Severus Snape: Blood From a Stone

Severus Snape

Potter sprawled on the floor in the front room of the house on Spinner's End, and Severus tried to work out whether he'd made a serious error in judgment. He knew two things for certain. If he'd left Potter there, he was unlikely to remember to come back for him. Not for years, if his past mental fog was any indication. And Potter was unlikely to survive several more years in that cell.

And one other thing, the bits of scattered memory finally coming together: You must help him, Severus.

He performed several diagnostics, each one deeper than the last, and each one leaving him grimmer than the last. Curses riddled the young man's body. So many that it was difficult to track them all. He'd been right on one account: Potter wouldn't last several years. Dark magic liked to reach out tendrils, and many curses had grown, sinking into the flesh. Their damage would soon be fatal.

The deep hollows in Potter's face, the puckering of the scars, and the patchy beard made him look older than he was. Fifty, instead of twenty… or was it twenty-one? He never bothered remembering birthdays, and certainly not Potter's. But then a familiar weight settled on his shoulders as forgotten words came back to him—words he had so eagerly carried back to the Dark Lord. Born as the seventh month dies… A fatal mistake that had led to his promise to protect him: the son of the first person to ever show him kindness. It had been the most heartfelt promise he'd ever made. And what an excellent job he'd done at that.

Long black hair scattered on the floor in matted clumps, and he smelled like a pile of sunbaked dragon dung. He stirred, as if in a dream, fists spasming, head thumping against the floor, mouth twisting in a grimace.

Severus frowned. Stupefy should have left him unconscious and immobile for hours. He had cast the spell in a hurry, but… no. It was not the spell.

"You've been learning new tricks," he murmured. He set to work immediately, untangling a muscle-weakening curse that had worked its way into the coronary arteries. The heart beat with an irregular rhythm as it struggled against the damage. Potter's own latent magic must have been fighting it and slowing its progress, but in his debilitated state—

Potter's eyes snapped open.

Severus paused, wand still pointed at his heart. "Potter—"

Dirty fingers seized his wrist. Potter's other fist opened and revealed a flake of grey stone, honed to a razor's edge. His grip tightened, and he slashed.

Snape's sleeve split open, the rip loud and harsh. The blade slid up his arm, deep into the artery, a seam of red in its wake. The stone met the Dark Mark, stuttered, and slipped out of Potter's hand.

The air liquified, the blade caught in a downward current so slow he could count the rotations of the stone. It struck the floor and skidded into a corner.

He came to his senses, and time sped up again. The wound erupted. He dropped his wand and clenched his arm, blood spurting between his fingers and spattering across the floorboards. His heart pounded as red heat rushed over him. You idiot.

Potter scuttled to the door on his hands and knees, reaching for the locks. The deadbolts opened with a click-click-click.

He hadn't re-set the wards over the house yet. Idiot. He let go of his arm and fumbled for his wand. It slipped out of his wet hand, clattering as it bounced and rolled under the sofa.

Potter scrabbled at the door, still on his knees. His calves were thinner than the rest of him, flattened. His feet jutted at odd angles, as though barely attached. Straining, he pulled himself halfway up by the door handle and released the security chain. He fell back to his knees and threw the door open.

"Accio wand." His wand flew back into his hand and he gripped it tightly, pushing away thoughts of lacerating pain and blood. "Petrificus totalus! Incarcerous!"

Potter dodged the petrificus, but the incarcerous caught him, the rope wrapping his arm up to the elbow and lashing him to the door handle. He yanked frantically, pulling himself loose.

He cast petrificus again, and Potter dropped to the floor.

Severus shut the door and clasped his wrist again, pressing on the opened vein. His black robes didn't show red, but the front was slick and warm to the touch. He stared at the sheen of the fabric, a buzzing growing louder in his ears as the folds blurred into each other. His arm didn't seem a part of him anymore, just a glistening red creature that quivered and contracted.

Injured. Yes. Forcing himself to focus, he chanted the words that would mend the wound. He couldn't see the cut through the blood, but felt the sliding of wet skin against skin as the wound closed. He wiped the edge where the injury had been, revealing the black head of the writhing snake. It was pure chance that Potter chose the arm with the Mark, as dark magic had stopped the cut. No simple blade could mar the serpent and skull.

The room was far away, a pinprick at the end of a tunnel. Blinking, he willed it closer, willed his feet to remain steady. "Such a delightful greeting you reserved for me," he rasped out, partly to himself and partly to Potter's immobile form. "But all I need is a blood replenishing potion to set things right. And all you need is a good thrashing."

