Chapter 27

Truth and other catastrophes:

Harry could barely think. He had the impression that all control over the situation had been ripped from him and the whole thing had an air of surrealism to it. With a hanging jaw he stared at the man whom he had watched die. The man whose corpse he had touched and who he had buried. The man who should be dead but now stood there with a dark scowl and looking unfeasibly alive.

Harry wanted to say something but he couldn't gather enough strength to breathe or even move his jaw.

"Sirius, couldn't you have waited for a while longer?" Dumbledore asked, reproachfully.

The living man that looked so much like Sirius snorted angrily. "We should have told him a long time ago, Albus, then our plan might have worked out and all the work would not be for nothing now."

It wasn't only the looks, but also the voice. Sirius' voice. Harry felt a weak, warm feeling of hope blossom somewhere in his chest and no matter how much his brain denied it, his heart had completely other plans.

"Sirius?" The yaw was functioning again, as was his breathing, but his voice betrayed his fear that this was all just a dream and that he would be waking up any time now.

Dumbledore turned back to him, like Harry vaguely noticed from the corner of his eye, but his attention stayed on the other man.on Sirius.

"Harry. I am so sorry. I know how much you have suffered in the last few months and I know that I should have told you sooner that Sirius isn't really dead, but there was too much at stake. I could not risk it. Please try to understand."

"Sirius...is alive?" Harry echoed dully. He wasn't capable of saying more until the rest of Dumbledore's words registered. In slow motion, he looked up at the man who he had trusted more than anyone else in the world. "You knew about that all and still let me believe...?"

His voice broke down as a gigantic wave of disappointment, betrayal and bitterness washed over him. Dumbledore had lied to him, had made him believe that Sirius was dead. The old wizard had willingly hurt him. Had misused all his affection and trust and had put him through his own personal hell.

Harry's next action was not in the least planned and resulted only because of his feelings. Fury, hatred and disappointment made him lift his arm and smash his balled fist with an angry yell towards Dumbledore's face. The old wizard was hit on his right cheek, his head snapping to the side on the impact and he stumbled several feet backwards before he lost his equilibrium and landed ungracefully on his backside.

"Harry!" Lupin and Sirius yelled like one and through a curtain of tears, which suddenly blurred Harry's sight, he saw a dark figure rushing towards him. Strong arms embraced him from behind, pinning his arms effectively to his side.

"You have lied to me? You have... You..." Harry's voice broke down again. He still felt the betrayal deep in his heart, but something else started to bloom there, suffocating the other feeling more and more. Something that was hot and burning, that he couldn't identify and which let a lump grow in his throat and drove tears to his eyes.

"It's alright, Harry. Calm down," he heard Sirius' low words behind his ear, as his godfather slightly loosened his hold on him.

Sirius held him. His godfather was alive. He wasn't dead. And suddenly that new feeling made sense and Harry spun around and threw his arms around Sirius with the tears finally breaking loose and flowing freely down his cheek. He sobbed violently, the hot feeling inside of him at the same time oppressing and relieving.

Sirius was alive.

The animagus pulled Harry closer and hugged him tightly, stroking soothingly but also a bit helpless his back. "It's okay, Harry."

"You're alive. You're alive. Oh God, you're not dead," Harry breathed into Sirius' shoulder. At the moment he didn't care if was a sixteen-year-old teenager who was crying like a little kid; he hardly noticed how his glasses skidded at an odd angle, as he buried his face in his godfather's robes. All he knew and cared about was that the person that he loved like a parent had been given back to him.

It took another few minutes until he calmed down sufficiently for the tears to cease flowing, even though some silent sobs still shook his body.

He peeled himself off Sirius, arranged his glasses and regarded his godfather for a long time. "How is this possible? I saw you die."

Somebody cleared his throat behind him and Harry turned around to see Dumbledore who was helped to his feet by Lupin, rubbing a reddened right cheek with his hand, while he rotated his yaw to make sure, nothing was broken. Harry felt a strange mixture of anger and guilt.

"I believe that I deserved this," Dumbledore commented, and a slight twinkle even found its way into his eyes, even if it looked a bit dulled. "Take a seat, Harry. I will explain everything to you."

Sirius steered him to a wooden chair, facing Dumbledore's desk. Harry sat down but he was grateful for the hand that Sirius left unrelenting on his shoulder. Lupin at his side, Dumbledore sat down behind his desk, pressing his fingertips together, while he braced his elbows upon the surface of the bureau, regarding Harry intently.

