Fic and Art: The Boy Who Lived to Grow Wings (and Fly) Title: The Boy Who Lived to Grow Wings (and Fly) Author:serpenscript Giftee:laurapetri Word Count: 3,600+ words, give or take. Rating: NC-17 Pairing: Snape/Harry Warnings: creature!fic, AU, bad poetry, corny title Disclaimer: Harry, Hermione, and Ron in this fic have completed their final year at Hogwarts and are of age. Anime-style art has a tendency to make people appear younger, so I wanted to include the disclaimer. Also, the characters aren't mine and I'm making no money from them, I just like to play in the sandbox JK made. Summary: It isn't enough that Harry is the Boy Who Lived, he also has to be the Boy Who Grew Wings.
Trelawney lay twitching in the Infirmary; nearby, McGonagall's strained expression tried to hide her concern. Hermione didn't even try to hide her concern. "I wrote it down, Harry, do you want me to read it aloud?"
Harry shook his head. "No, the fewer who hear it, the better. Can I read it over myself?" At her nod, he took the parchment from her, and read over Trelawney's newest prophecy regarding the Boy Who Lived.
The hawk from the falconer's arm will fly And smite from above the Serpent's Eye; Home to the fist the falconer calls - The Potioner's strengths are in his flaws.
Who is the Hawk? The fledgling that lives - Who is the Glove? The scholar's to give - Who is the Jesses? The Heart of home - Who is the Lure? The one left alone.
Duty and love will make the phoenix burn - But love alone can make the hawk return. Falconer, when the Serpent is Kissed, Call your Fledgeling to the fist!
Harry sighed and passed it to McGonagall, who read it over silently. "It doesn't make sense at all!"
"I bet it's about you though," Ron began, but Hermione hastily cut him off.
"Shhh, Ron! We should talk about it elsewhere. Someone else could hear us here. Besides you," she said unabashedly to McGonagall, who looked relieved at her caution.
"If you feel a need to discuss it at all or if you learn anything of relevance, which I'm sure you will, come to the Headmaster's office." Her eyes lingered on Hermione as she continued. "The password this week is Peterbald." She stood then and waited for them to stand as well, dismissing them from the infirmary. "Professor Trelawney does not need assistance recovering," she said, sounding just like Madam Pomfrey.
* * * * *
Hermione, Ron, and Harry sat surrounded by books in the Restricted section, working with a special permit from McGonagall. Crumpled sheets of parchment and scattered quills and ink blots littered the table where they sat. "Ok, so the hawk is definitely you, Harry. I think I'm the scholar, I think Ron is the fetter, and - " She took a deep breath, bracing herself for their outrage. "And I think that the Lure - is Snape."
Harry surged to his feet, fists clenched. "How could that murderous bastard possibly be any kind of lure to me?" he shouted. Hermione hissed "Shhhh!" at him, and he lowered his voice. "How could he have any role in this after he murdered Dumbledore!"
"The potioner's strengths are in his flaws," she read aloud, "Who else could it be? It was definitely an honest prophecy. I don't like Trelawney any more than you do, but we all know her first prediction concerning you was accurate." She smoothed the crumpled parchment with the side of her hand; Harry had a feeling she wasn't telling him something.
"There's something else, isn't there?"
She refused to look at either of them. "I spoke to Dumbledore's portrait yesterday. Prof - Headmistress McGonagall gave me permission." Two heads, ginger and jet, jerked upright to stare at her. "I read him the prophecy, and he told me a couple things. First, about a spell, and secondly - " she swallowed, and finally met their eyes " - he said that Snape killed him....on his own orders. If he hadn't - Snape would have died instead. Dumbledore thought Snape needed to live for the war to be won." She looked down at the parchment again, crinkling a corner she'd just smoothed out. "And I think I know why."
* * * * *
Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat in the Headmaster - no, Headmistress' office - facing McGonagall and right behind her, Dumbledore's portrait. He watched them quietly, an intensely thoughtful look on his painted face. McGonagall frowned while Hermione laid out the results of her talks with Dumbledore and their own independent research.
"Most times prophecy is figurative, metaphorical instead of literal, but I think it might be different this time. Usually a figure of speech is used just enough to bring an image or idea across, but in this one, it's repeated constantly throughout, unchangingly; the 'audience' of the poem is addressed as if they actually were avian in nature. 'Fly', 'smite from above', 'return to the fist' - even those around him being addressed in the same terms, as if seen from the hawk's point of view - the glove, the jesses, the lure. So I think you're going to undergo some kind of transformation, and we're going to help you.”
Harry blinked, trying to assimilate. "I'm going to what?"
