Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Chapter 2: Death Before Dishonor

Harry,” Hermione hissed urgently, glancing up warily at the Transfigurations professor began to tap her foot in agitation. “Harry, wake up!”

“Mr. Potter! Awake, if you please!” McGonagall was all but snarling. This class, her sixth year group of Gryffindors and Slytherins, was never her favorite on the best of mornings, and today certainly didn’t qualify. A late night meeting of the Order had put her in a particularly sour mood, and the sight of one of her less-talented students – a Gryffindor, no less! – sleeping peacefully at his desk reminded her too vividly of her lost rest.

“Yes, Professor?” Harry went from dozing to utter awareness in an instant . . . a lesson crucial in the Dursley household that had served him well during his summer’s training with Alastor Moody and Tonks.

“As you are clearly in no need of further instruction, Mr. Potter, I would be much obliged if you would demonstrate the use of human transfiguration on a member of this class – may I suggest Mr. Weasley as a perfect candidate?”

Harry merely yawned in response and flicked his wand in Ron’s direction almost carelessly, murmuring the words under his breath. McGonagall glared at him without even bothering to look at Ron, secure in her certainty that Potter, never overly skilled in Transfiguration, hadn’t accomplished a miracle this time, despite his unusual talent for managing that very thing.

“Very funny, Mr. Potter,” she began, but paused as the class, even the Slytherins, erupted into laughter.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed with a grin. “I thought so, too.” At her puzzled expression, he pointed across the room to the red weasel who stood on Ron Weasley’s desk, chattering angrily at a giggling Hermione Granger.

“I – oh.” McGonagall simply stared at the transfigured rodent for a long moment. There was something going on here, and she would be damned if she’d be shown up by one of her own students. “Change him back, Mr. Potter.” Harry did so without further comment, and she resumed her lecture. “That was amusing, but not the effect I was asking for. A human to human transfiguration is what I was discussing – which you’d’ve known, Mr. Potter, if you’d been conscious and listening.”

“Sorry,” Harry said with an angelic smile. “Like this, then?” He flicked his wand again, and McGonagall couldn’t stop herself from smiling as an abruptly altered Ron Weasley looked down at himself warily.

“Harry, what’d you change me into now?” he said plaintively.

“Here, Mr. Weasley,” McGonagall said with a smile, conjuring a full-length mirror with a wave of her wand.

“Oh, Merlin,” Ron groaned, looking into the mirror and finding Draco Malfoy’s face staring back at him. “How could you do it to me, mate? Malfoy, honestly!”

Harry shrugged, twirling his wand and blowing on the tip in a manner reminiscent of a Western gunfighter. The muggleborns and half-bloods present who recognized the gesture laughed again. “C’mon, Ron, you know Transfiguration isn’t nearly as intense without Malfoy here to remind us of what we’re supposed to be fighting.” He grinned. He’d been responsible for the Potions accident that had sent Malfoy to the hospital wing two days before, and the blond Slytherin hadn’t been seen since.

“Mr. Potter!” Despite herself, McGonagall couldn’t quite keep the edge of humor out of her voice. “Detention! That comment was absolutely improper, and more importantly, untrue.”

“For the moment,” Harry growled, and McGonagall sighed.

“And you’ll have that detention – make it three days’ worth – with Professor Snape.”

Harry looked up at her with an inscrutable expression. But then, she thought with an inward sigh, that was the case most of the time, now. She recognized the need for Potter to be able to keep his own council. But she’d become accustomed to seeing every one of Harry’s emotions on that too-expressive face; the revelation that somehow Potter had become the consummate actor within the last few months without her noticing was startling.

“Certainly, Professor. At least with Umbridge gone, I needn’t worry about having a litany of my faults carved into my skin.”

“Mr. Potter, if you had listened – ”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. At least that way I made my stand against her clear for anyone to see. This was done, Professor, because I, for one, wasn’t going to sit back and watch as the Ministry’s negligence paved the way for Voldemort’s destruction of this world.” Harry tapped the words engraven into the back of his hand. I must not tell lies. “It didn’t happen, Professor. Fudge came to his senses in time enough to save a lot of people, if not the only person who mattered to me.”

“That was the doing of You-Know-Who, Mr. Potter. Not the Ministry’s. Not yours.”

Even the Slytherins were silent as professor and student stared into each other’s eyes. And in this boy who mattered so much, McGonagall read only pain, and a loneliness too deep for words.

