Chapter 5: Mirror Images

Parallel World

Known Harry

Harry expected to see Snape's leering face soon after slamming the door. Running off, Potter? Found a good place to hide?

But the minutes stretched out, and the door stayed shut. He stared at the objects still scattered about the room. An absolute mess. Straightening up as best he could, he put the books back on the shelves, and picked up the scattered papers. But he couldn't fix everything that was broken. He gave up and dumped himself on the bed.

A photo of his mum was on the nightstand. She sat in one of the spectator towers at the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch, waving a Gryffindor banner and grinning. He'd already memorized her face from his photo album: his mum and dad on their wedding day, holding hands. His mum and dad on a park bench, eating ice creams. He'd made up a story for each of the pictures. What his parents might have said before the photo was taken. Where they went afterward.

But this photo was new. Different angle, different light. A little more crinkle around her eyes. He imagined being there, holding the camera, listening to whatever funny story she was telling. His mum and...

And Snape. There he was, sitting next to her. Harry put the picture back and pulled off his glasses, rubbing at his eyes.

His hunger pangs grew, but he didn't move from the bed. He kept turning over the morning, trying to think of something he could have said. What he should have said, to keep her smile from disappearing.

He heard the door swing open. A dark figure approached as he fumbled for his glasses. Once he had them on, he didn't bother looking up. "I want to talk to her. Explain."

"You'll have many opportunities to explain your existence to her, if you wish. But you should not expect a better reaction."

"I don't want her to look at me like I'm a stranger." He'd seen that flash of distrust in her eyes this morning. And though he didn't want to admit it, there had been a flicker of unfamiliarity the night before, when she'd first seen him. It was like she knew he wasn't supposed to be there.

Snape was silent. He turned away, tracing the photographs along the wall. "That can't be helped."

"But if I tell her—"

"Enough." Tension ran through Snape's voice. He used his wand to nudge the door closed. "There is something you need to know about your mother."

But as soon as the door shut, it snapped open again. His mum poked her head in. "There you are. How can you be in here when there's toast and jam to be eaten?" She glanced over at the bed, and Harry saw that flicker of unfamiliarity again. But she smiled faintly. "Last one eats the rotten eggs."

He leapt from the bed. Now that he was facing her, all his planned words disappeared. He looked down. "I'm your son, too." That didn't sound right. Too stiff. Like words recited to a photograph.

Her gaze clouded. "Of course you are...What do you mean, 'too'?"

Snape stared hard at Harry. "He means that he's not the son you raised." And he explained, again, everything about Harry that he'd just told her that morning. Like a rewound tape, the whole scene played out again. His mum's cheerfulness withering away, like it was all new to her.

Coldness crept into Harry's guts. What's wrong, Mum? What's happened? But his throat dried up and he couldn't get the words out.

She was alive. He'd just gotten used to the idea. That somehow, protecting him hadn't gotten her killed. So she had to be all right. But he couldn't deny the sinking feeling inside his chest. Something was wrong with her.

Snape finished his repeated explanation, but there was no confusion in his face. All reassurance and smooth lines. He'd been expecting this.

"What did you do to her?" Harry asked. "Did you make her forget?"

"No, Harry…" His mum faltered a bit on his name. Her breaths were strained, just like when she first realized this other Harry had disappeared. She shook her head and focused on him. "This is an old curse. From the attack."

"From the Dark Lord," Snape said.

A chill ran down Harry's spine. When Voldemort came to kill me, and my mum stepped in front of him. He shook his head. "But he attacked my dad. You survived. You're okay."

"Your dad…?" His mum turned to Snape.

"No, not him." Harry's voice rose. "Dad. James Potter."

"Do not speak of that man," Snape said, his eyes flashing.

A shadow passed over his mum's face. Snape leaned toward her and whispered in her ear. His mum frowned, as though trying to remember a long-forgotten detail.

Harry's stomach twisted. "You must remember him."

"But Severus—"

"—is not my dad! How could you forget?" He caught a flash of movement in one of the photos on the wall. He rushed over to them. "There must be one of him." But search as he might, he couldn't find any. "What about me, Mum? Everyone's always telling me I look like him."

She ran a hand across her forehead. "I can't…"

He felt like he was losing his mind. "James—" But his tongue turned thick and numb, and he couldn't finish.

Snape had raised his wand. "I told you not to speak of him."

His mum shook her head in jerky movements. "The curse." She knotted her fingers into her hair. "Sometimes I come so close to remembering. Bits and pieces. A face." With a sharp intake of breath, her eyes widened. "James."

She cried out, clutching her head with both hands. Her whole body jerked, and she fell to her knees. She tore at herself, ripping the sleeve of her shirt.

Harry rushed forward, but Snape was already kneeling beside her, chanting gently. He pressed his wand to her temple and drew out a gossamer thread that twitched fitfully in the air. Pulling out a vial, he sealed the strand inside it.

His mum slumped, all tension gone. Blinking, she stared at herself, still kneeling on the floor. She gave a sour laugh, touching her torn sleeve. "Happened again, has it?"

Harry wanted to scream, to fire off a spell that would freeze everything, let him breathe. "What's happened?"

Snape only looked at her and nodded. He pulled her close and kissed her forehead.

All the painful tightness inside Harry transformed into a white-hot flame. He shoved Snape backwards, away from his mum. "You've done something to her. You've hurt her."

Snape stared at him, his mouth parted. His eyes narrowed and he straightened, advancing. "I've done something? You're the one who can't hold your gaup, can't see that what you're saying-"

"I only asked about my d—"

"Don't you dare." Snape grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him so hard that Harry's teeth rattled.

His mum pushed between them and wrenched them apart. "Stop it, the both of you!" She gave Snape a reproachful look. "Severus."

