The Other Side Of The Dark: Chapter 8

Harry tried not to slop boiling water over himself as he carried the cauldron over to the kitchen table. It was smaller than the monstrosity hanging by its chain over the fire at the end of the cavernous kitchen, but still heavy and awkward. It lurched slightly as it hit the floor harder than intended, and Harry massaged the muscles in his forearms while Lupin ladled out some water for the herbs he had been frantically crushing on Moody's orders.

Snape lay face down on the long wooden table, one arm hanging limply over the edge as Moody's magical eye scanned his lifeless body. An attempt to remove the filthy rags had been abandoned when it became clear that they were stuck to his back with blood. That explained the smell, at least. Harry stood back, morbid fascination fighting nausea as Moody grimly began to sponge the fabric free with hot water, mumbling to himself.

'What a mess… This is on the point of going septic…'

Lupin brought over the bowl of herbs and water as Moody pried the last of the rags free and pulled the whole filthy robe clear, bundling it up and throwing it absently on the floor. Harry turned away, knowing he wasn't going to be able to stop himself being sick. He managed to get to the sink just in time, and caught only the last few of Moody's words to Lupin.

'… you can just see where strips of muscle have been pulled through the skin… see, it's slightly darker. I can heal this, but it's going to take time.'

'What about his arm?'

'Looks OK. St. Mungo's should be able to grow it back, as long as we can keep infection from setting in.'

Harry rinsed his mouth, took some deep breaths, and went back. Snape's ravaged body was now draped with clean towels, except for his back which Lupin was covering with layers of gauze and boiled herbs.

Lupin gave him a friendlier look than he had on the moor, but Moody regarded him with a slight glint in his normal eye.

'Feeling better?'

Harry nodded, pale but determined not to succumb to more squeamishness.

'Well,' said Moody, 'I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that Snape still has his soul.'

Harry bit his tongue on the comment that maybe Snape had never had a soul to lose. Instead he gazed into Moody's magical eye, wondering how much it was possible see with it. 'How can you tell?' he asked.

Moody moved around the table and drew back the towel covering Snape's left arm. Harry took another steadying breath. Half of it was gone, cleanly sliced just below the elbow, and he knew that he need only tilt his head slightly to see, in macabre detail, where bone and muscle ended. But against the dark oak of the ancient kitchen table, Harry suddenly realised he could see something else as well.

Moody smiled grimly. 'You don't need a magical eye to see a ghost. And a man has no ghost when his soul's been eaten by a Dementor.'

Pearly white, extending from the flesh just below the elbow joint, was the shade of Snape's missing arm.

Harry turned away, heart thumping, as Moody covered the stump again. 'Bad news is,' he continued almost to himself, 'that Snape's in such poor condition he could still die.'

'I don't understand it,' Lupin muttered, 'I only saw him a month ago, he seemed fine ...'

'No…' Moody mused. 'Well there's not much more we can do for him tonight. I'll finish cleaning him up. The two of you may as well go to bed.' He gave Harry another cold, almost searching look. Lupin sighed and wiped his hands in a towel.

'Come on then Harry,' he said, 'Let's go and have a chat.'

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Harry followed Lupin upstairs to the drawing room he had helped to clean the previous summer. The house seemed unnaturally quiet, and Harry found himself wondering what had happened to Buckbeak now Sirius was no longer there to care for him.

Lupin closed the door behind them and waved his wand into the darkness. A standard lamp in a corner just beyond the writing desk came on, illuminating a pair of winged-backed leather chairs in a small pool of light. Lupin sank wearily into one of the chairs and waved Harry into the other. He closed his eyes for a moment, and in the brassy light his prematurely lined face looked particularly worn. He took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled, opening his eyes and fixing Harry with a cool stare.

'OK,' he said. 'First of all, what the hell were you doing in Hogsmeade?'

Harry felt a flicker of anger, and he met Lupin's eyes with a glare. 'I don't see why I should tell you,' he replied stiffly. 'Dumbledore said I had to go home to Aunt Petunia's at least once a year. I did that. What I did afterwards is nothing to do with anyone anymore.'

Lupin said nothing, but there was a momentary glimmer of pain in his steady gaze. Harry looked down at his hands, a sudden sense of shame puncturing the angry self-pity. There was silence. Harry waited, but still Lupin said nothing.

'I just needed to be on my own,' Harry whispered. 'I wanted to get away from everything. What difference does it make? I've fought Voldemort twice and won. If I can't save myself, who can? I'm sick of ruled by other people. No one tells me anything, no one cares what I feel…' His voice wobbled and he sank his head into his hands, trying to control the embarrassing tears that had suddenly forced their way forward.

There was a creak of leather as Lupin leaned towards him, but Harry heard his voice as if from far away.

