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Walking In His Shoes	By : HPRndRobin Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 6572 -:- 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.

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Walking in His Shoes

Chapter 6

By Deirdre Riordan

"Well?" Harry prompted after a long moment of silence. It was odd to see Severus sitting there across from him, in his body, bearing much the same expression of intermixed shame and fear that he wore himself whenever the subject came up.

"I asked you first," Severus said, raising his head to meet Harry's eyes. "Start with the first time." He summoned a bottle of wine and two glasses from the shelf.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "What would the Headmaster say if he caught me giving alcohol to a student?"

Severus smirked and poured the wine. "Don't change the subject."

Harry sighed and took up his glass. "It was my fifth birthday. The worst they'd done up to that point was ignore me and ridicule me, and not punish Dudley-- my cousin-- when he beat me up. They called me downstairs early in the morning, and, na�ve as I was, I ran down happily, thinking that at last I was going to have a birthday celebration. But when I got to the kitchen I didn't find any cake or presents or special breakfast. I found Vernon at the table reading the Daily Mail and Petunia standing in the kitchen door tapping her foot impatiently. 'At last,' she said. 'It's time you started pulling your weight round here, boy. You've had nothing but charity and goodwill from us for the last four years, and you've shown us nothing but insolence and ingratitude. But you're pl old old enough to know right from wrong by now, and it's time for you to start paying for all we've given you. Now get to it. I expect breakfast on the table by the time Dudley gets up.'

"I tried to tell her I didn't know how to cook breakfast, or anything else for that matter, but that got me nothing but Vernon saying, 'Well, it's time you learned,' from behind his paper. I made a mess of everything, of course. I'd never cooked in my life. I burnt the bacon, dropped shells in the eggs, got grounds in the coffee, and charred the toast. Through all this, Petunia sat there yelling at me for every little thing. I got even more flustered than I already was and started to cry, which made her even angrier. She got up from the table and slapped me twice across the face. I cried harder and the vase of flowers on the table exploded. The next thing I knew Vernon was dragging me into the cupboard and whipping me with his belt, yelling things about me being a useless freak. I didn't know what he meant, of course. He locked me in the cupboard and only let me back out when it was time to do the washing-up, and then locked me back in directly until the next morning, when the whole thing happened again. It happened every morning for a solid week until I finally managed not to mess up the breakfast or cry. And there you have the tale of How Harry Potter Learned to Cook." He laughed bitterly and drank down the rest of his wine in a single gulp.

Severus tried to conceal his horror at the whole thing, but he'd not yet mastered schooling the features of his borrowed face when confronted with such emotions. Rather than offer awkward words of sympathy, he took a deep breath and launched into his own account. "My father was gone for much of my childhood," he began. "I scarcely knew the man. My mother, though, was often at home, and she was the one who raised and instructed me. She was a wonderful woman, gentle and patient; I couldn�t have asked for a more loving mother. One night when I was ten years old, my father stormed into the house with a group of Death Eaters. My mother knew what was coming and begged them to let me go to my room, but they would have none of it. They bound me to a chair and forced me to sit and watch as they tortured my mother to death." He felt his eyes threaten to tear at the memory. When it was over the Death Eaters gathered up what was left of her to take to the Dark Lord as a trophy. I was hysterical. I tried to stop them, tried to throw myself on top of her body to stop them taking it. That was when my father put me under the Cruciatus. He let them leave while he kept me writhing under the curse, and when they were gone he left as well. I thought I was going to die right then and there.

"I passed out, mercifully, and some hours later opened my eyes to my father, still in his Death Eater mask, kicking me awake. I asked him why. He told me it had to be done, that my mother was a blood traitor and did not deserve to live. I asked him why again. I asked him what she'd ever done to hurt him. He beat me with a fireplace poker until I passed out. I woke up two days later. My wounds had been healed, but not completely. He had left the scars to remind me. He came into the room and gave me a speech about how my mother had poisoned my mind, how he had to 'cleanse' me of her influence if I were to be allowed to live. He put me under a strong memory charm that erased every vestige of her from my mind. Whenever he came home after that, I was nearly guaranteed a beating within an inch of my life. It didn't matter how well-behaved I had been or how well I performed in my studies. He always found something. Hogwarts was a merciful reprieve, only getting beaten for three months out of the year when I came home. Albus knew what had happened, what was happening, but there was nothing he could do to stop it because I was too afraid to admit it.

"Some time after I joined the Dark Lord, my father gave me a 'gift,' as he called it, as a reward for some particularly gory torture or other. He gave me back the memories he'd taken from me when I was a child. I remembered what these people, to whom I had now pledged my life, had done to me. That was when I started spying for Albus." Something about this face, it seemed to Severus, was constructed so that it was impossible to stop tears from falling when they wanted to. And so they fell. Harry grasped his hand gently over the table. Strange, he thought, to feel what his hands felt like to others. Or would feel like to others if he ever touched anyone. They felt soft and strong, much stronger the fee felt at the moment.

"I have to watch my parents die every time I get near a Dementor," Harry said softly. "And sometimes I dream of it."

