Remembrance and Renewal by Avatar Arkmage and Nigel Tatsuya
Chapter Thirty-Two: Bearer of Light

Severus charged through the maple doors of Snape Manor one, nearly pulling both of them off of their hinges as we went. "Harry!" He stumbled into the foyer. "Harry, where are you?" He rounded the turn sharply, tripping over a bump under the bearskin rug.

"Oohhh!" The carcass groaned.

Severus tossed the pelt aside and pulled the little boy beneath into his arms. He lifted the hem of Harry's shirt and gasped at the dark bruising along his torso. The magical wards had caused the Interventio Interferous potion, which was still in Harry's body, to react violently. Shadowing along the boy's abdomen hinted at internal bleeding. "Must you let your curiosity take precedence over your basic will to survive?! You should have known this place would have been heavily warded! Your body can barely tolerate the wards leading into the Snape Manor grounds! How could you be so arrogant as to assume that your body could endure the heavier wards leading into Snape Manor One?"

"I'm sorry, father, I didn't know about the wards." Harry coughed, issuing a fine spray of blood from his mouth and nose. "And I didn't come here because I was curious!" Harry started whimpering. "I didn't come here just to disobey you!!"

"Why then?" Severus asked, examining a gash along Harry's hairline.

"You're really sick, father!" Harry sobbed. "You might die!"

"WHAT? What are you on about? You're the one who is ill."

"Severus!" Lucien's ghost called over Severus' shoulder, filling the dark haired man with fear.

"Stay away from him!" Severus stood abruptly and shoved his sire's ghost to the hardwood floor.

"You're not well, Severus!" The ghost of Lucien said, utilizing a thunderous intonation. One which had caused Severus great fear during his formative years.

"I most certainly am not ill. Harry on the other hand..."

A phial appeared in the ghost's hands. Lucien floated forward, wrapped its hand around Severus's neck, and backed him into the wall.

"No! No!" Harry screamed. He crawled feebly across the floor and held onto the elder Snape's legs. "Grandfather! Don't be cruel to him!"

"Take your medicine and stop carrying on like an infant!" Lucien shouted at the younger man. Severus struggled in his father's firm vice, unable to draw a full breath. Lucien grasped a handful of Severus's hair and snapped his head back. "I said, take your medicine!" He smacked Severus when he didn't readily comply.

Severus did not remember how he left Snape Manor one, but he soon found himself and Harry back in an upstairs bedroom of Snape Manor Two. Back in the exact replica of his childhood bedroom.

"Father?" Harry called. Severus sat on the edge of his childhood bed, upon which his own son now rested. Harry stared at his father with his now sightless green eyes. "Father...I can't see."

Ayame Chang, the mediwitch from St. Mungo's hospital moved out of the shadows, accompanied by Madam Pomfrey, who was sobbing into a handkerchief. "His retinas have detached." Dr. Chang explained, trying to hold her face in a professional manner.

"Is there nothing you can do?!" Severus shouted at the two women.

"No, Severus." Madam Pomfrey sighed. "The magic within the wards had a detrimental effect on his body. It's only a matter of time now."

"Am I going to die?" Harry gasped, tears welling in his eyes.

Severus wanted to say something to the effect of "you brought this upon yourself, you foolish boy," but he decided against it. Harry needed support more than anything else at the moment, yet he also needed the hard facts. Severus would deliver both with equal efficiency. "You're far too damaged to be healed, and you're too weak to recover on your own. But we will do what we can to make it bearable for you."

The finality in his voice hit hard. Harry began sobbing. The St. Mungos staff, and the others who Severus hadn't realized were there before, left the room, leaving father and son alone. Before the door closed, Severus noticed that even Weasley and Granger had been there, watching their best friend in utter silence. "I don't want to die, father!" Harry grabbed Severus's hand and hugged it to his chest. "I'm really afraid, father. I'm so scared!!"

Severus pulled Harry into his arms. Although he was reluctant to admit it, he was scared as well. How would he learn to live without his little angel, now that he had grown accustomed to him being around again? He had resigned himself to dying in the near future. He had certainly not resigned himself, however, to burying his own son.

