Carcass by Merope_Malfoy
Summary: In the summer before his sixth year, Harry ventures outside the blood wards and is abducted by Death Eaters. After three weeks of torture in Voldemort's secret headquarters, he is rescued by the Order, but when he wakes up in the hospital wing, he is no longer the same boy. Will an unlikely connection with his draconian Potions Professor help him overcome his demons?
Categories: Healer Snape, Parental Snape > Guardian Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required)
Snape Flavour: Snape is Angry, Snape Comforts, Snape is Stern
Genres: Hurt/Comfort
Media Type: None
Tags: Injured!Harry
Takes Place: 6th summer
Warnings: Abusive Dursleys, Alcohol Use, Physical Punishment Spanking, Profanity, Self-harm, Torture, Violence
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 5 Completed: Yes Word count: 32737 Read: 34872 Published: 06 Feb 2017 Updated: 17 Apr 2017
Forgiveness by Merope_Malfoy
Author's Notes:
Hi guys, sorry for the long wait, the new job is slowly sucking the life out of me.

This is officially the last chapter, but I will write a long epilogue (basically a smaller chapter) soon.

Hope you enjoy and please review. Thank you for your continued support!

Merope :)

Harry drifts in and out of deep sleep. Every time he opens his eyes, his vision is blurry and hazy. Sometimes, the sound of his breathing is the only clue that he is still alive. At other times, his senses are overcharged and he is aware of everything around him: the warm blanket covering his body, the soft pillow underneath his head, the sound of pages being methodically turned somewhere in the corner, the noise regular and somewhat crisp. He doesn’t have a hard time guessing who is in the room with him and is strangely comforted by the idea of Snape watching over his sleep.

The soothing, cold ocean that infiltrated his mind and put out the burning pain has calmed and it now resembles a lake. Its shiny, still surface glimmers against the walls of his psyche, a steady defence against outside threats. Sometimes, feelings that are not his own make their way up from the depths of the lake, rippling the surface, the undulations measured and controlled. Guilt, worry and anger seep through his veins and Harry feels each of them as if they are his own until they finally dissipate, leaving him feeling empty and light once more.

He falls into a deep sleep to the sound of Snape flicking through the pages of what is probably an academic journal.

 


 

There are no crimson stains in the room and there are no scars on his arm. His skin is pale and smooth as if nothing happened and the blood in his veins flows uninterrupted. It could have all been a bad dream. It’s not like he didn’t have trouble distinguishing between reality and the fictitious construction of his mind before.

Harry traces a finger over his forearm, for once wishing that his trauma-induced Occlumency could drown reality. But no matter how many times he closes his eyes and tries to focus on nothing but his beating heart, Voldemort’s slithering voice anchors him more firmly into reality.

He remembers everything with astute clarity; how it made so much sense to end it all, how the cold, slinking voice with its shrill like tone sounded soothing, almost caring. It felt only natural to obey its commands and he did, because in that moment he wanted nothing more than to be with Sirius and his parents. Death in the guise of salvation. It was a paradox that had made utmost sense to him in that trance-like instant when obeying Voldemort had seemed as natural as breathing in.

Harry’s eyes drift back to his immaculate skin. Outside, the morning dawns clear and bright and rays of sunlight penetrate through the window and illuminate his entire arm in a bright, yellow light. He feels sick. He doesn’t know how long he has been sitting up in bed, staring at his arm. His first conscious thought was that somebody changed his body. It just didn’t add up; he was supposed to be scared and bloodied and the fact that he is not, angers him. Ironically his unblemished skin is an oppressive reminder of his own fragility. The scars haven’t been removed, they have just been buried deep within him where they fester without corrupting the surface.

Lifting a hand to his mouth, Harry begins biting his nails until they are no longer smooth. He then draws them over his untarnished forearm, creating long, pink lines. He doesn’t do it with enough force to scratch through the skin and draw blood, but nevertheless, the oppressive faultlessness is gone after a few minutes and Harry is able to breathe once more.

It is in this seemingly tranquil state that Snape finds him half an hour later when he opens the door and walks into the bedroom. At first, Harry doesn’t acknowledge the Potions Master’s presence, continuing to stare mindlessly at the ceiling.

Snape doesn’t say anything to him as he summons a chair from the desk in the corner, places it next to Harry’s bed, and sits in it, crossing his legs and lacing his hands together. He then pierces Harry with a look that is almost solid in its intensity and after a moment or so, Harry gets so squeamish that he has no choice but to look at the man.

“I take it your mood for the day is pensive as opposed to self-destructive,” Snape says in a dry voice.

“I didn’t mean to…” Harry trails off, suddenly finding himself unable to continue.

Snape, apparently, doesn’t have a problem with wording Harry’s reticence, and he does so in a rather pointed tone, one which makes Harry feel very small. “Kill yourself? How remiss of me not to remind you that you effectively sliced both your ulnar and radial arteries, losing approximately fifteen percent of your blood volume before I could reach you.”

“That’s not what I—“

“Spare me your insipid ramblings, Potter!” Snape suddenly snaps, anger oozing from every pore. He leans forward in his chair, his dark eyes boring into Harry like hot knives. “Have you lost what little brain you used to possess? A first year Hufflepuff would be able to tell the difference between self-harm and attempted suicide!”

