A Season for Healing
By Dien
Summary and disclaimer in part one.
Rating: The series overall has an adult rating due to the Severus/Harry plotline... This part is PG-13.
Notes: Yes, this chapter took me forever to get out. I forbid you all to smite me, or otherwise wound me, because then you'll NEVER get any more, bwa ha ha ha!...
Thanks to those at FictionAlley who helped me think of a good piece of music for Snape.
Thanks to the HP Lexicon for being great reference stuff.
(Continual thanks to) my beta Nyarth; she is fantastically awesome cool. Everyone: GO READ HER STUFF! She's in my Favorite Authors. Go! Go! (but finish this first)
Chapter Ten. In which Severus (internally) admits his pettiness, plays a piece of music of haunting beauty and poignancy, and receives an owl. And Harry also does stuff.
There was a part of Severus Snape that spent most of its time shutting up and trying not to be noticed. Years of living in a hostile environment had sapped its spirit and given it a taste for the quiet life, where it could exist unmolested by Snape's scorn and contempt. Albus Dumbledore referred to it as a conscience.
Severus preferred to think of it as an inconvenient habit he hadn't managed to break himself of.
But whatever you called it, it was currently disrupting his mood of self-satisfied content with an accusation.
Now that was a new low of pettiness, it said in its calm, annoying voice.
He rolled his eyes and set about sticking Potter's books back in their places on the library's shelves.
So? Got him to leave, didn't it?
Yes. Got him to quit studying and applying himself. Well-done, Severus.
He snarled back at it for a moment then dropped sulkily into one of the chairs. Alright, alright, so he'd been a bit childish. But it wasn't as if Potter hadn't deserved it.
And besides which, it had been fun. If he was going to deal with the inconvenience of the boy all summer, he was going to get his kicks where he could. Even if the methods used were less than... mature.
The annoying voice of the Conscience (or perhaps this was Logical Thought; on the rare occasions they agreed, they sounded remarkably similar) was still going, with some rational argument about how he really ought to make an effort to be civil since like it or not the boy was here all summer. Snape growled under his breath and picked at a little chip in the table's surface. The dark, polished wood reflected a ghostly image of his own face back at him, which he trained his glare on.
Potter started it, he sulked.
The other voice refrained from mentioning how exactly that sounded like a much younger Severus Snape complaining to his Head of House, and instead said, No, you did. Snuck up on him, remember? Very dignified.
Whose side are you on, anyway? he groused back with a glare at the reflection. No answer was forthcoming and Severus leaned back with a heavy sigh. Alright. He'd be civil, he thought with a sneer.
Next time.
For now... he stared at the ceiling unhappily. The benefits of Eliot's poetry had been lost in the confrontation, and it was time for something more potent if he was serious about taking a break from work.
He never summoned it. The chances of the case banging up inadvertently against a hard object as it flew through the air were too great. Now he stood and crossed the library floor to the shelves that held his books on music. The case, and its precious contents, reposed at the end of the third shelf, and he gently lifted it from its niche.
He ran a reverent finger over the smooth old leather of the antique case, breathing in the rich scent with a sigh of contentment. The latches opened easily at his touch, and a stray beam of sunlight from the window stole across the case's crimson silk lining and the beautiful, varnished maple of the violin itself.
Harry was still grumbling to himself as he approached the owlery tower, digging out Hermione's letter from his pocket. Maybe replying to her would get the fact that he was staying the summer with the World's Biggest All-Round Bastard off his mind.
With a quick glance around to make sure Macavity was nowhere in sight, he opened the door to the tower and entered into the feathery chaos. Inside, he looked around for Aluco and saw her staring at him expectantly from one of the perches.
"Yes, I've got a letter for you," he murmured, moving to the drawer with the extra parchment in it. He pulled out a sheet, then reached into his jeans pocket for his quill.
It wasn't there. He blinked and felt his other pocket. There was his wand, but no quill. Had he left it with his "essay" in his room? No, he distinctly remembered his pieces of parchment as being the only things he'd thrown down on his bed.
With an exasperated sigh, Harry realized he must have left it in the library tower. Great.
He scowled fiercely at the nearest bird (the unfortunate blackbird who had endured Macavity's affections the day before) and considered just leaving the quill there. If it had been just any quill, he might have, but this had been a gift from Dean. The feather was actually from an Augurey, and Dean had gone to the trouble of making it into a quill just for him...
Harry sighed. He could use the owlery quills to write to Hermione, but then he'd have to go back into the library and look for it.
