Proof of Life

Past Tense



On Monday morning, Severus awoke with a start. He was alone in his bed again, with only the cat who was curled up next to him, snoring quietly. He sat up abruptly and looked around, slightly disoriented. Following Severus\' descent into temporary madness, Harry had spent two more nights with him, before abandoning him again.



Well, maybe abandoning was too strong a word for it, Severus corrected himself instantly. Adults didn\'t sleep in the same bed, unless they were romantically involved, or unless it was necessary due to a crisis of some sort. Severus smiled hesitantly, understanding that Harry no longer considered him to be in crisis. This was a good sign, he supposed, even if solitude felt extremely unwelcome at this point. For a brief second, his treacherous mind considered generating some sort of crisis, if only to regain his Master\'s presence, but he pushed the thought away quickly. This was normal. This was... probably better. Or was it? He couldn\'t tell. He only knew that he missed waking up next to someone who cared for him, at least in some form.



He walked downstairs. Harry had already gone to work, and Luna was there in his place. She looked at Severus with a slightly sad smile.



“Lucius died,” she informed him by the way of greeting.



“Oh.” He was surprised how little emotion that piece of news evoked. He supposed he should have felt something akin to regret, at least for Draco\'s sake, and Narcissa\'s, but even those attachments appeared to have faded into the background. Although Severus knew that Draco was quietly helping him, along with the rest of his former students, he hadn\'t seen his godson yet, and he had begun to wonder if Draco was avoiding him.



His new life seemed to contain Harry, Luna, Marietta, the three-legged cat, and to a lesser extent, a handful of former students who\'d dropped by to look after him.



“What are you reading?” Severus asked.



“The Hitchhiker\'s Guide to the Galaxy,” she said, paging through a thin paperback. “Do you miss your books?”



“No,” he said gruffly, and to his surprise, he meant it. He felt remarkably disconnected from all reminders of his old life, as if they had stopped holding any meaning for him altogether.



“Well, you should miss them, I think,” Luna advised him. “In fact, we should go and pick them up.”



“Pick them up,” he repeated, quite certain he\'d misheard, or misunderstood. “What do you mean by that?”



“Your old house. We should go there to pick up your books,” she said patiently, as if talking to a small child.



“Who owns my old house now?” he asked, slightly bewildered by the revelation that it was still there, and at least some of his old possessions remained intact.



“Nobody. Well, technically, Harry does, but he just kept it as it was. He didn\'t let anyone touch it. Sentimental reasons, I suppose,” Luna mused. “He didn\'t tell you?”



Severus shook his head. “No. I imagine he didn\'t want to overwhelm me,” Severus added sourly. “God knows, I haven\'t responded rationally to good news, or kind gestures, over the last month.”



Luna gave him a quirky grin. “So I\'ve heard. Well, let\'s go get your books.”



Severus gave her a hesitant glance. “I\'m not certain I\'m supposed to...”



“I promise I won\'t get you into trouble,” Luna assured him. “I know Harry. He won\'t be upset by this.”



“What if he is?” Severus asked, dismayed by the prospect. He was surprised at how comfortable he had gotten in Harry\'s home over the last several weeks, and he didn\'t want to do anything to disrupt his newfound comfort and safety.



Luna shrugged unrepentantly, standing up, and picking up her knapsack. “Then I suppose you\'ll get to clean the cellar again, and get another cat. I\'d say it\'s well worth the risk. Shall we go?”



“All right,” Severus said, following her to the Floo.



“So tell me,” Luna asked as they were about to depart, “are you going to be rational with me today?”



“Yes,” Severus promised solemnly.



Luna\'s eyes were bright with mischief. “Pity.”



