Chapter Eight of 'Wolf's Choice'- Talking

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Seven.

Title: Wolf’s Choice (8/60)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Main story is gen, a few GoF canon pairings mentioned
Content Notes: AU of GoF, angst, gore, violence, torture, present tense, minor character death
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU of GoF. Harry begins his summer with horrific visions that come true much faster than he was expecting. He’ll have to rely on his circle of friends, both his guardians, and all his allies to cope with the results.
Author’s Notes: This is a long fic that is a sequel to my fic Other People’s Choices. Make sure you read that first before you start this one.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Eight—Talking

Severus has never known such rage. It burns inside him and all through him, and smothers part of his brain, but leaves the rest like crystal lit with dark lightning. He felt it the moment he came back through the wards and sensed the traces of Albus’s magic.

Albus came when he had to know Severus would not be home. And standing behind Harry is Narcissa Malfoy, watching everything with calm blue eyes that Severus realizes will hold curiosity at bay while recording everything.

Severus straightens up and says, “I must speak to you, Albus. Will you come with me?”

“I did indeed want to speak with you,” Albus replies. He doesn’t look discomposed, but then, Severus gave up waiting for such a result years ago. He nods to Harry. “I think Mr. Potter needs to come with us. The news concerns the restrictions that he will need to be under at Hogwarts now that he has been infected.”

“And I repeat, Albus: you did not impose such restrictions when a werewolf who had attacked another student was there. A fully-transformed and infected werewolf, which you must know Harry is not. Are you going to change your mind now?”

“Of course, my boy. Multiple people have told me that I handled that incident wrongly. I wish to make up for it now.”

“Then save your restrictions for true werewolves,” Severus says, and derives some satisfaction from seeing Albus’s face pale at his cascade of vitriol. “Harry need not come with us. I can explain the situation to him later.”

“I do insist, Severus.”

“In that case, I would like to come, too,” Narcissa says mildly. “As I was explaining to the Headmaster, I have a son at the school, and I would like to know how these restrictions might affect him. And I never did have the cup of tea that I thought was such a good idea when Mr. Potter mentioned it.”

“Why should the rules Harry has to follow affect your son at all, Mrs. Malfoy?” Albus is in fullest and most irritating twinkling mode. “I think we should soon know if young Mr. Malfoy had been infected.”

Narcissa lets her eyes widen a little. “Oh, but all the arguments you mentioned are obviously nonsense, Headmaster, as Mr. Potter was able to tear them apart. I presume that you wanted to tell the truth to him in private. But my son will not cease being friends with Mr. Potter, of course. Therefore I would like to know what level of hostility he will need to expect from his professors and other students for maintaining the friendship.”

Albus’s smile is so brittle. Severus rejoices in the sight. “I would truly prefer to explain to them to Severus alone, Mrs. Malfoy. He is the child’s guardian. He needs to understand what we are doing for the safety of other students.”

“I would only tell Harry and Mrs. Malfoy soon in any case,” Severus says. “Before you had left, perhaps. They might as well come with us, Albus.”

Albus gives the deep, chiding, disappointed sigh that was once so able to control Severus when Albus was speaking of Lily and the way Severus had failed her. But Severus wonders now that he ever let it control his dealings with Harry. Of course he should have been more active from the beginning, not letting Harry’s initial Gryffindor Sorting and the silly way he had behaved in his first two years throw him off.

He needs to be better than that.

“Very well,” Albus finally capitulates, shaking his head as though he doesn’t understand why no one will trust him. “Then perhaps we can go to the dining room and sit down, if we are to have tea.”

*

Narcissa makes sure to watch the Headmaster’s hands, and Severus’s for that matter, as tea is served by the house-elves resident here. No one tries to drop anything into her cup, but she suspects that might be because these men are so solely focused on each other.

She sips her tea and smiles. Lucius once told her that he thought Severus would never rebel against the Headmaster, that he had a leash around Severus’s neck worth more than Galleons. And Narcissa agreed with that, but she will still take pleasure in telling her husband that Severus is no longer letting the leash choke him.

