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“ I’m not fucking lying!”
This was not a whisper nor said in polite conversation. It was yelled out to the Great Hall when a stupid Gryffindor once more accused Harry of that vile thing. His hand still stings from the quill Umbridge uses during detention, and he cannot help but cling to the pain, press on the tissue, and revel in its increase.
He’ll just have to show them, won’t he?
He knew they had things that showed memories, as seen with Snape’s pensieve he had looked into when scouring information about Voldemort, but how to make it for them all to see…
“ACCIO PENSIEVE!”
The thing with a whoosh came from God knows where and Harry quickly wished for it to shine against the wall, hoping his wish magic that he’s used all those lonely years in the cupboard would save him now.
Pointing his wand to his temple, he thought of memories, but not just about the graveyard… no, he wanted to dissuade people from their preconceived notions when he had the chance.
There were a series of yells as he dropped them into the bowl, but they faded as everyone in that hall was sucked into the first memory.
A little body shook, crying desperately as his hands were placed on the hot stove top, the searing of flesh being heard easily, even over the tirade of words falling from the walrus of a man beside him.
“Boy takes food from our table, our home, and doesn’t expect to be punished! Well, let’s just see you do it again, you freak! You eat when we want you to, not a moment before, not a moment after! Am I clear, boy? ”
Through his blubbering tears, the boy nodded, hiccuping and snotty, as he was soon shoved into a small place under the stairs.
A cupboard.
Little drawings decorated the walls, most prominently a banner that said “Harry’s Room,” which was drawn crudely with fading crayons and unsteady hands.
<~~~~~>
They just wouldn’t give up.
Harry panted as he turned the corner at a speed that’d put the road-runner to shame.
Still, he could hear the yells of his cousin and his crew, could feel the bruise on his sternum beginning to form, and all he wished was to be far away from his place on the ground and this moment.
The next moment he was on the school roof.
Not questioning how he got there because stuff like this always happens to a freak like him. He tried the handle and cursed himself as it remained locked.
For a whole night, he stayed until the very next day when he got the attention of his favorite teacher, Mr. Barnes, before he walked into the building.
When he got back to the Dursleys that day…
Well, he sported some lovely bruises hidden under his obscenely large clothing.
<~~~~~>
“You can hear me?”
The snake nodded his head at him before Harry started conversing with him. He found that he had a bit in common with the reptile.
Captive within four walls, fed at others' leisure, there for people to gawk and gossip at…
When the glass disappeared, he was thoroughly shocked, but at least the snake got free… even if it was at Harry’s expense.
<~~~~~>
“I can’t be a wizard… I’m just Harry, just Harry.”
There was a tall, no-giant man at the home along the coast that they escaped to when Harry’s letters wouldn’t stop coming.
But the man kept saying that he was, even going as far as to light the fireplace with an umbrella. The man babbled on about how he was the one who brought him to the Dursleys, how Harry's name was written in the book of admissions since he was born, and how his mother, Lily, was the brightest witch of her age with James, his father, being a bright one as well.
But that couldn’t be true, no—
“You’ve got that all wrong… how could they? I mean, they died in a car crash…”
“ A car crash killed Lily and James Potter!”
Hagrid unleashed a rant of words as his aunt returned them with equal bite, disparaging the mother he never knew and “that awful boy” whom he guessed was his father. But knowing his parents didn't leave him willingly, weren't drunkards… they already sounded amazing.
. . .
He absolutely loathes the fact he’s the so-called Boy-Who-Lived. To be touched randomly by strangers, whispered about, praised, by something that happened when he was a baby. He doesn’t even remember anything, though he does get dreams of green flashes and roaring engines.
The day gets better after they leave the leaky cauldron. He learns he has money, gets his wand, and receives his first-ever real gift, a beautiful snowy owl.
It was officially the best day ever, even with everything he and Hagrid discussed.
It was nice to know that his parents were more than faceless blobs. That they had people who cared for them before they died.
<~~~~~>
Malfoy was a royal prat, Harry decided as he walked into the Great Hall and honestly reminded him of his cousin. Hand-me-down things were most of what Harry owned, plus Malfoy sounded like a snob, and that reminded him of his aunt.
