Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them. Honest.
Magic Never Dies
Chapter 16
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This time there was no fooling around, and both of them were fairly certain what the other wanted.
Harry had felt relatively safe at first. I'm only… in his mind. This isn't real. He can't actually do anything…
Wrong.
He could feel pain; he was still connected to his own body and Voldemort was more experienced in traveling the pathway between them than he. Voldemort swam through Harry's veins like a snake, nipping at nerve endings here, coiling and pressing on raw tissue there. He was everywhere; behind his eyes, at the base of his skull, sliding down his spine probing for anything that hurt. Harry knew that back there, where he really was, he was probably fighting a scream and thrashing around in a vain attempt to displace the sensations. Here in Voldemort's mind he experienced it as if from a distance without hope of affecting it in any way; shapeless, limbless, formless but still sensate.
Harry pushed back at the waves of hatred and disgust that rushed like a tide to keep him from his goal. Occasionally if he swam strongly enough against the current he could even see the view from Voldemort's own eyes, and it was with a small thrill of victory that he noted he too had brought his enemy down. Voldemort lay in the back of a darkened moving vehicle, repeatedly bumped and jolted as it careened over rough roads. It occurred to Harry that Voldemort was reduced to having to use Muggle transport because he could not risk apparition with Harry conscious within him.
`The great and powerful Lord Voldemort, and I could splinch him,' Harry thought, and a glimmer of laughter cut through his determination and unease. `I can see it now…Oops, the Dark Lord's lost his balls for real this time!'
Voldemort apparently missed the humor in this realization, and Harry realized the snakelike presence within his body was heading south as well. Big potential ouch. Time to get a move on, then.
It was a less like swimming now, more flinging himself against and through a flood of images, most of them twisted and horrific. A dementor would starve in here. This was the kind of black hole of anything hopeful and good Harry had never been able to imagine before and he felt it sapping his own limited supply of optimism like a ravenous, feeding beast. He knew now why Dumbledore had tried to show him that Voldemort had begun as human, had once been a child before the lure of his own magic had twisted him so. If there was anything human left in here it was buried deep. Harry tried to tell himself if he went back far enough the oppressive evil would diminish… but what he sought was in the very heart of the darkness.
He was not exactly sure when the missing horcrux had been made or hidden, but he did know what memories he would have to pass if his journey was a linear one. Voldemort would be sure to force Harry to relive that dreaded night… or would he? How closely was he willing or able to look at that moment? Did Voldemort perceive it as his ultimate triumph and glory for the fact that his sick horcrux plan had worked to ensured his raw survival, or did he see it as a power-sapping humiliation at the hands of a woman and year- old child?
Images bombarded him; people screaming, begging, and the inevitable burst of green. He knew they were seeing Voldemort but as Harry worked through his enemies' memories and watched through his enemies' eyes his victims seemed to be imploring Harry himself. His heart felt quite literally like it was bleeding with the sheer wretched waste of so many lives, lost for so little.
I can't and I must were equally recurrent thoughts. He understood at last why Dumbledore had been grateful for him continuing to pour the poison between his lips; Harry wanted nothing more now than to curl up in a ball of despair and die to escape the pervasive horror. The worst of it was not being able to separate himself from what he was seeing; Harry felt every ounce of the immense guilt that Voldemort had insulated himself against, would never know.
Cedric's lifeless eyes. And that was… Tom Riddle's father, the handsome muggle who had run from Merope Gaunt's ensnarement, his frozen expression revealing no sign he'd known who his teenaged murderer really was. Not linear then, he'd have to find his way. Dear God, it would be like opening door after door to nothing but horrors, each more gut-wrenching than the last.
For the first time Harry quailed, doubting his strength to endure this. He felt himself pushed back, helpless, fighting again his brain's urge to flail, to kick out and grab and throttle and do something, anything with a body he did not possess here. He was reminded of his fear as the Inferi claimed him after he had broached their water in the lightless cave, sure that he was never going to see the light again. And there was no Dumbledore this time, he was on his own.
And then a wonderful feeling reached him, warmth and tenderness blossomed and drifted through whatever he was and he knew that back in Grimmauld Place Hermione was touching him, had perhaps spoken to him. He felt briefly anchored again, reassured that this was worth it because if he made it out alive…
He'd know where to find the last horcrux
But you still have to get it, you pathetic spawn of a mudblood. And that you'll never do.
I'll destroy it.
