Chapter Text
A/N: Although I have obviously not stricken a responsive chord among you all with this story, here finally the last chapter: :)
The Chess Master, the Pawns and the Wand of Destiny
They both sat quietly and drank their tea for a while. It wasn't easy to digest all the new information. Especially Dumbledore's part in all this marred the image of the good and wise wizard Harry had painted in his mind. Dumbledore had failed in so many ways, be it due to human fallibility or expediency. He had left Sirius in Azkaban without trial. He delivered Harry to the Dursley without making sure he'd be treated decently. Multiple times, he had failed to identify dangers to Hogwarts’ students: Quirrell and Moody, to name only two. He had ruthlessly taken advantage of Severus' penchant for self-destruction, and he had manipulated Harry, who had idolized him. All this left him confused and disillusioned.
"I'm not sure what to think of Dumbledore anymore," Harry confessed to the man who was most likely to understand his inner turmoil. "I always thought he liked me. I thought he liked you, too. But he still used and manipulated us. Do you remember my first year, when Quirrell tried to get the Philosopher's Stone? It was Dumbledore's set up from the beginning. He thought the time had come for the prophesy to be fulfilled."
Now it was Severus' turn to look at Harry with surprise and a good amount of curiosity. "How do you come to that conclusion?" he asked, realising more and more that James' and Lily's son was much smarter than he had always given him credit for.
“Well, first and foremost, one has to wonder how Dumbledore, the greatest wizards of our time, could possibly have failed to notice that one of his teachers was carrying around the Dark Lord in his head. Quirrell had come back from his sabbatical behaving strangely – not to mention the smelly turban he suddenly felt like wearing. Even Hagrid had noticed changes in him. Dumbledore still gave him the DADA position and decided quite out of the blue to move the stone that had peacefully sat in a Gringotts vault for god knows how long to Hogwarts. Why would he do that?”
“You tell me.” Severus was curious to hear what the boy had made of the events back in his first year.
“It's obvious, isn't it? Dumbledore knew that Quirrell was possessed. So, in order to force his hand, he set up a trap, dangling the very thing in front of his nose that Voldemort needed to resurrect himself.”
Severus nodded. “Albus had in deed noticed that Quirrell was acting strangely. He asked me to keep an eye on him. It seemed that Quirrel had inquired after the stone – supposedly purely out of scientific interest in a magical artefact.”
Harry snorted. “More likely because neither he nor Voldemort were keen on sharing a body forever. Voldemort knew about the stone and Dumbledore's connection to Flamel – it's on the Chocolate Frog cards! If Quirrell, on top of acting oddly after his sabbatical, started asking questions about the stone, Dumbledore must have been highly suspicious of him. He transferred the stone to Hogwarts and made sure that Quirrell knew about it – first by sending Hagrid on his mission, then by making Quirrell help set up the protections. At the same time, he made sure that I knew, too.”
“He told you what he was hiding in Hogwarts?” Severus asked, surprised.
“No. But he sent Hagrid to collect it while in Diagon Alley with me, and Hagrid is not really the man for secret missions. There was no reason to do that – unless Dumbledore wanted to draw my attention to the fact that a mysterious item of great importance was going to be hidden in Hogwarts. The Daily Prophet later reported about a break-in into exactly the same vault Hagrid and I had visited that day. And let’s not forget Dumbledore’s announcement that the third floor was strictly off limits, which was basically an invitation to snoop around. Seriously, it wasn’t all that difficult to put the pieces together. If it had truly been about the security of the stone, Dumbledore could have fetched it himself in secret and hid it in his office.”
“And that was your clue that he actually wanted you to chase after it?”
“No, not at the time. Back then, I really thought I was hot on the trail of a villain, and nobody but Ron, Hermione and I could see the danger. We were eleven! What did Dumbledore think I’d do when he gave me my dad’s invisibility cloak for Christmas – anonymously!”
