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The Art of Self-Fashioning	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 26077 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Thirteen—Free Fall
            Severus sat back and laid the last stirring spoon down beside the cauldron. His hands shook. He stilled them with sheer force of will, not moving, not folding them, not taking his gaze from the cauldron that steamed, with a thin layer of golden liquid on the bottom.
            The potion was complete, and now he had only to drink it tonight, which was the time of the next full moon, and it would reveal his nemesis to him.
            Severus grimaced. Of course, he must also make sure that the werewolf’s next Wolfsbane potion was ready before the full moon.
            Why did Albus hire Lupin? He cannot think that Lupin really knows more about Defense than I know, and I am already working far too many hours training the Longbottom boy.
            Severus sighed. He thought perhaps that Lupin being a werewolf had more to do with it than anything. Albus wanted Longbottom to learn how to counter Dark creatures, and there was no denying that Lupin knew much about them from firsthand experience.
            Severus would never like Lupin, but he hated the Dark Lord more. His mind flinched whenever he touched the image of Lily Evans lying broken and staring in St. Mungo’s.
            He turned and lifted the single ladle-ful of potion from the cauldron. It shone, murky dreams moving in it. Severus closed his eyes and cast the charms that would lock his door securely and block the Floo. Last, he set up a shimmering shield around his own body. He must not be touched for the time that the potion proceeded through changing him and altering his perspective.
            He would see the vision of his enemy twice: once from the outside, and then from the inside, as though he was within the enemy’s head, sharing his thoughts. The first vision would not be especially dazzling. Severus had read that the second part was worse than crashing into the fully-prepared barriers of a master Occlumens.
            He tipped the ladle. The potion ran down his throat.
            His throat burned.
            And the world exploded.
*
            Harry stood outside the door for a long time, frowning. He didn’t want to think that what Professor McGonagall had told him was true, because that meant—well, it meant his parents had had almost exclusively bad friends, except for Sirius Black. One who betrayed them and one who was a coward.
            Harry wondered for a second how anyone could have such bad taste in friends. He knew that he had friends, but he also had the means to prevent them from hurting him. Dudley had taught him that.
            Finally, Harry knocked on Remus Lupin’s door.
            Lupin opened it at once. He looked pale. Harry wondered if Professor McGonagall had told him that Harry was coming to talk to him.
            Now that Harry was watching for it, he could see the small start when Lupin saw him, and the way his eyes instantly swept over Harry and down the corridor, as if he was looking for someone else he could focus on and talk to. He never spent long talking to Harry in class. The day with the Boggart had been the longest time. He never took points away from him or reprimanded him—because Harry did nothing in Defense class worth taking points away for or reprimanding—but he would look away as if the sight of him was painful.
            “Hello, Mr. Potter. What do you need?”
            “Professor McGonagall told me that you know my parents. I’d like to have some memories of them that aren’t just them staring at me with blank eyes when I tell them my name.”
            Lupin recoiled. His hand came up as if he would wave Harry back down the corridor. Harry didn’t intend to let that stop him. He stepped inside and stood there slowly twirling his wand through his fingers.
            Amicus stirred in his pocket. There were mice there, too. Harry had brought them in case Lupin was going to be difficult. He didn’t think that would really happen, but then, he didn’t think his friends would betray him, either. He still had to be prepared in case it did.
            “You know them,” Harry said again. He didn’t think Lupin’s reaction was due to shock, or innocence.
            “I knew them.” Lupin sat down hard on a chair in the middle of his rooms, shaking his head. “I haven’t been to visit them much since they went into St. Mungo’s. I—it hurts too much.”
            A great, calm, patient rage began to move through Harry on soft feet. He told himself he couldn’t let it explode, though, any more than he could let Cross actually attack Uncle Vernon. He stood to lose too much if he did. He moved forwards and took the chair across from Lupin, a wooden one, even though he hadn’t been invited. He reckoned Lupin owed him at least this much.
            “They’re still your friends.”
            “Not the vital people they once were,” Lupin said hoarsely, and wiped at his eyes. “You didn’t—well, at least you can’t remember. They were so happy when they had you. You were literally the light of James’s eyes. I never saw them sparkle more than when he was looking at you.”
            Harry sat still and let that hit him like a stone, accepting the bruise for the sake of its beauty. Then he said, “I want to know more. If all you can tell me is what you remember them as, that’s still more than I knew before.”
