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The Last of the MaraudersThe corridor that became visible when the mists cleared looked muggle in every respect, wallpaper and carpet in matching pastel tones and tasteless photos of a huge, whale-like being hanging on the walls.
So they were at the Dursleys again.
"I thought that nothing bad ever happened to you here after you got your Hogwarts letter," Snape commented quietly, not sure whether to be relieved or worried. Being forced to watch child abuse had been an ugly experience, but in comparison to what the Dark Lord (and Dumbledore) had done to Potter on a regular basis, it had been almost normal.
"This has nothing to do with the Dursleys," Potter answered just as quietly, his eyes tired as he looked up and down the corridor. "The memory just starts here. Perhaps we should go in."
Snape followed his eyes towards a door to the left and snorted with disgust. Heavy locks that looked ridiculous on the white, probably paper thin door, and a cat flap.
"I should have guessed that this would be your door," He said, remembering what Potter had told him in one of the past memories.
"Yes," Potter answered quietly without a hint of his usual humour, "Perhaps you should."
Another sign of uneasiness. Snape had half a mind to turn around and demand an explanation, a detailed description of the memory to follow perhaps, from Potter, but then they heard steps ascending the stairs, and Potter simply walked forward and through the closed door, without another word.
The Potter inside the room looked awful. His eyes bloodshot, his hair unkempt and probably unwashed, his too large clothes wrinkled and less than fresh. His room looked like the only – but badly injured – survivor of a blasting bomb.
Black's death, Snape realized, was still fresh in this timeline, although so much had happened in Snape's own reality that he barely remembered the memories of Potter's fight in the ministry and the ensuing disclosure of the prophecy.
He could still see traces of the terrible guilt and pain in Potter-the-teenager's eyes, along with a weariness no boy that age should have felt. He looked haunted, and Snape wasn't sure what might be weighing heavier on his mind – the knowledge that he had caused the death of his godfather, or the knowledge that he would soon be forced to cause another death if he wanted his world to survive.
Before he could ask the Potter at his side, however, the locks on the other side of the door rattled and sprung open. A moment later, Remus Lupin stretched his head through the door with that gentle, understanding expression on his face that had always driven Snape to distraction.
"Harry," He said softly, and the memory Potter on the bed jumped as if he had been slapped.
"Remus," He cried out, and he didn't look too thrilled to see his father's only surviving friend, "What are you doing here?"
Lupin smiled, opened the door a bit wider and stepped fully into the chaos an optimistic person might have called room. Against his will, Snape was impressed by how Lupin managed to ignore the state of his surroundings and his unofficial godson. But that was Lupin. Always discrete, always taking care of his friends. Looking the other way when they decided to have some fun with ugly Slytherins.
But to his dismay, Snape found that the long known tirade of hate was interrupted by another voice, whispering to him from the back of his mind.
It must have been hard, growing up as a werewolf, the voice said, and being isolated from everything normal. What would you have done to have friends when you came to Hogwarts? What have you done?
Good Lord, he was beginning to sound like Potter, Snape realized with horror and banished the voice to the darkest edge of his mind. Better to concentrate on the memory before he let some mushy nonsense like that slip!
"Come to visit you, Harry. I wanted to take you for a walk," The werewolf answered in that soft, understanding tone Snape had always hated. As if Lupin's every word was designed to counteract the madness of the wolf, as if he was always taming himself and everyone around him.
Good job he did with the mutt, Snape thought, relieved to notice that his voices were back to their usual vindictiveness.
"A walk," The memory-Harry answered now, and there were thoughts playing on his face Snape couldn't clearly read, "But isn't that too dangerous?"
Lupin shook his head. "I had a close look at the area before I came here. There's no reason to worry, Harry."
Snape doubted very much that Lupin was qualified to search a room for traps, let alone a muggle street. He looked at the grown Potter by his side, and the silent sorrow in his eyes confirmed his doubts. Whatever was going to happen when Lupin and Potter left the house, it wouldn't be good at all.
Potter-the-boy too seemed uneasy with the thought.
"But Dumbledore told me not to leave the house under any circumstances," He said, his wishes and insecurities colliding in his eyes very obviously.