It looked as though an axe-murderer had finished up work. Blood ran across the floor, and a red hand print stood in stark contrast to the white paint of the door panel. He cast a cleaning spell over the area, himself, and Potter's filthy frame. Frozen with a gruesome rictus, Potter had one arm twisted uncomfortably behind him. Severus moved to unfreeze him, but hesitated.

The diagnostics were clear. Powerful curses infecting his legs, his lungs, his heart. Weaker curses affecting everything else. Stomach shrunk like a dried apple. Bones hollowed out, as his body slowly ate itself alive. "You're no match for me." His voice was not as assured as he'd intended, but he carried on, determined to show he was in control of the situation. Drawing himself up so he towered over Potter, he doubled down on the condescension. "In your pathetic state, you're no match for anyone."

And yet… did he just blink? Severus gripped his arm protectively.

He kept Potter frozen, secured him with incarcerous, and re-set the wards over the house. It was too much magic after such blood loss. Dark spots appeared in his vision. He stumbled through a door into the kitchen, crashing into the hanging pots, grabbing the wall to steady himself, and knocking down an old family photo. Another door led to an extension that served as his potions room. The last of his blood replenishing potion was gone in two swallows.

He set fires under three cauldrons and quickly added the ingredients, stirring one when the others needed to set, increasing the temperature with his wand whilst scrutinizing the expected color change in another. He soon had three bubbling potions: blood replenishing, marrow-building, and a sleeping draught.

He considered the wisdom of the sleeping draught, of magically imposed unconsciousness. For Potter's health—and his own—he needed to sleep. But stupefy had lessened the forgetfulness spell Potter used, and he suspected it was not just himself and the guard who had remembered Potter in that moment. The remarkably specific memory loss was widespread—he could not recall any of the Death Eaters mentioning Potter, not for a long time.

They had been torturing Potter—he had tortured Potter, under the Dark Lord's watchful eyes, his guts twisting as Potter screamed. On the nights when the memory of those screams burned away any possibility of sleep, he stayed up until the ghostly light of dawn, working on a way for the boy to escape. He hadn't shared details with the resistance—the less they knew the better, until everything was prepared—but he had been investigating feverishly, discovering the secrets of guards who were ripe for blackmail, waiting for a time when the Dark Lord would be away from the Ministry and he would have a few days to get Potter to the resistance before his absence was discovered.

And then he forgot. They all forgot.

He fingered the spot on his sleeve that hid the Dark Mark. Over an hour now since Potter's spell had been broken, and no burn penetrating his flesh, no summons from the Dark Lord. Either the interruption of the memory spell had not reached everyone, and the Dark Lord remained unaware of Potter's existence… Or the Dark Lord remembered, and had shut Severus out of his plans. The thought chilled his blood. Those who lost the Dark Lord's trust did not survive long.

There was nothing he could do about it now. He could only hope that, for once in his miserable life, luck had gone in his favor and the Dark Lord remained in blissful ignorance. The longer the rest of them stayed unaware of Potter's existence, the better. Perhaps he shouldn't risk breaking the spell again. He drummed his fingers along the edge of the cauldron that held the sleeping potion, but the cauldron only offered a metallic staccato beat and no answers.

"There's nothing for it," he told the cauldron. He needed Potter quiet and motionless whilst he worked on reversing the damaging curses running through Potter's body. "I can't fight those curses and Potter at the same time."

He set up a fourth cauldron and carefully combined the three potions, weaving together the magic of each whilst mixing in ingredients that would prevent any undesired interactions. Pouring the final brew into a cup, he made his way back to the kitchen, running his thumb along the rim. He paused, thinking about how to explain its purpose to Potter. To explain his purpose. If Dumbledore were still there, he would've had the words. Severus is only trying to help you, Harry, or some such words of kindness and comfort, and then he would have offered a sweet, and he and Harry would have had a heart-to-heart over tea. Severus had been on the receiving end of enough talks to know how they would go.

But Dumbledore was gone, and he had to struggle on without the gifts that the headmaster possessed. He could attempt to explain himself to Potter. In fact, I spy for the resistance. I rescued you. I'm only trying to help you. But he bristled at the idea. He was going to explain himself to Potter? He was going to reveal his true loyalties, the secret that he didn't allow anyone else to keep?

The thought of that secret being revealed gave him cold sweats in the dark of night, knowing what the Dark Lord did to traitors. It was not even the pain. He had endured the pain of cruciatus. It was the unrelenting days, weeks, months of it, until it reduced him to a quivering weakling in front of them all, crying and begging for release. He would give that secret, that power, to Potter?

