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The Only True Lords	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 54573 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 11
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Chapter Forty-Five--Severus Snape
            "Severus? I wanted to talk to you."
            Severus stiffened his shoulders and refused to look around. He had gone to his room when they arrived back at Grimmauld Place, and everyone else had been wise enough not to disturb him. It made sense that it was Potter, the idiot, who would be the exception to the rule.
            "Listen. Do you want to revise the plan that Changes and I came up with of how you should face them, or not?"
            That made enough sense that Severus turned reluctantly around. Potter stood in the doorway behind him, eyes so dark that Severus would have looked away and blushed in some other times.
            In some other life, when I was friendly with Lily's son, when I cared what he thought of me.
            Potter's opinion had still mattered more to Severus than it should, often, but he had had to put that aside. Saving Potter's life, and the world, had mattered more than whether an eleven-year-old, or a thirteen-year-old, or a sixteen-year-old, hated him. Severus nodded to Potter, and he walked over and sat on a chair in the middle of the room. He didn't look any happier to be there than Severus was to see him there.
            Good. At least that means that he is not likely to stay long.
            Severus clasped his hands and waited for this famous plan. He was unprepared for Potter to deliver it in a monotone, his eyes fixed over Severus's shoulder on the far wall.
            "We checked with Professor McGonagall, and she's agreed to serve as a character witness, to explain how you turned aside Death Eaters from torturing the students without making it obvious that's what you were doing. And although it hasn't been done often, you can use a portrait as a witness, too. So we'll bring in Professor Dumbledore's portrait, and he can speak about the plans that he and you made to plant you as a spy in the inner circle of the Death Eaters."
            Severus found it hard to breathe. He told himself that these plans must have come from the barrister, that Potter wasn't smart enough to have come up with them on his own. And he had probably had a push from Minerva about bringing in Albus's portrait, too. There was no way that he would have envisioned all this.
            There was no way that he would have put this much effort into defending someone who he knew had tampered with the bond, someone he had always hated.
            "You believe that I was innocent of Albus's murder as it was set up, then?" Those were not the right words to have emerged from Severus's mouth, and he shut his lips hard upon them. But Potter did nothing save give him a faint, bewildered frown, which seemed to say that he implored Severus to talk sense.
            "I didn't believe you were innocent most of the last year," Potter said. "But the way you explained it, nothing else makes sense."
            Severus made a bow, as elegant and sarcastic as he could from his seated position. "Then I am grateful to have been granted such a privileged position in your mind."
            "You're an arse," Potter said conversationally. "You've always been an arse. But I think that most of what you did in the last year was devoted to maintaining your cover, and that's a duty I can respect even though I wish that most of the outcome could have been different. Yes, I'm going to give you your due." He stood up and moved towards the door. "That's all we came up with," he added over his shoulder. "Except that we're going to have Narcissa Malfoy testify about the Unbreakable Vow that she put you under, and you might want to take Veritaserum to guarantee that they believe you."
            Severus found it hard to breathe. He did manage to make his lips and tongue move before Potter could walk out the door, though. "Wait!"
            Potter turned around. He seemed faintly impatient now.
            "You didn't need to put this much effort into defending me," Severus said. "I simply want to know how much of your effort comes from the bond."
            "How the fuck should I know?" Potter asked, voice so soft that it was hard to realize what he had said at first, and with what vehemence. "I don't know how much it's messed with my head, because I don't know what I would have felt like if it had never come into being. I probably would have testified at your trial, still, if you survived, but I don't know how much my testimony would have been worth when I didn't believe what you were doing. This way, I believe you, and I'm free now to behave like a Lord and protect you a little. And I'll release you as soon as the trial is done. Be grateful."
            He turned away again, but those last words had brought Severus up on his feet. He didn't know if he would ever have the chance to say this again, and that made it imperative to get the words out as soon as he could. "Grateful? Grateful to someone who enslaved me, who meant that I was going to have another master as soon--"
            Potter turned around one more time. There was no light in his eyes, and that made Severus check as nothing else could have done. Well, maybe the bond, before he had severed the control Potter had over him.
            "You would have had another master either way," Potter said. "Given the curse that Voldemort cast on you." He seemed not to notice Severus's flinch, any more than he took pleasure in it. "The bond prevented you from going back to him. And I wouldn't talk to the Wizengamot about enslavement. Blaise already tried that tactic, and no one believed it."
            Severus gritted his teeth. He had forgotten to go and comfort Mr. Zabini when they returned to Grimmauld Place, but he had been too overwhelmed by the news of his own trial and the drowning, whirling sensation in his head. He struck back as hard as he could. "Of course no one would believe my word over the word of Harry Potter."