And indeterminate measure of time passed. Soon a huge, and markedly out of place grin spread across Harry's face as he relaxed in Severus's arms. "Curious, I'm not afraid anymore, at least not as afraid as I was a while ago. I feel that I'm in your arms, and yet I feel like I'm floating away. You're close to me, and yet you seem to getting farther away."

Severus swallowed hard.

"Maybe when I'm this close to you, I feel too safe to be afraid, and things don't hurt as much either." With the last of his strength, Harry shifted his body slightly so that his head rested directly over Severus's heart. "You know, that first time you held me like this... when we were back in the infirmary, I felt safer than I had ever felt in my life. I knew you were my father then, and I hated that we never got the time together that other fathers and sons have." Harry's voice grew weaker. "I always wondered what it would have been like...if I had started my life in my father's arms..."

Severus bit his lower lip. How ironic that Harry would be ending his life, in the way many children typically began theirs.

"I guess you'll have to defeat Mouldyshorts yourself now." Harry said. "I know you can do it. The power I have is from mother ...but also from you. Especially you, you've taught me so much. And I know you're strong enough to defeat Mouldyshorts."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Well, you've raised me, haven't you? Even though it was only for a short time. The prophecy said I would have the power to vanquish the dark lord. I believe that power came from both you and mother. So you have that power too... because mother loved you just as she loved me."

The image of Lily, looking upon Severus with nothing but the purest form of love, flashed in his memories with the intensity of a fiery backdraft. "So it would seem." Severus replied, tears filling his eyes.

"Aw. You're crying again father?" Although Severus initially tried to deny it, Harry went on. "I know you are, I may not be able to see anymore, but I can hear the changes in your breathing."

Severus didn't answer, with Harry knowing him so well, words seemed unnecessary.

"I'm so tired." Harry said after a few more moments of silence.

"Then go to sleep." Severus choked, barely able to stifle his anguish.

"Will you be here when I wake, father?"

Severus knew very well that Harry would never wake again; that those green eyes, already glazed in death would soon close forever. He answered in the affirmative notwithstanding.

"I love you, father."


"NO!" Severus regained consciousness and sat up in his bed, gasping both from horror and from the difficulty of breathing with his exceedingly congested lungs. There were few nightmares which could have possibly compared to the horror of one where a parent was forced to bury their own child. It went against the logical order of the universe. It was wrong in every conceivable way. And Severus determined that it was far more painful than the Cruciatus curse itself. No, it was more painful that a thousand Cruciatus Curses cast simultaneously!

The pain from his broken body faded into the distant background as the sheer agony of the prospect of losing Harry assaulted him full force. Severus could not stop crying for a few minutes thereafter, and sobbed into his sleeves. How could he have allowed himself to become so attached to Harry? Even though Harry was his son, he was also Harry Potter, the boy who lived, the boy who was destined to kill or be killed by the Dark Lord.

Both Harry and The Dark Lord had equal chances of emerging victorious. Severus could not let his illness take him. He would have to be there to turn the odds in Harry's favour. No matter the cost. No matter what.

Severus shifted on his pillow, his head hurt even worse than before, and his body ached everywhere. "Harry?"

No answer.

Moments later, Rastus timidly walked into the room. The pitiful creature was covered in bruises, and was bleeding from a mighty laceration on his forehead. Severus knew that the part-elf had been beating himself for a real or perceived dereliction in his duties.

"Rastus," Severus returned his throbbing head to the pillow, willing himself not to give in to his high fever, thereby descending into delirium once more. "Where is Harry?"

"OH MASTER SEVERUS!" Rastus bellowed, grabbing a nearby vase and breaking it over his head. "Rastus has failed you."

"Rastus!" Severus feebly attempted to raise his head once more, but did not succeed. "I command you to stop beating yourself at once! I would not willingly strike you, and you are not to injure yourself either, is that understood?" The elf bowed reverently and knelt at Severus's bedside. "Good! Now, where is Harry?"

The octarelf resumed bawling. "Young Snape is in SNAPE MANOR ONE! Rastus tried to make Young Snape stay here but Rastus cannot use magic to stop him, and young Snape would not listen to Rastus telling him not to go to Snape Manor One!"

"NO!" shouted Severus, pain tearing though his spine like needles from the action of raising his voice. He suspected Harry had gone into Snape Manor One, his fever-induced dreams had even hinted at it. Hearing it confirmed though, filled the weakened potion master with dark trepidation.

