Harry thought about what he could do. Going on three hours of sleep, he sat in his hotel room and considered his options over a sandwich he'd had no appetite for the day before. Preservation spells kept it edible. It was still dark out and there was no service this early. The staff had been kind enough to fix him up with a late supper and leave him with a full electric kettle, serving his choice of coffee or tea.
Draco and Iece had appeared yesterday, surprising him when he stepped out of the shower. He recognized their voices the minute he turned off the spray. Draco used the excuse that he was dropping off the information Harry requested. "She might as well get to see you while I'm here."
While Harry threw on his clothes, Draco handed him a zipped notebook made of black leather. "You asked for these."
They were copies of Ministry files, the last definitive records detailing what was known about Severus Snape's death, interviews from those who came into contact with the body, and even a last report of his death scan, the equivalent of a magical autopsy.
Draco then set to arranging Iece at the small writing desk beside Harry's bed. He tucked a napkin into the lace collar of her shirt, another across her lap, then poured a paper tray of chips out onto another. She licked her lips, flashed her tiny teeth at Harry in anticipation, and said, "dippy shaws."
"Here's your dipping sauce," Draco assured her, removing two packets from inside his jacket. He caught the look on Harry's face. "I know, I don't like her eating this, but I promised if she stopped shocking people, I'd let her have it."
When he had her settled and singing to every chip she picked up, he frowned at the first taste of his tea. "Dammit."
Harry buttoned his shirt, knowing that meant the tea had gone cold. Instead of drawing his wand and producing an instant heating charm, Draco looked at his cup as if it presented an unusual problem. He sat up even straighter, if that were possible, and held two slender fingers over the cup, closing his eyes.
Harry stopped mid-button. Even Iece's singsong voice fell silent as she looked up at her other Dad beside her. When nothing seemed to be happening, Harry blurted, "What are you doing?"
Draco held up a finger on his other hand, indicating that Harry give him a moment. It took about ten more seconds before Draco let his fingertips touch the surface of the tea. "It's working," he announced.
"What's working? Why don't you use your wand?"
Another ten seconds, and the tea began to boil in the cup. Steam rose around Draco's fingers, who smiled triumphantly up at Harry. "I didn't mean to make it boil. I came across a thirteenth century translation on wandless magic. It was believed to be from the records of the Essenes. Well, the Artifact Department's always had it, but they're letting me have access to it. You basically turn the chemical electricity in your nervous system, into a wand. There are these little vortexes all over the body, that correspond to Chinese acupuncture. Turns out, we can send and receive frequencies through them and affect any other field around us. Muggles believe that this is how that Jesus fellow healed. Anyway, it's why touching feels so good. We're constantly sending and receiving energy. Even muggles, though it's farm more subtle in them." Draco smiled.
It was good to see that smile. It made Harry realize how rare it had become. He offered, "Since the tour's delayed, how 'bout I come home and spend the weekend with you guys?"
Draco's smile disappeared. "Don't pop in. It defeats the purpose. Every time you leave, she's up crying for you all night. For days. You're letting the accident distract you. At least let her go a week without seeing you. She's got to get used to it."
Easy for him to say. "Then I get her after the tour and we'll see how you like not seeing her for whole weeks at a time." He wanted to use the train disaster as leverage, but knew it would've sounded like he was feeling sorry for himself. He had nothing to feel sorry about, when so many others hadn't survived.
Draco took it the wrong way. His tone frosted over. "Am I going somewhere?"
"That's not what I meant."
A squeaky scream broke their locked stare. Both looked down to see Iece's fingers dripping over Draco's boiling tea. Before Harry could get to her, Draco dove down and placed two of her fingers into his mouth. Results were instant. Her scream fizzled to a whimper. Huge tears slid past her unhappy mouth and she quivered against him. Compared to the burn, Harry surmised, the moisture from Draco's mouth was cool and the pressure he applied absorbed the worst of her initial pain. It dulled enough to let her cry proper, her lips going shapeless and rubbery as Draco soothed her fingers.
Harry's heart hit the walls of his chest, pulling every hair on his body with it. That's what a scream of pain from Iece did to him. But Draco's actions did something else. Draco didn't even seem to be aware of Harry as he quieted Iece, stroked her hair, and finally released her hand. He withdrew his wand and stopped any burns before her skin could blister. He'd mastered basic First Aid magic during her first year of life. Harry didn't know what impressed him more, Draco's ability to soothe her, or his abrupt dropping of all qualms to do something so uncharacteristic, and uncouth, as to put her fingers into his mouth. That wasn't discipline. In fact, it struck him that Draco would've been incapable of such an act two years ago. Risking questionable hygienic etiquette and social decorum, was not his style. Yet he'd dropped his entire upbringing to use his perfect mouth in unhesitating service to her.
The sight came with certain validation. He likes her more than he likes me. Better yet, he loves her. Thank god.
That kind of instinct couldn't be taught. It was a parent's. Fingers-to-mouth was more effective than any spell either of them could've come up with and the Draco from two years ago would simply have been too embarrassed to do it, if it even occurred to him.