"He didn't say that," Remus disagreed. "What he didn't want was for you to leave the house alone, Harry."
For a moment, Potter looked as if he wanted to argue the point and Snape felt slightly surprised. So Potter had learned one of his lessons after all. A pity that it hadn't been the one about never trusting another's opinions.
"It'd be good to get outside," He finally conceded and Lupin smiled in encouragement. "Let me just use the bathroom."
Barely was he gone from the room when Lupin whipped out his wand, starting to clean the place with a proficiency that surprised Snape. But then the werewolf had never been rich enough to possess a house elf or buy ready household charms, and he had shared a dorm with Black and Potter, who had always practically screamed carelessness in all matters of tidiness and decorum.
When Potter-the-boy returned to the room, it was a far cry from the dirty den Lupin had entered. Potter took in the changes, blushed violently and remained silent.
"Let's go then," Lupin said, once more smiling softly and understandingly. "Do you have a place in mind?"
Potter hesitated, obviously not having a clue what to propose but just as obviously not willing to admit it to Remus. After Snape had seen snatches of his home life, he wasn't surprised. Potter had probably seldom left the house before his time at Hogwarts. And he had always been rather careful to let no one know about the reasons for that.
"We could go to the playground," He then suggested helplessly, "There's seldom anybody there these days."
For a moment Lupin frowned, looking as if he wanted to argue about Potter's choice of destination, but then he seemed to decide that whatever Potter wanted was right.
Snape had to suppress an annoyed sigh. This blind acceptance of Potter's every quirk and eccentricity had caused more problems over the years than any other stupid mistake the Order had made. If only one of those softhearted Gryffindors had stopped to consider the reasons for Potter's rule breaking, for his tendency to shut himself off and rush headlong into harebrained risks, then they would have…
If you had only once thought what the images you saw during Occlumency had meant… That irritating little voice whispered again, and Snape opted for a careful study of the Dursleys' carpet.
They kept their silence as they followed the werewolf and the memory-Potter out of the house, through the deserted streets to a small fenced-off area that looked more like a bomb-testing area than a playground.
"Dudley and his gang used to vandalize this place," Potter-the-man explained quietly when he saw Snape's scandalized looks, "It's pathetic, really, when you think about it. Spending your evenings smashing carousels and thinking you're evil because of it. They didn't really impress me anymore after I had seen Voldemort come back."
He shrugged and headed towards the swings, the only available seat Snape could make out in the approaching dusk. He would stand then, he decided immediately. No force on earth could make him sit on a swing. Even the thought of it made him shudder.
But Potter had no such qualms, and from the look on his face as he lowered himself on the pockmarked plastic, he felt relief at being off his feet. Another sign for his growing exhaustion, and Snape noticed it with worry.
He returned his attention to the memory they were supposed to be watching. Potter and Lupin, standing in the middle of a deserted, wrecked playground, looking, Snape thought, quite foolish. Potter was staring at his feet, shuffling them in a most undignified manner, and Lupin was observing the state of the playground with bewilderment in his eyes.
Try to make a nice comment about that, werewolf, Snape thought with glee. He didn't fail to notice that the memory-Potter had obviously no intention of telling Lupin why their surroundings looked like a bomb crater.
Refusing to show any further interest in the inane chatter of Gryffindors, Snape stepped away from Lupin and Potter, opting instead for a survey of his surroundings.
It really was a desolate place, the very opposite of a stimulating or nourishing environment, and Snape wondered how Potter had retained enough imagination to wrap his small brain around a concept like magic.
But before he could formulate a sufficiently scathing inquiry about the matter, the changed topic of the memory-figures' discussion rekindled his interest and he moved closer to them – inconspicuously, he hoped. He really didn't want Potter to think that he was listening in on his conversations.
"You mean that Dumbledore told everybody about the prophecy?" Potter-the-boy had just asked in shock and growing outrage.
"Not everyone," Remus corrected him softly. "Only the Order and your two best friends. Surely they have the right to know, don't they? You would have told them yourself anyway, wouldn't you?"
Potter hesitated, then nodded, but Snape could clearly make out that this was everything but his honest answer. No, Potter had had no interest at all in his friends knowing the prophecy.
