Harry Potter and the Guardians of Power

Disclaimer: I own nothing belonging to the Harry Potter Universe except the twisted plot, a few original characters, and a desire to share my weird obsession with others.

Summary: After being captured by Voldemort, Snape and Potter escape to … AU/Middle of 5th Year, No HBP Spoilers, NO Slash, and No Mary Sues.

AN: I will not respond to individual reviewers on this story site. If you really need a question answered please review and I will respond on the author's page or in an author's note. Author's page has been updated with answers to most frequently asked questions about this story and the author. Please read and review. Thanks. Question: Would you like longer chapters or quicker updates, let me know in a review.

Chapter 5: Explanations

Severus opened his eyes to the smell of sausages. Directly overhead the blue sky shone with fluffy white clouds. 'Why am I sleeping on the floor of the Great Hall?' he thought until memories came crashing back. Severus groaned softly, he really wasn't a morning person. 'Perhaps there is strong hot tea with those sausages.' He sincerely hoped so.

He gingerly climbed down from the wagon to find Harry propped up against a log, tightly wrapped in his cloak while Emrys fed him small pieces of bread with melted cheese on it. "Severus, come join us. We were just making Harry's acquaintance. I have changed his bandages this morning and it looks like his fever is down."

Severus knelt beside Harry and assessed the boy himself. He did appear to be much better today. "How are you feeling, Harry?" he asked as he brushed the unruly fringe off the boy's forehead and ruffled his hair even messier with an affectionate touch. Harry looked startled at the touch and the concerned tone from Professor Snape. He knew the man had told him to call him Severus, but he had too many years of the Dursleys changing the rules without letting him know just to give them an excuse to scream at him and beat him. And the professor had hated him for years; he wasn't ready to completely trust his supposed change of heart. Habits are much too hard to break that quickly.

"I would like to get these splints off but Emrys says my bones aren't completely healed. I could bend or even break my bones again if I put stress on them. My ribs don't hurt as much either. I can talk without too much pain. I still can't take a deep breath or move very quickly. I can't even sit up by myself yet, but it is much better than yesterday." Harry could actually say a full sentence without stopping for several breaths as he spoke, but Severus noted he still spoke in short choppy sentences so he could breathe shallowly between them.

After getting washed up in the crisp river water and changing into clean robes, Severus sat beside Harry and took over feeding him bites of sausage between drinks of tea. Harry was full rather quickly and Severus ate his own breakfast as he talked to Emrys. He realized that Artemus had said not one word to anyone. Emrys noticed Snape's quizzical looks at the younger man and answered the unspoken question. "Artemus is a mute. He can understand you perfectly. He is very smart and a powerful wizard, but he was terrorized by an evil wizard when he was just a young child and his tongue was cut out."

Harry cringed and gasped, but Artemus looked directly into his eyes and Harry heard a voice in his mind assuring him that it was a long time ago, and that Artemus had developed other ways to communicate.

"He talked to me in my head! He's a legilimens!"

"Correct, young Harry. How is it that you recognize that? That is not a common talent and usually not even known about by someone so young." Emrys queried of the youth.

Harry looked at Severus and stammered, "Professor Snape has been trying to teach me Occlumency but I can't do it yet. I guess I really haven't tried hard enough." His eyes were downcast as he sounded ashamed of his failure. He was careful not to make eye contact, fearing an outburst of the temper that had characterized their Occlumency lessons all year. When Snape said nothing, Harry looked at him through a veil of hair and swallowed hard. Before either could say anything, Emrys reached over to Harry's forehead and touched his curse scar. He closed his eyes and murmured several phrases in Latin. He looked at Severus with a startled gaze. "How is it that this child is so pure in thought and soul, and yet so surrounded by evil?"

Turning back the old wizard looked directly into Harry's eyes and Harry could feel a gentle touch wash over his mind, soothing and caressing him. Harry could feel the hurt and anger at the Dursley's, and the guilt and sorrow at his parents' and Cedric's deaths ease. He knew the pain and guilt were still there, but they were no longer aching and tearing him apart. Harry looked wide eyed at Emrys. "What did you do? My scar doesn't hurt any more!" He turned to Severus and explained, "Ever since Tom took my blood to resurrect himself, my scar has always hurt some. It can be blinding or even make me pass out, and the scar even bleeds when he is very angry or ecstatically happy. And I always feel the Crucio being cast as if it was cast upon me; just not quite as strong as when he cast it on me in the graveyard. And now it's gone." Severus looked startled and very upset. Albus had told him the boy was connected to Tom through his scar, but he had never dreamt they were that connected! He shuddered at the thought of how often Tom liked to use that particular curse and the unendurable pain the boy spoke about so matter of factly.