The whole thing reminded Harry of their agreement. They would never lie to Iece. They would never take the lazy way out and use the excuse that her start was too much for a child to understand. They both remembered their childhood and what adults thought they were limited to. If a child can learn the concept of a family, then it can learn the concept of a different family. Yes, she had two fathers instead of one. Yes, she could call them both Daddy, but when she pointed to the mommy and daddy in her learning books, they always took the opportunity to tell her that Draco was really her brother. He simply loved her like a Daddy.
They didn't know what they were going to do when she started to piece it all together, but Harry knew the truth would win out. If he had to say, "You mean the world to me, but I need a little more time, and for you to be a little older, before I give you that information," then he would. At least, that's what he told himself.
Iece lay sniffling against Draco, who lifted her into his lap. Harry noticed that in spite of his calm, color was returning to Draco's cheeks. He looked at Harry and said nothing while stroking Iece's hair.
That was yesterday. After their visit, Harry spent his isolation going over the files and intermittently rehearsing his next lecture. It was difficult to concentrate, and part of him wondered if it wasn't too late to ask for permission to visit the crash site. It would be a show of good faith. He didn't feel like he needed permission at all. The trail of burn wreckage went on for many kilometers and could hardly be quarantined effectively. He played with the idea, knowing there was too little daylight left to take advantage of it. The more he looked over Snape's information, the more he lost himself in the mysteries there.
Blatant inconsistencies stared up at him. For starters, the photo of Snape's corps, which Draco had thoughtfully covered with a film of tissue paper so as to let Harry decide for himself if he wanted to see it, was not the way he remembered leaving it. Snape had been lifeless but relatively whole and identifiable. The photo showed an unidentifiable burn victim. Snape had been in the boathouse. This body had been recovered by the lake, ten meters from the boathouse, which had caught fire but didn't burn completely. The fire was determined to be deliberate, but there was so much deliberate destruction that night. Evidence of who torched it remained inconclusive. This body was identified using the wand holstered to it. The head, torso, and arms were reduced to char and some ash, which conflicted with the observation that the area around the body, the grass, did not suffer the same extreme temperature required to char the body. The fire was caused by an incineration spell.
Harry sat back. Well that was perfect. Surely the Ministry hadn't given up that easily. The crime scene clearly demonstrated that the body's identity was hidden. Even down to the dark mark, which had been reduced to a dusting of grey-black ashes where an arm should've been. The ashes had a purplish tint to them, which Harry blamed on less than optimum film and lighting conditions. Harry's own statements told aurors that he'd left Snape's body undisturbed and where to find it. He understood that there were hundreds of bodies to tend to, not just at Hogwarts, but all over the wizarding world that night. And that was just one horrible night. But Snape was a primary figure in Voldemort's designs. Surely any auror would dig deeper than this. The Last Letter Rite confirmed, no. Cause of death: 'Severity of burns', though there was an asterisk denoting that other factors remain inconclusive. That was the finding of the last Mediwizard to examine Snape's body.
That was never mentioned in court. Harry was certain of it. A lot had been going on, he couldn't keep up with every legal tangent, every loss, and every drama the trials unearthed, but he made sure they got his account of Snape right. Which he found on the bottom of the pile.
The records noted how 'Mr. Potter's testimony differs from the evidence found at the crime scene' and went on to conclude that, 'Resulting discrepancies are due to the window of time in which the fallen body of Severus Snape lay unguarded while the battle on the grounds of Hogwarts came to its tragic close. Aurors determined the body to have been vandalized by enemies of Snape and allowed a magical testing of the wand to stand as confirmation of the deceased. Both wand and body were 'honored by fire' in a cremation ceremony attended to by four hundred colleagues and former students wishing to pay tribute.
Harry knew about the cremation. Knew that, apparently, it was instructed in his will. It fit Snape perfectly, all except for the public display and the added flourish of care that McGonagall inserted between the cracks. No one as fastidious in his public façade as Snape, would've wanted anything left of his body hanging around to be scrutinized or defiled. The number of attendees made Harry proud, and he hoped that Snape somehow could've seen it as well.
Still, four hundred was nothing compared to the thousands Voldemort's reach affected, all while appointing Severus as his primary agent. Many more had protested outside the school, while McGonagall gave sanction to the use of the Great Hall to honor Severus. The school was still undergoing reconstruction at the time. But enormous efforts had been taken to clear the rubble and make the grounds presentable while every attempt was being made to adapt and rebuild. Assistance came from other magical schools all over the world. Durmstrang and Beauxbatons led the aid to turn Hogwarts into a functioning home for students again.
Snape had no family in attendance. When McGonagall learned the truth about his involvement with Dumbledore, she'd taken memorial expenses upon herself and allowed others to contribute if they wanted to. She confided to Harry later that she'd only paid for extra services. Snape had already paid for the basic expenses himself, having taken out a policy of foresight and consideration almost a decade ahead of time. They both knew it was more likely that Snape didn't trust anyone else to get it right.
McGonagall made sure the Hall was lined in floating candles and reverent white roses, symbolizing purification and innocence. She used her powers of persuasion to let her upgrade his coffin to the most handsome braided, dark walnut Burkes Brothers Final Restury sold. Students claimed to have seen their reflections staring back at them in the black lacquered grain. A burst of white roses sat atop, announcing Snape's cleared name to all that viewed and comprehended it. She admitted later, "He would never have allowed something so ostentatious. I'm glad he didn't have a say in the matter. For once in his unhappy life, he was not in a position to refuse beauty and affection."
