Checkmate by Phoenix Sworn
Past Featured StorySummary: Partial AU. With the World turning against him, and everything going horribly wrong, Harry is stuck. He has to keep fighting, but he may have to do it all alone.
Categories: Teacher Snape > Trusted Mentor Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Draco
Snape Flavour: None
Genres: Angst, Drama
Media Type: None
Tags: None
Takes Place: 6th summer
Warnings: Alcohol Use, Torture
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 36 Completed: No Word count: 77077 Read: 168708 Published: 29 Jan 2005 Updated: 12 Jun 2006
Chapter Seven: Wrath by Phoenix Sworn

…And he told me ‘vengeance is sweet.’ He has been around far too many muggles.

-quote from Ronald Weasley in The Boy-Who-Lived, A Biography by George Fiddler

Harry reentered Number Twelve Grimauld place to be met with a very upset Professor. He was faced instantly with a raised wand and stopped as Snape hissed, “What the hell were you doing you insubordinate, over-absorbed, egocentric, vainglorious boy? I have told you a thousand times that you are not to leave your house, and I only removed you so that you would be able to help me save the werewolf’s life. I NEVER gave you permission to leave THIS house, and at the moment it is only by great self-restraint that you have not met the same end as your parents.”

“Are you finished Professor? You,” Harry asked coolly, continuing without pause, “have no right to say anything about my parents. And for your information, sir, I went to the Ministry so that I could obtain wand rights so that I will be able to train. The Order is keeping me in the dark again and last time it ended in tragedy. I will not let that happen again. I will be ready to face Voldemort. sir, I have to be and I am getting tired as hell of being Protected. My job in life is not to be sheltered. It is to fight, and hopefully win against Voldemort.

“If the Order continues to ignore me and never lets me leave my own home then there is no way that I will have a chance. At the moment I barely have one as it is and you know it. I do not need to listen to you lecture me about what I can and cannot do. It is choice, and if you try to interfere, I may very well lose my temper. Which I guarantee you is not a pretty thing.”

“Potter! Be Quiet!”

“No sir, because I really don’t care what you have to say. So you can just stay quiet yourself or you can talk, I do not care. I am not taking orders from you until you give me a reason why I should.”

Harry cut off as a half fisted slap rattled his head. Snape was glaring so intently that Harry was relatively certain he would find a hole burned through his forehead.

“Sit, now.”

Harry sank into a chair in the foyer. “Lupin was hit with a spell to make his wolven side more dominant. It was preformed,” Snape had begun to use the deadly whisper so common in his classes, “by three Death Eaters. The potion I gave him contains silver dust because silver can be lethal to the wolf, but in the right dosing will counteract the spell. He returned to normal ten minutes ago. He will live. Now. You owe me your explanation.”

In a quiet voice Harry described his actions from earlier. At the end he said, “Sir, I don’t have any way to win this right now. If I were to have to face Voldemort, I’d lose. I know it. The only chance I have is to learn, but I don’t even have a way to do that.”

“What exactly did the minister give you then?”

“Full year wand rights. An Apparition license. License to purchase any substance.”

“Then, you idiotic boy, he did give you a way. You can do whatever is necessary to learn.”

“I don’t know what I need to do.”

“Then I will help you.” Snape sounded like he was using a crowbar to pry the words from his mouth.

Harry watched him skeptically. “I still don’t have any reason to trust you. I came with you because of Remus, but in any other circumstance I wouldn’t have. Why should I trust you?”

“You have to trust me Potter.” The professor responded icily, “You have to trust me for the same reason that I have to help you train. Like you said, there is no other option. Now, if you would like to see Lupin you may. Do not touch him or give him water though. Be back out here within ten minutes.”

*~~~*~~~*

Harry returned to the room before the given time had passed. Lupin had been unable to speak, dazed to insensibility by the potion, and Harry felt sick looking at him.

His face and hands were a pasty gray that echoed pain. His skin was both clammy and burning. His hair had tripled its age. And his body was weak and thinner than natural.

But it was his eyes that scared Harry so. They were a breath above death, possible of conveying only one emotion: pain. It wrenched at his mind and his resolve to see his friend, his father’s friend, lying so badly injured.

As he walked back in Snape met him with the same cold glare, and said, “You have yet to explain your reasons, Potter.”

Harry looked down, thinking for a few seconds, and when he looked up he was more mature, and was even closer to being his father reincarnate. “For the reason you have to help me train. Because there is no choice, because I will never get to be what I want to be, only what I need to be, because for all the times I try to help, someone gets hurt, someone dies. So what I did before was because I didn’t understand then. I do now. There is no other option and so I’ll have to find a way.

“I’m sorry for what I did, it was stupid, it won’t happen again, and I would greatly appreciate you not mentioning it to anyone, especially Dumbledore.”

“Well, that’s good to know. I was asking about your little self-destructive stunt in Little Whinging.”

“That…that…Sir, I receive death tolls every week. I write to the survivors every week. I, occasionally find it to be a bit much. Unfortunately, I did not have any liquor immediately available.” He paused, and added sarcastically. “I’ll be sure that next time I locate a liquid therapist. I don’t suppose you could recommend something. I am a naïve Gryffindor after all.”

Snape’s eyebrows rose suddenly, “Potter, that was almost a Slytherin comment.”

“I try.”

The professor paused, and then quietly asked. “But why are you fighting? Necessity isn’t enough. You won’t win because of necessity.”

“I fight because there’s still hope th-” He stopped and shook his head.

“Because there’s beauty-” Again he shook his head.

“Because of lov-” Once again his head shook. “No.” Harry said to himself.

Snape stared deep into the boy’s eyes. “Why?”

Ice swept through Harry, cutting off and holding back the warm emotions he used to be surrounded by an revealing the motives he had pretended didn’t exist. “Revenge. I am fighting for revenge.”

“Then you have a chance yet.” Snape nodded, as though he knew some great secret, then conjured a large stack of boxes from the next room.

Dumping half a dozen heavy poles into his arms the professor said. “You will want these.” He added a silver cauldron and some rare potion ingredients. “And these. Wait one moment.” Snape apparated a few rooms away, reappearing with a large bottle.

It was added to the top of the pile. “Sir, why did you just give a minor a bottle of liquor?”

“Potter, is your memory failing you? You asked for my suggestion, didn’t you? Forty year Napoleon Brandy. Have a nice day, Potter.”

Harry was handed a portkey, and managed to grip all the packages while he disappeared.

While the accompanied yank tugged at him he heard Snape say, “Work on your essay.” In the same heartless tone he always used.

To be continued...
End Notes:
A/N- the torture warning is for later in the story


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