What indeed? Severus pulled a face. That darned cloak! After all the tricks James had pulled off with it, Albus should have known that such a dangerous artefact did not belong in the hands of children. It had taken Severus years to figure out how Harry had been able to get into so much mischief unnoticed, despite his best efforts to keep an eye on the boy.
Harry spread his hands in silent apology and added: “He put me up to snooping around. That’s why he made sure that the coat was returned to me even after we lost it on the Astronomy tower one night, after a run-in with Draco.”
At that, Severus lifted an eyebrow. As if the rule-breaking tendencies in Harry had ever needed incitement! He’d always had the annoying habit to put his nose where it didn’t belong. But there was no doubt that Albus had encouraged or at least condoned his activities.
“Dumbledore made sure that I found the Mirror of Erised before it was used as a final protection. He also ascertained that I understood how it worked. And seriously – all those 'protections' on the stone were no protections at all: They were challenges, an obstacle course – an adventure game designed for a first year.
That’s what all the teachers participating in its design had said, too. With twinkling eyes, Albus had merely told them that it would be alright, that he knew what he was doing. As Harry had rightly pointed out: Had it been a matter of security, Albus could have hidden the stone in the drawer of his nightstand. Instead, he made sure that the entire school knew something or importance was hidden behind an inconspicuous door in the third floor corridor.
Harry obviously was aware of all this, too, as he gave Severus the spiel of how easily they had overcome all the obstacles. “It was easy to find out how to get past Fluffy, given that I had befriended Hagrid, thanks to Dumbledore's ministrations. The Devil's Snare is on the first year's Herbology syllabus and there was a high chance that at least one of us had paid attention in class. And seriously – a chess game, when Ron was a chess expert even in his first year? The logic riddle you designed – knowing that Hermione was a Muggle-born and really big into logic? And, most suspicious of all: The task of catching the flying key and the fact that, quite conveniently, there were three brooms waiting for us. An adult wizard would just have used "Accio silver key' to open the door. The only really dangerous part was the troll, and that was Quirrell's contribution, who had no idea that kids were supposed to get past the 'protections'. I guess that part must have gotten Dumbledore a bit concerned, but then, as we had defeated one in the bathroom already, he was probably confident that we would manage to get past it. I bet the stone was safely in Dumbledore's office until I had a chance to discover the Mirror of Erised. Quirrell probably didn't know that – otherwise he wouldn't have made a move at the Halloween feast."
"Congratulations!” Severus applauded his godson, his voice free of irony. “You continue to surprise me." Hermione was right. He really had underestimated the boy all this time. Clearly, he had Lily's brains. He had always assumed that Harry had been easily manipulated by Dumbledore, but in truth, he hadn’t fared any differently than Severus himself. Knowing that he was being manipulated hadn’t changed his behavior in any way.
“Thank you – I think?" Harry replied a bit dubiously. It was a typical Snape remark, but it held none of the sarcasm that usually went with it. Yet it was a rather backhanded sort of compliment if one chose to take it as such... Damn, the man was still impossible to figure out. Harry decided not to bother his head about it. "Anyway... What I failed to understand for a long time was the reason why Dumbledore set this whole thing up. I suppose I felt a bit of pride at being given the chance to defeat the wizard who had killed my parents."
"Of course you did!" Severus remarked drily, definitely sarcastic. "What did I say about your proclivity to heroism again?"
"I was only eleven years old!" Harry defended himself. "It didn't occur to me at the time that it was a most irresponsible thing to do for an adult, putting a child in his care in such danger, on the mere chance of seeing a prophesy fulfilled."
Severus had to concede the point. Children surely had a tendency to overestimate their skills and their own importance. If he was honest, Harry hadn't really been worse than most of the kids his age.
"Dumbledore had protections in place," he pointed out a bit reluctantly, as he still thought it was no excuse for his actions. "He never wanted anything to happen to you.”