“And I will kill him for that. Voldemort will die, by my hand. Whether he takes me with him when he goes, is his business.” Harry left his things behind as he rose lightly to his feet and walked out the door, shutting it oh-so-gently behind him. McGonagall glanced down at her watch and returned to the front of the class.

“We’ll be doing human to animal transfigurations next week,” she said, softly. “There’ll be no homework for tonight.”

The students were quiet as they filed out of the room. After they had gone, Minerva McGonagall sank into the seat Harry Potter had so recently occupied. And she cried.

**********

“What have you done now, Potter?” Snape demanded as he stepped into his classroom and paused at the startling sight of the Gryffindor Golden Boy sprawled lazily in the chair behind his desk. “And get away from my desk, for Merlin’s sake, before you destroy something.”

“Isn’t it a great boost to your ego to be considered so horrible that every time professors give me detention, they send me to you?” Harry asked brightly, and Severus rolled his eyes.

“I feel so bloody privileged, Potter, there are no words to describe my happiness. Move.”

“Right. I graded the first years’ essays while I was waiting,” Harry added, vacating the more comfortable seat in favor of one of the students’ desks.

Severus simply snorted. His first lessons with Potter had concerned his first love, Potions, and found that the boy wasn’t nearly as hopeless as he’d once believed. Not that it surprised him, really; Lily’d been rather grand with Potions in her own right. But then, it was a new idea entirely to not only hope for, but to expect competence from Potter in all areas, not just DADA. The boy had possessed an as yet untapped potential for Transfiguration; of late, he’d become a virtual prodigy in the subject, just as his father had been. He even trusted the boy, now, to perform at Outstanding levels in Potions, despite whatever interference Malfoy could manage. Speaking of Malfoy . . . .

“You ought to redo the Veritaserum we did in class this week. At the moment I’ve graded you Exceeds Expectations on it, when I know you could have an O.”

“I’m surprised you gave me that much,” Harry said with a grin. Snape sneered at him, and Harry laughed. It amazed him, how easily he and Snape had fallen into an easy camaderie. They’d always been allies, at the most basic of levels, and Harry’s recent attack of humility had broken through Snape’s James Potter-based expectations for him. With that old history out of the way, their mutual hatred for Voldemort had fostered an almost familial sense of companionship. Sirius might have been his godfather and legal guardian, but there had always been a sort of devil-may-care humor about Sirius that made his advice . . well, less than advisable. But Snape could be trusted to tell the absolute truth under even the worst circumstances – had been the first person to ever him tell the absolute truth about Voldemort’s recent attacks. And for all that the truth wasn’t pretty, he valued the honesty in Snape’s words.

“Veritaserum was really too explosive not to react with anything Malfoy threw in there,” Harry said by way of explanation. “He was asking for it.”

“I suppose it would have been too much to ask for you to act like an adult and not retaliate.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” Harry agreed. “It really was. And after all, truth serum’s delicate; it was already messed up beyond repair. So, toss in a few spider legs and a hint of basilisk venom –” Snape’s eyes narrowed as he recalled the baby basilisk Harry had since named Ariana, and Harry hurriedly went on. “ –and voila, one hell of an explosion. Localized, of course. Didn’t think you’d take kindly to me destroying half the classroom.”

“I appreciate your restraint.”

“Oh, come on, it was bloody hilarious and you know it. Malfoy, standing there absolutely drenched in this utterly horrible crimson goo, growing this awful magenta fur and fangs to rival Dracula’s. The really great part is that Madame Pomphrey hasn’t managed to fix him yet.” Harry shot his mentor a sly look. “Could be taking so long ‘cause there wasn’t anything to fix. That might’ve been his natural form.” Harry’s expression grew wistful as he considered this. “But I doubt it. I’m just not that lucky.”

“Potter . . didn’t you notice when I tossed that vial into your cauldon, just before it exploded?”

“Yes. I’m not stupid, either, but I trust you. I assumed it was for my own good.”

“It was for . . . well, for entertainment purposes. It was a sticking potion, Potter, of a very peculiar kind. When I introduced it into your potion, I took the risk of it getting on you, but I thought you’d have sense enough to shield yourself. You did, fortunately, and now I can sit back and enjoy the sight of a pink Draco Malfoy for some time. The sticking potion will resist all efforts to remove it, and should remain effective for another . . . two to three days. And, as the headmaster has tired of Malfoy’s whining, Draco’s going to be kicked out of the hospital wing in another day or so to see if his, ah . . fur will just wear off over time. It will, of course, but not for a while yet.”