            Lupin looked him over carefully. “You never knew? I mean, Lily said her sister was awful, but I thought she would at least take you to visit them.”
            Harry hid a smile. It seemed Professor McGonagall hadn’t told Lupin enough about the Dursleys for him to recognize what a ridiculous statement that was. Well, Harry could use it as a weapon. He couldn’t even help it. If people kept leaving weapons lying next to him, he would have to use them.
            “My aunt has no patience with what she calls freakishness.” He said it the way Petunia would, and saw Lupin flinch back into the chair. “She never even told me my parents were alive. I had to learn that from Professor McGonagall. I grew up thinking they were dead, and even if they weren’t, they would have abandoned me at my aunt and uncle’s house.”
            “God,” Lupin whispered. He bowed his head. Harry saw his hands trembling. “That’s—Minerva told me a little, but I had no idea.”
            Harry paused, and then continued, “Professor McGonagall told me you had some reasons for not coming to get me, Professor Lupin.” Lupin’s head snapped up, and he looked panicked. “I don’t know what they were. But I think the least you owe me is telling me what my parents were like.”
            Lupin heaved a painful breath. Harry wondered for a second if it would work. He thought other people would have done it better. Some of the Slytherins, probably. Professor Snape. They would have been able to manipulate Lupin without him even knowing he’d been manipulated. But Harry had done the best he could with what he had.
            Amicus stirred in his pocket again, reminding Harry that his best was really better than what most other people could muster.
            “All right. Yes, of course. You’re right.” Lupin looked up. “I never saw anyone as intelligent as your mother. I mean, Miss Granger is rather bright, and of course some of the professors here are masters in their subjects. But your mother—Lily was just good at everything she tried. Potions, Charms, Defense.” He gave Harry a considering look. “Your father was the one who was good at Transfiguration. This is something I’d like to tell you, but you need to not repeat it, to Professor McGonagall or anyone else.”
            Harry wanted to laugh at the notion that he went around repeating secrets, but he only nodded and said, “I won’t, Professor.”
            “Your father became an unregistered Animagus,” said Lupin softly. “He was a stag.”
            Harry sat there and felt the revelation explode through him. It felt better than anything, he thought. Better than learning to master Transfiguration. Better than hiding his secrets from people. Better than flying.
            My father was like me.
            Lupin was talking on, something about Black being a dog Animagus and Pettigrew a rat Animagus, but Harry could barely listen. Wings were lifting him from his chair, and he wanted to say something. But there were no words that would be enough.
            No, he wanted to go to his workroom and start work right away on the creation of a spell that would bring his father back.
            But Lupin was still talking, and Harry forced himself to pay attention. “—that was the only way Sirius knew where Peter had gone. No one else would have thought to look for a rat, but Sirius did. He even trapped him in a place he wouldn’t easily be able to escape as a rat.” Lupin sighed deeply. “And it cost both of them their lives.”
            Harry appreciated Black’s heroism, he had no tears to spend for Pettigrew, and he was more interested in his parents anyway. It would probably look strange if he showed no interest in Lupin, though. “What kind of Animagus were you, Professor?”
            Lupin turned paler. He was sweating a little, even, as if he thought Harry would run right out and report his dead friends and Harry’s dad to the Ministry. “It—I wasn’t as good at Transfiguration as the others, Harry. I wasn’t one. I loved to play with them, though.”
            Harry just nodded and asked, “You said my mother was brilliant at Potions. Is that one reason Professor Snape doesn’t like me?”
            Lupin smiled in a strained way. “In part, Harry. You see…”
*
            Severus twisted around and landed in the corridor outside his storage cupboard. He didn’t waste time looking around for clues that would tell him when it was. He had concentrated too hard on the time he wanted to see when he was brewing. The potion would not have brought him back to a different one.
            He waited and watched, his senses quivering. A second later, a shadow stirred around the corner. Severus found himself falling back and holding his breath even though his enemy could no more sense him here than they could have in a Pensieve memory.
            The shadow did puzzle him. It seemed to be too small, and there was only one. Severus had been so sure there was a conspiracy. Perhaps older students had put a younger one under Imperius and commanded him to do their dirty work?
            But no seventh-year students last year had been accomplished Occlumens. Severus would have found them. And the ones who had been sixth- or fifth-years and had come back this year had had their minds read more than once.
            The figure came around the corner.
