Between Dusk and Dawn

Disclaimer: Same as before I do not own any of this.

For my reviewers:

cdkobasiuk: You'll find out in this chapter.

Sophia: Thank you.=) I've been toying with this idea for some time in my head.

The w00t Girl: You'll find out exactly what ails Harry in this chapter. *grins*

vyator: Yes, yes, yes I am an evil git for just chopping the chapter off like that, but here's another one! Yay!!

misanthropist: We'll find out what's going on in this chapter, and there are some plans being made. *grins evilly*

jerhanner: You'll find out what evil, sexy beasties are lurking about the manor in this chapter. lol Hope you enjoy it.

Oh, and if anyone would like to be emailed with updates to this story, please let me know in a review or shoot me an email with the title of the fic in the subject. I try to make lists of who is reading what story so that I can email them when there's an update.

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Quickly, he retreated to the porch. Harry was freaking out a little over something. Severus fixed himself a cup of tea and stepped out onto the cold porch with Harry. It was now fully winter, being only a few weeks before Christmas, and it was downright cold. He watched Harry pacing the length of the porch and mumbling to himself. It was no use, though; the young man was ignoring him. It was obviously important to Harry that he keep the only rules.

Stepping back in the kitchen, Severus felt strangely unnerved. He wasn’t sure what it was, but something about the whole situation was not right.

Severus ate heartily what ever Harry cooked for him over the next few days. Their easy relationship had been strained by Severus’ need for cocoa after a nightmare, and he hated that. He kept running the problem through his head and coming up a few pieces short of solving it. He rarely napped through the day anymore and almost missed Harry’s gentle contact. He was perplexed. Every time he mentioned it to Harry, the young man shuttered himself down and refused to speak. It was maddening.

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On Christmas Eve, Severus woke early to find that a small Christmas tree had been decorated in the corner of the green room, and holly, mistletoe, and red and green candles decorated the whole manor. He walked into the kitchen to find Harry sitting at the table wearing a Santa Claus hat. “Aren’t you just festive today?” he dead-panned.

“Min sent Dobby to decorate and make sure that we have a happy Christmas,” Harry replied morosely. “She’ll be flooing in tomorrow.”

“Wonderful,” Severus replied sarcastically.

Dobby popped in and tried to put a hat on Severus’ head, but the glare from the man stopped the house elf.

The two sat on the porch until lunch watching the snow and not speaking, each lost in his own thoughts. Harry went in and started a hearty stew for supper while cooking a few grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. The rest of the day was spent by the two in the potions lab.

When Severus’ eyes beheld the lab, he was awed. In the time since the end of the war, Harry had built a state-of-the-art potions lab. He had many different types of cauldrons, including a small, hard to find, obsidian one. The shelves were stocked with any and every kind of ingredient a brewer could hope for.

After accio-ing his Advanced Potions text, Harry set to making Remus’ Wolf’s Bane potion. “You are providing Lupin his potion now?” Severus asked.

“Don’t be surprised, sir. I was only so bad in your class because your Slytherins sabotaged my potions. I’m really quite adept.” Throughout this, Harry was pulling the ingredients from the shelf and arranging them on the table.

Severus set up the cauldrons and watched the younger man begin his work. It was almost like watching himself. Harry relaxed as he worked on the potion. Soon, Severus’ mind began to wander and he looked around the lab. One whole wall was nothing but shelving, every inch covered by ingredients. Another wall held a small door, one that led to pantry which was also filled with ingredients. The other two walls were rough hewn stone, much like those of his dungeons at Hogwarts. They were bare except for the entry on one and several pairs of manacles on the other. The manacles looked out of place in such a warm and welcoming home. Severus was perplexed.

When the potion was set to simmer, Harry went back upstairs and checked the stew, bringing tea back down with him. Snape sipped his tea as Harry began the next stage of the potion. Finally, Severus noticed the spiky script scrawled over the page of the potion’s book. He raised his eyebrows but refrained from speaking until Harry was finished.

Just before five, the potion had to set over night and the two men went to the kitchen to eat the stew that had been simmering all day. “You’ve still got your Potions book, Potter?”

Harry grinned sheepishly. “Your book, sir. And, yes, I do. It served me well in sixth year and after I left Hogwarts. Would you like it back?”

“No need. I always wondered what happened to my old book after your sixth year. It served me well all the way through my apprenticeship, and it appears that it has served Lupin well since you have had it,” Snape replied shaking his head. “Keep it, Potter.”

Harry smiled warmly, all traces of his earlier mood gone, but the sun was beginning get dangerously low on the horizon. “Sir, I believe that it’s time,” Harry said, a hint of sadness coloring his voice.

Severus simply nodded and walked over to the cabinet. He pulled out a fresh box of cocoa and looked at Harry. The younger man grinned and walked him to his rooms. “I’m sorry, Sir. I hate that on Christmas Eve you have to be locked up in your room. I wish things were different.”

