Chapter 27

"…I forgot about the curse and said 'Voldemort'. I led the Snatchers straight to us." Harry continued. "Hermione hit me in the face with a stinging hex or something, so I didn't look exactly like me, but they knew it was Ron and Hermione.

"They took us to the Malfoys. You probably heard about this from Hermione already."

Severus nodded; Draco too had told him much of this event, but he still hoped Harry would tell him his own version of that's day's events. He gained so much insight into Harry's mental state and well-being as he spoke about the things they had been through.

"It must have been a very harrowing experience." Snape prompted.

Harry nodded, his mouth dry. He could hear Hermione's screams in the back of his head, ringing in his ears. Closing his eyes for a moment, he used his Occlumency shields to lock down his emotions for the memories he was recalling. He blinked his eyes open slowly, squinting against the lamp light and took a deep breath.

"Bellatrix was about to call Voldemort, but she saw the Sword of Gryffindor and started freaking out about where we got it. Obviously, she was wondering why it wasn't still in her vault and was pretty concerned about what else we might have taken. Me and Ron were taken down to the cellar while Bellatrix tortured Hermione." Harry continued monotonously. He carried on quickly, not wishing to dwell on any part of that day. "We were down there with Luna and Ollivander and then Dobby appeared. His elf magic meant he could Apparate in and out of the wards."

"How did Dobby know you were there?"

"Aberforth sent him." Harry answered quietly.

Severus frowned. "And how did Aberforth know you were there?"

Harry swallowed. It was too much; having to relive Hermione's torture and Dobby's death. He couldn't go over Sirius and his mirror too. "I don't want to talk about it." He looked down at his hands, his throat tight as he spoke.

Severus was surprised, and concerned. With all the talking they had done, Harry rarely refused to talk about specific events. Not that Severus didn't know there were things Harry hid from him, but he'd generally been surprisingly open about last year's troubles.

"Very well," The Professor reconciled. "We'll leave that for now. Do continue."

Harry's head jerked in a nod. "Dobby took Luna and Ollivander to Bill's cottage and was going to come back for us and Hermione. Malfoy sent Wormtail to check on us and Ron and I tackled him to the ground. He had that awful metal hand around my neck so I told him he couldn't kill me because I was the one who stopped Remus and Sirius from killing him in the Shrieking Shack. He let go a bit and then the hand turned on him and he basically strangled himself." Harry felt sick saying it and Severus grimaced.

"I had wondered what happened to that maggot."

"Yeah, anyway, we went upstairs and Ron disarmed Bellatrix before she could kill Hermione. I wrestled Draco's wand off him and Dobby came back so we could all Apparate to Bill's. We got out but Bellatrix threw a knife as we were leaving and it hit Dobby. That's how he died." Harry finished quietly.

Severus gave him a moment and then asked gently, "Do you want to stop?"

The Gryffindor shook his head. "Let's just get it over with."

Severus eyed him for a moment and then stood suddenly and turned to the cupboard behind him, from which he retrieved a small one-dose potion vial. He placed it on the desk in front of Harry who recognised it as calming draught. "Drink that before we go on."

"I'm fine. I don't need it." Harry denied.

"Just drink it, Potter." Severus answered tiredly.

Harry took a moment, debating internally whether it was worth his effort to argue, before deciding to just down the potion.

"What happened next?"

"We broke in to Gringotts."

Snape looked unimpressed. "I am regretting giving you my last dose."

Harry shrugged, easing into the fuzzy warmth of the potion. "Bellatrix's reaction to seeing the sword suggested that there might be a Horcrux in her vault. We spoke to Griphook and made a plan."

"And how exactly did you do it?"

"Hermione had a hair of Bellatrix's so we took inspiration from our second year and took some Polyjuice potion. Ron disguised himself as another generic Death Eater and I went under the invisibility cloak. Long story short, we got the horcrux; Helga Hufflepuff's cup, but Griphook buggered off with the Sword. And then we flew away on a dragon."

