"So, Boy Who Lived, we meet again. And unlike last time, I shall make certain you are dead and rotting, just like your parents," hissed Voldemort softly.
Harry glared at him, feeling hatred such as he had never known fill him. "You can try, murderer. But who's to say you'll succeed this time, when you couldn't last time? Must be pretty humiliating, a big bad dark wizard like you defeated by your own stupidity and a fifteen-month-old baby," he sneered, looking very much like his father at that moment, had he but known it.
Voldemort drew himself to his full height, practically spitting in fury. "Do not DARE mock me, whelp! I am the Dark Lord, the most powerful and feared wizard of all time. Not even Grindelwald was as feared, not even Morgause as cruel, my name dared not be spoken, save in whispers in the dark of night lest I hear and come for you." The red eyes glowed bright with satisfaction.
"Think pretty highly of yourself, don't you, Tom?"
Voldemort stiffened. "You will not use that name in my presence! I am no longer that pathetic boy, I have grown beyond what I was born to be. I am Lord Voldemort, destined to rule the night, and you, miserable whelp, shall not prevent me. I shall destroy you and then nothing will stand in my way."
"That's where you're wrong. If I don't kill you, there are plenty of others who will. My dad, for one. Dumbledore, for another."
"Your father is dead, fool! I killed him myself!" laughed Voldemort. "And Dumbledore is a doddering fool who can barely put his own socks on, he will fall before me, especially now."
"You never killed my father, Tom." Harry said firmly, looking Voldemort in the eye, though the red gaze made him shiver all the way down to his toes. "My father lives, and he hates you with a passion, for you killed the woman he loved and cost him a family."
"Stupid boy, why deny the truth? You are an orphan, as I was, and no one cares about you. You are alone, alone and helpless, and no one will hear you crying in the dark." The snake-faced man smiled malevolently.
"That's where you're wrong. I was never James's son, I was Severus Snape's. And he lives and I am his son, an orphan no longer, Riddle! And he will always come for me, day or night, he will always be there."
"NO!" shrieked Voldemort. "Impossible! This CANNOT be! Snape is loyal to me, and the prophecy states the Chosen One must be born to parents who have thrice defied me!"
"They did, Snake Face! My father was a spy, he was never one of your followers. He defied you a hell of a lot more than three times too. And so did my mum."
"It matters not. I shall finish what I started." Voldemort cried, drawing his own wand. "Avada Kedavra!"
The green Killing Curse shot forth from his wand.
And was repelled by a snarl from the shimmerling flying overhead.
:Stupid Dark One, your spells have no power here, did you learn nothing last time? In the Realm of Dreams, a dreamweaver rules. Thus it has always been and always shall be.:
"Get you gone, cat!" roared an outraged dark wizard, firing off curse after curse at the fae cat, who blinked in and out and avoided them all with a smug flip of her tail. "This is between me and my shadow. Or did you not figure that out yet, oh-so-wise one?" taunted Voldemort.
Smidgen paused, her nose wrinkling. "You cast no shadow here, evil heart."
Voldemort sneered. "Shows how much you know. My shadow is here, bound to me by blood and magic." Then he lifted a bony finger and pointed at Harry. "Perhaps I won't kill you right away. Perhaps I will keep you alive, and turn you from hero into enemy, from the Boy Who Lived to the Boy Who Betrayed All His Friends and Family."
"What do you mean? I'll never betray my family." Harry yelled. "I'd rather die than join you!"
"That can be arranged!" snapped the dark wizard. Then his demeanor shifted, from anger to a kind of fake fondness. "Shadow, do you not yet realize what you are? We are brothers, you and I, my magic made us so. Let us not be at odds, Harry, but embrace the night together, and you shall see the true power of Lord Voldemort."
"You're bleeding cracked, Voldy! The maggots have eaten your brain. I'm not your shadow, and I sure as blazes aren't your brother either!"
Voldemort laughed, and the sound was like glass shattering, it stabbed Harry like a thousand splinters. "Ah, but you ARE! Even as I died, I managed to turn my magic to my advantage, and YOU are the result. The perfect shadow, bound by blood and magic to me!"
"NO! You're LYING!" Harry shouted in desperation, for he could sense on some visceral level that the awful words were the truth. He whirled to find the shimmerling, hoping she could refute the evil truth the specter had revealed. "Smidgen, tell me that he lies. It can't be true! It just CAN'T!"
The shimmerling did not answer, she was too busy trying to trace the odd dark thread she had discovered in Harry's psyche.
"Smidgen! It's not true, tell me it isn't!" Harry pleaded.
The fae cat blinked, drawn back from her investigation by Harry's plaintive words. :I cannot, Harry. There is . . .something dark within you . . .something that does not belong there . . .Come, let us follow the dark thread back, and see where it takes us. Only then shall the truth be known.:
Harry swallowed sharply, then allowed Smidgen to lead him back to the worst memory of his life-the day when Voldemort had killed his mother and James.