“Why should Harry be under any restrictions at all?” Severus asks the minute the house-elves disappear. Mr. Potter is seated beside him, his face pale. It is an unfortunate look for him, emphasizing the wounds that slash down the left side of his face. Narcissa wonders if he would take it amiss if she sent cream that might cover those, or if Severus would. “He is not an infected werewolf.”

“The other students will fear him.”

“The other students also fear Muggleborns and half-giants and the mention of Voldemort’s name. You have never let any of those terrors keep you from allowing those things at Hogwarts, Albus.”

Narcissa’s legs tense beneath the table in shock at hearing Severus say the Dark Lord’s name aloud. She eyes him and sees the way his mouth and nose lead the way as he leans forwards.

I was right and Lucius was wrong. Severus has abandoned the Dark Lord entirely.

It’s an interesting thought, but at the moment, Narcissa tucks it away instead of allowing it to influence her behavior. She watches as Dumbledore spends a moment sighing. It has no effect on Severus, who shoves a plate of scones that has just appeared towards Harry and never looks away from his employer.

“You know it is different. Harry has such a high level of notoriety that—”

“That you feel the need to restrict his movements? To pander to the fears that I thought you wanted to dismiss, Albus?”

Narcissa watches Dumbledore stroke his beard and thinks he’s getting frustrated. She has always been good at sensing such things even when no behavior demonstrates them. “It will be different because there will be demands on me that no Headmaster has ever faced before.”

“No, other Headmasters stood firm behind their decision to allow prejudice rule in their school. I did not think you were such a weakling, Albus.”

Narcissa very carefully does not choke on her tea. It sounds as if Harry wants to. His eyes are flickering back and forth, and he has a scone posed in his hand without eating it. Severus catches his eye and frowns at him. Harry immediately stuffs the scone so far down his throat that he then has to make a whistling noise and wave his arms around frantically. Narcissa hides her amusement and gives him her napkin to wipe his face.

“Listen to me, Severus. I must think of the good of the school as a whole, instead of only one student.”

“Oh, indeed. Is that why you bought a broom for this one student? Why you permitted him to be on the Quidditch team and own that broom? Why you awarded points to this student for putting himself and his friends in danger? Why you neglected to tell anyone the truth about the basilisk in the walls after you suspected it? Why you placed this student with Muggle relatives who had no legal right to take care of him?”

How extraordinarily interesting, Narcissa thinks. She sets her mind to record words and events rather than intervene. It is a kind of training that her mother insisted both Narcissa and her sisters have. It makes Pensieve memories seen later extraordinarily clear and easy to navigate. Narcissa has never had such an interesting scene to recall before, which helps.

*

Harry sits still at Snape’s side, not sure what will happen if they remember that he’s right there. He watches Snape go to battle for him and swallows again and again.

All he can think is: I misjudged Snape.

Harry thought he would be angry, sure, but mostly at Harry for letting Dumbledore into the house. This boiling rage against Dumbledore is something Harry has never seen. Snape’s hand is clenched as if he’s a few breaths away from punching the Headmaster in the face. It’s so—no one has ever fought for him like this. His friends didn’t get so angry, and Sirius always did what Dumbledore said.

Although maybe Sirius will get over that when he hears about the restrictions Dumbledore wants to put on me…?

It’s a nice dream, but Harry isn’t about to let it take him over. What matters, at the moment, is that Snape is speaking in a clear, cold voice, and Dumbledore is listening and nodding. Harry looks at him and thinks, I don’t even know if he actually wants to impose any of those restrictions, or if he just wants to use them to control me somehow.

It makes him frown. He never used to think of Dumbledore as controlling. And then he thought of himself as not important enough to control. But with things like Madam Macmillan talking to him and Daphne deciding to be friends with him when she didn’t care at first, then Harry’s had to change that impression.

Harry waits for a little while, listening as Dumbledore calmly counters everything Snape is bringing up one by one. The broom was a necessary reward to let him be on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. The decision to put him on the Quidditch team was supposedly what Professor McGonagall decided to do with him instead of detention, and Dumbledore says that he has no right to interfere in the decisions his professors make about detention.

