Proof of Life

Homecoming



Once they Apparated to Harry\'s home at Godric\'s Hollow, Hermione and Ron took their leave, but not before making Harry promise, over and over again, that he would firecall instantly if he needed any help.



Harry and Snape walked through the door together. The moment they were inside Harry took a deep breath of relief, as a huge weight was finally lifted off his shoulders. Whatever lay ahead, at least Snape was now alive and safe. The rest they would take day by day, and the rest would work itself out eventually.



“What are your instructions?"



Snape\'s quiet voice brought Harry back to the immediate reality. Snape\'s eyes were fixed on him again, drilling into him with shocking intensity.



"No instructions," Harry said quickly. "It\'s not like that... you... you are our guest."



Something seemed to have died in Snape\'s eyes and the man\'s face acquired a stony expression again. Apparently it was the wrong thing to say. Maybe that\'s what the Death Eaters had told him upon his capture.



"I don\'t mean anything bad by it," Harry said, trying to salvage the situation. "You are safe here. You can rest. You must be tired..."



Harry\'s words might as well have fallen on deaf ears. Snape made no sound at all and simply followed Harry through the living room into the kitchen. Horrible, awkward silence hung between them, and for the life of him Harry had no idea what to say. Snape seemed to be beyond reaching at the moment. Of course he was, Harry thought dejectedly. Less than two days ago the man was being tortured to the point of insanity, or if Snape\'s current demeanor was anything to go by, that point had been passed already. Now... now the man was in a safe home, of sorts. The shock of transition must have been severe, even if the transition itself had been a positive one.



Common human courtesy, however, required Harry to say something, he was fairly certain of it.



"I\'m going to make dinner," Harry said finally. "Why don\'t you sit down and keep me company, then." Harry pointed to one of the chairs by the kitchen table and Snape sat down promptly.



Unable to shake off the feeling of doing something wrong, and mindful of Marietta\'s warning to avoid waving his wand in front of Snape, Harry proceeded to cook dinner the tedious Muggle way. He mixed some instant rice with vegetables and canned white chicken in a frying pan. This wasn\'t going to be a gourmet meal by any means, but truth be told, he had no energy left for anything else. He only hoped it was going to be bland enough.



The entire time he could feel Snape\'s gaze on the back of his head, evaluating his every move.



"Do you want anything?" Harry tried for conversation again. "Do you want a drink?"



To his surprise Snape actually answered with a reluctant, "I do."



"Great," Harry breathed. "So what do you want? Water? Juice? Ginny has some disgusting energy drinks too, not that I think we should drink those..."



Snape\'s voice broke slightly with the simple, "I want water."



Harry set a glass of water on the table in front of Snape. For the longest time Snape simply stared at the glass of water, not making a move to touch it. When Snape\'s fingers finally clasped around it, they did so with such force that the glass shattered in his hand. Harry winced as he saw a trickle of blood mingled with water run down Snape\'s wrist.



The expression on Snape\'s face was still absolutely unreadable, and only the horrified look in his eyes betrayed his true feelings.



"Forgive me," Snape said in a barely audible voice.



"It\'s all right," Harry said quickly. "Can I see your hand, please?"



A tremor ran through Snape\'s entire body. "Forgive me," he said again, without moving an inch, only clenching his injured hand tighter around the glass still embedded into it.



"Look, it\'s fine. You are forgiven. Let me tend to your hand, please."



For a few unsettling moments, Harry shuddered with dread at the prospect that he might have to choose between physically wrestling Snape in order to heal his injuries, or simply letting him bleed. However, even though Snape looked like he was about to face a Muggle execution squad, he complied with Harry\'s prompting. He waited numbly while Harry pulled out the glass from his hand and cast a healing spell on the injuries.



Just when Harry thought it couldn\'t possibly get any worse, the smell of burning food informed him otherwise. He spun around, lifted the frying pan off the stove and stared at it unhappily, before turning around to glance at his houseguest. Frozen in his seat, Snape was tense as a hamster in an owlery, and Harry himself was not faring much better. Harry couldn\'t help but wonder if simply being in the same room with him was making Snape nervous.



"I’ll be in here a little while, I think," Harry said ruefully. "Go to the living room and wait, all right?"