~ *~



His old house was just as he\'d left it: in a state of minor disrepair, with books filling the shelves of the sitting room, the potions ingredients in the lab... nothing had been touched. Everything was there. For a few long minutes, he simply stood stood in front of the bookshelves in silence, and his eyes darted from one book to another. He shivered slightly, as old memories flooded him. Writing... teaching... designing new spells...working on potions recipes - those things seemed to belong to a different lifetime. He ran his fingertips over the back of one of the books, leaving trails in the thick layer of dust collected on it.



“We can take all of them,” Luna said, placing her knapsack in his hands. “Undetectable Extension Charm. Would you like me to pack them for you?”



“Yes, please,” Severus said simply, and Luna proceeded to cast a Scourgify to remove the dust, and send the books into the seemingly bottomless knapsack. On an impulse, Severus also asked her to collect his potions ingredients and brewing equipment. Even though it could take a while for his magic to reemerge, he suddenly realized that he wanted to take them. Maybe it was a hoarding instinct, as if having been deprived of everything for seven years, he now desperately wanted to take everything that was his, and keep it nearby. He cast a cautious glance at Luna, half-expecting her to mock him, but she just continued to pack his belongings with stunning efficiency.



He wandered into his old bedroom afterwards, and cast a glance at his bed. Over seven years since he\'d slept in it – and there it was... The bed was made, but not the way he used to make it – the bedspread was folded neatly, with the corners carefully tucked in.



“Someone slept here,” Severus pointed out, surprised by how little it mattered.



“Harry did,” Luna said. “Just once. When the war was over. Hermione stayed with him,” she added matter-of-factly.



Severus nodded absently. He remembered Harry telling him something about being upset, crying, and Hermione comforting him. Was it here? For some reason, he wanted to think that it was.



“I\'m done,” Severus said. “Shall we head home?”



Luna picked up her charmed knapsack and tossed it over her shoulder. “What\'s the hurry?” she said. “The day is young.”



~ * ~



After their brief visit to Spinner\'s End, Luna dragged him out to Diagon Alley. It felt odd to be out and about, and he felt momentarily disoriented and unnerved by being outside, with people bustling about, casting curious glances at Luna, and staring at Severus with half-hostile, half-amused, knowing smiles.



He felt his cheeks flame instantly. He wondered what they knew... how much they knew. For a few moments he felt as if his entire life was on display, with everyone knowing absolutely everything about him, and despising him for it. A wave of sheer, visceral panic washed over him, and he wondered if he should be adding agoraphobia to his long list of dysfunctions. He took a moment to sort through the flood of anxious thoughts and come to a quick conclusion. People were sneering because he was a Death Eater, slave-bonded to Harry Potter. It was doubtful they knew anything else.



Luna tugged on his sleeve gently.



“You\'re doing fine,” she whispered, as if trying to coax a feral cat. “I want to do some shopping. Would you like to come with me, or wait for me someplace quiet?”



“Someplace quiet,” he said instantly, and she grinned.



“I knew you were going to say that,” she said.



He followed her to the doors of a five-storey establishment that he instantly identified by the sign as the former Leaky Cauldron, which appeared to have been rebuilt from scratch.



“I\'m going to leave you with Hannah for a few hours,” Luna said. “How does that sound?”



“That\'s fine,” Severus said stiffly, not wanting to be a burden, but uncertain how the Longbottoms would respond to Luna dropping him off at their doorstep.



As if sensing his thoughts, Luna gave him a quick smile, and then the door of the pub opened to them.



Hannah Longbottom saw them and smiled. “Professor, Luna! Come in!”



“Only the Professor is coming in,” Luna said, nudging him inside. “I\'ve got some errands to run, and some shopping to do.” Luna\'s bright eyes fixed on Severus. “I\'ll pick you up in a couple of hours, all right?”



He nodded with growing uncertainty, and Luna departed quickly, before he could change his mind.



Hannah smiled at him again. “Well, come on in, make yourself at home. Are you hungry? Do you want anything to eat?”



“I haven\'t got any money,” he said, realizing that courtesy probably required him to order something, if he were going to spend two hours in her pub.



