lomonaaeren | Chapter Twenty-Two of 'Practicing Liars'- A Conversation Harry Does Not Want to Have

Title: Practicing Liars (22/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Summary: AU of HBP. Harry found out that he was Snape’s son two years ago, and he’s carefully concealed it. But now Snape is his Defense teacher, and Draco Malfoy is up to something, and Dumbledore is dying, and the final battle is coming up, and everything is getting very, very complicated.
Pairings: Background Ron/Hermione and Ron/Lavender. Harry and Draco have a ‘complicated friendship’ which will become a preslash relationship. For obvious reasons, Snape/Lily is mentioned.
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence (lots of violence), profanity, angst, character death (not Snape, Harry, or Draco), slash and het hints.
Author’s Notes: While I’m hoping to make this plot at least somewhat original, I know that I’m treading on well-covered ground. I don’t know yet how long the story will be, except that it will be novel-length. Practicing Liars is being written for my dear soft2smooth2000, who has helped me wonderfully with keeping track of and linking to my fics on LJ.

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Two—A Conversation Harry Does Not Want to Have

Harry kept his head bowed as Snape pushed him into his office, but looking meek was another way to throw them off-guard. He had to get away. He would worry about using Memory Charms on them—well, at least on Snape, to make him forget what he’d seen—later. For now, he needed to be free.

Snape lifted his hand from Harry’s shoulder so that he could turn and lock the door. Harry thought he heard him putting up silencing charms, too. Probably so that no one can hear me screaming when he rapes my mind.

Harry spun around and launched his wand straight into his grip with a hasty movement of his arm. “Impedimenta!” he shouted.

The hex went wide, but it distracted Snape, who ducked instinctively. Harry sprang past him, his mind working. He had to undo the locking and silencing charms, but he had practiced on those before, he could do them in his sleep, he wouldn’t have to pause for long—

Someone grabbed his arm, and Harry tried to strike backwards with his elbow, thinking it was Snape. With luck he would hit the bastard in the groin.

But an anguished voice said, “Potter,” and Harry paused. Draco was looking at him with wide, pained eyes.

That distracted Harry long enough that, by the time he remembered and turned around to face the door, Snape was on his feet again. His face was utterly smooth and cold, and Harry did his best to brace himself. Uncle Vernon had only looked like that once or twice. When he had, Harry had wound up with no food for three days and bruises when his uncle shoved him hard into the cupboard.

The voice of experience tried to tell him that he had seen Snape look like that before and it had never resulted in something similar. But Harry reminded the voice of experience that Snape hadn’t known he was related to Harry before this. He seemed to think he had some kind of special right just because he knew about something that had happened more than sixteen years ago.

Almost seventeen. Why couldn’t he not have found out about this until I was seventeen? Then I’d be free of him.

“There will be no running from this, Mr. Potter,” Snape said softly. He hesitated, then added, “If that continues to be your name.”

“It will,” Harry countered immediately and furiously. He had to stand still for the moment because Draco was holding onto him, but he’d already identified the way he was going to move when they relaxed again. He had to get out of here. “James Potter was my father. Not you. I don’t care about sperm or blood or however you’re going to talk about it. A father is someone who would love you and die protecting you, and that’s what he did. Don’t pretend you’re anywhere near that.”

There was a dark flare in Snape’s eyes. Harry tried not to hold his breath, because that would show Snape he was acting expectant. Good. Just let your anger control you. That’s all I’m asking for.

“Of course he’s your father,” Draco said impatiently. “He’s part of you. You can’t deny that. But I’m more interested in what you discovered in the library, sir. What did you mean when you said that he was planning to die?”

Harry clenched his fists. He hadn’t meant it to happen like this. Now the revelation would hurt Draco, and Harry hadn’t done any work yet to prepare him for the news of Harry’s death or the fact that he would have to stand on his own two feet.

Though he knew it wouldn’t do any good, Harry looked at Snape and tried to make his gaze speak for him. Spare him this. Lie, for his sake. Hurt and punish me all you like, because you probably think I deserve it, but don’t tell him the truth when he can’t do anything about it anyway.

