cxlv. have violent ends
One afternoon in Defense, while Professor Slytherin had enjoyed himself by unleashing a baby Quintaped upon the Gryffindors of the class, Harriet had flipped through their textbook in search of something to divert her attention. The Gryffindors had shrieked and yelped, and occasional spellfire had splattered against the opposite wall, but Harriet had kept her head down and her shoulders hunched on the off-chance Slytherin wouldn't call on her to get involved.
The chapter she'd settled upon had been one Slytherin only had them skim as an out-of-class exercise. Werewolf—Lycanthropy. The chapter speculated on the origins of lycanthropy, detailing the myth of Lycaon, the son of Pelasgus, and the prospective hand of the gods in creating a curse that had never been cured. Some sources said it was man-made, bred in cauldrons and blood on a solstice night, and others claimed it was a gift of the Sidhe twisted beyond its purpose. Whatever its beginning, lycanthropy had been plaguing the Wizarding world for countless centuries.
The illustrations had been what caught Harriet's eye. They depicted the wolf-men in various stages of transformation—detailed anatomical drawings that could have only been rendered after dissecting a dead lycanthrope, which made Harriet more than a tad sick. The teeth had been as big as her fingers, the claws like kitchen knives, the warped, grotesque form caught halfway between person and beast. At the time, she'd flipped through the pages, glassy-eyed and spooked, thinking that such a fearful creature simply couldn't exist.
Seeing the real thing, Harriet decided the illustrations had been tame in comparison.
The werewolf stood as tall as a Muggle lorry, his fur wet and white in the moonlight, bristling along the hulking shoulders, his muscles bulging and ill-sized on his thin frame. The teeth—Harriet could never have imagined teeth like those belonging in a human's head, crooked and sharp, crowded in an elongated jaw, barely masked by a quivering lip. His tongue flashed against those teeth and lips, slick with hungry spit.
Yellow eyes honed in upon her—and the werewolf lunged.
If Sirius Black hadn't changed into his Animagus form and jumped the monster, Snape and Harriet would have been little more than pancakes crushed into the drooping ferns. As it was, the ghost of claws skirted the edge of the Potions Master's cloak, and Snape threw himself backward, taking Harriet with him. His elbow collided with her chest, and Harriet wheezed, the breath knocked out of her, nearly dropping her wand in the mayhem. She had to lower her head and, for a second, lost sight of her friends.
Professor Lupin growled and leaped on the other werewolf's back—but Lupin's form was half the size of the other wolf's, frail and nearly hairless, the remnants of his robes hanging off his twitching limbs. Harriet looked for Hermione and Elara, not finding them, calling their names, and her feet abruptly left the ground. Snape's arm locked around her middle, and they plunged into the dark, the clearing vanishing behind the crowded trees.
"Wait! Elara and Hermione are back there!" she cried, kicking, and Snape dropped her. They didn't pause for long, as he snatched hold of her wrist in an iron grip, and they ran full tilt into the forest. "Snape!"
"Black has them! Greyback is going to follow us! Move, girl!"
The snarling ratcheted higher—and then cut off with a whimper, a howl, and pounding paws trembling in the earth, coming closer.
Oh my god, Harriet thought. Oh my god, Lupin!.
Snape whipped about and thrust his wand toward the ground at their heels. "Torsit!" he snapped, and a blue streak of light spread out in a single wave. The forest floor shook and burst as the roots and smaller foliage began to writhe, grasping and tangling everything in their limited reach. Suddenly, he was there—Greyback—a darker, growling silhouette against the brighter moonlight, and he ducked a second spell fired in his direction. He roared as the weeds tugged at his limbs, slowing him down.
They ran—heedless of the obstacles in their path, the rocks and the roots and the fallen logs, scrambling up a steep incline, Harriet bloodying her hands as she stumbled and gasped. Snape yanked her upright, and they paused at the top of the hill for a breath. Snape's lungs sounded like a pair of bellows working at full capacity. "Contero!" he snarled, and the hill shifted, the handholds melting into dust, the surface of it bubbling as it turned into slick scree. That didn't stop Greyback from trying to bound up it. Harriet would've expected something as large as him to move with less alacrity, to lumber like a bear or a troll—but apparently, werewolves had all the bloody speed and grace of a cat because Greyback threw himself at a convenient tree, claws digging in, and jumped through the air.
He's fast—!
"Finestra Ossium!"
