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Parsimony	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 14122 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Four—Tunnels and Tunnel Vision

            By the time that he actually got to the Shrieking Shack, Harry’s eyes were watering desperately, and his nose ached from sneezing. He had known the place was dusty before, but right now, he wondered how in the world he and his friends could have got close enough before to see Voldemort without alerting him.

            There was the entrance to the Shack ahead. Harry paused and steadied himself against the dizzying flow of memories, both of Snape’s death and of the time when they had confronted Wormtail here. He would have said that all the adults in the room that day were dead now.

            Except that he had the letters. And if it wasn’t Snape, then someone might be here who could tell him what had happened to Snape, at least. The temptation was irresistible.

            I hope Hermione and Ron understand that if they wake up and find me gone.

            His hand shook, so he waited until it could be steady before he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

            The inside of the Shack looked scraped clean. There was no dust anywhere here that Harry could see. Instead, he stood on the edge of a long circle, drawn with what looked like blue chalk, and in the center burned a brazier. Harry frowned. He didn’t know what the brazier was burning, but he could feel it tickling the back of his throat. Suddenly he wondered if it had really been dust that made him sneeze in the tunnel after all.

            The only piece of furniture in the whole room was a small pallet on the floor against the far wall. And sitting on it was…

            Snape. Or someone who’s really good with glamours or Polyjuice.

            It did look like Snape, at least a Snape who’d been dragged face-downward through the Forbidden Forest for weeks. His hair wasn’t just greasy, but dirty and twined with twigs. Leaves clung to the side of his throat where Harry had seen Nagini bite him. When Snape turned and stared at him, Harry saw that his hands shook, and his skin had a layer of dirt caked in that had practically changed the color.

            “Uh,” Harry said. He thought about coming closer, but for one thing, there was the circle on the floor that covered the whole way he’d need to take to get to Snape, and for another, it was Snape. “Hi.”

            Snape’s lips curled up, and he shook his head. “That was the only thing you could say to me when we first met,” he murmured. “Of course it would be. I should have known better than to depend on someone like you.”

            “Yeah, you should have,” Harry agreed, his temper rising. He had known this would be different. Snape dead was one thing, Snape being alive was another, and Harry had known that he wouldn’t handle it well. He could keep from launching into a tirade, but if Snape wanted his help and yet approached it like this, then Harry was sure he would handle anything else Snape wanted him to do badly. “Unless you think you can actually depend on me to work for you, which you can. But if what you want is some Slytherin who obeys all your directions because he already knows what they are, then you can fuck off.”

            The words seemed to hang in the thick, strangely-perfumed air between them. Snape blinked once or twice. The smoke wavered across Harry’s vision. The circle on the floor shimmered. Harry remained near the door, and wondered why he’d never said that before. It had felt good.

            Detentions and lines, that’s why.

            “Well,” Snape said at last, and leaned back on his pallet, supporting his weight against the wall. “And I had thought you changed after the war.”

            “The old Harry would have mouthed off to you differently,” Harry said shortly. “Where you couldn’t hear it. So, yeah, I am.”

            Again, silence. Harry thought about turning around and going back to bed. Well, he was going to if Snape didn’t stop being stupid.

            “This is what I want from you,” Snape said at last. His voice was carefully neutral. Harry wondered if it was simply that he no longer knew what to expect from Harry, and so had to make sure that he was offering words that couldn’t be misinterpreted. Of course, knowing Snape, it was probably something much more complicated than that, something Harry would never think of before Snape decided he was stupid. “As you may have noticed, my wound is not completely healed.”

            “You’re not bleeding all over the floor,” Harry said. “So it’s more healed than I expected.”

            Snape sneered in that way that seemed habitual and turned his head to the side again. This time, Harry could see better—although he still wished the bloody brazier and its bloody smoke were out of the way—and he realized the leaves weren’t just clinging to Snape’s neck. They’d been pressed there, and around them was another sticky blue dusting, outlining the leaves the way the chalk outlined the circle of the Shrieking Shack. If Harry concentrated closely enough, then he thought he could see drips and dabs of blood around the blue outline.

            “Nagini’s bite could be counteracted,” Snape said. “It could not be healed. My body was sent to a safe place, but I could not stay there. I had to return to the scene of my death and then take precautions to ensure that I did not die.”

            “Who sent it?” Harry asked, because he was sure no ordinary person would be proof against the way McGonagall’s eyes had looked when she heard that they couldn’t find Snape’s body.

            Snape looked smug, and didn’t answer.