Harry didn't bother correcting her. Snape's body was no longer alive, but they both knew his presence had to be alive somewhere. It had to be. All that power, all that energy, couldn't just become nothing.
When her efforts were remarked upon, she defended her actions. "Aside from Albus, I worked the closest with Professor Snape. I alone claim the authority to celebrate my friend and colleague as I see fit. If anyone wants to challenge me, they may do so to my face."
This was said loudly in a room filled with mourners, scorners, teachers, Ministry officials, reporters and students. Harry wondered if she had not been waiting for the opportunity to slap those who criticized her, with these well aimed words. He also remembered how she and Snape had cleared the Hall in a dual that had him relinquishing the castle to her. She must've regretted fighting him, now that she understood what he'd been doing. Perhaps all her efforts were her way of showing Snape that she too was sorry to have cursed his name.
For three hours, the closed coffin was as much as anyone who wanted to pay their respects, were allowed to see. Students and staff alike were permitted to step up to the front of the room and share their personal experiences and memories. Mostly, stories of being terrified of Snape, became a common theme, followed by thanking him for being so hard on them all.
"All you ever asked," read Luna Lovegood from her notes, "was that we demand uncompromising quality from ourselves. You didn't let us take the easy way out. And in the end, neither did you. Rest in enchantment, Professor Severus Prince-Snape."
Burke's staff had expertly installed their professional equipment behind an elegant false-front of grey-silver velvet curtains. Everyone saw the casket enter the cremation cubicle. No one saw the actual body or the process. As it entered in a slow, conveyer pace, and disappeared, Harry imagined Snape bitching about spending money on something as masterful as that coffin, only to burn it. Muggles would've used decorative coffin covers that were removed prior to cremation. Not the Burkes Brothers. Quality was paid for, quality was sent with the body. What a wasteful and unnecessary sentiment, Snape would've sneered. The thought made Harry smile. Unlike muggle cremations, which can take days, Burkes Brothers were wizards who had their process completed in three hours. By the time it was done, Harry was the only one still seated in the Great Hall. He'd waited on purpose, to catch McGonagall alone. There was something he'd needed to ask her.
Harry's thoughts returned him to his hotel room, where his sandwich currently felt like tasteless mush in his mouth. It wasn't that it was a bad sandwich, he'd lost his appetite after thinking of the pictures in Snape's file. That wasn't Snape's body. It couldn't have been.
By the time the sun was up, he'd made up his mind to return to the wreckage and look for any signs of the one responsible for saving all those people, including him. Not just saving him, but fully restoring him, according to Avi. No one else had gotten such thorough treatment. Hadn't Snape always, secretly, protected him?
Talk of unrecognizable bodies, the distant memory of cars vanishing into black and orange plumage that surged from the rear of the train, to its long graceful arc around the tracks, simply didn't mesh with waking up, unfazed and comfy-cozy, in a hospital bed. There was no trauma in his mind and there should've been. When he retold the story to the muggle authorities, then to the aurors, he kept forgetting that it must've all taken place in the light of day. He saw molten fire against a night sky. But Snape's reflection had been backlit by day because he had a strong sense of light and trees, not that he mentioned Snape in his statement. So everyone already knew his story had holes in it. They'd chalked it up to shock. Accident victims often recalled all kinds of things that didn't really happen.
Harry remembered the time Mr. Dursley drove Dudley and a group of his friends to the cinema. Harry had not been invited, nor did he want to be. The car was rammed by a truck speeding through a traffic light. Even though Dudley was fine, the last he saw of his friend, whom he'd given the front seat, was the sight of the entire passenger front instantly replaced by the engine of the runaway lorry. For weeks after, during his healing, Dudley would retell the horrific event, only to include Harry every single time. "Harry went through the windshield," he insisted, no matter how many times Vernon told him that Harry wasn't even in the sodding car. It took months for Dudley to work out that that was true.
Harry didn't know what to think of some internal logic of Dudley's that put him in the forefront of Dudley's concern. It would've been easy to give into the temptation that Dudley would rather have seen Harry dead instead of his friend. But later, upon parting with the Dursleys Harry realized that you can't grow up in a house with your cousin and not come out of it being brothers on some level. Even complicated, I-don't-like-you-but-I-want-you-to-be-okay, brothers. Dudley saw the person he needed to see, to keep a foothold in this world, as his friend had left it.
Maybe Harry saw Snape for the same reason. Snape was never far from his mind, like a television program playing in the background, left on and ignored mostly. He learned not to pay attention to it, since there's nothing he can do to fix the past. But when everything gets quiet inside of him, regrets concerning Snape become clear and audible in his mind. It's like the stars becoming visible when the sun goes down. They're always there in the day, easily ignored. But at night, one can't help but look up and wonder why they're there and why they're so unreachable.
It's okay if his vision of Snape in a watery reflection was just a hallucination of a brain that couldn't deal with whatever happened. But before he left it at that, he had to make sure it was simply that. Who put him and all those other people back together? That wasn't a hallucination.
