Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

The Death Eater

Lucius forced a feral smile to his lips. "Of course I am. Now end the spell, and I'll show you just how proud I truly feel."

Harry felt an odd relief at the hatred blazing in Lucius's eyes. The animosity was welcome after days of playing their uneasy game. Seeing fury in Lucius Malfoy's face made him feel just a bit like Harry Potter again.

He watched Malfoy painfully make his way across the room, his wand clutched convulsively in a trembling hand, knuckles white from the strength of his grip. From what Harry had read in Kinship and Related Curses, the blood-boiling hex caused horrible, yet not entirely debilitating pain. It peaked and receded in waves, and one could almost function normally in its milder phases.

From the way the man was moving, this had to be one of those kinder moments. He was relieved that Lucius was not in total agony. Just enough to send shudders wracking up and down the gaunt body, to force Lucius's jaw into a tight clench, but not enough to bring tears to the gray eyes. He wanted to hurt Malfoy, but not brutally, not after M- not after those things he'd done. He didn't think he could bear to do that.

"Did you hear what I said?" Lucius seethed. "The curse. End it. Now!"

"But Mr. Malfoy," Harry said innocently, uncertain just how far he should push this; he wanted an Unforgivable, but certainly not a killing curse. "You wanted me to show you what a good teacher you are." The words brought back the horrific lessons of the previous day, and bile rose in his throat. Spiteful fury boiled within him, taking control of his mouth. "And I just wanted to show you how far the lesson has sunk in! Maybe I'll lift it if you ask nice -"

"STUPEFY!"

* * *

Hooded figures swarmed the clearing. He watched the curses streak from their wands with a sense of satisfaction, the slaughter sending a cold rush of power through his veins.

His eyes strayed to his own prey, the undersized mudblood who goggled at him with shock born of unreasoning terror.

He could see the eyes, frightened eyes watching him, and a smile curled across his lips. A high, thin voice: "Avada Ke-"

* * *

"Ennervate."

Harry's eyes slid open to the purple sky of early morning. Cool air caressed the heated flesh of his scar where it burned furiously. His head whirled, the killing curse from his dream ringing in his mind

He was tempted to feel alarmed that he'd had his first vision in months, but he was distracted from his troubles by Lucius Malfoy's jagged gasps for breath, splitting the tranquil silence of the manor gardens.

"You must be quite the… powerful young wizard," Lucius noted in a wavering voice. He was hunched on the grass by Harry's side, his gray eyes unfocused and slightly crazed. "Most curses end once the caster loses consciousness. Not yours, apparently!"

Harry pushed himself upright, his hand flying automatically to his forehead to rub his scar.

"Septimus, please," Lucius whispered brokenly, still kneeling on the grass even after Harry struggled to his feet, staring up with haunted eyes made dimmer by the darkness of the morning. "Remove the hex."

They were next to the pond, where they spent yesterday shooting down ducks. Killing M-

He choked on the thought, something ugly welling up within him.

"Take it off. Please, Septimus. Please!" To Harry's shock, Malfoy's eyes filled with tears. His plea was issued in a jagged, broken voice. "It hurts, Septimus. I can't bear it. You don't know how much it hurts!"

There was something in Malfoy's eyes, something calculating and restrained, that warned Harry the man was exaggerating his distress, hoping to play upon some weakness he perceived in his newest foe. Nevertheless, a sick feeling twisted in Harry's gut at the sight and sound of someone begging him for mercy. It was hard to swallow around the sudden knot in his throat. He'd never intended to take it this far. He'd just wanted to provoke Malfoy, and maybe make him hurt a bit for… for those horrible things yesterday. But... This was more of that. More of that ugliness, that horrid darkness in himself.

I'm no better than he is… Harry thought, nauseated.

With a sharp wave of his wand, he cancelled the curse. He experienced an internal sensation not unlike a sudden release of some taut chord as the spell dissolved.

The other sensation faded, to be replaced by an odd feeling kindling to life within him… a creeping warmth in his stomach as though he'd just downed a cup of hot chocolate. The foreign heat flooded Harry's chest.

Get up, Malfoy, he thought, watching a faint, dark smile creep across the Death Eater's lips when he realized his foe had just made the fatal mistake of setting him at liberty. Harry couldn't bring himself to be afraid.

Large, frightened eyes flashed through his mind.

