A/N: As you can guess, my plan to make this a series of short stories didn't work out. Now, Duel will serve as the standalone prequel to this tale: Dumbledore's Men. Thanks for all the reviews for Duel and Flight. Here is the next chapter! A bit shorter, but now that I've finally overcome a massive writer's block, I hope I can have more chapters out to you soon! Thanks for being so patient!
Chapter Two: Refuge
Unlike the other Order safe houses Harry had visited, this one was very well-kept. A patch of sunlight filtered through a gap in the trees to strike the highly-pitched, dark roof that sparkled with flecks of silver. There was even what appeared to be a greenhouse, and a garden, much like the ones full of magical plants that Madam Sprout kept at Hogwarts.
But the biggest surprise to Harry came when the door opened, and a house elf wearing a pillowcase embroidered with moose tracks and Northern pines bowed low to them. "Welcome, Master Snape! Hattie has kept the house as Master Dumbledore ordered for Master Snape."
Snape nodded curtly to the elf. "We will be staying indefinitely."
The elf's brown eyes widened at the sight of Harry. "Hattie will prepare a room immediately for Master's son."
Harry stiffened, but Snape beat him to it. "This is a Hogwarts student. Harry Potter." His warning snarl cut off any exclamations of awe or praise that Hattie would have made. "See to it his living quarters are well away from mine."
"Yes, Master," Hattie squeaked, and scurried away.
To Harry, Snape said curtly, "I hope you will do me the courtesy of amusing yourself now we are here, Mr. Potter, unless you have a pressing need of assistance."
"Why would I inflict your presence on myself voluntarily?" Harry shot back, and stalked into the house ahead of him.
It was, Harry was relieved to find, easy enough to "amuse himself" without encountering too much of his (technically-speaking) host. As small and quaint as the cottage appeared from the outside, there were no close quarters to force him into Snape's company more than a few minutes out of every day.
The room Hattie arranged for him was on the opposite side of the house from Snape—for which both of them were immensely grateful—and upstairs, with even a little balcony where Harry could see through the trees to the cliff overlooking the giant Lake. At first he'd been unable to believe they weren't by the sea, but when he trekked his way down the mountainside to the rocky beach, he discovered that the water was indeed fresh—and exceedingly cold.
He liked walking on the shoreline and picking up the different-colored, smooth stones to examine, until he spotted Snape doing the same thing one day. Then he always made sure to stay in the house when Snape was outside, or be out of the house when Snape was inside.
Inside the cottage was a rather impressive library, the largest room in the whole house. Although Harry didn't like to look at anything that reminded him of Ron and Hermione, his own interest in the books was enough to overcome the pangs the room gave him, thinking of how the latter would squeal with delight over the collection. The hard part was getting into the room at a time when he was sure Snape wouldn't be there.
On one such occasion, he spotted the former professor making his way out into the garden, and hastened into the library to make the most of the time. Whatever Snape's professed interest in the Dark Arts, he apparently still kept a hand in at Potions, and was constantly brewing up new foul-smelling concoctions in the basement.
And Harry was pleased to discover that this library had no Restricted Section, although there was little doubt that Snape would be demanding an explanation if the wrong volumes turned up missing. Most of the books on Potion-making Harry was content to leave well-enough alone (even a rather tempting tome entitled Potente Poisons To Fool Even The Masters), but he liberated a few that he doubted Snape would miss right away. The Unauthorized and Extensive History and Development of the Dark Arts would probably keep Snape occupied for awhile (not that Harry wouldn't have liked to get his hands on that one) before he came looking for the more, so-to-speak, specialized volumes.
The solitude of their mountain-top, forest-covered cottage suited Harry just fine, although he did miss Hedwig sometimes. He'd sent her away before the final battle with instructions to stay with the Weasleys until he came for her, and there was no way she would reach him across the Atlantic Ocean.
So it came as quite a shock for Harry when a group of Muggles blundered their way noisily into a clearing below the site of the cottage, so close that Harry could hear them from his bedroom.
"I cain't git the durn fayr started!"
"Putsome charcoll on it, Grampa, it'll burn!"
"If we don' git the fayr started, we ain't gonna be aytin!"
And on it went. They never bloody shut up, especially when Harry heard them banging pots and pans to frighten off a bear they'd attracted with the smell of their cooking after dark. Bloody Muggles.
