Title: Second Life
Author: ziasudra
Team: Phoenix
Genre(s): Postwar
Prompt(s): Pensieve, Learning to Dance
Rating: R
Word Count: 17,750 words
Summary: After sending Lily off to Hogwarts, Harry realised he had a lot of time he could now devote to his Snape obsession. Set post-war, fully canon and epilogue compliant, including canon-compliant Harry/Ginny to the best of my ability—no Ginny bashing here.
A/N: Thank you to jin_fenghuang and nenyaentwhistle for betaing!
After it was all over, Harry didn't join the celebration. He told Ron he'd join him at the Great Hall at meal time, but ended up eating chocolate frogs and sherbet lemons while everyone else took part in the victory feast. Someone had to eat all the sweets in Professor Dumbledore's office, since the sherbet lemons were most definitely not going to finish themselves.
Harry wondered if Snape had hoped the sweets on the table would disappear on their own as well, during his brief time as Headmaster in this office.
"Snape." Harry tested the word in his mouth. It felt both strange and familiar. He'd just said that name a few hours ago, taunting Voldemort with it in front of a big crowd. But that was it, wasn't it? Before today, he really hadn't had the need to speak Snape's name. As far as Harry was concerned, Snape was a traitor best to be put out of his mind, discarded like all the inessential items he and his two friends had left behind when they set off in search of Horcruxes and Hallows.
Now that there were no more Horcrux or Hallow, it was Snape's name that remained.
"Snape," Harry repeated, slower this time, deliberately filling the air with the name.
There was no answer.
Instead, there were miniature Severuses and Lilys dancing on the surface of the Pensieve, too preoccupied with playing pretend wizard duel or making a sand Hogwarts castle to glance in Harry's direction.
Harry allowed himself to stare for a moment before grabbing the flask and walking over to the Pensieve. It was only right to return these memories to Snape.
"Go on in, you two," Harry said as he herded the strands of memories into the flask, smiling at the tiny figures until they were once again secure in their holder.
Harry made his way down to Snape's private quarters, taking the scenic route and using the Marauders' Map to make sure he wouldn't run into anyone. Good thing Snape was such an antisocial bastard when he was alive—the room labeled "Snape's Quarters" on the Map was deep into the heart of the Dungeons and as far away from the other Slytherin staff as possible. There were loners and then there were loners. Snape definitely belonged to the latter category.
Not that the rest of the staff were remotely nice to Snape over the past year. Harry winced as he remembered the way Professor McGonagall stood up to Snape, ready to duel, hex and curse if Snape hadn't fled the castle that night.
Snape might have been a loner, but Harry suspected that over the past few months, Snape wasn't as much a loner as he was lonely.
Instinct prompted Harry to utter "Dumbledore" once he reached the door. With a suspicious glance at the Gryffindor colours he was wearing beneath his robe, the portrait of Salazar Slytherin crossed his arms but nonetheless allowed Harry to enter.
"Thanks, sir," Harry said.
"Gryffindors feeling thankful? The sky must be falling," Slytherin muttered. Harry ducked his head, hiding the wry smile the words drew as he tried his best to pretend he didn't just hear the Hogwarts Founder's cheek.
The door swung closed behind him, and one single sconce lit up by itself as the door clicked shut. In the dim light, Harry could make out the layout of the bare room—desk and chair to his right, couch and bookcase to the left. The room looked nothing like how Harry used to imagine it when he was a First Year, no torture devices or overabundance of potions ingredients. He was right about the books though. All six shelves of the bookcase next to the couch were crammed to the brim, and the lack of dust confirmed that Snape not only liked to collect books, but he'd actually read them.
Stepping closer, he allowed his eyes to roam about the shelves, scanning over expected titles such as Moste Potente Potions and Alchemy: Dark Arts or Elemental Magic? He quirked an eyebrow à la Snape fashion when he spotted The History of Rock and Roll. Harry pulled out the book and laughed when he flipped open the cover. Right on the first page, below the printed title and copyright information, were words scribbled in messy handwriting: 'Property of Sirius Black — don't even think about 'borrowing' it, Reg!'
"Guess Regulus wasn't the borrower." Harry chuckled. He ran his hand over the writing, and his heart ached. "I miss you, Sirius."
Harry flipped through the pages of the book in search of more of Sirius's scribbles. What he found instead was page after page of notes written in the margins, just like what the Half-Blood Prince used to do in his Potions textbook. Feeling nostalgic of a book he'd lost, Harry thumbed his way into the 'A Few Songs to Get Started' section. As expected, the notes there were both thoughtful and entertaining. Transpose to the key of G and replace the I chord with a vi at the penultimate line of the refrain. He flipped to the next page. Strumming suggestion is wrong, bloody idiots. The song is written in a triple metre, not duple. Harry smiled as he squinted his eyes at Snape's attempt to rewrite the music correctly in the right side margin.
He was so engrossed at reading Snape's reinterpretations of all the songs that when darkness suddenly enveloped him, Harry slammed the book shut, drew out his wand, and whipped it toward the direction of the door. His mind raced through dozens of possibilities: was it a student holding a grudge against the late Headmaster? A Death Eater on the run? An Order member trying to exact his own justice?
"You've stayed here too long, idiot boy," Slytherin's voice broke through the loud thumping of heartbeats ringing in his ears. "The sconce is spelled to burn out on its own."
Harry lowered his wand. "So... there's no break-in?"
"Of course not," Slytherin snapped, annoyed. "Would I have allowed it? Invasion of privacy of one of my own? I have four portraits in and around this quarter, mind you."
"Oh."
"Yeah, yeah. Oh. Doesn't this generation have brains anymore? A notion of 'vocabulary'? Pride in the retention of knowledge?"
"Shut up!" Harry yelled. The darkness seemed to amplify the echo of his voice and make his racing heartbeats sound thunderous.
He took a deep breath, cast a Lumos on his wand, and when he found what looked like candles spelled to float just above Snape's desk, walked over and lit two of them.
An empty portrait frame hanged high on the wall behind the desk. Slytherin was hiding from him.
"Er, sorry for blowing up on you, sir."
The portrait frame remained empty and still.
"It's just, well, I don't take well to other people insulting my intelligence. And I do have brains!"
Harry thought he heard a muffled snort coming from somewhere very deep inside the portrait.
"Don't tell me you believed what Snape said about me when he was still alive —"
A flurry of colours and some stretching of canvas, and the portrait was suddenly occupied and fully equipped with desk, chair, and inkwell.
"What do you mean, still alive?" demanded Slytherin.
Apparently news didn't travel inside the castle as quickly as he'd thought.
Harry stared, taking in the Hogwarts Founder's obvious shock. Slytherin's portrait looked like it was about to leap out of the frame and strangle him. Harry took a step backward. It was never safe to be too close to an angry Slytherin, whether said Slytherin was dead or alive, corporeal or body-less.
In the flickering light, Harry could see Slytherin's anger gave way to weariness, resignation, and... grief.
"I'm sorry, sir. But Snape's... Headmaster Snape's gone."
The candles burned an inch or so before Harry's hand was no longer too clammy on his wand.
Suddenly muttering something incomprehensible, Slytherin settled back into his portrait chair behind his portrait desk. His eyebrows rose and he looked at Harry with a mixture of speculation and appreciation.
"So you're the one he's chosen, eh? At least you're not bad looking. Though why in Merlin's name he would pick a Gryffindor..."
"Ch-Chosen, sir?"
"...who's obviously an idiot, is beyond me." Slytherin huffed. "Yes, Severus chose you. Caught him muttering to himself once that it was either going to be you or kingdom come for the Dark Lord—that's Voldemort, I know, though I prefer to call my little snakeling Tom. Well? Take it!"
"Take what?"
Slytherin muttered some more. Harry thought he heard the word 'dunderhead.'
Seeing how Slytherin was no help whatsoever, Harry looked away from the portrait and back toward the bookcase. He did a double take when something white and shiny caught his eyes.
"Yes, that. Take it. And don't lose it!"
There, appearing out of thin air, resting at the very top of the bookcase, was a rune-covered stone Pensieve. Harry flicked his wand and levitated it toward him. This one had more memories inside than Professor Dumbledore's, filled with silvery strands swimming and shimmering on the surface, creating an ethereal glow that seemed to give the entire bowl its own pulse. Harry reached out a hand, touching the bowl's cool, stone rim. All these memories, and yet not enough. This was what was left of Snape.
He took out the flask in his robe and unstoppered it, pouring the memories Snape gave him with his last breath back into the bowl. In the faint glow created by the Pensieve, the strands of silver seemed to glow brighter. One memory, in particular, burned a sparkling white. Harry wondered if this odd little strand of memory contained one of the happy moments between Snape and his mum.
"I'll take very good care of it," Harry murmured, promising to no one in particular besides himself.
"Off with you then, and don't come back." Slytherin's voice broke through his reverie. Lifting his head, Harry saw the candles had shortened by another inch. "And if you lot suddenly grow a conscience and decide to hold a funeral for Severus, send him my final regards."
Harry nodded.
Then he took the Pensieve and left.
There was a greyness about this town, they said, a town where blue sky didn't exist, and good visibility meant no fog detected in whatever machines meteorologists would use to make such decisions. The meteorologists were wrong, of course. For who would call the film of darkness that seemed to settle heavily in the air 'visibility,' making even London after the rain look cheerful?
Children who grew up in this town learned the facts of life sooner, they also said. Lads followed the footsteps of their old men; lasses were eager to be married off into cities as soon as their families saved enough dowry—which wasn't very soon at all, with their fathers' meagre wages at the mills and their mothers' occasional income from selling home-made military uniforms (this used to bring in more income, back twenty-some years ago, when the boys of England were away at war in the Continent).
In this town of grey sky and enormous mills, five human-shaped shadows was the only indication that life dared venture out into open space.
"Bloody drunkard's son!"
"Your old man has enough money to buy himself enough ale to piss in three bathtubs every night. Now where's our share?"
"Hand us your money, Severus Snape!"
Severus ducked as another rock flew past him, the whooshing sound above his head a mockery to his short stature. He scrambled, only to trip over his own boots and send himself plunging down toward the pavement below.
There were laughs everywhere. Cackling sounds as ugly as his Da's drunken rage.
Three more years. Three bloody more years until he'd turn eleven. He would get his Hogwarts letter and be whisked away to a school that taught magic. Mum had promised he'd go there one day, even if he could sense the worry in her eyes as each year passed, with him not yet showing the slightest sign of magic. It was just... sometimes he'd feel his veins tingle with this prickly sensation, but the magic—or whatever it was—wouldn't flow out. But he would go to Hogwarts, and when he went, McKinney and his minions would be sorry.
At the moment, however, it was McKinney's body that was cutting off all escape, and his laugh that reverberated through the walls of the mills. Severus regretted not going home directly after school. He hated home, but at least home had potions kits and fun little spells that Mum would perform, like shaving Da's five o'clock shadow on only one side of his face if he were still passed out from last night's drinking.
