Approximately one hour later, Snape sat in his armchair flicking through one of his books of ancient print. Harry lay on the mattress, back to Snape, dead still in the same position as when he had gone to sleep. Snape glanced furtively at him from time to time and went on reading, until he looked at his watch and put the book down. His eyes were riveted on Harry, waiting.

After a long while, Harry let out a low moan of pain. A violent jerk pierced his body. This repeated itself several times. It looked like someone was shaking him to wake him up. Suddenly Harry rose on all fours and let out a loud howl of pain. He raised his upper body but stayed on his knees. His body swayed and shivered. He was white as a sheet in the face. His front was moist with sweat and his pupils dilated. His arms were wrapped around himself as if to prevent his body from being torn to pieces. Snape approached him.

“Potter...? Harry! Do you hear me? Can you see me?” he asked kneeling right in front of Harry, moving a hand in front of Harry’s eyes.

“Can hear you…” Harry’s voice stuttered between waves of pain. “Only see darkness…”

Again and again he doubled up with pain, now screaming quite uncontrollably at the top of his lungs, saliva drivelling out of his mouth. He had difficulty drawing breaths. His muscles were so tense with pain it locked his chest and his pharynx.  He started to have fits bending his body backwards and turning his head upwards. Eyes still unseeing but wide open and tears running at the temples, his vocals seemed to cramp and the sound that came out was shrieking, like a strangled animal’s. Snape backed off and continued to watch Harry with rising alarm. Finally Harry’s arms were thrown out. He lifted from the floor with a plaintive cry and landed on his back.

When Harry awoke, he dimly saw a tall dark figure raised above him with a drawn wand pointed at him. He reacted instinctively, rolled over on the side and jumped up to his feet. He was still in considerable pain, vacillating. His eye-sight was so blurred he only distinguished a pale oval curtained by black hair. Somehow he had managed to draw his own wand and was pointing it back at Snape.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he croaked.

“I was going to Renervate you,” Snape cried out, still in such shock that he didn’t think of lowering his wand. Pain worked in waves on Harry who doubled up, clutching the arm of the chair where Snape had been seated. Snape hurried up to Harry’s side and helped him sit down.

“I’d take the pain off you, but I had better watch the attack to the end so that I don’t miss anything,” he muttered as much to Harry as to himself. Harry bent forward in the chair and rocked to and fro.

“It’s wearing off,” he said, lifting his head and grimacing. He looked at Snape. “I can see you quite clearly now”.

Snape stared at Harry.

“You died,” he said, incredulous.

“I told you so,” said Harry.

“But you really did,” insisted Snape. “You stopped breathing and your heart stopped beating for at least 30 seconds. I checked - there was no heart activity. I thought…” They pondered this for a moment. At last Harry, who was beginning to feel a bit stronger, said:

”Not a great move for your career to have the dead body of Harry Potter in your house… Well, in some quarters it would be a merit of course…”  Snape let out a noise that sounded like something between a snort and a chuckle.

“I’ve officially left that career, haven’t I?” Snape stood up and started to pace around the room. “What is this?” he muttered to himself. “An invisible force, striking only at night with torturing, blinding pain and that has the power to stop the heart of a human? This must be something that you have had a close relation to. It could only be - Voldemort!” 

“No!” said Harry in dismay.

“Tell me everything, every little detail of what happened when you went to face him,” commanded Snape.

Harry told Snape how he had gone into the Forbidden Forest, how he had stuffed away his wand and invisibility cloak and stepped into the circle of Death Eaters in front of Voldemort. He had done nothing to resist. Voldemort had hit him with an Adava Kedavra, the unblockable killing curse.

Harry went on, hesitantly because he did not know if it was relevant, to tell Snape about how he had woken up at a white shining place that looked like King’s Cross station where everything was serene except for the ugly, whining monster of a baby that lay under a bench. He told Snape how Dumbledore had appeared and told him there was nothing to be done for the shrieking creature.