"Rastus has failed you, Master!" the elf ululated. "Rastus could not stop young Snape! Rastus is a bad house elf."

"There is no need to berate yourself." Severus exhaled heavily and closed his eyes once more. Trying to prevent Harry from doing something he really wanted to do was as difficult as changing the cosmological constant or making the speed of light equal something less than the speed of a dead slug. "When did he leave?"

"A few minutes ago! Rastus could not stop Young Snape from walking into Snape Manor One!" Rastus sniffled. "Rastus wants to go there and fetch him, but Rastus thinks Young Snape cannot pass through the wards more than once! The wards are magic and magic will hurt young Snape. He cannot be brought back or he could be dead!"

"True..." Severus swelled with rage. That imbecilic boy! He should have known there would be wards in place around the old manor! Even if he made it into the mansion with only a few injuries, going though the wards again to exit the mansion, would not only compound the injuries he already received, but would create even more. And he could not be healed for another day or so.

The thought of Harry being trapped in Snape Manor One...alone...or not...caused Severus to tremble. "Rastus, assist me from the bed."

"Master Severus wishes to go to the toilet?"

"That too," Severus whispered, speaking softly to keep his head from aching even worse. "But you must help me get to..." the pale man shuddered, "the original Snape Manor..."

Rastus levitated Severus out of the bed and wrapped a quilt around him. "Can Master Severus walk?"

Severus nearly fell whilst taking a few small steps. He not only felt too weak to walk adequately, he also was in too much pain. He felt as though his muscle tissues were being slowly dissolved. He tasted blood in his mouth and he knew he was bleeding from other orifices as well.

Haemorrhagic Fever?!

Severus could not understand how or why he was so ill, "Rastus, help me, I am unable to walk..."

Before Severus had even finished his reply, Rastus began to walk out of the bedroom, levitating his beloved master beside him.


Hermione, Hyperione and Herman Granger all stopped mid-stride as though they had been practising synchronized motions, and turned toward Draco at hearing their name. Draco momentarily froze. Would Mudblood Granger recognize him? Of course she would, she only saw him every day Gryffindor and Slytherin had classes together while Hogwarts was in session.

Then again, the Malfoy that Granger was familiar with was blond and wore fine robes. At the moment, Draco was wearing a second-hand jacket and had hair almost as black as Harry Pottyhead's.

Although Draco desperately wanted to strangle Hermione for all the trouble she had caused, and to break the bones in her neck for her jeopardizing the relationship he was just beginning to build with Lucius, he did not want to be caught at escaping from the hospital. He surely did not want to languish back in the hospital room, unable to do anything for what little of the Malfoy family honour that remained.

There would come another time to deal with Hermione and other interfering mudbloods like her.

Thinking quickly, Draco dishevelled his black hair with his hands in the hopes of making himself even less recognizable. He was grateful when his hands came in contact with the headphones which he had not removed from his ears. He remembered one of the muggle songs from the CD player machine and began reciting the lyrics while rocking his head from side to side. He hoped to look as though he were singing along. The best thing about this particular song, was that it had the name Granger in it, thereby explaining why he had uttered it earlier.

...kiss from a rose on the grey
Ooh, the more I get of you, Granger, it feels yeah
Now that your rose is in bloom
A light hits the broom on the grey

Hermione rolled her eyes and walked off. For a moment, she had thought that imbecile on the bench looked like Draco Malfoy, but decided she must have been mistaken. Draco would never look like that, and he wouldn't be singing along with a muggle CD player. He probably didn't know what a CD player was in the first place.

Once the Grangers passed through the main entrance of the hospital, Draco stood from the bench and limped toward the muggle street beyond. He wondered why muggles wrote songs about being kissed by plant matter. Could some one from the magical world have planted charmed roses in this songwriter's yard as a joke? Did some muggles simply have plant fetishes? Whatever the case, it made for a good, if hard to understand, song.


"I have not been referred to as 'Malfoy' in many years." Lucien Snape's ghostly form shone ethereally in the dimly lit antechamber of Snape Manor One.

Harry fearfully regarded the spirit. To his bewilderment, Lucien Snape gazed upon Harry without a trace of the malice that Harry had grown accustomed to seeing on his face. The few times Harry had seen his grandfather during his sojourn outside of time, the malevolence was firmly in place.

