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Old Habits Die Hard	By : NihilEtNemo Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 12792 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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- 3
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Title: Old Habits Die Hard

Author: setosgirl

Words: 4,041

Warnings: Slash, MPREG

Disclaimer: I do not now, nor have I ever, nor
shall I ever, own Harry Potter or any characters therein. I only own the plot.

Parings: Voldemort / Snape, Harry / Snape

Summary: Snape’s secret mission for
the Order is revealed – Voldemort’s personal – hem hem – ‘slave’! Then the Dark Lord
makes a revelation that stuns him… and he blames Harry for everything.

Notes: Harry is seventeen, at the
beginning of his last year at the start of the story. By the end, it’ll
be the end of his last year.

Old Habits Die Hard

Chapter 3

setosgirl

The first thing he heard was dim,
blurry voices around him. He could barely make out the words, in comforting
familiar voices, though he couldn’t identify them. He knew they meant he
was safe…

“I’m afraid he’s
right, Albus. There’s nothing I can do for
him.”

“You’re quite
sure?”

“I’ve
done everything I could think of over these last three days. It’s beyond
my power to remove it.”

He wondered who
they were talking about. What they were talking about. Poor bastard… It
sounded as though some guy was in a lot of trouble. Not that he cared. He
wasn’t allowed to care. That wasn’t in his Character, to
care… and he wasn’t allowed to break Character… never allowed
to break Character, lest He find him
out and punish him…

“He’s
finally coming out of it.”

“Finally? Albus, he
shouldn’t have woken up for another week. That was an infusion of
asphodel and wormwood, Draught of the Sleeping Death… It’s
amazing.”

With a gasp, he
sat up, realizing they were talking about him,
that he was the poor bastard no one could help. He was the one that had been
drugged and experimented on – though he couldn’t quite remember
why…

“Severus,”
Dumbledore said, standing in front of him. “You’re awake.”

“Astute
observation,” he said quietly. He slowly remembered why he was here, and
his face hardened. He would much rather go back to sleep right now…

“Ah,”
the headmaster said finally. “I see that you remember. We haven’t
yet been able to do anything…”

“I
know.” His voice was hard, abrupt. “I expected no less.”

“We are
still trying,” Dumbledore assured him. Snape stood up without
acknowledging what he said and began to leave, but Dumbledore put a hand gently
on his shoulder. “We will beat this, Severus.”

Snape shrugged
him off and left abruptly, not particularly wanting to listen to any more empty
promises or false reassurances. They wouldn’t
beat it.

He walked
purposefully through the halls of the castle toward his dungeon room, near his
classroom and his House’s rooms, as if he were confident and untroubled.
The temperature went down as he went lower in the castle, and the cool air
soothed him somewhat, cleared his mind so that he could think. By the time he
was sitting in his ascetic quarters, he had begun formulating a plan, the only
workable one, as far as he could see, as much as he hated it.

He couldn’t not show up. It would be beyond suspicious
if he abruptly stopped coming after the announcement of his previous visit
– it would be damning. Maybe he could gradually stop coming, under the
pretense of the danger of being found out… But he had to go this weekend.
At least he had this week to recompose himself – no, wait, he
didn’t. Pomfrey had said ‘three
days’. Today was either Wednesday or Thursday. His visit to Voldemort was
already looming close upon the horizon… and the thought made him sick
again.

The door opened
without a knock, and Dumbledore entered. “Severus,” he said.
“I need you to trust me. You’re not in this alone.”

He didn’t
reply to the words. “What day is it?” he asked instead, barely
glancing at the headmaster.

“Thursday,”
Dumbledore told him. “But I don’t expect you to go back this
weekend-”

“I’m
going to. It would be suspicious if I didn’t.”

Dumbledore
looked at him levelly. “You’ve contributed more than your
share,” he said finally. “You never need to go back to him
again.”

Snape finally
turned to glare coldly at him. “He will
come after me if I don’t. I doubt even being at Hogwarts would protect me
if he thought I was a spy, or I had defected, after… that.”

“You would
be safe here, until he was defeated-”

“I’m
not going to hide here for the rest of my life!” he yelled, then seemed
to regain his control over himself. “I won’t hide,” he
repeated more calmly. “I’m going back. I’ll eventually stop
going, but I’m not going to cut it off so abruptly. I have more respect
for my own life than to do something like that.”

