Yet Another Snape Meets the Dursleys Story: by rabbit
Disclaimer: Yup, still JKRs. I check my bank balance every morning and nuthin'…
Chapter 10: The Confrontation
Summary: Snape loses it.
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Petunia sat up straighter, glaring her defiance.
Vernon froze, torn between hiding and somehow defending his wife.
Dudley tried to vanish under the table.
Snape began the slow precise sweep of the wand, watching Petunia's eyes for the delectable moment when the small spark of uncertainty would begin to blossom into fear.
"Accio Wand!" The shrill shout from Harry's end of the table surprised them all, but none moreso than Snape, whose wand abruptly twisted out of his fingers and beelined to Harry's hand. He snapped his head back to find Harry on his feet, whitefaced and trembling, holding the wand in a deathgrip.
Snape saw green.
Impossible! Nothing less than a Disarming Spell should be able to force a wizard to lose grip of his wand if he was on the point of casting a spell! How could this impertinent, exasperating child have managed to steal his wand with a Summoning Spell? Summoning spells were minor. They were for… for bits of chalk when you wanted to write something on the blackboard, or books you'd left on the far side of the room. Dumbledore couldn't snatch a wand with a Summoning Spell. Dumbledore wouldn't…
Snape blinked. Stopped. Realized that he had been advancing, reaching for the wand that was his, forcing Harry to back away from the table. The boy was babbling something, tears running messily down his face, clutching the wand all the tighter against his chest with one hand while he pressed the heel of the other against the scar on his forehead.
And the Dark Mark was starting to burn on Snape's arm as if he'd seared it against a cauldron.
No! He pulled back, left arm seized to his chest, tangled into his cloak as if swaddling it might somehow stop the burning, right hand pressing it tighter, sealing it there, as if applying pressure might ease the relentless rise of the pain. He had to concentrate on calm, on control. He kept exquisitely still, held his breath in spite of the darkening of his vision. There is no Need to kill. Not a killing rage, then. Rage was not safe. Cold anger was better. He thought of his dungeons, soothing and safe and chill. Locked down. Secure. The Mark quieted a little, and he dared a slow breath. The staccato leaping of blood in his veins skipped and stuttered into a steadier rhythm. The roaring in his ears began to ease. That was better. He could hear Harry now, see the way that Harry slowly brought his hand down from his forehead.
"Please… I can't watch it again… you mustn't… I'm sorry, sir. Please…" Harry was trembling, breathing like he'd been running a race, but he seemed to recognize the glimmer of returning sanity in Snape's eyes. "You told me not to trust you!"
"So I did," Snape admitted icily, stretching for the mask of schoolteacher that had saved him for so long. He gathered his cloak and his dignity, hoping that the Dursleys would stay too stunned to interfere. "Five points to Gryffindor, Mr. Potter," he said, through clenched teeth. "Now. Give. Me. My. Wand."
"No," Harry said, but his voice was starting to slide back down to its proper register. "Not until you promise…" he gulped, his eyes darting back and forth across Snape's face as he sought the words he wanted. "Promise… promise not to…to do anything…rash."
"I've had this conversation with Dumbledore," Snape intoned warningly. With one trembling hand he gripped the back of his chair for support, and then hauled it over to make an obstacle between his anger and Harry's obstinancy. Couldn't Potter have saved this wretched display of Gryffindor bravado until after they'd all gotten some rest!?
Harry shifted his grip on the wand, holding it properly now, and backed off as far as he could go, bracing himself against the wall. "I want a promise," he repeated, pale and panting, but as determined as ever. "You won't hurt them."
"How can you defend them?" Snape was too tired to comprehend the delay, and it made him peevish. "They've neglected you, confined you, starved you…"
"It's not them I'm defending!" Harry interrupted him. A small, distractible part of Snape's mind noted that anger was darkening the boy's cheeks, and was pleased by it, since it meant that Harry hadn't completely undone the good of eating a meal when he'd cast that wretched spell. "I need them! I don't care if you turn them all into toads, so long as it's something you can undo again. But I won't stand for anything Unforgivable!"
Snape didn't miss the noise of sudden comprehension that Vernon made from somewhere behind him and he ground his teeth. If promising the boy that he would not use illegal curses would stop Harry from blurting out things his uncle had no need to know. it was worth foregoing the pleasure of making Petunia lick her nephew's boots. "Very well," he said with exaggerated patience and held out his hand for his wand.
"Promise!" Harry insisted, bright eyes intense.
"What do you want?" Snape roared incredulously, his temper flaring hot again as he flung the chair aside and waved a dramatic arm. "A declaration in letters of flame across the ceiling? 'I Severus Snape vouchsafe that I shall not use any of the Unforgivable Curses on Harry Potter's miserable excuse for relations,' is that it?" He stepped forward. If Harry could use a Summoning Charm to grab the wand then surely he was powerful enough to…
"Severus?!" Petunia's voice came like a nail across glass. Snape spun, lizard fast, to meet the new threat. Vernon and Dudley were still cowering, but Petunia Dursley had gotten to her feet and she pointed a long, accusing finger at Snape. "You're the one who sent Lily that horrible Christmas card! All those weird pictures of that horned man and his dreadful hounds, leaping around in the moonlight. It gave me nightmares; and she always would insist on putting it right in the middle of the mantelpiece…"
"She kept it?" The words were out before Snape could stop them, and he knew them for a mistake when he saw the gleam of triumph in Petunia's eyes.