*

Severus didn’t need Legilimency to understand the desperation in the boy’s eyes. And he didn’t need all the intelligence he possessed to know how the boy would react when Severus refused to respond.

But things had accelerated to a point that Severus no longer believed matters would improve if simply left alone. He met the boy’s gaze, shook his head once, and then turned to Draco, who seemed much further along the road to acceptance of Severus’s role in Potter’s life than Potter himself did.

“It seems that Mr. Potter is convinced he has to die to save everyone else,” Severus murmured, “because he carries a piece of the Dark Lord’s soul within him. I have heard of such artifacts, called Horcruxes, but I did not know that the Dark Lord had made them or that he could make one out of a living being.”

Draco’s eyes widened to the point where Severus wondered if he would need another Calming Draught. But Draco instead shivered, stood up straight, and faced Potter, intensifying his grip until Potter winced.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Draco whispered.

Potter hunched his shoulders and snapped, “Because Dumbledore told me not to. And because it’s not something I can just announce, is it? ‘Oh, sorry, Draco, but I’m going to die soon, and while it’s for a great cause, to save the world and all, I’m afraid that means we won’t be able to be friends?’” He dropped the ridiculously high-pitched voice he’d been using and snorted. “Yeah, that would have gone over well.”

He bit his lip when he finished, as if afraid that he would say something he didn’t mean to say if he went on, and shot Severus another glare. He was shivering, though the tremor was so fine Severus would not have been surprised if Draco hadn’t yet noticed it. Potter’s eyes opened and closed several times, and he was hanging onto his sanity by a series of shaky breaths, it seemed. The Calming Draught’s effect had already ceased.

That should not happen save in the face of deep and severe panic, Severus thought, or bottled emotions emerging after too long and savage a bottling. Albus, you have much to answer for.

The anger within him gathered more strength, drawing it up from deep within him, from sources untouched for all the years since his mother had died. But he was not in front of Albus at the moment, and he had to deal with both Potter and with Draco’s reaction to Potter’s news.

“You—believed him?” Draco demanded. “Without proof?”

Potter gave Draco a horribly twisted smile. Severus cocked his head. Have his expressions had that tinge of me, and of Slytherin House, about them all along, or am I exaggerating what is there in the service of claiming him?

“What reason would he have to lie?” Potter asked simply. “He cares for me. I know that. He made it abundantly clear last year.” He shut his eyes and said nothing for a moment. Severus thought he was endeavoring to regain his strength. Potter always seemed to believe that he should be strong. “Yes, I’m certain. And I know that he had to destroy the other Horcruxes—and I had to destroy one of them—to reduce the threat of Voldemort. Why should I be the exception? I’ll have to be destroyed like the others, and the only way to destroy a living being is to kill it.”

Not the only way, Severus thought idly, memories of what he had done as a Death Eater rushing back to him, but Draco was speaking and, from the tone of his voice, Severus might need to step in soon to prevent violence.

“You obeyed him. You kept this a secret.” Draco was digging his nails into Potter’s arm now, and seemed oblivious of Potter’s sharp hisses and attempts to pull free. “Even when you knew that you’d have to die, and that the burden of keeping the secret would probably kill you before then.”

“It would not fucking kill me,” Potter said flatly, hauling on his arm as though he wanted to get away from Draco. Severus could not blame him. He had seen some of what Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy had done when they wore expressions half as upset as Draco wore now. “You’re being melodramatic.”

“I’m being melodramatic,” Draco said, and his voice lowered and quivered.

Severus moved before Potter could think to, raising a Shield Charm between the two boys. Draco’s irritated growl and sudden lunge were enough to make it crack and quiver but not break. Potter started and looked over his shoulder at Severus, then changed his drop-jawed, wide-eyed expression to a sneer when he realized who he had to thank for his safety. He turned back to Draco as if nothing had happened.

“Yes, you are,” Potter said doggedly. “It made my life difficult, but it wasn’t killing me. For all I know, I have to die in some special way to make sure that the piece of Voldemort’s soul in me is gone. Do you think I’d do something that would kill me before then? Willingly?”

Draco shook his head. His grey eyes were wide and nearly blind with fury. Severus paused, then stepped back, although he left the Shield Charm up. He thought it best to retreat at the moment and let Draco have the chance to convince Potter. He looked like the one who would make the best use of it.