Severus and Harry both turned to look quizzically at Emrys. "I placed a mind shield within Harry's mind to contain the evil one until we can permanently sever the connection. Severus, you can not occlude your mind against someone who is always already inside of it." He softly chided the man, and then turned back to Harry. "I believe young Harry, that you have been 'caging' this evil presence within your mind as best you can, but since it is already within, you can no more completely block it than you could block your own thoughts from yourself. So when the evil one feels great anger or great joy you feel the backwash and it spills over your barricade and into your mind."

Harry looked panicked, "I don't want to be a dark lord, and I can't be like him. NO, NO, I won't…."

"Hush, child. There is no way you will be like the evil one. The thirst for power at any cost, the delight in another's suffering, the blackness of the soul is not in you. I have seen your soul and it is as pure white as that of a unicorn or a phoenix. Not only is it not in your nature, I do not believe you could become dark even if you wanted to. Your mind and soul have been battling darkness for so long that it is almost as if you are allergic to evil. That is why your scar burns so when evil comes near you or tries to break out of your mental cage."

Severus turned a tormented gaze upon Emrys, "You said you could break the connection? How? I know the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, has tried for the past fourteen years to find a way to remove the curse scar from Harry. And the past year, Dumbledore has had everyone in the Order working on a solution to break the connection so Harry doesn't have the visions and the agony of that curse. Dumbledore feels it is only a matter of time before Voldemort discovers the link between Harry and himself, and uses it to either possess the child or to send false visions to set a trap."

"Yes, there is a ritual to throw evil from the heart and soul of an innocent. It is an ancient ritual known by very few and can only be performed in one exact location. I can execute it and the spot where it must be implemented is not far off of our route home. But you would have to be willing to purify yourself to perform it. It can only be done by someone who knows and cares for the one cursed, and must be done with only the purest motive. I like young Harry, but I cannot be the one to cast it because I do not know him well enough to be classified as one who cares for him. Plus, I am the only one who knows the ritual to cast it, and it must be cast upon you; you cannot cast it upon yourself."

"Then we are doomed for I am not innocent. I am a former Death Eater and now I spy for the Light, but there is blood and death upon my hands." Severus admitted with pain in his dark eyes and a feeling of a crushing weight of despair in his chest. The pain and sorrow in his eyes was clear to see.

Emrys took Severus' face into his two hands and looked deeply into his eyes. The two men were locked together for many long minutes. Severus let Emrys see deeper even than he had let Albus see. Something about the older wizard compelled him to be totally honest about his life. Emrys broke his gaze and moved his hands down to Severus' shoulders and squeezed him gently. "My boy, you have redeemed yourself many times over to everyone but yourself. The good you have done has paid your debt in full. You will be able to cast the spell for Harry. You cannot lie in your mind, and I have seen the love and caring for the child you are beginning to care for as a son. Your parents gave you no choice in taking the Dark Mark, but you took that great evil that was forced upon you, and made it a force for great good. You have been in a war, and in war, sometimes the light must do things that they would never do on their own. And as any soldier, you have done what you had to do in order to survive and continue the fight." Emrys' words were spoken with compassion and without judgment.

Albus had tried to tell Severus the same thing many times, but the sincerity and conviction that Emrys, a total stranger, had spoken with finally reached Severus' heart. The cracks and chips that Harry had made over the past week now split the wall around his heart, and the younger man openly wept on the older man's shoulder. After several minutes, Severus turned to Harry and carefully picked him up into his lap and they both cried together for the promise of the end of the evil cursing them.

Harry and Severus awkwardly broke apart. Harry's lip quivered and his voice shook when he asked Severus, "You still want to be around me? Even though I'm a burden? Everyone who gets close to me gets killed. It's my fault they died…my parents… Cedric… Voldemort killed them all because of me, and it's my fault." The last was said barely in a whisper.