Two weeks ago, Snape would have been surprised about that. By now he knew just how much Potter had never bothered to tell his friends, and he had to suppress a nod of approval.
"It's just that I wasn't ready for it yet, I guess," He answered slowly. "I only wanted…"
What exactly Potter-the-memory wanted neither Lupin nor Snape would ever find out. Before he could finish his sentence the sharp cracks of apparitions filled the playground.
Lupin drew his wand, but already curses were sizzling through the air like lethal fireworks, and there were too many of them to leave any hope. Lupin and Potter were surrounded.
Suddenly, the memory Potter cried out in pain and dropped to his knees. Snape rushed closer, expecting the tell tale signs of the Fading, but all he saw was a rip in Potter's too large sweater, reddening rapidly with blood.
"A whipping curse," His Potter informed him curtly. Snape nodded and stepped back. He could see the growing despair in Lupin's eyes, the cruel knowledge that he had put Potter in danger, had once again failed his dead friends, and it made Snape uneasy. He hadn't liked the werewolf when he was alive. He refused to feel sympathy for him now that he was dead.
The Death Eaters were closing in on them, and it was only a matter of time until a lethal curse would find its way through Lupin's weakening shield charm. The situation was hopeless, and Snape could see that the werewolf knew it as well as he did.
And so he did the only thing he could. In a move that Snape would remember for the rest of his life, that would make him respect Lupin and erase much of the bitterness he had felt towards the werewolf, Lupin threw himself towards Potter, not caring for the curses that broke through his shield and caused him to stumble.
But Potter was too far away, and there were just too many of them.
"Harry," Lupin cried out over the sounds of curses and the shouts of his attackers. "I'm sorry!"
He withdrew a talisman of some sort from his pocket and threw it towards Potter, who caught it reflexively.
"Portus," Lupin yelled, and Snape only snatched a glimpse of his bloodied face before Potter, and then everything else, faded from view.
They were at Grimmauld Place. In the kitchen of all places.
As the memory-Potter fell to his knees, sobbing, dry-heaving and calling out for Lupin in a most melodramatic manner, the Potter of the presence calmly walked over to one of the more comfortable chairs and settled himself.
"This evening is going to be long, Professor," He remarked while his past self yelled for help and cried and cried, while Order members rushed through the room, shaking and touching Potter and creating a pandemonium of undisciplined worry.
Snape nodded and, without saying a word, chose a chair opposite from Potter. He didn't feel like talking right now.
When the initial chaos had finally subsided, Snape found to his irritation that the Order, rushing off Merlin knew where, had left Potter, shell shocked and injured Potter, completely on his own.
It really is a miracle that we survived until he killed the Dark Lord, Snape thought. And that second one begins to look like the smaller miracle in comparison.
Potter-the-boy was as silent as his grown up counterpart while they all recovered from the noise and confusion.
After a long, long moment during which he had just kneeled on the cold kitchen floor, looking dazed and out of it with pain and horror, Potter slowly forced himself upright again. His wand, dirty and bloodied and still gripped in a fist white with tension, was aimed at his back in a half hearted attempt of a healing spell, then Potter collapsed on a chair, still staring into the distance as if he could see something hidden from their eyes. Perhaps it was the face of Lupin, filled with the knowledge of death and a terrible guilt.
Potter's hands were twitching in a way that told Snape the adrenaline was slowly wearing off. The grip on his wand slackened and the wood dropped to the floor with an echoing, desolate sound.
Potter didn't notice. His breathing turned into dry sobs, but still his eyes were dry and glazed, just as they had been the entire time.
"I kill everyone I love," He whispered.
Then there was only silence.
The light from the window weakened until only the flames dancing in the fireplace lightened the room. Snape judged that about an hour passed while they were sitting beside the silently grieving Potter, waiting for the memory to finish.
Potter-the-boy didn't move. He had to be in considerable pain by now and the healing spell he had used had been anything but sufficient. But he didn't move. He sat on the bench, hunched up, and only a slight tremble now and then showed that he wasn't a statue.
It seemed that all life had gone out of him.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity to Snape, the fire flared again, and out stepped… Snape.