It was almost surreal to see it absent now.

The spirit's icy blue eyes glowed like the bioluminescent life forms that made their homes in the part of the ocean untouched by sunlight. His scarred skin shone as well, though more faintly. Lucien's hair was either white or the palest blonde, and luminesced in a way that reminded Harry of light from the waning moon nearing its darkest phase.

Harry could do little more than stare at the vestige of his father's father as he lay helplessly on the immaculately clean hardwood floor. Evidently the wards surrounding the mansion hadn't deterred Rastus from his fastidious habit of scrubbing things unnecessarily. However, those very wards left Harry feeling as though he had been stoutly beaten from the inside outward. Harry knew he had neither the strength to flee, nor the capability of fighting back. He wasn't even sure if he were capable of defending himself. How does one fight against another who is already deceased, anyway?

Afraid, though he was, Harry decided that he could not risk incurring the ghost's ire. Severus's very life depended on what Harry could do to help him. Ironically, it now appeared that both their lives depended Lucien Snape. One who was himself, already dead.

"Grandfather," Harry began in as respectful a cadence as he could accomplish whilst being deathly afraid. Harry almost addressed him as Professor Snape or Mr. Malfoy, but decided that calling him grandfather' would endear Harry the most to the spirit. "Hi...uh...my name is Harry."

To Harry's astonishment, Lucien's ghost did not sneer or take on a wrathful cast. In fact, with the exception of his physical appearance, Lucien Snape's ghost bore little resemblance to his living counterpart. He looked almost...serene? Docile? Friendly? "I am Lucien Snape, at least that is who I was whilst I was still living." The spirit leaned even closer, casting an eerie luminance on the floor. "Harry. So that is your name. I've watched you pass by the manor with my son...your father. I've also observed you playing on the grounds for quite some time."

"Yes." Harry smiled nervously, he did not know what to expect from the ghost of such a violent man. "I'm pleased to finally meet you, grandfather."

"And I, you." Lucien smiled widely, extending a shimmering hand out to Harry.

"But..." Harry began, not taking his grandsire's hand. "...you're a..."

"...a ghost?" Lucien finished for Harry, looking somewhat amused. "Just because we can walk through doors without opening them, it does not mean we have no substance." He extended his hand once more. "Or that we cannot have substance when we so choose to."

Although Harry was afraid, he was even more afraid of angering the spirit. He compliantly grasped Lucien's hand, and was surprised that it did not feel as cold as spirit hands, or any other spirit part, were reputed to be. To be sure, it did not feel like the hand of a living person. It did not even feel altogether solid, but it could be held. It even felt slightly warm. "Your hand...it feels like ... it almost feels like... I'm holding ... some kind of energy."

"That is what a spirit is essentially." Lucien answered, trying to help Harry to his feet. "We are the energy left behind once the flesh is shed."

"Oww!" Harry groaned, falling back to the floor as pain ripped through his body. "Sorry Granddad, but I'm hurt. I don't think I can stand just yet."

"What is the matter...Great Merlin!" Lucien slowly lifted Harry's shirt and examined him. He then raised his free hand toward one of the nearby rooms. Phials of what appeared to be healing potions and jars of salves floated out toward them. "I cannot believe anyone would do this to a chi..."

"Oh no, no...it's nothing like that." Harry said quickly. "Father didn't hurt me. He's never struck me...er...well except for one time when I woke him up whilst he was having a bad dream, and sometimes he says really mean things, but he didn't do this. It was the wards, not him."

Lucien unstoppered one of the phials.

Harry crossed his arms protectively over himself. "Oh no, thank you, but I can't take a healing potion right now. You see..." Harry explained the events of the past month to Lucien, which meant that Lucien not only learned of Voldemort's movements and what was going on currently in the wizarding world, but also about muggle fireworks factories, cars that ran on hydrogen, weightlifters, soft drinks which could be used as weapons if you shook their containers, and douchebags.

"What exactly is a dushbag?" Lucien's ghost interrupted Harry in the middle of his report.

"I don't know, I was actually hoping you might tell me?" Harry said, allowing Lucien to gingerly turn him over so that he could better examine his back for injuries. "But that's okay, father and some of the other adult wizards didn't know what it was either. I have a muggle friend, and I plan to ask her about it when I see her again. Would you like me to tell you what it is then?"