"Grow wings, Harry," Hermione said patiently, "You're going to become half-human, half-bird. Dumbledore pointed me to a book in the Restricted Section that will allow you to do this - it's a really complicated potion, and we're going to need Professor Snape - " she glared their protests to silence - "and Fawkes volunteered the necessary phoenix feathers and tears."
Harry felt a strange burble of hysteria rise in his chest. It wasn't enough, apparently, that he have the stigma of being the Boy Who Lived, he now had to become the Boy Who Lived to Grow Wings. "Don't I have a choice?" he said tightly, frantically, eyes pleading with Hermione and Ron to find a way out for him.
Ron tried to say something encouraging, but Hermione stalled him with a raised hand. "I don't think so, Harry," she said sadly. "Not if we want to defeat Voldemort."
And Harry sighed. Because, when it came down to it, there really wasn't anything he could say to that.
* * * * *
He couldn't tell where he was; he couldn't remember who he was, except that he had something he had to do - only he couldn't remember
what
.
But here there seemed to be no trouble, just a sensation of floating, and warm, comforting darkness, and sometimes, distantly, the faintest hint of voices. They sounded familiar, comforting. Sometimes light filtered into the space around him, and he wondered, vaguely, if this was what seeing was. He could make out silhouettes outside - sometimes hands pressed against the barrier between him and out there, their outline and shape clearer, and he thought they maybe said things like, Come out when you're ready, Harry and We need you, we miss you. He thought maybe he was Harry.
When he heard things like that he felt a sense of discomfort that a distant part of his mind told them was loss, sorrow, homesickness. He tried to ignore that; this was his home, this dark, warm, wet space. This was safe. He tried to shut out their voices. When they went away and the familiar dark came back, he pulled up his knees to his chest and slept.
Time was measured only by his steady heartbeats, loud and thunderous in his own ears and the small space, a space that seemed to grow smaller daily. Time was broken up into interludes of complete dark and broken dark, and voices often came with the broken dark and the half-light filtering in. He discovered he knew words for these - day and night. He found a word, too, for the things growing from his shoulders - wings - and that the barrier was a shell, and he was in an egg or cocoon of some kind. He was growing somehow, nourished in some way by the nurturing darkness, and the skin around the wings itched abominably. When he tried to scratch at it, he found his nails were too soft to allow him a decent scratch.
Sometimes he remembered other things - a feather, a spell. Two faces that matched two voices he heard from outside his shell - one with ginger hair, one with bushy curly hair. But sometimes he remembered what fear and pain and war were like, and then his heart beat very rapidly and he tried to not remember anymore and just drift, half awake.
But his shell was getting too small - the hands outside his shell didn't seem as big anymore, and there wasn't enough room to turn slow summersaults in place. When Harry accidentally punched his hand through the shell, his first thought was panic; what will I do now? But his next thought was of curiosity and an overwhelming desire to stretch his cramped arms and legs, and he began to claw at the opening in his shell.
It took him an hour to break a hole large enough to crawl out of; then he found he was too tired to stand. He sprawled over the shards of his shell, shivering in the cooler air (breeze, he remembered), thin chest rising and falling.
A shadow fell over him; he opened eyes that were blurry with fatigue and unaccustomed strain and looked up to the man standing over him, a man whose black eyes were hidden under a curtain of limp black hair. "Sleep, Potter," he growled. Harry smiled at him, and slept.
The days following Harry's hatching fell into a routine. When he woke, that man - Snape - was there with strips of raw meat, which he devoured eagerly, with no hint of squeamishness. He learned to eat them neatly from Snape's hand, and to be quiet when Snape said he'd eaten enough, even if his belly still clamored for more. He learned to stand and walk, and regained his strength - though his balance on ground now was a little awkward; the wings changed his centre of balance, something that took getting used to.
His wings fledged almost overnight, something he was glad of; glad he wouldn't be stuck in the midst of fledging for weeks, like an adolescent with spots. "Harris hawk," Snape said, looking over his wings critically, though Harry thought he heard a faint note of approval. "We can start your training now."
'Training' brought a new piece of equipment; a leather half-mask, half-hood that fit over Harry's head and effectively blinded him while leaving the rest of his face and ears uncovered. He learned to respond to sound, following Snape's voice around the huge, barnlike room they occupied for Harry's training.
Other voices began to join Snape's; sometimes in participation, sometimes just to speak to Snape; mostly Harry tried to ignore them. They brought memories of time-before-wings, time-before-shell, when things like war and Voldemort and fear had meaning. But he could put names to some of the voices - the astringent, anxiety-riddled voice of McGonagall, the fussy, self-assured voice of Hermione, the belligerent and worried voice of Ron. Friends, his not-memory said, and he felt warm inside at the word.
