The Best Revenge

Chapter 12

The next few days were hectic. To his bemusement, Severus Snape found himself at a muggle shopping mall, an eager young boy by his side. He had never shopped at an indoor mall, and found it rather interesting. Were the wizarding world larger, it was an idea that could be adopted: a large derelict factory, for example, could house dozens of shops and businesses, while maintaining complete security. They strolled, joining the throngs of muggles, and Snape marveled at the amounts of-well-stuff-the muggle world produced. The wizarding world was a world of artisans, not of mass production. Witches and wizards tended to create one-of-a-kind items. Even brooms were built individually, even when they were made from a specific design. The production line was unknown here, and looking back at how his father's job at the mill had extinguished the man's spirit, Snape thought that it was for the best. Still, it was important to remember that gifted muggles had also produced works of remarkable value and beauty. He and Harry were both halfbloods, and should understand both the muggle and wizarding worlds.

-Even if that understanding had to be extended to the art of purchasing just the right trainers for a growing boy. He and Harry made a list before they left Privet Drive: a careful list detailing Harry's needs at home and school. The trainers might have been first on the list, but they were by no means all the boy required. Snape had thought he would want some jeans and T-shirts, but an examination of the contents of Harry's imposing chest of drawers revealed other deficiencies.

When he had pulled the third drawer open, Harry jumped up, crying, "Don't look at those, Professor!"

But Snape had already seen the pile of dingy, ragged grey underpants. He paused, fighting the impulse to caper about the room, shrieking, "Karma! Karma!" which would have convinced the boy that he had gone mad. He took a deep breath, and hoped it was true that the dead watched the living. James Potter had once viciously humiliated Snape for the same sort of pitiful undergarments. If James Potter were watching now, Snape reckoned that any revenge he owed for that prank was paid in full.

He did not shriek, or caper, or laugh at the boy. Instead, he pulled out the dismal objects- obviously Dudley's-and sneered at them. "Unless you have some sort of sentimental attachment to these cleaning rags, I suggest that we get rid of them at once!"

He threw the first pair of grey underpants up into the air and fired an "Incendio!" at it. It burst into flame and dissolved into fine grey ash. Harry gaped with shock, and then roared with laughter. He snatched out handfuls of limp grey cloth and tossed them like clay pigeons. Snape blasted them obligingly. After a while Harry's laughs changed to coughs, and he opened his window to let out the smoke.

So "underwear" was inscribed just below "trainers" on the shopping list. And then, "socks." Furthermore, Harry had no pyjamas or robe or slippers. Snape explained why he would want such things at Hogwarts. Carefully, frugally, they spent the bulk of Vernon's eighty pounds, and Harry had the makings of a decent wardrobe by the time they were done. Harry found his headphones, and they sorted through bins of tapes. Snape explained why Harry needed to listen to The Who and Pink Floyd.

In fact, Snape decided that he himself needed to get out into the muggle world more. He had lived in a decaying mill town as a boy, and had never had the money to experience the more attractive aspects of muggle life.

He would not have gone alone anyway. It had never occurred to him, not since he was of age and gainfully employed, to visit the places he had heard of when a boy himself at the local primary. With a young person's education to consider, however, he now thought it behooved him to escort Harry on a number of outings to broaden the child's knowledge of the world. He decided it would be beneficial it they sometimes took the train, so Harry could have a better grasp of location and distance. It would help the boy when he began learning to apparate himself. Of course, the fact that Snape rather enjoyed train travel made the idea additionally pleasant. Until they took the train into London for a day at the Tower of London and the British Museum, Harry had never gone anywhere by rail. Snape made him study the map of the Underground, and saw to it that Harry understood how to get about like a muggle if he had to. In a low voice, Snape supplemented the information posted with the relevant facts about the wizarding world.

Two days later they saw a production of Macbeth. The latter sparked a long conversation about how muggles perceived witches, and about prophecies and seers. Harry had read that Divination was taught at Hogwarts, and wondered how one learned to tell the future. Snape warned of the intrinsic dangers in such a pursuit.

"Macbeth didn't just let the prophecy come true," he pointed out. "He did everything he could to make it come true. Or at least the part he liked. And then all the things he didn't like came true because of the things he did to stop them."

"I-see," Harry said slowly. His thoughtful frown deepened.

