[Wednesday one-shots]; Opening Salvo, S/H/D, S/D, PG-13, 2/5
Part One.
Title: Opening Salvo (2/5)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Snape/Harry/Draco, established Snape/Draco, mentions of past Harry/Ginny
Warnings: Angst, suicidal thoughts, AU in that Snape survives
Summary: Harry, consumed by his memories after the war, finds himself guided by Luna to Severus and Draco, who have lived in seclusion since the end of the Death Eater trials. Now Harry is face-to-face with old enemies he testified for and a place of peace where he has no choice but to think.
Author’s Notes: Another one of my Wednesday one-shots, written for an anonymous prompt that asked for: Harry living in the Muggle world, struggling with PTSD, and being brought by Luna to Draco and Severus, who owe her and Harry debts; angst with a happy ending. This will probably have three parts.
Thank you for all the reviews! This story is going to be longer than I thought, probably five parts instead, to properly accommodate Harry’s healing.
An attack of memories, Severus wrote as he settled against the heavy dark shelves he kept most of his Potions ingredients on and observed Potter. Potter had sat on a chair for the past half-hour and stared at Severus’s brewing cauldrons without words or movements. Well, except for a twitch now and then.
So Lovegood claims. It may be that he simply suffers from lack of attention and not having someone to tend to his every need for acclaim.
Keeping that in mind, Severus turned back to the cauldron in front of him. This particular Calming Draught required a great deal of minced bay leaves. He would ignore Potter for a time and see what happened.
Nothing was what happened, other than a few times Potter caught his breath or coughed, perhaps from the fumes. Indeed, Severus was able to measure and pour so well that he forgot Potter was in the room. He had crushed several flies with a mortar and pestle and filled another cauldron with water before he remembered.
“Tell me about your memories, Potter,” he instructed, without turning around.
“Why? You were there for the worst of them.”
Severus turned sharply, but the tone hadn’t been insolent. Potter went on staring drearily at the potions. Severus frowned and tipped a spoonful of honey into the cauldron of water, then set it to simmer.
“I want to know what memories make you unable to move out of the house.”
“My relatives starving me. Voldemort dying. Dumbledore dying. Sirius dying. Cedric dying. The moment in the graveyard when Wormtail cut open my arm and took my blood. The end of second year when-”
“I was not there for most of those,” Severus cut in. He hadn’t meant to provoke such a recital. “Tell me about the end of second year.”
But Potter didn’t speak for an unnervingly long span of time. Severus kept his eyes on the cauldrons again, and tried to forget about it. The moment arrived when he needed to tilt a second spoonful of honey into the potion that had required the first, and he did so.
Finally, Potter began in a whisper that Severus had to listen hard for, since it almost disappeared into the rustling of liquids in the cauldrons and the soft plop of bubbles. Luckily, listening to Potions for most of his life had given him extraordinary hearing.
“We knew Ginny was in the Chamber of Secrets. I thought I would be going in with Ron and Professor Lockhart-”
Severus snorted. He had known Lockhart was a fraud long before anyone else.
Not that Albus listened to me. He should have listened.
“Yes, I know,” Potter said, surprisingly on point, as if he were answering Severus’s thoughts. Severus twisted around and stared. Potter shrugged and went on. “But we didn’t know that then. Then Lockhart got Obliviated because he tried to use Ron’s broken wand on us, and he and Ron got trapped on the other side of the rockfall. I had to go on alone.”
He stopped. Severus stirred uneasily. He had thought he would listen to some maudlin litany of woe, and he supposed it could still sound like that if you listened in the right way. But he was listening in the correct way.
Potter’s flat, emotionless words were disturbing.
Severus cleared his throat. “Go on.”
“And then I went into the Chamber. I found Ginny and the diary draining her. I still trusted Tom Riddle, the boy in the diary, and I tried to get him to help me. But then he revealed that he was the Heir of Slytherin, and he’d been possessing Ginny and getting her to command the basilisk. He summoned it.”
Again Potter stopped. Severus looked at him and saw him staring into space, his eyes fixed.
“Potter?” Severus said sharply, and stepped towards him. He wafted a bit of the smoke from the most foul-smelling cauldron towards him with a wordless charm.
Potter didn’t move.
Severus winced. These would be the “memory-trances” he talked about, then. And that Lovegood wants us to heal him from.