“You took pity on the monster? You actually took pity on it? Did you approach it?” exclaimed Snape.

“I wasn’t thinking of touching it or anything. I was disgusted by it. I took a few steps forward to look at it, there’s when Dumbledore held me back,” said Harry.

“That would be enough, don’t you see?” said Snape with agitation. “This is it! It’s that thing, the crumpled part of Voldemort, blasted off from your soul that is getting at you now.” Snape drew his breath. “Haven’t you learnt anything, Potter?” he continued angrily. “Every child knows that you don’t make friends with demons, nor take pity on monsters!”

“Well, I was brought up in a Muggle family who loathed magic,” Harry retorted with force, “and neither Quirrell, Lockheart, Lupin, the false Mad-Eye Moody, Umbridge nor yourself found it important enough to teach us this stuff in the lessons of Defence Against the Dark Arts!” Harry had mentioned all his teachers of DADA at Hogwarts throughout the years, most of which had been disastrous.

“Indeed, I should have taught you at sixth year at school what wizard parents teach their children when they’re toddlers,” muttered Snape sarcastically.

“Yeah, well, Muggle-borns are supposed to find out a lot on their own,” answered Harry sulkily.

“It must be Voldemort!” Snape started to think aloud “The part of him had been attached to your soul for nearly seventeen years. When you took pity on it, even if it had been blasted away from your brain, it could reach out its tentacles and grab you. There’s no chance of his coming back through you, of course. The horcrux is destroyed and Voldemort is dead, but like all evil things it doesn’t care about the fact that it can gain nothing by killing you, it only wants to drag you along with him and cause as much chaos and evil as possible.” Snape looked at Harry with frenzy. “Now the question is how do we deal with this? How do we get rid of him? There’s no standard magic to solve this task - we must look for parallel cases in the past. Not any common case of confrontation between wizards and magical creatures - it must be a case of a powerful evil force”.

At this, Snape started to go about his books. Harry could see that he did not take on the problem at random. He knew his books well. He sorted them in piles and started going through the table of contents of each and one of the ancient leatherbacks. A couple of times he looked up a part that might be interesting and read a few pages, each time shaking his head.

“No, not any case of temporary attachment or accidental bewitchment - it’s too weak... What then?” Snape ran his fingers through his hair and looked up into Harry’s green eyes. “Some kind of a love story - that might be it!” he exclaimed. “A strong and long lasting attachment between good and evil that had to be broken up.”

Harry raised his brows but did not comment.

Snape pushed away the sofa that was crammed against the bookshelves and kneeled down beside the lower shelf to bring out a thick and heavy book, almost entirely covered in golden prints. As he carried it reverently to the table, Harry started to feel his insides rumble and the muscles tense. Snape opened the book carefully.

“Professor,” said Harry.

“We might find something here, Potter,” said Snape, eyes fixed on the register. Harry grabbed the back of the armchair with a growl.

“I’m sorry, Professor, here it comes again.”

Harry gasped and gritted his teeth to prevent himself from crying out. He was shaking and his breathing stuttered. Darkness swept before his eyes. Waves of pain travelled through his body when, suddenly, the pain left, as if a fire had been put out, or a suffocating rug been lifted from his face. It was the most wonderful feeling to breathe freely.

Instead, Harry heard a howl at his side and was bewildered by the sight of Snape’s contorted face. Harry realised with dismay that Snape had transferred Harry’s pain to himself. Snape dropped the wand he was holding in his hand, fell down on his knees and let out several stifled cries.

“Professor!” exclaimed Harry. “You shouldn’t have! What about your snake wounds? What if...?” He touched Snape’s shoulder. Snape’s body shook violently but he still struggled to turn away from Harry.