Still, his world revolved around Snape, of whom his memory said, murderer, traitor, Death Eater. Harry had new words for him, though; Handler. Trainer. Friend. He couldn't explain it, but he trusted the man who fed him, trained him, shielded him from the world.
Snape let Hermione and Ron help with training sometimes; having them call to him from different places in the room, using magic to echo, amplify, or duplicate their voices around the room until his ears rung with voices that were not-Snape. Then he sat and listened, until he could pick out Snape's voice, the whispered one-word command: 'Come.’ And then he ran, unerringly, to Snape's side.
He was still very much a wizard; when he dreamed sometimes, his magic manifested as static lightning and crackled along his wing-feathers. He learned that he had a new ability as well; he could feed on magic instead of food sometimes, and could sense magic, like one could sense heat and light even with eyes closed. He learned to recognise the 'feel' of a person's magic, for Snape was insistent he never eat an ally's magic - Snape and Hermione and Ron would take turns enchanting different items and lobbing them at Harry; he learned to drain the magic from the spells and let them fill him, until his feathers crackled with energy and his hair stood on end, and Hermione and Ron confessed they were exhausted.
But one lesson Harry couldn't pick up; he was afraid to fly. He still expected something underneath him - a broom, a floor, something to hold him up. He couldn't let go of human notions: that feet were meant to be on the ground and not several feet above.
Snape gave him special lessons then, when Hermione and Ron and Minerva were gone. He transfigured Harry's 'nest' into a large bed, and then taught Harry about sex, how it felt to be covered and mounted, to belong to someone completely, to be pushed and driven to heights so high that he felt like he would shatter into pieces. Blind and mounted, fettered and fondled, he learned to release his fears - and soar.
Thereafter, Harry's hours were divided by hours training, learning to fly high, stoop on silent command, to recognise different kinds of magic - dark versus good - to absorb the good and counter with his own, wild magic. When he was too exhausted to continue, he came to ground, and Snape would remind him, over and over again, the joy that was flying.
He wasn't sure when he knew it was love he felt for the snarky, taciturn man who handled him. He felt that Snape was the only person who understood him, more than Hermione and Ron, who were afraid of his new powers and envious of his wings, without understanding the price that came with them. Snape understood, and treated him like any other student. That normalcy was his lodestone; when he felt he would go crazy from training, from fear, from the weight of responsibility and prophecy forcing him into this role, hearing Snape call him names was a ridiculous relief.
He didn't feel like he was ready to face Voldemort; he didn't feel ready to face anyone, when Minerva showed up with Ron and Hermione in tow, her thin lips pressed into a tight line and eyes smudged under with fatigue. "He's coming here. Albus says it's time for the hawk to fly." Harry knew they meant him; Harry, with the wings of a Harris-Hawk.
He didn't feel ready, but he'd read, in books Hermione had given him, that fledglings never really felt 'ready' to fly - they were always pushed from the nest, to sink or swim.
Or fly.
So he squared his shoulders, exchanged a glance with Snape, then nodded to McGonagall. "When do I fly?"
* * * * *
Snape, Minerva, Ron, and Hermione stood on the Astronomy tower roof, watching from afar the jets and sparks of color that marked spells cast by Death Eaters, and the brilliant flying form that was Harry. He was almost incandescent with magical energy absorbed from his enemies. Hawk notwithstanding, he almost resembled a newborn phoenix.
"What if he doesn't make it back?" Hermione fretted, tugging at her curls unconsciously, eyes straining to see all that was happening.
"He will make it back." Of course, Snape's snarky tone implied, as if they were feeble-minded to even consider failure. "We have made him into a killing machine. You would better worry on if he will choose to return."
Hermione looked baffled; Snape nodded towards the window. "See? Even now the Dark Lo - no, Voldemort stands alone among his fallen army." He hissed the name with venom, decades of hatred hidden behind a carefully constructed façade. "They are nothing more than the Muggles he so despises!" He swept his robes around him and left the room, without looking back to watch Harry's confrontation with Tom Riddle.
Ron scowled, but Minerva's eyes were strangely thoughtful. "I think he's afraid, for the first time since Lily died."
Hermione's eyes went wide and her mouth made a round 'O' as something clicked. "He's afraid Harry won't come back to him," she said slowly. "But he still let him go."
"Of course," Minerva said briskly, eyes once again fixed on Harry's battle, almost obscured by sparks and showers of light, far off. "Even Severus knows that you can't keep the hawk chained."