If you so much as try, it will seek itself in you. It will join with the others and I will be stronger. Stronger than you. I will bend you to my will then. I won't have to kill you, I will use you to destroy yourself and your pathetic followers with you, and your name will be reviled. No one will call you savior then.
So what? You won't get to enjoy it, because without those horcruxes when they kill you you WILL GO. There will be no cheating death this time. And if I die… you've given me so much to die for. I'm not afraid.
You lie. You live for that mudblood slut now, I knew the moment you took her. And when I get her you will come crawling on your knees.
Immeasurably distant now Harry felt a wave of cold sweat wash over his physical form, gut wrenching nausea forming at that thought.
She is not afraid of you. She has known you are against me from the very first, she has always known it could come to this. She is braver than you and smarter than me. Try whatever you will with me but you won't beat her.
And Harry knew this much to be true. He knew Hermione had made a conscious choice that included consideration of what Voldemort could or would do to them both because that was simply the way she was. She had never done anything half way, never leapt without looking. He could not help feeling guilty that fate had lead her here because of him, but nothing could change the truth that Hermione would never back away now.
And if I do this to you? And this? Listen to her. She cries for you like any other mudblood. Her supposed intellect can not withstand the pathetic pull of her emotions. She is worthless, except as…
The snake in Harry's nervous system had bitten hard with his words, the pain had ripped through him and he could only guess what his body was doing back at Grimmauld Place, the echoes were most unpleasant. The second bite almost undid him, he felt himself start to slip back toward himself, heard as if through a watery tunnel Ron arguing with Hermione about the potion and Hermione's voice, tearful and wretched with indecision, reminding him "we promised…"
And then he felt the tip of her wand, cool against his skin. "Quaero Excrucio."
He'd heard Madam Pomfrey use that spell before. It sought out the source of pain in the body and worked on everything from isolating a break in a bone to finding a stubborn splinter. Her wand moved unerringly to exactly where Voldemort's snakelike presence had latched on. She whispered the incantation "Percutio." A sudden piercing stab of something shot from the point of her wand through his skin, and Voldemort was cut off mid-word.
The watery tunnel sucked and sloshed; Harry heard a voice say sharply, "My Lord! Do you need me? What can I do?"
Bellatrix LeStrange.
Whatever Hermione had done worked; Voldemort had been taken off guard and Harry surged at his target as his enemy struggled to regroup.
Memory after memory, nightmare image after image, people he recognized and others unknown to him. He saw Mr. Ollivander trying to calm an explosive young Tom, explaining about the importance of the wand choosing the wizard as he made his way toward the dusty old one displayed in the shop window.
Too far.
A sudden vision of his own face, but not. Older, familiar... His father? Their eyes really were different; Harry saw that right away. Now James' were filled with a steely determination and with a heavy heart Harry saw he did not meet his death with either surprise or willingness, only the fierce desire to go on protecting his wife and child.
Dad….
He pushed on, but felt himself faltering.
Conversing with a young Cornelius Fudge. There was Slughorn again… Morfin Gaunt slumped to the ground in the filthy hovel while Voldemort reached for his wand…Lucius Malfoy and look, there was Malfoy as little boy or five or six. Pompous little wanker already. Voldemort took Draco's chin in hand and stared deeply into those young gray eyes, and Harry could suddenly see inside Malfoy as well. A jumble of childish images, disjointed. Voldemort left a nightmare waiting to happen in the corners of the young boy's mind, a creeping black thing with too many legs and eyes. Harry shuddered, hating the thought of even Malfoy drifting off to sleep and finding that.
He heard a high squeaky voice and knew it to be Hepzibah Smiths' house elf, Hokey.
Almost there!
"Mistress is sleeping," it squealed in distress. "Mistress not to be disturbed."
Followed by Tom Riddle's soulless laugh. "Your Mistress is dead, you sniveling little creature. You killed her yourself. Not commonly one of the duties of a house elf. I think you should punish yourself severely… when you awake. Stupefy."
He was stealing the cup… the Hufflepuff cup, and the locket. Harry hung desperately on to the train of that memory, trying to follow it forward. There were jumbled events; Riddle quitting Borgin and Burkes, a journey somewhere, a Death Eater meeting. Sweet Merlin but they were sick, damaged people, those most loyal to him. Harry could feel Voldemort's own fascinated disgust when one of them presented an idea even he had not thought of. Avery, of course.
He could sense Voldemort's recovery from whatever Hermione had done returning his strength. Somewhere back in Grimmauld Place the snake within him stirred. Riddle had seemed until this point to have little interest in Harry's own thoughts or memories, wanting only to use the connection to remind him of their inextricable link. The snake turned once more, and headed back north.
