Headmaster Snape: AU to DH Chapter 30
Note: AU to DH Chapter 30, a portion of which is quoted. None of this is mine, nor am I making any money.
The Surrender of Severus Snape
“My Lord,” Snape murmured deferentially. He waited a moment more, then turned from the fire to face Dumbledore’s portrait.
“Potter coming to Hogwarts? To the Ravenclaw tower? Does that make sense to you?”
Dumbledore looked thoughtful, but said nothing. Snape’s lips thinned in annoyance. This was one of the matters he wasn’t to be told, then. “You heard the Dark Lord’s orders. How the bloody hell am I to avoid capturing the boy when I’m forewarned!”
Now Dumbledore frowned. “A problem, yes. Trust to the Carrow’s incompetence…?”
Snape snorted. “One may certainly rely on them for incompetence, but I don’t care to bet the children’s lives on it.”
He broke off as Phineas Nigellus hurried into Dumbledore’s frame. Phineas turned his head to Snape. “Your pardon, Severus. Might I confer privately with Albus for a moment?”
Snape raised his brows and nodded agreement. Well. He certainly needed to give the appearance of following the Dark Lord’s orders with alacrity. After, he could determine how best to sabotage his arrangements. He walked back to the fireplace. Which was less competent in battle? He Flooed Alecto.
“Alecto. The Dark Lord has notified me that Harry Potter may attempt to break into Hogwarts, specifically into the Ravenclaw tower. Get Flitwick to let you in there and wait there Disillusioned in case he succeeds. Your brother is to patrol the upper halls; let him know. I need not remind you how critical it is that you both stay alert. Potter has a certain sly cunning; more to the point he has an invisibility cloak. There are to be no mistakes here. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Headmaster.” Her face shone with a mixture of greed and fear. Everyone knew what the Dark Lord had done to the last people who captured Potter and let him slip through their fingers. The surprising part was that the Malfoys had survived-and Bellatrix, unfortunately.
Snape withdrew his head from the flames. Black was back in his own frame now; both he and Dumbledore looked excited and disturbed. Snape straightened, his eyes widening.
“Endgame,” said Dumbledore softly.
*
Snape pretended not to have heard her. His eyes were still probing the air all about her, and he was moving gradually closer, with an air of hardly noticing what he was doing.
“I did not know that it was your night to patrol the corridors, Minerva.”
“You have some objection?”
“I wonder what could have brought you out of your bed at this late hour?”
“I thought I heard a disturbance,” said Professor McGonagall.
“Really? But all seems calm.”
If Snape let it come to a fight, he would have to stun her or flee. Neither would serve his purposes. That left one other option. There had never, after all, been a good way to approach the boy after their last … encounter.
Snape eyed Minerva’s tense posture. She would drop his wand, or, worse, blast it across the hall. More likely the latter.
He tossed his wand before her feet as he sank into the kneeling posture of full formal surrender.
Snape looked into her eyes.
“Have you seen Harry Potter, Minerva? Because if you have, I have a message from Dumbledore-”
He had just time to see her Accio his wand before he was knocked half way down the hall. Not even by wand, Snape realized; the boy had attacked him physically. Harry, revealed, stood over him now, his face half-demented with rage. His wand was raised, but he hadn’t-yet-used it against the man who sprawled wandless and defenseless at his feet.
“Give me one reason not to do it,” Harry whispered.
An interesting opening gambit. Revealing. Snape kept himself from raising his brows at the boy; the child would take it as aggravation. Holding the boy’s eyes, Snape answered, “You didn’t kill Pettigrew.”
The boy gasped and clutched his wand harder. “YOU KILLED DUMBLEDORE!”
Well. Snape had never envisioned having this conversation while sprawled flat on his back. Actually, he’d planned to have Harry be the one disarmed, preferably bound, while Snape forced him to listen. In the steadiest voice he could muster, Snape answered. “Yes. I killed Albus Dumbledore. At his own command and at- great personal cost.”
Harry achieved a sneer worthy of Snape himself and took half a step closer. Snape watched him gravely, being careful not to move. He said, “Harry, this can be verified to your satisfaction. You know the uses of the Pensieve. And you can ask Dumbledore’s portrait.”
“No I can’t, you can make it say what you want, they have to obey the Headmaster, Phineas Black told me so!”
