The Other Side Of The Dark: Chapter 6
The temperature had dropped; when the sun set, even in the summer, the moors grew cold quickly. For a moment, Harry and the apparition regarded each other in silence. Then the man raised a hand to the cowl and lowered it. Harry drew a sharp breath.
All the greasy hair was gone, shaved so roughly that Harry could see grazes where the razor had come too close. The face which had always been thin and sallow was now almost skeletal, but the familiar black eyes burned into his with cold light. As the evening breeze picked up strength, Harry could see the robes were thin and ragged, the body beneath emaciated; but the sight was nothing to the smell of something which reminded him – though he could not have said from where – of raw, rotting meat.
Professor Snape took a step forward, moving stiffly. Harry took an involuntary step back, feeling sick. 'What are you doing here?' he said. The horror of Snape's appearance mingled with relief that he was not Voldemort somehow mitigated the question of how he had managed to appear so silently from nowhere right next to him.
'I came for you,' Snape replied, but his voice was husky and lacked its usual assertive precision. He took another step closer, his rags billowing as the wind gained in strength. The glow of sunset had passed and the night was falling more swiftly than Harry could have imagined, drawing in with unexpected cold. He moved back, withdrawing his wand from his jeans pocket, and the two of them circled each other until Snape was no longer between him and Hogsmeade.
'Came for me?' Harry gave a choking laugh. 'Yeah right! You're mad if you think I'm going anywhere with you!'
'You stupid child,' Snape whispered, 'You've been up here for hours, don't you think the Dark Lord will know you're here? If I could find you, how much more easily could he?'
But Harry found he no longer cared. The sense of comforting warmth had evaporated, and something dark and ugly was rising to the surface, some molten composite of all his anger and grief, absorbed into the antithesis he had always felt for Snape. Yet, even as it did so, something of that peace remained in the back of Harry's mind – a calmness where before there had been the painful surge of uncontrollable passion. At Hogwarts he had always known that emotional control was important in the execution of charms and hexes, but now he suddenly understood completely how much power such control might convey. A subversive sense of exultation bloomed deep inside him, and he levelled his wand at Snape.
'I hate you,' Harry said quietly. 'It's your fault Sirius is dead. You taunted him for being a coward. You deliberately didn't let me know you understood me in Umbridge's office – if you had I wouldn't have gone. You hate me because of my father and you used the Occlumency lessons as revenge. I hate you.'
Snape gazed at the point of Harry's wand, then into Harry's eyes. 'Yes. You hate me more than anyone else, even he who murdered your parents. Finding you gave me no difficulty, because your hatred – and mine – binds us like blood.'
'Yeah?' seethed Harry. Bellatrix' words in the Department of Mysteries were floating through his head 'You need to really want to cause pain – to enjoy it' . He aimed his wand at Snape's head. 'We're not at Hogwarts now. I don't have to do what you tell me out here, you repulsive, screwed up bastard. And I'm going to make you pay for everything you've done to me'
Snape's eyes burned in their sunken sockets, and he spread his arms wide. 'Do your worst, Potter,' he sneered. 'Let me guess which curse you're planning to use. And you're still underage? Go on, indulge your childish lust for revenge, use an Unforgivable Curse against an unarmed man, and ruin the attempts of everyone who cares about you to protect you. Say goodbye to Hogwarts and all your friends, say goodbye to any chance of a normal life or career in the wizarding world, go on, with one simple act you could betray Dumbledore and the memory of your beloved parents'
'SHUT UP!' Harry yelled.
Snape gave a quiet, bitter laugh. 'Beware lest you become the thing you hate,' he quoted.
Harry stared at him, still pointing the wand. There was a long moment of silence while his brain grappled with the meaning of Snape's words. 'Damn you,' he whispered, and turned away.
The disconnection in his head was odd. It was like a bank of stillness between him and the fire burning just out of reach in the depths of his mind; as if his feelings were things stacked on a shelf which he could see but could not reach. But even as this impression developed, he became aware of a shift in the atmosphere. Surely it shouldn't be getting this cold this quickly in the middle of summer, even out here?
As Harry turned, wand raised, the darkness became absolute and icy. Snape stood motionless, head bowed as a rasping sound in the darkness beyond him signalled the approach of Dementors.
'Go,' Snape in a whispered distantly. 'They're not coming for you. Go now.'
Harry's knuckles whitened around his wand. He could see the monsters coming closer, could just make out variations in the shadows defining the edge of ragged cowls and scaly fingers reaching out towards them. Yet he hesitated; where were the feelings of misery and despair that accompanied a Dementor attack? All he felt was the physical cold; he did not even feel afraid.