“I didn’t attempt to commit suicide!” Harry exclaims, sitting up in bed and eying Snape with re-awakened contempt.

“Then pray tell, what exactly was it that you were attempting to do?” Snape asks in what is possibly his snidest tone yet.

“He made me do it,” Harry says, feeling uncomfortably childish.  

“Nobody can make you do anything you do not want to do, Potter. Not even the Dark Lord.” Snape’s dark gaze is almost burning in its intensity and after a moment or two, Harry bows his head until his fringe covers his eyes.

“He made me want to do it,” he eventually mutters. He looks down at his hands but then closes his eyes because he feels suddenly ashamed of these instruments, of their capability for self-destruction.

For a while, the Potions Master says nothing and Harry opens his eyes against the suffocating silence in the room. Part of him wants to scream, to run and hide from those dark, calculating orbs and their unfaltering scrutiny. He doesn’t want to be seen in such a profound way, doesn’t want to feel so completely vulnerable before Snape. Yet he also longs to be cared for. It is an alien feeling for Harry and one he never fully acknowledged before. Because he always took care of himself. He doesn’t know any other way.

“Do you wish to die, Potter?” Snape suddenly asks, the silky baritone of his voice filling the room and snapping Harry out of his silent musings.

“I want it to be over,” he says, after a moment.

“You did not answer my question.”

“I…I don’t know.”

“You do know.”

“I don’t want anyone else to die for me.”

“Idiot boy! Do you think that the Dark Lord would honour your sacrifice? That Weasley and Granger would be spared should he be victorious?” Snape seethes, his eyebrows narrowing as he pierces Harry with a particularly fierce glare.

“No,” Harry admits. “It’s…it’s a more selfish motive than that.”

Snape raises an eyebrow for Harry to continue. “I suppose if I am dead, I won’t feel any guilt for having precipitated their deaths. I would have paid for it…it would all come full circle. It would be the right thing, for having killed Sirius and my mum and Cedric.”

“You did not kill your mother,” Snape says as Harry frowns in confusion. “Nor did you kill your father or Sirius Black. We’ve been over this.”

“But I did. I…wanted to kill her. I enjoyed killing her!” Harry cries, the conviction feeling suddenly suffocating. He looks at Snape with wide eyes, not understanding how the man cannot see.

“Voldemort killed your parents, Potter. Bellatrix Lestrange killed Black and Peter Pettigrew murdered Diggory. Not you. The memory in which you murder your mother is fabricated. You know this,” Snape persists in a hard voice.

Harry closes his eyes against the man’s words and focuses on his breathing. After a moment, he says: “It feels so real.”

“You need to fight it.”

 Harry nods, but he isn’t so sure he can. 

 


 

Snape places Harry’s glass of milk onto the kitchen table with more force than absolutely necessary. He chooses to ignore the way the boy flinches at his display of anger and disregards the look of confusion that spreads upon his features. Because he only has one chance of getting this right.

Turing his back onto the boy, he resumes his preparation of breakfast. Today he chooses to use his hands instead of his wand. Sleeves rolled up, fingers elegantly curled on the knife handle, he chops the onions with the same precision he uses when brewing complicated potions. He can feel Harry’s eyes boring into his back, but he is not yet prepared to acknowledge his silent questions. He still needs some time to think.

Because he had not steeled himself for finding him the way he did, lying in a puddle of his own blood, slicing his arm as though it were an inanimate object. And not long after that, when he tended to his injuries Snape realised that Harry’s guilt is visceral, completely embroiled into his magic and needing a physical release. And, with Voldemort’s input, the boy has made himself the target of his anguish.

Slowly but surely, Harry Potter is killing himself. It is not a figure of speech or an anecdote. It is a fact. It is happening right now, as he is sitting quietly at the table. It has been happening for a while.

Snape ponders on that for a moment as he lowers the omelette base into the frying pan. The way the boy’s hands shake when he is holding something, the purple circles that continue to grow underneath his eyes irrespective of how much sleep he gets, the trance-like state which fogs his mind and numbs his senses; these signs had been there since the start and yet he failed to decipher them. Like he failed to see the dire reality of the boy’s home life. Like he failed to see him.

He cannot fail again.

 

They eat in silence, Harry glancing tentatively in Snape’s direction from time to time. There is a deep scowl etched into his forehead as he cuts bits of omelette, or takes occasional sips of his coffee. He doesn’t once look at Harry and the more Harry tries to quell the anxiety in his stomach, the larger it seems to grow. He knows that something is wrong; that much is obvious from the waves of tension radiating off the man’s shoulders every time he moves or takes a bite of his food. As his unease grows, Harry finds it harder and harder to swallow down his breakfast, until he sighs loudly and places his fork on the table with finality. Even then, Snape doesn’t look at him.

“Are you angry with me?” Harry suddenly asks, inwardly cringing at how much the anxiety shows in his voice.

Snape lifts his face and looks at Harry somewhat blankly. “No,” he says after a moment.

“But you are angry. I mean…more than usual…”

Snape puts his fork down and regards Harry with a calculating expression as if trying to decide how much information he can share. “There has been a change in circumstances since the last meeting I attended,” he eventually says in a matter-of-fact voice.  