He'd killed Minky. However Lucius had manipulated the situation, he couldn’t avenge her by hurting Malfoy. Harry rubbed his forehead furiously; it burned. He just needed- he needed to stop thinking about it. About what he'd done. About those terrified, tearful eyes…

Malfoy would curse him, Snape would kick Malfoy out of the house, and Harry would know he'd done at least one thing right in this past year. He'd killed Sirius, he'd killed Minky, he'd nearly killed his friends… But this would only hurt him. He could live with this. He could do something to redeem himself with this.

Malfoy raised his smug expression to Harry's, the dark look in his eyes promising terrible revenge. Harry took several steps back in a perfunctory show of fear. The only emotions he felt, though, were a vague curiosity and a strange sense of anticipation.

His scar burned.

He rubbed his stomach, glancing first at Malfoy, then at himself. The warmth in his stomach was growing more noticeable. He hadn't seen Malfoy cast a spell… This couldn't be a hex. The man was only now rising to his feet, only now retrieving his wand, shaking his head of blond hair furiously, as though ridding himself of the last of the spell.

Then it happened. A furnace flared to vibrant life within Harry's chest, sending liquid heat through his veins.

What in the hell? Harry gritted his jaw, fighting the sensation, trying to shake it off. Malfoy… watch Malfoy… Concentrate on Malfoy…

However much he tried to fight the sensation, fire welled up inside him, like an oven in his chest.

He was unaware of just when it spiked, the heat lancing through his veins and boiling into molten lava; he was not aware of collapsing to the ground as talons of fire raked through his skin.

Harry only came to himself, hands clenched into fists so tight his arms throbbed. He was rubbing his arms and legs against the cold dew on the grass, hoping to seep in more of the dampness, as though it could dilute this terrible heat. But it was inside. He couldn't get rid of it; it was relentless.

Fire. Fire fire fire.

Those eyes.

Why was he still thinking of Minky's eyes? Why could he still feel that spot on his forehead burning? He felt like he was melting with this pain, yet those eyes, those eyes…

He should be dying from this heat. But he wasn't dying, he was burning…

"Well, well. Would you look at that…”

He realized he'd nearly forgotten Lucius when the dry voice reached Harry amidst his private inferno. Struggling to regain a hold of himself, Harry bit hard on his lips and forced himself to look at the older wizard

Funny, how meeting Malfoy's ruthless, gray eyes suddenly told him exactly what was happening inside his body. Infervesco Sanguis. He was suffering from the blood boiling curse.

But… how? How had this happened? He hadn't seen Malfoy do anything!

Hmmm… He noted in a detached way that it really was quite painful; not quite as bad as the Cruciatus, but at least a few steps above a good dose of Skele-Gro. Some vague part of his mind admired Malfoy for managing to knock him out and hustle his unconscious form outside, when the man had been feeling this; Harry himself would be hard-pressed to even stand right now.

"I don't think you realize the magnitude of your error, Septimus," Lucius noted, smiling with vicious amusement down at Harry.

Harry tried to raise his head. It hurt… He let it slump.

"The… curse?" he managed to say.

Malfoy's laugh was cold and malicious. "No, not the curse itself. Your execution was perfect. Quite an effective means of crippling an opponent, a blood-boiling curse." His eyes glinted ruthlessly. "Wouldn't you agree?"

Oh, he'd agree, all right. His body was melting with hot agony. He felt like he'd died and gone to hell.

Well… it would certainly explain why Malfoy was still with him.

"Your mistake was declaring open enmity for me- after I'd only been trying to help you, dear boy- and then aborting your attack," Lucius crooned, drawing closer to where Harry lay gasping for breath on the lawn. "You ended it simply because I begged you... Or perhaps because of my pretty sheen of tears? A true Dark Wizard knows mercy for the virtue of the witless and the sentimental. You will find I am neither."

Harry's disillusioned glasses had tumbled off at some point. Malfoy appeared little more than a malevolent blur of blond hair and pale skin; he could just make out the man's gleaming white teeth, bared in a grin.

"Now, let's see… What have I neglected in your curriculum? Why has your curse rebounded back upon you?" Lucius asked lazily.

Harry looked up at him blankly. It was no longer a simple matter of provoking Malfoy. This… whatever it was… had changed the terms of their confrontation.

"Now, I taught you perfectly how to execute the curse, as we can both personally attest," Malfoy said slowly, still smiling viciously, extending with each slow-spoken word the burning of Harry's body. "But… I suppose this could be seen as a failing of mine as a teacher, nevertheless."

Lucius lowered himself to Harry's side, his smooth, cruel features growing clearer.