Desperately Harry probed, searching. The cave, the lake, the locket, setting the protections.
I know you have it. That fool Dumbledore helped you. I know you have others, I can feel them in you. They belong to me. You can not win this game, Potter. Your precious Headmaster is already dead and you shall follow him blindly into that, too. Give up now, lay back and I will take you quickly. Fight me, and everyone you have ever loved will die.
Hmmm, nope, I think you'll just have to go fuck yourself instead, Harry thought. You did NOT kill Dumbledore. Dumbledore chose to die.
For the first time Harry felt the real power of that choice, and why Dumbledore had made it.
He concentrated on his body back at Grimmauld Place, arching his back to push himself off the mattress and ramming his own head against the headboard. Hermione reacted instantly with the same series of spells she had used last time to calm him, and Harry felt Voldemort reel once again, heard Bellatrix's anxious entreaties that he tell her what was happening, how to help.
He won't, Harry thought. He's too proud to let her see me.
He probed again the same strand of memory that had yielded the hiding of the locket. He felt Voldemort's resistance, his determination not to reveal the rest. They were both zeroing in on the same memory; Voldemort was slowly realizing which one he sought.
You'll never find it. And even if you did, you could never get to it without Dumbledore. You are barely a Wizard, even now. Your fight is over, Potter.
I will. Watch me. Ripping your soul to shreds because you're too afraid to die doesn't make you a Wizard. It makes you a scared little boy alone in an orphanage, angry because your mother left you. Angry because she loved a Muggle who didn't love her more than she cared what happened to you.
The retribution for that particular statement was instantaneous and fierce, almost unbearable. Almost. The stubborn need to find the location of horcrux drove him long past the point his brain agreed it was time to give up; Harry marveled for a moment he wasn't crazier than Neville's parents already.
Unless, of course, he was.
He pushed past that thought. It was like being back in the cemetery fourth year, in the globe of golden light, wands locked. Once again they were alone, unreachable by others. This time Harry could not just hang on for dear life however, he had to move forward, find what he had come for or die trying. He had been fighting for so long now; he was exhausted, bled dry but still stumbling on against the force resisting him. It was here, he knew it was. If he could just…
I bet you didn't think, when you killed my Mum, that I would ever live to grow up like you did. I might as well have been in an orphanage, they would have been at least as kind as my relatives. I lived in a cupboard under their stairs.
The snake moved again, creeping through Harry's veins and nerves on its relentless pathway toward his brain.
It makes you wonder, with no one magical to explain it all. You thought you were different, and special. My relatives thought I was an aberration. They were determined to beat and starve and bore the magic out of me.
He had to be close… he had to be.
You are mistaking me for that old Muggle lover Dumbledore. I don't care, boy. None of that matters to me. It would have pleased me if they had simply smothered you in your blankets when you arrived on their doorstep and saved me the trouble you have caused these last six years.
You don't think it made you stronger? You taught Quirrell that there was only power and those too weak to seek it. You sought it harder than anyone, went further than anyone before. If your mother had lived, if your father had loved her, what would you have been then?
Harry saw Voldemort, the last vestiges of the handsome Tom Riddle still present in his face, the distorted, snake-like visage he wore now only just emerging. He bent over something, his wand pointed not to his temple, as Dumbledore did when withdrawing a memory for the pensieve, but his mouth. As Harry watched, utterly repulsed, he drew a writhing silvery snake-like… thing from his lips. It seemed to go on and on, coiling back upon itself, disgorging itself from Voldemort's mouth until the tail emerged. Seeing the pale, skull-thin face with the soul fragment snaking from its drawn lips made it only too horrifyingly clear what the origins of the Dark Mark had been. The wand moved to the cup. There was a flash of bright greenish light, and the snake-like thing was sucked into the very substance of the cup, disappearing completely.
I have gone further than any Wizard before or to come because I do not let foolish Muggle sentiments like love and pity weaken me. That is why I will live forever and history will never miss you.
Harry knew that Voldemort had let him see the creation of the horcrux because he was proud of it, of himself for managing it and the others.
Voldemort might not feel himself vulnerable through love or pity… but pride was a human emotion as well.
Harry put everything he had into one last effort back at Grimmauld Place, arching off the bed and reaching blindly for Ron or Hermione, praying they would give him one more chance before administering the potion. He needed Hermione to do that Percutio thing now. Right now.
