The Other Side Of The Dark: Chapter 16
Harry screamed. He opened his mouth, sucked in a deep breath and let it all out in one long howl of anger and pain. He wanted it to be Snape's fault, because then it wouldn't be his fault. He wanted it to be someone's fault, because then he could say, if this hadn't been done, if that hadn't happened, Sirius would not have died, he would have lived, if only
And then, in a tiny, barely acknowledged part of his mind, Sirius would live. This didn't happen, that didn't happen, and there was Sirius, a tiny figure waving at him in the distance. Make this not have happened, and then I can have you back
Someone grabbed him as he fell, and Harry lashed out with hands and feet, kicking and clawing out of inchoate rage. He did not want to be touched and comforted; he wanted to let the ugly fury out and pass on his pain to someone else. He pounded his fists into the chest of the man in front of him, and the man obligingly gave way to the onslaught. But his hands were on Harry's shoulders, and as he fell back into the rugs and furs, he drew Harry into his embrace and held him tight.
The grief and anger were washed away in a sublime rush of comfort. For one blinding moment, Harry felt his mother's arms around him, smelled her scent as he buried his face in her hair but the hair wasn't red, it was black
He wrenched himself back and fell over, landing in a sea of fur. Snape gazed down at him impassively from the edge of the settee, all flowing hair and flowing robes, his dark eyes reflecting nothing but the firelight.
'Why?' Harry whispered accusingly. 'Why do I feel this bad? It doesn't make any difference. Up on the moor, before with Tonks nothing changes. You said the charm was meant to take away all my bad feelings, but it doesn't!'
Snape gave a thin smile. 'No,' he said, 'it creates a space for them. The only person who can make them go is the person actually experiencing them. And as I explained before, the charm has become warped, so it isn't working the way it should.'
Harry sat up and rested his head in his hands. 'If you hadn't done the charm, what would I be feeling?'
Snape shrugged. 'I've no idea. Grief is a complex of emotions, unique, not only to an individual, but to an individual loss. It depends on how important he was to you, and why. It can depend on the circumstance of his death.'
'I blamed you,' Harry mumbled. 'You didn't let me know you'd understood me in Umbridge's office.'
'What difference would it have made if I had?'
The question hung in the air for a moment. Harry looked up with a frown. Snape raised an eyebrow ironically.
'You were being forced at wand point into the Forbidden Forest. Your friends were being held by the Inquisitorial Squad. You had an overwhelming conviction that your precious godfather was being tortured, and every minute you spent at Hogwarts was another minute wasted. What difference would it have made to your choices from that point on if I had somehow contrived to let you know I had understood you?'
Harry bowed his head, despair hovering just out of reach. 'It's all my fault, isn't it?' he whispered. 'Sirius is dead because of me. If I had worked harder at Occlumency I wouldn't have had the vision. If I had come to you instead of breaking in to Umbridge's office, I'd have known Sirius was safe.'
'The Dark Lord is a very powerful wizard; even an accomplished Occlumens after years of study would have difficulty shutting him out. Even without your psychological disabilities, you had not a hope of mastering the art sufficiently in the time available. And as for coming to me' Snape broke off, looking away bitterly before continuing, 'why on earth would you think of coming to me if you were in trouble?'
Harry said nothing. Why indeed? He sighed deeply, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, it was to find himself lying on Moody's bed, looking up at Albus Dumbledore.
Lupin watched as Dumbledore and Tonks helped Harry pull himself into a sitting position, while Moody painted an orange paste over his burned hand.
Lupin was appalled at the way Harry looked. They had apparated to Snape's room just in time to see Harry collapse; Dumbledore had arrived minutes later, while they were lifting him onto Moody's bed. His hand burned savagely, but the sight of Harry, deathly pale and unconscious, had been enough of a shock to drive it from his mind.