"Yeah, I figured that out eventually, too. This funny story about him having been called to the ministry under a ruse and supposedly only returning many hours later … He said he and the owl Hermione had sent after him must have crossed in mid-air, as if he had flown there on a broomstick! Conveniently, I didn't know anything about apparition or the floo-network at the time, so I didn't even wonder why on earth he would take a broom to get from Scotland to London. Provided he had been called to the ministry at all, he must have found out right after apparating or flooing there that it had been a set-up – he would have been back in Hogwarts about five minutes after leaving. I bet he was sitting in his office the entire time, probably using some fancy spying device to observe what was going on in the third floor corridor, prepared to step in if the situation got dire."
"I'd award points to Gryffindor if I could," Severus said with a mild smirk. "Too bad we aren't there."
Harry snorted. "Yeah, sure! As if! The day that happens, I'd know for sure that you are being possessed."
Severus grinned, then sobered again. "Dumbledore was sure that you were destined to vanquish the Dar … Voldemort once and for all – you, and nobody but you. I guess he had hoped that fate would be on your side, just like the night your parents were killed. That by some miracle, you'd manage to defeat the greatest evil wizard since Grindelwald at age eleven. And you almost did – if it hadn't been for those Horcurxes. Yet he was defeated again for another three years, confirming for Dumbledore that you really were the ‘Chosen One’, destined to save the wizarding world – when the time was right."
"Did Dumledore at least warn you that Quirrell was possessed by Voldemort at the time and that the whole circus with the stone was a set-up?" Harry asked.
Severus shook his head. "No. He only warned me that Quirrell might be after the stone – making him out to be an over-ambitious wizard who sought immortality. When Minerva, Flitwick and I wondered about the rather ridiculous set-up to hide the stone, the old man eventually admitted with that damn twinkle in his eyes that he had a feeling you might try to play the hero, and that he was inclined to let you... to see how you'd cope and to see if you could be tempted by power."
Harry's chin fell. "Dumbledore thought that I might switch to the Dark Side?", he asked incredulously. While there were undeniably similarities between Voldemort and Darth Vader, he had never seen himself as Anakin.
"Dumbledore didn't know you at the time," Severus pointed out when he saw Harry's indignation. "All he knew was that the Dark Lord had perished when trying to kill you, leaving the mark of a dark curse on your forehead. As we know now, he already suspected that a piece of the Dark Lord's soul had accidentally attached itself to you. Dumbledore had no way of knowing if it had tainted you in any way... if the Dark Lord was somehow lying in wait inside your body. Nor did he know how character-building your aunt's and uncle's upbringing had been. So yes, he wanted to find out more about you: How would you react to the temptation? How would you go on about it and how far would you manage to get? He assured us that you were in no danger and that he had everything under control. I believed him... at least until someone hexed your broom during the Quidditch match."
"I suppose you didn't know that it was Quirrell at the time? Otherwise hexing him would have been the better solution. He was sitting right behind you."
"It was not exactly a moment to ponder who the culprit might be – my focus was on keeping you on that broom. Afterwards... well, I had my suspicions, but I couldn't figure out what he was playing at. What reason could he have for wanting you dead? Quirrell has far too young to have been a Death Eater. I tried to coax him into showing his cards, but he didn't even seem to know what I was on about."
"Why did he try to kill me? I mean, I understand that it was Voldemort who made him do it, but why? His primary intent was to get the stone - making Quirrell act in such a suspicious way and almost blowing his cover seemed rather counterproductive."
"Indeed. Maybe he was unable to resist when the opportunity to take revenge presented itself. Voldemort wasn’t exactly sane and stable at that point."
“Why didn’t he confide in you back then? Instead of revealing himself to Pettigrew, he could have contacted you.”
“Because he didn’t trust me after all the years I spent under Dumbledore’s thumb, especially not after I had thwarted Quirrell’s attempt to kill you.
“How did you explain that to him, after his return?"
Severus sighed. "With a convincing lie, as always." He had really become adept at telling half-truths or even outright lies over the years. People had no idea how difficult it was to come up with a plausible, alternative fact in the spur of the moment. Lying successfully demanded creativity, logic and quick thinking. Thank Merlin that he possessed all of those gifts.
