A/N: Many thanks to Procyon Black for betaing, even after all that Belgian beer.
A/N2: As I said in the previous chapter, this story is rated MATURE for a reason.
Chapter 18
Shit, thought Harry.
Then the world melted in a whirl of shapes. He felt memories whipping by like a cold wind and freezing the warmth of blood on his hands. He heard voices, saw flashes of colors, felt the rush of a thousand jumbled thoughts—and then he landed on something, hard.
Darkness.
Harry's heart was pounding in his chest, filling his ears with the overwhelming drumbeat of its pulse. For a moment he wished he could close his eyes again and shut everything out with nothingness, but he sat up from where he lay on the ground.
Severus was crumpled across his bed like a discarded glove, dark hair disheveled and covering his shadowed face. His face was slack, the thin lips parted slightly, his brow lacking the furrow that was usually there. He looked dead.
"Severus," Harry whispered. He reached across the bed and placed a hand on the sallow cheek, holding a finger under the hooked nose. He's alive, Harry thought, relief rippling through his body. Alive.
He sat up and stared down at Severus's form with a strange detachment. I've just killed a man, Harry thought, remembrances of the bloody smile and the warmth that spilled over his hand flashing through his mind. I've just killed someone. He waited for the surge of horror to crash through his mind and ravage his mind, to cripple him with the weight of its agony. I wonder where his body is, Harry thought.
Footsteps. Harry sat up and moved swiftly to the edge of the door. He kept to the shadows. Lucius Malfoy stepped into the seventh years' dormitory, his features only faintly wrinkled with disdain, and crossed the space to the door of his dormitory. Harry crept out from the doorframe, watching the other Slytherin turn the doorknob and push open the door.
Malfoy stood still. Then he inched forward, one step after another.
"Terrance…?" he whispered, crouching in front of the dark shape that sprawled before the hearth, surrounded by a sticky darkness that ran down the cracks of the stone floor. Harry tilted his head, trying to see more clearly the figure that lay crumpled like a discarded glove.
"Merlin!" Malfoy hissed and straightened and stumbled backwards and turned around—and froze, his face twisted in horror and surprise.
Harry flung out his hand. "Obliviate!" he said coolly. Malfoy's expression suddenly went lax, the tension draining away like blood from a wound. He looked like an enormous puppet, face flat and limbs controlled by no thought of its own.
"Confundus," Harry added. He flipped his hand, and Malfoy drifted over to his bed, lying on it with eyes still focused on Harry's. "You came in and felt tired, and decided to take a nap," Harry said. "Stupefy." For a moment, consciousness rushed back into the face, but it was only for the most fleeting of instances before darkness overcame it.
Harry moved closer to the fireplace. Lestrange was curled like a fetus, his face crushed as though it had been run over by a vehicle, resembling a bloody scrap from a butcher's shop. The black student robe was soaked in several places, and blood had streamed out from the wound and stretched across the stone like enigmatic patterns, or the yolk of a broken egg. One hand was hidden in the cloth, but the other, bruised and broken and splattered so that it looked like a piece of an abstract sculpture, seemed to be reaching out blindly as it lay in the stream of blood.
I did this, Harry thought without emotion. He turned around. Severus was standing in the doorway.
Time seemed to slow, as though suspended in the depths of a motionless sea. Harry became intimately aware of his breathing, his heartbeat, thudding in the ponderous silence. Severus's eyes went slowly from the crumpled form in front of the fireplace to Malfoy, lying unconscious on his bed like a giant doll, and then to Harry's face.
"You killed him," Severus said.
Yes, Harry thought, but the words would not come. He wished he could read more in that inscrutable face than he saw, wished that Severus would give some indication in his face, in his voice. Yes, I killed him, Harry thought, I killed him before your very eyes, now see what sort of monster I am.
"He was in your mind," Harry said, his voice hoarse. I'm sorry, he wanted to add, but he knew the words would have fallen, hollow and inadequate, ridiculous in their sentiment. I killed him. He waited.
Severus's gaze returned to Lestrange's corpse. "What do we do?" he said in a low voice.
Harry frowned, uncertain and hesitant, wishing he could read some meaning from the furrowed brow, the thinly pressed lips. "What do you mean?"
"The body," Severus said, a hint of impatience in his voice. "What do we do with it? Hide it?"
Harry shook his head, and had to force words through the knot in his throat. "No," he said. "It might be found that way."
"Angel ashes."
Harry looked up. "Angel ashes?" he repeated blankly, perplexed, though he felt drained of all ability to be surprised.
Severus's gaze was fixed somewhere between Lestrange's body and Harry's face. "It's a derivative of certain fungi, mixed with the skin of a sidhe," he explained quietly. "It can turn any non-living body into dust." He paused, but only slightly. "I have some."
Harry nodded. "Will you… go get it?"
Severus met Harry's gaze. "Clean up the blood while I do that, will you?"
Again, Harry nodded. Severus left.