“What’s that, Harry? That isn’t true,” said Minerva. She came up beside the boy and put the hand holding Snape’s wand on the shaking shoulder. Harry glanced down and took the wand. Minerva’s own wand pointed firmly at Severus. Miss Lovegood appeared at Harry’s other side. She must have been under the cloak with Harry. Her pale eyes were wide, her wand steady.
Three wands on Snape, and he wasn’t dead yet. This was proceeding about as well as he had any right to expect. Snape spared half a moment to sneer at his predicament.
The boy turned on McGonagall. “Phineas Black’s portrait told me! That’s why I couldn’t-couldn’t ask Dumbledore anything while Snape was alive, Snape could force him to say anything, to lie-”
McGonagall blinked. “That’s not true. The portraits can’t be forced. They have a duty to aid the current headmaster, true. Well, a duty to the school. But they’re immune from compulsion. If Phineas Black was telling you not to consult with Dumbledore’s portrait, it was for another reason. And even though he was a Slytherin, Headmaster Black would never act to the detriment of Hogwarts.”
She looked at the man on the floor with something remarkably like dawning suspicion.
“Minerva!” said a squeaky voice. Professors Flitwick and Sprout came sprinting up the corridor. Snape could feel the floor shake as Professor Slughorn panted along behind them.
Snape closed his eyes a moment. Minerva must have gotten her Patronuses off. When he opened them, six wands were trained on him, and Flitwick was squealing, “Harry! Harry Potter! And you got Snape!”
“No,” Minerva said baldly. “Snape surrendered.”
There was a pause, then a babble of voices. “It’s a trick!” Pomona urged, while Filius shouted “Murderer!” Someone’s foot nudged him, not as roughly as it might have.
Snape tried to remember. How had he planned to set up his explanation to Harry, again? Ah yes, a quiet and efficient kidnapping, with Snape showing exquisite courtesy to a helpless Harry as he persuaded the boy to listen with his matchless eloquence.
And he was spread-eagled on the floor instead, how? Snape suppressed a sigh.
A girl’s clear voice cut unexpectedly through the babble. “Professor Snape knew I spent a lot of time in the Forbidden Forest. I think we should listen to him.” Her wand was as steady as her pale eyes.
“What, Luna?” said Harry. He shook his head; Miss Lovegood sometimes had that effect on people. “What does the Forbidden Forest have to do with anything?”
“When he gave Neville, Ginny and me that detention, for trying to steal the Gryffindor sword. He knew we all liked Hagrid; he knew we’d been in the Forest before and weren’t as scared of it as most of the kids. You remember, Harry, I used to sneak in all the time. Professor Snape knew that. Sending us to Hagrid and the Forest just seemed an odd thing for him to do to us as a punishment. I wondered at the time if he were trying to be kind.”
Kind? Snape turned his head to stare at her. His mouth opened a moment; he snapped it shut. He reviewed the children’s conversation over tea at Hagrid’s; no, Miss Lovegood hadn’t joined the other two in jeering at his stupidity. Nor had she said anything to call their conclusions into question.
“Plus,” Luna added apologetically, “I couldn’t help but notice that the only people Professor Snape actually sent to the Carrows for punishment were the ones who had hurt other students. Everyone who did something to him or just broke a rule, he’d usually send to a lower class that wouldn’t do a good job at it.”
Ravenclaws were noted for their pattern recognition.
Snape turned his head back, staring impassively at the ceiling. The babble broke out again more excitedly.
The girl pointed out reasonably, “There are six of us, all armed. And he’s not. Can’t we at least let him talk? And maybe sit up?”
The floor was really very comfortable, Snape decided. He muttered, “I am apparently quite fortunate that the Dark Lord is less bright than some of my students.”
Minerva was staring at him, her hand pressed to her chest. “I did think, sometimes, you seemed strangely-inept…. You never lost control of a classroom like you did the school as a whole….”
“Thank you for that encomium, Minerva.” Snape arched a brow at her, and then returned his eyes to the boy, who’d stayed dead silent while the others murmured.
The boy’s voice was thick with hatred when he spoke. “So you’re claiming suddenly, now, that Dumbledore ordered you to do it? To kill him? Why? Just so you could stay in good with your Dark Lord? And I suppose you’ve been here just … pretending to be on Vol-his side?” His eyes blazed.
Snape was reminded suddenly of his own reaction, four years back, to Black’s story of Wormtail. But there was no Dumbledore here to rescue a maligned truth-teller, no inappropriately bestowed Time-Turner. He searched the boy’s eyes; Potter now looked as inflexible as Snape had been then.