"I managed to convince him of what was basically the truth," he explained to Harry: "That I meant to thwart a pathetic, foolish wizard with delusions of grandeur who thought he could walk in the footsteps of a wizard far greater than himself, and that I had saved you because Dumbledore had ordered me to keep an eye on you. After all, I needed to stay in his favour and was still atoning for the error of my ways. And last not least, I told him that I had been curious about you. Apart from those who celebrated you as the boy-who-lived and a saviour, there were others who wondered if you were a reincarnation of the Dark Lord himself – destined to become the next dark wizard behind whom we could all rally once more. I told him that I protected you at the time to find out if his spirit lived on in your body, but that I had long since started to lose that hope, given how disappointingly mediocre you were."
To Severus surprise, the boy didn't even blink an eye at the insult, which, as pointedly and exaggeratedetly as he had put it, was nothing but the honest truth. Harry was a rather average wizard – not overly ambitious, not immensely powerful, not even more highly skilled or knowledgeable than other witches or wizards. He had fast reflexes, the typical Gryffindor braveness and a proclivity to heroism, all coupled with good instincts and sound moral values.
Harry seemed to understand that Severus didn't even consider this mediocrity a flaw or worthy of an insult. Quite the contrary. It was a relief. They had seen enough of such self-appointed leader types who thought of themselves as chosen ones.
Severus, on the other hand, only began to guess that Harry didn’t take offense at his assessment because he had never wished for anything else in his life than to be an ordinary wizard.
"Me – a new Dark Lord?" Harry snorted, finding the idea rather ridiculous, too. He had never felt the lure of the Dark Arts and he hated any kind of hero-worship. His own celebrity status was undeserved. Everything he had managed was the result of team-work, determination and sheer dumb luck. All he had ever wanted was to live and be left in peace. "And Voldemort bought that?"
"Well, at the time I was able to tell him straight-faced and with utter conviction how stupid the thought had been, because you were nothing but an arrogant and self-righteous twit deep in Dumbledore's pocket, just like your father, and that you hated me just as ardently. He definitely bought that. "
"Do you still think so now?" Harry asked, trying for indifference but not quite pulling it off.
"I wouldn’t be sitting her with you if that was the case,” Severus replied, surprised at Harry’s apparent insecurity. What he had told the Dark Lord at the time hadn't been so much a lie but rather self-deceit. An untruth he had nurtured for various reasons. "You were reckless and rash, hot-tempered and disrespectful at times, but you have never been mean or arrogant. Maybe I knew it even back then, deep in my heart. But it was easier to hate you, and it was the hatred and disdain I displayed that convinced the Dark Lord of my loyalty."
The year after his master's return had been the hardest – physically and mentally. The Dark Lord had a quick temper, and being around him was always like dancing on the rim of a volcano. He had used the Prying Potion on Severus frequently, which made it necessary to maintain a strong discipline of his mind at all times. While it was possible to deceive by giving false memories, it was next to impossible to produce fake feelings.
"It must have been hard, being a double agent..." Harry acknowledged soberly and empathically. "Much harder than I ever thought. Always walking a fine line, lying and deceiving, never being able to justify what you were doing, never being able to tell the truth..." It wouldn't be surprising if Dumbledore's spy hadn't even known what the truth really was after a while.
"Well, like I said – it was always easier to lie with a truth, and what I said about Quirrell probably wasn't far off the mark," Severus said, quickly steering the conversation back into safer waters. Harry was touching on psychological issues he wasn't prepared to discuss, least of all with him.
“Unfortunately, it was impossible to maintain the image I tried to portray of you being mediocre and guileless in the long run,” he added. “Though Voldemort never heard the second part of the prophesy, he was convinced that you played a key role in his quest for power, and Albus was concerned he might figure out the nature of your scar. This is why he pushed those unfortunate lessons in Occlumency on us. A disaster in the making.”