Please…
He heard Hermione crying and the sound tore at him. He was hurting her, scaring her, he was so close to the horcrux, he could find it, he could… don't cry.
He heard her tell Ron to hold him down, knew they meant to pour it down his throat. He found Ron's wrists as his hands reached for him and grabbed them hard enough to hear Ron curse. He'd never had the connection with Ron he had with Hermione, the legilmency with her had been so easy, almost effortless. He'd never even needed his eyes with her and he didn't have that luxury now with Ron either, the physical contact would have to suffice. He had to focus harder on Ron, cast the incantation in his mind and hope his new-found ability wouldn't fail him now.
"Hermione, wait…" Ron said suddenly.
Come ON Ron, please…
"Do that thing again. The perc-whatever thing. I think it was working, he wants you to."
Hermione didn't question or hesitate, stop to wonder why Ron and not herself. Oh how he loved her for that. He heard her cast the Excrucio, felt her wand seek and find Voldemort coiled now behind his eyes.
"Ron I can't, not there, what if I…"
Do it, Harry screamed through Ron.
"Do it!" Ron yelled, surprising himself.
"Percutio!" Hermione cast hurriedly, closing her own eyes as she did.
Harry felt the penetrating stab behind his left eye and an explosion of brightness. Voldemort's snakelike presence hissed and bit, writhing in agony in Harry's head..
Every last bit of presence, energy, awareness and power Harry possessed shoved its way through Voldemort's twisted mind and into the memory tat had contained the Hufflepuff cup..
High windows sending down shafts of weak sunlight alive with motes of swirling dust. A vast space, filled with neglected objects of all kinds… The Room of Requirement, just as he had found it when he was desperate to hide the Potions text from Snape. And there was Snape himself… The memory had a slightly stuttering, muted look, and Harry realized at once that what he saw had probably been extracted from Snape's mind for Voldemort as proof of a mission accomplished. Harry watched as Snape moved through the mountainous alleys of objects; it looked quite different from Harry's hurried trip to hide the book last year and he realized many objects had not yet been deposited in the places he'd run past them.
Snape paused and crouched in front of a pile of stacked cauldrons that seemed to have an identical substance adhering firmly to their insides, too stubbornly affixed to clean and so abandoned. Several firmly corked bottles, their contents gleaming malevolently, were on the floor beside the cauldrons; Snape removed another bottle, this one filled with a glowing green liquid, from his robes and set it with the others. He waved his wand over the bottles, muttering, and the one he added became dark and dusty and indistinguishable from the others. Snape began to stand, but before he could see any more Harry heard an angry, hissed NO! and felt himself flung with overwhelming force back through the connection between his mind and Voldemort's. The snakelike presence withdrew with a agonizing slither, leaving Harry shaking against the sensation of sandpapery scales dragging along already traumatized nerves.
He felt Ron's hands again, struggling to hold him steady, and Hermione's steadying his jaw and pouring the noxious orange potion between his lips. It burned, it was wretched, and he was gone.
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Harry swam up toward consciousness again from the bottom of a deep, cool pool. It took him some time, but oddly enough he was not concerned about air until he was almost at the top. Just before he broke the surface he felt his lungs burning and knew he would die if he could not breathe at once… but there was nothing to be afraid of really, he was already there. He opened his mouth, his lungs contracting…
And aspirated some sort of fluid, lighter and slicker than water. He gasped, desperately choking and heaving to rid his lungs of the substance but it was so slippery in feel that he could not cough it out. The dimness was suddenly brightly lit; he heard voices over the roaring in his ears. He was pulled forward, his body screaming in response to the sudden movement. His back was slapped firmly, bringing tears to his eyes.
"Purgo," cast a deep, hated voice.
It was a cleansing charm, surely meant to expunge the liquid from his lungs. Harry obediently sicked up the meager contents of both esophagus and stomach in the general direction of his least favorite Professor ever.
"Dear Gods," came the voice again, repulsed. "Can you do nothing right?"
"He's awake!" came a second voice, as loved as the first was hated. Hermione.
"What's wrong with him? What did you do? Madam Pomfrey told you not to try anything yet, he wasn't strong enough." That was Ron, tired, sleepy and angry with Snape. So Snape was the source of whatever he had choked on… "I told Lupin we shouldn't have let you come," Ron finished.
"Step back, the lot of you, or I'll clear the whole ward. Go on." Madam Pomfrey… Back at Hogwarts, then.
