I'm so sorry people! I will not even attempt to excuse for the delay of this chapter! But you can imagine that only something big, hairy and terrible (real life by name) could keep me away from Hogwarts so long...
Before we enter Hogwarts for the first time, a few short words to the AUness of this story:
Though I deviate from the canon storyline in more than one aspect, I've still tried to stick to it as much as possible. The Dursley's abuse certainly isn't in the books, but from the hints the first volume gives us, it very well could (at least to my mind). You will see that I'll mainly stick to the development of the books until OotP, from where on I will digress completely.
Feel free to tell me if you find something too ooc, or if there are specific scenes in the books you'd like to be replayed in the pensieve.
That said, I want to thank you all again for your feedback and wish you a wonderful new year. My deepest apologies again for the delay!
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The Golden YearAnother day of memories with the Dursleys dragged by, sporting several broken bones, bad cases of dehydration and internal injuries of an impressive scale. The wounds were so severe that they even led to a few hospital visits, which Potter-the-older brightly praised as chances to "get out and about".
He even insisted on explaining to Snape all the details of the various operations and medications he had gone through as a boy, and was quite surprised when Snape failed to be amused at the sight of a gastroscopy.
"I think it is a hilarious technique," He commented disappointedly, but Snape's eyes were fixed on the panicked face of Potter-the-child, frozen in endless pain, and he somehow failed to understand the joke.
By midday, Snape was back to his vicious, scowling self, and by mid-afternoon, he could have killed Potter for every smile and grin the other man produced.
At dinner time, however, they were finally finished.
"I distinctly remember this being the last time the Dursleys ever did something to me that would approach our parameters," Potter said after they had left the pensieve. "They put bars on my windows and gave me barely any food, but that was about the worst thing they did after Hagrid went to Diagon Alley with me."
"Rather surprising," Snape said and helped himself to another bowl of soup. Potter really was an excellent cook, though Snape would have never admitted it aloud. "I would have thought the idea of a wizard in their house would have made them even more aggressive."
"They were terribly afraid," Potter explained, absently crumbling a loaf of freshly baked bread. "And good reason they had. I still feel sorry about their deaths."
"Oh stop this foolishness, Potter," Snape growled, not willing to put up with another of Potter's saint-speeches. "What they did to you lost them the right to be considered human. They should have been punished years before."
"You judge them so easily, Professor," Potter said quietly. "And yet you live among people not very different from them."
"A wizard would never have done that to a child in his care," Snape protested angrily.
"People like the Dursleys are the purebloods of the muggle world," Potter answered calmly. "They have a concept of what is normal, and what is right, and everything that deviates from that concept is dangerous and bad. You may scorn that, but it isn't that different from people like Lucius Malfoy or Dolores Umbridge."
"First of all," Snape corrected him sharply. "I do not live among people like Lucius Malfoy or Dolores Umbridge. I do, in fact, go out of my way to avoid them. And second, I can't even begin to voice my disbelief that you are defending them after they wronged you so."
"They wronged me, yes of course, who could deny that – but how would you have felt if someone had placed a muggle on your doorstep, forcing you to care and educate and share your house with him? How much patience would you have had for someone who didn't grasp your way of life, who could never participate in it because his very nature forbade it? Who, in addition, was the living reminder of a bitter past?"
"Believe what you want, Potter," Snape sighed in resignation. "But whatever you say will not make me understand your relatives. I have no interest in adopting your harmony-attitude."
"I know Professor," Potter just smirked, as if he had proven a point, and when he continued, Snape realized that he just had, in a twisted sort of way. "I already said that the biting people's heads off is more like your approach, didn't I?"
By now, Snape knew better than to enter that path of conversation. He simply grumbled something about foolish Gryffindors and their stupid insistence on being right when they were, as always, wrong.
Then, he turned the topic towards something that would surely irk Potter.
"I still have difficulties to believe that Albus knew nothing of the situation with your relatives," He commented, silently thinking that "situation" was quite the understatement of the year. They had witnessed sixteen memories over the last two days, one more gruesome than the other, and while he was glad that they had gone through so much material already, he could have done without some of those experiences very well.
Potter sighed. "You're right of course. He knew – at least part of it. My first Hogwarts letter was addressed to the "cupboard under the stairs", which finally caused my relatives to give me my own room, though with only more locks on it than before."