"That would be lovely." Lucien nodded, checking Harry's legs and frowning when he saw that one of Harry's calves was greatly darkened due to heavy bleeding beneath the skin.

Harry resumed his jabber about everything directly (and indirectly) leading up to why he had come to Snape Manor One, as well as how the Interventio Interferous potion had come to be in his body, and how the wards around Snape Manor One had interacted badly with it.

Oddly, compared to others Lucien seemed to be far less confused than nearly anyone else would be after hearing one of little Harry's narratives. Either Grandfather learned things extremely quickly, or else he was very adept at not looking perplexed even when he in fact was.

"So you're not really a child, but a de-aged teen?" Lucien asked as he gingerly half-carried, half-levitated Harry onto a couch.

"Yes," Harry replied as Lucien covered him with a blanket and tucked a pillow under his head. "But only until the Interventio Interferous is out of my system, after that, father is going to brew me a potion to turn me back to how I was."

"Nasty potion, that Interventio Interferous." Lucien shook his head knowingly. "Good job it is almost cleared from your system. If you had come through the wards any earlier, you would have suffered more than contusions and joint pains."

"Contoosions?" Harry repeated. "Do you mean bruises?"

"Yes. You appear to just have some really severe bruises right now." Lucien sighed, applying a cooling substance to a dark bruise on Harry's chest. "Fortunately, none appear to be serious enough to cause you more than discomfort."

"I wonder what would happen if I walked through the wards again? I'm going to have to when I return to the other Snape Manor?"

"I would advise you not to do so until you are cleared of the Interventio Interferous potion." Lucien stated.

"I wonder if father can wait until then." Harry exhaled heavily. "To think I came here hoping to find a potion or potion ingredients to help him, but now I can't even leave..."

"Judging from the extent of your injuries, it would appear that the potion will be out of your system completely in a matter of hours. But the house elf should be along before then. We can send word of your whereabouts to your father, as well as the potions he may need, with the elf at that time." Lucien stated, picking up a brightly polished silver ornament from a nearby shelf. It shined as though Rastus had already polished it that day, but Harry knew that the elf would probably polish the same piece of silver twelve times in a day if he had nothing else to occupy himself with. "So Sevvie, uh your father, will brew you a re-aging potion? From what I've seen of his skills, he could not only re-age you, but could re-age you to your precise age right down to the day. Harry, how old are you really?"

"I'm sixteen. I just turned sixteen on the Thirty-First of last month." Harry replied.

"So...you were already conceived at the time that I died then..." Lucien deduced.

"Uh huh." Harry said, finding it harder and harder to believe that the heavy-handed Lucien who had raised Severus, and the ghost before him were the same person. Grandmother was apparently correct about Lucien. Harry pondered once more how it was so unfair that grandfather lived a life of servitude, and was ultimately killed by his own master. So unfair about how father had to take grandfather's place as Mouldyshorts's potion master, as well as whipping boy. So unfair about grandmother, who had to endure beatings at the hands of a violent husband, and was eventually tortured into insanity... Harry went on, thinking of all of the people close to him who had been affected by Voldemort. He knew he was scowling, but he couldn't help himself.

"You look very much like Severus." Lucien commented, pushing Harry's hair back from his face.

"I do?"

"No one has told you that before?"

"No," Harry was about to tell his grandfather that people always told him that he resembled James Potter, but he figured it would require too much explaining. Instead, Harry spoke the next thought that came to his mind. "I really wish you had lived so we could have met sooner."

"You would not have liked me while I was alive." the ghost lamented, remorse weighing heavily in each syllable. "My brain and body were so damaged, I could hardly function like a normal, rational human being. It was a relief to die, actually."

Harry shuddered at that. How could one's life have been so bad that death, and haunting an empty mansion for seventeen years, be preferable? A part of Harry knew the answer, but the rest of him could not bear the thought of a life so destroyed.

"But that's not important now." Lucien said, sinking slightly through the floor so that he was at eye-level with Harry. "Now, tell me more about your father's illness. When did his symptoms start..?"

