Glad that people liked the last chapter! Review responses up in my LJ later.
This is an entirely Snape POV chapter, because I do feel the need to explain what the hell was happening in the last chapter, and there's no way that Harry could tell it.
Chapter Ten: Memories, Such Haunting MemoriesSnape had been passing the Hufflepuff table, on his way to the dungeons to teach his morning Potions class, when Black had assaulted him.
And that is what it was, he reminded himself, subtly shifting his robe and wincing at the cuts and scores and scratches that ran down his back under the cloth. He'd heard cups shatter, and probably a few plates. Black was going to pay for wounding him in that manner, and Dumbledore was going to pay for hurrying him out of the Great Hall in such an undignified manner that Snape had had no chance to subtly heal himself.
For now, he kept his glare on Dumbledore's back and his stride swift and even. He would leave the wounds for evidence, if he needed them, of how unstable Black had gone.
Not that it matters, he thought briefly, his glance darting back to scour the man who followed them. I know I will only hear some excuse for the instability, and some half-hearted apology, and a scolding for not being more tolerant, and that will be the end of it. Black is Dumbledore's Golden Boy, has been ever since that damned Hat touched his head and shouted him for Gryffindor. Why should things have changed?
Yet he had dared to hope that things had changed, since he had contacted Black over the summer and asked him to formally dissolve the bet they'd made over Harry last year, since they had both acted like school-children. Black, sober and earnest—
For once.
--had accepted immediately, apologized, and said that he would tell Harry about the bet ending. When the boy came back to Hogwarts and made no mention of it, Snape had assumed that Black had kept his word.
Now, he wondered.
Is that why he said what he did? Accused me of trying to murder his godson?
Frowning, shaking his head, Snape hardly noticed when they arrived at Dumbledore's gargoyle, and didn't remember the password the Headmaster called to let them past it. Of course, he thought, that hardly mattered. He was not in the habit of visiting Dumbledore any more.
He wondered if the Headmaster had really noticed it, or what it meant. You are a fool if you do not, Albus. The purebloods are spinning around a new star. They don't know what he means to do now, but that may not matter, not if they convince themselves that he could do something. You intended to use his brother as a figurehead, Albus. Instead, you have someone distinctly different on your hands, someone close to growing into a true leader.
But he cleared his mind of that as they arrived in the Headmaster's office and Dumbledore turned around with that gentle smile Snape had grown to know and loathe. "Sirius, Severus," he said. "Please take a seat."
It was not a request, for all that he made it sound like one, and Snape felt the iron edge of the same compulsion that had attacked the Great Hall, pressing him towards one of the chairs. He shook it off and sat down on his own. Black shuffled towards his and half-collapsed into it, looking like an old man.
"Now, Sirius," said Dumbledore, sitting down behind his desk and turning an anxious, fond glance on Black, "tell me what happened."
"I don't remember," Black whispered.
Oh, I do not believe that, Snape thought, raising an eyebrow.
Neither did Dumbledore, apparently. "Sirius," he said, as though scolding a child.
Black broke again, and began to weep. Snape curled his lip and looked away. He had seen grown pureblood wizards weep, but only under the influence of the Cruciatus and similar curses. Even if Black had realized the incredible worthlessness of his continued existence and was going to beg the Headmaster to end it all for him, he could have shown a little more dignity.
At last, Black drew himself together, and whispered, "I—I could see it all so clearly. I remembered Snivellus trying to kill Harry last year."
Snape narrowed his eyes. He said he would try to put aside that stupid nickname. Anger stirred in him, against Black and against himself, for being so stupid as to believe that anything Black said was true. I see the way things stand now. You are my enemy, Black, and I see no value in trying to keep peace with you, even for Harry's sake. I would take pleasure in removing him from you now. If you died, I would dance on your grave.
The depth of his hatred was sustaining, comforting. This was the same man who had tried to send him to his death when they were both sixteen, and not in the name of Dumbledore's war with the Dark Lord. Snape wondered that Dumbledore would even try to protect someone so weak, so flawed by his grudges that he could not see past them. He certainly could not use him in his endless war, so what was the point?
