Chapter Thirty-Eight of 'Practicing Liars'- Closer to the End

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Thirty-Seven..

Title: Practicing Liars (38/?)
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 Thirty-Eight—Closer to the End

Harry didn’t let himself think, because he would panic if he thought. He’d panicked enough when he saw Draco choking and then realized that he could barely breathe. When he went into Snape’s private lab, he listened for instructions, and when he received those instructions, he followed them.

There were weeds that had to be cut. Or maybe they were roots. Harry hadn’t learned the differences between every kind of them there were, and he didn’t have the Half-Blood Prince’s book with him to explain those differences right now. He chopped and cut and sliced and listened to instructions that Snape rephrased when he realized that Harry wasn’t good at measuring “a cut of three-eighths of an inch” with his eye. A simple spell put a purple mark on most of the roots, so Harry knew exactly where to cut.

He’s being nice, was one of the few thoughts that managed to wriggle through Harry’s determined façade of general numbness.

Of course he is, was the next thought, as Harry hovered next to the cauldron and handed Snape pairs of the chopped roots as he asked for them (unless they were weeds). He cares about Draco too.

Harry felt some part of him relax. He’d been worrying and wondering that he’d made the wrong decision. Maybe he should have taken Draco to the hospital wing instead, to let Madam Pomfrey treat him. In fact, he’d wondered why he hadn’t. Once it would have been automatic for him to go there when someone he cared about was hurt.

But Snape cared about Draco as a person. He was good in Potions and a Slytherin. He was probably a lot more like a son to Snape than Harry would ever be.

Harry drew in a harsh breath and used it to suppress the emotions that were crowding his mind and probably trying to force him to make a mistake. He would deal with this. He would worry about being the son that Snape wanted later. For right now, the important thing was helping Draco.

If he loses his voice, or his arms, or his life…

But he wouldn’t think about that, either, because Snape had given him a bunch of snails that had to be crushed and boiled, and Harry was concentrating on doing it exactly right, and not flinching as the clear, slimy guts tumbled across his hands.

He placed the crushed snails in a cauldron with a fire lit beneath it. Snape was working over a bigger cauldron, now stirring, now pausing to chant spells, working with such perfect speed and force and concentration that Harry was awed and humbled. He would never be able to do that with Potions, not if he worked on them for a thousand years.

Again. Don’t worry about that. Concentrate on what you can do to help, not whether it’s the same as what someone else is doing, or more important.

Maybe that was part of his problem, Harry thought as he placed the snails in the boiling water of his smaller cauldron and then concentrated on the size of his bubbles. Snape had said that he was to watch until the bubbles got bigger and the water turned from milky to clear. That would mean that the guts of the snails were as boiled as they were going to get, and it was time to add the animals to the rest of the potion.

Harry put his thought on hold, and sometimes his breath, as he watched the boiling water, which resulted in loud wheezing gasps later. Snape never looked at him, but Harry was sure that he saw his spine stiffen with irritation. He tried to be extra careful and extra prompt as he cooled the water—on a sharp word from Snape—before he plunged his hands into the cauldron and brought out the snails to hand over.

Maybe that was part of the problem, the thought resumed when Harry was on the other side of the room with lavender petals to powder. Everyone thought he was humble and polite—well, everyone who wasn’t Slytherin—but Harry really wanted to do important things. He wanted to help and save people. Individual steps in Potions weren’t important, and the finished products often wouldn’t help or save anyone. So he had treated it as uninteresting, and he had never got good at it.

If he had, then he could have helped Snape better now. He could have felt like he was more than just a pair of hands and a brain filled with restless, useless thoughts. Snape could have explained the potion to him, and he would have understood.

But Snape didn’t need someone to understand, Harry concluded wisely as he filled one vial with the powder and carried it across the room to Snape. He needed someone who could help in other ways. That was the reason it would have taken him forever to brew the potion on his own: he would have had to stop to powder or boil or chop, and that would have meant putting the potion under a Stasis Charm, and who knew when he would have come out with it?

Harry had just settled that to his own satisfaction in his mind when Snape began to speak. It was a low voice he used, and he never took his eyes away from the cauldron or lost his fixed expression that seemed to suggest he had nothing to think about, but the words were there, and they were addressed to Harry.

“The Acromantula’s Bite is not truly the venom of an Acromantula. It uses the venom as an ingredient, and causes some effects that are rather like it, but Acromantulas have no use for killing their victims across a period of months. Thus, the potion that is the antidote must partake of some characteristics of the Acromantula, without necessarily involving anything directly from them.”

“Yes, sir?” Harry murmured obediently.