Severus dragged himself up, his hand pushing hard against the ground to give his body balance. None of the bullies noticed the rock he picked up as he staggered to his legs. Aiming at the middle of the group, Severus took threw the rock as hard as he could.
He smirked as a satisfying crack, and an even more satisfying yelp of pain, came from one of McKinney's cronies.
"Take that!"
"Or what, if I don't?" the third boy—with ginger hair—asked. There was a bright gleam in his eyes, a gleam that promised suffering and pain. "Give me your money, and I'll pretend I didn't just hear your cheek."
Severus pressed his lips into a line. He would not give in. No, he was not scared, and he would never, ever cry.
"I saw the coin you tried to hide in your pocket, Snape," McKinney said. McKinney, whose one arm was thicker than both of Severus' combined. Severus gulped. "Hand it over, and we'll give you less bruises."
Severus shook his head before he could think better of his decision.
The next few minutes passed in a blur. Three—or was it four?—large bodies surrounded him, and countless fists and boots connected with his body. He vaguely remembered a rush of wetness pouring out of his nostrils, and a particularly loud crack sending a jolt of pain up his ribs.
Just as he was about to pass out, Severus felt a tingling of raw power burst forth from him, filling him. Instinct took over and he channeled that wonderful feeling out, out, outward...
The air around him rippled and swirled. Seconds later, there were no more bullies around.
Pride swelled his chest. I am magic, Severus thought, and held tight to this discovery as blackness overtook him.
Two men approached the boy's unconscious body after the pack of teens departed, swearing and running away as if they had all encountered ghosts. One of the men shook his head; the other snorted.
Both men wore long trench coats, with identical dark glasses that covered (successfully) their eyes and hats that covered (not so successfully) their dirty-blond hair. Their boots echoed loudly on the cobblestone pavement. Neither bent down to touch the boy when they got close enough. They stood and observed, like scientists examining a particularly intriguing specimen.
"Reckon he's an orphan?" one of them asked.
"No, but as good as one. Heard one of the older boys shouting about his old man being a drunkard."
The first man grunted.
"He'll do," the second man said after a stretch of silence. "Good height and no deformities."
"But isn't he a bit weak?"
The second man toed the boy's clenched right fist, revealing the gleam of a hidden coin barely visible through cracks between his fingers. "He's got plenty of tenacity."
The first man grunted again.
Sensing no further objection from his companion, the second man took out an odd-looking object in his hand. "We'll have to make it quick. Help me lift him up by the arms?"
The sky turned dark as the two men reached in and grabbed the boy.
Harry couldn't think back to the last time they'd done this. Dancing in the kitchen, swaying to the beat of nothing but each other's laughter. It was comforting, knowing what a great friend he had in Ginny. It was sad too, and he wondered if this was what the Muggles called the "empty nest syndrome." Hermione had gone on and on about this when they were preparing Rose and Hugo for school. Both he and Ginny had rolled their eyes at Hermione then, but now... now, the melancholy in Hermione's eyes as she saw Hugo off on the Hogwarts Express made sense.
"What are you thinking about?" Ginny asked, looking up at him.
He smiled, the 'nothing' stuck in his throat at the sight of those brown eyes, genuinely curious about what Harry was pondering. "Just our first dance, at the wedding. And how nervous we were beforehand. Or me, at least. How nervous I was that I'd step on you and drop you while doing one of those dips."
He swung Ginny around then, doing one of those dips. Ginny squealed and leaned all her weight back, daring Harry to drop her. Answering the gleam of challenge in her eyes, Harry tightened his grip, wrapped his other arm around her, and lifted Ginny entirely off the ground.
"I remember," Harry said as he deposited Ginny onto the couch in the sitting room, "someone called Neville Longbottom once told me that learning how to dance was just like learning magic. 'You just have to practice, Harry, and one day it'll all make sense.'" He laughed. "Imagine how reassured I wasn't feeling at that, no offense to Neville."
"But Neville turned out just fine, didn't he? A Hogwarts Professor!"
"Yeah." Harry sighed. Professor Longbottom. Very unexpected, that. He'd always thought that if anyone from his year would become a professor, it would be Hermione, not clumsy, stuttering, all-around average Neville. "Yeah. I guess practice does make perfect."
Just like learning magic. Harry supposed that was true. Though he'd much rather flick and swish his wand than let it slip that, after all these years, he still didn't know where to put his left foot once Ginny stood back up from the dip.
"So what are we having for dinner? I'll cook." Harry dragged Ginny into the kitchen and proceeded to ransack the cabinet's entire storage of tinned food and dried instant meals in boxes. "First day of freedom for us. I want to celebrate!"
A hand on the small of his back stopped his cabinet-burrowing. He turned his head around. "Let's go out, Harry, somewhere in Muggle London if you'd like. Anything, as long as it's not fast food."
"What? No ordering five Happy Meals so the kids can get one of each model of the featured toys? Oh right, the workers aren't allowed to give out a different model until the appropriate week, not even when we made a scene at the register and had to be escorted out by the Store Manager." Harry grinned, pleased to see it echoing on Ginny's face. So a dinner date it was. First time in... Merlin, he didn't even know in how long. "Come on, let's wear something Muggle-friendly. We'll choose a restaurant when we get there."
At dinner (Indian, na'an, curry, and those dumpling-looking things that he'd always loved), under the dim light, Harry took a good look at Ginny for what felt like the first time in years. Sitting on the other side of the table, she wasn't 'Mum' or 'Hey, you!' tonight. She wasn't even Harry Potter's trophy wife or the Holyhead Harpies' most hot-headed player. She was Ginny, a constant in Harry's life, a friend.
"You're thinking about something," Ginny stated.
A friend who knew him very, very well.
"I... so what are we going to do now? We have so much time." He quickly added, "Not that it's a bad thing. But this is just weird, sitting here in such a small table, instead of over there —" He gestured at a group of round tables cluttered in the other end of the restaurant, all families of four, five and more. "— I feel old."
"You're not —"
"And what have I accomplished all these years? Ginny, I'm almost forty! And I've done absolutely nothing!"
Ginny arched an eyebrow—the 'O, come on!' looked that was the equivalent of Hermione's 'Honestly, Harry!' look and Ron's 'Are you mad?' look. He was only half-listening when Ginny started listing all his childhood accomplishments, not unexpectedly, everything related to Voldemort and the war.
Harry took the chance to clean the food on his plate while Ginny talked. Lamb curry. Now, whoever invented such a heavenly dish was an utter genius. He reached for another piece of na'an, soaking up every last drip of sauce on his plate before stuffing the bread into his mouth.
"— know Kingsley didn't promote you just because of your name."
Harry hurried and swallowed. "But he did. Everyone in the Auror Department knows this. I was promoted to Head Auror because of something I'd done as a 17-year-old, long before I'd even joined the team! I want to do something big, Ginny, take on a big assignment or something, anything to match the title that's been forced upon me."
Ginny was silent, and from the way she was pushing the curry sauce around with her na'an, she didn't seem too interested in the food all of a sudden.
Harry reached out a hand and wrapped it around Ginny's. "I know you've been wanting to go on longer tours with the Harpies, and now you can. Think about it, Ginny, all this time, it's like a second chance at life. I can finally take on a heavy assignment like the rest of my team, and you'll get to spend more time training with your team." He raised his hand and brushed his knuckles over Ginny's cheek. "Think about it, will you?"
Ginny's gaze was hard at first, but after a moment, it softened.
"Okay."
Once home, the rest of the evening was spent with Harry mapping every inch of Ginny's body with his hands and mouth. This was different too, no hastily cast Silence Spells; no need to decide whether to leave the door unlocked and take their chances, or to ward the door for a quickie, afraid that cutting off the kids' access to them for too long might result in freak accidents they would forever regret.
But the afterwards was always the same. After waiting until Ginny's breathing evened out, Harry slipped out of bed as quietly as he could, wrapped a robe around himself, and tiptoed his way into his study.
There, in a case warded and doubly warded to allow access only by him alone, was Snape's Pensieve. A big stone bowl with silvery strands of memories, filled almost to the brim, just like the first day Harry had found it many years ago. He'd allowed himself privy to Snape's memories over the years. The content wasn't the meager few memories that Snape had given him with his dying breath, no. These were catalogues of the man's life, from his childhood days to his tenure as Hogwarts' headmaster, each memory extracted to keep a part of himself hidden from Voldemort's prying eyes.
In the beginning, Harry had felt guilty about peeking despite the fact that he was the Pensieve's designated heir; Snape was, if nothing else, extremely private. But he wasn't a Gryffindor for nothing, and after his first forays into the mental world of his former professor, all guilt was forgotten.
And those forays had left deep impressions on Harry's mind. Stolen glances at Lily, the first time young Snape went to Dumbledore offering his services, a special bottle of Firewhisky reserved for particularly trying days with too many exploded cauldrons... all these details about Snape, all these fascinating, compelling, enthralling facts about someone he'd come to wish had lived through the war, because this way, Snape might finally stop hating him, see him as the man that he was, and...
Harry shook his head, breaking his staring match with the stone bowl. There was a reason why he only allowed himself to delve into Snape's mind after being intimate with Ginny, if the twitch in his groin was any indication of what the state of his cock would have been had he not already climaxed twice tonight.
He stirred the content of the Pensieve with his wand, glancing down with amusement at the flashes of tiny Snapes and angry Siriuses pointing wands at each other. He was looking for a particular memory tonight. One he usually avoided, but which strangely called out to him at this moment. He dug deep, knowing the memory was buried somewhere near the bottom of the bowl. He pulled up his wand; several strands of memory clung to it. Harry trained his eyes on the one that shimmered brighter than the others, and smiled.
Little Severus was surrounded by bullies, but just like the Gryffindors he would later profess to loathe, refused to give up his coin and chose to fight instead. He was outnumbered and out-powered, but Harry knew Severus would win this battle, that he would display one of the most impressive First Magics that Harry had ever seen, stronger even than his children's, powerful kid that Al was.
The scene quickened, and Severus was now curled into a ball, his knees hiding the hand that was clutching the coin. Harry winced as a particular large fist landed on Severus's left shoulder. This caused Severus's cheeks to flush with anger, and Harry knew it was close... very close.
The light was a blinding white even through the faded tint of the memory. The bullies became frantic; some were thrown backwards. They all ran.
Harry fixed his eyes on Severus, at the small curl of his lips tugging at the corners of his mouth. 'I am magic,' Severus mouthed, and Harry would always remember the joy in that declaration, the utter relief in those three words. He kept staring, knowing that the memory would end when Severus blacked out. Harry gave it ten seconds. In ten... nine... eight seconds, a shadow would fall over Severus' unconscious form and in three... two... one...
