Dearest Harry - Eileen's Story

Chapter Seventeen

Thanks Kim and TQA for your wonderful support.


Harry had reached the bottom of the lowest staircase when he heard the door to the cellar slam open. He froze. ‘Oh shit!’ he thought. Had Professor Lupin or Draco managed to overcome the wards or unlock the doors to their rooms?

He felt his breath quicken; he began to feel a sense of panic, that an angry, uncontrolled werewolf might at any minute confront him and that there was nowhere he could go and nothing to defend himself with. But it wasn’t Lupin or Draco. It was Snape and he was crying.

Harry was completely astonished. He had never thought to see Snape show such emotion, well ever, really. He stood completely still for a moment, trying hard to not even blink. But Snape was coming towards him and there was nothing he could do, he had to move. In his haste to not be in the ex-professor’s way though, he accidentally kicked the foot of a table that stood at the bottom of the stairs. Harry managed to stifle his yell of pain, but obviously Snape had heard something because now it was his turn to freeze. He was just inches away from Harry and looking directly at him. Harry almost shivered, ‘déjà vu, here we go again’ he thought to himself. It was so like his days back at Hogwarts that he had to fight back a nervous giggle.

But Snape had obviously decided that he must have been imagining things, because he brought his hand to his face and used the back of his fingers to wipe the tears that were still leaking from the corner of his eyes. Harry felt dreadful; he felt like he had intruded on a private moment and, considering that Harry valued his privacy so much, he knew that Snape would be appalled if he knew Harry had seen him crying. So he quietly vowed never to say a word to anyone about what he had witnessed. But Snape had changed direction, he was no longer headed upstairs; instead he made his way to the library, leaving the door to the cellar slightly open.

For a moment or two, Harry debated about what to do. If he went to the kitchen now to get a drink of water, Snape might work out that Harry had seen him so upset. He was not going back upstairs to the thunderous noises that Ron was undoubtedly making by now and the library was obviously no longer an option. But there had to be a reason that Snape was so distressed: maybe Draco was hurt or something, maybe Professor Lupin was? So, clutching his wand tightly, and pulling his cloak more tightly around himself, Harry headed for the open cellar door.

It was only when he got to the foot of the rather rickety wooden stairs that led to the cellar did Harry hear the soul destroying sounds that Draco was making. ‘Oh God, Oh God,’ he thought frantically. That’s why Snape had left. How could anyone stand this for very long? It was agonising to hear, awful to witness. He could also hear something, which he assumed to be Professor Lupin, thudding against the door of his room. Hmm, ‘room’ was not really very accurate, was it, when he came to think about it? Because when they had been discussing it upstairs, Lupin had made it sound like they would have a comfy little place in which to transform, but these, these were nothing more than cells, weren’t they?

Another scream of despair, almost totally inhuman, chilled him to the very bone. Oh Merlin, Draco sounded like he was in agony and that was with the Wolfsbane, what must it be like without the potion?

Maybe, just maybe, Harry could help? If he went nearer he could call to Draco, let him know that Harry was there. Finally making up his mind, he shrugged out of his cloak and folded it and popped it behind some boxes in the corner of the cellar. Straightening his shoulders, telling himself to be brave, he walked forward towards the nearest door.

Draco was changing. He was in the far corner of the little cell, twisting and turning in some sort of distorted dance of unending pain. As Harry watched his bones seemed to stretch, to warp, to elongate and the creature that was Draco threw back its head and let out another soul freezing scream, whilst to his left, the creature that Professor Lupin had become was repeatedly throwing itself at the barrier that was keeping it away from a young animal in such distress.

Harry didn’t know what to do. He could understand why Snape had left; too much time here, listening to such torture, would send anyone mad.

He wished that he were an animagus, if only he had learned. He remembered once asking Sirius about it. Harry hated to think about Sirius, it hurt. But they had talked about it, just once, one evening when the two of them had been upstairs in this very house.

“What you have to do, Harry,” Sirius had said, “is look into your heart, because that’s where your animal is, in the heart of yourself. It takes ages, though; you have to sort of meditate. That’s why it took us so long. Me and James, we were never good at anything soooo, I dunno, introspective I guess.” He had produced a mock shudder at the thought of introspection, Harry remembered, with a smile. “But if we could do it I bet you could, you’re very good at brooding!” And then Harry had hit him with a cushion and they had laughed. Harry stood for a moment, bathing in the precious memory of Sirius; he was so close at that moment Harry thought that he could almost reach out and touch him.

How could he meditate here though, with that awful, heart wrenching, despair ringing off the walls?

Harry could not bear it, no one had ever come for him when he was little and alone and in pain, he could not, he would not, abandon Draco.

