Formularbeginn
The Poisoned Return
Time seemed to slow down to a desperate, aching crawl, and the teachers found themselves unable to move.
The very air froze around them as Harry Potter, long lost hero and creature of myth and legend, turned his green eyes on them.
They found themselves stunned by the intensity of his gaze, which held no emotion, no recognition, and no warmth. Still, it seemed to pierce their very souls with the ease of a lightning blade, gliding over them and unmasking their every hidden thought.
Then, a gasp tore through the thin fabric of silence that had kept them in place and suddenly, bedlam broke loose.
The teachers were on their feet in an instant, talking and demanding answers, wanting to rush forward to welcome their Golden Body and not daring to at the same time.
Tonks knocked over her chair, crying something in that unintelligible slang of hers, Sprout had burst into tears at Potter´s sight, and Minerva was slowly circling him like a nervous cat, as if she couldn´t believe her senses.
Only three figures remained motionless.
Dumbledore was still sitting behind his desk, his eyes fixed on Harry, clearly waiting for him to take the offered seat.
Snape had leaned back in his chair as if he had received a vicious punch. His face was the stony mask he usually wore, but thoughts whirled and danced behind the calmness of his face.
He´s back, the thought echoed in his mind, Harry Potter is back. And then: Hell and damnation, and I´d actually started to enjoy the peace!
And Harry Potter, calm like the eye of a hurricane, slowly fixed his piercing eyes on each of them, before he walked over to a hard backed chair placed nearly opposite of Snape´s, and sat down.
Slowly, the room´s inhabitants settled down again to a weak semblance of their usual dignity (Tonks excepted, who had never even attempted dignity in her life).
Face turned towards Albus, Potter waited in silence, but it took the Headmaster another minute to regain his composure sufficiently to speak.
"Harry… I… I thought they´d want to see you, too. And so I took the liberty to…"
"Of course." Was there a trace of bitterness in Potter´s voice? "It is your office, after all. I am glad to find you all well. I assume things have been peaceful lately?"
"Remarkably." The Headmaster answered cautiously. "At least, as far as we know."
They all could here the unvoiced question behind his words: Is that the reason why you´re hest? Has danger arisen again?
But Potter, if he had noticed the Headmaster´s implicit demand, ignored it completely.
"Hogwarts looks well. I see you restored the outer walls."
"Three years ago. We used the opportunity to strengthen the wards, as you may have noticed."
The young man nodded, seemingly unaware of the group´s rising unease and irritation, and seemed to sink back into himself. So small talk was over. And the lost hero made no move to open the conversation they were all itching to have.
It fell to the Headmaster to make the first move, though he took his time, too, merely watching the young man near the window with a strange glow in his eyes. As if he has found a long lost treasure and isn´t willing to lose it again.
"My dear boy," he finally said, his voice filled to the brim with emotions. "It is wonderful to have you back."
Potter simply nodded.
"We searched for you of course, after you vanished," the Headmaster plunged on when it became clear that Harry would not break his silence. "But we couldn´t find you."
"I know. I didn´t want you to."
The answer was mild, calm, and offering not a hint of an explanation.
Inside, Snape groaned. Wonder boy´s gotten as sphinxish as the old man. I really didn´t need that.
Embarrassed silence. What did you say to someone who hadn´t wanted you to find him? To someone who had left without a look backwards years ago, never to return again? And with whom you suddenly found yourself face to face, without a clue what was going on?
"Then why did you come back, Mr. Potter?" Minerva found the courage to ask. "I mean, not that we aren´t happy to see you, but it…"
At the sound of his old teacher´s crisp voice, a tiny smile appeared on Potter´s face, and he turned around to meet her eyes.
"I am ill." he simply explained.
"And so you chose us to hold your hand in times of need. How very touching, Potter", Snape couldn´t keep himself from sneering.
This whole display was so very melodramatic and sentimental. Or, in other words, simply disgusting.
He heard Minerva tsk in disapproval, but Potter had turned his head towards him and Snape found himself once more under the floodlights of those green eyes, unable to move or to even sneer. Gods, how had the stubborn, pathetic boy of once become so very powerful?
"Ah, Professor Snape," he said mildly, and again, a tiny smile grazed his lip. "How I have missed your subtle humour over the years."
Snape snorted, trying to sound unimpressed, but quite incapable of uttering one of his usual caustic remarks.