“And that’s all you care about, is it?” Draco asked. “Dying so that you can play your final part as a martyr and a heroic sacrifice? Because of course what Dumbledore says must be true. There can’t be another way around this, another way that we can destroy him without ending your life. You just gave in and listened to him, in a way that you never listen to any of the professors.” He shook his head again, hands clenched so hard that Severus wondered if he would have to patch up that bloody wound in a short time as well.

“I know why you did it,” Draco continued, in a voice that made Potter wince as if he stood under a winter wind. “Because it gave you glory in a way that working to find a way around your ‘fate’ wouldn’t. Because you wanted the glamour of playing the martyr. Because someone can ask you to die and you’re all for it, but Merlin forbid that you should have to choose life.”

“That’s not true!” Potter said hotly, and he could still meet Draco’s eyes without looking down in shame, so Severus supposed that Draco’s scolding was not as effective as he had hoped. “It’s just the way things have to be! I’d have thought you’d be pleased, if anything, because I’m not denying reality the way you like to accuse me of doing with regard to him.” He gave his head a little toss at Severus, apparently too offended to speak of him directly.

“Pleased,” Draco whispered, in a tone so hollow that not even Potter could have failed to notice what his words had done to the other boy. Draco turned away and bowed his head, rubbing one hand across his forehead as though he, like Potter, might feel headaches induced by the Dark Lord.

“I’m not—I didn’t mean it that way.” Potter stared at Draco, but didn’t touch him. Perhaps even he, blind fool that he was, could tell that that would bring on an explosion. “I just meant that I’ve done stupid things so often. This is the one time that I’m trying to live up to being an adult. I’ve tried to act better and more adult ever since Sirius died.” His voice sharpened into something that Severus recognized as yearning rather than anger, though to uneducated ears they might sound the same. “I’ve studied Defense more closely and mastered spells that I thought I couldn’t do yet. I’ve taught other people to defend themselves more effectively than they could do last year. And I was willing to die. That’s enough, isn’t it? What else do I have to do to show that I take my burdens seriously?”

“Be my friend,” Draco said, with the directness that Severus could not have mustered no matter how much he might want to have a connection to Potter. “Stay alive and be with me.”

Potter sighed and touched his scar. It looked like an unconscious gesture, and Severus only wondered that he had never seen the boy using it before. “I wish it was that simple,” he whispered. “I don’t want to die.” There was that yearning again. “But no one can do anything to help. If there was a way around this, then I’m sure Dumbledore would have mentioned it. He’s a powerful wizard, and he’s more than a hundred years old, and he knows all about spells and magical theory and Horcruxes. If he doesn’t think there’s a way, or even the possibility of one, then how can there be one?”

Potter bowed his head a little, and Draco looked at him in what seemed like the silence of dismay. Severus allowed himself a moment to respect the tableau before he broke it.

“There speaks the glory of the martyr again, Potter,” he said crisply. “There are many things that not even the Headmaster knows. He does not have my depth and knowledge of Potions, because he never attained his own mastery. If you want to live, then you must ask for help, from those best-suited to help you.”

*

Draco, who had been feeling as though all the tears he hadn’t shed when his father died—all the tears he would ever shed in his life—would rise up and overwhelm him any minute, found himself exhaling hard in relief.

Of course. I should have thought of that. Professor Snape is brilliant. If Potter resists looking for a way himself, other people will just have to do it for him.

He looked back at Potter in time to see him fling a burning glance at Professor Snape. His teeth were clenched and his hair straggling around his head, making him look deranged. Draco reached out and smoothed a lock of that black hair flat before he could stop it.

Potter jerked and then turned to look at him. Draco frowned. He didn’t like the hostility in Potter’s eyes. He was used to getting gentle and protective expressions from him lately, and he wanted them back.

“Listen to him,” Draco said gently. “Even if you hate him, that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. He could help us, and you could live. The way you want to,” he added, because Potter seemed like he might have forgotten that in his sheer hatred.

“I’m not,” Potter said, and he was practically chewing the words as he spoke, “going to listen to him.”