"It all started shortly after you left at the end of your fourth year, Harry," he finally begun.

"You certainly remember that the situation had not been easy. The ministry denied Voldemort's return and those willing to fight him were in fewer numbers than the death eaters. Still, we had plans. Hagrid was supposed to go talk to the giants and we wanted to revive the old order of which I told you about before your vacation. We had many plans, even if we knew how slim our chances and how risky their carrying out was. But then, two days after your departure, we had a visitor."

He hesitated a moment then continued. "I will not tell you all the details, but someone came to us from the future. One year of the future, to be exact. That person warned us of certain. things that would happen. We should prevent this. Our visitor gave us an alternative. A recipe for a poison, which would rip all magical powers from its victim and which was strong enough even for Voldemort. The drawback however, is that it's preparation would take several months and that the substance would have to be brought into contact with the victim over the span of several weeks.

And there was our problem. Severus was confident that he could brew the poison, but how could we apply it? To send Severus plainly back to Voldemort would be difficult and risky and Voldemort would hardly let him come close again. He's not that stupid.

So we started to form a plan. We had to make it look that professor Snape was turning back to Voldemort's side completely. We faked the murder and made Severus look as if he had turned against me."

"But why didn't you fill me in? Why that Farce?" Harry interrupted.

Dumbledore waited patiently and the hand on his shoulder squeezed in a calming manner.

"You see, Harry. We hade to make sure that everything worked out. That could only happen if the right rumours were spread. When you and young Mister Weasley overheard the fight between Severus and Sirius, the first stage was set into motion. We needed someone from the students to heat the rumours and since you're involved more than anybody else with Sirius, you were the only chance. Everything had to look real and so we couldn't inform you. Your already existing dislike for professor Snape had to be enforced and you had to talk against him in your house, so that the rumour would finally spread and reach the Slytherins, where certainly one of the death eater's children would report the events to his or her parents. And after the supposed murder the heat had to be stirred even more. There couldn't be any doubt on Severus' disposition. He himself did everything to strengthen that image by acting as if he'd grown tired of teaching and the school and he acted impossibly towards both students and staff."

A low, pained chuckle escaped the headmaster. "I did have the impression, however that he enjoyed this part a bit too much."

Harry was speechless for a moment. It wad all been planned out? "But how?" he asked. "How could you know that Ron and I were going to be in the dungeons that night?"

Dumbledore smiled wearily, and his gaze flickered shortly up to Sirius, before he looked back at Harry. "Do you really think that the marauders were the first ones to come up with the idea of a map?"

He leaned back a bit and opened a drawer of his desk, from where he produced an old, silvery hand mirror and a black wand. He laid the wand down and held the mirror up for Harry to see it clearly.

"I have to admit that the map is by far more accomplished than what I have created all those years ago. That mirror shows me exactly where a person in Hogwarts can be found. But only one at a time and only I can activate it." He put the mirror down again. "Severus has given you all particularly large amounts of homework, so that you would, if they were difficult enough, surely push them up until the latest moment possible, as he suspected you to do so often. When you didn't show up at dinner then, that theory seemed to verify itself. Dobby once told me that you and your friends had the tendency to show up in the kitchen at night, whenever you missed dinner for some reason."

Harry lowered his head guiltily.

"Severus and Sirius have waited in the room, hoping that it were like that this evening too and when I gave them the sign, they started the fight. Everything worked perfectly up until the 'murder'. The rumours were circulating and the students wary of Severus."

"But how could Snape have faked the murder without endangering Sirius?"

The headmaster lifted the wand. "This wand looks exactly like Severus', yet it is nothing more than a harmless piece of wood with no ability to bundle any magic whatsoever. All that it could do, after I hexed it, was to produce a harmless green streak of light, with a little magic from my side at the right moment. The death curse needs strong magic and if it's not meant, or the means to bundle that magic are missing, then the curse will not work. Sirius ingested a strong sedative right before the spectacle, which would rend him unconscious for several hours, making him appear dead to all who saw him. Poppy knew of the plan and Sirius woke the following day without any harm to himself. All went according to plan, apart the fact that I miscalculated the severity with which it would hit you." Dumbledore's face took on a pained, regretting look. "When you broke down in my office, it had taken all my self-control to not tell you everything right away, but it was not in my right to jeopardize the mission. Not after we had been given such good chances and after others had been willing to risk everything to make it work."

