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An Urn For Her Ashes	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 8570 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter Two—Glimpses of the Unburied Past
            Severus knocked firmly on Albus’s office door, and settled in to wait. Sometimes, he had to let an unforgivable length of time pass before Albus would deign to take notice. And sometimes, Severus didn’t care about that.
            His mind was firmer than it had been the last few days. Potter was off making friends with the Weasleys, or plotting with the members of the Order. Severus could look at Albus without Lily’s eyes coming in between them and making him do something that might sour his long-term relations with his second master.
            Albus finally relented and opened the door, although he sat behind his desk rather than on the other side of it. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Severus?” he asked quietly, as Severus stalked into the room.
            Severus ignored the attempts at intimidation, except to note that Albus must be more on the defensive than he’d assumed. It was rare for Albus to slip so badly that he forgot that voice and posture didn’t work on Severus.
            “I want to know why you didn’t tell us about the boy right away.” Severus didn’t sit. There were plush chairs and wooden chairs, and neither was conducive to his plans. He stood in easy alertness, gaze brushing past the perch where Fawkes normally sat. He was gone. Albus had probably sent him on the sort of mission owls couldn’t be trusted with.
            “I believe I did answer that question.” Albus laced his fingers together. “Harry was in no fit state to be seen by the public until he managed to achieve some sort of balance between Lily’s spirit and his own.”
            And her name might have worked as a hammer against me, if I was unprepared. Careless to allow me the time to prepare, old man. “I don’t mean when he was twelve,” Severus said, with quietness of his own. “Why not right away? Why not announce that someone had lived through the massacre at the Potter house? You know your cloak of secrecy will make it more difficult for the Order to accept him as their savior now.”
            Albus relaxed a little. Yes, think that’s all there is to my motives, Severus thought, watching Albus from behind the thickest Occlumency shields he had ever raised. Think that I care only about your chances of winning this war.
            “Well, the Order seems to be taking to him.” Albus smiled at Severus and waved a hand towards a chair. Severus drifted in that direction, but didn’t sit. Albus sighed a little. “If I had intended to announce him to the wizarding world, your question would be fair. But I didn’t know if Harry would live, at first. The Horcrux and the struggle he had with Lily’s spirit made it uncertain.”
            “Struggle?” Severus knew the word had been too quick when Albus smiled again. He forced himself to retreat to the place he often achieved during brewing or intense Occlumency study, when his mind was sheathed with steel and his breaths as regular as a ticking clock. “He seemed to accept his mother’s love fully and know her as a distinct entity. What kind of struggle could there be?”
            “Oh, when he was a child he would spend much time crying when Lily’s memories were at the forefront of his mind,” Albus blithely explained. “And he struggled to understand concepts like the deaths she’d seen and experiences she’d had as a student at Hogwarts long before the words were available to him.” He shot Severus a glance that might have been sly with more practice. “I think she survived better than someone might have anticipated, though. There’s more of her in him even than it looks like.”
            Severus turned immediately in a new direction, possible because of the steel sheathing around his mind. “You didn’t shield his mind from her touch?”
            “I couldn’t do so without dimming the protection that kept the Horcrux at bay, my boy.”
            You’re a master Legilimens, and you took the risk of looking into a child’s developing thoughts. You could damn well have done something about it.
            But Severus played the role the Headmaster had already visibly assigned him in this little drama, the scorned lover concerned only about the scornful love. “He seems to look remarkably like her. I thought she had borne a child more like Potter.” If he didn’t use Lily’s name, Albus might think it still worked as a weapon on him.
            “Harry did look like James when he was born.” This time, it was probably James’ name that was meant to fall on his shields, Severus thought. “The messy black hair and the shape of his face, especially. Although his eyes have always been Lily’s.”
            “So his appearance changed when her spirit took possession of him?” More confirmation for the theory Severus was forming.
            “Oh, yes.” Albus gave him a quick smile. “And a handsomer lad you couldn’t hope to see, I think, Severus. At least it gave him that advantage.”
            What advantage, when he lived his life far away from not only cheering crowds but the attention his looks might have gained him? But Severus remained bland and blank-faced, only inclining his head. “I see.”
            “I thought you might.” Albus sighed and stood up, coming around the desk to put his hand on Severus’s shoulder. Severus looked up and inwardly rejoiced. He had fooled Albus better than he’d thought he might, if Albus was utterly convinced that Severus could respond to his touch like a protégé.
            “I know how hurt you are, Severus, that I concealed the survival of a part of Lily from you,” Albus told him gently. “And that you only have a chance to get to know that part in the months before it dies. But I thought the extra sixteen years of survival Lily had might soften the blow.”