            Potter rolled his eyes. "Is that all you're worried about? There was a point where you could have protested, and someone would have listened to you, and that situation was right here. They were desperate for material against me. You could have turned traitor to me, if your own life mattered more to you than anything else." He watched Severus for a second. "But you couldn't."
            "Thanks to the bond." Severus heard his own voice from a distance. He felt as if he must vomit, but could not.
            "How much of that is the bond, and how much your years of dedication to protecting me?" Potter shook his head, calm, and infuriating with it. "I told you, I don't know how much of it is the bond, but I refuse to spend the rest of my life worrying about it. And if you cooperate with me, then you won't have to do that, either, because I'll release you as soon as the trial is done."
            "I do not wish to cooperate with you."
            Potter stood a little taller. "So I should firecall Changes--they'll let me do that now--and tell her that all the arrangements we made for your defense should be canceled? She'll be delighted to be relieved of some of the extra work. She especially wasn't looking forward to dealing with the objections to Dumbledore's portrait."
            "You stupid child," Severus whispered. He did not know what was happening. He ought to be expert at manipulating people with just a few words, but this situation kept twisting out of control, away from the safe, predictable road that his experience had laid down. "You want me to be grateful for this. You are trying to force gratitude from me, when you ought to know that there is nothing more useless."
            "You have a lot of strange ideas." Potter's eyes were calm and didn't move from his face. His voice was as heavy as a sheet of steel. "I don't want you to proclaim your gratitude to me. I want to know that you're not going to turn on me for stupid reasons, the way Blaise did, and work against your own interests in the name of some misguided pride."
            "Mr. Zabini did what was necessary for him!"
            A hint of Potter's sneer showed then. Severus wondered who had taught him that. "Oh? Then you approve of the way he conducted his defense?"
            Severus looked away. Of course he could not. It had been a risk, and risks were acceptable if they paid off, but this one had not, and the odds had been against it. All Mr. Zabini had done was expose the depth of his own obsession with getting Potter to pay for what he had done, and that was not an emotion Severus would have wanted anyone to see, even if he did share part of it himself.
            "I didn't think so," Potter said. "No, all I ask is that you go along with this willingly--"
            "Not grudgingly?" The words popped out of Severus's mouth the same way that the nauseated sensation had popped up at the back of his stomach.
            "If you go along with it grudgingly, then I know that means you won't speak as well as you could," Potter said. "In the end, the only person you're hurting would be yourself. Because I know that you would hate to go to Azkaban or stay under the bond far more than I would hate it."
            Severus turned back to snap, but Potter had already left. His last words did come up the stairs, through the open door. "I have better things to do than stay here."
            Those words should not have gouged a wound in Severus's soul. He should not have sat down and buried his face in his hands.
            But they did, and he did.
*
            Greg looked curiously at his Lord as he came back into the kitchen. He had only gone upstairs to speak with Professor Snape, Greg thought, which wasn't something that should have made him run around and sweat. But he was sweating now, and he sat down at the table and had a red face and clenched fists.
            "What's wrong, my Lord?" There were a few other people in the kitchen, like his Lord's friends, but they were all talking. Greg didn't think anyone heard what he whispered to his Lord.
            Lord Potter started, then looked at Greg over his shoulder. "I just hate Snape," he said.
            Greg considered that. He respected Professor Snape, but that was because he was a Slytherin, and Professor Snape had always done good things for Slytherins. Greg had thought that Professor Snape was being fine to his Lord at the house, because it wasn't a Potions classroom. But he could have been wrong. "Do you want me to beat him up?"
            Lord Potter started again, then shook his head. "No. Just leave him alone."
            Greg nodded, accepting that. "Then what can I do to make you feel better? You look upset," he added, when Lord Potter gave him a strange, questioning look. Maybe he wondered how Greg knew that he was upset.
            "I don't think anything can really make this better." Lord Potter waved a weary hand, and the little house-elf popped up in front of him and handed him a cup of tea. Greg wished he had thought of that. From the way his Lord sipped from it, it was indeed making him feel better. "He hates the bond, and me. I hate him. It just has to go away on its own."
            "If they try him and get him to go free, then you can let him go from the bond? Right?" Greg wasn't sure how that worked. He knew that Lord Potter had let Blaise go, but since Greg didn't understand why someone would want to be free from the bond, he could be getting a lot of things wrong.
            "Right." Lord Potter gave him a tired smile. "But he has to cooperate in the trial to get free of the bond. I don't know if he will."
            "That's stupid," Greg said, after thinking it over. "He shouldn't do things that are stupid just because he wants to spite you. That's stupid," he repeated, seeing his Lord staring at him. Draco sometimes did things to spite other people, but they just got him in trouble. And sometimes Greg and Vince, too, but Greg knew they were doing it to help Draco, so he didn't mind so much.
            Lord Potter laughed suddenly and lifted his teacup, which attracted some other people's attention. But Greg didn't mind, because for right now, his Lord was focused solely on him.