Severus hugged him closely, being careful of his splinted arms and legs, "Harry, I have seen all of your memories, remember? I know what your family tried to tell you. And if you can care for me and Emrys says I can be worthy of redemption, there is no way you are guilty of anyone's death. Remember what Emrys said about your heart and soul? The Dursley's verbal abuse of you is just as evil as anything the death eaters spout. The wizarding world's claim that it is your fault that you haven't defeated the dark lord yet is just as evil as what Tom advocates. No matter how often Tom espouses his pure blooded nonsense it does not make it true. No matter how often your relatives preached their evil, it did not make it true either. And I will always want you, if you will have me?"

Neither of them had known much love in their lives and didn't even know that they knew what it was, but they each felt it for the other at that moment. Neither knew how to tell the other exactly what they were feeling, but the fierce hug made words unnecessary.

While Severus and Harry were working out their new relationship, the other two had quietly packed up the entire camp and loaded everything into the wagon. Emrys came over to them and said, "We must be getting underway, particularly if we want to make the site where we must conduct the cleansing ritual by nightfall. I do not want to travel after dark if we do not have to and the ritual must be done at daybreak."

Severus gave Harry sleeping and pain relieving potions and went to pick up the child as soon as he was asleep. After handing the much too light boy to Artemus, Severus climbed up into the back of the wagon and situated himself comfortably into a padded corner of the bed. Emrys and Artemus handed Harry up and laid him carefully onto the padding so his head was on Severus' lap and all his broken bones were padded and protected for the journey.

As the wagon traveled steadily and carefully through the forest, Severus told the two men the story of Harry's life from surviving a killing curse at the age of one to the Dark Lord's terrible resurrection and the killing of Harry's classmate before his eyes only six months before. He had a hard time retelling the troubles of the current year, especially the horrible visions, the pain he had not known Harry felt of multiple cruciatis curses the child endured during them, and the horrible experiences of Occlumency lessons. Severus talked steadily except for short stops to eat and to water the horse. They roused Harry enough to feed him more potions, but put him back to sleep, feeling it was a kindness to spare him the inevitable bumps and jars of the wagon traveling through the forest. By early afternoon, Severus' voice gave out as Harry's story was completed and the wagon traveled in silence for the next hour as they all contemplated the horrors of that one small child's life.

The wagon had left the forest behind for over an hour before the travelers came to stop in a clearing beside the shores of the most crystal clear lake that Severus had ever seen. The lake was fed from the north by a spectacular waterfall that was over twenty feet tall and sparkling like the finest cut diamonds in the afternoon son. The lake was almost perfectly round and a small river exited the lake directly south of the waterfall. Severus thought it was almost too perfect to be natural but he saw no signs of it being man made.

Artemus and Emrys quickly and efficiently set up the small camp and had the small tent and the bed for Harry made up before they came back to the wagon to lift Harry off of Severus. Severus had enjoyed holding Harry and keeping him propped up so he could breathe, but now both legs were asleep and he wasn't sure he could climb down from the wagon without assistance. He managed with only a shoulder from Artemus and carefully walked the stiffness out by taking a bucket down to the river to bring water back for the camp. Emrys had made a point of telling him to fetch water only from the river, and then only past the first bend beyond the lake. Knowing the kinds of things that lived in Hogwart's lake he thought there must be something similar living in the lake and if Emrys wanted river water, river water he would get. He noticed the water in the river was so clear he could see every rock and pebble on the riverbed but he noticed not one fish or plant growing. There must be something in the lake then.

Artemus and Emrys were skilled and experienced travelers who worked together like a well practiced team. Almost before Severus had the water back to their camp, Artemus had a fire going with sausages cooking with onions and carrots that Emrys had gleaned from the clearing they were camping in. Severus gave the man the bucket of water to heat in the cauldron sitting on the side of the small blaze. Artemus had all the supplies laid out to brew tea and make more of his filling and delicious toasted bread with melted cheese. Severus supposed that the two men had used up most of their supplies while trying to find the meadow, but now it was more important to get Harry safely back to the castle than to complain about the sameness of their traveling fare. At least it wasn't squirrel and rabbit!

Severus knelt beside Harry and gently shook his shoulder to wake him up. He was glad to see the boy no longer flinched away from the slightest touch. When they had first appeared in the meadow, each time he touched the boy, Harry had flinched while trying futilely to protect his head. Even with two severely broken arms, he had tried to cover his head and curl into a ball despite his broken ribs. Severus knew in his semi consciousness and fever, the boy had thought that he had been his Uncle, but it still hurt to know the child was so afraid of him. He had had to work very hard to keep his tone nonthreatening and soothing before the boy relaxed enough for him to treat his injuries during the long hours of the first two days. As the days stretched longer, Severus had sat and examined each of Harry's memories, knowing how badly he had misjudged the boy's life. Severus had searched through his own memories of their encounters to match them up with Harry's.

