Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Finite Incantatem

"Feeling better, now?" a voice at Harry's elbow asked.

The world still looked bleary when Harry opened his eyes, but this time, he knew enough to reach for his glasses. Before he could find them, however, a pair of hands was gently settling them atop his nose.

He felt stiff and sore, and his hip was throbbing, inside and out, but that only stood to reason, considering. At least he was through with needles; that had to be worth something. "Yeah, better," Harry finally answered, glancing up.

"Have some lemonade."

For some reason, that sounded really, really good. Harry quaffed the glassful handed to him, thinking that maybe all he'd really been was thirsty, because the tangy citrus drink seemed to wipe the pain clean out of him. Wiping his lips on a pyjama sleeve, he looked around, recognizing the ward as one at St. Mungo's. No way would Frimley Park have not a single medical machine in evidence.

Snape went and closed the door, then warded it, before turning back to ask, "Do you know who I am?"

"Yeah," Harry answered, wondering why he'd ask. Glancing around, he saw that his bed was the only one occupied. Even so, he didn't feel completely comfortable answering too openly. "You gave me a Troll-minus on my test, along with some interesting comments."

Snape gave him a hard look, then resumed his place in a chair at the side of the bed. He turned it to face Harry, before asking, "So you're not still feeling confused? About anything?"

"Why would I be confused?"

"Well," Snape drew out the syllable, seeming with enjoyment, "you seemed to take my appearance a little too much for granted, for a while." He smiled at the look of shock on Harry's face. "Actually, it was a bit as though you'd taken a Babbling Beverage. Very enlightening. I gained the clear impression that you felt at perfect liberty to say anything you liked to Remus Lupin."

Harry was not the slightest bit amused. "You aren't serious?" Hmm, seemed like he was. "What did I say?"

Snape shrugged, though the impression was belied by the way his shoulders shook with repressed laughter. "Most of it was nonsensical. You couldn't seem to count to three with any accuracy, for instance."

"That's not true!"

"I assure you, it quite is. You also reminisced over tutoring sessions and chocolate, and asked me if it hurt to transform to a werewolf."

Harry felt himself going red in the face.

"Don't," Snape said, his voice more soothing. "They warned me at Frimley Park that it's entirely normal to speak rather freely when one emerges from the anaesthetic potions."

"But I can't remember waking up, let alone talking, and anyway, I have wondered, but I wouldn't ever ask Remus... that."

"Apparently, you would," Snape pointed out, his lips beginning to twitch again. "And your lack of recall is also perfectly normal. I wouldn't fret over it, Harry."

"It seems like I just had a little nap," Harry murmured, part of him still wondering if Snape was having him on. "It was just this morning when we left Hogwarts, wasn't it?"

"Today is the 26th," Snape insisted. "If you don't believe me, ask the mediwitch when she comes in. Or," he suggested sardonically, "would you like to see the Daily Prophet?"

Harry shuddered. Sure, the Prophet had finally deigned to report Voldemort's return, but as far as he was concerned, it was still a disgraceful rag of a newspaper. "Um... no. I don't think so."

Still embarrassed, Harry did his level best to let the matter go, though he did wonder what else he might have said. Had he talked about Snape, or revealed something that might get Ron and Hermione and him expelled, such as their own dabbling into Polyjuice Potion? Had he admitted that he'd saved Sirius from the Dementors, explained Hermione's time turner?

It was hard to imagine Snape being so friendly if he'd talked about any of those things, though, so Harry decided not to worry about it. "This isn't Frimley Park," he pointed out. "So what happened?"

"You ran a tremendous fever for hours, and didn't regain consciousness when you should have," Snape explained, his brow wrinkling with remembered concern. "Those fools wanted to administer more Muggle medicine through that tube they shoved in your arm, as if they didn't realise that their foul, misbrewed potions were responsible for your condition in the first place!"

"It's all right," Harry said, thinking it strange that he should be the one to do the comforting.

"Perhaps it is now," Snape admitted, his hands still clenching one another. "But you lay either senseless or rambling for almost four days. And too, the healers here recognised you."

Harry's nostrils flared with irritation. "That could be a problem."

"Yes. I should have Apparated you to a safe place, then summoned a healer from the Order. But I feared there wasn't time. I'd never seen a fever as high as that, nor one even close. I... I panicked."

"Oh," Harry answered in a small voice, rather shocked. "Um, well that's understandable. I must have been in a bad way."