"GET AWAY FROM HIM!" Severus yelled when he and Rastus entered Snape Manor One several moments later. He scrambled out of Rastus's levitation charm, cast the bloody blanket aside and hobbled into the parlour where Lucien's ghost was leaning over Harry as he lay on one of the couches.

"Father!" Harry began.

Severus staggered to Lucien and shoved him with such force that the ghost was sent tumbling. "Don't...don't you go... near him!" Severus collapsed to the floor next to Harry's couch, his energy all but expended.

"Father no!"

Severus dragged himself over to the ghost and punched him. To Harry's horror, his sire's fist smashed Lucien partially into the floor.

"Severus, stop this!" Lucien held his spectral hands up in a gesture of defence. "It will accomplish nothing!"

Severus struck out again, but cried out in agony when his fist crashed through the immaculately clean wall. Lucien had resumed his conventional ghostly form, allowing Severus's fist to pass right through him.

"Are you quite finished?" Lucien silkily asked his son, who lay helplessly on the floor, cradling his hand in the other. "It accomplishes nothing to attack me, Sevvie, though I deserve every bit of your wrath. I can no longer feel pain."

Visions of Lucien beating Severus resurfaced, and his instinct to protect his father at all costs was not far behind. "Except the pain of guilt!" Harry said before he could stop himself. He regretted his quick tongue immediately. "Oh! I didn't mean to say that, I'm sorry."

"You are perceptive, Harry." Lucien sighed, his expression looking even more regretful than before. He approached Severus slowly, making no sudden moves so as not to frighten the younger man. "You cannot know how the pain of guilt torments me."

Severus dragged himself back to Harry's side and attempted to shield him with his own body.

"Sevvie," Lucien whispered, extending a ghostly hand slowly to his son.

"No father." Severus pleaded, his fever-induced delirium once more in control of his consciousness. "Father no! Please! Please don't beat me! Whatever I did, I'm sorry!"

Harry saw tears appear in the spectre's eyes at that.

When Lucien knelt beside Severus, the fallen man started to scream. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please no more!" The words became sobs. "Stop!"

"Hold still, Sevvie." Lucien said as best he could with a trembling lower lip. He carefully turned Severus onto his back and assessed the younger man, even as Severus continued to struggle and beg for mercy.

"What's wrong with him? Is he going to be okay?" Harry asked anxiously, watching his grandfather work. Even though Harry suspected that the fever was influencing Severus's reactions at the moment, it made the scene before him only slightly less painful to watch. Seeing a parent carrying on this way was disturbing enough; the fact that Harry knew what his father had indeed gone through during his youth, made it all the more difficult to accept.

"Don't beat me any more! Mother may hear!" Severus cried, his weak countermoves against his ghostly father futile. "NO! Noooooo!"

"Haemorrhagic fever..." Lucien said at last. The ghost stood and carried Severus toward another couch. Seeing what was going on, Rastus threw a stack of absorbent linens onto the sofa before Lucien lowered his son upon it. Rastus removed Severus's blood-soaked nightshirt and covered him with a fresh blanket before leaving to launder the sullied items. "Harry, have you and Sev- I mean, your father, travelled outside the UK recently."

"No..." Harry replied, puzzled at the blood on Severus's body. "What's hemo-raging fever, anyway? It sounds like a muggle name for a sickness."

"It is, but both magical and muggle folk are susceptible to the disease." Lucien's ghost looked once more at Harry and then cast some sort of barrier around the couch that Severus was on. "It is usually contagious, contingent upon what the infecting agent was. Harry, have you and your father been around muggle military bases or laboratories lately?"

"Well no, but we did go into muggle London last week. And we visited some one in a hospital, and they have laboratories there."

Lucien spelled himself clean, then knelt beside Harry and examined him. "You've had no symptoms as well?"

"No, I feel fine, except for being sore from going through the wards. But then again, whatever this hemo-raging fever is, it comes about fast, because father looked just fine until this morning."

"Those scratches on Severus's face." Lucien motioned to the faint imperfections on his son's cheeks. "They appear to have been healed recently, within the last seventy-two hours? How did he get them?"

Harry explained about his owl Hedwig's mate, and how the owl had attacked Severus a few days ago. "You don't think the owl made father sick do you?"

