Chapter Eight – Midnight Stroll

Hermione was full of ideas. She wanted to head down straight to the library and see what she could find. Harry was not convinced that that would work. Even if she could find out what the Death Eaters had done – dodgy at best, in Harry's opinion, as he had not found that the Death Eaters were particularly good about sharing their more malicious creations – there was no guarantee that there would be a cure for it. Hermione might be a brilliant Mediwitch, but that didn't mean that she could fix everything. Harry was more inclined to leave it. If Snape wasn't going to confess, he wasn't going to confess. He was sure that they could get around that rule somehow, if he could prove that Snape couldn't actually give a confession. Then Snape would be out of his house and out of his life and maybe everything could just go back to the dull normal that he was used to.

He had convinced Hermione to at least go to bed before going out on her quest to fix Snape, and Ron had promised to make sure that she did. That meant that he would get at least one more night of peace before Hermione invaded his life to try all manner of things. For one thing, Harry wasn't even sure if he wanted Snape to start talking. It wasn't as though they'd parted on good terms, and though Harry had done nothing but try to make him more comfortable, he didn't think that that would necessarily win him any points with Snape. Not if Snape was the avowed Death Eater that he seemed to be.

Though he was tempted to leave Snape downstairs rather than dragging him all the way up the stairs, it would surely ruin his night of watching television until he was finally able to sleep. It would have been so much more helpful if Snape had actually decided to cooperate rather than just be a deadweight for Harry to tow. Snape was bigger than he was, though probably not much heavier, and it just made things so difficult. But Snape was good at making life difficult, in as many ways as possible.

Once they were finally upstairs, Harry felt that it was time to have another chat with Snape. If Hermione was right, then Snape couldn't understand him. And granted, Hermione was nearly always right. But there was still the chance that she was wrong, and that Snape, for his own reasons, was deliberately not talking to him.

"Tomorrow, Hermione is going to try to find a spell to counteract whatever the Death Eaters have done to you. If it doesn't work, then I'm going to go to the Ministry and try to plea your case away from execution. I don't think that they can kill you without you confessing to the crime, but I'm sure they'd like to. But I'm going to do something to keep you from being killed." He paused. "And I don't know why. I hate you. You killed Dumbledore, and did God-knows-what since. So I think you should be punished, believe me when I say that. I'm not trying to make it so that you get nothing at all, that they just set you free. But I think that there's more to this than you want to admit, and I want to know the whole truth. Dumbledore trusted you and he wasn't an idiot. He must have done it for a reason. The Death Eaters silenced you for a reason. I want to know all of that." He shook his head. "I don't expect any thanks from you, I've never gotten it in the past. I don't expect anything from you. I know that, if you can understand me, you're probably laughing at me for falling for your tricks. I don't care. I'm going to figure this out. Me and Ron and Hermione have always been pretty good at that kind of thing, and I don't see why we can't figure it out again. Just one more puzzle." Another pause, longer this time. "Well, good night, Snape."

Harry fell asleep on the couch a few hours later, the television still blaring mindless nonsense. For once, he didn't dream, something that he was grateful for. He thought that it was the whisky that Ron had brought in. Alcohol always chased away the bad dreams. That was why he had started drinking in the first place. To get rid of the bad.

He was woken up from his peaceful and dreamless sleep by a blaring noise that he couldn't place. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and found his living room full of guards, all with their wands out. Sleepily, he raised his hands above his head. "Didn't do nothing," he managed to say.

"We've got him," said a voice from outside the room.

One of the guards in the living room said, "That was extremely stupid of you, Mr. Potter. Snape nearly got away."

He rubbed his eyes. "What do you mean, he nearly got away?" As far as Harry could remember, he'd never actually seen Snape move since first seeing him in Azkaban.

"Evidently, he was testing the strength of the wards, and very nearly made it past them. It was that that set off the alarm, and we only just managed to get him."

He sat up. That was not what he had expected to hear. "Where is he now?"

"Back at Azkaban, of course. It's not safe for him to be here. This is what we always guessed was going to happen."

Back at Azkaban? So it had all been for nothing, then. This week of misery had all been for nothing. Typical. How bloody typical of his life. He lay back down on the couch. "Fine. Go away. Let me sleep. It's the middle of the night. Thank you for your service, and all the rest." As he closed his eyes, he heard them leaving noisily.

Snape was gone. Finally, he would get some peace.