“It’s only physical pain, Potter,” Snape hissed through his teeth. “It’ll pass. Get off me!” Pain regained its grip on Harry again, not as forcefully as before, but enough to make him pant and wriggle. For several minutes they struggled side by side in silence. Pain trailed off from Harry first. Snape still looked weak and nauseated.

“Can I get you something, Professor?” Harry asked quietly.

“If you could pour me just a bottom full of Firewhiskey, please. You’ll find it in the kitchen.” Snape gestured faintly towards the hidden door at the far end of the room. It materialised and opened as Harry approached and he found a rather ordinary kitchen, with the exception of a showcase full of potion bottles and a shelf covered with small textile bags probably containing dried herbs. On the highest shelf, Harry found a bottle of Firewhiskey and returned to Snape.

“Just a bottom full, I told you,” Snape said grumpily as Harry had been a bit too generous. Snape regained a little colour in his face. 

“Now, it’s my turn to offer you a sleeping draught. No need for you to have any more of those attacks tonight. We’ll have to wait until next night to fight the remnants of Voldemort, as it will take me some time to figure out how. When did you last take a draught?”

“Two days ago,” said Harry. “I usually try to wait three or four nights in between.”

“Well, this is the last night you’ll need it,” said Snape firmly.

Harry was grateful towards the professor for sounding so convincing.

“Which potion has had best effect on you then – you’ve tried the whole lot?” asked Snape with curiosity. He staggered slightly as he walked towards the door to the kitchen.

“Oh, save the Draught of Living Peace which, although effective, honestly frightens me a bit, I prefer the modified version of the peeled blueberry potion,” said Harry, “where you substitute the ground moon powder for crystal flakes and add a flamingo feather.“

“Really?” said Snape. “I should remember that one, considering it was I who invented it. Yes, it’s a good one. Shouldn’t you add a tiny amount of bear tallow as well?”

“Yes, but I didn’t have any at the Burrow so I took some hedgehog tallow and it worked perfectly, so I believe it to be the flamingo feather or the crystal flakes which makes it so effective. In addition to the counter-clockwise turning of course,” responded Harry.

“I’m afraid I don’t have that particular draught in stock,” said Snape.

“Anything’ll do, really,” said Harry. “It usually only allows me to sleep until dawn, but I’m, grateful for those few hours of peace.” He kept up the light tone Snape had adopted but he felt tired and sad. The desperation and the anxiety were gone but he longed to disappear into dreamless sleep. Harry sat down on the mattress, made no fuss and didn’t even look at the label on the bottle Snape gave him. He uncorked it and swallowed.

“Thank you,” he said. 

***

Harry woke up as a faint yellowish light started to glow over the dark houses through the window. He did not exactly feel rested, but he felt a bit better compared to the evening before. He turned his head and saw Snape asleep in the armchair beside him. Snape’s head had fallen to the right and exposed the left side of his neck where, beneath the black collar, you could make out the piercing red scars of snake bites. Harry stayed stretched out on the mattress and stared at the ceiling, replaying and contemplating the events of the previous day. There was some hope, he concluded. He actually might not be condemned to suffering and social exclusion, nor to an immediate death.

He glanced over at the books that lay scattered all over the place - on the table, on the floor and on Snape’s lap and rose carefully. The beautiful ancient book where Snape had seemed to find something the night before lay open on the table. An illustration on the right page showed a woman on her knees, pain etched on her face as she stretched out both arms towards something that the artist had pictured like a dark shadow with a gaping empty mouth and long tentacle-like fingers reaching out for her. Harry read what seemed to be a healer’s personal account of a case he had encountered.

It dealt with a young girl who had grown up with a half-brother that was somewhat of a monster, conceived by an act of violation on a young witch by a powerful spirit from the underground. The child was fed with the fear and hatred of the traumatised mother. Part of her wanted to cure her son and the other part wanted to kill him. Therefore she gave him poison and clad him in clothes imbibed with nettles, which only nurtured the boy’s evilness and made him stronger.