A sudden chill ran up his spine at the thought of Snape finding it. It would be just like the bastard to keep it, as if it was some item he'd confiscated during class, and make him ask for it back.
Harry began to write his note to Hermione with a little more violence than was perhaps strictly necessary.
June 29
Hermione--
It was great to hear from you. The owl's name is Aluco, and she belongs to Snape. Explains a lot about her personality, doesn't it?
Yes, that's who I'm staying with. But don't tell Ron yet; I'm still making him guess for a little bit longer. It's... well, I don't know. It's not as bad as you might think, but it's still not fun. He's such a... He's SNAPE, y'know?
Anyways. Yes, Mother, ickle Harry is doing his homework. So leave off.
I'm not really doing much magic either, so relax.
Sorry if I sound down, I'm just in a crappy mood at something Snape did. But really, things are going to be okay. Write. Love,
--Harry
He sighed and slipped on the glove before reaching out towards Aluco, who warily stepped onto his finger and allowed him to affix the letter. With a hoot, she took off through one of the windows.
Harry put the quill and ink back in their drawer and left the owlery in the same condition he'd found it. As he walked across the battlement towards the library tower, steeling himself for possible further confrontation with his professor, he caught a glimpse of Fenris sunning himself in the courtyard. Hm, maybe he'd go talk to the wolf once he'd gotten his quill back; or better yet, go find Macavity.
The door from the battlements into the library stood before him. He opened it as quietly as he could, hoping that Snape had maybe returned to his potions and he, Harry, could retrieve his quill without ever being noticed.
He was not prepared for the music.
It washed over him like sea-water, the notes rising up through the cylinder of the library, past the books, up to the windows at the top. The only time Harry had ever heard a violin before was at his old Muggle school, years ago, and the sound of his fellow students scratching away with their bows after five lessons did not compare to this any more than Goyle's grades compared to Hermione's.
He stood transfixed, the rise and fall of the music holding him as surely as a Petrificus spell. The almost-human voice of the instrument, heart-breaking and poignant, seemed to haunt the tower.
Harry didn't know the tune, but that was insignificant. It was beautiful. He took a step into the tower, as silent as he could, easing the door shut behind him, then another step forward, so he could look over the landing and try and see the source of the music.
An enchanted violin? Or did wizards have the equivalent of records and stereos? He'd never heard of the latter. He looked down, the soft cry of the instrument filling his ears... and froze.
An empty case lay on the table, its red silk lining gleaming like flames. In one of the thin rays of sunlight that slanted down from the library's windows, Snape stood and played the violin.
From his vantage point, Harry could see the long, elegant hand as it deftly moved the bow back and forth, producing those sounds... The reddish-hued wood of the violin disappeared under the edge of Snape's chin, while his black hair brushed against it slightly, halfway obscuring his face.
Even as he watched, Snape shifted slightly with the music, the black strands falling from his face, revealing his expression.
It was the face of a man in concentrated bliss. His professor's eyes were closed, the hard lines of scowls and grimaces erased to be replaced by a softness he'd never seen in the man. The sun that danced slowly over his form seemed to destroy all color and midtones, making him something from a sepia photograph, from another time and world.
Snape's head moved back and forth slightly, his whole body following it, intense absorption and rapture on his face as he performed, unaware he had an audience. The intricate trills and glorious notes came with effortless grace, as if he were not so much playing an instrument as creating music out of the air and his own thought. Harry stood, turned to stone, his mind operating without him.
Beautiful. That was all. All it was. The violin, the sunlight, the wood, the player, the music.
How could a man like that-- a man who you could never consider beautiful-- how could he do it? How could he make something so... pure, so transcendent, so haunting and bloody beautiful?
Harry found himself shaking for reasons he couldn't understand, and bit fiercely on his lower lip as the music built to a heart-rending high note, then dropped back... and rose again...
He wanted to divorce the images, to make them separate. Snape didn't have the right to be associated with something so beautiful. But he couldn't do it, even in his own mind-- couldn't make what he heard and what he saw separate and distinct from each other.
Every time he heard a violin from now on, he knew-- every time he even saw one-- regardless of how it was played or who played it or what was played-- he would see Severus Snape, standing in a thin ray of pale gold and delivering the silver notes to his audience of books and dust.
As he stared, Snape once more moved his head and the curtain of his lank dark hair dropped back in front of his face, hiding it once more. And Harry understood that this was private, that he had never been meant to see or hear it, and that he couldn't be here when Snape finished and put down the violin and opened his eyes. Slowly, unwilling to tear himself away, he stepped back silently and edged the door open, moving back into the warmth of the afternoon and out of the cylinder of sound.