He looks right at Snape when he says that, like he thinks he could interfere and wants to remind Snape of it. Harry tightens his hands under the table. That was one of the reasons he wanted someone else here, because Dumbledore can threaten Snape and they all know it.

But then Dumbledore says something about the way he awarded points to Harry and Ron and Hermione for going after the Philosopher’s Stone that Harry’s never thought of before. “After all, Severus, you yourself know that Harry must be trained.”

“Excuse me, sir?” Harry blurts out in shock. He thought he had to hide all the training he’s getting from Dumbledore, the Occlumency and the serpent magic and the rest of it, so this is weird. “What do I need to be trained to do?”

Dumbledore at once turns to face him. Harry doesn’t dare look at Snape. “Why, to face Voldemort, of course, Harry. You know he is not dead.”

No one should know that better than I do, Harry thinks, looking down a little while he remembers his dreams. “But I don’t understand how being given points like that is training, sir.”

“I was considering the obstacle course that you and Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger worked your way through rather than the points themselves,” Dumbledore says. He still has a kind smile when he wants to. “You learned to work together with your friends and think on your feet. Those are qualities that will stand you in good stead as you fight Voldemort, Harry.”

“But—I don’t understand. I thought those obstacles were there to protect the Philosopher’s Stone,” Harry protests. He knows his face is turning red and he thinks he must look pretty stupid, but he has to get it out. “Not to train me.”

“That was my impression, as well,” Snape says, and Harry looks at him and knows he would hide from Snape if he met him in a corridor right now. “Certainly when I designed the riddle and brewed the potions that were my contributions to the task, I thought that was what I was doing.”

“You know there are some of our colleagues who unfortunately do not believe that Voldemort has returned, Severus. I sought to avoid tiresome confrontations that would have done no good in the end.”

“Lying is your preferred method to win cooperation?”

“Lies of omission, my dear boy, lies of omission.”

Harry interrupts, even though he knows Snape will be angry with him later, because he’s just stuck on the training idea. “Then—I could train when I go back to school? You’d give me dueling lessons and set up other obstacle courses that would help me get better? And people from other Houses could participate in it? And everyone would get points?”

That sounds like a dream. It would make things fair for the debt Harry now he feels he owes the other Slytherins for the unfair points he got at the end of his first year. He didn’t need points. Dumbledore could just have said that he was proud of him, and that would be enough.

And it’s a dream, because Dumbledore is shaking his head, his smile dim. “I am sorry, my dear boy, but when you want to win a war, you do not spread your strategy among a large number of people. I will consent to train you if you wish, but most of it will be magical theory and history, not obstacle courses. And I cannot involve anyone else from Slytherin House.”

“You’re saying that I would have to lie to my friends, too?”

“Again, lies of omission, my dear boy. There are sacrifices to be made during times of war.”

Harry links his hands together and forces down the yell that wants to escape. Of course it wasn’t real training. Or maybe Dumbledore would offer to train just him in Occlumency or something. But Harry is going to share it with his friends even if that happens.

“It is interesting,” Snape says, his voice soft and nonchalant, “that you speak of keeping our strategy secret, yet also speak in front of the wife of an accused Death Eater.”

“He would not be the only one at this table, Severus, were he here,” Mrs. Malfoy murmurs, and Harry admires the way her voice sounds. He wants to sound like that, cool and like he doesn’t care about what he’s saying.

“I know that,” Snape says, and glances again at Dumbledore.

“I did want to speak to Harry privately, but apparently Mrs. Malfoy found fault with that plan.”

“I only asked for tea. What is wrong with tea?”

Harry coughs quickly to hide his grin. Mrs. Malfoy flickers a faint smile at him, and goes back to looking at Dumbledore. “Are there any other lies of omission that you feel like correcting as long as I am here, Headmaster?”

“No, Mrs. Malfoy. I fully accept that the story your husband told the Wizengamot was that he was under the control of the Imperius Curse. But one must consider that something that happened once could happen again.”