“That\'s not what I asked,” Hannah protested. “I asked if you were hungry.”



“I\'m not hungry.”



“All right. Does not having money bother you?”



He was taken aback by her question. “I don\'t know. Maybe.”



“Well, in that case, would you like to make some? I have a job that needs to be done. It requires skilled hands and attention to detail. I can pay five galleons per hour, and it should take about two hours to complete. Are you interested?”



He shrugged, uncertain of what to say. Normal human interactions had always been somewhat of a mystery to him, and now, after seven years of hell, with the slave-bond in place, they had become doubly so. All of the reassuring conversations with Harry aside, Severus still only had a very vague concept of what was actually expected of him. The idea of trying his hand at something was appealing, but he found himself wondering how Harry might react to that. Would he think Severus was being ungrateful by accepting this offer? He knew Harry was eagerly waiting for his magic to re-emerge. Would he be disappointed that Severus was doing this, as opposed to something else?



Hannah Longbottom was waiting for him to make up his mind: waiting with a patience he hadn\'t thought human beings were capable of, until he became reacquainted with Harry Potter.



“I\'ll try,” he told her, and she beamed at him.



“Wonderful. Come on,” she said, leading the way upstairs.



It turned out that the Leaky Cauldron had a sizable roof-top garden, with several large raised flower-beds, and a multitude of pots with various shrubs and herbs.



The air was fresh, fresher than it should have been, given their location in the heart of London. There was no hint of pollution, and no traffic noise – the silence was only punctuated by the buzzing of several bees that were making their way from one flower to the next.



“Neville designed it,” Hannah explained. “He put up the charms to block the pollution and the city noise. Seemed like a good idea to grow some of our own herbs and such. But take a look at this -” Severus\' eyes followed the direction of her hand, to encounter a disorganized heap of small containers, filled with miscellaneous starter plants. “Our supplier just dropped them off like that, without explaining what they were, how to care for them, or anything. Would you mind sorting them? I really don\'t want Neville to come home to this mess.”



“That\'s fine,” Severus said quietly. “I\'ll know what they are.”



“Good. There\'s a notebook and a quill somewhere in the mess.” She deposited an enormous bottle of water in his hands. “You should drink plenty while you work. The heat will be murderous.”



She left quickly, and he made his way to the enormous pile of tiny starter plants, some of which had already begun to wilt. It took him a good hour to sort through them all, and make detailed notes.



The sun continued to climb in the sky. Severus lifted his face and shut his eyes, allowing the pleasant warmth to wash over him. He couldn\'t remember the last time he did that. It wasn\'t an exaggeration, he genuinely couldn\'t remember. He had a habit of spending most of his time at Hogwarts inside, in his dungeons. It used to be his space, a controlled environment that he found comfortable and comforting. His neighborhood at Spinner\'s End didn\'t invite one to lounge in sunlight either, and Severus rarely ventured outside, unwilling to draw attention to himself. He wondered if the years spent indoors made him look like a half-wilted plant, that had been deprived of sunlight for too long.



Either way, he thought, this was wonderful. For a few minutes, he was tempted to simply kick back and relax – but then, his attention returned to the neatly organized rows of starter-plants that likely wouldn\'t survive another day in their all-too-small containers with dried out soil.



He decided that rather than allowing them to sit and wilt, he could take the initiative and plant them into the empty flower-beds that seemed already prepared specifically for that purpose. On an impulse, he sank his hands into the fresh soil, savoring the texture with his hands. It felt – alive, somehow.



He felt a dampness around his eyes, and a moment later, unbidden tears streamed down his cheeks.



He hadn\'t cried in the last few years of his captivity. He hadn\'t cried when he was rescued, or when he thought Harry was about to punish him, or send him away. He hadn\'t cried when Luna\'s little cat adopted him, or when he visited his old home. Yet now, left alone in an oddly quiet unfamiliar place, with no-one watching him, he somehow felt safe to do so. He allowed himself a few minutes of blissful frailty, before collecting himself, wiping his face with his sleeve and setting to work once again.



