FIC: I Might Have Known
Title: I Might Have Known Author: bohemianspirit Type: Fiction (Gen) Length: Short Story Characters: Severus, Harry Series: No Rating: PG
Summary: At the end of Harry's life, Severus arrives to accompany him beyond the veil, but first they have a bit of talking to do.
I Might Have Known
He thought he'd never get them out the door. I don't know, and, We can bring something in, or, Why don't you come along with us, then? Over half an hour spent insisting that he didn't want to go along with them, then. A few straggling offers of, Just let me stay, then, so you're not all alone. And at the last he'd burst out: I WANT to be all alone! And they'd looked at him, all of them, one by one. And he'd said, Just for an hour. Two hours. Two hours of quiet and a bit of room to think.
If you are sure, they'd said.
Yes, he'd said. Go. Enjoy yourselves. I will let you know if I need help.
He got a bottle of cider from the fridge. Pouring the cider into a mug, he brought the mug back into the living room and set it on the table by his favorite chair. With a word and a flick of his wand he had music. Slowly, stiffly, Harry settled himself into the chair. He pulled an old scarlet-and-gold afghan over his lap, more out of habit than need for warmth, and closed his eyes, letting himself melt into the music.
Harry felt a subtle shift in the room, very slight, and looked up.
"Well, well," he said. "I knew somebody'd be paying a call one of these days."
"Hello, Potter."
"I'm surprised you recognize me." Harry grinned. "I've changed a bit, over the years."
Eyes of jet, unwavering, held him in regard. "I recognize you."
Severus looked much as Harry remembered him in life, or as he might well have looked in life had he cared for himself. His face remained sallow and sharp, but the pinched severity had softened. The hair was still long, and black, but where once it had been grimy and drab it now glinted with scattered threads of silver, harbingers of an age that would never come.
"I have grandchildren older than you," said Harry.
Severus smirked. "I have discovered the secret to eternal youth."
"Hm."
Severus inclined his head slightly towards the music. "Les Miserables."
"Ah. You recognize it."
Severus shot him a look that, at one point in time, might have been withering.
"Yes, Potter. I recognize it. Have you read the book?"
"Yes, Snape. I have read the book."
But Severus had already returned his attention to the music. "I saw it in London," he said, "the year it opened." He stood, listening, lost in the song of a distant struggle.
Harry picked up the cup of cider resting next to him. "I have a hard time imagining you attending Muggle theater, or reading Muggle literature." He sipped once, twice, then set down the cider.
"I was born to a Muggle. I am part Muggle." Severus shook his head, his face shadowed. "And I was out in the world, doing the work I had to do. It was inevitable that I should be exposed to Muggle culture--such as it is."
Harry held back a smile.
"Are you amused, Potter?"
"Potter," echoed Harry, absently unraveling a strand of fringe on the afghan.
"That is your name, is it not?"
"Of course. Only now it sounds like my name, not like you are spitting out poison."
He thought, viewing his handiwork, that the unraveling had rather enhanced the character of the afghan. He wondered why he hadn't thought of it years ago. Probably because the afghan had been a gift from Ginny's mother, back when he'd thought of her primarily as Ron's mother. They were all gone now, so he supposed it no longer mattered. He set to work on another strand of fringe.
"Potter."
Harry looked up. "Yes?"
"Is it fair that the sins of the fathers should be cast upon the sons?"
Harry kept his gaze fixed firmly on Severus' eyes. "Certainly not," he said.
Look at me.
I see you.
Severus gave one curt nod. "Certainly not."
For a moment or two they were both lost in the song.
"You are alone?" Severus asked Harry.
"Yes, thank God. For the moment. I sent them all to have lunch. I'm tired of everyone hovering about waiting for me to die. They all want to be present for the glorious passing of the Boy Who Lived--whose chief claim to fame is surviving an attempted murder as an infant."
"You sell yourself short, Potter."
"I bow to your superior experience in that department, Snape."
A hint of a nod. "Five points to Gryffindor."
"Ten."
Severus raised one eyebrow. Harry did not budge.
"Ten," agreed Severus.
"So why are you here?"
"Do you really need me to answer that?"
"Don't be ridiculous. I already told you I've been expecting someone to come. But why you? Why are you here?"
"Because I chose to be," said Severus.
"But why?"
Severus shrugged, turned, pondered a painting of a white owl.
"That boy of yours--Albus Severus--" A light seemed to flicker, briefly, upon his face. "He used to steal into the headmaster's office, that boy of yours, just to chat with my portrait."
