Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Author's Chapter Notes:
A delve into Sirus and Snape's pasts (and of course more Harry toddler)
Reflections

When they arrived back in his bedchambers, Snape put Harry on the floor and then sat silently in his sturdy armchair. What had happened at headquarters had shaken him more than he cared to admit and he needed a few moments to think. His eyes were directed towards Harry, but they didn’t really see the toddler struggle with his travel robes and hat, pulling faces.

He pulled his shoulders back into the hard backrest and pressed his fingertips together in contemplation, irritated to find himself taking in a deep breath. He knew why Black riled him so much – but that didn’t make it any easier to admit to himself. He tried to remind himself that Black was insignificant; that he was merely a mangy mongrel, frustrated with his own uselessness. He tried to clear his mind of the morning’s events, listening to the rhythm of his heart to focus his attention. He managed to fade the beginning of Potter’s whines and the echoes of footsteps in the stone corridors outside his quarters, but, try as he might, he could not banish Black’s words from his ears.

Instead, his memories seemed to play with him. Scenes flashed rapidly through his head like muggle film clips. He saw himself in a potions lesson, receiving points whilst Black was given detention for his poor attempt at a sleeping draught after being typically under-prepared. He heard again the taunts thrown to Black in the courtyard from the Slytherin students who never forgave him for being placed in Gryffindor, and then remembered how they had turned on him, calling him “unworthy material” for their precious house. He saw Black, Potter and some of his other classmates upside down as he dangled in the air; Lily’s emerald eyes bright with anger. Next he was sat huddled in a corner of the Quidditch stands behind the Slytherin students. Jeers and catcalls deafened him as Potter caught the snitch – and as he looked up Black’s malicious black eyes met his from the other side of the pitch and he shook his perfect mop of hair errantly, dragging a finger across his throat. Snape gathered himself together enough to mirror the action, but by that time Black had turned to speak to the gaggle of friends that surrounded him – missing it.

That last memory had been near the time when things between them had escalated; right before he had been convinced by Black (foolishly) to go to the shrieking shack to find Lupin and his own near death. Afterwards, in Dumbledore’s office, Black had been pale and contrite – Snape had deduced that it was an act. As this scene passed before him, however, he took a second look at Black. His eyes did not quite have their usual venomous brightness and, as he stood in front of Dumbledore and McGonagall, Snape thought he could almost recollect a slight shake to his demeanour. In fact, Snape had found at the time that it had not been Black but Potter who he’d been most furious at. Pity was for the weak and he had cursed the raven-haired teenager for showing him it. He felt he might rather have died.

Snape followed the scene to its conclusion. After Sirius and McGonagall left, Dumbledore had spoken gravely to Severus. He had suggested that he and his ‘adversary’ had a reasonable amount in common. Both were subject to high expectations from their parents – expectations that neither of them could hope to reach, though both were above average intelligence; both had a malicious streak and knew curses well beyond their years. Snape had not been interested in what the headmaster had to say. In fact, in those days he had not listened to anything Dumbledore, or any of the other teachers, had said to him. Lucius Malfoy had already gotten to him.

This ‘incident’ had occurred exactly eight months before his seventeenth birthday, and therefore exactly eight months before he had taken the Dark Mark as the youngest member ever to join the Dark Lord’s circle. Snape did not allow his mind to wander over those memories, however. He never did. He fleetingly pondered Black’s comment about his experiences in Azkaban: His name came up more than once he had said. Well it would do – he had proved himself to the Dark Lord in a way that none of the others could ever hoped to have equalled. Perhaps luckily, that memory was hidden away in a pensieve deep within Dumbledore’s quarters. Since Dumbledore had siphoned it from his mind, hoping to provide him with respite from the tormenting echo that haunted him, he had only once asked to see it again – in the early morning after the night of the Triwizard Tournament when he had returned to Hogwarts, his body weak and his mind wavering.

Snape gave a last involuntary shudder before he managed to compose himself and return his mind to the present. As he did so, he could see that Harry was standing in front of his chair watching him curiously. He had a book in his hand but he didn’t hold it out immediately.

‘Nape?’ he said.

Snape looked wearily at the young boy. His gaze fell first onto the lightening-bolt scar and then the emerald eyes.

The two regarded each other silently in silence. For one strange moment Snape felt the beating of his heart quicken. There seemed to be comprehension in the face that looked back at him. It was as though the toddler had been privy to his thoughts.

‘Potter?’ he said. He waited in tense silence for several moments before the youngster responded.

