Yet Another Snape Meets the Dursleys Story: by rabbit
Disclaimer: Still JKRs.
Chapter 16: The Vigil
Summary: Harry alone.
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"I've killed another one."
Harry clutched at his hair with his right hand, staring in horror at the motionless form of Severus Snape. He and Ron had joked around about the party most of the students would throw if Snape ever drank the wrong potion, the special award for services to the school. It had always seemed funny, but...
That was before. Last year.
This year...
*I'm Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived – and got everyone else around him killed!*
*I didn't mean to!*
But maybe he had.
*I wished the poison out of Hedwig. He said so. And I've always wished for him to … well, not to die, not exactly, just to go away or something.*
And wishing, it was like... like a way of doing magic, accidentally. He'd worked out some of it -- the doing magic without a wand part, anyway. It wasn't like you had to be Dumbledore, although it probably helped. The Headmaster did magic without a wand all the time, summoning feasts and things. But ordinary wizards just had to be frightened enough, like Neville was when his uncle had dropped him. Or angry enough, the way Harry had been at Aunt Marge two summers ago. The way he almost always was, around Snape.
*Or the way I used to be. Before I knew that he was Dumbledore's spy. A Death Eater.*
Nobody would believe Harry hadn't done it on purpose. *Harry Potter, Defeater of Voldemort. You Do Things. You know that's how it's going to play out in the papers. Harry Potter Murders His Teacher, who had gone especially to Potter's home to tutor the boy in hopes of raising his dismal marks, which were owed to Potter's involvement in the recent Tri-Wizard Tournament which came to such a tragic end with the death of Potter's fellow competitor, young Cedric Diggory, whom many say ought to have been the winner of the Tournament....*
"C'mon, Harry," he told himself in a whisper. "Stop panicking. You could be wrong. Go," He swallowed, hard, "check."
He watched Snape, for a long time, staring at the tumbled form until his eyes hurt, and he had to blink to sooth them. He didn't see any movement. None at all.
But with Snape's big cloak all tangled up like that, he might not be able to anyway.
Harry reached out to shake Snape's shoulder, but stopped. It didn't seem like a good idea. If he *were* alive, Snape would probably wake up angry. Probably with a curse all ready to set in motion against whoever had disturbed him.
*Might be worth it.*
*Might not.*
Harry bit his lip and looked around, trying to think. There was a mirror on the dressing table. *That's what they use in movies, to see if someone's... okay. I can see if his breath shows. See if his *reflection* shows.*
The reflection did, quite clearly. *So much for Ron's theories.* Harry brought the mirror as near as he could to Snape's face without touching him.
The mirror stayed clear.
He held it there another minute. Two.
The mirror was still clear.
"Shit."
Harry put the mirror back on the dressing table. He couldn't bring himself to touch Snape's skin, to check for a pulse.
*I wonder how hard it is to stow away on a boat to Australia.*
*I wonder if Hedwig will like the mice in Australia. They had funny mice, with long tails, and they hopped, like the one in that video of Dudley's. She'll probably hate them.*
*If she could fly to Australia, she could fly to Dumbledore.*
"Hedwig," Harry turned to his owl. "Hedwig, do you feel well enough to take a message to Hogwarts?"
Hedwig turned her head toward him and blinked thoughtfully, but hunkered down where she was in a way that he knew meant a negative answer and began to preen her chest feathers.
"To Ron, then?" Harry asked. He'd got into the habit of talking to Hedwig a lot during the holidays. At least she listened, which was more than any of the Dursleys did. "No, no, I'd best not get Ron involved. Even if he believed me, he'd only end up in trouble too. And if I called Hermione on the 'phone, her parents would probably answer." He didn't want to imagine what would happen if Hermione's parents thought they should take a hand. Muggle policemen, probably, and wouldn't Uncle Vernon have something to say about that! He held out a hand to the owl and she flew over to settle carefully on the arm of the chair where he could scratch her chest.
"All right," Harry resolved at last. "I'm not sending any messages, until I know he's dead. I'll feel better knowing, and if he is dead, well, then, he'll be somebody else's problem. I hope."
Hedwig seemed to agree. She nibbled reassuringly on Harry's fingers.