“You think?” Harry snorted. “The teacher who hated me more than anybody kept invading my mind, and nobody ever explained to my why this was supposed to be a good thing. I never understood why Dumbledore wanted to rid us of this huge advantage we had over Voldemort. My insights into his mind had saved Arthur’s life. And what information could Voldemort have possible taken from mine? My grades in DADA? That I had a crush on Cho Chang? I didn’t know anything of importance, since nobody ever told me anything!”
Severus was well aware by now why his attempts to teach Occlumency to Harry Potter had never been successful. They had only reopened old wounds and torn new ones in both of them. Maybe it would have worked out better if Harry had understood the importance of closing his mind to the Dark Lord. Maybe not. Comparing those lessons to his teaching Occlumency to Hermione, he had to admit that his teaching methods had left much to be desired.
“The only way for making you understand would have been to tell you about the Horcrux in your scar. And in that I agree with Albus: It would have been too much of a burden.” Sending the boy and his friends out on the hunt with the knowledge that with every piece they destroyed, they brought Harry closer to his death, Severus though cynically, would not have been enticement to make haste. Surely, this had been a thought in Dumbledore’s mind as well.
“Did you know why Dumbledore insisted on these lessons?”
“No,” Severus replied, his voice bitter. “He once told me that he didn’t like having his secrets in only one basket. That you were a Horcux was a piece of information he only shared with me shortly before his death.”
That, to Severus, still felt like betrayal. Yes, he could understand Dumbledore's reasons, and maybe nothing and nobody could have changed the boy's fate. But he couldn't help feeling used, just like Harry. Severus was sure that in his own way, Dumbledore had cared about both of them. But he had still always put people – no matter whether friend, family member or protege – last when painting the big picture. But Albus had believed in Severus when no one else would, and that was more than he could say for any other person in his life. At least until a certain, bushy-haired Gryffindor had forced herself into it.
“So you knew about the Horcruxes while we were out hunting for them, and why we needed the sword … " Harry concluded, frowning with growing resentment.
Severus nodded wordlessly. He wasn't sure if Dumbledore had truly been aware of what the revelation had done to him. All of his subterfuge and intrigue, all those years of silent suffering to keep his promise to Lily and make sure that her child survived... only to learn that he had been doomed from the minute she had died. He had clung to the hope that Dumbledore was wrong, as he had been mistaken about other things before... that he had overlooked a detail, a loophole, or that he wasn't being entirely truthful. But to think that Lily's last sacrifice – his own sacrifices! – should have been in vain... it had been simply unacceptable. He had read book after book, all the dark tomes in Hogwarts and his private library, and later in Dumbledore's. But he had found nothing that gave hope the boy’s life could be saved.
"But if you knew... you could have helped us!" exclaimed Harry, who was now visibly upset.
Severus was immediately in the defensive. “No, I couldn’t have, as I had no idea what those objects might be or where to find them,” he felt pressed to explain and added without thought: “And it was still essential that we remained enemies.”
His godson looked at him with confusion and irritation. Oh no! He hadn’t meant to let this slip. When Hermione had confronted him with her theory a while ago – clever witch that she was - she had figured it out all by herself, and he had confessed everything. But they had both agreed that it was better if Harry never knew.
But is seemed that this option was off the table after his blunder. "Why?" asked Harry, now sure that he was onto something. "I don't get it. Hermione told me the same thing a while ago..." He looked at Severus with questioning eyes. "There was more to it than just fooling Voldemort, wasn't there?"
Severus sighed. He really didn't wish to impart the other crucial information Harry was still missing, the reason why Harry had needed to continue hating him until the last moment. But maybe he deserved to know the entire story, too.
So reluctantly, Severus told Harry how he and Dumbledore had planned to pass on the mastery of the Elder Wand to him; how they had set him up to challenge, attack and defeat his most hated teacher when the time came. Provoking a confrontation would have been easy for Severus to do: He had always known how to push Harry's buttons. Telling him that he had part of the Dark Lord's soul in him, too, and that he had to sacrifice himself for the cause, surely would have pushed him over the edge.