"Ah, yes, now I remember." Lucius's finger tapped thoughtfully against his closed lips, his gray eyes narrowing into calculating little slits. "I don't believe we covered that. A dreadful omission on my part. I must admit. I never even thought for one moment that I'd need to warn you about that."

"About what?" Harry demanded, through gritted teeth.

The fire inside him seemed to leap back into powerful life as the curse again gathered strength.

It occurred to him suddenly, sickeningly- fire. Had he killed Minky with an incendio? Had she felt this?

He forced himself to stop rubbing at his chest, forced himself to endure it. You did this to her… Strange how his acceptance suddenly cooled the flames, just when he hoped for the opposite.

"You see," Lucius said thoughtfully, "those curses we studied were written and devised by purebloods," he pronounced the word delicately, as though it were something holy in itself. "There are inherent… what I suppose you might call 'safety measures', to protect purebloods from those of lesser birth who might attempt to wield them against us."

Harry's gaze shot back up to his with a distinct feeling of alarm.

"Kinship curses rely upon a magical bloodline. As soon as you terminated your curse, it rebounded back upon you because the curse detected a significantly stronger Muggle heritage in you than in your victim." Lucius was watching his reaction intently with keen, calculating eyes. "I am a pureblood. If you, too, were a pureblood, you would not be suffering exactly as I have just suffered."

Harry's heart plunged into his stomach.

"Now, you're clearly no mudblood," Lucius noted softly. "Or the curse would have rebounded immediately. But you are a half-blood, or you would not be suffering now."

This was very, very bad.

"So I wonder, my little friend," Lucius drawled, settling back on his heels as if to relish Harry's situation from a better viewpoint, "Why would Severus, a Death Eater, an advocate of blood purity, shelter a half-blood in his abode?"

Even through his agony, Harry understood it suddenly. A wrong word now would not just kill him. It would kill Snape.

No! No no no no no…

His mind danced frantically over his options… from the memory charm he probably couldn't have performed even with his wand, to excuses and more excuses.

Excuses. All he needed was once decent excuse.

"HALF-BLOOD?"

The idea solidified in his mind. He thrust himself up from the ground in a show of fury.

"Half-blood? I'm not- I'm- That's impossible! You're making it up! You're lying!" Harry wound his hand in Lucius's cloak and yanked the other man's face close to his. "It can't be. It can't! My parents are- my father's pure- I don't have DIRTY MUGGLE BLOOD! You lying bastard- I- you- TAKE IT BACK NOW! I know you're lying! TAKE IT BACK!"

He made a grab for Lucius's wand, but a quick spell sent him tumbling back to the grass as the Death Eater retreated a step in a defensive posture.

"BASTARD!" Harry screamed at him, fighting against a heavy weight he knew to be an Impediment Jinx. It wasn't difficult to fake the fury or the hysteria; he was rather on the cusp of both. "It CAN'T be! I'm NOT a half-blood! You're lying! YOU'RE LYING!"

He noticed the comprehension seeping into Lucius's features. Desperate to nurture the possibility that had just occurred in Malfoy's mind, Harry screamed as though his world had just ended and squeezed his eyes shut. He clamped his hands over his face and shook his head back and forth in desperate denial.

"You lie, you lie, you lie! My mother would never- she would never- FUCK YOU, MALFOY! YOU LIAR!"

He peered through his fingers, and was not encouraged by the look on Malfoy's face.

He's not buying it… He's not… Damn, damn, damn…

"Oh, I assure you, I lie about nothing," Lucius said smoothly.

He had to totally debase himself; it was the only way Lucius would ever believe him.

So Harry fought, screaming, against the impedimenta spell until he was too exhausted, until the pain could no longer be ignored. His muscles literally gave out on him, and he slumped back to the grass. He allowed those tears of pain to surface at last, and broke into sobs. It wasn't difficult to cry; the curse, liquid fire flowing through his veins, was a persistent motivator.

"It's impossible! Mum wouldn't…" Harry sobbed, still shaking his head in frantic denial. "She wouldn't… She would never do that… I'm not a half-blood! I'm not! She wouldn't touch a mudblood!"

Malfoy began chuckling above him.

Relief like he'd never known coursed through Harry, but he never let his show of emotion slacken. An image of Dudley's theatrical tears flashed through his head, and he let out a wail of despair, hearing Lucius's mirth turn into outright laughter.

Harry was still sobbing brokenly as the man swooped down next to him, drinking in the exquisite agony he believed he'd caused Harry.

