Slytherin Saviors

A/N: Told you that I wasn't abandoning it! But well...no excuses. Just a promise. I got more to come. Next chapter, where Remus has been.

Disclaimer: Not mine. They belong to JKR.
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Snape waited impatiently for Harry to show for his evening “lesson.” According to the schedule they had agreed upon, tonight should be Occlumancy lessons, however, given the current situation with the boy’s injuries, and the recent abuse, not yet having time to be pushed to the back of his mind, Snape had decided, without informing the brat, that this particular week, the counseling and the Occlumancy lessons would be switched.

He could hear Potter speaking on the other side of the door. It sounded as if he was talking to himself, perhaps trying to summon up his Gryffindor courage to enter the den of the king cobra. His inner voice nagged at him, reminding him that Harry was no longer a Gryffindor, but one of his very own snakes.

He settled for listening to the boy arguing with himself. After a short time of eavesdropping, Snape finally figured out that he was in fact having an argument with Crabbe and Goyle. The two weren’t responding vocally. They just…weren’t responding. It seemed Harry was trying to convince the two idiots that they should return to the common room, but their head idiot, Malfoy, had instructed them to not allow Potter to go anywhere alone. Apparently, they intended to wait outside the door until such time as Potter was finished with his meeting.

Snape stormed to the door and swung it open with a crash.

“Potter! Get in here. Goyle! Crabbe! Return to your common room. Potter will be fine without you,” he snarled. The two oversized lummoxes exchanged glances before giving one last look at Harry and heading towards the common room.

When Snape closed the door and turned, it was to see Harry poised, wand at the ready, waiting for the dreaded spell to invade his mind, ripping out all the worst memories and traumatic experiences of his lifetime.

Instead, Snape gestured to a seat, just in front of his desk. Harry gave him a puzzled look before slowly sinking into the seat. Snape made his way to the large desk in front.

“We are changing the schedule for this week only,” he informed Harry. He watched as the boy tensed even more than he had been previously. His eyes darkened slightly and he bit his lip nervously.

Snape tried to decide how to proceed. ‘Why did this have to be Potter’s child?’ he wondered, not for the first time that night. He couldn’t even decide to stand or sit. And since when was Severus Snape ever indecisive?

He slipped into his seat at the front of the room and sat silently for a bit, gathering his thoughts. Briefly, he wondered if the boy would crack before Snape spoke. Snape drew a deep breath to calm himself before starting.

“Tonight we are going to discuss your summer. More specifically, the events that led to such extensive healing. But first, I would like you to answer a question,” he said, having given much thought to what needed to be discussed and in what order.

Harry looked up hesitantly. Now that he knew what to look for, Snape was shocked that he had never noticed the abuse before. As easy as the boy usually was to read, somehow, he had managed to hide this. Perhaps, there may be hope for the child in learning Occlumency after all.

“Um, what question? Er, Sir,” he added as an afterthought.

“You mentioned this morning about how I would have responded if you had said something to me about the Philosopher’s Stone,” he reminded the boy. He watched as Harry flinched slightly. “Did you mean to imply that you did say something to someone?” he asked. Instead of simply listening to the boy and his aggressive tones, Snape reminded himself that for this, body language was going to be doubly important.

True to form, the boy started to protest any such action, protect who; Snape had an idea, but no proof. His body language however, spoke a different story. This time however, instead of responding with his usual technique used on Gryffindors, he used the one that for his own Slytherins. That of silence and an unwavering stare.

It didn’t take long. Perhaps it was because Harry was not yet used to his tactics. Whatever the reason, barely a minute had passed before Harry was turning his head and muttering. “We went to Professor McGonagall.”

Snape’s expression did not change. “What did she have to say?”

“She just said that we shouldn’t know anything about it, and basically to go outside and play,” Harry said, a hint of bitterness tinting his voice.

Snape nodded slightly. “Was that the only time you went to her for help?” Given what little he knew of the boy’s home life, it was very likely that after trusting the woman once and having that true betrayed, he never returned to her for help. And so it was with surprise that he saw Harry slowly nod his head.

“Tell me about it,” his command was uncharacteristically gentle, but unmistakable as a command.

Harry hesitated slightly. It wasn’t quite the reaction he had expected and now he wasn’t sure what to do. Snape was not acting at all how he was used to him behaving. It was disconcerting to say the least. He didn’t know what to say or do. He never trusted Snape in the past. The one and only time he had taken that chance, Sirius died. But did he really? Harry began to replay the scene in his mind.

Before he could get too far into the memory, Snape’s sharp voice was snapping him back to the present.

“Potter!” snarled Snape. He had watched the distrustful look fade into one of contemplation. It was mere seconds before Snape realized that Harry was lost in thought. While a portion of him was amazed that Harry was able to forget where he was enough to do that, another portion was annoyed that the boy was failing to pay attention.

Harry shook his head slightly. “I um, I did go to her again. Er, last year, Umbridge was…I tried to go to her because of the detentions. She just told me that I had to keep my head down and stay out of trouble. But, I didn’t know what to do. So Hermione told me to use essence of murlap.”

Slowly, Snape tried to translate the mess of that single statement. Nothing was said, and yet he revealed far more than Harry had probably intended. Something that blood bitch did during detentions caused Potter to need something to reduce scaring. And that woman who called herself a Head of House, couldn’t be bothered to help her children. The children that were under her protection because she was too busy trying to avoid drawing attention to herself. Not that she worried about that when the charlatan seer was getting kicked out of the school.

Snape drew himself up, and slowly stood. He made his way around the desk until he was standing beside Harry.

“Show me,” he ordered. His voice was dangerous in its quiet demand.