After his statements to non-magical investigators, the man they were all calling Admiral Bicksby, stayed with him, in a room with four undercover aurors masquerading in muggle attire. Harry wasn't an expert on military chain of command, but he couldn't figure out why a high ranking Naval Officer, sporting impressive, gold insignias on his dark sleeves, would be the one to lead a magical investigation. He was eager to ask, but he'd been warned that sometimes there were unsuspecting muggles allowed into the room, and only those wearing a CIUM pin were officially cleared to know about the integrated worlds.
When the non-magicks, as Harry was starting to think of them, had left, everyone in the room had looked at him like he was a key stuck in a lock. It was Bicksby who pulled up the nearest chair, folded his six-five frame into it, and brought his meaty, mallets for hands, together. He was surprisingly elegant in the graceful coat, and Harry could tell that he was making an effort to meet Harry on some unspoken level of respect. How much would an undercover operative, even a high ranking one, know about his involvement in the wizarding war? He knows everything the aurors know, something answered.
"Here's the thing," Bicksby started, "We've seen your speeches. We know you can show people what's in your mind without a pensieve."
Before Harry could respond that he'd already signed over strands of his memories to the CIUM, Bicksby stopped him. "We appreciate your cooperation so far, Mr. Potter. Those strands are invaluable to the case. However, they are affected by your emotional state. There were some inaccuracies that we have to address. The only way to do that effectively, is to ask you to perform the charm that you use to show an audience what you clearly remember. We want to compare the information. The men and women present, will each attempt to record what you project from four different wands, four different magical viewpoints. It will all be analyzed to determine what really happened in that last minute on the train."
All concerns about Bicksby's background fell away. They were basically telling him his memories were worthless? "It's the daylight thing, isn't it?"
The Admiral nodded.
Harry felt his frustration rise, but took hold of his decision to get these people out of his face. He couldn't argue with them. The images spoke for themselves. He took out the replacement wand Draco had given him, letting it draw a line from pocket to temple to the space in front of him, in one quick motion. The Admiral smiled, and Harry sensed that he was impressed. That also told him that the man was not as accustomed to wizards as his authority conveyed. Or he didn't see magic every day.
With unclear edges, the image of the train burst into activity between Harry and the aurors. It was a view from the inside of the cabin, looking out onto the back end of the train as it rounded a trestle. Weak memories, without being anchored to time-space, flicker and leap in an effort to hold together against infinite potential of ideas and thoughts. But strong memories hold together from sheer emotion. They cannot be considered the truth for that reason, but they are considered the truth of the person they belong to, and are made valid in that test.
In Harry's truth, the sky was dark and glowed horrifically as fire chased each car like dominoes, in a matter of seconds. He let them see that his mind wasn't going to give him anything more than what he'd already given them. He couldn't make it daylight in the memory if he wanted to, yet they had proof that it was before noon when the first reports of the wreckage were phoned in.
"Back up," the Admiral said. "What were you doing ten minutes before the first explosion?"
Harry tried not to falter. He knew that was tricky. The night, filled with boiling hell, shifted into a brighter, white-grey sky. It lit up the inside of the cabin and the seats. Faux paneling was once again whole and recognizable against plaid upholstery. He had no emotional attachments to these things, so they faded and competed with what had mattered to him the most in those moments. Draco's body pinned against a tree, Avi's instructions, and not wanting anyone to see what he was doing with them. His uneasiness contaminated the memories, dimming their clarity. Fuck it. He decided to let his anxieties dump all the useless content it wanted into the mix. Suddenly, there was no train. There was only Draco beneath him and Harry's wand pointed at Draco's throat. Harry heard the harsh words he and Draco were snarling at each other, even if the aurors couldn't. Fear of his daughter waking up to their fighting, had his mind inserting chaotic images of Iece screaming and crying. With a jerk of his wand, Harry shut off the runaway memories.
He didn't have to look at the people in the room to feel their quizzical expressions upon him.
"I guess I can't get it to work. Or, it does but there's nothing coherent. I was pretty sleepy on the train. I wasn't paying attention to anything but random thoughts, and that's exactly what you see."
The Admiral nodded quietly. Instead of being nonplussed, his tone was patient. "That makes sense. If you'd known anything about the explosion, your thoughts would've gone there. You were thinking of family, as you well should."
Harry suddenly saw the white-haired man in a different light. Admiral Bicksby had removed his hat and patches of pink scalp showed through the strands of his comb over. Harry saw a liver spot when he bowed his head, putting a hand up to his jaw to reflect for a second. He suddenly looked much older and Harry got impressions of lots of sun, a private beach, grandchildren, and a strong desire to retire. The Admiral's weariness washed over Harry. Like two strangers accidentally brushing hands, both sat straight suddenly, in an effort to shake off the connection.
"One more thing. You stated that you believe you were barely conscious at some point. You landed in water. Can you show us the absolute last impression that you can recall of that moment?"
Harry tensed. That detail had come out of his mouth when he'd had no idea it how important it was. Now that he knew where it could lead, he wished he'd never told them that part. Keeping all of this from his face, he threw the memory out into the air. Predictably, it blurred around the edges more than usual. It was like looking at a bit of sunlight on black water. It emerged through lenses that couldn't focus, giving the impression of light too bright to fully open one's eyes upon. The only movement was a watery wobble as liquid reflections teased into familiar shapes, but never committed to sharp detail. Instantly, it went black. Not because Harry cut it short, but because blackness had descended.
