Harry Potter and the Cave of Revelation
By Aeowin
Chapter 7 Memories
……………………………………………………………………………………………… As he ran across the school grounds, a vague memory of last years Occlemency lessons with Potter flashed momentarily in his mind of a young Harry being shoved through a small door by a large, purple faced man. Who was that man, Snape wondered? What was that door?
Before he could fully explore this thought, he passed through the wards that surrounded Hogwarts. Severus quickly apperated to 4 Privet Drive.
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As he stood at foot of the driveway to 4 Privet Drive, Professor Snape had a feeling of unease wash over him. Something was very wrong in this house. He tried to shake off his feelings of apprehension. Whatever was wrong in this house, Harry Potter was surely to blame.
How could he not be? With his cocky attitude and complete disregard for rules, whatever mess the boy had gotten into was surely of his own making, right? Why then, did Severus feel the icy tendrils of panic in his stomach? Why this sudden certainty that something was dreadfully wrong?
Every step that he took brought back a memory of his childhood. He saw, in his mind, a young boy cowering in a corner while a very angry man stood over him, fists bared. Another step and he saw his mother, lying unconscious and bleeding on the floor. The next step met him with a vision of a teenaged Snape, tears streaming down his face, facing his father.
"Why, Father? Why couldn't you just leave her alone! You knew she was ill…"
With iron determination, Severus pushed these thoughts to the back of his mind. As the familiar sneer fell back into place, he walked up the remaining steps towards his destiny.
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"How do I know this is real?" he said, quietly.
"A very logical question, Harry. I tried to tell them to start with that, but I guess the excitement of speaking to you again blinded them." The fourth person finally turned to face Harry. As Harry recognized the wizard now facing him, his heart filled with dread.
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Harry hesitantly eyed the young wizard standing before him. The other ghosts (for Harry now recognized his parents and Godfather for what they were) might not hold him responsible for there deaths, but this one surely did.
"Hello, Harry," said the specter, eyeing Harry carefully. "I would ask how you have been, but I already know."
"I…err…I didn't mean…I'm sorry!" Harry managed to choke out. Fresh tears were coursing down his cheeks. "I…we never…she still…" his words were lost in his guilt ridden sobs.
"Harry, I don't blame you," Cedric's ghost replied, gently. "Don't blame yourself. I chose to take the cup with you, remember?"
Harry looked at the former Hufflepuff, incredulously. "But you didn't want to take the cup! I talked you into it!"
"I didn't what!" Cedric asked in a shocked voice. "Harry, I never wanted anything more than to lay claim to the Tri-Wizard Cup! I didn't think I deserved it, but I wanted it."
"I know," Harry responded, dully. "Because of me."
"No, Harry. Because of me. I wanted it for me, for my house, and for my father. But I wanted it. I chose to take that cup, because I would have rather share that glory than not have it at all. Besides," he said with a grin, "this way, everyone will remember me! No one will ever remember who won this tournament, but they will remember the one who died!" Cedric saw Harry's shamefaced look, and dropped his teasing attitude. "Honestly, Harry, it wasn't your fault. Don't blame yourself."
Harry slowly raised his head to meet Cedric's eyes, and was shocked to find no blame in them.
"Now, as to how this can be happening," Cedric continued, "well…it's complicated…"
"I think I can explain it, Cedric," James interrupted. "It's because of your uncle, Harry. Or rather what your uncle did. You see, Harry, you are…well…"
"James," Lily said, calmly, "let me tell him. Harry, your aunt and uncle are cruel people. I never wanted you to wind up in there care, but because of the way things happened…"
"Yeah," said Harry, coldly. "Because of Pettigrew."
Sirius growled at this. "Yes, Wormtail. He betrayed us all. But it was me that convinced your father to use that worthless piece of …."
