lomonaaeren

“You don’t think that he will take one of the Horcruxes and do his best to resurrect the Dark Lord?”

“He doesn’t know what they are. Given that he brought back the Dark Lord the first time a different way, he doesn’t even know that they might be necessary to resurrect him.”

“Might be?’

Harry tossed Severus a cold smile and leaned back in the Transfigured chair again. “You know, this is pretty comfortable. I could get used to it.’

Severus Transfigured it neatly into a smaller chair that promptly spilled Harry onto the floor.

Harry picked himself up from the floor, dusting off his arse, with an injured look in Severus’s direction. Severus felt something deep inside him relax. He had been worried that Harry would retaliate for that, would prove that deep inside himself, he was still the Dark Lord.

He had not. He was still Harry in all the ways that counted.

“Barty doesn’t know about the Horcruxes,” Harry repeated. “I saw that in the Dark Lord’s memories. The only way that the Dark Lord would ever have told him is if that was the only way to resurrect him. And even then, he wouldn’t have confessed the secret of exactly what they are to Barty. He would have just told Barty that it was a powerful artifact he’d enchanted to help in the resurrection process.”

Severus considered that, and then nodded a little. He could see how that would make sense to Barty, and it sounded like the kind of thing that the Dark Lord would say.

“So the people who know now are—”

“You, me, and Dumbledore. And I don’t know if the knowledge remains in Dumbledore’s rapidly fraying mind, to be honest.”

Severus smiled. He couldn’t help himself. The thought of Albus trapped and screaming behind the walls of insanity that he had partially made other people believe in gave him so much joy. Severus did hope that he got to see Albus one more time, before the end.

With difficulty, he shook off the mood. “And the Dark Lord?”

“What do you mean?”

“The Death Eaters are unlikely to tell people about the demise of the Dark Lord. How do you propose to counter that?”

Harry gave him a small smile. “Oh. I’m sure that I’ll come up with something.”

*

“I had the impression that you would warn me the next time you had an insane plan.”

“I did! I said I would come up with something.”

“That was not specific enough.”

“But it was a great test of your acting skills to maintain your expression in the middle of the Great Hall.”

Severus closed his eyes and counted backwards from ten. That did not work. He tried fifteen, then twenty, and finally opened his eyes and stared at Harry, who beamed back at him.

Severus glanced at the front of the Daily Prophet once more.

HARRY POTTER EXPLODES YOU-KNOW-WHO WITH ACCIDENTAL MAGIC!

Severus just shook his head slowly. The paper was all about Harry’s “dramatic story” of having been kidnapped from Hogwarts the night the Dark Lord had died, and supposedly about to be used to “bring him back to full power.” Given that only Albus and a few others had believed that the Dark Lord had returned fully, Harry had tailored the story to the knowledge of their audience.

Harry had somehow got hold of Rita Skeeter—well, Severus could imagine that an owl would have brought her rushing joyfully to Hogwarts—and “let her interview his bravely crying self” about how he had become so frightened when the Dark Lord was stalking towards him that he had exploded his body with accidental magic. And then destroyed his snake, his familiar, the same way.

“The detail about Nagini. Why did you include that?” Severus murmured, watching the photograph on the front of the paper. It was of Harry looking solemn and standing in front of Hogwarts, his head uplifted.

“Both to confirm for the Death Eaters reading it that it was really me there, and to give some explanation for the Dark Lord’s return.”

“His bond with his familiar?”

“Yeah.”

“But he could not have had such a bond as a wraith.”

Harry laughed in that way that always seemed to bring a rime of frost crawling down the walls, to Severus. “Do you think they really know that? Or care?”

After a moment’s thought, Severus shook his head. Albus would be one of the few who had believed the Dark Lord’s wraith had survived, outside the Death Eaters. And even most of the Death Eaters would not have known how that survival worked.

“People are just happy that he’s gone. And this way, they won’t be pursuing me when we leave Hogwarts to come back and supposedly finish my duty.”

“There will those who do not believe he’s gone. The members of the Order of the Phoenix.”

“They have little to no power. Not in the way that the Minister for Magic or the concentrated force of the public would have. Or the Headmaster of Hogwarts,” Harry added quietly.

Severus had to smile again. He had “visited” Albus yesterday, and Poppy had confirmed that the Headmaster’s condition had deteriorated further, to the point that he had looked at Severus without recognition for long moments.

And then the rage and terror had surfaced in his eyes.

He had whispered broken words with trembling lips, reaching towards Severus with one hand curled into a claw that Severus knew was probably meant to drag him closer and make him listen. Severus had only avoided the touch and shaken his head, keeping sorrow in his eyes as he said to Poppy, “I see what you mean about him being far gone.”

And then he had turned and walked away, while Albus screamed and clawed at the air in rage behind him, and Poppy offered him a Calming Draught that she spelled into his stomach when he refused to drink it.

Severus came out of his reverie to see Harry watching him with glinting eyes. “What?” Severus asked.

“This worked out well for both of us, even if you disapprove of my methods.”

“I do not see why you could not have informed me.”

Harry hesitated, and some of Severus’s amusement faded. “What is it?” he asked, leaning closer. He hated he might have given Harry cause to doubt him.

“You protected me in the first place because of the Unbreakable Vow you swore and because I was Sorted into Slytherin.”

“Yes?”