"Not the owl." Lucien sounded deep in thought when he answered. "More than likely it was the owl's prey. Rodents are the hosts of many diseases which can infect humans..."

"Like how the rats spread the plague?" Harry asked.

"Exactly."

"Oh...so whatever Hedwig's mate was feeding her, its blood might have still been on the owl's claws when it attacked father?" Harry guessed. "So because it made cuts in father's skin, it could have infected him then? So maybe that's why even though I've been everywhere father has been, I'm not also sick. But then again, it could depend on our immunity too, maybe father's resistance was lower? Gee, grandfather, figuring how some one got sick isn't easy is it?"

"It is not, but you're a remarkably clever boy, Harry." Lucien commended, looking so smug as he said so, that he reminded Harry strangely of Draco Malfoy. His expression once more turned forlorn. "So much like your father."

It took Harry some time to fully grasp what Lucien had said. Lucien would not have known that Harry and Severus had been ever separated, after all.

"Well, as much as I enjoy having someone to talk to again," Lucien rose to his full height and began floating out of the parlour, "I'll have to start brewing some medicines for your father. I fear I have no potions on hand which could help him at the moment."

"May I help?" Harry asked, sitting up slowly.

"Are you sure you're feeling up to it?"

"Oh yes, it's just..." Harry slowly stood, or rather, he attempted to, "Aah!... a few - ouch!- bruises."

"Hmm...I think I have some non-magical analgesics you might try." Lucien lifted Harry into his arms. "And in case you have been infected with the viral agent affecting your father, some gamma globulin may help you as well."

"It will keep me from getting sick?"

"It can make you more resistant, but like many muggle treatments, and some of ours as well, it is not faultless."

Harry felt as though he were suspended in midair, even in his grandfather's ghostly arms. It was a pleasant experience, and Harry wondered why the ghostly Lucien even bothered walking like a living person at all. He obviously had no need to do so.

As Harry had predicted, the large room at the end of the hall had been converted into a laboratory. Caldrons occupied most of the space on the counters and on the floor, and measuring devices, phials, beakers and reagents took up the rest of the counter space. Harry was surprised to see racks and racks of completed potions in the adjacent rooms.

"Well Harry, being that I have nothing else with which to occupy my time," Lucien replied as if in response to Harry's thoughts, "and I require no sleep, I spend my days and nights brewing and doing research." After Lucien had given Harry some non-magical analgesic potion and a shot of immune globulin, they set to work. Harry watched in amazement as Lucien summoned a caldron into the work area and started a fire under it by merely pointing at it. The spirit then gathered some non-magical ingredients and gave them to Harry to process. The spectre then started chopping up some anomalous preserved matter, which had a frightening black glow around it.

"Grandfather," this question had plagued Harry for quite some time now, "why do some people die while others become ghosts?"

"It depends greatly on the individual," Lucien added some dried ingredients to a mortar and began to pound them as he spoke. "Some people may have been so unprepared for their own deaths that they either refused to die, or could not believe that they were indeed dead. Other people may have died with so much of their work unfinished, that they felt obligated to stay a bit longer."

Lucien paused briefly to summon Rastus, and instructed him to move Severus into to one of the bedrooms near the labs so they better could monitor his condition.

"The beliefs an individual held whilst living, also has a bearing on what becomes of them when the body dies." Lucien said, stirring the caldron. "Many go on to their idea of an afterlife, while others simply cease to be. Some people linger in a place between death and life, unable to chose either."

"What about you, granddad?" Harry asked, feeling somewhat less inhibited due to the muggle analgesics. "If you don't mind my asking."

"Not at all. My death..." the spirit paused briefly while decanting a potion, "it was so painful...I was in agony for weeks beforehand. I was buried, whilst I was still alive."

"YOU were buried alive?!" Harry squeaked.

"Well Sevvie- your father didn't know I had not expired yet. Even a muggle doctor with all of their eccelectric equipment would have pronounced me dead. I had no heartbeat and I believe no physical brain activity, so naturally I would have appeared dead. But Voldemort cast a spell upon me that would keep my body only minimally alive for weeks, months even. Even if my body were to die, I would remain trapped within it for a time whilst it slowly decomposed.

"So you could not even die properly? I saw you on that day..." Harry whispered. "When I was near death and outside of time, I saw Mouldyshorts hit you with the cruciatus curse." After you saved father from the full eight hours of the Animalia potion. Harry wanted to add.

