Chapter Text
The scratch of quill on parchment was steady, measured — until Severus Snape’s fingers cramped and the tip spluttered over the edge of the page. He exhaled sharply through his nose and set the quill down, flexing his hand.
His other hand drifted to his neck, fingers pressing against the scar just below his jaw. It throbbed faintly — not with pain, but memory. He rubbed it once, sharply, as if that could silence it.
The office still smelled faintly of stone dust and fresh varnish. Somewhere down the corridor, a scaffold creaked. Hogwarts was rebuilding, room by room. He was, too.
A knock interrupted the quiet.
“Enter,” he called, not looking up.
The door opened to reveal Professor McGonagall, her robes gathered tightly at her shoulders. She stepped in with her usual purposeful stride, though there was a rare crease between her brows.
“There are a handful of students who weren’t properly classified before term began,” she said. “Some records are still missing or… delayed.” Her eyes flicked briefly to the stack of parchment on his desk.
Snape raised an eyebrow. “And you’re here to hand-deliver names?”
She pulled a folded parchment from her sleeve and set it on the corner of his desk.
“There’s one name left,” she said. “I thought you might have better luck locating him.”
He didn’t pick it up.
“And who might that be?” he asked, voice like cold stone.
“Harry Potter.”
The silence that followed was sharp and short. Snape blinked once, then reached for the parchment without reading it.
“Of course,” he muttered.
McGonagall gave him a look — not pity, not triumph. Just weariness.
“He’s likely in Gryffindor Tower. He’s not hiding, Severus. Just… slow to cooperate.”
“Some things never change.”
She inclined her head. “I trust you’ll handle it.”
With that, she turned and left.
Snape stood a moment later, slipping the parchment into his robes. His chair scraped against stone as he rose.
The corridors of Hogwarts stretched quiet and half-lit. The walls shimmered in places, spells still holding them together. It felt both too familiar and completely foreign.
The Fat Lady’s portrait was gone — the frame left empty, the wall around it scorched. Snape stepped through the wrecked threshold into the common room.
It was still, but not abandoned. The far wall had been blown open, the stone jagged and sun-warmed from the late afternoon light.
Harry Potter sat on a torn sofa, facing the sunset through the ruined wall, arms resting on his knees. He didn’t turn as Snape entered.
“We’re leaving,” Snape said, coldly.
No response.
Snape’s jaw tightened.
“I said we’re leaving.”
Still nothing.
Snape crossed the room in three long strides and grabbed Harry by the arm.
Harry flinched, turning his head at last. His eyes caught the sunlight. Not angry. Not surprised. Just tired.
“Don’t,” Harry said quietly. “You don’t have to drag me.”
Snape didn’t let go at once. The air between them was too warm.
“Then move,” he said. “You’ve wasted enough time.”
Snape scoffed as he turned to go, slow enough to hear Harry rise behind him.
They walked in silence through the broken castle, through the staircases still held together by temporary magic, past tapestries singed at the edges.
They reached the hospital wing.
It was dim, still, and half-repaired like the rest of the castle. Snape crossed to a side table and retrieved a parchment pamphlet, then turned to Harry and pointed at an empty bed.
“Sit.”
Harry hesitated, then sat.
Snape handed him the pamphlet. “Repeat the incantations. Aloud. In order.”
Harry stared down at the page.
“What is this? Why?”
Snape didn’t answer.
McGonagall’s voice filled the silence.
“It’s a classification spell,” she said gently. “It tells us how the war has changed you — emotionally, magically. Everyone receives one before their sixth year. But two years of students went without. We’re… catching up.”
Harry looked down at the list of Latin incantations. His fingers tightened on the paper.
“And what if I haven’t changed?”
Snape said flatly, “Then it will show nothing.”
Harry said nothing.
He began to read.
One line. Two.
Nothing.
The third and fourth — still nothing.
At the fifth, the words barely left his mouth before he bent forward suddenly, clutching his abdomen.
“Shit—”
He dropped to his knees with a strangled cry. The pamphlet fell from his hands.
Fire tore through his abdomen, white-hot, as if it were carving him open from the inside.
“Potter—” McGonagall moved, but Snape had already drawn his wand.
“Incarcerous.”
Ropes snapped tight around Harry’s chest and arms, pinning him in place.
“Stop moving,” Snape snapped. “You’ll only make it worse.”
“F-FUCK YOU!” Harry screamed. “What the fuck is this—!”
The pain only worsened. He arched against the bindings until the force of it dragged another scream from him — and then, suddenly, he collapsed, unconscious.
A soft silver light shimmered beneath his shirt. Slowly, a delicate, curling mark etched itself into the skin near his hip.
A symbol.
Little.
The glow faded. The mark remained.
No one spoke.
Finally, McGonagall said softly, “Then it’s true, then.”
She looked to the far wall. In a portrait frame, Dumbledore stood watching, face unreadable.
“You always saw what the rest of us missed,” she murmured.
Snape exhaled hard. “So. Now that the boy’s been branded, what exactly is the plan?”
“He’ll need a guardian,” McGonagall said. “Someone stable. Someone who understands.”
Snape sneered. “Try the wolf. Or did he vanish again?”
“He and Tonks have gone quiet. No one’s heard from them.”
“Black is dead. And the Weasleys—”
He hesitated.
“They’ve practically raised him already. Molly would take him in.”
McGonagall adjusted her glasses. “They’ve done enough. And that’s not what Dumbledore wanted.”
Snape narrowed his eyes. “And what did he want?”
She hesitated.
“It should be you.”
Snape laughed sharply — bitterly.
“I haven’t been a caregiver since You-Know-Who. And look how he turned out.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
He said nothing.
She turned toward the portrait. Dumbledore stood motionless, hands folded, eyes gently expectant.
“He saw the symbol coming,” she said. “And he said it would be you.”
Snape looked at Harry — unconscious, tied down, the glow fading from his side.
“I suppose choice is irrelevant now,” he muttered.
“It usually is,” McGonagall said.
He didn’t nod. Not quite.
But he didn’t argue again.