‘Nape, sad?’ Harry ventured. Before he had looked into the batman’s eyes, he had been about to jump on him and demand a story, but something had stopped him. He had the weirdest feeling in his belly (and it wasn’t because he needed the potty). It was like a being in a dream. His mind was stretching out for something that he couldn’t quite get his small fingers around. Like when he tried to remember a word and wrinkled his face up really hard to concentrate on saying it, but he just couldn’t get it out. He stamped his foot slightly, frustrated. He put his finger to his head and stuck his tongue out, closing his eyes tightly in such a way that anyone else witnessing it would have found it comical. This stance carried on for a few moments before he had a moment of inspiration.

‘Daddy,’ he said suddenly. Somehow he knew that it had something to do with the scruffy-cheeky man who had been his daddy when he was a baby. And his mammy: ‘Mamma.’

The words jolted Snape like well-timed hexes. He experienced a feeling of foreboding quite foreign to him as he wondered exactly how much Potter remembered. His defences were already low and he prepared them for another attack.

Instead, however, Harry held his arms out to Snape. He thought vaguely that Snape might have been bad, as he had the look that Harry did when he had done something that he felt sorry for - like when he had kicked Nape in the oddy-house before. However, something instinctively told him that Nape was far sorrier about it than Harry had ever been (even when he had almost killed Cheep-Cheep).

Snape hesitated. He almost wished that Potter did remember that he hated him. He was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the child’s shows of affection towards him – especially as he knew it was the exact opposite of the teenage Potter’s feelings. It hadn’t bothered him at first because he enjoyed having the boy at a disadvantage, but the longer it had gone on the more uneasy he felt.

‘Nape …’ Harry said sweetly, his thin lips pulled into a shy smile, ‘Up!’

Sighing, Snape lifted the boy onto his lap. Before he knew what was happening, Harry put his arms round his neck and hugged him. Snape remained stiff, but allowed the toddler to hang there for a few moments, simply patting his back stiffly. When he eventually sat back, Harry looked solemnly up into his face.

‘Nape good,’ he said.

Snape felt an uncomfortable pull in his chest at these simple words. He coughed slightly.

‘Yes, well.’

Harry then swivelled round and snuggled his back into the warmth of Snape’s robes. He pried apart the cardboard pages of his favourite book about the talking pumpkin-head man. He loved the times he got to sit on the batman’s laps – which were not many.

‘Reed-dee?’ he suggested.

‘Very well,’ Snape said. He decided a distraction might be what he needed to gather himself together. He put his arms under Harry’s to hold the corners of the book. ‘This is a story of Mr Pumpkin Head …’ he began.

Within ten minutes Harry was asleep, thumb in mouth. Snape let him sit there for a while longer, his arms cradling him back slightly whilst he mentally prepared himself to put into action the plan the Order had agreed upon. For a while only Harry’s small shallow breaths punctuated the silence, but rather than serving as an annoying interruption, Snape actually found them quite calming – perhaps because they were so rhythmic.

Instead of waking the toddler for a bath, Snape decided that it wouldn’t harm him to simply put him to bed. He hadn’t napped much during that day and he was obviously worn out. He transported the toddler first of all to the changing table to put on his night-time nappy. Though Harry murmured slightly and wriggled as Snape fastened it on and pulled up his trousers, he didn’t wake fully up.

‘Night Potter,’ Snape said as he put him into his bed and secured the railings. He lifted a small arm and placed Cheep-Cheep under it, knowing that Harry would get grizzly in the night if he awoke without the stuffed bird. After tucking the covers around his young charge he left the room and went to his desk. He once again opened his secret draw and took out the raven’s quill. The time had come to drop Lucius a line.


When Dumbledore had adjourned the meeting he hadn’t left headquarters. Instead he had sought out Sirius, who he found in the dusty, gloomy attic, sitting under the skylight, stroking a crooning Buckbeak. Sirius’ legs were curled up underneath him on the shaggy blue rug and a glass of firewhiskey was sat next to him on a wooden chest of the Black’s heirlooms that he had banished out of sight. He looked calm. The orange glow of the setting sun shone warmly on his face and his black eyes had lost their agitation as they gazed up to the sky.

Sirius heard someone enter and saw Dumbledore’s reflection in the glass.

‘I like seeing the sky,’ he said, not turning round. ‘Almost as much as I like flying in it. One doesn’t get to see many sunsets in Azkaban.’