"Well, well," Lucius taunted lightly, waggling his finger at him. "It looks like one little bastard didn't realize his mother was a right whore, did he?" Harry moaned his denial. Amusement colored Lucius's voice. "I wonder if she fucked a Muggle or a mudblood? Who was your progenitor?"

Harry felt himself flush; the tears died somewhat as his anger asserted itself. He didn't enjoy Lucius taunting him over the sexual misdeeds of Septimus's mother anymore than he might over someone taunting him over what his real mother had done with Snape.

"This is just… beautiful," Lucius sighed in pleasure. Clearly in Malfoy's view, learning oneself to be not only a half-blood, but also a bastard, ranked among the worst things that could ever happen to a wizard. "All those pretensions of yours towards dark magic… and look! You're merely a half-blood- barely even a wizard!"

Lucius enjoyed his distress for an interminable moment more. The curse still raging through Harry's body seemed minor next to the horrendous tragedy he'd just averted… He hadn't killed another person; Snape was safe. Safe, thank Merlin.

And then Malfoy released him so abruptly from the curse that for several moments, Harry truly believed his body had gone numb. He heard the grass crunch by his ear, and became dimly aware of Malfoy staring down at him, his pale skin cast with a bluish tint in the early-morning light.

"I suggest you return to the house before Severus misses you, my dear filthy little half-blood."

It was a profound shock when Malfoy simply turned around, tossing Harry's wand disdainfully on the ground before walking back towards the house.

Harry shoved himself to his feet, ignoring the protests of his limbs.

No, Harry thought, stunned. Was all of this for nothing? Malfoy had been willing to crucio him for lying on the couch too long, but not for casting an excruciating curse on him?

There were any number of things he could do to catch Malfoy's attention. Attack him- but then the man could plead self-defense. Yell out Voldemort's name- but then Malfoy would be the loyal servant.

What... what...

"Run away then, Malfoy!" Harry shouted. "Just like you always do!"

Lucius's shoulders drew up like an alert animal.

Good… Malfoy pride. Hit him right there.

"So I'm a- a bastard- a dirty half-blood-but what about you?" Harry bellowed. "Everyone knows you abandoned the Dark Lord when his loyal supporters went to Azkaban. I know a FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD got you sent to prison last year! Even dirty mudbloods LAUGH at you!" Lucius halted, and Harry stepped closer to the immobile figure. "You're always talking about the greatness of the Malfoys. How many centuries ago was that, huh, Lucy? 'Cause judging by your 'greatness', I'd say you Malfoys have at least a few mudbloods diluting the line yourself!"

Malfoy turned then, and Harry felt an unexpected thrill of fear at the dangerous expression on his face.

"Would you care to repeat that, boy?" Malfoy asked softly.

Harry hadn't really expected to feel afraid, but suddenly his insides danced with anxiety. He twisted his face into his most ferocious expression and pressed on anyway.

"I said that the Malfoys are nothing more than a line of sniveling, cowardly, mud-blooded disgraces to wizardki- AAARRGGHH!"

It was amazing, though, how he could never quite remember just how terrible the Cruciatus Curse was until he was in the grip of it. He could never recall how the world collapsed into a narrow spectrum of pain and more pain.

The curse was fueled by hatred and sadism. And Lucius wanted him to suffer.

It didn't stop; it never ended. He clawed at the grass, thrashing, anything to escape it, to throw it off.

His world narrowed, blackened. He couldn't think. He was barely aware of his own screams.

And it went on and on and on… Until he heard two voices bellow- "EXPELLIARMUS!"

The curse had stopped, but it still hurt. Harry turned weakly towards the voices, but he could barely move. It hurt, everything killed him. Moving his eyes was hellish. Holding his lids open. Trying to form a thought was a new lesson in pain.

Snape was here, though. Snape was finally here.

It took an effort almost beyond Harry's dwindling strength to force his eyes open, to look at the two Death Eaters, circling each other like predators

"What do you think you're doing, Lucius?"

Malfoy stiffened. "You have some nerve intervening in this, Severus. Were you aware-"

"Was I aware that you've been using the Cruciatus Curse on my nephew? Under my roof? Oh, I certainly am now, Lucius!" Snape snarled.

His black, blurred form moved imperceptibly closer, just enough for Harry to see his wandless state. Alarmed, the boy's eyes quickly flitted up to Malfoy. He was relieved to see that Lucius was similarly disarmed.

Feeling a wave of exhaustion, Harry's head slumped to the ground. He felt Snape's gaze snap to him.