He had sadly and reluctantly come to the conclusion that he had been the instigator and had escalated their enmity by constantly berating and belittling Harry and his dead father. And he could not honestly find a reason that Harry would engender such blind hatred. He had not liked James, but they had managed to work together on projects for the Order on several occasions just as he did not like Sirius but could still at least work with him. As the long days and even longer nights blurred together into a never-ending repetition of caring for the boy's physical needs and just sitting, thinking while watching to keep the child safe, he had wondered more and more why this boy could elicit such emotions from him. To everyone else, Snape was an emotionless man, who never allowed his face to show how he felt, but he totally lost control around the young Gryffindor. And by the end of the week he could still find no real reason for it. He had taught the children of people he did not like without blind rage at the mere sight of them. For heavens sake, he had taught Cornelius Fudge's daughter and could barely remember what she looked like. And Severus hated Fudge more than he ever did James Potter. After all, Fudge had thrown him into Azkaban and it had taken Dumbledore 5 long weeks to free him from that hellhole!

Severus knew that he was a mean bastard with a tendency to be cruel to his students, especially Griffindors, but he would never physically injure one, not even Potter, even when he still hated him. It had been a long eight days but Harry had at least grown to trust him enough to not flinch when he was touched while asleep. It was a large step forward, but Severus knew there would be a long battle ahead for both of them, before they could completely break through their own demons and trust the other completely. He just hoped Harry would let him try and that with time he could overcome Harry's hate of him.

Snape carried a now awake but still groggy Harry over to eat supper. He was so tired it was difficult to feed him without him falling asleep between bites. Harry still wanted Severus to feed him. He really hadn't been awake and aware enough the last two days to build a trust of the two men who were still strangers to him. He liked them, but was still more comfortable with Professor Snape feeding him. Merlin, but he wished his arms would heal so they would remove these splints. He hated being a baby and he felt so vulnerable being totally dependant and helpless to do anything for himself.

After the four had eaten quietly, they sat around the comfort of the fire and sipped strong tea. The crackle and spitting of the dying fire filled them with peace while the night sky twinkled with thousands of stars flickering in the heavens. The evil of Voldemort and his Death Eaters seemed a lifetime away. Emrys looked at the two leaning together on a log; Harry had his head pillowed on Severus' shoulder and the man had his arm protectively encircling the child's skinny shoulders. He hated to break the solitude and peace of the night but they must know something of the ritual they would be a part of in the morning. He sighed and put down his mug and began to tell them of the ritual they would invoke in the morning.

"'The Ritual of Innocence' goes back to the ancient Druids and was used to exorcise demons that had possessed young children turning them dark. This lake is called 'The Lake of the Innocent' because a long time ago, an evil wizard kidnapped all the women and children of a nearby village and wanted to sacrifice them in blood rituals to gain immortality and power. During the night, the women took their children and themselves into the middle of the lake and they all drowned willingly rather than be used for such evil purposes. Since that time, anyone invoking the proper ritual and asking the spirit of the lake for purification has had any evil that does not belong to their own soul cast from them. An evil person would still be evil after the ritual; it would have no effect upon them. But someone, like Harry and you too Severus, who has had evil thrust upon them, will be purified and become innocent again. I will need you, Severus, to seek purification first, then I will need you to assist Harry and carry him as needed. His bones are not strong enough for him to bear weight on them, he must not walk at all without his splints and he cannot wear anything into the lake. I cannot explain the ritual to you; you must come to the lake without any preconceived ideas of what will occur. But I will direct you out loud whenever I can, and Severus, you must allow me to send messages to you through Legilimency as I need to. You must both try to keep your minds as clear of other thoughts as possible, especially between the first casting and the second one. You will understand what I mean in the morning. Now we need to sleep. We will be leaving directly after the ritual so that we may reach the castle by nightfall. There are still bandits in this area and they will be looking for us."

After deciding watches for the night, the men quietly prepared for night; each still lost in their thoughts about the upcoming ritual and wishing for freedom for the frail child that had suffered so much in his short life. They settled back into their blankets and hoped for sleep. Harry, once again dosed with pain relieving potion, slept blissfully unaware of the other's thoughts.