Replica

Chapter I.
Chapter rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Neither Severus, nor Harry are mine (I\'m just borrowing them and I promise to wash them before returning ;o)). No money\'s made, so don\'t sue me - I\'m just a poor student.
Thanks: To my wonderful beta Jane Doe! *hugs*

I. An unexpected letter

It was nearly midnight when Professor Severus Snape, potions master at Hogwarts, wrote the last malicious comment under a student’s paper.

Dear Mr. Keaton,
Next time you dare to waste my time, be brief! Quantity does not equal quality, and in your special case “quality” would be the very last word I would associate with your essay.
Your usage of technical terms is absolute dilettantish despite the fact that you are in your third year, and I daresay that you do not have the slightest inkling that accurate exposure to potions ingredients, such as hippogriff-urine, is vitally important.
In addition of re-writing your essay, I want you to read the chapter about ‘Misuse of urea-containing ingredients in medical potions’ in Gwyndillion’s ‘Compendium of the most dangerous chemical side reactions of traditional trimmings’ (page 489 to page 537) and to sum up the specific problems of urea-abuse on closer examination of urea’s chemical structure (CO(NH2)2), due on Monday.

Once again he dipped the quill into the glass bottle filled of red ink, and then signed the parchment in one swift movement, leaving a calligraphic signature.
Putting the quill back into the holder and rolling up Mr. Keaton’s essay, his thoughts drifted back to the essays he had been reading for the last few hours. Most of them were poorly written and nothing but proof of the students inaccurate knowledge of their essays subject (or – even worse - potions in general).
Especially Adrian Keaton, a friendly and enthusiastic, but unfortunately untalented student when it came to potions, had reached a new low in his attempt to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using hippogriff-urine for medical potions.
Snape himself had known the characteristic benefits and cautions of hippogriff-urine in his first year at Hogwarts, so the thought that a third year student could be unaware of the disastrous side effects the urine caused, when used with the wrong ingredients, was beyond his comprehension.
Unfortunately the insights into the deeper meanings of potions by most of Keaton’s schoolmates was to the same degree as Keaton’s – practically nonexistent – and even the performances of the Slytherins in this class were below average, so that Snape’s only possibility to show preference for his own house was by not-taking points instead of giving them.
Similarly dissatisfying was the students’ incompetence in the act of brewing potions. Even the simplest potions in the hand of those students became weapons of mass-destruction, and Snape’s classroom had been a scene of destruction more than once.
Today had been utterly devastating, and to recapitulate Snape had four cauldrons (three melted, one exploded), seven glass vials (six broken, one melted), one pair of gloves (burned), a desk and a chair (ruined by a fire after the explosion of Keaton’s cauldron) to put on record, and the only ‘positive’ aspect of the lesson had been that Snape discovered that Millwick’s shrink-Potion brewed with cloves instead of clover is quite an accelerant.

At dinner he had talked to Minerva about those students, but she had just assumed that it had never been difficult to fall short of his expectations and that he should give them a chance to show their full potential.
Very well then, they should get their chance to convince him of their knowledge - or their lack thereof – on next Monday. An unexpected test instead of risking any more school-properties, Severus thought, and the idea of shocked students, who would work nervously on his test, pleased him.
And maybe, if the results of the test would be as bad as he expected them to be, maybe he could talk Albus into his proposal of an assistance-course for the hopeless cases (an extra course with an assistance-teacher of course. He would rather cut off his right arm, and feed it to the squid than waste anymore time as was absolute necessary on these blockheads.).
It didn’t even take an hour until he had an acceptable amount of questions, which he considered a moderate test – if you were prepared, of course.
A smirk appeared on the potions master’s face, who was satisfied with his work and for the first time this year looking forward to his next lesson with the third-years.

His fingers felt like ice on his lids as he gently rubbed his tired eyes. Severus’ whole body was aching and though every single muscle showed him how exhausted he was, he knew that he wouldn’t sleep at all, if he were to go to bed. He had never been one to waste more than the necessary time sleeping, but since the war was over he had hardly slept more than a few hours per night, and the usage of sleep-potions and dreamless-sleep had become a new ritual for most of his nights.
Ironically, two of the ingredients of the sleep potion and three of the dreamless sleep were poisonous used in too great amounts, and although he knew that his stomach would suffer under his abnormal high consummation of both of the potions, it was impossible for him to sleep without them.
Two weeks ago he had felt the first sign of indigestion, and the sickness hadn’t left him for a whole day. Since then the indefinable pain in his stomach had been omnipresent, and he had started to think about the invention of a new sleep potion, sparing him the side effects the common potion obviously caused.
So in the last nights when he couldn’t find sleep and wasn’t in the mood to risk another sleep potion he went to his laboratory and worked on an advanced version of the sleep potion until it was time for his first classes.
Tonight he was too exhausted to work in his lab and so he took the empty teacup that stood at the corner of his desk, went to the near-by kitchen and reached for the kettle. The water was still hot, so he filled his cup and placed the now empty kettle into the sink.
Opening the cabinet above the sink, he searched his great amount of teas and tea ingredients until he reached for a wooden box, containing an herbal tea based on chamomile, ginger and fennel. Enjoying the smell streaming out of the tea box, he took a spoonful of the anhydrous herbs and stirred them in the hot water - nothing comparable to a sleep-potion but almost as soothing.
Putting the box back in its place and closing the cabinet, he left his small kitchen, walking back into the study. The flames in the fireplace were low, but still burning and so he sat down in the leather armchair next to the fire, listening to the mellifluous sound of the crackling flames. The cup of tea still in his hand, he could feel how the emanating heat of the tea warmed his ice-cold hand.