Turnabout was fair; another of his father’s Muggle sayings. Snape restrained himself from snorting.
Flitwick interrupted their stare down with a hiss of fury. “A damned good pretense! You were torturing the students! And you enjoyed it!”
Flitwick was behind him; Snape had to arch his head back to meet his eyes. “I tortured no students, Filius.”
“I watched you do it! I couldn’t stop you!” The squeaky voice was shaking with fury and shame.
“What did you watch, Filius?” Snape’s voice and eyes were steady.
“I watched you cast the Cruciatus on my students!”
Snape shook his head slightly. “You’re the Charms master, Filius. What did you actually see?”
There was a momentary silence. Minerva who broke it, whispering, “A non-verbal curse…. Spell. I saw the students-react-”
Luna broke in, “He used it on me once. I blacked out, but I didn’t feel the same, after, as I did… at Malfoy Manor.”
Snape’s mouth tightened at the thought. He’d avoided thinking about Miss Lovegood’s incarceration.
That had been one of the matters not in his grasp.
He had also not thought about the fact that someone who’d experienced his fake curse might afterwards experience the real and compare the aftereffects. He had only thought about not using his fake curse on fellow Death Eaters. That he hadn’t betrayed himself to more students, and they in turn betrayed him to the Dark Lord, was, it seemed, pure luck. He had been more careless than he’d realized.
The Charms master shoved forward between the others so he could see Snape’s face better. His wand pointed between Snape’s eyes; Snape was reminded once again that Flitwick had been a dueling Champion. “You’re claiming you just … mimicked the Cruciatus Curse, Severus?”
“I’m claiming nothing, Filius. Work it out from the effects you saw.” Snape paused, and then gave him more. “In the interest of not claiming undue credit, however, I am compelled to admit that incorporating the Fortitudo Charm was Dumbledore’s suggestion.”
Flitwick’s chin jerked at that. Even without exercising Legilimency, Snape could read the thoughts passing in the small man’s eyes: the demeanor of students Cruciated by Snape versus by the Carrows, which students had needed Poppy’s ministrations afterwards, Miss Lovegood’s testimony…. His eyes still narrowed in suspicion, the Charms master asked, “Why didn’t Poppy notice, then? She should have spotted it.”
“She did,” Snape admitted. “The first week. She was, er, induced to forget again.”
Flitwick leaned forward sharply. “Her absentmindedness this year-repeated Obliviations-!”
Snape interrupted, “I used a potion, and the effects should be reparable. Minna has an antidote.”
After a long moment more, the duelist lowered his wand.
Touché.
Slughorn had held himself back from the others all this time, his wand ready but at rest. Now he rumbled, “Those potions were your design, then. I should have seen it when I brewed them. That contrary stir to consolidate the elements… that was always your trademark.”
Minerva was staring down at Snape as though he’d been Transfigured. She whispered, “Why didn’t we-I-see any of this earlier?”
“I created an illusion. It was necessary that all believe it.”
“Or you’re creating one now!” Harry snarled.
The boy. Snape had actually lost sight of the boy for a moment.
Harry Potter choked, “You say you’re claiming nothing, but you claimed that Dumbledore… commanded you. To MURDER him? But I watched… I was THERE… he, he said please. He said, your name….”
Severus could only whisper.
“I had promised. He had to … remind me... of my promise.”
Harry’s face twisted with revulsion and grief. He choked out, “Just to keep you in good with the Death Eaters? Just to put you in as Headmaster?”
Snape shook his head slightly. He felt his own mouth twisting, but he thought he kept his voice steady. It was hard to judge. “That, certainly. More, to save Draco from being forced to murder. You know the Dark Lord was threatening both Draco and his parents…. Dumbledore was concerned for the boy’s soul, that he would try, and for his life and his family’s if he failed….”
He saw that hit home, and continued, “Dumbledore was dying already from the curse that had withered his hand. My best efforts could not hold it at bay much longer; it had spread up his arm, it was a matter of weeks more at most by then…. And he told me he didn’t want to be left to the- mercy-of Fenrir or Bellatrix. I believe now that he had another reason, which he didn’t share with me, to want to ensure that his death was by his own arrangement and will.”
He watched the boy’s eyes. Yes. Harry knew something he did not. That had made sense to him.
Luna interrupted, “Does he have to lie on the floor, Harry? Let’s let him sit up.”
