Harry woke with a slight headache and feeling sluggish. Opening his eyes he saw his godfather sleeping in a comfortable armchair. Harry thought it must have been conjured as he had never seen it before, on the back of that thought he realised how spacious his bedroom had become. It took a minute for him to place his current location as the old ballroom but then the memory of the previous night followed all too soon. He felt even weaker with the new knowledge.
For a moment he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block every thought and memory. It did not work. Biting his lip, he swung himself into a sitting position and dangled his short legs over the edge of the bed. He idly traced a particularly bright green swirl on the duvet which was entangling itself endlessly. The vision had been vivid and it was still so now. He could recall with the utmost clarity his lips forming the hard syllables of the killing curse; he could remember his amusement at Severus’ gall in chasing off Wormtail; his anger at the loss of two promising new recruits; and he could still taste the strongly-flavoured whisky. And it was not just his actions but the thoughts and memories which had accompanied them.
Harry felt sick. He slouched forward and groaned feebly into his hands. Sirius was soon awake and sitting beside him rubbing his back.
“How do you feel Harry?” he asked.
“Terrible.”
Sirius retrieved a glass by his armchair and poured water into it from a murmured Aguamenti spell. He gave it to Harry and resumed his soothing hand motions. At last, Harry sat a little straighter.
“It was horrible Sirius. It was so much longer than normal; so much more vivid.”
“Do you remember what happened?”
“Yeah… it started when I’d nearly finished a Daydream potion. He was so angry. I mean, really angry, Sirius.” He paused a moment. “It wasn’t even mainly at the guy he killed. It was more aimed at this Auror bloke, um… his name was Meddlehurst.”
“That’s okay Harry, you don’t have to remember all the details.”
“Yeah, I suppose Snape told you.” Sirius made to interrupt but Harry was lost in a stream of words. “That’s the first time I’ve seen him in a vision. Voldemort actually likes him, thinks he’s funny, though he gets disappointed and … angry… with him too. It was so strange, so much more real, ‘cause I can normally sense his emotions but this was like I knew exactly what was going on. And it lasted forever, usually it’s only a short snippet when he’s really emotional, angry or annoyed or something. But this time I saw him for ages and ages, or it seemed like it anyway, and he wasn’t feeling anything very strongly… just reading some really horrible books…” Harry trailed off.
“I know Harry, I know,” said Sirius standing up and getting Harry to his feet as well. “Here why don’t we get some breakfast and I’ll tell you about my evening?” His grin, as ever, was infectious and Harry felt his spirits lighten slightly as he followed his godfather to the kitchen.
“Wow, that’s totally bonkers, mate!”
“I know.” Harry was sitting on his bed in his and Ron’s room. It was two days later and though there had not been any ill effects as such, Harry still felt, if not physically wobbly, then at least mentally shaken. The whole Weasley family had once more decamped to Grimauld Place for the rest of the summer, finally bringing the last of Mrs Weasley’s essential culinary equipment through the Floo earlier in the morning. Hermione had just arrived and she had been dragged in to the boys’ room to hear Harry’s story without even having had a chance to unpack.
“How different was it to a normal vision?” she asked.
“Normally I just get the highlights, you know? Where he’s all emotional and blitzing everyone with curses left, right and centre. But last night, it was odd, there was some of that at the beginning, probably what triggered it like normal Dumbledore said, but it was more intense. I… I felt I was him… more than I ever have before, for that time I knew his mind, his memories… When he was concentrating on something that was what I was concentrating on. It was disturbing and awful but also there was so much there, so much information I mean. If I’d been more aware of myself I’d have taken more care to remember. But I wasn’t me at all. But… well, I can still remember a few things…”
Harry’s hesitant trailing off caused Ron and Hermione to exchange worried looks.
“Like what, Harry?” Ron glared briefly at Hermione.
“Only if you’re happy about remembering it, mate. Don’t give yourself nightmares.”
“Nah, I’ve got enough for nightmares already. Hey, don’t look like that! I just mean that it wasn’t too bad, mostly. But, I do remem… I mean, I did see someone getting tortured. That wasn’t too much of a laugh. And, well, I probably shouldn’t tell you, but, we know him.”
His friends looked at Harry with round eyes, both clearly trying to think of who had been captured recently and why Harry was not clamouring to rescue them. Harry’s grim expression was turned towards Hermione as she suddenly gasped, “You saw Professor Snape!”
“Yeah. It wasn’t pretty.”
“Blimey. I want to say he probably got what he deserves but then…,” two pillows had been chucked accurately in Ron’s direction, “… oi! Yeah, kind of saw that coming.”
“Have you seen him since?” asked Hermione, looking concerned. Harry wondered if it was concern for their teacher or for him. He was not sure which he would prefer.
“No, but I suppose he’ll be around sooner or later. Dumbledore said that Snape was still the best person to teach me Occlumency.”