            "You're right," Lord Potter said. "I should keep that in mind. There are only so many things I can do. If Snape doesn't cooperate, then he's the stupid one. I just have to be the best Lord I can, even if some of my vassals decide to act in a stupid or self-destructive manner. Or ex-vassals," he said in a low voice, staring at the far wall in a way that Greg knew meant he was thinking about Blaise.
            "That's right," Greg said. "You're already the best Lord, though." He thought Lord Potter should know that. He doubted himself sometimes. Not for the same reasons that Draco had, which usually included his father and wondering if his father would think he was right, but for reasons that mattered to Lord Potter, no matter how silly Greg thought they were.
            Lord Potter's smile grew deeper, warmer. "Thanks, Greg." He turned back to his conversation with other people then, who were trying to talk across the table to him.
            But Greg didn't mind. He had done something that eased his Lord's mind after all, even if that was just repeating a few obvious truths. They had to be obvious if Greg could see them, but it seemed that his Lord couldn't always see them because his eyes were different.
            Maybe his main jobs for the rest of his life would be to stand at his Lord's shoulder and tell him the truth sometimes, Greg thought, settling back into a glow of contentment. And sometimes guard him from danger, and sometimes get toasted with tea.
            That sounded like a pretty nice life.
*
            "Do you have something to say to us, Mr. Snape?"
            Pansy shifted a little in her chair, uneasily. It felt wrong to hear someone speak to Professor Snape without his title. Of course, the woman in the Wizengamot's lead seat was probably too old to have been one of his students, and maybe she didn't like him because she felt like he was dragging his Lord down, but still. He was owed some respect.
            Professor Snape didn't seem to care either way, though. He sat still in his own chair and studied the Wizengamot in front of him without much moving. Then he nodded and stood up. At once the barrister, Changes, moved forwards to stand beside him.
            Pansy didn't think he looked at her once. If Changes meant to be some kind of support to him, she should have chosen her victim to support better.
            "This is the true story of what happened two years ago, when Albus Dumbledore was still alive," said Professor Snape expressionlessly, and began to speak.
            Pansy listened in breathless silence as he talked about Mrs. Malfoy coming to him and placing him under an Unbreakable Vow, then about Professor Dumbledore invoking the same kind of Vow. Pansy hadn't ever known that he hadn't had a choice about whether to protect Draco. She had thought Professor Snape was just doing that because he was Head of Slytherin and Draco was one of his students.
            But from seeing the bitter lines of pain carved into the professor's face as he spoke, Pansy had to wonder if he would have chosen to defend Draco at all, if he had known everything that would happen to him because of it.
            He picked the way that would allow him to survive. He did what he had to do.
            After a moment of thinking about it, Pansy nodded slowly. That didn't actually mean that Professor Snape had never cared for any of his Slytherins. It did mean that she had to think about her decisions in the future if they were based on loyalty towards her House. That loyalty might still exist, but not everyone felt it in equal measure.
            So it was still a valuable lesson. Pansy smiled at Professor Snape's back, feeling benevolent towards him. She didn't know if anyone else in the courtroom did right now, but she could hope so.
            Professor Snape finished reciting and sat down. The courtroom seemed stunned for a few moments. Maybe they thought he was lying, Pansy decided, glancing from face to face and the wide and staring eyes. But if so, they hadn't expected his lie to be so convincing, or so detailed, or supported by events.
            The woman in the lead Wizengamot seat, Ollondors, stirred after a minute. "A remarkable tale, Mr. Snape," she said quietly, and there was respect in her voice now that made the "Mr." sound like a higher title. "I don't suppose that you have any proof that does not come only from your own mouth?"
            "He does."
            The voice made Pansy's head swivel. She had noticed that they'd brought a portrait in earlier, but she hadn't paid that much attention. It could have been someone who had died by Professor Snape's wand in the war and was going to testify against him, after all.
            But no, it was Headmaster Dumbledore, popping a painted sweet into his mouth and beaming out at everyone. Pansy knew she wasn't the only one who looked at Professor Snape in that moment, but she did wonder if she was the only one who saw the way his fists clenched and the shape of his jaw changed.
            "Yes, it was just as Severus has said," said Dumbledore, and nodded at Professor Snape again before he turned back to the Wizengamot. He was still smiling, Pansy thought. She knew that portraits weren't the real people they pictured, and you couldn't expect them to be, but she thought that this version of Headmaster Dumbledore probably enjoyed messing with people just as much. "I did put him under an obligation to me, and that meant he had no choice but to kill me." He half-frowned, and shook his head a little. "I was already dying at the time, from poison left in a trap by Voldemort."