Now the pain was genuinely receding. Lupin watched Harry sit up, looking terribly thin and sick. Tonks sat on the bed next to him, her face a picture of worried sympathy as she let him lean on her. 'He's probably just hungry,' Moody commented. His magical eye had rolled right back in the socket to look at Harry and Dumbledore, while his normal eye focused on the bandage he was winding around Lupin's hand. 'By my reckoning, the boy hasn't eaten anything since yesterday. Why don't you two take him downstairs for some breakfast?'
Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully as Harry gazed around with a dazed expression. 'That sounds like a very good idea, Alastor,' he said, and held out his hand. 'Come Harry, let's see what we can find in the kitchen.' He and Tonks led the unresisting boy out of the room, and Lupin found himself alone with Moody and the unconscious Snape.
Moody finished the bandage in the silence that followed, then got up to tidy away the bottles and potions. Lupin rose and wandered over to Snape's bed, absently nursing his hand. Snape lay unmoving beneath his blankets, his frail form padded with pillows. Lupin shook his head wonderingly. 'I don't understand you,' he murmured, staring at the fresh bandages and the clean sheets. 'All this effort to keep alive someone you're going to hand over to certain death at the first opportunity. All this rubbish about standing trial! It'll be nothing but a formality, and you know it.'
He turned angrily. Moody, who was watching him from the window with a meditative gaze, said nothing for a few moments. Then: 'Blood which burns a werewolf. Interesting.'
Lupin met his gaze, his eyes narrowing sharply. 'How do you know it's the blood? Maybe there was something else on it too; you've had it lying around at your place for fourteen years. What else could it have come in contact with?'
Moody smiled. 'Oh I'm very careful with my evidence, even years after people might think it irrelevant. There's nothing on that bear but blood stains. Do you know whose blood it is?'
Lupin stared at him with a feral look in his eye. 'You've got an enquiring mind, Mad-Eye,' he said. 'Did you ever wonder why people have been searching for centuries for a cure for lycanthropy and getting nowhere, then suddenly, in the last few years, a breakthrough was made?
'Severus worked on the Wolfsbane potion. He's been working on a cure for lycanthropy since his final year at Hogwarts, ever since an irresponsible teenager almost got him killed by a werewolf. He gave a lot of his research to the team at St. Mungo's, and the result of it is the potion which keeps me from going insane every month.'
Moody's face was unreadable.
Lupin began to pace, his burnt hand cradled against his chest. 'But you're wrong if you think that's the only reason I want him to live,' he said. 'I meant it when I said I cared about justice. I don't believe Severus is guilty of what happened to Frank and Alice; I didn't even know he had been a Death Eater until last year.'
'Research is moving on,' Moody said. 'The latest tests are producing a Potion which allows the sufferer to remain conscious during the transformation and retain memories. All this success is mainly down to Snape, isn't it? Not the St. Mungo's team, as you might expect. But a schoolteacher. Wonder how he managed that without werewolf blood to work on?'
Lupin scowled. 'Severus came to see me just after I lost my job at Hogwarts. He offered me a lot of money for regular samples of my blood for his research. I had no choice – and even if I hadn't needed the money, I'd have been happy to give him my blood, as much as it took. He's actually succeeding!'
Moody noted the sudden flash of desperate hope in Lupin's eyes and filed it in the back of his mind. 'As a matter of fact, I had wondered about that breakthrough. I've read some of the papers on it; they've made some quite extraordinary, prodigious advances. All down to someone who's name appears in very small print, which made me think that he doesn't want to be recognised for his work. Odd, wouldn't you say?'
Lupin stared at Moody, trying to work out where the conversation was going.
'The blood on the teddy bear,' said Moody steadily. 'Most of it belongs to Snape, doesn't it?'
'How are you feeling now, Harry? Well enough to talk?' Dumbledore filled Harry's flagon with more orange juice as Tonks banished the parcel, scrolls and Moody's box to the other end of the kitchen table with a wave of her wand.