Harry looked down at the body, his eyes drawn involuntarily to the face. The features were unrecognizable. The eyes were shut, but Harry had a sudden memory of the mocking glint, clouded by blood. He pointed at the puddle of blood. "Scourgify," he muttered, and watched the red evaporate into nothingness.
Severus returned, holding a jar filled with a whitish powder. Harry tried to catch his eye, but Severus was staring at the corpse on the ground. His throat work before he spoke. "We must unclothe him first. The angel ashes work only on flesh and blood."
"Oh," said Harry. There was a moment of hesitation, and then he reached down and pulled aside the black cloth of the student's robe. Lestrange's white shirt was soaked through with blood, and Harry, glancing at where he knew his shard of magic had entered the body, wondered where the blood ended and the wound began.
"All his clothes?" Harry asked.
"Yes," Severus said.
Harry squatted down next to the corpse, taking care not to step on the outstretched hand. He unbuttoned the top part of the shirt and ripped as best he could. "Damn," he muttered; the material was too strong. It doesn't matter, he thought. He's dead anyway. Muttering a cutting spell under his breath, he sliced through the cloth, watching the skin rip underneath his hands.
His fingers fumbled slightly when he reached the underpants. He gripped the cloth with his fingers, and muttered a cutting charm. The cloth tore away like wet paper as he peeled down past the knees, the shins, and finally over the bare feet.
Lestrange lay naked with faint lines over his skin where Harry's cutting spell had touched. He's pale, Harry thought, though not as pale as Severus. The hint of muscle of the arm and shoulders, mottled by bruises that had no time to form. It seemed to Harry the limbs of a Greek sculpture—a broken statue at his feet, a hand outstretched in a silent plea, this thing he had rendered with his power into something as lifeless as a gutted fish…
He stood, almost heady from the rush that roared through his body, passing through his soul like a shadow over the sea. "I suppose"—Harry cleared his throat—"that this is good enough?"
Severus nodded. He opened the jar and tossed some of the white powder onto Lestrange's body. Harry wrinkled his nose.
"Its characteristic smell is of rotting fish," Severus said, tossing some more white power over the rest of the body. There was a faint bubbling sound, and Harry watched the skin crumple, falling into itself and crumbling into ashes, looking like salt on the seashore. The black hair grayed, whitened, became thin strands of transparency; the bones expired. Dust you are, and unto dust you shall return, Harry thought.
Severus screwed the lid back on. "There," he said, and his voice was not quite steady.
"What do we do with the dust?" Harry said. "Can we burn it?"
Severus nodded wordlessly.
Harry reached down again, scooping the ruined clothing into a bundle of ashes. He took a step forward and tossed the whole thing into the fire. The flames leap, startled, before the first tendrils of fire licked the cloth, crept along the seams, and crinkled everything beyond recognition.
"Done," Harry said, getting up. He turned to look at Severus, but Severus was standing stiff and rigid, his eyes on Malfoy. "He'll—wake up when we leave," Harry said, wondering if he should try to sound reassuring.
Severus nodded sharply. "We should go."
They left the room. Harry paused at the doorway, looking back at the room: Malfoy lying there like a wooden doll, the empty space before hearth, the fire that had consumed Lestrange's ashes and now flickered and flamed, like a smiling glint before death.
"Frost," Severus said sharply.
Harry turned and pulled the door shut. He walked into his own dormitory, moved to his bed, sat, heard Severus close the door behind him. Watched Severus fumble through his things and stash away the jar of angel ashes, then stand and walk to his own bed. There was silence.
Harry took a deep breath. He glanced at the fire, and then looked away. The flames reminded him too much of Lestrange. He looked up slightly, from the corner of his eyes. Severus was sitting with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped tightly in front of him, eyes staring intently at the flames. His face seemed frozen, jaw clenched.
"Severus?" Harry murmured. Severus did not seem to hear him. Harry swallowed, not knowing what he wanted to say, only that he wanted—needed to hear Severus's voice. "I'm sorry, Severus, I—"
"SHUT UP!" Severus snapped. He sprang to his feet, and Harry fell silent, watching Severus's hands clench and unclench. "Don't—don't say anything." He turned and paced in front of the fire, back and forth, his shadow swinging across the wall.
Abruptly he stopped, and glared at Harry. "Well? What did you want to say?"
Harry blinked at the floor, trying to summon up anything that he might say. "Nothing."
"Nothing?" Severus snarled. "Then go! Leave me alone you—" He stopped himself at the last moment, a strange light in his eyes. He chuckled humorlessly, one hand gripping the mantle place. "I'll have to be careful when I insult you now," he said emotionlessly, "or you might kill me in my sleep."
Harry got up, and left.
qp qp qp
The air of the Astronomy Tower was slowly getting colder, taking on the moist chill of night as the sky faded from red to purple, from purple to black. Harry turned his head, sweeping his eye over the swift transition of color to darkness across the twilight sky.
