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The Art of Self-Fashioning	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 26077 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Forty-Nine—Arts of the Web
“What are you doing here?”
“I think that’s one thing you ought to ask yourself,” Harry said, slinging his leg off the broom and taking Snape off it, too. He had flown in from a long distance away, because he thought either Aurors or Death Eaters might be watching. He turned to face Augusta Longbottom. “Why didn’t you come back to Grimmauld Place?”
Mrs. Longbottom’s eyes glittered. “I sent an owl to Neville so that he knew I was all right.”
“That’s not the same thing. And you didn’t tell him why you wouldn’t come back, you just said you had something to do. He was worried for a day and a half that he’d done something that disappointed you.”
Mrs. Longbottom turned her head away and was quiet for a moment. She didn’t even glance at Snape, which Harry had thought she would. “He could only be a disappointment to me if he dies. I told him that once.”
“Which is exactly what he’s afraid he’ll do once he has to face Lord Dudders.”
“And I’m trying to find a way for him to avoid doing that!”
Harry shook his head a little as he made Snape lighter so that he could pick him up. The protections on Longbottom Manor would prevent the Ministry from picking up his magic the way the ones on Grimmauld Place did. “I think that won’t work. Neville will have to be there at the final confrontation. Unless we can destroy his Horcrux before that and that’s all that needs to happen, of course.”
Mrs. Longbottom stiffened. “The Horcrux?”
“The piece of Lord Dudders’s soul that’s inside him,” Harry said impatiently. “I can’t believe he left it out of his letters to you.”
Mrs. Longbottom turned back around with the wand in her hand. “He told me. I didn’t think he would tell you.”
“Why not? He knows how committed I am to fighting Lord Dudders. And now that he’s done something to my parents, that commitment has only increased.”
“What did he do to your parents?”
“A spell that will turn their brains to soup if someone attempts to heal them. But he also let on that it can be cured with his death. So that’s what’s going to happen.” Harry turned to Snape and considered him for a second. He had meant to use Snape as a replacement for Nagini, but the more he thought about it, the more appealing a different plan seemed. Harry’s plan for Nagini depended on Lord Dudders not killing her the minute he saw her. There were no guarantees he would want to keep Snape alive. “And he’s going to help.”
Snape gave him a glare filled with absolute loathing. Harry shrugged. He didn’t need him to willingly help, and he wouldn’t get the chance to interfere.
“What happened to his eye?”
“Me.”
Mrs. Longbottom narrowed her own eyes, but said nothing else about it. “What do you think I can do? Why did you come here?”
“Neville mentioned once that you have exceptionally strong wards in a certain part of your grounds where one of your ancestors practiced alchemy and had to make sure that his toxic fumes didn’t escape.”
“Yes…”
“Let me use that warded area to meet with Lord Dudders. No offensive magic of any kind works in it, right? Then we should meet there.”
“And why should I let you use my home? And how do you expect to do something to You-Know-Who when your own offensive magic wouldn’t work there?”
“The magic I want to use there isn’t offensive. It could even be seen as beneficial.” Harry had to smile when he thought that, because he knew Snape wasn’t likely to agree. Then again, nothing Snape did now would ever be remotely important again. “As for the home issue, Lord Dudders already knows Neville is against him. He’s counting on it. This doesn’t involve people who he wouldn’t expect to be part of the war effort.”
Mrs. Longbottom made a long, sour noise. “I’ve fought for years to keep my grandson out of danger. You seem to intend to throw him headlong into it, and expect me to be grateful for the privilege.”
“Your training hasn’t done him any good, because you had people like Snape train him. All it’s done is damage Neville’s confidence and confirm his private belief that he’ll never be as good as his father. But of course, you didn’t expect Frank to be great at magic from the time he could walk, did you? He got to grow up and become a famous Auror. Neville never did.”
“He’s the Boy-Who-Lived!”
“What that means is that he has a Horcrux in him.”
Mrs. Longbottom stared at Harry with her lips working. Harry shrugged a little and said nothing. That was what it meant. She could continue to deny it all she liked, but that wouldn’t change reality.
And Harry thought she was too intelligent to defy reality for long.
“You think you can save Neville’s life?” Mrs. Longbottom finally asked, when enough time had passed that she would probably feel stupid if she didn’t say something.
Harry nodded. “And achieve my other goals, including getting revenge on Lord Dudders and stopping him. But it could depend on whether you’re going to allow me access to that warded area on your grounds or not.”