“Really?” Harry didn’t wait for Snape’s answer; what was he thinking? Of course he was serious; Snape never joked about something as ridiculous as this. “Oh, Merlin, this is great! The only thing that could make this better is if Voldemort summoned Malfoy, to mark him, and died laughing after he saw him. What a way to go. Certainly not as dignified an end as Voldemort’s been hoping for.”

“I believe, Potter, that he’s hoping for immortality . . so he doesn’t have to die at all.”

Harry waved away Snape’s grim words with the airy confidence of youth. “Don’t ruin my moment, Snape. It’s impolite.”

“Can’t have that, then, can we?” And the sneer was gone from Snape’s voice, replaced by the tiniest hint of amusement. And then the façade crumbled, and Snape began to laugh. “It was hilarious, wasn’t it?”

A brilliant flash of light made the Potions master flinch back, blinking rapidly to clear the bright spots from his vision. “Potter.”

Harry held up the camera with a triumphant smile. “Gotcha.”

“And that, I believe, goes double for me,” said another voice from the doorway, and Snape looked up into the twinkling eyes of Albus Dumbledore.

*********

“Headmaster,” Harry greeted, and Snape observed the unperturbable Dumbledore with some surprise as he watched the older man shift uneasily under Potter’s gaze. Not, of course, that he lacked sympathy for the man; he knew firsthand just how disconcerting Potter’s clear green eyes could be, seeming as though they saw into your soul and found something lacking there.

“Harry,” Albus returned, but the characteristic twinkle was gone. “And Severus.”

“What’s wrong?” There was no urgency in Harry’s voice, only a world-weary acceptance.

All was not right with the world when a sixteen-year-old boy’s first thoughts upon seeing his headmaster were of death and destruction, Snape thought with a sigh. There was some relief in knowing that Potter took this seriously, but his recent apathy seemed to grow with each successive victim, and Severus couldn’t help but feel a twinge of concern. It was, perhaps, the better thing for Potter, to simply take each battle as it came, and accept the losses with an eye toward the greater picture and not the prick of guilt bringing the deaths into sharper perspective. And yet . . . .

“Kingsley Shacklebolt has been taken prisoner by Voldemort’s forces,” Albus said after a moment. “Nymphadora, who was captured with him, has been recovered, critically wounded. We’re not sure if she’s going to survive the night.”

Harry closed his eyes, but not in prayer. He’d stopped believing in God a long time ago. “Yes, I know. Where is she?”

“She’s here. Upstairs with Poppy. I thought you’d like to see her, in case.” The words Dumbledore didn’t say came as clearly as the ones he had: In case she doesn’t make it.

“Of course.”

“Harry, before you go . . . I assumed that as you and Professor Snape seem to be getting along better—” he gave an approving nod to Severus—“that your Occlumency skills had likewise improved. But since you said you already knew about Nymphadora, that is obviously not the case. Might I ask why?”

“No. You may not. And her name, Professor, is Tonks.” Harry went for the door.

“Harry, why aren’t you trying to block these visions?” And there was an urgency that bordered on anger in Dumbledore’s voice.

“Because they suffer this for me. The least I can do . . . is watch, and do what I can to ensure that they know they don’t die alone.”

For several minutes after Harry had gone, they sat in silence, headmaster and former student. “He’s taking chances again,” said Albus despondently. “We can’t afford to let him; he knows how important he is to us, how crucial a role he has to play, and yet he refuses to let us protect him.”

“I learned to accept it, eventually,” Severus said. “To accept him, as a person and not a savior, because at heart, he’s not one. He’s just a boy, who grew up in a world that couldn’t understand him, with a family that didn’t want to. He became who he is because in all his life, he’s never had anyone who really understood him. His friends see only what he wants them to. I see more in him than he does, but even I don’t know him well. I’m not sure he’s capable of that kind of . . . of trust, because if there’s one thing he’s learned from us, Albus, it is betrayal. Most of all, how much crueler a blow that disloyalty is from someone you believed in.”

“I misled him. I admit that and I’m sorry, but I can’t take it back.”

“No. You chose, Albus. Whether for good or ill, that decision was made fifteen years ago, and it’s set in stone. Now it’s time to step back and let him choose.”

“He’s stronger than even I would have ever suspected, Severus. For all the disciplinary problems he’s had this year, his teachers say he’s advanced far beyond the coursework they’ve set. He’s lazing about in classes because they’re teaching him nothing he doesn’t already know. I wonder why that is, Severus?” If not an outright accusation, it was headed in that direction.