He remembered the magic coalescing in his right hand, sharpening into a blade that could cut through flesh, but still rough enough to inflict pain. He remembered stabbing forth with all the delight of a monstrous fiend, riding the burst of cruel joy. After that, of course, shock and horror had overtaken him, carried him out of Severus's mind—but it had not been the horror of murder. It had been the horror of his joy.
And that is why I am a monster, he thought, lifting his hand before his face.
This was not the first time he had killed another human. The first person had been a young Death Eater with curly blond hair and a rather pimply face. Harry had been holding a conversation with Madam Rosmerta about the latest wards when a mob of Death Eaters had burst in, raining curses left and right. Harry had reacted instantly with an instinct born from hours of practice. He had ducked, shot spells, cast shields, stretched his senses, tumbled about the bodies and broken tables with the automation of a robot and the instincts of a wild animal. Then he had rolled right into a Death Eater, whose mask had slipped half from his frightened face and whose wand was pointing directly at Harry's neck. They had locked gazes for an instant, both of them too surprised to do anything, before the Death Eater began to stutter the Killing Curse. Harry had wrenched the wand from his neck and shouted a Reducto that blew the Death Eater's head off. Then he had leapt back to his feet and went on shouting spells and casting shields until none of the Death Eaters remained standing, and Hermione, her hair frayed and face bruised, remarked wide-eyed at Harry's bloody shirt.
Later, while hovering in a peculiar daze, everyone had consoled him. Hermione had gripped his hand; Ron had said something awkward; Mad-Eye had made gruff comments about how things like this were inevitable. None of it penetrated the haze, and Harry had eventually cried himself to sleep. In the following weeks, he had tried to find out everything about the Death Eater he had killed (his name was Elbert Mahuron, home-schooled by his mother, joined Voldemort only a few months earlier), until he killed his second, and then his third, and then the war drew over him like a thick cloud of numbness. But never had he taken delight in any of the deaths. The closest had been Peter Pettigrew, whom he had killed while riding a tide of anger, but after that, he had shuddered with disgust and sunken into memories of his parents.
It's Voldemort's soul in me, Harry thought, and brought his hands to touch his face. But even thinking that, it felt like an excuse. It was no longer Voldemort's soul, or Harry Potter's soul; it was his soul. The soul of Jonathan Frost. The soul of Tom Riddle. The soul of Harry Potter.
He heard footsteps approaching. He tensed, trying to recognize them, but before he could, they stopped.
"Frost," said Severus.
Harry froze, and then glanced backwards. Severus was standing awkwardly at the top of the staircase, his eyes flickering from the sky to the earth to Harry's face.
"I was looking—for you," Severus muttered, pulling his hands to his side and then crossing them over his chest.
Harry averted his gaze. "Oh."
Severus moved closer with sparse, hesitant steps. "Malfoy woke up some time ago. I imagine he's making inquiries as to Lestrange's whereabouts."
Harry nodded. He heard Severus sigh irritably and begin to pace around the Tower. "It won't be long before they realize that Lestrange has truly disappeared."
"No, it won't be, and Dumbledore will know I had a hand in it," Harry said, his voice a monotone.
Severus was silent for a moment. "How?" he demanded.
"Lestrange… blackmailed me into going to Voldemort's masquerade ball with the memory of my duel with Potter and Black," Harry said, hesitantly. "If I did not go, or if he, Lestrange, somehow died, or became—incapacitated, Dumbledore would receive that memory. And, since Lestrange is by now quite dead, I assume that Dumbledore will have seen it."
A moment's silence, and then another. Harry wished he could see Severus's face without meeting the intensity of that dark gaze. "So…" said Severus, "was it to—" He stopped. "You did not tell me that he was blackmailing you," he said softly.
"No," Harry said shortly. Of course I did not tell you, what good might it have done? But the answer came to him almost immediately: Severus might not have followed you to the ball. He might not have been possessed by Lestrange. Lestrange might not have died.
Too late now, Harry thought bitterly, pushing back the stinging tide of regret.
"There are a lot of things," Severus said, in a detached and matter-of-fact tone, "you haven't told me."
I can't, so stop asking! Harry thought furiously, but his mouth remained shut, clamped by trepidation and fear, the fear that Severus would leave, that these mandatory falsehoods would finally sever them. Christolph's words whispered through his mind—How can you think a love will last on lies, shadows, half-truths? You will destroy his life with that lie. You know that you are offering him to the Dark Lord. You know that the Dark Lord will lust after him and take him as—
"Teach me Occlumency."
Harry looked up, startled. "What?"
"You heard me," Severus snapped irritably, looking at the ground. "Teach me Occlumency. Dumbledore's infamous for his mind magic. If he suspects you, he'll search my mind."
For a moment, Harry wanted to laugh. It was so terribly ironic, so nauseatingly poetic, that he should teach Occlumency to Severus, just as Snape had crammed the secrets of Occlumency into his mind. The chicken or the egg? Harry wondered.