Despite his reluctance and memories of how badly this had gone last time plaguing him, Severus saw no choice. He had no idea how long it would take Potter to recover from one of these trances, and no idea what his mood would be like when he did, or if he would be up to discussing the Chamber of Secrets. Severus stepped up to him, braced his hip against the table, ignored the burning of the scars on his throat, and whispered, “Legilimens.”
He disappeared into the memory of a snake charging at him.
*
It was so violently real.
Harry knew in some part of himself, distant and unimportant, that he couldn’t be here, twelve years old, kneeling on the floor of the Chamber with the basilisk looming above him. He’d already been here once, and he was older than twelve. He’d survived and he’d used the Sword of Gryffindor and phoenix tears to do it.
But he was there anyway, and the great mouth was stabbing down, and then one of the basilisk’s fangs went through his arm.
The pain was more real than last time. It unfolded through his arm like a great poisonous flower, and Harry felt each and every one of the thorns stabbing him. He screamed, but the scream was a weak little sound, and he slumped forwards onto the floor of the Chamber. Blood pooled around him, shooting out from his arm, so much blood that his head spun from the loss.
“It is not real, Potter.”
The words were like a rock to lean on. Harry turned his head and found Snape standing beside him. But he didn’t look right. He didn’t look as young as he should. He looked older and tired, and he had scars on his neck that made it look as though a basilisk had bitten him.
The thought was like someone had torn a breach through the memory, and light and air rushed at Harry through the gap. He gave a loud sob and reached out to clutch at Snape’s robe, even though it was Snape.
Suddenly he could feel something else beneath him, a chair that he was sitting on or something. He could smell other things than blood and death-smoke, fumes maybe? And he could hear the hissing of the cauldrons louder than the hissing of the basilisk.
“Hold on to me.”
Unexpected words to come from Snape, again. But Harry closed his eyes and did so. He had been outside this memory, he knew that, but this was the first time he had ever felt as though something actually existed outside the small part of him insisting on the truth.
It was hard to believe in that mental “truth” when he was seeing blood on the floor, feeling the pain, and reliving every instant of a memory, even if the rest of him said it was long past.
*
Severus hooked one arm around the memory-projection of Potter. It felt far more solid than such a projection should.
Of course, the basilisk turning around in front of them and hissing like a poisonous potion was also more solid than he would have thought. As solid as reality, he thought. Not composed of fleeting impressions and colored smoke the way he was used to viewing memories as a Legilimens. The only time Severus had seen anything resembling these pictures was when he had attacked the mind of an Occlumens with unusual training. In the moments before Severus had been able to extract himself and free, the Occlumens had flung images like this at him, images that could have trapped him in a “reality” entirely of his victim’s making if he hadn’t been careful.
But Potter had no such Occlumency training, and should not have needed it even if he had, now that the Dark Lord was dead. Severus had no idea what could have caused these kinds of images to pop up.
“Come with me, Potter,” he said steadily, and began to fall back, across the floor of what certainly looked like it could be the Chamber of Secrets. Potter followed him, kneeling at first, then crouching, and then getting to his feet as the image of the basilisk thrashed behind the barrier Severus’s presence had constructed.
That was another odd thing. Severus had every reason to know that Potter didn’t associate his presence with safety. So why he had reacted now as if he did? Memories were not supposed to encourage someone to go against their deepest emotional inclinations, no matter how bad they were.
Of course, Potter might not hate you as much as you always assumed.
Severus dismissed the notion, eyes locked on the basilisk. For now, he would worry about getting them out of here.
Potter abruptly leaped into the air. Severus tried to clutch at him, and stumbled a little. That meant, though, that the basilisk’s tail missed them both as it swept in behind them, trying to scythe them from their feet.
And memories definitely aren’t supposed to fight back, Severus thought grimly, and then he gave up on being delicate with Potter’s mind and simply rammed them both straight out of there. Potter had welcomed Severus into his memories. That made the likelihood that he would do permanent damage to him small.
And at the moment, Severus was more worried about the permanent damage Potter’s own mind might do.
*
Draco took one look at Severus’s face and stopped petting William, who had curled up at his side in one of his needy moods. William lifted his head and whimpered. Then he saw Severus and leaped to his feet, a growl quivering through his little doggy body.
“What is it?” Draco asked quietly, reaching for the small basket that always accompanied him unless he was actually feeding the animals. If Luna had brought them another badly injured creature, Draco would need the contents.