'I'm sorry, Harry,' Lupin said quietly, and his voice sounded odd and strained as if he too were struggling with emotion. 'I know how that feels, I really do. When I was your age I felt just like that. I was tired of being a werewolf, and I didn't understand why nobody could heal me. I thought they just couldn't be bothered, and I knew there was more to the condition than they were telling me. And my friends knew something was wrong and kept asking, and I just wished they'd leave me alone, because there was no way I could tell them or make them understand what I was really going through. I was sure that if I told them the truth they'd leave me.'

Harry pulled off his glasses and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. 'But when they found out, they didn't leave you, did they?'

'No they didn't. True friends care about you whatever you're going through. You just have to learn to trust them and give them the chance to give you the support you need. Even if it's simply trusting them not to hate you for asking them to give you a bit of space.'

Harry swallowed and blinked deeply. He felt suddenly exhausted, as if the events of the day had just caught up with him. 'So if I asked you to leave me alone, you would?'

Lupin smiled gently. 'Up to a point. But I'd get a bit cross if you just ran away without telling me and left me to worry that you were dead.'

Harry blew his nose and sat back in the chair with his eyes closed. 'And…' he said into his private darkness, 'if I trusted you enough to ask questions… you'd answer them?'

'As fully as I could, Harry. I don't know everything, and I'd ask you to bear in mind that you might not like the answers I might give. But if you promise to try and trust me to be your friend, then I promise you that I will do my best to answer any question you might ask.'

Harry looked at Lupin, suddenly wanting to cry again. There had been so many things he had wanted to ask Sirius: about his parents, about their lives when they had been at Hogwarts; to just know the man as a person. The idea that he might see him again at some unspecified time in the future when Harry was also dead was no longer the comforting one it had been up on the moor. Right now, sitting in Sirius' house without him, with Snape dying on the kitchen table downstairs, Harry suddenly found that he badly wanted human company, more than anything. And yet… his mind seemed to have gone blank of anything to say. He gazed dumbly at Lupin, who smiled back.

'So anyway,' Lupin said in a more casual tone of voice, 'you went up to Hogsmeade and had a look at the moors. Did it help?'

Harry nodded, and put his glasses back on. 'Yeah. Yeah, it did. And I was going to come and write to you and let you know where I was. I just needed to be alone for a bit.' He frowned, remembering the moment when Snape had appeared. 'Why did Snape come? He said it was easy to find me because I hated him. That it was like blood or something…'

Lupin looked thoughtful. 'I don't know. I didn't know you were up there until I arrived. I got here just as Moody was about to leave, and when he said he'd found Severus, I went with him. I had the shock of my life to find you up there too. The fact is, I haven't seen Severus for almost a month.' Lupin paused, watching Harry's face. 'Are you still reading the Daily Prophet? Aberforth said he'd given you a copy…?'

Harry shook his head.

Lupin paused, weighing his words. 'Well… apparently the Ministry have decided to arrest Severus for being a Death Eater. But by the time they came to Hogwarts, he'd already left, and no one knows where he went.'

Harry stared at him, remembering the scene in Hogwarts' hospital wing after the Tri-Wizard Tournament when Snape had shown Fudge his Dark Mark in an effort to convince the Minister that Voldemort had returned. 'But why? I thought he was meant to be on our side?'

'He is on our side, and I've no idea what the Ministry are playing at. But anyway, there was quite long piece in today's Prophet about him.' Lupin glanced at Harry, wondering if this was a good moment to tell him that the Death Eaters he had put in Azkaban were going to be executed. He decided the news would keep until morning. Harry looked tired, miserable and rather ill. Definitely time for bed.

'Let's talk about it tomorrow,' Lupin said, reaching out to put a hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry started slightly; he had almost dozed off in the few moments' pause. He gazed almost mournfully at Lupin for a moment, then said, 'Why did you come? Why do you care so much?'

Lupin stared at him. 'What do you mean?' he asked tentatively. 'Why shouldn't I care?'

Harry blinked and frowned, as he was suddenly too tired to know where he was. 'About Snape,' he mumbled, yawning as he stood up. 'He told everyone you're a werewolf, got you sacked. He was probably the reason Umbridge made that law about half-breeds. He ruined your life, but you went up there to save him.'

Lupin put his arm around Harry's shoulders and steered him out of the drawing room and up the stairs to one of the bedrooms on the second floor. 'Nothing Severus has done to me would justify letting a Dementor get him,' he replied.

'But you didn't know there were Dementors there until you got there,' Harry said as he sank on to the edge of the bed. He stared blearily into space as Lupin pulled his trainers off and pushed him under the blankets. 'You looked distraught…'

The world slipped out of focus as Lupin removed Harry's glasses and put them on the chair next to the bed. 'You're exhausted,' Lupin whispered. 'Sleep well, and tomorrow I'll tell you anything you want to know.'

Lupin gazed down at Harry in silence, watching as sleep overtook him at last. He thought about that last question, more about how it had been phrased than the question itself, and fitted it into his own theories about what had happened up on the moor. Then he left the room, closing the door silently behind him.

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