A/N: I'm terribly, awfully busy at the moment, people, and this chapter only got done because it was nearly finished when real life hit me with a hammer. This means that I'm most thankful for your support and absolutely understand your wish for faster updates, but it also means that nothing will get done before the work I'm paid for is done. So please have patience with me! I appreciate every review and know how much you're waiting, but it can't be changed…
Oh, and by the way: You might want to read the last chapter once more before you start this one, because both are in a way just one large story arc that will continue in the next chapter.
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„Yes," Potter answered, his face suddenly cold and void of any feeling, an expression so close to Snape's normal one, and so terribly far away from everything he had seen on the other man's face over the last weeks that Snape shivered. „Soon, every single light will go out and leave me in darkness. It wasn't a pleasant time."
As if on cue, they rounded a corner and saw Potter jump towards Bellatrix from behind the tasteless golden fountain, his wand trained towards the witch, an expression of utter hate twisting his face.
"Crucio," He yelled, his eyes the colour of the killing curse, and Potter-the-man shook his head sorrowfully.
"No," He repeated quietly. "Not a pleasant time at all."
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The Truth Shall Make Ye Free
Confronted with the enraged saviour of the wizarding world who had just cast his very first Unforgivable, Snape came to a skittering, rather inelegant halt.
"Another thing Dumbledore didn't tell me," He whispered while he watched the Cruciatus' effect on Bellatrix, short lived as it was.
"It didn't work, back then," Potter explained, once more offering nothing but his infernal shrug. "I didn't yet have the power to use the curse."
Snape spontaneously decided not to ask about that 'yet'.
"Shouldn't be Voldemort somewhere around here?" He questioned instead, but missed Potter's answer as Bellatrix once more engaged the younger Potter in a duel that was way beyond student level.
Whenever he had watched Bellatrix duel over the years, he couldn't but admire her grace. Mad as she was, cruel as she was, there was still something inherently beautiful in the way she moved and fought, just like other women might dance.
Bellatrix never danced. She killed.
Potter-the-boy, on the other hand, was anything but graceful He was holding up by sheer willpower, it seemed, his movements clumsy and his spellwork unrefined. He had a far way to go yet to become the elegant, commanding figure of his older self that had settled down at the edge of the fountain now, completely ignoring the spells and curses flashing around his head in favour of staring into the water.
Wondering if this was a sign of approaching weakness or just another one of his enigmatic behavioural patterns, Snape made a few steps towards him and was rewarded with a sudden blaze of green as Potter lifted his head and looked at him.
"Concentrate on the memory, Professor," He advised mildly. "There is good reason the following minutes might have induced the Fading. I'm fine. Just counting the galleons. Quite amazing it is – put a fountain somewhere and immediately someone will throw a coin."
"Glad to see you're still mad, Potter," Snape answered expressionlessly and returned his attention to Potter-the-boy.
Despite the fact that every movement of the boy screamed his weariness to the world, the duel wasn't finished. If anything, it had turned even fiercer and more deadly.
But what fascinated and worried Snape weren't the curses which the green eyed boy and the mad witch traded. It was the way Potter was mocking Bellatrix, was taunting her very much the same way Black had been only minutes before.
"The prophecy smashed when I was trying to get Neville up the steps!" He shouted, earning an explosion of anger from Bellatrix. "What do you think Voldemort'll say about that, then?"
"LIAR!" She shrieked, but he could hear the terror behind the anger now.
And Harry Potter, Chosen One of the wizarding world, who had just seen his Godfather killed and had been close to the breaking point, laughed.
It was mad, hysterical laughter, barely distinguishable from the sounds Bellatrix made, a sound designed to create terror rather than mirth, but it served its purpose. It worried Bellatrix.
As he watched her yell explanations and excuses, Snape wondered why Dumbledore hadn't seen the danger he was seeing right now, why he hadn't realized that his Golden Boy was mere inches away from the darkness they had been fighting against.
He had hardened in those few minutes it had taken him to pursue Bellatrix, he had turned from an anguished victim to an avenger. And he was starting to use the weapons of the enemy.
"There is Voldemort," the older Potter whispered now, pointing towards a shadowy corner of the Atrium. Snape narrowed his eyes but could detect nothing in the darkness that seemed to move and sway on its own.
"And here is Dumbledore," Potter continued in very much the same voice, pointing to the other end of the hall. This time, Snape was sure that he noticed a shape, clad in bright golden and red robes, crouching near the wall and waiting.
Like a spider in its web, or a lion in its den.
"Don't waste your breath!" Potter yelled now in answer to Bellatrix's pleads. His eyes were screwed up in what had to be excruciating pain, considering how close Voldemort was. "He can't hear you from here!"
"Can't I, Potter?" A high, cold voice from the shadows asked quietly.
Beatrix fell silent. The room seemed to hold its breath. And Potter opened his eyes to meet the red, glowing ones of his enemy.
There was no fear in them, not a hint of the emotions one would expect from a boy who yet again met his death. Only hate.
"I bet Tom never threw a coin into a fountain in his life," Potter mused from his place by the fountain, effectively destroying the drama of the moment. "And Dumbledore would only throw a Lemon Drop. Don't want to know what that would do to the water."
Snape turned his head and saw that Dumbledore had risen from his hiding place, wand in hand. The darkness obscured his face but Snape could imagine the way Dumbledore would look well enough – concentrated, fierce, and younger than his years should make possible.
He had looked that way before every single battle they had fought together, and his determined optimism had given strength and hope to Snape more times than he could count.
But this time, when he watched his leader and mentor launch himself into battle, Snape could feel only the ashes of his beliefs on his tongue. That, and a growing disbelief and rage.