"Of course she kept it," Petunia sneered, as Snape began to think lovingly of wrapping his hands around the pale column of her neck. "I had to look at it every Christmas for years until I managed to knock it into the fire. She had a picture of you on her wall – along with all the other freaks from that school. You didn't know how to wash your hair then, either. But then again, Lily never did have very good taste in men…"
"Shut up!" Harry's voice had gone shrill again. "Shutup shutup shutup!" Sparks flew past Snape, and as the spell hit Petunia, her lips suddenly sealed to each other and vanished, leaving a smooth space of skin.
It was quite the most beautifully appropriate curse that Snape had ever seen. If he hadn't been so tired he would have laughed out loud. Pity he'd knocked the chair aside. If once he started laughing, he knew that his knees would buckle under him, but it was still fun to watch. Petunia's eyes popped wildly in their sockets as her fingers came up to feel across her face in panicked disbelief. For a long moment the only sound in the room was the weak murmurs of horror from the back of the stricken woman's throat.
Then, from behind him, Snape heard Harry say, "Oh, no," and the sound of something soft hitting the floor.
He's killed himself, Snape thought. He's used up all his strength cursing this wretched woman and Lord Voldemort's won. Somehow he found himself across the room, kneeling by Harry's body, checking for a pulse and breath. He found both, and closed his eyes against the dizzying wave of relief. Not yet. Not yet, he hasn't. There's still a chance that we'll all survive. Snape leaned heavily on his arms, waiting for the floor to make up it's mind about what angle it wanted to be.
At the table, he could hear the clatter of furniture and crashing of plates as the Dursleys panicked. "Mummy!" "Petunia!" Stupid Muggles. Snape opened his eyes and picked up his wand from where it had fallen to the floor; then he checked Harry again and found the boy recovering gradually from his faint, staring with uncomprehending panic at the wand in Snape's hand. No more spells for you or you'll get that death-wish of yours, Snape thought, and patted the child's shoulder to keep him from trying to get up. "It's all right, Harry," he mumbled, wishing that the world would stop going gray on him. "I promise."
Harry slumped back against the wallpaper, watching dully as Snape fumbled the vial of Endurance Potion out of his vest pocket. There wasn't much more than half a swallow left. Still, that would probably work for long enough. Probably. He pulled the cork with his teeth, unwilling to use his wand hand for anything but holding tight to his wand, and let the bittersweet lightning pool onto his tongue, waiting until he'd gotten the last drop before forcing himself to swallow.
He half-expected the potion to make him ill – he'd never taken it on a full stomach before – but the usual painful clench in his middle was actually easier this time, and he made a mental note to recommend food with the dose, even as the flood of power scythed up through the veins near his stomach to his heart, slashed through his lungs, back to his heart and then burst outwards in full flame to every extremity.
Colors returned to his vision. Harry's eyes were green, startled, frightened… looking past Snape. Snape turned, saw Vernon with the carving knife, and shot out his wand. "Obliviate!" he ordered, and all three Dursley's rocked with the power of the spell. Snape got to his feet and plucked the knife from Vernon's loose grasp. "Sit down," he told the man, and Vernon wandered back to his chair and sat, blinking absently until Snape petrified him to keep him out of trouble.
"I thought you could only tell people what to do if you used an Imperius spell," Harry said sounding confused enough to say whatever first came into his head.
"Threats work nicely," Snape purred, rather enjoying the temporary sensation of health that the potion had provided. "But in this instance, it's a matter of people being very suggestible when they've just had their memories erased." He pointed his wand at Petunia, considering whether or not to remove Harry's hex quickly enough that she would have no memory of it. It wasn't that he wanted to. It would be an experiment of interest to discover just how long the curse would last, and Petunia was the best subject he could think of. But he probably should – even obliviated memories could be recovered if a person had enough cause to worry at them – and he had no desire to have Petunia blindside him with childhood memories again. "Restorus." Petunia swayed a little as her mouth re-formed, and felt at her face uncertainly, but she sat when Snape told her to. She seemed to be recovering her wits faster than her husband or her son, so Snape used a binding spell to tie her down with magical ropes and gag her. It wouldn't be as comfortable for her as the spell he'd used on her husband, but that was no loss. He'd risk the neighbors looking in.
Dudley had ignored the others as he became less dazed and was trying to hide pieces of chicken in his pockets, having crammed the remaining drumstick into his mouth already. Snape snapped his fingers, and then had to snap them again, practically under the boy's nose, to get his attention. "What's the last thing you remember?"
"Uhm.." Dudley removed the chickenleg from his mouth reluctantly and swallowed. "I… I think… hadn't I just asked Harry if he wanted some peas?" he answered, and then frowned, seeing his cousin sprawled by the door. "Harry, what are you…?"
"Excellent." Snape froze Dudley too, mid-sentence, with the chicken leg still inches from his opened mouth. The Memory Charm had covered the entire disastrous conversation. Vernon wouldn't remember that Harry had blurted out his need of his relations and Petunia wouldn't remember Snape's first name. "Come along, Mr. Potter," he told Harry, as he turned to levitate his patient up the stairs.
Harry had curled up, hiding his face in his arms the way that children did when they were crying and trying not to let anyone see. Snape sighed and wished that the potion had restored his patience as well as it did his energy. "Now what?"