So, when the other was sorted into Slytherin, and Ron told him that there wasn’t a witch or wizard who didn’t turn bad in that house, he decided to go anywhere but there.
He begged the hat, reciting ‘not Slytherin, not Slytherin’ over and over, even though he saw himself in the traits, heard and acknowledged what the hat read in his head as true.
He just couldn’t be a snake.
When the hat shouted “GRYFFINDOR!” relief flooded him as he sat next to Ron.
At least he had one friend.
. . .
A class he was actually excited for, ruined by the Professor…
He was just taking notes!
Also, how was he supposed to know that asphodel is used in the Draught of Living Death? It’s not like he grew up in this world! Last time this year he didn’t even know this place existed, let alone potion ingredients and their uses!
. . .
The mirror of erised, a mirror that shows your deepest desires…
But to Harry, it was a beautiful gift.
It allowed him to see his parents for the first time.
. . .
It wasn’t Snape.
It wasn’t Snape, and Harry couldn’t believe it, but he could because weirdly, it makes sense.
Well perhaps it didn’t make sense, but when the man blathered about the fact that Snape was the one to counter the jinx sent his way on the quidditch pitch, it resolved one mystery.
It was only when Qurriel removed his turban that he allowed himself to panic. Voldemort started at him and chased him till he almost succeeded in choking Harry. But when he touched that face, it just—
Dumbledore says it’s the power of love and sacrifice that saved him, that his mother's protection saved him, and that that power prevented him from leaving the wards of his aunts.
He’s back at the Dursleys, but he wants his home, Hogwarts, though at this point, without the people, it is not the same. So off to Surrey, he went.
<~~~~~>
Locks and cat flaps.
Locks and a cat flap.
Locks and bars and soup cans and—
No letters.
He thinks he should be mad, grieving at the fact that his friends hadn’t mailed him, but he can’t dredge up any sort of emotion as he lay in a bed of tattered rags after cleaning the day away.
It’s when there is a pop and a weird being telling him not to return home that he can feel.
Anger, rage, unbelieving wells of indignation.
He learns that Dobby, what this elf has named himself, had been stealing his letters. The creature then proceeded to drop a cake on his relatives and get him in trouble with the ministry.
He doesn’t get food for two days.
. . .
After experiencing what was akin to the most amount of maternal love he’s ever been exposed to by Mrs. Weasley, Harry is both unreasonably jealous and exceedingly happy that his friend has a mother like that.
Still, before he leaves, he lingers in her hold longer than any of her kids.
. . .
The way to the express is blocked, and he almost dies.
The whomping willow almost kills them.
A bludger almost kills him but breaks his arm instead.
They learn nothing from Malfoy when infiltrating the Slytherin common room.
They think he’s the heir because he can speak parseltongue! It’s not like he was egging the snake on! He was trying to stop her from striking the Hufflepuff prat but see if he helps him in the future.
. . .
It’s a basilisk, a petrifying snake, and it has Ginny, Ron’s little sister, and Mrs. Weasley's youngest. He knows what he has to do, and seeing as he doesn’t know anything about the magical world, he hopes there’s an easy way to kill it.
. . .
He doesn’t know who’s the worst DADA teacher as he stands on the other side of the rubble.
One tried to kill him, and the other tried to wipe his memories.
For some reason, he’s leaning toward Lockhart.
. . .
Tom Marvolo Riddle Lord Voldemort is standing in front of him, but he’s younger, draining the life out of a sister; a daughter. He has no right to do it, and even when the villain calls for Slytherin’s beast, Harry still will try his damnedest to save her because he’s here.
Fawkes, Dumbledore’s beautiful phoenix, picks the basilisk's eyes for her prize, ripping them from the monster’s head, so all the snake relied on was its sense of smell and hearing.
He doesn’t flinch as he stabs the sword of Gryfinndor into the thing's mouth when a tooth embeds itself into his skin.
No.
He stares his parents’ murderer straight in the eye and stabs the book that started this all.