"Paddy! Stop! Harry is not to blame, and neither are you!" James interrupted, loudly. "Let's just explain things to Harry." James looked at his smaller image, sadly. "Harry, you are unconscious, as I said, but you are also very close to death. It is because of this that we are able to speak with you. Right now, you are perilously close to our world; that is how we were able to cross the veil that separates the living from the dead. We could have simply transferred our powers to you without crossing over, but you needed more than that. You needed to understand, to believe that you are not to blame for anything. You must stop punishing yourself for things that were not your doing. You must stop allowing others to punish you. You could have stopped your uncle at any time tonight, you know that."
Harry remembered blowing his aunt up three years ago. He did not have his wand then, either. "Yes, but I…well"
"You felt like you needed to be punished, Pup," Sirius stared into his Godson's eyes, and Harry found he could not turn away. "I know what it is to live with guilt. You allow things to happen to you because you feel that you deserve them. But you did not deserve this, you've done nothing wrong! I love you, Harry, and I give you my power. You must wake up…."
These last words faded off as Sirius himself disappeared into a faint fog that was carried away with the wind.
"Sirius!" Harry screamed. "Sirius, come back!"
"He can't, Harry. Our time is limited. Your Godfather was the weakest of us, because he has only been on this side for a short time." Cedric's voice was growing fainter, and when Harry turned his attention to him, he could see that Cedric's image was becoming transparent.
"Cedric? What's happening?" Harry asked, but the fear that lay like a stone in his stomach belied his ignorance. He resisted an almost crushing need to look at his parents, afraid of what he would see.
"When Sirius gave you his power, you became stronger. Your body is now fighting to live. As each of us gives you our powers, you will become stronger; as your life force grows, we grow weaker, and our ability to communicate with you lessens. To speak to the living drains a great deal of our power, but we chose to speak because you had to know. You cannot go on blaming yourself, because when you do, you stop your own powers from growing. Do not blame yourself for my death, Harry; for I do not blame you…I give you my power…"
Harry stared as Cedric turned into vapor and vanished. As a gentle breeze carried away the last visible traces of the former Hufflepuff, he sensed someone moving towards him. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut. He wouldn't look, wouldn't listen to their words. They can't leave if I refuse hear their goodbye's he thought, childishly.
"Harry," Lily began, "look at me, son. You must listen-"
"No!" he screamed. "You can't leave me, not again! I lost you once; I won't let you go again!" Harry knew he must look like a petulant child on the verge of a tantrum, but he didn't care. His mind was spinning. Too much had happened today; he needed time to think, to process everything. And he needed his parents!
This was so damned unfair! After all the months of missing Sirius, blaming himself for Cedric's death; to actually see them and hear their words of love and forgiveness, just to have them taken away seconds later. What was the point?
"We will always be with you, Harry. Not the way you want, not the way that we want, but we will be with you." Harry felt his mother's arms embrace him, and he grabbed onto her, holding her fiercely. He cried out his anguish on her shoulder and slowly began to take comfort in the love that he felt from her. The love, he realized, that had always been there, would always be there, even if he couldn't see her.
"I just miss you so much, mum," he sighed.
"I know, Baby. I know. Just know that we are here, watching you, loving you. We are so proud of you. You have withstood so much hardship and heartbreak, yet you have come through it all such a kind and caring person. You've never hurt anyone, or done anything to be ashamed of. That is your greatest gift, Harry; your goodness. Nothing could ever change who you are."
Lily gazed into her son's eyes, eyes so like her own, and smiled at him through her tears. "I love you, Baby. I give you my power." With these words she slowly faded, never looking away from her son's gaze.
"Mum..." Harry whispered. "I love you."
James placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, and the two stood that way for many minutes after Lily disappeared, drawing strength from one another.
After a time, James turned to look at Harry; this boy that looked so much as he himself had looked at 16, except for the eyes – Lily's eyes. It tore at his heart to know that in the next few minutes he would be delivering a shocking blow to Harry, and after giving the boy such life changing news, he wouldn't be able to stay and offer any comfort. He sighed, heavily. Life isn't fair, he thought, and neither is death.
"Harry, I have some very important things to tell you, and my time is short. I must ask that you not interrupt, after I am finished, I hope to be able to hold on long enough to answer some of your questions, for you are likely to have many.