"You wanted me to kill you?" Harry cried, outraged, and jumped up from his chair.
"Not necessarily," Severus replied impassively. "I wanted you to attack and defeat me. Given your Gryffindor sensitivities, I think I would have stood a fair chance of survival."
"You think I would have had scruples about using the death curse on you?" Harry continued to rage, trembling now. "I wouldn't have hesitated! I hated you!"
"You also hated the Dark Lord," Severus reasoned. "And yet, when given the chance, you only used 'Expelliarmus' on him. You're not a killer, Harry. If everything had gone according to plan, you would have disarmed me or knocked me out with a stunner and the Elder Wand would have been yours. I had no idea that you were already its master at that point."
Harry was not at all appeased by the logic of this and pointed out rather forcefully neither Severus nor Dumbledore could have known how he might react – that he himself didn't know for sure. Replying that he and Dumbledore had been well aware of the risk and willing to take it, didn't really help Severus to argue his point. It only enraged Harry further.
Severus allowed him to vent his anger – at him, but mostly at Dumbledore. Yes, the boy valued loyalty above everything else. And while Severus had proved loyal, Dumbledore hadn't. The leader of the light had been willing to sacrifice his spy for the Boy-who-should-live. And Severus had willingly helped him to put this plan in motion. At the time, he hadn't had much to live for, anyway. But now... Now he found himself grateful that he had survived.
Severus waited patiently for the storm to pass, then pulled Harry down on his chair again and poured him another glass of Scotch. He probably needed something stronger than tea right now.
Harry took the glass Severus had offered him and almost downed it in one. Which resulted in a coughing fit.
"Easy there, Potter," said Severus, roughly slapping his back. "No sense in killing yourself over it now. We both had our happy ending and the Dark Lord is dead. And to enable this outcome, it was crucial that the Elder Wand recognized you as its master in the final confrontation."
"But that didn't help at all!" Harry croaked, still struggling with his voice. "Voldemort did kill me with the Elder Wand, even though it didn't belong to him – or has that escaped your notice? I wasn't invincible, not even with the most powerful wand being mine to command. You said yourself that it was my mother's protection acting like a Horcrux in the Dark Lord's veins that kept me alive."
"Yes, it did. But the Dark Lord didn't kill you in a duel, did he now? The wand is unbeatable, Harry, but not the wizard who wields it. Otherwise it would never change its master. Most masters of the Elder Wand came into its possession by deceit, stealth or foul play, not in a direct confrontation. Its first master was murdered in his sleep, Emric the Evil was slaughtered when his opponent pulled a sword in the middle of a duel, Godelot perished in his own cellar after he was locked in by his son, and Loxias was stabbed. Voldemort knew this by the time he decided to kill me. That's why he chose to use the snake. He didn't dare raising the wand which he believed to be mine against me."
"But Dumbledore won the Elder Wand from Grindelwald in a duel, and he didn't even kill him. Surely, Voldemort was aware of this, as he had spoken to Grindelwald."
"Interesting, isn't it?” Severus said pensively. “It seems that Dumbledore was the only wizard who ever won the Death Stick in a duel. Who knows... it's quite possible that he had been master of the wand even before the legendary duel and was just unaware of the fact, just like you when you accidentally won it from Draco. There are other reasons I could think of, too... But I guess we will never know for sure."
"But when Draco attacked Dumbledore, it was a direct confrontation, wizard against wizard," Harry argued. "If your theory was right, Draco shouldn't have been able to defeat him."
"It wasn't a duel. Albus never raised his wand to defend himself, be it for not wanting to hurt Draco or because he was too weakened in body, mind and magic by the potion he had imbibed earlier. Either way, the wand recognized it as weakness, which is why it changed its allegiance."
This was the loophole he and Dumbledore had wanted to use to pass the mastery of the Elder Wand first from Dumbledore to Severus and then from Severus to Harry. If the planned confrontation with Harry had come about, Severus simply would have allowed whatever hex or curse the boy might have thrown at him to find its target. Too bad that Severus hadn't realized in the rush of events on the Astronomy tower that night that Albus had already been wandless at the time he cast the Avada Kedavra that killed him.