A ghostly tear rolled down Lucien's cheek, followed by a look of rage so malevolent, that Harry was ready to hobble away. Harry realized though, that Luicen's grief and anger were not directed toward him, but toward Voldemort. Harry wondered if ghosts could be useful in the fight against Voldemort. Lucien surely looked as though he wanted to kill Voldemort, and fight his ghost for eternity.

The look of rage faded, and the ghost started sniffling as more tears coursed down its cheeks.

"Oh grandfather, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up such a bad memory..."

"It's quite all right." Lucien replied, the tears seeming to reabsorb into his ghostly skin. "As I've said, it was a great relief to die. After your father buried me beneath the labs on the lowest level of Snape Manor, I panicked. Being buried alive is a frightening experience. So I started clawing my way out of the coffin, and up through the dirt on my grave. It wasn't until I was back in my labs again that I realized that I hadn't opened my coffin to get out of it. I also hadn't disturbed the soil in climbing from it. I had somehow, I don't know how, escaped from my body. My body was, and is, still buried beneath this structure..."

Harry's green eyes were so large with shock that he bore an uncanny resemblance to Dobby the House Elf.

"But I was finally free! For the first time in many years, I could move about without any pain. What I've never told your grandmother, or your father whilst I lived, was how much pain I was always in. Voldemort and his minions destroyed my body bit by bit over the years. By the last years of my life, my nerves were very raw. I could barely function without heavy doses of pain-relieving potions." Lucien's face tightened as he remembered the pain, "so you see, Harry, being free of my body was one of the greatest things that could happen to me. Even better still, my mind felt like my own again after so many years. I could think complete thoughts, without being overwhelmed by my own irrational anger. All those years with the Death Eaters left my brain damaged along with my body. But I'm free now."

"So you actually enjoy being a ghost?" Harry asked, bringing the substances he had finished processing to his ghostly grandfather.

"More than I can articulate with mere words." Lucien said, smiling once more in the way that reminded Harry disturbingly of his arch-rival, Draco Malfoy. "Ironic that I'm finally living the life I could only dream of before...whilst not really living."

"Aren't you lonely, though?" Harry asked. "Being in this mansion all by yourself."

The spirit's expression turned downcast once more. "I get very lonely sometimes. If it weren't for Rastus, I don't think I could have gone on with it all these years."

"Doesn't father visit you?"

Lucien shook his head. "Not that I blame him. I was such a horrible father to him. No child deserves a father like me."


With Severus still in the throes of his feverish delirium, Harry could see just how much his father really feared his grandfather. When Lucien approached the doorway to the room Severus was in, the younger man once again began screaming in terror.

"Sevvie," Lucien coaxed, approaching his son slowly with the potion he had just completed.

"Please father!" Severus sobbed, curling into a protective ball on the bed. "I did not mean to lose to Black! He had Potter to assist him, it wasn't a fair fight! No! Please father! Please don't hit me."

"Sevvie, take your medicine." Lucien coaxed once again.

"What is that? A pain inducing potion?" Severus whimpered, looking at the vial with horror. "I'll hurt for months! Can't you just use your belt or the whip instead? I won't even scream when you hit me, I promise!"

"Grandfather?" Harry called, slowly approaching the doorway. "Can I try giving it to him?"

"It's too dangerous, Harry." Lucien sighed. "He's very contagious, what's more, he's not in his right mind, he could injure you..."

"I know, please let me try though?" Harry implored. "I can't stand to see him like this."

"Very well." Lucien handed Harry the vial. "Take care that you don't let him swallow it all at once. It has a coagulant that should slow some of the bleeding in his throat, and an agent that should repair his ..."

"Go AWAY, Potter!" Severus yelled.

"Huh?" Harry asked.

"Did you come here to laugh at me, Potter?" Severus hissed, blood staining his teeth red. "You, Pettigrew and Black didn't stare your fill at the damage you caused today? Have you never seen bruises like these before?"

Harry tried to talk to Severus, but it was doubtful that the man would hear what he had to say.

"Perhaps I should give you a bruise of your own to stare at!" without prelude, Severus lunged forward and punched Harry squarely in the jaw.

End Part Thirty-Three