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I'm weary of the world-
weary of the world it seems
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Informing the Dark Lord of Potter's impending Occlumency lessons was a simple matter. All he had to do was tell the absolute truth: Dumbledore suspected a Legilimic connection between the Dark Lord and Potter, and had ordered Severus to teach the boy Occlumency. Severus assured the Dark Lord that Dumbledore's plan would undoubtedly fail because the boy could never learn such a delicate skill. During the whole interview, Severus suffered the Cruciatus Curse twice, and that was probably only because the Dark Lord was still annoyed at his own recent failure to enter the Department of Mysteries.
Informing Potter was far more excruciating. The boy's worthless godfather insisted on being present, and predictably blamed Severus as if the whole thing were his idea. But before they could come to blows, the entire Weasley Clan walked in on the interview, catching them out like errant schoolboys-appropriate in Black's case, but that did little to ease Severus's own mortification. Later that night, when the scene replayed in his head unbidden-before he could bury it deep down-it occurred to him that Potter hadn't acted like Potter. No, the boy had tried to stop them both from fighting, launching himself between two grown men who were determined to hex each other. Nothing like Potter at all. No, the boy had acted like Lily.
Severus hastily buried the thought deeper than even he thought possible.
Potter's first lesson was both surprising and not surprising at all. The boy was attentive and eager for information-a surprise-but he was rude to Severus, and liked to wallow in his sad, sad past-not a surprise. But the intense loneliness that had radiated from Potter-the vulnerability-was most unpleasant. The naked emotions displayed by the boy-the guilt and pain of every memory, no matter how old-were raw enough to stagger Severus.
Even so, some memories were worse than others. Like Diggory's dead eyes in the graveyard.
With a mind like that, the boy could never Occlude. Severus was surprised Potter could focus enough to push him out by brute force.
Still, the most disturbing thing Severus saw that night was the one memory that seemed inconsequential at first. He had been sifting through Potter's messy mind, hopping from thought to thought since the boy couldn't seem to hold onto anything for long, when suddenly, Potter latched onto a memory. It was mundane to the extreme, if such a thing were possible-the boy was hurrying down a corridor with Arthur Weasley, clearly late for something. Severus tried to move on, but Potter wouldn't let go, and forced Severus to watch him run down the entire length of the corridor, towards a plain door at the end of it. He did not precisely recognize the place, but he thought he might have been there before. Why did Potter follow the thread of this memory? Suddenly, Arthur turned a sharp corner and dragged the boy with him. At this moment, Potter shouted at the top of his lungs, "I KNOW! I KNOW!"
Severus was so startled that he broke the Legilimens spell. Potter pushed himself up to a standing position and looked at Severus with eyes wide from realization.
"What happened then, Potter?"
"I saw...I remembered...I've just realized..."
"Realized what?" Severus had no patience for this. If the Dark Lord got stuck in a rut in Potter's mind, and if Potter was then able to disrupt the Dark Lord's concentration by shouting out a non sequitur, then maybe this was progress. Otherwise, the boy was wasting his time.
The boy did not answer Severus's question. Instead, he stood there rubbing his scar. He was wrapped up in his private thoughts, and Severus's presence did nothing to unsettle him.
That scar. The boy continued to press his fingers to his forehead. Severus waited for Potter's response, but for now the only sound was the boy's panting.
The moment began to unnerve him. Why was Potter's scar bothering him? Where was that corridor? When had Severus seen it before? It was vaguely familiar. It was not Hogwarts, he knew that. Where else would Potter be walking down a windowless corridor with Arthur Weasley? It was recent-this summer, perhaps. The hearing? Surely not...?
Potter looked up abruptly. "What's in the Department of Mysteries?"
And in that moment, Severus knew. He didn't even need Potter to elaborate. Potter knew because the Dark Lord knew. That corridor led to the Department of Mysteries and the prophecy.
The situation was much, much worse than even the headmaster knew.
But when Severus reported the incident to him, Dumbledore was unperturbed. In fact, all he said was, "Thank you."