Harry let the explanation sink in. That actually did make some sense. He remembered what Ollivander had told him about wandlore: 'The wand chooses the wizard' – as if it was sentient, in a way. And the Elder Wand's allegiance had always seemed particularly fickle. But then he stumbled across the rather big hole in the logic and frowned: "But I didn't do anything to defend myself against Voldemort, either," he pointed out. "Shouldn't the wand have changed its allegiance to him when he cast the Avada?"
"What does the death curse do, Harry?" Severus asked, seemingly out of context.
"Well, it kills the person who’s hit with it, obviously..." Harry replied, sensing that this was the wrong answer. But honestly, what kind of question was that?
His godfather's face showed the same smug expression he wore in Potion class after a student had said something incredibly stupid, thus giving him an opening to correct him and twist the knife in the wound. "A knife to the heart kills your body, which leaves your soul no place to dwell," Severus lectured promptly, but surprisingly without malice. "The 'Avada Kedavra' curse forces the soul out of a living body, which then makes the body die. But because of your mother's protection – bound in blood – your soul was tethered to your body. It did not float away to wherever souls go. I guess it's a philosophic question whether you were actually dead, just comatose or nearly-dead."
"Okay, so the Avada didn't work as intended. But no matter if I was fully dead or only semi-dead – I was clearly defeated, so the wand should have changed allegiance nevertheless," Harry insisted.
"Wrong again. The curse did exactly what it was supposed to do: It did evict a soul from your body – the fragment of the Dark Lord inside you. So strictly speaking, Voldemort committed suicide when he used the Death Curse on you. If the wand interprets not defending oneself as weakness, how do you think it judges suicide?"
Harry blinked. "You mean... if I had raised my own wand to defend myself against Voldemort, it would have been a duel – and I would have won it..." he concluded, and swallowed. "Voldemort would have died again – just like he did the first time – but because of his Horcrux inside me, he would have returned. It would have started all over again, only this time, I would have been without my mother's protection. It would have died with his blood. And ultimately, I would still have had to die in order to kill the Horcrux inside me..."
Severus only nodded and said nothing.
"But then, what good did the Elder Wand do? If anything, it was a liability – I would have been damned if I had used it!"
"But you didn't. You faced him voluntarily and allowed him to kill you, and thereby ultimately saved your own life and that of many others who gained magical protection through your sacrifice. But after your resurrection, when you faced him again, it was a duel! Which you won because you were the Elder Wand's true master, not him. With its power being yours, you were able to defeat the Dark Lord one and for all."
“Dumbledore really thought of everything, didn't he?" said Harry bitterly, who felt guilty for letting himself be manipulated. Severus had almost paid the price, and Harry's realisation that the person he had hated with such a vengeance all those years had in fact been the most loyal in the end would have come too late to make amends. "He made you the perfect tool, and me the perfect weapon."
Severus for his part wasn't so sure if he could lay the guilt on Dumbledore. After all, he had chosen his own chains. Unfortunately, they had only begun to feel like a burden when they had become too heavy to be broken. Though he could empathise with Harry’s anger, he also felt the need to defend his mentor, master and the closest thing to a friend he had had for a long time. "Dumbledore did care about you, and he wanted you to survive. But you still had a role in this game, just as I did. It wasn't Dumbledore who made us play our parts according to his script. It was many things – fate, circumstances, and last not least our own decisions."
"I just can't stop thinking how differently things could have gone if only Dumbledore hadn't been so damned secretive! If we hadn't hated each other so much... if we hadn't been enemies at the time, you could have guided me, helped me so much more than you could while being in the camp of the enemy. This war could have been over so much sooner – so many lives could have been saved!"