The sister was the only one who cared for the freak who soon grew to be the terror of the region where they lived. The author suggested between the lines that the boy bullied and abused his sister but that she still loved him. The half-breed monster committed horrible crimes and one day he was caught stealing a baby away from its mother and he was cornered by three wizards. He thought himself clever and able to get away by escaping into the village church. When the wizards came after him, he meant to escape through the belfry by transforming into spirit smoke but got caught by a cogwheel. This proved to be goblin-made engineering and resistant to all magical powers and the monster was ground to pieces by the turning wheels. The sister heard his cries and hurried to help him, climbing the tower only to get covered by the minced pieces of her brother.

Subsequent to this event the girl went mad. The most pronounced symptoms of her mental illness were particularly painful attacks at night that the healer himself witnessed and described. The healer in question had lived in the village for some time and developed an attachment for the girl. He therefore made considerable efforts to talk to her and show her kindness and affection and managed in this way to gain her love in return. The girl was cured of her madness in daytime but continued to have the strange attacks at night which only grew worse. The healer feared for the young woman’s life. He persuaded her to return to the church at night to fight the dragging tentacles of her evil brother. Not until the fifth night when the girl conjured up the minced pieces of her brother, put them together and fired seven Avada Kedavras at it, was she relieved of her condition.

Harry lifted his eyebrows as he read the astounding story although he saw the parallels to his own predicament.

Snape was still asleep as dawn was turning to daylight outside. Harry peeked at the book that was posed beside Snape. It looked like descriptions of complicated incantations. He saw that Snape had scribbled some notes on a piece of parchment. It started with “7 AK”.  Seven Avada Kedavras – very well, so far Harry understood what he was supposed to do.

Harry walked about the room and stopped to look out through the window. A blue sky failed to make the street look any prettier. The buildings were worn and thrashed and some of the houses seemed to be uninhabited with broken windows and sprayed graffiti over the walls. Three children were playing football in the street. An old man was walking his dog and scowled at one of the boys who aimed a shot at the animal. Harry jumped as Snape gave away a snore and moved in his armchair, but he settled and continued to sleep. Snape would have been up the greater part of the night, Harry guessed. Harry was hungry but dared not go to the kitchen and serve himself. Instead he scanned the bookshelves for some easier literature and found a leather-backed book entitled Healing Incantations in the Context of Dark Arts which he picked up, settled in the sofa and plunged into.

Not until several hours later did Snape startle Harry by beginning to curse loudly.

“Merlin’s beard, it’s ten o’clock. How long have you been awake? I have an appointment at Hogwarts. And we’ve things to go through. Why didn’t you wake me up, Potter? Have you been reading my books?”

“I haven’t damaged them or anything,” Harry said defensively. Snape managed to make him feel like he was twelve years old. Snape threw himself into a febrile activity. He stormed away to change clothes, swept back and threw Harry an apple

“We’ll breakfast or have lunch at Hogwarts. We need to go straight away. I’ll explain to you there.”

“I’m to go with you to Hogwarts, Professor?” asked Harry.

“Of course you are, you have to go back into the Forbidden Forest tonight to fight your demon, have you not worked that out?”

“Yes, well, something like that,” muttered Harry. “I’ll have to practice before, you know.”

Snape looked puzzled.

“I’ll have to conjure up something that is dead and essentially non-material into a visible creature, don’t I?” asked Harry.

“Yes, good, I see you have read some of the stories I found,” said Snape.

“The one about the sister and the half-brother,” said Harry.

“Hmm... rather grotesque, that one. I found two more similar accounts,” Snape declared, “...and I’ll show you how to do the conjuring. You do know how to conjure up simple things, like material things that are present in the immediate surroundings, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” Harry said defensively. Snape had a habit of diminishing Harry’s magical capacities. “You’ll have to teach me the Avada Kedavra Curse as well, Sir,” Harry insisted as Snape turned away. Snape swung round and stared at him.

