Gift

Snape is fulfilling his role as a double agent by bringing Harry to Voldemort, but Harry is actually infiltrating so he can face Voldemort on his own terms and kill him. Voldemort is pleased with Snape\'s accomplishment, and gives him Harry as a gift, on the condition that Snape performs for an audience of Death Eaters.

A/N: Harry is 16, which is the age of consent.


Harry looked in the mirror to straighten his tie, seeing Severus in the corner of the glass, his back turned.

“You say Voldemort will be there himself?” Harry said. Severus released the heavy sigh he’d been holding back. The boy was just sixteen. The Dark Lord’s stupidity had only served to make him feel infallible, that he could face this danger again and again with impunity.

“He will.”

“Just him, right?” Harry dusted the front of his robes off and Severus was taken aback at how old the boy looked. How old had Riddle been when he had opened the Chamber of Secrets? The similarities were frighteningly uncanny. Both young men had the desire and ambition, to stop at nearly nothing. Severus wondered just how much of himself Harry saw in Tom Riddle and if that frightened him.

“Just him.”

Harry tried on a faint smile and then shook his head slightly, his mussed black mop of hair revealing a hint of scar.

//For Merlin’s sake, you’re going to face the Dark Lord, boy, this is not a date.//

“Good. Let’s go.”

Under Albus’ orders, Occulemcy lessons had continued once Harry had returned to school in his sixth year. Both had revealed a little more than skin that year, Harry’s natural talents causing Severus to leave more memories in Albus’ pensieve, but it always seemed that Harry had a way of cracking the mortar he’d so carefully constructed. Always, always the boy was full of bloody questions as well. It was then with some satisfaction that he delved and discovered a chunk of guilt that was lodged in Harry’s psyche like an abscess. The boy had broken entirely in his arms, sobbing as only a wounded animal could… and Severus had no choice but to embrace him and tell him it would be all right.

As no one had ever done that for him.

They Apparated to a graveyard that became much too wholly familiar to Harry.

“It was here… that Pettigrew brought him back,” Harry said, his eyes fearfully wide as he stepped closer to Severus.

“Pull yourself together,” Severus said sharply, taking a step away. “He will be here soon.”

Harry fingered his wand in the pocket of his robes, nodding. But he still had the little boy fear plastered on his face.

“Harry,” Severus said quietly. “Concentrate.”

Harry drew in a deep breath and in that exhale, it was as if a new young man emerged. Severus saw the ageless calm that he never saw in James, nervousness replaced by something that was of arrogance. But not arrogance at all. It was in that defining moment that he knew Harry was not and never had been like James Potter at all. Before he could reflect on that, he heard a hissing.

Harry turned slowly and there Voldemort stood, a black cloak obscuring his features like a Dementor.

“Severus Snape,” Voldemort said in a cold sneer. “I hear you’ve come to redeem yourself… with a gift.”

“What?!” Harry gaped, stumbling back. This had all been carefully rehearsed and Severus almost forgot to react. He smirked coldly at Harry.

“Yes, my Lord,” Severus said, curling his fingers into the back of Harry’s hair and tightening them into a fist. //Don’t moan, Harry. Not this time.// Harry managed the strangled cry to be of pain instead. “I have brought Potter to you as a sign of my… return to faith.”

“You have indeed been quite faithless these many years past,” Voldemort said, walking closer to Harry. Harry’s eyes were wide with panic and Severus darkened his gaze so he could not smile. //Merlin’s sake, this was not funny, this was Voldemort they were standing before.// But even so, Harry’s stunning victories over the blundering fool had made Severus think of him as a rather decrepit cripple and not the power he had once felt he was.

“Yet those who have claimed to serve me well have served me badly,” Voldemort mused. “So perhaps this return to faith, as you call it, will serve me… better.”

“I can only hope bringing Potter to you will attest to my ambition to return to your side, my Lord,” Severus said, his voice silken. //Believe.//

Severus saw a perceptible movement in Harry’s robes. Not yet, don’t strike yet. He heard a voice ring out.

“Crucio!”

Severus screamed in agony as he was driven to his knees, green octarine light behind his tightly closed lids. He heard Harry cry out, “No!”

That echo of fear was more than the pain himself. //Harry, Harry you fool.//

Voldemort laughed coldly and the pain ended, leaving Severus panting on the ground.

“Thank you, my charming Bella,” he said. Out of the shadows, Bellatrix Black went to her master’s side, her wand still drawn. “You see, Severus, my most apt and ready assistants are never far from my side. My truly… faithful ones.”

Bellatrix looked up adoringly at Voldemort, then gave a manic little finger-wave to Harry. Harry had a look of horror that spoke to more than one reason.