            It was Potter.
            Severus stared. Surprise kept him still as Potter knelt on the floor. A flowing wave of mice surrounded him, and for an instant Severus thought they were illusions. But the bodies in his potions could not have been, not to ruin them, and in a minute the mice gathered around Potter.
            Severus moved to the side so he could see Potter’s face. His green eyes were remote and cold, the eyes of a hawk. He cast a glance at the door to Severus’s quarters, and turned back to the mice in front of him. His face was almost blank, except for the fire in his eyes.
            “You know where you’re going,” Potter said, and Severus realized he was talking to the mice. “Go get him.” His wand raised and came down in a precise motion, far more precise than any of the motions he’d made in Severus’s class. Of course, Severus did not allow students to use their wands in there. “Bibilus.”
            The brown light that surrounded the mice betokened no spell Severus was familiar with, but he knew enough Latin to figure it out from the incantation. It made the mice thirsty, so they would jump into the potions.
            What Severus did not understand was how Potter had learned to cast such a powerful spell, or learned the spells that themselves would make the mice loyal. Had he simply captured the wild mice of the castle and tamed them? But even that was beyond the skill and patience level of a typical student.
            Potter was very much a typical student. Minerva had been used to praise his progress in Transfiguration, but lately she had had to admit that Potter had slowed down and didn’t seem to have as much gift for the art as she had thought.
            Transfiguration.
            Potter could have Transfigured the mice from objects. It was not difficult for someone with a lot of power and a good grasp of Latin.
            But Severus shook his head a second later. Potter had neither. Severus could not have missed that power when Potter was brewing, whether or not he allowed the boy to use a wand in his class. Severus would have felt the pressure of his core, and his potions would have turned out correct more often than they did.
            It seemed he was about to learn what Potter had really done, because the world turned sideways and he slid into an explosion of constellations. The potion was preparing him for the second vision, taking him inside his enemy’s head.
            Severus felt for a moment as though he had hit a wall at high speed. He shook his head groggily. The potion had never promised this physical a reaction, and for a moment he wondered if he had read the descriptions right, or if they had left out something about intense pain.
            Then he realized the pain was background.
            Potter knelt in front of Severus’s supply cupboard with a mind full of jagged shards of pain. Severus could not grasp all of them, because Potter had not been thinking of all of them during the moment when he was outside that door. But there was enough to let him know it was mostly about Potter’s parents.
            Severus sneered. Ah, yes. For his father’s honor he takes revenge on me. He doesn’t even think to compare himself to Longbottom, whose parents are dead. At least Potter can look into his mother’s and father’s faces and know what they looked like from something other than photographs.
            Potter’s thoughts burned and blazed around the pain, and Severus touched an arrowhead of pure purpose that made him recoil. It felt as if he had sliced himself on it, and that mattered more to him than the agony and fury in Potter’s mind, because it was his own pain. He stepped slowly back and watched with suspicious eyes as Potter cast the spell that made the mice run into Severus’s cupboard and drown themselves.
            There was a flux of magic when he did, of thoughts and plans and memories that made Severus’s nostrils flare. Potter was far more powerful than Severus had thought—powerful enough to brew correct potions and cast correct charms and stop wasting his professors’ time. The only art in which Severus saw the correct intent and determination, however, was Transfiguration.
            Minerva was right.
            Severus ground his teeth as he thought that, and poked a little more at Potter’s mind. He saw the few people, like Minerva, that were glowing diamonds among Potter’s thoughts, but nothing compared to the glowing boulders of thoughts about his parents. He saw experimentation in a dungeon classroom that Severus didn’t recognize, which meant it had surely been abandoned for almost as long as Severus had been Head of Slytherin.
            He saw—
            Potter working Transfigurations on himself.
            Severus felt his gorge and his contentment rise in the same moment. He had seen Potter doing nothing to another student so far, and perhaps Dumbledore would have made him merely discipline and not expel Potter for the attack on his potions. But this activity, this illegal activity, even if it was on himself instead of someone else…
            The potion’s grip ebbed at last, and Severus opened his eyes to a ringing in his ears and a small sense that he was forgetting something, which was swept aside by the tide of victory. He had crimson in front of his eyes, and he waited a moment until he could balance and see before he drew his wand to begin seeking Potter.
            He could not wait. He would need to bring Potter before the Headmaster tonight.
