In Blood Only by EM Snape
Past Featured StorySummary: Everyone is dismayed to learn Snape is Harry's father. Especially Snape and Harry.
Categories: Parental Snape > Biological Father Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Draco, Dumbledore, Hermione, Lucius, Remus, Ron, Tonks
Snape Flavour: None
Genres: Action/Adventure, Angst, Drama
Media Type: None
Tags: Snape-meets-Dursleys
Takes Place: None
Warnings: Alcohol Use, Character Death, Torture
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 45 Completed: Yes Word count: 173775 Read: 400879 Published: 29 Jan 2005 Updated: 28 Aug 2006
Unexpected Appreciation by EM Snape

Snape put on a show of being calm and unaffected, and he spent several minutes weaving an intricate tale explaining the boy's presence to Lucius. He was a distant relative from the Hungarian branch of the Snape family. Oh yes, quite the young delinquent. The Hungarian Snapes, unable to bear the child's presence for the holidays, and aware that Severus was quite the disciplinarian, had practically begged him to take charge of the boy. All throughout the explanation, he fervently hoped that Potter had not bolted away to do something rash or foolish. Knowing Potter, however, that hope was very likely a futile one.

At the first possible moment, Snape charged up the stairs and swiftly headed to Potter's chamber; as he walked, he was acutely conscious of the fact that he'd imbibed slightly more alcohol than necessary tonight. It took an effort to keep his mind focused upon the scathing insults he intended for the boy.

He drew up short upon finding the boy lounged casually against the wall outside the study-- a skinny, dark-haired stranger with an unreadable expression on his face.

Snape's instincts veered towards caution in situations that caught him off guard; he remained silent, the well-prepared insults vanishing from his lips. He sent Potter a questioning glance, and the boy wordlessly slipped into the study.

He disliked unpredictable behavior, especially when he was already tipsy. He warily followed the boy into the room, and his dislike of the situation intensified when he saw Potter waiting for him with his wand drawn.

"Expelliarmus!"

Snape's wand flew from his fingers.

"Damn it, P-- boy!" he hissed, conscious of Lucius's presence in the house, and the lack of silencing charms on the room.

"Sorry," the boy said apologetically, and the insolent whelp gestured with a wave of Snape's wand for him to take a seat. "But you nearly strangled me to death the last time you looked this angry, so… Give me a moment."

Clutching a wand in each hand, Potter waved his own and cast a locking charm and a silencing spell upon the room.

"I assure you," Snape said threateningly, following his wand with greedy eyes as the boy slipped it into his robes, "Depriving me of my wand will in no way improve my disposition towards you!"

"I really don't care what your disposition is towards me, as long as I'm not being strangled to death," Potter returned flatly. He glared at Snape, seemingly unsurprised that the man remained obstinately on his feet. "We should talk. Malfoy said--"

"Why did you run, Potter?" Snape interrupted, trying to conceal his honest curiosity with scorn. He'd expected the foolish boy to take on Lucius then and there. "Has your vaunted Gryffindor bravery at last failed you?"

Potter smirked. "Maybe I thought the expression of blinding hatred on your face would give away my identity as easily as my real face would."

Snape's eyes narrowed; he wished he were slightly more sober so he could come up with a pointed remark in response the boy's words. "That is your real face, Potter."

The aforementioned 'real face' twisted in distaste.

Even so, Snape had to admit, it was not aesthetically unappealing. The boy had taken well to the removal of the glamour. He was probably the first Snape in ten generations without the infamous nose, and very likely the first Snape ever to enjoy nauseatingly good looks.

Of course, it would be Potter, he thought snidely.

Really, he'd expected his genetic material to at least manifest itself somewhere, but Lily Evans dominated the boy's features. He looked like his mother's son.

But there was also something else there, something a bit too harsh to be Lily Potter's. He watched it appear briefly when the boy rolled his eyes, his features flooded with irritation.

"In any case, sir, I figured you could come up with a better excuse for my being here than I could. Anything I made up, you'd just say was stupid."

"Odds are, it would be," replied Snape coldly, and he wondered just why Potter looked so smug upon hearing him confirm that yes, he did believe the boy to be an idiot. "You were foolish to leave your room, and I can only imagine what you were thinking entering the parlor--"

"I thought he was going to kill you!" Potter cried. "He knew you were a spy. In fact," the boy retreated a step, his entire posture coiled with suppressed anxiety. "I wanted to talk to you about that."