"As you know, your mother and I both fought against Voldemort. We joined the Order right after we graduated, and I was quickly assigned to act as a liaison between Dumbledore and his spy, Severus Snape.
"To say that I was less than thrilled would be a huge understatement. Snape and I had loathed one another from the moment we met. I was of a mind to refuse, but your mother had always had a soft spot for him, though I could never understand why. Snape had never been anything but absolutely foul to her. When Lily found out that I wanted to refuse, she was livid. She called me a 'bloody, small minded, immature horse's arse' as I recall," he said with a grin
Harry stared at his father with his mouth agape. "Mum said that?" he asked in a shocked voice.
"Oh, yes," laughed James. "Your mother got top grades, was a prefect, and later, Head Girl, and she had a terrific temper. She wasn't shy about vocalizing it, either."
"She sounds a lot like Hermione…I'm sorry, I promised not to interrupt, didn't I?" he said with a grin.
"That's okay, I like hearing you talk about your friends. I want to know about your life," James replied. "So, who is Hermione, your girlfriend?"
"No!" Harry said quickly. "She's my friend – my best friend, actually. She and Ron – he's my other best friend, fancy each other. They just haven't realized it, yet. Ron just notices the really flashy types."
"He sounds a lot like Sirius. He would see a pretty face and he was hooked. He did eventually learn to look deeper, so maybe there is hope for your friends, yet."
"I hope so, but err…haven't we gotten a bit off target?" Harry was madly curious as to what his father was going to tell him, but mostly, he just wanted to hear more about his parents lives. No one had ever really told him about his parents. Well, Snape had talked about his father, but as he had hated his father, Harry didn't think he was the best source for information.
"Ah, yes, so we have. Your mother refused to let me turn down the mission, so I met with Snape and Dumbledore to work out a plan for our meetings. We arranged for a small, unused room in Snape Manor to be specially warded. The wards were attuned to my own magical aura; I would be able to apparate into this room, but no where else inside of the castle or its grounds. Also, the room was sealed. I could not exit the room, and no one other than Snape could enter. These ideas not only came from Snape, but he placed the wards as well. As much as I disliked the man, I found myself impressed with his talent and intelligence.
"But how did you know when Snape had something to report?" asked Harry. "I mean, it's not like Death Eater meetings have a regular schedule, and I dare say that Voldemort didn't send round memos to announce his plans."
James smiled, "Quite right, Harry, and this was something I and even Dumbledore had overlooked. But not Snape. He somehow spelled my signet ring to begin to shrink as soon as he entered the meeting room. It would become tighter and tighter until he temporarily cancelled the spell. That was yet another ingenious aspect of his precautions. All signet rings are spelled so that only the rings true owner can remove it, so there was no danger of my ring ever being stolen, and once it began to tighten it of course became too small for me to remove. Snape even included an Intercapedo charm, so that if I were ever unable to meet with him, I could pause the rings constriction for up to several hours. Truly ingenious, but as I said, I still could not stand him.
"The months went by, and I met with Snape every few days, usually. I would apparate to the Meeting Room as soon as I felt my ring tighten, listen to any upcoming plans Voldemort had, and discuss ways of stopping, or at the very least, slowing him down. Then I would make my report to Dumbledore, and sometimes relay a message back to Snape.
"It was a nice, simple, safe mission…and I hated it. I hated being Snape and Dumbledore's message boy; I hated hearing Sirius talk about the dangerous and exciting missions he was always going on; I hated going home at nights, safe and sound, and while others were out there risking their lives; I wanted to be doing something for the Order, and playing the part of a Post Owl was not it!
"But the thing I hated most was Snape. Each time we met he made a point of referring to my 'safe mission'. He was always so snide and condescending!"
"Yeah," said Harry, remembering the scene between Sirius and Snape at Grimmauld Place. "I know how vile Snape is."