Harry could dimly make out their blurred shapes now, and fumbled blindly for his glasses. Madam Pomfrey pushed his hand away, but her voice was kind when she said "not just yet, Potter."
He realized then a thick gauze patch covered one of his eyes, stiff and itchy against his cheek.
Madam Pomfrey murmured a quick cleaning charm over the bed. Somewhere near the foot he heard with some satisfaction Snape using the same charm on his robes. He tried to angle his head so that he could see Hermione out of his uncovered eye, but without his glasses the figures were just far enough away to be too blurred to make out.
"It would seem that he could not yet tolerate your potion… exactly as I warned you," scolded Madam Pomfrey.
Snape muttered something in which the words `useless' and `idiot' were prominently featured.
Back at you, Harry thought tiredly, and shifted on his pillows. Madam Pomfrey's examination seemed to consist of prodding with either fingers or wand every sore or tender spot on his body.
"It seems that once again you will live after all, Mr. Potter, but certainly not for want of trying." Madam Pomfrey said.
"And not for long," Snape added. "That, Potter, was perhaps the single most profound act of ill-advised bravado I have ever known or heard of. You have always been at best a feeble Occlumens. Whatever possessed you to think you could take on Voldemort mind to mind? The prerequisite to such a showdown is possession of an actual mind to begin with."
Yeah? Well try this on for size, you oversized bat dropping. Turns out I've got one after all. So eff off. Harry sent Snapes' way. Even weakened he noted that he now had no trouble thrusting the thought into Snape's mind. Master Occlumens and all.
Harry could not see it, but Ron and Hermione noticed Snape's eyes grow suddenly wide, and immediately after, furious.
"What are you playing at, Potter?" he snarled.
Compensation for all the nasty stuff. Harry sent his way. Turns out there are a few good parts to having Voldemort inside you. He really is quite the Legilemens.
"I'm afraid you are mistaken as to the origins of this highly annoying little party trick of yours," Snape said coldly. "But it bears no resemblance to the Dark Lord's use of Legilmency, I assure you. I have been assaulted by that particular skill of his more times than I ever cared to count. This is… quite different in nature."
Maybe you've had it wrong all these years and he's been playing you for the fool.
Harry almost smiled at the thought, but it hurt. He tried peering past Madam Pomfrey again, attempting vainly to focus enough to see Ron or Hermione.
"And maybe you are an ignorant little boy playing with more than you can understand," Snape told him angrily. "Speak aloud if you wish to be taken seriously."
But Professor, don't you remember? The night you killed Dumbledore, the night you told me my father was too cowardly to approach you unless it was four on one… you remember my Dad, the one who saved your bitter snitching little ass when you tried to find out where Lupin went? You said never to call you coward that night, not to use your own sick spells against the mighty Half Blood Prince and one other thing… what was it… oh yeah. You told me I'd be blocked again and again and again unless I learned to keep my mouth shut and my mind closed.
And for good measure, Harry used a silent Inflamare to make his point.
The hem of Snapes robes flared, but not nearly as hot as the flames in his coal black eyes. Which, for better or worse, Harry could not see.
Madam Pomfrey shrieked and rushed to assist Snape in dousing his robes, allowing Hermione and Ron to push past them and reach the bed at last.
"Harry," said Hermione, and Harry reckoned she could make an entire language out of his name. Five simple letters, but depending on her inflection they could mean everything from `pass the pumpkin juice' to `you blithering idiot' to `O I love you, you've just shown me nirvana, stop moving and die.' He wasn't entirely sure which one she was going for here, but since there was no pumpkin juice in sight and it was unlikely he'd get to do any of the nirvana-inducing activities in the Hospital wing under Madam Pomfrey's watchful eyes, he was putting his money on blithering idiot.
"Sorry," he said preemptively. "I know that was an awful lot to ask you guys to watch."
"Never mind that, mate, just tell us it was all worth it. Did you find it?" Ron asked.
"I think so…" Harry said slowly, "or something to do with it. It wasn't what I expected at all, but he seemed so dead set on guarding the memory it must be important somehow."
"Unless he was just trying to throw you off…" Hermione said, her voice unsteady. Harry thought she looked pale and tired and older somehow, and took hold of her hand, threading his fingers through hers.
"There's one way to know for sure," Harry looked up to meet Snape's glaring black gaze. "He was there."
"I was where?"
"In the one memory Voldemort really didn't want me to have." Harry told him.
Had Harry seen it, Snape's face grew cautious, closed. "And?"