            He thinks in terms of blows without knowing how much I can absorb. How flattering. “I was indeed surprised,” Severus said, “to know that anything of—” He paused deliberately, to make Albus think of the bravery that Gryffindors loved. “Lily lived. But I examined one of the boy’s memories, and I believe it genuine.”
            “It is genuine.” The smile was gone from Albus’s face now, and he was nodding slowly, as though the speed of the motion would affect what Severus thought of Potter. “I could hardly believe it when I came into the wreckage of the house and discovered Harry crying and Lily dead. But he survived. And sometimes I’ve felt Lily’s essence actually speak to me when I connect with Harry’s mind.”
            Severus went on high alert, because this was something that would affect any plans he might make. “What does she say?”
            “Oh, things she said when she was alive,” said Albus comfortably. “Conversations that we had in the past. Phrases she sometimes used with frequency in Order meetings. I hear them echoing down the halls of Harry’s mind as though someone was shouting them from a distance.” He sighed wistfully. “Of course I wish both Harry and his parents could have lived—”
            You shouldn’t. Lily would have stopped at nothing to keep you from sacrificing her son.
            “—but at least this way, Harry manages to know his mother, a little. He knows what she liked and what she said and what her favorite expressions were. It’s more than many orphans ever have of their parents.”
            Severus relaxed, not that Albus would be able to tell that, any more than he would have been able to tell that Severus was alert and waiting for confirmation of his suspicions. That confirmed his private theory.
            “You think the boy cannot survive without the Horcrux?”
            Albus shook his head. “For the same reason that I couldn’t disentangle Lily’s spirit from Harry. The Horcrux has worked itself deeply into him, made itself part of his mind and spirit.” He paused, and his voice was musing as he added, “Harry’s told me that sometimes he feels as if he doesn’t really know himself. Who’s Harry and who’s Lily, I mean. Or sometimes he gets dark dreams and wonders if they’re the Horcrux instead.”
            And you would never encourage the boy in such confusion, of course.
            Severus started to speak, but Albus continued. “There are times that I think rest will be a panacea for Harry. There’s certainly no other way that he can get rid of that confusion, not when he’s grown up with it from such a young age.”
            “By rest, you mean death.” Severus would have liked to shift and draw a cloak around himself, but he hadn’t worn a cloak to Albus’s office.
            “Yes.” Albus gazed directly at him, and then smiled wearily. “Forgive me, Severus. These are matters I can’t speak of to anyone else in the Order. And I thought, with your complicated feelings about Harry’s parents, you can understand my complicated feelings about Harry.”
            I understand enough.
            Severus stood with a small inclination of his head. “Indeed, Albus. Though it will take me a while to forgive you for having lied to me.” And myself for not having caught the lie.
            “I defended the secret I thought necessary to the saving of the world.”
            And you made sure, by his sudden introduction to the Order like this, that more people would be willing to see him die for their freedom. Not so easy to surrender a child that you watched grow up, or that you’ve known since he was eleven. No, better to go with someone who can play the bright and shiny martyr.
            But Severus thought Albus had misjudged some of the other Order members, and Severus might reap the benefit of that misjudgment, in the end. For now, he only nodded and murmured, “I understand. But my forgiveness is still slow in coming.”
            “But you always get there in the end, my boy. It was a risk I chose to take.”
            Not many people would have noticed the touch of frost now coming into Albus’s voice. Albus might not notice it himself. But Severus did, and although he bowed one time more and turned away, the bow was one of farewell.
            I can do what I wish to.
*
            Severus stood concealed in the shadows just off the Quidditch pitch, watching the youngest Weasley son and daughter teach Potter the game. Potter was laughing in incredulous freedom as the brooms dipped up and down, and he swooped after the Snitch with the skill of a Seeker born.
            Why did Albus not allow him to play?
            Severus could not fathom it, no matter how he thought about it. Without other brats around, Potter would not have become distracted from saving the world by a simple game. It might even have encouraged the sort of dodging and other physical skills that could serve the boy well in battle.
            Then Severus curled his lip. Albus didn’t expect a battle, didn’t want one. Potter was supposed to hunt for Horcruxes, but mainly to be a martyr. And if he had the game—would he have had something to live for?
            It might be that.
            One of the things Severus despised the most about the circumstances was that he simply could not be sure of some Albus’s motivations. Perhaps it was as bad as it seemed. Perhaps it was not. But Severus would not have the ability to sit back and study the situation for as long as he needed to reach a clear and objective conclusion. Albus would force the search for the Horcruxes to begin as soon as he could.
            Severus turned and scanned the border of the Quidditch pitch. There were always a few Order members around the boy, as if to act like chains should he make a move to run away. That was the only encouraging thing Severus had seen so far about Albus’s influence over the boy. Albus might not rate it as high as he seemed, if he feared exposure to the wider world would make Potter run.