Harry nodded, taking another mouthful gratefully. He felt exhausted, and his throat was dry and sore; presumably he had screamed aloud, although everything else had taken place in Snape's dream world. He gazed into the flagon's depths for a moment. This was the first time he had seen the Headmaster since the day Sirius died. He looked up into the bright blue eyes behind their half-moon spectacles, as if seeing them for the first time. Why not blame him for Sirius' death? came a voice from deep inside his mind. He admitted it was his fault, if he had been more honest with you about your destiny, a lot of things could have been different. Why aren't you angry with him?
Harry dropped his gaze and scowled at the surface of the table. 'Professor Snape put a charm on me to keep Voldemort out of my head,' he muttered. 'But it's gone wrong. He says its killing him. I think it's killing me, too.'
Dumbledore nodded slowly. 'Tell me what happened, Harry,' he said gently. 'Everything you can think of.'
Harry took a few moments to gather his thoughts; it was becoming hard to concentrate. Finally he began to talk, and with the occasional gentle prompt from Tonks, he described the phantom library and Snape's unusual appearance in some detail, and everything Snape had told him about the charm. Without really thinking about it, Harry omitted everything they had discussed regarding Sirius and Snape's reasons for casting the spell.
Dumbledore listened in silence, and when Harry finished, there was a faraway look in his eyes. Tonks looked at him, a slight frown on her face. Harry looked from one to the other; then Dumbledore spoke. 'I know the place you have described, Harry,' he said. 'I've been there. But there were no gaps in the book shelves then. How very interesting.'
'Snape said it wasn't real, that he was dreaming it and I was sharing it because of the charm,' Harry mumbled. He was starting to feel tired again.
'Yes,' said Dumbledore. 'Severus almost died on the moor, and his damaged mind has sought refuge in the memory of a place in which he once felt safe and happy. I am fairly certain the bookshelves are representations of his memories.'
'And the gaps?' Tonks began.
' are missing memories,' Dumbledore finished. 'Severus went to fight Dementors, and believed he would stand a better chance if he removed unpleasant memories beforehand. Now he is in a coma here while his thoughts are in a Pensieve elsewhere.'
'He said the charm had gone wrong because his mind was incomplete,' said Harry. 'Is that why?'
'How many gaps were there?'
'Lots.'
Dumbledore closed his eyes.
'This charm,' Tonks said with a note of urgency in her voice, 'We know it's draining energy from Professor Snape; but it looks like it's draining Harry as well'
Dumbledore nodded. 'We must find Severus' Pensieve. If we can restore the missing parts of his mind before he sinks too far, he may be able to regain consciousness and correct the charm. If not, his mind will collapse, and both he and Harry will die.'
'Can't you lift the spell?' asked Tonks. It seemed to Harry that she and Dumbledore had momentarily forgotten he was still there; but he was too tired to care. 'Powerful wizards can lift spells created by others if the spell or the person who cast it is weaker. If we could find his notes on the charm itself and find out exactly how it works, you could undo it, couldn't you?'
Dumbledore gave a wry smile. 'Unfortunately no, Tonks. It would take a more powerful wizard than I to undo this particular piece of magic if it was created by Severus.'
Harry screamed. He opened his mouth, sucked in a deep breath and let it all out in one long howl of anger and pain. He wanted it to be Snape's fault, because then it wouldn't be his fault. He wanted it to be someone's fault, because then he could say, if this hadn't been done, if that hadn't happened, Sirius would not have died, he would have lived, if only
And then, in a tiny, barely acknowledged part of his mind, Sirius would live. This didn't happen, that didn't happen, and there was Sirius, a tiny figure waving at him in the distance. Make this not have happened, and then I can have you back
Someone grabbed him as he fell, and Harry lashed out with hands and feet, kicking and clawing out of inchoate rage. He did not want to be touched and comforted; he wanted to let the ugly fury out and pass on his pain to someone else. He pounded his fists into the chest of the man in front of him, and the man obligingly gave way to the onslaught. But his hands were on Harry's shoulders, and as he fell back into the rugs and furs, he drew Harry into his embrace and held him tight.