"You were in the Room of Requirement. It must have been just a little while after you started here. It can't have been a horcrux or anything like that, because he would have already done his number on me and been floating around darkest Albania by then, wouldn't he? What were you doing?"
"I have been in the Room of Requirement in several of its many guises more than once during my seventeen years as a teacher, Potter. How should I know? You'll have to be more specific than that." Snape said, but Harry thought his voice sounded funny, cagey. He wished he could see for himself.
"It was like an attic, full of cast-off things. Like it was for… but you never knew about Malfoy and the Vanishing cabinet, did you? Trelawney hid her sherry bottles in it; I can only imagine what the rest of you teachers used it for. You had a bottle of something, something green."
Hermione's fingers curled and her thumb tickled his palm; he knew she was telling him something. He stayed silent, waiting.
"Ah," Snape said. "Yes."
"Ah yes what?" demanded Ron.
The distraction of half-sight overwhelmed him; Harry closed his eyes.
Snape cleared his throat. "It was an… experiment. One I could not safely destroy yet wished to disappear. I could not think what else to do with it at the time."
"Why did Voldemort have your memory? Why didn't he want me to see?"
"I'm afraid I don't know. I was not as strong an Occlumens in those days, perhaps he…"
There was a flare of color behind Harry's closed eyelids, a burst of magical energy and it came from Snape, he was certain. Harry was making no effort to penetrate Snape's mind - his strength lay in communicating with others, he had never even thought to try and extract unwilling memories. He remembered the feeling of violation when Snape had done it to him, sensed Snape actually feared Harry now.
"You're lying." Harry said.
"You did not, you could not." Snape flared. "I would know. I don't care what you think you can do now Potter, but you did NOT reach me…"
"I didn't try. I hated that, from you and Dumbledore both. At least he'd say `do you have anything you wish to tell me?' or something smarmy like that before he did it. You'd just barge on in. Still, you've just as good as confirmed it, haven't you, so tell us the truth."
Hermione's fingers tightened warningly, Ron let out a low laugh and said `brilliant, Harry!' in an undertone, just loud enough for Snape to hear.
"Brilliant, Weasley, is one thing Potter will never be. Dead, undoubtedly, but the dearly departed are rarely credited as brilliant for causing their own demise."
"Eff off," said Harry coldly, "and get to the bloody point. I've had enough of your divination for now, thanks. Stick to the facts. What were you doing in there? What did you hide? And why didn't Voldemort want me to see it?"
"The facts, Potter, are more than your tiny brain can assimilate."
"So draw it out for me!" Harry snarled, losing his patience. "Give me the cartoon version if you think I'm so helpless. But for the love of Merlin do it now or I'm going to figure for once and for all you ARE a murderer, you ARE a Death Eater and the only one dying tonight will be you."
Every single glass object in the Hospital wing - of which there were many, considering the nature of what went on there - spontaneously shattered. The sound was thunderous at first, followed by a cacophonous tinkling that seemed to go on and on.
Hermione was wordless; Ron gave a low whistle and a "whoa, mate."
"Oops," said Harry. "You were saying?" His eyes were still closed, and there was a pretty healthy burst of magical energy radiating from Madam Pomfrey's office right about then as well.
"You don't scare me," Snape said evenly. "And you'll never scare him."
"Felt good, though," Harry told him, and concentrated on reversing the damage. Much quieter, anyway. He was tiring and it sapped him further, fixing it all; he wanted to know the answer from Snape and then he wanted Hermione to climb up into the bed with him and to sleep for twenty-four hours straight. Scratch that, he wanted a big, comfortable normal bed, not a hospital one, and he wanted it somewhere no one else would be when they woke up and felt better. He bet Voldemort never fixed his own magical eruptions. Perhaps minions had their uses…
"It shouldn't surprise me he didn't want you to see that memory, because it surprised me at first that he wished to see it from me," Snape said, with something like a sigh. "He asked until he was returned to a corporeal form, after your skirmish with him in the graveyard. He called us all back then, and Dumbledore… wished for me to go."
"Seems to me you must have been a pretty good Occlumens then." Harry said. "Dumbledore certainly thought you were good enough. And that wasn't exactly a skirmish you know. He tied me up, took my blood, got his body back and tried to kill me."
