A/N: Usual disclaimer applies.

And this is where Severus tries to tear Dumbledore limb from limb, after the whole fiasco at Stone Hollow. Yeah, my group aficionados, I'm switching to Georgia for my HTML updates. It looks prettier though, doesn't it?  I'd also like to remind the people in my group to please vote in the poll I put up – it's something concerning how long all of you think the story should be, really. So, vote away.

Anyway, I apologise for errors concerning Potions ingredients and whatnot – I tried to refer to the (blessed) HP Lexicon as much as possible, but I must've slipped at some point. So, read for the story, not so much for its accuracy…sheepish smile.

Chapter 3: Arguments and Accusations

Severus Snape could barely stand, stumbling into the Manor as he was. The Dark Lord had ordered – and, even worse, participated in an impromptu attack on a nearby, mixed town. They'd Apparated in and burnt every Wizarding home they could find to the ground, leaving twenty-six Dark Marks hovering in the air above the frantic town.

Severus closed his eyes, trying to make himself breathe. At least he was – there had been no one to torture – again –

He fought, long and hard, against the awful impulse to drop and weep, curling into a vicious, seething ball – like Lupin probably would –

The werewolf's name seemed to ignite a new flood of anger in him at Dumbledore.

It really wasn't fair – when Harry was the son of James, the Gryffindor bastard fuck-up of a proud poster-boy, Albus Dumbledore the Old Goat practically flew to his rescue. Severus stopped abruptly at the worn, wooden double doors, grinding his teeth.

When good old Harry, however, became the son of Snivellus the Greasy Git, he was left to rot.

Or, Severus thought viciously, swinging the doors open with a muttered charm, left to be beaten, tortured and – and raped. He stood still on the threshold, acutely feeling the dewy morning breeze wafting his beaten robes this way and that, wondering how it could be so fresh, so clean, when someone – something of his had been taken, only hours before, so violently…

For a long moment, Severus just stood there, leaning against the heavy doorframe, faint with the unfairness of it all.

Then, on entering, he felt his skin crawl, the wards of the house warning him, in little stinging, staccato bursts of magic, that someone was there. Someone, Severus thought, panicking, that did not have the right to be there. He tightened his grip on his wand, pure fury coursing through him – it couldn't be Albus, it had to be someone else, as he'd made sure the old, creaking manor house recognised the old goat –

He strode forward quickly, not caring to be quiet as, guided by the panicky bursts of energy from his house, he strode towards the hidden staircase at the end of the hall that led to the dungeons below.

Whoever he met was going to catch it, especially if it was that bastard Malfoy, somehow having escaped the final meeting to recuperate –

A ringing sound smote his ears, and Severus felt his wand torn from his hand, as he burst through the first door on his –

Dumbledore!

Severus Snape snarled, no longer needing his wand. The old bastard is actually here –

And he leapt on him, elation and grief and anger mixing in his blood, until he knew nothing but the irresistible compulsion to seize his old mentor by the throat and strangle the life from his weary frame.

Nine hours later, a dishevelled, confused Severus Snape Apparated just outside of Hogsmeade, as near to Hogwarts as he could, grumbling to himself. The last few hours were uncomfortably hazy – something his subconscious self did not want to remember, it seemed like, as he couldn't seem to think about those hours for any real period of time. It unnerved him, but not very much.

After all, he thought to himself, heading swiftly for Hogwarts under the cold rays of the overhead sun, knowing he had to fetch some ingredients for an important experiment, he'd just returned from a Dark Revel after watching his bleeding son scream his lungs out as he fell at his false, giggling master's hand – he'd probably drowned himself temporarily in one of those fine caskets of ale that abounded in his crumbling cellar.

Funny, he could remember seeing…Dumbledore…

Yes, Severus thought, distractedly, ignoring the sombre mood of the teachers he passed in the hallways, I'd still like to strangle that old fool. Hot anger bubbled under his skin, seething quietly, but not really begging immediate attention. Severus could distantly remember doing something to Dumbledore – seeing his mentor's pleading, wild face before him, but that was all very strange – hazy – so he shook his head, thinking to deal with it sometime soon.

Sometime after the experimental potion, of course – that was very important. So important that he needed to make it in his own manor, in one of his favourite dungeons. It was also rather heavy on Dark or almost-Dark ingredients, of course, some of which rather screamed the need for discretion.