He felt nothing. Even the anger had evaporated. All he knew was that there approached a horror which he had the power to defeat. And that he would never run away.
He concentrated, trying to find some emotion, something happy with which he could summon his Patronus, something to fight them with. But as he reached deeper into his mind, memories drifted back, and his sense of purpose suddenly short-circuited.
'You don't think you've got a sort of saving people thing, do you?'
Harry felt his hand fall to his side, still clutching the wand.
Snape had closed his eyes, dark lashes livid against his pallor. A Dementor loomed out of the night behind him, hands outstretched
If I hadn't tried to save Sirius, Sirius wouldn't have died
Scaly fingers the colour of a decaying corpse wound themselves around Snape's throat. Snape went limp and the Dementor lifted him by the neck like a ragdoll, drawing back its hood with its other hand.
He's going to die, Harry thought. And this would be more than death, unimaginably more. A rush of memories, of all the times Snape had treated him badly, unfairly, culminating in those awful Occlumency lessons, flashed past his mind's eye. Only moments ago Harry had wanted more than anything to hurt Snape and punish him for all of it, but more than all of that he had wanted revenge – no! recompense – for the death of Sirius.
Snape could have prevented Sirius from dying, so easily if he had wanted. But he was probably glad Sirius was dead, probably had wanted it, and had therefore had allowed it to happen.
A memory of an event so distant it could have belonged to someone else drifted into his mind. 'Do you think so?' said Lupin. 'Do you really think anyone deserves that?'. 'Yes,' said Harry, 'for some things.'
Harry turned away, his mind a blank.
Gold and silver light suddenly exploded on either side of him
Harry staggered, disorientated. Then there was a rush of warmth, and as he blinked in the punctured darkness, a giant silver wolf plunged past him. For a moment Harry felt as if he was floating in space, then the hard earth rose abruptly to meet him.
There was a loud crack and Remus Lupin apparated in front of him. 'What the hell are you doing up here?' he gasped. 'Get back down to the village!' And he began to run up the moor after his Patronus.
Something seemed to click inside Harry's head. Go back to the village like a good little boy? No way. He got to his feet, the sense of mental disconnection gone, anger rising like a tide ahead of all other emotions except fear. Scrambling back up the path in the trail of Lupin's Patronus, he reached once again for a happy thought – and his earlier feelings of joy came surging back. Raising his wand like a sword, Harry cried out in a strong, clear voice, 'EXPECTO PATRONUM!'
The silver stag blazed from the end of Harry's wand with almost painful brightness. In its light, Harry could see Lupin only a few feet ahead of him, and the stag overtook the wolf to charge down two Dementors. With rush of triumph and an almost casual flick of the wand, Harry sent another Patronus to join the others, and watched with satisfaction as the Dementors fled.
The darkness lifted slightly, revealing the summer night sky dotted with stars and the moor as a dim collection of shadows among which Lupin stood alone. Flooded with a huge sense of well-being, Harry strolled over to him.
'Hi Remus', he said lazily. 'We soon saw them off, didn't we?' Lupin gave him an incredulous look and moved away. 'Lumos,' he said quietly, heading towards something lying in the gloom a few feet away.
Harry was about to follow when someone shouted at them. Hurrying up the moors towards them carrying a lantern was the barman from the Hog's Head. Harry was somehow only slightly surprised to see him and not at all surprised to see Alastor Moody close on his heels. 'You're too late,' he said insolently, 'the Dementors are all gone now. You may as well go home.'
Moody glared as he hurried past him, but the barman stopped next to Harry, wheezing slightly. 'Where's Snape?' he said. Harry shrugged. 'Don't know, don't care,' he muttered. Before the barman could reply, there was a shout from Moody.
'Aberforth,' he said, 'bring that lantern over here so we can see what we're doing.'
The barman rushed over, lantern swinging, and Harry followed. Aberforth?
The light from Lupin and Moody's wands was being swallowed by the empty space around them, but as Aberforth lowered his lantern, the little scene was illuminated sufficiently for Harry to see Moody struggling to lift something. Lupin turned to them with a stricken expression.
'I think we're too late,' he said, and Harry was disconcerted to hear his voice hold the same broken quality as it had when Sirius had fallen through the veil in the Death Room.
'Too soon to say for sure,' Moody growled, managing at last to gain a hold. 'Let's get him back and see if there's anything left to revive.'
Aberforth nodded, and pulled a wand out of his sleeve. He tapped the lantern and muttered 'Portus', then held it out. 'You too, Potter,' he said gruffly, as Harry stared at him. 'On the count of three, then, one, two, three'
Harry reached out at the same time as Moody and Lupin, as if in a dream. A moment later the three of them were standing in the kitchen of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.