"All right," Harry said. "But Occlumency isn't something you can learn in one day. It's like learning the Patronus; it may take months before it 'clicks.'"
Severus gave him a withering look. "We haven't learned the Patronus yet."
"Eh, then you'll know what to expect," Harry said. "And frankly, I'm not too sure how to teach you. I rather learned Occlumency by myself."
Severus looked at him, brow creased in thought. "Did you use a book?"
"No," Harry said reluctantly. "I had Legilimens to help me." One that lived part-time in my head, another that dwelt in the dungeons, and one that controlled us all from his tower, Harry thought, and made an effort to twist the bitterness into a self-deprecating lightness. But it had worked in the end; not even Voldemort, after his rituals of power, had been able to easily shoulder through the shields he had made.
"You're a Legilimens," Severus said. "You can help me learn." He looked up, and their eyes met briefly before Harry immediately glanced away. Suddenly he was too aware of his heart, pounding as though they had just touched for the first time. "And if what you say is true, then Dumbledore will try to read my thoughts as soon as possible."
"Yes, you're right," Harry answered, clambering quickly to his feet. He had forgotten during his reverie about Dumbledore and the vulnerability Severus presented, but the thoughts flooded back with a new anxiety. They had so little time left. "We'd best head back, before it gets past curfew."
Severus grunted in agreement, and they began descending the steep spiral staircase, Harry leading the way. They moved wordlessly. Dinner's almost over, Harry thought, aware of the gnawing at his stomach. But there's no time. He had only a few hours to teach Severus how to defeat even Dumbledore's probing thrust, and judging by how difficult Harry had found the whole thing—
They entered the Slytherin Common Room quietly, and Harry was surprised to see Malfoy pacing in front of the fire.
"Has either of you seen Lestrange?" he demanded.
Harry frowned, timing his responses to be believable. "No," he said shaking his head. Severus said nothing, but Severus usually chose to remain quiet, Harry thought.
Malfoy narrowed his eyes at them suspiciously. No Occlumency, though, Harry thought, and sneered. "Lost your friend, Malfoy?"
"Shut up, filthy mudblood," he snapped. "Why aren't you at dinner?" He glanced briefly at Severus and let a condescending smile spread over his face. "Too busy with your catamite, were you?"
"Is that why you're so concerned over Lestrange's disappearance?" said Harry, crossing his arms. "Has the catamite become so reliant on his owner?"
Malfoy's face colored unpleasantly, and Harry would have lingered to enjoy it, but Severus had left, heading for their dormitory, his shoulders hunched tensely. Damn it, Harry thought, hurrying after Severus without paying attention to Malfoy's retort. The jabs he had made to Lestrange—to a man he had just killed and Severus had helped dispose—must have been discomfiting. But only for Severus, not for me, Harry realized with as much emotion as a cold and calculating blade. I would have as Harry, even if it had been about a Death Eater, even if what I felt had been more anger and hate than this nothingness. Hastening down the corridor, he tried to conjure even a tiny shred of regret or remorse. A shadow of it did arise, ghosting over his mind like a phantom pain, and with it materialized the memory of cruel pleasure.
Harry shut the door behind them.
Severus stood in the middle of the room, arms crossed over his chest, face expressionless. "So what do we do?"
Harry stood before Severus. Their eyes met. "I'm going to push myself into your mind and try to find your memories related to—what we did with Lestrange," Harry said slowly. "I want you to resist."
Harry watched Severus's brows draw down in irritation. "Are those the only instructions you're planning to give me?"
"Yes," Harry replied bluntly. "Just rely on your gut instinct."
Severus gave him one last, infuriated glare before composing his face. "Well?" he demanded coolly. "Go on."
Harry paused. He wanted to give some sort of assurance, to say something about how he had no intention of prying through Severus's more embarrassing memories, to tell Severus how reluctant he was to do this. But Severus's gaze was blank and pitiless, and in its coolness it was—thought Harry with a sinking heart—almost hostile.
Shaking aside the thought, Harry breathed in deep, and plunged.
He landed, after that brief instance of kaleidoscopic vertigo, in a room he knew at once to be their dormitory. Flames flickered in the fireplace. The shadows moved in brief rhythms over the gray walls and deep green sheets. Severus was lying in a fetal position on his bed, and Harry realized this was Severus's memory from a few hours ago, moments after Harry himself had awakened.
I should be able to feel him pushing me out, Harry thought as he watched Severus's eyes open. Snape was such a good Occlumens; I should think Severus has some natural talent…
Severus sat up and looked around bewilderedly. Then Harry heard a muffled sound of Malfoy's voice from the adjacent room. He watched Severus frown, look around the room some more, and then get unsteadily to his feet.
Harry followed the Severus within the memory, feeling rather impatient. He should be feeling at least some degree of resistance, wasn't Severus even trying…?
