Title: Always Author: Ari Pairing: Severus and Harry Rating: G Word Count: 1400-ish Warnings: SPOILERS for Deathly Hallows Part 2 Summary: Harry has learned the truth about Snape, the bravest man he never knew he never knew. A/N: In response to snow's Death Hallows challenge. It was supposed to be a drabble... then a series of 5 drabbles... let’s pretend it’s 5 x 100 words below, shall we?
DRABBLE 1
Harry stumbled away from Hermione and Ron and on towards the Forbidden Forest. He knew he was ready to face death. Which is why he was surprised at the absurdly calming sound of waves lapping gently against the boathouse instead of the wind whistling scarily through trees. Where...? Ah, it seemed that his wayward feet had led him to the boathouse while his mind was occupied.
Harry pushed at the door and stepped inside. He’d known what to expect and yet seeing Snape’s body lying there was still shocking. He cradled the body as he’d seen Snape cradle his mother in the Pensieve memories. He didn’t cry though.
“Thank you,” he whispered, gently brushing the tousled, limp with sweat, greasy hair around the sallow face. “Thank you for loving her all these years. Thank you for keeping her memory alive.” Kissing the now exposed forehead, still warm so soon after death, he carefully arranged Snape’s body before leaving to his own death.
DRABBLE 2
Harry stood at King’s Cross pondering Dumbledore’s words.
Harry wasn’t even quite sure what he’d meant when asking about the doe Patroni nor did he know what he’d hoped Dumbledore might have revealed in his response.
The whoosh of an approaching train blew his hair in every direction. Even in this sort of personal purgatory disguised as King’s Cross Station, his hair was still a mess.
Harry stood and stared at the open train door. He took one last look at where Dumbledore had disappeared and another at the strange body under the bench. He looked around in the infinite whiteness for a dark silhouette and was disappointed.
As he stepped aboard the train, he wondered why Snape, who had always been there for him in life, had not shown up in the Forbidden Forest or here at Dumbledore’s side at King’s Cross.
“Is he alive?” Harry heard an angelic voice ask. Was who alive? Snape? Was Snape alive after all? Was that why he hadn’t visited Harry on the ‘other side’? “Is Draco alive?” Oh. Narcissa.
DRABBLE 3
The trio stood in the light evening breeze, their thoughts all on the wand Harry had just broken and thrown away.
Ron battled internally between envying Harry’s brief ownership of such power and admiring his ability to give it up. He felt such shame at how easily the locket seemed to have fed on his own insecurities; he was weak, Harry would probably have resisted the horcrux’s manipulations. Hell, Harry had been a horcrux all this time and have never been tempted to the dark side. Harry could resist the Imperius. Harry, Harry, always Harry...
Hermione gazed longingly at the chasm where Harry had thrown the Elder wand. The things they could have learned with and from the wand! The things they could have done! Harry could have done so much good with the Elder wand. She believed in her heart he would never have been tempted. After all he had been a horcrux all this time and he’d never been tempted to the dark side. Harry could resist the Imperius. Harry... Her thoughts were interrupted by Ron’s sudden but subtle tensing. She glanced up into her boyfriend’s eyes and followed the glare to the back of Harry’s head. Uh-oh.
“Ron,” she whispered urgently. “Don’t. Just, don’t.” She shook her head warningly, her eyes pleading with him to remain calm and reasonable. She relaxed as he relaxed and they smiled lovingly into each other’s eyes.
‘He may have everything but the most amazing witch of our generation has fallen in love with ME,’ Ron thought smugly to himself.
‘Having the Elder Wand would have been like cheating anyway,’ Hermione thought. ‘Just like with the Prince’s book, he’d have had an unfair advantage. Her dear sweet Ron would never have such ambitions; that’s what she loved about him. No, it was all for the best. Thank goodness the Gryffindor in Harry destroyed the wand before his Slytherin side took over!’