Severus was vindictively glad that the Muggles had chosen to set up camp on Potter's side of the mountain. Once he satisfied himself that the ward-off Charms were in place and would keep the noisy group from straying too close, he went about his business (rather cheerfully at that). The boy, to his intense relief, stayed well out of his way, so he simply instructed Hattie to see to Potter's needs and inform him if there were any problems. She did not have anything to report, so he was unconcerned. It amused Severus on one occasion to see the boy storming down the opposite side of the mountain from the Muggle camp, irritation clear on his face. From the racket he had heard, no doubt the stupid Muggles were keeping Potter awake at night. Severus supposed he could have placed Noise-Dampening Charms up around them, but he truly saw no reason to do so.
But all too soon, in Snape's opinion, the motley crew packed up and left—rather hurriedly, as apparently one of the idiots had managed to get himself bitten by a snake while tramping through the underbrush. In any case, at least peace returned to the area.
Severus arranged for Hattie to discreetly obtain a copy of the Daily Prophet each day, and left it where Potter could see it. Receiving word of the boy's survival and safety had not exactly reassured his friends and the Order; if anything, they were more frantic than ever. But to Snape's growing disgust, Potter did not once pick the paper up.
Still, the first week of their self-imposed exile passed easily and without incident…until Hattie popped into his laboratory in a panic. "Master must come quick! Young Master Harry is ill!"
Severus dropped his book and ran.
He found Potter face-down dangerously close to the cliff overlooking the water. More disturbing still was the book that the boy had apparently been fooling about with. Granted, there weren't any warnings that some of the spells contained therein were dark and dangerous—but one would think a wizard with the purported skill of Harry Potter would have had the sense to realize that once he started reading.
Muttering a few short remarks about Potter's ancestry, Severus hauled him up, satisfied himself that there were no immediately threatening injuries, and hovered the boy back to the house. A more thorough examination determined that Potter had not done himself any lasting harm, other than putting himself into magical shock yet again. Once he was satisfied that the boy would recover, he turned his attention to the book. What had the little idiot been playing about with?
He felt he could safely discount the spells that were openly hostile to Muggles and others, but the book puzzled him; even those spells that remained seemed far too obviously dark for Potter to attempt. Why would the boy have been fooling around with such a text at all? Surely a wizard so virtuous as the sainted Harry Potter would have dropped the thing like a hot coal once he saw what was in it. Or I suppose Potter imagined himself immune to such influences, Severus mused, shooting the boy a disgusted glance. Arrogant little brat.
Inevitably, Potter came round, and Severus felt no compunction about landing on him with both feet the moment he awoke. "What the devil were you playing at, you stupid boy? You could have got yourself killed!"
Once Potter's disorientation passed, to Snape's further irritation, he was as obstinate as ever. "Don't try to pretend you actually care."
"What spell were you trying to use? You're lucky there were no more serious effects."
Potter rolled over to face away from him, but finally muttered. "Power enhancer."
"Yes, I guessed as much. Which one?"
The silence that followed was so long that Severus thought for a moment the boy had fallen asleep. But at length, Potter sighed. "Vis Vires."
Scowling, Severus looked it up, but then found himself even more confused. Old Earth magic wasn't encouraged in mainstream wizarding, but as such spells went…Potter should have been able to invoke it with relative ease, yet he had obviously suffered a major failure: either he'd lost control of the spell, or the power had overwhelmed him. Either possibility seemed remote for one of Potter's magical strength. So why was he in shock again? A weaker wizard might have faced this, but surely not…wait.
Weaker…
"Potter, sit up."
Either Potter respected him more than he'd realized, or the boy was too weary to muster an argument, because he obeyed, his face gray as he pulled himself into a sitting position. Severus watched him carefully. "How long has your power been diminished?"
The green eyes that met his in alarm and dismay were dull, nowhere near as bright and clear as he remembered them. He was astonished that this possibility had not occurred to him before. Potter had killed the Dark Lord after all, and destroyed five Horcruxes, in between battling the various minions Voldemort had sent after him.
The boy sighed, scrubbing his face. "Bout since I got rid of the first Horcrux. Took a lot to overcome the curses on them, and…I just never completely got better."
