not entirely sure that Voldemort wouldn't suddenly pop up and
try to eat his head, as so often happened in his nightmares.
But this seemed to be real. Though he'd no memory of how he'd arrived, and last
remembered a fuzzy conversation with Snape over a decorative porcelain urn, he
could feel the sun's brief caresses on his cheek, the searing, bone-deep kiss of the
north wind. He could hear the voice audibly, as a piercing sensation in either ear
not unlike the squeal of feedback from a Muggle amplifier.
"HaRRy, i AM ComInG fOr yoU!"
Harry kept his forward pace steady, shivering in the overlarge, too-thin clothing.
Something bad was coming. He could feel it, right on top of him.
*HARRY!*
***
-- and awake!
He bolted upright in unconscious imitation of his last awakening, heart thundering
through his chest in a stumbling run. He was gasping near to hyperventilation; black
spots swam before his eyes, perforating his admittedly inadequate vision. Afternoon
sunlight lay thick on his cheek. He appeared to be alone.
"Do you often suffer from such horrible dreams, Potter?"
"Ahh!" Harry yelped, jumping back against the headboard and clutching his heart.
Snape remained very still, a faint smirk on his lips. He'd been hidden in shadow,
typically.
"Are you trying to kill me?" Harry panted, slowly sliding back beneath the covers.
At least he was fully clothed this time.
"Hardly," Snape said dryly, in answer to his rhetorical question. "I've merely been
keeping an eye on you, should you attempt a repeat of the vomiting incident."
"Oh," Harry said, his voice suddenly very small. "What happened, exactly?"
"You fainted, again," Snape said.
His voice either aggrieved or worried.
Harry was betting on aggrieved.
"I had to carry you upstairs, again, and put you to bed, again," Snape grumbled.
"Judging from your previous reactions, I determined that you disliked sleeping naked
and therefore didn't bother with ensuring your comfort. How are you feeling? And
before you ask, I found your precious letter. You'd dropped it in the main hall."
And handed him the crumpled sheet of loose-leaf as though nothing untoward had
happened.
"Umm, I feel fine," Harry said, taking the paper and smoothing it carefully, reading it
quickly to make sure that it was the same letter. "Thanks." He was feeling a bit
stunned by Snape's usual snarky verbosity, actually, but felt it would be rude to say
so.
"You're thanking me again, Potter," Snape said darkly.
"Well, yeah," Harry said, somewhat taken aback. "You keep helping me, so, you
know . . ."
"Not really, but let us move on," Snape interrupted, smoothing his face into his
teaching-scowl. "We never finished our little question-answer session the night you
arrived, and for the moment I have a few questions that need answering."
"Okay . . ." Harry said hesitantly.
"To start simply, how on earth did you get here from Little Whinging?" Snape asked,
folding his arms in his robes as though preparing himself for a lengthy tale.
"I took the rail down to Dover," Harry said, avoiding the London issue and giving
his answer as prosaically as was possible just to irritate the man. It worked.
"Yes, Muggle transport," Snape sneered. "What will you do?"
Harry had read about this, or seen it on TV; this is how you soften up a suspect
and get the truth: switch topics often. He just hoped that torture wasn't also one of
Snape's tactics.
"I need you to help me find her," he said simply, sticking to the truth as closely as
possible. "Without anyone else finding out. Now, can I ask you something?" he
continued, hoping to turn the tables on the Potions Master.
Said Potions Master smiled condescendingly.
"Go ahead, Potter."
"Shouldn't you be at Hogwarts, teaching?" Harry asked, blurting out the first thing
that came to mind. He was adamant on his point, but the letter was a distracting,
rustling presence caged in his slender hands.
"I asked Dumbledore for a leave of absence the day you arrived," Snape answered,
sounding bored. Harry's question hadn't been *that* self-evident, had it? "I suspect
he knows my reasons, of course, but he can be trusted."
"I don't trust him," Harry said, very quietly, stroking the letter with careful fingertips.
It crinkled and shifted like a live thing.