“It’s Potter.”
Draco stared, and then managed to wrench himself into the mental world he needed to acknowledge that Severus could look concerned like that over Potter. He still nodded and picked up the basket. It was probably going to be useful anyway. “What happened?”
“He went into a memory-trance,” said Severus briskly, opening the door of his lab. “I tried to use Legilimency to get him out of it, and the memory came to life and attacked us.”
“What?”
Severus glanced back. “I know.”
Draco ducked his head, and only partially to ponder such a strange occurrence. He really wanted to hide his quivering lips from Severus. There was no trace of disdain or boredom in Severus’s expression now. His voice was full of the intent pleasure of a hunt, which Draco only heard most of the time when Severus was discussing an experimental potion that would make a major difference in whatever field it was for.
Make Potter into a challenge. That’s the way to get him to treat him. Luna was right.
Potter lay on the floor against the wall when Draco came into the room. He turned his head to acknowledge them, but that was all. William wriggled briskly past before Draco could get to Potter-Draco hadn’t known the Crup was following them-and went straight to Potter, licking his face in a no-nonsense manner.
Potter lifted his head and then his hand, and gently pushed William away. He looked at Draco’s basket instead of Draco himself.
“What’s that?” he murmured, gesturing at the little pots and pastes inside.
“Your salvation,” said Draco, and set the basket down. He had to hide his twitching lips again as he watched Potter dodge William’s tongue. William persisted in the quiet way Draco had sometimes seen the Crup mothers Luna brought them clean their puppies. “Hold still and open your mouth.”
“Is it going to be filled with saliva if I do?” Potter asked, glancing warily at William.
“I’ll hold the ferocious monster back,” said Severus solemnly, and caught hold of William’s collar. William sat down, but kept his gaze on Potter, as much to say that he needed to take his medicine or it would be a tongue-bath for him.
“Now,” said Draco, and took out the nearest of the little pots. It was filled with an orange paste that he used to calm the worst of the wounded unicorns down. He’d let his hand go to it instinctively, but he thought the guess was right. “Are you going to swallow this on your own? Or rather, let me coat your tongue with it?” he added, as Potter opened his mouth.
Potter grimaced, but stuck his tongue out. Draco carefully smeared the paste along the middle, then drew back and said, “Pull it back into your mouth and swish it around as hard as you can. That’ll mean that the paste gets on your teeth, and that’s the best you can hope for.”
“Hard to hope for things now,” Potter muttered, but he did as Draco told him. Draco watched critically. It took longer for the telltale signs of relaxation to spread through Potter’s body than it did a unicorn’s, but in the end he turned and slumped against the wall, his eyes fluttering shut.
“Now,” Draco said to Severus, and Severus nodded and began to cast the diagnostic spells that they usually used on unicorns, who were more easily spirit-wounded than any of the other beasts they took care of. It was surprisingly easy to think of Potter as an awkward unicorn who just happened to have hands instead of hooves and no horn, Draco realized. He cast his own diagnostic spells for the physical wounds, and shook his head when he was done. Potter was suffering intense exhaustion, both magical and physical.
If all he’s been doing is lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling-which is what Luna described-then where the hell did that come from?
“Draco!”
Severus’s sharp voice made him turn, already poised to battle whatever threat had arisen from the patient’s body. Some of the cleverer unicorn hunters would leave spells behind that would cling to fur or hooves, degrading their prey’s ability to escape even if they managed to get themselves out of the trap.
But this was nothing like any spell Draco had seen before. A violently surging green light-the color of the Killing Curse, in fact-had encircled Potter’s body. It was striking and lunging like a snake, one sharp tip on the end open like a snake’s mouth.
It was no wonder Severus had frozen. Draco shooed him back and stepped in front of him, snapping his wand in the charm that stopped most of these hunting spells dead in their tracks.
It didn’t stop this one. On the other hand, Draco felt nothing when the sharp end tried to brush him. It simply retired into Potter’s body and watched with one vigilant eye. The other end of it was sunken into Potter’s head.
Into his scar.
“I think it’s probably some remnant of the Horcrux,” Draco whispered in awe. He felt Severus tense behind him, and was sorry for it, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the spell. “A curse that the Dark Lord left behind, or something. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s hard to be sure.”
“I would not have expected such a curse,” said Severus at once, frowning. “During his last moments of life, the Dark Lord was entirely occupied in…defending himself. He would not have had the time.”