“He came to me . . perhaps three months ago, and asked me to teach him Occlumency,” Snape admitted. It was time someone knew, he supposed. Harry was nearly ready; another three weeks and Severus knew Potter would go with or without his blessing, and Snape had little confidence in his ability to detain the boy if Harry seriously wanted to leave. “I don’t know why I agreed. But I did, and since I’d gone that far, there was nothing to stop me from teaching him everything I knew.”

“The Dark Arts?”

“He needed to know, Albus. I won’t argue the point with you, because deep down you know it too. The Dark Lord is careful . . . to careful to be killed by any ordinary means.”

“You’ve made him into a warrior, Severus. Do you even know what he’s capable of, at this point?”

Snape shrugged. “Anything. I wouldn’t put anything past him, not now. And whether you like to admit it or not, you need a warrior. Now you have one, and you don’t even have to put up with the guilt of teaching him the way of Darkness yourself. Because you’d have done it, Albus. In time, you would have done it because there is no other way. Not if you want him to survive the Dark Lord’s death. And I don’t know about you . . . but I do.”

**********

Albus entered the hospital wing to find the boy sitting at Nymphadora’s bedside. “Harry.” Albus touched his shoulder lightly, and the boy winced away from his touch. “Harry, Madame Pomfrey needs to apply more of the potion. And as it will be . . . painful, I think it’s time you left. We’re doing all we can for . . Tonks.”

“Don’t bother,” Harry said softly and Albus leaned over to hear more clearly. “I saw what they did to her. You can’t save her, Professor. She was dead from the moment they got their hands on her. It was only a matter of time.”

“Harry, you can’t be sure . . .?”

“I’m sure.” Harry paused, sank his teeth into his lip so hard he tasted blood. There was nothing he could do. He’d been testing his own influence in Voldemort’s visions since the previous summer, when Voldemort’s attacks had become a nightly occurrence; it was all that kept him sane. Under Snape’s tutelage, he made progress in leaps and bounds. No, he couldn’t save them, but he’d held Shacklebolt’s hand tonight as Voldemort had repeatedly applied the Cruciatus Curse. And when the Killing Curse had ended it after hours of torture, Harry had wept as the Death Eaters around him chanted their master’s name.

They couldn’t see him – not the Death Eaters. Voldemort knew he was there, but couldn’t break Harry’s Occlumency shields, couldn’t quite reach him. Harry had at last managed to make himself visible to Voldemort’s prisoners, but it took its toll on him. He could comfort them, even give them some slight shielding from Voldemort’s spells, but for all that he was present only in spirit, not in body. It seemed as if his magical abilities didn’t make the transition with him, and so he couldn’t help them, only sit with them as they waited for their turn to die. The Death Eaters’ spells couldn’t touch him – four nights ago he’d cradled Lavendar Brown’s three-year-old sister on his lap as Lucius applied the Killing Curse and the little body went limp in Harry’s arms. He’d felt Voldemort’s eyes on him for the first time, and for a long moment he’d stayed where he was, staring up into Voldemort’s eyes as his tears fell.

Severus didn’t understand. He’d have said it was too dangerous, would have refused to tutor Harry further had he realized exactly what his young protégé was doing with the lessons he’d been teaching. But what Snape didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.

“Tonks,” Harry murmured, reaching forward to gently squeeze her hand. He knew she could hear him, just as he knew the pain was overwhelming all her other senses.

“’Arry?” Her voice was soft to the point of unintelligible. “Where . . .”

“You’re at Hogwarts, Tonks.” The tears welled up in his eyes but he didn’t let them fall. Not when she was the one who’d suffered. “You’re safe.”

“They di’n’t get you?” she mumbled, and Harry shook his head, conscious of Dumbledore’s abrupt shift in position beside him.

“No, Tonks. I’m okay.”

“Were there,” she managed to gasp out at last, and Harry’s fingers tightened on hers.

“Only in spirit,” he said softly. “I wasn’t really there.”

“Could see you,” she insisted.

“I know. But my body’s not really there . . . just my mind.”

“Wanna sleep,” she continued.

“I know,” Harry whispered, even as his body tensed. Snape called it empathy; Harry called it a pain in the ass. But, however you chose to say it, Harry could sense the emotions of the people around him. A natural kind of Legilimency, Severus had explained, and very probably the reason the mental arts came to him so easily. Which was yet another reason the dementors had flocked to him in third year – he acted, in a way, as a kind of conduit for the feelings of those around him. Now, the pain coursing through Tonks’s body made it all he could to remain conscious and coherent, and the actual physical contact only heightened the sensation. But she needed his comfort, and he would not deny her that.