The grief and anger were washed away in a sublime rush of comfort. For one blinding moment, Harry felt his mother's arms around him, smelled her scent as he buried his face in her hair but the hair wasn't red, it was black
He wrenched himself back and fell over, landing in a sea of fur. Snape gazed down at him impassively from the edge of the settee, all flowing hair and flowing robes, his dark eyes reflecting nothing but the firelight.
'Why?' Harry whispered accusingly. 'Why do I feel this bad? It doesn't make any difference. Up on the moor, before with Tonks nothing changes. You said the charm was meant to take away all my bad feelings, but it doesn't!'
Snape gave a thin smile. 'No,' he said, 'it creates a space for them. The only person who can make them go is the person actually experiencing them. And as I explained before, the charm has become warped, so it isn't working the way it should.'
Harry sat up and rested his head in his hands. 'If you hadn't done the charm, what would I be feeling?'
Snape shrugged. 'I've no idea. Grief is a complex of emotions, unique, not only to an individual, but to an individual loss. It depends on how important he was to you, and why. It can depend on the circumstance of his death.'
'I blamed you,' Harry mumbled. 'You didn't let me know you'd understood me in Umbridge's office.'
'What difference would it have made if I had?'
The question hung in the air for a moment. Harry looked up with a frown. Snape raised an eyebrow ironically.
'You were being forced at wand point into the Forbidden Forest. Your friends were being held by the Inquisitorial Squad. You had an overwhelming conviction that your precious godfather was being tortured, and every minute you spent at Hogwarts was another minute wasted. What difference would it have made to your choices from that point on if I had somehow contrived to let you know I had understood you?'
Harry bowed his head, despair hovering just out of reach. 'It's all my fault, isn't it?' he whispered. 'Sirius is dead because of me. If I had worked harder at Occlumency I wouldn't have had the vision. If I had come to you instead of breaking in to Umbridge's office, I'd have known Sirius was safe.'
'The Dark Lord is a very powerful wizard; even an accomplished Occlumens after years of study would have difficulty shutting him out. Even without your psychological disabilities, you had not a hope of mastering the art sufficiently in the time available. And as for coming to me' Snape broke off, looking away bitterly before continuing, 'why on earth would you think of coming to me if you were in trouble?'
Harry said nothing. Why indeed? He sighed deeply, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, it was to find himself lying on Moody's bed, looking up at Albus Dumbledore.
Lupin watched as Dumbledore and Tonks helped Harry pull himself into a sitting position, while Moody painted an orange paste over his burned hand.
Lupin was appalled at the way Harry looked. They had apparated to Snape's room just in time to see Harry collapse; Dumbledore had arrived minutes later, while they were lifting him onto Moody's bed. His hand burned savagely, but the sight of Harry, deathly pale and unconscious, had been enough of a shock to drive it from his mind.
Now the pain was genuinely receding. Lupin watched Harry sit up, looking terribly thin and sick. Tonks sat on the bed next to him, her face a picture of worried sympathy as she let him lean on her. 'He's probably just hungry,' Moody commented. His magical eye had rolled right back in the socket to look at Harry and Dumbledore, while his normal eye focused on the bandage he was winding around Lupin's hand. 'By my reckoning, the boy hasn't eaten anything since yesterday. Why don't you two take him downstairs for some breakfast?'
Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully as Harry gazed around with a dazed expression. 'That sounds like a very good idea, Alastor,' he said, and held out his hand. 'Come Harry, let's see what we can find in the kitchen.' He and Tonks led the unresisting boy out of the room, and Lupin found himself alone with Moody and the unconscious Snape.
Moody finished the bandage in the silence that followed, then got up to tidy away the bottles and potions. Lupin rose and wandered over to Snape's bed, absently nursing his hand. Snape lay unmoving beneath his blankets, his frail form padded with pillows. Lupin shook his head wonderingly. 'I don't understand you,' he murmured, staring at the fresh bandages and the clean sheets. 'All this effort to keep alive someone you're going to hand over to certain death at the first opportunity. All this rubbish about standing trial! It'll be nothing but a formality, and you know it.'