"Why did it have to be Snape?" Harry asked her, knowing that he was starting to whine, and not having the strength to prevent it. The summer couldn't get much worse if he was at the point where having Snape be stone dead wasn't an improvement. "Not that I wish it were any of the other teachers. But Snape... He's always hated me. He hated me from the very first time he saw me. He was always trying to get me expelled, or giving me detentions or taking away points. It's just like him to go and die at the worst possible time, and leave me holding the baby. He probably did it just to be nasty."
He looked over at the dark form on the other bed. "Why did you have to die with me?"
*Because he came here to help me. And that's why people get hurt, helping me.*
*He didn't have to come.*
*But he did. And he did help me, and Hedwig.*
*Even though he hates me.*
*God, if he's still alive, I promise, I'll pay really, really close attention in Potions class from now on and I'll even read all the –*
*Potions class. Potions!*
"Wait!" Harry sat up a little straighter. "Wait… Potions class. That very first day. He said something about a potion that made you look dead! The, the wotsit... the, the Draught of ... Living Death! It's a sleeping potion, that makes you look absolutely dead! Maybe he drank some of that!"
Hedwig made a chuckling sort of noise that he thought was approval. Harry smiled. Snape wasn't dead. Probably. But then he thought of a snag. "Only. Why would he take it?"
*Think, Harry.*
"Maybe... maybe... maybe it's the antidote to the other stuff. Something to let him sleep. Oh, please?" Harry looked at Snape, trying to discern anything that might indicate that the man was alive. There was a loose hair plastered down across his face, across his mouth, for that matter, but it wasn't moving. Not even after Harry waited a bit. *No, not a good sign.* Still, Snape didn't look quite, well, empty. Not the way that Cedric had looked. His mouth hadn't fallen open all the way. And his eyes were closed properly. Cedric's body had looked less… less… more *wrong*.
*Not that Snape looks right.*
Harry tried to think of everything he'd ever heard or read about sleeping potions. There were always ways to wake someone who'd taken one, no matter how powerful. Loud noises and bells were a favorite, but the antidotes could be amazingly specific. * Lord, I hope he doesn't have to be awakened by love's first kiss. I don't think there'd be any volunteers.*
No, Snape would never have taken a potion with conditions that smarmy. "Hermione probably looked it up," Harry murmured to Hedwig. "I bet she could tell me all about the Draught of Living Death, if I asked." He looked out the window, but there was no sign of dawn. The clock on the nightstand was blinking 88:88, because no one had re-set it after the power outage. "If it's a potion he took, then I could probably wait till morning and call her."
*But if it isn't a potion... Dead bodies start to smell, don't they?* The dead mice certainly had. And they'd gone all stiff for while, which probably made them harder to hide. *I'd best try to wake him up now. Just to see if I can.*
He tried the alarm clock first, setting it on the bed near Snape's ear. The sudden raucous buzzing startled him so much that he fell off the chair, and Hedwig took off and hooted noisily as she circled the room, but if the clamor made Snape twitch at all, Harry missed seeing it.
Hedwig waited until Harry had pulled himself back up and turned off the clock before she settled down on her perch, rumbling disapprovingly, deep in her chest. "Sorry," Harry called to her softly, shaken by the failure of the alarm to waken Snape. "I meant it to bother *him*.
The bird turned her head thoughtfully, this way and that, and then picked up a feather she had shed while she was preening. Silently she flew to Harry, landing on his arm and leaning up to tickle his nose with the feather.
"Hey! Hey, stop that... Wait." Harry almost managed to laugh. "You think I can tickle him awake." He took the feather. "It's worth a try."
There weren't many targets. Snape was bundled, as usual, to the neck, and Harry wasn't about to try to pull his boots off. One hand was on the other side of his cor…body, and the nearer hand was half buried in the folds of his cloak. That left his face. His nose really. If this worked, Snape was going to be furious.
*I can live with that. He's been furious before.*
And if it didn't work, well, then Harry was no worse off than before.
Carefully, trying to keep most of his body out of obvious spell range, he extended the feather towards the tip of Snape's nose. It shook a little – the way his entire arm was beginning to shake – since the angle was so bad. And then, suddenly, he noticed part of the feather shaking in a different direction from the rest of it.
*Oh, please...*
He waited, holding his breath, and trying all the harder to keep the feather still.
It happened again.
*Yes!*
And again!
Gently, he laid the feather across Snape's face, so that the most delicate strands were closest to the man's nostrils, watching through eyes that wanted to blur.