Harry looked up at his unexpected confidante. Slowly, his hand shaking slightly, he held it out, the words etched deeply into the skin. Snape sucked in a shocked breath when he read the words. His mind reeled. Only one thing could cause that type of scarring. That the Headmaster and McGonagall could be so careless with the blood of the one person that the Dark Lord wanted dead even more than Dumbledore was incomprehensible.

His mind was a whirlwind of thoughts. He tried to recall if the woman had ever been present at any of the meetings. He tried to think of ways to make the blood she inevitably collected no longer viable. No spells came to mind. Then he realized that she had left the school rather quickly, not gathering her stuff together. As far as he was aware, her stuff was still there at the school. He made up his mind to have the elves show him where it was being stored. Hopefully, the blood was still there and none of it had left the blasted woman’s possession.

Suddenly, he realized he had been standing there for rather longer than he had intended. The evening was going by far too quickly and he hadn’t even begun to discuss the events of the summer with the boy. But there was far more that he needed to learn about the events occurring right within the walls of Hogwarts before he could secure the child’s safety for his remaining years.

As he walked back to his desk, he continued his questioning. “Any other times?” he asked, trying to find a tone that would encourage talking and not frighten the kid, despite the fury coursing through his blood.

“Um, I went to her a couple of times about my nightmares…er, visions” Harry corrected himself softly. “But she just sent me back to bed.” He appeared to be thinking for a bit.

“Any other professors you went to for help?” Snape asked softly. He almost feared the response.

“Um, Lockhart,” Harry said, after a moment of thought. Snape’s snort was his only response. One which spoke volumes about his opinion.

“Well, yeah. Not exactly the best to trust. But he was supposed to be going into the Chamber. And Ron and I had information on the Chamber, and we thought that he needed the information. But instead he attacked us,” Harry concluded.

“Wait! The Chamber?” Snape paused. He was starting to feel like there was an information overload going on. He thought he knew everything that happened at this school. Or close to it at least. Being a spy increases the awareness of what was happening around him, and yet somehow, far too much was happening with him having a clue. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

“Yeah. Ron and I had to take Lockhart with us, because well, we were afraid he would attack us or something. I um, don’t really know why we did it now. It just seemed like a good idea at the time,” Harry’s mind drifted, trying to think why it seemed so right then. Other than the losing memories, but really, they could have just tied him up or something.

Snape brought his attention back when he asked, “Anything else?”

“Um, Professor Lupin,” Harry answered hesitantly. “I asked for help against the Dementors. He taught me how to cast the Patronus. And told me about S…Sirius. He…He helped me. But then…” Harry trailed off.

“Potter, he forgot to take his potion. His carelessness caused him to attack three students. What would have happened if he had killed one of you? Or bitten one of you?” Snape asked with a sigh. There was a small part of him that was regretting his actions from years ago. He knew he had done the right thing. He would not risk the lives and health of all those students on a teacher that had forgotten such an important part of his life. Something that could, and did, endanger students.

“I always tried to trust Dumbledore. But he keeps lying to me. He wouldn’t even look at me last year. How could I talk to him when he doesn’t tell me stuff? I didn’t even know that Vol…er, the Dark Lord could get into my mind. He knew ever since before Christmas, and yet he never said anything to me. “Harry felt the words pouring out of his mouth, like a flood of resentment.

“I begged him to not make me go back to the Dursleys. And he let Sirius go to jail without a trial and you got a trial, and Lucius, and everyone knows Lucius is a Deatheater and guilty as hell, but he gets to walk around free while Sirius was innocent and spent thirteen years in jail and I was stuck with those Muggles and didn’t even know that…” Harry stopped himself.

“Guess the only other person that I ever trusted with anything was…you,” he concluded.

“Harry,” Snape suddenly knew that in spite of the rage at the very thought of Black, everything centered on the next few moments. He stood again and slowly made his way to where Harry sat. He took the seat next to Harry at the table. “I did try. I couldn’t let on that I was helping. There were too many Death Eater children there.”

Harry nodded his understanding. He knew that. His mind did at least, but for some reason, he couldn’t convince his heart.

“I went straight to Dumbledore,” Snape said. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough.”

Harry nodded. “I…I know. Besides, probably for the best anyhow. I mean, not like Sirius would still want to be…They, my father and Sirius, they hated Slytherins. And now, I am a Slytherin. So, it’s probably for the best right? Because I don’t think I could take it if he hated me too.”

Snape wanted to agree. Those two especially, hated anything to do with Slytherin. But somehow, he knew that there was no way that he could say that to the boy, much as he may desire to.

Instead, he answered, “Potter, it’s a moot point.”

“What do you mean?” asked Harry.

“Moot point, one that need not be decided, due to a change of circumstances,” Snape quoted impatiently.

“I know what it means, mostly. I just mean…I don’t know what I mean,” Harry sighed.

“Potter, you are in Slytherin now because of abuse. Because of a determination to be better that those Muggles that raised you. Because the Ministry, in their bumbling, idiotic way, decided to make things worse for you. Because you want more than anything else, to make the Dark Lord pay. If Black hadn’t died, you wouldn’t have faced the abuse. You wouldn’t have felt the drive as harshly. And if your father hadn’t died, then none of this would be even a point of discussion. The reason you are in Slytherin now, is because the events did happen. It does no good whatsoever to think of how your father or godfather would react to your new housing placement. If they were here to regret it, it would most likely not have happened,” Snape finished this speak with an almost unperceivable wince. To have to speak about those two and keep the hostility out of his voice was nearly as painful as…the Dark Lord.

Harry stood suddenly. “Can I leave now?” he asked with a hint of impatience.

Snape sighed slightly. “Yes, go ahead,” he said, glancing at the time. His mind was spinning slightly. He really needed the time to absorb what he had learned and formulate a way to proceed.