He turned angrily. Moody, who was watching him from the window with a meditative gaze, said nothing for a few moments. Then: 'Blood which burns a werewolf. Interesting.'
Lupin met his gaze, his eyes narrowing sharply. 'How do you know it's the blood? Maybe there was something else on it too; you've had it lying around at your place for fourteen years. What else could it have come in contact with?'
Moody smiled. 'Oh I'm very careful with my evidence, even years after people might think it irrelevant. There's nothing on that bear but blood stains. Do you know whose blood it is?'
Lupin stared at him with a feral look in his eye. 'You've got an enquiring mind, Mad-Eye,' he said. 'Did you ever wonder why people have been searching for centuries for a cure for lycanthropy and getting nowhere, then suddenly, in the last few years, a breakthrough was made?
'Severus worked on the Wolfsbane potion. He's been working on a cure for lycanthropy since his final year at Hogwarts, ever since an irresponsible teenager almost got him killed by a werewolf. He gave a lot of his research to the team at St. Mungo's, and the result of it is the potion which keeps me from going insane every month.'
Moody's face was unreadable.
Lupin began to pace, his burnt hand cradled against his chest. 'But you're wrong if you think that's the only reason I want him to live,' he said. 'I meant it when I said I cared about justice. I don't believe Severus is guilty of what happened to Frank and Alice; I didn't even know he had been a Death Eater until last year.'
'Research is moving on,' Moody said. 'The latest tests are producing a Potion which allows the sufferer to remain conscious during the transformation and retain memories. All this success is mainly down to Snape, isn't it? Not the St. Mungo's team, as you might expect. But a schoolteacher. Wonder how he managed that without werewolf blood to work on?'
Lupin scowled. 'Severus came to see me just after I lost my job at Hogwarts. He offered me a lot of money for regular samples of my blood for his research. I had no choice – and even if I hadn't needed the money, I'd have been happy to give him my blood, as much as it took. He's actually succeeding!'
Moody noted the sudden flash of desperate hope in Lupin's eyes and filed it in the back of his mind. 'As a matter of fact, I had wondered about that breakthrough. I've read some of the papers on it; they've made some quite extraordinary, prodigious advances. All down to someone who's name appears in very small print, which made me think that he doesn't want to be recognised for his work. Odd, wouldn't you say?'
Lupin stared at Moody, trying to work out where the conversation was going.
'The blood on the teddy bear,' said Moody steadily. 'Most of it belongs to Snape, doesn't it?'
'How are you feeling now, Harry? Well enough to talk?' Dumbledore filled Harry's flagon with more orange juice as Tonks banished the parcel, scrolls and Moody's box to the other end of the kitchen table with a wave of her wand.
Harry nodded, taking another mouthful gratefully. He felt exhausted, and his throat was dry and sore; presumably he had screamed aloud, although everything else had taken place in Snape's dream world. He gazed into the flagon's depths for a moment. This was the first time he had seen the Headmaster since the day Sirius died. He looked up into the bright blue eyes behind their half-moon spectacles, as if seeing them for the first time. Why not blame him for Sirius' death? came a voice from deep inside his mind. He admitted it was his fault, if he had been more honest with you about your destiny, a lot of things could have been different. Why aren't you angry with him?
Harry dropped his gaze and scowled at the surface of the table. 'Professor Snape put a charm on me to keep Voldemort out of my head,' he muttered. 'But it's gone wrong. He says its killing him. I think it's killing me, too.'
Dumbledore nodded slowly. 'Tell me what happened, Harry,' he said gently. 'Everything you can think of.'
Harry took a few moments to gather his thoughts; it was becoming hard to concentrate. Finally he began to talk, and with the occasional gentle prompt from Tonks, he described the phantom library and Snape's unusual appearance in some detail, and everything Snape had told him about the charm. Without really thinking about it, Harry omitted everything they had discussed regarding Sirius and Snape's reasons for casting the spell.