            Granger read a book off to the side, frowning a little. Severus had no doubt the book was on the theory of Horcruxes. Alastor Moody stood next to the lake and contemplated the depths as if he thought the Dark Lord’s latest threat would break loose from them. And Molly Weasley stood anxiously watching her children, as well. She had practically moved into the castle since the twins’ deaths.
            A woman who had lost two children. A woman who could bond fiercely to an orphan in need, and might oppose even a plan of Albus’s that involved the sacrifice of a child, if someone could present it to her in the right way.
            Severus gave a single tight-lipped smile and turned back to survey the game. Potter turned around from a sweep after the Snitch and gave the shadowed corner a single nod.
            Severus tensed hard enough to hurt his arms for a moment, and then knew what had happened. He had sometimes stood here to watch Lily.
            With a snap of his cloak, he turned abruptly back to the castle.
*
            Severus nodded and laid the book aside. Yes, everything he had read about necromantic theory—which was much, but which he hadn’t revised for some years—accorded with his belief. If it were truly Lily Potter’s spirit that was bound to the Potter boy’s, then there would have been more signs than memories and an influence in his looks. What Potter hosted was not a surviving fragment of Lily’s soul.
            And Severus’s way forwards was clear.
            Someone knocked on the door. Severus went still and listened. As far as most people in the castle knew, he should have been asleep by now. Albus would have come in uninvited, but he would have used the Floo and not the door, and that would also have been the route that Pomfrey would use to inform Severus if he was needed in the hospital wing.
            Someone unfamiliar with the castle routines would have knocked, though. Someone not already connected with the Floo.
            Severus moved slowly towards the door. He had no lingering memories. He had only hopes that he could not allow to trick him. It reminded him of why he had given up the habit of hoping.
            Until now.
            Severus grimaced and opened the door, nearly receiving a fist in the face. He ducked out of the way with a hiss and stood staring at the boy, who pushed a handful of fire-colored hair out of his eyes and smiled nervously.
            “Can I come in, Professor Snape?” he asked.
            Severus studied him. Those green eyes darted around and past him, and down the corridor. The chances that Albus had put him up to this and might now be listening in were remote, Severus judged.
            He still tried to touch the boy’s mind with Legilimency as Potter passed him, but this time, those flexible walls hardened and threw him out before he could see anything. Severus leaned against the door and blinked.
            “Sorry,” Potter said, grimacing. “But sometimes Albus snoops in my head and I had to get used to that.”
            Severus said nothing, instead simply sitting down in the first chair that came to hand and staring at Potter. He must have found out the location of Severus’s quarters from someone. It wasn’t something Lily would have known, since Slughorn had lived in a different set of rooms.
            Potter stood looking around as if the very difference of Severus’s rooms from his memories made it worth looking at, and Severus sighed and finally said, “Why did you come here?”
            “I saw the way you were looking at me today when I was flying.” Potter turned around and leaned a casual arm against the fireplace mantel. Severus tried to picture either Lily or James Potter doing such a thing, and couldn’t. At least Potter was his own man in one respect. “Not with pity, like Granger does, or with that desperate desire to see me prove myself that Albus uses.”
            Desperate desires to see you prove yourself? How interesting of you to categorize it that way. But Severus only asked, “What did you think my expression was like?”
            Potter’s response was immediate and quiet. “As if you were trying to come up with a way to save my life.”
            Severus blinked and sat up. Potter was once again examining his fingernails. Then he turned, and Severus saw the savage glow of life in his eyes.
            Lily’s had never looked like that, except perhaps at the end, when she stood defying the Dark Lord. Severus wouldn’t know.
            “You’re speaking now,” Severus said, in a voice that he felt was mild and warm compared to what he might have said, “like someone who doesn’t want to die.”
            Potter lifted his head. Severus had the distinct feeling he was counting under his breath, or perhaps only inside his mind, because listen as he might, Severus couldn’t pick up any sound. “I do.”
            “Then why not tell Albus about it?” Severus circled slowly to the side, watching Potter all the time. It was one thing to try and protect Lily’s legacy when it was an oblivious brat eager to martyr himself on Albus’s say-so. But someone who knew and yet had marched this far to his doom…“He had sixteen years to find another solution.”
            Potter smiled. It was a smile that might have greeted Severus in a mirror, and for that reason alone, he grunted a little and stepped back. Potter only followed him, gaze intent. “Because he can’t risk the Horcrux surviving. And he didn’t want to kill my mum’s spirit. That’s what he said.” Potter looked away from Severus. “He doesn’t seem to mind killing me.”
            Yes, he does, Severus could have said. That’s why he wants you to sacrifice yourself. Murder is beyond him even when his ethics demand it.
            But Severus was largely uninterested in what Albus’s ethics demanded, and therefore he stuck to the subject. “Saving you, or touching your mind, would not entail killing your mother’s spirit. She did not survive.”