“Order meeting?” Harry asks with a frown.

“No.”

“Oh. Death Eater meeting.”

Snape gives a curt nod and continues to watch Harry intently.  After a moment, he says: “I will no longer be able to provide the Order with information regarding the Dark Lord’s activities.”

“Why?”

“Certain events have enabled him to discern where my true loyalties lie. I hear the price on my head is quite generous,” Snape says, his tone not lacking in hints of resigned bitterness.

For a while, Harry mulls over this information. Then, his eyes widen in comprehension and he looks at Snape with a startled expression. “It’s my fault, isn’t it?”

“No,” Snape says almost immediately, his tone hard. “It is not your fault.”

“But it has to do with you occluding for me?” Harry asks, his eyebrows descending in confusion.

“He recognised my magical signature inside your mind, yes. But Potter, despite what your overwrought mind may choose to believe, my exposure to the Dark Lord is not something to warrant the debilitating sense of guilt you seem to be wallowing in. If you are truly desperate to lament for something, you should start by feeling sorry for what you have been doing to yourself,” Snape says remorselessly.

“My scar had been hurting for days before the attack and I didn’t tell you…I should have told you…I…”

“You are not yourself, Potter. Most days I am relieved you remember how to breathe. Anything else is an added bonus,” Snape says simply before taking a sip of his coffee, the action so mundane that Harry feels as if they are merely discussing the weather.

“But you could die because of me. If he catches you…”

Dark eyebrows snap down in irritation. “If I die, I will do so as a result of my own actions, not yours.”

“I don’t want you to die,” Harry says in a small voice.

“I am not planning on dying just yet. In any case, by the time I do, if it should come to that, your penchant for mental self-flagellation would have waned. That, I promise you,” Snape says, a look of unfaltering determination momentarily flashing over his features.

“That’s not why…” Harry beings but then trails off because he can’t quite bring himself to admit this to Snape. Or to himself, for that matter. It is not supposed to be this way. He was never supposed to look at Snape as some sort of father figure, he just wasn’t. And it’s not the overwhelming feeling of guilt that he fears—it is the idea of no longer having Snape around.

The anxiety must have shown on his face because when Snape next speaks, his tone is almost soothing. “I’m not going anywhere, Harry.”

Harry nods, once, before averting his eyes to his plate. His omelette is now cold and he has no desire to eat it. But he doesn’t want to offend the Potions Master, so he grabs his fork up and starts picking at his breakfast. Suddenly, a red droplet descends onto his plate. It is soon followed by another one. Confused, Harry lifts his hand to his face, but when he looks at his fingers, they are clean. Looking at his plate once more, he realises that it is now almost entirely covered in blood; it begins to slowly spread onto the rest of the table in messy rivulets, momentarily stopping against the edge of his glass of milk before completely surrounding it and continuing towards Snape’s plate.  

Part of him questions if this is all a fabrication of his troubled mind; after all, Snape seems to be completely oblivious to it all. Having finished his breakfast, he is now sipping his coffee and scanning headlines of the Daily Prophet. The newspaper is flat on the table and its edges begin to soak in crimson, but Snape doesn’t seem to notice.

From the corner of his eye, Harry begins to see a figure moving towards him from near the sink. He doesn’t want to turn his head around, doesn’t want to see who it is. An ice like chill begins spreading over his body and before he has time to shiver, a heavy, clawed hand descends onto his shoulder.

Gasping, Harry leaps out of his chair and plasters his back against the wall, swinging an arm up in front of his face to protect himself from the clawed entity. He squeezes his eyes shut and after a moment everything goes still. When he opens them again, green eyes stare back at him from a face contracted in pure hatred.

“Look at what you did to me, Harry! Look!” Lily whispers close to his face, and Harry thinks her breath smells like death. “I said look!” she seethes and as he does, she starts bleeding. The blood first flows from her nose, then her mouth and finally, her eyes, until, at length, she is no longer his mother, but a bloody creature from the depths of his nightmares, clutching onto him like a Dementor ready to devour its prey. “You enjoyed it, didn’t you, Harry? Look! Look at the results of your handy work!”

Harry squeezes his eyes shut.  “No! I didn’t kill you, I didn’t kill you, I didn’t mean to! He made me—“

“POTTER!”

He is shaken so roughly that his eyes pop open. Expecting to see his nightmarish mother, he attempts to flee, but strong hands hold him in place, anchor him into reality. “Look at me!” Snape shouts, his hold on the boy’s shoulders hard and unrelenting. Only when he is sure that Harry can see him—actually see him—does his iron grip relax.

Harry looks up at Snape with scared, feverish eyes, but then recognition flashes across his face and he is able to blink away the terror. “She wasn’t real?” he manages to ask in a small voice.

“No,” Snape replies, his tone taut, his dark eyes looking at him in unmasked consternation. He picks up a napkin from the table and presses it against Harry’s face. “Hold that there for a moment, your nose is bleeding.”

With a shaking hand, Harry holds the napkin to his face as Snape clutches his arm and guides him back into his seat. Once he is certain Harry won’t have another episode, he swiftly opens the door to his basement lab and disappears down the stairs, returning what seems like seconds later with a small phial of amber liquid. Pushing his lank hair out of his face, he holds it towards Harry and says: “Drink.”