It was a warm night, but Snape shivered all the same. "Prophecies are slippery things, Harry. Macbeth would have fared better had he never heard the prophecy. So would many another."

"But predicting the future is real, isnt it? I mean, they teach it at Hogwarts."

"After a fashion," Snape scoffed.

"If it can be taught," Harry pondered, "why can't all witches and wizards predict the future? Can you predict the future?"

"Certainly not. Teaching Divination is a complete waste of time. Either one has the talent or one does not. The talent can be trained, but not taught. Unless you manifest some inborn gift for the subject, I hope you will not fritter away your education. Anything else-even Muggle Studies-is a better choice."

"Muggle Studies," Harry chuckled to himself. Then he pointed out, "I could take the test for Muggle Studies, couldn't I? And get an extra O.W.L.?"

"I see no reason why you could not."

"But I'm definitely going to take Runes," Harry said with conviction. "Runes and something else. I haven't decided. I'm good at maths, so maybe I'd like Arithmancy. Or Care of Magical Creatures could be a lot of fun."

"You have two years to decide," Snape shrugged. He had taken CoMC himself, but that was because that course and Herbology were very useful in understanding potion ingredients. The boy might have the making of a true potioneer, like his mother, or he might not. Time would tell.

Snape had planned that before the end of August they would take a day trip to Salisbury, to see Stonehenge and the ruins of Roman Sarum. There would be another day trip out to Cornwall, a trip to be achieved partly by apparition. Snape wanted Harry to see Tintagel, with all its Arthurian associations, and the remains of Chun Castle, an Iron-Age hill fort-and to especially note at both sites the magical relics not mentioned in muggle scholarship. Harry had expressed a wish to go to a cinema and see Terminator 2. Harry had heard the whole first film from his cupboard and could fill Snape in on the background. Snape agreed, rather mystified. He had not seen a muggle film in years. To balance what he thought would be something very silly and clumsy-looking with some higher culture, Snape saw an advertisement for an outdoor concert, where they could listen to Beethoven and Elgar and Rimsky-Korsakov for free. Long ago, at muggle primary, an orchestra had visited the school and played Scheherazade. It would be a very agreeable to hear it again. He found a wizard-annotated edition of The Arabian Nights at Spinner's End, and lent it to Harry.

It pleased him-it pleased him acutely that Harry was so happy. The boy genuinely liked him, and valued his company. In his most cynical moments, back in his private quarters, Snape wondered if it was simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time. He had been the first to befriend the boy, the one to tell him of his heritage, the adult who had listened and talked and given a neglected boy a few treats. Be as that may, he had made an impression on him, perhaps even a greater impression than he had made on Lily that day when he had shyly approached the little red-haired girl on the swing with the news that she was a witch. He had never made Lily happy in the same way that he made Harry happy.

Harry was certainly Lily's son, but there were great discrepancies in attitude and behavior. Lily had been a favored, beloved child: a remarkably pretty, appealing little girl, the sort of little girl the teachers adored. People would stop Mrs Evans in the street and tell her how beautiful her daughter was-and then ignore the plainer Petunia. He smiled wryly, remembering the times it had happened when he had been with them, and how strangers' eyes had slid away from him as if he were invisible. They only wanted to look at Lily. And she had loved the attention.

Not that she was outwardly arrogant or vain. Her self-esteem had such deep foundations that she did not need to make a display of it. David Evans had treated Lily with outrageous partiality-ironic, considering how little respect Lily actually had for him once she was a teenager. Virginia Evans, however, had been a very good mother-kind to Snape himself, he acknowledged gravely-and had done her best to instill nice manners and sensible habits in her daughters. He had not seen any real signs of favoritism in her treatment of Lily, at least until the shock of the Hogwarts letter. Even after that, he had noticed her paying attention to Petunia, praising her good grades in school, and seeing that she was treated fairly.

If only she had survived the accident, Snape thought wistfully. It would have saved Harry from a life a misery, and perhaps Petunia would have had a restraining influence in raising that Dudders of hers.

Such regrets were useless. Mrs Evans had not been able to prevent Petunia's marriage to Vernon Dursley, whom the older woman could not possibly have liked or approved of. Snape had always thought that Petunia was going to go to university. After seeming to accept that she would never be a witch, she had taken to sneering at Hogwarts and the wizarding world for its littleness and limited opportunities. She had talked about studying modern languages and working abroad. Well, so much for that. Of course, Lily, too, had once talked about seeking a potions apprenticeship in Italy. The summer they were thirteen, Snape and Lily had built castles in the air, planning how they would go to the Continent together and take the potions world by storm.