So he closed his eyes and he focused; he blocked out the sound of Draco’s pain like he had blocked out the taunts of his cousin and friends. Sometimes, when he was very small and locked in his cupboard and hurt or lonely, he had gone deep inside himself to get away. He hadn’t done it for years but it came back so easily that he didn’t even have to try very hard.

His breathing slowed, his focus went inward and everything around him disappeared. He concentrated on the rise and fall of his chest. He heard nothing else, saw nothing else, he concentrated on the steady thump of his heart, following it, deeper and deeper until… There it was: his animal. He smiled. He knew it already, it was as if he had always known and all he had to do was call it forth.

Harry stood up straight; he kept his animagus form in his mind’s eye. He could see it, smell it, taste it. Slowly, oh so slowly, he slid back the bolt, holding closed the door to Draco’s cell, and opened it. Keeping his movements fluid, he walked inside, shutting the door and bolting it behind him with a whispered spell. Then he gently lowered his wand to the floor beside him and began to move forward.

A pair of amber eyes turned to him and narrowed as they saw the intruder. The werewolf growled deep in its throat in warning. But Harry took no notice and as he determinedly kept moving forward he began to transform.


Severus had felt like a coward. He felt like he had abandoned Draco and, if he were completely honest, perhaps he had in a way. Remus had decided that he could not stay with the boy whilst he transformed. Remus was an alpha male, a pack leader. Oh he hid it well, with that air of studiousness and old world gentlemanliness, but in his werewolf form, he could have brutalised Draco, and Remus just could not face that.

There had just not been time to make enough Wolfsbane for them both, not at full strength anyhow. Draco had had to have his; he could not go through another month without it to help him with the change. He would not be able to stand the pain, the loss of his control, his mind. This they had both decided. But, because of this, Remus’ potion was only half strength; unfortunately that was the best that Severus could do in the circumstances. He had not had enough time, enough ingredients, to brew enough potion for both of them and Remus had enough experience to be able to cope far better than the almost hysterical Malfoy boy. Lupin would cope, he had done it before and he would do it tonight. He would probably keep his mind come the transformation but they could not be sure. So they had talked to the boy, and given him his potions and told him that they would be close by. And then they had left him alone; they had had to.

Remus had transformed quite quickly and fairly painlessly, Severus thought. Now that Draco had stopped those inhuman noises, he was pacing his cell almost calmly, but earlier he had been frantic. Then Lupin had been throwing himself against the door, growling and yelping, desperately, frantically trying to reach the member of his pack that was in so much pain.

Draco was a very new werewolf and he was very scared and, as his alteration had begun, the screams that had been rent from him had been seared on Severus heart. Draco had thrown himself at the door too, he had begged and pleaded and as he lost his human voice, long before the transformation was complete, as his words had been taken away he had howled and howled.

Severus had been shaking when he left. He had tried to block out the sounds, the dreadful inhuman sounds, the cries of a creature in agony, terrified, beyond despair. He knew it would take at least an hour more for the change to be complete, as Draco was battling against it with all that he had, and Severus could simply not stand it any longer. So he left them.

Remus had still been howling and throwing himself at the entrance to his cell and Draco had been beyond despair when he had decided that he would come back and sit with the boy when things had quieted down. When he had calmed enough so that he would hear Severus’ voice and hopefully be comforted at least a little. And so he had fled and, as he ran upstairs, he had been surprised to find that tears were streaming down his face.

But now he was back. Draco was quiet at last, though Severus could hear a low growl, coming from Remus’ cell. Even after all these years, Severus couldn’t quite trust Lupin, not after that night when they were both just sixteen. Tonight was even worse, because Severus could not quite bring himself to look at the older werewolf and see the animal in his eyes. It was enough that he could hear him. It did something to Severus on a primeval level, hearing Lupin’s growls; it scared him to the very root of his being. He saw that night when he had nearly been caught, relived his terror, his humiliation.

But Draco he could cope with. He had known the boy since he was a small child, a child he had been very fond of, if the truth were known. Of late he had been very dismissive of Draco, short with him and he felt guilty. Draco was what his parents had made him; he had been overindulged, spoiled. Since he had had Draco as a companion he had been forced to see that the boy had been far more like James Potter than James’ own son was: that arrogance, that selfishness that seemed such a part of him. Even after Greyback, there was some semblance of the old superiority, even though he had become something that he had been taught to hate.

But he needed Severus tonight, didn’t he? Harry, of all people, had reminded him of his duty, and he planned to just be here, near the boy, in case he awoke, frightened or in pain. So he went up to the thick door, reinforced by iron and shot with silver. Both the rooms had been worked on over the past few days in order to protect the inhabitants of Grimmauld Place, from the wild animals that Draco and Remus would become.