"Quite."

"So, what did you tell them?"

"You went driving a car and crashed it, injuring your hip. While you were out senseless, emergency doctors dosed you; you were obviously having a reaction to the inappropriate treatment."

"They bought that?" Harry exclaimed. That book had boasted pictures of the marks left by a bone marrow extraction: tiny slashes, aligned in neatly spaced parallel rows. Nothing like the injuries that would result from a car crash. "Didn't they even look at me?"

Snape couldn't meet his gaze. "They...ah, I didn't let them use any spells to scan you, nothing that might detect your missing marrow. I insisted on potions only, ones that would clear the tainted substances left over from your surgery." At Harry's suspicious look, he added, "I conjured them into your stomach myself. At any rate, there's no need to fear that anyone here will realise the full truth."

"Yeah," Harry pressed, "but didn't any of them look at me?"

"Perhaps you should do so," Snape weakly replied, and turned away.

Harry did, peeling back the covers and peeking beneath the waistband of his pyjamas. Ugh, ick. His hip area looked lacerated, like the surface had been scrubbed away and the flesh sliced open the way Aunt Petunia had taught him to score a roast.

"Oh," he finally said, a little surprised it didn't hurt. "You... er, you spelled this onto me?"

"It was necessary," Snape stiffly insisted, arms crossed so that the threadbare elbows of Remus' coat showed. "But I do apologise for the intrusion."

"Um... well, good thinking, I guess," Harry replied, trying to laugh it off, though he did find that a bit difficult. He couldn't help but wonder if Snape had had to bare his hip in order to conjure the injury. Nah, probably not, he decided, but he certainly wasn't going to ask. Time for a new topic. "How's Aunt Petunia? If I was out that long, she must have had her own operation by now?"

Again, Snape seemed to have great difficulty meeting his eyes.

"Well?" Harry prompted, worrying his lip with his teeth as Snape still said nothing. "I can tell there's been some problem. She rejected it, like they talked to me about? Is that it?"

"No, Harry," Snape quietly told him, then reaching over, took both his hands in his. "I am sorry, but there is no easy way to tell you this. Your aunt has died."

Harry stared at the wall in front of him without really seeing it. "Oh. Um, I guess it's pretty awful that my first thought is about the wards."

"Practical, I would say," Snape assured him, those hands squeezing his lightly.

"No, it's Slytherin," Harry decided, but he didn't sneer the word. He wondered what sort of person he'd be by now if he hadn't argued with the Sorting Hat. He sat up in the bed, again feeling that stymied need to do something, but there was nothing to be done. "I should be upset. Some, at least. I mean, especially considering."

Snape hesitated, then moved one hand to the back of Harry's neck and began to rub the knots there in slow circles. His touch was tentative at first, but when the tension in the boy's frame began to wane, he increased the pressure, his fingers expertly seeking out the healing loci where certain potions were best applied.

"Especially considering what?" he softly asked.

Harry knew he was being managed, perhaps even manoeuvred, but it felt so good to be taken care of that he honestly couldn't bring himself to mind. Not even about the fact that it was Snape comforting him; Harry knew that all he had to do to make it stop was say a single word. He didn't want it to stop.

"Well, you know," he answered, relaxation creeping all across him as those fingers continued to massage the vertebrae in his neck, though the subject was hardly comfortable. "It wouldn't have happened if not for me."

"But it would have, Harry," Snape insisted, placing a finger under Harry's chin until the boy looked at him. "It did. This isn't your fault. You saw the state she was in."

"I can't --" Talk about it, he had been going to say, but his teacher seemed to understand.

"All right," Snape easily agreed. "I'll inform the healers that you're awake and lucid. I imagine they'll make short work of your outward injuries, though as we can't mention your operation, you'll have to rely on my potions to help with the pain inside."

"There's no pain inside," Harry protested, though in a certain sense, that wasn't true.

"There will be, once the Helasbreath elixir I put in your lemonade wears off."

Harry nodded, weary. Not so very long ago, the idea that Snape had slipped him something would have been positively  gruesome. Now, he just couldn't bring himself to be concerned about it. Ron would say he was a nutter, but then again, Ron didn't know Snape.

And Harry barely knew him, but he did know enough. "Thank you," he said, laying back down. "For all of it, staying with me through the operation, being here with me, now. For the potion, for..." He didn't know what else to say.