"Of course you did."

Harry shrugged. "After that I had a vision. Once we'd got the cup it was clear to Voldemort what we were doing. He was furious. I could feel it through my scar." He went on still numb and detached. "I thought we should go to Hogwarts. All the horcruxes had been left in places of significance to Riddle and I knew Hogwarts was important to him. He was like me in that way," Harry mused. "We were both orphans, brought up in the muggle world, not understanding why we were different. When you have no other home, Hogwarts becomes your home. The first place where you're loved and respected and valued." Severus was able to relate. "So, we went to the castle and that's how the Battle of Hogwarts happened."

"Did you know then what would happen; that it would lead to the final confrontation between you?"

"I think if I'd known that, I wouldn't have gone." Harry answered honestly. "I wasn't ready, or I didn't think I was anyway. The plan was to try and sneak in and out undetected. Of course, our plans never did go quite the way we expected."

"You got in through the room of Requirement, I understand." Severus recalled what Longbottom had disclosed about that momentous evening.

Harry nodded. "That's right. We'd apparated into Hogsmeade. Didn't realise the place was so heavily warded. Aberforth hid us and then showed us the tunnel. It was awesome seeing Neville and the others again, but we were shocked by how bad things had become here."

Severus nodded, ignoring the guilt that niggled in the back of his mind and weighed heavily in his stomach.

"We were looking for Rowena Ravenclaw's lost diadem. So I started at Ravenclaw Tower, mostly just to see what it looked like. That's when Carrow saw us, me and Luna, and pressed on her mark. Then her brother turned up and Professor McGonagall." Harry carefully omitted the unforgivable he had used on Amycus Carrow, not sure that Professor Snape would approve, though he didn't regret doing it. "Between us, we dealt with the Carrows and began plans for securing the castle and finding the diadem."

"You were with her then." Severus' usually silky voice came out tight and gravelly. "When I found Minerva, I knew you must be around."

"Luna and I were under my Invisibility Cloak, Sir."

Snape grunted as if he had assumed as much. It was not a memory he wished to dwell on. His respected colleagues had finally, quite rightly, fought back against him, showing him truly the anger and hurt and betrayal they had harboured since the Headmaster's death.

When he looked back at Harry, the boy's green eyes were searching him closely. "You could have fought back, but you didn't."

"Contrary to popular belief, I actually… like Minerva. She has a sensible head on her shoulders. Unlike a number of Albus' staff appointments, one could at least have an intelligent conversation with her. And while she always cared a little too much about her blasted Quidditch team, she never let Gryffindor hooligans get away with too much."

"It must have been horrible, knowing you were actually on their side and having them fight against you."

Severus winced, hearing the shouts of 'coward' in his mind. "I'm surprised you didn't get a curse in." He said instead.

"I was about to, but I had to pull Luna out of the way of one of yours." Harry admitted.

"Ah."

"It was just like after Dumbledore's death again." Harry admitted quietly. "I was so angry. Angry at you. Angry at myself because I couldn't save him. Only when I came back I was more focused. After the year we'd had, and everything we'd been through, I was still angry, but I knew what I had to do and I was prepared to do it. It's like I wasn't drowning in grief anymore, I was powered by it." He looked intently at Severus again, those bright green eyes making the air catch in his throat. "I'm sorry for what I tried to do to you that night. I'm sorry for what I said, for calling you a coward." Severus shut his eyes against the memory of it. "If I'd known then…"

"It's alright, Potter."

"No, Sir. I'd never have said that if I'd known all you had sacrificed. Neither would Professor McGonagall."

"Do not worry yourself about it, Harry. It was not an inaccurate assessment." He admitted sadly. "I have shown unforgivable cowardice throughout my life."

"No, Sir!" Harry argued forcefully, laying both hands flat on the desk between them as though it grounded him to the moment. "You saved my life on so many different occasions. You were a spy for years and all through that time you were risking your life for us, for me. You're not a coward, Sir – Severus, you're the bravest man I've ever known."