"And surely you had long, cozy talks about your childhood over a cup of tea and some sweets," Snape sneered, thinking how Albus had never had the slightest inclination to call an abused Slytherin to his office for some consolation. "You being his Golden Boy and all."
"I can't say we did," Potter answered, staring into his soup as if he was trying to remember things. "In fact, we didn't talk that often, at least not about private things. Mostly it was about me facing off with Voldemort, or me breaking the rules again," He looked up to his former Professor who was rolling his eyes in silent frustration, and grinned. "Or about me being in some mess, like when I heard the basilisk in second year and thought I had gone mad, or when everybody believed I was an attention-seeking lunatic in fifth year. There never was much space for what you might call my "personal" problems, apart from being the Boy Who Lived, that is."
He shrugged. "But Dumbledore was and is a very busy man, and we mere mortals can't expect him to care about human troubles overly, can we?"
Snape's eyes narrowed in surprise. Had he detected a hint of sarcasm in the other man's words?
"He always gave the expression he knew every inch of you by heart, Potter," He remarked slyly.
"And he always gave the impression he knew everything you were doing and thinking, Professor," Potter countered, smiling. "Even he isn't always right, is he?"
"I will have to write to him this evening, Potter," Snape suddenly remarked, not absolutely sure why he was telling the nuisance so much. "He probably expected to hear from me long before this."
"I know," Potter nodded, his hands curling around his cup in search for some warmth. "Tell him whatever you deem necessary, Professor. I have complete trust in you."
Snape could barely suppress a growl of frustration. He had intended to do exactly that, unburdening all his annoyance about the last two days in a scathing letter that would leave the headmaster speechless. Albus would be more than shocked by the company his Golden Boy had chosen over the wizarding world.
But as Potter gazed up to him now with silent trust in his eyes, he found that he couldn't. Who was he to betray Potter's secrets to a man he obviously mistrusted deeply. You are thinking about Albus here, Snape reminded himself, but it didn't change anything.
"That's why you'd never have made a decent Slytherin, Potter," he snarled, and Potter nodded happily in agreement.
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They rose early the next morning, with only the slightest red colouring the sky above the lonely cottage, and didn't linger over their breakfast.
Without a word, Snape placed a letter addressed to "Albus Dumbledore" besides Potter's plate. The envelope was open, and Snape made sure to take his time with preparing another pot of tea, standing with his back to Potter so that the younger man could satisfy his curiosity, but he heard nothing at all, not even the slightest rustling of parchment, and when he turned around again, he could see from the secret markings he had applied to the parchment that Potter hadn't touched the letter.
Damn the brat.
Well, he would be damned if he told him the content or showed it to him! Snape had spent more than an hour over this letter, not because he had had so much to write, but rather because it needed all his spy-abilities to fool the Headmaster.
He would be damned if he told Potter. Who was serenely concentrating on his toast as if there was nothing more important in the world. He would be damned…
"I only gave him a rough overview of your treatment, Potter. No details." Damn! Damn the brat!
Potter looked up to him, and smiled quickly, then returned his concentration on his toast.
"I had expected nothing less of you, Professor," He said quietly, and Snape spontaneously invented three new ways to kill a person with his morning toast.
They finished their meal silently and then moved into the laboratory without Snape having to coax the other man even once. In fact, Potter seemed strangely eager to enter his memories this morning.
Only when Snape had prepared the pensieve and Potter stepped forward immediately did Snape realize why. They would enter Hogwarts today. The one place Potter had considered home, the place he had wanted to see one last time before dying even though it meant meeting the Headmaster again.
As Snape followed Potter into his memories he hoped fiercely that he would be spared teary reminiscences about the Golden Boy's Golden Years. His memories of that time weren't overly good. And most of them concerned the Bloody Boy Who Lived.
They stepped out of the curling mists and onto a gigantic, living chessboard. Snape knew immediately where they were.
"Skipped the whole year for the climax, have we?" He commented lightly as he stepped towards a bishop and slowly rested his hand on the cool metal.
But Potter didn't answer. He had half crossed the board and was fixedly staring at something that Snape couldn't make out from his place besides the bishop. Sighing unnervedly, he stepped towards Potter, and into the battle.