He realized it again as he watched Dumbledore lean forward across his desk, gently coaxing Black to speak. He is a pureblood wizard from a Dark line, who was placed in the House that Dumbledore thinks is the House of Light. Black is his little pet redemption project. Of course he would try to spare him anything he could, and not hold him to those standards of conduct that any other reasonable adult wizard would be expected to obey.
"Tell me about Severus trying to kill Harry," Dumbledore whispered. "Come now, Sirius, you can do it."
Snape rolled his eyes, but sat still.
"He was standing over him with his wand," Black whispered, in between the sobs. "He said that he really served the Dark Lord, and that he was going to send Harry's soul to join the soul of his dead master. Then he fired a Killing Curse at him, but it rebounded, just the way that it rebounded from—from his brother." Black huddled into himself and covered his face with his hands.
Dumbledore turned to look at him. Snape wanted to rage at the doubt on his face.
How dare you look at me that way, Albus, after everything I have done for you? A year of spying, a year of giving up people who believed in the same things I once had, a year of walking in constant fear of discovery, a year of committing murder and torture on your commands? Don't you owe me more than that?
Probably last year, Dumbledore would have felt he did, Snape realized abruptly. But since Snape had confronted him over what he had done to Harry, their relationship had been strained to the breaking point. He no longer trusted Dumbledore not to hurt a child. Perhaps the Headmaster did not trust him in exactly the same way.
He kept his voice a lazy drawl, his eyes half-shuttered. "Do you really believe, Albus, that if I had been hit by a deflected Killing Curse, that I would be here now? Such a spell destroyed the Dark Lord, who was a much more powerful wizard than I am. And what was my motive for trying to kill Harry Potter? Do tell me that."
"I told you," said Black, jerking his head up. His face was caught in a snarl, his features twisted into something barely human. "You're a Death Eater, Snivellus. You were trying to kill Harry so that you could bring your master back."
"From the story you told, it sounds like this imaginary wizard you saw was trying to take vengeance for the Dark Lord instead." Snape sneered.
Black passed a hand over his face. His eyes had such heavy dark circles under them that Snape wondered, in a detached way, when he had last slept. "I—that's what I meant. That's right."
"It is not right," said Snape, wondering that anyone could believe this idiocy. "Headmaster, with your permission, I would like to leave this room. I cannot believe these ridiculous accusations. I cannot believe that I should be subjected to them."
"This was grave enough for Sirius to attack you in the Great Hall, in front of the students, Severus," Dumbledore said, his eyes unsmiling. "You will stay." He turned and looked at Sirius again. "If this happened last year, Sirius, why didn't you attack him then? Or come and report the incident to me?"
Black's face turned dead white.
Oh, yes, do tell him, Snape thought, folding his arms across his chest and staring back at him. Do tell him that. I must admit, I am curious to learn how this imaginary version of me got away as well.
"I—it was wiped out of my mind the next day," Black whispered. "They made me forget. Someone wanted me to forget."
Dumbledore sighed. "And now the Memory Charm has snapped? That would account for your behavior, Sirius, but you still should have come to me first, instead of attacking Severus."
Black seized on the explanation fervently. "Yes, yes, the Obliviate broke," he said, his head bobbing up and down on his neck like a puppet's. "And now the memories are flooding me, and I'm sorry, Albus, but it was just too much to take. They flooded me all at once, and I had to try to kill him for what he'd done to Harry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I should have come to you first, but I didn't think." Tears were leaking down his face again.
What a plainly ridiculous story, Snape thought. I would have noticed last year if Black was under a Memory Charm of any kind, or Dumbledore would have. He had to admit, he hadn't noticed that that incredible fool Lockhart had used any Memory Charms, but he had used few if any while inside the school itself.
"Since I did not try to kill Harry, Black," he said, "I am curious as to what your Obliviator would have wanted you to forget."
Black turned towards him and gave a very dog-like snap of his teeth. Snape curled his lip. He had always found it fitting that Black's Animagus form was a dog, since he had learned of it. Snape himself had always believed that dogs were dirty creatures, shedding and barking and smelling like wet hair when they came in out of the rain.
