No Malicious Haunting 5/?

Summary: Sequel to Lost Boys. When Snape and David visit the Potters for the holidays, they find that the past is neither forgiven nor forgotten. FRT, genfic.

DISCLAIMER: The characters are the property of J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Books, and whoever else may have a hold on them. I own nothing in the Potterverse, or anywhere else, for that matter. Strictly for entertainment, and no profit is being made. Please sue somebody else.

A/N: I'm starting to work on this again, though I can't promise I'll be able to finish it. But this section, which I also am planing to post as a stand alone, was really the reason I started the sequel to "Lost Boys" in the first place. I'm sorry - I really thought I had posted this years ago.

Brief recap:

Severus Snape is a Hogwarts ghost, and has been invited to the Potters' house for Christmas. Dudley Dursley has grown up into a surprisingly decent human being (See "Two Dads") and the father of his own magical child, 15 year old David. The story of how Snape and David met, and how he reconciled with Harry can be found in "Lost Boys", which is complete. Except for a comment near the end, which I've marked, everything here can be understood without having read the earlier stories.

Snape watched from the shadows as the other guests began to arrive. He noticed Vernon and Petunia kept to themselves, answering when spoken to, but quite content otherwise to sit quietly on the sidelines and watch, much as he was doing. From Petunia's expression, at least, they did not approve the proceedings nearly so much as he did.

It was a good house, he decided, solid and comfortable. Remarkably clean for having three children, but then, Ginny Weasley came from a much larger family, and he imagined the tips and tricks that kept the Weasley menagerie reasonably sanitary and functional would work even better here with a smaller amount of people to serve.

He noticed that Vernon seemed much relieved when his son came and asked if he'd like to watch the kids playing football— relieved to hear they were playing a "normal" game, and even more to be out of a house where objects were likely to drift through open doors at any moment, sent by unnatural magic from one place to the other. Petunia smiled at him and assured him she would be fine, but as soon as he left her worried frown returned.

Snape thought about testing his suspicion that she could see him, but before he could work out a suitable experiment, a new arrival at the door pushed Petunia Dursley nee Evans from his mind entirely.

"Professor McGonagall! So good to see you. Come in," called Ginny from the hall, as Hermione gave the older woman a warm hug in the doorway. "Let her in, Hermione, it's cold out there. How are you?" Ginny continued, coming forward to collect her own hug as Hermione closed the door and cast a warming charm in the entryway.

"I'm fine, dears," Minerva replied. "And how many times must I tell you, I am retired. Call me Minerva."

"Here, let's get you settled by the fire," Hermione said. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"Tea would be lovely," Minerva replied. She nodded regally to Petunia as she passed on the way to the sitting room fire, and Petunia returned the nod in kind.

Once she was settled and tea in her hands, Ginny said brightly, "I'll just go fetch Harry then. I know he had something he wanted to discuss with you."

"Another of his cases? I swear, that boy still attracts more trouble than any child I ever taught. I'm always happy to help him, but there are times I really would rather not know what he's getting up to."

Hermione sighed. "I know what you mean." She and Ginny traded a look, and Ginny went out. Snape wondered what they were plotting. But when Potter came in, he realized. They were going to tell Minerva now. About him. He'd agreed to it, but it still was difficult, watching from the shadows, wondering what she would say, how she would feel to find out the truth after all these years.

Well, he was about to find out, he thought, as he saw her face change as Potter knelt by her chair and spoke in low tones. He saw the sudden upswelling of old grief, then a hard, grim expression as she looked around the room, as if trying to spot him. Minerva rose abruptly to her feet, unsteady, but every inch the Headmistress of Hogwarts and Head of Gryffindor House she had once been. She waved a startled Harry Potter back imperiously as she steadied herself with sheer force of will. "Severus Snape! Show yourself! At once!"

Snape steeled himself to bear the coldness of the tone as he materialized in front of her, feeling like nothing so much as an errant first year. He adopted his blandest expression, the one that had in the past frequently sent her into paroxysms of barely controlled rage. He had known Minerva a long time, and he was well aware that what she needed most now was a good rant at him. It was the least he could do, to endure it with a good grace, after everything.

"Minerva. I am pleased to see you looking so well."

Lesser men had withered under the gaze she was fixing on him now. "Severus Snape, you old reprobate. Explain yourself!"

Snape affected not to understand the question. "Of course, Minerva. What was it you wished to know?"

"Been a ghost all this time, have you? And never saw fit to drop by?" She was working herself into quite a towering rage, beautiful and terrible to behold.

Potter seemed poised to intervene in his defense, but Snape froze him with a look. "Thank you Mister Potter, but I think you have done quite enough." He turned back to McGonagall. "Until recently Minerva, I was... not myself. I do apologize for my tardiness. I assure you, I would have come to you straight away had I been able."

She glanced at Potter, who nodded confirmation. She said, her brogue thickening a bit as it always did when she was upset, "One might think you had not been yourself for quite some time before you..." For the first time, her iron control faltered a bit, and her voice had a decided quaver. "Why didn't you tell me?"