Severus nodded and slipped his hand from Harry's under the pretext of drying his tears with his sleeve and pouring more wine. It was too comforting, that hand. He wanted to hold onto it too much. He couldn't let himself do that. "I'm afraid we have a more immediate problem, Pro-- er, Pott-- er, Harry."

"What's that?"

"The Gryffindors are onto me. Right before I came down here, I heard Weasley telling all of the seventh-year boys not to trust me, that he doesn't think I am who I say I am. He'll probably have told the rest of them by breakfast."

Harry sighed. "Leave it to Ron and Hermione. Do you think we should tell them before they've got the whole school out for your blood?"

Severus shook his head. "Do you think they'd believe it? Coming from their greasy Potions professor whom they barely trust in the first place, and a Harry Potter they're sure is being impersonated? No, they'll just think I'm the one orchestrating the whole thing."

Harry nodded. "I've got an idea then. We're going to need Dumbledore in on it, though, but I figure it's probably the bloody least he can do under the circumstances."

"Well, tell me what this harebrained Gryffindor scheme of yours is.>

Harry nearly lau at at those words coming out of his mouth, but cleared his throat instead. "Well, you don't go back to the dorm tonight. Ron and Hermione will have kittens and be sure they were right. Then at breakfast, you make a grand entrance, with Dumbledore announcing that you had been taken to a safe house and replaced with an imposter from the Order because of a suspected attempt on your life, but it's been stopped and you're back now."

Severus found himself nodding with approval. "That's just about mad enough to work. But no grand entrances. I skip breakfast and Weas-- Ron and Hermione are called to the Headmaster's office, where you are waiting for them, and Albus explains everything there."

"You're right. It'll be more convincing if it's not a huge spectacle."

They made a fire call to a somewhat bemused Albus Dumbledore, who readily agreed to the scheme. He even complimented them on their collaborative efforts, which caused both his conversation partners to roll their eyes.

Both Severus and Harry breathedigh igh of relief that the plan was going to work. "They're still going to make you prove it, though," Harry said after a moment. "Dumbledore's word will be almost good enough for them, but when they get you alone they're going to want you to tell them something only I would know."

Severus raised an eyebrow. "Well, you'd better think of everything they could possibly ask about, then, because if I don't know one fact, that's what they're going to ask me."

"You'd better swear not to use any of this against me once we're out of this mess."

"I give you my word as a Wizard."

"Let's see� Hermione once turned into Millicent Bulstrode's cat from a Polyjuice accident in our second year. Ron was Crabbe and I was Goyle and we went into the Slytherin common room to see if Malfoy knew who the heir of Slytherin was. We put sleeping potions in their cakes, stuffed them in a cupboard, and stole their clothes."

Severus' eyes went wide. "You brewed Polyjuice in your second year?"

Harry nodded, a little surprised, as he'd exp expecting some sort of angry admonishment. "It was mostly Hermione, but we helped." Harry went on to tell him most of the trio's secret exploits throughout their years at Hogwarts.

Severus found himself shocked that all of this had gone on under his nose (he let out a triumphant, 'HA! I knew it!' when Harry told him of the episode with Sirius, Buckbeak, and the Time-Turner), but also incredibly impressed that these three teenagers could carry off such complicated schemes and emerge unscathed. "Is there anything ?" S?" Severus asked once Harry had caught him up as far as the events of the previous week. "Any dark secrets of yours or theirs?"

Harry took a deep breath. "Well, I'm... I'm gay. But only Hermione knows that, so don't tell Ron. He blushed deeply. Severus had never seen so much colour in his face before.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Harry. Plenty of wizards are." He decided to keep his own sexual preferences out of the conversation to avoid further complicating matters. The last thing he needed was this brat asking him for love advice.

Having exhausted all possible topics of interrogation, and both being slightly tipsy, they agreed it was bedtime. "You can take the bed, if you want," Harry said. "It's yours, after all."

Severus shook his head. "That mattress has complicated muscle-relaxing charms on it. If you spend the night on the sofa, I can guarantee you'll not be able to walk in the morning. Such is the price of old age."

"I'd hardly call you old."

"Some days I'm older than others."

They bid one another goodnight and Harry climbed into bed, too tired to bother about night clothes and merely stripping to his underwear. Muscle relaxing charms. That made a lot of sense as to why he always felt, well, relaxed the moment he hit the mattress. He dozed off before finishing that thought.

Severus woke up on the sofa a few hours later, disoriented. I've fallen asleep on the sofa again. Better get into bed or I'll be stiff as anything tomorrow. He stumbled sleepily to the bedroom and got into the bed, his mind too fuzzy to register the presence of another body under the covers.

Morning came in its due course. Harry shut off the alarm, squinting his eyes against the light. He groaned, not yet ready to wake up, and snuggled back into the warmth of the body next to him. The movement and noise had woken Severus as well, who wrapped himself tighter around the good-smelling warmth of his bed partner. Bed partner? He opened his eyes, now fully awake, and found himself staring into his own face. Oh, bugger.
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Walking In His Shoes