Out of Time and Memory

Chapter Six - Desperation

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Severus Snape just wanted to stop pretending. Just for a moment. Molly wanted him to stay to dinner, and you didn’t say “No, thank you,” to Molly Weasley, especially when Dumbledore was behind you to agree with her. Severus doubted Merlin would have the courage to say no to the Weasley woman. And just this once he couldn’t even pretend that he wanted to be cold and alone in his room. And so he sat down at the end of the table, ignoring everyone trying to agree in whispers about why exactly he was there. Potter was sitting across from Severus; Severus guessed that Potter didn’t much feel like talking with anyone, either. Severus looked at Potter’s eyes. They had grown darker in the past months. He is staring at Severus now. /God, I don’t need those prying eyes, too/, thought Severus. Dumbledore and Voldemort did the same mind reading stare, but they were looking for different things. Truth, loyalty, and so much more. Dumbledore had come the closest to truly finding Severus behind his defenses. He understood that what is seen and what is real are not the same. But those adulterated green eyes of Potter’s were getting closer to finding the true Severus, and Severus was almost too tired to refuse. . ./I am so tired . . ./ he thought. /I don’t . . .I just want to rest for just a moment. Just let me rest./

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A large clank brought Harry back to reality. He looked up to see dinner had been set before him. It looked wonderful, but it had taken him away from his thoughts too soon. He looked across the table at Snape, who looked back at him unflinchingly. Harry looked into the black eyes that reflected him in their darkness, and for the first time, invited him in to the mind of the trusted Death Eater

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/Feel the darkness smiling
Every note is dying
Silence is refining
Every thought in his heart
Still the fates are weaving
Every note that’s bleeding
As he sits there seething
All alone in the dark
Alone in the dark
Alone in the. . ./

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Voldemort was sitting alone in the Riddle home. He cast his thoughts to the Death Eater that had just departed from his mission. The mission was one only the strongest minded of his servants had gone on; the Lestranges and Severus Snape. All three were capable of powers that nearly rivaled the Dark Lord’s own. Snape had seemed almost ill at ease when he left, and this disturbed Voldemort. He sent his power seething though the mark to the servant, reminding him that he might show such things as weakness around that muggle loving fool Dumbledore during the day. . .

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/But in the night
The darkness breathes
If he wills it to be
Before his eyes
The music dies
But he will always hear me
He sits alone
The cards are shown/

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As Severus sat at the dinner table, he suddenly groaned softly and moved his right hand around his left forearm, wincing as he felt the Dark Lord’s power set fire to him and his tired mind. He gasped almost too softly for the rest to hear.

Voldemort imaged his servant. . .

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/As he embraces the dark
The only sound
That he will hear
Is there in his/

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Harry reached a concerned hand out to his teacher without thinking about who it was he was reaching to comfort only that the gasp of pain was the kind that could cut into the. . .

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/Heart/

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Harry felt his world stop he looked at the older man, really looked at him. Heart? Was that what. . .is that what Dumbledore saw in Snape? Harry couldn’t say why, but this stuck a cord. The man may not have liked Sirius, and even taunted him and hated him, but he did go and warn him before. Did that mean that somewhere in that mound of softly gasping blackness that he cared? It was what Dumbledore had said of himself and Harry. Could Snape be pretending that he didn’t care? Why else would Snape have come to his rescue unless, somewhere, he cared? Harry walked over to Snape and put his hand on his bony shoulder and whispered to him.

“I understand, Severus, sir,” Harry reached for his hands “it wasn’t your fault. . .”

Snape felt the touch and his voice spoke inside his mind:

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/Someone is whispering softly to me
Shadows of things that no one can see/

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Snape saw the blurred image of the Order, looking in his direction.

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/They are there for you if you want them to be
You want them to be/

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He felt some one reach and touch his hand

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/You want them to. . ./

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In the Riddle House, Voldemort focused once more, feeling that Snape had found a small bit of day. . .

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/But in the night
The darkness breathes
If he wills it to be
Before his eyes
The music dies
But he will always hear me
He sits alone
The cards are shown
As he embraces the dark/

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Snape screamed in agony, and he felt two arms catch him as his body weakened. His head leaned against a shoulder. And when he opened his eyes, there in front of him like a living memory, those green eyes that had let him be at peace before, they were there again to tell him that he could stop pretending.

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/The only sound
That he will hear
Is there in his/

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The rest of the table was around the two men as Dumbledore looked to Harry, who held the still shaking Snape in his arms like a small child and whispered a line from a nearly forgotten lullabye, “For tonight, the moment is over.”

Snape looked at the green eyes that had once belonged to a friend form the past, and replied to Harry as if just recalling the lines to a long forgotten song “ The stars they have whispered, hear what they say and know what it means”

Harry, not quite understanding why, was filled with a moment of peace. He looked at Severus, and then at Dumbledore stating softly,

“I found him. He was. . .”

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/There in his heart/


~fin~