Dumbledore
nodded and let out a breath. “You’re right, of course. Very well,
go back to him. But remember, please, to be careful.” Then he left as
unannounced as he had come, and Snape sat on the edge of the bed for a moment,
resigning himself completely, before leaving the room
for his office.

* * * * *

Harry sat in the
Gryffindor common room, watching Ron’s wizard chess pieces beat the crap
out of his. “I heard Snape’s back,” he said. “He was
gone for five whole days this time.”

Hermione looked
up from her book. “I heard that as well. Ginny was in his class today
– she told me he actually took points from Slytherin.” The other two looked suitably shocked. “Of
course, that was after he took more than fifty points from
Gryffindor…”

“That
sounds more like the old Snape,” Ron said, watching his queen knock out
Harry’s rook. “But since when does he take points from his own
house? Something weird’s going on with
him.”

Harry pulled his
unconscious piece from the board. “Not necessarily… I guess
it’s possible that he could have been sick this week and was just in a
bad mood…”

Hermione gave up
on studying and turned to face them. “For once, I agree with Ron. I think
that there is definitely something we need to find out about him –
he’s acting completely out of character, and I think it has something to
do with where he goes on the weekends.”

“Actually,”
said Harry, “he’s acting too much in character… like he’s overdoing it.”

“So what
were you suggesting, Hermione?” Ron asked curiously, not even watching as
he queen checkmated Harry’s king and stuck out her tongue.
“You’re saying we should follow him?”

She looked a
little appalled. “No, no, nothing like
that… I just think we should keep tabs on him.”

“And how
do we do that without following him?”

“Honestly,
Ron, there are other was of watching people than just with your eyes! Look,
I’ll show you on Saturday, when he leaves – all right? That is, if
Harry agrees that we need to watch him.”

Harry thought
about it for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah,
something weird is definitely going on…”

* * * * *

“Look,
there he is!” Hermione whispered, pointing. They could indeed see the
dark shape of Professor Snape walking across the grounds, toward the forest. He
presumably cut through it to the entrance to the grounds, so that he could
Disapparate – since, as Hermione had made clear probably every year since
their first, no one could Apparate or Disapparate inside school grounds.

“Hurry
up!” Ron said anxiously. “He’s going to be too far
away!”

Hermione lifted
her wand and muttered a spell under her breath, then flicked it toward the
teacher. A nearly invisible force rushed toward him, then
he paused in his tracks when it made contact. They all ducked quickly down
behind the wall so that they wouldn’t be seen.

Snape looked back.
He was certain he had just felt a spell hit him… There was no one to be
seen, but there were countless places a person could hide. He didn’t have
time for this, however – he just muttered a Dispell charm for himself and
walked on. He couldn’t afford to be late.

Harry peeked
over the edge of the wall. “He’s gone,” he said. “I
guess he didn’t notice…”

Ron and Hermione
looked over as well. “Well, that worked better than expected,” she
said. “I thought he’d at least try to find the culprit.” She
stood up and dusted herself off. “Hurry up! We should get back to the
common room so that we can watch him!”

Bemused and
confused, the boys just went along with it, following her back into the castle
and toward their tower. Luckily, the common room was all but deserted, and they
could sit in a corner and talk quietly. Hermione pulled out a piece of
parchment, looked around furtively, and tapped it once with her wand. A picture
blossomed out from the middle of it, a map on the top half of the page with a
glowing green dot, showing the location of Snape, and on the bottom half a
scene that actually showed him, as though they were standing there and
watching.

“Where is
he?” Ron asked, looking at the map, as Harry was, more
concerned with where he was than what he was doing at the moment.

“Somewhere
in London,”
Hermione told him distractedly. “It’s hard to be very exact with
this spell, plus he tried to Dispell it, I think. It wasn’t powerful
enough to break the spell, but it did fuzz it up a little. Look!”

Their gazes
suddenly flew to the picture. They could see a little Snape standing in a
dingy-looking house, talking to someone they couldn’t quite see yet, but
they did see that he bowed slightly to the other. Then the other came into the
picture, and they could see who it was. Hermione gasped and almost dropped the
parchment, while Ron jerked backward as though the person in the picture would
try to cast a spell on him.

“Voldemort,”
Harry said grimly.

“Shh!”
Hermione ordered. “We can hear them, if we listen.”

“What
news, my pet?” the evil wizard asked in a quiet, sibilant voice.