"How do I know that you didn't try to kill Harry?" the fool asked belligerently. "That's what the memory says."
"But you are lying," said Snape, looking directly into Black's glare and adding a touch of Legilimency to his gaze, trying to seek out the truth in his mind. It was such a feeble lie, thought it would succeed because Dumbledore would support him in it. Snape was curious to see what Black was hiding instead.
He found absolute, howling chaos. Most wizards organized their mind in some way, as a park or a forest or a vast underground cavern. This was a raging storm, flickering lightning revealing memories that Snape barely had time to glimpse before darkness took them again, and wind that tossed him from side to side and made the normal gentle swimming motion of a Legilimens impossible.
He tore himself away and looked down at the chair, his hands clenching on the fabric. He breathed out, carefully. He did not think Black was insane, but he was very close to it. He is dangerous. I must keep him away from Harry at all costs.
"I am not lying," Black was saying. If he had felt Snape touching his mind, he didn't seem inclined to comment on it, and neither did Dumbledore. "That's what the memory says."
Snape looked up to see Dumbledore watching them across the desk. His eyes were sober, but he wasn't interfering.
He will let Black say such ridiculous things? Then I have free rein with the truth.
"I wonder what memories you've put aside, Black, to put this false one in its place?" he asked, turning his attention back to his old enemy. "Memories of your godson being abused, perhaps? Memories of him turned into nothing more than a tool for his brother, memories of his mind and his magic bound and nearly shattered because someone feared his power—" He took care not to look at Dumbledore.
"That's not true!" Black was yelling, near the top of his lungs. "It's Connor who has the power, not Harry, and Harry was never abused!"
"Tell me, then," said Snape, "what you call being made to study advanced magic when you are a child. Tell me what you call casting curses on yourself to train yourself into weathering physical pain. Tell me what you call knowing that you will die in war protecting your brother, or stand at his shoulder wrapped in shadows if you survive. I saw all this and more in Harry's mind last year, Black. And I saw how none of the adults who should have been his guardians and his protectors were helping him. I saw—"
"That is enough, Severus."
Another flowing wave of compulsion, as in the Great Hall, and Snape found his mouth clamped shut. He blinked and subsided. The spell wore off immediately, and then Dumbledore was leaning forward across his desk, his eyes on fire with anger.
"You will not repeat such lies outside this office," he said.
"They are not lies, Albus," Snape snarled back. "You know they are not. You know what you did. You know whom you sacrificed."
"You should have thought of that," said Dumbledore, his eyes stern, "before you made another such sacrifice necessary."
Snape had nothing to say to that. He swallowed, and felt a cold black dread building in his stomach.
"I know that you have spent long hours alone with Harry," Dumbledore went on. "Perhaps you are only teaching him advanced Potions and spells. Perhaps not. Perhaps you truly do mean to harm him for the sake of the man who was once your master."
"You know the truth," said Snape again. There was a cold hollowness in the middle of him, he realized in wonder. He had not thought that Dumbledore would go this far. He had not thought that the man really was capable of such enormities.
"I know many truths," Dumbledore replied. "And one of them is that you will not supervise any more of Harry's detentions, nor spend any more time alone with him after class hours."
"Under penalty…?" Snape asked. Because there had to be a threat, of course. The Headmaster would not expect him to just give up and slink away into a corner without being bested in some form or fashion.
"Under penalty of Sirius's memory being spread to the entire school," said Dumbledore, and his voice was heavy. "Who do you think they will believe, Severus? A former Death Eater, only spared from Azkaban by the good grace of the Headmaster of Hogwarts? Or a hero of the First War with Voldemort, a former Auror, and the godfather of the brother of the Boy-Who-Lived?"
Snape had to close his eyes, so dizzy with rage and outrage was he. "You will lose yourself a Potions teacher if you do this," he said.
"Only if you are stupid and stubborn, Severus." Dumbledore sounded as though he were smiling. "And I know that you are not. That is more the province of Gryffindors." Snape opened his eyes to see him giving Black a fond look.
