Seduction of the Snake God

Seduction of the Snake God

Time strips our illusions of their hue, and one by one in turn, some grand mistake,
casts off its bright skin yearly like a snake- John Byrom

Part Two

Snake Pit

Harry walked down Ramses Street, watching the sun set. He ducked into an alley, and apparated to another, across from the auto strata and the monument that marks the Entrance to the City of the Dead. He carefully crossed, stepped behind a permanent Disillusionment field, then ran directly into the solid stone monument, into that part of Cairo, that like Station Nine and Three Quarters, does not seem to exist for Muggles.

Harry headed to the corner past Omar\'s Wand Repair to the Square of the Lotus, where the Wizarding Bazaar is located. Witches and wizards swarmed everywhere, selling and buying everything from spicy smelling food and miniature camels to flying carpets and spelled-to-fit dragon hide boots. He passed carts full of unguents, perfumes, oils, potions, and potion ingredients. He could not identify half of the wares. He could see why Snape might come here.

A witch who looked like she could have modelled for the bust of Nefertiti sat on a carpet on the ground with her offerings spread before her. It was all jewelry. Harry saw something that immediately caught his eye.

It was a medallion, a snake wrapped around the sun. The sun was gold. The snake and the chain, were some silver metal, white gold perhaps. He did a spell to reveal its magical properties. It was not a dark artifact. There were eleven light magic protection spells, including those against fire, poison, curses, hexes, jinxes, and a general shielding spell. Harry did not recognize the other five protections. The necklace also had three charms, one to animate the snake to make circuits around the sun, one making the chain unbreakable, one so that it could be removed only by the wearer.

It was not, Harry decided, an antiquity. It was rather recently wizard-made. He liked it. Much to the seller\'s amusement, Harry passed on her offer to haggle over the price. He paid what she was asking. She told him, perhaps as a bonus for the money she was not expecting, whom to see, if he wanted additional charms placed on it. With his wand, he cued the catch to his magic, and put it on, knowing that he had bought the necklace as a gift for Snape.

Harry stood against a wall for a while, watching the crowd. He hoped against chance to catch a swirl of black, a glint of pale skin, a glimmer of greasy hair. It was night now. The wizard lights had been on more than an hour. The air had grown cooler. The crowd had thinned out a bit. Harry was feeling the day catch up to him. He yawned, and pushed away from the wall, intending to take a couple of steps and apparate to the alley near Bill\'s place. The last thing he heard was a familiar voice saying, \"Stupefy!\"

When Harry woke up, he was in a mostly bare, mostly dark, windowless room, on a dark velvet day bed, beside a small table, with Severus Snape standing over him, wand pointing directly in his face. The man was dressed entirely in black, not even the usual hint of white to break it up. Harry smiled. Snape lowered the wand just a bit.

\"Hello.\"

\"What do you want?\"

\"Good to see you, too! I\'m glad you\'re alive.\"

\"I am most surprised -you- still are. Despite the fall of the Dark Lord, there is no excuse for you to be so oblivious to your surroundings, that you would allow a Death Eater within four feet of you- a Death Eater, I might add, who managed to stupefy you, without your ever sensing him. I should have let you wake up manacled to a wall, just to teach you a lesson. I have been following you for days, Mr. Potter. I have to assume that either your training or your scholarship was lacking. Since I trained you myself, and since you have always been a hopeless student, I am regretting the time I wasted on you.\"

\"You\'re not a Death Eater.\"

\"I am the very model of a Death Eater. Since I intend to outlive Lucius Malfoy, I am to become -the- Death Eater, or at least the only one breathing.\"

\"Well, good luck with that, then. How are you?\"

\"Why are you here?\"

\"Because you stupefied me and brought me here? Where are we, by the way?\"

\"Wouldn\'t you like to know.\"

\"I\'d be more interested to know how you got every owl in Britain to pretend you\'re dead.\"

Snape said nothing, so Harry continued, \"I don\'t care really. I only wanted to see you. I want to thank you. Which reminds me, here.\"

Harry undid the necklace, stood, and held it out to put it on Snape, who only scowled at him. Eventually, he held it in his hand for Severus to take.

\"Do you have any idea what this is?\"

\"A necklace?\"

\"Idiot boy. Do up the catch.\"

Harry did.

\"Slide it onto my wand.\"

Harry did. Snape backed up, keeping his eyes on Harry. He tilted his wand at a downward angle, dumping the necklace onto the table.

