Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor anything otherwise related. I do, however, make claim on NM Harry's personality as well as those of all the other canon characters and my original chars.
Pray, we who are cursed
with the memories of War,
pray for us, please, thou who would.
Pray for us that are beaten,
torn to shreds by memories of Loss.
Pray for us that have stood
with our cold memories at our back.
Pray for yourself
that you should never have memories as we.
"Memories" by Saerry Lillianne Snape
Chapter 2 – Memories of Loss"…cough, cough…Father? Father, are you here?"
Saerry slowly picked herself up off the floor of her father's study, which she had ended up in by tripping over her own feet getting off the Floo. Looking around the office, she noted that her father's book was sitting in the center of his desk with a fine layer of dust atop it. Moving behind the beast of a desk, she carefully picked up the book, which was the original copy that all the adventures of her father and mother's years at Hogwarts had been recorded in, and brushed the dust from its cover and bindings.
Gently replacing it, she slowly left the study, her hand trailing along the fine engravings on the wall. When she entered the front foyer after traveling down the corridor, Marly was there waiting for her.
"Young miss!" exclaimed the house-elf, her eyes bright. "What is you doing here?"
"My father, Marly," said Saerry. "Where is he?"
Marly's ears drooped and she murmured, "Master is very unwell, young miss. Very, very unwell."
"I know."
"Marly hears Master howling sometimes and wishes she could help."
Saerry smiled warmly at the elf that had been a part of her and her brother's lives since they were born. The house-elf was older than her father and had served her grandfather before coming to take control of Ashdeir Fierion's kitchen. She was also an integral part of their family.
"I wish I could too," said Saerry softly. "Can you tell me where he is?"
"Upstairs, young miss," replied Marly. "Master did not come to breakfast. Master Etienne could not get Master to come eat, either. Marly was sad."
"Perhaps I can get him down…"
The house-elf perked up a little and smiled up at Saerry.
"Marly would like that. Marly would like very much to see Master, young miss."
Saerry smiled sadly and murmured, "So would I, Marly. So would I…"
- - -
"Father?"
Saerry carefully pushed the door of her parent's bedroom open, shocked to find the entire room engulfed in darkness. She started to reach for her wand when a low growl sounded from somewhere to her right.
Ceasing her movement, she looked in that direction and whispered, "Father?"
The growling continued for a moment before there was the soft sound of bones and flesh rearranging. A moment later, her father's deep voice spat, "Go away."
"Father, I…"
"Go away," repeated Harry in a louder voice. "Just leave me be."
"No," said Saerry in a voice that brooked no argument. She swung the door open fully and waved her hand about the room. With a single murmured word and that gesture, every light in the room came up.
She almost wished she hadn't brought them up.
Her father sat in the floor beside the large bed, a single tattered sheet drawn haphazardly about his shoulders. One scarred hand gripped the sheet in a white-knuckled fist whilst his other – the one that had been possessed years earlier by the Gauntlet of Aerilsed – clutched possessively at a small photograph of her mother. His dark hair, which was generally in a neat tail, clouded about his face in a tangled mass that more resembled Hermione Malfoy's hair than his normally straight locks. And from behind that cloud of hair burned a pair of bloodshot emerald eyes that were fixed on Saerry with anger in their smoldering depths. She could also see new wounds over his shoulders, chest, and arms; obviously they had been self-inflicted and not cared for. The blood that had run from them had not even been washed away and stained the sheet he had about his shoulders.
He looked worse now than he had the day after her mother had died.
"Father…" breathed Saerry as she took in the sight of him. "What…"
"Leave me alone," spat Harry, turning away from his daughter. "Just leave me alone, Saerry. Go live your life and leave me alone to die in peace."
"No," said Saerry fiercely. "I won't do that, Father." She crossed the space between them and sank down beside him, wincing as he pulled away from her.
"What has happened to you?" she asked. "You were okay nine years ago. What changed?"
"'Okay?'" repeated Harry. "I was never 'okay', daughter mine. I haven't been 'okay' since your grandfather died. And even less so since your mother."
"Father…"
"Go. Away," snarled Harry, his eyes glinting with animalistic fury. When she didn't move, he released the sheet from his grip and shoved her back. She fell and bounced slightly on her bottom, her eyes focused on his scarred face the entire time.
"Leave. Me. Alone," repeated Harry. "Leave me alone with my grief and my memories."
"What of my grief?" asked Saerry in a loud voice, shifting back to her knees. "What of my memories? I remember Mum, too! You aren't the only one!"
"She was my life!" shouted Harry, now furious. "She…she…I am nothing without her, Saerry. You don't understand. I'm nothing…" He shuddered as his body bent in on itself, head hanging down so his face was hidden behind his hair. "I am nothing without her."
"Father…"
She reached out to touch his bare shoulder but her fingertips only got within an inch of him before a breath of wind gusted through her hair. After that she only had an instant to haul a weak shield around herself as her father's head came up. The white's of his eyes had gone black and his long hair rose like the hackles of his wolf form.