Snape
didn’t meet his eyes as he spoke, remaining subservient to his apparent
master. “After your attack on him, Remus Lupin has gone into hiding,” he told him.

“Very
good,” Voldemort told him. “And I suppose you know where he
is?”

“No.”
Harry breathed a sigh of relief, and felt the others doing the same behind him.
Then Snape went on. “But I know who his secret-keeper is.”

“That slimy git!” Ron cried out. “I know
he hates Lupin, but he’s actually selling him
out to You-Know-Who! I can’t believe him.”

“Ron,
shush!” Hermione hissed, looking at the other people in the room, who
were looking curiously at them. Maybe they hadn’t heard exactly what he
said, but his agitation was obvious.

“Sorry,”
Ron said more quietly. “It’s just… He’s actually
selling him out!”

“I guess
you were right about him, Ron,” Harry said. “I even thought he
could be trusted – I was an idiot.”

“Sh,”
Hermione hissed. “They’re still talking – we already missed
who Professor Lupin’s secret-keeper is.”

They quieted
down to listen again. “Nothing else, My Lord,” they heard Snape
say, and Ron looked ready to jump through the parchment and punch the professor
on the nose. Voldemort seemed contented with what he had learned from his spy
and gave Snape a pat on the arm. Harry saw with vague disgust that Snape
didn’t react to the touch at all.

“Very
good,” he said. “You’ve done well for yourself this week, my
pet.” Harry wondered why he kept calling him that, and why Snape
didn’t seem to mind. If Voldemort had called him that… the very
idea made him want to throw up. “I think you deserve a reward.”
Then he pulled Snape closer and kissed him.

Harry quickly
moved away from the parchment in pure and utter disgust. Hermione uttered a
little shriek and dropped it to the floor, while Ron moved away gagging. He
looked like he really was going to throw up.

Hermione quickly
snatched up the parchment and made the scene disappear, looking somewhat ashen
but in control of herself. “This is serious,” she said.

“This is
disgusting!” Ron hissed, leaning toward them. “Not only is he
spying for You-Know-Who – but he’s sleeping with him!”

Hermione
shuddered and Harry felt a cold wave wash over him. He couldn’t even
comprehend that – why would anyone sleep with Voldemort? He thought even
Snape was above that, no matter how power-hungry he was. It was disgusting.

“We have
to go to Dumbledore,” Hermione went on. “He has to know what Snape
is up to.”

“Do you
seriously think he’ll believe us?” Ron said. “It’s just
our word…”

“He’ll
believe us,” Harry said. “Especially if we show
him this.” He indicated the parchment.

“Then
let’s go!” Ron said, but Hermione seemed to realize that Harry was
still uneasy about something.

“What is
it, Harry?”

He hesitated, then decided to tell them. “I just don’t know
how he trusted him… Dumbledore put his faith in Snape, but he was a spy
all along. How could he not have known?”

Ron shrugged.
“Who knows? But didn’t you say that Snape was an expert at the Ocomancy thing?”

“Occlumancy,” Hermione corrected him. “And he
is, isn’t he? He could be lying to Dumbledore using it.”

Of course
– he’d forgotten all about that. “You’re right. We have
to go tell Dumbledore.”

The other two
stood up, and Harry took off at a run, leading them down the halls toward the
gargoyle the guarded the entrance to the Headmaster’s office on the other
side of the castle. It seemed to take forever – at least an hour had
passed since they had started watching Snape when they got there. “Jelly
slug,” he told it, a little breathlessly, and it hopped out of the way,
revealing a revolving spiral staircase, onto which they all stepped. It carried
them all upwards, until they reached the landing, and the door opened for them
before they could knock.

“Come in,
Harry, Ron, Hermione,” Dumbledore said genially. “Pull up a
chair.” He summoned several cushy chintz armchairs from the air and let
them fall to the ground in front of his desk. Awed, Ron and Hermione slowly
walked in, looking around them – Hermione, of course, had never been
there before, and Ron only once, when his father had been attacked by Lord
Voldemort’s snake, and it was all rather new to both of them.

Fawkes was sitting on his perch, in all of his glory.
Hermione looked in awe at the phoenix for a moment, but was distracted by the
portrait of a former Headmaster that told her staring was impolite, and hurried
to a chair. Ron did likewise, but Harry just stood in front of the desk,
choosing not to sit.

“Professor,”
he said, “we have to tell you something.”