So much for that, too. Perhaps Lily would have done something with her talents later in life, but she had died with the promise of her N.E.W.T.s unfulfilled. And Petunia, too, was a wife and mother, with no career outside the home.

But still, if only Virginia Evans had lived... Of course, the events at Lily's wedding had been traumatic, but she, at least, would not have blamed her orphaned grandson. Snape had not been invited to the wedding, but Petunia's story, stripped of her personal prejudice and ignorant fear, explained some of the Dursleys' ingrained hostility. Potter had been a fool to make such a grand event of it, given the tensions of the time. He had been an even greater fool to invite so many guests-ranging from muggles to old-fashioned, close-minded purebloods -and to hold it in the traditional venue: a ritual clearing in the forest of the Potter family estate. The preliminaries had been bad enough: Potter's Best Man had been witty at the expense of Lily's family. It was possible, Snape supposed, that Black would not have understood that such tricks would have frightened and bewildered them. Worse still was the unpleasantness at the ceremony itself- those horrible old harpies referring to Lily as a mudblood, denouncing Potter as a blood-traitor as he made his vows. And at the end, the brawl-hexes flying-the uproar halted only by the raw power of Dumbledore himself...

Snape hated Potter, yes-but he hated to think of Lily-and Virginia Evans, too-being attacked like that. It helped Snape understand why the Potters had gone into hiding, instead of making more of a show of defiance. Lily was fearless for herself, but to see her defenseless mother and father and sister tormented...

Well, he now understood why Petunia had told Lily that she and her sort were not welcome at Petunia's wedding. He could understand why she would utterly reject the wizarding world. He could even, he supposed, understand her resentment of Harry. What he could never forgive, of course, was how she had chosen to act on that resentment. The harm that woman had done him...

Harry had some of his mother's charm-her beautiful eyes and smile, of course-but it was mixed with a terrible, painful uncertainty. He had had only that one year of parental love, before being left like an unwanted puppy on the Dursleys' doorstep. When Minerva told Snape that story, he gave her his candid opinion of people who abandoned a toddler-who could have awakened and wandered away-on a doorstep in early November at night with only a blanket. She had been angry, and then had blushed, and then had admitted, shame-faced, "Albus is always so persuasive. It seemed reasonable at the time, though I knew the Dursleys were not the best people..."

Snape had not planned on visiting the boy every day, but he ultimately decided that he should regularly check in with Harry just before bedtime. He could find out what the boy's day had been like, and what progress he had made with his books, and in turn tell him about the potions he was brewing. He could make certain that the boy went to bed at a decent hour, and that he hadn't taken any harm when out and about on the streets of Little Whinging. It was his duty, after all. Gradually they were also working their way through Dudley's clothing and leftover toys. Harry's bathroom needed some sort of ventilation, it appeared, and so Snape revisited Magical Home and Garden, and found a small Aerovacuator that could be spelled into the wall.

Saturday came, and with it Minerva, who spent most of her long visit coaching Harry as he learned to write with a quill.

"Hold it so that the nib is at a 45-degree angle, Mr Potter," she lectured. "Yes. Like that. Now try your letters. Do you see how much better they look?"

Snape went out to a muggle hardware store to find a bolt for the boy's easel. It might be possible to transfigure one, but it was tricky to transfigure an item that needed to meet certain industrial tolerances. It was quite beyond his skill. He could make something that looked and felt like a bolt, but that would not fit perfectly. Nor did he, unlike Minerva, have the rare, true Master's power to effect permanent Transfigurations. Besides, he did not want to bother Minerva with such a trifle while she was busy with a more important lesson. By the time he was back and had fixed the easel, it was time to be off, for today he and Minerva planned to apparate to Godric's Hollow to see if anything could be retrieved from the wreck of the Potters' last hiding place. Snape had wanted to go before he visited Diagon Alley with Harry again, just in case there were items already available that would be useful to the boy at school.

Albus would go with them. He had obtained leave from the Ministry to unseal the cottage cum shrine-easily enough since the house was originally his. As the rightful owner, it would be much simpler to bypass any residual wards or other protections remaining. And of course, it was he who could tell them if any of the items they found were Dumbledore heirlooms or Potter property.