When Hannah came to visit him an hour and a half later, he had finished his work. All the starter plants now had a home in the flower beds, and he had cataloged all of them, along with listing fertilizing potions that would be beneficial for each herb.



Hannah seemed absolutely dumbfounded, and for a few minutes he wondered if he\'d overstepped his boundaries. Maybe he should have just followed her instructions to the letter, rather than attempting to show off? He darted a cautious look in her direction, and she grinned at him.



“That was fast! You are worth your weight in gold, you know.”



He stared down, suddenly becoming very much aware of his emaciated form, that made his clothing look baggy on him.



“It seems that\'s not very much these days,” he pointed out dryly.



Hannah stared at him sadly for a split-second, before bursting into laughter.



“Well, after all this work, you must be famished,” she said with conviction. “I say it\'s time we dispensed with the pseudo-food and got you started on the real thing, hmm?”



~ * ~



When Harry returned home late in the evening, Luna was waiting for him in the kitchen, with her hands wrapped around a mug of hot tea.



“How\'s he doing?” Harry asked.



“I wore him out,” Luna said with obvious pride. “He\'s sleeping with a wand under his pillow.”



“Good,” Harry approved. “What kind of wand did Ollivander come up with for him?”



“Rowan wood, with the core of dragon heartstring.”



“Dragon heartstring,” Harry said softly. “Just like his old wand.”



“Different wood this time,” Luna reminded him. “Rowan is used for protection from storms and harmful enchantments. And healing. Did you know druids used it for rune staves, and dowsing rods?”



Harry shook his head. What he didn\'t know about wandlore could easily fill a library. “What else did you get him?” Harry asked.



“I bought him a yoga mat and a set of free weights, in case he wants to exercise,” Luna said. “Also Hannah got him started on proper food, and that went well. Now, are you ready for this? I got him a job.”



“What?”



“Hannah hired him to take care of her rooftop garden. He enjoyed himself. He\'s going to work for her Tuesdays and Thursdays. Two hours a day. Provided you approve, of course,” she added wryly.



Harry grinned from ear to ear. “Luna, you are a miracle worker. Remind me to never doubt you again.”



His gaze fell on the kitchen table, where he saw a large white envelope, with his name written in Snape\'s unmistakable pointy scrawl.



“What\'s that?” Harry asked.



“His earnings,” Luna explained calmly. “He told me to give them to you.”



Harry opened the envelope. Ten galleons lay inside, gleaming brightly in the dusk of the room. He winced at the sight. It seemed that Severus never ran out of things to do to twist his heart.



“His first earnings in seven years, and he gave them to me?” Harry muttered. “I suppose he doesn\'t think he\'s got a right to keep them. I\'ll give them back to him tomorrow morning.”



Luna shook her head. “You shouldn\'t,” she told him. “I think it\'s just his way of saying thank you.”



“Oh.” Harry shifted in his chair uncomfortably. Luna\'s interpretation of Severus\' actions should have made him feel better, but it didn\'t. If anything, it made him feel positively worse. “He shouldn\'t be thanking me,” Harry whispered dejectedly, as a fresh wave of guilt washed over him. “It\'s not normal! I fucked up. I ruined his life. He should hate me...”



Luna smiled sadly. “I realize that it\'d make you feel better if he started berating you and scolding you. But life is a complicated thing, Harry. We don\'t always get what we want. I suppose at this point, you\'ll have to settle for him liking you, and being grateful.”



Harry chuckled softly, as somehow, Luna\'s words managed to reassure him yet again.



“See you Thursday night,” Luna said, standing up. “I understand you have a date with Marietta.”



“I\'m not dating Marietta!” Harry protested instantly.



“Well if you won\'t, I will,” Luna warned. “Somebody should. She seems lonely.”



To Be Continued...