"You should, Potter," Snape advised, resettling himself in the chair. "He may need
you, but he'll take care of you for a number of other reasons as well."
"Like he took care of you?" Harry asked bluntly, looking up to catch Snape's reaction.
Somehow, the wash of bitterness that crossed the man's ebon eyes was unsurprising.
"Hardly," Snape sneered, actually breaking eye contact first. "You're the golden boy.
I was practically a leper."
"But he *did* take care of you?"
"Why does that sound sinister when you say it?" Snape asked, eyeing Harry closely.
"I suppose because it feels sinister. He *used* me." With something very like pain
hidden beneath the angry words.
"Only as much as he uses everyone."
"And you respect that?" Harry asked, flinging out his arms in an exasperated gesture;
the letter fluttered unnoticed to the floor.
"Absolutely," Snape replied.
"Oh, of course. I forgot for a moment that you were Slytherin," Harry sneered, unconsciously
imitating Snape.
"Look, Potter," Snape spat. "Maybe in your little world naiveté is a good thing, but in
mine it can get you killed."
"The Sorting Hat wanted me in Slytherin," Harry said reflectively, seemingly apropo of
nothing.
"What?" Snape blurted, wondering what in Merlin's name *that* had to do with anything.
"I had to plead with it," Harry continued, seemingly oblivious. "Anything but Slytherin,
I said. Would they have let me have a pet snake?" he continued wistfully.
"Missing your blasted owl, Potter?" Snape said quickly, defensively.
"What, you aren't surprised?" Harry glanced up; he looked disappointed. "That I should've
been Slytherin?"
"A bit," Snape admitted after a moment. "But then, you were always a bit too sneaky for
your own good. Not entirely Griffindor."
"Gee, thanks," Harry grumbled, eyes going back to the comforter.
"If you wanted something other than honesty, then you should have gone to the Weasleys,"
Snape growled, growing tired of being on the defensive.
"Again, thanks." He rolled his eyes "They're my friends."
"Friends are people who lie for you, to you, and about you," Snape said, with the air of
one imparting some great lesson. "Entirely untrustworthy," he concluded.
"You don't have friends? Somehow I expected that."
"Truth, Potter. I have colleagues. I trust them. I may not like them, but in your experience
which has been better, the friend you liked but couldn't count on, or the acquaintance you
loathed but trusted utterly?"
"Talking about yourself now?" Harry asked, a bit facetiously.
Snape raised an eyebrow.
"Perhaps," he conceded. "Perhaps just asking you to open those eyes of yours."
"Oh, believe me, Professor," Harry said bitterly. "They're open."
"Hmm. Perhaps."
"What, you want proof? You want to know what I've been through, what I've seen?"
Harry cried, suddenly growing sick of Snape's sneering, sniping exterior.
"Yes," Snape said smoothly. "That's what I want exactly."
Harry stared at him for a few moments; all the words that had been boiling up in him just
moments before had suddenly been swallowed down by Snape's challenge.
He began to shiver, an odd feeling crawling up his spine to settle uncomfortably behind
his jaw.
Actually *tell* someone?
When it became apparent that Harry wasn't going to answer, Snape sighed.
"Alright then, moving on. Why here?" Snape asked. He sounded frustrated, but he looked
his usual, sneering self.
Harry's eyes snapped up, and he stared at Snape for a moment, wondering which of them
had been hit over the head, exactly.
"I told you last night . . ." Harry practically whined, really not wanting to get into his
motivations again. Snape seemed to get nervous when Harry talked about his mother.
Snape noted with satisfaction that the boy had stopped his incessant shivering.
"That I'm the only one who could possibly help you, et cetera, so on, and so forth. But
why *here*, Potter? How did you know that I would be home? How did you know where
I live?"
"Well, I . . ." Harry trailed off, actually thinking about his answer.
"Please, Mr. Potter, no need to rush into your explanation."
"I didn't know!" Harry burst out, not meeting Snape's eyes. "I didn't know that you
would be here, I just hoped. And I looked up your address in the Directory at the Leaky
Cauldron."
"What were you doing in London?" Snape snapped, looking startled.
