You Can Live: Chapter 48
Happy 4th of July everyone! Unfortunately, this chapter is a little short, however I don't have work next week and I'm gunning to have this story and 'Running at Full Tilt' finished very soon. Please enjoy! :)
I do not have a beta. Any and all mistakes are my own!
Disclaimer: you know I don't own HP. A very rich, brilliant lady does.
Warnings: Non-graphic child sexual abuse. Not really this chapter but thought I'd go ahead and give you a heads up. If this triggers, please don't read!
Setting the Trap
When they had all finished their tea, Harry had immediately jumped up to take it away rather than let Snippy do it. Severus made a motion to stop Snippy when it was clear she was going to argue with Harry to allow her to do it. Snape understood that his son needed time and something to occupy his hands. Clearly Harry had a desperate urge to cut, but he was fighting it with everything he had, which made Snape proud.
Kingsley and Severus were setting up the Pensieve in the living room, while Harry was having a silent freak out in the kitchen. He paced back and forth, rolling his wand in his hands and trying to slow his breathing. Harry didn't hear his friends enter the room.
"Harry?" The young man startled so violently, he dropped his wand and fell back into the counter. "Whoa, Harry. Don't hurt yourself now, right before you're about to be heroic." Harry didn't reply to Draco's teasing. He couldn't focus enough on the present to come up with anything to say in return.
He was starting to panic, then things began to rattle in the kitchen, and Harry panicked more.
Harry suddenly found himself enveloped in long arms and pulled into a broad chest. It startled him enough that his magic stopped going nuts. Flashbacks of Menos grabbing him popped up, but he quickly squashed them down. After a few moments of silence,
"Uh…Ron?" The arms around him tensed, but didn't let go.
"Mum, would do this when we were little. Our magic would go haywire and we wouldn't know how to calm down enough to stop it." Neither of the boys moved, though hugging for so long was kind of…out of the ordinary for them.
"…Oh." Ron held him there for a couple more seconds before letting him go with a pat on the shoulder. They stood apart awkwardly after that, both unsure what to say, when they heard a scoff.
"Boys." Then Hermione came around Ron and pulled Harry into her own hug. It just seemed to be National Hug Day for Harry (not that he actually minded). Hermione rubbed a hand up and down Harry's back, and her friend actually returned her hug as opposed to standing there like a stiff board.
"You'll be okay, Harry. We'll be right there. Snape will be right there." Her next words, she whispered directly into his ear. "None of this makes you weak. You're still the bravest person I know." Harry's throat tightened, as did his grip on Hermione. When they finally parted, Harry offered up a tiny smile.
A small hand patted his hair, and Harry wasn't surprised that time to see that it was Luna. She had been unexpectedly motherly towards him since she had come to stay with him during the trial. However, it fit her like a glove, and Harry wasn't going to be the one to tell her to stop.
His eyes drifted over to the other occupant in the room. Draco snorted a lifted his hands in surrender.
"Don't expect me to give you a hug, Scarhead." The old nickname combined with the over the top expression of horror was enough to make Harry bark out a laugh. The others smiled, and the tension in the air diminished.
Harry caught the tea cups still sitting on the counter out of the corner of his eye and remembered what he had originally gone into the kitchen to do.
While Harry busied himself in the kitchen, his guardian worked with the Minister of Magic to get everything set up. Multiple containment charms were placed over a small area surrounding the Pensieve. They set up the object in the middle of the room, hovering over the coffee table so Harry didn't have to go far once he woke.
The potion's master raised a brow when he heard Kingsley mutter a temporary privacy charm around them.
"Severus, tell me. How damaged is Mr. Potter?" Snape pursed his lips and fought the initial urge to tell the Minister just where he could put that question. The surge of protectiveness was intense, but he bit down on his tongue until it dampened considerably. Harry was scared of people looking at him like he was just that…damaged, and Snape didn't see him that way at all.
"I would not say Harry is damaged, more…led astray. Menos did not just hurt him physically. The 'man' attacked him mentally and emotionally, making Harry view himself in a negative light. Harry thinks of himself as weak, a burden and ungrateful by asking for any help or the barest comfort. He was pushed and manipulated to believe that he is damaged and no one cares enough about him to fix him." Kingsley patiently waited for the other wizard to continue. After a few moments of Severus seemingly gathering his thoughts, he did so.
"I do not see him that way, and dare I say, neither do any of his friends. After a hell that was his childhood at the Dursleys, after being tormented by a mad man and then fighting and winning a war, that boy was not broken. Insecure in his ability to be loved? Roughened around the edges? Old in the soul? Yes to all three. But damaged? Never. Harry is honestly, one of the strongest people I've ever known."
When Snape looked up from where he had been absentmindedly fiddling with the pillows on the couch and odd knick knacks on the shelves, he turned to see the Minister smiling at him. It wasn't one that spread wide from ear to pierced ear, but it conveyed what it meant to.
Kingsley saw the pride and love Snape held for his ward, and honestly Shacklebolt had probably never heard the potion's master compliment anyone. It certainly was a day to be marked in the calendar.
The privacy charm pulsed and then fizzled out, and just in time too. Harry and the others came back from their excursion to the kitchen, and Severus was pleased to see that his boy was a bit more calm than when he had left. Harry gave him a crooked, apprehensive smile and Snape tried to give a reassuring one right back. He wasn't sure how well it translated but his ward seemed to relax ever so slightly.
Harry took a deep breath and rolled his wand in his hand. No one moved or spoke and Harry was getting more anxious by the second.
"Well, I guess we can…go ahead?" Severus gave his boy a tight nod and motioned Harry forward towards the couch. Once Harry was seated, he couldn't stop the fear from voicing itself.