“You’ll be free from the Vow now, and from any obligation you have to me as Head of House. Will you…”

And Hary could not speak the words at the last. Severus took a step forwards and let a hand rest on Harry’s shoulder, waiting until his ward stirred and looked up at him.

“You have given me both freedom and revenge,” Severus told him quietly. “Even if I were not fond of you for yourself, I would want to continue to associate with the first person for years who has cared what I want.”

Harry smiled, the relief spilling across his face, and Severus drew him close for a long moment. He stepped back before either of them could become embarrassed.

“Do you have a plan when Barty returns with the first of the Horcruxes?”

“Don’t you want to wait and s—”

“Harry.”

“Yes. Depending on what it is and how easily we can keep it contained—if it has a curse like the ring, for example—I thought we’ll want to seal it away and work on cleansing it. Perhaps they won’t be Founder’s artifacts, though. Perhaps they’ll be more like the diary.”

Severus nodded. He had to admit that he was glad circumstances had worked out so that he could destroy the diary. It had been more powerful than most of the other Horcruxes seemed, and it had no inherent value like the diadem that would require them to study it and see if the Horcrux could be removed.

“If they’re useless?”

“Then we’ll destroy them.”

“You have no wish to retain them?”

Harry laughed a little. “Waiting to see how much of the Dark Lord really lives on in me?”

Severus could feel a flush working its way up his cheeks, but he maintained his steady gaze on Harry. Harry stared back at him, and, after a few moments, inclined his head.

“I have no desire to make Horcruxes myself,” Harry said softly. “I might have been afraid of death in situations involving the Dark Lord, but I’ve also seen what comes of trying to avoid death, which is worse. By the time that I’m old enough to rival the Dark Lord or Dumbledore in age, I think I’ll be ready to move on.”

“A pity that we cannot advertise the Dark Lord’s true fate,” Severus said lightly, back to feeling balanced and reassured now that Harry had stated it so openly. “Some of those who seek immortality might reconsider.”

“Why would we care about them?”

Harry sounded genuinely astonished, and Severus once again found a smile playing on his lips. It was so rare to find someone who would accept his own stance on the world—that it was mostly full of fools and idiots not worth taking risks for—and not seek to scold or correct him for it.

Then again, Severus was sure that Harry thought about the world in the same way.

*

“And what happens now?”

“What happens now is what you want to happen.”

Severus slowed his stride. He had been walking towards the hospital wing, ready to meet again with Poppy and Minerva in the “mysterious” case of Albus’s “illness,” and promise to do what he could, while reveling in doing so much less than what he could. But he was more than intrigued by the sound of Harry speaking to Mr. Nott.

Severus turned and blended into the shadows as he so well knew how to do. A charm that showed him a vision of the corridor from around the corner revealed Harry standing in front of Mr. Nott.

Harry seemed a bit bored and a bit impatient. Nott had his arms crossed over his chest and a lack of expression on his face that was obviously him fighting against strong emotions.

“You promised me a place at the Dark Lord’s side.”

“That was before he tried to kill me.”

“What will you promise me now?”

“The freedom and power to do what you want to do. Isn’t it enough to have been freed from the Dark Lord?”

“And if I said that part of the reason I was willing to fight at the Dark Lord’s side was you?”

Harry paused, apparently baffled. Severus concealed a sigh. There was some satisfaction here, too, admittedly. He had known that Harry making all those promises to the other young Slytherins about fighting at the Dark Lord’s side would have to be dealt with.

“I would say that I can’t give you the same opportunities for power and torture than the Dark Lord could, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

“I was never looking for that.”

“Not for power?”

“For that. But mostly for the opportunity to conduct my research and create my spells for someone who would value them.”

“Then could I recommend the Department of Mysteries?”

“Harry. You know full well what I’m asking for.”

There was a moment long enough that Severus wondered idly if he would have to step in and intervene. Then Harry gave a sigh of his own that sounded like mingled irritation and fondness.

“I’ll be leaving the school soon to conduct my own version of research and spellcrafting. I don’t yet know where that will be. But you would be welcome to visit when I can provide you with a Floo address.”

Severus relaxed. He truly did not think that Nott would betray them, if only because he had been willing to do things like act as a Polyjuiced Harry a year ago and assault McLaggen when ordered. And Severus would insist on secrecy oaths to bind Nott if he found out anything about why Severus and Harry had handled the Dark Lord and Dumbledore the way they had.

It would be best for Harry to have at least one friend his own age.

“You don’t want to sit your OWLS or NEWTS, then?”

“I’ll do my OWLS before I leave. But the NEWTS? No one who’ll be left here has anything to teach me. I’ll take my NEWTS, the ones I want to and not the ones the school would compel me to, at some point in the future.”

“I might leave, too. My father is seeing new—opportunities—now that the Dark Lord is no more.”

“Well. Then I would be the first to welcome you at my new home.”

“Thank you, Harry.”

Nott bowed to Harry and then walked away. Severus shook his head and ended the spell. Nott’s father was more than a blood purity fanatic, to the point that Severus knew he had seriously considered not letting his son attend Hogwarts, where he would be around Muggleborns and half-bloods.

It seemed that his son was more sane, and perhaps a valuable or useful connection. Severus would need people who could do some of the ingredient-gathering and spell-testing that might be tedious, after all.