Harry does as instructed and it doesn’t take long for the shaking of his hands to cease and for his breathing to become more regular. His nosebleed stops almost instantly and Harry places the bloodied napkin onto the table, glancing at the Potion Master’s discarded newspaper and coffee.  He then chances a quick look at the man himself.

Snape hasn’t moved from his place near the sink. He continues to watch Harry with a mixture of consternation and intrigue as if his mind is weighted down by contrasting possibilities, each as complicated as the other. Then, he lifts his hand, rubs his eyes and leans back against the sink, crossing his arms and looking out of the kitchen window, directly above Harry’s head. When he next speaks, his tone holds hints of bitter resignation. “Her favourite colour was celadon.”

Harry frowns in confusion at the man’s words, but Snape seems so deeply embroiled into his own memories, that he doesn’t dare to interrupt him. “She was wearing a celadon coloured jumper when I met her,” Snape continues, dropping his eyes to stare directly at Harry. “We were both nine.”

“Who are you talking about?” Harry asks.

“Your mother,” Snape says simply.

All blood seems to leave Harry’s face; his mouth goes dry, his eyes widen, and the air in the room seems oppressive. Each time he breathes in, it is like he is inhaling sawdust. “Don’t…I can’t bear to listen…I can’t…”

“You can and you will,” Snape says in a hard voice, piercing Harry with a warning glare.

“You can’t make me!” Harry exclaims, the urge to get as far away from Snape as possible becoming almost animalistic in its intensity. In one swift movement, he leaps from the chair in an attempt to flee the kitchen, but Snape is faster. With a flick of his wand, Harry is briskly levitated in mid-air and propelled back into his chair where he is held in place by a rather potent sticking charm.

“There is no point in struggling, Mr Potter. You will listen to what I have to say,” Snape says, as Harry continues to fight against his restraints.

“You’re a sadistic fucking bastard!” Harry seethes, piercing Snape with a particularly fierce glare. He almost regrets his choice of words when the man suddenly descends upon him like some apocalyptic angel of death, one hand clutching each armrest, his face inches apart from Harry’s. He speaks with his teeth bared and even in his anger, Harry fights the urge to gulp. “Insult me all you like, Potter, it will not change anything. You need to hear this.”

“No!” Harry protests, but Snape pays no notice to him as he straightens himself and backs away, leaning once more on the kitchen counter and crossing his arms as if in preparation for a lugubrious lecture. After a moment, he says: “Your mother and I became friends before Hogwarts. I was, in fact, the one who told her she was a witch.”

“Stop it!”

“Despite being sorted in different houses, we remained good friends. Lily was not only an exceedingly talented witch but also a very kind one. She was popular, but in a different way from your father. Whilst she was admired by many—“

“I can’t listen to this!” Harry cries as mugs and plates begin to shatter, showering the kitchen floor with shards of broken glass. Snape, however, remains completely unfazed by his magical outburst and continues speaking as if Harry hadn’t interrupted him at all. His black gaze pierces Harry as he offers details about a mother he never really knew.

“She never sought the attention or accolades of her peers. She was often sought after, but though she had the occasional lunch with her admirers, she never got too close to any of them. We spent the first four years of our Hogwarts education mostly reading in the library, or brewing together. Lily’s aptitude for Potions was not dissimilar to Miss Granger’s, but unlike the latter, she never flaunted her talent.”

“I murdered her…,” Harry whispers miserably as plates, mugs and bowls continue to shatter around him. He closes his eyes against this intolerable truth, but, moments later, warm large hands cup his face and he opens his eyes to see Snape kneeling before him, his expression pained.

“You did not,” he says in an uncharacteristically soft voice. “She would not want you to remember a lie. Listen to me, Harry. The Lily I speak of is nothing like Voldemort’s fiendish construction. You have to be able to distinguish between them. Just breathe and listen to me.” Snape lets go of Harry’s face then, grabs a nearby chair and lowers himself in it, before continuing to recount his memories of Harry’s mother.

“In our fifth year at Hogwarts, I started mixing with the wrong sorts of people. I was drawn to the Dark Arts and the acclaim they promised. Your mother did not like this, and many times she tried to warn me, but I was too deeply embroiled in my own bitterness to listen to her.”

“You called her a mudblood…” Harry says with a frown, feeling drawn into Snape’s recollection without meaning to. The intrinsic curiosity develops despite the heavy pain growing in his chest. The corners of his vision continue to burn white and part of him screams danger at hearing anything to do with his mother…but the levitating kitchen utensils shattering against one another don’t stop Snape from speaking of Lily. “I can’t…please stop.”

Snape continues, ignoring Harry’s plea for him to stop, “She never forgave me, not that I expected her to, and that effectively ended our friendship. By seventh year she and your father’s romantic dalliance grew serious and they married soon after graduating from Hogwarts.”

“I don’t want to know! I can’t!”

“You have to,” Snape says, fixing Harry with a hard look.

Harry begins earnestly shaking his head and as he does so, plates begin flying out of cupboards and shattering against the walls. Snape swiftly casts a Protego around them as he continues sharing with Harry information about his mother. The shards of broken glass hit the invisible barrier and fall, almost noiselessly, to the ground.