What angered Snape wasn't the fact that Dumbledore seemed to ignore Potter apart from moving statues in front of him, not bothering to send the boy out of the room or throw a portkey to him, nor was it the fact that Dumbledore let go several good chances to place fatal hits.
Dumbledore was not even trying to capture Voldemort, instead concentrating fully on defensive measures. Snape knew Dumbledore' fighting style, had known it for more than twenty five years now, and that knowledge told him that Dumbledore wasn't going in for a kill.
He was keeping the Dark Lord at bay, but he was using only part of his strength for the spells. And from his words, even Voldemort knew it.
Show off, Snape thought disgustedly. This act, this dramatic speech and David-against-Goliath performance was staged only for Potter, to show Dumbledore's control and superiority. Even in the face of their mortal enemy, the one they had tried to defeat for decades, Dumbledore was not fighting. He was concentrating on manipulating Potter, on fulfilling the prophecy, not doing the goddamned job.
Dumbledore wanted to appear strong for Potter, wanted to be a hero that had to be trusted and admired.
And from the way Potter's eyes were glued to the lonely figure of the Headmaster, it certainly seemed to work.
How could you, Albus, Snape wondered as Voldemort vanished in a flash of light and Dumbledore warned Potter not to move. Risking the boy's live and playing with his mind. Even a Slytherin would have been ashamed of what you did tonight, and we pride ourselves of having no conscience.
Suddenly, Potter-the-boy gave a scream of the kind Snape had only ever heard from the dying. With a few steps, Snape was by the boy's side, only to wish a moment later that he could turn his eyes away from his suffering, that he could forget what he had seen.
And he had thought the Cruciatus painful!
"Voldemort possessed me."
Somehow, Potter-the-man was by his side again, crouching down to the left of his memory body, his head lowered, his jaw line tense as if he could feel the agony that rocked his younger self's body, as if the memory had the power to touch him somehow, to communicate its suffering in some silent, invisible way.
"It was the worst pain I ever felt," Potter whispered. "Worse than the basilisk poison. Worse than Voldemort's torture. Worse even than the knowledge that everyone I had ever loved was dead."
He shook his head, a bemused sadness softening the lines in his face. "Funny, really," He said. "If you consider the life I've led, the things I did, and still I encountered the greatest pain when I had stopped being myself. I wanted to die."
He stopped for a moment, as if to gather his thoughts. "Any sign of the Fading?" He then asked, abruptly, and Snape shook his head to indicate that he had checked and found nothing.
He opened his mouth to ask what it had been like, what he had seen when his mind and that of the Dark Lord had merged, but his teeth clicked together painfully as something in the boy's face suddenly changed.
"Kill me now, Dumbledore…"
Potter's lips were forming the words, his voice was uttering them. But it was not Potter who spoke, and the way his face and body moved, like a puppet controlled by clumsily drawn strings, was ghastly.
Still more awful was the expression Snape could read in Potter's eyes, those dark green pools of fire that still seemed to belong to the boy, no matter what Voldemort had done to gain power over his body.
Do it, They seemed to beg. Kill me and be done with it. Do it!
"If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy…"
Snape shuddered and, not caring anymore that Potter was watching, that he was witnessing his weakness, turned his eyes away.
To see these two master manipulators fight over the body and mind of a mere boy was more than even he, the spy and cold hearted bastard, could bear. He looked up into Dumbledore's eyes and saw nothing but concentration, nothing but cold, hard intelligence.
The Headmaster hadn't cared. Not enough to wish Potter's suffering to end. He had spent these eternal seconds of absolute pain calculating the reasons for Voldemort's behaviour and the best way to use it to his own advantage.
He would have stood here, Snape realized, and watched Potter succumb to madness without helping. And afterwards, he would have been sincerely sorry, mourning a boy he had cared about, even loved.
But now, he wasn't caring. He was planning. And when Snape suddenly saw Dumbledore the grandfather, the white bearded man with the twinkling eyes return, he knew that it was all an act, that Voldemort had finally left Potter's body and the 'great man Dumbledore' had returned just in time to ensure Harry's thankfulness.
As Snape watched Dumbledore kneeling besides Potter, his smile gracious and his hands soft, he felt sick.
"Are you all right, Harry?" Dumbledore asked, real worry coating his voice.
"Yes," Said Potter, shaking so violently he could not hold his head up properly. "Yeahh, I'm – where's Voldemort, where – who are all these – what's…"
But no question would be answered here, in the presence of others. As Dumbledore assumed control over the situation and created a portkey which he handed to Potter, Snape turned around to the Potter of his time and saw him leaning against a pillar, eyes narrowed to slits and fingers folded behind his head, following every move of his former Headmaster as if they communicated some hidden meaning to him.
"Well," Snape began, not quite sure what tone to choose after the events they had witnessed. "I'm glad that's over…"
"I'm afraid it isn't yet, Professor", Potter interrupted him softly. "We still have the little matter of the prophecy before us."
"The prophecy?" Snape asked, but then understanding dawned in him. "Do you mean… He dragged you into his office and told you about the prophecy after this? After you had just been possessed by Voldemort?"
Potter just shrugged, not voicing the obvious fact that Dumbledore probably had wanted to drive the point home before Potter escaped into the safety of the infirmary.
"No time like the present," He said, but his face mirrored for a moment the exhaustion his younger self must be feeling. "The portkey should take me there any second now."
And as if his words had been the signal, their surroundings were swallowed by mist and darkness, only to be replaced after a second by the familiar, relaxing atmosphere of the Headmaster's office.
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A/N: I know – the combination of a short chapter and a cliffhanger is really rather unfair. But after all, you know what is going to happen – at least for one more chapter. After that, I'm afraid that we will be left alone in Potter land with no canon knowledge to guide us – fear and tremble, dear readers!
All quotes (mostly direct speech) in this chapter come from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, of course.
Review?? Pretty please?