Impossible. He knew where his strengths lay, and it was not in heart-to-hearts over tea. Let Potter think his loyalties were with the Dark Lord, that his abduction of Potter was part of some Death Eater power play, or some relentless desire to humiliate him further. Let Potter think whatever he wanted, as long as he submitted to his healing methods. And Severus would make sure he submitted, if it took every bit of magic and manipulation he knew.

Perhaps, with the right manipulation, he could learn Potter's secrets. This new memory magic of Potter's could be more than valuable—it could be vital. A resistance that was forgotten until it struck could quickly weaken the Dark Lord's strongholds and turn the tide of war. He only needed to discover how he'd managed it.

Assuming he could get any information from Potter, as it was unclear if he still understood language. There had been damage to his mind as well, and he'd not yet discovered how much. The only course was to start the treatments, and see what emerged.

He strode into the front room, brandishing the cup. "Potter," he said, and stopped. The room was empty. Potter was gone.

"Homenum revelio." But the spell didn't unveil anyone. He checked the wards over the house, but they were still in place. The only thing they noted was that he and Potter had entered the premises. Before that, months of only himself and the owls entering and leaving. They made no mention of the cat, but they never did. He searched downstairs, levitating the furniture, yanking open doors and slamming them closed. And then upstairs, and back to the kitchen. He examined the wards again, checking to see if Potter had somehow altered them to hide his escape.

No. Potter was here. He could feel it. He would go over every inch of the house if need be. It had to be done quickly, because without the physical reminder of Potter, he had little defense against this new magic. Then he wouldn't find Potter—Potter would find him. He'd have the comfort of remembering him one last time as Potter sliced a blade across his throat.

He heard a noise and tensed. But it was only the cat—a large ginger cat who padded across the room, his meow a soft inquiry.

"I reinforced the wards," Severus told him. "How did you get in?"

The cat leapt on the table and sat like he belonged there, tail curled around him like a wreath.

He had been about to do something. He was quite certain about that. He glanced at his sleeve, as if he expected to see a sign. But it was just his sleeve, looking slightly cleaner than he remembered. The sense of something important slipping away was strong, and he stood there, staring, willing it to come back. But the cat waited, and that meant others were waiting.

Severus poked at the fur under the collar, stifling a sneeze. It had to be a cat. Not an owl. Not a pigeon, even. He'd grown up showered in coal dust, bathed in pollen every summer, and he hadn't much noticed. But cats. Bloody cats. He blinked the sting out of his eyes and found the slight bump on the felted underside of the collar. The scroll was miniaturized to such an extent that it took several spells to resize it, and another several to decode it. The final code was muggle-based, one not prone to decoding spells. Clever, that. He had a fair idea of who had come up with that one.

The cat rowrred an inquiry.

"Quiet." He squeezed his eyes shut and gave several hearty sneezes. "Why don't you wait by the door?"

The cat twitched his tail and rubbed his head against Snape's arm.

The message was terse: where and when is the next attack?

He'd narrowed the possibilities to two: Baker's Field this evening, or Saltpeter Row tomorrow afternoon. Both known hideouts for the resistance. He was nearly certain it was Saltpeter Row, but had gone to the Ministry of Magic to speak to the Carrows again.

He'd gone to the Ministry, but… somehow missed them. Sidelined by Weasley, who'd gone on about reporting him for some infraction or other. It was all a bit fuzzy now. But the Carrows might still be there. He could go back, do the job he should've done this morning.

He frowned at the parchment. They needed an answer now. They couldn't afford several hours whilst he confirmed his information. He scratched out his reply, noting both locations and the likelihood of attack. He hoped it was enough.

Re- coded and miniaturized, the parchment slipped back inside the collar. The cat slitted his eyes at him in acknowledgment, padded back to the door, and rowrred.

"You got in well enough. You can find your way out."

The cat looked at the door with great intensity, as if he couldn't quite fathom the concept of closed. He swiveled his head and stared at Severus.

"One thing muggles got right." He strode across the room and swung open the door. "They don't give their post to rat-eaters."

The cat slid out, the tip of his tail waving like a tuft in the breeze. A skinny grey cat in the street took one look at the ginger visitor and darted away.

Severus watched through a window until he disappeared round the corner. The tea kettle hissed softly, a steam valve slowly releasing. He wished he'd had more time. Their messages had gotten shorter as the war raged on. Desperate. In the beginning, they used to be full of personal requests. Non-essential information, as he'd thought of it. Wanting to know the status of prisoners: friends, family, loved ones.

They used to ask about someone, a long time ago. Someone.

Please let us know if you've heard… nothing since the Triwizard Tournament… banned the newspapers from mentioning… but we think that if Harry…

…if Harry…

Potter.

The morning flew back to him. The Ministry. The front room. The blood.