Oh, this was just wonderful. "You doubt my loyalties now?" Snape asked, feeling his anger return. How many times did he have to save the impertinent boy's life before he'd finally trust he wasn't out to kill him?

"I thought about it," Potter admitted. "I was even thinking of owling Dumbledore about what Malfoy said to you, but I realized that someone might intercept it, or maybe Malfoy would recognize Hedwig. So I gave it some more thought." The boy sat down, eyeing Snape speculatively. "You would probably have killed me a long time ago if you weren't on our side."

Snape blinked. Of all the reasons Potter could have given him for deciding to trust in him, this one was not what he'd expected.

"That proves nothing," Snape retorted. "The Headmaster could easily have forced me to take an oath not to hurt you." Perhaps it wasn't the time to give the boy an excuse to doubt him, but something in him rebelled against the notion of allowing Potter confidence in his own conclusions.

And apart from that, he'd given the Dark Lord this very excuse on numerous occasions.

"I don't think you'd take it," Potter said thoughtfully. "You hate me so much that, if you really were on Voldemort's side, you'd probably never let someone deprive you of the opportunity to kill me yourself."

It was the second time in their conversation Potter had referred to Snape's 'blinding' hatred of him. He was tempted to berate the boy for his continual overestimation of his own importance. Sure, he had no fondness for Potter, and certainly a good deal of active dislike. On occasion he did hate him, but sustained hatred he reserved for a select and elite few. Potter was not significant enough an influence, nor equal enough an opponent, to warrant raw hatred. The boy gave him no chance to speak, though.

"Lucius knows you're a spy. And that's what I don't get."

"Our young celebrity does not 'get' something," Snape said, smirking. "Strangely, I am unsurprised."

The boy's eyes narrowed. "Explain it to me then. If you don't work for Voldemort, why are they letting you get away with spying for Dumbledore?"

"The nature of my work is intricate and complex, Potter," said Snape dismissively. "You would not understand. Suffice it to say, I owe you no explanation. Return my wand."

Potter smiled coldly at him. His new face somehow rendered it more threatening than the old one could ever manage. "I can wait here all night," he promised softly. "Unless you can do wandless magic, you're not getting that door open."

Oh, he would kill the brat for this.

"Return. My. Wand."

Potter stiffened imperceptibly, and he noticed the boy's grip grow more taut around his wand. "No. Tell me, first. It's just… I know you're on our side, but please… What if I don't tell Dumbledore, and then it turns out that I should have said something because something happens to someone--"

There was a strange and haunted expression on the boy's face, and Snape had the distinct impression the boy was thinking of Black. He nearly growled with irritation.

"Very well!" he snarled at the brat. "Here is your explanation. The Dark Lord believes me to be a spy for him, posing as a spy for the Headmaster. The Headmaster knows me for his own spy, posing as a spy for Voldemort posing as a spy for the Headmaster. Understand, now, Potter?"

The boy blinked.

Snape sighed jaggedly, feeling suddenly drained of energy, and perhaps the slightest bit lethargic from the firewhiskey he'd shared with Lucius. He slumped down into the seat across from Potter, wanting to get this over with.

"One does not simply leave the Death Eaters, Potter," he said, trying not to grit his teeth. "Anything less than a fanatical degree of devotion to the cause is grounds for condemnation as a traitor. When I… wavered in my support of the Dark Lord, I had no means of undermining him. I was too intimately bound to him both by magic and by association to actively defy him. Had I approached the Headmaster on my own, I would have been readily unearthed as a spy and promptly tortured to death; the Dark Lord has eyes everywhere. Dim though you may be, Potter, I trust you are following this so far?"

Potter nodded. Snape was satisfied by the clarity of his expression that he hadn't lost the young imbecile quite yet, so he continued.

"I realized that any move against the Dark Lord had to be done with the Dark Lord's express support. It took me almost a year to plant the idea in his head that it would be valuable to employ a double agent in Dumbledore's circle. He believed the Headmaster a sentimental, doddering old fool, and well-placed hints, mostly made indirectly to him via discussions with the Death Eaters closest to him, persuaded him that the Headmaster's sentimentality could render him vulnerable to a penitent Death Eater who offered his services as a spy. The Dark Lord ordered me to serve as this penitent Death Eater. Because I had neither outright proposed this plan, nor presented myself as the executor of it, he fully believed that he himself had conceived of this scheme, and that I was merely a loyal subject following his commands."

"How did you know he'd choose you?" Potter asked skeptically.

