Chapter Sixteen: Looking in

Severus Snape was fifty eight years old. He had lived an odd life, a life seemingly full of extremes. Topping that list of extremes was the fact that he had been a Death Eater, before turning and becoming a spy for the Order.

Severus was fully aware that acquisition of his head, preferably on a silver platter, had been the crowning achievement yearned for by many young converts to the Dark Arts. The past twenty years of his life had been spent avoiding such confrontations with over zealous young wizards who were eager to prove themselves. He had dispatched more than one of them, and had no regrets over it. It had, after all, been purely in self-defence.

He was seated in his rather gloomy drawing room in his private quarters at Hogwarts, sipping his morning coffee, when his morning issue of the Daily Prophet was delivered. The headline was no surprise to him. As a member of the Order, and a close acquaintance of the Potter and Weasley families (Severus refused to consider himself friends with anyone, as friends tended to get one killed), he was fully aware of what Harry had had to do the previous day.

Severus felt a small ache in the region of his heart. Strange.

He read the article, and the ache worsened. Stranger still. It was now moving into his throat. He felt a strange urgency, to go to Potter Manor.

Severus took a deep breath and managed to get control of himself. After all, Harry had done what he had done based on logical thinking and astute observation. The reinstatement of the High Treason laws should have the desired result, especially after an example or two was made. Death Eaters were not always known for their ability to pick up on things right away, so it might take a few examples to convince them. As a matter of fact, the majority of them were rather thick.

It was twenty minutes before Severus finally admitted that the feelings in his heart and throat, not to mention the need to go to Potter Manor, were an emotional reaction. Harry had done something the day before which must have been tiresomely difficult, Harry being who Harry was. Severus, of course, would not have had a problem dealing out the sentence, but knowing Harry as he did, he was certain that the younger wizard would be having a difficult day today.

And he felt the need to be there for him.

Strange.

He made himself sit down in his favorite shabby high-backed armchair before the fire. He fussed with a book. He fussed with the paper. He finally managed to distract himself by thinking of the past.

Forty years ago, he had been an impetuous, angry young wizard. He was still often angry, but the impetuousity had been torn from him after a few weeks in the service of Voldemort. That had been as long as it took for him to realize that his emotional overreaction had led him down a very, very dangerous path. Even so, he had managed to survive, keeping himself believing that he had chosen the appropriate route.

Until he had heard of Harry's birth. And of Voldemort's plans.

He couldn't allow that to happen to Lily. No, not Lily.

So he had approached the 'enemy'. Dumbledore. The old man had been old then. Twenty years later, at his death, he'd been ancient.

His service to the Order of the Phoenix had been secretive. At first, only Dumbledore had known who their spy in Voldemort's ranks was. Then, Lily had seen him one day. She had approached him, had cried on his shoulder, begged him to leave the Dark, that she and James would help him... and he had told her what he was doing.

Perhaps it had been a mistake. Had he coldly pushed her away, perhaps things would have turned out differently. But he hadn't. He and Lily had been childhood friends. For him, it had been much more. It had been pure chance that she had met James... the fact that he had been a schoolmate of Severus' at Hogwarts had been completely coincidental.

And her falling in love with the handsome Gryffindor had wrenched out the last piece of Severus' heart that could have saved him at eighteen.

The day he heard of her child, though, the day that he heard of what Voldemort planned for that child... for Lily... something had awoken inside him. Perhaps it was that moment that he became a man. Until then, he had certainly not been acting like one.

The day after Lily and James had died, he had sworn retribution against Voldemort, and had shown up at an Order meeting to expose himself to the rest of the Order. Dumbledore had not been happy about it, but Severus had known that he must declare himself.

And then, several years later, Harry had shown up at the school. The cause of Lily's death, he had thought. The prophecy spoke of her child. If that child hadn't existed, Lily would still be alive. And he looked so much like his father had years before. Severus couldn't help himself. He was cold and angry towards the only person available to take out his anger on. Harry.

It wasn't until the final battle, when Severus watched Harry duel with Voldemort, and saw that the young man was willing to give his life for the cause which had consumed Severus', that he realized how truly wrong he had been. In the years since, he had tried, desperately sometimes, to make up for the years of anger and pain he had caused this boy. Since the twins had been born, Severus thought he had come to occupy some small place in their lives. And he could only be thankful.