* * * * * *
He had woken up because he had heard a crash somewhere and it had frightened him. He stood up in his crib, tiny hands clutching the bars and whimpered. There came an even louder crash and suddenly he began to wail, frightened beyond belief. He wanted his mother, and he wanted her now! "Mum! Mum!" he bawled, trying to scramble up the sides of the crib.
Then he heard his mother's familiar footsteps, and suddenly she was there, lifting him from his crib and hugging him close. "Hush, baby. Mummy's here. Shhh . . .Harry, shhh . . .I haven't much time . . ." She began to chant a spell softly, and her wand glowed with a pearlescent light. She touched the wand to her son's heart, and then her own. The light surrounded them. "In my love, you are sheltered, in my love you are protected, in my love you are safe, from now until eternity, by my blood and power and love, I bind you, Harry Albus Snape!" Then she bent and kissed her son upon the forehead, sealing the ancient spell.
The pearlescent light flowed into Harry and he gasped, though the magic did not hurt, merely left him warm and tingly. Lily sagged against the doorframe, not realizing the ancient spell of Mother's Guardianship would take so much out of her. She had discovered the spell in an ancient book that had once belonged to Eileen Prince, it had been given to her by Severus upon the day of their engagement, he had told her it was a family heirloom passed down from mother to daughter. "But my mother had no daughter, and I think she would have wanted you to have this, Lily. As my wife, you will be a Prince by marriage, and thus entitled to it."
She had been profoundly touched by his kindness, and she had assured him she would treasure it always. And she had, reading it from cover to cover before Harry had been born, absorbing the ancient magic of the Prince fae sorceresses into her soul. The spells in the grimoire were many and varied, but all of them were meant for a woman to use and cast, most of them involving healing or protection, though there were several combat spells there as well. The one she had cast on Harry was one of the most powerful, and it granted him an almost impenetrable protection against the monster that stalked them.
Harry sensed his mother's anxiety and absorbed a portion of her memories as well through the spell, though his baby mind could not comprehend them then, and he promptly shoved them deep into the back of his mind and forgot about them. All he cared about was that she was there with him and he was safe.
Until the door to the bedroom burst open and a tall man with dark hair and eyes that glimmered coldly entered the room. "So! This is where you were hiding, eh, woman? Stupid bitch, do you not realize there is nowhere you could go that I would not find you?"
Lily backed away, Harry clutched protectively to her chest. "Leave us alone, Voldemort! Haven't you spilled enough innocent blood?"
He threw back his head and laughed. "Not nearly enough!" Then his eyes narrowed. "Step aside, woman! Let me have the brat and you shall live. Now step aside!"
"No! Kill me if you must, but leave my baby!" Lily pleaded, setting Harry down and pointing her wand at Voldemort. "Don't you touch my Harry!"
Voldemort's patience evaporated. "Out of my way, woman!" he thundered.
But Lily stood her ground, defying him with the last bit of breath in her body. "No! You'll not have my Harry too!"
"So be it!" Then Voldemort snarled, "Avada Kedavra!" and the green light shot out of his wand and slammed into Lily, killing her instantly.
She crumpled to the ground, her red hair falling about her in a crimson swath.
And Harry looked up into the face of the one who had hurt his mother and screamed bloody murder.
Voldemort sneered. "Cry all you like, whelp, she's never coming back. But don't worry, you'll be joining her in a second, and you'll be one big happy family again . . .in heaven!"
Then he intoned the Killing Curse again.
But this time the spell was repelled, it struck the boy but the fae protection held, and the curse did not kill, only scarred, and then it rebounded upon its caster.
Voldemort saw his doom rushing to meet him, and knew he had only a split second in which to react.
He quickly cast another spell, this one designed to link two wizards together with a special bond called a blood link, and sent a part of himself into the Potter brat's mind, preserving himself indefinitely. Since that spell was not a dark one, the Guardianship spell did not react to it. Then his failed curse rebounded on him, and he died . . .for the first time.
Harry remained where he was, screaming incoherently from the pain in his forehead and the terror of seeing his mother motionless upon the ground, until he had screamed himself hoarse and collapsed in a heap next to the still form, one hand reaching out to clutch her finger.
Some twenty minutes later, Hagrid discovered him and took him from the burning rubble of his home and brought him to the Dursleys as per Dumbledore's instructions. And none of them ever knew that the innocent-looking baby they knew as Harry Potter harbored a bond with a murderer.
* * * * * *
Harry reeled in utter shock. It was not a lie, Voldemort had indeed bound him with a blood link, and thus preserved a part of himself from the death of his own curse. He went to his knees, his soul screaming in denial, and Smidgen crouched next to him, meowing harshly.
