[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Chapter Fifty-Two of 'Adagio'- A Home of Their Own

[lomonaaeren]

“I am sorry to have to make this announcement…”

Severus stood with bowed head next to Minerva. He already knew what the announcement was going to be, of course. Minerva had called him to what was now the Headmistress’s office to give him the news earlier.

Severus had expressed confusion, sadness, muted anger. It was all what Minerva would expect to see. But he kept his head bowed now so that he would hide every trace of exultation in his eyes.

He could still see the Slytherin table from where he stood, and was pleased to see that Harry was wise enough to do the same thing.

“Professor Dumbledore has died in the hospital wing,” Minerva finished, her voice trembling, “after a long illness.”

Of almost exactly three months’ duration, Severus thought. In the variations of the poison that he would be undoubtedly be concocting, he would need to work out how to make the timeline more precise.

“No!” cried a chorus of student voices, mostly from the Gryffindor table.

Minerva went about soothing them and talking about the funeral they would plan and the times they would schedule so that students come and pay their respects before then, the way that her office was open to anyone who wanted to come by, and how they would pick up and go on without “the greatest wizard in living memory.” Severus just nodded along and went to talk to the Slytherins when Minerva suggested he should. Classes would be canceled for the day. He had plenty of time to pack later.

There were a few first-year Slytherins who genuinely seemed devastated, perhaps because their parents had raised them with the idea that Albus was the only one who could keep the Dark Lord from coming back. Severus turned away from them only to find Draco hovering at his elbow.

“Sir? Can I talk to you?”

This is my fault for encouraging him to take his future at the Dark Lord’s side seriously, Severus thought in resignation, catching Harry’s eye on the way out. Harry just smiled and turned around to talk to Nott.

“Yes, of course, Draco.”

Severus followed Draco out of the Great Hall and raised a Privacy Charm around them when it appeared that Draco might be upset enough to simply start blurting things out in the middle of the entrance hall.

Draco closed his eyes and seemed to meditate for a moment, perhaps to keep his temper under control. Then he blurted, “Sir, was it you?”

“Was what me?”

“Did you kill Dumbledore?”

Severus tilted his head in slow incredulity. “He was the one who kept me out of Azkaban after the first war,” he said. “And he was the one who ensured that some of my colleagues accepted me, and I was able to brew Potions for the hospital wing and have access to a steady supply of ingredients. What reason would I have to kill him?”

“Oh.”

Severus just nodded, and waited, since it seemed that Draco wasn’t done yet.

“What am I going to do now?” Draco burst out. “Mother wrote to me to say that Father is considering leaving the country to avoid Potter—”

“Mr. Potter is not that vindictive, to attack someone for merely being a Death Eater, when they otherwise did nothing to him.”

“Father is afraid of him anyway. He wouldn’t tell me exactly why.”

Oh, I know why.

But Severus only nodded as though he were thinking about Draco’s words and then said, “You need not worry about hostility from Mr. Potter. It is still your father’s choice if he wishes to leave, of course, but it’s not something Mr. Potter would demand.”

“What about me?’

“You do not wish to go abroad?’

“Well, no. But I feel that I was promised a future, and now I don’t have a future anymore. What am I supposed to do?”

Severus held back a snort. He would not see Draco express that sentiment to Harry, although he also knew that Harry wouldn’t be stupid enough to strike at Draco for it. Severus simply shrugged. “Why do you not seek to find another place for the work that you would have done if you had followed the Dark Lord?”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“Seek a place where your creative talents and your—writing talents would be welcome. I assume that your father has some connections in the Ministry who could mentor you. Your mother may even have some ideas.”

“Mother always says that she hates politics.”

Yes, because they intrude on her precious time of doing absolutely nothing. “Talk with her, nonetheless. You are her son. Her hatred of politics is less than her love for you.”

That, at least, Severus was certain of, no matter how self-involved Narcissa Malfoy was. He sometimes rued the day that she had had a child, considering how dangerous she had become, like a volcano that sometimes deigned to notice individuals.

“Oh, okay. Thank you, sir.”

Severus took down the Privacy Charm and watched Draco trot away. He could already sense eyes on his back that he knew well, so he strolled towards the dungeons as if just happening to wander that way. And in fact, his mind was already focused on the potion that he would begin brewing that afternoon.

Harry joined him a few minutes later, ghosting out of a side corridor.

“What did Malfoy want?”

“He wanted to know what kind of future he would have now that he could no longer follow you into the Dark Lord’s service.”

“Really?”

Severus turned an amused glance on Harry as they crossed the threshold of his office. “Yes. Did you think that he would ask about something which did not relate to himself?”

“Not that, exactly. Just that—why doesn’t he have more ambition? Why doesn’t he have dreams that aren’t tied to following someone?”

“It is rare that someone does not have those dreams in some measure, in our world,” Severus murmured, as he got out his cauldron and filled it with water, then conjured the fire that would need to be there to warm the water. “And consider that Draco had been influenced by his father from a young age. His father thought it necessary to hook his cart to the Dark Lord.”’

Harry snorted, and Severus glanced up. Harry was bent over, arms curled around his stomach as he laughed.