*They moved! They moved! They really moved!*
"He's alive!" Harry shouted. "Hedwig, he's alive!"
The shout brought pounding from the guest room and Harry's old room, and he heard Dudley and Aunt Petunia shouting questions, but Snape still didn't react, and some of Harry's relief drained away.
"Well, he's breathing anyway." *A little. Not even enough to dislodge the feather.*
"Maybe he's just really really tired." *Maybe he's dying.*
*Or sick. Sick's better than dying.*
*Still. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. How'm I supposed to take care of a sick Snape?*
*I wish Professor Dumbledore were here. I wish I dared go catch the Knight Bus to Diagon Alley and find a doctor – No, scratch that. A doctor would find the Dark Mark on his arm, and that'd be a mess. I'd have to get him to Madam Pomfrey somehow. Or get her here. I can't leave him here alone with the Dursleys. If Aunt Petunia manages to get out, she'll kill him – or vice versa.* Aunt Petunia was *trying* to get out, by the sound of it.
Maybe someone would wonder where Snape was.
And maybe not. Harry had a feeling that Snape disappeared often, without explanation or warning. Especially now, if he'd gone back to being Dumbledore's spy. *Or Voldemort's.*
Aunt Petunia was making an awful racket.
*I need to scare her, somehow. Maybe I can get Snape's wand again.*
He bit his lip. Snape kept his wand in a pocket on the...*on the left, becaue you draw across the body in a duel.*
Lightheaded and flushed, Harry carefully turned back the edges of Snape's cloak until he saw the edge of dark wood. Picking Snape's pocket didn't waken him either, which wasn't good, but Harry felt a little less powerless with a wand in his hand, even if it were Snape's. It felt strange to know that he was going to deliberately use magic during the holidays, and he hoped that Snape's letter had arrived by now.
The chair cooperated beautifully, crouching low, so that Harry could look through the food slot and take aim with a Petrificus Totalus spell. Aunt Petunia fell over with a crash, never losing hold of the bicycle handlebars she'd been hitting against the door. Her sudden silence wasn't noticed right away by Dudley though, who kept on shouting "What's happening? Mummy?" for five minutes before trailing off into uncertain mutterings.
It felt even stranger using Snape's wand. It wasn't right. Just necessary. Harry wiped the sweat off his forehead as the chair lifted him upright again. He wished he knew whether or not it was safe to get his own wand. Snape's didn't balance right, like it had a center of liquid instead of wood.
At least Snape wasn't dead. *Yet.* Which meant it was probably safe to call Hermione, even if her parents did answer the phone. Harry ordered the chair to take him down the hall to Dudley's room. Dudley had a telephone, although the line was mostly used for the Internet. But when Harry picked up the handset, there was no dial tone. He clicked the button several times, but there was no response. The phone was plugged in, too.
*So much for that bright idea. Must have been the lightning.* In a way, that was a good thing. It meant Piers wouldn't be wondering why Dudley wasn't on-line. But it left Harry without a way to get any help for Snape.
He went back to the master bedroom, feeling hot and frustrated. Snape *still* hadn't moved, blast him. If he woke up… When he woke up, he was going to be stiff from the uncomfortable position he was in.
"You're probably doing all this as some kind of a test. Like making me drink one of Neville's potions," Harry accused.
He checked the feather again, grateful to see the tiny movements of air confirmed. Maybe if he got Snape into a more comfortable position… It wasn't as scary, thinking about touching someone who was alive.
Snape was heavier than he looked – although Harry suspected that a lot of the weight was his clothes. It was too awkward from the chair to do much more than unbutton the man's gaiters and pull off his boots. The socks came too, at least partway. Snape's feet were blocks of ice.
Well, at least there was something Harry could do about Snape being cold. He moved back for a better view and tried to remember how Madam Pomfrey moved her wand. "Lectum Stenero," he commanded, and the bedclothes shifted, as Snape floated up a few inches and then was surrounded by the sheets and blankets and tucked into the newly made bed.
Hedwig hooted approval, and Harry grinned shakily at her, feeling flushed. Snape did look better this way, as if he were just sleeping. Harry could almost convince himself that the man's skin tone had gone to ecru instead of pasty white.
So. Snape was breathing. He still looked exhausted though. Harry knew the feeling all too well.