The door opened, and Harry found his gaze drawn involuntarily to Lestrange's body. He blinked at the sight and turned away, quickly pushing away the dismay that rose from the emptiness he felt. I really bashed his face in, Harry thought, glancing back at the sight, tracing the folds of blood-stained cloth to the outstretched hand—
He looked away quickly.
"You killed him," said Severus to the Jonathan Frost of the memory.
I did, Harry thought, gaze fixed on the relative safety of the shadowed walls, but once again, the words, caught in the frenzied beating of his heart, would not come. He glanced at his own face and looked at it with surprise. I looked so grim, Harry thought, so defiantly bleak.
"He was in your mind," the memory said in a hoarse, quiet voice.
More silence. Why isn't Severus pushing me out? Harry wondered. He can't have just given up, can he?
"What do we do?" the Severus of the memory asked softly.
With an internal sigh, Harry pushed off the ground and felt himself float, like a bubble wandering up from the ocean's depths. The edges of the memory blurred and smeared into darkness, before he opened his eyes and found himself looking at a profile of Severus's face.
"Severus?" Harry said quietly, hesitantly. Severus's lips were pressed tight, his eyes shut, his brows drawn, the rigid tension in his shoulders evident.
Harry reached out a hand, slowly, and touched the other man's shoulder. It was like touching a rock, hard and remote. He kept his fingers there, as quietly assuring as he could, his heart clenched at the pain in that fierce face, at the inadequacy of his silence and his gesture. And then Severus let out a breath that sounded like a sob, and he leaned forward slightly.
"Severus," Harry whispered, and reached forth to take Severus in his arms, but Severus drew away roughly.
"I have something to show you," he said, his voice regaining its control. His eyes were open and filled with a discomfiting intensity, a suspiciously bright glitter. "A memory."
"A memory?"
"Yes, one that might help explain a few things," Severus said. His tone was curt, brittle. "Go on," he said coldly. "We've not got all day."
"All right," Harry said, and he reached both hands to Severus's shoulders before taking a breath and plunging into those eyes.
Harry found himself in a plain, uncomfortable-looking room. The ceilings and walls were both painted white, but age had given them a yellowish hue. Old chairs with ripped cushions lined the walls, and in one corner was a magazine rack. Psychology Today, Harry read. Atlantic Monthly. This seems to be a Muggle place, Harry thought.
He turned around and saw Severus standing at a receptionist's desk, dressed in faded Muggle clothes that fitted awkwardly on his gangly frame. "Please," he said in a thirteen-year-old's voice, already fringed by that familiar coolness, "I would like to see someone."
There was the sound of a chair rolling across the concrete floor. "What?" demanded the receptionist, a squat middle-aged woman who seemed coiled in fat.
"Please," Severus repeated, his fingers clenching the countertop, "I would like to see someone."
"You're a lad," the receptionist said, wrinkling her nose and glancing at him critically. "Just trying to see the insides of a loony-bin, eh?"
"I would like to see someone inside," Severus repeated, his voice still tightly controlled. "My mother."
The receptionist paused. "Your mother? What's her name?"
"Eileen Prince," said Severus.
"Eileen…" the receptionist muttered, and a vague, troubled look crossed her face. Then she heaved herself out of her chair and waddled to the door. "Come on in, lad."
There was sound of the door being unlocked, and then it opened to a long hallway with the same off-white walls and ceiling. Harry followed Severus into the corridor. Loony-bin, Harry thought. Is this an insane asylum? And Severus's mother—here? Harry knew little of Snape's past, only that, by the time he had cared to wonder and ask, both Tobias Snape and Eileen Prince were dead.
The receptionist stopped in front of a nondescript door and knocked. "Eileen?" she called, her voice shrilling as it rose. "Someone's here to see you."
Severus shifted slightly.
"Who is it?" a voice replied, sounding cold and unfriendly even through the door.
"Severus," Severus called.
There was another pause. "Come in," Eileen Prince said.
The receptionist took out a set of keys and unlocked the door. "In you go, lad," she said, and Severus, closely followed by Harry, walked into the room.
So this is a loony-bin, Harry thought, looking about. The floor and walls were padded. An occasionally flickering fluorescent light bulb glowed from a cage of plastic and metal bars. There was a thin cot, a dresser, a sink, and a toilet. This is a prison, a cell, Harry thought, feeling a surge of revulsion.
Eileen Prince was seated in a stiff-backed chair, her face turned to the wall. "Please leave us, Miss Ratched."
"Can't, I'm afraid," mumbled the receptionist, Miss Ratched, almost as though she were an erring student, speaking to the schoolmaster. "It's against institutional policies."
Eileen turned her face, and her eyes—Severus's eyes, thought Harry—bored into Miss Ratched. "Have I not been very well behaved?" she said in a clear, precise voice. "Rest assured that I would never hurt my own son. Would I, Severus?"
She reached out a hand, and Severus stepped forward obediently, letting his mother caress his cheek.
"Please leave us, Miss Ratched," Eileen Prince repeated.