*
            “And that’s why I think Lily agreed to marry James, in the end,” Professor Lupin ended, with a little smile. He seemed to have forgotten he was talking to Harry, since he kept using his parents’ names. He was also staring off into the distance and drinking a glass of conjured water.
Harry didn’t mind. He had learned a lot about his parents that he hadn’t known before, and he felt warm and content and full. He had a lot of new memories that he could try to uncover in his parents’ minds.
That was the goal. It was always the goal. That Lupin might have abandoned him didn’t matter, not next to this. Harry would have good parents, real parents, sooner because of Lupin, and that meant Harry could forgive him.
Besides, if he’d adopted Harry, what might have happened? Harry might have grown up in the wizarding world, and that meant he would have accepted the ideas about only charms being useful in Mind-Healing and not Transfiguration. His parents might have lain in their hospital beds forever.
In one sense, the Dursleys were good for me. They taught me to endure and to value what I could have.
“So.” Lupin shook himself as though coming out of a long trance, and stared pleadingly at Harry. “Does this mean you forgive me for not taking you in?”
            Harry thought about it. His forgiveness meant a lot to this man, for reasons Harry didn’t fully understand yet. But he could nod and say, “Yes, Professor Lupin. Thanks for talking to me about my parents. I appreciate it.” He rose to his feet and did his best impression of starry eyes. It was a lot easier after spending time around Neville, who seemed to be like that when he looked at Harry. “Could we talk again? Some other evening? It would be so good for me.”
            “I know,” said Lupin, with a single glance out the window. He suddenly stiffened, but Harry couldn’t tell why. He turned back around with a smile that was big but false somehow. “We only have a week left of term, don’t we? Well, I’ll talk to you about them. And please do try to do better in Defense, Harry. Professor McGonagall is always telling me how smart you are. It’d be a pleasure to work with a student like that.”
            Harry ducked his head and nodded. He knew he would pass his Defense exam, if only because he wanted to pass it and he’d got lots of extra practice helping Anthony complete his essays. But he couldn’t promise the level of performance Lupin sounded like he was expecting, and Harry wasn’t sure that he would have wanted to even if he could. If Lupin was left a little wanting, a little yearning, that wasn’t a bad thing.
            They turned towards the door of Lupin’s quarters. Lupin kept glancing out the window, but he seemed relaxed when he turned back towards Harry. “I certainly hope—”
            The door blew inwards before he could finish the sentence. Harry swung around with his wand raised in response. His first thought was that Lord Dudders had somehow come back from the dead, and the second that Malfoy had found out Harry had Obliviated him and wanted revenge.
            But it was neither one of them. It was Professor Snape, and he strode in and stood glaring at Harry with eyes like embers. He didn’t even seem aware of Lupin.
            “Harry Potter,” he whispered. “So you are the one who destroyed more than a month’s worth of work on my potions.”
            Harry bowed his head a little, accepting the charge. He had known all along what he would try to do if Snape ever found out. He couldn’t take that action right away, though, not with a witness. He said mildly, “Only a month?”
            And Snape, as Harry had thought he probably would, snapped.
*
            Severus felt the insolent response as a bolt through his body. It was as if James had come back to his right mind and stood before Severus again, laughing and taunting him as he had when they were students, and if Severus could only—
            Could stop the voice, could shut the mouth, then he would never have to worry about anything again.
            He lashed out with his wand and spoke the first incantation that came to mind, even though it was one he would have to revive the brat from later. “Stupefy!”
            Potter swung aside from it in an odd, crouching motion. Then he turned to face Severus again and cocked his head to the side. His hair looked as windblown as if he’d just been playing Quidditch, the way James’s hair had always looked. His glasses caught the reflection of the open window and the coming darkness, and utterly obscured the color of his eyes. “Is that all you have then, Snape?”
            “Severus. Harry. Stop this.”
            Lupin’s ineffectual words splashed against the shield Severus had raised against interference in his mind. He could not stop, not when he had revenge almost in his grasp. This time, he answered Potter’s taunting with a much stronger curse. “Alucinor!” Potter would lose the grasp of his thoughts and start wandering wildly through visions, ones of terror and grief.
            “Severus!”
            Severus opened his mouth to respond, and left it open.