Only six months ago he had infiltrated the death eaters, his potions had killed muggles and tortured wizards, but he had brewed them for the Dark Lord just to keep his cover intact. He had poisoned death eaters as well, who thought of him as one of them, and he had spied on the Dark Lord himself, accepting the moments when he had been tortured to test his loyalty as well as the moments when he hadn’t been on the receiving end.
His time infiltrating the Death Eater camp had put his trust in Albus and his will to go on to a hard test. He had been the only Order-Member who had been successfully integrated into the ranks of Voldemort’s followers, and so none of the other members had the same share of experience as he had.
And no one could imagine what he had seen or what the Dark Lord had made him do. None of his fellow Order members could understand what his days had been like - witnessing countless murders and violations, seeing the Unforgivable curses being used even against children, and dealing with the fear that he would lose his mind – sooner or later. All that days when he had feared that he would be discovered and when the interrogations and the torture by the hands of the Dark lord had been nearly unbearable, he had been telling himself that it would be over soon. But days had past, and weeks had turned into months, and he had never hesitated to go on.
One horrid moment had followed another, like hundreds of pearls on a macabre necklet leaving him a vivid series of nightmares, one for each day of the year.

And now he was sitting here, in his study, drinking tea to ease his indigestion, and his worst fear was getting an ulcer over his imbecile students. It was ridiculous.
‘The world can change in one day, Severus.’ Dumbledore had told him in the last week of the war, when the hope to actually win the war had been low, and it had seemed to them that a victory of Voldemort would be only a matter of time.
And now, six months after Voldemort’s fall, Severus felt how right Albus had been.
During the whole time of the war he had been sure, that everything would be all right (that he would be all right), when Voldemort would be defeated, and he could go back to Hogwarts. That his nightmares would leave him, and that he would find away to forget, when he would be back home.

Home.

A strange word.

Though he would never admit it to anyone Hogwarts was his home indeed. For over thirty years now, and he remembered so well how relived he had been to find Hogwarts relatively untouched by the war.
The re-opening of the school had been three months ago, and since then he had spent every day on the Hogwarts grounds, helping to rebuild the destroyed school-wards, or heightening the hospital supply of medical potions. But neither the familiar atmosphere of his chambers, and the safety they presented to him, nor the exhausting work to bring the wizarding school back to it’s old high standards, could help him to calm down and find a restful sleep.


He was still in his thoughts as a sudden high-pitched shriek brought him back to reality. In his ears he could feel the rapid pulse of his blood, his heart was thumping like it was trying to burst through his chest and a shiver ran down his spine.

Silence again.

Severus strained his ears in the hope to catch any noise that would betray whatever was outside his chambers, but though he remained complete silent, barely daring to breathe, there was no further sound.
Holding his wand like a shield, he rose from his chair and walked towards the heavy wooden door, whispering a shielding spell. None of his students would dare to disturb him at this hour (and of course none of his students would make sounds like that) and Albus, the only person Severus knew who would call him this late, usually flooed in or used the fire to talk.

Taking one step back to have a better sight if he would open the door, and wand ready to bind or stupefy anyone and anything that might be waiting outside his rooms, the door opened at a quick movement of his wand.
A series of low clicking sounds turned his gaze to the dungeon floor and he looked into the huge Bernstein eyes of a snow-white owl.
Who – for Merlin’s sake – would send him an owl at this hour and down to the dungeons? None of the usual school-owls would deliver a letter to his private chambers, since not a single room in the dungeons had a window.
Besides the fact that he was not used to receive owl-post, this very owl in front of his door was an absolutely striking creature and definitely not one of the owls that belonged to Hogwarts.
Nyctea scandiaca – a snowy owl - if he remembered right.