“Really?” Dumbledore seemed surprised.
“Somehow, I thought you had a different reason for running to my office
in the middle of a fine autumn afternoon.” It was only then that they
realized he was being lightly sarcastic – he still seemed kind as he said
it.

“It’s
about Snape,” he said.

“Professor Snape, Harry,”
Dumbledore corrected him.

Hermione put the
blank parchment up on the desk, and he tapped it lightly, a little reluctant to
touch it after what he’d seen. “He’s spying for
Voldemort.”

“Professor
Snape is on our side,” Dumbledore told him, looking serious.
“I’ve told all of you this before.”

“But we
have proof, professor!” Hermione said, agitated. “We – I
– put a Tracking Spell on him to find out where he went every weekend,
and it showed us…” She looked away, suddenly embarrassed.

“It showed
us Snape selling out Professor Lupin to him!”
Ron finished, leaning forward. “We saw him tell him who his secret-keeper
is!”

“This is
very serious,” Dumbledore said, his fingers touching in front of his
face.

“And
that’s not all,” Harry told him. “He’s not just spying
for him… He’s…” He was suddenly unwilling to say
something so disgusting. “He’s sleeping with him,” he said
finally.

“This is
very serious indeed,” Dumbledore said, looking at them over the tops of
his glasses. Harry suddenly felt uneasy.

“We know,
Professor,” Hermione told him. “That’s why we came to see you
immediately.”

“No,”
Dumbledore answered. “I meant you three spying on a teacher.”

Hermione looked
shocked, but silent. Ron sat forward and spoke up, though. “But we saw
him! Look at what we found out!”

“Yeah!” Harry said, leaning forward on the desk.
“We saw him sell out Professor Lupin!”

There was a quiet,
cold voice behind them. “And if you had spied on me a moment longer, you
would have heard me tell him that Lupin’s
secret-keeper was Professor Dumbledore, which, besides being completely untrue,
convinced him that he would never be able to get the secret.” Harry and
the others turned around quickly, to see Snape standing near the door, his eyes
narrowed, holding his wand in one white hand. He was nearly trembling with
suppressed rage.

“Severus,”
Dumbledore said calmly, “I will handle this.”

“Of course
you will,” Snape said bitterly. “And the golden child will once
more escape unscathed.” He looked like he wanted to hit Harry with an
Unforgivable Curse, but didn’t even raise his wand, with Dumbledore in
the room.

“No, not
this time,” Dumbledore assured him. “I know I have been very
lenient in the past, but this will be punished, I assure you. Now please, go.
I’m sure you need your rest.”

“I will
not,” Snape snapped, glaring at Harry, then
switching quickly to the headmaster with his gaze.

Dumbledore
contemplated him for a moment, then nodded.
“Ron, Hermione, excuse us. I will arrange a detention for you
later.”

Hermione seemed
absolutely stricken. “But Headmaster-!”

“But
didn’t you hear?” Ron asked. “We saw You-Know-Who kiss
him!”

There was a
gasp. Harry, who turned quickly to look back at Snape, saw him take a miniscule
step backward and stand against the doorframe. He was normally pale, but now he
was completely white, rivaling even Lord Voldemort’s skin tone, and his
cold black eyes looked flat and dead. Harry was afraid his wand would snap
under the strain of his grip.

“”Ron,
Hermione, go back to your tower,” Dumbledore ordered them, not appearing
angry yet but apparently losing patience. “And speak of this to no one.”
With a look at his face, the two of them hurried to obey, keeping as far from
Snape as they could as they went through the door.

“Now, Harry,”
Harry snapped his head back around to Dumbledore as he spoke, looking upon his
very serious face, and felt uneasy again, and guilty, though he still thought
he was right. “I have told you many times before the Professor Snape is on our side. You have chosen time and time again to
disregard everything I’ve told you and believe that you know better than
me. I am telling you again that Professor Snape is not only on our side, but is
a very valuable member of the Order and has probably risked more for our cause
than any other single person.” Harry looked back at the potions master,
but Snape still looked ready to Avada Kedavra him at any moment. And as a Death
Eater – or even a former Death Eater – he had probably done so
before…

“You are
to stop spying upon, persecuting, and disrespecting Professor Snape as of this
moment, Harry, and inform Ron and Hermione of that as well. I will not allow
strife and distrust between two people who are so important to our mission.”