"There's got to be something else I can do," Harry said, looking around the room for ideas. What he wanted to do was go back to bed and sleep, but he didn't feel like it was safe to leave Snape on his own yet. The man still might die on him, and leave Harry trying to explain why he hadn't done anything about it.
Why didn't he respond? Why was his breathing so very shallow?
Harry worked up the nerve to touch Snape's hand.
*Why is he so cold?*
"Could be a potion. He could be sick." Harry rubbed at his face, trying to wake himself up a little. "Maybe he's just tired. Full of… what did he call them? Fatigue potions?"
*Fatigue poisons, boy. Pay Attention!*
Harry looked up, startled, but Snape was still comatose. That's what he would have said though. *Maybe I'm starting to hallucinate. Maybe he feels cold because my temperature's gone away up.* His glance fell on the snowglobe.
Extractus Toxinus.
Snape had said that the spell had removed Harry's fatigue poisons. So whether it was a potion keeping Snape unconscious, or fatigue toxins, the spell would work. But it needed an… an object.
*Something he cares about. Or something that someone who … who loved him… cared about.*
Snape had known that the snowglobe had belonged to Harry's mother. He'd sent her a Christmas card. Maybe… just maybe, he'd known about the snowglobe because he'd seen it before. Because, maybe, just maybe, Snape had given it to her in the first place. *If he gave her a card, why not a present? That would explain why I can see Hogwarts in it.*
*Snape and my mum.*
** Yick!**
*Maybe not. But maybe..."
Maybe what? Despite himself, Harry began reviewing old confrontations, trying to think if he'd ever heard Snape say anything bad about his mother. Anything at all, for that matter. Snape had said plenty about James Potter, but Harry couldn't think of a single occasion when he'd said anything about Lily. He couldn't think whether or not Snape sneered when she was mentioned either.
She ought to have been an easy target. The girl who fell in love with James? But Snape didn't talk about her. So either he didn't care about her at all...
*Or he cared about her a lot.*
He'd been furious with Aunt Petunia when she'd started insulting Lily. He must have liked her.
But that didn't mean that it worked the other way around. *She married Dad, after all.*
"Still, she liked him enough to keep his Christmas card," Harry told himself, unhappily. "Maybe that's enough." *It's going to have to be. It's not like I can get my hands on Snape's teddy bear.*
He went over and fetched the snowglobe, turning it one more time, and wondering if using it as a focus for the spell a second time would do it any harm. The sweat pooled on his back and hands, reminding him that he was awfully tired to be attempting an advanced spell. But Snape was too still. If Harry tried to go to sleep without doing anything he'd have nightmares the whole time.
He rested the glass part of the globe lightly against Snape's forehead, and raised the wand, practicing the awkward motion a few times, hoping he'd remembered it right from watching Snape just the once. The wand still felt strange, as if it reacted sluggishly to his will. "This is for Snape," Harry reminded it. Then, hoping against hope that he was doing the right thing, he cast the spell. "Extractus Toxinus!"
It hurt!
Harry gasped as the water in the globe began to swirl and glow, tightening his grip to keep it from slipping as firepoints of pain began to work their way through his fingers and palm, past his wrist and up his arm. Snape gasped – the first noise he'd made in hours -- and grimaced as small beads of red-tinged sweat formed on his skin and formed small runnels like backwards rain on a windowpane, climbing up and somehow through the glass.
*It's working!* Harry thought. But he couldn't keep it up. The wand slipped out of his hand and the spell stopped, leaving both Harry and Snape breathing as hard as if they'd been in a race.
But Snape wasn't awake.
And he was still cold.
And his breathing was already going soft. Going away.
*I'll have to do it again*.
*If I can.*
His ears roared as he bent to retrieve the fallen wand, and he had to close his eyes to keep the world from spinning. Had Snape felt like this when he'd cleared the poison from Harry?
Probably.
Harry pulled the excess length of his pyjama sleeve down and wrapped it around the snowglobe, to reinforce his hold on it before he positioned it again. He put it against Snape's hand this time, where he could prop it on the bed and it wouldn't fall if he passed out.
The wand was moving a little smoother. Or he wasn't noticing the oddness as much.
He took a deep breath. Raised it. "Extrac..." he began, and then felt a hand fall heavy on his shoulder.
"That won't be necessary, Mr. Potter."