The abrupt cut off looked unnatural. Looked, in fact, like a spell. Consciousness never ended that sharply. It receded. It faded. It let go. Harry was smart enough not to comment on the clue. The others looked at one another, as if speaking with their eyes.
Bicksby clapped his hands together. "That answers our question. Mr. Potter, it's regrettable that we meet under these circumstances, but I am still delighted to have met you."
Harry accepted the handshake offered to him.
"Hopefully, we can let you get on with your plans. You'll be briefed on arrangements concerning necessary surveillance, but you're free to carry on with the tour."
Harry had to see the wreckage for himself. News footage wasn't enough. He wasn't sure how much help he would get, but he found no objections when he asked the Minister to get him on to the site. The CIUM Admiral even got the message he'd left with the hotel clerk, and hooked Harry up with an off-duty rescue worker, who drove him to the shrapnel that littered four kilometers and stretched onward.
The white-haired gentleman, wearing a caution-yellow jumpsuit beneath a thick fleece jacket that bore a Fire Warden logo, still had a young man's vigor to his face and a strong jaw bristling with red-gray stubble. He looked Harry up and down. His smile, subtle above his dimpled chin, was Harry's only indication that the man didn't have a problem with being asked to drive him.
Introduced as Jake, he narrowed his eyes at Harry. "You going back there? Son, you walked away. What's got you wanting to go back to the mouth of hell?"
Harry returned an uneasy smile. He had to remember that this man was a muggle, and not necessarily in the know about wizards. He wasn't wearing the CIUM insignia anywhere, but that didn't mean anything. There was no way to know how much Jake knew or didn't know.
Harry's words were rehearsed, but the anxiousness was genuine and bothersome. "I want to see what I survived. A lot of people didn't. Maybe it'll help me let it go."
Whether the guy bought it or not, he nodded, and head-pointed to his truck. "All right. We don't normally let accident victims back onto a site that's still being combed for evidence, but the bureaucrats are making an exception for you, for some reason. Let's go."
Harry followed, not sure if he should feel guilty for receiving special treatment or not. He told himself, it was because he might be able to shed more light into the investigation. It wasn't as if he was being pampered or anything.
The stink of overheated steel and melted rubber met them kilometers before they arrived at the wreckage. The train had been an older model, and bits of chassis and locomotive guts, were spotted across an expanse of wide open landscape leading to the sight. Five days after the explosion, Harry excused the lack of clean up, on muggles focussing on the investigation. You don't want to clean up a crime scene too soon, he defended them. It's not like they had magic. And even though dozens of rescue professionals and crash experts had been brought in from other parts of the country, the local crews seemed overwhelmed and stymied as to the best tactic for recovering all the evidence over a wide area.
Harry had overheard Admiral Bicksby telling one of the other wizards, "Just when they think they've mapped the site, someone calls in more bits much further away. It's starting to look like magic was involved rather than non-magical explosives."
He was supposed to be rehearsing his lecture in front of a mirror. At least, that's how his speaking coach preferred it. "You're speaking at a professional level now. This isn't a quidditch huddle. Every stranger in your audience needs reassurance that you're leading confidently to worthwhile information, and that you can handle yourself, or they won't want to invest their attention."
Harry hardly had that problem anymore. Notes had worked in the beginning, but his comfort level went up a notch when he turned his back on the mirror, ditched the notes, and just said what he had to say. He started with a plan, but liked the room and space to take his discussion any direction he wanted, especially when he gauged what the audience was most interested in. When new audiences put away the fore knowledge of his reputation, and saw a regular-looking guy answering questions, stumbling through a sincere desire to tell them everything he could, mixed with sporadic bursts of exactitude and magic, it often delighted and surprised him as well them.
He couldn't always wing it. He ran through a strategic list of topics in his mind and aimed them at what was relevant to the audience. After he perfunctorily introduced himself, knowing it was bad form to assume everyone always knew who he was, and told why he was there, he went by the audience's questions to determine the kind of information they wanted to hear. Invariably, he got requests to show specific details, or the "the movie" version of some aspect of school, or the war, and that's when newcomers in the audience typically warmed up to him.
But that morning, he couldn't concentrate on rehearsing. He had to be in Edinburgh tomorrow. If he could, he wanted it early enough to use the quidditch field to run through some solo maneuvers he'd worked out, before hooking up with his other team members. Like everything in the wizarding world, the field was hidden from muggle eyes and camouflaged to look like a landfill.
Almost a week of immobility had made him stiff and he wanted to work out as much as possible before going before his team. That left him only one day to find his way back to the spot where they'd found his body. He had to see the area for himself. It might hold some clue about Snape.
At the wreckage, he saw what he expected to see, plus a bit more. In the most concentrated areas he saw hunks of wheels and axles stuck out of the ground, as if a giant had thrown them like a discus. Cabin framework leaned in collapsed joints, like skeletal remains, still smoking in some cases. Partial sheets of crumpled black panels, must've been what was left of cabin walls. Under his feet, bits of chassis made walking among the debris unsteady, and it bothered him to feel evidence being pressed into the soft ground. Areas to be avoided, and a path to stay on, had been spray painted on the grass and even on the wreckage itself, but there were unidentifiable shrapnel sticking up out of the ground everywhere. Harry was not allowed to wander off by himself. Jake had given him special covers for his shoes, a disposable safety jumpsuit, and helmet, and told to say out of the way and not to touch anything. "You can have a look, but it's my ass if I let you get hurt."