Snape left the kitchen instantly without looking back, and Harry turned his attention to the ruined dinner. He poked the food with a spoon, shrugged, and dumped the entire thing into the sink. For a few minutes he just stared at the charred mess tiredly. This was not an auspicious beginning by any means, but Harry summoned the remnants of his optimism and told himself that things could only get better from this point on.



Just as he was about to make another attempt at cooking dinner the sound of the door opening alerted him to Ginny\'s arrival.



"Harry!" he heard her voice call out to him.



"Hey, love," he said as lightheartedly as he could manage. "You are home early."



"What is going on here?" she demanded. "What is burning? Where is Lily?"



Oh shit.



"Nothing\'s going on," Harry assured her. "I just burned dinner, but everything is under control. How was the game?"



"Harry, where is Lily?" Ginny repeated, ignoring his question about the game.



"She\'s at the Burrow," Harry admitted reluctantly.



Ginny\'s voice rose slightly. "Harry, you promised!"



"I know," he conceded, "but something came up..."



"Something came up," she repeated incredulously, striding into the kitchen. Harry saw the issue of the Daily Prophet in her hand, and without deliberation she tossed the newspaper on the kitchen table. "Something like this perhaps?" she asked, pointing to the first headline, which declared prominently, Breaking News: Boy-Who-Lived Gives Refuge to Death Eater

.

Harry felt blood drain from his face. He muttered an obscenity under his breath. Of course he knew that everything would hit the fan, he just didn\'t think it would be so soon.



"It\'s true, isn\'t it?" Ginny asked grimly. "I didn\'t want to believe it, but ... I didn\'t know what to believe. So I come home to find that you are using my parents as a free baby-sitting service, while..."



"Snape is not a Death Eater," Harry argued. "You know that."



"Harry, you are missing the point. You can\'t just decide something like that on your own, not when it affects your entire family. You can\'t just bring someone into your home and settle them in without consulting your wife."



"You were away," Harry pointed out.



"You could have firecalled!"



Harry gave no response to that, just stared at her in stoic silence.



"Harry, would you have asked me if I weren\'t away?" she demanded angrily, staring directly at him.



Harry did not avoid her gaze. He did not want to fight, but he didn\'t want to equivocate either. He had broken promises and failed her too many times, but he had never lied to her and he was not about to start now.



"To be honest, I would have brought him here no matter what you said," Harry said truthfully. "Look, he... was hurt in the line of duty. We\'ve got to help him."



"We?" Ginny\'s voice rose by a few decibels. "So now that you are done making the important decisions unilaterally, we are a team again?"



"Please don\'t yell. We can\'t shout around him."



"I see," Ginny said, lowering her voice. Her expression softened a little as she looked at Harry sadly. "I remember the time you said I\'d always come first."



"You still do," Harry said gently. "Ginny, look, I know it\'s stressful, and I don\'t blame you for being angry..."



"I am not angry, Harry," she said, sounding more tired than he ever remembered her. "I\'ve been angry for the last four years. I\'m not angry anymore. I\'m done."



"Done?" Harry repeated, refusing to accept the obvious meaning of those words.



"Don\'t bother picking up Lily at the Burrow tomorrow," Ginny said firmly. "I\'ll owl you the divorce papers early next week."



She turned away and strode out of the kitchen. He was tempted to run after her, but stopped himself. It was just too much. Everything was falling apart around him far too quickly, and all he wanted to do right now was slow down the crisis and hang on to some normalcy.



Harry cleaned up the ruined mess of the dinner before he entered the living room. Snape was standing in front of the window staring vacantly ahead, his eyes fixed on something on the horizon.



"Hey," Harry said quietly.



Snape turned around to look at him. "Did your wife just leave you?"



The question brought Harry back to reality one more time. For all their fights and arguments, Ginny had never left before, and never, ever had she threatened something like that. What\'s worse, she never made threats she did not follow through on. Harry\'s stomach clenched, as he realized that he might really have a divorce and custody fight on his hands at the beginning of next week.



"Looks that way, doesn\'t it," Harry said finally in a quiet voice.



Snape\'s eyes were empty and devoid of all life. "Because of me?" he asked with hesitation.



"No," Harry said firmly. "Not because of you. Because of me."



The horrifying, awkward silence was hanging between them again.