"Yes," said James, thoughtfully, "I suppose you do. I'm sure Snape has treated you less than fairly, considering that you are my son…"
"Well, it's not just me," said Harry quickly. He didn't know why he was defending Snape. It was true, after all that Snape was horrible, especially towards Harry.
"He treats everyone like dung, except for the Slytherins. They can do no wrong in his eyes. He is incredibly unfair! You should have seen the time…" Harry began, starting to warm up to the subject.
"Harry, there is very little that you could tell me about Snape that would surprise me," James interrupted. "But you must understand, he despised me, and with good reason. I was awful to him while we were in school. And you look almost exactly like me, so when Snape sees you as you are now; he is seeing and remembering me."
Harry knew that was true. He had tried to tell Snape before that he, Harry, was not James Potter, but it did not seem to matter. Snape just plain loathed Harry and that did not bother him in the least. What did bother him was his father's strange choice of words.
"What do you mean 'as I am now'?" asked Harry, in a confused voice.
"That is a part of what I am here to tell you," sighed James. "Let me finish with my tale, and then, well, then we can try and sort everything out."
Harry felt all sorts of alarms going off in his mind, but nodded his head for his father to continue.
"Throughout our many meetings, I had noticed several injuries Snape seemed to be suffering from. I never thought too much about – well no, that's not true. I had thought about it, but I didn't care."
Harry's head jerked up at this admission from his father. He hated Snape too, but he could not imagine seeing anyone, even Snape, hurt and not caring about it!
If James saw his son's reaction, he chose to ignore it. He continued, "One night as I was meeting with several members of the Ministry, I felt my ring begin to tighten. There was no way that I could leave; we had no way of knowing if there were Death Eaters in our midst, and it would have looked suspicious had I left at the beginning of an important meeting, so, I excused myself for a moment, did the Intercapedo charm and returned to the meeting. It was almost 3 hours until I could apparate to the secret room inside of Snape Manor. Once I finally arrived, I was shocked at what I found. Snape was lying on the floor, unconscious and bleeding from copious wounds. He was barely breathing, and in desperate need of immediate attention. That was the problem. If you recall, I told you that I was unable to exit the room, and no one other than me could apparate from inside Snape Manor. We were stuck. Even if I apparated to Hogwarts to fetch Madame Pomphrey, (yes, she was there even when I attended Hogwarts) I could not take her with me, and I could not get Snape out. I healed him the best that I could, but I was never very good with healing spells. I managed to heal some of his more minor wounds, and at least stopped the bleeding in the more serious ones.
"I stayed with him throughout that first night, only leaving to get water and bandages. I was unable to bring back any type of healing draught because of the magical properties they contained. The wards recognized my magic, and since I had not brewed the potions, they were all blocked. I could only bring in non magical supplies.
"I cleaned and dressed his wounds, gave him water whenever I felt he could handle it, and I worried. Yes, I worried about Snape. He was very bad off; I wasn't sure that he would make it.
"On the second night, he developed a very high fever. I had no potions to lower it, so in desperation, I left him and went to Madame Pomphrey. I explained the problem with bringing in magical potions. She was at a loss to help me. She referenced many Medi-Wizard texts, but found nothing that would help. We thought all was lost until Professor McGonagall rushed in, dragging a loudly protesting student with her. McGonagall was convinced that someone had given the boy some type of poison. The boy saw struggling, and kept shouting that he had not taken any poisons; he simply had a headache and had taken the same drug his mother had given him many times for such an affliction. He kept screaming that this is what his mother gave him when he was feverish or in pain. Obviously, his reference to 'feverish' caught my attention. After asking all of the relevant questions Madame Pomphrey and I could think of, I took the remaining pills- I believe they were called something like 'Astin'- I left Hogwarts and appareted back to the meeting room inside Snape Manor. I gave Snape 2 of the 'Astins' and he seemed to rest much easier. His temperature even came down (I guess even muggles have adequate healing potions).
I was with Snape for 3 days. Much of the time he was delirious, he talked as if I was his mother and the things he said…"
"Like what," asked Harry, curiously?