“Why?” Draco demanded, thoroughly exasperated. He hated the fact that Potter had wanted to die, that was the important thing, but the fact that Potter was denying his heritage could still infuriate him. “Does it matter who helps you to survive as long as someone does?”

“Yes,” Potter said, and then pivoted to face Snape. “You only want to have power over me, to make me grateful so that you can reject me when it would hurt most. I know how people like you work. I know what you want from me, and I don’t see why I should give it to you.”

Draco found himself cowering instinctively. He never would have defied Professor Snape, but more to the point, he was imagining what would have happened if he talked to his father like that. Lucius would not have cursed him—such things only happened to the unluckier people in Slytherin House—but he would have had a terrible, cool glare and silence that made Draco feel like a Muggle for days afterwards.

Professor Snape had probably anticipated Potter’s reaction and decided to control himself, because there was no sign of his anger other than a slight twitch of his hand towards his wand. His voice was deeper than Draco was used to hearing, but that might simply be because he was showing more emotion. “People like me, Potter. What does that mean? I know full well that none of the other professors in the school treat you as I—have treated you in the past.”

“Oh, like you’re going to stop,” Potter snarled, stepping forwards.

Even Draco, inexperienced as he was compared to Professor Snape in the way that people moved and worked, saw that for the deflection it was. Potter’s eyes had widened in a panic as the professor spoke. He wanted attention on something, anything, other than the answer to the question Snape had just asked.

“What do you mean by people like him?” Draco asked, and tried to keep his voice as calm and interested as possible, rather than displaying the stronger emotions that he felt. He thought Potter would back off faster than Draco could control if he heard Draco’s real tone.

It didn’t work, or at least not the way Draco wanted it to. Potter twisted around to face him. “No,” he said. “Nothing more. You’ve made me tell you what Dumbledore told me not to tell anyone. Fine. I’ve betrayed that, and there’s nothing I can do about it now, thanks to his prying arse.” The loathing in the look he turned on Professor Snape was terrifying. “But I don’t have to give you any of my other secrets.”

“Ah, it is a secret then,” Professor Snape said, in a hunter’s tone, stepping closer. “Would this have something to do, as well, with why you continue to think that I will hurt you no matter what happens, no matter what the nature of our connection to one another? Could the people that you see my reflection in be your family?”

Draco had never seen anyone move so fast as Potter did then.

*

Harry felt as though his heart was going to explode through his chest, as though his lungs would never draw breath again but only pain, as though his eyes were bleeding fire.

But where his body was shaking on the edge of beakdown and exhaustion, his mind was blessedly clear.

Silence Snape. It doesn’t matter how.

He drew his wand and pointed it at Snape, shouting the only spell he could think of that would shut him up forever. “Sectumsempra!”

Draco’s gasp was the loudest thing in the room after his shout. Snape lifted his wand and deflected the spell with a shield which Harry had never seen before, a spinning white wheel that materialized out of nowhere just before the magic would have hit him, and then faded again.

And his eyes were full, at last, of the rage that Harry had been trying to provoke.

Good. Harry fell back, his eyes fixed on Snape’s movements, his mind racing into battle-mode. He could do this. He could do this. It would probably be his last real battle, since he had to defeat Voldemort by dying, but that was all right. It stopped Snape from asking questions about things he had no right to be asking about, and that was all right.

Come on, you bastard.

Snape flung an Incarcerous. Harry incinerated the ropes before they could touch him. Snape tried to lock his legs together. Harry laughed, the countercharm rolling off his tongue before Snape had finished speaking.

Is that all he has? Binding spells of one sort or another? He would probably say that he doesn’t want to hurt me. How sweet.

For one, for fucking once, Harry had the right to fight back against his tormentors. And he wasn’t about to muck around using stupid silly spells that no real Death Eater would use.

“Conflagro,” he whispered, and fire started to fall from the air on Snape.

Snape spun, his wand creating a dazzling pattern of defensive maneuvers that held back all the flame. Harry hoped that it would at least fly to the sides and rid the world of some of his precious collection of potions, but apparently the shield was strong enough to swallow the fire completely, instead of deflecting it. Harry growled and started thinking of what spell he could use next.