"Oh, all right," Miss Ratched said, fingering the ring of keys uneasily. "Mind you, I'll be just outside, so no funny business, hear?"
"Of course, Miss Ratched," said Eileen Prince, and Miss Ratched retreated, shutting the door behind her.
Eileen Prince immediately removed her hand from Severus's face, and Severus took a step back.
"I thought you had forgotten your mother," she said coolly, hands folded in her lap.
"I just got home three days ago, and I had to—" He stopped and quickly reached into his sleeves. "I brought what you wanted, Mother," he said. He slipped out his wand, and then took out two vials, one from each pocket. "I've also the fat of a pregnant sow," he said, taking off his shoes and upending them. Two squashed packages fell out.
Eileen Prince had picked up her son's wand, running one finger along its length. Watching her, Harry felt a tendril of foreboding.
"Mother?" Severus said hesitatingly.
"Petrificus Totalus," Eileen Prince said, waving the wand in Severus's direction. Severus's arms snapped to his body, his legs slammed straight, and he began to fall backwards. But his trajectory swerved, and he landed on the bed instead.
"Look at me," Eileen ordered, clambering onto the bed and straddling her son's body. "Look at me!" She slapped his face hard. "Look. At. Me."
Harry was clenching his fists anxiously, feeling a tremendous loathing swamp him. He wanted nothing more than to fling this odious woman down and torture her until she was a mindless wreck, until she was truly insane. But as the hatred pulsed through his body, the white walls of the room seemed to melt away, fading until they were nothing more than faint shadows in the background…
…He saw Severus sitting up straight in his bed, sweat coating his brow and slender hands clutching the dingy blanket. Moonlight flooded the cramped room, but Severus was listening to something— Harry heard it too, and suddenly thought he might know why Eileen Prince had pried this memory from her son's mind. It was the sound of indistinct moans and thuds from the floor below. Harry's attention was riveted to Severus's face, watching the despair surface on the too-young face, watching him shut his eyes, alone…
…Severus was descending a narrow staircase, and the afternoon light fell like leaves over the walls. He reached the bottom step, turned a corner, and stopped short— Before him, in a Muggle kitchen, a man and a woman were kissing. The man, as he drew away and wiped the lipstick from his nose, looked familiar; Harry realized it was Tobias Snape. He was very good-looking, thought Harry. Just like Tom Marvolo Riddle.
The woman gasped and drew away quickly. "Tobias, who is that boy?"
"He's nothing," Tobias Snape answered shortly, giving Severus an angry frown. "My first wife's son, finally got her into an institution several months ago, crazy woman, she was… Go on, don't dawdle there!" the elder Snape barked.
Severus backed out of the kitchen quickly and mechanically walked back up the stairs, keeping his gaze fixed before him…
The steep flight of stairs darkened as the padded walls and white, cracked ceiling sharpened into focus. Harry swallowed thickly. At least he had had the sanctity of his parents' memories while locked in the cupboard.
Eileen Prince clambered off the bed, ran her hands down her front to smooth her plain hospital gown, and sat stiffly in her chair, folding her hands once again in her lap.
"So he's found himself a whore," she murmured.
Severus's eyes darted back and forth as he lay motionlessly on the bed. Let him go, Harry thought, the anger rising. Let your son go now, you stupid woman.
But Eileen Prince rose to her feet and briskly began gathering the ingredients Severus had brought, moving about as though her son did not exist. She tapped the ground with Severus's wand and a bluish flame uncoiled from thin air. She emptied one of the vials, filled it with water, and hovered it over the flame.
There was a knocking at the door.
"Almost done, Miss Ratched," Eileen Prince called, flicking her wand. A blue light ran along the crack of the door, which Harry recognized as a locking charm.
With surprisingly swift movements, Eileen Prince assumed a kneeling position on the floor. She began to pull apart the small white roots she had emptied on the floor before sprinkling them into the vial of heated water. Her fingers are chubby, Harry thought critically. Severus must've gotten his from his father.
She reached for one of the small packets Severus had brought in his shoes, and unwrapped it. Fat from a pregnant sow, Harry thought, looking at the congealed lump with disgust. Eileen breathed on the lump, and then traced a circle around the fire and the levitating vial. She set the fat aside, then reached up and undid her hair.
Harry frowned, wondering if this was more of a ritual than a potion. He glanced back at the bed. Severus's face, caught in a frozen mask of surprise, betrayed nothing, but the eyes were focused with unswerving intensity on his mother's apparatus.
"Done," Eileen Prince said, flicking her wand and vanishing the fire. She drew the vial out of midair and corked it, raising it to the sickly fluorescent light. With her tangled black hair flowing down her back, spilling over her formless gown, she resembled a priestess of a world long disappeared.
