Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Betrayal

“Ah, Bellatrix, good of you to come.”

Harry’s eyes snapped open; he couldn’t help it.

The other wizards were oblivious to him. They faced each other, their blurry figures glaring across a room suddenly thick with the palpable air of hostility.

Despite the tension, Harry could see that Malfoy was smiling. It seemed frozen and strained on his pale lips.

“You asked for me,” Bellatrix said. “Why?”

Lucius’s eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. “Surely our Master—“

“I know the reason,” she snarled, her voice suddenly high with anger. “I want to know why you asked for me?” Her eyes narrowed into lethal black slits of disdain. “I hope this is not some pathetic attempt at winning my favor! I’ll never forget what you did—NEVER!”

"I hardly entertain the delusion I can win your forgiveness," Lucius said, sounding irritated. "I'm no fool, whatever else you may think of me... I requested your services because the only other legilimens of your ability is an equally unpalatable choice." A sly smile inched across his lips. "You, at least, have the virtue of predictability."

Her voice was low and dangerous. "I would not speak so soon, cousin."

She drew a menacing step closer to Malfoy, her wand suddenly in her hand. For a moment, Harry was filled with the wild hope they’d start dueling. Maybe he could slip from his restraints and get away before they noticed—he began working at the rope twined around his wrists, suspecting it was a futile effort, but needing to try anyway.

To his disappointment, Lucius seemed to judge her as a legitimate threat, because he suddenly raised his hands appealingly.

"You misunderstand me, Bella," he said. "I meant to give you a compliment! I am continually impressed by your remarkable loyalty to our Master." Even from here, Harry could perceive the calculation in his expression. "After all, I know you'd never defy our master’s will by taking some rash action against me—not at the risk of incurring the displeasure of the Dark Lord."

She froze. At length, she eased up her grip upon her wand, her body trembling as though every last fiber of her being screamed for her to lash out at him.

Lucius visibly relaxed. “Yes, we both of us understand the value of obedience…. My other option, however, does not. I suspect he believes he could insinuate himself back into our Master’s good graces whatever misdeeds he commits.” His voice grew low and bitter, as though he were speaking more to himself than her. “And perhaps not without reason.”

“Ha! You only distrust Snape now?” Bellatrix spat at him, her eyes flashing with disdain. “I warned you about him years ago—you would never listen! I hope he makes you sorry for it!”

“There’s very little chance of that now,” Lucius replied coldly. “The Dark Lord’s waiting for this to be over. Once you’ve extracted the prophecy and the boy is safely dead, Snape will be irrelevant… And I’ll stand again at our master’s right hand.”

Bellatrix said nothing. Harry wished he could see the expression on her face.

Seeming to realize he'd won the day, Lucius suddenly sounded cheerful. "Don’t look so glum, Bella! Today’s a fortunate one for you. I recall well that I failed to deliver on a promise a while back, and I so hate to break the same promise twice… I offered you a delicious little half-blood… hmmm? Or something even better? Well, I’d say the Boy-Who-Lived qualifies as something better, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t care about that now.”

Her voice was low and hoarse. It dawned on Harry for the first time that her wild hysteria in his most recent vision actually stemmed from genuine grief. Somehow he’d never thought to credit her with such a human feeling; he still found it hard to believe.

He’d certainly didn’t pity her because of it.

“Protest all you like,” Lucius said lazily, and Harry squeezed his lids together a split second before the avaricious gaze slid his way. “But I suspect you’ll change your mind once you begin to… play with him.”

Play with me?

Harry’s skin crawled. He liked neither Lucius’s phrasing, nor the sly, insinuating tone he used. He could feel Bellatrix’s gaze boring into him like two searing embers. His skin crawled, and he found himself discreetly testing the ropes again. He hated feeling so helpless.

It only now hit him that he was about to undergo a horrendous ordeal; his body broke into a cold sweat. Bellatrix Lestrange had tortured the Longbottoms until the pain drove them to madness. She would have no mercy with him.

He was trapped, helpless. He suddenly felt very young; if two aurors couldn’t hold up against her, what the hell kind of a chance did he have?