Severus sighed. "I'm sure you understand that Potter knows that the Dark Lord wants something from the Department of Mysteries. He also saw Arthur Weasley attacked in that very corridor."
"Yes, I'm sure that Harry has put that together."
"Yes, and I'm sure we don't need to rehash Potter's history," Severus said, but Dumbledore remained calm, which predictably made Severus angry, which made him angrier because he was sure Dumbledore did it on purpose. "The fucking place is called the Department of Fucking Mysteries, and if that's not waving a red fucking flag in front of a FUCKING bull, I don't fucking know what is."
But all Dumbledore said was, "The name of the department does not put a mind like Harry's at ease, no."
"Consider this, Dumbledore: the boy dreams of the Department of Mysteries regularly, because the Dark Lord is obsessed with a prophecy of which you WISH THE BOY TO REMAIN IGNORANT!" Severus ended on a roar, and was satisfied that Dumbledore at least looked tired.
"Severus, I understand the implications, thank you. But I must follow the path I have deemed best."
Severus saw red and felt a headache spike behind his eye. Suddenly detached from himself, he recognized his anger and became immediately bored by it. He wondered how bad the prophecy could possibly be. It had already destroyed everything he ever loved, and he didn't know the half of it.
And then ten Death Eaters broke out of Azkaban.
Severus found out about it from the Daily Prophet, along with everyone else. Minerva, sitting aside him at breakfast, looked up at him sharply as she read the news, and he met her eye with a rush of irritation. "If there was a party about this last night, I was not invited," he sniped at her. "It's a shame-the Dark Lord usually serves the best hors d'oeuvres." He folded his newspaper a bit more snappishly than necessary.
"Those little mini quiches?" she asked.
He darted a glance toward her, but she didn't blink. "And pigs in a blanket," he said.
Her face suddenly became serious. "Severus-I-"
"Don't," he commanded, and rose from the table and left the Great Hall.
Fuck all, fuck it all. He had one job, and he had failed it. He needed to go to the Dark Lord's side, scrape together whatever miserable bits of information he could to salvage his position with the Order; but first, he had to teach Potions to masses of worthless teenagers.
He contained himself quite well that day, only exploding at a handful of students, only two of whom burst into tears, and only one of whom ran out of the classroom and didn't return. (Greta Fawcett, seventh year Ravenclaw, whose older sister was murdered in front of her when she was four years old, murdered by Damien Lockwood, one of the recently escaped Death Eaters, of course-but Fawcett deserved to be yelled at-she nearly added too many dragon scales to her potion, which would have released toxic fumes and likely killed them all; Nancy Woods, fourth year Hufflepuff, who grew up with her Muggle father because her mother had been killed by her own brother, Rabastan Lestrange, because she had dared to breed outside the approved bloodlines-but Woods had been stirring her potion so vigorously-likely due to her shaking hands-that the potion began to smoke-effusively-so much that it took Severus several seconds and multiple air-cleaning charms to even determine whose cauldron was to blame; and finally, at the end of the day there was Neil Avery, second year Slytherin, whose father enjoyed artificial rank with the Dark Lord simply because there was no one else to do the jobs he did, and now that the others had escaped Azkaban, his father was likely to return to his status as a punching bag and scapegoat-but Avery was guilty of the oldest mistake in the book-burning his fire too hot-which ran the risk of blowing up all the dungeons and likely bringing down the castle. Avery was the one to run away without returning-a proper Slytherin maneuver, and Severus couldn't help but approve.)
As soon as his last class dismissed (Avery's friend packing away two bags and hoisting them both over his shoulder, without a glance at his glaring teacher), Severus went directly to the headmaster's office to inform him of his departure.
"I understand, Severus," Dumbledore said. "Don't blame yourself. It is Cornelius who refused to acknowledge the threat posed by the dementors."
"I do not require you to make excuses on my behalf, Headmaster. I simply wished you to be aware that I will be unavailable tonight."
"By all means, find out all you can about recent developments-"
"'Recent developments'?"