Then, with awkward movements, she clambered back to her feet, and she was Eileen Prince again. She picked up the other block of fat and rubbed it vigorously on Severus's wand, like a violinist rubbing resin on the bow. What's she doing? Harry thought, glancing briefly at Severus, wondering what was going through his mind, wondering if, perhaps, this was not an uncommon occurrence, that Eileen Prince regularly petrified her son, invaded his mind, and brewed potions under weak, Muggle lighting. She held Severus's wand up to the fluorescent lamp, and Harry saw that the tip had become sharp.
Eileen Prince stood straight and smoothed her gown over her body. Her hands lingered at her belly, almost lovingly so, and Harry saw that her lower belly bulged against the white cloth.
"Engorgio," she said, tapping the other vial with the sharpened wand. It grew until the neck was large enough to pass through a fist.
No, Harry thought in disbelief, and moved instinctively to block the thirteen-year-old Severus's sight. But this was his memory; he had seen this already. Eileen Prince turned her chair so that the back faced her son, climbed onto it, squatted down slowly, and lifted her hospital gown.
"Lacrimo," she murmured, her voice catching in her throat. "Lacrimo—puerperus." Her breath hitched, and she clutched at the armrests of the chair. Harry heard her let out a trembling moan as her entire body shuddered, a sound he had never heard before. She moaned again, and then, at first a string, then a vague bloody shape emerged underneath the chair, dangling like the intestines of a gutted animal.
The moans stopped for a moment, as Eileen Prince panted from the exertion. Harry glanced backwards; Severus's gaze was as rigidly transfixed as that of a corpse, but there was only a look of vague surprise on the frozen mask of his face.
Eileen Prince suddenly let out another moan, and the bloody shape lurched, dangled, tracing streaks of blood over the enlarged vial. Then it fell to the floor, landing with a faint plop. Harry watched in morbid fascination a single bloody strand dangled above the floor, quivering like a strand of spider silk.
Eileen Prince let out an exhausted sigh and slumped against the chair, her head lolling slightly. Then, her breath still coming short, she whispered, "Accio fetus." A tiny, misshapen thing rose from the mess. She slipped it into the engorged vial, and it landed, thought Harry, like the yolk of an egg. "Scourgify," she muttered. Like flesh curling and turning to ash in flame, the bloody mess shriveled and disappeared. "Finite Incantatem." The vial shrunk to its original size. With slow, aching movements, she stood, pushing down her gown and smoothing it as best as she could. Her fingers trembled slightly.
"Take this, and have your father drink it," she said, pointing at the potion she had made. Her voice was steely. "And then show him this. Show it to him after he gets tired of his latest whore." She picked up the vial with the formless red mass inside, its sides streaked with blood. "Tell him that this was his last hope of Tobias Snape, Jr."
She picked up Severus's wand, the end returned to its normal state. "Finite Incantatem," she said, and Severus scrambled into a sitting position, his face paler than normal and his mouth opening wordlessly…
…The room melted away. The white of the walls and ceiling were replaced by the familiar light and shadows of flame.
Harry slowly took his hands away from Severus's shoulders.
"That, I hope, may explain my inabilities concerning Occlumency," Severus said coldly, and broke eye contact, glancing down at the ground.
Without quite knowing what he was doing, Harry flung his arms around Severus and squeezed so hard he could feel the bones of Severus's back under his hands.
"You're—" Severus gasped, but said nothing more as Harry buried his face in the other man's shoulder and clenched his eyes tight. He could feel his heart thudding in his chest, filling the silence with the sound of its beating.
They stayed like that for a while before Harry felt a gentle push. He let go, and Severus let out a sigh.
"Is there any way I can learn Occlumency?" he asked, voice cool and controlled, but to Harry it sounded as quietly warm as a fire on a rainy night.
There has to be, Harry thought. He knew that Severus would be one of the greatest Occlumens of his generation, but—right now he was one of the worst. Thanks to Eileen Prince, Harry thought acerbically. Lestrange and Malfoy weren't the first to violate him. It was his mother. But as Harry felt again that surge of hatred, it was tempered by a strange pity. Why did Severus show that to me? he wondered, the fierce surge of emotion replaced by an overwhelming tenderness. "I don't know," Harry said reluctantly. "Did you try pushing me out?"
"I did," Severus said, but Harry could hear the hesitation and frustration and in his voice.
Harry paused. "When Lestrange was in your mind, did you—feel it? Did you try to push him out?"
"I don't think I was aware of it," Severus said, not meeting Harry's eye. "Everything he told me to do felt so—natural. I think I only realized after I saw the two of you running through my head."
"Sorry," Harry muttered, but Severus waved it off impatiently.
"I will not believe that there is no way for me to learn Occlumency," Severus said coolly. "Surely there has to be a theoretical basis that can help me more than this method of yours."
"You mean books? Not in the Hogwarts library."
Severus gave him a sharp glance. "How do you know?"
Harry felt blood rising to his face. "I—um—"
"Don't answer that," Severus whispered, so quietly Harry almost didn't hear. Harry fell silent, wondering if the connection had been lost, if the moat of secrecy had cut them apart once more, but Severus only drew away and said with a fierce conviction, "I must learn Occlumency." He looked up, eyes boring into Harry's. "I—there must be a way."