"But you were able to defeat the Dark Lord."
Potter shrugged, looking away from Severus. "Maybe the loss of the Horcruxes weakened him too. Each time I destroyed one, it…got a little worse. Got harder to keep going. I had a feeling it'd…come to this."
Severus digested this as Potter lay back down, falling almost at once into a doze. A steady pattern of magical—and physical—weakening after destroying highly cursed objects, aggravated by constant dueling. Potter did not eat much, according to Hattie, and now that he considered it, Severus thought his health had not improved in the days since they'd arrived. And it should have, if this was merely a case of severe magical exhaustion.
One of the Horcruxes must have cursed the boy. Maybe more than one of them. The Dark Lord had tended toward multiple layers of protection on objects precious to him—he would have used both immediate and long-term curses against anyone who tampered with the pieces of his soul.
"Does the Order know of your condition?" he asked Potter a few days later, when he noticed him still moving slowly in the house.
Potter shook his head. "Nothing they could do. There wasn't time to lift the curses before I destroyed the Horcruxes, and once destroyed, no way of finding out what they were cursed with."
"You're remarkably resigned to your fate," Severus said, intending to sting the boy's pride.
Potter snorted. "Unlike some people, I don't spend all my time looking out for Number One. I knew the chances of me getting through it all unscathed—or unscarred, rather—weren't very good. I did what I had to do."
Severus glared at him. "The fact that I survived did not mean I was looking out for my own interests alone. You know that, boy."
"Yeah, but still everyone who ever trusted you wound up dead," Potter sneered, and stalked out of the house before Snape could retort.
Left alone, Severus poured himself a glass of firewhiskey. He wondered if Potter could possibly know the absolute, complete truth of his cutting words. That Snape had been acting on orders some times, and other times, trying desperately to protect others' lives meant nothing…it was true: everyone who had trusted him was dead.
He had fulfilled his promise to Albus…and taken Albus's life. He had fulfilled his oath to Narcissa, aided Draco in every way…but even that had not assuaged the Dark Lord's wrath against Lucius and his family. Draco had died the day Lucius escaped Azkaban…at the Dark Lord's hand, while his parents watched. Narcissa had suicidally attempted to avenge her son, and Voldemort had slaughtered her as well. Lucius had not survived his next assignment.
Severus had been elevated to the Dark Lord's right hand, fulfilling the vacancy left by Lucius Malfoy, giving him more opportunities than ever to gather information and intelligence, to sow the seeds of the Dark Lord's destruction. But the cost…
Damn Harry Potter. Severus felt his hatred for the heroic, self-sacrificing brat increase still more. May you one day be forced to choose between the lives of all that matter to you and the greater good of our kind. Where will your Gryffindor nobility be then?
If it had not been for his final oath to Albus, Severus would have been perfectly happy to watch Potter waste away from the residual Horcrux curses. But promises to the dead gave him no such pleasure, so he turned his research pursuits to determining remedies for the boy's condition.
Potter himself was less than helpful.
"We should contact the Order. Whether you wish to see your friends or not, they have resources not available to me here," he said one afternoon after cornering Potter in the garden.
"For the twelfth time, the answer's no," Potter said flatly. "I don't want to deal with the Order anymore."
"Your self-centeredness astonishes me, Potter," Snape finally exclaimed. "You care nothing for your own life or the suffering you have undoubtedly inflicted on your besotted friends. The curses from the Horcruxes are nothing compared to your overwhelming self-pity!"
"Spoken like an expert on the subject!" the boy spat. "You're a fine one to talk."
Snape caught his arm when he would have left. "I swore to Dumbledore that I would preserve your life, regardless of my feelings about its value." Both he and Potter knew his feelings on that score. "And if it comes down to preserving your pathetic existence and abiding by your wishes, I will choose the former."
"As if you really care about me or my friends!" Potter shot back. "D'you think you're somehow making up for what you did by helping me? Wake up, Snape; you're not fooling anyone! You're a bloody selfish murdering bastard and you'll always be, no matter how much you talk about following orders!"
"SHUT UP!" Severus roared.
"AND you know it!"