Snape's curse hit the werewolf, throwing him back down into the loose, tumbling rocks, but it didn't appear to have much effect—not that they stayed to inspect him. Snape's hand grappled for Harriet's wrist again, and they bolted from the hill's crest along the far slope, sliding on the wet leaves, the rain thickening on their shoulders, dragging through their hair. Twice Snape paused, his cloak whipping about him like a bad omen, and he hurled magic in their wake—first an obfuscating haze of murky darkness, and then a glittering, transparent shroud. Harriet almost touched it, entranced, and she gathered that was the point when Snape snatched her away and she caught a glimpse of something like a golden Lethifold churning in the glimmering sparkles.
Still the howling persisted and gave chase.
If he's after us, then he's not after my friends, Harriet told herself in a moment of fearful desolation, listening to the snarling coming closer and closer with every passing minute. Merlin, I hope they ran for Hogwarts.
The forest leveled, the trees older, farther apart, the air colder, sharper. Snape threw his arm out with a grunt, hard like a whip, and a silent spell burst from his wand's end. The red light clipped into the base of a tree, and it exploded, wood chips soaring through the air, fire sparking and immolating the tree's innards in a brief haze of red. Then, Snape pushed with his free hand—and Harriet could feel the implacable force of wandless magic weighing on her shoulders as the massive, looming tree teetered in the desired direction.
"That won't buy us much time," he panted. "Run, quickly."
The sound of branches breaking sounded off like firecrackers—crack! Crack! Crack! The imminent fall held itself in Harriet's straining lungs like her breath, waiting even as she ran with the professor until finally it hit the earth and the tremor almost knocked her down. A rush of displaced air scattered dead leaves and debris, small twigs and bits of bark scratching her legs. The howls at their back drifted farther to Harriet's left—and Snape jerked her toward the right.
"Point Me, Hogwarts," he hissed at his wand balanced flat upon his hand—and the tip rotated, pointing left. Snape grunted, gripped the wand, and continued right.
"Wh-where are we going?" Harriet asked, because if Greyback was between them and the school, what in the hell were they going to do? What spells worked against werewolves?!
"We need to reach the edge of the wards," Snape retorted, swiping his wet hair from his face, breathing hard. Something on one of the tree trunks caught his attention, and his black eyes narrowed as he held himself still. Harriet looked at the white, gossamer strands as well, wondering what they were, thinking they looked an awful lot like—.
Above, a heinous hissing rattled the leaves, and Harriet startled, jerking back to peer up into the many, shining eyes of a spider the size of a small horse skittering down the bole of a tree. She shrieked.
"Sectumsempra!"
A flash of white cleaved the spider in half, and it screamed as it fell, hitting the ground with a wet, disgusting thud.
"What in the hell is that?!" Harriet cried. "Nobody ever said the forest had spiders like that in it! Merlin's beard!"
The spider's legs curled and twitched. "Bloody Acromantulas!" Snape seethed, the knuckles of his wand hand as white as bone. Blood welled and dripped from his brow where he'd been struck by a stray branch, and Harriet couldn't stop staring at it, the red bright and garish against the wizard's monochromatic profile. "Expecto Patronum!"
Silver mist issued from the wand and then vanished, gone as if it'd never been.
"FUCK!"
The exclamation startled Harriet badly enough for her to stumble, and Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, grimacing. His hand trembled.
A growl ripped through the underbrush, and the figure crouching there charged. Snape's eyes went wide, and Harriet slammed into his side, clutched under his arm, blinded by the wide panel of his robes sweeping around her body. The werewolf hit them with all the strength of a hundred Knockback Jinxes, and Harriet thought this was it, they were bloody dog food, the wolf's mutated maw gripping her shoulder, the hot breath seeping through the threads—but the teeth couldn't pierce Snape's robes. Nor could the claws digging into her side.
Half a second passed, the breath crushed from Snape's lungs, but he had enough time to jab his wand toward Greyback's face and wheeze, "Expulso Maxima!"
The spell sucked the oxygen from the air, choking Harriet hidden under the failing robes—and then it triggered, the resulting explosion flinging the werewolf back, throwing them hard into the ground. They rolled once, and Snape leaped to his feet, gasping, his wand dancing with startling precision despite the blood smeared on his face and werewolf saliva dripping on his filthy robes. "Incarcerous Herbivicus!"