"If he kept him chained, he couldn't bloody well kill V-Voldemort," argued Ron, freckles stark against his pale face as he too kept watch over Harry from the window. "Snape wants him dead, and likely be the happier if neither of them made it!"
"It's not like that at all, Ron! At least, I don't think." She looked at McGonagall, and got a slight nod, confirming her guess. "It's - well, it's a poem. Like a poem, at least." She took a breath, and recited: "If you love something, set it free; if it comes back to you, it's yours; if it doesn't, it never was."
Ron flushed, caught between worry and fear, anger - and embarrassment. "The bloody bastard lo-loves Harry? That's - that’s-!" He stumbled to a stop, unable to find words.
Hermione's eyes flicked to McGonagall's. "Language, Ronald!" She snapped, but Minerva shook her head.
"You're not my students anymore, Hermione. Right now we're allies in a war, and I think language is the least of our worries." She nodded to Ron. "But I think she's right, all the same. He's afraid Harry won't come back."
Ron snorted. "I would think he'd come back for his friends!" He shuddered, expressively. "Why would anyone want to come back for the greasy git?"
* * * * *
Snape paced his rooms in the dungeon, unwilling - or unable - to watch the final confrontation. He had no concerns, really, about who would win; Hermione and Ron had managed to hunt down and destroy the Horcruxes while Harry had grown his wings and gone through training; and Potter had the element of surprise. Unless word had somehow leaked out - and it had been kept secret from even the Order, from all but Minerva, Granger, and Weasley - it should be a complete surprise to the Dark Lord. And even if it wasn't - he'd trained Potter tirelessly, endlessly. He knew Harry would succeed.
But he also admitted to himself, alone, that he was afraid Harry would return, and want nothing to do with the man who had kept him from his friends, who had ensured that Harry would never know what normal was. That he would hate Snape for what he had done, to ensure Harry would fly without fear.
He'd done what he'd had to, what was necessary. It hadn't been - distasteful. Being alone with the egg holding Harry, and then seeing the newly hatched hawkling that Potter had become, so trusting of Snape and yet so wary of all others, even his friends - it had changed something.
And then he'd dared to teach Potter the things forbidden between student and teacher, because the boy had been unravelling inside with fear, afraid to trust the strange new appendages sprouting from his shoulderblades. Should Potter turn on him, duty done, and tell the world that Snape had kept their boy hero blinded and fettered, had seduced and used him - no matter it had been what the boy needed and craved - wouldn't it be better for Harry to die facing down the Dark Lord?
The Mark on his arm flared, white-hot like the branding iron. He bore it in silence, clutching his arm with his free hand; it was yet another price to pay for a long-ago mistake. When it subsided, he felt relief; the Dark Mark had faded and become a white, ropy old scar, no longer animate or imbued with magic. The war was over; Potter had fulfilled his part of the Prophecy.
But Snape had something still to do, to fulfill his role - as Harry's handler. So he seated himself in his worn, overstuffed chair before the fireplace and placed his hand over the quiescent mark on his forearm, rubbing absently at the raised lines. And he whispered, to the quiet of his rooms: "Come."
He wondered if Potter could find him in the dungeons when he thought of the large, barn-like room he'd hatched in as 'home.’ He wondered if the portraits would have to give him directions, or if he could find his way to Snape's rooms alone - or if he'd even choose to.
He found his answer when the door to his rooms crashed open and Harry leaned in the door frame, eyes bright, his black unruly hair in a curly frame about his face, the ends sparking with excess magic. He was so glutted with magic that he shone, iridescent colour swirling just beneath the skin.
Mutely, Snape couldn't stop staring, nor tear his eyes away. He wasn't sure if he was in awe, or if he was afraid, or both. Or just in shock, because for the first time in years, he was free of both masters. He could do whatever he wanted - if Potter didn't kill him first.
For a long moment, they were a frozen tableau - both afraid to make the first move - then Harry swore, words like brilliant explosions of sound, and snapped, "Lumos!” The room flared white and Snape waited, blind, certain he was dead, that Harry did hold him accountable. Noow that the Dark Lord was defeated no-one would begrudge Harry vengeance, least of all against Albus' murderer.
But when the light faded and Snape blinked against the after-images burned into the backs of his eyes, Potter had left -
No; Potter - Harry - had moved to kneel on the floor next to Snape, forehead resting against one of his thighs and one of his wings draped over his lap. His skin was its normal, dusky color again - Snape realised, belatedly, that Harry had burned off the excess power into the Lumos spell.
Green eyes stared up at him; the wings of a Harris Hawk wrapped around him. "I'm home," Harry said.