And Snape was suddenly drawn to one of the most painful memories of his life.

Sunlight was streaming through the high windows as he stood in the doorway of Charity Burbage's office. Not hers any longer, he reminded himself. Which was why he was here. He thought she might have appreciated the irony of it, that on his first triumphant day as Headmaster, finally having received the recognition and respect he had once so craved from his peers and his world, he would be here, making it his first official act to gather her personal effects and expunge her from the school, and his memory.

He could have delegated the task. But he knew at the moment his emotions were far too close to the surface. He needed this time alone to regain his control. And, well, penance was a concept with which he was all too familiar. She had been his colleague, his friend, sometimes even his lover over the years, and he had not lifted a finger to save her, nor to ease her dying moments, nor even to grant her the courtesy of acknowledging their long association with his eyes or show any emotion at all at her passing. He owed her this much, pitifully small though it was. He had little faith that she was in any position to appreciate his efforts. But he hoped that, if she was, she would take some comfort in it, and understand. Even if he was able to do neither.

He conjured a large wooden crate by the bookshelf and began sorting through the books and curios there. To some he applied a shrinking charm and placed them in the crate; others that were more fragile he set aside to pack later. He avoided the desk as long as he could- it had always seemed to him a living breathing thing, filled with her jotted musing and notes and whimsical doodlings in the margins of staff meeting agendas. He had often accused her of never throwing anything away, and after ten years, the piles had achieved geologic stature, the years preserved in a kind of colorful ink-stained stratification. And his unenviable task would be to go through those papers, one by one, preserving those he knew she would have wanted preserved, and destroying others which might have been embarrassing in some way.

He remembered her saying, once, "I hope when I'm gone, someone with sense goes through all this."

He had smirked in amusement. "You could always do it yourself, you know."

She gave a rude snort. "You're one to talk. Besides, I've no time. Too much to do. I've got that paper to finish for the Interdisciplinary Magical Origins Conference next month in Devon, and there's the revision for Comparative Sociology Journal, and..." She usually had several projects she was juggling at once, on top of a full teaching schedule. A restless sparkling bundle of energy, always. He wondered now as he stared at the desk, what brilliant new avenues of inquiry had been cut off by her death.

He forced himself around the desk, stepping over the piles that were always escaping its surface and trying to creep away like playful living creatures. That's how she had always described it, anyway. She was forever seizing one and saying nonsensical things like, "Ha! Thought you could escape your mistress, did you, little draft bibliography? I don't think so." He remembered the first time he'd seen her do it, while they were having tea and quite a stimulating discussion on- something. He could not now bring to mind exactly what. There had been so many such conversations over the years. He had paused in midsentence, looking at her as if she had lost her mind. And she had looked up and noticed and - smiled so sweetly at his raised eyebrow. And then had proceeded to rip his argument to shreds without mercy, still smiling that same sweet smile. He had been lost in that moment.

He sat in her chair now and contemplated the desk, at a loss for where to start. He was never sure afterwards how long he sat there, staring. Or how long he would have continued to do so, had not his newly appointed Deputy Headmistress, just demoted from acting Head, come barreling through the door like some enraged mascot of her House. Halfway through her shouted litany of abuse, she looked into his eyes and saw the raw pain he could not muster the strength to hide, sitting there at Charity's desk, looking at all that remained of her life. And he saw it. She knew.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

It was on the tip of the ghost's tongue to lie to Minerva now, as he had done almost every waking minute of the last year of his life. But looking deep into those watery grey eyes, red-rimmed and on the verge of tears, he found he could not.

"I did."

The answer hung in the air, and he was dimly aware of Potter gaping open-mouthed at him in astonishment. But he kept his eyes fixed on his former Deputy Head, watching as she worked it out with that keenly analytical mind he had always admired.

"You obliviated me, didn't you?"

Snape inclined his head.

The strength seemed to go out of the elderly witch then, and Snape reached out to steady her as she resumed her seat. Her eyes widened to feel his solid grasp. Snape went to release her when she was safely in her chair again, but she kept hold on him and pulled him closer, until he was kneeling by the arm of her chair, just as Potter had been a few moments before. "Tell me, Severus."

Snape was silent for a few moments, considering where to start. Then he said, "Actually, I do not believe any further purpose is served by that spell at this late date. Madam Weasley, are you familiar with the procedure to reverse an obliviate cast with an additional locking charm, keyed to the original caster?"

Madam Weasley was behind him in the doorway, as he had known she would be, watching over her old Head of House, in case the shock of this confrontation had any unintended medical consequences. Now he heard her say cautiously, "They are rather dangerous. And nearly impossible to reverse, except by the original caster."

"Which is why I chose it. I could not risk anyone's breaking through to the memory of that afternoon, Minerva least of all. I haven't the power to reverse it now myself, but I could guide you to do it. If you would like that memory back?" He addressed this last to McGonagall. "It would at the least help you understand exactly what cause you have to be angry with me."

She smiled at him gently, and he was surprised by the genuine affection in her eyes. "Yes, Severus. I think I would like that memory back now."