“The Dark Lord as a carthorse,” he gasped, when Severus caught his eye.

Severus smiled faintly as he began to place green crystals of dried seaweed in the water. “Well, remember that that is largely the way it works among some of the upper-level purebloods. They try to find someone with magical power or money but who has little direction in how to use it him- or herself to use as a horse to draw them alone. The Dark Lord probably astonished some of his followers by insisting on determining the direction.”

“Are people likely to try and use me that way?’

Severus shot a quick glance at Harry. His eyes had gone dark, his lips turned downwards. He looked ready to lash out at anyone who would attempt to make him useful.

“I don’t think as much as they would have someone like the Dark Lord. You have successfully presented yourself as someone whose greatest triumphs have come through mysterious or accidental use of magic, either as a child or recently, and Dumbledore is not alive now to pressure you to stay.”

Harry relaxed, and it seemed as though a cloud had drifted away from the sun. “Good. I wasn’t looking forward to destroying everyone who would have to be destroyed in that case.”

“And your progress with your godfather?”

“Oh, I thought you might want to be there to witness the performance.”

Severus hesitated, weighing his hatred of Sirius Black against the chance to watch Harry conning someone else with his drama. Curiosity won.

“Very well. But I will leave the moment the word Snivellus is mentioned.”

“Trust me.” Harry’s eyes glittered like broken glass. “That won’t be a problem.”

*

“You want to do what, kiddo?”

Black spoke the words while shooting a vicious glance at Severus. They stood in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, the site of so many Order meetings, and Black seemed as though he didn’t know what to do with the words Harry had spoken.

“Leave Hogwarts and not spend my last two years there.” And Harry shivered and wrapped his arms around himself even more than he had the first time that he had made the appeal to Black.

“But why?”

Harry laughed a little. He was doing a good shrill laugh, Severus thought, as he listened critically. A little too high-pitched, perhaps, but that was more likely to convince a Gryffindor than otherwise. “Can you even ask that, Sirius? I got kidnapped by Voldemort, the Headmaster is dead from a curse that Voldemort apparently cast on him, and people are likely to swarm me again and make me even more famous now that Voldemort is—”

“Please don’t call him that, Harry.”

Harry fell silent and blinked at Black for a moment. Then he sighed. “Now that You-Know-Who is dead. Last time, I was a baby and people couldn’t really take advantage of me after I was hidden in the Muggle world. I couldn’t do much for them. Now they’re going to see me as able to help them, and they’ll just—try to use me.”

“Surely Sniv—”

Black choked, staggering backwards with his hands rising to his throat. Severus stared. He would have thought Harry was using wandless magic on his godfather, but it didn’t seem as though Harry was concentrating particularly hard.

Black stopped choking abruptly and bent over, wheezing. Harry just watched him, and Severus just watched Harry.

“What was that?” Black snapped, straightening up. “Did you—what did you do to me, Snape?”

“I did nothing,” Severus said, which had the virtue of being true. “Perhaps you simply should not insult the man who helped your godson to escape the Dark Lord and who intends to mentor him outside the school?”

“You’re going to what?”

Harry had already mentioned this, but Severus did enjoy the chance to raise his eyebrows and drawl, “I’m going to mentor him outside of school. I am leaving Hogwarts myself. Without Albus and without Harry, I would have little reason to stay. And the war against the Dark Lord is done. I deserve my freedom.”

“You don’t deserve access to Harry!”

“You don’t have custody of me, Sirius,” Harry said in a small, hurt voice that made Severus have to work to keep from gaping. “You refused to take care of me. So I had to find someone who would take care of me.” He grabbed Severus’s hand and clung to it, leaning against his side. “Severus did.”

He wishes to show such weakness to his godfather?

But a moment later, Severus realized that Black hadn’t interpreted it as weakness. Pain was shining in his eyes, the kind that Severus had once imagined causing with words alone. He’d never found the right words, probably because Black simply didn’t care what Severus said enough for it to matter to him.

But now? Now he looked as if he were bleeding from the heart.

It filled Severus with an exultation second only to Albus’s death.

“You don’t mean that, Harry,” Black finally whispered.

“He’s my Head of House. He was there for me when you weren’t. He rescued me from V—You-Know-Who. He made sure that I didn’t get eaten alive in Slytherin. He never abandoned me because Dumbledore told him to. I trust him more than you.”

Black might have been stabbed through the soul this time. The expression on his face as he stood staring at Harry…

Well, Severus had never been a particular connoisseur of heartbroken expressions as opposed to others, but he still judged this one exquisite.

“What can I do to make it up to you?” Black whispered. “I still want to take care of you, Harry. How can I do that?”

“Well…”

Severus restrained a laugh and turned his back to examine a few of the patterned plates that someone, perhaps Black, had found in the drawers and cupboards of Grimmauld Place and affixed to the wall in the kitchen. He would leave Harry to negotiate this with Black. He deserved everything he could milk from his godfather for the man’s refusal to do his duty.

And in the meantime, they would get a far nicer house and more books and Galleons than if Severus had been the one to handle the negotiation.

*

“How did you make him choke on that insulting nickname?”