"I told you, I got this letter about my mother," Harry said softly. "I had to go look for her."
"You also told me that the letter listed her location as somewhere in Surrey," Snape
said reasonably.
"But I didn't know *where*, exactly." Harry looked up now, his green eyes very earnest.
"Surrey's a big place, and she could've been anywhere. So I decided that I should try
to get to my vault in Gringotts for enough money to hire an investigator, except I never
figured out how to get in without being identified . . ." He trailed off miserably, looking
down again. "And I couldn't use my wand because of the alerts set up on it."
He kept his eyes firmly on his clenched fingers, not wanting to see Snape's reaction.
Snape began to laugh.
Harry looked up, confused.
"You went all that way, went through unknown hells, came *here*, because you thought
you'd be expelled for underage magic?!"
"I thought it could be traced! I thought they'd find me!" Harry said defensively, eyes
sparking. Snape curled a sneering grin at him.
"Oh, Potter, to think the fate of the wizarding world rests in *your* hands."
"What?"
"First of all, the injunction involves the use of magic *in front of Muggles*. Secondly, the
alarms are only set up in your home. There is no such alarm on your wand itself. The
intrinsic magic of the wand would prevent such a spell. Why some fifth year hasn't figured
that out already I'll never know." Snape muttered that last almost to himself, before pinning
Harry with his black eyes. "What happened when you blew up your Aunt Marge?"
"I left home."
"And?"
"Flagged down the Knight Bus . . ."
"And did your homework at the Leaky Cauldron, correct?"
" . . . yes."
"And no Ministry officials burst through your door, now did they?" Snape sat back,
apparently feeling that his argument had been made.
"Dobby," Harry whispered.
"What?" Now it was Snape's turn to be startled.
"When Dobby levitated that pudding, in my second year. *I* got the letter of warning.
But I hadn't done anything . . ." he trailed off as the full implications of Snape's words
hit him. "And in the alley . . . No one showed up there, either. I thought it was because
I hadn't used my wand, but I didn't use my wand to blow up Aunt Marge, or to levitate
that pudding . . ."
"What's this about an alley?" Snape said after a moment, brows arched inquisitively.
"Nothing," Harry said absently, still thinking furiously. "So you're saying that all this time
I could have been using my wand? I didn't have to starve every summer? I didn't have
to nearly . . . I didn't have to go to London?" His breathing was a bit too quick for
Snape's liking, and his eyes were becoming worryingly vague. "I could have just done
a simple Locater spell and . . ."
"Not quite," Snape interrupted, fighting down the urge to shake Harry's out of his
daze. His voice was actually verging on conciliatory. Comforting. "Dumbledore no
doubt set up an impressive level of defenses around Lilly's home, you wouldn't have
been able to . . ."
"Dumbledore?"
Harry looked up. Time almost seemed to slow down.
"He knew?" Harry asked in a whisper. "Dumbldore knew all this time?"
And all Snape could think to himself was 'Oh shit'.
Everything froze.
They could hear a clock ticking in the main hall.
"Answer me, damnit!" Harry suddenly roared, climbing unsteadily to his knees.
Snape stifled the urge to back away, sensing that it would only make the situation
worse.
"Tell me that Dumbledore knew," he pled, tears starting in his green eyes. "Tell me
that he left me with the Dursleys for no *fucking* reason. Tell me that my entire fucking
*life* has been a lie!"
Still weakened, Harry fell back to the bed, tears running unchecked from his furious,
apathetic eyes. "Tell me, Snape," he continued, voice weaker now. "Tell me that this
hasn't meant anything. That it was just some elaborate mind-fuck set to ensure
Voldemort's destruction. Tell me . . ."
Snape sat frozen. Harry stared at him for a moment with betrayal gleaming in his
bright green eyes -- Lilly's eyes -- before burying his head in his arms where they
had wrapped protectively around his knees.
And Snape felt something open inside of his heart, at the sight of the boy's desperate
grief. He'd been betrayed like that once. He'd realized, just as accidentally, just as
stupidly, that Dumbledore was neither all good nor all knowing.