The moment he had looked into the deep green eyes of Harry's daughter, and seen Lily, he had been lost once again. The child looked so much like her grandmother, it was eerie. As she grew, Severus could see more and more of Lily in her, and nothing of James. It was strange, but he felt deeply protective of the child in a way that he had never felt towards Lily. He had been protective of her, yes. But not like this. This child... Severus sometimes felt he couldn't feel more like her grandfather if he was.

And Harry and Ginny allowed it.

Again, Severus felt deeply grateful. He had built a solitary life, yet had been given the option, in the final stages of it, to have that which he had never dreamt he would have. A family.

He swore daily that he would not fail Harry's children as he had failed Lily. He would not punish himself, or them, for their honest choices. This was a lesson hard learned, but one that Severus intended to live by for the rest of his life.

After an hour of fighting the feeling of urgency, Severus stood and headed out the door. Surely Minerva wouldn't mind if he used her floo?

"So, Potter, feeling sorry for yourself?" Snape strode into Harry's study to find the younger wizard slumped in the corner of the leather sofa, eyes closed.

"What the hell do you want, Sev?" Harry said in a monotone.

"To drag you kicking and screaming out of that well of self-pity you appear to be intent on launching yourself into head first."

"Give up now," was Harry's flip comment.

"Alternatively, I'd take a glass of that muggle brandy I know you favour," Snape dropped into the chair across from Harry and stared intently at him. After a moment, Harry opened his left eye and looked at his old potions master.

"Pour me one, too," he said, closing it again.

"Drowning your sorrows in drink probably isn't the answer, either, Potter." Sev stood and moved to the drinks cabinet beside Harry's desk. Pouring them each a measure of the very expensive brandy, he returned to the fire.

"No? Funny, I've never noticed that it didn't work wonders," Harry said sarcastically, holding out his hand to take the drink that Sev offered without opening his eyes.

How the hell does he do that? Severus thought.

"When I was fourteen, Harry..."

Harry groaned. "Please, Sev, not a 'when I was' story... I really can't take it right now."

"When I was fourteen, there was a man in our village... now, little did the local muggles know, but he was a wizard. My father knew, of course, but my father could be relied on for one thing and one thing only: to never extend a helping hand to anyone. The more they needed it, the less likely he was to offer it."

"Now, one day, the local constabulary picked up this gentleman for... well, they called it public intoxication, and they rather thought it was, I suppose. In fact, it was a rather odd sheilding spell he'd been working on that went horribly wrong..."

"Does this story have a point, Sev?" Harry sat up, both eyes open, and glared at Severus.

"Ah, yes. Achieved," Severus lifted his drink to his lips.

"Excuse me?"

"The point, Harry," he said, after swallowing and taking a rather long look at the younger man. "Was to tell a story so mundane that you would feel compelled to sit up and stop feeling sorry for yourself simply to get out of having to listen to it. Therefore, I have achieved my goal."

"Sev, why are you here?" Harry sighed.

"Because you're sitting alone in a darkened room, scaring away those who love you, and feeling quite sorry for yourself."

"And you would know this, how?" Harry thought of Ron or Bill talking to Snape about him and his mood, and saw red.

"Because, Harry, one recognizes it in others when they are overly familiar with the signs in themselves."

"What?"

"I've spent enough time doing the very thing that you are intent on doing. It's a waste. Now, tell me, why are you sitting alone when you have a pretty wife, wonderful children, and a huge family of loving people who adore you on the other side of that very closed door?"

Harry was, in a word, surprised. He'd never heard Snape give the tiniest amount of credit to the benefits of positive emotion, much less the value of love and family.

"Do you know what I had to do yesterday, Sev?" he asked quietly.

"I heard," Snape confirmed.

"I had to go against everything that I feel is right, to do something that I know will save lives in the long run. I ordered the death of a wizard."

"Ah, the death of an innocent, then?" Sev commented, swirling the amber liquid in his glass at eye level, watching as it caught the light. There was something decadent about drinking forty year old brandy at ten o'clock in the morning. There hadn't been a lot of decadence in Snape's life. He rather liked it.

"An innocent?" Harry looked at him incredulously. "Hardly, Sev. The man was a Death Eater, tried to kill a Ministry guard, was intent on getting information on other wizarding families with the intent of victimizing them... killing them, but not before terrorizing and torturing their children..."

"Ah," Severus nodded. "I'm sorry, Harry, but why does it bother you to order the sentencing of one such as you have described if it didn't bother you to dispatch... say... Philip Mahood?"