The kettle hissed again. But now that he listened, it didn't sound like a kettle. Too short, ragged. Hissing in, hissing out. It occurred to him that he hadn't put on the kettle.

He kept his gaze on the window and felt for his wand inside his sleeve. Got a good grip. Slow, discreet movements. He let his heart pound. The adrenaline would help.

Another hiss, another indrawn breath. Close.

Severus whirled, stupify on his lips. But he saw no one. And he remembered. Potter couldn't stand.

Something stabbed him in the back of his ankle. Pain lanced up his leg, hot and white. His leg gave out and he crashed to the floor.

Potter was on top of him, the smell of infection on his breath. He gripped a wire from a sofa spring, thick and flecked with rust. Holding it like a garrotte, he closed in.

Snape's ears rang, but he didn't flinch. He hardened his face and summoned the tone he'd used for years at Hogwarts. "Potter," he barked. "What do you think you're doing?"

The years at Hogwarts ingrain certain habits. He saw it in Weasley, sometimes in Draco. Years of tensing as he hovered over their potions, of freezing whenever he caught them breaking rules. Potter hesitated for a fraction of a second, the garrotte hovering above Snape's throat.

A fraction of a second was all he needed. He wrenched the wire away and rolled, pinning those gaunt arms against the floor.

Potter wriggled a leg free and bucked, kneeing him hard in the ribs.

Severus saw sparks of light. He was bigger, though, and held on, using his weight to his advantage. He pushed down, pressing them both against the floor.

Potter twisted, all bones and sinew, his breathing becoming high-pitched and raspy. His eyes widened, his skin turning chalk-white, and he coughed, chest heaving with violent jerks.

It took a moment to understand. Potter was terrified. Terror so intense, he was about to be sick. Severus turned him over and he retched, yellow bile and blood splattering on the floorboards.

Holding Potter by the shoulders, he stared at his shuddering back, torn between seizing him in a vise grip and cradling his head. He'd never been good with sick students. It was his job to prepare the potions. Poppy was the one to say that's all right and it'll be better in the morning as she tucked them into bed. He wiped away the sick from Potter's mouth whilst he coughed and shivered, sweat dampening the spots where Severus held him.

What he understood was enemy combatants. Potter wouldn't remain docile for long. His ankle throbbed. A broken bit of quill protruded from it, blood running into his shoe.

Severus transfigured the sofa, elongating it and widening it into a bed. The old afghan on it blossomed into a duvet. He aimed at Potter, levitating him toward the bed.

Potter liked that as much as he liked being held down. He twisted in the air and screamed like a man possessed. His progress to the other side of the room halted, and he wobbled in the air, flailing his arms, reaching for something to pull himself free. Magic pulsed through the levitation spell, stuttering the rhythm of it.

"A feeble attempt," Severus said, sneering. But he was growing more impressed—and worried—over these new abilities. He pushed through the opposing force and laid him on the duvet.

Once released from the levitation, Potter leapt up, darting for the edge of the bed.

But Severus was ready for that and slashed his wand in quick movements.

The wards sprung up, and Potter slammed into them like a newt in a jar. The wards were supposed to be invisible, but light crackled in tiny pinpoints where his hands touched them.

Severus added reinforcement spells, and the light subsided. Only then did he feel comfortable taking his gaze away and examining his wounds.

One rib bruised, but none broken. The quill fragment protruded just behind his ankle. He made sure it wasn't near a major artery, then gritted his teeth and yanked it out. It hurt less coming out than it did going in, but not by much. After a skin-knitting spell, the bleeding slowed to a trickle and finally stopped. He was going to need blood replenishing potion with his daily tea, at this rate.

He studied the room. Less damage, this time. Near the writing desk, the cupboard under the stairs gaped open, the books and boxes of stationery inside pushed to the back. He hadn't thought a person could fit into such a small space.

The flesh near the ankle started to redden and swell, still damaged. Ink from the quill left a black splotch under his skin. "Wonderful. Another tattoo." He limped into the kitchen as Potter growled, a wolf denied his prey. It raised tingling hairs on the back of his neck.

He sat in the kitchen and repaired his wounds. Slashing the skin again would allow him to siphon out the ink, but it didn't seem worth the trouble. Nothing did. The sense of purpose he'd felt this morning was rapidly disappearing. Potter was mad. Feral. Dying. "I can't help him," he muttered.

Of course you can, Severus. Harry needs you.

He could see Dumbledore's clear eyes. So sure that he could rely on Snape, that theirs was a bond that could not be broken.

"He doesn't want my help. And I don't feel inclined to give it to him."

You'll find a way. I trust you completely, Severus—

"Oh, shut up, you useless old git." Severus buried his head in his hands.