Feeling utterly useless, Snape gently placed one awkward hand on the boy's . . . on
Harry's shoulder, simply resting it there through the long darkening evening.
***
A/N All that and all I got was a lousy conversation? Well, sorry, but there seemed
to be questions that needed answering before I could go forward in the later
timeline. And hey, I got it out pretty fast. :p Anyway, please review, and I'll
write more! Promise.
Spoilers: Books 2 and 3, and I suppose 1 for the cupboard thing.
********************************************************
Worksheet #11: I Don't Know How to Let You Go
********************************************************
If you'd never really met your mother, hadn't seen her since you were one year
old, you might have accrued a few expectations over the years as to how the
reunion would go. You might have imagined tears.
Laughter.
Hugs.
You'd never been hugged before this, remember.
So this is your situation: starved for human touch, brutalized by human experience,
an empty hole in your gut where your mother's love should be, desperate to catch
even a glimpse of her long longed for face.
You expected the relief.
The gratitude.
The sheer giddiness of having found her.
You might not have expected the anger.
***
He followed her home that afternoon to a small suburb of Epsom, an incongruous
daylight stalker. The late light streamered her world in honey-thick, dust-danced bars.
Their neighborhood was perfect in a way the Dursleys' block could never achieve:
it breathed in the late-summer sun, alive with children and dogs and well-kept but
well-used houses.
Their house, brick with white and green trim, practically glowed beneath the sun.
Of course, he could have just been sensing the various wards and charms and
protections that layered it like luminous gauze. Even so, the Muggle aspects alone
looked like a fucking Hallmark card.
There were definitely kids. He'd trailed their late-model Volvo sedan, dark blue, to a
yard cluttered with the various paraphernalia of young children, the toys and game
pieces and bits of swim gear that he'd never had. Aside from the toys, the yard was
immaculate, small but trimmed and landscaped. Either one of them had a green thumb
or they hired out a lawn service.
He ditched the stolen BMW -an older model, gray - a block or two down and walked
back, keeping to the shadows, to stand across the street beneath a drooping-limbed
cedar. As he skulked attentively, a small girl, blonde and healthy-thin--unlike his
own starved frame-- ran out through the lawn. She was shrieking and laughing, and
Lilly ran out after her, caught her up in her arms, and hauled her bodily back indoors.
They were both red-faced with giggles.
Harry shivered.
An eternity spent alone, and he was still separated from them.
She was happy.
Voldemort hadn't touched her life in the fourteen years since their separation.
She had a new life, a new husband, new children. Her hair had even been dyed
a lighter shade of red. Nothing was the same. Nothing *could* be the same.
He wrapped himself in a hug as the sun descended a scree, and a cold mist
rose over the tiny square lawns. By this time, the moon had ripened overhead;
it silvered the mist and cast his tree into numbing shadow.
Their lights squared yellow and ochre over yard, gate, and street. A car trundled
by a block or so away, only its rumble reaching him.
Their world was quiet.
He was about as alone as it's possible to be.
Right then is when the anger began.
**********************************************
Worksheet #12: Now Everybody Knows
**********************************************
*HaRrY*
He was standing in the middle of downtown London, near the river; before dawn, it
was a barren moor of a cityscape, all wind-tossed newspapers and roiling fog. He
was surrounded by concrete and steel and wood, and he appeared to be completely
alone.
*hARry*
He turned into the stiff wind, letting it streamer his hair and throw back
Dudley's oversized hand-me-downs like a cloak. The rising sun caught him
in beamlights through the shifting mist.
"HArRy!"
The voice was somewhere ahead of him, growing louder. He stepped forward,
tentatively, not entirely sure that Voldemort wouldn't suddenly pop up and
try to eat his head, as so often happened in his nightmares.
But this seemed to be real. Though he'd no memory of how he'd arrived, and last
remembered a fuzzy conversation with Snape over a decorative porcelain urn, he
could feel the sun's brief caresses on his cheek, the searing, bone-deep kiss of the
north wind. He could hear the voice audibly, as a piercing sensation in either ear
not unlike the squeal of feedback from a Muggle amplifier.