Severus swung at the boy as hard as he could. Potter ducked and smashed his fist into Snape's gut, winding him, but Severus grabbed Potter's arm and yanked him down with him, adding a hard clout to the face for good measure. He managed to knock the weaker wizard off him and onto his back, then leaned over him and punched the vicious little brat in the face as hard as he could.
Potter threw a handful of dirt into his face, scrambled to his feet as Severus rolled away, cursing and trying to clear his eyes, then kicked him in the ribs for good measure before staggering away.
"Stay the hell away from me, Snape. If you contact the Order, I'll be gone, and even a spy as good as you won't be able to find me!" Severus might have managed to catch him if Potter hadn't thrown an Incendio into the garden, forcing the Potions Master to turn his attention to that while the younger wizard made his escape.
Severus didn't see him again for almost a day, but Hattie found him long enough to assure Severus that the boy was well, so he left it. He was concerned when the Muggle newspaper reported the local authorities in the area trying to deal with an infestation of nesting snakes, but Potter had returned to the house by then, and Severus supposed that the boy, being a Parseltongue, would probably not have to worry about being bitten.
Severus had entertained the hope that if he could manage to contact the Order, Potter's friends would persuade the stupid boy to return to England to seek better treatment than what Snape could provide in exile. But the fight in the garden had made it quite clear that Potter would avoid seeing anything of the Order again, even if it mean the loss of his magic and the continuing deterioration of his health.
He avoided Severus more than ever, which would have been agreeable to Severus but for the niggling little concern that Potter's welfare was not improving out here. Nor was his behavior suggestive of mental stability. The boy had risked and sacrificed a good deal for the sake of others, so why was he now suddenly so unwilling to face the gratitude of those he had saved? This was certainly not consistent with the wizarding world's insipid little darling Severus had known at Hogwarts. No, that Harry Potter would smile bravely, bat his eyes and blush at the cameras, and insist so humbly that he didn't deserve all the accolades—even as he accepted them.
Following Potter's own half-suggestion, Severus drew on his considerable experience as a spy to keep closer tabs on the boy. For the most part, his activities were uninteresting…he wandered the shores of the Lake a great deal, and occasionally experimented with magic on the rocks, but nothing alarming. If the boy had been tempted to try anymore dangerous spells, his magical and physical weakness was an effective barrier to that.
Seldom did his wanderings take him anywhere near Muggles, but on the occasion they did, Potter's lip would curl in a way vaguely familiar to Severus, and he would promptly turn back and head in the opposite direction, never making any effort to contact them. Severus rather felt the same way about Muggles, but…it wasn't like Potter to be quite so repulsed by them…was it? He wished he'd known more about the boy's relationship with the Muggles who had raised him, and the other Muggle children he had undoubtedly grown up with.
He vaguely recalled Albus having said that Potter's home life was not a happy one—he'd dismissed it at the time as teenaged whining, but…would that account for the boy's bitterness and hostility now? Or was it his failing health?
That alone was worrying Severus more and more; Potter's health was growing worse. His wanderings, which had seemed to improve his mood and his magic from long exposure to clear air and peace, began to lessen, and then stopped altogether; Potter no longer went beyond sight of the cottage or the shoreline just below it. He spent hours sitting on the cliff overlooking the water, not moving a muscle. Severus even saw him talking to a snake once or twice.
Once it became clear that further examinations would be necessary, Severus confronted Potter and alternately bullied and harassed him into sitting still in the lab for it. "Perhaps if you were a little more forthcoming, I would have more to go on," he said as he performed another Diagnostic Spell.
"I've told you everything I remember," Potter said crossly, swinging his legs as he sat on one of the tables. "There wasn't time to think; I just used any spell I could think of to blast the things."
"All the same, I need more detail. Where were you when you destroyed Hufflepuff's Cup?" Severus asked, undaunted by the carping.
Potter sighed heavily. "Little Hangleton cemetery. It was in the old Riddle House. I broke in through the wards—I suppose you're the reason no alarm sounded." Severus didn't deny it. "Stole the thing and just ran. I melted it in the cemetery before I apparated out."
"And you left it there?" Potter nodded. Severus frowned at him. "What if destroying it had not destroyed the soul fragment?"
"It did," said Potter in a tone of finality. "Believe me, all right? It did."
Severus eyed the boy for several moments, and finally decided to accept this. "What did you feel?"