Those eyes had unsettled him. They held a knowledge, a tale of deep pain and its acceptance, that Snape hadn´t encountered in someone so young before. What had happened to the boy, for Goodness sake?
Get yourself together! He snarled to himself, He´s Potter! He got himself into enough tight spots he couldn´t handle over the years. Nothing impressive about surviving a mess you created yourself.
"So you came to us to be healed, Harry?" The Headmaster tentatively took up Potter´s explanation.
"No. Quite the opposite", the young man now returned his attention to Albus and Snape found that he could breathe again.
"I have already undergone extensive magical and nonmagical examination. The result is definite. I will die. So I came to say goodbye to Hogwarts."
And again, barely fifteen minutes after freezing them in their seats, Harry Potter had managed to shock a room of weathered teachers and war heroes into speechlessness.
It was as if Potter had dealt a blow, a blow no one had seen coming. They had steeled themselves against revelations, reproaches and something the Headmaster probably would have labelled a "long, tiring voyage towards reunion" in his insufferable romanticism, but not against this. Not against the end.
They had never believed the Boy Who Lived could be mortal like everybody else.
"What do you mean, die?" Tonks finally blurted out. "You can´t be dying! You´re barely twenty five!"
"So you kept up with my birthdays?" Potter asked as if the real topic of this conversation was of no interest at all to him.
The amusement in his voice had increased, and Snape couldn´t help feeling respect for the elegant efficiency with which Potter drove them all over the edge.
"It´s a public holiday, Potter," he drawled back. "Not easy to miss the Chosen One´s birthday."
To this Potter actually grinned, a dry malicious smirk, showing his old Potions Master exactly how twisted all this was.
"I should have known that. And it was probably Fudge who brought it up, in "commemoration of my deeds"?"
"Harry, I…" Albus' voice held all the urgency of this world. "Are you… serious?"
Suddenly, all trace of humour vanished from Potter´s face.
"Of course I am," he answered. "I´d never have returned here for any lesser reason."
Ouch. Now that was below the belt, Snape thought when he saw the Headmaster flinch violently. Ungrateful brat.
Potter had obviously misunderstood the older man´s reaction, for he smiled again.
"Don´t worry," he said. "There will be no dramatic final speeches or messages to the wizarding world. All I wanted was to walk these corridors once more, to see the forbidden forest, the giant squid and the astronomy tower. Though you already… spiced up my arrival more than I had expected."
His eyes darted over to the teachers, who suddenly felt like intruders on this intimate moment. Then he sighed, and suddenly seemed younger and older at the same time, innocent and wise together.
"I forgive you, Headmaster," he whispered, and something in his voice told them that he wasn´t talking about the night´s assembly.
How presumptuous, Snape wanted to sneer, As if anyone cares for your forgiveness, Potter.
But then he saw the Headmaster´s face, suddenly freed from the rigor mortis of that unknown fear it had carried before. Snape saw tight muscles relax and felt a deep breath of relief wash over the room. In front of his eyes, the old and frail man vanished, to be replaced by the powerful wizard Snape had come to know over the years.
"Thank you, my boy," he whispered back, a ghost of his old twinkle reappearing in the blue eyes.
Potter just studied him critically, and his slightly widened eyes told Snape that he hadn´t missed the change, either.
"I didn´t know it meant so much to you," he said. "I´m glad I came, then."
"I am glad, too, Harry."
And again, silence. Snape wondered whether he should remark about the rather boring lack of communication, but before he could open his mouth, Potter resumed speaking.
"Right then.", he said. "If there´s nothing more to discuss, I will – with your permission, Headmaster – walk the castle for a while and then return to my home." He stood, his gaze once again washing over them, and smiled quietly.
"I am leaving now. Goodbye."
"Harry… no… you can´t just…"
Not bothering to turn back, Potter simply answered: "Yes, Headmaster. I can."
He reached the door, turned the handle – and nothing happened. Albus had locked the door.
Good gods, why can´t we just let him go and good riddance?, Snape thought. But he knew the Headmaster too well to have hoped for that. Potter would be rescued, even if he was killed in the process. There was nothing as merciless as the old man´s care for his loved ones.
"I´m sorry, dear boy," the old voice now confirmed his suspicion. "But we can´t let you just leave like that. Not when you´re seriously ill."