"You know of his skill in legilimency. He knew from my memories that the Headmaster once possessed a certain affinity for me, thus he was confident he would hear me out. Additionally, he was certain I would remain loyal to him, for unlike most, I had a personal grievance with Dumbledore." Snape paused, considering the issue. The Dark Lord's confidence in him was always something he'd instinctively understood, yet never actually articulated. "The Dark Lord has no understanding of human affection. He viewed my memories of the Headmaster and could perceive only that I'd come to hate him; he never saw the complicated nature of my regard for Dumbledore. He perceived hatred without ever paying mind to the other emotions at the root of it."

He stopped here; he'd said too much.

Potter was gazing at him, something odd in his expression. "You, er, care about Dumbledore, then?"

"No!" said Snape disdainfully. "I respect him. He is an extremely powerful wizard."

Potter still had that strange expression. He looked all too knowing as he nodded. "Sure, Snape."

Insolent brat.

"The Dark Lord," said Snape in a hard voice, forcing Potter away from whatever the smug boy believed he had figured out, "concluded that I was the proper man for the job, due to the Headmaster's," and the word twisted bitterly in his throat, "pity for me, and my unvarnished resentment of him. He took it upon himself to prepare me for the task by training me in Occlumency."

Potter leaned forward, eyes flashing with renewed suspicion. "If he was the one who taught you Occlumency, wouldn’t he have seen what you were planning?"

"He didn't, because he wasn't the first to instruct me in Occlumency," Snape replied. "My father did, before he sent me to Hogwarts. He believed Dumbledore to be a meddler, and he did not care for our family business seeping from my thoughts simply because I was a weakling unable to control my emotions." He halted that line of discussion, not wanting to talk about this with the brat. "I was occluding even as the Dark Lord believed himself to be instructing me in the art. I gradually 'improved' in shutting him out of my mind. It set him at ease to believe initially that he had access to all my secrets, and it reassured him as time passed to believe I was a spy he himself had molded and trained. That belief is one of the reasons he has yet to doubt my loyalty."

"And Dumbledore believed you were on his side… why?"

"I revealed to Dumbledore the entire scheme," Snape said, remembering with the slightest flutter of unease the initial condemnation in the Headmaster's expression when he discovered Severus on Hogwarts grounds. "He was aware the Dark Lord intended me to serve as a double agent, and he pretended in turn to be taken in by the Dark Lord's machinations by periodically feeding me information I could use as evidence of my 'spying'. To this day he designates exactly what I can share with the Dark Lord, and what I cannot, and I abide by his judgment of how much the Dark Lord needs to know in order to see me as an effective double-agent."

Snape rose to his feet smoothly, folding his arms as he glared down at the boy.

"So that's how it works, Potter. I serve the Dark Lord like any other Death Eater. I spy for both sides, the only difference being that the Headmaster is the only one who receives all the information. He acts upon the intelligence I bring him in critical junctures; he'll cancel a month's worth of trips to Hogsmeade, for instance, on the pretense of improving interhouse relations after I inform him of an attack upon the town planned for two weeks' time. He never counters the Dark Lord to an extent that will reveal my hand in it, and he nearly always acts upon information the Dark Lord instructs me to relay to him, so as to maintain the pretense he is fooled by my act as a double-agent. And there you have it. Are your concerns satisfied?"

Potter stared at him a long moment, an unfamiliar expression on his face. "Yes." He broke eye contact with Snape, gazing into the distance before admitting quietly, "That was, er, kind of clever how you went about it."

Snape's eyebrows raised. "Yes. I've always thought so."

Despite himself, he was oddly pleased by the boy's words. He never would have expected Potter to express appreciation for his efforts. With the new face and the wary respect in those green eyes, Severus could almost have been fooled into believing he was talking to a different person.

"So," said Harry thoughtfully after another moment of silence, "I guess no matter what happens with the war, you'll be on the winning side."

"It won't come to that," Snape replied dismissively. "The Dark Lord will not prevail."

"Never took you for an optimist, Snape," Harry said, his green eyes shooting up to lock with Snape's. "As stupid and worthless as you think I am, you actually think I can defeat him?"

"You are an arrogant boy," he said coldly. "Do not tell me you believe yourself to be the deciding factor of this war. There are thousands of skilled wizards out there who could destroy the Dark Lord. It does not depend on you."

The boy's eyes wavered with some nameless emotion. Snape was briefly overcome with curiosity, but before he could give any real thought to legilimizing him, Harry glared down and plunged his hand into his pocket.