“Thus the roots,” Snape said, and poured some more of them into the cauldron. Harry blinked. He had thought Snape had already used all of them. That made him worry. What else have I missed? But thinking too much was a way to let the panic come back, so he concentrated and kept Snape’s words in mind instead. “The roots have a trace of sharpness, and spiders often use them to construct webs on. The similarity is enough to make them a valuable addition, without making them poisonous.” He gave Harry a single swift glance, while his hands worked easily to chop and slice and shred further. Harry wondered if he had really needed help after all. “Do you understand?”

Harry smiled in spite of himself at the inquiring tone in Snape’s voice. It was kind of strange that he was worrying about whether Harry understood Potions now, but it was nice, too. Few people ever worried about whether he understood. Dumbledore seemed to prefer it when he didn’t. “Not really, sir.”

“You need instruction in Potions theory,” Snape muttered, and dropped in another vial full of powdered lavender petals. “Slughorn can manage little of that in his classes. I will see to it.”

Harry stared at him, glad when he didn’t notice because he was too deeply involved in the brewing. Snape was promising what? It was one thing to get upset when he got in danger—Harry accepted that parents did that—but helping him with his homework?

He looked at the ground and blinked and swallowed hard, because tears were not part of the plan.

“Scrape the flakes of mica out of this.” Snape handed him a small, brightly-glittering stone and a tiny pick.

Harry accepted them gratefully and retreated to the far side of the room. Sometimes he thought he came close to comprehending Snape, but even the things that made him feel most like the son of a father could hurt.

*

The potion will be ready in time.

The assurance came to Severus from deep in his mind, calm and deep as the ringing of a great bell. He felt the tension simmering in the back of his neck flee, and he could concentrate on more than the half-hatched thoughts about the potion, Draco, and Harry he’d been having in the past thirty minutes.

He turned around to watch Harry scraping at the flakes of mica. He had several of them out already and was digging at the next, his teeth clamped down on his tongue so that it stuck out like a small pink animal escaping from its cage. His hair fell down around his forehead, half-obscuring the scar. His eyes behind the glasses were focused and intent.

Severus suffered a sudden, disorienting wave of longing that Harry would remove his glamour, and allow Severus to see his face the way it should look.

He snorted the impulse away and checked the cauldron once more. Now he would almost have welcomed the frantic pace of the first brewing portion. It would have given him something else to think about.

I thought you wanted freedom to think?

Severus curled his fingers around the lip of the cauldron. It was the only harmless way he could express his frustration at the moment, without disrupting the potion or disturbing Harry from his task.

His explanation of the potion’s nature hadn’t reached Harry. Very well. That was understandable. Harry was worried about Draco, and he probably couldn’t understand the connections between various Potions ingredients without having them explained. Severus had grasped them right away, and so had Lily, but Severus was slowly coming to accept that not every child could inherit his parents’ talent.

But after this, he must see to Harry’s education. He had taught him poorly. He would teach him better. If he had made a mistake, he should be the one to set it right. And he knew Harry had some talent; it simply wanted encouragement to come out.

He would have laughed aloud at the direction of his thoughts a moment later, if he could have done it without making Harry think he was mocking him. How can I think about such a thing when Draco might be dying?

But the answer was simple. He was now confident that the potion would work, and would be ready in time. He had no reason to distrust himself, so his mind moved on to the next available topic.

It was all right to think of the future. He would protect his son, and take care of him, all the things that Harry had a right to expect of his parents and no one had done for him, except for James and Lily during the first year of his life. But Severus could do more than that. He could share his knowledge, and ensure that Harry knew enough about Potions to survive the brewing of them and do whatever else he wanted to do, no matter if he ever became interested in them for their own sake or not. Too many students had limited careers because they were never able to master Potions. Harry would not be one of them.

Severus became aware, as he stood there and watched Harry pry out the last few flakes of mica, that his warm, fierce possessiveness for Harry had changed its nature. He wanted the boy to like him and be his, yes, but he also wanted the privilege of doing things for him. No matter if Harry was ever grateful or not.

But it was Harry, and so he would be. And Severus had to admit that the attraction of giving gifts, including knowledge, to his son was much enhanced by the knowledge that he would value them.

Harry turned around with the rock clutched in one hand and the flakes of mica spread on the palm of the other, and gave a slight start when he saw Severus watching him. But he extended his hand and said, “Here they are, sir.”

“Excellent,” Severus said, making sure to make his voice as warm and casual as it could be without scaring Harry off. “Why don’t you put them in the cauldron?”

Harry stared at him. “Sorry, sir? You want me to do that?”

“Yes,” Severus said, and stepped out of the way so that there would be no chance of Harry misunderstanding him.

Harry approached the cauldron, watching him all the while, and looking more and more bewildered the longer the moment stretched. “But what if I do something wrong?” he asked, as he paused with the flakes of mica above the cauldron’s brim.

