Lily's Lost Boys by chrmisha
Summary: SEQUEL to “The Last Will and Testament of Lily Evans” and “Lily’s Last Wish.” Harry is kidnapped and tortured, and Snape is left to try and pick up the pieces and prepare Harry for the final battle. This is the third story in the series.
Categories: Healer Snape, Teacher Snape > Trusted Mentor Snape, Parental Snape > Guardian Snape, Teacher Snape > Unofficially teaching Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Albus Severus, Draco, Hermione, Ron
Snape Flavour: Snape Comforts
Genres: Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort
Media Type: None
Tags: Injured!Harry, Kidnapped!Harry
Takes Place: 6th Year
Warnings: Rape, Torture, Violence
Challenges: None
Series: Lily's Boys - The Saga
Chapters: 34 Completed: No Word count: 88197 Read: 105401 Published: 17 Aug 2017 Updated: 26 Jun 2018
Chapter 34 by chrmisha

Severus occupied himself with breakfast and the day-old Daily Prophet as he waited for Harry to rouse for the day. After breaking down the night before, the boy had finally slept soundly. The nightmares that had plagued Harry since they’d arrived at the safe house had finally released their grip on the boy. Severus hoped the reprieve would last more than one night.

It was nearing ten in the morning by the time Harry wandered into the kitchen clad in loose tartan pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt that read “Weirder than the Weird Sisters.” He slid into the seat opposite Severus and yawned widely as he served himself breakfast. “You let me sleep in.”

“It appears that you needed it,” Severus replied.

“Anything interesting in there?” Harry asked.

“The normal tripe. Gringotts’ lower goblins are complaining about poor wages, Hogwarts’ herd of thestrals appears to be growing, the Ministry is battling an outbreak of burping sickness…”

At Severus’s hesitation, Harry paused in his eating. “What?”

Severus carefully folded the paper and placed it on the worktop behind him.

When he said nothing further, Harry prompted, “What is it?”

“The attacks on Muggles have increased in frequency.”

“Increased?” Harry set down his fork.

“It appears that the Dark Lord is attempting to force the Ministry’s hand by murdering unsuspecting Muggles.”

Harry cocked his head to the side. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Severus pushed to his feet. “Finish your breakfast. It’s time we worked on your Defense Against the Dark Arts skills.”

Harry opened his mouth, presumably to demand an explanation, but Severus raised his hand. “Meet me in the front room after you have finished eating.”


Harry pushed his sweat-soaked hair away from his face. His cheek burned from the stinging hex he’d failed to block and he was pretty sure one of his ribs was bruised, if not broken, from another hex he’d not been quick enough to avoid.

“If I could just use my wand…”

“As I recall,” Snape said smoothly, twirling his own wand between his fingers, “the last time you faced the Dark Lord you were wandless.”

Harry grimaced.

“Do you need a reminder as to why we are here? I thought last night would have been indication enough that your memory of recent events was intact.” Snape’s voice was cool and clipped. Harry would have thought it taunting if not for the slight tremor in Snape’s usually steady hands.

When Harry didn’t respond, Snape sighed. “Perhaps not.”

A moment later, Harry’s trousers, shirt, and socks had vanished, leaving him standing in only his pants. “What the hell?”

“Last chance,” Snape said, raising his wand.

And then Harry understood. Snape was going to banish his clothing to humiliate him if Harry didn’t respond. Grinding his teeth, Harry sucked in a deep breath, only to have his expanding lungs press against his injured ribs. Doubling over in pain, he felt the zing of a spell as sharp cool air rushed against his nether regions.

Unclothed and at a disadvantage, bent over as he was in agony, something dark and dangerous uncoiled inside of Harry and clawed its way up from the very depths of him. He was back in that cell, naked and chained, curled in on himself as much as he could be. The light was dim but he could make out the two guards standing over him, taunting him. One nudged his broken ribs while the other hurled insults.

In that moment, suspended between the present and the not-so-distant past, something snapped inside of him. A primal cry of rage echoed from Harry’s throat as he straightened, his open palms slamming together in a sharp retort. He barely heard the shout of surprise as his vision dimmed along the edges and diamond-bright light filled the room.

When Harry finally returned to his senses, it was to find the room in shambles and Snape sprawled on the floor.

“Professor, Professor!” Harry hurried across the room and squatted beside the unconscious wizard. Trembling, Harry shook Snape’s shoulder, trying to wake him. “Sir? Wake up. Wake up!”