“I had him swear an oath the last time I visited that he would never use it.”

“That is—ingenious, but I am curious to know what tactics you used to make him swear such an oath. I am sure that he would never agree to it.”

“He might have been drunk at the time. Which led to the entertaining consequence of his forgetting that he swore it.”

Severus laughed, and stopped asking questions.

*

“I am sorry that you are resigning your position, Severus.”

“Only because you will need to find another Potions professor, Minerva. Not because you think I was a good one.”

Minerva hesitated for a long moment. Severus finished laying the scroll on her desk that contained the passwords for his office and quarters, and a list of precautions and spells he took in the classroom—not that he expected those to be followed by whomever Minerva managed to con into the position.

“It is true that I could wish for a better Potions instructor,” Minerva said at last. “But not a better soldier in the war against You-Know-Who.”

“And that war is over now, with both the Dark Lord and Albus removed.”

“You make it sound as though Albus were a willing part of that war, Severus.”

Severus just raised his eyebrows. There were many things he could say, including that Albus was the one who had led the Order of the Phoenix, not someone else, and needed a secret headquarters and defined himself against the Dark Lord, while at the same time expecting Harry to take the field against the monster.

But there would be no point, not with the amount of things Minerva could not know.

“Good-bye, Minerva,” Severus said, and turned and left the office while she appeared to still be wondering how sincere her farewells should be.

*

“It’s magnificent.”

Severus smiled, partially because it was the first time he had heard Harry use the word about something that wasn’t Dark Arts. They stood on a green hill looking down on the house that they had purchased with the Galleons Black had all but piled into Harry’s arms.

It looked like a sprawling manor house from this distance, but some of the wings were pure illusion, the kind of spell meant to make an enemy waste resources attacking a part of the “building” where no one lived. The actual, guarded part of the house was the center, where wards hummed around the walls and stones and foundation that the Black ancestors had lifted, wrapping themselves so close that there was no way to get at the house from the air, from beneath the ground, or through any gap. There was no gap.

When Severus and Harry keyed themselves into the wards, they would become part of them, able to pass in and out freely. No one else would be able to do so, including Barty and Nott, unless Severus and Harry both agreed to it.

The walls were high silver stone, nearly the color of the wards that hummed around them, and Severus knew there were labs inside, libraries waiting to be filled with books purchased by the Galleons Black had given them, rooms walled with certain kinds of stone that would react to experimental spells in specialized ways, indoor gardens for growing ingredients, warded spaces that could hold magical creatures…

“You’re drooling, Severus.”

Severus’s hand went to his chin before he reminded himself that this was Harry’s idea of teasing and pulled it back. “I am not.”

“Spiritually.”

Severus snorted and leaned back on the tree behind him, a tall black specimen whose leaves he was itching to examine. They might be the very thing for the variation of the poison that had killed Albus he now wanted to brew. “What do you intend to do about Barty’s letter?”

“Nothing for the moment.” Harry shrugged. “So the locket in the cave was fake. He said that the R.A.B. who left the note was probably Regulus Black, and he’s going to start searching for the locket in some of the places that he knows Regulus frequented.”

“And if it turns out that the locket is in a place locked down by your godfather?”

“I’m sure he would be happy enough to open them to Professor Dawlish, an experienced Auror who only left his teaching post because he didn’t want the curse to catch up to him.”

“Are you not worried about playing the false Dark Lord across years for Barty’s sake?”

Harry said nothing, forcing Severus to turn and look at him. Harry’s eyes were bright and cold, and so was his smile, in that way Severus had seen before.

“It won’t be for that long, not compared to the length of time I expect to live. And I’ll dispose of Barty if he becomes troublesome.”

“Would you really?”

“If he becomes troublesome? Yes, of course. I have some fondness for him and he can live as long as he does things I’m fond of. But if he causes trouble by hunting the Horcruxes or demanding deeds from me as the supposedly reincarnated Dark Lord that I’m unwilling to perform, he’ll go.”

“I find myself uncertain how I managed to earn your loyalty when Barty also taught you and would have instructed you even more in Dark Arts if you had let him.”

Harry’s smile twisted. For a moment, Severus was sure he stood in the presence of the Harry who had plotted actions such as eating the Dark Lord’s mind.

Then Harry’s smile smoothed out again, and he was the young man Severus knew.

“He tried to trap me. He used you as a weapon against me, and said you would suffer unless I served the Dark Lord. He was foolish enough to think that I would ever forgive that. I did become fond of him, and he was useful, but…” Harry shrugged. “It’s not enough to earn more consideration from me than that. Not when he threatened you.”

Severus half-shook his head in wonder.

“What?”

“I never thought, when I swore the Vow to protect you, that I would find someone who would be as willing and go as far to protect me.”

Harry gave him a true smile and then glanced at the house. “I’m ready to key ourselves into the wards and start exploring the house. Aren’t you? We should plant the garden as soon as possible, if we’re going to have the kinds of ingredients that we want to experiment with in a few months.”

Severus shot Harry a smile, and they began walking down from the bluffs. The best adventure of Severus’s life loomed ahead.

And the best companion of it walked at his side.

The End.