“Are you kidding me, Potter?” he asked incredulous.

“No, Sir,” answered Harry. “Even I can tell you’re not in a receptive mood for a joke at the moment. I’ve never performed an Avada Kedavra and - as you so often point out to me – I’m a mediocre wizard without special gifts or extraordinary powers and as such I have to practice new spells and curses before I’m able to perform them. I’ve managed the Imperius Curse once, but I’ve not done so well at the Cruciatus Curse. Your former colleague, Bellatrix, said to me that you had to mean it for it to work. And I’ve never had a try at the Avada Kedavra Curse yet.” Harry was speaking of the three Unforgivable Curses in the wizard world. Snape looked utterly confused.

“But you must have, at least once, performed a killing spell,” he said. “I just took for granted it must have been an Avada Kedavra. What else could have killed Voldemort?” It was Harry’s turn to wrinkle up his face in incredulity.

“Have you not had the curiosity to find out how Voldemort died - Sir?” he asked quietly. Snape coloured.

“Kingsley told me when I had regained consciousness,” he muttered, “but I was probably too worked up to listen to the end when I realised you had been babbling about me and...” He looked angry.

“You’re incredible!” Harry snapped at him.

“In that case...” Snape looked like he would like to throw Harry out of the house promptly, but he stopped himself in time.

Harry started to chew forcibly on his apple and paced to and fro.

“Dumbledore took pains to get me to know Voldemort,” he said, “...and to understand his driving forces and fears. Unlike Voldemort I have no extraordinary powers. I had no chance to beat him in a straight battle. I had to wind him up, to make him insecure. He was already afraid of me because he put so much faith in that prophesy and because I had already escaped him so many times and because his wand didn’t work against me. He was downright superstitious! He spent months looking for the Elder Wand. He was absolutely convinced that it was necessary to be able to kill me. But he had also understood from the information Mr Ollivander had given him that the conditions in which a wand is won are crucial to whether the wand will answer to the wizard or not. That’s why Voldemort killed you, because he thought you were the rightful owner of the Elder Wand. When I faced him, I talked to him to convince him that he was mistaken. I needed to make him doubt the Elder Wand. So I had to tell him that you had not conquered Dumbledore. You killed Dumbledore out of mercy, in an understanding between you and him. To convince Voldemort of this, I had to reveal your real motive for being on Dumbledore’s side. The mistake Voldemort made, however, was to overlook the fact that it was Draco Malfoy who disarmed Dumbledore before he was killed. When we escaped from the Malfoy manor I took Draco’s wand, and therefore, first Malfoy then I was master of the Elder Wand, not you, nor Voldemort. I don’t know whether this was true or not. What is true, however, is that I shot Voldemort a simple Expelliarmus spell, which you, Sir, taught me in second year at school, whereas he cast an Avada Kedavra at me. I disarmed him, his wand flew up and his spell returned on himself. That’s how he was killed.”

Snape stared at Harry for several seconds before he started to laugh, an uncontrollable but not unpleasant chuckle.

“You wound him up! You wound Voldemort up and he killed himself!” Snape laughed so much tears appeared in his eyes.

Harry started to grow slightly worried about his teacher’s state of mind.

“You killed Voldemort with your insolence! It’s magnificent – don’t you see?” Mirth was mixed with utter incredulity in Snape’s voice. “Was this Dumbledore’s plan all along, I wonder? Did he let you cultivate your insolent side because he knew it would bring Voldemort down in the end? I certainly didn’t see it coming! Although I don’t know how you can speak of Voldemort as disdainfully as you do, considering what I saw you suffer last night,” Snape added, finally completely serious again.

“I know...” Harry said contritely. “Courting disaster, am I? But the Voldemort I fought in May was a mortal being.”

“He was also evil, and it’s that part that you’ll have to fight tonight,” Snape said decisively. “I’ll teach you the Avada Kedavra. Now we must go! ”