And suddenly, in a flash of memory, Snape remembered this evening, this scene, remembered what he had said and done, and he stiffened, knowing rather than feeling that his face went white with shame and shock.
"Potter," The memory-Snape said in a terribly cold voice. It was not a greeting.
"Professor," Potter answered, his voice unsure and brittle. "Do you know… Is Remus…"
"Lupin lies dead at the Dark Lord's feet," He answered shortly and Snape could see the memory-Potter shrink before his eyes, cowering in on himself, as if reducing his body surface could lessen the pain of these words.
"With everyone else, I would be asking what they were thinking, acting against Dumbledore's explicit orders, risking your life barely three weeks after your carelessness got Black killed," Snape-the-memory said, disdain dropping from every word like acid. "With you, it seems unnecessary to ask."
"I…I didn't mean to," Potter whispered, his face ashen, but Snape didn't seem inclined to let him speak.
"You never mean to," He hissed mockingly. "But that doesn't change the fact that you have a record of getting Order members killed that is challenged only by Bellatrix Lestrange. I would be asking if you worked for the Dark Lord secretly, if I weren't quite sure that he'd never accept anyone as incompetent as you. Even Wormtail is a wonder of wit and talent in comparison."
"I… am sorry," Potter whispered, too crushed even to react with his usual anger.
"You are sorry," The memory-Snape echoed again in that mocking tone, "Should we inscribe that on Lupin's gravestone, Potter? 'Was killed by idiocy – very sorry about it?"
Snape remembered that he had thought this rather witty back then, his scorn a welcome outlet for the shock he had received when he had apparated to the Dark Lord's feet, only to set eyes on the brutally mangled corpse of Remus Lupin.
But it wasn't witty now. It was cruel, and unrefined, and certainly not worthy of the Head of Slytherin.
With a last effort, one Snape hadn't believed the younger Potter hadn't possessed, he turned his back to his Potions Professor's vicious hate. He kept his back calm, perfectly straight, and the memory Snape's face darkened further with the impertinence of this, but the real Snape could see, from his position at the kitchen table, why Potter had done it.
His face crumbled.
"I…" He whispered, his voice cloyed and so full of tears that Snape couldn't believe he had noticed nothing back then. But perhaps he had noticed, he thought with a sickening feeling in his stomach, and simply hadn't cared.
"I… He didn't suffer much, did he?"
"That depends on your view of the Cruciatus, Potter," The memory-Snape snarled, "I believe you would have shown more mercy if you had plunged a silver dagger into his heart."
Potter gave a sound that Snape remembered, a half choked noise he had interpreted as defiance in the past, something that had driven him to the brink of anger. From his point of view in this memory, he could see the tear streaked face of Potter, choking on his own grief and guilt.
"Really Potter," His younger self hissed now. "Even with the prophecy I find it hard to believe that you have any use at all. Go to your room now. I have better things to do than comfort the Chosen One."
For a moment, Potter raised his head as if he wanted to argue, as if in spite of everything that had happened to him he still had any strength left. But then he just nodded, accepting Snape's judgement, and left the kitchen in silence, his shoulders hunched in a way that had nothing to do with adolescent stubbornness and everything to do with a world that had just become a tiny bit too heavy to bear.
And with him vanished the memory, leaving a tired looking Potter and a horrified Snape in the middle of his living room.
"I tore you apart," Snape said, shocked at how brittle his own voice sounded, how old and weak. He had spent more than six years of his life belittling and ridiculing Potter, but somehow he had never expected to be part of his worst memories.
He had never grouped himself with the aggressors in this little game, had never considered, while he vented his anger against the Dursleys, the Headmaster or Voldemort, that he had been part of it all. Had been in the thick of it.
Had despised the boy for reasons that seemed ridiculous to him now, but that had seemed important enough back then to kick someone already curled on the ground in a shaking heap. Someone that was destined to save his world.
What had he been thinking.
"Yes," Potter acknowledged without a moment's hesitation and settled down on the couch as if the world hadn't turned upside down just now. "That was the first time in my life I thought about killing myself."
Snape closed his eyes against the truth, but it persisted, a glaring light penetrating his lids, like the sun in all its merciless brightness.
