Harry Potter and the Star of Senkrad
Author: l'Ciel
Fandom: Harry Potter
Disclaimer: JKR, and some more I think – I don't own anything but the plot – oh, and Ice Drakes, that's mine too! And that sexy nurse (god bless her brainless boobs)
Rating: hard R for implicit sexual content, NC-17 for explicit sexual content
Warnings: violence, brain washing, non-con,
Pairings: HP/DG, SS/LM; side pairings: HP/BZ, NM/LM
Genre: Action/Adventure, Romance, Angst
Summary : After the events of OotP, Harry runs away from the Dursleys. The only one to find him is Snape, but where do the spy's loyalties truly lie? Slash & Het, war-story
Main characters: Harry, Snape, Lucius, Voldemort, Dumbledore
23) Reunion
Occlumency had started again straight away the next morning. Snape did not seem very happy about it, nor did Harry, for obvious reason. When he walked down to the Potions master's office to their first lesson, he was already expecting Snape's taunting, especially since the pensive incident, but nothing happened. Snape simply let him in and trained his wand on Harry's head.
"Clear your mind!", he warned, before shouting the curse and Harry tried to gather his defences, but soon his resolve was weakening and Snape broke through. Memories of the last year flashed through his mind, but before anything could manifest enough to really bother him, the curse was gone.
"Concentrate!", Snape bellowed and flung Legilimens anew.
This repeated itself for over an hour, before Harry went down to his knees, shivering and feeling like jelly. Grumpily, Snape let him go.
Ron sat on the bed in his room at Grimmauld place. A house-elf had just delivered a letter to him. Anxiously he ripped the seal open and read:
'Dear Ron…
…can't tell you much now. Too dangerous… I am fine… everything alright… love-'
"HARRY!"
It seemed his scream had not gone unnoticed. Percy, his mother and the twins burst in immediately, directly followed by Ginny and Bill. Only seconds later a pounding noise rattled the fundament of the most ancient house of Black, when Lupin came flying down the stairs, holding a slip of parchment in hand, waving at Molly while summoning his cloak and then he was gone, the door slamming shut behind him.
"Well – he was certainly in a hurry…" Molly said puzzled. "And why were you screaming poor Harry's name?" she inquired worryingly.
"He's back," Ron simply said with a hollow voice.
His mother breathed heavily twice and sighed, relived, "At last…"
Remus was jogging down the road. At the next larger crossing, he flicked his wand out and seconds later the Knight Bus stopped at his feet. Stan was about to pull his usual speech, but Remus interrupted him callously.
"Hogsmeade, now!" he growled at the poor man, who stuttered something about other passengers' rights, but Remus simply slammed him against the next wall.
"YOU LISTEN TO ME, SHUNPIKE! Either you directly drive to Hogsmeade, or you'll drive straight to hell! Now get that bus moving!" he yelled at the driver, who shrugged and started the bus. With a loud bang they appeared on some muddy motorway in the mountains and soon the lake came into view. Damn – the full moon was too close to act rationally!
The moment they drove by the track to the castle Remus ordered the driver to stop and threw him a few coins. Storming up the road he heard Shunpike yell after him, that he forgot his change, but he didn't care. The castle wouldn't come near soon enough and he broke into a run, sprinting up the hill. His strength was at its fullest shortly before the full moon, but he was still out of breath when he climbed the stairs to the headmaster's office.
"Shrivelling Ice-pops!" he panted and the gargoyle moved. The door was already open and Dumbledore waiting.
"Albus, Harry-"
"-is fine. He is up in the Gryffindor tower, no doubt brooding over the past five months. I suggest you go up and pester him into insanity. He is indubitably blaming himself again and some parental talk should be in order, don't you agree?" the old man said merrily with twinkling eyes. Remus breathed and turned to jog up the stairs to the tower.
"The password…" the headmaster yelled after him, but Remus was far too worried to listen. Just when he had reached the Fat Lady, he regretted his hurried behaviour, but instead of returning to the headmaster's, he pounded his fists against the painting. The Fat Lady screeched about his rough treatment and threatened to call Sir Cadogan, but he didn't even bother to listen any further.
"Harry!" he yelled. "Harry…" he cried and the portrait opened slowly. With a faint weep, he buried his cub in his arms, squeezing him nearly to pulp until Harry yelled at him to let go because he was suffocating. So he pulled back.
"Remus?" his cub asked worriedly when it saw his tears. He looked up and smiled. "Oh Moony…" Harry sighed and hugged him close. Remus heard a sob, but he wasn't sure where it came from. His sight was blurred with his own tears and Harry was shaking so badly he was afraid to let him go to wipe his eyes.
So they held each other, huddled onto a fluffy couch in the Gryffindor Common Room. Remus wasn't exactly sure how they had made it there, but it was certainly more comfortable than the floor. Calming a bit, he looked at Harry again and realized the boy had fallen asleep in his arms. Smiling slightly, he levitated a blanket from the dorms down to them and tugged it around his cub, feeling a lot calmer.
"And then," he was chocking he laughed so hard, "he told him to fuck himself, because he surely wouldn't! And your father stood there and was nearly bursting with indignation! He was positively speechless. And then Sirius smiled and made puppy eyes at him and James punched him so hard that he had to go to the infirmary and get his nose fixed!"
Harry was rolling on his bed, clutching his stomach. Remus smiled at him and Harry sobered some.
"So what happened? Did my dad actually fall for it? Did he?"
