Daunted Death

Harry paced back and fourth in front of the fire in Snape's study.

Why was it taking so long? The sun must be nearly up now. What went wrong? Why wasn't he back? Harry going to explode with anxiety.

The large black door opened. Harry whipped around and stopped dead. Snape rushed in, shirtless, not noticing Harry, and shutting the door with a snap, his want out, mumbling to reseal the enchantments on the door. He rested his forearms and forehead on the door, breathing heavily with his eyes closed.

“Professor,” Harry whispered.

Snape took one last breath, seemingly not surprised Harry was there. Slowly he turned around and looked at Harry with eyes close to tears. Harry held his breath.

“I can see her again in two days,” his teacher told him softly.

Harry sank to the couch, face in his hands, tears running down his cheeks, and asked, “Is—is she alright?”

Snape didn't answer for a minute, deciding how much to tell him. “She's been isolated for so long it's difficult for her to comprehend what is going on around her, but her mind is not gone. Slowly she will recover. The same goes for her body. If she gets worse then worry, but she won't. I gave her two glasses of soup, my shirt, and cloak. I will make her better.”

“How often will you get to see her?”

“Every other day. How long have you been down here?”

“Since you left. I didn't want to miss anything.... Can—can you get her out?”

“Out of the chains, yes, but out of the basement, I don't know yet.”

“Basement.”

“Of the Riddle House.”

Harry put his face in his hands again. “I was there; I was in the graveyard.”

“I've been everywhere in that house except the basement.”

Silence encased them.

“You should go back up to your dorm before the sun rises,” Snape said walking over to his desk.

Harry got up, grabbed his invisibility cloak and made his way to the door but stopped short, turning to his teacher.

“Professor, I saw the picture of my mom in your book,” he said hesitantly.

“I guessed you did when you mentioned Shakespeare,” Snape said, looking at his papers.

“How did you come to love her?” asked Harry quietly.

Snape stopped flipping his papers and looked up at him.

“As a child she spent a lot of time at the playground between our houses. It was my escape from my dear parents. I saw her almost everyday. I watched her discover her powers and got to tell her all about Hogwarts. When your awful aunt gave up on keeping her away from me, we were almost inseparable, even in different houses everyone knew. Does the enmity between James and myself make more sense now? You saw the fight I had with her. After that she wouldn't talk to me. My owl Drake went to her two days into the next summer and beat on her window until she came. She saved my life. She was the only one that....”

Snape cleared his throat, knowing that he said too much.

“Did you ever date?”

“No,” said Snape shortly, determined not to over speak again.

“Did she know you wanted to?”

“You mother is smart. I'm sure she put it together.”

“How can you be sure? Maybe she had no clue!” exclaimed Harry.

Snape stood and walked into his room. Harry stayed put, not sure what he should do, but then Snape emerged with two small papers. As he approached, Harry realized they were pictures. Snape looked up at Harry for a minute then held one out.

Harry took it and half smiled. They were sitting on the edge of a bed. He was behind her, one leg draped over the bed next to hers, his arms wrapped tightly around her, his face buried in her hair. She leaned into him, her head resting on his, her hands loosely curled around his arm. The back of one hand had a black, inked, heart on the back of it. Her smile was soft and delicate. If Harry hadn't known better he would have said they were completely in love.

Harry looked back up and told him, “You guys look really happy.”

“We were, where there were no Death Eaters or James. Everything was different in the summer.”

“Did she have a tattoo?” he asked, referring to the heart on her hand.

“No, no, that's... not important. Clearly she knew how I felt.”

“May I?” Harry asked, gesturing to the second picture, offering an exchange of the photo he already had.

Snape immediately took the picture back but reluctantly handed over the other one. Harry frowned, glanced up at Snape then looked back down. It was the two of them in the same bed again, and it was night by the lighting. Snape was asleep, lying partly on his side, partly on his stomach, a powder-blue comforter lying over him. What upset Harry was the puffed, black and blue side of Snape's face not tucked against the pillow. That skin and the skin on the hand resting upon the pillow beside his head were broken in several placed and looked nearly raw. Lily was pressed up against him, her head on the side of his shoulder, arm around over his side and tucked under the pillow. Deep sadness masked her face. It looked like she was trying to hide it in his shoulder.

“Did your parents...?”

“Specifically my father. Drake went to get her. I loved it when she showed up to save me, but hated it at the same time. It was dangerous and reckless, but she refused to stay away. Her parents didn't like me, but they tolerated me because they knew I would otherwise sleep in the playground. Petunia hated me, so did your grandfather, but your grandmother insisted that I be able to come, though she kept a close eye on me. She's the one who took the pictures.”

Handing the picture back, Harry asked, “Were they good people, my grandparents?”

After a minute Snape answered, “She was, yes, but Lily's father was... almost too tough on her sometimes, almost harsh. The first couple times I was there he was just... rude to her. I told him off twice until he started to ignore both of us when I was there. If she really needed him, though, he would be there. He would have been devastated to see her death.”

Harry suddenly smirked and said, “I'd love to see Aunt Petunia's face if you came around.”

“It's less shocked than you would think,” Snape said offhandedly, turning to sit back at his desk, still gazing at the pictures, “and more angry that I would dare exist in her perfect world than anything.”

Harry stared at him for a moment then came over to the front of the desk and said, “Sir? You were there? When?”