Severus swallowed the lump in his throat, tried to regain the breath that had been taken from him and compose himself. There was no way he could address what the boy had said, not without losing his shit entirely. Instead, he reinforced his Occlumency shields, locking away all those feelings of guilt and shame and honour in a little box at the back of his mind-space and saying, "What happened after I left?"

"Everyone gathered in the Great Hall as more people, ex-students and members of the DA and the Order, kept arriving. We were organizing the evacuation of the students and the preparing of defences when Riddle spoke to the room. It was like he was speaking into each person's ear, like he was in their head. Lots of people were a bit disturbed by it, which I suppose is natural."

"You were not disturbed by it." Snape asked in his non-questioning way.

Harry tapped his forehead. "Already pretty used to having him in my head."

Severus nodded, feeling a familiar sense of nausea at the thought. He was not unused to the sensation himself, having experienced the Dark Lord's Legilimency on a number of occasions. Harry's experience, however, must have been something else entirely.

"He wanted them to hand me over." Harry continued. "But no one would. Well, Parkinson would have, but no one else would let her."

"Of course they wouldn't."

Harry looked at him soberly. "Perhaps they should have done."

Severus glared at him. "Potter…"

"Many lives would have been saved."

"Don't."

Harry shrugged, moving on. "It gave me some time anyway. Ron and Hermione had gone down to the Chamber of Secrets to use some basilisk fangs to destroy the cup and I went to speak to the Grey Lady."

"The ghost?"

"Yeah, turns out she's Rowena Ravenclaw's daughter. Riddle had taken the diadem and I figured he must have hidden it in the castle the night he applied for the Defence job. Anyway, that's when I realised that I'd seen the diadem before."

"You had?"

"In the Room of Requirement." Harry nodded emphatically. "The same place I had hidden your old copy of Advanced Potion Making." He admitted, somewhat guiltily. "And the same place Malfoy had found the vanishing cabinet that let the Death Eaters in."

"I see." Said Severus, not wishing to dwell on his lost potions book. "Continue."

"Draco and his little sidekicks turned up. By that time the Death Eaters had got in and the fighting had begun, but all Draco was after was his wand."

"His wand."

"Yeah, the one I took off him at the Manor. Mine was broken and his seemed to work the best for me, so that's what I was using, and I had no intention of giving it back in the middle of a battle.

"We found the diadem, but Crabbe cast a bloody fiendfyre that he had no control over. That's how he died." He said bluntly. "The rest of us managed to get out on brooms and the fiendfyre destroyed the horcrux."

"Was that all of them?"

Harry shook his head. "The last was Nagini. That's why Riddle was keeping the sake close, just like Dumbledore told you he would."

"What happened next?"

Harry swallowed, remembering clearly what had happened after they escaped the Room of Requirement. He covered both eyes with one hand, wincing in a vain attempt to avoid the pain of that moment. He considered not telling Snape about it, skipping over that part of the night to spare himself the horror of reliving it.

"Harry?" Severus spoke, soft and concerned. "What happened next?"

Harry could barely get the words out. "We saw Percy and George and Fred."

Severus understood then the anguish in the Gryffindor's expression. "Harry, we can take a break."

"No, it's fine." Harry said, voice dull and hollow. "We were there when it happened. We saw… we saw it happen." He paused for just a moment. "And then we went to look for Nagini."

Severus stared at the boy, taken aback by his sudden change of direction.

"Just stop a second, we're not leaving it like that." The Professor held up a halting hand. "I think we should talk some more about Fred's death."

"No." Harry shook his head, avoiding eye contact.

"Harry, this is clearly something you need to talk about."

"If we do that, I won't get through to the end of it all. I just…I need to get to the end."

Severus scrutinized him for a long moment, desperate to argue with him, to insist that he couldn't bottle up his grief. The Professor knew, however, that approach would not work with Harry Potter. The young Gryffindor would simply shut down and block him out completely.