:Harry! Harry Albus Snape, look at me! All is not lost. Listen to me! All spells can be countered, even this one, blackest sorcery though it is.:
"How? How can you counter it, Smidgen? He's inside me! Merlin help me, but he's been within my mind for years and no one ever knew it." He felt deathly ill, and he brought up his hands to cover his face, his fingers gripping the sides of his face convulsively, leaving red imprints upon his flesh. He was tainted, unclean, he bore the mark of evil upon him.
:Stop it, Harry!" the shimmerling ordered, and her voice was like a whip, it lashed him back to himself, forcing him back from the pit of despair that threatened to swallow him. "Blood links can be broken. This is the source of your nightmares, child. It all goes back to this.:
She glared at the Voldemort dementor fiercely. :You have not won, necromancer. What was bound can be shattered.:
The dementor laughed harshly. "Ah, but do that, catling, and you could destroy your precious savior. Will you risk his life merely to rid him of my presence?"
:You are a parasite on the backside of humanity, Tom.: hissed the shimmerling. :And the only thing to do with a parasite is to purge it.:
She began to fly circles around the dementor, hissing the same refrain over and over.
:By ash and blood and bone, magic lost and found, by the Bright Powers of Air, get thee hence, Tom Marvolo Riddle. I, Inularian a' Kelideshari, cast you out! Depart and trouble us no more!:
Seven times she chanted the same refrain and after each time her voice grew louder and louder and the form of Voldemort shrunk, until he was no bigger than a scuttling crab.
:Harry, repeat the chant with me!: she ordered then. :Together we can cast him out for good and all. Don't give in to despair, child! Fight! Show me that Snape courage, Harry! Or is he right after all? Are you nothing but his puppet, the shadow he claimed?: she demanded cruelly, hoping to snap Harry out of his self-imposed fugue of hopelessness.
Harry jerked his head up at Smidgen's scathing tone. "No! I'm not at all like him! I want to be free of him!"
:Then speak the spell of unbinding with me, Mr. Snape.: Smidgen began the chant again, and this time Harry joined in, his voice soft but unwavering.
The crablike form that was what remained of the piece of Voldemort's inner self writhed and shrieked as Harry intoned the spell along with the dreamweaver, bringing all of his will and heretofore untapped magical power to bear upon the blood link.
Harry could feel the dark bond wavering, stretched impossibly thin by the pressure of the dreamweaver's will and his own power. I WILL be free! I WILL be free! he growled over and over, slamming the shadowy thread with all the perseverance he had learned over a lifetime of abuse and neglect.
The shadowy thread bowed, unraveling at the edges, shuddering with the force of the combined might of the dreamweaver and the young sorcerer.
Harry nearly screamed in frustration. They were so close! He could feel the link weakening, but it would not snap.
He narrowed his eyes, concentrating on the spot where the link was weakest. Severus's instructions during his kin-sa-dor lessons came back to him in a rush.
"When you strike, son, focus upon the weakest point, then hit the center with all the power of your hands and the focus of your will. But remember, appearances can be deceptive. Sometimes the heart of a thing is where you least expect it to be."
Harry eyed the dark thread consideringly. What if the weakest point was not in the thread itself?
He shifted his focus, to the crablike thing scuttling for the nearest rock to hide under.
And then he understood where the weak link was.
He drew all his power inward, locating the taint within himself, and yanked hard.
The portion of the link connected with his mind snapped.
He went to his knees, screaming as red hot agony surged through him.
But the link was severed, and he turned the rest of his power upon the crablike thing, focusing despite the agony coursing through him, for he had learned long before to work through pain, and blasted the last remnant of Voldemort's foul presence from him.
He gazed up at Smidgen from eyes streaming with tears, and whispered hoarsely, "It is done. I am Voldemort's shadow no longer. Only Harry Snape, as I was born to be."
:Yes. You are whole once more, young Snape. Your mind is your own and your nightmares are ended. You have conquered your fears and now you can sleep soundly again.: She purred triumphantly. :Come, Wizard Snape. It is time for you to return home.:
This time the mist that shrouded the Black Lake was not threatening, and the dark shore was empty of Sirius's body. Harry cast one last glance over his shoulder at the serene spot before following the shimmerling back down the misty road to Prince Manor.
* * * * * *
When Harry opened his eyes, he found he was looking up into a pair of very concerned gray ones. "Draco?" he croaked, not comprehending for a moment why his foster brother would be looking at him with that particular expression on his face. "What's the matter?"
"I should be asking you that question, Harry. I could hear you screaming all the way in our room, and I . . .I had to come to see what was wrong. I know I shouldn't have, I know I promised Smidgen I'd stay away, but . . ." he trailed off awkwardly. "You okay? Or do I need to call Uncle Sev?"