“You were seven,” replied Snape, glancing up and then back down, “Dumbledore told me Petunia's husband had hurt you. I pressed him, and he told me you look similar to this.” Snape cocked the wrist holding the photo of his injured, sleeping self.

“I don't remember him ever--”

“Because I wiped your memory.” Snape rubbed his brow line and sighed. “You were never supposed to know any of this. Dumbledore was furious with me. I don't think he's ever been more angry with me. It was the dead of night. Your aunt and uncle were just going to bed when I blew the door off it's hinges. They screamed, and their son came down the stairs briefly and ran back up to his room. I opened that cupboard and picked you up. You woke up and saw your uncle, but you curled your whole body into me, a scary stranger that terrified the people you live with. I healed you and set you in the kitchen with food. You didn't look like you had had much of that. I put a spell on you so you wouldn't hear and shut the kitchen door, then terrorized your aunt and uncle for a while with the promise if they hit you again I would be back to turn them inside-out. Then it was just erasing your memory and putting you back in your cupboard.... I believe I am correct in thinking they never did?”

Harry stared at him for a minute, then shook his head and said, “No, he didn't hit me.... You-- that seems like something very... caring. I don't understand.”

Snape heaved a heavy sigh, leaned forward, and laced his fingers and rested them on the desk, starting to explain, “You are a living reminder of what I lost, what I couldn't have. You were James incarnate. I hated you before you were even conceived, but... but you were Lily's baby. As obnoxious as you are, you meant the world to her, you were more important than her life. I didn't have to like you, but I had to protect you. Of course I overreact when it comes to beating children, so together it was a very unfortunate choice for your uncle.”

Snape, Snape of all people, was the one to defend him against his aunt and uncle. Snape protected him. It was like Harry's entire world had flipped on him. He marveled at how close their lives had been without him ever knowing.

~

“Lily, Lily, it's me, remember?”

She looked slowly up at Snape. After a second she leaned forward and rested her face in his chest. He wrapped his arms around her.

Every other day this is what happened. It took her a minute to realize it was him, then he held her and murmured encouraging things, whispering softly to her. She did everything he told her, and he would gaze sadly at her, remembering the fire she had always had, the defiance and strength. Every now and then they surfaced, and he glimpsed the girl from his childhood, like when she refused to let him help her eat or drink, insisting that she could do it herself. Weeks went by of him nurturing her back to health as best as he was allowed. The second time he visited her he took along a washcloth and wiped the dried blood from her skin and hair and mended her clothes as much as possible. Now she was anorexic-thin, but clean, healed, and no longer starving. He would beg to let her out of the chains in vein, determined to give even a small measure of freedom.

“Severus,” she whispered two week before Christmas, “Severus, have you ever seen Harry?”

For a second he hesitated, knowing Voldemort was listening especially intently.

“Yes, he is at Hogwarts where I teach,” Snape told her.

“You teach Potions,” she remembered, “How is he?”

“Well, he lives with your sister on Dumbledore’s orders, and she treats him horribly. He has very close and loyal friends. He did not inherit your potion-making ability, but he was seeker for the Gryffindor quiditch team in his first year. He has a knack for getting into trouble and befriending... different people.”

“Gryffindor,” she muttered with a smile, “What do you mean 'different people?'”

“Half-giants, werewolves, centaurs; Hagrid and Remus Lupin more specifically.”

“Remus?”

“Yes, he taught briefly about three years ago.”

“What about Sirius?”

“He... he died over six months ago fighting Death Eaters,” Severus told her softly, not wanting to upset her, but she just nodded as though she expected it and asked, “What about you?”

“What would you like to know?”

“Wife, girlfriend, kids, friends?”

He gave a bit of a smile and said, “No, none of them.”

“Why not?”

“Because no one was you.”

She looked down at her toes and said nothing.

Snape turned to his master and pleaded, “Please, My Lord, may I release her? I beg of you, just for a time!”

Voldemort waved his wand. The chains finally fell with a clang on the basement floor. She gave a muffled cry as it pulled at the opened wounds underneath them, but seconds after, she opened her eyes and fixed them on her wrists in amazement. Gingerly she moved them up and down, and a corner of her mouth twitched. Severus, still kneeling in front of her, curled his fingers around her wrists and began mumbling under his breath to close the skin.

Over the next week, he took it upon himself to reteach her how to walk. It was going to take a long time since her legs were almost completely barren of muscle, but it definitely had its rewards. Every time she fell or felt like she was going to, she threw her arms out around him and held on.

“Sev!” she gasped as her left leg gave out and she plunged down to the floor.

He grabbed her waist lightning quick and took her weight. She clutched a handful of the front of his shirt and set her head in the hallow of his neck. He put a hand on the back of her head and tucked his face in her hair. It was soft again and smelled like it used to. He almost got light-headed.

“Thank you,” she whispered, pulling away.

Grudgingly he let go, hating himself for hoping she would fall again.

Three days before Christmas he got her to laugh, and it nearly melted him.

“Severus,” a cold voice said from the door, “I need to speak with you. There is no need to chain her up.”

As quickly as he could he set her gently on the floor, brushed his fingers over her cheek, and approached his master, who snapped the door shut him and face his Death Eater.

“I grow weary of letting you in to see her.”

Snape jumped in, terrified, “You could tell me how to get in, and I'll only go when you tell me to.”

“Do not interrupt me. I will allow you to leave her food and water, but you will see her once a week instead. This is not a choice. Leave.”

Digging his nails into his palm, Snape marched up the steps.