“A few years later,” he continues and Harry notices how strained his voice begins to sound, “I was a Death Eater and blinded by the Dark Lord’s hollow promises. I longed to prove myself, to elevate my status in his eyes. One night, I was in Hogsmeade and overheard part of a prophecy about a boy with the ability to vanquish Voldemort, born at the end of July to those who have thrice defied him.”

Suddenly, the plates stop their self-destructive dance and simply fall to the floor. Everything goes still and quiet, as Harry looks at Snape with newfound understanding.

“You told Voldemort the prophecy,” Harry says after a moment, his voice as dull as he has ever heard it.

“Yes,” Snape rasps, his dark eyes not once leaving Harry’s face.

“So…you’re the reason he came after my mum and dad. You’re the reason they are dead…the reason I grew up with the Dursleys.”

“Yes,” Snape repeats. “I did this to you…to Lily. I am the reason they are dead, Harry. Not you. You did not kill your mother,” Snape says, running a hand through his lank hair, a gesture that betrays his own anxiety. “The guilt you are feeling…it is mine.”

“But she was your friend,” Harry says after a moment. “How could you…sentence her to death like that?”

“I did not stop to consider how the Dark Lord would interpret the prophecy,” Snape says bitterly. “When it became clear that he thought it referred to Lily, I went to Dumbledore in a desperate attempt to protect her. But it was too little, too late.”

“You became a double agent because of my mum?” Harry asks.

Snape gives a curt nod, but says nothing else, averting his gaze out of the window once more, as if looking at the boy seated before him is suddenly too hard. When he next speaks, his voice sounds like it is miles away. “The guilt that you are drowning in is misplaced. Whatever the Dark Lord may want you to believe, you did nothing to precipitate the death of your parents. If you need to channel your blame at someone, channel it at me. It would not be misdirected.”

Harry says nothing as the Potion Master’s confession sinks in. Then, a dull ache begins to spread over his chest and he feels sick. To think that barely an hour earlier he looked to Snape as some sort of father figure…it almost feels intolerable now. He closes his eyes against the poisonous thoughts that begin to form inside his head—things he would like to do to Snape to make him pay. When he opens them again, he realises that his face is wet and his breathing is laboured and Snape is watching him with such intensity that he shudders. He needs to go, needs get away from him, and away from the truth that is now suffocating him.

“Let me out…I can’t breathe…” Harry rasps, feeling strangely detached from his own body. His breathing becomes increasingly harsh as he pierces Snape with a look of pure loathing. Within seconds, the Potions Master lifts the sticking charm and Harry leaps out of the chair and runs from the kitchen, mildly aware of his name being called out. He doesn’t stop to look behind him, he doesn’t care about anything as he reaches the hallway and opens the front door, running out into the clear day, determined to put as much distance as possible between himself and Spinner’s End.

 


Harry doesn’t know how long he has been running for, but he is painfully aware of the stitch in his side, the pain in his legs and the breathlessness in his chest. Stopping for a moment to catch his breath, he slowly becomes conscious of the fact that he does not know where he is. The houses are scarcer now, and the polluted river is so far off in the distance that it is barely visible. Looking around himself, Harry realises that he has been running uphill and rationalises that he must now be on the outskirts of town, where unkempt nature meets the occasional erection of dirty concrete buildings. Pushing his spectacles back up his nose, he walks off the tarmac road and into the unkempt field to his side, where an old playground stands deserted in the summer morning.

Dragging his feet over to the swing set, Harry deposits himself into one of the rusty swings, angrily kicking an empty beer can off in the distance. He then closes his eyes and catches his head in his hands, feeling the twitching hands of a small headache pulling at his temples. He holds his breath and keeps his eyes closed, fully expecting that, if he were to stay like this long enough, he would simply evaporate into nothingness. How easy it seems now to objectify all his senses, to flatten his consciousness and feel absolutely nothing, to fuse his being with the scene around him, to become part of something inane like the empty beer can now resting against the bark of a tree.

But try as he might to suppress his own presence, Harry finds himself unable to be nothing—to feel nothing. Of its own accord, his mind rushes back to Snape, to the truth that has been divulged. A strange feeling courses through him and Harry doesn’t know how to deal with it. Part of him is angry at Snape for his involuntary implication in his parents’ death. He should have known better, he should have done better. How could he have been so careless? Yet, strangely enough, Harry also feels light, as if a heavy weight has been lifted off is shoulders and for the first time in weeks, he is able to breathe more easily. He feels more attuned to the reality around him than ever before; the ground beneath his feet, the trash around the playground, the swing in which he is seated; these are no longer oppressive reminders of his own fragility. They are simply there.

But they mock him. Everything mocks him for having been so utterly naïve, for having trusted Snape, for having needed him. Harry feels sick and restless even thinking about it. In one swift movement, he stands from the swing and starts pacing around the playground, running a hand through his messy hair. Glancing towards a nearby tree, he suddenly feels an inexplicable urge to go to it, to lay his hand on its chunky bark.