The world was empty and summer's colors hurt his eyes. Harry walked numbly back to his room, quill forgotten, wishing he was still eleven and Snape was still a monster.
And wishing the violin wouldn't replay itself over and over in his head.
The last poignant notes of the string part of Chopin's Nocturne for Violin and Piano seemed to hang in the sunlit air of the tower, even after Severus gently set down his instrument. He stood still for a long moment, unwilling to break the peace of the moment by moving.
After a long second, listening to his heartbeat and replaying the music in his mind, he lifted the bow he still held in one hand and loosened the tension of the hairs, to keep them from warping. Then, he took the square of polishing cloth and wiped rosin from the strings and the body of the violin, his touch light and careful.
With a soft sigh of contentment, he slipped the bow and violin back into the case, closing it and snapping the latches shut. He set the case back in its place, then turned back to his library.
He didn't yet feel like going back to work. Something to drink, perhaps, and eat? Maybe some more reading? Or even a walk in the gardens. He hadn't been outside in... too long.
He rang the bell for a house-elf. Dubbin, another one of the far-too-many creatures, appeared and listened obediently to his order for some food and drink to be prepared in the kitchen, then winked out to attend to his request.
Severus looked back quickly into his workshop, just to check on the potion, and, satisfied, turned to leave the library for the kitchen. Something on the floor caught his eye-- he bent and picked up a greenish-black feather.
No, a quill-- and Potter's. He remembered the boy had been writing with it.
After a second's thought, and remembering his resolution to be 'civil,' he pocketed it. Then, he left the quiet of the library behind for the pleasant bustle of the elf-infested kitchen.
Harry stood on the balcony of his bedroom, leaning his crossed arms on the rail and staring out at the summer colors beneath him. He felt drained. He could be working on rewriting his essay, or doing some more flying, or... something... but what he really wanted was someone to talk to.
Paying wonderful attention to her cues, or perhaps just sensitive to the moods of the humans she shared the castle with, the lynx slunk into the room and let out a soft miaow. Harry turned from the window, smiling slightly at Macavity, who stalked over to him and rubbed up against his legs.
"Hey," he murmured, bending down to scratch her behind her ears. "What have you been up to today?"
"Mice. And annoying Fenris," the feline purred, her eyes shutting in pleasure. "You, Hari?"
"Now that would be the life," the young man sighed, sitting down on the floor and letting the lynx butt her face fondly into his chin. "Me... I spent an hour flying, then getting lectured by a ghost about how I'm a stupid Gryffindor, then tried to do some homework-- 'tried' being the operative word-- and getting really annoyed by Snape, and losing a gift I'd been given, and... and listening to..." he trailed off, for some reason reluctant to speak of the violin. The lynx fixed acidic green eyes on him, mute and inscrutable, and he sighed again. "Sorry. I know I'm rambling. It's just..."
"That I'm a good listener," the cat interrupted dryly. "Go on, Hari. Severus used to--"
"I really couldn't care less about what Severus used to do," Harry bit out, standing angrily and stalking back to the balcony. Behind him, he could sense the lynx's quiet lack of comprehension. He exhaled in frustration and ran a hand through his hair, messing it up even more than it perpetually was.
After a moment, Macavity said quietly, "I think you should eat something. Sometimes it helps humans who are acting odd to eat something."
"Thanks," he groused, sticking his chin into his hands and glaring at the horizon. After a beat, he added, "It's not you or anything, okay? I'm just getting... confused, I guess. Lots of things happening."
"Part of growing up," Macavity purred at his feet, having moved silently towards him. "Part of leaving being a child behind. The world cannot be the same forever."
That's for sure, he thought unhappily, dropping his hands back to the railing and straightening up. "You're right. I'll feel better after I get something to eat. Come on; let's go to the kitchen."
Severus Snape idly scanned the headlines of the Daily Prophet, slightly more annoyed than usual by the banal headlines and usual front-page stories. The latest on Death Eater attacks and the woefully pathetic measures being taken against them was relegated to back pages, and was always glossed over and cleaned up before being presented to the public. But that was always the situation with the Prophet; one had to read between the lines to get anything of interest.
He dropped the paper, delivered by owl-post, into the kitchen's trash and picked up the next in the pile: the Delphic Oracle. The Greek Ministry of Magic was far less strict with their press-- but of course, they were hardly waging an open war with Voldemort at the moment either. Yet.