Severus struggled to his feet, not daring to look at Harry.

“Severus Snape,” Voldemort said, chuckling. Yet it was clear that even though he depreciated this relationship, it was also too fitting. “In repayment for your honorable ‘gift,’ I will give you something in return. Potter is yours… and he certainly is, isn’t he…”

Harry pulled out his wand and the spell was on his lips, but Severus held up one feeble hand, an old man calling for help… and Harry lowered it. He was at Severus’ side in a moment, apologetic whispers.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking, it just happened so suddenly,” Harry babbled in a hush.

“Quiet, boy,” Severus said briskly, “Don’t turn your back to him.”

“Surely you’re not going to let the traitor go?” Bellatrix said, doe-eyed to Voldemort.

“Of course we are, my pet,” Voldemort said. “But not just yet.”

As if by silent signal, Death Eaters moved out of the shadows to circle around them. Harry started to panic.

“You said he’d be alone, you said there’d…”

“I didn’t know,” Severus murmured quietly. He pulled the young boy into his embrace as the circle closed in. Harry turned and buried his face into Severus’ chest.

“Ah, what sweet tableau,” Voldemort said with a laugh. “Witness, my friends, the weakness of love.”

“Love,” Harry said fiercely, pulling his head up to glare at Voldemort, “Has saved my life more times than it’s saved yours.”

“We’ll see if it does this time, then, won’t we?” Voldemort said sweetly, then he pushed back his hood. His scalp was bald and criss-crossed in sickly blue-lined veins. “Severus Snape! The stage… is set. The boy is your gift. You will now thank me.”

Severus’ face drained of all color. Harry felt his heart beat erratically under his hand.

“What does he mean,” Harry whispered, “What does he…”

Severus stood up slowly, pulling Harry to standing against him. Harry still whispered urgent questions to him until Severus pushed Harry in front of him, both hands on his shoulders. Severus’ voice was strained tightly, but even and it did not waver.

“To properly thank the Dark Lord,” Severus said, as if reciting from rote, “Is to kill in his name.”

Harry stiffened in Severus’ grasp. He turned his head slightly to the side.

“Don’t let me die without being able to see you,” he whispered. Severus felt the fissure crack in his heart, his proud demeanor before the gathering starting to waver.

Voldemort looked on in amusement and Severus suddenly understood the acute meaning of betrayal. This had been his family. Harry had become his family. Now, the twain could never meet. Bellatrix walked up to Severus with a look of distinct loathing as she opened her palm to reveal a small, but skin-piercingly deadly blade. Severus took it, thumb and forefinger. He felt Harry trembling slightly underneath his hand.

The audience of Death Eaters seemed sedulous, neither moved nor changed by what they watched. Severus knew that under those masks, there were some that wept soundlessly. Just as he had once.

“Let me turn around,” Harry pleaded. He saw the blade’s glint just above his shoulder.

The audience leaned in.

“Let me turn,” Harry said.

Severus hissed something quietly. On one lazy Sunday morning, after sex and laughter, Harry had attempted to teach Severus parseltongue. It had been a running joke that Severus had found the speech wildly erotic, ever since Harry had used it unwittingly in his second year. But instead of the words he had hoped that would convey comfort and love, the unpracticed tongue translated

//Life ends here.//

Which encompassed in sad reality, what Severus probably truly meant to say.

Harry screamed as the blade plunged into Severus’ throat by his own hand.

“You bastard!” he cried, wrenching around and struggling to hold Severus upright as the man’s floundering gaze widened.

“A gift… for Lord Voldemort,” Severus said in a wet gurgle, looking to Harry. “The price… paid. You’ll be able… to go.”

Harry wept as he kissed the man’s lips, fumbling to push into the Severus’ robes… the knife he always carried. Never knew when he might find a useful herb or flower when on a walk. Severus tried to push him away blindly, knowing.

“Stop it, don’t even think about…”

Amid the curtain of black fabric, Harry jerked out the blade from its sheath and drove it into his heart.

Voldemort jerked suddenly as if he himself had been stabbed. But he felt no pain. Rather, he looked on in quiet amazement.

Severus and Harry fell to the damp ground. Harry panted, pulling Severus up into his lap.

“You… stupid git,” Harry said breathless, “Thinking… we could get out of this… alive.”

“You could of,” Severus replied, his own breathing ragged. “If you’d… let me…”

“Legimens,” Harry said mournfully.

Severus saw every sweet moment he’d shared with Harry. The life they’d lived in secret and the love that had sufficed, as short as it had been allowed. Voldemort, the audience of Death Eaters, the sudden flurry of shock that surrounded them… all was gone in a spiral of their own memories, where they died.