He could almost feel her, drawing closer to him from across the room. The woman who had killed Sirius, murdered Tonks…

She’ll kill me.

The panicked thought was followed quickly by another, from somewhere deeper within him.

No, she won’t... I won’t let her.

His entire body trembled against the restraints, but he found suddenly a core of strength, some part of him that had survived and endured everything, and he suddenly knew he could endure this if he had to.

I’ll survive it, he thought with increasing determination. She killed Tonks and Sirius; I won’t let her destroy me.

Somehow he knew it; he knew he would get through this.

If only he knew how.

“A pity he still slumbers,” Lucius’s voice was filled with mock regret. “I know well how enchanted you are with those green eyes.”

Harry inwardly steeled himself, hearing the odd catch in Lucius’s voice that warned him where this was going.

“Shall we wake him?... Crucio!”

Harry jerked reflexively in response, his eyes flying wide open in anticipation of pain.

But it never came.

He met the blurry gray eyes of the smirking Lucius Malfoy. Harry only now realized—after having betrayed that he was, indeed, fully conscious—that Lucius had only spoken the incantation to test him; he held no wand. He hadn’t cast a curse at all.

“Quite a nasty little habit of eavesdropping you’ve acquired, I see,” Lucius noted, watching him through keen, gray eyes. “Well, I think you’ve heard quite enough of my private business for one day.”

Harry glared at him a second before speaking. “Yeah, I think so, too… I’ve heard more than enough about you murdering your wife!”

He noted with satisfaction how Lucius stiffened, and Bellatrix blanched.

“You are fortunate,” Malfoy threatened softly, “that I won’t be dealing with you myself. I have half a mind to cut out your tongue for your insolence!”

“And why won’t you?” Harry challenged with a courage he could not quite match inwardly. “Don’t have the stones, huh?”

“He’s not sufficiently restored to favor,” interjected Bellatrix snidely before Lucius could snap back a reply, clearly rubbing in Malfoy’s recent disgrace.

“He’s not yet,” Harry said, turning his attention to her, wanting to hurt. “But I bet he will have it once you’re done with me, huh? The guy who killed your sister’s going to be Voldemort’s favorite again!”

He smiled with cold triumph at the anger and dismay that flared in her eyes.

“Perhaps,” Bellatrix snarled, drawing her wand. “But at least the privilege of breaking you is mine!”

It was all the warning he had before she cast the cruciatus curse on him. His world dissolved into a furnace of molten agony. Harry could hear himself screaming, his body thrashing uncontrollably against his bonds. He jerked so hard in his chair that it crashed to the floor, but he didn’t feel the crushing weight upon his bound arms through the pain consuming his very soul.

It was only when the agonizing haze cleared that he heard the two Death Eaters laughing—the cold amusement he remembered so well from Lucius, and Bellatrix’s high, shrieking laughter that brought back his most bitter memories.

I won’t scream for them again… Harry vowed fiercely as her laughter washed over him like poison. He wouldn’t give the murdering bitch that satisfaction.

“Consider that a little foretaste of what’s to come,” Bellatrix drawled, a maniacal grin on her face as she glided towards him, twirling her wand between long fingers. A careless flick of it sent his chair careening upright again. “But I suppose, ickle baby Potter, I might show you mercy if you’ll tell me the prophecy.”

Liar! She’d torture him no matter what.

“I don’t know the prophecy,” Harry spat. “And I’d never tell you even if I did!”

Her black gaze was fixed on his in a manner that unsettlingly reminded him of his father’s. Her lips curled into a smile as she plucked the lie from his mind.

“Yes, you do.” Her smile widened. “Although I’m perfectly content if you refuse to tell me… In fact, I rather think I’d prefer it.”

She was close enough now that he could smell her musky perfume, see the anticipation glistening in her black eyes.

Harry drew in a deep breath, knowing he was nearing the end of his reprieve.

“I’ll die before I tell you anything,” he said quietly.

Bellatrix shook her head, her eyes still fixed on his. “No, you won’t. But I’ll make you wish you had.” Her venomous smile again, and a malignant whisper: “Crucio.”