            Pansy clutched the edges of her chair; other people swayed as if blown by a strong wind. Other people in the Wizengamot muttered and shifted, but no one said much. Dumbledore smiled as if he enjoyed the reaction to the name anyway, and continued. "He had earlier been made to Vow that he would complete young Mr. Malfoy's task if young Mr. Malfoy was unable to. And Mr. Malfoy did find himself unable to kill me." This time, it was Draco he turned to smile kindly at. "Which speaks well to the state of his soul. But it left poor Severus under multiple Vows that obliged him to kill me."
            "But why would you oblige him to kill you in the first place?" That was Jenkyns, who hadn't given up yet, Pansy thought, wearily. She wondered why. Did he just want to clutch at any last shreds of political power that might come his way, or did he really think that he would find a hole in their stories somewhere? "That's a strange thing to do."
            Dumbledore replied in the kind of cool voice Pansy had only heard from him occasionally, usually when he wanted to make a serious point at the Leaving Feast. "Because Severus had been acting as my spy among the Death Eaters for years. The return of Voldemort was another obligation, making him take up that burden again. In the meantime, I knew that my murder would place his loyalty beyond all doubt, and make it possible for him to carry out other necessary tasks."
            "What were those tasks?" Jenkyns sounded as if he knew that he wouldn't get any answer that would help him, but also as if he didn't know how to give up.
            "To make sure that he could protect some of the students of Hogwarts, for one thing," said a voice from the side. Pansy turned her head and saw Professor McGonagall rising from a seat that must have been brought in while everyone was busy listening to the portrait. From the way she smiled at the Wizengamot, McGonagall was enjoying herself. "We knew that he was likely to be appointed in some way to Hogwarts--either to recruit Slytherin students, or to become Headmaster or Potions professor again. He did what he could to influence the other Death Eaters into what he called 'psychological punishments' instead of physical torture. And he took charge of a number of detentions himself." McGonagall's gaze swept the room and halted on Pansy and Draco. "I ask you to speak to the Slytherin students who suffered through that terrible year and are here in this courtroom, whether those detentions were particularly arduous."
            "I just don't see what kind of outcome could have justified murder and all the rest of it." Jenkyns sounded weak, but he was still fighting on the way down.
            "The defeat of You-Know-Who, of course." McGonagall gave him a hard look. "That's a cause that Mr. Potter, along with other people, already sacrificed quite a bit in pursuit of, didn't they?"
            Maybe Jenkyns was afraid that someone would ask him what he had sacrificed for the war, because he hunched his shoulders and scowled at the floor instead of responding. Pansy hid a smile. She hoped that was the last they would hear of his voice.
            It wasn't the last they heard of McGonagall's voice. She was speaking on, enumerating various crimes and ways that Professor Snape had mitigated them. Pansy thought she could lean back and enjoy the show.
            And so she could. For a while.
*
            Harry sighed. He was sweating, and his legs were struggling to bear him up, and his throat was hoarse. But he still had a little more speaking to do in defense of Severus before the trial could close.
            "And you're sure that you would be willing to take charge of him if we released him into your care under house arrest?" That was Ollondors, all but propping her chin up on a fist as she watched him. She knew they were winning, Harry thought, but she had to maintain the pretense that they were struggling hard until the end.
            Harry nodded. "The same way I would be willing to do with any of my other vassals," he added. He didn't know if they were going to consider the same fate--house arrest--for Draco and Greg, the other Marked Death Eaters, but he was at least going to push for it. "Professor Snape did say that he wanted to be free of the bond after the trial, and I can do that for him, but--"
            He stopped, because a woman with smooth brown hair sitting next to Ollondors was shaking her head. Harry wondered for a moment if this was someone who was going to object that he couldn't really care what happened to Severus if he wasn't a vassal anymore, and bristled. For this, he would stand up and talk for hours more.
            But instead, the woman murmured, "The Wizengamot asked me here to estimate the depth of the bond, and to make sure, one more time, that it was a true Lordship bond." She didn't look at Jenkyns, but Harry did, and glared. He knew whose fault this was. Jenkyns cowered a little, but that didn't strip his sickly smile from him. "It is indeed a true bond. And it would make sense for a Lord to shelter and protect his vassals."
            "Well, then." Harry folded his arms and stared at her, trying to understand where her objection came in. "I said that."
            "A true bond," said the woman. "With everyone except him." She pointed with one of her little fingers at Severus. "He has done something to it that makes the bond weak from his side. Legally, he cannot claim to be under your protection, as your vassal, at all. Legally, the bond is required to be strong from both sides."
            In the silence, immediately followed by uproar, that started then, all Harry could really hear was his own pounding heart, and all he could think was, Snape, you idiot.
*
            polka dot: Yes, and even more interesting because of what Snape did.
            minieegold: Thanks for reading!
            SP777: Well, now Snape might be hurt, too.
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The Only True Lords