“I don’t get it,” said Ron, puzzled, “why can’t you just have lessons with Dumbledore? If Snape’s so great at fooling You-Know-Who then can’t he show old mouldy-guts those memories from last year? He’d be in the clear then and you could have lessons with Dumbledore.”
“Apparently Snape’s the best. Dumbledore says he can’t teach me because he organises his mind differently or something; the good thing is he’s looking me in the eye now, he’s not so afraid of triggering a full-blown possession. He’s right in thinking that Voldemort won’t want to try that again.” Harry paused to grimace, “S’pose I doomed!”
“You’ve got to think positively, Harry. It was all so close at the Ministry, anything could have happened. If you can stop those fake visions then it’ll be one thing less to worry about.” Hermione said.
“Yeah, I know you’re right. Just, well, it’s Snape, isn’t it? Anyway, how have your summers been so far?”
Hermione launched straight into stories of her parents and the holiday they had had in the south of France, while Harry and Ron picked out chocolates from a box she had bought them to share. Harry mentioned his trip with Dumbledore a couple of weeks before to meet a new professor. The three teenagers speculated for a while on how his abilities as a teacher would compare to those of their previous Defence teachers. Though he had seemed pleasant enough, Harry aired his doubts as Slughorn’s impressive bulk would argue against a man who was regularly fighting the Dark Arts. He also mentioned his private lessons with the Headmaster, which led to a fruitless twenty-minute speculation on their content. Then Ron told his friends about squabbling siblings, quidditch games and having to clean up Percy’s room for visiting aunts.
“Don’t see why he couldn’t do it himself! And then we were all packed off to the Lovegoods for a night this week. Apparently they thought we might have been targeted or something but nothing happened and our house was still there.”
“That’s awful Ron! Were you scared?” Hermione asked.
“Nah, there were some extra Aurors around so we felt safe enough. Thing was, Dad didn’t tell us about the warning till we got to Luna’s. I would’ve liked to have been given the chance to pick up a few things, you know? What if the house had been a goner? All my posters and stuff?”
“And your textbooks!” said Hermione, though she did have a teasing twinkle in her eye.
Later that evening Harry was sitting on his bed flicking through the newest edition of The Quiddity of Quidditch. He had not actually read any of the articles yet, he was barely even glancing at the players riding in and out of shot. The vision a couple of days ago had left a deep impression on him. He had told the Weasley twins in no uncertain terms that he would not be taking another one of their Daydream products; he understood that it was hardly a glitch to hold up full-scale production (after all, how many of the twins’ customers frequently popped into other wizards’ minds?) but they were obviously not suitable for him.
It was not just the unusual length of the vision that was disturbing him; it was the connectedness he had felt with Voldemort. There had only been the one mind; Harry Potter had ceased to exist. The implications were terrifying, if Voldemort found out about the potion. Dumbledore had assured him that everyone was aware of the importance of the secret so that aspect was not really what concerned him most. What most concerned him were some of the thoughts that he, no, Voldemort, had had while Harry had been visiting.
The Dark Lord’s thought processes about the Timbley matter had been surprisingly logical and Harry was finding it hard to find a flaw in Voldemort’s reactions, despite loathing the fact that the end result was a man dead by his, no damn it, Voldemort’s, hand. Did that make Harry as evil or crazed as him? The emotions that he had felt had been powerful but also very real. It was no comfort at all to have had his image of the man he was prophesised to kill (or be killed by, but Harry’s mind skidded away from that thought) change so much for the worse. Before, he had simply thought of Voldemort as powerful, dangerous and quite mad. Now though it was all together too hard to escape the fact that Voldemort was an intelligent, though cynical, mad and vicious, human being despite his snake-like appearance.
Moreover, of the thousands of brief images from Voldemort’s memory he had seen during the evening there had been a few which were now permanently carved into his own memory. And so it was that Harry did not see quidditch players performing death-defying stunts or posing languidly for the camera, but instead he saw Snape with eyes jammed shut, fists clenched, writhing under the Cruciatus on a polished wooden floor letting only a few deep growls out; Snape smirking as a confused Muggle woman received the same treatment, though she was in a foul basement cell; Snape looking content and competent brewing multiple potions in a well-stocked laboratory Harry had never seen before; Snape talking at ease with his master in many different settings.
Harry had known for over a year now that his professor had been spying on Voldemort for the Order but he had never really considered what that actually entailed. It was clearly more than a quick round-up of the gossip from Lucius Malfoy. And although Harry could clearly remember the actual vision from two days ago and that Voldemort was in the dark in regards to Harry’s Occlumency training and exactly how the Order had been so quick in getting to the Ministry, he could not help the fact that those logical expressions of Snape’s loyalty to the Order were not nearly enough to overcome dozens of small snippets of Snape’s interactions with Voldemort.
All of which seemed to suggest that Snape was, and always had been, the most loyal of Voldemort’s Death Eaters.