He didn't know much about trains, having only a twelve year-old's research on the Hogwart's Express, at a time when that discovery had overjoyed him, to recall from his memory. He knew enough from seeing the underbelly of disconnected, twisting frames that stank of burned wiring, that the train was a diesel-electric, 201 class, running since 1981.
The most dangerous areas, called "hot zones," are taped off and he's not allowed near them. Frustration pressurized in his chest. He asked Jake, "Can you show me where my…" He almost said 'my body' but changes it. "Where me and the other survivors were found?"
Jake's jaw hardens, but he doesn't seem to hold any judgements or questions behind his eyes. "This way. Try to place your feet directly into my prints."
He led Harry past mangled bits of track melted into tangled girders belonging to the trestle that supported them. Grotesque bends and points reconstructed out of the blast make him cringe. It made him think of the bodies he wasn't seeing, and what it must've done to them.
Jake stops and says, "This is it."
He points to the most intact car Harry has seen so far. It still has two sides and the bottom mainframe is completely gone, allowing them to see clear inside to the hollowed out black char, where not one plastic seat remained attached. It was gutted by the fire.
"They were all laid out, almost assembly line style. Whoever did it, was in a hurry. Thirty-one people did not come out of this car. We got to 'em because this one is the most that's left. Helicopter saw it first. We cleared them out. Then, the next day, we find you. Just lying in plain sight, like we overlooked you." He shook his head. "Ain't true. You came out of nowhere. Maybe you crawled, I don't know. Land this open, you could've been covered by something. But you were too clean, too healthy. Your clothes looked like they'd been through it, but your skin didn't. A little dirt, a little blood, nothing like those poor buggers we found before you. People don't realize, force that violent tears the clothes right off of you. It ruptures the guts even if it don't tear you apart."
Harry looked at the spot, wanting to stop Jake from talking, but needing the information at the same time. He dreaded what he thought Jake was getting at. If his survival was suspicious, then maybe he had something to do with the attack. That is what one might think. The man everyone was calling Admiral Banks, had already squelched it. "We know you didn't come out of that war, just to start blowing up innocent people, Mr. Potter. You are not a suspect, but we will need to keep an eye on you."
The spot where Jake had pointed, was just crushed heather growing over soft black soil. Spray paint and tiny flags marked the layout of removed bodies. Harry looked up and all around, seeing that the ground was pretty uniform around him. Under a dull sky, the flats concealed nothing. Wreckage could be seen all around him, extending on the horizon behind him like grey smears, dotted with cranes and crew workers.
Something wasn't right. "Are you absolutely sure this is where they found me?"
Jake's expression opened into delighted surprise. His mouth revealed humorous reflection. "I found you. And yes, I'm sure."
His polite patience warned Harry not to question it again.
Harry nodded, trying to be gracious about it. But he still shook his head to himself. He remembered trees and water, and Snape's reflection. That is, he didn't literally remember seeing them, but he sensed them. It had something to do with the water. He knew he'd been stuck in some sort of shallow pool. It still rippled in his mind as Snape's face grew close. Even distorted by liquid movement, that face had shone and shifted.
"Was it raining when you found me, or had it?" The spot didn't look like it could've been even an inch under water within the last few days, but he had to ask. It might've been possible for a downpour to collect in this spot before sinking into the ground. But that meant mud. He should've been able to see a muddy imprint of his body, right?"
"Son, this spot was as dry as it is now. You're one lucky young man. You ain't gonna understand a miracle. That's why we call 'em that. Let it go."
Harry looked at him. "Then you don't believe someone helped me and the others before you got to me?"
"Oh, I believe it. I know it. That's not the miracle. The miracle, is that there was anything left of you to help."
Harry decided to accept the kindness shown to him without another word. He'd come, he'd seen. He thanked Jake, made a point of walking around the car and memorizing as many details as he could, then agreed that he was ready to go.
Back at the hotel, he asked about maps and made arrangements for a rental vehicle. Not a car, a jeep. He needed something that could take him off road and get him back. Also, he took out his muggle phone and began comparing the maps there. He didn't usually rely on the internet, having grown up without it, but it did prove very useful in the non-magic world. Draco assured him that the phone was indispensable for muggles and he'd be considered strange if he didn't at least have it on him. Besides, they'd need normal phone numbers and decoy backgrounds for renting and leasing.
The phone was especially useful for ordering takeout and getting directions. As he sat in his room, not rehearsing for his lecture in three days, not thinking about the second quidditch practice he couldn't miss with his American teammates tomorrow, he studied the routes around the train wreckage and plotted the areas that looked dense with vegetation. Satellite views helped. The landscape's deforestation left few trees in sight, but he understood that that only narrowed the clues for him.
He still had the protective gear given to him, having stuffed it in his jacket instead of leaving it in Jake's vehicle. It would help him blend in and hopefully go unquestioned at the wreckage. In the morning, as soon as the car arrived, he'd go find the real site where his body landed. He wasn't waiting on anyone's permission.