Harry shook his head. "I don't know—"
"How can you not know?" Severus demanded. He turned and began to pace furiously in front of the fire. "Wasn't there any book you read? There are other libraries I could go to. I could find books, I could read them, I could learn, I could—" He stopped with such a look of despair on his face that Harry felt his heart wrench.
"There won't be enough time," Harry said softly, voicing the thought that was in both of their minds.
Severus swore. "How can you be so calm about it?" he hissed. "You'll—if Dumbledore finds even a shred of proof, you'll go to Azkaban. Azkaban! People have gone for less. And you have no connections to save you, nor do I, for that matter."
Maybe that's how I'll spend my twenty years, Harry thought, but knew at once he would never allow himself into Azkaban. But perhaps that is how I must leave—not by Voldemort, but by Dumbledore. He felt suddenly quite calm, as though he had seen the entire path of the future in one sweeping gaze.
Severus stopped pacing abruptly. "I don't—want to lose you," he said, eyes downcast, voice so desperately quiet the words were nearly inaudible.
Harry swallowed. "You won't."
Severus looked up and tried to glare. "How can you know?" he demanded, voice rasping in his throat. He closed his eyes for a moment, as though fighting back a terrible thought or memory. "They will take the memory from me. They will drag it out, and use it to destroy you. And I—" He laughed humorlessly. "Maybe we will share cells in Azkaban."
"It won't happen," Harry said, as firmly as he could, "you won't go to Azkaban—"
"But they won't allow us to be so close to each other," Severus said, voice still as hollow as the eyes of a starving man, "they would not allow our 'horrible aberration of nature' to continue in prison."
"It's not!" Harry said angrily. He paused. "Is that what you think of us? A 'horrible aberration of nature?' Is that—is that what your father told you, or your mother—?"
"What does it matter how I think of it?" Severus snapped. "And what do my mother and father have to do with it?"
"Because," Harry said, trying to keep from stumbling, "that's what—my aunt and uncle told me. About being magic. And I've never forgotten it." He sought out Severus's eyes. "And that's what your father said, too. Isn't it?"
"It doesn't matter," Severus muttered, eyes closed, but Harry had reached out both hands and cupped Severus's face, feeling the high cheekbones, the too-large nose, memorizing everything under his touch.
"It does," Harry whispered, "it matters, because you are the most important and—beautiful thing in the world to me, and—"
"Stop it."
"I wish I could tell you everything, show you everything, even if you would judge me ill for it—"
"I would never judge you ill," Severus said quietly, opening his eyes. Harry felt words die in his throat, burnt to nothing by the flood of emotion that surged through his body. He has forgiven me for killing Lestrange, Harry thought. His conscience and his mind must be telling him to condemn me, but he has forgiven me instead— Why? Why did he? Is it love, is it faith? I don't deserve him. I don't deserve him—
"You are," Severus whispered, as he brought his trembling hands to Harry's, "the best thing—I have ever encountered."
Harry swallowed, feeling his heart thud wildly in his chest. And you are all that is good in me, Harry thought, wishing he could say it aloud. Your love is all that redeems me now. The twenty years suddenly seemed so vast, so forbidding— He saw himself lost, stumbling like a blind man through a tundra, or a man in a boat upon a storm-tossed sea. He would have power—power to destroy the world on a whim, power to end the war if he wished, but he could not change time, could not change his fate, could not keep this feeling of dark desolation at bay…
There was a knock at the door.
Harry drew away abruptly, the bubble of intimacy that had surrounded them abruptly shattered. "Don't," he cautioned, as Severus moved to open it. He closed his eyes, letting his senses probe past the stone and wood… "It's Malfoy," he said. "I'll answer it."
He walked forward and opened the door. "Why, Lucius Malfoy," he said, pretending to be surprised. "What a thoroughly unpleasant surprise."
Malfoy sneered. "Good evening to you, too, Frost," he said. "I have a message from the Dark Lord." He took out a scroll, sealed with the Dark Mark.
Voldemort? Harry thought, stomach sinking in dismay. He quickly scanned the scroll, then took it. "Is that all?"
"Yes, that is all," Malfoy said, craning his neck. He caught sight of Severus, and opened his mouth with a nasty smile, but Harry quickly shut the door on Malfoy's face. He turned and walked to Severus, holding the scroll cautiously.
"What does it say?" Severus asked, moving to Harry's shoulder.
Harry broke the seal. The page was blank for a moment before words shimmered into existence. My dearest Jonathan, Harry read. Please let me extend my fondest greetings to you and your esteemed friend. I hope that both of you found my gifts fitting. I must admit that I found your company most pleasurable at Abraxas Malfoy's masquerade ball. Flavia Black shall be holding a small dinner tomorrow night, and I hope you will be able to attend. Lucius Malfoy will be happy to assist you. Yours faithfully, Lord Voldemort.