Mrs. Longbottom closed her eyes and stood there. Maybe she was communing with the spirits of her ancestors or something. Harry didn’t care. He stood there and waited, and finally Mrs. Longbottom snapped her eyes open and nodded.
“You have it.”
Harry nodded back once, and started floating Snape after him towards the part of the grounds where Neville had told him the place was. He was already composing the message to Lord Dudders in his head. There were only certain words that would bring him, and Harry wanted to make sure that he arrived and wouldn’t be maddened enough to strike out at the Longbottom house. Neville lived there, and unlike Harry, he probably liked his house.
“Mr. Potter.”
Harry turned his head, enough to show that he’d heard her. He was a little annoyed at her for interrupting, but he would listen to what she had to say, since he wasn’t actually writing the letter yet.
“You are what Neville should have been.”
“Without a Horcrux?” Harry couldn’t imagine what else she meant.
“No. As tempered. As cold.”
Harry said nothing, and kept walking. If Mrs. Longbottom honestly thought that, as opposed to trying to flatter him somehow, she saw less than he had thought.
*
Harry lifted his head. He could feel the change in the temperature of the magic around the house, and he wanted to be sure that he was feeling it correctly. He balanced his wand in his hand, and Spellmaker on his shoulder. She had flown on the broom smothered in the deep folds of his robe. The high air would have been too cold for her otherwise.
Snape lay motionless next to him. Harry waved his wand, and removed the spells that had rendered him unconscious and also muffled his eyes and ears right after they got into the warded area, just in case Snape woke up and was smart enough to pretend to be unconscious. Snape sat up with a gasp, then fell back. There were still magical bonds around his ankles and hands.
“Here comes your lord, Snape,” Harry said without glancing at him.
The wind picked up again, whipping past him. Yar would have beaten her wings and challenged it with a scream; Spellmaker only crouched a little lower, her claws sinking into Harry’s shoulder. It was no difficulty for Harry to stand as though he was unaware of that, though. It was a cat’s natural reaction. He couldn’t be upset.
The wind blew around in front of him, through the wards that marked the edges of the Longbottom grounds, and came to a rest in front of him. Harry looked steadily at the place, and then the darkness clapped together and Lord Dudders appeared.
It must have been Apparition, but the wind appeared to have swallowed the cracking sound of it altogether. Instead, the Dark Lord stood there and twirled his wand through his fingers. He didn’t look at Snape after one quick glance; Harry supposed it was to make sure who was there. Then his attention remained fixed solely on Harry.
It was unnerving, Harry had to admit, in one part of himself. Lord Dudders had brilliant crimson eyes, brighter than the eyes of some rats Harry had seen. He was tall, and he had snake-white skin, and he didn’t have a nose, and his hands were clenched around his wand. Neville had told Harry stories of how deadly that wand was.
But he had made a mistake.
So Harry didn’t shiver as he stood in front of Lord Dudders, and only watched him. At last Lord Dudders seemed to realize that he wasn’t going to get anything out of silence, and said, “You sent me an owl.”
Harry nodded.
“You dared to command my presence like some servant.”
“You came, didn’t you?”
Lord Dudders snapped his wand forwards. Harry only stood there. He’d told him about the wards around this part of the Longbottom grounds. Not Harry’s fault if he wanted to challenge those wards because he was an idiot.
But he didn’t. In the end, the yew wand fell to his side again, and he only waved a hand at Snape. “What are you doing with him?”
“Returning him to you. As a sign of good faith.”
“You dare.”
“Well, I thought I would fulfill part of the bargain you made with me instead of all of it at once.” Harry stood still and watched the darkness rise surging over Lord Dudders’s shoulders. He probably thought it would intimidate Harry, like a caterpillar with false eyes on its rear using them to scare a predator.
Unluckily for Lord Dudders, Harry didn’t eat caterpillars.
“Why him first?”
“Because I’ve damaged him. I have less reluctance to give him up than the others.”
Lord Dudders paused in the middle of what might have been a stalking step forwards. “How did you damage him?”
Harry tilted Snape’s head to the side, crouching down to do it. He kept his gaze on Lord Dudders and noticed the way his head cocked, like a snake, when he saw Snape’s eye. He nodded, once, when Harry let the head fall back.
“How did that happen?” Lord Dudders sounded almost genuinely curious.
“He tried to kill me. I drove my claws through his eye.”