Roots broke through the dirt, the ground crumbling under Greyback's weight as he was lashed down, and he unleashed a bestial roar. He braced his paws and lurched, the trees groaning, leaning closer.
"Behind me, Potter!"
Harriet dashed to do as Snape said, holding her own wand, feeling utterly incompetent. She couldn't match his speed, his knowledge, the utter breadth of spellwork his skill encompassed—and still the werewolf persisted, his bleak teeth bared, just waiting to devour them whole. Do something! she screamed at herself, chest rising and falling, watching as the roots tore free one by one like weeds she used to pull in Aunt Petunia's garden. She pressed her fingers into Snape's back, and it wasn't just his hands shaking; his entire body quivered from head to foot.
He was afraid. Severus Snape, the dreaded bat of the dungeons, was terrified.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Green light blazed to life, brilliant and eerie, and Harriet's hand jerked against Snape as the backlash of foul, fetid magic swirled through him and into her. It burned the pads of her fingers. The spell struck Greyback in the chest and seemed to crawl over him like sickly pond algae, crackling in his fur. It dispersed in a noxious, electric haze, leaving the werewolf disoriented but not defeated. He lunged against his bonds, and—.
Snap! Snap!
The roots began to break in earnest, whipping outward, clipping both Harriet and Snape. The latter went down on one knee, clutching his abused ribs, and Harriet fumbled for her wand.
"Duro!" she incanted, breathless, and the roots began to morph into hard, unyielding stone. Too soon, however, the stone buckled, flaking in jagged pieces, and Greyback had his yellow, piercing stare fixed upon her as he clawed at the earth to get free.
I'm going to be eaten by a bloody werewolf!
"Run, Harriet!"
Her body jerked on instinct, turning to the waiting trees—but when Snape didn't follow, Harriet skidded to a halt. "Professor!"
"Run, you little fool!"
Snape stood with his wand extended, torn robes eddying about his ankles—not a dueling pose, not what Harriet had seen him use against Lockhart, but similar enough, his face set in an intense, determined grimace. Before him, the massive wolf-man shuddered and heaved, the stone roots splintering faster and faster. Greyback cackled.
"Sectumsempra!"
Harriet tracked the motion of Snape's hand, his wand held like a sword, slashing, and a red gash appeared on Greyback's chest, reaching for his throat. It wasn't enough; the werewolf's arm broke free, claw's lashing out, swinging for Snape's head—.
"Protego Tria!" Harriet's knees shuddered when her shield absorbed the blow, but she pushed forward, mimicking the motion of Snape's hand. "Sectumsempra!"
The magic stung and prickled in her fingers, then through her wrists, as if she'd swung and wielded the blade herself. Greyback roared as the spell caught him in the eye, vivid blood spilling forth in a gushing wave. He staggered, and the weakening roots grappled for his legs again.
"Hurry, Professor!"
She didn't wait for Snape this time, sprinting into the distance with no sense of direction, but she sensed him behind her, his exhausted footsteps mirroring her own. The landscape changed; where there'd been dirt and leaves now resided mud and a thickening mire of still water reflecting the sparse moonlight, rocks and stone slouching forth, the ancient pines entangling about the solid protrusions and blunt tors. Harriet's feet slapped through the puddles, the frigid liquid seeping through her socks and shoes. Snape followed with less grace, his breath coming in jagged fits and bursts.
He faltered.
"Professor—."
"Keep going."
"But—."
"Goddamn it, Potter, if I fall, keep going!"
They stumbled over smooth stones and climbed through the open mouth of a ravine, Harriet hoping to escape Greyback's notice here. Every step reverberated in the confined space and bounced in her ears, competing with the heavy thud of her heartbeat. The cliffs rose above their heads, and suddenly—.
Dead end.
The ravine came to a halt in a collapsed pile of boulders, a thin rivulet sneaking beneath the load, but nothing more. Snape swore and wheeled about, searching for an escape route—but Greyback had found them, his lumbering shape at the ravine's start, peering through the crevasse with wicked delight. Only one yellow eye remained, and the other dripped red beads like pomegranate seeds.
Panting, Snape grabbed a rock, hefting it in his hand. "Argento Ferro." The rock Transfigured itself into a crude sword, the metal dull and porous, and Snape threw it into the air. "Oppugno!"
Like an arrow loosed from a bow, the sword launched itself forward—and Greyback lurched to the side, the sword sailing by him, the werewolf's lips curling ever wider over his feral teeth.