Harry emerged from the Pensieve, gasping, panting, aching. If only he could know more about what had become of Severus after his first sign of magic! Harry tried to imagine an excited Snape, babbling to his mum about routing the bullies with his special powers. But Snape would never do such a thing, would he, being the quiet boy that he was? He'd probably gone home that day, shrugged when Eileen asked him how his day was, and proceeded to do his homework or to read a book.
"Harry."
Harry whirled around. Ginny was standing by the door, red hair hanging loose and nightgown flowing down to her ankles. She looked like a faerie from one of Lily's storybooks.
He motioned vaguely toward the Pensieve's direction. "I was just finishing up here —"
"Harry," Ginny repeated, and Harry swallowed the rest of what he was going to say. "It's not healthy like this. He's been gone for more than ten years. Let it go."
If only it were that easy. Harry stored away the Pensieve and reset the wards on the cabinet. Maybe Ginny was right. Maybe he needed to let it go. Maybe it was enough to commission a portrait for Snape in the Headmaster's office and to erect a statue of him among other war heroes in the Memorial. Maybe it was enough to name a room in the reconstructed Ministry after him and then five years later to name his son Albus Severus. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
"It's not enough. He shouldn't have died."
"Harry..."
"I should've asked Hermione for her dittany in her bag and then perform a Healing Charm. We did nothing, Ginny, just stood there like the idiots that we were and watched him die!"
It wasn't until Ginny's arms were wrapped around him did he realise he had crumpled onto the floor. A hand rubbed soothing circles on his back.
"First day of freedom, remember? Step away from this, too, Harry. Please."
He didn't answer as he stood, allowing Ginny to support his weight partially as they walked, arm in arm, back to their bedroom. All he could think about was Snape, and how much he'd wanted to be seen and heard by Memory Severus each time he visited Snape's past.
He wanted to know more about the boy who found out for the first time he was "magic."
He wanted to know Snape.
Harry sat in the oversized armchair in front of the Minister of Magic's equally oversized desk. Everything here, it seemed, was placed for none other than the purpose of making him feel small. He closed his eyes as he sank his head backward into the cushioning of the armchair. At least that felt comfortable. He closed his eyes and tried to picture himself as some hapless delinquent arrested by one of his Auror teammates, sentenced to a meeting with the fearsome Minister. Whatever else Kingsley was, he was certainly good at setting the mood. A common criminal would feel intimidated even before laying eyes on the leader of the Ministry. Not a good place to be, Harry decided. Not at all.
"Taking a nap without waiting for me?" A deep, rich voice broke his reverie.
"Nah," Harry said, eyes still closed. "Just trying to empathise with your poor victims, how terrified they must feel when they're waiting, if you're always so fashionably late."
"Believe me, none of them wants to see me a minute sooner." A whooshing sound and a puff of air hitting his face indicated that Kingsley had sat down. With great difficulty, Harry forced his eyelids open. "Well, hello there, Harry."
Harry returned the smile. "Hello to you too. What is it? Three months? Four? Haven't seen you around much lately."
"Busy as usual."
"But you're always busy. You used to stop by for weekly dinners at the Burrow more often."
"There also used to be more weekly dinners."
Kingsley had a point. Ever since more and more of the Weasley and Potter kids went off to Hogwarts, there had been less dinners. "Weekly" had become bi-monthly or once every three weeks.
"The kids grew up," Harry said. "Time flies."
Kingsley stared at the wall behind Harry, a faraway look in his eyes.
Harry took a deep breath. "So I've been thinking... you know, now that Lily's in school and all, I find myself with all this time on my hands. I was wondering if I could start taking on some bigger assignments at work, since I'm the Head of the Auror Department and all."
"Harry." Kingsley leaned forward, dark eyes once again on Harry. "How many times must I tell you, you deserve every bit of your title? Your dedication to your work is one of a kind, not to mention above and beyond what's required, seeing how you could have easily taken other jobs elsewhere..."
Harry let Kingsley speak on, blocking out his words as someone who'd been married for over fifteen years could do. He knew Kingsley meant every word, but even sincere praise felt hollow. He really hadn't done anything—Ron had solved several high-profile cases in the past ten years, dammit, and he had two children and was just as busy a parent as Harry was!
"You're not convinced."
Harry shook his head.
Kingsley sighed. "Just as well. Now that you have time..." he said, and with a flick of his wand, the bookcase next to his desk opened up to reveal a secret shelf, filled from end to end with old case files. "The Ministry's unsolved files, all difficult cases. Take your pick."
"Spinner's End? I thought we've talked about that obsession of yours —"
"Snape's not an obsession!" Harry argued. "Well, maybe a bit, but it's not... oh, sod it. It's for an assignment. Kingsley's sending me there."
"Kingsley?" Ginny asked suspiciously.
"I, er, sort of asked him for a special project." Harry said, choosing to conveniently omit how he'd spent hours in front of Kingsley's secret book shelf until he found a case that would allow him to go on this little pilgrimage.
"But why there? Why —"
"And you're going on tour with the Harpies anyway, so perfect timing, right?"
Ginny tapped her foot. "You're changing the subject."
"No I'm not! I'm just trying to show you I've been considerate with my planning."
"Yes you are." She quickly added, "The changing the subject part, I mean. Although I'll give you points for trying to be considerate."
Harry grinned. Changing the subject always worked, not that he'd ever admit it. The battle was half won. "It's a Muggle case. Some unknown mystery going on in one of the mills near where Snape and my mum used to live, way up north. Unexplained magical traces have been found in the area. Have been for decades."
"And they're sending the Head of the Auror Department to play sniff dog?"
"Well..." Harry rubbed the back of his neck. That was one very undignified way of putting it. "It's been an open case for years, nobody had the time to really investigate. Kinsley hid the file during the war to protect giving away Snape's whereabouts. It just sort of... sat there. Until today, that is."
"And staying at Spinner's End?"
"Empty house, no need to stay in hotels, saves time and money to travel back and forth everyday?" Harry asked hopefully.
Ginny muttered something that included the word 'obsession.' But she was smiling, even if just the tiniest bit. Harry grinned. The battle had been won.
"So when are you leaving for the Harpies tour? I'll help you pack."
Ginny shoved an empty suitcase into Harry's hands and ordered him toward the wardrobe.
Harry lay in bed, wide awake. He'd spent the entire evening packing for both their trips. Ginny had left early in the morning, after a quick peck on his cheek and a flurry of hugs, with a thrown in mock punch to his stomach when Harry waggled his finger and warned Ginny not to 'snog too many girls on the other team.'
"Why don't you go snog some blokes to even the score?" Ginny had said, and stepped out the door after another playful kiss on Harry's lips.
Now, with fully packed luggage at the foot of his bed, he found himself counting the number of dots and chipped paint on the ceiling.
This wasn't going to help him fall asleep, he eventually realised. The ceiling seemed to mock him for his obsession and for his childish need to want to prove himself. Not childish—he should rephrase, illegal use of magic in front of Muggles was a grave matter, after all—but... Harry couldn't help hearing the phantom taunt of his erstwhile Potions professor, berating him for recklessness and of the self-centred desire to remain in the spotlight.
The thing with Snape was, once he got into your head, he stayed. Harry groaned at the loss of warmth as he slipped out of his bed and tiptoed down to his study. If he couldn't sleep, he might as well pass time by ogling images of Snape. He ignored the tiny voice in his head telling him that something sounded really wrong with that thought, and proceeded to remove the wards around the Pensieve.
Finding several desired memories from the pool of swirly threads (there were always a few strands that were shinier than the rest, he noticed), Harry dove in.
"You want me to do what?" Snape barked, practically foaming at the mouth. "You're utterly, completely mad!"
Dumbledore sat unperturbed behind the Headmaster's desk, hands folded calmly on top of a stack of papers, smiling and eyes twinkling.
Behind Snape, McGonagall spoke up, "Now, now, Severus. It's not going to be that bad."
"I. Don't. Dance." Snape said. How he managed to annunciate through gritted teeth, Harry didn't know.
Nor did he know why he kept returning to this particular memory again and again. At first Harry thought he simply liked to see Snape put in an embarrassing situation. But there was no denying that the near-panic in Snape's voice caused Harry's stomach to feel queasy every time. So he definitely wasn't enjoying the memory at Snape's expense.
"If you want pointers, I'll show you what I'm going to teach my Gryffindors," McGonagall continued. "Be their teacher. Most of them don't know how to dance, and surely you don't want your Slytherins to make fools out of themselves at the Yule Ball?"
Snape crossed his arms and pressed his lips into a thin line. He knew he was fighting a losing battle—Harry had seen enough of Snape to know that look by now—but it would be another half an hour before Dumbledore's 'My boy' and 'For my sake' would finally crumble him.
Memory Snape turned his head and looked straight at Harry.
Harry gasped, choking on inhaled saliva that went down the wrong pipe, as he pulled himself out of the Pensieve. Doubling over in a coughing fit, he managed to look through teary eyes inside the bowl just to make sure the memory hadn't spilled onto the floor.
The memory was still there, glowing a bright whitish colour, floating at the very top of the surface.
A cup of tea popped into existence on the desk next to the Pensieve. Harry's hand automatically reached for it.
"Thanks, Kreacher," he said, then took a sip of the soothing liquid.
He both loved and hated it. The way Snape seemed to be able to see him every time, catching him unawares despite his having seen this so many times already. Snape's dark eyes boring into Harry's very being.
That intense, furious recognition.
As he walked back toward his room, Harry knew he wouldn't be sleeping after all.
Harry walked around what remained of Snape and his mum's childhood town, so grey and haunted even though he knew it was perfectly sunny just a few miles south. The few strangers he passed on the pavement didn't make eye contact, didn't smile, didn't do anything except briskly walking on. It made Harry feel either unnoticed or unwelcome, or both, like he was too alive in a slowly disintegrating town. No wonder Snape turned out to be such a brooding git. It was a wonder his mum wasn't more like everyone else.
It didn't take long for him to enter into what seemed like a maze of mills, of enormous concrete buildings with giant exhaust pipes protruding from the top. Judging by the presence (or lack thereof) of smoke coming out of the pipes, only about one mill out of every four or five was still functioning.
Harry cleared his mind and let his instinct guide him. He was sensing the familiar buzz of magic in this decidedly Muggle town, and the buzz wasn't too far away. He ducked into the shadow of a nearby mill and glanced around. Satisfied that he was alone, he pulled out his wand, lay it flat against his palm, and whispered: "Point me."
The wand wavered between pointing toward north and toward the pull of magic. After a few seconds, it settled in a direction that Harry knew for certain wasn't north.
"Thanks," he whispered to his wand before hiding it again and walking toward where the magic was.
He stopped in front of a deserted mill (no smoke coming out of its pipes) that had two heavy slabs of steel as doors. Plastered one on each door were two yellowing signs that read: "Authorised Personnel Only!" and "Keep Out!" Harry noticed a dust-covered cobweb on the bottom right corner of the "Keep Out!" sign. It looked brittle enough to crumble at the lightest touch. This mill had to be abandoned more than thirty years ago.