Severus sighed to himself, warding his office door viciously, before retrieving an empty crate and rapidly levitating – or, as was the case for some of the volatile ingredients, gingerly transferring – the needed materials and ingredients into it.

His task abruptly completed, he dug out the open-ended Portkey he sometimes used when he needed to transfer volatile potions to – well – certain persons – and keyed it to Snape Manor.

As the hooking sensation of the Portkey overtook him, Severus sighed again. He didn't necessarily need to remember – he just wished he knew why his head ached. He could treat that, at least, if he just knew exactly why…

Severus Snape appeared in his office dungeon a little over fifteen hours later, his chalky complexion and dense scowl betraying his anxious state of mind even more than his further dishevelled appearance. His robes were rent in one or two places, and sticky around the arms with something, Severus thought, rather dazedly, that could be blood.

Of course not – it was simply an experiment gone wrong – he just needed more ingredients, as fast as possible –

He barrelled towards his open potions stores – fool, you are, leaving them like that – and hastily refilled the half-empty crate he'd earlier removed with him with boomslang skin and various parts of newts and frogs – Merlin, I need asphodel as well, and powdered bicorn horn, and they're not here –

Severus, abandoning his private Potions cupboard in his haste, dashed into the empty classroom to raid the student ingredients. He was not entirely sure what had gone wrong, but he needed to return to the potion, and fast.

Cramming the fresh ingredients into the crate, he Summoned the Portkey.

He had important work to do.

Severus, tired from the successful experiment, Portkeyed back into his office, setting the worn little brown book down on his desk and unshrinking the emptied crate of Potions ingredients.

It seemed to have taken the better part of two or three days to finish brewing the successful potion, and he dearly needed his rest. He set down the crate and passed, as quickly as he could, through the secret entrance to his quarters. The extra spellwork he'd suffered through to create it was worth it at times like these – when he acutely needed his rest –

Sighting the bed, he fell into it, knowing dimly that there was an Order meeting he needed to attend later that day.

It really didn't seem as important as it should have been – that and the impending funeral. Severus tossed for a while, highly unsettled at how bloody calm he was about the fact that his son's clean, empty shell would be buried today.

Giving up, he let himself fall heavily into slumber.

It wasn't worth worrying about, as tired as he was.

The meeting was very close to a nightmare.

Severus Snape sighed, massaging the bridge of his hooked nose, wondering when it would end. He'd just finished a screaming row with Molly Weasley, and was in no mood to continue ignoring the shaky, angry insults of the Weasley boy. He felt worn out by the experiment, which he was understandably loath to mention to the impressionable members of the highly charged Order, and rather anxious to return to Snape Manor.

Severus crossed and re-crossed his long legs, feeling impatient and confused at the same time. He avoided looking at either Dumbledore or Lupin, the former arousing a painful, perplexing mixture of anger and anticipation, and the latter bringing a buried, throbbing sort of grief to the fore. He sniffed angrily. The werewolf was almost impossible today – no surprise there, the moon will be full tonight – and kept shooting hate-filled glances at himself and, more reasonably, and more frequently, at Dumbledore.

A small sense of pity seeped between the cracked armour of anger as Snape eyed their worn leader briefly. He seemed serene still, only sorrowfully so. The painful anticipation rose to the top of Severus' throat, and he looked away, trying to still his twitching, still-weary limbs. Lupin was still so angry that he refused to participate in the discussion of funeral security. He seemed almost bound by hot chains to his chair – kept twitching, chest heaving, radiating desire to be gone.

Severus sighed. The werewolf, even at times like this, when they were desperately needed, simply had no manners. He re-crossed his legs, sending a (twitching) sneer Lupin's way. If you had no desire to be at the frequently tedious meetings – well, tedious no longer, thanks to the death of his – no, he wouldn't think of – of that – Severus cleared his throat. It was maddening, the way his feelings raged about – fleeing in different directions…What was I thinking of?

He shook his head slightly, to clear it. He needed sleep –

The meeting finally ended, after many more angry glances in its tired leader's direction from various other members of the Order, and Severus rose swiftly, heading for one of the small, out-of-the-way rooms on the first floor of the sombre Grimmauld Place. He needed a nap – so tired –

It was evidently not in the cards, as, moments after, the enraged voice of Lupin seemed to float through the walls. Snarling, Severus leapt from his hastily transfigured bed, homing in on the commotion.