"Here's your wand," he muttered, and Snape snatched it from his grasp.

All manner of curses to use upon the boy flashed through his mind. How dare the brat disarm him! He noticed Harry's shoulders tense as the boy steeled himself for the worst.

Snape stared at him soundlessly for a long moment. For some reason, he couldn't quite muster the same anger with which he'd initially confronted the boy. His day had been too long and he'd been drinking too much to deal with this right now.

He closed the distance between them and jabbed his wand under the boy's chin, urging his head up. Fierce green eyes met his-- hard, defiant, and strangely resigned.

"Never do that again," Snape intoned sternly. "You do not disarm me, you do not touch my wand. Understood, Potter?"

Confusion flickered through the boy's eyes; he nodded uneasily, as though he expected something terrible to follow.

Snape turned away from the boy. "It's time I acquainted you with your new life story…"

* * *

Snape had ordered him very severely not to seek Lucius Malfoy out, a command with which Harry was all too happy to comply. Malfoy, however, found him.

Harry glanced up sharply from his transfiguration homework when the door to his chamber opened, and felt his throat constrict when Malfoy's towering form appeared in the doorway.

"My apologies." A cool blonde eyebrow rose over unapologetic eyes. "Am I disturbing you?"

Harry wanted to say 'yes', but instead he offered Malfoy what was hopefully a vacant smile and shook his head.

"I was just exploring Severus's house when I noticed how heavily warded this room was," Malfoy noted amusedly. "He certainly treats you like a delinquent, doesn't he?"

Harry smirked ruefully, because that was actually true.

"Where is he?" Harry inquired meekly. Snape surely would know by now that Malfoy had broken into his room. He remembered Snape casting an alerting charm after he'd repaired and re-warded the door.

"Called away," Malfoy said smugly. "Hopefully learning some manners."

Harry noticed as Malfoy moved more fully into the room just how vastly he had been transformed by six months in Azkaban. The polished aristocrat Harry had encountered on previous occasions was gone, replaced by an underfed man with dark hollows under haunted gray eyes. His long hair now appeared rather coarse and scruffy rather than the smooth silk he favored before, and there was a vaguely hunted look about him.

Good, Harry thought viciously. I hope he suffered.

Amazing, though, how only a few months in an Azkaban without Dementors had affected Malfoy nearly as severely as twelve years in Azkaban with them had affected Sirius.

Dementors make you live your worst fears, Harry mused. Maybe Malfoy was living his already.

From respected aristocrat to reviled prisoner; Lucius Malfoy's had been a sharp fall from grace.

"Severus was never very skilled at constructing wards," Malfoy drawled, seating himself at the desk, raking his eyes over Harry's expression. "The Dark Lord tore through that monstrosity he cast over the floo in mere seconds."

Ah, now Harry understood the reason Malfoy was watching him so intently. He remembered clearly the attitude Snape had told him to adopt: "Take for granted that you pay fealty to the Dark Lord, but do not presume to have any knowledge of my association with him."

He tried to affect an expression of amazement and respect. "The Dark Lord himself? Really?"

Lucius Malfoy's expression relaxed negligibly, now overtaken with some of the familiar arrogance. "I am an acquaintance of his; he pays mind to my comfort."

"Wow," Harry said in what he hoped was a sufficiently awestruck tone. "You must feel really lucky."

"Have you not heard of the Malfoys, boy?" Malfoy asked sharply, narrowing his eyes.

Harry quickly made note of the fact that Malfoy clearly ranked pride in his family over pride in his master.

"Of course I have!" He forced himself to smile again. "I guess it was pretty stupid of me not to realize such a prominent family would stand in favor with the Dark Lord."

Malfoy's look of hurt pride vanished, to be absorbed by a sudden spark of interest when his eyes alighted upon something across the room. "And what's this?"

Harry followed his gaze as Malfoy rose to his feet and crossed the room; his heart plunged to his stomach when Malfoy picked up Kinship and Related Curses.

"Well, er…" He wasn't sure just what to say.

"My, my… It appears you are quite the young hooligan," Malfoy noted with amusement. He flipped through the pages, something odd settling in his eyes. "I have quite a history with this book."

Harry was intrigued despite himself. "Sir…?"

"Infecunditas," Malfoy said with a strange smile. "My son somehow discovered this very spell when he was much younger. He'd just learned of wizarding inheritance laws, you see, and he concluded that it was in his best interests to ensure he remained the only heir to the Malfoy estate." His gray eyes lifted to meet Harry's, and Harry felt something stir deep within him at the strange fondness in the older man's eyes. "He was quite the little fiend, I'll give him that. To this day, Narcissa and I have been unable to break the enchantment. He won't even divulge which variation of the curse he used." His voice grew distant and wistful. "He was always clever that way."