            The Waking Nightmare Curse had manifested as a beam of clear light and shot across the room to strike Potter. Or it should have. There was no way Potter could avoid it, as close as they were and with the speed Severus had cast—
            Except that he’d crouched and sprung, like a kangaroo, over the light and into a different corner of the room, beside the fireplace. He crouched, with the chair between him and Severus, and waved his hand in a gesture Severus didn’t think was magical.
            A tidal wave of mice came flowing out from behind the chair and towards Severus. The beasts moved fast. By the time that Severus had managed to overcome his surprise and ready his wand again, small bodies were squirming up his legs, teeth were closing in flesh, and there were tiny feet racing across his chest, up towards his wand.
            “Call them off, Potter! I have no qualms about destr—”
            Potter made Severus do the second undignified thing he’d done since entering the room, next to gaping. He screamed in agony. There were too many rodents now, and several mice were finding their way under the thickest layer of his robe and closing their teeth on his genitals.
            Severus gave up reasoning with Potter. He nearly gave up reason. He swept his wand across his robes and barked, “Congelo!”
            Small icy bodies began to tumble free, and the pain in his genitals sank from gnawing to throbbing. But then more teeth bit his wrist, and Severus looked down and discovered that his spell had missed some of the mice, or there were simply too many of them to kill all at once. The one on his wrist launched itself at his wand and began to bite through it.
            “Congelo!” Severus barked again, and once more there was a rain of bodies. He straightened slowly. Potter was still behind the chair, as if he believed that he would lose Severus’s interest if he hid from him.
            “You will not be losing my attention again, Mr. Potter,” Severus whispered. He began to move forwards one slow, stalking step at a time, a deadly predator.
*
            Harry stroked Amicus’s fur soothingly. He knew his friend wanted to attack, but Harry had other plans than letting Snape destroy him.
            Harry was going to let Snape come around the chair, and then hit him with one of the spells he’d been working on, a spell that Harry would normally have used on himself. Harry had no interest in giving Snape claws or stone-resistant skin, but there were plenty of other things you could Transfigure in the middle of a battle.
            Part of his mind stood back and observed the rest of him curiously. He was breathing calmly, and his thoughts were as clear as glass. He had to survive this time, and he was doing what he needed to to survive. He had never known he would be so good in battle.
            He was sorry, for the first time, that he hadn’t done better in Defense. He liked dueling.
            On the other hand, if he’d worked harder in Defense, he couldn’t have used Transfiguration so easily in battle. So Harry supposed it worked out in various ways.
            Snape’s shadow appeared on the floor. Harry nodded and started to rise to his feet, ready to spring and cast the spell at the same time.
            Then something made him stop. There was—another presence in the room. It was as if he’d Transfigured another animal and forgotten about it until now. That wasn’t exactly right, but Harry didn’t know how to explain it better.
            Somewhere, an animal had awoken.
            And then it growled.
            Harry leaped backwards, away from Snape’s hesitating shadow and around the side of the chair. If he was going to fight, then he needed to be able to see.
            Professor Lupin was gone. Where he had been, a huge shaggy creature crouched on the floor. It took Harry forever to recognize it. It was as unlike the sleek lines of wolves he’d studied in books as it was possible to be.
            But it turned, and he saw something like a wolf in its jaws, and he knew what it was then.
            Harry leaped as it came charging towards him, growling insanely. He landed on top of a bookshelf, which started to crash towards the ground. Harry leaped again, and the werewolf, whipping around to follow him, got pinned under the bookshelf. Harry leaped from the corner when he’d landed the second time and deliberately pounded his weight into the middle of the bookshelf, making the werewolf scream. Harry didn’t want to kill Professor Lupin, but he hoped he could knock him unconscious and keep him from attacking.
            “Professor Snape!” he called without looking around. “I hope that you’re going to stop him before you try to stop me!”
            Snape didn’t get a chance to answer. Lupin lunged from under the bookshelf, his teeth aimed deliberately for Harry’s wrist.
*
            The child will be a werewolf.
            Severus didn’t mean to stand there and let his own shock take over. This part was not revenge on Potter. But he couldn’t think of any way to stop the werewolf, and the way it moved…
            His own terror, so long ago that he had almost buried it, grabbed him with sharper teeth than Potter’s mice. Severus found himself backing away from the werewolf, his breath coming shriller, faster, his wand trembling in his hand.
            And then Lupin tried to grab Potter’s hand.
            His teeth sheared through the cloth easily enough, but then they bounced. They skidded off the skin of Potter’s arm as though it was made of stone. And Potter stood there and laughed for a moment.