“There is very little to get wrong.” It was an effort to speak those words without sarcasm, and from the way Harry’s eyes darkened, Severus was sure he knew it. But he just jerked his head a little, as though he was tossing away a collar Severus had tried to place around his neck, and then turned back and opened his fingers.

Despite himself, Severus watched closely. The flakes drifted down as they were supposed to, however, and dissolved into the general brew in the cauldron. Severus nodded in satisfaction and stood up to come closer.

“Why did you want me to help you?” Harry suddenly demanded.

“Because you were close, and had the concentration on Draco that was necessary to make the potion instead of asking endless questions, the way that Granger would,” Severus said, as he picked up the ladle that he would need to beat some of the thick, forming bubbles back into the side of the cauldron. “And because it would give you some part to play in the saving of Draco, which I know is important to you.”

Harry frowned, apparently trying to decide if he should be mortified or impressed that he was so transparent.

“And because you are my son,” Severus said, bending his head down so that he would not have to watch Harry’s expression while he spoke the words, “and I want you close to me in everything that you do.”

There was no response but a sharply caught breath, as though Harry was having to think about what that meant.

Or as if he was satisfied, Severus thought, and settled into the final stages of brewing the potion.

*

Draco opened his eyes slowly. His throat burned as though he’d swallowed acid. He reached up and massaged it with a grimace, then turned his head to the side and locked his eyes on Harry.

Harry’s face was on a level with his own, even though Draco knew he was lying back. He had just barely recognized that that meant Harry was kneeling on the floor when Harry said, “Thank Merlin,” and flung his arms around Draco’s neck.

Draco patted him on the back, while his mind slowly came back to itself and he remembered the last moments before he’d fallen unconscious. “Poison,” he said, and looked up at Professor Snape, who was hovering over them (though Draco doubted Harry would think of the way he was standing in that fashion). “What poison was it, sir? Is it going to have aftereffects?”

“The Acromantula’s Bite,” Professor Snape said, voice as sharp as it would have been if Draco had got a bad mark on an essay in Potions. “We brewed the antidote inside an hour, and that means no lingering aftereffects.”

We? Draco thought, and mouthed over Harry’s head as he took him in his arms. Harry seemed intent on making sure that Draco’s arms were still attached and his shoulders still made of flesh and bone, which caused Draco to wonder exactly what Snape had told him about the effects of the poison.

Professor Snape simply inclined his head in answer to Draco’s silent question, and his eyes glittered. Draco decided he would have to get Harry to tell him the story of that brewing when he was more coherent.

“One of the student Death Eaters must have poisoned you,” Harry was saying. He shook, but Draco thought it was relief instead of fear. “We don’t know who, and we don’t know when.” He pulled back and looked Draco in the eye. Draco had to clear his throat and look away when he realized how intense the emotions in Harry’s eyes were. “But we’re going to find out.”

“Why ought to be easier than either of those,” Draco said, putting a protective hand on the back of Harry’s neck and using his grip on his shoulder to help himself sit up. “If there are students in the school loyal to the Dark Lord, why would they attack me now instead of right after I betrayed him?”

“If what you told me was correct and the Dark Lord has been lured or coerced into attacking the school,” Professor Snape said calmly, “then I would imagine that he wishes to try and reduce the number of his enemies before the battle begins. It would also seem likely that he is aware of the closeness between you and Harry, and aware of what losing you would do to Harry.”

Harry stiffened, but said nothing. Draco nodded. “So they’ve just been waiting for a command to attack. Is there any way that we can eliminate some of the suspects?” Talking about his own possible death this way, as a matter of battle strategy, was the best way he knew to control his emotions about it for right now. He could weep and tremble in shock later. But it hadn’t been personal. Maybe the person who had poisoned him hated him, but it had happened because it was part of the Dark Lord’s attempt to isolate Harry. Draco didn’t want to think it was anything more than that.

I would hate to be Harry, because it’s personal for him, and everyone expects him to be this great big hero without even much support.

“Yes,” Professor Snape said, and the glitter in his eyes made Draco shudder. “I highly doubt that most of the student Death Eaters are trained in Occlumency. I will read their thoughts and bring in the likely suspect by this time tomorrow.”

“But—” said Harry, and then stood there as if he’d forgotten everything in the world but the need to embrace Draco.

“Yes?” Professor Snape asked, and he might have been asking someone he knew perfectly well wouldn’t be able to answer whether you should add a bit of phoenix feather to a Warming Potion.

Harry took a deep breath and plunged on. Draco rested his hand a little harder on the back of Harry’s neck and wondered if he was the only one who realized what courage it took for Harry to face up to his father. “I don’t think you should do that. What if they can recognize that they’ve been touched by Legilimency? Or what if Dumbledore catches you doing it? He might not like it.”