Just my luck – having to subdue that useless excuse for a werewolf…

The foolish bleating of the Granger girl met his ears as he happened upon the stairs down to the kitchen. Lupin emerged, looking positively mad with rage, forcefully accompanied by the tired, yet determined red heads of Charlie and Bill Weasley. Severus didn't miss a beat, ignoring the piercing howl from the man they were barely restraining.

"Stupefy!" he incanted coolly, ignoring the similar looks of shock on the faces of the two Weasleys. He glared at them, now levitating the still-twitching, slavering body of Lupin away from the kitchen.

"Professor, that was uncalled for – " Bill started determinedly, but Snape was having none of it.

"And what would you have done, Weasley? Wrestled him into silence?" Snape sneered at the two angry boys, now heading for the stairs at the end of the hallway, ignoring the shocked glances from some of the remaining, lethargic Order members.

"Well, we wouldn't have – " Charlie began to retort, but was cut off.

"He would have torn you apart in his maddened state, Weasley," Severus called over his shoulder, deciding to levitate the now fully unconscious Lupin to his reinforced room in advance. It wouldn't hurt him to sleep off some of his grief before the full moon tonight, or to sleep some way through it. Bill Weasley opened the steel door ahead of him, somewhat reluctantly, allowing him to levitate him to the mended, shabby pallet in the corner. "Leave the room – now."

"Why?" Charlie demanded, standing his ground along with this brother. Snape sneered at them both.

"Would you rather see him naked?" They blinked, blooming under Severus' sharp gaze. "He must be prepared for his change, and I have seen to it before." He glared at the two fidgeting men. "Staying?" They left hastily, filling Severus momentarily with bitter satisfaction. Foolish boys –

He turned on the still, occasionally twitching Lupin, Banishing his clothing to just outside the threshold of the slightly open door. Turning away, Severus refused to let his gaze linger on the scarred, limp body, as it reminded him of another one – one that seeped with blood, and screamed –

Severus shook his head, hastily Conjuring a short letter to the werewolf, and tacking it to the reinforced steel door with a tap of his wand. He had a strong feeling the werewolf would want to come to Snape Manor after his ordeal, and could not fight the compulsion to leave the note. Spelling the parchment to be indestructible and to repel dirt and – after a moment of thought – to be blank to the eyes of any other but Lupin himself, Severus stepped out of the room.

After a moment of reflection on the other scarred body etched into his memory, Severus stepped back into the steel room, casting a Warming
Charm that would remain for as long as Lupin needed it.

Passing the suspicious eyes of Bill and Charlie Weasley, he adeptly restrained the urge to tell them it had been cold in – in Harry's cell.

Severus Snape, slightly disoriented, let go of the Portkey, his head still mulling over that odd password Albus Dumbledore had just used.

Alive – what could that mean –

And, suddenly, as he followed the old man down the flight of stairs to the dungeons below, it hit him hard.

Panic, anger, roaring through his veins like never before –

"Yes, Severus, he's alive…alive…alive…"

Harry – Harry – lying comatose on that bloody, soaking bed –

Feverish activity, seizing and summoning potions, not caring if their containers smashed or broke after he poured a steady stream of them down the boy's throat, hoping with all his heart –

"Glamour – must be removed – "

Harry's body – seizing – going into shock – "Hold him, Severus!" – frantic cleaning spells muttered as he realised he'd have to get ingredients for – "No…too dangerous…memory…must alter – "

And he'd returned, weighted down with the heavy case, bewilderment stripping from him as he remembered again –

Harry screaming hoarsely – nightmares –

Those thin limbs shaking with such violence, tearing at Severus' panicking heart – "Albus…it's a seizure…must go…"

The mad, panicked dash into his dungeons at Hogwarts, brain clouded with uncertainty –

The odd blankness lifted again on returning, and seeing Harry, moaning feverishly, thrashing around in his bed –

Albus' tired face looming before him, wearily mouthing words of apology as he raged and raged at him, the argument suddenly cut short by a cry of pain from –

Harry.

Severus practically tore through the heavy door, shoving it aside – the potion bottles and vials littered the room, like he'd remembered, and there was –

He stumbled shakily to his knees, seizing his pale, weakly breathing son in his arms convulsively, ignoring Albus' irritating comments. For a long moment, all he could do was rock the slumbering, battered body in his arms, his breath coming in ragged bursts, his black eyes wild with fear and – and hope. He ceased abruptly, as if he'd suddenly realised he could be hurting Harry, laying the boy's wounded torso gently back onto the pallet.