Harry nodded stiffly, green eyes still smoldering and distrustful. Harry took a step backward as Snape shifted. Harry lowered his wand to keep it trained on Snape’s heart. There was no graceful way to rise from flat on one’s-back. Snape scrambled, not to sit, but to kneel formally again. The others ringed him, wands ready. But only Harry’s was still aimed, Snape noted.
He said, “You witnessed it, Harry. You heard… that he had to remind me.”
Harry’s face was set in rage, and he kept silence.
“You witnessed it, Harry,” Snape insisted softly.
“And your other murders, Snape?” he finally spat.
That. In front of witnesses. At least he’d had warning. Snape closed his eyes a moment, remembering that fire-lit instant last year when the Potters’ son revealed he’d finally found out Snape’s true betrayal.
Kill me like you killed him….
But Harry hadn’t found out all of it.
“YOU HATED MY DAD, AND YOU KILLED HIM!”
“And I loved your mother. And I killed her.”
Snape felt his own face go as white as the boy’s. Green eyes glittered behind Potter’s glasses. When Lily’s child didn’t answer except by tightening his grip on his wand, Snape went on.
It was odd how easily these words came.
“No one has ever told you-who your mother truly was. She was a greatly talented witch, yes-but an extraordinary human being. It’s no accident that of all the Dark Lord’s victims, she was the one who managed to save someone else. You.
“She had a sense of justice as sure as Neville’s, and a heart so, so open she could care about everyone. She never tolerated cruelties, not even the petty ones that are ubiquitous, unquestioned, among children. That’s how I first noticed her, I lived among Muggles, went to her school, and once her friends were joined in taunting me for wearing-mismatched clothes. And she made them stop, she didn’t even know me but she made her own friends stop…. And so I started watching her in secret. Spying on her. And I saw she was a witch. Like me. The first I’d ever met-and I was the one who told her what she was. I told her about magic, about Hogwarts…. We became friends. My first true friend. And I loved her, always. But when we got to Hogwarts, she was sorted into Gryffindor. But we still stayed best friends for years… even though we started, she started, arguing about my other friends… until that day, when I called her …that.”
His voice grated to a halt; he saw the boy’s head jerk in recognition. First confirmation of his story. The wand was lowered slightly; he didn’t think the boy realized he had done so.
Now the words came hard.
“She wouldn’t forgive me. She wouldn’t accept my apology. She said… I’d chosen my way.”
Tears had risen, were starting to spill. Not his, not his. He refused to hide his face, keeping it turned blindly towards the boy.
“And so-I did. And she went on, to … marry… your father. But I loved her. Still. Always. I never thought to hurt her. Anyone else, anything else, but not her. And I had the gall to blame your father-for putting her at risk by opposing the Dark Lord, making them targets…. But then I overheard the prophecy, I brought it to the Dark Lord-and then he came back and said it was the Potters’ son. I’d pointed him straight at her, I had….”
The boy’s face was a white blur now; Snape couldn’t see through the tears.
Not his.
“I asked him to spare her. To kill you, but spare her. And he laughed, said he’d consider it …. And so, and so, I went to Dumbledore. Told him what I’d done. Begged him to protect her. He asked, what I’d give in return. I said … anything. And I did. I did. Whatever Dumbledore said. But it was too late.”
His body had folded over to crouch at the boy’s feet, as he had crouched before Lily in his dreams. This was real; this was waking. Snape forced his voice to continue. It sounded higher than normal, younger. Desperate. “I found out one of the Marauders was a traitor, but I didn’t know which one. I begged Dumbledore to be the secret-keeper, but he-your father-wouldn’t listen. I couldn’t stop it -nothing I did-he killed her, and it was my fault. My fault.”
A small, cold hand settled on his shoulder. Snape’s whole body shuddered with the shock of being touched. The hand drew him up until he was kneeling again, staring through tears at Lily’s green eyes. Harry’s eyes. He put his own hand over the small one, clung to that anchor as he forced out the last.
“And Dumbledore said. If I had truly loved her. I would help him. Protect Lily’s son.”
He had spoken the name aloud for the third time since her death. In its way her name in his mouth was a greater shock than any. His hand tightened on Luna’s hand as he shivered.
There was no more to say. He let the silence lie.
When the boy finally spoke, it seemed a non sequiter. “What was my mother’s Patronus?”
After a long pause, Flitwick answered, “A doe. She was the first in that whole class to master the charm. She was… very gifted at all charms.”
The boy nodded in confirmation and tossed Snape his wand. “Cast yours.”
Snape’s eyes widened in shock. His lips moved without sound. “Expecto patronum.”