Draco nodded. “And it feels more like a spiritual wound to me, anyway.” Years of treating unicorns, chimeras, and some of the other rarer and more delicate magical creatures had left him sensitive to the vibrations of magic that came from a wound as opposed to a curse. Now that he was concentrating and not distracted by how unusual the snake appeared, he could feel those vibrations.
“Yet the Horcrux is gone,” Severus said.
Draco found his hand and squeezed it without looking away from Potter. He knew the reason those words were an article of faith for Severus, and he didn’t intend to diminish his comfort. “It is,” he agreed. “But I have to wonder what sort of void it would leave behind in a living host. Or what sort of injury you’d get tearing it loose.”
Severus shifted behind him and breathed in deeply. Draco hid his smile again. That was the sound of Severus Snape, Researcher, coming to the fore, as opposed to Severus Snape, Former Death Eater.
“Yes, it would be an unexpected situation,” Severus murmured. “Of course, Potter’s general apathy is more consistent with simple mental trauma from the war.”
Draco nodded at the snake. “But this is complicating it. And probably preventing him from healing, and pulling him more firmly into those memories than should be the case for anyone simply experiencing aftereffects from the war.”
After the moment, Severus raised a hand in reluctant agreement. Draco nodded and cast one of the spells that spread a light glaze of healing over the spiritual wounds in a unicorn, subduing their crazed pain enough that Draco could work with them.
The snake struggled against it for a moment, as if it would slip through the gleaming silver loops of the spell, but then it vanished back into Potter’s body. Draco sighed and stood up. “I’ll move him to a bed,” he said. “And size some clothes for him. He probably should have rested this morning, instead of immediately joining you in the lab. Do you want to come with me?”
Severus, his gaze locked longingly on Potter, nonetheless shook his head. “I’ve left some sensitive potions without supervision long enough,” he added, and turned towards the lab.
Draco gently floated Potter into the air, never looking away from him himself. Potter had borne those wounds by himself, without his friends, and either surfacing from such memories in his own time or resisting them through his own strength?
It’s remarkable that he’s lasted this long.
*
Harry started awake. He was in a bed he didn’t recognize, a bed with silver sheets and green pillows but in a room with a bland color scheme. There was a single table by the bed, a desk across the room with a chair, and a large window. In the chair sat Malfoy, who turned swiftly to face him.
“What happened to Snape?” Harry asked quietly. “The last thing I remember is him trying to help me escape the basilisk.”
Malfoy smiled a little, as if he approved of Harry’s concern for Snape. Well, seeing that they’re lovers, he probably does, Harry thought. “He’s fine. He got you out of your memories, but then a magic manifested, like a green snake darting around you, that I think is a remnant of void left by the Horcrux. And your memories are too strong. It’s no wonder you’ve been trapped in them. The Horcrux remains probably strengthen them.”
“You mean it’s real?”
“What’s real?”
Harry had to close his eyes and swallow. But at least, at last, he could tell someone about this, the thing he hadn’t wanted to voice because it sounded like he was going insane, and enough people thought him mad already.
“There’s a green snake I see sometimes. The color of the Killing Curse. It crawls through my dreams and laughs at me. Tells me I’ll never be free. Tells me I should never have survived the war, or Voldemort. Tells me…”
He trailed off. Not even to an interested and believing audience could he tell some of the other things the snake had said.
“That would be it,” said Malfoy, his voice mountain-steady. A second later, Harry started because he felt a hand on his brow. Malfoy touched his scar, even after Harry opened his eyes to stare, and then nodded and pulled his hand back.
“Rest here, Potter. Severus and I are going to discuss the best way to rid you of these remnants.” He rose, but didn’t walk out of the room, instead standing with his back to Harry. Harry blinked and waited.
“And we’re going to succeed,” said Malfoy, turning just enough that Harry could make out one fanatically determined grey eye. “I don’t care how long it takes us. We will.”
Harry nodded back, with a dry throat. Malfoy walked out, and Harry lay back in what felt like a slow-motion collapse.
The thought that someone else believed him about the green snake, that he might be free of the memories and nightmares that had plagued him since the war…
And even right now, as sleep tugged on him again and he closed his eyes, he could feel how much clearer his head was. As though someone had reached in and forcibly removed some of the clinging strands that were overgrowing his brain.
Thank you, Luna.
Part Three.
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