"I shouldn't have left that note."

"You did leave it, then?" Albus Dumbledore's slightly stooped frame drew closer. "I was afraid you might not, Severus."

"And with good reason," snapped the spy, repairing some of the smashed vials on the rickety bedside table simply to have something to occupy himself. "Lupin will certainly smother the boy to death, once he gets here – "

"You seem to have forgotten that you yourself did nearly the same thing, Severus – "

"Precisely my point – "

" – after you tried to smother me, of course." Faintly amused blue eyes met angry black.

"I'm not sure why I didn't, now." Snape, transferring the mended vials to a small iron tray on the floor, proceeded to neatly blast the awful bedside table into pieces as Dumbledore looked on rather apprehensively.

"I assume it is due to the fact that I told you Harry still lived." Snape gave him a dark look.

"You assume wrong," he began, now transfiguring the broken pieces of the bedside table into four handsome, if rather stiff, chairs, a new bedside table and a small desk to replace the considerably older one in the corner, which was weighed down with potions ingredients, a cauldron, and other messy apparatus that spoke of the long, arduous battle he and the Headmaster had waged the last three or four days, all for the life of the nearly nonexistent young man that slumbered still in the ashen pallet nearby. "That last wandless hex slowed me down considerably – just enough for me to see that my son was not, in fact, deceased." Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, levitating three of the chairs to Harry's makeshift bed, which was lengthwise against the wall opposite the door to the small dungeon.

"Ah – I see." Dumbledore gave the angry man opposite him a piercing glance as he lowered himself into one of the chairs. "I suppose I may need that hex again."

"You suppose right!" Severus snarled, almost dropping the silver cauldron as he turned on the old man. "What you did was abominable, Albus – and I do not know if I will ever forgive you for it." His mentor sighed heavily.

Guiltily. It took a lot for the shaking, angry man to turn away, and not abandon the smoking potion in the cauldron, and hex the awful old man to death.

"I did what I could, Severus – "

"I don't want to hear it!" Severus banged down the long-handled spoon on the surface of the heavy wooden desk as violently as he could allow himself to. "Save your – your excuses for Harry." He turned back to the brewing of the potion, still seething, not daring to look when he heard the shifting noises of Dumbledore behind him. Silence reigned, punctuated by the bubbling of the potion and the heavy, strained breathing of the two men and the young boy, but was broken before long.

"The Enchantment Strengthener is not wearing off, Severus." Snape forced himself to answer slowly, without spitting. That Strengthener had simply gone and strengthened the effects of that horrible curse the Dark Lord had turned on Harry, amplifying magical powers of both Harry and the blasted Sword of bloody Gryffindor, and combined to nearly kill him. All the while, the Glamour had eaten away at the already frail boy's strength, further weakening his magical reserves.

"It won't wear off for at least three weeks, Albus. It doesn't wear off – that was the variation we used, if you remember." Severus remembered, all right – clearly remembered the insistence of the Headmaster that they make the change as long-lasting as – as –

"I am sorry, Severus."

Severus Snape set down the long-handled spoon carefully, trying to make himself take deep breaths. The old – old fool was obviously apologising for much more than just that slight oversight of his. Severus sprinkled a touch of bicorn powder into the mixture as carefully as possible, his anger bubbling as violently as the potion.

"It's not enough, you understand? Just leave it – just leave me alone, Albus, I don't want to hear your pathetic apologies – "

"Severus – "

"Don't Severus me! You don't know what it's like, do you, with all your countless friends and admirers and grandchildren and doddering, nice relatives – " Severus tried to stop, tried to stop himself shouting again, but the words just kept pouring out – "I told you – I told you he was – all I – and you were late – LATE!" He tried to loosen his compulsive grip on the edge of the desk, but could not. "I don't want to speak of it again."

"Please, I – "

"Not again, do you understand? Not again."

The rest of the night was passed in silence, punctuated by occasional factual comments from the two men.

Severus sighed to himself, rubbing his eyes. He was not looking forward to this. Not at all.

The werewolf was late – understandable, Severus thought grudgingly, but still bad form. The weekend had been silent, brooding – but that had been no real fault of his own. Dumbledore had insisted he tell the werewolf to betake himself to Harry Potter's side as soon as he was able, so he'd contacted Lupin the very Tuesday on which his ordeal ended, and arranged to meet him here the following day – incidentally, the day of the reading of Harry's 'will', which Lupin was evidently eager to miss. He fiddled haughtily with the rapidly cooling cup of tea before him, then finally gave in and drank it down, wishing, all the while, that Dumbledore had taken this thankless errand upon himself.