For a moment, Mrs. Malfoy’s napkin pauses in patting at her lips. Then she nods and puts it down. “I see, Headmaster. In that case, I will thank Severus and Harry for a delightful afternoon and return home.” She turns and holds out her hand to Harry, like he’s an adult, too. He barely manages to shake it. Professor McGonagall wouldn’t do that, and Mrs. Weasley would just hug him. “Thank you for calling upon me, Harry. I am at your disposal should you need me again.”

Harry blinks a little and manages to say, “Um, all right, Mrs. Malfoy. Thank you for coming.”

Snape bows over her hand and says something Harry can’t hear, but which makes her laugh softly. Then he nods at Harry and asks, “Would you see Mrs. Malfoy to the Floo, Harry?”

Harry knows perfectly well why Snape isn’t about to leave Dumbledore alone with him, but he still gives Snape a slightly betrayed look as he stands up. He wants to stay and hear what they talk about!

Snape looks straight into his eyes and feeds a thought into Harry’s mind, which he’s only done a time or two before. I will tell you everything.

Harry feels his head rock back on his neck with the shock of it, and he gasps a little. Mrs. Malfoy looks at him in concern, but Harry manages to shake it off with a smile. “Come on, Mrs. Malfoy. I’ll escort you to the Floo.”

She comes, but her mouth is tucked down in a curious little line. She pauses when they reach the fireplace and looks him in the eye. “I meant what I said, Mr. Potter, about coming when you call me.”

But what price will you ask? Harry just nods to her and smiles. “I know, Mrs. Malfoy.”

She stands for a second like she wants to say something else but can’t think of what it should be. Then she turns and vanishes through the Floo.

And Harry goes to tell Blaise he can come out of his room, a little guilty for leaving him in there for so long. He trusts Snape will tell him—really tell him—what he and Dumbledore ended up talking about.

*

“You will not gain back his trust, Albus. He is never going to be a Gryffindor again, and he is never going to yield to you.”

Albus only smiles at Severus. “I did not come to gain control of Harry. I came to warn him about how he might be regarded given the scars on his face.”

Scars he will not have before a year is past. I have sworn it. Severus’s hands tighten in his robes. He thinks he must look like Harry, who he saw earlier doing the same thing. “Then you did not plan to actually enact the restrictions?”

“I know that I might have no choice if enough parents importune me.”

“Drop your masks, Albus. I have already told you that I will not yield to you. Neither will Harry.”

“He might see sense if you would stop encouraging him to rebel uselessly, Severus.”

“I want him to live. It sounds, Headmaster, like what you want him to do is die being a hero.”

That’s a shot in the dark, as his Muggle father would have said, but from the genuine shock in Albus’s eyes, Severus knows it has gone home. He releases a slow gust of air and prevents himself from reacting. He knew that Albus wanted control, craved it, given how he reacted once Harry once began to slip his chains. But he did not know this.

“He is going to live.”

“If you understood everything, Severus, you would know why that is not possible.”

“Are you going to tell me everything?”

Albus is silent.

“Get out of our house,” Severus says. “If I find that you have come here again when I am absent, or attempted to speak to Harry about Fenrir Greyback’s attack on him, I will enact the consequences.”

Albus sighs heavily and stands. “I think you would find it hard to turn Harry against me entirely, Severus.”

Severus says nothing. He watches Albus steadily until he leaves.

It is, he thinks, telling that Albus would assume that the “consequences” are Severus trying to take control of Harry’s mind, when that is precisely what Albus would like to do.

But in some ways, although he thinks himself a mastermind and a manipulator, Albus does not go far enough. He certainly does not go far enough into understanding those designated “Dark” wizards.

It will not be Severus trying to control Harry’s mind that Albus should fear. It will be the silent poison, the crippling dose, the “pain” potion entering his body and wreaking there changes too fast for him to stop.

Severus Snape has only ever had one person to care for. And she is dead, beyond the reach of Albus’s manipulations.

But now he has another. And perhaps not all Slytherins will kill to protect what they care for, but Severus Snape does.

He goes in search of Harry. They should talk.