Snape found another loose stone, formed another sword. His hands continued to shake and shake.
Then, as Harriet scoured her brain for another spell, the strangest thing happened.
An explosion lit up Greyback's side, the orange light searing in Harriet's retinas, and the werewolf yelp, slipping on the silt-covered rocks. The odor of singed fur met Harriet's nose as the smoke cleared, then Greyback turned, snarling, and bounded off toward the spell's origin.
For a moment, neither Harriet nor Snape dared to move. Greyback's crashing gait diminished into the distance.
"There's—there's somebody else out there?" she croaked, hardly daring to believe—and yet she recognized the tell-tale signs of a powerful Blasting Curse. Snape had to recognize it too.
"It appears that way—until they become fodder for Greyback," the Potions Master agreed, not sounding pleased, though his shoulders dipped in evident relief. He flicked his wand at the ravine's side, chanting, and the earth slowly formed a lopsided set of crude steps leading to the cliff's top. "Up, now. We cannot be far from the edge of the wards. I will Apparate us back to the gates and alert the Headmaster."
"What about Sirius? And Lupin?" Harriet asked as she climbed. Her wet foot slipped, and Snape caught it, pushing her higher. "Won't they be in trouble?"
"Don't be daft," he snarled. "Or did you forget about your little friends being out there still? I could care less what happens to Sirius Black or Remus fucking Lupin. Hurry, Potter!"
Harriet threaded her hands through the lower branches of a prickly bush and hauled herself onto flat land, Snape pulling himself up after her. He wavered when he straightened as if experiencing a vicious case of vertigo, and Harriet saw him blink rapidly, dispelling whatever dark spots had popped into his vision. She'd never witnessed someone cast fierce magic like he had, especially not in so many consecutive bursts. The Potions Master had to be exhausted.
No sign of their savior lingered in the surrounding woods. Harriet searched for them, ears peeled, listening for any sign of Greyback's dreaded return, but all she heard was the gentle trickling of the strangled creek in the ravine below and her own pulse in her ears.
Recovering for whatever bout of momentary weakness had gripped him, Snape grabbed Harriet by the arm and marched her forward, setting a punishing pace through the bracken and gorse. Neither wanted to linger lest Greyback returned, or some other unsavory forest dweller came upon them.
"D'you see what happened to Hermione? Elara? I—."
"Black had Granger. I do not know where Miss Black ran off to—." His face tightened, eyes gleaming with displeasure. "An Animagus, is she? An unregistered one."
Shite.
"I dunno what you're talking about."
"You wouldn't, would you?" he sneered, fingers tightening. Harriet had enough bruises to last a lifetime, but she was so overcome with relief, she didn't much care if he gave her another one. "If I discover you've taken any part of her idiocy, there will be hell to pay, girl. Do you understand me?"
Harriet would serve a thousand detentions without a single complaint if it meant she and her friends got out of the horrid forest alive tonight. "Okay."
They came upon a glade, dormant heather still drab and colorless from the winter frost, though the ground evened under their feet, and Snape somehow managed to find a hidden reserve of energy to propel her forward at greater speed. "We are nearly there. The boundary is marked with plinths, but I will sense when we pass from the wards regardless. You will report directly to the hospital wing."
"But—."
"Do not even think of arguing with me!"
"I—." Harriet slowed; the cold had been nipping at her skin all night, but now the gentle mouthing grew more intense, each pinprick of rain against her neck drilling forth like the point of a dagger searching for blood. Her stomach churned, chills racing along her spine. She knew this sensation. She'd felt it before, in the sky, before she plummeted from the sky. "Snape!"
Oh no, oh no—.
"How difficult is it to follow a single directive—?"
The Potions Master realized the Dementors had arrived after Harriet did; he released her, and Harriet sagged, anchorless, the cloaked monsters descending from above. They swept like falling sheets of darkness, as if the space between stars had pried itself free of the night to come and smother them both.
Already Harriet could hear the echoes of voices long dead, those hated, beloved voices that would never, ever speak to her in anything but their death-throes.
"Run, Lily! Go, I'll hold him off!"
She could feel her wand in her hand, but it seemed to Harriet a strange, purposeless shape, a worthless bit of warm wood clasped by frozen, unmoving fingers. There were so many of them. They had come upon them so quickly.
"No, please, not Harriet—take me instead!"