Harry squeezed his eyes shut as he descended into a sea of fire… The pain was terrible, so terrible… he couldn’t bear it…

But he wouldn’t scream.

He bit on his lip—bit through his lip—but never uttered so much as a whimper. Not this time.

It seemed an eternity, weaving in and out of the curse as Bellatrix circled him with mounting frustration, her taunting voice reaching him from a fiery distance—her screams of rage when he never allowed her the satisfaction.

Even when through waves of molten pain he felt his very grip on reality receding—the memory that once before he’d lived without this unending torment—a single conviction held him still.

He wouldn’t scream for Sirius’s murderer.

And abruptly the pain vanished.

He sagged in his restraints, shuddering violently. It took him a moment to remember even so much as his name.

Harry. His name was Harry.

Each breath brought him back to himself. Each heartbeat filled him with strength. He hadn’t given her that one satisfaction; he knew it.

As he drew shuddering gasps of air, he was only vaguely aware of Lucius’s amused voice.

“I do think you’re losing your touch.”

“No,” Bellatrix replied, sounding thoughtful. “He’s resisting me… He’s drawing upon something.”

Her robes rustled as she knelt down besides him, a sharp slap to his face making him snap his eyes open to see her vicious black ones.

A cruel, condescending smile split her lips. “Well, ickle baby Potter—why so quiet? No sweet screams for Bella?”

Harry spat in her face.

Bellatrix drew back quickly, fury filling her features. Her wand raised and he realized with more resignation than horror that she was going to curse him again. But what she did instead took him by surprise.

Legilimens!”

Harry was plunged inward, as though he’d suddenly dropped to the bottom of a murky lake. Flashes of remembered pain filled his mind as she prodded around his surface thoughts, and through the mist emerged one person, one hated person---

…Bellatrix, her robes covered in blood, grinning maniacally beneath dark, heavy-lidded eyes. "That half-blood filth was no relative of mine!”… Bellatrix laughing as Sirius fell through the veil… Bellatrix preening with triumph. “She was already half a Muggle, so I thought it fitting to kill her like one."…

Harry emerged from the spell only to be surrounded by her cruel, derisive laughter.

“So you’ve been dwelling upon me, have you?” Bellatrix cried. “How magnificent! I did end the lives of both those wretched creatures—the blood traitor and that half-breed filth… How wonderful that we both think so much upon my finer exploits!”

Harry shuddered with his hatred for her. His entire body throbbed with weakness in the aftermath of the cruciatus curse, but if he hadn’t been tied, he was sure he could leap up and kill her with his bare hands.

“So you’re honoring their memory, aren’t you little Harry?” Bellatrix mocked. “Trying not to scream for Bella to make them proud? They don’t see you, you know. They’re dead. I made quite sure of that!”

“Who are you talking about?” Lucius demanded from where he stood, excluded from this turn in the interrogation.

“My accursed cousins,” Bellatrix replied, watching Harry through menacing black eyes. “I broke his poor little heart. He’s quite angry with me, I’d say.”

“Interesting,” Malfoy noted softly, smiling now, too. “With regards to that flea-bitten godfather, I suppose I see where it comes from. But that other… Nymphadora-- wasn’t it? I hadn’t realized she stood so high in his affections! Perhaps you should look into that, Bella.”

Bellatrix cast him a hostile look over her shoulder, warning him with her resentful gaze to stop making suggestions.

“This is my business!”

“But of course,” Lucius said condescendingly.

Bellatrix glared back at Harry, determination written on every line of her face.

Legilimens!”

He tried to block her with all his might; she didn’t have Snape’s skill—he could tell that immediately. If Snape slithered smoothly into his mind, she stumbled in like a blind drunkard. But he was too angry—too filled with his hatred for her—and the memories flashed before his helpless eyes.

… Bellatrix lovingly fingering her blood-spattered robes… Harry launching Hedwig into the night with his frantic note to Tonks… Pulling Tonks into his arms and pressing his lips to hers… NO!

He shoved her out of his mind, horrified. She had no right to see that. No right!