Harry does so, and as he walks around it, he realises that the tree is hollow on the inside and big enough to allow a small person to fit in. For lack of anything better to do, Harry crouches crawls inside and sits on the dirty ground. Almost immediately, his eyes fall on the writing engraved on the inside of the bark and his breath hitches in his throat when he reads the names: Sev and Lily. Petunia smells. Slytherin. Gryffindor. Hogwarts. Home.

An inexplicable feeling of loneliness spreads over him. Tracing his mother’s name with his index finger, Harry’s entire chest begins to tingle with an unfamiliar feeling. He knows it is not his own, and his magical core tremors in recognition.

“Mum?” he croaks.

Nothing happens. Not that he expects anything to happen, but he suddenly feels her there with him. At once, he realises the travesty of Voldemort’s creation. How could he have believed with such conviction, that the Lily in his pensieve was his mother? The real Lily could never be so full of hate, so full of dark magic, so vengeful. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, completely unaware of the wetness around his eyes. “I believed him…I was sure she was you. I’m so sorry,” Harry cries, his palm now completely covering his mother’s name, desperate to be near her, to feel her.

And for a split second, Harry feels comforted by everything around him; the old bark encloses him in a safe cocoon, the summer breeze caresses his face, the ground beneath him pulsates with unconditional love.

After a while, another alien feeling starts growing in his chest and as Harry starts to understand it, it becomes embroiled with his own emotions, until it is no longer so alien. And Harry knows in that moment that his mother would have forgiven Snape. Tracing the professor’s name with his finger, Harry realises that all the anger he had previously felt towards the man is gone. He feels strangely at peace with everything, and as he closes his eyes, he is dimly aware of a soft voice whispering in his ear. It is an indistinctive voice, and he cannot place it, but he knows that it means no harm, and it holds a familiarity he remembers on a subconscious level. He is atoning. He has been saving your life every day. Do not feel ashamed for needing him. He cares about you too, do not be afraid, darling. You can trust him.

When he open his eyes again, Harry knows that it is time to go back. Looking outside, the morning has morphed into early afternoon and sun rays have a calming orange hue. It is the first day without rain since his arrival in Cokeworth. Emerging from the tree, Harry’s feet begin taking him back towards the tarmac road as if they know the way back towards Spinner’s End even though his mind cannot actually remember.

 


Harry finds Snape seated at the kitchen table, with an empty tumbler before him. A bottle of Firewhiskey stands incongruously next to his ebony-coloured wand which rests on top of his discarded newspaper. Stepping fully into the room, Harry rests his hands on the back of his empty chair, feeling suddenly squeamish. Even in his most tranquil state, the Potion Master’s presence is as imposing as ever. When he turns his head to look at Harry, the room is suddenly full of him. He looks tired.

“You didn’t come after me,” says Harry, trying his best to make his voice sound neutral. The nervousness shows, however, and Snape sighs before he speaks. “I placed a tracking charm on you. I knew where you were the whole time.”

“Right,” Harry says, starting to feel somewhat queasy at the thought of Snape knowing that he lurked inside his childhood sanctuary. “I…I needed time to think.”

“So you did,” Snape replies, his deep voice cutting through the solidifying silence.

For a while, neither of them speak. Harry continues looking at the Potions Master, not quite sure how to brace the subject that needs discussing. For his part, Snape averts his eyes towards the sink and Harry gets the feeling that the professor is giving him time to find his words.

“I…I don’t know where to start.”

“You do not need to say anything. I have written to the headmaster; he will pick you up this evening,” Snape says in a flat voice.

“What?! Why?”

Snape pierces him with a strange look that Harry can’t decipher. “What do you mean, why? Do you not remember anything I recounted to you before you fled the house?”

“Yeah, of course I do. It’s just that…I don’t want to go anywhere else. Sir.”

Snape blinks in momentary surprise before his eyebrows draw together ominously. “Potter,” he begins, “I just confessed to you that I am responsible for the death of your parents. Surely you—“

“But you’re not! Not really. Voldemort killed my parents, sir. Like Peter Pettigrew killed Cedric and--” Harry closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath before continuing, “and like Bellatrix Lestrange killed Sirius.”

“Idiot boy!” Snape suddenly seethes. “It is not the same thing! You cannot compare yourself to me! The things I have done…you have no idea what I was capable of, what I did for him without once questioning my actions.”

“But you’re not the same man anymore. Did you mean for him to kill my mum when you overheard the prophecy?” Harry asks.

“No, but that does not justify or atone my actions!”

“Perhaps is doesn’t justify them,” Harry admits, frowning as the queasiness in his stomach grows.  “But you have been atoning…every day since she died. I know you have. How many times did you save my life since I started at Hogwarts? It’s not as if this is easy for me to admit. I mean, I used to hate you, surely you remember. But I know that she would have forgiven you. And so I do too, Professor. I forgive you.”

Snape stares at the scrawny boy before him for a moment before looking away and saying: “You know nothing, Potter. Save your forgiveness for those who deserve it.”

“Will you stop?!” Harry suddenly shouts, clutching his stomach and trying to ignore the sudden sharp pain that erupts there. “Why is it so hard for you to accept that…that…you can atone for your past mistakes? You risk your life every day for the Order, for me…she would have forgiven you. I know she would have!”