A grim smile rose to Snape's face as he set the cup down. Of course, it wouldn't do for dear old Lupin to throttle the Headmaster of Hogwarts to death in plain view of everyone in this small Muggle café, so Severus Snape – Errand Boy and Spy Extraordinaire, Snape thought spitefully– had been stuck with the irritating task. He fidgeted some more, wishing he could be with Harry instead – there was an important restorative potion brewing, back there – and not seeing Lupin's noisy, hasty entrance until the wretched man was almost on top of him.

Lupin's bleary, bloodshot eyes still seemed to have an unnatural, tawny tinge as he sat heavily in the chair opposite him, putting Severus further on his guard.

"Well? What the fuck do you want?" Lupin's harsh, guttural tone further unnerved Severus as he leaned heavily forward across the small café table.

"Just what I said in the note – a trip to my Manor." Severus adjusted in his seat, willing himself to be calm. After all, the wolf would be pathetically glad to see Po – Harry, and that would make it easier to –

"Lowering your standards, Severus?" Lupin continued, his tone growing malicious, his fists tightening almost painfully.

"I have no idea what you mean, Lupin – "

"How the mighty have fallen – inviting a bloody werewolf to your manor for tea and fucking – "

"Don't be ridiculous – how dare you, when I don't – "

Lupin laughed harshly, madly. "You really never thought we saw, Severus? All those little dalliances – inviting them to your cushy little Manor, poor sods – literally pumping for information – " Lupin grinned tightly at his rival's flushed, angry countenance. "Oh, we saw – we all saw – I'm sure even Lily saw – " Severus sputtered, his fury seeming to expand in his chest, filling him –

"Stop it – don't – don't you – you know nothing – no right – "

"I have every right!"

"Keep your voice down, you fool!" Severus tried not to scream in frustration and embarrassment and anger. "It's about Harry, don't you understand?" he leant forward, his voice a harsh whisper as he swallowed back his fierce, pulsing fury at the mention of Lily Potter. "The note – he's in – he's there – "

"Don't you dare toy with me – he's dead, Severus, leave me alone – " The snarling werewolf shoved himself away from the table, making to rise. Severus reacted almost instantly, reaching for the Portkey at the same time as he grasped Lupin's ratty shirt by the fist, groping it for the angry man's fist as he said the password.

Lupin nearly howled with fury as the Portkey took them off, and leapt on Severus as they landed at the manor. Severus Snape fought hard, kicking the werewolf in the groin and pulling his wand on him as fast as he could. This was no time for useless fighting –

"Incarcerous!" Lupin was nearly frothing at the mouth, but Severus supposed this way was best – at least the odious man's gut reaction to smother the ailing Harry would be – ah – contained…

"Severus, what on earth – "

"Harry…" Lupin's hoarse, breaking voice cut through Albus Dumbledore's surprised, disapproving tone. "Harry – he's not awake – what's wrong with him – Severus, let me out – "

"I will, once I feel your instinctive tendency to suffocate him to death has passed for good." Severus levitated the tied-up Lupin to an awkwardly sitting position on one of the chairs near the pale boy on the pallet.

Lupin wept like the fool he was, and Severus could not help but stop and sneer. After all, he'd conveniently forgotten his own little bout of hysterical chokes and sobs that first morning as Albus had tried to pry the shaking spy from the Boy-Who-Lived.

Lupin continued to weep, begging forgiveness from the inert, barely breathing Harry, even as Severus turned to the simmering potion that lay waiting on the desk nearby. He gave it a slow, clockwise stir, sniffing it as he went, ignoring the quiet spell Dumbledore used to sever the binding ropes.

The potion, he surmised, is ready. He rapidly turned off the heat, spelling the potion into the vials he'd charmed to cool their contents as soon as possible, thinking it was about time.

He didn't think he could stand one more sniff from the werewolf, anyway.

"Headmaster – the potion – "

A/N: I'm itching maddeningly (curse all biting insects, CURSE THEM!), it's around two in the morning – I need sleep. Chapter 4 needs some serious editing, but should be up tomorrow afternoon. Sorry if this chapter was a little slow and all – I just wanted to make sure you guys understood what I was doing.

Peace out, people.