Muffy brought Harry his lunch, and they bade the boy goodbye. Snape gathered that Harry liked Muffy to sit with him while he ate. It was unconventional, to be sure, but Harry enjoyed the company-

Perhaps it was time he met more witches and wizards.

Albus dawdled interminably over his lunch. Snape sensed that he found the prospect of the upcoming visit rather disagreeable. To be sure, it would be painful to see the site of Lily's last moments, but Snape had steeled himself to it. He should have done so long ago. The Potters were buried at Godric's Hollow, and it was time he paid his respects. Minerva, too, was not very cheerful about the errand.

But Albus' reluctance seemed to be particularly strong. Of course, he would be seeing the ruins of his own house. That could not be pleasant.

"Did you ever live there yourself?" he asked the old wizard.

"At the cottage in Godric's Hollow, do you mean?" Albus' voice was rather subdued. "Oh, yes, yes. From the time I was a young boy. Not our first family home, but the place I came home to from Hogwarts. There was a time when it was very dear to me. But things change, you know- When I suggested it to James and Lily, no one had lived there in decades." He chuckled, but it sounded hollow to Snape's ears. "James and Lily certainly had a great deal to do to make it livable again. But they loved it, after a time-the place where they hoped to raise their child in safety..."

The old man played with his pudding. Snape held in his impatience with an effort. Finally, it was Minerva who stood, and stared imperiously at the Headmaster until he roused himself from his reverie.

"Eager to be gone, Minerva my dear?"

"Well begun is half-done, Albus," she replied crisply. "And I must pay a return visit to one of our muggle-raised students. Her mother is being very difficult. I must be at her door when she returns from work at five o'clock."

The old man nodded absently, and rose with a deep sigh.

They apparated to a shielded spot near the heart of Godric's Hollow. Snape looked about him with interest. It was a country village, he supposed, like scores of others. Very English, rather quaint, but not irritatingly so. Godric's Hollow, he knew, was one of those oddities of the wizarding world: a village that was home to both wizards and muggles. That the muggles often had to be obliviated or confounded made a mockery of the Statute of Secrecy in his opinion. From what he could gather, the wizards and witches in places like Godric's Hollow and Tinworth and Upper Flagley regularly indulged in behavior that would be a criminal offense elsewhere. However, hundreds of years of precedents and customs gave them unusual licence. No one took notice of the three of them or of their clothing. Albus was unusually quiet, looking about him with a hint of melancholy.

They stepped out of the shadows into a little square. There were shops and a post office and a pub: The Green Man. There was some sort of memorial in the center of the square, but Snape noticed the small and ancient stone church first, and then caught a glimpse of elm trees in full leaf and a kissing gate. The churchyard.

Albus spoke up, his voice frail as old leaves. "I would like," he managed, "to pay my respects. Perhaps it would be best to go now, rather than later."

Minerva shot him a sharp glance, but did not argue. "Very well. Shall we all go? Severus?"

"If you wish."

As they passed by the memorial, Snape saw it more clearly, and froze.

Muggles might see a war memorial, but there for the magical world to behold was a sentimental representation of the Potter Family. Cloying family affection, expressed in marble. Together forever were James Potter, his bloody stupid hair sticking out untidily; the figure of a long-haired woman purported to be Lily; and a generic happy baby that must be an icon of The-Boy-Who-Lived.

"Severus?" Minerva whispered anxiously.

Snape tasted bile in his mouth. "That has to be the ugliest statue on the face of the earth," he said coldly. "Who's responsible for this?"

Albus was placatory. "The Ministry commissioned a German wizard, Wolfram von Zauberberg-"

"-who clearly never saw any of them in life," Snape observed acidly.

"There were photographs-"

"It's a terrible likeness of Lily. She didn't look like that at all."

Minerva, surprisingly, agreed in part. "It's the marble, Severus. The features are correct, but Lily was all color and life. It's the all-white marble that doesn't do her justice."

"I suppose," he replied. "It's hideous all the same." He turned his back on the object, and strode off toward the graveyard. Minerva and Albus followed, talking together quietly.