Someone grabbed his arm.

Harry turned around, raising his left arm to slam the person in the face, glad to think that at least someone would suffer for backing him into a corner and ripping pieces of his soul from him—

And saw Draco.

“Are you going to hurt me, too?” Draco asked, looking desperately young and desperately afraid.

Of him.

Harry dropped his wand to the floor. The clatter of it was followed a moment later by the thump of him dropping to his knees and putting his head in his hands.

He didn’t cry. He felt too exhausted to do it.

I just wanted my own life, my own secrets. And I hurt people. I would have killed Snape like I killed Bellatrix. I would have been sorry about it afterwards, like I wasn’t for Bellatrix, but what good would that do? What would it change?

I could have hurt Draco.

The guilt dug into him and created its own wound, as great as the pain that came from the thought of being under Snape’s control and having Snape, instead of just the Dursleys, hurt him.

But no greater.

*

Severus waited until some moments had passed and he no longer thought the boy—his son—would surge to his feet and attack again. Then he came nearer, though he could not make himself lower his wand. He cleared his throat, and could not make himself speak, either.

Thoughts indeed filled his head, but they were no thoughts that Potter would have rejoiced to hear.

This is proof that he was abused if nothing else is.

“We have to help him,” Draco whispered before Severus could decide what to say, “not hurt him.” He pointed, and Severus, looking down, realized that the fight had opened Potter’s wound again and that blood was dripping from his arm onto the floor.

He sighed and nodded to Draco to heal it. He would have tried, but he did not think Potter would accept even something as simple as a healing spell from him right now.

Draco bent and slowly spoke a few words to Potter, low enough that Severus did not try to hear them. Potter raised his head with a jerk, looked down again, and then nodded, a slow, dreamy motion.

He is in shock, I think, Severus thought, and his chest tightened and ached. Damn it. This has gone as badly as it could have.

He knew that forcing Potter to acknowledge the weight of the secrets he bore before they killed him had been necessary, but he should have chosen a different way—if he could have.

And yet, there was the fact that Potter probably would have died, sacrificing himself mindlessly in the pursuit of the Dark Lord’s defeat, if Severus had not used his Legilimency.

Severus wanted to lie down on his bed and sleep. He felt immensely tired, and he had only made clear his undeniable connection to his son and how close he wished to be for an hour. How could he stand an entire lifetime of this?

The same way you have withstood spying, he answered himself, brutally. Do what you are good at, and leave the rest up to others until you have figured out a strategy that will let you accomplish it.

“Take him to the hospital wing, Draco,” he said. “Remain near him. Madam Pomfrey should see the wound, but do not let her ask him questions.”

“Afraid I’m going to commit suicide, now?” Potter’s voice sounded much like Severus’s, full of fatigue. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“I do not wish you troubled by questions you do not want to answer,” Severus said quietly.

Potter twitched his head around, though he wasn’t looking up enough that Severus could see his eyes through his fringe. “A bit late for that consideration, isn’t it?” he muttered bitterly.

Severus shook his head and reminded himself not to snap. “I will not do that again,” he said. “Any confession that you make now must come of your own free will.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Severus dipped his head. “Take him, Draco. Stay with him.” He turned for the door.

“What are you going to do, sir?” Draco’s voice was nervous. Of course, unlike Potter, who was probably too involved in his own emotions, he might have picked up on the abruptness of Severus’s movements.

“I am going to talk to the Headmaster,” Severus answered, and opened the door.

Do what you are good at.

And he was good, as Potter would probably agree, at pain and intimidation.

But I am willing to learn to be good at other things, for his sake.

If he even wishes it.

*

“Come on,” Draco whispered to Potter when he was sure Professor Snape was gone. “Let’s go.”

Potter didn’t even argue, which showed how tired he was. He just nodded and stood up, leaning his shoulder heavily on Draco’s for a moment.

He straightened again, but Draco’s heart raced with pride. He wasn’t going to forget that gesture and what it meant.

He can need me, sometimes, he thought, as he wrapped an arm around Potter’s waist. And he’ll have what he needs.

I’m not going to leave him.

Chapter Twenty-Three.