“Harry,” Snape says, standing up from his chair and striding towards him until they are mere inches apart. Placing his hands on the boy’s shoulders, he continues: “there is no doubt in me that you are your mother’s son. She too was kind to those who did not deserve it. And whilst I am touched by your ability to forgive…you must understand that I cannot show the same consideration to myself.”

“I don’t care!” Harry exclaims. “I don’t care how you do it, but you’re going to bloody well get over it and...and accept that I don’t hold it against you!”

“Harry—“

“I need you, okay!” he snaps and immediately flushes at his confession and at the dampness in his eyes. His stomach contracts painfully, but he ignores it. “I can’t defeat him without you! You are the only one who bloody understands what it’s like to be me! So stop wallowing in self-pity and just be here…my mum and dad…this is what they would have wanted. Just be here!” he pleads as the grip on his shoulders tightens.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Snape promises, and Harry draws reassurance from the silky familiarity of his voice.

The feeling of reassurance, however, doesn’t last long, for in the next moment, the sharp pain in Harry’s stomach erupts in fully-fledged agony and he groans, collapsing onto his knees and clutching onto his torso. It only takes a second for Snape to kneel next to him, and he starts saying something, but Harry is unable to make out what it is. There is an ominous ringing in his ears that drowns out everything else and he squeezes his eyes shut against the pulsating ache that continues to grow inside him. 

“I think I’m going to be sick,” he manages to croak before the bile rises up his throat and he retches. The substance that comes out of his heaving mouth is black and cold and through his tearing eyes, Harry can see it trying freezing the portion of the ground it covers. He feels cold and drained and empty as if all the happiness in the world has been absorbed by the black bile coming out of him.

Through it all, Snape’s grip on him doesn’t falter and when there is nothing left in Harry to eject, an overwhelming weakness spreads over his body and he wants nothing more than to sleep for a week.

With a flick of his wand, Snape banishes the strange substance from his kitchen floor and then helps Harry to his feet. “What was that?” Harry manages to ask after a moment, his voice raw and raspy.

“Your magical core expelled Voldemort’s poison out of your system,” Snape simply says as he guides Harry out of the kitchen. “You will be fine.”

“I think I need to sleep,” Harry croaks, feeling the numbing weakness spreading from his stomach to his limbs. Snape’s grip on his arm tightens and before Harry can blink, he is side-along apparated into Snape’s childhood bedroom. Harry’s eyes rest for a moment on the broken pewter cauldron next to the wardrobe, but as he makes his way across the room, every detail is drowned by an overwhelming urge to sleep.

“To bed with you, Mr Potter,” Snape says as Harry lies down and somehow managed to drape the grey blanket over himself. He falls asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow, but, with a huge force of will, he opens his eyes just in time to see Snape heading out of the room. “Wait!” he cries, his voice barely audible.  

Snape halts halfway to the door and turns his head to look at him over his shoulder. “Sleep, Potter. We can speak later.”

“I just want to know if I can stay,” Harry mumbles, his eyelids fluttering with the strain of staying awake.

Snape skewers him with his dark, calculating gaze, and Harry feels as though the man is searching for something. He doesn’t mind Snape seeing what he experienced in the deserted park, but finds that his eyes are struggling to stay awake. After a moment, however, Snape seems to have found what he had been searching for, and he offers Harry a small, definitive nod.

Harry feels relief, and the sensation is strangely overwhelming. There is a flutter in his chest as if his heart skipped a beat and tried to make up for it with five quick ones. Finally, his vision grows foggy and somewhat dim with exhaustion; his eyelids flutter a few times and then close with finality. He falls into a deep sleep almost immediately and for once, he is not afraid of the dreams lurking underneath his pillows.

For the first time in a long while, he knows that everything will be fine.

He knows that he is not alone.

 

 

 

 

The End.
End Notes:
Epilogue

It is sometime between six and seven in the morning that Harry leaves the Gryffindor common room and heads for the dungeons. His first thought is that the parts of Hogwarts which are underneath the Black Lake should be covered by magicked carpets which soak the cold and the humidity; even in his converses, his feet are like blocks of ice and it is not even November yet.

He is less able to articulate his second thought, so he thinks about breakfast instead. As if on cue with his mind, his stomach makes a churning noise and Harry quickens his steps, thankful for the bodily distraction. He reaches Snape’s quarters in less than ten minutes and then he realises how laboured his breathing is. Then he frowns because he shouldn’t have been able to reach it in under fifteen minutes if he hadn’t been running”and he most certainly hasn’t run all the way from Gryffindor tower to the dungeons. He just power walked.

Harry suddenly feels like a little kid and he doesn’t like it, but he opens the door and walks in nonetheless. He doesn’t need to knock. Not anymore. The door has been charmed to recognise his magical signature, so it just opens for him when he touches the wood with his left palm.
Snape is sitting at his dining table, sipping a black cup of coffee (Harry can smell it from the doorway) and scanning a copy of the Daily Prophet with uncontested disgust. He doesn’t look up from the offensive pages when Harry walks in and displays no annoyance at the way the boy drops uninvited into a nearby chair, with somewhat of a heavy sigh.

“Have you ever considered carpeting the dungeons? Obviously not the Potions lab”I mean that would be impractical with all the spills and the explosions”but the corridors and classrooms?” Harry suddenly asks, his eyebrows drawn together as if in deep thought. Snape puts the newspaper down rather abruptly, checks the clock above the mantelpiece and then regards the boy seated before him with a calculating expression.