The Greek was not a problem; his mother had had him reading the language by the time he was five. He skimmed the headlines half-heartedly, found a few things interesting enough to merit keeping the paper for another day, and tossed it onto the table.
Vox Veneficum was of somewhat more interest, if only for the fact that most of its funding and staff came from the 'old guard' of extremely conservative pureblood families. It was as close to an official, respectable mouthpiece for Voldemort's cause as you could get. Severus tensed as he skimmed the articles, written in Latin simply because it was another way to show off their snobbery. Grimly, he placed it on top of the Oracle for further reading at a later date.
Last but not least came the Cry of the Banshee. Independently published, by a staff whom nobody quite seemed to know who they were or where they operated from (and not for lack of trying, either), the Cry was the one newspaper that owed allegiance to no one, had no regulations, and consequently had the most open and scathing reporting seen anywhere in the wizarding world. It blasted the Ministries (of all countries), it blasted Fudge (and other elected officials), it blasted Voldemort and his cronies, it blasted Gringotts, it blasted everything within blasting range (and a few things out of it; the diatribe ten years ago by its editor against the indecent public exposure of the moon was fondly remembered by many in the wizarding journalism world) and when it ran out of things to blast, its reporters often blasted each other. Rumour was that no two people on staff agreed with each other's political views; and the only thing consistent in any of the columns was a biting wit and a healthy disrespect for sacred cows.
Snape adored it. He (anonymously) contributed a large sum of Galleons every month to help support it and had been an avid reader since the day his father had banned it from the house when he was fourteen. In his opinion it was one of the few voices of independent thought in the wizarding world.
Using one hand to eat the green salad that the kitchen elves had prepared for him, and the other to turn pages, Severus read the current editorial, which was calling for Fudge's immediate resignation, with a malicious smile. The editor, who published under the pen name V. Eritas, was raging against the same covering-up of the facts he'd just noticed in the Prophet, and laying the blame straight at the feet of Cornelius Fudge, whom Eritas referred to as, "that ignoble, ignominious dullard (elected only for the lack of embarrassing detritus in his past [due rather to cowardice than any moral magnitude] which made him seem a paragon of virtue)-- that walking folly, that living blinder on the eyes of Wizarding Britain, discharging his duties with all the grace and finesse of a rampaging Bludger..."
Severus's smile grew slightly and he circled the description with a ray of light from his wand, planning to owl the editor at a later date with something complimentary.
He turned to the last page, where one of his favorite recurring columns resided, and was halfway through it when he heard footsteps coming down the corridor.
Severus looked up with an arched eyebrow, waiting for Harry Potter to appear, and had his expectations fulfilled by the sight of his lodger entering the kitchen. The lynx was by his feet, and Severus arched the eyebrow a bit higher, wondering at how quickly Macavity had taken to Potter. The cat's green eyes met his own with their usual inscrutable expression.
Potter's face had fallen upon seeing him, which Snape was quite used to and in fact encouraged at school, but the boy nonetheless entered warily and sat down, asking the house-elf that bustled up to him for a sandwich. Snape rolled his eyes and returned his attention to the column. Perhaps the boy would simply not speak. That would be nice.
"Vox Populi," the columnist, was arguing for equal rights of squibs. Severus sighed slightly-- Vox had been on this kick for the last three issues, and the points were no longer new or interesting-- and set down the paper on the table top.
Ignoring Potter, who was eating his sandwich at the other end of the table, he returned his attention to his salad and toast. After intense potions work, during which he often forgot to eat unless Wiggin reminded him, it was better to eat light meals until the metabolism readjusted-- otherwise he'd go back to his workshop and likely pass out.
The meal passed in utter silence, each of them ignoring the other, and Severus almost smiled. This-- this was tolerable. If only all encounters with the boy for the rest of the summer went thusly...
Finishing the last bites, he stood and let the ever-present elves grab the dishes away. With the motion, he felt something in one of his pockets-- ah yes, Potter's quill. He pulled it from the pocket and tossed it to Potter's end of the table.
"You left this. In the tower," he said curtly.
The boy blinked, stared at it where it lay on the table, and looked up with something unidentifiable in his green eyes. "Thank you," he murmured.
Severus gave a half-shrug in reply, not feeling like forcing out an actual "you're welcome." Besides, he had work to do... the salad had reminded him of some algae he wanted to try adding to the potion. He turned and headed for the door back to the courtyard, currently standing open to let in the summer air.