"Why then," He said. It wasn't even a question. He didn't have the strength to raise his voice in inquiry.
"Why what?" Potter asked mildly, supporting himself on his elbows until he lay half upright and looking up to him expectantly.
"Why choose me to supervise your treatment," Snape answered, his eyes wanting to close again, but he refused to let them. "Why show me all these memories, all these weaknesses. Why treat me with continual respect and introduce me to your friends. Was this some harebrained scheme of redemption of yours, or just a good laugh?"
Potter sighed, like a parent who had expected his child to ask a difficult question for some time now but found himself taxed by it nonetheless, and lay back down on the sofa, face and posture relaxed.
Snape felt so stiff and brittle that he thought he would break into a thousand pieces at every touch.
"You remember our training, don't you, Professor?" He asked, and the memory of Potter-the-boy, half bent over Snape's pensieve, flashed before Snape's eyes.
"In sixth year," Potter added, as if the same memory had fallen on him. "You taught me offensive magic, Occlumency, everything that might help me survive a bit longer."
"Yes," Snape answered tonelessly, remembering all too many incidences of this 'training'. Verbal slaughtering was probably a more apt description for it.
"And one afternoon I was wrestling with some spell I can't remember, I was trying really hard but couldn't concentrate, and you lost patience with me. You disarmed me, grabbed my wand, and one moment I was afraid you would snap it. I wouldn't have put it beyond you at that time."
Potter paused to gather his thoughts. "And that was when it happened. When you told me that being the protagonist of a bloody prophecy wouldn't help me one bit. That for you I wasn't the saviour of the wizarding world or anything special at all, that I was just a lousy student unable to concentrate and rotten at duelling. That I would get people killed again and again until I took what I did seriously. You told me that I was nothing but a scrawny sixteen-year-old with less than average grades. And that that wasn't enough to win this war, that it wasn't enough to believe in destiny and hope for the best either. That the only way to atone for all the incredibly stupid mistakes I had made was to work my arse off to get better and to survive until I had killed Voldemort, not that you believed that would ever happen."
Potter paused again, but this time expectantly, and Snape wanted to snarl at him and rush from the room.
"So I delivered a memorable string of insults," He commented curtly. "I don't know how this relates to my question except making it more valid."
Abruptly, Potter sat up and stared at him in surprise.
"But don't you see?" He whispered, as if his point was the most obvious thing in the world. "Don't you see what you did? You had probably done it a thousand times before, but that afternoon, I noticed it for the first time and it changed everything! You told me what you thought! What you saw! For the first time in I can't remember how long a time, an adult told me the simple truth!"
Potter chuckled softly. For the first time in days, Snape wanted to hit him.
"And I was a scrawny, good for nothing teenager that was frightened beyond his wits, and I had gotten people killed because I didn't think my actions through. I had gotten so used to somehow surviving everything Voldemort threw at me that I had given up trying to protect myself, I had started to believe that it was somehow my destiny to kill him, and kill him I would, although I had no idea how.
"At that point in my life, I had lost myself entirely. But you saw me, and you told me what you saw. You told me the truth, and you handed me a way of taking at least part of the control over my life back, by training, by ignoring the prophecy and concentrating on my work instead."
Potter stopped, and nodded slowly, as if confirming his point.
"I didn't understand it completely at the time," He then said quietly. "But, paradoxically, in your hate of me, you were the only friend I had left in that castle. You were the only one that saw me enough to help me survive. You gave me counsel in the deepest darkness I had ever experienced, when all the Headmaster would do was pat my head and offer me a lemon drop. When I was in Voldemort's torture chamber, hanging at a thread of my life, lemon drops somehow didn't matter much. But the idea of atonement, that I could pay for all my mistakes, redeem myself by just surviving a bit longer, that got me through the Crucioes. It got me to the point where I could kill him."
Potter shrugged, a bit embarrassed by the length of the speech.
"So, you see," He continued. "In a very tangible way, it wasn't me who saved the wizarding world. It was you."
Snape stared at him, his brain as frozen as his face. Then, he whirled around and left the room, his black robes billowing behind him.
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