"I gave it willingly, that memory." Harry noticed Snape's energy form was shifting, sort of folding in on itself, like wings. "There seemed no reason not to, it was… innocent enough, I suppose. I had concocted a potion for the Dark Lord, at his request. It was a special one, made only for him. He did not wish me to duplicate it, ever, for anyone else. I could not destroy the remainder of the batch using usual means… it was a highly unstable mixture. So I left it there, in the Room of Requirement, along with many other abandoned potions. I altered the bottle so that it would match some others, and left it."
"So Voldemort wanted to see the memory as proof of what you did with the remaining potion? How did that guarantee you'd never make it again for someone else?" Hermione asked.
"Because he obliviated the memory of how to make it immediately after I finished it."
"Then how are you telling us?" Ron wondered.
"Because I lied," Snape said simply. "And I gave him a manufactured memory, later. It had become… necessary for me to make more of the potion even before I delivered the first batch and I could not let him see that. He was reasonably strong in the potion arts, but looked upon it as busy work to be delegated while he himself performed more critical tasks. I gave him a close facsimile of what I made, but one that would yield a slightly different finished effect."
"So you made the one he wanted," Hermione surmised. "But the one you gave him wasn't it?"
Snape inclined his head her way, but said nothing.
"Why did you have to make two?" Harry asked. "What happened?"
"It came to me, during this time, what he was using it for. Not what he was hiding of course, but that he had something to hide. The Dark Lord is not the most forth coming of Wizards and he has many secrets, but it sparked my curiosity that he actually felt the need to hide something using deadly force, as powerful as he is."
"We are, of course, talking about Slytherin's locket." Hermione confirmed.
Snape inclined his head once again.
"The Dark Lord acts almost entirely alone. This has the effect, however, of incurring a great deal of gossip and bragging when he actually enlists someone's assistance, no matter how small or menial the task. The was a good deal of speculation among his Death Eaters what he was up to then, but none of them knew the truth," Snape said. "It was about this time that I met Sirius Black's younger, and may I add much more tolerable, brother."
"Regulus," Hermione breathed. "You knew Regulus Black."
"We realized shortly after we first served on a… mission together that we had two things in common," Snape said. "We both despised Sirius. And we both thought that the Dark Lord was not only going further than any Wizard before him - although we were still not sure exactly what he was doing - but that he was going too far for any of us to wish to follow him. Regulus was simply younger and braver, or as it turns out, more foolhardy than I. He was killed not long after."
"But in the meantime you helped him." Harry said. "You made it possible for him to steal the locket horcrux."
"Quite so," Snape said. "Although I had no idea at the time what it was really was. The potion I gave Voldemort was flawed. After he hid the horcrux he returned the remainder to me and asked me to dispose of it; he wished no one to be able to analyze it and unlock its secrets. I gave the real potion to Regulus, to pour back in the object's hiding place when he removed it and placed the fake. I thought he wanted the locket for the powers of Slytherin it was said to hold; his thought was to strengthen the Death Eaters so that they would remain powerful if the Dark Lord spun further into madness."
"But Regulus was caught out somehow…" Hermione said.
"Or did you betray him, too?" Harry wondered aloud.
Snape raised his wand and wordlessly let fire. Harry blinked and raised a shield around himself and Ron and Hermione. The spell careened across the ward and shattered the glass doors to the bandage cabinet.
"I just fixed those," Harry said calmly, though his heart pounded. "Your turn this time. So, did you?"
"Regulus chose his own path," Snape blazed. "He managed to achieve stealing and replacing the locket without being found out, but I think perhaps his success made him cocky, or careless. It was not long after that he refused to commit a certain… task, shall we say, for the Dark Lord. He was dead within days. And no, Potter, I did not betray him. Nor did he betray…"
"Sirius. Voldemort wanted him to do something to Sirius, didn't he. To get to Harry. He wanted to use Sirius to get to Harry and his parents." Hermione filled in.
"Regulus was raised to hate half bloods and incompetents; he was not soulless or evil enough to use unforgivables on his own brother. Not all who followed Voldemort in those early days had his distaste for humanity itself. Many thought they were protecting Wizard kind in the best way they knew how, by keeping a line of purebred Wizards alive in Britain. Voldemort went a great deal farther than most were prepared to go. Regulus was an example. I do not believe the Dark Lord ever even knew the locket was missing."
"I still don't get why Voldemort cared so much if Harry saw what you were doing." Ron said stubbornly. "And it sure looked like he cared from where I was sitting. He was really having at Harry over it."
"I would hazard a guess that he does not know that Harry has already collected the object it was guarding and does not want him to be able to circumvent the potion's effect, which is the irrevocable draining of one's magical powers."