"You're very careful to thank people, aren't you?" Snape observed, rising to his feet and brushing lint from Remus' wool trousers. "You don't need to thank me, Harry."

Then, as if ill at ease with what he had just said, he briskly announced, "I'll summon someone to see to you. In the meantime, if you feel up to it, you might catch up on some schoolwork."

Following his glance, Harry noticed his books piled on the night table. He hardly felt like studying, but maybe it would take his mind off everything else. As Snape departed, Harry pulled Transfigurations: Sixth Year Theory and Cases from the pile and began to read.

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"One would think you hadn't eaten in four days," Snape lightly commented when Harry polished off his second dinner tray.

"Yeah, well I haven't," Harry returned, then wondered at his teacher's smirk. "Have I?"

"I couldn't let you starve, could I?"

"Once you would have," Harry mused, then realised that wasn't true. Even first year, Snape had been looking out for him, protecting him when Quirrell hexed his broom, for instance. He'd been merciless with criticism, and had acted for all the world as though he'd like nothing better than to see Harry dead, but when it came right down to it, they'd been on the same side, even way back then. "So you spelled something into my stomach?" he reasoned.

"Pumpkin juice," Snape quipped, then quirked a grin at Harry's expression. "No, of course not. It was a nutritive potion, very light, but enough to keep you alive indefinitely." He shrugged. "No one knew how long it would be before you regained consciousness."

"Well, I'm fine now," Harry announced, swinging his legs over the side of the bed to stand up. Hmm, fine might be a slight overstatement; he was a tad unsteady on his feet. However, it was nothing that he couldn't handle. "All I need is a phone. I don't suppose St. Mungo's has one?"

"A... phone," Snape echoed, nonplussed.

"Yeah, to call Uncle Vernon," Harry explained, and when Snape still looked blank, exclaimed, "Could be wizards do things differently, I don't know. But I have to find out about the funeral. Maybe we should just make our way back to Privet Drive."

"I didn't think you would care to go to any funeral," Snape cautiously offered.

"Well, you thought wrong," Harry retorted, feeling defensive, miserable, and vulnerable all at once. All in all, it was a dreadful combination. "It's the decent thing to do, and before you start going off about how Gryffindor loyalty is utter rot, think about our objective here. I'm not likely to get on Dudley's good side after this, but he certainly won't agree to any warding if I skive off his mother's funeral. Though..." Another thought occurred to him. "When did she pass on, anyway? I suppose the funeral might have come and gone while I was out of it."

"She died the day before yesterday," Snape offered.

"So, I wouldn't have missed it, not yet."

"Likely not. Though we can still excuse any absence by saying that you were too ill to come."

"No."

"Harry--"

"No."

"All right," Snape acquiesced. "I will endeavour to locate a phone, since I do not recommend you return to Privet Drive without talking to your family, first. Your uncle is too volatile."

Harry didn't know how his professor had managed, but the man was back in a few minutes, proffering a slim, silver mobile. Harry had never used one. It took him some time to realise that there was never going to be a dialling tone, and a little longer to figure out that he had to turn it on.

After he heard another phone ringing, he whispered over to Snape, "Would you mind?" and more or less waved him from the room. Snape didn't leave, although he did step away, toward the warded doors.

Harry took a deep breath and braced himself to weather Uncle Vernon's wrath, but it was Dudley who picked up the receiver.

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 Dudley, who'd obviously been blubbering, Harry thought. He could barely make his cousin out.

"Oh, H-- Harry," he sobbed. "It's awful, awful. D-- Did you hear, did they tell you?"

"Yeah, they told me," Harry softly replied. "I'm sorry, Dudley. I know it doesn't help, but I'm really, really sorry."

"D-- Dad thinks you did it on pur-- pur-- purpose!" Dudley said, his tone somewhere between a screech and a moan. "Said you can't come home, Harry. Ev-- Ev-- Ever!"

Some gulping noises ensued, and then it seemed that Dudley had managed to get himself more in hand.

Harry had more or less assumed that Vernon would refuse to take him again; that not just the wards, but his only home outside of Hogwarts was well and truly lost. It surprised him a bit that Dudley sounded so regretful, but Harry chalked that up to general emotional devastation. It occurred to him that if you had to have your mother die, maybe it wasn't so bad having it happen when you were only one year old, and couldn't understand the loss.