The boy’s eyes followed the doe. Snape’s were only for the boy.
The Surrender of Severus Snape
“My Lord,” Snape murmured deferentially. He waited a moment more, then turned from the fire to face Dumbledore’s portrait.
“Potter coming to Hogwarts? To the Ravenclaw tower? Does that make sense to you?”
Dumbledore looked thoughtful, but said nothing. Snape’s lips thinned in annoyance. This was one of the matters he wasn’t to be told, then. “You heard the Dark Lord’s orders. How the bloody hell am I to avoid capturing the boy when I’m forewarned!”
Now Dumbledore frowned. “A problem, yes. Trust to the Carrow’s incompetence…?”
Snape snorted. “One may certainly rely on them for incompetence, but I don’t care to bet the children’s lives on it.”
He broke off as Phineas Nigellus hurried into Dumbledore’s frame. Phineas turned his head to Snape. “Your pardon, Severus. Might I confer privately with Albus for a moment?”
Snape raised his brows and nodded agreement. Well. He certainly needed to give the appearance of following the Dark Lord’s orders with alacrity. After, he could determine how best to sabotage his arrangements. He walked back to the fireplace. Which was less competent in battle? He Flooed Alecto.
“Alecto. The Dark Lord has notified me that Harry Potter may attempt to break into Hogwarts, specifically into the Ravenclaw tower. Get Flitwick to let you in there and wait there Disillusioned in case he succeeds. Your brother is to patrol the upper halls; let him know. I need not remind you how critical it is that you both stay alert. Potter has a certain sly cunning; more to the point he has an invisibility cloak. There are to be no mistakes here. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Headmaster.” Her face shone with a mixture of greed and fear. Everyone knew what the Dark Lord had done to the last people who captured Potter and let him slip through their fingers. The surprising part was that the Malfoys had survived-and Bellatrix, unfortunately.
Snape withdrew his head from the flames. Black was back in his own frame now; both he and Dumbledore looked excited and disturbed. Snape straightened, his eyes widening.
“Endgame,” said Dumbledore softly.
*
Snape pretended not to have heard her. His eyes were still probing the air all about her, and he was moving gradually closer, with an air of hardly noticing what he was doing.
“I did not know that it was your night to patrol the corridors, Minerva.”
“You have some objection?”
“I wonder what could have brought you out of your bed at this late hour?”
“I thought I heard a disturbance,” said Professor McGonagall.
“Really? But all seems calm.”
If Snape let it come to a fight, he would have to stun her or flee. Neither would serve his purposes. That left one other option. There had never, after all, been a good way to approach the boy after their last … encounter.
Snape eyed Minerva’s tense posture. She would drop his wand, or, worse, blast it across the hall. More likely the latter.
He tossed his wand before her feet as he sank into the kneeling posture of full formal surrender.
Snape looked into her eyes.
“Have you seen Harry Potter, Minerva? Because if you have, I have a message from Dumbledore-”
He had just time to see her Accio his wand before he was knocked half way down the hall. Not even by wand, Snape realized; the boy had attacked him physically. Harry, revealed, stood over him now, his face half-demented with rage. His wand was raised, but he hadn’t-yet-used it against the man who sprawled wandless and defenseless at his feet.
“Give me one reason not to do it,” Harry whispered.
An interesting opening gambit. Revealing. Snape kept himself from raising his brows at the boy; the child would take it as aggravation. Holding the boy’s eyes, Snape answered, “You didn’t kill Pettigrew.”
The boy gasped and clutched his wand harder. “YOU KILLED DUMBLEDORE!”
Well. Snape had never envisioned having this conversation while sprawled flat on his back. Actually, he’d planned to have Harry be the one disarmed, preferably bound, while Snape forced him to listen. In the steadiest voice he could muster, Snape answered. “Yes. I killed Albus Dumbledore. At his own command and at- great personal cost.”
Harry achieved a sneer worthy of Snape himself and took half a step closer. Snape watched him gravely, being careful not to move. He said, “Harry, this can be verified to your satisfaction. You know the uses of the Pensieve. And you can ask Dumbledore’s portrait.”
“No I can’t, you can make it say what you want, they have to obey the Headmaster, Phineas Black told me so!”
“What’s that, Harry? That isn’t true,” said Minerva. She came up beside the boy and put the hand holding Snape’s wand on the shaking shoulder. Harry glanced down and took the wand. Minerva’s own wand pointed firmly at Severus. Miss Lovegood appeared at Harry’s other side. She must have been under the cloak with Harry. Her pale eyes were wide, her wand steady.