Even when Lucius Malfoy's attention again returned to the book, Harry found himself staring at the man, marveling at the fact that he still seemed fond of Draco even though the boy had sterilized him.

That warm light in his eyes, that pride in his voice when he spoke of his son's wits…

That's how a father should feel about his son…

And more than at any time before, Harry felt acutely the pang of loss at never having known a father's affection. He could recall so readily the look of distaste and disgust on Snape's face whenever he regarded him. He would never look at Harry that way. There would never be pride or affection in his eyes.

Before, when he was an orphan, he at least knew there was no chance of having that for himself. But now… Snape was his goddamn father. He should feel that way, if only a little bit. Did he truly see nothing good in Harry, even now that he wasn't the son of James Potter? Did Snape simply hate Harry so much that he loathed him even when he was his own flesh and blood?

I don't care what he thinks of me, Harry thought fiercely, but somehow the words did not ease the knot in his chest at seeing the fond, wistful look in Lucius Malfoy's eyes. At this moment Draco's father, at least, cared about his son.

"Have you tried any of them yet?" Malfoy asked conversationally.

Harry looked up, feeling a renewed surge of irritation at that book that had yielded so little of use. "No," he said, through gritted teeth. "To cast any of the spells I want to use, I'd have to marry this person first. And that's never going to happen."

"But this person is kin?"

"Yes," Harry admitted reluctantly. He shouldn't be discussing this with Malfoy. He needed to end this conversation.

"This person is not Severus, is he?" Malfoy asked with something akin to concern.

"No!" Harry said quickly.

A ruthless smile stretched across Lucius Malfoy's lips. "Then let me explain this to you, boy. This book," he tapped it with his finger pointedly, "is a watered down anthology of older, more potent curses. When they specify what family member to, say, eviscerate, it is merely to give wizards of lesser ability some focus when attempting the curses. Often you can apply the same spell they claim here is directed at a father, to a son, a brother, even a cousin. It's the bond of family and the degree of blood relation that matters, not the specific target."

Harry looked, wide-eyed, from Malfoy's arrogant smile, to the book in his hands. Snape hadn't told him anything about this.

Well, Snape hadn't told him much about this book in general. He'd merely given it to him that one day, and refrained from instructing Harry beyond that.

He looked up at Malfoy in a new light. "So what about the, uh, spouse thing? Could that apply to someone you weren't married to?"

"Even in most pureblooded families nowadays, the blood component is useless in spousal curses," Lucius said with some regret. "If the spell relies upon the use of blood, it's worthless. If, however, it's the familial connection that imbues it with power, again, you can apply it as easily to your father as you could to your wife."

Harry gazed up at Malfoy, the pieces flying together. Of course! He hadn't located one spell sufficiently horrible for Bellatrix Lestrange that extended to such a distant degree of blood relation, but perhaps he didn't have to. Maybe Malfoy had just unwittingly provided him with the critical information he'd been missing all along.

He stared at the book, mentally sorting through some of the more potent spells he'd read. He realized suddenly that Malfoy's presence perhaps solved another problem… It had occurred to Harry that any spell he cast upon Bellatrix would be from afar, and he would be unlikely to gauge its success.

But Bellatrix Lestrange was about as closely related to him as Lucius Malfoy was.

And Malfoy was right here.

"I could help you, if you'd like," Malfoy offered idly. "I can't imagine I'll have much else to do around here. Severus and his perpetual sour mood can be rather tedious company, wouldn't you agree?"

Harry looked at him in disbelief. This would just be too strange. Lucius Malfoy, Draco Malfoy's father and Voldemort's right hand, teaching Harry Potter about curses?

"Well, boy, what do you have to say?" Malfoy prompted impatiently.

And suddenly the idea seemed delightful.

Harry felt his lips pulling into a smile; he couldn’t help it. Some part of him felt an evil little thrill that made him want to break into wild peals of laughter. Lucius Malfoy. Teaching him to curse Lucius Malfoy.

Teaching him to kill Bellatrix Lestrange.

"Oh, that would be great. Thanks, Mr. Malfoy!" Harry gushed.

He didn't have to fake his enthusiasm this time.

Really, this made a vacation with Snape completely worth it.

The End.


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