            Snape took another step back. He had heard the seeds of madness in that sound, as though Potter would join his parents in St. Mungo’s without any Cruciatus Curse to speed him on his way.
            The werewolf was confused only a moment. It lunged a second later, and Potter leaped out of the way and aimed his wand again. He murmured, “Commuto pedem manus.”
            The werewolf had borne him down by the time he finished the spell, but Potter raised his arm to intercept the teeth, and then turned his hand a little and shot out glittering claws that raked the side of Lupin’s muzzle. The wolf howled and tried to leap backwards.
            One of his feet was now a human hand, scrabbling at the floor. Lupin tripped and fell, and then Potter stood up and turned to Severus and said, “Are you going to bind him, or not?”
            Severus, shaking, drew his wand and did so. The chains that flew from his wand were barely strong enough to hold a werewolf, but they held him still for the slight moment it took Severus to cast the mightiest Stunner he knew. Lupin fell and lay still. Severus promptly used other spells to build a silver cage around him.
            He was still shaking. The mice, the madness in Potter’s laughter, the way Potter had leaped, the revelation about who Severus’s enemy really was…
            And the fact nagging at him, the thing he had forgotten. He had forgotten to finish Lupin’s Wolfsbane, as he had thought he should, before he used the Retrocognition Potion.
            Severus might have died if not for Potter. Or Potter might have died because of Severus’s neglect and carelessness. Or they both might have died, or been turned.
            For a moment, the thought made a new place in his mind, something that shone as though someone was pouring sunlight into it. Severus found himself contemplating Potter with thoughts he had never expected to have about him.
            And then he crashed back into reality. He now owed another Potter a life-debt. For that matter, they had saved him from the same werewolf.
            Severus felt as though his tendons were snapping under the weight of the revelation. No. No. This could not be borne.
            It would not be borne. Severus would take the child to Albus right away, and he would have him expelled before the moon rose to turn Lupin back to human. And then Lupin would be stripped of his post as well, for attacking a colleague and student.
            Convinced that he understood the right way to do things now, Severus turned back to Potter and raised his wand.
            He had to stop again, though. Because the boy no longer looked a mad thing, standing there, watching Severus under a shock of black hair like ruffled feathers.
            He looked a wild thing. His claws still glittered at the ends of his fingers. The ripped clothing let Severus see patches of skin that shone like granite with small flakes of quartz in it. Those were probably the hard ones that Lupin’s teeth had slid on. And the rips also showed hints of strong, smooth, alien muscles on his legs.
            He wasn’t jumping with the aid of spells. It had been what Severus had assumed at first.
            “What are you?” he whispered.
            Potter smiled at him and snapped his wrist forwards. A dark shape came flying from it, and Severus flinched back too late. The shape hit his hand, bit him on the inside of his fingers, and made Severus shout.
            And drop his wand. In a second, the creature, some other bloody rodent, had sprung free from Severus’s arm, hit the floor, grabbed his wand, and run with it back to Potter.
            “I’m something I can’t let you tell anyone about,” Potter said, and pinned Severus’s wand beneath his foot.
            To the adrenaline sweat of the fight, the sweat of fear joined itself. But Severus had not battled bullying Gryffindors and stronger predators all his life to show weakness now. He held Potter’s eyes and rasped, “You can do nothing against me. You will be expelled for this.”
            Potter shook his head a little. “What Lupin saw won’t matter. He has his own secrets to keep. When I remind him about that, and the way he never came and got me when he could have after my parents were cursed, then it’ll keep his mouth shut.”
            He cocked his head at Severus, a wolf-like movement that made Severus flinch. “But you—I wouldn’t have let you stay conscious if I didn’t have a way out of it.”
            He leveled his wand at Severus. Severus was shaking with anger now. “You will not get away with this,” he whispered.
            Potter laughed, a cracked songbird sort of sound. “Isn’t that the line the hero’s supposed to speak?” he asked, and shook his head.
            In the moments before Potter spoke the word, Severus tried to stare at him and imprint everything in his mind, tried to cling to the visions of the Retrocognition Potion, even knowing he had drunk all of it and there would probably be no borrowing the Time-Turner to obtain a second sample of its sand—
            “Obliviate.”
*
Eren: Yes, I think they did. But thank you for letting me know you like the story.
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The Art of Self-Fashioning