“I will use a Memory Charm on anyone whom I can tell is alerted by my use of the magic,” Snape said, with an indifferent chill that Draco thought would have been appropriate to a glacier. “And I have ceased to care what Dumbledore thinks of me.”

Harry twisted around in Draco’s arms. “You can’t know that you’ll catch them all,” he said. “Maybe Dumbledore can even tell what you’re doing from a distance.”

Snape leaned forwards. Draco could tell that he was intensely interested in the answer to the question he asked. “Why are you so set on my not doing this? I would have thought you would understand the necessity of protecting Draco.”

“I do understand that,” Harry said, and his arms squeezed tight around Draco again. He gave him an apologetic glance. “I don’t want you to ever feel unsafe.”

“Find the poisoner, and I won’t,” Draco said, smiling in spite of himself at the way Harry seemed to think even this was his fault.

Harry turned back to the professor. “But I don’t think it’s right to do a wrong thing in order to keep another wrong thing from happening.”

“Would you prefer the use of Veritaserum instead?” The professor’s voice would have sounded polite to most people, but Draco swallowed.

“That’s not the same,” Harry said. “And anyway, no, I wouldn’t, not if you’re planning to drag in people and give them Veritaserum one by one until you find who tried to murder Draco.” His arms tightened again. He looked wretched, but he was still fighting. He’ll always fight, Draco thought, leaning his chin on Harry’s shoulder. That’s why it was so awful to see him when he thought that he had to die to get rid of the Horcrux in him. He’d given up.

“I assure you, I shall be considerably more subtle than that.” Professor Snape’s voice was less polite, but softer. Draco wished there was a way to sink into the couch.

“But what if you alert someone you don’t mean to?” Harry shook his head stubbornly. “What if you hurt an innocent person? I just don’t think you should do it.”

Professor Snape said, “I have been a spy and playing mind games with the Dark Lord himself for years. I will know how to manage this so as to leave no traces behind. And in the end, I will give the Death Eaters I find over to the Aurors. I did not intend to keep them and use them for Potions experiments.”

“But—” Harry began again.

“No.” Professor Snape rose and took a quick step towards them, and Draco hoped he was the only one who felt Harry’s flinch. Maybe the professor saw it, though, because he stopped, and his voice was genuinely soft this time, instead of soft because he wanted to frighten people. “I do not wish to hurt your feelings, Harry. But I will protect the both of you, and I no longer trust Dumbledore to make the best use of this knowledge even if I bring it to him. So I shall do it in my own way.”

Harry stared at the floor, twisting his fingers through each other. Draco didn’t know exactly what was going through his head. Did he think he was unworthy to be protected? Did he want things to be done right and in the open even when he knew there was someone hiding in the school who wouldn’t hesitate to use poison again? Was he just morally revolted by Legilimency no matter what happened?

Harry finally looked up again and said, “You’re going to do this even if I ask you not to, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Professor Snape said. “In some matters, I will not be dictated to.”

“In some?” Harry asked, but he was relaxing against Draco, and Snape could probably see the same thing. Harry sighed and turned around to rub Draco’s shoulder. “I don’t think it’s right,” he muttered. “But I want the Death Eater caught, and I don’t see any other way.”

“Thank you for your permission,” Professor Snape said, which got him another scowl from Harry, and then swept out of the room. He did pause on the threshold of the Potions lab to add, “You will stay here tonight, the both of you.”

Draco waited until the professor had shut the door before he reached out and touched Harry’s cheek so he’d look at him. “Harry,” he said gently. “Are you really all right with this?”

Harry shook his head. “It’s—complicated,” he said. “I’ve done similar things in the past, to Slytherins, so that I could get information.” The unspoken words hung between them, which were I’ve done things to you, but Draco had no problem ignoring unspoken words when speaking them would make both of them uncomfortable. “I want you safe. But it kind of feels like I’m inflicting him on people. He wouldn’t do this if not for me. So I’m responsible for any of the wrong things he does, any of the pain he causes.”

“You already have a better sense of responsibility than Dumbledore does,” Draco murmured, which made Harry smile. “But I think he would have done this anyway, because I’m the one who was attacked. In fact, it’ll probably be better that he knows you don’t like it. He’ll be gentler, that way.”

“I hope so,” Harry said.

It took a lot of tossing and fidgeting and tangling of limbs, but in the end they both managed to squirm onto the couch. Draco didn’t think until they were curled up together what Snape would say if he came back and saw them like this. Then he shrugged and decided he didn’t care.

He could feel Harry’s hair under his cheek and his arms around his chest. That was more than enough to stave off any nightmares, any fear that he might not be alive.