"I do know that you only have my best in mind, Headmaster. But once, only once in my mind, I have made a decision on my own, unguided and unmanipulated. Don´t try to take that away from me."
"Let us visit Madame Pomfrey together, Harry. She is an experienced mediwitch. Or St. Mungo´s. They will know of a treatment..."
"I have been to St. Mungo´s. They couldn´t tell me what was wrong, only that it is fatal. I had to obliviate them to get away." There was no misunderstanding the roughening of the voice, nor the glowing in the green eyes that had turned back towards them. Potter was getting angry. And something told Snape that it would be wise to leave as quickly and silently as possible.
Unfortunately, the door was locked.
"Let. Me. Go." It was a command now, and Snape could feel the temperature in the office suddenly drop. Reality seemed to cower down into itself, to await whatever catastrophe would happen now, and Snape found that he wished to cower alongside with it.
"No." Albus still seemed calm, as if he hadn´t noticed the sudden changes around him and the horrified expressions of his staff. "Sit down and we will discuss this. I won´t allow you to harm yourself. And don´t try to leave. This office answers to me alone, and Hogwarts´ magic is stronger than any wizard´s."
Raw magic whipped around them, furious and cold. Every cell in Snape´s body fought to take cover, and only his stupid little pride fixed him in place.
Potter had changed. He was nothing like the boy they had known now. Again, the shadows whirled around him and he exuded magic, he breathed power. Albus, Snape realized in this moment while he watched the green eyes blaze with inner fire, had no idea what he was up to.
For one instant, it seemed as if he would attack the Headmaster. Then, Potter whipped around, raised his right palm towards the door and spoke one single, short word.
"Open."
The castle swayed. A pained groan tore from the deepest foundations as Hogwarts fought against the strange magic that tried to impress its will on the ancient structure. The floor shuddered, every window in the room shattered, and then the office door was wrenched from its hinges and crumbled to dust.
Now that was impressive.
Slowly, Snape lowered the hands that had risen in reflex to protect his head.
He had expected Potter to vanish from his office the moment the door opened, but when the dust had cleared, the man was still standing in front of the opening, his right hand now raised to his eyes.
Snape could see that he was trembling slightly.
„It´s getting worse.", Potter suddenly whispered, his voice strained and raspy. Then, he closed his eyes and fell to his knees.
Ripples began to run over his body, rocking his skin like breakers on a beach. A sickly white glow surrounded him. Spasms shook him and tossed his body around like a rag doll. They could see strange forms moving under the skin of his hands and tendrils of magic escaped him, stretching out into the air around him that seemed to pulse in an eerie rhythm.
And through all this, Potter´s face didn´t even twitch. His head was tilted upwards, eyes open now. No groan of pain escaped his lips though his body convulsed as if under the Crucio, and a look of something almost like serenity lay in his eyes.
His utter, unmoved silence was even more frightening than his writhing, disintegrating body.
Someone screamed, but none of the staff moved his eyes from the sight of horror in front of them. If that was what Potter had referred to as „illness", he had badly understated his condition.
He was dissolving in a most painful and unattractive way.
And nobody made a move to stop it.
This really is my lucky day, Snape snarled to himself and shoved through the shocked teachers towards Potter. At least I get to do this once.
And with the considerable strength he still possessed, Snape slapped the Wonder Boy hard across the cheek.
Potter blinked. The tendrils of magic withdrew inside him and the strange movements of his skin calmed down.
Bloodshot eyes met the Potions Master´s black one.
"Nice move," Potter whispered tiredly. "I will remember that for the next time."
And he collapsed on the office floor, a fallen figure in midst shattered glass.
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A/N: First of all: Thank you all for your wonderful reviews! They made me so happy! I really hadn´t expected this story to get so much attention, but you motivated me to get this chapter out sooner than I had intended.
House points to everyone who caught the "Lord of the Rings" quote!
To those who reviewed for the first chapter: I deleted the "Before you enter"-part, because Munku told me about ff.´s restrictions, and I didn´t want to risk this chapter being deleted. If you can´t review for it, just go back to chapter One and review there instead.
The next chapter will have medical examinations, a very pissed of Harry and a knowledgeable Snape who finally tells us what the fuck is going on.
Thank you all!
(And for the readers of the Lioness: Next chappie should be up in a few days.)