Dumbledore didn’t reply. Instead he reached down and stroked Buckbeak, looking gently into the deep, inquisitive eyes. He patted the proud feathered head and immediately the hippogriff detangled himself from Sirius’ grip and got to his feet, taking himself off to sit the opposite corner of the room. Sirius let him go.

Dumbledore then conjured a chair and another glass. He pointed his finger first at Sirius’ then his, filling them both to the brim.

‘Cheers!’ Sirius said, raising his glass to Dumbledore before tipping his head back and drinking deeply from it. Dumbledore nodded his head but kept his glass where it was. They then watched the sunset quietly together until the dusky pink rays melted into the inky night. At last, Dumbledore spoke.

‘The beauty of the sun, Sirius, is that each day the cycle begins again. If one thought deeply about it one might say that the sun’s very life starts with the daybreak and that at each night, as the sun sets, the day is forgotten and the promise dawns of a new beginning.’

Sirius faced Dumbledore wearily. ‘I don’t believe he’s changed, Albus,’ he said simply. He knew what his old headmaster was getting at. He expected him to give Snape a chance to “begin anew”. ‘Have you forgotten what he did? I have always known that he took the prophesy to Voldemort. I heard – as you must – everything he did to ingratiate himself with Voldemort. My cousin Bellatrix was most vocal in her insane, wicked ramblings, especially when she knew I was near. She knew all along of my innocence, and for years I don’t care to count she taunted me about James and Lily. When she did so, she couldn’t help but remind me who it was who helped Voldemort in their demise. Don’t forget that we were children at school together and she knew of the rivalry between me and Severus. The dementors let her go on because they could sense that it affected me more than their cloaks ever could.

He sighed, again drinking from his glass. ‘I’m not asking for your pity, Albus,’ he went on, ‘simply your understanding. You act as you think best, but to me Snape will always be a traitor. He was always a coward – from school to his days as a Death Eater - and as I look at him now that’s all I see.’

‘And yet,’ Dumbledore said quietly, ‘perhaps you have never really looked hard enough. I once told Severus that you and he were similar,’ Sirius snorted but Dumbledore held up a cloaked arm, ‘You were both raised in unhappy homes; you are both stubborn, you are both resilient and you are both fiercely loyal …’

‘Loyal?’ Sirius spat incredulously, ‘you compare my loyalty to that – snake’s?’

‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ Dumbledore said patiently. ‘You wear your heart very much on your sleeve, but Severus has shown great loyalty to the Order since he returned. Despite what you think of him, he risks his life every time that he stands before Voldemort, and that he does on our behalf.’

‘He says he does,’ Sirius said, ‘but how can you be sure? He spent many years perfecting his act to the outside world when he was a Death Eater, who is to say that it’s not an act that we see now?’

‘I know that not to be the case.’

Dumbledore’s face remained calm, but his voice was firmer than it had been till then. Sirius took the warning, but he could not leave the statement unchallenged.

‘You have said so before, but you have never said why you are so sure.’

‘What happened is between Severus and myself. I must respect his wishes to keep it so.’

‘Then you must respect mine too. I’m sorry Albus. I will accept that he is a member of the Order out of respect for you, but I will keep a close watch on him, especially where my Godson is concerned. It’s what James and Lily would have wanted.’

‘Is it?’ Dumbledore said sadly. ‘I’m not sure Sirius.’ He got to his feet. ‘However, your heart will lead you as it must; just be careful that you do not become bitter. Times are dark and we will need as much friendship as we can to guide us through them.’

Before he got to the door Dumbledore turned back. He could see that the bottomless eyes of the other man were bright with tears. It reminded Dumbledore of a day many years ago. It was the day before Sirius was due to go home for the summer holidays in his first year at Hogwarts. Dumbledore had found him alone, for once without his usual circle of friends, sitting by the river and watching the sunrise. The same vulnerable expression had coloured his face. Though Sirius had maintained his façade of bravery, pretending that he was simply out of bed to be disobedient, Dumbledore had sensed his fear at returning to Orion and Walburga. They gave him a terrible time at home, and despite acting like he didn’t care, Dumbledore knew that their constant cruelty had wounded the boy much more than he would ever care to tell anyone – except perhaps James.

Dumbledore paused for a moment, his eyes tracing the lines on the younger man’s face. He saw clearly the sadness and loneliness that surrounded his heart. ‘If I could take back the years you spent in Azkaban I would, Sirius,’ he said gently.

Sirius looked up and half-smiled, half-nodded at the elder man. ‘And I would let you with all my heart, Albus’ he said, before turning his eyes back up to the stars.

Chapter End Notes:
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