The temperature had dropped; when the sun set, even in the summer, the moors grew cold quickly. For a moment, Harry and the apparition regarded each other in silence. Then the man raised a hand to the cowl and lowered it. Harry drew a sharp breath.
All the greasy hair was gone, shaved so roughly that Harry could see grazes where the razor had come too close. The face which had always been thin and sallow was now almost skeletal, but the familiar black eyes burned into his with cold light. As the evening breeze picked up strength, Harry could see the robes were thin and ragged, the body beneath emaciated; but the sight was nothing to the smell of something which reminded him – though he could not have said from where – of raw, rotting meat.
Professor Snape took a step forward, moving stiffly. Harry took an involuntary step back, feeling sick. 'What are you doing here?' he said. The horror of Snape's appearance mingled with relief that he was not Voldemort somehow mitigated the question of how he had managed to appear so silently from nowhere right next to him.
'I came for you,' Snape replied, but his voice was husky and lacked its usual assertive precision. He took another step closer, his rags billowing as the wind gained in strength. The glow of sunset had passed and the night was falling more swiftly than Harry could have imagined, drawing in with unexpected cold. He moved back, withdrawing his wand from his jeans pocket, and the two of them circled each other until Snape was no longer between him and Hogsmeade.
'Came for me?' Harry gave a choking laugh. 'Yeah right! You're mad if you think I'm going anywhere with you!'
'You stupid child,' Snape whispered, 'You've been up here for hours, don't you think the Dark Lord will know you're here? If I could find you, how much more easily could he?'
But Harry found he no longer cared. The sense of comforting warmth had evaporated, and something dark and ugly was rising to the surface, some molten composite of all his anger and grief, absorbed into the antithesis he had always felt for Snape. Yet, even as it did so, something of that peace remained in the back of Harry's mind – a calmness where before there had been the painful surge of uncontrollable passion. At Hogwarts he had always known that emotional control was important in the execution of charms and hexes, but now he suddenly understood completely how much power such control might convey. A subversive sense of exultation bloomed deep inside him, and he levelled his wand at Snape.
'I hate you,' Harry said quietly. 'It's your fault Sirius is dead. You taunted him for being a coward. You deliberately didn't let me know you understood me in Umbridge's office – if you had I wouldn't have gone. You hate me because of my father and you used the Occlumency lessons as revenge. I hate you.'
Snape gazed at the point of Harry's wand, then into Harry's eyes. 'Yes. You hate me more than anyone else, even he who murdered your parents. Finding you gave me no difficulty, because your hatred – and mine – binds us like blood.'
'Yeah?' seethed Harry. Bellatrix' words in the Department of Mysteries were floating through his head 'You need to really want to cause pain – to enjoy it' . He aimed his wand at Snape's head. 'We're not at Hogwarts now. I don't have to do what you tell me out here, you repulsive, screwed up bastard. And I'm going to make you pay for everything you've done to me'
Snape's eyes burned in their sunken sockets, and he spread his arms wide. 'Do your worst, Potter,' he sneered. 'Let me guess which curse you're planning to use. And you're still underage? Go on, indulge your childish lust for revenge, use an Unforgivable Curse against an unarmed man, and ruin the attempts of everyone who cares about you to protect you. Say goodbye to Hogwarts and all your friends, say goodbye to any chance of a normal life or career in the wizarding world, go on, with one simple act you could betray Dumbledore and the memory of your beloved parents'
'SHUT UP!' Harry yelled.
Snape gave a quiet, bitter laugh. 'Beware lest you become the thing you hate,' he quoted.
Harry stared at him, still pointing the wand. There was a long moment of silence while his brain grappled with the meaning of Snape's words. 'Damn you,' he whispered, and turned away.
The disconnection in his head was odd. It was like a bank of stillness between him and the fire burning just out of reach in the depths of his mind; as if his feelings were things stacked on a shelf which he could see but could not reach. But even as this impression developed, he became aware of a shift in the atmosphere. Surely it shouldn't be getting this cold this quickly in the middle of summer, even out here?
As Harry turned, wand raised, the darkness became absolute and icy. Snape stood motionless, head bowed as a rasping sound in the darkness beyond him signalled the approach of Dementors.
'Go,' Snape in a whispered distantly. 'They're not coming for you. Go now.'
Harry's knuckles whitened around his wand. He could see the monsters coming closer, could just make out variations in the shadows defining the edge of ragged cowls and scaly fingers reaching out towards them. Yet he hesitated; where were the feelings of misery and despair that accompanied a Dementor attack? All he felt was the physical cold; he did not even feel afraid.