Three wands on Snape, and he wasn’t dead yet. This was proceeding about as well as he had any right to expect. Snape spared half a moment to sneer at his predicament.
The boy turned on McGonagall. “Phineas Black’s portrait told me! That’s why I couldn’t-couldn’t ask Dumbledore anything while Snape was alive, Snape could force him to say anything, to lie-”
McGonagall blinked. “That’s not true. The portraits can’t be forced. They have a duty to aid the current headmaster, true. Well, a duty to the school. But they’re immune from compulsion. If Phineas Black was telling you not to consult with Dumbledore’s portrait, it was for another reason. And even though he was a Slytherin, Headmaster Black would never act to the detriment of Hogwarts.”
She looked at the man on the floor with something remarkably like dawning suspicion.
“Minerva!” said a squeaky voice. Professors Flitwick and Sprout came sprinting up the corridor. Snape could feel the floor shake as Professor Slughorn panted along behind them.
Snape closed his eyes a moment. Minerva must have gotten her Patronuses off. When he opened them, six wands were trained on him, and Flitwick was squealing, “Harry! Harry Potter! And you got Snape!”
“No,” Minerva said baldly. “Snape surrendered.”
There was a pause, then a babble of voices. “It’s a trick!” Pomona urged, while Filius shouted “Murderer!” Someone’s foot nudged him, not as roughly as it might have.
Snape tried to remember. How had he planned to set up his explanation to Harry, again? Ah yes, a quiet and efficient kidnapping, with Snape showing exquisite courtesy to a helpless Harry as he persuaded the boy to listen with his matchless eloquence.
And he was spread-eagled on the floor instead, how? Snape suppressed a sigh.
A girl’s clear voice cut unexpectedly through the babble. “Professor Snape knew I spent a lot of time in the Forbidden Forest. I think we should listen to him.” Her wand was as steady as her pale eyes.
“What, Luna?” said Harry. He shook his head; Miss Lovegood sometimes had that effect on people. “What does the Forbidden Forest have to do with anything?”
“When he gave Neville, Ginny and me that detention, for trying to steal the Gryffindor sword. He knew we all liked Hagrid; he knew we’d been in the Forest before and weren’t as scared of it as most of the kids. You remember, Harry, I used to sneak in all the time. Professor Snape knew that. Sending us to Hagrid and the Forest just seemed an odd thing for him to do to us as a punishment. I wondered at the time if he were trying to be kind.”
Kind? Snape turned his head to stare at her. His mouth opened a moment; he snapped it shut. He reviewed the children’s conversation over tea at Hagrid’s; no, Miss Lovegood hadn’t joined the other two in jeering at his stupidity. Nor had she said anything to call their conclusions into question.
“Plus,” Luna added apologetically, “I couldn’t help but notice that the only people Professor Snape actually sent to the Carrows for punishment were the ones who had hurt other students. Everyone who did something to him or just broke a rule, he’d usually send to a lower class that wouldn’t do a good job at it.”
Ravenclaws were noted for their pattern recognition.
Snape turned his head back, staring impassively at the ceiling. The babble broke out again more excitedly.
The girl pointed out reasonably, “There are six of us, all armed. And he’s not. Can’t we at least let him talk? And maybe sit up?”
The floor was really very comfortable, Snape decided. He muttered, “I am apparently quite fortunate that the Dark Lord is less bright than some of my students.”
Minerva was staring at him, her hand pressed to her chest. “I did think, sometimes, you seemed strangely-inept…. You never lost control of a classroom like you did the school as a whole….”
“Thank you for that encomium, Minerva.” Snape arched a brow at her, and then returned his eyes to the boy, who’d stayed dead silent while the others murmured.
The boy’s voice was thick with hatred when he spoke. “So you’re claiming suddenly, now, that Dumbledore ordered you to do it? To kill him? Why? Just so you could stay in good with your Dark Lord? And I suppose you’ve been here just … pretending to be on Vol-his side?” His eyes blazed.
Snape was reminded suddenly of his own reaction, four years back, to Black’s story of Wormtail. But there was no Dumbledore here to rescue a maligned truth-teller, no inappropriately bestowed Time-Turner. He searched the boy’s eyes; Potter now looked as inflexible as Snape had been then.
Turnabout was fair; another of his father’s Muggle sayings. Snape restrained himself from snorting.
