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Harry Potter and the Rising Phoenix	By : TallyHo Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 7223 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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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Thank you for
reviewing. This took longer than I
expected to get out, thanks to several different elements of life working as
one. A slightly poetic way of saying the
past weeks were rather sucky. Ah, and I�ve come across a general feeling in
the reviews of �don�t forget the story! Update!�� you really shouldn�t
worry yourselves. The chapters will be
posted when they�re written and Beta�d, and I�m not
going to stop writing ^^

The Great Hall was
silent after the Sorting Hat�s words except for a door slamming somewhere. Gale closed his eyes briefly so that he would
not have to watch the space Snape had occupied before. When he opened his eyes once more, the spot
had been filled with other curious Professors.

�What�� it was a
weak beginning, but the words strengthened.
McGonagall�s voice snapped the other
instructors out of their stupor. �Just
what is going on here, young man? How�
who��

�Are you all
blind?� the Hat demanded of the group callously. �This is Har-mph!�

Gale scrunched the
Hat�s mouth shut before his identity could be betrayed.

�Gale Diggory,
Fawks, and the Sorting Hat,� he began, coming forward until he reached the
space meant for the duels between the first years. The students all shuffled backwards hurriedly
to give him space. �I got a bit lost
trying to get here and stumbled upon them.�

The Hat�s sour
grumbling went unnoticed.

�Stumb� stumbled upon them, did you?� McGonagall
repeated incredulously, but she couldn�t argue with Fawk�s
soft trill and finally relented into silence for a moment.

�Yes,� Gale
affirmed simply, then looked at Fawks questioningly. The Phoenix
piped a high, pure note and looked back at him obdurately. He wasn�t going to find a new perch. Gale bit the inside of his lip thoughtfully
before reaching out his other hand to offer the Hat to McGonagall. She looked at it warily, as if it might bite.

�See here now!�
the Hat spluttered, wiggling slightly in Gale�s grasp. �I�ll Sort this lot out,� he wiggled his
shabby self in the general direction of the blinking first years, �but I�ll be
taking a more active role in Hogwarts now.
I can�t trust you not to listen to sense now that Dumbledore�s not
milling about. Har�
ah� whatever he calls himself now; I�ll be making sure Hogwarts survives the
war from his head. He was the only one who listened to me when it still wasn�t too
late. Not that it did much good,
really��

Gale was at first
taken aback, but was quickly scowling at the chatty Sorting Hat. When McGonagall
cleared her throat and looked at him pointedly, he straightened out his
expression and nodded once.

�Very
well. Don�t just stand there,�
she whirled upon the other teachers, who started at the sudden switch of
attention. �Fetch a stool! All first years, gather together in front of
the head table now. Don�t make me repeat
myself!�

Many bodies rushed
to do her bidding while Gale found an empty chair off to his left and went over
to offer Fawks the perch. The Phoenix
took it elegantly, but kept a careful eye on him as he straightened and looked
over the students of Hogwarts.

There were so few
of them. It was amazing to see, since
all his memories of the same Hall were always filled with too many faces. The Slytherin table had the least amount of
people. He counted twenty one sitting
there, pale faces turned to him while they leaned over to whisper to each
other. There were no young faces. Gale felt an overwhelming sense of
recognition as he connected eyes with a few of them.

Their souls had
aged in their single, short life just as his had aged in two.

His gray-green
eyes wandered over to the more populated Gryffindor and Hufflepuff table. Here was where the freshest of the faces
were. A wide array of maturity stared
back at him as he tried not to concentrate on one set of interested eyes more
than the next.

Ravenclaw was
completely empty. There was a memory
deep within Gale that stirred at the sight of the barren table.