"Don't jump!"
Harry drew back the finger that was about to make contact with the cobweb and turned around. A young girl with brown hair, looking about seventeen, stopped her morning run and all but entreated Harry with her body language to not move a muscle forward.
Harry smiled. "It's all right, I was just —"
"Step back, please! Whatever drove you to — can't you see the big hole in front of you?"
"Nope," Harry said quietly to himself, but obliged the girl and took two steps away from the mill. "Okay? Better now?"
The girl, shaking, reluctantly nodded her head. "It's just... you're not from around here, are you?"
"Just visiting an old friend. Thought I'd walk around the area while he sleeps in this morning." Harry cocked his head in the mill's direction. "So... this hole you were talking about. Tell me about it."
The girl shot a look at the mill, though her eyes were looking toward the ground, just past Harry's feet. "Construction accident. Happened years ago. Nobody's ever got the money to fix it. Don't know much about it, myself. Dad used to work two mills over —" She pointed to her right. "— there, before he found another job. Mum never allowed me and my sister to play around here, said it's too dangerous, we might fall in."
"Fall in?"
The girl laughed. "That's what we used to say too! I mean, who could fall into such a giant hole in plain view? You gave me a scare though. Thought you were one of those suicidal types."
"Me? Never," Harry said. "I've fought to stay alive so many times, I'll never give it up by jumping into a big hole."
"Good." The girl beamed at him then, and Harry suddenly didn't find this town to terribly dull. His heart ached when he realised his mum must have been just as refreshing a burst of sunlight in this gloomy town as this girl. "What's your name?"
"Sarah McKinney. Been here all my life." She put on her headset and resumed running. "Enjoy your stay, sir!" she shouted over her shoulder.
"Thanks!" Harry shouted back.
A McKinney! He wondered briefly if Sarah's dad was the bully who tormented Snape many years ago. Probably, given the size of this small town. Harry shook his head. A bully gifted with such a pleasant, beautiful daughter. This was proof enough that life was unfair.
Harry hummed in amusement as he turned back toward the mill, certain by now that a wizard or witch must have cast a Muggle-Repelling Charm on the building, similar to those around Hogwarts that hid the castle from non-magical people's eyes. He tapped a foot on the ground before him—solid. No giant hole. But just to be sure—and to not scare anymore hapless Muggles—he went around to a more hidden side of the mill and chose to break in from a window instead.
"Hello?" Harry called as soon as he lowered all the wards and climbed through the window.
His greeting reverberated throughout the empty mill.
The mill was unfurnished except for a large table in the middle that had several long boxes on top of it. Harry examined the wall closest to him and found several long, thin faded marks located near an electrical socket. Even as a magical investigator who dealt primarily with Wizarding evidence, Harry immediately knew what those marks were—imprints caused by plastic melted off of Muggle extension cords. Similar markings decorated the three other walls. There were a lot of sockets.
Once upon a time, the place must have been used as some sort of a facility. And a hazardous one at that.
Satisfied that there was nothing else to see on the perimeter, Harry stepped forward, toward the table and the boxes in the middle of the mill. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. The table was just another one of those one metre by two metre, factory made, minimal sanding, hastily polished junk piece of furniture one would find discarded out in the pavement; the boxes were hand made, all sides glued together from planks of wood. Long and narrow, not unlike—Harry frowned—coffins.
"Is this some sick joke about vampires?" Harry asked, more out of the need to hear a human voice—any human voice—than anything. He hadn't seen a vampire since his Sixth Year. Maybe he should have brought a backup with him. Someone like Auror Hewitt who knew a lot about Dark creatures.
Ginny's 'I told you so' look floated into his mind, which Harry promptly shoved aside. No, he was here out of his own free will; he chose this assignment because he'd wanted to. He took out his wand. Best not to waste any more time.
With a quick swish and flick, Harry sent a jelly-leg hex toward one of the boxes. It bounced off as if it struck an invisible shield.
"So you're warded," Harry mused.
He drew on his knowledge of curse and ward breaking—the former he learned from Bill and the latter from his Auror training—and cast a diagnostic spell toward the invisible dome. Every curse, hex, and ward has a weak point, Harry remembered Bill's voice clearly, find it and more than half the work's done.
There were several weak points in this shield, Harry found out quickly. He also detected Dark magic, though that wasn't in the protective shield itself. Harry fought against a shiver tingling down his spine. Please don't let there be any Inferi. Please don't let there be any Inferi. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease...
Maybe he should turn back, put the case file back into Kingsley's secret shelf and forget about the whole 'I want a special project' histrionic. The mill's been deserted for decades—every physical sign pointed to that—and whatever was in those boxes obviously hadn't been harming anyone during those years.
Ginny's 'I told you so' looked again floated into his mind.
"Oh no you don't," Harry rebuffed, certain that his mental image of Ginny wouldn't be able to hear the wavering in his voice. "I'll solve the mystery of these boxes, you just wait and see."
Breathing deeply, Harry gripped his wand tighter and set to work, peeling off the invisible shield layer by layer. His nerves calmed once his focus was entirely on the mechanical task of curse-breaking. Of the layers of intertwined wards, most were easy to remove, though some were more difficult. But all in all, it took less than half an hour for Harry to remove all the barriers between himself and the long boxes.
Harry took two steps forward with his wand extended and a shielding charm ready on his tongue, steeling himself for the revelation of the boxes' contents, be they vampires or Inferi. There were four boxes total, with most of the Dark magic emanating from the one farthest away from him.
Harry flicked his wand and wordlessly opened the first box from a distance, heartened to see no poisonous cloud of mist or dart controlled by wound springs popping out. What was more, there was not a single sign of movement from inside the box. He let go of his held breath and exhaled in relief. No Undead in this box then.
One down, three to go.
He opened the second box in a similar fashion, then the third. Still, there was nothing.
Just because there was no Undead in the first three boxes didn't mean the fourth one didn't contain an army of packed-in Dark creatures. He really should first finish examining the contents in the three opened boxes before relying on his luck and wishful thinking on the Undeadless-ness of the remaining box.
"Ten Galleons there are bodies inside," he challenged, hoping the prospect of winning imaginary money would make discovering the inevitable easier to bear.
It didn't, and Harry found himself gasping, head spinning and eyelids furiously blinking away flashing stars, at the bodies of a blond-haired young man, a middle-aged brunette, and a brown-haired boy. Harry stepped sideways to try to steady himself from the world tilting off its axis. This morning's breakfast was threatening to make a reappearance.
It wasn't as if he'd never seen corpses before. Bodies of the dead he could definitely stomach. Harry clutched at his grumbling belly as he burped up bile that burned at the back of his throat. No, he was on the brink of sicking up because every bloody one of these bodies was so perfectly preserved, in stasis, sleeping beauties with absolutely no blemish. They looked like figures taken from a Muggle wax museum.
Unnatural.
Harry decided to leave the fourth box untouched—three Galleons he'd find the same thing inside—when Ginny haunted his mind again.
"Bloody hell, Ginny!" He steeled himself. "You're enjoying this, Harry. Remember, you're enjoying this."
He flicked his wand and opened the fourth box. This one had the most concentration of Dark magic surrounding it, which meant whoever was inside had to be the murderer's most recent victim. Probably going back twenty-nine years instead of thirty, Harry wagered. Five Galleons I'm right.
Blimey, Harry wrinkled his nose, he could be such a gambler when he felt his well being threatened.
Dragging one unwilling foot in front of the other, he walked closer to the fourth box. One look, and his stomach promptly revolted.
Harry doubled over and wheezed, hacked, and coughed out his entire breakfast. What remained of pre-digested banger and toast ran down his shirt, jeans, shoes and onto the floor, splattering his wand, smearing his glasses.
Laying inside the fourth box—pale and stiff but dear Merlin still breathing—was the body of Severus Snape.
Harry would have Apparated directly home if he could. But at his current state, he'd probably splinch himself into ten pieces in twelve different dimensions. At least he had the presence of mind to cast a few cleaning and drying spells. He didn't fancy looking like a drunkard who'd spent the previous night drowned in his own vomit.
Severus Snape, alive? Hidden traps and poisons be damned, Harry had reached a hand in (when he had finally collected himself) to test out the man's pulse, and found it beating rhythmically along the pale neckline, no snakebite scars to be found. Add to that a steady rise and fall of Snape's chest, and Harry could come to no other conclusion except that Snape—whatever the Dark magic was doing to him—was very much alive.
He should have been glad, should have rejoiced at the fulfillment of one of his many "what if" Snape scenarios. But Harry found his jeans getting increasingly damp from clammy hands and his breathing speeding up to the point of hyperventilation, and all he could manage was stumble his way toward Spinner's End, toward the house at the end of the row that by all means shouldn't be empty, if Snape was still alive.
A quick Alohomora gave Harry entrance into the small, run-down house. He plopped into the first couch he saw, sinking so low into the cushion that he could imagine himself disappear. He closed his eyes and simply waited for his stomach to settle. It shouldn't take long if images of the bodies he'd just seen would agree to leave his mind bloody well alone, thank you very much.
Harry sighed and closed his eyes. His head was spinning again...
He started awake to the same view outside the window, though it was now barely visible in the last light of the evening sun.
"Ugh," he muttered, rolling his shoulders to ease the painful pull of muscles at the base of his tense neck. "Next time, I'm bringing my own pillow."
"You could have asked for a pillow," a voice said behind him.
Harry jumped out of the couch and pointed his wand toward the direction of the voice. He belatedly realised someone had placed a cover over him while he slept.
"Greetings, Harry Potter. Fancy a meal with an old lady?" A woman dressed in a simple grey dress asked. She gestured at a full meal and two empty seats at the dining table.
Harry stared.
The woman looked well into her eighties, with white hair, black eyes, a long nose, and eyebrows so close together they almost touched. She at once reminded Harry of someone else he knew and of a younger version of herself he'd seen in a Pensieve.
"Shall I make you tea?"
Harry shook his head. "No thanks, Mrs. Sn... er, I mean, Prince. I probably should call you that, I mean... oh dear Merlin, you're Eileen Prince!"
Eileen sat patiently while Harry cast all sorts of tests and charms on the food to make sure nothing was poisonous. She wasn't intimidating like Snape, but Harry knew that her focus was on him—she and his son shared the same gift of making hairs at the back of people's necks rise. The food smelled wonderful, and the earlier unrest of his stomach went away as soon as he set eyes on soup, bread, corn and pot roast.
Ignoring the slight nagging sensation he was feeling, Harry tucked in.
Harry was done with his soup and halfway through his corn before propriety returned to him. "Er," he said with his mouth full with bits of corn. He then thought better and swallowed before continuing. "Sorry for breaking into your house."