"Are you hungry?" Harry asked finally.



"No."



"Me neither," Harry muttered under his breath.



"Because your wife just left." Snape\'s voice was still hesitant and uncertain, as if he was trying hard to recall the basics of human emotions and interactions.



Harry nodded tightly.



He looked at the clock. It was late, and he didn\'t feel up to cooking anymore. He walked over to the refrigerator and returned with another glass of water and a can of nutritional supplement.



"Drink this," he said. "Better than nothing, I guess."



He waited while Snape drank obediently and handed the empty glass and can back to Harry.



"Let\'s go upstairs," Harry offered. "I\'ll show you to your room."



Without a word, Snape followed him upstairs to the guest bedroom.



"This is it," Harry said. The conversation was still entirely once-sided, but Snape appeared to be listening to him. "My bedroom is down the hall. Don\'t hesitate to wake me if you need anything at all."



Snape sat on the edge of the bed, looking down.



"You are very quiet," Harry observed. "Do you need anything now? Do you have any questions?"



Snape glanced in his direction very briefly and asked in a tight voice, “When do you intend to punish me?"



"What!?" Harry didn\'t quite yell, but the question caught him off guard.



Snape flinched a little at his exclamation. "Forgive me. I should not have asked."



That wasn\'t quite the effect Harry was going for and he did not know how to persuade his disoriented guest of this.



"Look, I meant what I said earlier. I don\'t view you as my property. You don\'t need to be afraid of me, or walk on eggshells. I won\'t hurt you. It\'s safe here."



No answer followed. Snape avoided looking at him altogether.



"Well, good night then," Harry said tiredly. "Try to get some sleep."



Harry left quickly. He went to his own bedroom, and curled up on the bed, hugging the pillow. Ginny\'s sudden departure had taken the remnants of his emotional reserves. Over the last few years he had suspected it would come to something like this, and of course he knew they weren\'t entirely happy being married to each other, but even so, it had never occurred to him to initiate a divorce. To him, being married had always been more than just about happiness. It was about family, and belonging. The Weasleys had become his family, and now... now his life was coming apart at the seams, fragments of it slipping through his fingers faster than he knew how to hold on to them.



A voice sounded in his mind, sounding suspiciously like Aunt Petunia, berating him, saying something about how he could never have a normal family, or belong with anyone. Harry shook his head tiredly. Maybe his Muggle relatives had been right, after all. What would someone like him know about family and belonging? Having grown up without parents, how would he even have the skills to establish and maintain something lasting and healthy? He\'d thought he\'d had it, but the recent events appeared to have finally proved him wrong.



Lying in the dark, he listened to the sounds of the old house and his own breathing. Marietta was right too, Harry thought bitterly. Releasing Snape into his care was a dumb move on her part. Harry could barely take care of himself, so how on earth was he going to take care of a trauma victim all on his own?



He thought he should stay up and read one of Marietta\'s books, but he was too tired and drained, and he doubted he could absorb any information at this time. Tomorrow, he told himself, before he finally drifted off to sleep.



~*~



In the room assigned to him, Severus remained awake for a long time, waiting for his owner to fall asleep. It took a while, but finally Harry\'s even breathing advised him that the young wizard had succumbed to sleep at last. Without making a sound, Severus got up and made his way to the kitchen.



This was the most freedom he’d had in the last seven years. He scarcely dared to believe his good fortune ... could he finally end it all, or was this sudden freedom a trick? It did not appear to be. Harry was truly asleep.



For a split-second he actually hesitated. What if Harry Potter was telling the truth? What if this new home was really safe? Quickly, Severus banished that dangerous, if attractive, thought. Safe did not exist. Not for someone like him, and certainly not after the events of the evening. There was only pain and escape, escape that had eluded him for the past seven years.



With absolute silence Severus opened a kitchen drawer and stared at the assortment of knives there. He evaluated them all without touching them, and finally selected the sharpest one. He stretched himself on the floor in absolute silence and pressed the knife to his neck, seeking out the jugular vein. Quick and nearly painless, he thought— a better end than he had ever dared to dream of.



He made no sound when the knife punctured the vein and the blood began to gush out. With his last conscious effort he laid the knife quietly on the floor.



And then, he finally dared to believe that it was over, at last.



To Be Continued...