“It’ll be okay. I understand.” And he did, more than she would ever know.

He held her hand as her breathing grew more shallow, the pause between each indrawn breath longer. Albus sat beside him in silence, and Harry allowed himself a fleeting moment of gratitude toward the aging headmaster. Her heart stumbled once, twice, and she turned her head to meet his eyes.

“They love you, Harry,” she told him, and he felt her sincerity, her urgency. “They always will.”

“Thank you,” he whispered, and her fingers clenched on his for an instant. He felt it, the moment her heart stopped and her spirit fled the pain of a mortal body. And for a moment, as her peace washed through his mind, he wished he could follow. But destiny demanded a higher price from him than death.

“You didn’t die for nothing, Tonks.” Harry stood, ran his palm gently over her face. And deeper than the pain, he felt her peace. “I’ll take him down, any way I have to. And when he dies, your name will be the last thing he hears. I promise.”

“Harry . . .” Dumbledore reached for him. Harry avoided his touch, but those light blue eyes had seen too much. “What have you done?”

“I can’t save them,” Harry said again. “But I am with them. I feel them die. And you think that hasn’t changed me? Do you really think I don’t realize just how much is riding on me? I know, Professor. And sometimes, I wonder if it would have been best if the Dursleys had managed to beat the magic out of me, as they once believed they could.”

“Harry, I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t see,” Harry corrected. “You refused to, because what does that say about me, that I meekly took being beaten by my bastard of an uncle for almost eleven years? What kind of faith does that inspire?” Harry ran his fingers over the thin scar across his cheek, put there only six months ago by the plate Dudley had thrown at him. And knew his chances of surviving Voldemort’s death were slim to none. “I won’t be your hero, because I wouldn’t fight him, not for you. I don’t know if I can do what you need me to. But for her?” He gestured to Tonks – “For her, and for those like her, I will try. I won’t let myself fail. Because if I do, I make her sacrifice meaningless.”

Harry turned for the door as Severus Snape walked through it. He took one look at the boy’s face and shook his head. “You shouldn’t have come,” Severus murmured.

“Do you really think I could have stayed away?”

“No,” Snape agreed. And when Dumbledore would have followed Harry out of the room, he put a hand on Albus’s shoulder to stay him. “Leave him alone,” he said in response to Albus’s questioning look. “It takes so much out of him, his visions, and being in contact with her would be worse.”

“She spoke as though she thought Voldemort had somehow captured Harry. As though he was there, with her, while she was being tortured. But that’s not possible.”

“Albus. . .” Snape hesitated. It wasn’t his secret to tell, but Dumbledore’s words had only confirmed his own suspicions. “Albus, he’s an empath. He doesn’t only feel the emotions of those around him, but in his visions as well. He’s an excellent Occlumens, but you can’t block empathy that way, not as strong as he is in that regard. I don’t know what he’s doing in his visions, but if Tonks could see him . . .” Severus trailed off, but the implications were clear. If Tonks, untrained in the mental arts, could see Harry as a corporeal figure, Voldemort would have to know that Harry’s influence in the visions they shared was growing, might be able to do him harm while he was trapped in the images Voldemort was projecting.

“Something has to be done,” Albus said at last.

Snape snorted. “What? I trained him well enough that neither of us could pry the truth from his stubborn head, and he won’t submit to Veritaserum. I know that, even if you don’t.”

“Talk to him, Severus.” At Snape’s disbelieving look, he continued. “He trusts you. He doesn’t have that same confidence in me – ” the hurt was there in his eyes – “and he wouldn’t want to burden his friends. But from what I saw tonight, the two of you have been concealing the fact that you’ve been training him for far longer than I would have believed possible. He has to trust you; the mental arts require that, if you did teach him those.”

“All right. I’ll try. But he’s more than able to keep his own council, Albus. He’s . . . more Slytherin than I knew.”

“I could ask no more of you. I just hope it’s not too late . . for all of us.”


You must login (register) to review.
[Report This]


Disclaimer Charm: Harry Potter and all related works including movie stills belong to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, Warner Bros, and Bloomsbury. Used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended. No money is being made off of this site. All fanfiction and fanart are the property of the individual writers and artists represented on this site and do not represent the views and opinions of the Webmistress.

Powered by eFiction 3.5