The shade vanishes, Ginny gasps, and they get out of there by way of a phoenix.
The highlight of his year was robbing Malfoy Senior of his house elf.
Serves him right for abusing the creature under his care.
<~~~~~>
“If something’s wrong with the bitch. Something’s wrong with the pup.”
It swirls around him like a windstorm on the hottest day in the desert. This anger is greater than anything he’s ever felt towards Snape, even on his worst days, and it bubbles menacingly under his skin.
It manifests with popping buttons, a balloon made purely of Aunt Marge, and he refuses to even think about changing her back because he’s so done with people disparaging his parents to him.
. . .
“No, not Harry! Not Harry!”
“Move aside, silly girl!”
He’s so cold, so unbearably cold, and the scream that rents the air terrifies him.
Who was it? His mind whispered.
He couldn’t place it, but it haunted him even as the Professor in their carriage offered them chocolate.
. . .
“Take Harry and run! RUN!”
“AVADA KEDAVRA!”
“Mummy loves you, daddy loves you, you are so loved Harry, so loved…”
“Move aside, silly girl!”
“Not my Harry!”
Green spilled into his vision as he fainted.
. . .
“I’VE DONE MY WAITING! Twelve years of it! IN AZKABAN!”
“Sirius, don’t, please!”
His godfather didn’t betray his parents. Pettigrew did. A certifiable traitor, a coward.
And he got away…
It’s Harry’s fault, but there’s nothing to do except to go back in time and prevent Sirius from getting captured.
They save the hippogriff, and Harry summons a patronus, so magnificent that it eradicates all the dementors present.
<~~~~~>
“Kill the spare!”
Green light surged towards Cedric striking him smack in the chest, and Harry can only stand against the headstone as the body falls limp to the ground, body pale, lips blue.
He’s bound to a statue, a man with a muggle name he remembers from his second year. But those thoughts are quickly redirected when Pettrigrew carries this baby-like creature that reeks of death and decay.
Then the ritual starts, “bone of the father you renew your son, flesh of a servant willingly sacrificed, blood of the enemy—“
It burns! The feel of the blade across the flesh of his forearm burns, and he struggles, god he struggles, but it does not matter as a hideous man rises from the cauldron, monstrous and inhuman, red eyes boring into his own as he summons his followers.
Malfoy is there, along with other death eaters that look familiar though he couldn’t place a name to them. But, it’s only a moment till he’s placed under the imperious. He feels his will begin to leave him, but he will not bow to this monster. He stays upright only until he’s hit with his second unforgivable, and it’s torturous. He writhes on the ground, nerves alight and frantic and in pain. He doesn’t understand how anyone could stay sane under such enormous pain. Even when Voldemort stops, he shakes, and his limbs barely listen to him as he ducks behind a gravestone, narrowly missing his third unforgivable.
It’s at this point that he realizes hiding means nothing when he will just end up dead eventually. So, like the Gryfinndor he is, he faces the demon, standing, casting, dueling. He throws an expelliarmus when the man casts the blinding green light.
He’s always been told that the unforgivables were unshieldable, and maybe they were right. But why, why was his wand fighting against Voldemorts? Their spells meet in the middle, red against green, a blinding orb in the middle. Then white orbs flow from the man’s wand, Cedric, the old man from his vision, his dad, and his mum, all telling him to let go and to bring his, Cedric’s, body back.
He mourns the loss of his new friend, feels violated after being forced to watch the revival of his parent’s killer, and feels dirty after being touched by the man, his scar still twinging unrepentantly in spasms of pain.
It’s not fair, but when has life ever been fair to Harry Potter?
<~~~~~>
The coldness is what he notices first, then he’s so close to having his soul sucked from him that he questions whether it’s really worth fighting. Then he remembers his cousin is here, and while the boy is a bastard, he can't just leave him to die. So he summons it, summons his patronus, despite only hearing the screams of his mother on repeat and the malevolent laughter of his newly raised foe.
<~~~~~>
Lines were fine when assigned by normal professors. Even Snape’s, being twice as long as they should be, were tolerable.