A black blur shot past his head, squawking frantically as it went. "Severus-- Caperian's here-- is the owlery shut-- hide--"
"What? Poe, come back here-- Poe!" he snarled in exasperation as the raven disappeared into the house proper. Potter was standing in surprise, looking after the bird, but Snape looked back towards the door in time to see a large snowy white owl swoop through the doorway and land, with much chaos of her formidable wings, on the back of the chair he'd just vacated.
With a shrill screech, the large owl fixed him with a fierce and sulfurous yellow gaze that reminded him, for some reason, of Madam Hooch, and beat her wings some more. As this particular owl had a five-foot wingspan, this was not something to be taken lightly, and Snape swore as the newspapers he'd had on the table flew off the scatter on the floor.
The owl didn't care, looking around the kitchen hungrily, and Severus knew that if he wanted any chance of getting the letter clutched in her talons away from her he was going to have to feed her. He snarled under his breath-- damn Caperian, and damn Siobhan for keeping, let alone using, such an abominable creature-- while looking around the kitchen for some food.
The house-elves had all fled the instant Poe's warning had been heard, and only Potter and Macavity were left, the lynx glaring at the owl with a mixture of terror and hatred, the boy staring in awe at the bird. Severus's eyes trained on the boy's half-eaten chicken sandwich, and he reached a hand across the table to the plate, quickly flipping the contents at the bird.
With a snap of her beak, the owl snatched the morsels of food from the air and gulped them down. Her claws opened up and dropped the rather tattered parchment to the floor. Without so much as a civil word, the huge owl turned and winged her way back out through the door.
Severus sighed, looked around the chaos of the kitchen, and picked up the letter from the floor. Around him, the house-elves started to re-appear, panic fading from their faces as they started to clean up the mess.
Potter looked a bit shell-shocked. Severus ignored it in favor of uncrumpling the message.
His sister's familiar scrawl, nearly as nasty as his own, read:
June 29 2002
Dearest Severus--
Things with the Gorgeous Young Idiot did not work out-- will explain more when I arrive. So I am coming home for the rest of summer hols. Hope this is not a problem. Expect me not later than the eighth of next month. Remain yours,
SiobhanPS. Do you know of anyone needing a Potions Mistress, hah hah? I know you've got Hogwarts, but I could use a job. Will also explain this when I arrive. Love. S.
"Oh Lord," he muttered under his breath. "She's managed to get herself fired..."
Re-crumpling the letter, he turned towards the door Poe had disappeared through and yelled for the raven. After a long second, the bird stuck his head around the edge of the door.
"Is she gone?"
"Yes, for the moment. Get in here. Now listen-- I don't know how long Caperian's planning on flying around our home, but until she leaves, you're responsible for keeping her out of the owlery. Last time we lost two sparrows and a sand owl, and I--"
"Oh please, Severus, not me! Caperian's going to eat me alive! Literally!"
"You'll manage. Talk to her. There's a reasonable bird buried somewhere in there-- or there was before my sister adopted her as familiar and took her off to Durmstrang..."
"Ha! So you think! Caperian came out of the egg with psychotic tendencies! Maybe you and Mac and Fenris didn't notice, but as the other bird, I grew up with that-- that-- barbarian-- and I tell you, she's not sane!"
Severus sighed. "Look, just keep her from eating anyone else, all right? Enlist the house-elves if you need to."
"Please. They hide when they see her coming."
"Then enlist Wiggin."
The raven fixed him with a reproachful stare, but Severus merely looked back at him coolly until the bird heaved a melancholy sigh. "Alright. Alright. I'll just go make out my will now... farewell, cruel world... goodbye, Macavity, goodbye Severus, goodbye Harry Potter, goodbye kitchen-elves, goodb--"
"Poe. Go," Severus exhaled tersely, and with one last reproving squawk, the raven launched himself through the kitchen and out through the door. Severus yelled after him, "And then tell everyone Siobhan's going to be home in a week or so!"
"Great, just great..." the raven could be heard to mutter as he flew away.
Severus threw a glance at Harry Potter, still standing rather dumbstruck in the middle of the kitchen, and felt a vague sensation of pity. "My apologies for using your sandwich. I'm sure the elves will be happy to make you another. Excuse me, Potter..."
He brushed by the boy and headed into the house proper. There would be an owl-- several owls-- to write... and in any case he was now completely ruined for any work for the rest of the day.
Well, well. Siobhan was going to be home for the summer. His sister... and Harry Potter... in close proximity.
Severus sighed and decided he needed to work on some better headache potions.