"Things I would never repeat. He spoke of his deepest memories; it is not my place to repeat them. Leave it to say that I came to see Snape in a new light. It wasn't only the things he had said, it was what I heard in his voice…there was so much – I can't tell you, Harry. I saw many things that night that Severus would never want shared with anyone."
The use of Snape's first name was not lost on Harry. Somehow, he understood what his father was saying, and he began to see Snape in a new way.
"So," Harry started, slowly, "you're saying you and Snape became friends?"
"Oh, no," laughed James. "I just saw deeper into him than I ever had before. I was able to comprehend why he was, well…the way he was.
"But 'friends' is a word that could never be used to describe Snape and me. Too many things had passed between us for us to ever become friends.
Harry thought about this and wasn't so sure he understood. Surely if you apologized to someone, you would be able to start over? But maybe not. He couldn't see himself ever forgiving the Dursley's for all that they had done to him. It was just so confusing.
"It took 4 days for Dumbledore to breach the wards around Snape's home. Finally, we were able to move him to Hogwarts. Under Pomphrey's care, Snape was healed, but because so much time had passed, he was still very ill and very weak. He needed several weeks in a safe place in which he could recuperate. The risk was too great that a student might see him in the hospital wing and report back to their parent, thus alerting Voldemort.
"Dumbledore approached me with an ingenious plan. He knew how anxious I was to be out in the field, yet how determined your mother was to keep me safe. He told me of a top secret mission; one that was relatively dangerous, but I felt sure that I could complete it and come through unscathed. The only problem was your mother. She would never have allowed me to place myself in danger, no matter how remote.
"Dumbledore and I devised a plan. A story would be put out that I had been attacked by Death Eaters and badly injured. Snape would be given a modified Polyjuice Potion and take my place, recuperating in my home as me.
"I didn't like leaving your mother, but I longed to be a part of the action. I agreed, and the switch was made. I was gone for three months. Shortly after my return, Lily
told me that she was pregnant. I tried not to think of the possibility that she and …well; I waited until she saw her OBGYN-Wizard and her due date was pinpointed. That was when I knew. I confronted Snape and he quickly confessed. He was very repentant, but I saw the glimmer of hope in his eyes. He had guessed the truth about your mother's condition He had always had a thing for Lily, and as I watched that hope blossom in his eyes, I knew that he would stop at nothing to have her, or if not her, than at least a part of her that no one could ever take away from him.
"I read all of these things in his eyes, and in an instant, my decision was made. I Obliviated him, but in that instant, I felt regret as well. I knew that I could not place blame on Snape alone. He would not have been in my home had I not placed him there. At the last second, I modified the spell. His memories of that night would be removed, but only for a limited time, and those memories would only be revealed at a time of my choosing. I have now chosen to unveil his memories. Dumbledore has by now received a letter, and only by Dumbledore's explanation will the spell be dispersed completely.
"That is my tale, my son. I came here not only to bring you back to yourself, but to tell you the truth. Severus Snape is your father."
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Okay, I know this was a very ling time in coming, but I had to rewrite (I just didn't like the whole feel of this chapter), and I hit a major writers block. Sorry! But I think I have FINALLY chiseled my way through, so hopefully the remaining chapters should be updated regularly! Perhaps if I had a Beta to nag me…(hint, hint! I need a beta!) Now on to the reviews! Ahem…this is your cue to hit that little button down there and tell me how you feel. You don't have to be nice, just be honest!
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rosiegirl Thanx! I love hearing that my (few) readers like where the story is going!
Pleione So, did you guess right? Thank you so much for the positive feedback on Snape. I love him so much; it's hard for me to not make him to likable.
Susan Potter Wow, if you thought my last update was too long, this one must have been infuriating! Sorry!
Bellegeste As always, I love your feedback! You know how much I value your opinion, so please don't hesitate to give me the good and the bad, I know I need both!
StrangersPearl I love the puppy eyes! Give them more often and maybe next time I will update sooner ;-)
FroBoy Here it is, FINALLY! Sorry it took so long!