But Bellatrix, sensing his distress, seemed all the more enamored with the idea of delving into the realm of psychological torture.

“How utterly sordid of you, my darling Nymphadora,” Bellatrix cooed. “Playing with little boys…”

“What--?” Lucius said, sounding genuinely curious. “What did you see?”

A peal of laughter bubbled from Bellatrix’s lips.

“Something positively delightful.”

“What?”

She cast a taunting look over her shoulder, then turned back to Harry without enlightening him.

He closed his eyes quickly, determined not to put up with another attack. Cold hands clamped around his face, thin fingers pressing against his eyelids, fingernails pinching the delicate skin as she pried them open.

Legilimens!”

… Tonks was pulling him upright on the moving staircase… Harry was fighting to breathe as her hand dipped beneath the waistband of his jeans; the heated look in her eyes made him shiver with anticipation…

“STOP IT!” Harry cried, horrified that she’d seen so much.

He trembled as much now with loathing as from the nerve damage of the Cruciatus Curse.

“Oh, but I’m having great fun,” Bellatrix cooed. She reached out and held his eyes open again when he would have closed them. “Legilimens.”

…”You should know that I’ve never done this before,” Harry admitted, embarrassed. Tonks laughed against the skin of his bare chest. “I’d be surprised if you had—“… Harry felt his skin afire with pleasure as he was enveloped by the slick heat of her body…

He opened his eyes to see Bellatrix Lestrange mere inches from his face, her warm breath caressing his skin.

“So you’re one for older women, are you, little baby Potter?”

“Get away from me,” Harry said in an icy voice, hating how close she was, how he couldn’t seem to escape the wild pleasure in her eyes.

“Did you wuv her?” Bellatrix whispered, watching him intently. “Or were you just happy you had someone to play with your widdle biddy willy?“

Harry felt blood rush to his cheeks. He felt her hand brush against his leg, and felt a thrill of alarm when he realized her fingers were tickling their way up his thigh.

“Perhaps this is the point I leave you two alone,” said Malfoy suddenly, eyeing the turn in the proceedings with some distaste.

Whether his disgust was aimed towards Bellatrix or the boy his son’s age, Harry could only guess.

Lestrange never removed her gaze from Harry as Lucius slipped from the room, smiling with delighted pleasure.

“Hawwy,” she said in that baby voice he so despised. “Would you wuv me, too, if I made you feel good?”

He could see the mockery in her eyes. He looked away sharply, trying to ignore the feel of her hand, warm through his robes.

“I think you’re a disgusting old hag.”

Bellatrix laughed with cruel pleasure. “Neither old, nor a hag, but if you think so—well, that makes it all the better! Legilimens!”

He fought the intrusion with everything he had, feeling her grope for his memories of Tonks. He knew with horrified desperation that she was going to keep prying into his memories, playing each and every one of them for her own enjoyment—his most intimate moments, those sweet, stolen moments with Tonks.

And from some distant place, he was aware of her repulsive touch upon his body, almost as though she sought to mimic what she witnessed in his mind and defile it somehow by association. The thought of her touching him made him want to throw up.

He threw forth anything and everything, trying to stop what she was going to do; he couldn’t bear that. She couldn’t take it from him—not what he’d had with Tonks!

And in his distraction and desperation, something else suddenly played in his memory, rising before him in a moment of terrible betrayal.

… Trewlaney’s shadowy form stood in the pensieve, her eyes unseeing as she was speaking—“he will have the power the Dark Lord knows not”…

Bellatrix’s attack faltered, whether through surprise, or satisfaction that she had at last found what she sought. Harry had a moment to expel her from his mind.

It was only upon seeing the triumphant smile curling her lips that he realized with a sick feeling the calculation in her actions. She was planning to hammer at one weakness or another until she broke his resistance entirely and conquered all of them.

If he tried to protect his most sacred memories from her, she’d take the others. If he tried to shield the prophecy, she’d violate everything he remembered of Tonks.

He felt a sinking feeling when he realized he couldn’t stop her; he couldn’t stop this.

He’d repulsed Snape once; just once. He’d never undergone a thorough and sustained attack.