"HaRRy, i AM ComInG fOr yoU!"
Harry kept his forward pace steady, shivering in the overlarge, too-thin clothing.
Something bad was coming. He could feel it, right on top of him.
*HARRY!*
***
-- and awake!
He bolted upright in unconscious imitation of his last awakening, heart thundering
through his chest in a stumbling run. He was gasping near to hyperventilation; black
spots swam before his eyes, perforating his admittedly inadequate vision. Afternoon
sunlight lay thick on his cheek. He appeared to be alone.
"Do you often suffer from such horrible dreams, Potter?"
"Ahh!" Harry yelped, jumping back against the headboard and clutching his heart.
Snape remained very still, a faint smirk on his lips. He'd been hidden in shadow,
typically.
"Are you trying to kill me?" Harry panted, slowly sliding back beneath the covers.
At least he was fully clothed this time.
"Hardly," Snape said dryly, in answer to his rhetorical question. "I've merely been
keeping an eye on you, should you attempt a repeat of the vomiting incident."
"Oh," Harry said, his voice suddenly very small. "What happened, exactly?"
"You fainted, again," Snape said.
His voice either aggrieved or worried.
Harry was betting on aggrieved.
"I had to carry you upstairs, again, and put you to bed, again," Snape grumbled.
"Judging from your previous reactions, I determined that you disliked sleeping naked
and therefore didn't bother with ensuring your comfort. How are you feeling? And
before you ask, I found your precious letter. You'd dropped it in the main hall."
And handed him the crumpled sheet of loose-leaf as though nothing untoward had
happened.
"Umm, I feel fine," Harry said, taking the paper and smoothing it carefully, reading it
quickly to make sure that it was the same letter. "Thanks." He was feeling a bit
stunned by Snape's usual snarky verbosity, actually, but felt it would be rude to say
so.
"You're thanking me again, Potter," Snape said darkly.
"Well, yeah," Harry said, somewhat taken aback. "You keep helping me, so, you
know . . ."
"Not really, but let us move on," Snape interrupted, smoothing his face into his
teaching-scowl. "We never finished our little question-answer session the night you
arrived, and for the moment I have a few questions that need answering."
"Okay . . ." Harry said hesitantly.
"To start simply, how on earth did you get here from Little Whinging?" Snape asked,
folding his arms in his robes as though preparing himself for a lengthy tale.
"I took the rail down to Dover," Harry said, avoiding the London issue and giving
his answer as prosaically as was possible just to irritate the man. It worked.
"Yes, Muggle transport," Snape sneered. "What will you do?"
Harry had read about this, or seen it on TV; this is how you soften up a suspect
and get the truth: switch topics often. He just hoped that torture wasn't also one of
Snape's tactics.
"I need you to help me find her," he said simply, sticking to the truth as closely as
possible. "Without anyone else finding out. Now, can I ask you something?" he
continued, hoping to turn the tables on the Potions Master.
Said Potions Master smiled condescendingly.
"Go ahead, Potter."
"Shouldn't you be at Hogwarts, teaching?" Harry asked, blurting out the first thing
that came to mind. He was adamant on his point, but the letter was a distracting,
rustling presence caged in his slender hands.
"I asked Dumbledore for a leave of absence the day you arrived," Snape answered,
sounding bored. Harry's question hadn't been *that* self-evident, had it? "I suspect
he knows my reasons, of course, but he can be trusted."
"I don't trust him," Harry said, very quietly, stroking the letter with careful fingertips.
It crinkled and shifted like a live thing.
"You should, Potter," Snape advised, resettling himself in the chair. "He may need
you, but he'll take care of you for a number of other reasons as well."
"Like he took care of you?" Harry asked bluntly, looking up to catch Snape's reaction.
Somehow, the wash of bitterness that crossed the man's ebon eyes was unsurprising.
"Hardly," Snape sneered, actually breaking eye contact first. "You're the golden boy.
I was practically a leper."
"But he *did* take care of you?"