Eileen raised one of her eyebrows, communicating her amusement. Harry liked her version better. Snape, when he did his eyebrowy thing, conveyed nothing but insult to one's intelligence.
"But you're not sorry for eating my food, Harry?"
"Nope, not sorry, but thank you. I'm a parent too, and if my children bring home hungry strangers, I'd feed them all." He took a long sip from his tea. He grimaced when he gulped too loudly to be polite. "Besides, you made so much food —"
The nagging feeling at the back of his mind returned full-force when he looked at the perfectly cooked chunk of meat at the middle of the table. He was asleep for, what, three hours at most? A pot roast like that, thick but so tender that the pieces looked like they would fall off of the bones with nary a prod—required a minimum of four to five hours to prepare.
Turning to Eileen in a flurry, he caught her eyes sparkling mischievously.
"Wait —" He sputtered. "You... You were expecting me!"
"I was expecting someone," she said, taking a piece of bread and dipping it into her soup. "I don't keep wards around my mill for no reason."
Harry shot up. "Your mill?"
Images of waxen dead bodies in coffin-like boxes rose unbidden to Harry's mind. Images of perfectly healthy people. Formerly healthy dead people.
Eileen didn't shrink back even when Harry whipped out his wand and pointed it right up against her, so close that another inch would have poked a hole between her eyes. Sparks of red spurted like Muggle electricity out of the tip of his wand, barely contained under Harry's brewing fury.
"Murderer!" Harry hissed. "And here I thought you were a nice lady, you... you cursed your own son!"
Eileen bit off a piece of bread and chewed slowly. Just like Snape, the utter air of composure she exuded caused Harry to lower his wand and sit back down.
"I'm old, Mr. Potter. Let me first finish my meal. I shall explain everything to you later."
Perplexed, Harry fixed her a long stare. Eileen picked up her spoon and ate two spoonfuls of soup. She then conjured a meat knife and placed it on the table, drawing Harry's attention back toward the meal.
Having yet to try the pot roast, Harry suddenly saw no harm in eating what was proffered. He put away his wand and grabbed the knife, slicing himself a generous portion before remembering his manners and offering a piece to his hostess.
"You know the old wives' tale of the resident witch. Every village has one. In this town, it's me," Eileen said after the meal, when they were seated comfortably in couches by the fireplace. Harry had volunteered to do the dishes, but apparently all mothers except Ginny knew how to charm dishes to clean themselves. Besides, he was feeling too relaxed to insist, his stomach warm and his eyelids heavy.
"Severus sent me into hiding during the war, but after everything was over, Gringotts managed to find me and send me Severus's will. He left this house to me."
"He left your house to you?" Harry stifled a yawn. "How generous."
"This town is both Muggle and conservative. When Tobias died, the house was passed onto Severus." Bitterness twisted her mouth. "I never had the right to own property, not as a woman under this town's laws."
Harry thought it absurd.
Eileen seemed to have read Harry's mind; she shook her head and all but agreed with Harry. He shuddered. She really was too much like Snape.
"The laws aren't universal. Your aunt Tuney, if I recall correctly, co-owns a house with her husband?"
Harry would rather not think about the Dursleys, but he nodded.
"And your mother —"
"Don't." Harry said tightly. He didn't come here for this. He didn't come here to be face-to-face with a matriarch who had outlived almost everyone through two wars.
"I'm sorry."
Harry leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. Somehow, he didn't doubt Eileen's sincerity.
They sat in silence. Harry fiddled with his mug of tea, spinning the half-empty cup slowly in his hands. Eileen merely sat and looked at the fire, as if sight could absorb the heat emanating from the fireplace.
For the first time in years, Harry allowed himself to venture into the realm of 'what if.' What if his mum had survived? Eileen seemed to like Lily enough, and Harry could easily imagine the two of them keeping in touch despite the deterioration of Snape and Lily's friendship. The woman sitting a few feet away from him could have known his mother very well... maybe she did know his mother very well.
He straightened his upper body. Finishing the content with a swift gulp, Harry placed the now-empty mug on the table beside him. He steeled himself. Now was as good a time as any.
"My mother," he asked, eyes searching Eileen's face. "What was she like?"
"She was the best thing that happened to Severus," Eileen answered without pause. "Kind, beautiful, so full of life, and a witch. Before she came into his life, Severus was a miserable little boy."
"McKinney and the bullies," Harry said, chuckling. "I think I met his daughter earlier today."
"You did? Well, bless him, that oaf. He doesn't deserve to have such a beautiful daughter."
"My thought exactly."
Eileen smiled and Harry grinned.
"So," Eileen said, exhaling loudly. "The mill."
A chill settled in the air around them; their shared moment of amusement forgotten. Eileen gave Harry a pointed look. Harry nodded, urging her to continue.
"I didn't start the project, but I've tried to preserve what I could over the years."
Harry felt his eyes narrowing. "What project?"
"The Muggle's desire to play God." Eileen gazed past Harry. "They took dozens of them, these so-called scientists. DNA, blood samples, anything you could imagine. You must understand, there used to be a lot of street kids roaming about."
Harry resisted the urge to run his hand through his hair, a nervous gesture he'd had whenever he was trying to make sense of things. Eileen was making no sense. He had a distinct feeling that if Hermione were here, she'd have been able to follow what Eileen was getting at.
"I'm talking about cloning experiments," Eileen explained. "The Muggles lost so many young sons during their World Wars. The decades after the wars were spent with all sorts of attempts to make more people.
"This area was the ideal farming location. Poor, exploited. Adults working eighty-hour weeks and children with nowhere to go. They targeted kids, of course, thought them to have a better chance at succeeding."
"They... they got Snape?"
"Tobias hardly worked, getting drunk so often. Severus didn't like to be home; he preferred wandering the streets."
"They got him," Harry whispered. This made him angry for some reason. He remembered seeing young Snape in those memories. He was a scrawny, underweight, under-fed kid. What those 'scientists' must have done to him!
"Did they hurt him?"
"Severus? Oh, no. Most of the samples were taken when the kids were unconscious, either from starvation or the cold. McKinney must have bullied Severus too hard one day. No, none of the targets knew their blood and skin had been taken."
That was a relief, Harry supposed. He turned his gaze toward the fireplace. There were flickers of green at the very back, which meant this house was still connected to the Floo system. He sat as he let the fire warm his face.
"You didn't ask if the Muggle's project succeeded, Harry. Aren't you curious?"
"I grew up in a Muggle home," Harry said. "Went through the Muggle primary school system. We never learned anything about cloning, so I assumed it was a failure."
"All except one."
Harry suddenly remembered Snape in the fourth box, breathing, heart beating, and very much alive.
"Snape! His clone lived!"
"Physically, yes. None of them have souls. A few others lived too, but only he stayed alive all these years." Eileen flicked her cane. Two new pieces of firewood flew into the fireplace. "Let's backtrack a bit. Whatever funding the Muggle scientists obtained ran out rather quickly. By the 80s, their lab was closed down. That was the mill you visited today."
"And that was where you found your son?"
"The clone's not my son. Not in the full sense of the word anyway." The flames roared, casting fiery shadows on the furniture. Eileen looked younger in the glow of the orange-red light. "But yes, that was when I realised they'd taken Severus's samples. I cast a Muggle-repellent ward on the deserted mills and tried to keep those four bodies alive. I believe you know the rest of the story."
Harry nodded. "Dark magic. Complicated Dark magic. I should have known."
"Dark magic isn't always bad, Mr. Potter."
"It usually is," Harry argued.
Eileen fixed her gaze on Harry. Those deep, dark eyes reminded him too much of another pair that looked almost the same, and his heart lurched. "I did not approve of Severus's allegiance to Voldemort. I never have."
"And yet you gave him this house, let him use this place for Death Eater purposes."
"I do what I must to keep him alive."
Which, all things considered, was both very Slytherin and very much a mother's instinct. Harry could never fully understand the Slytherin mindset, but as a parent, he knew exactly what Eileen meant about going to all lengths for the well being of one's child.
Eileen was lost in thought now, looking into the fireplace without seeing anything specific. Harry took a moment to study her. Her face was wrinkled, frown lines etched much deeper around her mouth than the laugh lines around her eyes. Her hair was completely white except for the occasional black that told Harry she and Snape had had exactly the same colour hair when she was younger. She was tall for a woman, and inside that thin, frail frame of hers was a will so strong and a mind so capable that her son's stasis clone body was kept alive all these years, without even the Ministry of Magic knowing any of the specifics. Harry decided he would return home and close the case with some silly cover-up story. Eileen had lost her son once; he couldn't blow her cover and see her lose Snape a second time.
He was replaying a memory of Snape and Lily at the playground in his head, remembering how small Snape was as a child, and how vulnerable he was to bullies twice his size, when the feeling that he was being scrutinised swept over him. He turned to find a strange expression on Eileen's face, like she was trying to puzzle him out.
"Harry, my dear." She asked, "You really cared for Severus, didn't you?"
Did he? Harry's first instinct was to protest, but one look from Eileen stopped his excuses in their tracks. He paused and thought about what Snape had meant to him before answering.
"I was privileged to see a different side of him during my Sixth Year," he said, choosing his words carefully. "But then that thing happened with Dumbledore, and... I don't think I'll ever know for sure."
Eileen nodded, understanding etched on every line of her face.
"Go find out, Harry."
Harry cocked his head at her, questioning.
When Eileen looked at him this time, Harry swore the spark in her eyes reminded him of Dumbledore.
"I've pointed you to the body and told you the history. You have the rest of the solution, I believe. Good luck."
Eileen's last words echoed in his mind days after Harry returned home.
Harry kept the same schedule everyday since he returned from Spinner's End: left the Ministry of Magic precisely at five, picked up some takeaway on the way home, ate the takeaway in ten minute's time, and after changing into comfortable clothing, dashed into his study and spent as much time inside Snape's Pensieve as possible.
It'd been six nights of memory viewing, each time for hours. He had seen many of the memories, but there were still a fair number he'd never visited. Harry was getting frustrated that he couldn't get any closer to the solution Eileen was referring to. He was sure that whatever solution it was must be inside the Pensieve. After all, this was the only Snape-bestowed item he had in his possession, and he practically had half of Snape's mind inside the stone bowl. Surely Snape was smart enough to embed his own solution inside the Pensieve and not rely on Harry-the-dunderhead to figure everything out?
Harry emerged, exhausted, from a most unpleasant memory. Torturing innocent Muggles at Death Eater meetings—Harry never wanted to see that again. He had even gone as far as to punch a fist through Memory Snape in the vain attempt to stop him from sustaining a Cruciatus; he didn't care if Snape was obviously disgusted at what he had to do. Memory Snape's form was translucent, and Harry's punch did absolutely nothing to stop the atrocity in front of him.