"LEAVE!" he roared, his voice full of not only pain but his will. That will used his magic and hurled Saerry from the room and into the hallway on a gust of howling wind.
She slammed into the wall then fell to the floor in an aching heap, a picture dropping from it's place on the wall to jab one corner of it's frame into her left ankle. Lifting her head, she glimpsed her father one last time before the door slammed shut in her face, the wind from it gusting through her hair.
Her senses overhauled with her own pain and her father's, Saerry began to pull herself to her feet…only to find gentle hands on her shoulders assisting her in the matter. Looking up, she found the still youthful face of her great-uncle gazing at her.
"Hello, cub," said Etienne Daladier warmly as he pulled his great-niece to her feet. His black eyes then flicked over to the closed door. "You've seen him."
Saerry just nodded and turned her face towards the door, the expression on her face a sad one.
"What happened to him, Uncle?"
"Many things, cub," replied Etienne, dropping his hands from her shoulder. He bent slightly to rub the old wound on his right leg then straightened up and began to limp down the hallway towards his own room.
"Uncle?" queried Saerry after him.
Etienne looked at her over his shoulder. "Come with me, cub. I favor a strong drink and a comfortable chair."
"You also want to get as far away from Father as you can."
The blond-haired man winced then nodded.
"Aye, I do." He sighed and licked his lips before saying softly, "He reminds me of his father in this state."
Saerry blinked at that.
"Grandfather went through the same thing?"
"He lost the only woman he ever truly loved to a man he hated. He lost his mother to our father. He lost me to our father's anger and my own stupidity. And he lost his life in the end."
"But he gave it for Father," said Saerry as she followed Etienne into the small study that was a part of the man's rooms. "Him and Jardin."
"Yes," confirmed Etienne as he limped over to his chair by the fire. He sank into it with a groan and leaned forward to rub his leg again. "Beastly wound. Winter just doesn't agree with it."
"Uncle."
"I know, cub, I know."
Etienne leaned back into his chair and sighed, closing his eyes.
"Your grandfather did give his life for your father…but he lost so much within his lifetime. Including a precious number of years stolen from him by not knowing he had a child. Your father didn't lose much until just recently as you know."
Saerry nodded as memories she had buried of the war fourteen years before came back to her. She remembered Mischa Weasley, who had only been married for five years to Ron Weasley, had died at her very side as they had fired fire and poison tipped arrows onto the enemy. And she recalled seeing Jennifer Davids in her wolf form jumping in front of a Killing Curse for her – an act that had thrown her twin brother into a killing frenzy that had gotten him killed. Their mother Ginny had charged out of the bow lines the moment her children had been slain and had plowed into the enemy, killing nearly forty of them in her fury before they took the fiery-haired witch down. She had then seen her husband Mika and her twin brother's Fred and George enter the fray after her and die as she had.
So many had died on that battlefield… The people Saerry had grown up with, the men and women she had called Aunt and Uncle and the children she had known as Cousins. Her only cousin in actuality, Sirius Black, had been slaughtered and then avenged by her father.
No, her father had not lost everything when his wife, his beloved Niamh had been killed by poison.
He had lost everything when all of his friends but the Malfoy's had been slain. And he had lost many of his classmates and their children.
"That still doesn't explain it, Uncle," whispered Saerry as she sank down into the chair across from him.
Etienne sighed at that and frowned, pinching the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb.
"Cub," he said, "I do not know what to tell you."
"Tell me how to help him!"
"I cannot."
"You mean you won't."
Etienne turned his black gaze upon the witch and said, "Cub, if I could heal Harry, I would. I would move the Heavens and Hell to bring back all that was torn from him. But I can't. And I don't know how to heal his hurt."
"Except to kill him, you mean," hissed Saerry, hating herself for saying and even thinking it.
There was a cold silence in the room for a moment.
"Yes," whispered Etienne, closing his eyes. "I hate myself for saying it but yes. I fear it is the only…"
"It's not the only way! It can't be!"
"Child," said Etienne. "Let him go. By all the gods that have protected us, let him go!"
Saerry sobbed and cried, "He's my father! How can you ask me that?"
Etienne reached forward and lifted her chin so she looked into his face. He frowned deeply, lines creasing his face as he spoke.
"The same way I can ask myself to let him go. And the same way I can ask Draco or Hermione or your brother to let him go. We need not hold him here any longer."
"My God, Uncle, do you know what you're saying?"
"Yes, cub, I know."
Saerry blinked then sniffed, brushing tears from her eyes.
"You know what that would do."
"It would make Severus the Head of the Snape Line since I am simply a bastard child. Yes, cub, I know what that would do."
"He won't agree."
"Severus?"
Saerry nodded and Etienne frowned. He then said, "He need not agree. This is, and has always been, your father's choice."
"Do you think he would? Do you think he…he would take his own life?"
Etienne sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. When he reopened them, Saerry saw his answer in his eyes and felt it before he spoke.
"To see Niamh again, cub, Harry would do the Darkest of Arts."