“Or maybe you could spell some windows into the corridors. I know it would look a bit weird…I mean none of the other corridors at Hogwarts actually have windows. But some natural light would be good. I think it would make the students happy. Oh and a looped warming charm. It doesn’t need to be cosy or anything, I know you don’t want your reputation as a vampire to have less effect on the first years, but it’s really cold out there. I think it would actually improve learning and---“

“And the need to impart such ideas was so imperative that you felt the need to sprint to the dungeons at seven in the morning?” Snape asks, one eyebrow arched questioningly at Harry, his black eyes taking in the dishevelled hair and laboured breathing with mild amusement.

“I didn’t run,” Harry retorts. “It was just a thought. I mean, are you not cold when you get out of bed in the morning and your bare feet touch the stone floor?”
Snape’s answer is as succinct as can be: “No.”

“Does the floor in the Slytherin common room have a temperature charm?” he asks, looking at Snape with big, contemplative eyes.

“Harry.”

“I’m just curious.”

“You are not,” Snape intones patiently. “Nor did you come here to inform me of your plans to redecorate the dungeons. So perhaps after breakfast, we could get to the crux of the matter.”

“I’m not hungry,” Harry says, his voice almost petulant, his gait somewhat defensive as his stomach makes a loud rumbling noise. He feels somewhat bad when the Potions Master fixes him with a stern look.

“You are angry,” Snape observes after a moment. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Has your scar been bothering you again?” Snape asks.

“No, it’s nothing like that. Look…it’s stupid, I shouldn’t have come here,” Harry says.

“Yet you did,” Snape observes, and Harry suddenly feels as though Snape knows exactly what has been keeping him awake at night.

“It’s stupid.”

“It is not stupid if it prevents you from sleeping,” Snape says simply, lacing his fingers together, the same way he did in Cokeworth when he listened to what Harry had to say. Or not say. It is a gesture Harry is comforted by because no one ever listened to him quite the same way that Snape did over the summer. Not even the headmaster. Not even Sirius, a little voice reminds him. Nobody had been as comfortable with Harry’s visceral silence as Snape had been.

“I just feel…out of place. At Hogwarts I mean,” Harry awkwardly begins. “Before, when I would get away from the Dursleys, I couldn’t wait for the Hogwarts Express to pull into Hogsmeade. I couldn’t wait for the Welcoming Feast, for my bed in Gryffindor tower….it was home to me, you know?”

Snape nods for him to continue and after a moment, Harry does. “But something changed this summer. I don’t know what it is, but everything is muted. It’s like I’m constantly under the Black Lake, in my own little bubble; I can hear people’s voices but I can’t quite make out what they are saying. I constantly want to be somewhere else. My bed in Gryffindor Tower feels alien, the food in the great hall is cold and impersonal. I don’t feel at home anymore. And…Hogwarts has been my home since I first set foot in it,” Harry says miserably. “It’s as if Voldemort has taken these feelings away from me when he…trapped me in his pensieve.”

“This is not the Dark Lord’s doing, Harry,” Snape says after a moment. “What you are experiencing…it is merely homesickness.”

“Homesickness?” Harry asks incredulously, looking at the Potions Master with wide eyes. “But how can I feel that way about something I never really had? Hogwarts is the closest thing to home…how can I feel homesick if I am here?”

“It is not Hogwarts you feel homesick for,” Snape intones, his deep voice holding some meaning that escapes Harry. But after a moment, he slowly begins to understand; it isn’t that he has been feeling out of place at Hogwarts”it is rather that he has been subconsciously comparing everything with Cokeworth. His bed in Gryffindor Tower wasn’t suddenly uncomfortable, it was just not the one he had slept in during the summer. The common room felt claustrophobic because for the first time he had a glimpse of what it would be like to have his own space. In Spinner’s End, he didn’t have to worry about other students using the desk, or making too much noise when trying to sleep, or eating all the good food before nine in the morning; he had had his room, his desk…his bed. He had had a home. Harry’s throat feels suddenly tight and he can’t stand the way Snape is watching him, reading him as though he is an open book, his face softer than he ever remembers it. He needs to get away, he needs to hide, from Snape, from his feelings, from himself.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…I didn’t realise…I…” Harry mutters, feeling the blood rushing to his face. How embarrassing! He bloody bonded with Snape’s home! He shouldn’t feel this way! He abruptly stands from the desk and tries to make his way towards the door, but Snape is faster, and Harry doesn’t notice him suddenly standing before him, blocking his way. He jumps when Snape’s hands descend onto his shoulders.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think…” Harry mumbles uncomfortably.

“Stop apologising!” Snape commands and Harry shuts his mouth because he doesn’t quite trust himself to be coherent. “I thought you understood,” Snape goes on, fighting the urge to shake the boy.

Harry looks up at Snape with confused eyes and is met by hard, exasperated features. “When I said you could stay, I did not mean merely for the summer.”
Green eyes fall into black orbs and for a moment, something is communicated between them; it needs no language, it has no barrier. And it is in this non-verbose, subtle look that Harry suddenly understands, truly understands the definition of home.


The End


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