[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Chapter Thirty-One of 'Adagio'- Symbolism of Light

[lomonaaeren]

“You might tell your friend Mr. Nott to be a little more careful with the practical applications of my research.”

“He’s not my friend.”

“Even if he might soon become a Death Eater?”

Harry laughed a little, soft and cold like snowfall, and lowered his wand from where he’d been practicing the first motions of the latest curse Severus was teaching him for his Dark Arts studies. “He’s part of the people whose loyalty I brought to the Dark Lord to show that I was valuable. That’s not the same thing as a friend.”

Severus considered him in silence. Harry looked back, smile easy and gentle on his face. Severus didn’t know how he did that and made it look so natural.

The child who had been Sorted into Slytherin four years ago hadn’t been this cold, he was certain.

“I have a more interesting problem that I want your advice on.”

“All right,” Severus said slowly. He wondered if he would categorize Nott as an uninteresting problem, but it was true that Severus only cared about the boy as much as he had to, given his position as Head of Slytherin House. The position that Albus had forced him into and he never would have taken if not for that.

He had argued, once, years ago, that he could work as a researcher and brewer full time and then more easily slip back into the Dark Lord’s ranks because he wouldn’t have been under Albus’s thumb all that time. But Albus had refused. He had said that he needed to help Severus keep his Vow.

And all the time, I would have been better able to keep it if I’d tortured a few Muggles.

“Sirius invited me to spend Christmas with him.”

Severus blinked. Then he said, “Do you want to?”

“Of course not.”

“But you have a reason for at least pretending to agree, or you would not have brought it to me.”

Harry smiled in the way that lit his eyes the most, and which Severus thought would still have made Black try to run away if he’d seen it. “I thought that I might manage to spy on Black, and the Order of the Phoenix through him.”

“I have attended a few Order meetings, and reported on them to our Lord.”

“But they curate the information that they tell you. You know that Dumbledore doesn’t trust you as much as he used to.”

Severus nodded stiffly. It was a point of pride with him that no one in the Order had suspected his true (forced) allegiances so far, but they did distrust him and kept some things to whispers and meetings they didn’t share with him.

“Besides.”

Severus snapped back to reality and blinked at Harry. “Besides, what?”

“This way, I can be there with you when you visit during the holiday and be sure that they aren’t plotting to torture or kill you.”

Severus wrestled with his incredulity for a moment, and at last decided to show it. “They would not do so, Harry. They think of themselves as the good ones. They wouldn’t use the Cruciatus or the Imperius no matter what the temptation.”

Harry took a step backwards and raised his wand. He traced it in an arcane pattern through the air, one that Severus didn’t know. Despite feeling as though he wanted to run, he instead stood still, his eyes tracking it.

It looked a little like a diagnostic charm. But he could not understand why Harry would have focused on that. Basic healing spells, maybe, but only for himself.

A soft white light began to spread throughout the office. Severus looked around for the source of it, and finally realized it was himself. A chain of white light linked a collar around his neck to cuffs on his wrists.

“What is—this?” he choked, staring at the light. It didn’t weigh anything, and he wouldn’t have known he was wearing this—thing—if Harry’s spell hadn’t revealed it.

Which suggested it was nothing material.

“A visualization of the Unbreakable Vow they forced on you.”

Harry’s voice was deep enough that for a moment, Severus had the wild thought that someone else had Polyjuiced as Harry, sneaked into his office, and cast this spell. But no, Severus would have seen something off in their behavior before this.

Harry folded his arms, and his eyes were blazing. “All of them were complicit in this. In your being a slave to the memory of a dead woman.”

Severus could not bring his lips to form words. Finally, he said, “It was—Albus who made me swear the Vow. Not the other members of the Order. You know well enough that Black was in Azkaban for twelve years.”

“I don’t care. They still force you to do something you hate. I know that you want to study the Dark Arts and be a brewer and researcher instead of a professor. And I know that you’re doing something that’s still dangerous if Dumbledore finds you out, and they treat you like you’re worthless.”

Severus stared at Harry, who was staring at him with his eyes blazing with devotion now, and had no idea what to say.

He wanted to object that he was not chained to the memory of a dead woman. He wanted to remind Harry, again, that Lily had died to protect him, and that Severus had sworn the Vow in the first place and become the first adult Harry trusted because of her.

But he couldn’t get past the searing protectiveness in Harry, the way that he was leaning forwards a little as if he were willing Severus to agree.

No one has ever protected me like this. Lily couldn’t. It would have been against her morals. And—

He looked at the light encircling his neck and wrists again, and touched it without disturbing the sharp glow of it. “Where did you find the spell to make this visible?”

“I created it.”

Severus’s head snapped up sharply. “You had only begun to look at my notes—”

“But I knew what I wanted, and I have absolutely no reason to hold back.” Harry’s eyes were so bright, so overwhelming, so confident, so determined. “And I wanted to see exactly how thick the chains on you were.”

“This is only a representation.”

“The spell takes account of your thoughts when it creates the image. This is the way you think of yourself as being bound.”

“Can you conjure a mirror?” In truth, Severus could have done it, since the cuffs didn’t actually restrain his hands, but he was feeling strange at the moment and didn’t know that the spell wouldn’t misfire.

“Of course.”

Harry did it with a quick tap of his wand and not even a muttered incantation. Severus had been missing the extent of his training with Barty, it seemed. Or just whatever he might have been doing on his own.

Driven by that mad determination in his eyes, Severus was sure.