Harry was distracted then by her warm hand creeping under his robes to lightly caress his skin above his trousers, mimicking in some sick parody the memory she’d witnessed of him with Tonks. Harry felt fear and hatred boil up inside him like he’d never known.

And when she plunged them back into his mind, he was still flooded with that horror and anger that threatened to burst from his skin. He only half-knew what he was doing—feeling suddenly like he’d start screaming and never stop if this continued—and he filled his mind with the most cruel and hateful image he could conjure, the only weapon he had left.

… Narcissa Malfoy lay broken on the floor, her pale hair and white robes soaked with blood, skin marred with vicious black and purple bruises…

The curse ended with an abruptness that nearly stole his breath from him. And suddenly a fist caught his cheek, snapping his head back sharply.

It felt like nothing after the Cruciatus Curse.

“How DARE you!” Bellatrix screamed. “HOW DARE YOU!”

Harry laughed; it hurt him terribly to do it, but he had to. “You’re angry with the wrong person! I didn’t gut your sister like a stuck pig--”

CRUCIO!”

Harry succumbed to the curse, and it was somehow easier to endure knowing he’d invited it. Once it ended, he started laughing again, even though it felt like it killed him to do so, jarring his aching ribs, his bruised body.

“Amazing—“ he gasped. It hurt to speak, too, but he made himself. “I mean, I wanted you dead for what you did to them… but this is really so much better.”

“Hold your tongue, or I’ll--”

“How pathetic is it?” Harry continued heedlessly. “You’re a Death Eater! You’re supposed to be so terrifying, so powerful… you can kill anyone you want!—but this guy butchers your sister, he’s going to be Voldemort’s favorite in a few days! You’re probably going to have to suck up to him for the rest of your life!”

Silence answered his words.

Harry looked at her then, and she seemed frozen in place. Her eyes stared through him as though she’d suddenly forgotten he was there.

Harry took the brief respite as an opportunity to fill his mind with another image—one more gruesome than before… something to rival one of Dudley’s horror movies…

But Bellatrix unexpectedly rendered his efforts pointless.

She whirled around and left the room.

Harry stared after her, shocked. He dared not hope she was gone, barely breathing for a long moment after the door clanged shut. He couldn’t be so lucky, could he? He couldn’t have hurt her so terribly…

It wasn’t until the door opened and a baffled Lucius Malfoy lingered on the threshold, eyeing Harry speculatively, that he realized he’d actually driven her away.

“What in Merlin’s name did you say to her?” Lucius demanded sharply.

Harry said nothing. He watched Malfoy draw closer; the man looked entirely discomposed, utterly baffled.

“She left,” Lucius murmured, as though he couldn’t believe it. “She wasn’t done with you, and she simply up and left!”

He distractedly conjured a chair and dropped into it, almost as though he’d forgotten Harry’s presence.

“That woman’s a lunatic. She’s an absolute lunatic!”

Not so predictable, huh, Malfoy? Harry thought a bit smugly.

He would like to have gloated just a little longer, but the edges of his vision were going dark; he was pretty sure from the sudden weakness draining the very life from him that he was about to pass out.

“She’ll be back,” Lucius said to himself. “She’ll come back. She can’t be so furious with me she’d pass this up--”

Harry’s eyelids sank closed, and his thoughts turned to Snape’s words.

“Sometimes the worst punishment is living.”

Maybe it was. Maybe Tonks and Sirius had been avenged at last.

Merlin only knew why the instrument of that revenge had been Lucius Malfoy.

* * *

Harry drifted in and out of consciousness.

Lucius was pacing the chamber furiously, and occasionally he’d hit the back of Harry’s head with his makeshift cane when he feared the boy was nodding off.

“No sleeping for you, Potter!”

At one point, Harry opened his eyes to find Lucius had conjured a bottle of Firewhisky and was draining it in liberal swigs.

“Where is that psychotic bitch?” Lucius muttered, glaring with irritation towards the doorway. “Or that bloody idiot of a boy?”