\"I shall examine it thoroughly, later.\"

\"You\'re welcome! I\'m so glad you like it. I want to give you back your money and your things, too.\"

\"Legally, what I owned as Severus Snape, now belongs to you. Do not imagine that included all of my personal assets. Slytherins never put all their eggs in a basket; nor do they leave the future to plan for itself.\"

\"It doesn\'t matter. You are not dead. I don\'t own any of it. It\'s yours. I want to return it to you.\"

\"If owning a few of my possessions is beneath you, give them to charity. Was there any other reason for your intrusion?\"

\"If you want to be dead to the rest of the wizarding world, fine by me. I\'ll keep your secrets. I\'ll also keep your possessions in case you ever have need of them. I\'d like it if we keep in touch, because I\'ve missed you. You\'ve been a constant in my life since I was eleven. I don\'t have many constants left. Look, I know we don\'t always get along, Severus-\"

\"We have never enjoyed each other\'s company, Mr. Potter. If you take familiarity with my name again, I will toss you through that wall.\"

\"I know you won\'t. You worked far too hard to keep me in one piece all these years, to go throwing me through walls now. Besides, that\'s quite a nice wall. I\'d like it if you\'d call me Harry. I\'ll be happy to call you sir, or Professor, or what ever you would prefer.\"

\"I would prefer if you had no need to refer to me at all. Kindly state your real purpose for being here, so that you may sooner alleviate yourself of that necessity by leaving.\"

\"Sir, until now, all we\'ve had are reasons not to get along. We were dangerous to one another. I was especially dangerous to your cover. We had to hate each other at school, and during the war, so it would look like we were on different sides. Now, we can, though. Get along, I mean. I respect you, as a wizard, as a teacher, and as a person. I admire you, sir. You are incredibly brave, intelligent, witty-\"

\"Sing it Mr. Potter, and it is a love song. On second thought don\'t sing, as I recall, you have no talent for it. I will ask you again, what -exactly- are you suggesting?\"

\"That I\'d like to get to know you, sir. I\'d like it if we could be friends.\"

\"Friends?\"

Snape asked the question like another wizard might ask, \'Plague rats?\'

\"Yes sir.\"

\"Why?\"

\"Why not?\"

\"Because you, and I quote, hate me and always have, Potter. Because you hold me responsible for your godfather\'s death. Because I had to put up with you, against my will, for nearly nine years and now, do not. That is three. How many reasons would you like?\"

\"I don\'t hate you, sir. I don\'t hold you responsible for what happened to Sirius. It wasn\'t your fault. It was my fault. I blamed you, unfairly, because I couldn\'t bear the responsibility, all the guilt, on top of the grief. Dumbledore knew it and tried to get me to blame him. He may have been to blame for a lot of things, but not for that. Sirius was what he was. I was what I was. Both of us were fools. But he died because he cared about me, trying to save me from my foolishness. I should have trusted you with the information, trusted you to do something about it, if what I thought was true. I didn\'t murder him, but was responsible for his death. Am responsible. I am responsible for his death. I\'m responsible for a lot of deaths. Not Voldemort\'s, though! That was all your doing. I told everyone, too. No one seemed interested in my version of the story, even though I was the only one left who could tell it. I turned down the Order of Merlin. I told them to award it to you, posthumously, then never heard anymore about it. I guess you didn\'t get it yet, sir, or it would be part of your estate.\"

\"Why did you come to Cairo?\"

\"Because I was looking for you, and figured I might as well drop in on Bill. I did compass spells. I went to Spain first. Spent a night at your house there. Did Dolce tell you that I was looking for you?\"

\"In a manner of speaking. Why Potter? Why were you looking for me?\"

\"I told you, because I want to get to know you. I think we could be friends. Maybe we can be more than that. I haven\'t thought about anyone as much as I\'ve thought about you, since the end of the war.\"

\"More than friends? Potter, what do you -think- you are playing at?\"

\"I\'m sincere, sir.\"

\"You might as well tell me. What ever you want from me, I might be willing to give, if, in exchange, you will do me the courtesy of never contacting me again. Just do not expect me to believe that you, so rich in youth, looks, wealth and fame, journeyed all the way to Cairo for a one off with a despised, greasy, Death Eating, ex-Potions Professor!\"

\"I shouldn\'t have said that. I never should have brought it up. What I really want is to spend time with you. I can make myself useful. I can cook. I can clean. I could help you with potions! Well, you probably wouldn\'t want that. I can scrub cauldrons! I\'ve had loads of experience doing that over the years.\"

\"Mr. Potter, even your story about leaving Britain because you could not find a shag there, was more convincing than this one, about your travelling to Cairo to become a house-elf.\"

\"I just want to spend time with you. I was illustrating that I\'ll do what you want, in order to have that.\"

\"How could I possibly believe that you can find nothing better to do with your time, than to spend it with me?\"

\"I missed this! I missed you making everything a million times more difficult, than even the most pessimistic person would dream possible.\"

\"You did not answer my question.\"

\"No I didn\'t. You won\'t believe me, sir, what ever I say. Do you have any Veritaserum? I\'ll take it.\"

Snape said nothing for a moment, regarding Harry warily.

\"Do not move from that spot, Potter. I mean it. I will know if you do. If you test me, I will throw you out.\"

\"Through which wall, sir?\"

\"Your choice.\"