Harry's eyes widened. He sat back against the back of the sofa, and then took a sip from his glass. Taking a breath, he looked into his glass at the remaining liquid, then downed it quickly.

"Now that, Potter, is sacreligeous," Severus shook his head disapprovingly. "Brandy of that quality should be treated with more respect."

"Thank you, Sev," Harry stood. "You're right."

"Quite often, actually," Severus said. "The trick is in getting others to recognize it."

"I've... I've not looked at this situation like that," Harry admitted, pacing. "Ginny said that I was too focused on his age..."

"Intelligent witch you married," Sev nodded again.

"Yes," Harry continued to pace. "But it's not so much that as... the injustice of my having to make yet another decision about the right of someone to live or die..."

"As you did for our friend Mahood."

Harry snorted at the 'friend' statement. "But I... I didn't know Mahood. I never saw fear in him, as I did in Rooney."

"Do you really think it was fear of you?" Snape asked.

"Who else?" Harry paused, looking at the older man. "I was deciding his fate. I gave him options, but..."

"Harry, are you sure it was fear of you and his fate at the hands of the Ministry, or could it have been fear of failing his Dark Lord?"

Harry looked contemplatively at Snape for a moment.

"I never thought of that."

"Apparently."

"Were you ever afraid, Sev? When you were serving the Dark Lord, but acting as a spy for the Order?"

Severus smiled ruefully, took a drink, then looked up at Harry. "Frequently."

"Did you ever think of..."

"My possible death? Of course," he nodded. "It's something that a Death Eater swears to embrace rather than fail his master, Harry."

Harry sat down again, looking at the older man.

"You feared failure more than death?"

"Absolutely," Snape nodded. "Failure meant weakness, and the exposure of personal weakness is a blow to the pride. To a Death Eater, Harry, nothing is more important than their personal pride, and their service to the Dark."

Harry considered this for a moment.

"So, you think that Rooney..."

"I think nothing," Severus said. "I know what the consequences would have been for Rooney. What he would have known the consequences to be. Besides the humiliation of being caught by an untrained auror's stunning spell, he would have had to endure the ridicule of the others because of his failure to achieve his mission for the Dark Lord. It would have very little to do with any fear of what the Dark Lord would do to him, because anything he would have to endure would be minor beside his failure. He might as well be dead, for he would be dead within the ranks... less than dead to himself."

You don't understand, I'm already dead.

Harry remembered the younger wizard's words, and sighed. How could he beat a world he could barely understand?

"Thank you, Sev," Harry said quietly. "Thank you for helping me to understand..."

"Harry!" the door to his study banged open, Ron standing in the doorway, his eyes wild and his face flushed. He'd been running.

"Ron, what on earth...?" Harry and Snape both stood.

"Harry, you've got to come..." Ron panted.

Ginny and Hermione flew through the door, obviously having followed Ron through the house. Charlie was right behind them.

"Ron?" Hermione ran to him, putting her arm around his heaving back. "Ron, what is it?"

"Harry..." Ron took a deep breath. "You need to come. We've found Malfoy... and Harry, he's dead!"

Mwahaahahahaha!!! I hope you like it folks, because it's all you're getting for a few days. Not only has my muse decided she's upset with me (long story) but I think I'm going away for the weekend. I'll try and have an update for you come Tuesday of next week – but this will have to hold you until then!

Love you all – and REVIEW!

CQ

Merlindamage: Harry's living in dark times, and he's struggling with his role, I think. Or at least how he's handling his role. As for Hermione... the prophecy only ever said she would die at "his" side...

Elise: Don't know where the story's going? Join the club!!! I have NO idea at times... my muse is in full control!

Pdlegirl: Aww! You say that so nicely! It's wonderful to know that I'm writing this in such a way that it's allowing my readers to feel what I think the characters are feeling... that's such an important part of fiction, I think, and the reason why so much of it leaves me flat sometimes...

James Milamber: Oh, geez, sorry! Okay, folks, listen up! James Milamber is a right git! He's arrogant, rude, and obnoxious, and that's on his GOOD days... Better, sweetie??

Whimsical Firefly: Rough day? Sounds like it! So, what is this about moving to Canada? Details, sweetie, DETAILS!

Larna Mandrea: I love that you love my story! I adore your reviews! And speaking of my muse... she's rather confused at the moment, but I know full well it's because I want her to go in one direction, and she's DEFINITELY pulling in another, completely unsuitable direction... one of us will break soon, I'm sure.

CQ