Snape’s eyelids fluttered, and then finally opened. Groggily, he murmured, “Wha happ’nd?”

Harry sat back on his heels, a wave of relief washing over him. “I, er, my magic… it sort of I exploded, I think.”

Gingerly, Snape pushed himself into a sitting position, groaning as he did so.

“Are you injured?”

“’m not sure.” Snape coughed, turned his head to the side, and spat out a mouthful of blood.

“Professor!”

Snape waved Harry off and pushed himself to his feet. Harry stood as well.

“Tea, if you please,” Snape said, raising his wand and pointing it at his cheek, then his chest. A couple of healing spells later, Snape collapsed into a chair and let his head fall back. “Tea,” he repeated. “Then tell me what happened.”

Harry rushed to put on his kit and then hurriedly prepared a tea service. His nerves were on edge and his hands shook uncontrollably as he struggled through the adrenaline rush. Clumsily, he poured Snape and himself cups of tea, then stood, bent a bit awkwardly due to his injured ribs, as the man drank. When the Potions master had had his fill, he raised an eyebrow at Harry.

“Right,” Harry said, wrapping his arms protectively around his chest. As the adrenaline continued to wear off, the pain returned with a vengeance. “When you cast that spell…”

Snape raised a hand to interrupt Harry. “Why are you standing like that?”

“I think one of your spells broke a rib. Or two.”

Snape rolled his eyes. “You might have mentioned that first.” Snape raised his wand at Harry, this time incanting healing charms instead of hexes.

Harry straightened to his full height and took an experimental breath. There pain was gone. “That’s brilliant, sir. Thanks! I’d love to learn how to do that sometime. Healing, I mean.”

“And so you shall,” Snape said, slipping his wand back into his pocket. “I trust you are not hiding any other injuries from me?”

“I wasn’t hiding them,” Harry said. At Snape’s sardonic expression, Harry added, “I just hadn’t gotten around to telling you yet.” Harry ran a hand through his hair and gathered his thoughts.

“As I was saying, when you cast that spell and I was naked…” Harry cast his gaze around the room, unable to meet Snape’s eyes. He found a snagged thread in the hearthrug and focused his attention on that. “It’s like I was transported back in time. I was back in that cell. I felt trapped and helpless and at their mercy again.” He shook his head to rid himself of the unwelcome memory. “That’s what set me off.” Harry glanced up to meet Snape’s piercing gaze. “The next thing I knew, there was a burst of white light and my magic just exploded out of me.”

“How did you feel right before your magic was unleashed?” Snape asked.

“Angry,” Harry said, rubbing absently at the back of his neck. “Livid, actually,” he clarified. “It was like this blind rage overtook me.”

Snape stroked his chin, looking pensive. “It appears that the key to your wandless, wordless magic is when you feel irate, threatened, or both.”

“That sounds about right,” Harry grumbled.

“Hence, we need to find a way to channel your emotions into a more controlled, focused outburst of magic that you can direct at the enemy.”

Harry’s shoulders slumped at the seeming impossibility of that. Exhaustion began to bear down on him as the adrenaline seeped completely from his body. He added some sugar to his cup of tea and took a seat.

“It would also be beneficial for you to learn to call your magic to the surface without the need for such a volatile trigger.”

“How?” Harry asked.

“That,” Snape said, raising his cup of tea and gesturing at Harry with it, “is the question.”


“You need to focus!” Severus bellowed, smearing a trickle of blood across his forehead as he wiped the weeping wound with the back of his hand.

“I’m trying,” Harry snapped.

“You are supposed to be targeting the fabric dummy. Not. Me.” Severus raised his wand to his forehead and sealed the shallow wound with exasperation.

“I know.” Harry was bent at the waist, his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. “But that stupid thing is just a stack of transfigured sofa cushions.”

Severus cursed in frustration. Why could nothing ever be easy when it came to the boy? “Do you need me to give it red, glowing eyes and animate it as well?”

Harry pushed his glasses up higher on his face. “It won’t help. I just can’t generate any emotion toward an inanimate object.”

Something sparked in Severus’s memory: a bit of ancient magical theory. He stepped toward Harry and traced Harry’s lightning bolt scar with his index finger. “Dark seeks dark,” he murmured thoughtfully before stepping back.

“What?” Harry asked, rubbing his scar where Snape had touched it.