Harry didn’t
buy it. He was still mostly convinced that Snape was spying on Dumbledore’s
plans and relaying them to Voldemort… he was a double agent, and Dumbledore
was just blind to the fact. He trusted him too much.

“I don’t
trust him, Professor.” He said it calmly, trying to make Dumbledore see
Snape for what he really was.

Before he
realized Snape had moved he had Harry by the collar and was lifting him
slightly. Harry found himself staring into cold, murderously angry eyes. “Listen
to me, you sneaky little brat,” he said very calmly, through clenched
teeth. “I have put up with your suspicion and mistrust, but I will not allow you to put me in danger.
If you and your friends ever put a
spell on me again-” Harry was groping for his wand, but Snape’s was
already pressed to his neck, and he could be dead in seconds if Snape decided
he was angry enough with him…

“Severus!”
Dumbledore said harshly, standing behind his desk. “I appreciate your
condition and how you must feel, but I cannot allow you to threaten a student!”

“Oh, let
the boy have his fun,” said a portrait of a former Slytherin headmaster,
Phineas Nigellus. “And you have to admit, this particular student
deserves to be taken down a few pegs.”

Snape released
his pent up aggression by glaring at the picture. The glass shattered with only
his look, and Phineas ducked quickly out of the frame, reappearing in the
picture of Headmaster Dippet.

“I say,
that really was uncalled for, Severus!”

“Why not, Professor Dumbledore?” Harry asked,
feeling belligerent and combative. “He’s done it before – in class
even.”

“You little-!” Snape began, and Harry was
suddenly sure he had pushed just the wrong buttons there.

“Severus!
Leave!” Dumbledore ordered. Snape glanced at him, then threw down his
handful of Harry’s robes and stalked from the room without a backward
glance, slamming the door behind him. As an apparent after thought, the glass
of Headmaster Dippet’s picture shattered as well, and Phineas again
dodged to another picture.

“Harry,
sit.” Harry understood it was an order, not a request, and sat, silent
and wary. He had never seen Dumbledore anywhere even approaching angry with him
before, and it was frightening to behold.

Dumbledore
remained standing. “Listen closely, Harry,” he said, looking down
at him. “Severus Snape has made sacrifices you could not dream of, much
less actually make, and ultimately in defense of you, despite your mutual dislike. He has risked his life, liberty,
and sanity to gather information for us, and if not for his work, Voldemort
would be much stronger today than he currently is. The spell you three put on
him put him in great danger of being found out, due to the nature of his work.”

“You mean, what he does with Voldemort…” Harry shuddered.

“He’s
only picking up where he left off almost twenty years ago. Voldemort trusts him
– perhaps too much – and we’re taking as much advantage of
that fact as we can. There are few other people who would be willing to do what
he does, and he is the only one who
is both willing and able. I honestly believe I am doing wrong by using him as I
do, but the fact is, Harry, that we need him, and you are not to suspect him
again. If the danger to him is not enough, consider the fact that you endanger
everything we’ve worked for as well.”

Harry nodded dumbly.
He couldn’t help but believe Dumbledore… but that meant that he
would have to believe Snape was really on their side. It seemed so strange.
Snape had always been a Bad Guy; it wasn’t easy for him to think that he
might actually be trustworthy. He had tried it before, but always in the back
of his mind was the fact that Snape was a Bad Guy – he always had to keep
an eye on him.

“Good,”
Dumbledore said. “Now go back to your common room. I’ll see the
three of you tomorrow to arrange detentions.”

Harry nodded and
left.

Dumbledore sat
down again with a small sigh. Harry was causing so much trouble for Severus…
Why couldn’t he just trust him? Severus hadn’t done anything…
lately… to deserve this.

He opened the
parchment Hermione had left. After a moment and a tap with his wand, the same
map and picture appeared that the students had seen earlier, set this time in
the dungeons. Snape was in his office, pacing quickly, and every so often one
of his bottled animals would explode. Dumbledore appreciated that he had kept
that temper in check – mostly – until he had gone. So thinking, he
pointed his wand at the shattered pictures and said “Reparo,”
as the professor did the same to his jar, returning it to the shelf with his
wand as he continued pacing. His temper flared again and another bottle
shattered; he didn’t even bother to repair it this time. Dumbledore
thought of going to him, trying to talk to him, but he knew he wouldn’t
be appreciated, and just closed the parchment, putting it inside his desk.
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Old Habits Die Hard