Sealed With Lies by Alexannah
Summary: Snape puts Harry under a magical leash to keep him out of trouble. But unbeknown to him, Harry has been turned into a vampire, and the leash is causing far more harm than good. Terrified of losing his friends, Harry would rather starve than risk the truth coming out.
Categories: Teacher Snape > Professor Snape, Misc > Keepers of the Snitch Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Dumbledore, Hermione, Remus, Ron, Sirius
Snape Flavour: Snape is Angry, Snape's a Bully, Snape is Controlling, Snape is Desperate, Snape is Mean, Overly-protective Snape, Snape is Stern
Genres: Angst, Drama
Media Type: None
Tags: Alternate Universe, Runaway, Spying on Harry! Snape, Vampire!Harry, Vampires
Takes Place: 3rd summer, 3rd Year
Warnings: Suicide Themes, Violence
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 21 Completed: No Word count: 32255 Read: 127351 Published: 03 Feb 2015 Updated: 22 Jun 2015
The Cat’s Out of the Bag by Alexannah

“Well, he hasn’t been sacked,” Ron said, flopping down into a chair next to Harry’s in the crowded common room. Harry let out a sigh of relief. “He reckons it’s only a matter of time, though.”

“They can’t sack Hagrid,” Harry said flatly. “We were there; it wasn’t his fault—”

“We told him that,” Hermione said.

Harry gazed miserably out of the window at the light in Hagrid’s cabin. He hadn’t told Ron and Hermione why he couldn’t go to visit. They had looked a bit surprised when he stayed behind. Harry didn’t want to, but it had been getting dark and he wasn’t about to test the limits of Snape’s leash. Trust the git to stop him even being able to visit his friend.

This couldn’t go on. He had to find a way around the leash. But how?

Ask Hermione, a voice in his head said.

If I admit Snape put me on a leash, I’ll have to tell her why. How can I explain being in his storeroom?

He couldn’t think of a way. He was going to have to get out of this mess himself.

-

“Hey, what happened to all our points?”

Harry felt a guilty twist of his insides as they paused outside the Great Hall. Hermione was staring at the giant hourglasses, stunned. She wasn’t the only one, either.

“I don’t understand.” All the other hourglasses had started to accumulate points, and Slytherin already had twenty-five. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw were tied at seventeen. But the Gryffindor one was still completely empty, with the brass numbers at the bottom reading. -64, and quite a large group of Gryffindors were puzzling over it.

“No-one takes that many points away on the first day …”

“We’ve never been in minus numbers before!”

“What on earth happened?”

“Professor!” Hermione called out to Professor McGonagall as she passed, heading for breakfast. “Why has Gryffindor got so few points?”

Professor McGonagall looked intently at the hourglass, frowning slightly. “Somebody must have lost Gryffindor a lot of points already.” Harry tried not to look guilty as everyone started theorising on who it was that had got into such serious trouble this early into term. Still … it looked like Snape hadn’t told Professor McGonagall what he’d done. That was one relief at any rate.

The relief was short-lived as Harry saw, with horror, Snape venturing out from the dungeons. Harry crossed his fingers so hard he thought he’d pulled a muscle, but it didn’t work. Professor McGonagall saw him.

“Ah, Severus … I don’t suppose you have any idea why my House is lacking in points this year?”

Harry wished the ground would open up and swallow him as Snape, with raised eyebrows, looked past the other teacher to him. He had a mad urge to run; but that would just make him look like a coward as well.

“Why Minerva, I suggest you ask Mr Potter. He lost one hundred points on his first night.”

Unlike Professor McGonagall’s enquiry, Snape had replied in a loud enough tone for it to carry around the entire Entrance Hall. Harry felt himself go scarlet in shame as all the Gryffindors threw him nasty looks. Hermione and Ron didn’t glare at him, but looked both surprised and hurt.

Great. Now what was he supposed to say?

Professor McGonagall also looked shocked, and disappointed. It was the disappointment that was the worst. Harry felt a lump in his throat and had to look away from her searching gaze. He felt someone tug on his arm, and stumbled into the Great Hall after his friends.

“What was all that about?” Ron hissed once they had sat down. “Harry?”

“I …” Harry’s mouth was dry, and he knew his friends were never going to buy it, but he had to try. “Snape caught me out of bed the first night back.”

“Harry!” Hermione looked stern. “What were you doing?

“I was only walking,” Harry said lamely. “Just … stretching my legs after the long train ride. But he assumed I was up to no good so he took points … and gave me detention.”

“But—how’d he catch you?” Ron said, puzzled. “Weren’t you wearing the Cloak?”

“I … knocked something over when he was there,” Harry muttered. “He jinxed me and took it.”

He took your Cloak?

“Confiscated it. Said it’s for my own good,” Harry said bitterly.

Ron and Hermione glanced at each other. Harry could tell they knew he wasn’t being straight with them.

“Okay,” Hermione said slowly, as they seemed to have reached an unspoken agreement not to challenge his version of events. “But why didn’t you just tell us straight away?”

“We wouldn’t hold it against you, mate,” Ron said.

“Even though it was a stupid thing to do and Professor Snape was right to take points—though I agree he shouldn’t have taken so many.

“Thanks, Hermione,” Harry muttered. “Look, I feel bad enough, okay?” He glanced up, and wished he hasn’t as he saw almost the whole Gryffindor table staring daggers at him. “Great, it’s like first year all over again …”

-

The next week was difficult to say the least. Everywhere Harry went, he had to put up with his House-mates’ hostility, the Slytherins’ glee, Dementor taunts and on top of it all, he was out of ideas.

The books he had stolen from the Restricted Section—now buried right at the bottom of his trunk; he didn’t dare risk trying to return them with no Cloak—had proved themselves not only deeply infuriating to read, but hadn’t helped the sustenance situation one bit. Harry had grown more and more depressed, the more details he read. And still, his questions about his soul had not been answered. The books had all been clear that he no longer had one—but the authors hadn’t cared to wonder where it had gone, or if it still existed at all.

Then there was the question … if Harry was actually Dark now, as all the books said he should be, why did the thought of drinking blood straight from one of the thousand people who lived in the castle with him, make him feel so nauseous? Harry couldn’t understand it, but he knew he would rather die than bite another person.

At least he thought he finally knew why the thoughts of Sirius Black and the Grim scared him so much.

One the one hand, if he was already as good as dead, what was the point in hanging around? Was he no more than a solid ghost? Would he even age? Vampires were immortal (if not invincible) after all. He didn’t want to have to spend an eternity in isolation.

But the thought of death—proper death—scared him much more now than it ever had before. If he had no soul anymore, then surely he would just … stop. There’d be nothing. Eternal nothing. The thought terrified him, and was the only reason he didn’t seriously consider trying to perform one of the more fatal anti-vampire curses on himself, to finish the job.

But being frightened of death didn’t make life any easier.

To be continued...


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