Draco, Harry realized vaguely. He didn’t know how long it had been since Lucius had sent him on that mysterious mission—something to do with distracting Snape until Lucius could deal with him.

Maybe Snape had waylaid Draco.

The thought gave him some hope. He could only pray Draco had somehow failed at whatever task Lucius had given him.

Lucius glared at Harry now, as thought this entire matter was his fault.

“She’ll be back,” Lucius snarled at him. “You are exceedingly fortunate I’m forbidden to question you myself.”

Harry smiled wanly at him, knowing it would infuriate Lucius.

And indeed, it seemed to. Malfoy grabbed his bottle of Firewhisky and rose abruptly to his feet, casting Harry a look of pure loathing before pacing away.

He look positively gaunt and consumed with his anxiety in the half-light of the makeshift chamber.

“Well—well, then,” Lucius huffed at last. “It’s a pity I’m stuck with only your insipid company.”

“Sorry,” Harry said sourly. “Maybe if you untie me we can play cards or something.”

With a flare of irritation, Lucius sent a hex his way.

Harry spent the next few minutes spitting soap out of his mouth and onto the barren floor.

Still better than the Cruciatus Curse!

When the foul taste at last cleared from his mouth, he straightened up to find a cup floating towards him in the air. Lucius watched him with distaste over his Firewhisky.

“Have some,” he said coldly. “Perhaps you’re more entertaining drunk.”

Harry tried to twist his head away, but the cup pursued him until it insinuated itself between his lips and tilted persistently forward; when he let it run down his chin, it seemed to refill of its own volition. He finally gulped down the burning liquid just so the cup would stop besieging him.

The Firewhisky settled in his stomach like hot embers; he had a feeling he wasn’t in much of a state to drink it.

“Now—“ Lucius said, waving his wand. The ropes slid from around Harry, but before he could so much as lurch from his seat, another hex hit him, “Tallentallegra!”

Harry’s legs kicked wildly under him into a makeshift dance. They felt weaker than jelly, ready to collapse beneath him, but his body jerked with a frantic kick step he couldn’t stop no matter how he tried.

As he danced, the unimpressed Lucius nursed his drink. It seemed an eternity before he ended the curse and sent Harry reeling back into his chair, where ropes snaked back around the exhausted boy’s body.

“Poor company and a poor dancer!” Lucius complained, sounding very sorry for himself and slightly tipsy.

“I’m good at cards,” Harry offered again weakly, still hoping he could persuade Malfoy to untie him.

It was then the door swung open and an owl fluttered through. Lucius seemed relieved to see it, and tore the paper from its claw with relish.

“This will surely be from the Dark Lord… If he merely lets me—“

His expression froze on his face, suddenly as hard as granite.

Harry watched him, torn between anxiety and hope. Was this good news? Bad?

Malfoy lowered the slip of paper, and for a moment seemed to sway in place. His skin was deathly pale.

“Merlin.” He scanned the paper again with his eyes, growing impossibly paler. “Merlin… He’ll pay for this. I’ll make him sorry for this!”

He wanted to ask what had happened, but then Lucius drew from his robes what appeared to be an elaborately jeweled dagger. Harry froze.

“I’ll kill him for this,” Lucius vowed, his voice trembling. “I’ll kill him! Merlin—my son!”

Draco. Something had happened to Draco.

When Lucius dragged the blade into his own arm, sending a rivulet of blood slipping down his pale flesh and to the floor, it hit Harry like a lead weight just what he was intending to do. And to whom.

“What happened?” Harry said quickly, hoping to forestall him. He recognized immediately the initial steps of a kinship curse—the shedding of blood in a designated pattern—and he prayed Lucius wasn’t going to do something to Snape.

Lucius ignored him, his eyes glinting like cold silver; he was still deathly pale, as though some calamity had just occurred, but a cold fire of hatred burned fiercely in his eyes.

Harry’s stomach flipped. What if Snape had killed Draco?

He felt a moment of guilt. Draco Malfoy was a git… but he didn’t deserve to die.

And Snape didn’t deserve to have to kill him; he remembered how Snape had liked Draco, before this whole mess with Lucius had begun. He remembered Snape comforting Draco after Narcissa’s death was known. He really hoped he hadn’t killed Draco.