"Septimus?"

His body was trembling uncontrollably. He wanted to tell Snape it was okay, to concentrate on Malfoy, but his throat wasn't working quite as it should.

"Septimus? Boy! Don't you dare close your eyes!"

He heard Snape's footsteps draw rapidly nearer.

"Leave the little bastard," Lucius said coldly. He was watching Snape with a dark, predatory expression, recognizing this confrontation for the potential threat it truly was. "I had every provocation-"

"Provocation?" Snape spat. "To cast the Cruciatus Curse in my abode? To possibly draw the attention of Dumbledore and the Ministry of Magic? You know what my role is! You know what I do! Do you realize that even now a team of aurors-"

"Oh, stop exaggerating so dreadfully, Severus," Lucius said, sounding slightly uneasy. "I know you have protective spells-"

"PROTECTIVE MEASURES are just that. MEASURES! They're not infallible! I will not put up with your idiocy any longer, Malfoy!"

"The Dark Lord-"

"Will hear my account before yours!" Snape roared. "You just wait- you'll be out of here-"

"And what makes you think I'll allow you to speak to him first?" Lucius said dangerously.

Snape's expression froze, and Harry watched his eyes narrow into lethal black slits immediately at the perceived threat.

"How do you propose to stop me, Lucius?" Snape asked softly. "I think we both know which of us has a greater avenue of access to our Lord."

"We are also aware," Malfoy said delicately, his eyelashes flickering in an almost coy manner, "which of us is on notice, and just which of us has more… shall we say, latitude with our actions?"

Snape smiled suddenly, that horrible smile Harry had only seen on a few unfortunate occasions. His eyes glimmered with deadly promise, and there was something genuinely gleeful about it.

"Yes, I think I am quite aware which of us is… 'on notice', did you say?" Snape drew a step closer to Lucius. Harry registered a faint note of alarm. He didn't know where Snape's wand was, but he had a feeling Snape was increasing his distance from it. "In fact," Snape added softly, "I think you might be surprised at our respective positions, once you're… slightly more informed."

Lucius's entire expression shifted. Harry remembered this one, this same terrible look on his face when Harry tricked him into freeing Dobby.

"What have you done, Severus?"

Malfoy's tone was softer and deadlier than he'd ever used with 'Septimus' or Harry Potter, as though the man instinctively knew he was dealing with a more lethal opponent.

Snape's expression never changed. There was still that malicious light in his eyes, and he drew closer again, a strange, unsettling smile on his lips.

"Let's just say, Lucius, that I put my respite from your company yesterday to good use. Very good use, indeed. And if I happened to alert our esteemed master to some… shall we say, previously unknown aspects of your fortunate jailbreak… it was only out of my great attention to my duties."

Was that fear that passed so fleetingly across Malfoy's face?

"What have you done, Severus?"

Malfoy's voice sounded slightly shrill. Yes, it was fear.

Snape shook his head slowly, his smile growing wider. "Oh, no, no. I'm afraid, for the good of our master, I must use some tiny amount of discretion." He cocked his head, his eyes chillingly black and empty. "But I must admit, you may find your status slightly… uncertain."

"You- you-" Malfoy's fear had dissolved into a sudden, unreasoning rage.

"I- I… what?" Snape taunted softly.

Malfoy held his gaze for a moment of soundless fury, and then made a sudden movement towards his wand.

It took every bit of strength Harry had to catch Malfoy's ankle with his foot, sending the man tumbling to the ground with his own momentum. Malfoy fell on top of him, crushing already-bereaved muscles.

Snape lanced forward in a whirl of his black robes, and was suddenly upon Malfoy, his pale hands clenching the taller man by the neck of his robs and yanking him up, away from Harry.

Lucius would normally have been the physical superior over the rail-thin professor, but months in Azkaban and the blood-boiling curse had robbed him of any prowess he might have possessed, had he deigned to indulge in Muggle combat. He was easily dragged across the lawn, where a quick shove by Snape sent him unceremoniously head-over-heels into the pond.

"What- wh-" Malfoy sputtered, blonde head breaking the surface just for a moment before Snape appeared on the side bank, grasped him by his wet hair, and thrust him back under.

A vicious expression twisted across Snape's face as his black arms remained plunged under the dark surface of the lake, holding Malfoy in place. He then yanked Malfoy up, allowing Lucius a desperate, fleeting gasp of air, before thrusting him back under for longer. And longer.