Harry thought to see some tears in Dumbledore's eyes at those words, but the old wizard took a deep breath and continued. "As I said, nobody counted on your violent reaction, nor that you would go see professor Snape to threaten him. Severus had told me afterwards that he had been forced to improvise, since he found himself at the business end of your wand, which you intended to use too. He had to divide your attention and had therefore acted like you wouldn't ever expect of him."

"He acted insane," Harry murmured, as he remembered.

"Exactly," Sirius confirmed, behind him with a growl. "And then the slytherinish snake taunted you so long, until you would attack him with your bare hands."

"But how could he be certain that that would work? I could have killed or seriously hurt him."

Sirius made a dismissing sound. "Don't underestimate the Slytherin's slipperiness. They have a talent to manoeuvre themselves out of tricky situations. They are masters of deceit and manipulation, if they want to. Especially Snape. He has a great talent for it, or he wouldn't have survived for so long."

"Severus knew exactly," Dumbledore continued, "that you acted out of emotion and that you were no cold-blooded killer. It was originally not part of the plan, but it looks like Severus' keeping up the insane-act has helped us. Especially before, during and after his arrest. I didn't understand at first until Minerva mentioned that the ministry would not submit an insane man to the 'kiss'. Only then did I understand that Snape was using this as a weapon to steer the trial in the right direction and to reason his changing loyalties to Voldemort."

Harry was confused. "But how could you be sure that he wouldn't be getting the kiss? You said so yourself; it was a great risk and you couldn't be certain that your influence would be enough. Besides, what's the use of him being in Azkaban? He wouldn't come close to Voldemort, while rotting in prison, that's for sure. This whole thing was a very badly thought through plan, if you ask me."

"The thing with the kiss was a risk indeed, and when I realised that the whole trial was only held for show and that the verdict was long decided upon, I already saw everything lost. It was Severus' fast thinking and his unusual demeanour that prevented this, I presume."

Dumbledore now took a small piece of metal, only about the size of half a fingernail and held it up in the sunlight, which broke at the shiny surface and flashed through the room.

"Do you remember the injury on Severus' hand?"

Harry nodded.

"The injury had nothing to do with the attack of you on him, but was inflicted by Severus himself. They take all your personal things from you in Azkaban, even the clothes and because of this, he had made a small cut at the skin beneath his thumb, hiding this there." Again he lifted the small fragment to for emphasis.

"I've hexed it to be a portkey. Lupin was standing by a top exit. Would the verdict have been the kiss, despite my intervention, then I would, under the pretext of wanting to say a last goodbye, have tried to gain some time in which Remus would have run outside to signal to a hidden Sirius to activate the portkey. Severus would disappear and be safe from the Dementors. There still was a high risk, of course, if I didn't manage to delay the carrying out of the sentence but we could lessen the danger by this precaution."

"But even if that'll worked, then he would be on the run from the ministry with Sirius," Harry interrupted. He had some difficulties to believe that Snape would run such a risk.

"Please don't remind me of this fabulous prospect," Sirius growled behind him.

Dumbledore didn't pay any attention to that comment. "Severus had pressed the portkey out of his wound while the jurors were discussing the sentence and as they condemned him to livelong prison, he let it fall to the floor for me to retrieve it, so nobody may by accident find it later on his person. Then the real tricky part of the operation began. I knew that Voldemort wanted professor Snape. To take revenge and to get information. Severus did work close to me for years after all and I strongly suppose that Voldemort has heard about me vouching for him, all those years ago, telling the court that he spied for me.

Regardless, I couldn't be certain. If he broke him out, everything would be decided. If Severus managed to get back into Voldemort's good graces, we had a good chance to succeed. If not then that were the end of our plan and of the life of one Severus Snape."

Again that sad look and a deep sigh. "It was all or nothing and like you've seen in your vision, he had done it and played Voldemort into taking him back. And this is where I made a big mistake. I should have told you everything back then, but I wanted to hold it away from you until as long as possible."

Harry didn't know what to think. The way Dumbledore laid everything out before him, all suddenly started to make terrible sense. Well, almost everything. "But what about the burial, headmaster? And the ministry men who did the examination on Sirius? The hexes and the autopsy?"

Dumbledore sighed once more. "I did not expect them, I admit and when they came I had to get rid of them somehow. I have done something, which I would never do under normal circumstances. I have altered their memory so that they were convinced to have done the examination, even though they never even saw Sirius. Fortunately, later on their appearance had even helped us, when you wanted to look into the empty coffin."