The forest floor rose to meet her, knees folding, breathing in the odor of broken grass and earth and dead, dying things.
"Stand aside, foolish girl, stand aside—."
The Dementors spiraled closer and closer, tightening like the coils of a great snake slowly squeezing the breath from the world.
"Kill me instead! Not Harriet, not my Harriet!"
"No," Snape moaned, and Harriet blinked, the wizard driven to his knees at her side, head bowed, his hair a black, wavering curtain as dark as the Dementors' cloaks. He leaned over her with one arm braced on the ground, the other lifted as if to ward the creatures off.
She knew the spell. She knew the spell! She had to try! "Expecto—," Harriet mouthed, numb lips attempting to form the right sounds. "Ex—Expecto—!"
"No, no, no…I'm so sorry, Lily, please, please—."
One of the Dementors threaded its dry, scabbed fingers through Snape's hair and jerked his head back. Snape stared at it, expression blank, eyes wide, unseeing. It breathed in—and its chest rattled, Harriet's despair clouding every sense but her compounding terror.
The Dementor lowered its hood. The revealed face—or lack thereof—would haunt Harriet's nightmares, the gaping, lipless maw rippling as it fed upon their hopes and dreams.
"Give her to me, Snivellus!"
"No," Snape repeated, louder, angrier. "I said no!"
"You'll have to take her from my cold, dead hands, you fucking TRAITOR."
His arm rose, black wand clenched in a white fist, a ferocious look on his face. "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
Silver light shredded through the darkness hovering upon the glade, and Harriet watched as a shimmering shape erupted from Snape's wand, barreling into the Dementors looming upon them like hungry vultures. The Dementors screamed, and the light vibrated, brighter than moonlight, more precious than spun platinum, sparkling whorls pulsing with pure feelings of joy and happiness. The magic hummed in her chest, in her heart. More than anything else in the world, Harriet wanted to touch it, to draw it into herself and banish the barren ruination of loneliness etched into her bones.
The great, flickering wings of the spectral phoenix spread wide, and it chased the fleeing Dementors towards the heavens like a shooting star. It took with it its light, and Harriet once more felt the hard ground under her, the unbearable chill of the Dementors' presence sinking into her skin one last time.
He cast a Patronus, Harriet thought, dazed. It's…beautiful.
The last thing she heard was Snape's voice, murmuring, "I'm so sorry, Lily." He stared toward the night sky and did not blink from the feel of the rain on his upturned face. "I'm so sorry."
x X x
Elara ran as fast as her four paws would carry her.
Behind her, the snarling and snapping and baying dwindled, chased by the thrash of leaves and crunching mulch. "Elara!" echoed, but it too faded, gone before Elara could register what it meant, where she was going, what she was doing. Pettigrew's smell filled her nose. It was the stink of fear and desperation.
She went after the rat like a loosed hound, jumping over downed branches and lifted roots, ignoring how she skinned her elbows when she stumbled and tripped. Faster, she urged herself, chasing the cretin's skinny tail. Wormtail, Black had called him. How apropos.
When her prey vanished from view, Elara stopped running and transformed, sucking in lungfuls of needed air. She searched the weeds, kicking through a yew bush with her wand drawn, still sparking. Where did he go? she raged. Where did he—?
A shadow shifted, beady eyes glinting, and a heavy branch collided with the back of Elara's head. She hit the dirt and knew no more.
A/N: It's my headcanon that werewolves are resistant to magic; it's part of the reason they're so feared, beyond their ability to spread their curse.
Excuse the long note, but I'm going to answer the question before it gets asked: why did I change Snape's Patronus? According to Pottermore "the form of a Patronus may change…due to bereavement, falling in love, or profound shifts in a person's character." I know everyone always says Snape's Patronus is a doe because he loved Lily, but I believe it's because of that first option, "bereavement." In this AU, his Patronus has grown less cohesive over the year as his grief has lessened. If you remember from way back in CH 5 (v. bind thy hands), CDT!Snape already had Lily's forgiveness, so long as he swore to always protect her daughter if she could not. His guilt is not as poignant and powerful as it is in canon. Protecting Harriet over the years has helped him heal, and his Patronus has become something new, for reasons we'll discover in a later chapter. No, it didn't change because he loves Harriet, because he doesn't. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Snape: [internal screaming]
A wild werewolf appears!
Snape: [external screaming]
He deserves a raise for the things he gets put through.