Caught. Trapped.
How could he let himself be stripped away as support for Harry?
On the other hand, he could do nothing for Harry if he was in Azkaban. And he knew about the panic creeping slowly through the Ministry, filtering into Hogwarts and touching the students of his House. It awaited only a spark to light the tinder. Finding out that a pardoned Death Eater had tried to kill a student, and with that student being who he was, would ignite it.
Snape thought of the others that conflagration would reach out to touch—the pureblood families, the former Slytherins who would suddenly come under intense suspicions for nothing they had done, the wizards with unusual talents who made others nervous. Minerva herself could be under suspicion in such a climate, for all that she was a Gryffindor and a hero of the First War, for nothing more unusual than being an Animagus. The wizarding world was once more in the mood to fear and hate what it did not understand.
And Harry would certainly be on that list. His power and his Parseltongue talent would make him a likely target.
If he cared about protecting him, Snape could not do that to him.
"I yield," he said, his voice sounding hollow even to himself. "I promise that I will not speak such truths outside this office."
"Lies, Severus," Dumbledore reprimanded him gently. "They are not true."
It would have been a relief to be Black in that moment, Snape thought, or any other impulsive, dunderheaded Gryffindor. It would have been a relief to have shouted, to storm at the Headmaster and call him a bastard, to pull his wand and hex everyone in sight.
But he was a Slytherin. And Slytherins retreated when they had to, and waited for the best moment to strike, when the enormous heel of a more powerful enemy was not poised to crush them.
"Very well," he said, with what he knew was bad grace. "Lies, then."
Dumbledore nodded, his eyes twinkling again. "Now, Severus, please return to your Potions class. I have matters to speak of with Sirius."
Black, Snape noted as he stood, was looking hopeful again. Of course, why should he not? He had always been Dumbledore's Golden Boy. If trying to slaughter another student in school was not enough to get him in trouble, why should attacking another teacher in the Great Hall be?
There are times I wish I had died on Lupin's fangs, Snape thought, as he took the moving staircase back down, if only because an enraged werewolf would bring me to a cleaner end than Albus seems intent on doing.
The idea hit him so hard that he nearly stumbled.
An enraged werewolf…
He used all the skills he had learned as a spy to keep himself from showing emotion on his face or in his body, just in case Dumbledore was watching him through the spells Snape knew he had positioned in this staircase. He reached the bottom and strode briskly in the direction of his Potions class. He would teach them, and he would go about the other ordinary efforts of his day, and at the end of it, he would go and speak to Remus Lupin.
"Lupin," said Snape coolly, when his knock on the werewolf's door that evening produced said werewolf.
"Severus," said Lupin, blinking at him. He always had assumed he had permission to use Snape's first name, Snape thought as he pushed past him, and scolding him for it had always been tiring. Besides, now it would probably work to his advantage. Lupin considered them on friendlier terms than Snape himself did.
"Remus," he said, turning around as Lupin shut the door, and noticing the brief flicker of surprise in the amber eyes. "I need your help."
"I assumed you were here to bring me the Wolfsbane Potion," said Lupin, frowning at him. "For what other reason do you visit?"
Snape ground his teeth. Gryffindors. Always interested in the most inane things. "For a reason that concerns us both, this time," he said sharply. "Harry."
Lupin's eyes widened, and he rubbed the back of his neck, moving to take a seat behind his desk. It was an old and comfortable-looking piece of furniture, Snape noticed. In fact, most everything in the room looked comfortable, from the books with battered spines on the shelves to the half-stuffed chairs that flowed around the desk in a half-circle. "What about him? I trust that he hasn't been troubling you. I know that last year he still wanted rather badly to go to Gryffindor, but I have told him that Slytherin House isn't all that bad."
How gracious of you, Snape almost said. He let it go. There were more important things at stake. "Tell me," he said, "was there ever a point this year at which you seemed to lose a few days' time?"
Lupin froze. Then he glanced hastily aside. Trying to keep me from reading his mind, Snape thought, and his eyes narrowed. So he does suspect. Why hasn't he done anything about it?