DRABBLE 4
Harry thought about the Elder wand. Voldemort had killed Snape to become its master. After all the things both good and bad that Snape had done, in the end he’d died for acts he’d been innocent of. No, Harry could never have kept that wand. Not without being reminded of Dumbledore’s death or Snape’s sacrifices.
He could never look at that wand and not wonder at Dumbledore’s apparent lack of foresight. It seemed unlikely that Dumbledore wouldn’t have realized that Voldemort would have killed Snape for supremacy of the wand. But no, Dumbledore was nothing but a man. He could not have known that Draco would disarm him and then Harry would disarm Draco, could he?
The memory of Draco’s far too easy disarming of the headmaster in the tower that night flashed behind his closed eyelids and Harry shuddered. No. No, it could never be so. Hermione and Ron would restore his faith in Dumbledore. He would ask them and they would confirm the truth.
Turning to his friends, Harry found them in staring intimately into each other’s eyes. He looked quickly away and stared back into the Great Hall where he’d last seen Ginny in her parents’ embrace, the family still grieving over Fred. He was alone. As alone as Snape had always been. Perhaps he ought to...
It was then that he realized that he hadn’t seen Snape’s body in the Great Hall at all. Had no one gone for the body?
DRABBLE 5
“I... I have to do something. I- I’ll be right back,” Harry whispered urgently. Still avoiding his friends’ love-glazed eyes and intimate embrace, Harry turned and Disapparated on the spot.
“Professor?” Harry called as he pushed the doors to the boathouse open. “Snape?” he called in horrified shock. The body was gone.
“SNAPE!” Harry panicked. Where had the body gone?
Several Hours Earlier: Narcissa hugged her son to her chest as they turned on the spot and Disapparated. Lucius turned at the sound, grasping a second too late to join them. He’d only glanced back at the battle briefly, wondering who was winning and just like that they’d abandoned him!
He Disapparated to the Manor but the little that remained of the wards told him that they hadn’t come here. He panicked. His magic was weak and there was no way he could get a portkey from the ministry right now to visit their continental estates. Where had his family gone? He needed help but everyone was busy with the war... Everyone but Snape! He hadn’t seen Snape anywhere since he’d sent him to the boathouse! The clever snake was probably hiding or brewing or something.
Apparating to the boathouse, Lucius was startled by the sight of his friend’s body.
“Severus? Merlin, Severus, you can’t be dead! I need you to help me!” Lucius waved the stolen wand frantically but could detect no pulse. Spying Snape’s wand, he tried it instead. This time his diagnostic spells revealed a weak pulse. There was hope!
A week later: Lucius paced outside the door of the Blue Room. Potter had kicked him out of a room in his own manor! The gall of the brat! Still, he’d obey because he needed Potter.
Twelve hours after he’d Apparated Snape’s body to the Manor, he’d received word that Potter was searching for it. Twelve hours after that he found out that Potter hadn’t wanted to destroy Snape but to honour him.
Forty-eight hours after that he accepted that he’d, hopefully only temporarily, lost his ability to think shrewdly and quickly. He had what Potter wanted but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out how to use it to his advantage. It didn’t help that he’d only manage to resuscitate Snape to a stable comatose state and no further; he needed Potter’s help. But Severus had been a traitor to the Dark Lord’s side. If he gave Snape to Potter, would Snape help him find Narcissa and Draco?
Six days, 5 hours later, he’d given in and contacted Potter.
Inside the Blue Room, Malfoy Manor: Harry held Snape’s cool hand in his. Snape was alive and he was safe! Harry took a deep breath and choked on a sob which turned into a startled gasp as the hand in his squeezed him gently. Harry looked up into intense, dark eyes.
“We won,” he whispered, smiling at his hero. “He’s dead and merciful Merlin, you’re not!” Harry sobbed, “I thought I’d lost you but you’re here.”
The nod was so subtle and the reassuring squeeze to his hand so gentle that Harry feared he’d imagined it all.
“Harry?” Severus Snape blinked once, slowly, before his eyelids fluttered shut. “Always.”