Ficlet: Penance, Snape and Harry
Oh My God What The Hell.
I just wrote Book 6 fanfiction.
Sort of.
XxXxX
PENANCE
XxXxX
It came to this: boot-steps crushing fallen leaves into the damp ground. Cool air filling his nostrils. His warm gloves and his cloak and the lake - still and silent, filling the crevice of the hills, pulling the clouds and the land and the trees and the sky into its reflection.
It shouldn’t have felt like comfort, this cold air he drew into his lungs.
It shouldn’t have felt like coming home.
But it did.
And that he should be here as well, too thin, too frail, a man, just a man, casting his own dark reflection among the other blackened, barren branches…
That shouldn’t have felt right, either, but that whiff of old hatred, sharp as the cold, that shouldn’t have felt right, shouldn’t have felt like home. More than the charred carcass of a castle behind them.
But it did.
“Snape.”
Spoken like a spell, conjuring life into the ghost, giving it the power to turn and look at him:
“Potter.”
That this being more terrifying than Voldemort, a thousand times more real and deadly and close and human… Should know his name. Should know him. Should speak to him.
The years had made no difference - not to the sallow skin and black eyes, not to the hair less silvered by age than Harry’s own. A dream. A nightmare. Years had made no difference to the conflict of fear and rage and betrayal and guilt Harry still carried inside him. After all these years.
“I wanted to beg you to forgive me.”
Snape raised a brow.
No - “I wanted to tell you - I know. I’ll never forgive you, but I know. Dumbledore… Dumbledore arranged it, at the end, back then, Dumbledore made it so that I would know.”
Snape turned his back to Harry, turned back to face the lake. “And it took you this long to summon me.”
No anger, and that was like a gift. Not that Harry had ever wished to avoid Snape’s anger - usually quite the contrary - but that Snape, at least, had outgrown the snares of mutual contempt and outrage that had bound them, for all those years: That was like relief. That was like hope, for Harry himself.
“I had a lot of things to deal with,” Harry said.
Snape had been near the bottom of the list.
“I had a lot of anger,” Harry said.
There were - there are - a lot of things… But Snape had not turned back to look at him. He was watching a pair of crows squabbling in the distance, graceful in the air, perched in trees, swooping out over the lake.
So this was all.
It should not have made it better, that in Snape’s mind, in Snape’s mind in Harry’s mind in this vision of the lake, there was nothing further between them - no festering recriminations underneath the scars. Not in Snape’s mind. He had moved on. He had forgotten the boy-hero who had been used and made to abuse him. Who had been crafted to undo him.
He held no resentments.
It shouldn’t have filled Harry with sorrow, that he could not feel the same.
But that was that.
Harry turned away. He could still sense Snape’s presence behind him, absorbed in the cold serenity of the countryside, comfortable in his thin black robes, in his death and his strength and his austerity.
Harry had to go.
He still had many more goodbyes.
XxXxX
I just wrote Book 6 fanfiction.
Sort of.
XxXxX
PENANCE
XxXxX
It came to this: boot-steps crushing fallen leaves into the damp ground. Cool air filling his nostrils. His warm gloves and his cloak and the lake - still and silent, filling the crevice of the hills, pulling the clouds and the land and the trees and the sky into its reflection.
It shouldn’t have felt like comfort, this cold air he drew into his lungs.
It shouldn’t have felt like coming home.
But it did.
And that he should be here as well, too thin, too frail, a man, just a man, casting his own dark reflection among the other blackened, barren branches…
That shouldn’t have felt right, either, but that whiff of old hatred, sharp as the cold, that shouldn’t have felt right, shouldn’t have felt like home. More than the charred carcass of a castle behind them.
But it did.
“Snape.”
Spoken like a spell, conjuring life into the ghost, giving it the power to turn and look at him:
“Potter.”
That this being more terrifying than Voldemort, a thousand times more real and deadly and close and human… Should know his name. Should know him. Should speak to him.
The years had made no difference - not to the sallow skin and black eyes, not to the hair less silvered by age than Harry’s own. A dream. A nightmare. Years had made no difference to the conflict of fear and rage and betrayal and guilt Harry still carried inside him. After all these years.
“I wanted to beg you to forgive me.”
Snape raised a brow.
No - “I wanted to tell you - I know. I’ll never forgive you, but I know. Dumbledore… Dumbledore arranged it, at the end, back then, Dumbledore made it so that I would know.”
Snape turned his back to Harry, turned back to face the lake. “And it took you this long to summon me.”
No anger, and that was like a gift. Not that Harry had ever wished to avoid Snape’s anger - usually quite the contrary - but that Snape, at least, had outgrown the snares of mutual contempt and outrage that had bound them, for all those years: That was like relief. That was like hope, for Harry himself.
“I had a lot of things to deal with,” Harry said.
Snape had been near the bottom of the list.
“I had a lot of anger,” Harry said.
There were - there are - a lot of things… But Snape had not turned back to look at him. He was watching a pair of crows squabbling in the distance, graceful in the air, perched in trees, swooping out over the lake.
So this was all.
It should not have made it better, that in Snape’s mind, in Snape’s mind in Harry’s mind in this vision of the lake, there was nothing further between them - no festering recriminations underneath the scars. Not in Snape’s mind. He had moved on. He had forgotten the boy-hero who had been used and made to abuse him. Who had been crafted to undo him.
He held no resentments.
It shouldn’t have filled Harry with sorrow, that he could not feel the same.
But that was that.
Harry turned away. He could still sense Snape’s presence behind him, absorbed in the cold serenity of the countryside, comfortable in his thin black robes, in his death and his strength and his austerity.
Harry had to go.
He still had many more goodbyes.
XxXxX