Lord Dudders nodded as if that made perfect sense to him. And it probably did, Harry thought, straightening up, staring back at him. Lord Dudders had the instincts of a predator, or he couldn’t have done some of the things he had. Regulus would probably say he’d gone too far down the path of Transfiguring himself, if he was like Harry.
Lord Dudders gave him a thin, cold thing that wasn’t a smile, because Harry knew what a real smile looked like. “Alas, Potter, that we find ourselves on opposite sides of the war. We might have become a force if we could have worked together…”
“You would never permit me as much freedom as I needed. You would have wanted to control me and finally kill me the way Snape did.”
“You are not afraid, are you?” There was a soft eagerness in Lord Dudders’s voice that Harry didn’t understand, but he saw no reason not to answer.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You can’t stop me.”
Lord Dudders threw back his head and laughed like a coyote. Harry stood still and patiently waited for it to stop. He could feel things in the darkness flinching back. Spellmaker had climbed down to hide in his robes. But she was a cat. Harry was what he was, and he stood there and waited until Lord Dudders stopped laughing.
“You will pay for all your crimes,” Lord Dudders said. “Taking my servants. Damaging them. Holding them prisoner. Insulting me. Not doing as you were told when you were told to do it.” His voice snapped like a freezing whip, but it wasn’t real, and Harry stood in front of him and didn’t falter. Finally, Lord Dudders nodded, as if he had given up trying to make Harry do it. “Hand me my servant.”
“Yes.” Harry said it readily enough, given the role he had decided Snape would play, and floated him out of the warded area and towards the one of sere grass where Lord Dudders stood. Only a few minutes there and he’s withered the grass. He would be absurdly easy to track through any kind of vegetation.
Lord Dudders studied Snape for a second as he landed in front of his feet. Then he bent down and yanked Snape’s hood back, and touched his wand to Snape’s arm. Snape arched, screaming, but immediately Lord Dudders jerked back as if he had found out Harry’s plan. Harry tensed, ready to leap on the broom in case Lord Dudders should try to tear down the Longbottom wards.
“What is this? What is this?” Lord Dudders’s thin scream sounded like a winter wind.
“You have to tell me what you mean. I don’t know.”
“The Dark Mark. Is this a simulacrum of Snape? One using Polyjuice Potion?” Lord Dudders was spitting at him now as if he was a cobra who actually had venom to launch. “Did you think I would not discover this trick?”
A storm of purple lightning crackled overhead and reached down towards the wards Harry stood within. But either Lord Dudders wasn’t really trying or those Longbottom alchemists had been serious, because there was no effect on the wards. Harry shook his head slowly. “It’s the real Snape. I just took the Dark Mark away.”
Lord Dudders stared at him, jaw dropped like a skull too long underground. Harry was glad he did, because he failed to notice the swarm of small spiders leaving Snape’s pockets and crawling towards Lord Dudders’s robes, where they attached themselves. His wand rose, trembled, fell.
“You cannot have.”
“I did.”
“You—cannot have.”
And the force of Dark magic pounded about him, forcing itself on Harry, driving him back even inside the wards. But Harry had faith in that old Longbottom magic still, so he braced his legs and dug his feet into the dirt like a turtle digging into its shell, remaining calmly, stubbornly still no matter how hard that wind tried to drive him.
In the end, the wards held. Lord Dudders was no longer looking at him with amusement or speculation. His hand remained clenched on the yew wand, and his voice trembled with hatred. “I will destroy you for that. And for destroying my servant.”
“He might still serve you with one eye mostly dead.”
Lord Dudders shook his head. “It is not about that.”
Of course it wasn’t, and Harry took some joy in knowing it wasn’t. He grinned at Lord Dudders with all his teeth, and noticed the monster’s slight start of surprise, probably from seeing that Harry still had a fang-like edge to some of them. “This is the beginning of the negotiation. I returned one of your servants. When do you want the others back?”
Lord Dudders was silent, caressing his wand. His face held no expression at all now, but that was fine. Harry didn’t need it. “I will have them all back—and Nagini—within two days. This place seems…sufficient.”
He’s probably planning on attacking the Longbottom house the minute he’s done with me. But this was one of the options Harry had already thought about, so he nodded. Then he waited for Lord Dudders to leave.
He did not. Instead, he held Harry’s eyes—although not directly, since Harry wasn’t about to look a Legilimens in the eye like that—and gestured to Snape, who lay motionless. “How many of them have you done this to?”
“Oh, the others all have their eyes intact.”
“Do not pretend to misunderstand me.”