He stared at the reflection in the mirror. The collar around his neck was so thick that he was amazed his head didn’t bend forwards under the weight, that he could breathe under it. The chains that shot down to link to the cuffs on his wrists were nearly as thick. Severus could hardly believe that when he lifted his fingers to trace them, he didn’t feel the links.

“This is the way you see me,” he whispered.

“Because that is the way you see yourself.”

All this time, Severus had believed that he had gone along with the Dark Lord’s orders only because it was the best way to protect Harry. He had given up all thought of protecting himself long ago. It had seemed impossible.

And he had not been sure that he deserved to live after indirectly causing Lily’s death, in any case.

Now, to know that he thought of himself as chained, a prisoner…

Severus swallowed. He thought he knew why his own perception of himself had differed from Harry’s so radically.

He closed his eyes, reassured himself several times mentally that Harry was the only other person in the room, and lowered his Occlumency shields all the way for the first time in fourteen years.

He sagged to his knees as pain and resentment crashed through him like torrents of blood. He knew that he cried out, but he couldn’t hear it. He did feel, distantly, Harry clasping his shoulders and asking worriedly what was wrong.

Then even that feeling faded, and Severus had to confront what was inside his mind.

Things he had hidden even from himself. He had thought that he had been resigned to paying his debt back, that he had accepted a sort of unsteady friendship with Albus.

It was a shock to see the hatred, grey pockets of it puncturing his own self-loathing like islands in a dark sea. Severus swayed on his knees and perhaps crashed to the floor in the physical reality. Not that he could take his eyes from the vision stretching across the inside of his head.

He hated the Dark Lord for killing Lily. He hated Albus for enslaving him. He felt reluctant protectiveness for most of his Slytherins, but he would rather not have been in the position as Head of House at all. He felt a sort of affection for Barty, although he knew the man would also turn on him the instant that he knew how Severus felt about the Dark Lord. He felt loss and grief and rage regarding Lily.

He felt care for Harry, the one blazing star in the dark.

There was darkness all around him. He could yield to it. He could draft away into that darkness and never come back.

Perhaps he should, now that he knew he hated and resented both his masters.

“Severus!”

But there was one person who cared whether he lived or died. And whether Harry had started out caring simply because of what Severus could do for him, he did care.

Severus opened his eyes and tilted his head back with a deep gasp. He was in his office again, in the light of the torches and the fire, and Harry was gripping his shoulders, shaking him with frantic eyes.

“Severus!”

“It’s all right, Harry. I’m still here.”

Harry grabbed him and buried his face against Severus’s shoulder. He shook a little and then remained still. Severus stroked Harry’s back with numb hands, still chained with light, and wondered if the boy would ever be able to cry.

Perhaps it didn’t matter. Harry had created this spell so Severus could see the way he thought of himself, and had prompted much-needed self-reflection on Severus’s part. None of that had been pleasant, but it had been sincere.

He’d had every opportunity to turn on Severus. He never had.

Severus swallowed and waited until Harry’s shudders had faded a little. Then he stood. “Harry?”

“Yes, Severus?”

Already the sobs, or the almost-sobs, were being locked back behind that cold, placid mask that concealed more than Severus would ever be able to understand. However, if he didn’t understand it, neither would the Order.

Or…

Severus hardly dared let the thought float atop the surface of his mind. But no one was here except the two of them. And Harry had chosen to concentrate on Occlumency instead of Legilimency, despite his potential for the latter.

The Dark Lord might not understand how far Harry would go, either.

Holding Harry’s eyes, Severus said quietly, “It would mean much if you would accept the invitation to the Order’s headquarters and spy on them for me. But only if you are sure that you can do so without putting yourself in danger.”

“Severus, when do I ever do that?”

Severus smiled reluctantly. Yes, that was true. He held out his wrists. “Will you banish these chains?”

“I can banish the light that forms them,” Harry said softly, looking up at him through his fringe. “You’re the only one who can get around that Vow in the end, sir.”

Severus nodded slowly. “Very well. Then please banish the visualization, and I will think of the ways that I can break both of us free in the future.”

Harry smiled at him and touched his wand to the glowing, insubstantial cuffs around Severus’s wrists. In seconds, they dissolved into floating motes. Severus sighed and straightened, rubbing his neck.

“Did you actually feel the weight, sir? I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Severus looked at Harry with a long sigh. Harry was staring up at him with anxious eyes. Severus reached out, signaling every motion he made, and put his palm down on Harry’s shoulder.

“No,” he said. “I am only thinking of the weight they have in my mind and soul.”

Harry relaxed and smiled at him. “We’ll find a way around them, Severus. All of them.”

Severus met his eyes. And oh, yes, even though he wasn’t practiced in Legilimency, Harry likely knew what he was thinking. By this point, he knew what Severus was thinking better than anyone else in the world.

“There is a matter of many—oaths,” Severus said, with a flickering glance at the Mark on his arm.

“Of course. We’ll shed only the ones we don’t want.”

Severus had to close his eyes. Harry had gone to the Dark Lord and dragged Severus with him for safety, but he was willing to turn on the Dark Lord if Severus asked him to.

“Thank you, Harry,” Severus finally said, opening his eyes again. “You have given me much to think about.”

“Only returning the favor. You always do that for me.”

Harry gave him a quick hug and slipped out of the office. Severus closed his eyes and centered himself, letting the Occlumency shields fall softly back into place over the surface of his mind.

He could do this. He felt scoured, pained, exhausted.

And also more hopeful than he had been in many years.