"-but I wouldn't be surprised if there is nothing to find."
Severus snorted inelegantly. "Spies trade in information, in case you need to be reminded. If I am blindsided by 'recent developments' then it's possible I've outlived my usefulness." And there it was, the ugly, naked truth laid out before him. He had one reason for living in this castle-one reason for living at all, and he was failing at it.
Severus pushed it down, down-as if his life depended on it; as if this debacle could still be salvaged.
"Severus-" Dumbledore began, but Severus had suddenly reached his limit.
"I will be taking my leave now. If all goes well, I shall report back to you tonight." And he left without being dismissed.
But Severus could not find the Dark Lord, and instead found himself trading false pleasantries with Lucius Malfoy, who did not admit to being caught unawares by the mass breakout, but was tense enough to be read easily.
As Severus readied to depart, Lucius asked-almost nonchalantly-almost as if it had just occurred to him-"You've been unfortunate enough to spend time with my wife's cousin, I understand?"
Severus smiled unpleasantly while he mentally unraveled the truth and the lies and formulated a response. Pettigrew knew of Black, so the Dark Lord knew of Black, so Lucius knew of Black, and everyone knew that Severus spent time with Dumbledore who spent time with Black.
Good, so his response could be entirely true. "I have had the misfortune of spending time with that unbalanced, flea-ridden dog of a human being, yes."
Lucius laughed falsely. "Yes, unbalanced. I'm sure it did his psyche no good to be locked up with dementors for so long."
Severus suddenly knew what Lucius was driving at. He wasn't concerned with Narcissa's cousin; he was concerned with her sister. Severus decided he wouldn't take the lead, but couldn't resist taunting Lucius. "Yes, well, I was never convinced that Black was all that balanced to begin with."
Lucius smiled tightly, and did not look comforted. As well he shouldn't be-Bellatrix had never been all that balanced either.
But at least Severus was able to report to Dumbledore that Lucius had known nothing of the breakouts. It wasn't much, but it was something.
As the weeks dragged on, Potter made no progress in Occlumency. He seemed content to allow Severus access to his entire memory. And Potter had some very disturbing recent memories.
Like Cedric Diggory dead in the graveyard.
It wasn't as if such a sight would normally upset Severus. He had seen enough death. But seeing death through Potter's eyes was like sticking one's hand in fire. There was pain, and anguish, and guilt, and it was singularly unpleasant. The boy might like to wallow, but Severus did not enjoy wallowing with him.
He tried to find a memory of the boy's detentions with Dolores Umbridge, but Potter's mind was far too scattered to find anything as specific as that. So Severus did his best to focus on memories from Potter's early childhood, but even those memories were...odd.
Had Severus ever allowed himself to imagine being a wizard child raised by Petunia Evans, he would have imagined most of Potter's past-the function, if not the actual form. But he had never been keen on the details. And now he had open access to all of them.
And if Potter's past wasn't disturbing enough, his current attitude was one of needless martyrdom. It wasn't that Potter would never learn to Occlude-it was that Potter didn't even attempt to do what Severus asked of him. He just showed up, on time, once a week, simply for the privilege of having his mind raped. It frustrated Severus to no end.
After several unproductive weeks of tutelage, Minerva nudged him gently at the dinner table. "How is he?" she asked.
For a moment, he was tempted to feign ignorance, but with the staff under constant scrutiny by Dolores Umbridge, it wasn't wise to force people into using names. So instead he said, "I assume you are referring to Remedial Potions."
"Indeed," she said.
"He is performing deplorably, and I have no hope for improvement."
"Is he the problem, or is it you?"
He glared at her, but she didn't back down.
"Let me rephrase," she said. "I understand the personality conflict, Severus, and I don't expect that to change. But I am his Head of House. Is there something he should be doing that would help, that I could encourage him in?"
He would sooner expect the sun to rise in the west. Or that Vincent Crabbe would wake up one day and have the power to control the tides. But still, he considered her question, because if the boy could actually learn to Occlude, it would solve quite a big problem.