Harry started to feel bad again but he didn't want to submit to his mistakes just like that and became angry again. How could they dare to play with him? If all what they said was the truth, then that would mean. "What about the McGregors? Snape has killed them in cold blood, even though he could have saved them!"

Dumbledore looked pained again, but it was Sirius who crouched down in front of him, fixing him severely. "You have to understand one thing, Harry. The recipe for the poison was the chance of a lifetime to break Voldemort's power once and for all. Lots of lives would be saved in the long run. Snape's story had to hold tight. Everybody who was involved in the plan, meaning Dumbledore, Poppy, Remus, Snape and I have taken the oath to do everything what's necessary to make the plan work out. The visitor from the future told us that..."

Sirius threw a look over his shoulder at Dumbledore, who only shook his head. Sirius sighed and turned back to Harry. "The visitor told us that someone would die and that we had to prevent that if any possible. We had to do all we could to weaken Voldemort, so he could finally be vanquished."

"We have not given in into illusions," Dumbledore continued. "We knew that Voldemort would want such proves of loyalty from Severus, as much as Severus knew that too. Still he was willing to do what would need more courage than to sacrifice his own life. Harry, Severus was ready to put all personal feelings aside and sacrifice all and everything for this mission, no matter how much he dreaded that. To give all the others the chance to live peacefully, Muggles alike wizards."

Sirius spoke again and for one time there was no contempt or insult in his voice or eyes as he spoke of Snape. "Snape was the only one among us who was capable of doing such a thing; killing people despite the fact that he didn't want to. The only one who was cold enough to put any personal feeling back and do whatever had to be done. This is something every death eater learns quite fast under you-know-who."

Now, Harry felt really bad. It had all been planned in a wicked scheme to vanquish Voldemort and he had unwillingly destroyed that plan.

"Why didn't you tell me anything? Why?"

Harry didn't know what to feel anymore. Relief that Sirius was alive, disappointment about Dumbledore and Lupin who had not said anything or fury at Snape, because of whom he had made himself a murderer?

He concentrated foremost on that fury. Because if he couldn't be furious about Snape, then all which stayed was the guilt to be responsible for his death. Snape had been willing to risk everything. His freedom, his pride and even his life. Especially his life, a life that he really had lost in the end.

Because of him.

Harry buried his head in his hands. "Oh God. I've destroyed everything. I've killed a person."

He felt both of Sirius' hands grab the sides of his face as his godfather forced him to look at him. "Now you listen very good, Harold James Potter. It was not your fault. Not in the least."

He let go of Harry again, who felt the old lump in his throat, which seemed to have taken residence there of the late, form again. Did Sirius really think that he would believe that? It had been his idea to send the letter. He had sent the owl. It was because of him, if Voldemort was still as powerful as before, their only chance forfeit and it was because of him, that a man who had risked everything had died.

Dumbledore seemed to read his thoughts, because he spoke with a deep, urgent voice: "If someone is to blame for Severus' death besides Voldemort himself, then it would probably be me, for I didn't inform you of the plan. Besides, Severus knew what he risked. Do you know what he asked as repayment for taking that risk?"

Harry shook his head weakly.

"He asked us to kill him, before the dementors had a chance to suck out his soul. He knew the risk and he was prepared for it. To atone for his sins, to finally get rid of his self-loathing and guilt he was ready to do it even if this outcome was very probable from the beginning. He has come farther than we all really thought he would. Farther than he himself would have thought. Severus has redeemed himself at last and for the first time in his life he now probably is at peace."
T.B.C.

I was halfway through with this chapter when Ootp was released, so when I read the end of that, I didn't know if I should laugh or cry because there were some similarities. But at that point I couldn't change the plot anymore, because I laid all the clues already. What I did, though, was to adapt some things to what we learned there. I already knew that there was a person who would die, but I have counted rather on Hermione or Hagrid. I'd never thought she'd off Sirius, but it gave me an even better opportunity to insert the fact here. (Already I changed some minor details in the translation, so it kind of fits, like Arabella, who, in the Original was a full teacher and Lupin was only Hagrid's assistant, or the Weasleytwins who hadn't opened the shop just yet in the former version). I won't change all of it. Some false details will remain.

I hope I won't get any flamer screaming 'COPYCAT' at me, because I swear, it's just coincidence. From now on there won't be much in common with JKR's plot anyway. The style too will change and I'll vary from different POV's. Next one being.?

Betaed by slytherin's silver snake