He felt nothing. Even the anger had evaporated. All he knew was that there approached a horror which he had the power to defeat. And that he would never run away.
He concentrated, trying to find some emotion, something happy with which he could summon his Patronus, something to fight them with. But as he reached deeper into his mind, memories drifted back, and his sense of purpose suddenly short-circuited.
'You don't think you've got a sort of saving people thing, do you?'
Harry felt his hand fall to his side, still clutching the wand.
Snape had closed his eyes, dark lashes livid against his pallor. A Dementor loomed out of the night behind him, hands outstretched
If I hadn't tried to save Sirius, Sirius wouldn't have died
Scaly fingers the colour of a decaying corpse wound themselves around Snape's throat. Snape went limp and the Dementor lifted him by the neck like a ragdoll, drawing back its hood with its other hand.
He's going to die, Harry thought. And this would be more than death, unimaginably more. A rush of memories, of all the times Snape had treated him badly, unfairly, culminating in those awful Occlumency lessons, flashed past his mind's eye. Only moments ago Harry had wanted more than anything to hurt Snape and punish him for all of it, but more than all of that he had wanted revenge – no! recompense – for the death of Sirius.
Snape could have prevented Sirius from dying, so easily if he had wanted. But he was probably glad Sirius was dead, probably had wanted it, and had therefore had allowed it to happen.
A memory of an event so distant it could have belonged to someone else drifted into his mind. 'Do you think so?' said Lupin. 'Do you really think anyone deserves that?'. 'Yes,' said Harry, 'for some things.'
Harry turned away, his mind a blank.
Gold and silver light suddenly exploded on either side of him
Harry staggered, disorientated. Then there was a rush of warmth, and as he blinked in the punctured darkness, a giant silver wolf plunged past him. For a moment Harry felt as if he was floating in space, then the hard earth rose abruptly to meet him.
There was a loud crack and Remus Lupin apparated in front of him. 'What the hell are you doing up here?' he gasped. 'Get back down to the village!' And he began to run up the moor after his Patronus.
Something seemed to click inside Harry's head. Go back to the village like a good little boy? No way. He got to his feet, the sense of mental disconnection gone, anger rising like a tide ahead of all other emotions except fear. Scrambling back up the path in the trail of Lupin's Patronus, he reached once again for a happy thought – and his earlier feelings of joy came surging back. Raising his wand like a sword, Harry cried out in a strong, clear voice, 'EXPECTO PATRONUM!'
The silver stag blazed from the end of Harry's wand with almost painful brightness. In its light, Harry could see Lupin only a few feet ahead of him, and the stag overtook the wolf to charge down two Dementors. With rush of triumph and an almost casual flick of the wand, Harry sent another Patronus to join the others, and watched with satisfaction as the Dementors fled.
The darkness lifted slightly, revealing the summer night sky dotted with stars and the moor as a dim collection of shadows among which Lupin stood alone. Flooded with a huge sense of well-being, Harry strolled over to him.
'Hi Remus', he said lazily. 'We soon saw them off, didn't we?' Lupin gave him an incredulous look and moved away. 'Lumos,' he said quietly, heading towards something lying in the gloom a few feet away.
Harry was about to follow when someone shouted at them. Hurrying up the moors towards them carrying a lantern was the barman from the Hog's Head. Harry was somehow only slightly surprised to see him and not at all surprised to see Alastor Moody close on his heels. 'You're too late,' he said insolently, 'the Dementors are all gone now. You may as well go home.'
Moody glared as he hurried past him, but the barman stopped next to Harry, wheezing slightly. 'Where's Snape?' he said. Harry shrugged. 'Don't know, don't care,' he muttered. Before the barman could reply, there was a shout from Moody.
'Aberforth,' he said, 'bring that lantern over here so we can see what we're doing.'
The barman rushed over, lantern swinging, and Harry followed. Aberforth?
The light from Lupin and Moody's wands was being swallowed by the empty space around them, but as Aberforth lowered his lantern, the little scene was illuminated sufficiently for Harry to see Moody struggling to lift something. Lupin turned to them with a stricken expression.
'I think we're too late,' he said, and Harry was disconcerted to hear his voice hold the same broken quality as it had when Sirius had fallen through the veil in the Death Room.
'Too soon to say for sure,' Moody growled, managing at last to gain a hold. 'Let's get him back and see if there's anything left to revive.'
Aberforth nodded, and pulled a wand out of his sleeve. He tapped the lantern and muttered 'Portus', then held it out. 'You too, Potter,' he said gruffly, as Harry stared at him. 'On the count of three, then, one, two, three'
Harry reached out at the same time as Moody and Lupin, as if in a dream. A moment later the three of them were standing in the kitchen of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.