"He fully and genuinely believed Sirius was in love with him until Lily took it upon herself to explain things. Afterwards he was so angry that he didn't speak with Sirius for half a day, until your godfather begged him on his knees to marry him in the middle of lunch and Lily saved James by kissing him in front of everybody. So they got together."
"Weird," Harry giggled and shook his head.
"I agree. Afterwards it was still hilarious to tease them about it…" he sighed and Harry muted.
"So are we going to headquarters?" he asked sombrely and Remus shook his head.
"I don't know, but I think Dumbledore wants you to catch up on your studies. There's a library at Grimmauld Place, but it's almost solely about the dark arts. We can ask him later. I also can't be there tonight.", he gave Harry a meaningful glance.
"Yeah," Harry agreed cheerlessly and they went down for dinner. It had been an exhausting afternoon…
Groaning, Lucius woke from another nightmare. Wondering how he had gotten to the Master Bedroom he shakily got up and stumbled into the bathroom. He made a half-heartedly attempt to clean himself, but soon found he lacked the strength. Summoning a house-elf he ordered the stupid being to clean him and make the bed…
Draco was smiling. His short blonde hair was tousled from the wind and he grinned, holding the snitch in hand. It was directly after his first Quidditch match on the house team against Ravenclaw and he had won the game for his house. Hugging his son briefly he told him how proud he was and that he should run along to take a shower. Draco smiled on while he bounced away, unaware that a simple victory would soon no longer be enough…
With wide eyes Lucius rose from the memory to find himself in a fluffy white bed, not the master bedroom, not his usual bed either. Dragons were carved into the bedposts and stitched into the deep blue velvety canopy with silver threads. His dragon…
Wincing in regret, he let his hair cover his face while he hugged the soft, downy sheets to his chest and tried to remember the good in this world.
'Severus,' he thought, 'I need you…'
Perplexed, Severus looked up from his work. It was as if he had heard somebody calling out for him, but nobody was there. Distractedly he went back to grading the fourth year's essays. His mind began to wander while he spilled the red ink over the dunderheads' parchment and returned to his lover. It pained him to leave in such a dire situation like Draco's suicide, but the holidays were coming to an end and he desperately needed to get some work done. Apart from that, Albus had requested his presence to discuss his further work for the Order.
Sighing, he put the essays away and went up to the Great Hall for dinner, where Potter and Lupin would undoubtedly spread their cheerfulness over everything. Disgusted and perhaps a little envious he climbed the stairs to the ground level and entered through the door behind the staff table. In their usual spots Poppy and Filius were discussing some new healing techniques, buried in their own wand-waving world. Minerva and Albus were not there and Lupin and Potter sat at the far end of the table, heads stuck together and talking quietly. With a dramatic sigh Severus decided to sit, against his usual conduct, in the middle of the table – as far away from each group as possible!
A voice in the back of his head nagged that he was being childish, but he choose to ignore the geeky thing that somehow resembled Lily Evans and progressed to load his plate with a bit of fish and potatoes.
The doors opened and the headmaster and the transfigurations bitch appeared. He hated to admit it, but he had always been dreadful at the subject. Although he had graduated with acceptable marks, his transfigurations had usually held for about ninety minutes – the time of a lesson. At least the standard spells. Everything animate had turned and still was – to his embarrassment – turning green. A cheery bottle green…
At least it wasn't red!
Or worse – pink!
Looking at Lupin, he remembered the general delight of his classmates when he was once again producing a complete failure. The mocking gaze of Sirius Black was still burning on his neck when he saw the Gryffindor's perfectly transfigured dog jumping through the classroom and wagging its tail cheerfully. McGonagall had asked him several times where his problem was, but no Slytherin in his right mind would have admitted that he was afraid to hurt the poor hedgehog by turning it into a pincushion. So the teacher had let him go with a feeble wave of the hand and Severus had continued to turn hedgehogs green.
With a disgruntled huff he bit into his potato and immediately gulped down some wine from his goblet. The damned thing had been too hot!
No – today was definitely not his day…
Harry looked over to Snape, who seemed to be in an especially sour mood and quickly returned his attention to Remus. They talked about the upcoming year and who could be the new defence teacher since Umbridge had fortunately left the school.
Just then the headmaster entered the hall and the food appeared. Dumbledore sat next to Snape with McGonagall at his other side, so Harry had to speak a little louder.
"Who's the new DADA by the by?" he asked and Dumbledore looked up to him from his kidney pastries.
"I am not sure, Harry, we are still evaluating who would be good for the position. I fear the last teacher has taken a rather abrupt leave after somebody threw a garlic bulb at her. Poor thing… always so pale. Do you have any suggestions?" Dumbledore smiled and Snape snorted.
"The boy will just tell us the werewolf's name anyway. I don't know why you bother, Albus," Snape drawled and picked at his fish. Harry glared at him.
"Now, Severus, that was uncalled for," Dumbledore warned lightly.
Snape glared and continued to eat as if nothing had ever happened.
"Actually," Remus intervened, "we were discussing that matter and it just occurred to me that there IS somebody who might qualify for the position."
"Who did you think about?" McGonagall asked interested and put her fork away.
"Well, I thought Bill Weasley might be interested. He's got a job at Gringotts, but since he wants to stay in England he has to do a desk job and I know he hates it. We could ask him at the next meeting," the gentle werewolf suggested and Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully.
"He certainly qualifies as a curse breaker. A brilliant idea, Remus!" the headmaster said merrily and returned his attention to his plate with great enthusiasm.
Snape stared at them with hatred, but Dumbledore had already reprimanded him earlier, so Harry didn't bother. After dinner he and Moony would return to Gryffindor tower and Remus would tell him more about the old times…
R&R