The game of chess seemed to be near its closure, with only a few figures still moving. Most were limp, half broken shapes crumbled against the walls. But three figures differed wildly from the nondescript black and white – a small girl with bushy hair, a scrawny, black haired boy with eyes of a brilliant green and a redhead that was shouting instructions to the black chess figures.
He had been here, too, an eternity ago, helping the Headmaster activate the traps that would hopefully keep even the followers of Voldemort at bay, but he had never seen this chess board in action, and it impressed even him. Only stupid Gryffindors with the brains of an especially stupid beetle could even consider confronting this.
Turning to Potter, he started to voice his opinions on this matter, but the intensity in Potter's face, the aura of pure magic that whipped around him stopped him in his tracks. The younger man's eyes were fixed on his once companions with an expression so raw, so longing, that it left no room for words.
Of course.
For the first time in more then eight years, Potter was seeing the friends he had lost. The two parts of the Golden Trio that had died under mysterious circumstances, somewhere in the bowels of Voldemort's dark fortress, their bodies battered and mutilated, their mouths opened for silent screams.
And yet, here they were, so young and innocent, battling a chessboard with no knowledge of the horrors that were yet to await them, the suffering they would have to go through, just because they had become friends with this scrawny, malnourished child.
Later, Snape would convince him that his acute state of exhaustion had been the reason for his weakness, but in this moment, the Potions Master was actually close to consoling Potter. Fortunately, a heated debate between the young Gryffindors prevented him from embarrassing himself.
"That's chess!" The young Ron snapped at his friends. Snape could see the fear in his eyes, mingled with a determination to see this through. "You've got to make some sacrifices! I take one step forward and she'll take me – that leaves you free to checkmate the king, Harry!"
Snape saw the older Potter stiffen at his young friend's words and wondered why. He himself was good enough a chess player to see that Weasley was absolutely right, and though the chess figures must have seemed huge to eleven year olds, it was quite clear from their perspective that no lasting harm would come to the red head.
"Sacrifices," Potter-the-man murmured, as he watched his younger face pale in shock. "That was all it was about, all the time, wasn't it, Dumbledore?"
"But – " Potter-the-boy was now protesting fiercely, but Ron waved his protest away.
"Do you want to stop Snape or not?" He asked roughly, and the Potions Master flinched in surprise as he heard his own name. He saw Potter cringe and blush ferociously, but his younger self didn't share this reserve. Nothing seemed to interest him but the danger his friend had created for himself.
"Ron – " He pleaded desperately.
"Look, if you don't hurry up, he'll already have the Stone!"
Without giving them time to protest further, Weasley called out for them to be ready, and stepped forward.
The White Queen descended on him, and he crumpled to the ground, unconscious. Snape could hear a shrill scream from Granger, but his eyes remained fixed on the young Potter, searching for any signs of his magical desintegration. But though Potter-the-boy's face contorted in pain and helpless, mindless anger, he finished the chess game without a word.
And it was him who convinced Granger to move on instead of caring for their friends, him who left the room with just one last, lingering look back.
"That was the moment when I understood about leadership, and sacrifices," The older Potter told him quietly while moving over to his fallen friend. "And they thought they had understood, too."
He sighed, exhausted to the bone, and sank to his knees beside the unconscious body of his friend. Like white, excited ghosts, his fingers darted over Weasley's face, softly stroking his hair and smiling at the inevitable spot of dirt on the boy's nose.
"But they got it all wrong," He whispered.
Snape felt anger and aggression rising inside him. He had lost more people he had considered friends of the year than this boy could even imagine. First when he had turned to follow Voldemort, then again when he had chosen to betray all those that trusted him among the Death Eaters. And over the following years, on countless battlefields, they had died around him, again and again, until the only way to survive was to stop thinking about them, to stop caring.
And here was this man, with a past so bloody and painful it rivalled even the Potions Mastser's, allowing himself to mourn freely for his loss, accepting it with nothing but a soft layer of sorrow draped over the memories. If it hadn't been so completely un-Snapeish, Snape would have ranted about the unfairness of it all.
"Shouldn't we go on, Potter," He asked instead, his voice rough and cold. "Or we might miss how you catch me before I can steal the stone for my Master."
The wretched man blushed again, but met his eyes openly.
"Sorry about that, Sir," He said. "We were very wrong. But we were wrong about so many things. And I hadn't learned yet to mistrust appearances. Funny, isn't it? After ten years with the Dursleys I should have had understood that at least."