He glanced at the clock, which read half past midnight. Harry reckoned he really should go to sleep, but the next day was a Saturday and he didn't need to wake up early. Besides, who could go to sleep after seeing what he just did?
He twirled his wand inside the pool of silvery strands. Time for his favourite memory. It didn't take long for him to find—Harry'd learned that, for whatever reason, his favourite Snape memory was the one that shined the brightest.
"Time to protest about dancing lessons," Harry said, smirk tugging at his lips.
He dove in.
"You want me to do what?" Memory Snape shrieked.
Harry had seen this memory hundreds of times, there was no need to scrutinse it like he did with the lesser-viewed ones. He walked over to a wall across from Snape and slouched against it, then crossed his arms. Time for entertainment.
"Now, now, Severus. It's not going to be that bad."
People in memories were paler, as if one of those Muggle black-and-white film filtres were placed over Harry's field of vision. But this particular Snape always showed the most colour, his cheeks reddening in blotches from a mixture of embarrassment and anger, his fists curling so tightly that each knuckle was turning pale white.
"I. Don't. Dance."
Harry loved the hint of petulance in Snape's voice. With a higher pitch and a different subject, he almost sounded like his precious Lily Luna whinging about something she absolutely refused to do. He smiled, and imagined the glare Snape directed at the wall was actually sent his way.
"If you want pointers, I'll show you what I'm going to teach my Gryffindors. Be their teacher..."
His bad mood lifting, Harry allowed himself a chuckle. "Poor Ron! He was McGonagall's chosen victim, did you know?" He sighed, looking directly at Snape. "I wonder who your victim was, Mr. I Don't Dance."
Snape, with his glittering black eyes, was glaring menacingly at the wall. Harry wondered how many ways of torture Snape was thinking about committing on Dumbledore.
Snape was doing his arm-crossing-while-pouting thing again, and would be for the next half an hour. Harry mock-sighed.
"Give up, Snape. You know you're going to give in sooner or later."
"It's always worth it to put up a fight, Mr. Potter."
Harry straightened himself in a flash and turned around. Had someone broken into his house and found him helpless and occupied, face stuck in a Pensieve?
There was nothing behind him. Around the memory, Dumbledore was still smiling and waiting patiently while McGonagall was making all sorts of attempts at placating Snape. They looked normal.
"This way, Potter."
Walking closer to him, in all his black-haired, black-robe, and splotchy cheeks glory, was Snape.
"But... How?"
"About time you start talking to me," Memory Snape said, smirking.
Harry turned toward the door in Memory Dumbledore's office and ran.
Harry ran through the door and kept running. There was no spiraling staircase leading out of the Headmaster's office, and he didn't care. The blackness outside the memory was solid enough underneath his feet, and if he could only get as far away from his favourite-memory-gone-wonky as possible, then he could pretend nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
A spark of light appeared in the far end of complete darkness. Harry ran toward it. Maybe there was an exit out of Snape's memory world. Maybe he should get the runes of the Pensieve checked once he was back in real life, just to make sure the memories hadn't got cursed or had gone bad after reaching an expiration date.
The light grew bigger, and he soon found himself stepping into the familiar memory of Snape displaying his first magic.
"Bloody drunkard's son!"
"Your old man has enough money to buy himself enough ale to piss in three bathtubs every night. Now where's our share?"
"Hand us your money, Severus Snape!"
Everything looked and felt normal so far. Harry allowed himself to settle into the memory. He was curious and really wanted to take a good look at McKinney. Stocky, awkward, teenaged McKinney with pimples threatening to break out en masse on his face. The McKinney who would have a beautiful, kind-hearted daughter forty years from now.
"Enjoying the show, Potter?" Memory Snape—the one he was fleeing from—said as he sidled up next to Harry.
Harry felt his entire body tense. "No," he said. He forced himself to keep his eyes trained at the fight, playing casual onlooker even as his heart was beating so fast, it felt like it would burst out of his chest at any moment.
"Liar."
"'m not lying." Harry turned toward Snape. "Look. I don't know why you've become interactive. But do me a favour and just... leave, go back to your own memory, okay?"
Snape smirked—the same smirk Harry remembered from years ago, the same one Harry had seen throughout the years on the faces of various Memory Snapes. This Snape looked solid, as real as Harry. And if Harry was stepping closer, it certainly wasn't to feel the heat emanating from Snape's body, just like a real body would.
Snape didn't seem to notice Harry inching closer to him, thankfully. Instead, Harry followed his eyes and found Snape engrossed in what was happening in the memory. Little Severus was about to blast the bullies with his first magic any time now...
"Were you scared?" Harry asked.
"No."
"Liar."
Snape snorted.
I am magic, Little Severus mouthed as he drifted into unconsciousness.
Harry turned to Memory Snape. "Come on, let's get you back to your own memory. This one's about to end."
"Hush," Snape cut him off. "The shadows. Watch."
Shrugging, Harry turned back to Little Severus's body lying on the ground. Severus was going to black out soon anyway; he could wait another minute.
Curiosity piqued Harry. He'd never stayed on after a memory ended; he wondered if memories replayed themselves from the beginning.
"There."
"Yeah, yeah. Happens every time. I've seen this —"
"Watch!"
Harry turned to the Snape next to him, startled at the fury with which he had spoken. "Okay," he said. "Geez, calm down, you git."
Snape shot him a glare that promised hours of painful torture. Rolling his eyes, Harry turned back to the scene before them.
A shadow loomed over Little Severus's body. The same one each time, eight seconds before the blackout. Seven... six...
Harry stole a quick glance at the Snape beside him, and saw Snape's Adam's apple, so prominent on that long, pale neck of his, dipped and rose again from a dry swallow.
Three... two... one...
The scene before them froze.
"There they are."
"They? Who?"
"Look closely. You're an Auror now, aren't you?"
"Hey, don't go insulting —"
"Potter." Harry could hear the eyeroll in that voice, though this time, Snape didn't sound angry anymore. Harry wasn't sure if his ears were playing tricks on him, but he'd take a not angry Snape over an angry Snape, anytime.
"The shadows," Snape said, gesturing at Little Severus. "What do you see?"
Harry squinted. The shadows had always been there, right before Little Severus blacked out. Nothing really important, he figured, since it wasn't like a looming monster was about to eat Severus up or anything. If he must put a shape to the shadow, it actually looked more like two skinny bodies...
"Bodies! Shadows of bodies!"
Snape kept his eyes trained on him, waiting for him to say more.
Eileen's voice echoed loudly in his consciousness. Most of the samples were taken when the kids were unconscious...
Harry felt his eyes and mouth simultaneously go wide.
"The shadows were them! They... this was when they took your sample!"
"Fifty points to Gryffindor."
"Oh no you don't. Give me those points when we get to a school memory so I can actually pretend I'm getting them," Harry said, then burst out laughing. "Or we can forget that and spare everyone a heart attack."
Harry relished the snort he elicited from Snape. This was unexpectedly refreshing, talking to Snape as a man, grown up and no more animosity stemming from childhood grudges between them.
"Did you know what they did with your samples?"
Snape shook his head. "I woke up with a needle wound on my arm. It took me two days to work out someone had taken my blood."
Harry pretended to study the shadowed body while Snape watched him, complete with the telltale sign of back-of-neck hair rising. Little Severus's prone form lie unmoving, closed eyes and closed fist, right after one of the most impressive burst of first magic Harry had ever seen. Such raw power. No wonder Snape's cloned body survived.
The debate of whether to reveal to Snape what happened after the memory was short-lived. Harry decided that Snape needed to know.
"We found your body, you know," Harry said. "It's not far from your home, probably just a few mills away from this memory."
Snape merely grunted.
"I thought that would be good news." He hazarded a glance at Snape, who didn't look pleased as Harry thought he would.
"That none of you had the decency to give me a proper burial?" Snape spat. "Is my body intact at least? Eaten by worms? Hanged in open air for eternal shame?"
"No... NO!" Harry took a deep breath. "When I was referring to your body, I meant the other one!"
Before Harry had time to blink, he was pushed onto his back, shoved outside of the memory he and Snape had just viewed, and lying on the ground of total darkness. Snape's form was still strangely visible: hands a healthy flesh colour, one of them twisting hard at his shirt and collar; snarl fully formed; yellow teeth baring; and nostrils flaring.
Snape felt warm. Solid. Real.
Harry placed his hands on Snape's chest and attempted to push him away. "Snape. Snape! Look... just get off and listen, okay?"
Snape tightened his grip on Harry's collar.
"Oi!" Harry choked. "Please, let me explain..."
Dark eyes narrowed, and thank Merlin that whatever decision Snape had come to, he released his choking grip on Harry's collar. But he didn't pull away. His breath on Harry's face was warm.
Harry took the stony glare as a signal and started recounting his trip to Snape's hometown. Being so close, he could see Snape's eyes grow just a bit wider at hearing about Harry's discovery of the bodies, and his frown ease up by just the tiniest fraction at the revelation that Eileen had lived through the wars and now lived in Spinner's End.
"So yeah, at some point there were apparently two of you living at the same time," Harry concluded. "And for the record, we never found your —" He poked a finger at Snape's chest, solid to the touch. "— body, but held a funeral for you anyway. You remain a hero to this day."
Snape's eyes were inscrutable, but no longer held the earlier fury.
"So, er, can you get off me now?"
Snape fixed him a long gaze before stepping off of Harry. Fully aware that the man was sitting just a few feet away, Harry tried not to gawk and busied himself with dusting off non-existent speckles off his sleeves and readjusting his shirt. He was re-creasing the fold of his collar when a strange noise sounded next to him.
Not quite a noise. Beside him, Snape was laughing—laughing!—a full-belly rumbling of utter joy that Harry had never thought possible with this man.
He took the opportunity to admire Snape's face. The frown lines etched around the mouth were gone. That line perpetually between his brows disappeared too, making him look years younger. The entire shape of his face seemed to have changed. No longer overly drawn length-wise, it could almost be said to be rugged. And the eyes—Harry found himself transfixed by Snape's eyes—dark and alert as usual, but they were shining with so much life, fueled by the utter joy that, all of a sudden, didn't seem so alien for Harry to see on Snape.
Harry had to remind himself to breathe.
Snape turned his head. "Potter, do you know what this means?"
"Humour me," Harry said, smiling.
"I'm here, hidden in my memories. And I have a body somewhere out there. Two plus two. Base and ingredient. A wizard and his wand."
Eileen's words rang loudly in Harry's ears. None of them have souls. The Muggle scientists may have managed to create life, but they failed to procure the spirit. Like Snape said, the parts were coming together.
Though all of a sudden, Harry wasn't so sure.
"So you're a Horcrux?"
"Not quite," Snape answered. "A Horcrux is a piece of a soul separated and kept inside an artifact. My soul is still intact, merely scattered within myself. Here, among the memories."
"The shinier ones," Harry stated.
"Exactly."