Harry felt as if the floor had dropped beneath the bed; he reeled and felt Hermione clutch at him.
"You see now why Dumbledore begged me to end it," Snape sneered. "You might have lived a squib if you had drunk it, but he was old, his connection to magic too ingrained to survive losing it. He must have sensed what it was doing. He was prepared to die for Draco anyway, if it meant I could keep my cover and help you."
"How could you even think of making such a thing?" Hermione asked; her voice thick with disgust. Her arm, warm and steadying, slid around Harry's shoulder.
"He asked me, full of flattery. `Only you, Severus, could concoct such a complex and potent draught.' And I was young and stupid and honored and I didn't want to die."
"Did he know before?" Harry asked numbly. "He didn't seem to; we had to figure out at first that it could only be drunk to empty…"
"Of course not!" Snape snapped. "We were still keeping our secrets, Albus and I. He did not tell me where he was going that night, and I never told him what I had done. I thought that there was time."
They were silent, all of them, realizing that there was less time now then ever.
"Why are you here?" Harry asked Snape.
"Lupin used the method of the Order to call me and ask for my help. I brought several potions I thought might be useful given the injuries you were likely to sustain in such an encounter. Not exactly the type of thing Poppy normally encounters in a school setting. And I confess I was curious to see how you survived."
"If that potion was powerful enough to drain Dumbledore," Ron said thoughtfully, "Wouldn't it be powerful enough to drain Voldemort as well?"
"In theory, yes. But he alone has the memory of how to make it. "
"But we have a bottle of the real thing in the Room of Requirement, right?" Ron persisted. "You can't deconcoct from that?"
"I..." Snape's silky, perfectly controlled, insulting voice failed him, for the first time Harry could ever remember.
"That would mean a commitment," Harry said. "He could never go back if he does that."
"Go and get it," Snape hissed. "And see."
"You're on," Harry told him, stripping the bedclothes from his knees and sliding from the bed. His body seemed quite literally to scream at him - or that might have been Hermione.
"Harry, don't be ridiculous. You're in no shape to go anywhere. Ron and I can go, we'll bring it back here."
"You'll never find it," Harry said. "There's years more stuff in there than there was when I saw it. I'll have a hard enough time as it is."
"Then we'll do it in the morning. Harry you can't do anymore tonight, and Ron and I are exhausted as well."
"Under one condition," Harry said, trying hard to remain steady on his feet as he did. SO much more impressive when you didn't fall over when bargaining…
"What?" she asked. And smiled, sweetly.
"Not that. Erm, no, I mean, okay, but… Snape has to agree to stay here, And we need to take turns watching him."
"You must be joking…" Snape sputtered.
"They've hardly been keeping the old Slytherin Head of House quarters for you, you know," Ron pointed out. "No one else knows you're here. Most of them still think you murdered Dumbledore, and I'm a bit on the fence myself. Nice hospital bed looks like the best on offer." He stepped back and stretched out on the one next to Harry's with a tired sigh. "You don't think the house elves might still be up, do you? I'm starved."
"And I," Snape said, withdrawing to the bed on the other side. "Am finally, truly experiencing hell on earth. If the two of you," he glanced meaningfully at Harry and Hermione, who were already making themselves comfortable on Harry's bed, "make so much as one questionable noise throughout the remainder of the evening, I shall ensure that each and every one of your future children bears a striking resemblance to a certain Mr. Malfoy. Am I quite understood?"
"He's not actually that bad looking," Hermione mused aloud, waving her wand and enlarging the bed. Effectively putting them closer still to their former potions professor.
Harry made gagging noises. But he made them against her neck and they tickled. Quite nicely.
"Mind your manners then," Ron yawned. "Uncle Ron's not babysitting any little ferret children."
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A/N: First of all, let me apologize. Holy Carp, but this got a bit out of hand. Not at all where I thought I was going at the end of the last chapter… what I thought was going to be an interlude before the retrieval of the final horcrux just went wild. I took a bat to it and it still wouldn't die… so you just read it. I know this one was freaking confusing, so I will make a HUGE effort to answer any honest review questions other than why do I suck? And why is Harry with Hermione?
NEXT chapter is one I actually quite like and thought was going to be this one… lots of mystery and battling unexpected foes and rampant post fight Harry and Hermione love in a cave. Oh, and Ron finally hooks up with Luna, too. And it snows… Snowy Harry. Love snowy Harry. Until next time…only 45 days til GOF. Thanks to all who stick with it … ~ Lynney
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