"Can you tell me when the funeral is?" Harry asked. "And where?"

"Ooooh, you'd better not come, Harry," Dudley urged, his voice insistent. "I mean it. Dad's going to kill you."

"Well, you know he always says things like that," Harry murmured. "To me, at least."

"Yeah. I used to think it was funny. I'm sorry about that. But now..." Dudley gulped again, and began talking quickly, as though he'd heard someone coming. "You haven't seen him. He's got this look in his eyes. It's scary, Harry. Don't come, all right? Don't come."

"Dudley--"

"I've got to go," his cousin yelped. "Don't call again! But... well, you can write me. I'd like that, if you didn't use an owl. Bye!"

The line went dead. Harry stared at the phone for a while before remembering to turn it off. When Snape came back over, Harry said, "I don't think Dudley hates me," but his voice sounded dead. "That won't be enough to keep my mother's sacrifice active, will it? I mean, if Uncle Vernon won't have me in his house, there's no place to ward."

"I think we should return to Hogwarts," Snape announced. "The sooner, the better. I can see to anything else you need as you recover."

"No," Harry said again, trying to figure out why the idea filled him with such distress. "Don't you see? I... I don't know if my parents even had a funeral. I can't just go off and act like nothing's happened. I can't pretend that it's nothing to do with me that Aunt Petunia died!"

When Snape still looked reluctant, Harry pressed, "We'll stand at the back, all right? We'll just sort of lurk... out of sight. But I have to go, Professor. I just have to."

"When and where?" Snape sighed, taking the phone and slipping it into Remus' vest pocket.

"Dudley didn't say." Harry didn't think his cousin would say, either, even if he rang back. "Get me some papers from Surrey, then. There'll be an announcement."

Snape stared.

"Don't want to help?" Harry sniped, worried he'd miss it after all if Snape remained so intractable. "Fine. I'll wander around Muggle London looking for Surrey papers, myself. I'll yell if I see Voldemort, how does that sound?"

"Stop being so childish. I can't hunt up your heart's desire either, not unless I leave you alone here, which I will not do."

"Conjure them!"

"Your faith in my powers notwithstanding, Potter, I can't."

Harry gaped. "You can't?"

"It is heartening to see you so shocked at the notion that I can't do everything," Snape sneered, his disdain for the whole topic clearly evident even in Remus' tones. "But no, I can't."

"Then get someone from the Order to go collect them!" Harry shouted. "Now!"

"I don't much care for your tone, Potter!"

Harry wasn't about to give an inch. "I don't care at all for yours!"

"This is descending to something rather infantile," Snape drawled, contempt lacing every word. He glared at Harry, then turned his back. "Stay here, do not move. And control your hysteria. I will get you to this funeral, much good will it do you."

Harry flopped back into bed and told himself that when all this was over, he didn't care if he never saw Severus Snape again.

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The day was cold and wintry, storm clouds brewing in the south, the cemetery cast in long afternoon shadows. Harry shuddered as he stood in the distance, watching the burial progress. Wind whistled in his ears so that he couldn't make out the words of the hymn the mourners were singing, but that was all right. He just wanted to watch, and know that he was brave enough to bear the sight.

They'd ended up missing the funeral proper. Snape had deemed the parish church too small to afford any hiding place, and had caustically asked Harry if what he really wanted was to cause a horrid scene at an event which should appear, to all intents and purposes, sacred. He hadn't been amused when Harry had suggested using an invisibility cloak, but then again, Harry hadn't been joking. If the charmed cloak hadn't been back in his trunk at Hogwarts, he'd have used it. Too bad an Accio charm wouldn't work on something all the way in Scotland. He wondered if it might, for someone like Albus Dumbledore.

Or Voldemort.

The burial service ended, Harry watching from behind a tree as one by one the mourners wandered across the rolling lawn to cars parked a short distance away. Mrs Figg was among them, and a few other people he recognised from the neighbourhood. Uncle Vernon and Dudley were the last to leave. Father and son, mourning together, shaking slightly, the older man's arm encircling the boy's shoulders. Harry wished he could walk over to them, and say again that he was sorry, that he hadn't known it would come to this, that he'd only wanted to help.

He knew better than to make that speech, but standing there behind the tree, clutching Remus' coat around himself, he mouthed the words, and told himself that would have to be enough.

Snape was eyeing him. "Are you all right?"