"Why does that sound sinister when you say it?" Snape asked, eyeing Harry closely.
"I suppose because it feels sinister. He *used* me." With something very like pain
hidden beneath the angry words.
"Only as much as he uses everyone."
"And you respect that?" Harry asked, flinging out his arms in an exasperated gesture;
the letter fluttered unnoticed to the floor.
"Absolutely," Snape replied.
"Oh, of course. I forgot for a moment that you were Slytherin," Harry sneered, unconsciously
imitating Snape.
"Look, Potter," Snape spat. "Maybe in your little world naiveté is a good thing, but in
mine it can get you killed."
"The Sorting Hat wanted me in Slytherin," Harry said reflectively, seemingly apropo of
nothing.
"What?" Snape blurted, wondering what in Merlin's name *that* had to do with anything.
"I had to plead with it," Harry continued, seemingly oblivious. "Anything but Slytherin,
I said. Would they have let me have a pet snake?" he continued wistfully.
"Missing your blasted owl, Potter?" Snape said quickly, defensively.
"What, you aren't surprised?" Harry glanced up; he looked disappointed. "That I should've
been Slytherin?"
"A bit," Snape admitted after a moment. "But then, you were always a bit too sneaky for
your own good. Not entirely Griffindor."
"Gee, thanks," Harry grumbled, eyes going back to the comforter.
"If you wanted something other than honesty, then you should have gone to the Weasleys,"
Snape growled, growing tired of being on the defensive.
"Again, thanks." He rolled his eyes "They're my friends."
"Friends are people who lie for you, to you, and about you," Snape said, with the air of
one imparting some great lesson. "Entirely untrustworthy," he concluded.
"You don't have friends? Somehow I expected that."
"Truth, Potter. I have colleagues. I trust them. I may not like them, but in your experience
which has been better, the friend you liked but couldn't count on, or the acquaintance you
loathed but trusted utterly?"
"Talking about yourself now?" Harry asked, a bit facetiously.
Snape raised an eyebrow.
"Perhaps," he conceded. "Perhaps just asking you to open those eyes of yours."
"Oh, believe me, Professor," Harry said bitterly. "They're open."
"Hmm. Perhaps."
"What, you want proof? You want to know what I've been through, what I've seen?"
Harry cried, suddenly growing sick of Snape's sneering, sniping exterior.
"Yes," Snape said smoothly. "That's what I want exactly."
Harry stared at him for a few moments; all the words that had been boiling up in him just
moments before had suddenly been swallowed down by Snape's challenge.
He began to shiver, an odd feeling crawling up his spine to settle uncomfortably behind
his jaw.
Actually *tell* someone?
When it became apparent that Harry wasn't going to answer, Snape sighed.
"Alright then, moving on. Why here?" Snape asked. He sounded frustrated, but he looked
his usual, sneering self.
Harry's eyes snapped up, and he stared at Snape for a moment, wondering which of them
had been hit over the head, exactly.
"I told you last night . . ." Harry practically whined, really not wanting to get into his
motivations again. Snape seemed to get nervous when Harry talked about his mother.
Snape noted with satisfaction that the boy had stopped his incessant shivering.
"That I'm the only one who could possibly help you, et cetera, so on, and so forth. But
why *here*, Potter? How did you know that I would be home? How did you know where
I live?"
"Well, I . . ." Harry trailed off, actually thinking about his answer.
"Please, Mr. Potter, no need to rush into your explanation."
"I didn't know!" Harry burst out, not meeting Snape's eyes. "I didn't know that you
would be here, I just hoped. And I looked up your address in the Directory at the Leaky
Cauldron."
"What were you doing in London?" Snape snapped, looking startled.
"I told you, I got this letter about my mother," Harry said softly. "I had to go look for her."
"You also told me that the letter listed her location as somewhere in Surrey," Snape
said reasonably.
"But I didn't know *where*, exactly." Harry looked up now, his green eyes very earnest.
"Surrey's a big place, and she could've been anywhere. So I decided that I should try
to get to my vault in Gringotts for enough money to hire an investigator, except I never
figured out how to get in without being identified . . ." He trailed off miserably, looking
down again. "And I couldn't use my wand because of the alerts set up on it."