Snape rose smoothly. "Take out your wand then, Madam Weasley," he said, extending his own. "When I perform the unlocking, cast the reversal. Draw the energy from me." In answer to the unspoken concern in McGonagall's eyes he added, "It is only fair, Minerva, as you will see. And it will only sting me for a moment."

She did not look completely convinced, but she took a steadying breath and said, "All right. I am ready."

"On three then, Madam Weasley." He gave the count calmly, and on three he performed his part of the counter-spell, while Madam Weasley did the rest. It did more than sting, but Snape did not mind. He was too busy watching his old friend. She blinked, as if a bit disoriented. And then she turned to Snape, eyes full of anguish and regret. And she said absolutely the last thing he would have expected.

"Oh Severus," she whispered. "I am so sorry."

It was the same thing she'd said that day, too, when the awful truth came crashing in on her. She stopped in mid rant, reached back without taking her eyes from his, and shut the door, then warded it with her wand. Then she whispered brokenly, "Oh Severus. I am so sorry."

Snape recovered enough to sneer at her, trying to brazen it out as he always had before. "Yes, well, Minerva. I admit the recent weeks have been quite trying for us all. However, if your aim is to force me to remove you as Deputy, I am sorry to say that no one else suits me as you do. You will remain, and I hope in the future you will contain your little outbursts..."

She shook her head impatiently and kept her eyes fixed on his. "You planned it, didn't you? You and Albus."

"I am sure I have no idea what you're talking about Minerva." He was drawing his wand slowly, a risky proposition with hers out, but knowing the sooner he obliviated her, the sooner he could eradicate that unbearable compassion from her eyes. She raised her own wand, quick as the cat she sometimes was, and when he pulled out his wand he found it had been transfigured into a length of some thorny vine.

"I am well aware of your ability to perform wandless magic, Severus. I am also aware that transfiguration was never your best subject. And obliviate is dangerous even with a wand. I agree you will have to do it, but you can damned well wait a few more minutes first."

Snape laid his transfigured wand carefully on the desk in front of him and leaned back, ignoring the drops of blood welling from his fingers and thumb where the thorns had pierced his flesh. "Of course, Minerva. I am at your disposal."

She pursed her lips at his light, mocking tone and narrowed her eyes at him. "You do that deliberately, don't you?"

The surrealism of the scene, and the sudden thought of how ridiculous Charity would have found the situation caused a dry chuckle to well up in his throat, but a different strangled sound escaped instead as he found his throat suddenly, unexpectedly tight. He looked away, toward the empty bookshelf on the wall. When he could speak again he said, a trifle unsteadily, "I have no idea what you are going on about, Minerva. Now if you will excuse me, I have work to do, and I require my wand..."

"She's dead, isn't she? Not just missing."

Snape didn't trust himself to speak now. He nodded once, still not looking at his colleague.

"And you were there, weren't you? Oh dear Merlin, he didn't make you..."

"No. But... there was nothing I could do."

She came closer and sat in the guest chair Snape had always lounged in when Charity had sat where he was now. She studied his face for a long moment. "Severus, I am your Deputy. I am also your friend. You owe it to me under both relationships to tell me just what in the Seven Hells you have let Albus get you into this time." When he didn't answer, she added, "You are going to need to talk to someone real about all this. Someone that isn't a semi-sentient portrait with delusions of grandeur. I'll never remember this conversation, Severus; I understand that my knowing would be too dangerous. But I'm here now. Talk to me."

Somehow, the knowledge that in a few minutes she would not know anything of what he was about to reveal made him open up. He told her how Charity had died. He told her how Albus had died. How Harry was fated to die. How much he wished he himself had died before living to see any of it. And when he finally wound down his emotionless monologue, he felt immeasurably better. They sat for a time in silence.

Then McGonagall rose and transfigured Snape's wand back to its former composition. "You'll need to let it settle for a minute," she reminded him. "I do not want to end up like Gilderoy, you know."

Snape gave a sad smile, and he picked up the wand and twirled it idly in his fingers. "I am sorry, Minerva. For all this."

She nodded briskly. "Can I help you go through her things first? The two of us could get through it all much more quickly."

"No, thank you, Minerva. We really should not wait. And... I owe it to her."

She nodded again. "All right. I was about here, I believe?"

"You were."

As he raised the wand, she looked him directly in the eye and said, "Severus, hold on to this, over all the time to come. I am sure to be angry, bitter, spiteful, and absolutely horrible to you. Remember that I would not be nearly so dreadful, were I not so fond of you. In my eyes, you will have betrayed everything I thought we both cared about. And you know I have never been much for forgiveness."

Snape could not suppress a sad smile at the understatement. "I shall endeavor to remember, Minerva." He paused, then added, "I give you my word, though you will never remember it, that I will do my utmost to keep you and our students and our colleagues safe. And that I will aid Potter however I am able."

She nodded her understanding, and he rose and leveled his wand at her. "Obliviate."

A/N 2: The standalone post will run a little past this, but here's where the original scene ended. So for No Malicious Haunting, I'll hold to that.