He's going to drown him… Harry thought numbly. It's been too long… There's no way he'll… no way…

And suddenly Snape whipped back up to his feet, dragging a limp and disoriented Lucius Malfoy out of the water and onto the bank, and dropping him to the ground with a look of disgust.

Malfoy collapsed bonelessly, coughing. Snape gazed at him for only a moment before he swept around and strode purposefully over to Harry.

Harry's gaze lifted to meet his professor's. Snape's empty black eyes swept over him, quickly assessing his condition, before the man swooped down and retrieved Malfoy's wand from the ground, an absolutely horrible look on his face.

"Have you any urgent concerns?" Snape asked him coldly.

Harry shook his head numbly. The gesture sent pain lancing through his neck and spine, and he balled his fists to stop himself from crying out.

Snape's eyes darkened.

"Do not fall asleep until we've assessed your injuries."

Snape sent him one last careful look, before turning back to Malfoy, watching the man struggle to breathe for a long moment. His lips quirked at the corners with some sadistic enjoyment of Malfoy's plight.

"Lucius," he called mockingly, "my apologies for using such a crude, Muggle means of torment." He stepped across the yard, his wet robes swinging heavily around his body. "My… lineage, as you know, is not nearly as refined as your own. After all, since you've endangered us with your reckless use of Unforgivables, I should have respected your partiality towards them!"

Lucius had a split second to look up, sheer terror on his face, before Snape cried, "Crucio!"

Harry stared in horror as Malfoy began to scream, thrashing with sheer agony. Snape closed in on the other man, as though to relish the pain he was causing from a better vantage point.

Then with an off-handed gesture, Snape released Malfoy.

"Enough?" he said quietly.

Lucius's body shook convulsively, and the blonde tried to nod.

Snape's horrible smile appeared again, that particular enjoyment on his face that always seemed to appear when Harry got an answer wrong in class.

"I didn't quite catch that," Snape noted softly, ignoring Malfoy's inarticulate cry of alarm. "You need to make more effort, dear friend. Crucio."

Malfoy's screams began again, louder, longer.

Harry wanted to clamp his hands over his ears, to yell at Snape to stop, but he could only stare in horror, first at Malfoy, and then at Snape.

Snape.

There was an absolutely inhuman look on his face, in his faint smile. A chilling emptiness with which he hadn't even greeted Harry after the Obliviation attempt. It was scary, it was horrible.

And Harry understood it fully for the first time-

Snape was a Death Eater.

He was not pretending to be a servant of a dark lord. He was not merely a spy. The man had joined the Death Eaters because he was a creature capable of the same blackness as the rest of them, who embraced the same evil as the rest.

That's why he hadn't reacted to what Harry had done to Minky. He took pain… he took death for granted.

It was then Harry realized suddenly, very clearly, that he couldn't. He could never do something like this.

He could get every single person he loved killed, but he could never hope to actively destroy another person. He was too cowardly to kill Voldemort, too squeamish to hurt Bellatrix Lestrange. The screaming… He couldn't stand it.

It suddenly felt like the breath had been stolen from his body, and Harry slumped back to the grass, the full extent of his injuries making themselves known. Malfoy's screams rang into the night, and he stared bleakly up into the sky as it steadily grew lighter. He refused to look at Snape even after Malfoy's cries died away.

He was vaguely aware of the black form that appeared above him, surveying him with his pale mask of deathly white skin.

"Can you walk, Harry?"

Harry closed his eyes against the sight, and shook his head.

The levitation spell swept him into the air, and there was something terrifyingly abrupt about it.

He was cold. Freezing, in fact. Some nameless force inside him seemed to fight the spell holding him several feet above the ground- Snape's spell- and his limbs trembled more furiously than before. Frustration- a blessedly normal, 'Hogwarts Potions Master'-expression- crossed Snape's face, and then the man floated him gently back down to the ground.

"Your magic appears to be resisting mine," Snape noted dispassionately. Harry tried to cringe away when the man knelt down next to him, not wanting that icy grip on him, but Snape gave him no choice, arresting the movement with a firm hand and bundling Harry's body up against him, physically lifting him into the air.

Harry's tremors increased; Snape's body felt like ice, seeping the very life from his skin. He forced himself to look back up into the sky, to turn his eyes from what had happened. A wave of exhaustion consumed him; his scar throbbed, blackening the edges of his vision with a relentless pulse of pain.

"Do not fall asleep!" Snape said gruffly.

I won't, Harry thought.

His scar was burning furiously.

He doubted he would ever sleep easily again.


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