These were arguably not.
Umbridge didn’t believe him, the ministry didn’t believe him, hell, half the damn school didn’t believe him! So now, in detention, he must write and write and write the words “ I must not tell lies ” repeatedly until the ‘sink in.’
Sink in, hah! He looks at his mutilated hand and watches as a drop of crimson slides down the thumb and hits her table. Bright and bloody, the words sit plainly against the creamy expanse of his hand.
He wouldn’t give in.
Perhaps he is as arrogant as Snape tells him he is. He’s also unfailingly stubborn, so he won’t go to a teacher because she won’t win. He’ll ask Hermione for some of that murtlap essence in between detentions.
<~~~~~>
At the detention, Harry thinks that was the last memory. But it wasn’t, gods it wasn’t, as the world reformed once more into a nursery. His mother was grasping at his crib reminding him of her love as the door burst open behind her.
The man there is not the same as the man who came back last year. He has hair, for one, and his eyes were a warm chocolate brown, not the demonic red of new. His aura was still just as dark. Still just as twisted, even as he offers Harry's mother a way out alive, three times.
He’s heard the confrontation before, but to see it, to see him offer, to see her refuse, to see her die , to see her magic shroud him even in death and throw the killing curse back at the demon, it was unreal.
He saw his baby self cry, his freshly made scar bleeding down his face as he watched his mother’s unmoving body.
Then there was noise from down the hallway, harsh gasping breaths, sobs. Then, the last person he’d ever thought to see here, where he was, where his father was, stood stark still as he stared at the still body stationed below.
A keen cry fell from the potion master's mouth as he dropped to the floor as if in unimaginable pain. He shook his head in disbelief, hands cradling his skull as tears stained sallow, sharp cheekbones.
Tears still rushed from the man’s eyes as he moved closer, to touch her hair, her cheek, to feel if the unmoving body was as cold as it looked, as frozen in death as it seemed.
“Lily,” the man whispered. Grief marred the name, clung to the all syllables, and played with them for its own amusement. There was no happiness left in the man, nothing to distract Harry from this death.
The death of Severus Snape.
Engines roared, but the man doesn’t startle, he looked lost but he gently placed the body of Harry’s mother back down, but not before stealing a bracelet that looked awfully like the one already residing on the man’s wrist. He placed it right next to the other, and it took Harry all but two seconds to realize they were friendship bracelets.
His mother and Snape… friends.
Then he looks at the man who has yet to leave even as the sounds come closer. He’s looking at him, at him as a baby, and there’s a fire in those eyes that reminds him of his mother’s in her final moments. The man walks over, picks him up, and gently rocks him while murmuring a spell Harry doesn’t recognize, but he can tell it soothed him.
Of course, when he was placed back down, he began to cry again, but the man summoned a dummy and placed it in his mouth, and all Harry could think about was how gentle the acerbic man was towards him.
The child of a man he hates.
The child of a woman he loves.
No wonder he is hated.
<~~~~~>
The Great Hall was silent as the last memory faded. No one spoke as heads swiveled from him to Snape, to Umbridge, to Dumbledore. Harry himself was still in shock from the final one, his mother, Snape, friends…
The man of his thought's chair screeched against the floor, flying back towards the stonewall. His face was frigid, eyes like ice as he walked over to the pink toad.
The simpering fool had a smirk in place on that ugly face, obviously thinking the man would congratulate her on her use of such a barbaric weapon. But no.
No , everyone with two brain cells would have seen that protective fire in his eyes and would have run if they saw him even take a step toward them.
Luckily for the Great Hall, the fool did no such thing.
Karma struck her like a sledgehammer as potion-stained fingers collected themself into fists and met with first the cheek, then the nose of one Madame Delores Umbridge.
Harry can tell he wants to go further, but reigns it back, instead turning to Dumbledore, raising his finger at the man, and letting, at least for the first time Harry has seen, his mask fall.
There is a torrent of emotions on that face, the least of which was grief and anger, fire fueled by air.