No, I'm not all right. She's dead, dead. And it's my fault. And my hip hurts something fierce, your damned Helasbreath elixir is lousy! It doesn't even work anymore! And she might not have loved me, but she did raise me, and I owe her something, don't I, for taking me, letting me stay even after  the Dementors attacked Dudley to get to me? And I can't even attend her funeral except by skulking around! No, I'm not all right!

"Yeah, fine," Harry answered. He peered out into the distance and saw that the Dursleys had left. "I want to go up and see the grave."

Snape frowned, but answered that he'd felt no darkness there save that of grief.

"You..." Harry gulped. "Wait here, then. I want to be alone."

"I will not be far," Snape assured him, shivering a bit. Harry didn't think it was from fear.

"Here, take your coat back," he offered, starting to shrug out of it.

Snape shook his head. "It is Remus' coat and he would rather you have it, if you are cold."

"No, that's all right--"

"I would rather you have it, as well," Snape announced. "Go."

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Harry found the grave restful, and couldn't help but think that was rather wrong of him. He knelt before the gaping hole, looking at the mound of freshly turned earth beside it, and tried to think of what to say to Aunt Petunia.

The cemetery stopped being restful then, and his voice hurt when he spoke.

"You were supposed to love me," he started, trying to think his way through the tangled emotions choking him. "I was just a baby, and it wasn't my fault I got left on your doorstep. It wasn't my fault I wasn't a Muggle! Did you know how much I tried to stop my magic, to be something you could love? But you were supposed to love me no matter what, you were!" He paused, smearing a palm across wet cheeks. "I guess you knew I didn't love you, either. I guess it doesn't matter, now, but I didn't hate you... well, not the way you hated me. I didn't want it all to end like this, leaving Dudley without his mother--"

A sob climbed up from his belly, because he knew what it was like to wish for a mother who wasn't there.

The talking wasn't helping, Harry decided. It was just making him more upset. He knelt a while longer in silence, hugging Remus' coat to himself. It was more than warm, now; it was comforting.

Twilight began to paint the graveyard grey.

Harry stood up, realizing that Snape must be freezing, must think that Harry was positively daft to kneel here for so long, and all over a woman who'd never meant much to him while she was alive.

"You!" a voice came charging over the lawn as he rose to his feet. "How dare you! Come to laugh, to desecrate her grave?"

Before Harry could so much as run, Vernon had felled him with a vicious swipe across the face. Harry flew several feet before crashing to the ground, stars spinning behind his eyes, familiar rage sweeping him, rage that required an outlet and would find it.

But nothing exploded from his soul; no accidental magic stretched forth to save him. Vernon was stomping towards him, fury  consuming his features, his fat jowls shaking with it. And Harry was thinking the hell with the Decree, I'm not going take this, not this time. Reaching into his jeans pocket, Harry brandished his wand with confidence as he roared, "Petrificus Totalus!"

But nothing happened, absolutely nothing. Vernon Dursley didn't even quail in fear. He just kept coming, screaming about Aunt Petunia and Harry and unmitigated gall.

"Petrificus Totalus!" Harry shouted again, pulling all his powers into the hex, the wand an extension of his furiously pointed hand. An impotent extension; once again, no force flowed through him to erupt from the wand. "Immobulis!" he tried. "Impedimenta Forneo! Serpentsortia! Avunculare Evanesco!" 

Vernon was nearly on him when Harry began scrambling backwards, flailing in his panic. "Exilio Fumare!"

And then magic exploded around him, a shower of liquid greenish sparks that boiled the air as a low boom of thunder shook the ground beneath his feet. Vernon fell face-forward with a deafening thud, and Dudley ran up from behind to scream at Harry, "What did you do? All we wanted was another minute here beside my mum! I told you not to come, I told you!"

Harry somehow swayed to his knees, then looked down at his wand, which still lay cold and useless in his hand. It wasn't his magic that had stopped Vernon, that much was clear.

Snape shimmered into view, just steps away, and Harry stared, and weakly told his cousin, "It wasn't me, it wasn't mine, I didn't do--"

Then Snape started to say something, but it was just a rush of noise to Harry. He fainted dead away, collapsing to the grass with his head at the Potions Master's feet.

Chapter End Notes:

Coming Soon in A Year Like None Other:

Chapter Fourteen: Remus

~

Comments most appreciated,

Aspen in the Sunlight


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