So he said, "Minerva...did you ever learn Remedial Potions?"
She snorted. "Albus tried to teach me once. I made an honest go of it-but after six months, we both agreed that I was hopeless."
"It's the same with the boy. Encouragement is irrelevant. It's possible there are other methods for...brewing Remedial Potions, but he will never succeed using mine."
She nodded, but still studied him carefully. She clearly had something else she wanted to ask and he was in no mood to draw her out. Finally, she said, "You've seen his memories."
He made no reply.
"I've always been...concerned...about the Muggles he lives with."
Again, he didn't feel like her comment warranted a response.
"Siri-" she began, but caught herself before she said the name. "His godfather," she began again carefully, "has been lobbying very strongly for custody. I...find him...unbalanced. I don't think he'd be an ideal guardian-but I can't help wondering...if he wouldn't be...better."
Severus snorted. "I refuse to take part any custody battle involving the boy."
But his comment only made her blunt. "Tell me, Severus: how bad is his home?"
He thought about his response. He'd seen things about Potter's Muggle relatives that had disturbed him, but he honestly didn't think that Minerva would be bothered by the same things Severus was. No, Minerva would be bothered by a different thing entirely, and Potter was probably bothered by another thing still.
He blinked at Minerva, and finally shrugged. "I've seen worse. He hates them for his own reasons, but you and I may...see things differently." He paused, and she waited for him to continue. "Potter hates them because he has to keep going back to them. I find fault with them because they punish him for his magic."
He paused again, and she couldn't stop herself from asking, "Why would I object to them?"
He looked her right in the eye. "Because they never loved him."
She nodded, tightly, as if she'd expected as much.
He said, "His godfather, though, will never see the boy as anything other than his father."
"A common enough affliction, I'm afraid."
The reason Severus liked Minerva was because she could say something like that without directing the reprimand solely at himself. He still felt reprimanded, though-probably more keenly than if she had meant to fire it directly at him.
It was no great shock when, a few weeks later, Severus fell back into Potter's memory of Cedric Diggory dead in the graveyard. It was a common mental pathway. This time, Severus was prepared for it; Potter was not. The latter had collapsed to the floor, screaming, but Severus ruthlessly clung to the memory. If the boy insisted on hanging on to his emotions, Severus was going to make him feel every one acutely. He forced Potter to watch as Wormtail tied him to the gravestone. Potter struggled feebly, both in the memory against Wormtail and in his mind against Severus. Severus would not let go.
The memory continued. Potter muttered "no" repeatedly, but offered no other resistance as the memory progressed and Wormtail dragged in an oversized cauldron. But when Wormtail reached down to pick up something, Potter finally fought back against Severus. Exactly what he did, Severus couldn't say, but it knocked Severus flat on his back. Disoriented, he pushed himself up and looked around.
James Potter stood before him, looking fierce.
Severus blinked.
Harry Potter stood before him, looking fierce. Severus set his jaw and turned to look for his wand. He found it by the shelves.
Potter broke the silence. "Don't do that again."
"Is that going to be your defense against the Dark Lord? Telling him what he can and can't do? It's a pity the rest of us didn't try that sooner."
The boy's knuckles were white around his wand. "Just-don't go there again."
"Then don't take me there again." He stared hard at the boy. "Potter, you are making yourself weak with these memories. You must clear them from your mind. You must be in control."
Potter looked back with eyes narrowed in scorn. "But I stopped you."
Without warning, Severus pointed his wand at Harry. "Legilimens!"
Severus was certain there was only one memory he could possibly find, so that the dead eyes of Cedric Diggory were no surprise to him. But Potter screamed, still unprepared for the visions in his own head.
Severus broke the spell immediately. Potter, who had once again fallen to his knees, remained there with his head buried in his hands. Severus said, "You are still not in control here. Dumb luck will not win you every battle, Potter, and if you rely on it you will fail eventually." He leaned in and hissed into Potter's face, still covered with his hands. "I think you know that already."