Harry looked toward the spark of light that had now just appeared in the opposite end of the darkness. "How many of you are in here?"
"Four. You've already collected two."
"That's why you look more solid after we left that last memory."
Snape smirked.
Harry cocked his head toward the light. "So is that another one of your memory homes?"
Snape stood and held out a hand toward Harry. "Care for a stroll, Mr. Potter?"
Harry smiled and took the proffered hand.
Harry never realised how frequently he licked his lips when concentrated in thoughts. There he was, his past self, every time he encountered cards written in a particularly difficult-to-read hand—the tip of his pink tongue would dart out between his teeth, swiping quickly across his upper lip even as his eyebrows scrunched so closely together that they almost touched. Harry smiled. His subconscious body movement was quite endearing, actually, not unlike Al's lip-chewing when he was deep in thought.
Shaking his head at his self-indulgence, Harry tore his eyes away from his younger self and looked around the room. There were still at least three more boxes stacked right behind Young Harry. He winced, feeling sorry for the many more hours of detention his doppelganger must endure.
He turned his attention to Snape—Professor Snape. The bastard clearly didn't have any trouble sitting behind his desk and doing nothing for hours. Harry had often wondered if 'enjoyment of supervising a detention' was a prerequisite of being a teacher. If it was, then Snape definitely had such an enjoyment in droves. Sitting there, hands folded in his lap and legs casually crossed at the ankles, Snape looked almost relaxed, gazing at Memory Harry as he sorted through card after card after card.
The barest of quirks tugged at Snape's lips. Was that... Harry blinked, and the moment was lost. He turned around and looked at his past self. Still concentrated and doing the lip-licking thing. Nothing new there.
But then there it was again, and again, and again. It took Harry the better part of ten minutes to make the connection. Snape was smiling. And whenever he did so, it was in response to Young Harry's lip-licking.
"Time's up, Potter. Now, get out of my sight!"
Memory Harry scrambled away, leaving Harry alone with Snape, who had leant back in his chair and was uncrossing his ankles. His folded hands, however, remained in his lap.
Harry turned and was about to ask Snape what he was doing, but Not-Quite-Horcrux Snape was nowhere to be found. Fixing his focus back on the Snape in this memory, Harry caught sight of movement —
Snape's hands were moving, roaming, rubbing with increasing intensity at his suddenly tented nether region...
Harry staggered backwards, only to bump into the real Snape.
"Three down, one to go," the voice behind him said, cool and nonchalant as if they had just witnessed McGonagall teaching First Years how to transform hamsters into forks.
Harry turned around and pushed at Snape's body as hard as he could. "You — pervert!"
"I have never acted inappropriately toward you." Snape sounded as if he didn't care, but Harry wasn't fooled.
Snape was tense and... nervous.
Just like the puppy Ginny had rescued and brought home when Al was three, so terribly abused and afraid that no matter what Harry coaxed it with, it wouldn't break out of the woe-is-me-I'm-isolated-in-a-corner act for three full weeks. Harry eventually had to take the puppy to a shelter and came home to an angry James and a devastated Al.
Snape was scared, probably had been since the moment they stepped inside the memory and he realised which one it was. But he had allowed Harry to watch the whole scene, hiding in the background and waiting for the inevitable disgust and outburst of Harry's rage.
Harry sighed, his initial fury leaving him. In a way... well, at least now he had proof that his feelings for Snape weren't one-sided.
Not wanting to spend another second in the memory, especially now that Professor Snape was very visibly going at it, he took Snape by the forearm and dragged him out of the memory. "No, you didn't act inappropriately, and I appreciate it. Now you have the real Harry Potter to gawk at all you want. Let's get out of here."
Snape's eyes went wide in surprise, then his tense posture relaxed with relief. Harry considered that a victory of sorts.
By the time they were completely out of the memory, those same eyes were alit with desire.
They waited in the darkness for the final memory to appear, Harry's left hand still holding Snape's forearm. Their silent companionship was comfortable, and Harry, fully aware of Snape's not-so-innocent gaze on him, found himself pulling Snape closer.
Shifting his hold on the arm, Harry turned Snape around and aligned his body with Snape's until they were face-to-face, close enough to be almost touching. He raised his other hand and rested it on Snape's shoulder.
"So did you ever learn how to dance?" he asked, then began gently rocking them left-to-right.
Snape's movement was stiff and tense for the first thirty seconds or so, but they eventually found a comfortable rhythm. Harry leaned forward. Still a few inches shorter than Snape, his head fit snugly on the crook of Snape's neck.
"I brought in Lucius as a guest instructor after that awful meeting you like to re-watch so much," Snape said, his mouth an inch from Harry's ear. The warm breath blowing on loose strands of hair tickled. "Draco boasted about it for days afterwards. Dumbledore wasn't too happy when he found out."
"Can't imagine why." Harry chuckled. "Dancing's not so hard, really," he murmured into Snape's collar. The robe Snape was wearing felt so real now, down to the rough-yet-soft texture and the smell of woolen fabric. Harry let go of the forearm his left hand had been holding and snaked it around Snape's waist. "Someone once told me, it's just like learning magic."
An incredulous snort. "Easier said than done."
"My answer to him exactly." Harry spun them around in slow circles. "But we're doing pretty good, aren't we?"
Snape hummed above him, and Harry catalogued away the moment as another victory. He'd managed to calm Snape out of his scared-like-a-puppy moment.
He was deciding whether or not to ruin the moment by pushing Snape down for a dip when yet another distant spark caught his eye. With great difficulty, he pulled his head away from the warmth of Snape's shoulder.
"The last memory! It's here!"
Snape stepped back, equally reluctant. "Let's go."
Teenaged Snape sat on a swing, gangly legs pushing himself back and forth, back and forth, back and forth...
He didn't seem like he was expecting anyone, swinging by himself inside a playground meant for young children. His head was bowed; strands of hair fell forward to cover most of his face. Even through the barely visible visage, Harry knew this Snape was suffering.
The sun was setting behind him. Severus paid no attention to the shadows until a long, human-shaped one fell over him.
"You're going to catch a cold if you stay out all night again." There was no warmth in the voice.
Harry stared, like he always did in every memory that featured Lily Evans. Even through the colour filtre that screened everything, Harry could still make out the glimmering evening sunlight in her hair, making it sparkle. Lily wasn't smiling, but Harry could detect no hatred in her eyes. If anything, there may have even been a hint of concern. Not that Severus could see it, so engrossed as he was in brooding and angsting over his apparent loss of friendship with his best friend.
"I don't care."
Behind him, Lily shook her head and sighed.
"Sev —"
"I don't care!" Snape shouted. He kicked at the sandy ground, the toe of his right shoe digging a small hole underneath him. "Go trot into the sunset with your precious boyfriend and leave me alone, all right?"
Every last trace of sympathy disappeared from Lily's eyes. "Is that what you think, that I should be with James?"
"You don't want to be with me!" Severus spat. "What does it matter?"
"It matters!" Lily shouted, angry now. "Because James asked me earlier today to marry him and I told him I'd think about it. Since you think it's such a great idea for me and him to trot into the sunset together, maybe we will!"
She turned and walked away without a backward glance.
"I'm going to tell him yes," Lily declared as she stepped over the threshold of the playground's entrance. "Don't bother turning up for our wedding."
Just before the last trace of sunlight disappeared, Harry caught sight of a drop of tear falling into the sand.
Back in the darkness, Harry and Snape—fully three-dimensional in colour, shape, and smell now—sat shoulder-to-shoulder, each lost in his own thoughts.
Harry had known Snape and Lily's friendship turned sour the moment the infamous Worst Memory happened. But as a child, he hadn't known what was now so clear to him. Snape still cared for Lily after all these years, and from what he had just witnessed, Lily had wanted reconciliation with Snape up until she became James's betrothed.
They would make a horrible couple though, Harry mused.
Harry turned toward Snape. "All right?"
Snape exhaled deeply through his nose. "We would have been horribly mismatched," he said.
"Yeah, but you did make good friends." He placed his hands flat against the ground and pushed so that he was sitting with an upright back, facing Snape. "I don't think it was entirely your fault."
Mouth pressed in a grim line, Snape nodded his head in thanks.
Harry smiled. "You know, you're different, somehow. I was half expecting you to go on a tirade about how it was all James Potter's fault."
"I wouldn't argue against that," Snape said coolly.
Detecting the hint of humour in Snape's tone, Harry laughed.
The darkness around them was no longer oppressive. Harry was glad he could be here with Snape, in a place where there were no other distractions.
He took the time to really look at Snape. This Snape was taken out of a memory that happened during Harry's fourth year, which meant he was just about the same age as Harry was, a war won and three kids from a marriage later. This Snape hadn't yet needed to go through the stress of playing double agent for a second time around, nor did he have to live through the horror of murdering—killing, it was an act of sacrificial killing—his only friend and mentor.
But then this Snape also had a fragment of his soul from the Snape in Harry's Sixth Year, during those blasted months of weekly detention.
Just like the Snape Harry used to know, the man before him was the product of countless complicated layers.
"Sna — Severus. How much do you remember?"
A lesser observer would have missed Snape's body tensing up by just a fraction. Harry had spent decades observing Snape; he instantly regretted the unease his question caused.
"I deposited the final memory into the Pensieve three weeks after I managed to deliver Gryffindor's sword to you."
Snape's consciousness was as updated as it could get then, given the circumstances.
"I never did thank you for that." Harry held out his hand. "So I'll say it now. Thank you."
Snape looked embarrassed and uncomfortable, but he took Harry's hand and gave it a firm shake, his eyes betraying that he was pleased. In response, Harry let loose his grin, which earned him a good-natured eye-roll from Snape.
The moment broke when Snape's expression turned grim, guarded. "Potter... How did I die?"
A lump rose in Harry's throat. This was a Snape who didn't know what happened to the part of his soul that had perished. He looked away, staring at the nothingness to his side, realising that he desperately wanted to avoid revealing exactly how Snape had died in the Shrieking Shack that day. A white lie would be just the thing he needed, but even as he racked his brain for appropriate words, Harry knew he couldn't—and wouldn't—lie.
So he said what he had always told everyone who would listen, from friends to Ministry officials to tabloid journalists. "You died a hero, Severus, sacrificing everything so that I could continue to fight against Voldemort." There was boldness in truth. By the last syllable, he was looking Snape squarely in the eye, willing him to hear the sincerity in his voice, daring him to delve into his mind to know that Severus Snape died as one of the war's biggest heroes.
If Snape looked uncomfortable before, he was now practically squirming. "Liar," he dismissed, twin spots of red colouring his cheekbones. "I wasn't a hero then and will never be. I stole and bullied and tortured and killed. I even lusted after you when you were but a child!"
"Which means nothing because you never did anything inappropriate!" Harry countered. "I thought we sorted that one out two memories ago."