�I�m just saying,� Hermione murmured
half-defensively from behind a very large volume entitled �The Dark Creatures
Handbook� �Dumbledore is very clever for
starting the Watch. It�s a smart move.�

�It�s a pain in the neck, that�s what it
is,� Ron shot back, trying to concentrate on levitating a paper ball over to
Harry�s side of the table. Harry was
playfully sending it back. �I knew there�d
be a downside to no more out-of-class assignments. Instead of staying up all night finishing a
length of parchment, we�re staying up all night wandering about the Forbidden Forest.�

�We hardly wander, Ron,� Hermione peeked over her massive tome and scowled at them. �Oh, do try to pay attention to what we�re
doing here, you two. I can�t babysit and research.�

�Lighten� up,
Hermione,� Ron said, rolling his eyes.
The lost eye contact with the ball sent it zooming towards him before
Harry could stop it. The paper orb
bounced off Ron�s head and plopped down on the Library floor. Ron frowned at Harry while the dark-haired
boy smothered a laugh, rubbing his forehead and picking up a book from the
large stack in front of them. �We can�t
let this bloody thing run our whole lives.
We�d go mad in the first week.�

Hermione�s narrowed eyes showed what she
thought of that, but she didn�t say anything else and ducked back behind her
book.

�So who�s got Watch tonight?� Harry said
after he�d gotten his amusement under control.
Ron threw down the book he�d barely glanced at and grinned at him.

�Ravenclaw, poor saps.
They�ve only got three students who can see Thestrals,
and two of them are first years. It�ll
be a long night for �em,� Ron looked not at all sympathetic. Harry smiled ruefully while Hermione cleared
her throat to garner their attention.

�Actually,� she stated, �I volunteered us
again tonight. For
those same exact reasons.�

Gale vaguely
remembering that being the first time he�d actually had to physically restrain
Ron from attacking Hermione. He hadn�t
been too pleased with her either.

The Watch was a good idea. It put less strain on the Professors to
protect the castle and helped prepare the students for battle, but with the war
now centered in the Forbidden Forest
how could students be trusted with such an important task?

He mentally put it
on his �things to find out� list and idly stroked Fawks� head while the Phoenix
surveyed the student population just as vigilantly. Drawing his thoughts away from the past, he
watched as a stool was brought out from some side closet and placed near the
head table. The Sorting Hat was slipped
onto too small heads and the diminutive first year crowd began to steadily dwindle
off into the Houses.

Slytherin didn�t
grow at all, but the rest of the Houses purloined a few new members.

It was at the
moment that the entire body of new students was gone and McGonagall
was looking at Gale pointedly, that a strong, piquant voice cracked over all of
them.

�Him,� the voice
both condemned and resurrected something profoundly dead within Gale. He couldn�t breathe. �He goes to Slytherin.�

It had to be a
dream. A
hallucination. Desperate, sad
mixtures of grief and insanity that cheated his eyes and sliced open his heart.

Harry had not
risen from the dead. The Boy-Who-Lived
was no more. Snape remembered. He couldn�t stop remembering.

No. Nonononononono. If one single image
of it streaked across his mind, what was left of his rationale would pass away
without so much as a squirm of fight. Snape accepted the truth of his lover�s
demise. But to dwell upon anything but
the cold facts of it brought him into a world he would never escape from.

So, no, Snape did
not remember. It was a detached moment
of important history that just happened to occur in his proximity to people he
was intimately involved with. That was
all.

He needed a
Calming Drought.

His fingers were
clumsy and wet with tears while he handled the small vial, downing the syrupy
cobalt potion and feeling the effects of it as soon as it hit his empty
stomach.

His body stopped
shaking. His eyes stopped watering. His mind stopped that infernal, depressed
rambling. His heart found a rhythm
instead of just thrashing around.

He straightened
his robes, washed his face and hands, walked back up the corridor and entered
the Great Hall through the same door he�d exited from.

If it weren�t for
the potion, he�d have run right back out again.

He forced himself
to stay still, to continue looking at� at the imposter.

Slowly he began to
find the things wrong. The things that were missing.

The boy�s eyes
weren�t bright enough. His skin was
about as pale, but with a much healthier undertone than what it should have
had. He�d been taken care of as a child. His hair was dark, but not black. Not brown either. It managed to make a color in-between.

And there was no
scar.

No. This was not a resurrected Harry, come to
torment the rest of his life. This was a
boy with an uncanny likeness and equal if not greater power, being able to open
Dumbledore�s sealed office to fetch the Phoenix
and the Sorting Hat.

Snape grabbed a
hold of that thought, clung to it as if his life depended on it. He was a Slytherin. He would use this.

�Him,� he said, a
bit louder than he intended, after the last of the first years had run off to
their new House. �He goes to Slytherin.�
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Harry Potter and the Rising Phoenix