"You know it'd be just my luck that Menos has actually been hanging around this past hour or so and knows what we plan to do. Are we sure this will work? What if he doesn't show?" The wide-eyed look Harry gave his guardian tacked on What if he does show? Snape took Harry's hands in his own.
"Either way, I'll be right here, and everyone else will be in the room." Though Harry's face said the young man was comforted by the words, the shaking in the boy's hands wasn't giving Severus much confidence. Harry was understandably scared of someone who had shown their power and willingness to hurt him in a little over a month. Menos had broken Harry down little by little before dealing the final blow to the boy's fragile self worth and confidence.
However, Harry was his mother's son, and after years of seeing the boy's strength, Severus knew Harry could do it. The potion's master tried to convey all of that through his eyes and small gestures of comfort.
"Menos hasn't been here. Albus would have told us." Luna indicated to Harry's owl, who hooted with a cocky pride and puffed up his chest. It was rather silly and obnoxious for the bird, but perhaps Albus was trying to reassure his master as well.
Finally, Harry nodded and laid back on the couch. He was as stiff as a board, with his arms laying flat on either side of himself. His knuckles were white with the grip he had on his wand. Harry met Severus's eyes as the man got behind the arm of the couch and laid a hand on either side of Harry's head.
"I'll need you to think of something to use as…bait if you will. Then the dream should build off of that focal point and attract Menos. I'll be there to help every step of the way." Lily's son gave a tight nod to his guardian and took a deep breath. The older wizard's fingers brushed lightly over Harry's cheeks, and Harry felt the familiar (yet uncomfortable) sensation of Snape poking at his mind.
Then everything went dark.
Once again, Harry found himself in his cupboard. However, this time, it was very different, for he was not alone in his cupboard. Though he couldn't see who it was, he knew without a shadow of a doubt, that his guardian was in there with him. It was proven a moment later when the man sneezed.
"Gesundheit," Harry muttered. He had many emotions flying through him that he was trying to tamp down. It was one thing for Severus to know that Harry lived in a cupboard for eleven years, it was another thing entirely for the man to be in the cupboard with him. It was cramped to say the least.
"Is this how your last dream started, Harry?" Harry remembered there was no point in nodding in the pitch black and forced himself to answer.
"This is how most of my nightmares start, Sir, but yes. This is how the last one began. I was stuck in here and then I heard-" The young man was cut off by a piercing cry. It made their hearts clench and Harry's blood run cold. It was ten times worse than in the last dream. The scream was of pain and fear and desperation. It was also undoubtedly Harry's.
Unlike before, Harry wasn't as quick to open the cupboard door. He really didn't want to see what else Menos had done to him, but at the same time he felt he had to know. While Menos had returned all of his memories to him, it was another thing entirely to see it from a third person perspective…where you could see everything. If he stayed in his little safe space then it wasn't real.
Harry felt Severus's hand on his shoulder and found the strength to open the door. The light in the hallway blinded them momentarily, but they were quick to exit the cupboard. Snape hadn't taken his hand off of Harry, and the boy was grateful for it. Harry pulled his wand out of his pocket just before they heard another scream.
The young wizard jolted before steeling himself to walk up the stairs. He knew what would be waiting for him. It was only when they were halfway up that he realized…Severus would be seeing it to. Harry whirled around so fast, he nearly knocked them both down the stairs.
"Harry, what-"
"You can't look! Please! I don't want you to see." Harry felt the shame and self-disgust welling back up inside of him, and ignored the tears that rolled down his cheeks. It was like that moment, it clicked for Snape what was going on in the room up the stairs. The potion's master visibly paled and took a deep breath.
"Harry…I told you I wouldn't leave you alone. Please trust me when I say, it will never make me think any less of you. You are the strongest, bravest young man I know. Nothing can change that." His ward still didn't look convinced, but finally he nodded. Snape didn't smile at his boy, but he did brush Harry's tears away.
With another deep breath, Harry turned and continued up the stairs. The hallway at the top seemed unending, probably an element of the dream scape. Harry's room, the door distinctive with its twenty locks, was halfway down. The door itself appeared to grow larger the closer they got, until they arrived and it loomed tall.
The screams had died down to moans and the occasional whimper, but they didn't stop. They were near continuous, and Harry's hand shook as it reached for the door knob. Before he opened it, however, Severus made him pause.
"Harry, perhaps it is best that I stay out of sight, until you need me. I'll just stay out in the hallway, lest Menos see me and run." Harry's eyes widened in fear at the thought of Snape not being at his side for this, after all his promises that Harry wouldn't be alone! Desperate he racked his brain for a solution…and found one.
"No! I-I can manipulate my mind some here. I made an exit appear once. If I concentrate enough, I can make it so he can't see you until it's too late." Harry threw his arms around his guardian. "Please…" he whispered into Severus's chest, "You said I wouldn't be alone." Snape's arms came around his boy, and he found that he couldn't do it. He couldn't stay out in the hall like a coward while his boy, his son went in the room to face his demons.
"Very well. But do not continue doing so once we start the Occluding. You will need all of your concentration and effort for that." Harry nodded vigorously, before stepping back and concentrating.
Satisfied that his guardian could only be seen by himself, Harry turned back to the door once more. He opened it and stepped in.
The bare bulb hanging from the ceiling was swinging ominously, though no breeze moved it. The window that, in real life, only had bars on the outside, was now completely boarded up, blocking out any additional light. Harry finally forced himself to look at the opposite end of the room.
He gasped and stepped back in horror.
The end is nye! And so is Menos! *BUM BUM BUUUUUM!*
Please Review :)