Shrieking low, the huge owl stretched her wings and shifted uncomfortable on the stony floor so that an envelope, tied to her left foot, became visible.
Pointing his wand at the poor creature at his feet, Severus murmured, “Certior fio,” and a thin line of blue light rushed from the tip of his wand, touching the owl like ghostly hands, and revealing - nothing.
No hidden spell, then. Actually, he hadn’t detected magic at all, not even magic ink.
Pleased with the result of his examination, Severus stepped aside, and with the heavy rustling of feathers the white owl lifted her body into the air, and flew into his private chamber, landing on the back of on old chair next to the fire-place.

Severus closed the door and lent against it, his black eyes fixed on the owl.
“Who had sent you?” he asked as if he was waiting for the owl to speak.
The first picture that came to his mind was the picture of a small boy with tousled black hair, barely able to carry the cage with his huge snowy owl.
‘Potter.’
But it couldn’t be Potter. He knew very well that – indeed - this owl had served Potter, when that unbearable boy had been a student at Hogwarts, but that had been before the war had even started. To Severus it felt like it was a whole life ago, that he had to struggle with Potter and his Gryffindor friends in his potions class. Like everything that happened before the war, it was merely a blurred memory, replaced by memories of the final day. The day when The Order had been almost destroyed, and Voldemort’s cruelty had reached his cataclysmal high, where he and his followers had killed as many people (magical and muggle) as during the whole war.
In the presence of the imminent danger for all people, muggles and magicians, Albus Dumbledore had lead them to their ultimate raid, but instead of defeating the rows of the Dark Lord, Voldemort’s death eaters had overcome the resistance of the Order and compelled them to a horrible fight, one against one.
Severus couldn’t remember how long he had been fighting, but the remaining members of his team had looked like it must have been hours, when he heard Mad-Eye shouting his name, pointing with his wand-hand at a group of 20 Death-Eaters, Voldemort’s guardians.
After a moment Severus had realised that it hadn’t been Voldemort Alastor had been pointing at, but Dumbledore, standing face-to-face with the Dark Lord.
Severus and the last members of the Order had tried everything to help Albus; to defeat the death eaters, break through the solid circle they had built around their master and Albus, but every effort had been in vain.
Screams. Their own screams. Loud and terrifying. Screams, which would hunt you in your dreams if you’d live long enough to sleep again. The screams of Alastor when a Death Eaters curse had hit him, the screams of Lupin, Minerva, and his own desperate screams as Voldemort lowered his tremendous disembodied self on Dumbledore, and none of them was near enough to help him – and Dumbledore had…smiled. The worst thing Severus had ever seen in his whole life was the genuine and content smile on Albus’ exhausted ‘dying’ face.
And then like a miracle, the wonder all of them had been praying for, Harry Potter had appeared from nowhere, thwarting Voldemort, and rescuing Albus and without much doubt the whole wizarding world.
The memories of the final battle and the few minutes of that titanic fight had burned deep into Severus’ mind, and when he closed his eyes he could still see the bluish light of pure and unsoiled magic that shot from Harry’s wandless hand, mixing with the purple stream of Voldemort’s before exploding and engulfing both of them in a turquoise cloud of dust.
The feeling of electricity that surrounded them, the screams of Harry, the dark growl of Voldemort and the unmistakable smell of evisceration, all that memories well-preserved in his recurrent and way too vivid nightmares, reminding him of Potter’s death as well as of their final victory.

Harry Potter, the-boy-who-lived-but-finally-died.
Severus wasn’t too affected by Potter’s death, although he respected his last feat, but in his mind Potter would always be Potter. Not the-boy-who-defeated-Voldemort, but the student who had tormented him for seven years with his stubbornness and inimitable insensibility for any sort of advice.
Potter though he was the saviour of the wizarding world, had also never been a talented student, and his knowledge of potions hadn’t even been average. The whole seven years of teaching him had been more or less useless, and Severus couldn’t even say that he had liked the ‘Golden boy’. Harry had been too much like James for Severus to have wasted a single minute thinking about whether to like Harry or not.


“To whom do you belong, you miserable creature? You are not the simple owl you pretend to be, are you?”
With a low hoot the owl ducked her head.
“Hm. I will consider that a yes.” Severus walked over to the chair, where the owl was sitting, puffing up her white feathers as he moved closer.
He hadn’t seen this owl since his days at the Order’s headquarters, and back then she had belonged to Harry Potter. Maybe this snowy owl had accepted a member of the Order as her new master, although he knew that that wasn’t common for a Capimanes*, they were supposed to be free, after their master’s death.
“Hm. So, may I ask for the letter?”
His long and lean fingers tugged at the brown leather strip, which held the letter in place. With a last tug he opened the strip and a small piece of parchment dropped into his cold hands. No envelope, no seal, just a simple piece of paper, carelessly folded.
The way it was delivered and the way the letter looked caused Severus to become more and more suspicious. Something was definitely wrong. He could feel how the tenseness took over him, and with shaky hands he unfolded the letter.