            Potter worked one hand on the mantel. He said nothing.
            Once again, Severus found himself off-balance. He hadn’t anticipated a storm of tears, but silence was too far from his expectations for him to know what to do with it. “You don’t care about that?”
            “I always suspected it,” Potter whispered, and turned around. His eyes had the sheen of tears, but were dry nonetheless. “The memories I had, and the snatches of conversation that came from those memories, and the way that she—what Albus said was her spirit—the way it felt—it wasn’t like contact with someone else who was living.”
            “I hardly believe that touching another embodied human being would teach you what a spirit feels like,” Severus said, because he had to.
            Potter looked at him with the same dull fever-glitter. “I forgot. You didn’t know. Albus was training me in Legilimency and…other forms of sight from the time I was three years old. I knew what his mind felt like. A living mind.” He reached out and put a hand on his heart. “I knew it wasn’t her mind as an independent thing inside me.”
            “Despite what Albus and you said to the Order about her continuing to offer you advice?” Severus asked.
            Potter moved his head a little. “It’s something Albus thought was true, after he heard her memories speaking in my thoughts. And I went along with it.”
            “Why?”
            Potter turned his head a little, so that Severus could see both his eyes and his scar at the same moment, for the first time. “Because it was inspirational. And pleased him.”
            For a moment, standing there with their eyes connected and perhaps with Legilimency whispering back and forth between them, the kind that could sift and sieve surface thoughts, Severus glimpsed what the past sixteen years of isolation had meant to Potter. Only one person to know, one person to please, one person to love, and knowing that person was raising him for death.
            “Wouldn’t you,” Potter whispered, “have clung to life in any way you could?” Again his hand tightened on the mantel. “I thought, if I could make him love me enough, he wouldn’t ask me to die.”
            Severus broke the eye contact and stared in silence at his chair. He couldn’t ask the question that bubbled in his throat, but Potter answered it anyway.
            “It’s not her spirit. It’s a sort of psychic impression of her, I think. My mother’s love is literally imprinted into my skin.” Severus glanced at him again and saw him touching the scar. “It had to be, with the Horcrux imprinted into me. And part of her got imprinted onto my mind in the same way. Albus talks all the time about how open and impressionable my mind must have been when I was a baby. Why wouldn’t it pick something up from her as she died? That’s my first memory, you know,” Potter added more quietly. “The green light of the Killing Curse flashing, and her scream as she died.”
            It was more than Severus had ever known about Lily’s death. He stood still, and then asked, “But the Horcrux is a magic of the soul, so wouldn’t her protection need to be soul-bound, as well?”
            He already knew the answer from his studies of necromancy, but he was curious to see how far Potter’s intellect had taken him. Potter blinked and answered at once, “No. The Horcrux is soul magic, but it can be contained in any sort of vessel. At least one of the ones that Voldemort made is in a locket, for instance. Destroying the vessel will destroy the Horcrux. But you can put all sorts of protective enchantments and charms on one, which will protect the shard of soul without being soul magic themselves.”
            So. An answer through the medium of the Dark Arts, instead of through necromancy. Severus nodded, and saw Potter straighten.
            “Was it only the look in my eyes this afternoon that made you come to me?” he asked then.
            Potter grimaced. “No. The strongest memories I received from my mum are of her time with me and Dad, but the second strongest are of you. And, well, Mum and Dad are dead. You’re the only one I thought might care enough about Mum to protect me.”
            “Even though, as you say, she is dead, and her legacy does not survive in you in the same way that Albus thinks it does and told me it did.”
            “No,” Potter said, and looked up and into his face. His voice was a whisper now. “I’m used to not being valued for what I am. I thought—I thought you might at least care enough for something I’m not to preserve it, instead of destroy it.”
            Severus had no response to that. He stood there and waited, and waited, and waited, for the waves of rejection to crash through him. He wouldn’t be saving as much of Lily’s legacy as he had originally thought, if he saved Potter’s life. He would be saving equally as much of James Potter. The child of the man he had hated and the woman who had grown to despise him.
            But it didn’t matter. Not with the oaths he had sworn, and the fact that Albus had lied to him and never even told Severus of the boy’s existence.
            Perhaps if he had, things would have been different. But there was no reason to think that things could happen differently. This was the reality Severus was standing in.
            With a Harry Potter who wasn’t so Gryffindor after all, and who had learned to think in ways not defined by the House he should have been in, had he attended Hogwarts.
            “We will work on it,” he said.
            And Harry Potter smiled with eyes as keen as a diving eagle’s, with a flame in them that was not his mother’s, and Severus learned some of the warm side of hope again.
*
starr: Thank you!
VSBree: Thank you! I hope that you continue to enjoy it.
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An Urn For Her Ashes