He and Draco learned to drive by letting the Ministry arrange proper muggle lessons for them through non-magical courses offered. Courses were required for some certifications, but also used as correctional discipline for offenses against muggles. The lessons calmed Draco's objections to dangerous vehicles in general and bolstered their confidence to move around in a non-magic world. The freedom to come and go, in a crowd of unsuspecting people, proved indispensable. The jeep was waiting on him downstairs two hours after sunrise the next day, much later than he'd asked for it, but he struggled to maintain a grateful stance as he accepted keys from the rental clerk. He didn't have two hours to lose. As it was, he had the opening ceremonies to attend, a speech he wasn't truly prepared for, and quidditch practice he couldn't miss twice in a row, all weighing on him to get onto the moors and find whatever the hell he was looking for. He checked out, knowing he wouldn't be coming back to do it later.
His maps showed him how to get around the blocked off roads adjacent to the wreckage. Things only got fuzzy when he could no longer see the flashing lights of work crews and signs signaling cars to detour. He'd even lost sight of the giant, hydraulic cranes that were shipped in and assembled on spot to deal with the wreck. He had a full tank of gas and the wind tearing at his hair and jacket. He was prepared to get lost, he didn't have a problem with learning new roads. A certain level of anxiety was normal, he assured himself. So hurry up and learn, goddammit!
It was when the roads disappeared, that he had to insist his instincts were right. Look for anything resembling a tree, he told himself. Deforestation should've cinched that, but the more he drove, the more he realized it also made things feel hopeless. It occurred to him that he was never going to find anything driving on paved roads. He had to dare to keep along the train's path, even when that meant turning around and backtracking because he couldn't cross a trestle or a grassy bog just waiting to suck his tires into immobility. He was alone out here, and maybe a little reckless for being so. He knew, if he got the jeep stuck, his magic could get him out of a bind. But he really didn't have time for foolish results like that. How hard was it to find a tree in a place where those were few? They'll stand out, he insisted. You'll never see them, another part of him argued.
He ignored the first hunger pangs in his stomach. For minutes at a time, he was able to push away his fears and appreciate vibrant plains stretching from one side of the horizon to the other. He didn't bother with distant villages, but admired the way light scattered across farmland and clusters of communities with preserved old churches. He saw a man on a bicycle and two women with strollers, who politely ignored him from their conversation in front of a low stone wall, which went on for miles. At one point, the road took him through what appeared to be an abandoned town, complete with boarded up factories and disintegrating storefronts. He wondered briefly about the area's history, caught sight of distant tracks, and turned in their direction.
In the back of his mind, he remembered the Admiral had mentioned keeping a watch on him, but would make every attempt to respect his privacy. He also knew that was bullshit. Whether the jeep was being tracked or not, privacy was no longer an option. If they questioned his desire to find more wreckage, he'd tell them the truth. Plenty of people already knew that his body was put where it was found. He wanted the truth just as much as everyone else did. He never had to mention anything else about his suspicions.
When it became apparent that he was way out of range from the explosion, he admitted defeat and turned around. Any obvious wreckage, would've already been spotted and reported by now. All he could do was drive the distance between train depots and look for vegetation. After that, he'd give up. He promised.
The temptation to come back as soon as he could, and hike on foot for a few days, itched at him. When would he have that much time? The fuel gauge on the dash, told him it didn't matter. He needed to get gas. It wasn't mandatory, before dropping the jeep off, but it was the decent thing to do. He was slightly nauseated from driving for hours on an empty stomach, and grabbed some crisps and a candy bar while he was at it. He took time to eat them on the side of the road once he'd driven from the pump. What he was really doing, he admitted, was stalling.
There were only a few more hours of useful daylight left and it killed him to let this opportunity slip away. The thought of apparating to Ministry-sponsored lodgings in Edinburgh, then attempting to use the hidden facility for practice, just to brush up before meeting his team members, made him bristle. If he didn't sleep, he could end up behaving like a real tit in front of them. His judgement might suffer. On his broom, snap decisions were based on instinct and strategy, not careful reflection. He would not be forgiven if they found his skill unequal to the stories. He knew it was bullocks to worry about it, that no one could measure up to unrealistic stories. But he was still pretty good and he wanted them to see that he was good enough to fly with them. The famous Harry Potter missing their maiden practice would've been a serious strike against him, and fodder for nasty gossip, had it not been for the tragedy that affected others. Dead passengers were the proof that he hadn't been able to help his tardiness and wasn't behaving like an exceptioned Prima Donna on purpose.
God, he knew he was being too defensive about what people thought of him. How much of his life did it really control. Always reacting and an reacting. Often, he wished he could be more concealing of his emotions, like Draco. Then he remembered where Draco had learned it, and told himself it was okay to be who he was.
An idea occurred to him, just as his tongue crushed a crisp against the roof of his mouth. He swallowed against the salt, closed the bag, and started driving. He looked for a spot free of people, and ended up driving onto grass until the road was barely a vague line behind him. Making sure he was alone, he pulled out his wand and took a second to think about what he was going to do.
Snape's patronis had led him to the Sword of Gryffindor, on the bottom of the lake. A patronis represented the very essence of his magic and his consciousness. Quickly, he cast a barrier around the jeep, in a diameter wide enough to give his patronis adequate room. Then he summoned it forth. His magic arched from his wand to just a few meters in front of the vehicle. He was careful not to use its full strength. He wanted to keep the stag barely visible against magical people and non-magic alike. If they saw a light or a flicker in the distance, that they couldn't understand, it would be gone in the next second, moving toward Harry's intention and away from prying eyes.