"What-ifs are not worth pondering, Potter. There are simply too many of them. What if I had never passed on the prophesy in the first place? Maybe the Dark Lord wouldn't have come for you. Then your mother's protection would never have rebounded in a killing curse on him, and the Dark Lord would never have disappeared. Or he might have killed your entire family without even giving your mother a choice, simply because they had defied him, and we wouldn't even be having this discussion. I didn't know half of the things I do now while they were happening. It was all a lot of guesswork based on partial information, for me as much as for you. I only managed to put all the pieces together after all was over. And it was important that I remained behind the lines – you now know why. If working together might have saved some lives, others might have been lost. Had there been another way? We'll never know. It's only ever easy in hindsight."
Harry nodded, feeling weary all of a sudden. Severus was right. There was no sense in fretting about it. The past was past, and none of them could change any of it, probably not even with a time-turner. He needed to let go of the bitterness, not dwell on what they lost, but focus on the good that had come out of it. Such as the fact that his acerbic, often verbally abusive and fear-instilling Ex-Professor was not his enemy anymore, but a man he had come to respect, to understand and even to like a little.
"Thank you for telling me all this," he said, letting his godfather see the open honesty and gratefulness in his eyes. "This has been more information than I had ever hoped to get. It really helped me to understand everything better. And I believe I needed to understand in order to find closure."
"Of course. But don't linger too much in the past – it won't do you any good, trust me. If there is one piece of advice I can pass on from my own experience – and I admit I'm often having a hard time listening to my own counsel – it is that: We mustn't allow our past to define our future."
"Do you think…” Harry asked hesitantly, looking at his godfather with undisguised longing, “that could also be true with regard to our relationship?"
Severus made an effort not to roll his eyes and suppress the ‘obviously’ on the tip of his tongue. Typical Gryffindor. You always had to spell it out for them. "Yes, Harry. I do!” he said, and noted with surprise that looking into his eyes didn’t hurt anymore.
The Elder Wand
Unfortunately, the books give us conflicting information about the functioning of the Elder Wand, which is said to be the most powerful wand of all. Voldemort believed it would make him invincible.
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, we find this:
"So the oldest brother (...) asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence: a wand that must always win duels for its owner (...)"
—The Tale of the Three Brothers
This means that the Elder Wand, in a duel – wand against wand – would always come out victorious, if wielded by its true owner. And indeed, in the past, most masters of the Elder Wand only came into its possession by
"deceit, stealth, foul play (the murder of Antioch Peverell in his sleep), happenstance (as when Draco Malfoy disarmed Albus Dumbledore, who was concurrently casting a Full Body-Bind Curse on Harry Potter) or beating the current master while he doesn't physically possess the wand (as in Harry Potter's disarming of Draco Malfoy)"
— [HP Wiki]
Dumbledore and one Egred the Egregious are the only wizards who supposedly won the unbeatable Elder Wand in a duel which contradicts what is said in the Tale of the Three Brothers; but in Egred's case, it is said that he was 'slaughtered' in the duel, which suggests his opponent may have used other means than a wand to kill him.
So how was it possible that Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald in the legendary duel, which even had eye-witnesses? There are only three possible explanations: One, Dumbledore had already won the mastery of the wand in an entirely different situation before – by happenstance, just like Harry won it from Draco. Two: Grindelwald was using a different wand. Which is unlikely.
Or option three: There was point in the duel where Grindelwald had the chance to kill Dumbledore, but where he hesitated and probably even backed off, opening a chance for Dumbledore to strike first. If this moment of hesitation, the lack of truly wanting to defeat his opponent, was interpreted as weakness by the wand, it would explain why it switched allegiance. We know that Dumbledore didn't kill Grindelwald either – but in this case, the wand must have felt that Dumbledore, unlike Grindelwald, would have been prepared to do so, if it had become necessary...
Because as JKR once said in an interview: "The Elder Wand knows no loyalty except to strength. It's completely unsentimental. It will only go where the power is."
Or as Ollivander claimed: "The wand choses the wizard... it's not always clear why."
— Ollivander discussing wandlore with Harry Potter