Pushing open the kissing gate, Snape moved past rows of tombstones, hardly looking at them, hardly knowing where he was going. Why was he here? How could this possibly be a good idea? It had crossed his mind to bring Harry here, but now he knew he would never propose it to the boy. What had that marble atrocity to do with the lovely friend of his youth? With the lively, sensitive boy he knew? With Snape himself? Snape thought it horribly unseemly to include the image of a living child in that monument to the dead. It was morbid and disgusting. And Lily in white: white-haired, white-eyed, like a ghost-

-And Potter. God, he hated Potter. He supposed it pointless to hate a man long dead, but Potter's stupidity had outlived him. The repercussions of that stupidity would affect Harry for the rest of his life. If he thought he could get away with it, and that Harry would understand, he would like to blast that revolting statue to fragments.

He scowled, and then heard a deep sigh. Minerva and Albus were standing by him. It was Albus who had sighed. The old man was gazing at a granite stone, carved with the name "Dumbledore."

"Kendra Dumbledore" and "And Her Daughter Ariana." Below it was inscribed:

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Snape guessed that from the dates-

"Yes," Albus was saying to Minerva, "my mother and sister. How long ago it was, and yet today it seems but a brief moment since I saw them last."

Minerva put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "A sad thing that your sister died so young. Just a schoolgirl."

Albus shook his head. "No. Ariana was never-well enough-to attend school. She lived here with my mother, and after my mother died, my brother and I cared for her. Long ago." He sighed again, and managed something that was not quite a smile when he saw Severus looking at him. "This way, my boy."

With a gesture, he led the way through the graveyard. Some of the stones were very old. Some were inscribed with wizarding names: names of the families of boys and girls he had gone to school with; of boys and girls he had taught. Wizards had been in Godric's Hollow a long, long time.

Two rows beyond the Dumbledores' monument, he saw a marker of white marble. His heart sank. I will never feel the same about white marble again. It was a large marker and easily read. James had Lily by his side for all time, if such a thing could matter to mouldering dust. Snape was irritated that Lily's middle and maiden name were not shown-as if she had always somehow been a Potter. He suspected that if she had been a pureblood witch, her birth family's name certainly would have been blazoned there as well. Below the names there was an epitaph:

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

What is that supposed to mean? he wondered, scowling. He bit back any comment. For all he knew, that inscription had been Dumbledore's brilliant idea. An attempt to be profound, but ultimately a sentiment that disturbed him. It sounded like the sort of rubbish spouted by the Dark Lord's followers. To devour Death, to take it within you, to master it completely, to transcend it-

If Dumbledore's theory about Old Magic was correct, Lily had found a way to overcome the wizard who had caused her own death, and thus save her son from a like fate. All the same, he disliked the message: disliked it intensely. All very well for Potter-he spat the name mentally-to bluster and preen about destroying enemies. Lily was a fighter-yes, certainly-but not a destroyer. Not she. He rejected such a description of her. He hated the inscription. It was rubbish.

Minerva touched his arm. "I should like to leave them some roses. Would she have liked red or pink best?"

"Yellow," Snape told her flatly. "Lily loved yellow roses. Roses yellow as the sun itself."

The cottage was some way on, beyond the little houses crowded together in the village proper. At first, Snape did not even see the cottage. Dumbledore halted, and Snape looked where the Headmaster was looking. The cottage was nearly hidden behind an overgrown hedge, and was covered thickly with ivy.

The ivy somewhat softened the shocking damage. The right side of the top floor had been blown apart. The cottage was open to the sky there, where Lily must have died. As they touched the gate, a sign popped out of the ground:

On this spot, on the night of 31 October, 1981-

The sign was defaced with years of wizarding graffiti: initials, names and dates, "Fenton loves Morwenna" in Everlasting Ink, "Thank you, Harry!" in a childish scrawl, and even "The Dark Lord wil Returne!" which someone else had nearly succeeded in obliterating. Snape looked again at the last inscription, wondering if that was Crabbe's handwriting. Crabbe, Goyle, and Malfoy had all had sons the same age-the same age as Harry, in fact. Snape hoped Crabbe's son was not as thick as his father. It would not be pretty, dealing with the lot of them all together this year.

Albus performed a lengthy incantation. Wards hummed and sizzled as they dissolved, and then the old wizard led the way, looking rather fragile. Another incantation was uttered at the shattered front door, and the three of them stepped into the last home of the Potters.