Chapter Twenty-Three: Snape's Gift
"Now what?" Harry fumbled around with some of the books at the top of the mountain of tomes. There were
stacks upon stacks upon stacks filling up Snape's old living room. The house was small and modest, but every wall
served as a filled bookshelf. Snape had kept few trinkets. Apart from his gold in Gringotts, which Harry had learned
from the logs that Snape had hardly ever touched, Snape had invested himself totally in books.
Harry felt high. Never, not in a long time at least, had he felt so giddy. He felt like a child at their tenth birthday party surrounded by mountains upon mountains of toys and presents.
The potions book of the Half-Blood Prince sat on his nightstand back at Number Twelve now. A torn off strip of the Daily Prophet was feathered out four-fifths the way through it, measuring his pace. It was his bible. And now... Harry felt a tingle up his spine. Each and every book he picked up and fanned through had the slanted scrawl of the Prince blackening out it's margins.
"Ten Terrible Tendrils and How to Unravel Them." "Battling Blistering Baguls." "Understanding the Undead." "From Asprits to Zyngum, the Supplies of a Potionaire!" Each and every one of the titles further spiked Harry's curiosity.
After Voldemort of course, Snape was Harry's greatest nemesis for the entirety of his adolescence. He could never understand Dumbledore's acceptance of him. Not until he could see - not until he had seen, and then it was too late.
Snape had known his mum. He had been close to her. He had sacrificed everything to try and save her. He had left her everything, given her everything. Harry hadn't the chance to know this Snape, but he had seen glimpses of him in the Pensieve, and he had seen his brain at work as the Prince.
'Snape is here,' Harry looked across the stacks, at the countless worn spines, their aged covers, their frayed corners. He reveled over the smeared ink, the rising smell of heavy parchment. Reflected back in Harry's glazed eyes, there was no greater treasure in all the world. 'I sound like Hermione...' Harry thought to himself.
"Kreacher," Harry beckoned. The slumped elf promptly appeared from the opened secret passage that was itself a bookcase. "What are we going to do with all these?"
"I am afraid the Library is full, Master."
"Yes, I know," Harry said. Hermione would be proud of him. In his solace, he had found the Library and many relevant books within that had helped him in his lessons with Kreacher. "We can't leave them here..." Harry sounded almost desperate. The thought of leaving this treasure here, unprotected, was abhorrent.
"Perhaps the basement, Master?" Kreacher offered, seeing his Master's unease.
"Kreacher, we don't have a... what basement?"
. . . .
It was pitch black. The rotting planks creaked loudly beneath his steps. The walls were of cold stone.
"Luminos" Harry raised his wand.
Being within the House of Black, Harry saw that the basement resembled, for all intents and purposes, a dungeon. It was all of stone without a single window. As he reached the floor, torches began to ignite about it's walls. Cobwebs and dust covered everything. No soul had been down here in ages.
As his eyes adjusted and the room came into focus, Harry could not believe what he was seeing. He paused, waiting for the floor to open up and swallow him in, for the ceiling to come crashing down, breaking him - something, anything, some kind of calamity, for he was never this lucky. How had they not found this before? Why had Sirius or Kreacher when they were here in hiding not tell them about this? It was nothing short of magnificent.
Harry slowly moved about the room, taking in everything. "Beautiful," Harry mumbled to himself, "Just beautiful."
Loaded bookshelves, cupboards filled with rotting stock, tables overflowing with dust laden contraptions. Cauldrons and beakers and vials of every shape and size with wooden ladles and tongs, mortars and spindles everywhere he looked. There was also a deep sink and drain and a cutting table. And taking up one entire wall, stores upon stores of potion ingredients organized into small wooden dividers, sealed glass jars, and some even hung from the ceiling. It was a Potion Lair.
. . . .
A/N: Whoops! Sorry about the short chapter, meant to tack this on to the previous one. Oh well, thanks for reading, leave a review on your way out!