"How come he isn't here?" asked Harry a bit petulantly. His screams had brought Draco but not Severus?
"Because he went into the forest to gather some more potion ingredients, remember? He couldn't hear you, or else I'm sure he would've been here like a bat out of hell, as the Muggles say." Draco reminded him quietly.
Smidgen stirred on Harry's chest, then she too woke. Blinking her large violet eyes, she sat up. :Well, that was not quite what I was expecting. But it is over and done with now. How are you feeling, Harry?:
Harry considered. "Uh . . .I feel like I did when I drank that summerdew. Like my head's gonna fall off any minute." He shut his eyes. "Draco, can you get me a Headache Remedy from Dad's lab? Because if I don't take something in about two minutes, I'm going to puke."
Draco looked alarmed and quickly summoned the requested potion from Snape's stores. He carefully slid an arm about Harry's head and lifted him up just enough so he could swallow the draft without choking. "Okay, Harry?" he tipped the vial gently, and the purplish potion flowed down the Gryffindor's throat in a blessed trickle.
He waited for Harry to swallow before giving him some more, recalling Severus's lessons about administering potions to a person too weak to sit up.
Harry swallowed cautiously, and to his immense relief the Headache Remedy started working immediately, reducing the awful throbbing in his temples to something bearable. He finished the draft and with Draco's help, sat up on the sofa. He flashed the other boy a grateful glance.
"Thanks, Draco."
The other looked away, embarrassed. "For what? You think I want to clean up your vomit, Snape?"
Harry hid a smile. "Now wouldn't that be a sight? The heir of Malfoy Manor, cleaning up puke like a house elf."
"In your dreams," snorted the pureblood. Then he asked softly, "Are you really all right now, Harry? Because if you up and croak on me, I'm going to follow you to heaven and kick your arse for dying and leaving me to face the wrath of Severus Snape all by myself."
Harry chuckled hoarsely, his throat was still a bit dry from screaming. "Don't worry, Malfoy. Even I'm not that cruel." He rubbed his eyes and cleaned his glasses on his shirt tail. "What?" he asked upon catching Draco's eye roll.
"Barbarian. No wonder you can't see straight." He produced a handkerchief from a pocket of his trousers and handed it to Harry.
Harry took it and cleaned his glasses again. "Thanks." He made as if to hand the cloth back, but Draco waved him off.
"Keep it. Now don't say I never gave you anything," smirked the other, his mouth twisting up in a wry grin.
"You're too kind," Harry replied, and stuck the handkerchief in his jeans pocket. "Hey, Smidgen? I'm starving all of a sudden. What d'you say to a bite to eat?"
The shimmerling stretched and yawned. :Yes, I need to replenish myself after the ordeal we went through.:
"Ordeal?"
"I'll explain once Dad gets back," Harry told him. "Right now, I need some food, before I pass out."
"Do that and you can sleep on the floor, because if you think I'm carrying you, Harry . . ."
"Too heavy for you, Draco?"
The Slytherin shook his head. "Nope, too much damn trouble." But then he held out a hand to assist Harry from the sofa. "You gonna walk to the kitchen by yourself, or do I have to hold your hand, little brother?"
Harry bristled. "Who are you calling little, Draco?"
"You, dimwit. In case you haven't noticed, I'm a half a head bigger and three months older than you. Therefore that makes you my little brother."
"Like hell."
"Don't argue facts, Harry," Draco pointed out, smirking. Then he turned and headed for the kitchen, followed by a ravenous and somewhat sulky Harry and an amused shimmerling.
That was where Severus found them upon returning to the manor some twenty minutes later, devouring a huge cold cut sub and an entire bag of corn crisps, plus the remainder of last night's apple pie.
The Potions Master raised an eyebrow, but all he said was, "So, how did this latest session go, Harry?"
"Yeah, start talking," Draco ordered. "Before my curiosity kills me."
Harry cleared his throat. Then he told them everything.
By the time he had finished, it was over an hour later, and as soon as he had ended his tale, Severus insisted he take a Calming Draft and go to bed. Harry protested, but his father was adamant, and in ten minutes, he found himself swallowing a Calming Draft, getting into pajamas, and going to bed.
"Dad, I'm fine," he objected.
"Go to sleep, Harry. After all of that don't even think of telling me you aren't tired." Severus ordered, tucking the covers about him. "Draco, watch him and make sure he stays in bed."
"Yes, sir."
"Suck up," Harry muttered drowsily once Severus had left the room.
"What is wrong with you, Harry? You get permission to sleep all afternoon and you're acting like it's a punishment. Are you sure you're a real teenager?" Draco asked incredulously.
But the only response he got from Harry was a soft snore.