“You told me her son was safe. You said he was in good hands, loved by his relatives. Yet you put him with that harpy and her walrus! You told me he was taken care of! How many times does it take a child to be forced to burn his hands before you do something? How long does it take for you to realize that leaving the boy to his annual adventures could ultimately kill him? Why Albus! Why!? Why have me spy? Why try to convince me of a vow I already made over her dead body? Why place him in danger and danger again! I’ve humored you far too long. He will die, and then I will die, Albus, and that blood will be on your hands if you don’t stop .”
Harry watched as the man spun on his heel, turning towards the larger part of the Great Hall.
“Well, considering I’ve been outed as your spy, Albus, and as we have the sons and daughters of the dark lord amongst the houses, at least let me give them something to report to their dear fathers and mothers.
“Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, a half-blood like me. I haven’t been yours since July of 1980. Ever since you aimed your sights on Lily Evans, well, Lily Potter, you lost me. I might have delivered the words that damned the Potters and Longbottoms, but you acted upon them, and because of that, you have enacted your downfall. I remember those words as plain as day. ‘The one with the power to vanquish the dark lord approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies.” That is the part you heard… but I left one little tidbit out, and it will be your downfall. It might not be the full other half, but I know just by this little sentence, that ‘you will mark him as your equal’ cemented your inevitable destruction. I am glad to be on Potter's side if he accepts me, if he or Longbottom can find forgiveness for me for their parents' conditions. I will be his willing sword and protector and help pave his way to victory, so help me god!”
With that obscenely muggle last sentence, the man billowed out of the Great Hall, ignoring all the shouts of people after him. Harry, with an understanding nod from Neville, quickly ran from the table after the man, following the winding hallways down to the dungeons where the man no doubt was.
As he arrived with a knock on the door, it was yanked open to reveal a red-eyed Snape, sneering, holding firm as he looked down upon Harry.
“Come to kill me, Potter? I wouldn’t stop you, you know.”
Harry could feel his eyes widen at the statement. Kill? Kill?! In what world would Harry want to kill someone, someone beyond Voldemort. Sure he doesn’t like the man at the moment, actually, probably he certifiably hates him, but that doesn’t mean he wants him dead.
“Far from it, Snape. Hex? Yes. Poisoned but not fatally? Also yes. But kill? I only want two people dead, and you're nowhere close on that list.”
The man sighed, though it was neither in relief nor in disappointment, it was resigned, lifeless, and at that moment, it scared him more than Voldemort.
“Then what do you want, Mr. Potter? I’ll likely be ousted from my position and placed in Azkaban by the week’s end. Also, seeing how I know the Dark Lord will break out his Death Eaters out of that damned prison I’ll likely die under immense measures of torture, so I would like to spend my final days in peace.”
‘Nope, nope, nope, no Azkaban, no dementors, no death,’ Harry thought as he shook his head.
“No, you’re not going to Azkaban, I won’t allow it, and if I need to place you in the Chamber of Secrets to stop the damned aurors from dragging your ass off to that hellhole. Well, I will. You're going to train me in everything you know, and you can’t do that very well from a cell.
"I can't say the sessions won't be torturous because I'm me, and you're you, but it's the best I've got. So, have we got a deal?”
A thousand lightning bolts danced upon the potion master’s face as it squeezed itself into a position of pure befuddlement. Like he couldn’t understand the language Harry was speaking. Like the thought of partial forgiveness exchanged for knowledge was as profound as an alien walking the earth.
Harry knew the man was a wealth of knowledge, a type of Alexandrian library far too precious to burn. He was a potion's master, the youngest to be awarded such a mastery; he wanted the defense position; he was a death eater.
And most importantly, he knew Harry’s mum.
And even if those memories were the only thing still breathing in the mind of the man, Harry would still refuse to let him go.
Because he at least tried, tried to protect him to the best of his abilities. Defended him against the headmaster and bashed the toad's nose in.
And that is all Harry could have asked for… someone who cared enough to fight on his behalf, so maybe Snape needs a person like that too.
And perhaps, along the way, they can kill the son of a bitch that made their lives a living hell.