Reaching out to grasp Snape's hand in both of his, Harry brought the hand close and placed it over his heart. "I didn't know for sure before. But I do now," he said, leaning forward. "I used to have a crush on the Half-Blood Prince. And now, I think I like you." He caught sight of Snape's eyes widening in surprise before he closed his eyes, losing himself in the sensation as he pressed a determined kiss onto Snape's lips.
Snape's face was rough, stubbles rubbing against Harry's own. But his lips were soft, and there was so much hunger and passion and pure need when Snape returned the kiss. A tongue darted out and licked all around Harry's lips. Harry answered by opening his mouth, allowing Snape full access to lick, nibble, and tease.
Without breaking the kiss, Harry shifted his weight forward and pushed them onto the ground. Harry liked this position better; he didn't have to strain his neck. Looming above Snape, he began trailing kisses on Snape's jaw and down his neck.
Snape was responding beneath him. With each shifting of their bodies, Harry could feel Snape's erection pressing into this belly. Harry grinded his hips in slow circles. His own cock must feel just as hard against Snape's body.
Snape uttered a frustrated moan as he pushed himself upward, shifting and rolling until he was on top of Harry. Then with what seemed like every ounce of effort he could muster, Snape tore himself away, a pained look on his face.
"Isn't there a Mrs. Potter?" he asked, breathing heavily.
Trust his Half-Blood Prince to be all appropriate and gentleman-like during the most heated moments. Harry grinned.
"Ginny? Yeah. She's probably snogging some hot Quidditch player at this very moment." Harry explained, "We've decided early on in our marriage. Too many people want a piece of us. So kissing's okay, no need to feel guilty about it."
Harry wanted nothing more than to get back to what they were doing, but Snape had turned around so that more of his back than front was facing Harry. Harry let out a quiet sigh. Snape was such a man of simultaneous deep passion and ironclad self-control, two opposite traits that constantly warred one with the otherx
"I'm not who you think I am, Potter. I died."
"But you're here!"
"A shadow and a half-life."
Harry crossed his arms. "You look real enough to me," he argued.
Snape shook his head, as if giving up on explaining the intricacies of Potions theories to a particularly dim-witted student. Harry narrowed his eyes. If anything, Snape was the one not understanding that he was very much alive, despite an earlier death.
The stalemate held for a few minutes before Snape deflated, rubbing the bridge of his nose with long, elegant fingers.
"You haunt me even in my death, Potter."
"Not possible. In order to haunt someone, I must first be a ghost. And the last time I checked, I haven't met the requirements yet to become one."
Catching a glimpse of Snape's side profile, Harry relished the wry smile that appeared briefly on the long face. "A man of exceptions again, I see."
"Oi, don't you dare spew that tripe about 'our new celebrity' again."
"Wouldn't dream of it." Snape couldn't hide the corners of his lips quirking upward this time, revealing a genuine smile before he quickly covered it up as a sneer. Harry mentally added another notch to his victories.
He really would like to snog that mouth, Harry realised. Snape's argument wasn't entirely wrong, he conceded; the Snape he knew was gone, and this more mellow version of what remained of Snape's soul was what he'd hidden from Voldemort, and consequently from everyone else. But it only made Harry want him more—this was his Half-Blood Prince.
Harry stood, walked over to Snape, and sat down across from the man.
"I mean it. I spent the past two weeks wondering whether I have feelings for you, and I've realised. I do want you."
"You're mad."
"Are you saying you don't want me?"
Snape's eyes flashed. "You're changing the subject."
Harry smirked. "Oh, you'll learn I'm very good at that. But seriously, you haven't answered my question."
The tension that extended from Snape's tightly set jaw, down his neck and into his shoulders, betrayed his inner conflict. Harry searched Snape's face for any sign that he might have misinterpreted lack of hatred as desire. A moment ago, he was sure Snape had wanted him just as badly. But now...
Maybe it was better to call it off.
"I —"
"If —"
Realising Snape was about to say something, he closed his mouth. At the same time, Snape arched an eyebrow and indicated that Harry should continue.
"You go first," Harry saidx
Snape refused. "You were about to withdraw your offer."
"I was about to insist that we quit dancing around the topic and just go for it."
"Careful, Potter. I'm still a Legilimens."
Harry glared. "Then you're a horrible Legilimens, if you can't even see all the desires I have for you in me. I want you, Severus Snape!"
It didn't take Legilimency for Harry to see the fire that his words provoked in those black eyes. And when Snape didn't flinch or pull away when Harry's lips met his, Harry allowed himself to claim victory number four.
When Harry finally emerged from the Pensieve, his hearts was racing wildly and his hands were gripping the edge of the table so tightly that they hurt. He shifted his weight onto one leg and discovered his trousers were constricting a certain lower anatomy in a very uncomfortable manner. He face blazed with embarrassment when he saw the box of tissue and an extra set of pants and trousers that Kreacher had so thoughtfully left out for him next to the Pensieve.
He stormed out of his study and headed straight for the bedroom.
When Harry showed up at Eileen's door with Snape's Pensieve in hand, she didn't ask anything before casting a Disillusionment Charm on both of them and leading Harry toward the mill.
"Are you sure about this?" Eileen asked once they were inside the mill, opening the box where Snape's second body lay.
"I've found Snape through his bowl of memories. It's only right to bring him back," Harry said.
Eileen looked long and hard at Harry. "There'll be Dark magic involved," she stated, the underlying challenge against Harry's 'light, good; dark, bad' dichotomy of the Wizarding world obvious.
Without breaking eye contact with Eileen, Harry inclined his head.
"I know."
"Then let's begin," Eileen said, and drew out her wand.
Pain. All he could feel was pain, as if his body were forced to receive a jumpstart in life pulse. Or perhaps his consciousness was forced into containment within a finite body. Again. He'd freed himself from that containment once, carefully storing away bits of himself into his higher faculty and keeping them hidden from view. But that freedom came with its own limitations. He was trapped in darkness, and had remained in darkness for too long.
Then came along a dark-haired boy. No, not a boy any more, but a fully grown man with the occasional white hair and children of his own. Severus still recognise the boy inside though, and relished Potter's childlike optimism and acceptance of someone like him.
The thought of Potter grounded him, giving him a reprieve from the pain. There was another anchor, a feminine and familiar one... mother. Unlikely as it was, Mum had survived both wars. She had also preserved a body that was his, but not really his, believing in her own version of optimism and acceptance that one day she would be able to bring him back.
The pain was slowly lifting, like dark clouds giving way to a new, bright sky. His bright sky had been lost long ago, fallen victim to a prophecy he himself had brought to the Dark Lord. Lily Evans had lived on in his memories all these years, but now, his new heartbeats pumping new blood through his new body—now, he was ready to move on from her.
The decision hit him like a tie severed. He felt himself hurling toward his two anchors, and after a final burst of pain, Severus climbed out of the darkness and opened his new eyes.
Bright, smiling green eyes stared back at him.
"Severus. Welcome back."
"Merlin's hairy left ball!"
"Severus!" Twin voices drowned out the clank of yet another wand thrown across the room.
"I'm not too old to make you wash your mouth with soap, young man!"
Glancing at Snape's furious face and Eileen's stern, but actually quite amused, demeanor, Harry lost all control and laughed.
A cushion hit him squarely in the face.
"Oi! I was just... recalling something funny!" Harry protested. Snape didn't look the slightest bit convinced.
Harry was about to throw the cushion back when Eileen stopped them.
"Cease at once, both of you. Go to your rooms."
Harry didn't find it amusing that he was being treated like a five-year-old. "I don't even have a room here."
"Then share with Severus."
Harry's eyebrows lifted up on their own accord. "Are you suggesting what I'm thinking?"
"That both of you need to leave an old woman some peace and quiet? Of course, Harry."
Turning to see Snape's face blushing a furious red, Harry decided it was neither the time nor place for common propriety. He walked up to Snape.
"Your mum's right, she needs some time alone," Harry said. "So Severus, perhaps you would like to take me on a grand tour of your room?"
Snape turned on his heels and stormed up the stairs, clinging desperately onto what dignity was left. Which wasn't much, but Harry supposed it was fair to at least attempt to save some face in front of one's mother. He waited until Snape reached the second floor before trailing up the steps behind him.
Snape's room was small, and by the looks of the decoration, hadn't changed much since he used to live here as a boy. Just like Professor Snape's quarters in the Dungeons, the walls were lined with bookshelves crammed to the very edge of each shelf. There was a fair amount of Muggle books interspersed among tomes of magical books.
"Nice room," Harry commented, sitting down on the edge of the bed next to Snape.
Snape shifted uneasily on the bed. "Aren't you supposed to be home? Spending quality time with your wife?"
"Um, about that." Harry raised an arm and placed his hand on the back of his neck, fingers rubbing nervously at the base of his hairline. "Ginny spent a good hour yelling at me after I told her about us."
"Then you shouldn't be here."
"Maybe I shouldn't," he said mischievously. "'Cause according to her, being here means I'm acknowledging my 'obsession' with you. And when I tried to have my cake a eat it too, wanting you but refusing to admit she's been right all along, well... let's just say I became very acquainted with the sitting room couch over the past few nights."
"You're now clinically obsessed and have been scorned by your wife. Congratulations."
"Thank you." Harry grinned. "And I believe Doctor Ginny had prescribed me medication in the form of a hooked nose, black haired wizard. You've been given more than snogging privileges, Severus."
"Witness my rejoicing," Snape said dryly.
"I am."
Two seconds passed before understanding dawned in Snape's eyes and he realised that their banter had turned completely solemn. Harry had, in effect, offered himself to Snape with a certain Mrs. Potter's blessing.
"I intend to come by often and make myself a part of your life," Harry said, willing Snape to pick up on the seriousness in his words and tone. "It's your second chance, Severus, and I'll be here to see you through the beginning stages of it."
"It's no use," Snape said quiety, shaking his head. "I'll spend the rest of my life as a Squib."
"No, you won't. You're brimming with magic, I can feel it. Just give it time, wait for your new body to release your first magic again."
"And that'll be what, another eight years, nine years? I was a slow bloomer, Potter."
"And you bloomed into something beautiful." Harry placed a hand over Snape's. "Intelligent and powerful, the bravest man I've ever known."
Snape scoffed. "I'm a soul of a sixty-year-old in a body of a forty-year-old preserved for fifty years. There's no second wind left for me."
"Sounds complicated," Harry said. He'd simply believed this new version of Snape to be about the same age as he, but he supposed it was true that the soul of Snape was much older and still very much a wizard twenty years his senior. "But really, how hard can learning magic all over again be?"
"Next to impossible," Snape muttered.
"I beg to differ." Harry waited until Snape's eyes were locked with his. "I happen to think learning magic is exactly like learning to dance. You just have to practice, and one day it'll all make sense."
Snape snorted. "Liar."
"Not this time," Harry retorted, and gently pushed Snape down onto the bed.
THE END
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