"Before I apparated? Something…in my scar. And in my chest. Pressure, and pulling. Back and forth. It was weird," Potter's eyes were slightly unfocused, lost in memory. "And then it was like a snap, and the cup melted. I knew it was done."
"How soon did you feel the effect of the curses?"
"I couldn't breathe right away. Apparated out in case Death Eaters came, to the Burrow. I remember hearing Mrs. Weasley say my lips were blue, but I blacked out." Potter's voice was so impersonal he might have been discussing the weather. "They sent for Madam Pomfrey. I woke up two days later. Felt really weak for days, but I had to keep going after the other ones."
"And next was Rowena Ravenclaw's mirror?" Severus prompted.
Harry nodded. "I used a Solid Shield between me and it when I hit it—that was in the old orphanage site where Riddle grew up. I felt the curse hitting it…I think it was another burning curse of some kind like the one that got D…the one that got Dumbledore." He scowled. "You'd think he'd have used a Shield too."
"He did," Severus snapped, annoyed. "How long did it take your Shield to fail?"
"About two minutes. I didn't see any other curses, but I figure there may have been something. Or maybe that one didn't curse me."
The rest of the story was essentially the same. Severus could think of a variety of curses that the Dark Lord might have imprinted onto his Horcruxes, but nothing that would cause these particular symptoms in Potter. Lord Voldemort had a flair for the dramatic…he'd have wanted Potter to suffer more than the simple slow deterioration in the face of weakness and crushing fatigue. Something did not add up.
For starters, the numbers.
"So Hufflepuff's Cup, Gaunt's locket, Ravenclaw's mirror, the ring, the diary…that is only five. What was the sixth?" His patient hesitated. "Potter?"
Wearily, the boy sighed. "And this is where you finally get it through your thick head what I've been trying to explain all along. Why there's no point in contacting anyone or sending me back to the Order." He met Snape's gaze, with an expression that startled the former professor greatly. His eyes, weary, dull, and defeated, regarding Snape beneath the lightning bolt scar…
The scar…
"It was you," Severus said softly. "You were the sixth Horcrux." Potter dropped his eyes and nodded. "That was the nature of your scar, your visions. Your connection to him. The night he attempted to kill you…"
"I dunno how I realized that was it," Harry sighed, closing his eyes. "But when I did, I…knew what I had to do."
"How did you survive?" Severus asked.
"Self-exorcism, if you can believe it." There was a flicker of pride at last in Potter's face as he looked up at Snape again. Severus had to admit he was impressed; any sort of expulsion of outside influence from a human soul was difficult and dangerous. Self-exoricisms were almost never attempted in recorded history.
"It worked, I take it?"
"Well enough. Got the Horcrux out."
"What did you use as your expelling agent?"
Potter snorted. "You won't understand."
"Try me."
"Love. My friends, as you like to put it. Voldemort doesn't have friends; he can't. That emotion would confine the fragment and push it out."
Severus pondered this. That the attempt had succeeded was self-evident: the Dark Lord was dead. But it was extraordinary enough that Potter had not managed to kill himself in the process. It was all too likely that his own magic and body had suffered a serious injury. Whether he would ever recover remained to be seen.
"And this is the reason you have cut yourself off from the Order?"
Harry raised his eyebrows. "What do you suggest? 'Oh, hey, guys, by the way, I've been walking around with a chunk of Voldemort's soul inside me all this time!' It'd get out. Rita bloody Skeeter or someone would find out. Especially when they realized I was…sick. How long till they turned on me?"
The bitterness in the boy's voice was sharp. Severus could not deny the truth of his words. The wizarding public was fickle; all it would take was the wrong statement in the press for them to be screaming for Potter's head. They wanted a hero, a savior. Not an emotionally damaged young man with permanently injured powers.
"So you are resolved to simply give up?"
"I just want to be left alone!" Potter said, jumping off the table furiously. "Why's that so hard to understand—you wanted it!"
"There is no one back in England who will welcome my return," Severus pointed out.
Potter's mouth twisted into a vindictive sneer. "Good point."
To be continued…
Coming Soon: Severus continues in his quest to find the curse that has laid Harry low. Harry's strength continues to deteriorate, and other signs suggest that the curse upon him may have deeper and deadlier repercussions than anyone imagined in Chapter Three: Scar!
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