In fact, Harry could barely understand that, probably because it was right at the edge of Parseltongue. He arched his eyebrows and shook his head. “None. All of the others still have their Dark Marks. Whether you’ll be getting them back sane, however…”
Lord Dudders snapped his own teeth and waved his wand. The shadows engulfed him and Snape, and he did that silent Apparition out again. Harry stayed within the wards, watching and waiting. He wasn’t about to come out of the wards until he thought it was safe, any more than he was going to look a Legilimens in the eye.
One thing he could do from the safe spot was to scan the ground with his eyes, looking for any sign of dead or dying spiders. There was only one, which had probably fallen off Lord Dudders’s robes and then got crushed by his boot when he took a step. Harry smiled slowly. The others had all gone with him.
When I can, time to go back to the Black house and see what they see.
*
Severus looked up slowly, to find half a normal room and half one filled with the swimming shadows he always saw since the boy had destroyed his eye. He turned his head. He lay at the foot of the Dark Lord’s throne.
The Dark Lord was seated on it. He said nothing.
Severus knew what was expected of him. He forced his way to his side, then his knees. He stayed on all fours, head hanging, and approximated a bow. It was a terrible one. He hadn’t made one like this since his initiation into the Death Eaters, and he knew it. But he felt stripped raw, as bare as his left forearm after the boy was through with it.
The Dark Lord continued to say nothing for long minutes. Severus summoned the reserves of his patience and remained motionless. And finally the Dark Lord’s hissing voice sighed around him. “Tell me what use you are to me without the Dark Mark, my servant.”
“You may brand me again, my Lord,” Severus said at once, keeping his eyes lowered. “And I have information for you on the Potter boy. Valuable information, including the extent of his Transfiguration skills.”
The Dark Lord rose and paced towards him. Severus shut up at once. It was a rule—an unspoken one, which was maybe why Severus was one of the few Death Eaters to grasp it—that one did not speak when the Dark Lord was moving, unless he asked you a question.
The Dark Lord came to a stop behind him. Severus’s neck prickled with sweat. He still didn’t move.
“The boy you underestimated,” the Dark Lord said. “The boy you lost one of my other Death Eaters to trying to take. The boy whose captive you were, whose slave you were. The boy whose mother you are still obsessed with.” He was silent for a space, and then said, “I no longer trust you to have an accurate perception of that boy, Severus.”
The words came down like iron weights. Severus thought he might as well speak now. He had nothing to lose. “My lord, I spent almost a month in close quarters with the boy. I know him now as I did not in the past. I—”
“Avada Kedavra.”
Severus only heard, did not see, the spell that killed him.
*
“I trust that you will learn your lesson, Draco.”
Draco, crouched in the corner of the throne room, only nodded, not trusting his voice to operate for right now. He stared at his motionless professor. When he had seen the Dark Lord Apparate in with Professor Snape, he had thought for sure that he would see the man forgiven, and that was annoying, because it would push the mission the Dark Lord had granted Draco further into the background.
Now…
Now it would not.
Those were the only thoughts Draco focused on, or allowed himself to think, as he straightened up and met the Dark Lord’s eyes. “I have, my lord. I will not fail you in the way he did.” He nodded to Snape.
“And in what way did he fail me, Draco?”
That was the question Draco had hoped he wouldn’t ask, since he didn’t know all the secrets behind the reason Snape had died. But he could say what he had heard, and hope that was correct. He straightened his shoulders and said, “He promised you that his obsession and hatred could be of use to you, and instead he fell too far into them and did not serve you. My Lord. Instead, he served his obsession and hatred.”
The Dark Lord stared at him for long enough that Draco worried he had got it wrong after all, and then he smirked and strode over to drop a heavy, cold hand on Draco’s shoulder. “Indeed. You will go after Potter and bring my other Death Eaters and my Nagini back to me. You will not fail.”
Shivering, Draco touched the new Dark Mark beneath his left sleeve and shook his head. “I will not, my Lord.”
“Then go.”
Draco bowed his head and Apparated, illegally—but since when did a Malfoy care about that?—out of the room. His head and heart were already turning towards his mission, towards the thing he would have to achieve, somehow.
*
Harry came back to himself, spent several minutes assembling the pieces he had seen through hundreds of eight-eyed beings in his head, and then smiled a little. “Isn’t that interesting,” he announced.
A background of birdsong answered him.
*
Jester: Thanks! I'm glad you like the story, although I'm confused you're unnerved by Hermione. She's barely appeared in this story!
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The Art of Self-Fashioning