Harry chuckled quietly. "That boy is a grandfather himself, now."
"I know. I've seen the parade. I'm surprised that damned cloak hasn't worn to dust by now."
"So what did you talk about, with these grandchildren and great-grandchildren of mine?"
"Fitting in. Standing out. Standing up for oneself, and for one's conscience. Knowing when to correct one's course and having the courage to say, I made a mistake." Severus grimaced. "And the usual assortment of youthful obsessions."
Harry laughed. "The feared Potions Master has become the School Confessor?"
"Oh, really, Potter."
"You're more popular than Dumbledore, now!"
"Only among your mad brood."
"I think they are showing exceptionally sound judgment."
"Indeed?" Severus gave Harry a shrewd look. "I have to say, Potter, for all those years you had children and grandchildren traipsing through Hogwarts, I found it a bit peculiar that you never once put in an appearance in the headmaster's office."
For the first time, Harry looked away.
"I think," he said, "I was too ashamed."
"Too proud."
"No." He snapped around to face Severus. "Not proud. Not at all."
Severus studied him impassively. "Too proud to face me with your shame."
Harry held his gaze, this time, hiding nothing.
"No matter," Severus softly went on. "The minute your son introduced himself, I knew. I knew, Harry. Have known. Even before your son arrived. And I hope to God you haven't been tormenting yourself all these years thinking I never would know."
Harry shifted in his chair. "Well. It's been a point of regret for me, certainly."
"A point you could have cleared with one conversation."
A surge of heat flashed through Harry. "Yes, we all have a few such points in our lives, don't we?"
Fire met ice.
"Yes, Potter," intoned Severus. "That is exactly my point."
For a moment Harry felt as if they were back at Hogwarts, locked in confrontation.
Then it all dissolved in a wellspring of laughter. "Oh, Snape," he said. "We really are alike, you and I."
"Perhaps," said Severus, and Harry could not tell if the possibility displeased him or pleased him.
"And you?" asked Harry. "Have you had your conversation?"
Severus' eyes glittered. "I have had many conversations, with many people."
Harry nodded. "Good," he murmured. "Good. I'm glad to hear it. Very glad."
Such a beautiful song, woven with strands of pain and prayer and peace...
"About that memory--"
"Your Patronus."
Severus looked back at him intently. "Yes."
"You don't have to explain it."
One eyebrow arched. "Explain what, Potter?"
"That you were full of shit."
Severus smirked.
"And that you almost believed you really meant it."
"I love your mother."
"That's not the bit I'm talking about."
It was Severus, this time, who looked away.
"I trust," he said, "you found the library useful to your career."
"Do you really need to ask?" Harry grinned. "I sold the house, though. I hoped you wouldn't mind."
"It was a dreary place. Good riddance."
"It helped us to buy this place." Harry thought of Ginny, and of how they had worked together, over the years, to create a home...
"Your attention is wandering, old man."
"Terribly sorry, young fellow. You could show more respect for your elders."
Severus laughed, the gentle mirth of a man at ease. It was a sound Harry would have heard more often.
"I wish you'd lived," Harry softly said.
The laughter subsided, and Severus looked at Harry almost as if he were the elder, again, and Harry but a youth.
"What happened, happened," he gently admonished. "We can only go on from there."
Harry nodded. "How did you know I would live?"
"I didn't. I was certain you were going to die. But..." Severus held out his hands. "There was always the hope that I was wrong."
Harry looked at those hands, then back into the eyes.
"You were listening to it, all that last year. Constantly. The track was barely playable by the time I got it." He felt tears spring into his eyes. "You were praying I would live."
His mentor's eyes shone, deep and clear, and in their reflection Harry saw himself.
"Always," Severus whispered. "Even when I didn't know it."
In the silence, once again, the song.
"Death is supposed to be a moving on; a moving forward."
"Yes," said Severus, waiting.
"Yet--well, the portraits. You. How can you be here--with your portrait, with us, knowing, watching over--if you have moved on... beyond?"
Severus looked at Harry for a long time. Then he answered, softly:
"You assume, Potter, that there is a separation."
There was only the music, now: a solitary cry, the voice of a lone man sending his prayer into a hopeless night.
"They can't possibly take much longer to eat their lunch."
Harry considered the angle of the sunlight streaming into the room, and realized that Severus was right.
"All right, Valjean." Harry smiled. "Bring me home."
Severus' mouth tautened into a long, thin line; it might have been a smile. He held out his hand. Harry reached for it, clasped it, and found that it was warm.