He braced himself; he didn’t want to see Draco, broken, in pain. It had been bad enough the first time, the time that Draco had had to be chained. The time that he had had no Wolfsbane, the reason he had been so terrified this month was because of what he had suffered before and that time he had had to be alone, because they had had no potion and they had been on the run.

So Severus felt that he owed Draco and he steeled himself. He crept closer to the little window and peered inside, almost dreading what he would see. But what he did see in that little room rocked him to the very core.

Lying in the corner of the cell, with a huge paw protectively draped over the creature that was Draco, was an enormous lion, with tawny fur and a huge, somewhat messy mane. Severus took a step back for a moment. He checked the bolts on the door; they were still fastened - the door was locked. His brain felt like it had frozen, how could a lion have made it into Draco’s cell? What on Earth was happening? He peered in again in confusion; Draco the werewolf was sleeping. He was curled into the lion, still whimpering in his sleep but nothing like as distressed as he had been only an hour before. The other animal had calmed him, it was purring. At least that was the sound that Severus assumed he could hear, a sort of deep rumbling noise, which strangely enough seemed to give him, Severus, an overwhelming sense of security too.

He looked up and his eyes met those of the lion. They were green and shone with intelligence. And all at once Severus knew what had happened. He had been right; he had heard something when he had fled upstairs. Harry had somehow got past him earlier and then, and then…… But how could he? The boy had become a lion? Harry was not an animagus. Only last night he had promised Draco that he would try to become one, but nobody, no one ever became an animagus after one attempt, surely they didn’t? It took weeks of work, of preparation, sometimes months.

But then Severus reminded himself that this was Harry Potter he was thinking about. Since when did Harry do anything normally? In one night – no, in less than one hour - at one attempt, Harry Potter had become an animagus, a lion.

And what a magnificent creature he was.

His coat seemed to shine with a gentle golden glow, illuminating the cell. His vast mane was in complete disarray and, if one looked closely, there was a strange marking in the animal’s fur: a trail of white on his forehead, shaped like a bolt of lightening. His eyes still watched Severus carefully for a moment longer and then he opened those massive jaws in a threatening, protective roar.

Severus was overcome then by a curious mix of emotions.

He was enormously proud of Harry, proud of the fact that, with no tuition whatsoever, he had managed to become an animagus, a truly stupendous feat of magic that very few wizards ever managed to perform.

He was awed by Harry’s animagus form, no puny rats or mangy dogs for him! It was obvious really when he thought of it, that Harry, being the archetypal Gryffindor, would turn himself into a creature that was everyone’s idea of the personification of bravery. He knew that in the morning when he told Eileen about this she too would be amazed by her grandson’s skill.

But stronger than these other emotions, almost threatening to overwhelm him with its intensity right now, was a rapidly building sense of anger.

For years this boy, this child, had had no regard for his own safety. He always put others before himself and was incredibly reckless. But this? This went beyond any act of stupidity that Severus had ever witnessed the boy embark upon.

He understood him a bit better now. He realised that the boy was not really arrogant; he just seemed to have no sense of danger and no belief that anyone would ever help him or indeed want to help him, however much he needed them too.

But walking into a warded room that held a highly dangerous, very unstable werewolf - even if he had been doused with enough sleeping potion to lay out Buckbeak - was the absolute height of stupidity. He was so angry with Harry that he was practically shaking with fury.

Harry had obviously not realised that things had changed: he did have adults in his life who cared about him now. And one of them, this particular adult in fact, was going to punish him so severely tomorrow that he would wish that he had stayed in bed, where he belonged until he was at least twenty-five! Severus wondered if anything he could say or do would get through to Harry now; the damage that the boy had endured to his self esteem to his development of a sense of self preservation was probably too permanent, too extreme.

Not only had he had to cope with the uncaring, downright cruel Dursleys, he had also then had to deal with the foolishness of an old man who seemed to think it was perfectly acceptable for a small boy to wander around fighting the most evil wizard to blight their existence for the last four centuries. But he needed to realise that he was cared for, he was important as something other than a weapon. He had a family now and, for the first time since his mother had told him about Lily, Severus wished with all his heart that he had known about Harry before; when he was in first year or even earlier, when he could have taken responsibility for his nephew and told Albus to mind his own business. Harry would have not grown up with a weird belief that he mattered to no one. Harry would have been loved.

He thought it would kill his mother if she lost her precious grandson right now, and he, Severus Snape, was going to be the one to show Harry James Potter the error of his ways! Come morning, the two of them were going to have a very serious conversation and Harry was going to finally realise what having a family and responsibility was all about.

But it was almost as if Harry lion could hear him at that point because his green eyes glittered in the darkness seeking out Snape’s own eyes and the roar that he let out this time was, if anything, even louder and even more threatening than the last.