            “Look,” Harry said, trying to hold onto his temper. It was hard. His temper felt like a dog that had almost chewed its way through its leash, and Snape’s twitching hand, as if he would reach for his wand, didn’t help. “If you want me to get you a fair trial, you’ve at least got to explain why you didn’t come forward at first and ask McGonagall when all that sentiment was swirling around after the war. It would have been easy to get you one then. People were willing to believe that you did everything you could to help the students while you were Headmaster.”

            “I do not want a fair trial,” Snape said, and leaned forwards far enough to make the curtain of hair fell across his eyes again. Harry shook his head. If Snape was trying to convince him that he was sincere and really wanted to be helped, then he was doing a poor job of it. “I want no trial at all.”

            Harry blinked. Snape just sat there, though, staring at him, and stubbornly not making sense. Harry licked his lips and tried to think of something that would make it make sense. Finally he said, “Then why contact me? You’re the only one who can answer that question, and I thought you wanted someone to stand up for you.”

            “How pitifully you put things, Potter,” Snape drawled, shaking his head. “If you thought for a moment that I would depend on you to that extent, then I could wish Nagini’s fangs had sunk deeper, so I would not have to endure listening to you.”

            Harry closed his eyes and shook his head back and forth. The smoke drifting from the brazier was making his lungs hurt. He wanted to get out of there and breathe the clear air that he’d breathed coming in from the Quidditch pitch, which now seemed like a marvel of peace and quiet, although nothing special while he was crossing it.

            “Then tell me what you need,” he said finally. “Other than me to go away and stop bothering you.”

            Silence again. Harry openly rolled his eyes. He didn’t care if this was “disturbing” Snape. He was the one who had called Harry here and insisted on talking to him, so the least he could do was talk.

            Finally, Snape snarled and began to speak as though someone was inside his throat pushing the words out. “I do not wish to have a trial. I do not wish to give the wizarding world the chance to stare at me and whisper over me and prove to their own satisfaction that I am the coward they always thought I was.”

            Harry blinked at him. The only thing he could think of at that moment was the way Snape had reacted when Harry called him a coward on the night he killed Dumbledore.

            “So,” Snape said. “I rely on you to find me a way back into the wizarding world without the necessity of a trial.”

            “I can’t think of one,” Harry said promptly. “The end.”

            Snape gave him a look that made it seem as if only boredom kept him from reaching out and crushing Harry’s throat. Harry promptly fell into a defensive crouch, adopted before he thought about it. Snape shook his head and glanced away again. One hand rose to the leaves crusted on his throat in a way that suggested he made the gesture a lot.

            “I rely on your intelligence,” Snape said, and interrupted himself with a dry laugh, “to figure it out. I will trust no one else.”

            “But you should,” Harry pointed out, and wondered why he had to be the adult in this situation. And with Malfoy, too. It seemed unfair to him that he had to be the one who pointed out the obvious and suggested alternatives to two self-obsessed Slytherins. They weren’t his friends, who could use the help and were adults besides.

            Well. That’s the way it is. I was the one who chose to talk to Malfoy and come out here. I could have stayed in my nice warm bed.

            Once I found out some way to get rid of the bloody owl.

            “Why should I?” Snape shook his head. “Looking for company in the public spotlight of gawking, Potter?”

            “Because there are people who would be overjoyed to see you,” Harry said firmly. “McGonagall mourned you when she thought you were dead. The Slytherins would like to see you back. There are people like Ron and Hermione who know the real story and would support you. Even the papers have some of the real story now, because I told it to them.” He thought about the owls. Snape might have some news from the outside world if he could see through their eyes, but not a lot. “Did you know that? The world could welcome you back.”

            “But there would be a trial,” Snape whispered. “A trial for killing Dumbledore. For being Headmaster of the school under the Dark Lord’s rule.”

            “Hey,” Harry said. “You know what? You don’t know that there’ll be a trial. Come out of hiding. And I promise, Voldemort is dead. He won’t come haunt you if you say his name.”

            The glance Snape gave him physically hurt, that time. Harry winced despite himself, and saw Snape’s lips thin in what looked like satisfaction. Bastard. Harry glared at him, and Snape started to respond, but then he began to cough.

            The coughs were deep, tearing sounds, and worked their way out of Snape’s throat destructively, ripping what sounded like his throat walls into shreds. When Snape recovered from them, he leaned more heavily against the wall than ever, and closed his eyes as though his sight was blurring.

            Harry hesitated. He didn’t want to ask, he didn’t want to ask, he shouldn’t have to ask…

            “Are you all right?” But damn it, of course he was going to ask. Maybe it wasn’t just his righteousness that had made Snape ask him for help.