He kept his eyes firmly on his clenched fingers, not wanting to see Snape's reaction.
Snape began to laugh.
Harry looked up, confused.
"You went all that way, went through unknown hells, came *here*, because you thought
you'd be expelled for underage magic?!"
"I thought it could be traced! I thought they'd find me!" Harry said defensively, eyes
sparking. Snape curled a sneering grin at him.
"Oh, Potter, to think the fate of the wizarding world rests in *your* hands."
"What?"
"First of all, the injunction involves the use of magic *in front of Muggles*. Secondly, the
alarms are only set up in your home. There is no such alarm on your wand itself. The
intrinsic magic of the wand would prevent such a spell. Why some fifth year hasn't figured
that out already I'll never know." Snape muttered that last almost to himself, before pinning
Harry with his black eyes. "What happened when you blew up your Aunt Marge?"
"I left home."
"And?"
"Flagged down the Knight Bus . . ."
"And did your homework at the Leaky Cauldron, correct?"
" . . . yes."
"And no Ministry officials burst through your door, now did they?" Snape sat back,
apparently feeling that his argument had been made.
"Dobby," Harry whispered.
"What?" Now it was Snape's turn to be startled.
"When Dobby levitated that pudding, in my second year. *I* got the letter of warning.
But I hadn't done anything . . ." he trailed off as the full implications of Snape's words
hit him. "And in the alley . . . No one showed up there, either. I thought it was because
I hadn't used my wand, but I didn't use my wand to blow up Aunt Marge, or to levitate
that pudding . . ."
"What's this about an alley?" Snape said after a moment, brows arched inquisitively.
"Nothing," Harry said absently, still thinking furiously. "So you're saying that all this time
I could have been using my wand? I didn't have to starve every summer? I didn't have
to nearly . . . I didn't have to go to London?" His breathing was a bit too quick for
Snape's liking, and his eyes were becoming worryingly vague. "I could have just done
a simple Locater spell and . . ."
"Not quite," Snape interrupted, fighting down the urge to shake Harry's out of his
daze. His voice was actually verging on conciliatory. Comforting. "Dumbledore no
doubt set up an impressive level of defenses around Lilly's home, you wouldn't have
been able to . . ."
"Dumbledore?"
Harry looked up. Time almost seemed to slow down.
"He knew?" Harry asked in a whisper. "Dumbldore knew all this time?"
And all Snape could think to himself was 'Oh shit'.
Everything froze.
They could hear a clock ticking in the main hall.
"Answer me, damnit!" Harry suddenly roared, climbing unsteadily to his knees.
Snape stifled the urge to back away, sensing that it would only make the situation
worse.
"Tell me that Dumbledore knew," he pled, tears starting in his green eyes. "Tell me
that he left me with the Dursleys for no *fucking* reason. Tell me that my entire fucking
*life* has been a lie!"
Still weakened, Harry fell back to the bed, tears running unchecked from his furious,
apathetic eyes. "Tell me, Snape," he continued, voice weaker now. "Tell me that this
hasn't meant anything. That it was just some elaborate mind-fuck set to ensure
Voldemort's destruction. Tell me . . ."
Snape sat frozen. Harry stared at him for a moment with betrayal gleaming in his
bright green eyes -- Lilly's eyes -- before burying his head in his arms where they
had wrapped protectively around his knees.
And Snape felt something open inside of his heart, at the sight of the boy's desperate
grief. He'd been betrayed like that once. He'd realized, just as accidentally, just as
stupidly, that Dumbledore was neither all good nor all knowing.
Feeling utterly useless, Snape gently placed one awkward hand on the boy's . . . on
Harry's shoulder, simply resting it there through the long darkening evening.
***
A/N All that and all I got was a lousy conversation? Well, sorry, but there seemed
to be questions that needed answering before I could go forward in the later
timeline. And hey, I got it out pretty fast. :p Anyway, please review, and I'll
write more! Promise.