Waving him off, Severus went to shut his door. Harry put his hand on it to stop him. “Happy Christmas, Sir, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“You, too, Potter,” was the only response.

Harry trudged up to his room. He could feel himself weakening. He walked into the red room and wandlessly cast a locking and silencing charm. The walls were red, deep, blood red and the carpet was only a couple of shades darker. The leather couch and chair were the same color as the walls. It was sparsely decorated now with only a large mirror over the hearth. Sadly, that was how it had to be.

Feeling his energy waning quickly, Harry lay down on the couch and took several deep breaths. Somewhere between consciousness and that dark void that Harry spent his nights in, he heard hissing. “It’s time for you to go to bed now, little Harry,” the familiar voice taunted. “When you wake it will be a Happy Christmas for all faithful death eaters and their children.”

Harry fought it, that falling feeling that he always felt when Voldemort came to the forefront of his mind. He tried with all of his might, but he could not resist. Harry succumbed to the darkness and Lord Voldemort stood up from the couch and brushed his robes off. He looked into the startling green eyes that he’d become accustomed to having over the last year and smirked. Harry’s body was much, much better than the one Wormtail conjured all those years ago. He grabbed a bit of floo powder and threw it in the hearth, calling out, “Malfoy Manor!”

The Dark Lord stepped into Lucius Malfoy’s study looking at the blond’s only son, who was painting his toenails Gryffindor red. “Draco, where is your father?”

Draco Malfoy sat back the black nail-head leather sofa in shock. He might as well have been stupefied. All he could do was stare, mouth agape, at his former nemesis. Green eyes narrowed. “I’ll only ask once more child. Where is your father?”

The little color that was in Draco’s pale face drained away. Only one person dared to call him ‘child’. He jumped up, bowed deeply, and ran through the door in a very un-Malfoy-like manner, barefoot with the toes on one of his feet painted.

Moments later, the elder Malfoy strode confidently in, snake-head cane in hand. “My Lord,” he said as he bowed deeply.

Voldemort snorted and perched himself in the large chair that matched the sofa. “Really, Lucius, when are you going to do something about that twit of a son you have? You must teach him something of family honor. He was painting his toe nails and did not even speak to me, though I know he realizes who I am.”

Lucius sighed deeply. Would his son never stop humiliating him? “I will deal with him, Master.”

“See that you do,” the Dark Lord replied. “Now, we must get right down to business. Have you yet discovered the book that contains the whole animus expuli spell?”

Lucius lowered his head. “I have not yet, Master, but I am close. I have several book dealers in Knockturn Alley looking for the book it is in and I have yet to be able to go through all of the books in our library and vaults. I am certain that it is in my family. It is simply a matter of finding it, I am afraid.”

“To live again, and do so in the body of the-boy-who-lived. Oh the irony of it all! I do so love ironies such as that, my dear Lucius. And, this brings me to our next plan of action. Several weeks ago I discovered that the half-blood traitor is living on the manor grounds. Potter thought that he would be smart and forbid Snape from coming out of his rooms at night, but I caught him.” Voldemort laughed. “He was in the kitchen, clutching a box of hot chocolate as though it were a lifeline and looking at the floor as a child who’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar might. He’s broken, Lucius, and no longer the proud man he was when he was in my service. What shall we devise to punish him for betraying us and our cause?”

Lucius laughed. He’d wanted nothing more since the end of the war than to get his perfectly manicured hands on Snape. He had gotten off fantasizing about the many ways he could torture the traitor. “I have had a thought or two on that, Master.”

It was an hour before dawn when Harry began to fight his way back. Voldemort could feel his power quickly draining and stood. “Lucius, my faithful, the brat has begun pushing so I fear that I must leave you now, but rest assured, I will return in two night’s time. I do not expect to be treated as I was this evening by your lack-witted son.”

Bowing, Lucius said, “It will be taken care of my Master. I assure you.”

With that, Voldemort took Harry’s body and floo’d back to the red room. The two personalities battled back and forth for some time before the Dark Lord finally gave in with a loud hiss. Harry fell back on the couch, his body exhausted and his mind a whirlwind of thoughts. He knew that it would, again, be another long day for his exhausted body.

It had been fifteen long months with Harry living like this. When the Dark Lord’s body fell, Harry discovered that he was indeed the horcrux that they could not find. He struck a bargain with the part of the evil man his life was so intertwined with. Voldemort could emerge between dusk and dawn several nights a week, but never on the full moon. The other nights, Harry rested his body in the evenings because it could not physically go day and night without sleep. Harry almost never knew what Voldemort did or said unless he was struggling with the creature for consciousness, and then he only got parts of it or if Tom decided to tell him as they switched positions.

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A/N: Oooooooo! Now we all know what trouble is in store for our heros! I hope that since everyone knows now my reviews won't go away. *cough*

Animus: soul
Expuli: to expel or force out