Flitwick interrupted their stare down with a hiss of fury. “A damned good pretense! You were torturing the students! And you enjoyed it!”
Flitwick was behind him; Snape had to arch his head back to meet his eyes. “I tortured no students, Filius.”
“I watched you do it! I couldn’t stop you!” The squeaky voice was shaking with fury and shame.
“What did you watch, Filius?” Snape’s voice and eyes were steady.
“I watched you cast the Cruciatus on my students!”
Snape shook his head slightly. “You’re the Charms master, Filius. What did you actually see?”
There was a momentary silence. Minerva who broke it, whispering, “A non-verbal curse…. Spell. I saw the students-react-”
Luna broke in, “He used it on me once. I blacked out, but I didn’t feel the same, after, as I did… at Malfoy Manor.”
Snape’s mouth tightened at the thought. He’d avoided thinking about Miss Lovegood’s incarceration.
That had been one of the matters not in his grasp.
He had also not thought about the fact that someone who’d experienced his fake curse might afterwards experience the real and compare the aftereffects. He had only thought about not using his fake curse on fellow Death Eaters. That he hadn’t betrayed himself to more students, and they in turn betrayed him to the Dark Lord, was, it seemed, pure luck. He had been more careless than he’d realized.
The Charms master shoved forward between the others so he could see Snape’s face better. His wand pointed between Snape’s eyes; Snape was reminded once again that Flitwick had been a dueling Champion. “You’re claiming you just … mimicked the Cruciatus Curse, Severus?”
“I’m claiming nothing, Filius. Work it out from the effects you saw.” Snape paused, and then gave him more. “In the interest of not claiming undue credit, however, I am compelled to admit that incorporating the Fortitudo Charm was Dumbledore’s suggestion.”
Flitwick’s chin jerked at that. Even without exercising Legilimency, Snape could read the thoughts passing in the small man’s eyes: the demeanor of students Cruciated by Snape versus by the Carrows, which students had needed Poppy’s ministrations afterwards, Miss Lovegood’s testimony…. His eyes still narrowed in suspicion, the Charms master asked, “Why didn’t Poppy notice, then? She should have spotted it.”
“She did,” Snape admitted. “The first week. She was, er, induced to forget again.”
Flitwick leaned forward sharply. “Her absentmindedness this year-repeated Obliviations-!”
Snape interrupted, “I used a potion, and the effects should be reparable. Minna has an antidote.”
After a long moment more, the duelist lowered his wand.
Touché.
Slughorn had held himself back from the others all this time, his wand ready but at rest. Now he rumbled, “Those potions were your design, then. I should have seen it when I brewed them. That contrary stir to consolidate the elements… that was always your trademark.”
Minerva was staring down at Snape as though he’d been Transfigured. She whispered, “Why didn’t we-I-see any of this earlier?”
“I created an illusion. It was necessary that all believe it.”
“Or you’re creating one now!” Harry snarled.
The boy. Snape had actually lost sight of the boy for a moment.
Harry Potter choked, “You say you’re claiming nothing, but you claimed that Dumbledore… commanded you. To MURDER him? But I watched… I was THERE… he, he said please. He said, your name….”
Severus could only whisper.
“I had promised. He had to … remind me... of my promise.”
Harry’s face twisted with revulsion and grief. He choked out, “Just to keep you in good with the Death Eaters? Just to put you in as Headmaster?”
Snape shook his head slightly. He felt his own mouth twisting, but he thought he kept his voice steady. It was hard to judge. “That, certainly. More, to save Draco from being forced to murder. You know the Dark Lord was threatening both Draco and his parents…. Dumbledore was concerned for the boy’s soul, that he would try, and for his life and his family’s if he failed….”
He saw that hit home, and continued, “Dumbledore was dying already from the curse that had withered his hand. My best efforts could not hold it at bay much longer; it had spread up his arm, it was a matter of weeks more at most by then…. And he told me he didn’t want to be left to the- mercy-of Fenrir or Bellatrix. I believe now that he had another reason, which he didn’t share with me, to want to ensure that his death was by his own arrangement and will.”
He watched the boy’s eyes. Yes. Harry knew something he did not. That had made sense to him.
Luna interrupted, “Does he have to lie on the floor, Harry? Let’s let him sit up.”
Harry nodded stiffly, green eyes still smoldering and distrustful. Harry took a step backward as Snape shifted. Harry lowered his wand to keep it trained on Snape’s heart. There was no graceful way to rise from flat on one’s-back. Snape scrambled, not to sit, but to kneel formally again. The others ringed him, wands ready. But only Harry’s was still aimed, Snape noted.