He sighed, acquiescing. "Very well, go on."

"We needed to move on. There wasn't time to stop and grieve or feel angry and get revenge, because we had to find the snake."

"I can't believe you kept going after seeing that." Snape said in disbelief.

"We did what we had to do." Harry replied, somewhat fiercely and Severus knew that anger was coming from all the emotion he had trapped inside.

"I wasn't criticizing, Harry." He said quietly and saw the boy visibly deflate as he reigned it all back in. "How did you know where to find the snake?"

"I had to look inside my head…to see through my connection to Voldemort where he was." Severus shuddered. He wasn't sure that he wanted to know how that was possible. "I saw that he was in the Shrieking Shack, so that's where we went."

Severus didn't need to ask what happened next; he was there for it. He had a starring role in the next scene. "How much did you see?"

"We saw him talking to you about his wand, Dumbledore's wand."

Severus nodded. He recalled what had been said; he remembered every moment of his 'almost-death'. "Why did you stop to help me?" He asked instead. "You could have gone after Voldemort and the snake."

"I don't know." Harry said and Severus could see the honesty in his countenance. "It seemed…like the right thing to do? You were just lying there, bleeding out. I don't see how you could just watch a person die and not try to do something. Even in that moment, before I knew everything, I didn't hate you anymore. It was like I had too much going on in trying to defeat Voldemort to even hold on to all that as well." Harry stopped and looked at his teacher curiously. "Did you mean to give me all the memories you did?"

"No." Snape said then sighed, admitting, "Maybe. I had to give you enough to understand. I knew you had to see the full prophecy. Maybe, subconsciously, I wanted you to see that I wasn't always this man." Severus attempted, quite unsuccessfully, to shield himself from the pain this conversation brought.

"I'm glad you did." Harry said earnestly and Severus nodded, unable to find any more words.

"Riddle called a temporary halt to the fighting then. Told us we had an hour. Told me to give myself up so no more friends would have to die for me."

"That was his ploy, Harry. It wasn't the truth."

"It was." Harry countered forcefully, eyes misting with unshed grief. "We went back to the castle and they were all laid out there; Fred and Tonks and…and Remus." The boy's voice cracked on the final name, his carefully constructed dam finally giving way to the tidal wave of grief he had stored behind it.

Severus rose and walked quickly around the desk which he then perched on so he could grasp Harry's shoulder reassuringly. The boy-saviour shuddered as he sucked in a breath, choking back a sob. Severus could see he was trying to pull himself together, to regain his composure. He wished he could see the boy's eyes, but Harry kept his head down, staring intently at his own scuffed shoes.

"You cannot keep doing this, Harry." He spoke to the untidy mop of black hair, giving Harry's shoulder another squeeze. "You have got to allow yourself to grieve. If you don't, it will consume you. Trust me, I know. You do not want to become as angry and bitter as I have."

Harry did not listen, however, and continued to painfully compartmentalize his feelings as he pulled himself together, hastily drying his face with the sleeve of his jumper.

"I'm fine." He insisted, shaky but determined.

"You are not fine." Snape disagreed sternly. "You walk around with everything hidden behind those Occlumency shields of yours. It's impressive but it's not healthy. It's okay to not be okay, Harry."

Harry shook off the hand on his shoulder, comforting though it was, and looked up with new determination. "I'm fine." He said more forcefully. "Let's go on."

Severus looked at the clock, ticking away inconspicuously in the corner. It was already nearing midnight and Severus surmised that there was still much to be said. "It's late, we can pick this up tomorrow if you like."

"No." Harry argued. "I want to keep going. Let's just get it done. Please."

The Professor dragged a hand down his face. "Fine." He agreed reluctantly.

Harry was ready to talk again. Severus couldn't believe that in less than a minute, the young wizard had gone from utterly distraught to completely composed. That, more than any distress the boy had shown, concerned Severus greatly.