Professor Snape,
Although I might be the very last person you expect to be owled from, I am writing you this letter to solicit a meeting with you. I need to talk to you, and I need your help.
Any of your terms will be accepted, I just ask you not to speak with anyone about me. Please, you mustn’t tell ANYONE (not even Dumbledore) that I’m alive. I know the rumours about my death, and I will explain everything to you, if you agree to meet me.
Your former student,
Harry Potter

PS: If you want to help me, send a letter with your conditions by Hedwig. If you don’t, just send Hedwig, please.

PPS: I am also in need of a dreamless-sleep-potion and a most effective analgesic. Since your potions are of higher quality than the potions sold in any shop in Hogsmeade, I ask you for those as well. (If you accept my request, please name the price for both in your letter)

Severus read the letter once more, to make sure that he hadn’t missed a single piece of information. Palpably it was Potter’s handwriting, the sloppy hand, scrawled rather than written, and the snowy owl was definitely Hedwig, Potter’s animal companion.
But Potter was supposed to be dead. He had seen him dying, heard his last screams, his tortured voice so full of pain, and he had felt the shock wave, which followed the explosion that eventually destroyed Potter and the Dark Lord.

So the letter was more likely manipulated to appear as a letter written by Potter. He knew several spells to forge somebody’s hand and signature in perfection and he had heard of con men (muggle, of course) who should be able to counterfeit a hand without using magic at all, so this letter might be nothing but a treacherous trick to lure him into a trap.

But what for? Never was it for a dreamless-sleep and an analgesic potion. And neither the letter nor the owl had shown any sign of a spell or magic at all, so maybe the letter was exactly what it seemed to be – a request for help. A request from the dead hero of the wizarding world, of course, whose body had been burned to ashes - The dilemma was the chance that he would miss a concealed curse or hidden spell. But that was no more likely than Potter’s return from the dead.
Severus could feel a headache coming, and started to give a soft massage to the bridge of his hooked nose with his icy fingers.

On the other hand why on earth should Potter ask him for help? Granted that Potter was alive, and the letter was written by the ‘Golden boy’ indeed, what could he want from him – despite the said potions – that neither Dumbledore, nor any of his numerous friends could offer him? And why was Potter (if it was really Potter) so anxious that Dumbledore would find out that he was alive?
Severus was quite sure that the old headmaster of Hogwarts, who was still suffering under the pain of his war wounds, would be overjoyed to hear that his Harry Potter was alive, and Severus was also confident, that Albus would grant him any sort of support immediately.

After reading the letter for a fourth and a fifth time, and casting any exposing magic he knew without effort, Severus sat down at his desk, and pulled a sheet of parchment out of one of the desk’s many drawers.
The black quill he used for dark blue ink in his pale hand, he started to write in his typically spiky but elegant hand:

Tomorrow evening, eight pm sharp.
I will expect you in my office.

S.S.

Inviting this dubious person to his office wasn’t something Severus was really keen on (truly, inviting anyone to his private chambers, never mind it be just his office, was a situation he rather tried to avoid), but in this case Severus intended to use it to his advantage. If Hogwarts was the safest place in the world, his chambers were the safest place in Hogwarts.
The set of wards at his door, the similar set of wards at his fire-place and his bedroom, to name only a few of the safety precautions, allowing only few people, Dumbledore, of course, and Minerva, to trespass into his rooms without getting hexed on the spot.
Meeting the alleged Harry Potter in his office would effort some modifying and re-setting of his wards, but it would also allow him to be in control, and that was definitely worth the work.

For a minute he thought about writing a line about the wanted potions, too, but then he abandoned that idea, and folded the paper. From another drawer he took a small envelope, inserted the letter, and sealed it with his midnight-blue sealing wax, which formed magically into two elegant entwined S’.
Then he took the leather cord that the first letter was tied with, and walked over to the fireplace, where the great white owl was still sitting on the back of his chair.
“Time to leave and fly home to your master.” He murmured while he fixed his letter to the owl’s rough leg.
When he had finished his work he took the owl with both of his hands, careful not to ruffle her feathers, but tight enough to keep her from flying.

The clamour told him that the owl did in no way agree to his idea of holding her properly, and so he rushed for his door with a quick stride.
“Stop hissing, you impatient poultry!” Severus exclaimed as the now obviously angry owl made an attempt to snap one of his long fingers, and the moment he opened the door the owl tried manically to free herself from his death-like grip.
As he finally loosened his grip on her, he watched how she lifted her heavy body with some powerful beats of her impressive wings into the air, his gaze following her flight down the dungeon’s corridor, and with one last shriek she disappeared in the darkness of the dungeons.


Author note:
*Latin: Capi = I am imprisoned; Manes = a soul which had already left a dead