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Lupin, his voice light and neutral. "Now, Severus, if you will excuse me, I really ought to get this marking done. I'm frightfully late handing these essays back to my students as it is." He picked up the stack of scrolls near the edge of his desk.
"You suspect," Snape whispered. "Why haven't you come to me? There are ways to break a Memory Charm, you know that, and I would not have thought you one to submit tamely to an Obliviate, however gentle your friends may claim you to be."
Lupin's hands tightened, and he looked up. "Albus told me the truth when I asked," he said.
Thrown, Snape only stared at him.
"He told me that the memories he took from me concerned Sirius," said Lupin, and closed his eyes as if in pain. "I—sometimes I get angry at him for things he can't help, things that are over and done and in the past now. Sometimes I get angry at him for just being who he is. And that is not something friends should do. I always come back and apologize to him later, but this time I went further. This time I did something that hurt him so badly that Albus had no choice but to take the memories from me, so that I wouldn't go on hurting him."
Snape wanted to swear. Black, Black, always Black! Who else has Albus sacrificed to protect him?
With an enormous effort, he held in his temper. "Albus lied to you," he said as coolly as he could. "The stolen memories concern Harry, not Sirius."
"Harry?" Lupin frowned. "But why would he want to take away memories concerning Harry? I've always been happy with Harry. He's never done anything that made me angry."
"Not what he has done," said Snape, watching closely, "but what he has had done to him."
Lupin just went on frowning at him.
Snape shook his head. "You would not believe evil of your friends if it paraded around in front of you naked, would you?" he asked.
Lupin said, slowly, enunciating each word, "We've all made choices that we're not proud of. But I don't think any of those choices has ever—" He broke off abruptly and swallowed. Then he said, in a voice that Snape didn't understand, the voice of someone pleading for forgiveness, "I know that Harry was in danger that Halloween night when You-Know-Who attacked Godric's Hollow, but not since then. His parents would not endanger him. Sirius loves him. Tell me they haven't done something else to him, please."
Snape closed his eyes with a long hiss. As I suspected. Simply telling him the truth will not work. His loyalty to his friends runs too deep. And I would not care if he remained Charmed, ordinarily. If Harry had not told me what his memories contained, I would not even be trying this.
"When you have your memories back," he replied, opening his eyes, "you will see what I mean. But it takes a long time, and it is a very delicate process. Will you let me begin the first steps into your mind so that I can eventually reverse the Obliviate and let you see what lies behind it?"
Lupin closed his eyes. He was wrestling with the desire to know the truth, Snape thought. But he wondered what the other side could be. Why wouldn't Lupin want the Charm off, now that he knew what was hiding behind it?
And then he knew, and the sudden shining contempt unleashed a torrent of words from him.
"You are afraid of losing your friends," he sneered. "You are afraid of losing these people who have tricked you, hurt you, betrayed you, Obliviated you, because they are the only friends you have." He thought back to Lupin as he had known him in school—painfully shy; horrified the few times he got angry, as though he could transform without the full moon calling to him; making no effort to find new friends even when he obviously disapproved of what his fellow Marauders were doing, because he just as obviously believed that no one else would befriend him. Something occurred to him that never had, given his rather personal involvement in the incident. "Tell me, Remus," he said, stressing the name and seeing Lupin flinch, "how did you feel when Black nearly made me dead and you into a murderer?"
Lupin sank back into his chair. Snape watched him, barely breathing. He knew that he needed Lupin's help with Harry if at all possible, but he would be worse than useless if he simply flinched when Harry was in danger, or handed Harry over to Dumbledore the moment he was asked to.
"I—that's not what he did," Lupin whispered.
"Really." Snape smiled. He knew it wasn't a pleasant smile. His smiles never were. "I could almost understand Black's actions against me, after all," he continued, voice soft and caressing. "I was his enemy. But you. You were his friend. If he had succeeded in his little—prank—then you would have killed me. You would have become the thing you feared most, the thing you hated most, the thing you fought so hard to avoid becoming. And all because your friend had an unreasonable grudge against me." He shook his head, clucking his tongue. "Tell me, Remus, why have you have remained friends with him after that? Why did you find some way to excuse it, even then, because, after all, Black is 'just being what he is?' No one has ever forced Black to grow up. Why not you?"