But Lucius’s reaction made Harry think it was the only possibility. He felt sick.

And whatever Lucius was about to do to Snape… it was going to be bad.

“Malfoy—wait, listen!”

He didn’t know what he was going to say to dissuade Lucius, but in the end, it didn’t matter. Malfoy carelessly sent a Silencing spell his way, cutting off Harry’s voice, seeming to pluck his words straight from his mouth. He watched helplessly as Lucius prepared the first phase of the curse—sending the magic creeping through the blood link, locating the victim for the next phase of the spell.

The magic swirled to life, and instead of giving a cloudy, rough map of Snape’s location as both Harry and probably Malfoy had expected, it shot abruptly towards Harry.

Malfoy turned to look at Harry while all the magic in the room leapt towards him with a life of its own, and his expression filled with confusion.

It took Harry a long moment to process that Malfoy wasn’t searching for Snape.

He was searching for Septimus.

“Malfoy knows about us…”

Snape’s words came back to him suddenly with sickening clarity.

He would know. He’d know!

“What is wrong with this?” Lucius snarled, and Harry felt a mounting dismay as Lucius tried recasting the spell, and again, the magic leapt towards Harry, indicating Harry as his target.

Malfoy stared at Harry for a long moment, his pale eyebrows drawn together with confusion as he tried to puzzle it out. Every line on his face was starkly visible, the hollows deeper, as he fought to reconcile the confusing fact that his kinship curse repeatedly indicated Harry was the boy he sought.

Harry saw the exact moment the realization hit Lucius, when his face crumpled with horror and dismay.

“No…” Lucius breathed, staring at Harry with unvarnished terror. “No… NO!”

He crossed the room rapidly. Harry cringed back into his chair, but he couldn’t do anything when Malfoy brandished his wand.

“Finite incantatem glamourie!”

As that increasingly familiar tingling sensation swept over Harry’s skin, he cursed himself, remembering vividly how he’d deconstructed the glamour for Lupin… Snape’s stern admonishment when he’d reapplied it.

You’ll need to go to the Headmaster for a stronger spell. This is the best I can do for now.

He’d put it off over and over. Why hadn’t he just gone to Dumbledore? Why had he been so stupid?

It was too late now. Snape’s weak glamour melted away, and Lucius swayed with horror and dismay as the Harry Potter so coveted by the Dark Lord was replaced by Septimus Snape.

“No…” Lucius moaned, staring at Harry with eyes wide with horror. “Merlin, it can’t be... He’ll kill me… I’ll die for this…”

Harry stared at him. Apparently, Lucius hadn’t connected Harry Potter with Septimus Snape. He thought Septimus had been disguised as Harry to trick him.

If only he could speak, he could take advantage of this!

“This was Severus’s plan, wasn’t it?” Lucius asked hollowly, watching Harry with despair. “He wanted me to think I’d caught Harry Potter—to tell the Dark Lord I’d caught Harry Potter—and then he’d show me for a liar… Merlin. Merlin! He’ll kill me for this!”

Harry wished he could do something more, make up a cover story, distract Malfoy somehow.

But abruptly Lucius’s eyes caught something.

He lanced forward. Harry had no chance to twist away before Malfoy seized him by the chin, twisting his head around in his grip.

Malfoy’s trembling hand raised up, a cool finger brushing aside the black hair concealing Harry’s forehead.

Glaring starkly out from his forehead, the lightning-bolt scar betrayed Harry, betrayed Snape.

Comprehension flooded Malfoy’s face, the elusive pieces from the last several months flying together with rapid speed in his sharp mind… Snape’s displeasure with his arrival… The wards on the boy’s door… The ignorance of the boy’s supposed relatives… The boy’s blood impurity…

“You are Harry Potter,” Lucius breathed. The fingers twined in Harry’s hair curled into a tight fist. Gray eyes raked over Harry’s face, a ruthless smile of understanding pulling at Malfoy’s thin lips. “And Harry Potter is Septimus Snape!”

Chapter End Notes:
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