Snape stepped away and grimaced.

His mum sighed, and turned toward Harry. But when she looked at him, he saw it again. That bewildered question flashing in her eyes. Who are you?

It was all too much. He couldn't breathe in this room, couldn't think in this damp dungeon. He had to get out.

He broke away from her and ran into the parlor. Slamming into the warded door, he shouted Alohomora and every other unlocking spell that came to mind.

The door sprang open. He fell into the corridor, gasping.

Snape stepped out of the doorway, looming over him. "So determined to leave? Be off with you, then."

Harry scrambled to his feet. "You did something to her head. I saw it. I'm going to Dumbledore."

A group of Slytherin students rounded the corner and stopped, staring at them.

Snape let out a short breath and strode forward. He seized Harry's arm and pulled him into the empty Potions classroom.

Harry wrung himself from the man's grip, stumbling over a chair. He took a deep breath, trying to sort through all his dizzying thoughts.

Snape closed the door and cast a privacy spell. He didn't attempt to get any closer to Harry. "The headmaster is aware of her condition."

"Then why isn't he doing anything? She was in pain. She couldn't remember—"

"There's nothing he can do. The curse is designed to cause deliberate and irreversible damage. When she was cursed-"

"How? When? Did you—"

"—by the Dark Lord. How many times must I say it? Are you even capable of listening?"

Harry swallowed. "When he attacked…he cursed her? After he killed my dad?"

"Yes." Snape rubbed at a line between his brows.

"But I saw you take something out of her head. That strand—"

"I removed a memory." Snape dropped into one of the chairs. "Of you uttering that name. Of another memory that surfaced. Of your dad." He folded his arms tightly around his chest. "I thought I'd gotten all the remnants. But minds are not such simple things." He looked around the room, gaze roving across the orderly stacks of cauldrons. "The curse is called Rapio Memoria. It incorporates Legilimens—the extracting of memories from another's mind—with Obliviate. It destroys all memories related to one place, or one person."

Harry remembered Snape's increasingly insistent demands. Do not speak of that man. "Like my dad?"

"He was the focus of the attack. The merest mention of him can reactivate the curse. If she tries to create new memories of him, or some deeply buried memory resurfaces... it's like shrapnel inside her head. Tearing through her mind until I remove it."

Harry had just wanted to talk to her about his dad. But the whole time, he'd been hurting her. All because Voldemort had wanted to kill him. He felt sick.

"It took all my skill in Potions and Legilimency to repair her remaining memories. She still lost her last year at Hogwarts. And several years afterwards." A muscle in his jaw jumped. "As for her ability to create new long-term memories..."

That look of puzzlement on his mum's face. He would always be a bit of a stranger to her. It was like his photo album. He could look at his family, but he couldn't be a part of it. Voldemort had made sure of that. "Why? Why did he do it?"

Snape's hands moved restlessly across the desk. "The Dark Lord needs no reason to make those around him suffer."

"Wait." It was too easy, too simple. He'd believed Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon when they told him his parents died in a car accident. He'd believed the mirror of Erised, when he'd been spellbound by its image. But they'd all been lying. And Snape was the biggest liar of them all. There was something wrong with his story, something off. "Why would Voldemort—"

"The Dark Lord," Snape hissed.

"Why would Voldemort," repeated Harry firmly, "care if my mum remembered my dad?"

Snape's voice wavered. "He would not. She was merely a means for him to experiment in a new dark art."

"Then why rip him from her memories? Why not Aunt Petunia or the color blue or the works of Shakespeare? Why pick him?"

Twisting shadows deepened in Snape's face. "I believe he considered it a gift. A token for the loyal servant who discovered a powerful new spell for him."

Loyal servant. Rumors he'd heard about Snape's past clicked into place. Dark Arts. Death Eater. "You did this. You gave him the spell that destroyed her mind."

Snape slammed his fist into the desk. "I didn't know how he would use it!"

All this devoted husband and father talk, but he was still the Snape that Harry remembered. The one who yearned to teach the Dark Arts. Who took advantage of any weakness. Who would love nothing more than to erase Harry and his father. "You didn't know? It sounds like it was your idea. Christmas came early for you."

Snape stood, his chair clattering to the floor. "You think I would ever wish for this? That I would want her to suffer?"

Harry advanced on him. "This is revenge. Doesn't matter that my dad was killed, you still want him to pay. You don't love her. You've torn up my family. You've stolen my family!"

The air blew out of him as he was thrown against the dungeon wall. He hadn't even seen Snape draw his wand. He struggled, but he was held fast to the wall, an invisible weight pressing against him.

Snape grabbed him by the collar. "You vile hobgoblin. You're the one who replaced my son."

Harry yanked at the hand holding him, but it was like steel.

Snape was inches away, his breath clammy, his lips pulled back. "You think you have some right to judge me? You have no idea what a family is."

And then Harry was free, tumbling. His breath whooshed back as he landed with a skid on the floor. The classroom door swung open.

Snape stood in the shadows, his back to Harry. "Get out."

Harry stumbled to his feet and ran, heart banging in his chest. He dove down the corridors, getting turned around. The passages got deeper and darker, until he thudded into a dead end. He pounded his fist into the wall, but he couldn't even chip the stones.

He did know what a family was. He'd seen how the Dursleys were with each other. He'd seen Ron's family. And more than that, he knew. He didn't need to have a family to know what it should feel like. He knew that he would never create a curse like that, never hurt them.

He straightened, dragging in the damp air until his breath slowed. Student voices echoed from somewhere up ahead. Listening carefully, he began retracing his steps. He'd go to Dumbledore, tell him what was going on. He had to find a way to keep his mum safe, to keep her away from Snape. He wasn't going to let anything happen to her. Not this time.