"Shut up."
The voice was a snarl, and Lupin surged to his feet, his teeth bared and his amber eyes open and blazing. Snape felt a thrill of fear. This was the thing he had seen, or half-seen, or dreamed he had seen, on any number of occasions. It was close to the full moon, but Lupin was still dangerous, even without that. Snape had made a point of studying werewolves after one had so nearly killed him. He knew their strength, even in human form. Lupin carried the power to tear apart anyone he chose, at any moment, to transform someone not into an infected, cursed beast like himself, but into a corpse.
Lupin knew that, too, from the look in his eyes.
And he was sorry for it immediately afterwards, sitting down and putting his hands across his eyes. "Oh, Merlin," he whispered. "I am so sorry, Severus."
Snape took his leave without a word. He still intended to free the werewolf from his Memory Charm if he could. Harry wanted it. That was one good enough reason. But, more than that, he suspected that Lupin's horror against getting angry extended mostly to himself. If he was hurt? He would swallow it and nod. If he learned that a child he loved was hurt…?
Snape did hope that he managed to break the Obliviate on a full moon, and that Lupin 'forgot' to take his Wolfsbane Potion before he leaped on Black. Death was too good for Black.
But I dare not use him as a mentor for Harry, the way I wanted to. He is afraid of his own anger. So is Harry. The last thing he needs is reinforcement on that.
He swallowed his pride, and found Minerva's rooms, and knocked. She was in, luckily, and she invited him in the moment she saw his face. Snape suspected he did not look his best.
"What is it?" she asked, when she had him sitting in a chair across from her desk and drinking a cup of tea. The tea was strong enough to nearly make Snape choke, but he drank it all the same. This was a ritual when he came and visited her. More than once, the teacup had ended up broken on the floor, flung by Snape when Minerva worked him up into a rage, but it was still a ritual. And this time, Snape thought he was unlikely to get angry.
He told her the whole story, and saw her eyes chill as she listened, one hand closing around the corner of her desk. When he had finished, and made his request, she nodded, once.
"Of course I will mentor Harry, Severus," she said. "But I can't promise that it will last much longer than your own protection of him, since Albus knows that I don't run blind at his heels any longer."
"I know," said Snape. "But he needs support, Minerva, and he needs to know what is going on, and I am afraid that Albus will carry out his threat if the boy tries to spend much time with me outside of class. I can send you Potions materials and books by owl. He can have them during his times with you, if you are agreeable."
"Why would I teach him Potions when I could teach him Transfiguration?" Minerva murmured, but her voice was dry, and she smiled. The smile vanished in the next moment. "I had not realized you were quite this dedicated to making his life better, Severus."
Snape raised his chin. She would accuse him of having a heart in a moment. It was one of her favorite remarks to make, and his to rage at.
But he said only, "I saw what his mind was like at the end of last year, Minerva. There is no way I could fail to help him after that. And I believe that others are beginning to notice his power. You have felt it. I have felt it. Others are turning towards it." He paused. "Some of the reading I have done has convinced me that he might easily be vates, if he chose to be."
Shock wiped her face clean, and then awe, and then hope. She nodded, slowly. "I see," she said. "Well. That is different. I will be happy to mentor him, Severus."
"Thank you," said Snape, and stood, and took his leave again.
He felt a slow pulse of anger and determination rise in him as he made his way back to the dungeons. Check and mate, Albus. But only for now. I don't think you realize how far I will go on fighting. If you take Minerva from him, I will free the werewolf. If you take him, or if he proves not strong enough to bear the burden, I will turn to the Malfoys. If they fail, then I will reach out to the purebloods who have sensed his power and know what it might mean, to the members of the Ministry who are not part of your Order, to the political enemies who would be happy to see you fall. To anyone but the Dark Lord himself my reach will go, until you are brought down and he is free.
You threatened me with a wildfire. I will unleash a firestorm, if need be.
If need be.