He said, “You witnessed it, Harry. You heard… that he had to remind me.”
Harry’s face was set in rage, and he kept silence.
“You witnessed it, Harry,” Snape insisted softly.
“And your other murders, Snape?” he finally spat.
That. In front of witnesses. At least he’d had warning. Snape closed his eyes a moment, remembering that fire-lit instant last year when the Potters’ son revealed he’d finally found out Snape’s true betrayal.
Kill me like you killed him….
But Harry hadn’t found out all of it.
“YOU HATED MY DAD, AND YOU KILLED HIM!”
“And I loved your mother. And I killed her.”
Snape felt his own face go as white as the boy’s. Green eyes glittered behind Potter’s glasses. When Lily’s child didn’t answer except by tightening his grip on his wand, Snape went on.
It was odd how easily these words came.
“No one has ever told you-who your mother truly was. She was a greatly talented witch, yes-but an extraordinary human being. It’s no accident that of all the Dark Lord’s victims, she was the one who managed to save someone else. You.
“She had a sense of justice as sure as Neville’s, and a heart so, so open she could care about everyone. She never tolerated cruelties, not even the petty ones that are ubiquitous, unquestioned, among children. That’s how I first noticed her, I lived among Muggles, went to her school, and once her friends were joined in taunting me for wearing-mismatched clothes. And she made them stop, she didn’t even know me but she made her own friends stop…. And so I started watching her in secret. Spying on her. And I saw she was a witch. Like me. The first I’d ever met-and I was the one who told her what she was. I told her about magic, about Hogwarts…. We became friends. My first true friend. And I loved her, always. But when we got to Hogwarts, she was sorted into Gryffindor. But we still stayed best friends for years… even though we started, she started, arguing about my other friends… until that day, when I called her …that.”
His voice grated to a halt; he saw the boy’s head jerk in recognition. First confirmation of his story. The wand was lowered slightly; he didn’t think the boy realized he had done so.
Now the words came hard.
“She wouldn’t forgive me. She wouldn’t accept my apology. She said… I’d chosen my way.”
Tears had risen, were starting to spill. Not his, not his. He refused to hide his face, keeping it turned blindly towards the boy.
“And so-I did. And she went on, to … marry… your father. But I loved her. Still. Always. I never thought to hurt her. Anyone else, anything else, but not her. And I had the gall to blame your father-for putting her at risk by opposing the Dark Lord, making them targets…. But then I overheard the prophecy, I brought it to the Dark Lord-and then he came back and said it was the Potters’ son. I’d pointed him straight at her, I had….”
The boy’s face was a white blur now; Snape couldn’t see through the tears.
Not his.
“I asked him to spare her. To kill you, but spare her. And he laughed, said he’d consider it …. And so, and so, I went to Dumbledore. Told him what I’d done. Begged him to protect her. He asked, what I’d give in return. I said … anything. And I did. I did. Whatever Dumbledore said. But it was too late.”
His body had folded over to crouch at the boy’s feet, as he had crouched before Lily in his dreams. This was real; this was waking. Snape forced his voice to continue. It sounded higher than normal, younger. Desperate. “I found out one of the Marauders was a traitor, but I didn’t know which one. I begged Dumbledore to be the secret-keeper, but he-your father-wouldn’t listen. I couldn’t stop it -nothing I did-he killed her, and it was my fault. My fault.”
A small, cold hand settled on his shoulder. Snape’s whole body shuddered with the shock of being touched. The hand drew him up until he was kneeling again, staring through tears at Lily’s green eyes. Harry’s eyes. He put his own hand over the small one, clung to that anchor as he forced out the last.
“And Dumbledore said. If I had truly loved her. I would help him. Protect Lily’s son.”
He had spoken the name aloud for the third time since her death. In its way her name in his mouth was a greater shock than any. His hand tightened on Luna’s hand as he shivered.
There was no more to say. He let the silence lie.
When the boy finally spoke, it seemed a non sequiter. “What was my mother’s Patronus?”
After a long pause, Flitwick answered, “A doe. She was the first in that whole class to master the charm. She was… very gifted at all charms.”
The boy nodded in confirmation and tossed Snape his wand. “Cast yours.”
Snape’s eyes widened in shock. His lips moved without sound. “Expecto patronum.”
The boy’s eyes followed the doe. Snape’s were only for the boy.