            “A legacy of the bite,” Snape said, and opened his eyes. “In any case. Emerging from hiding is impossible right now. I need the ritual circle that I have set up to keep myself alive, until and unless you can bring me Potions ingredients, and the ritual is Dark magic. If the Ministry agreed to spare me from trial for my crimes during the war, they would still try me for using it.”

            “Then you could just not tell them you used it,” Harry suggested. That made the most sense to him, but he was sure Snape was going to tell him he was stupid for some reason he hadn’t thought of in a moment. That seemed to be what Snape lived to do. “Get out of here and go to the Ministry, and they don’t have to know about the Dark Arts.”

            Snape bared his teeth at Harry. “Someone would find out. People who live to try and destroy me are alive still.”

            Harry blinked a little. “Wow,” he said at last. “What is it like to be that paranoid? Does it hurt?”

            Snape began to heave himself to his feet. His limbs shook, and he looked as if he was in pain, so much so that Harry winced and began to wish he had never said anything. But Snape had to sink down again and bow his head as though he was weathering a winter wind, instead of standing and striding at Harry across the circle. His breaths were weak and gasping, and Harry felt his stomach twist as he looked at him.

            He didn’t like to see anyone in pain. That seemed to include Snape, as arrogant and stupid as Snape was, as much as Harry still disliked him.

            Not hated him. I don’t think I can hate him now that I know what he felt about my mum.

            “You do not understand, and will not,” Snape said at last. “Someone would find out. Someone would always be working towards my downfall, if only because someone would believe I did not deserve to survive for killing—Albus.” The choke of pain when he said that name made Harry wince again, because…well, because. “I will not have that. I will have safety, and freedom, and peace.”

            “What Potions ingredients do you need to stop using this circle, then?” Harry asked reluctantly. He coughed as the smoke burned the back of his throat again. “Is the fire part of it?”

            Snape didn’t bother to sneer this time; the twitch of his shoulders did the same thing. “Of course, imbecile. Do you think I would willingly light a fire in an enclosed space otherwise?”

            “There’s this thing some people do,” Harry muttered, low enough that he thought Snape probably couldn’t hear, “called cooking, which lights fire in enclosed spaces all the time.”

            “Since the snake bit me, I have not eaten,” Snape said.

            Harry did some more gaping, and didn’t quite manage to close his mouth before Snape looked up. Snape’s satisfaction in that showed in the way his eyes narrowed. Harry glared at him and struck out, more or less at random. “Then—how have you been living? How can you have stayed alive this long, even if the magic is helping you?”

            For a moment, he decided Snape hadn’t heard the question, or at least might not want to explain. The silence lingered between them, and from the way Snape cocked his head and touched the leaves binding his throat, Harry thought he might be sorry that he’d started the subject in the first place.

            Then Snape said, “Surviving the snake meant that I had to call upon resources that I did not know I would use. You saw me die. I did. I also returned, as you did.” Harry nodded, reassured that Snape knew at least that much. Or maybe he just knew that much because of what he knew about Dumbledore’s plans for Harry. Harry must have got past them somehow if he was standing here. “Since then, I have not eaten and not left this place because I am not human. Not any longer. I will not be unless I can brew a potion it that I read of in—a book you do not need the title of, long ago. But I cannot leave the place that keeps me alive unless I can contrive some way of moving the circle and the brazier along with me. So far, that has escaped even my cleverness.”

            What cleverness? Harry wanted to ask, but he knew it was kind of useless to ask. He settled for nodding and hunkering down in front of Snape, who drew back from him even though Harry was on the other side of the circle.

            It must really have galled him to ask for my help.

            Not that it really reconciled Harry to helping Snape, but once again, there appeared to be no one else.

            “Fine,” he said. “Then you need the ingredients. I’ll get them for you.”

            Snape laughed harshly. It ended in a crackling sound that Harry hated on hearing. It sounded like some of the wounds he’d heard Healers working on after the Battle of Hogwarts. “I had planned to come up with some method to fetch them on my own, while you came up with a method to free me from suspicion,” he murmured. “I would not trust you to see the kinds of plants I need. You are blind in a way that has nothing to do with the strength—or otherwise—of your sight.”

            Harry hissed at him. “You’ve had three months—closer to four. You haven’t managed to come up with a way to change anything yet. How do you think you can act on your own when you’ve just admitted that you probably can’t?”

            Silence. This time it was different, though. Snape stared at him as though Harry had changed himself into someone else, maybe Malfoy or Neville. Harry folded his arms and stared back. The last scraps of tiredness from waking up in the middle of the night were gone. The only thing he could think of was how blindingly stupid Snape was. Treating Harry like this was still the war and Harry had learned nothing.