Snape found that he couldn't quite accept the apology openly, not quite, but the general willingness he found inside him surprised him nonetheless.
"Let's follow them. I want to see how Granger managed to solve my puzzle," He said instead, and saw that Potter smiled in relief, displaying once more his Slytherin subtlety.
"You might be surprised, Professor," He just answered, and together they crossed the next room that was filled with the stench and dirt of a slaughtered troll.
They entered Snape's trap just as Granger read out the last sentence of his logical puzzle. But instead of the confusion he had expected to see on her face, he was greeted by a dazzling smile.
Potter-the-boy seemed as confused as he was. He obviously hadn't understood a word of the riddle.
"Brilliant," The girl now said, relief shining in her eyes. "This isn't magic – it's logic – a puzzle. A lot of the greatest wizards haven't got an ounce of logic, they'd be stuck in here forever."
Snape couldn't help a small chuckle of appreciation escaping his throat. Potter turned away from Granger and looked at him questioningly.
"So that really was the reason you created this?" He asked. "I always wondered if Hermione was right."
"She was a clever girl, for a Gryffindor." Snape admitted, then returned his attention to the memory playing before them, as Potter-the-child spoke.
"But so will we, won't we?" He asked Granger, obviously not believing that anybody could solve this strange…. logic.
"Of course not," Granger answered in the bossy voice she hadn't lost until fifth year. "Everything we need is here on this paper. Seven bottles: three are poison, two are wine; one will get us safely thought the black fire and one will get us back through the purple."
"But how do we know which to drink?"
"Give me a minute." And, to Snape's utter surprise, a minute was all she needed. She scanned the parchment critically, as if to memorize the important information, then she walked up and down between the bottles for a moment.
"Got it," She then said, and Snape felt his jaw dropping again. He had spent more than a day to design this! More than a day! "The smallest bottle will get us through the black fire – towards the stone."
As Granger explained the puzzle and Potter-the-boy convinced her to take the way back, Potter-the-man once again stepped forward, his eyes lingering tenderly on her face.
"That mind of hers was truly a precious thing," He whispered softly. "And I only started to appreciate it too late. Without her, I wouldn't have survived one single year."
As if she had heard his words, Granger's lips trembled and she suddenly dashed at the young Potter and threw her arms around him. The boy stiffened, squeaking an indignant "Hermione!" But his older counterpart simply stepped behind him and softly cupped her face with his callused, grown-up hands.
From their position behind the boy's back Snape could see that tears had formed in her eyes, but her voice was strong and clear as she spoke to the boy.
"Harry – you're a great wizard, you know."
"I'm not as good as you," Potter answered, obviously embarrassed, and she let go of him.
"Me!" She answered, contempt and insecurity colouring her words. "Books! And cleverness! There are more important things – friendship and bravery and – oh Harry – be careful!"
Potter-the-boy nodded, and Granger downed her potion without a moment's hesitation.
"And to think that I believed all this nonsense about bravery and loyalty," Potter-the-man said quietly as he watched her retreat through the wall of flame. "I really thought that recklessness could be more valuable than knowledge," He turned around to Snape, sadly cocking an eyebrow. "I bet you never made that mistake, Professor," He said.
"No," Snape answered, his eyes, too, lingering on the brilliant girl he had come to respect during his years of teaching her. The brilliant girl that had never had a chance to prove her abilities in the real world.
And from somewhere, without his doing or willing, an answer rose to his lips. "I made the opposite mistake. I thought that knowledge was more valuable than loyalty or human warmth. I was wrong as well."
As he had on their way home from Shadow, Potter didn't comment this sudden confession. He just met Snape's eyes, silently, then, after a long moment, nodded.
"We should follow me," He told the older man. "Or we might miss how I find out you weren't the thief after all. You will love the dumbfounded look on my face."
Snape smirked, but it was a smirk threatening to become a smile, and he hastily averted his face.
"Definitely," He answered, and they followed the younger Potter to his first confrontation with the one he would finally slay after seven years of pain and fear.
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Like it? Hate it? Review!
Just to make it clear: I do not share Harry's view of the Dursley's behaviour! To my mind, abuse of children is not to be excused by whatever circumstances! It is one of the most vile things that happen in this world (add a three pages' rant about those monsters…).
And sorry about the abrupt ending, but I will need a lot of space for Voldemort's first appearance. Next update.