A warning in his heart told him not to do it. He was being tracked and there would be repercussions. With no one there to witness them, his green eyes flashed angrily. He spoke out loud to the stag bounding in front of him. It held still for a moment, as if it wasn't a direct part of him and needed to hear his words. Harry himself needed to hear his exact intent. It wasn't clear until he said it out loud.
"You come from me. You know what I know. You know what I saw, and where I saw it. Take me there. Show me." He stalled. The request felt incomplete. "Take me to where my body really landed in the wreckage."
The stag was off, and Harry's mouth hung open as he put the jeep into gear and hurried after it. No admonishments, no judgements, just leaping certainty. Four-legged strides didn't take the road, they shot over the ground in the direction towards the hotel. It was like following a streak of light. The full form of the magical creature moved too fast to be seen with any accuracy. Harry had to drive carefully, swerving areas that looked too soft and damp for grass to grow. Perhaps the jeep was made for it, but his driving skills were not. Any time he lost sight of the animal, he had only to be patient before it appeared again. It was him, it knew when he needed to see which way to turn.
Twenty minutes later, Harry stopped at the edge of a sharp embankment. Grass sloped downward into a steep incline. Before him, water collected in marshy pools some distance ahead. Glad he was wearing the rescue boots, he turned the jeep off, secured his wand, and leapt down into the mud. His feet sunk with each step. Excitement turned his stomach as he noticed the area taking on the first stirrings of evening fog. He tried not to think about the time as his stag glistened, pulsing on and off like a beacon ahead of him. He followed, loosing sight of the jeep. Everywhere around him, grass grew out of tiny shallow lakes that reflected dingy clouds from above. Still no trees, but it was then that he realized he would never see any trees. Not here. What he would see, what was staring him in the face, were small, spindly shrub-like plants that dripped spars amounts of dark leaves from thin, wine-colored stems. If he were laying on the ground, in a semi-conscious state, he might mistake them for trees.
Ahead, the stag had stopped. It waited on him. With his stomach collapsed in on itself, he sloshed his way to the creature. As he approached, it faded. Its job was done.
On the ground, large pieces of the train's paneling lay at an angle in the water. Above a six-inch level, the panel was reduced to wet char. But below the surface, what Harry could only guess to be rigid plexiglas, shone melted but bright with manufactured finishing, before being covered by settling mud. The window was gone, but the frame appeared to slice deep into the ground. That spoke of the impact. It spoke of the force. It spoke of a bleak chance of survival. Other debris surfaced around him, but the stag had stopped exactly in this spot. He knew there was no point in moving from it. Acid gurgled against the walls of his stomach and his gut locked. He sighed, realizing he'd forgotten his safety gloves back at the jeep. But also realizing that he was watching himself and listening to that sigh, and feeling his eyes grow hot with moisture. Some part of him was reacting to what it already knew, but hadn't yet seen.
Just lift it, his instinct whispered. Don't use your wand. It's light enough to lift.
He grabbed hold of the charred metal. It was cold, but left a grimy black-purple film against his skin. Mud refused to release the suction it had on it, so Harry ended up pushing the bent piece further into the bog instead of pulling it out. He disturbed the mud good enough that pieces of hard foam and metal bracing tumbled from beneath the panel and spilled into the water. This revealed a hole, as the panel had collapsed on top of a partial cabin. Harry got down on his knees, ignoring the water creeping into the suit, and peered through the hole. He couldn't make sense of the black entanglements within. Not even when he pulled out his wand and used it to see inside. From what he could tell, there were no bodies wedged in there, just bits of burned insulation, wires, and twisted metal. Every surface glistened thickly with dark ash residue. He rubbed it between his fingers. Sticky. It smelled like fermenting turnips. That's the only association he could make.
He reached further into the opening, feeling for any bit of surviving evidence. He had to lay flat enough to extend his whole arm, wetting his body up to his chest. His hand felt for anything that could come loose and wasn't either ash or fused into solidity with other objects. Finally, something hard let go of its hold. He pulled his hand out, expecting to have in it, some shrunken hunk of cinder. Under fading daylight, he squinted. The thing was about five inches long. It looked like shriveled, black wood at both ends, but bubbled into hard plastic lumps in the middle. He couldn't tell if stink was coming from it or the bog, or all the wreckage. No telling what was decomposing in the water. As he stared at the object, his fingers tracing its melted surface, it turned on.
That is, it lit from the inside. A dot of red light illuminated the melted plastic. All of a sudden, without forcing the lid open, he knew what he was holding. His stomach knew what he'd found and it caused him to drop the object into the water. Through muddy sediment, the light glowed at him. Before the explosions, the last message his magic alerted to Draco, through his watch, had been alarm. Help. I'm in trouble. Mindless, frozen alarm. So there was his watch. And there was, what was left of his arm, still inside of it.
A/N: Please review :-)
Note: There is no attempt in this series to stick to, or replicate cannon or the HP timeline. It's all about characterization and plot for me. Like magic, the time frame is not set in stone and is kept general and unspecified so as not to get hung up on it, unless it becomes specific to a plot point.