“Dark seeks dark,” Severus repeated. “Your magic is pure, but the Dark Lord left his magical signature on you when he tried to kill you.” Severus began to pace back and forth in thought. “When you call forth magic from a place of deep, troubling emotions--such as anger or fear--traces of dark magic are called forth, if they exist within you.”

Thoughts and possibilities began to swirl in Severus’s mind, driving him onward. “If I am correct, those traces of dark magic--which the Dark Lord inadvertently left behind--are drawn to the dark magic that resides within me.” Severus’s gaze swung to meet Harry’s with intensity.

At Harry’s confused expression, Severus pulled back his left sleeve to reveal the place where the dark mark had once resided on the underside of his forearm before Harry had dismantled it and its connection to the Dark Lord.

“But it doesn’t work anymore,” Harry protested. “The snake is on our side now, and the skull is just a skull.”

“That is true,” Severus agreed, “but I, too, still have traces of dark magic within me from when I was marked.”

Harry frowned. “All right, but what does that mean for us?”

“It means that your magic will be unable to target an inanimate object when there is a more immediate dark target in the vicinity.” Severus swung his wand in a large arc, which had the effect of untransfiguring the sofa cushions and returning them to their rightful places. He turned his calculating gaze toward Harry. “It also means that we may have found the answer to defeating the Dark Lord.”


“Five minutes to midnight,” Harry said, narrow strips of folded parchment held tightly in his fist.

Snape sipped his wine and made a noise of agreement.

“How often has this worked for you in the past?” Harry inquired.

“That remains to be seen,” Snape murmured.

“Oh come on, you had to have wished for more immediate things at some point in your life,” Harry said.

Snape smirked and took another sip of his wine.

Harry harrumphed and blew a wayward lock of hair out of his eyes. “Well, it must have worked somewhat. I can’t see you continuing to do this if it was a total lark,” Harry muttered, more to himself than to Snape.

Snape merely raised an eyebrow.

Harry stared morosely into the fire. “Three minutes,” he announced after checking his watch once again.

Harry unfolded his slips of paper, reread his five wishes, then refolded them.

“Two minutes.”

Snape set down his wine glass and rose from the chair. He tore two strips off the parchment Harry had used and quickly wrote a single sentence on each.

Harry sighed. He suppressed the urge to ask Snape, yet again, what the tight-lipped wizard had wished for--either in the past, or that very evening. Snape, it seemed, was not one to share his secrets.

“One minute.”

“On the count of three, then,” Snape said, turning to face the roaring fire. “One. Two. Three!”

Together, they tossed their paper wishes into the blaze just as the old-fashioned grandfather clock began chiming twelve bells. They watched the bits of parchment shrivel and turn dark around the edges before they went up in flames, a twisting column of smoke and ash spiraling toward the chimney.

“So, according to legend, the Gods will receive our wishes on the rising smoke and grant them if they deem us worthy.”

Snape nodded and returned to his seat, picking up his wine glass once more.

“How do the Gods judge our worthiness?” Harry asked around a yawn.

“The usual rubbish,” Snape replied. “Obey your parents, use your magic for good, not evil.”

“Like Father Christmas,” Harry said, taking his seat as well.

Snape made a noncommittal sound before draining his glass of wine. “Your mother loved the tradition,” Snape said softly. “I’ve carried it on in her honor.”

“Oh,” Harry breathed. Snape rarely spoke of Lily. When he did, Harry felt as if he’d received a rare and precious gift, one he would cherish for the rest of his life.

“I wish I could remember her,” Harry whispered as he stared morosely into the fire. He envisioned Hogwarts-aged versions of his mother and Snape, sitting together by one of the fires in the Great Hall on New Year’s Eve, throwing their paper wishes into the flames together in hopes of them coming true in the New Year. A familiar yearning--one he associated with the mother he couldn’t remember--swelled inside of him and made his chest feel tight.

Harry glanced toward Snape. “Thanks,” he squeezed out past the knot in his throat. “For passing the tradition on to me.”

Snape nodded and pushed to his feet. “Time for bed,” he said, offering his hand to Harry.

Harry took it and let the older man pull him to his feet. It was some comfort to know that he could be with someone who had known his mother. Perhaps Snape would tell him more about her someday. In the meantime, he’d fall asleep content knowing that her New Year’s Eve Wish Making tradition was now being celebrated and carried on by her only son.

To be continued...


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