            Maybe he hadn’t, by Snape’s standards. But Snape was the one who had chosen to call on him, and he wouldn’t have done that if he thought Harry was utterly stupid. He could have found one of the Slytherins who would help him better with the ingredients and be more sympathetic to his situation.

            Well, and there was another reason. Harry blinked as he thought about it.

            “You don’t trust them,” he said quietly, peering at Snape, wondering if he was going to say something else. Snape only sat there, looking at Harry as if he didn’t know what he was talking about. Well, maybe he didn’t. Harry would continue until he got a reaction. “You don’t trust Malfoy and all the rest of the Slytherins who might be good at Potions and be expected to feel some loyalty to you as their Head of House. You think they might betray you for a reward, or they’re too afraid for their personal safety to help you. You need a Gryffindor, because there’s at least the chance that I’m not going to betray you for my own personal gain.”

            Snape’s hands ground down, twisting in his robes and on his throat. Then he said, “You still do not understand the Slytherin character, Potter.”

            “Maybe not,” Harry said cheerfully. “But I think I’m closer to understanding it than I was ten minutes ago. Now. Are you going to let me help you with the ingredients, or will you just sit here in the house and try to figure out what you can do without me?” He paused, then added, “Given how long it took you to ask for help, I think you’ve already reached the limit of what you can do by yourself.”

            Snape stirred and gave Harry a haggard look. Harry felt his smile falter. The silence stretched between them.

            “Damn you,” Snape whispered, with a precise emphasis that really sounded to Harry like Snape wanted to damn him to hell, rather than just show he was frustrated. “Damn you, and curse you again for being my only hope.”

            Harry shrugged. Then he said, “Tell me what ingredients you need. And do you require any other potions? Food? That kind of thing?”

            Snape’s hands twisted as if he wanted to strangle Harry. “You are still going to do it.”

            It wasn’t a question, or phrased that way, but Harry recognized it as one. He shrugged again and rubbed the back of his neck. “After the war, I wanted to concentrate on helping my friends and mourning the dead,” he said. “I should have known that that vow wouldn’t last long. Between you and Malfoy—”

            “Is Draco in danger?”

            Harry looked up, startled. Snape’s voice had changed completely, and his face looked human even in the weird light of the brazier as he bent towards Harry.

            Of all things, Harry felt a little stir of envy. I wish there was someone who would think about me that way. Maybe this is what it was like to have parents.

            The thought was bizarre, but it wouldn’t go away, so Harry concentrated on Snape to avoid thinking about it. “I don’t know. Someone cast a spell that made all his friends hate him on a night when they were celebrating, but they all disagree about what they hate him for, and they act as if there’s only one thing that could have happened. He says that he doesn’t know what happened.”

            Snape closed his eyes. Harry watched muscles moving in his face and reckoned he was seeing Snape in the process of deep thought. Sometimes Snape’s hand moved back and forth across his knee, then stopped.

            “I will require two things of you, then,” he said, voice deep and distant. “For you to help Draco, and for you to fetch the Potions ingredients.”

            Harry rolled his eyes. “I already planned to do both.”

            That earned him another look. Then Snape said, with his voice so distant it sounded like the flap of an owl’s wing, “Why?”

            “Look, you don’t get to have it both ways,” Harry said, irritated. “One minute you think I should help you just because you’re special and I’m only a stupid Gryffindor, and the next minute you’re suspicious that I offered. Do you have to pay me or not? I really think we’ll get along better if you decide on this now.”

            Snape sat as though someone had flicked a hand at him and turned him to stone. Then his lips pulled up past his teeth, and he gave Harry a small, mocking bow of his head.

            “Very well. You are a Gryffindor, and that is why you help. I will endeavor not to distrust you again.” He paused and added, more talking to himself than Harry, “This will be a most interesting partnership.”

            Yeah, no fucking kidding, Harry thought when he got back to his bed in the Gryffindor Tower with the list of ingredients that Snape wanted him to fetch. His mind was still bouncing around wildly, and he didn’t know if he would feel at all alert for the first day of classes tomorrow. He lay there staring at the curtains on either side of his bed and wondering how he got into these messes.

            Because you want to. You chose to follow Malfoy, and you chose to pay heed to Snape’s message. At least this time you don’t have anyone pressing you to do it because that would mean you can defeat Voldemort.

            And if you have free will, you can do anything.

            So, when Harry finally did fall asleep, he was smiling.

*

            unneeded: Harry really doesn’t think the Snape and Malfoy situations are connected. And, well, he did think Hermione having the first letter would be enough.

            SP777: Well, but this chapter makes up for that, right?
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Parsimony