Dumbledore listened in silence, and when Harry finished, there was a faraway look in his eyes. Tonks looked at him, a slight frown on her face. Harry looked from one to the other; then Dumbledore spoke. 'I know the place you have described, Harry,' he said. 'I've been there. But there were no gaps in the book shelves then. How very interesting.'
'Snape said it wasn't real, that he was dreaming it and I was sharing it because of the charm,' Harry mumbled. He was starting to feel tired again.
'Yes,' said Dumbledore. 'Severus almost died on the moor, and his damaged mind has sought refuge in the memory of a place in which he once felt safe and happy. I am fairly certain the bookshelves are representations of his memories.'
'And the gaps?' Tonks began.
' are missing memories,' Dumbledore finished. 'Severus went to fight Dementors, and believed he would stand a better chance if he removed unpleasant memories beforehand. Now he is in a coma here while his thoughts are in a Pensieve elsewhere.'
'He said the charm had gone wrong because his mind was incomplete,' said Harry. 'Is that why?'
'How many gaps were there?'
'Lots.'
Dumbledore closed his eyes.
'This charm,' Tonks said with a note of urgency in her voice, 'We know it's draining energy from Professor Snape; but it looks like it's draining Harry as well'
Dumbledore nodded. 'We must find Severus' Pensieve. If we can restore the missing parts of his mind before he sinks too far, he may be able to regain consciousness and correct the charm. If not, his mind will collapse, and both he and Harry will die.'
'Can't you lift the spell?' asked Tonks. It seemed to Harry that she and Dumbledore had momentarily forgotten he was still there; but he was too tired to care. 'Powerful wizards can lift spells created by others if the spell or the person who cast it is weaker. If we could find his notes on the charm itself and find out exactly how it works, you could undo it, couldn't you?'
Dumbledore gave a wry smile. 'Unfortunately no, Tonks. It would take a more powerful wizard than I to undo this particular piece of magic if it was created by Severus.'
Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooge thanks to everyone who reviewed! And to all those who've added me to their favourites. :) More reviews for Chapter Fifteen than any of the others, THANK YOU! Excellent feedback too - praise for writing is eagerly and greedily accepted, but constructive criticism is hugely valued - thank you.
Wanted to put this online Friday night, but I dunno what happened to Fanfiction.net - definite technical hitch!
BekaJWP: Hug them both! Poor things
Lillith11: *hugs* I know I've been in your faves, since your first review. My rampant ego rushes to check! And a few more people have added me to theirs now, and I've seen several more reviews in the last week than usual. Usually I just get a few in the three days after posting, then that's it.
frogfoot24: Bad luck on the time limitations - I remember those sorts of restrictions, how very frustrating!
Barbara Kennedy: Oh yes, you're definitely asking the right questions!
excessivelyperky: I do indeed have plans for Moody
, : Seems odd, talking to a comma - but I just wanted to say, yes your perception of the situation is what I hoped to portray.
Merlyn: *grin* I do love your review. Wonder if other people off the list would be so pleasantly surprised?
Spiral-Digger: *grin* I love that image too. Beautiful Snape!
Knitekatz: :D Some of your questions answered - some more yet to be, and some new questions now I hope!
Silverthreads: Thank you - if so then I've acheived what I hoped to - it's quite difficult to avoid overdoing emotion.
crockywock: Yay! Don't apologise for sending reviews! Egoes need feeding ;D Really glad you liked it :). Re: your comments about Snape/Severus - I agree completely! I'm hoping to use the names as a way of depicting 1st & 3rd person viewpoints later on, but as you observe, it's not easily done. Why Snape starts calling Harry "Harry" will become clear further on ;)
And very best wishes to Kateri1, chickens, forlornhope, almostlost4wordz, ,00, and Ezmerelda :D