First Time for Everything Fest: FIC: Dancing in the Dark Title: Dancing in the Dark Author:amanitamuscaria Rating: G Word count: 2,068 words Content/Warning(s): (highlight for spoilers) *Gen or pre-slash* Summary: What's left, after the Final Battle? A/N: Thanks to S., as usual, and to you guys for running the fest!
Dancing in the Dark
He knows that he will never be seen as a hero.
He knows that no one will welcome him home.
He knows that no one will ever trust him.
He gathers what’s left of his spite and disdain about him, as he walks the cold halls of Hogwarts. He'd thought he'd never walk these halls again, but here he is. For all that Potter had spoken for him at his trial, he knows his fellow teachers keep a close eye on all that he does. Minerva, installed as Interim Headmistress, scans his orders of supplies carefully. Sprout keeps a trace spell on the greenhouses. There is a trace upon him as well, and it would be a clear statement of intent to remove it. Kingsley, Interim Minister of Magic, put it on himself, with no apology, just a straight, hard look. Potter was the only one who'd flinched, but then, Potter is a soft-hearted fool.
He keeps to his dungeons as much as possible. His Slytherins are looked after by a Beauxbatons man, Salou, who teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts. The older Slytherins still come to him, but that will stop once the current group of students graduate. He can't bring himself to care very much; he knows he has failed them, failed Draco, failed everyone.
On nights when he patrols the dark halls, he is mindful of where his footsteps take him. He knows there are places he doesn't go, places too bound up in his failures. He’s learnt, he understands the lesson; every time he's acted for himself, he's failed. When he acted for Dumbledore, at least then, he had some measure of success. Some chance of not destroying everything he touched. Even with Voldemort, some potions, some counter-curses, some of his creations were benign.
He is rudderless now, without compass or map. So now, he tries to not-choose, not-decide, not-act. He teaches. He brews. He answers, briefly, when spoken to. He stays in his rooms, and reads.
Potter insists on sitting beside him. Potter persists in passing him the grilled fish ("It's your favourite"), filling his glass ("Dirigible plum juice - not too sweet"). He does not react. He does not snap at or berate the boy. He blankly accepts what is passed to him and does not, will not respond. He notes McGonagall sliding worried glances towards Potter. He notices, though the boy does not, how the other teachers take turns sitting next to Potter, trying to engage him in conversation. Potter answers their queries, replies to questions, but is no longer arrogant and self-important. Left to himself (and Severus does not initiate conversations), the boy remains silent. Silent apart from the small offerings of a dish, or a condiment. Perhaps, he thinks, perhaps the boy sits beside him because of his silence. Perhaps, like him - no, not like him, never like him - but perhaps it is precisely because he does not speak, does not attempt to engage Potter?
As the other teachers have initiated the seat-altering, Severus attempts an experiment. He takes the leftmost seat at table. Potter seats himself on his right, and Sprout, who has obviously drawn this week's Potter-minding duty, sits on the boy's other side. A few days later, Severus moves in one seat. He notes the boy's face twitch with a little smile - the first he's seen for a long time, he thinks - and Potter slides into the end place. Severus considers this, and duly notes McGonagall's glare at him. He will not act as the boy's buffer constantly, but perhaps when the dark smudges under Potter's eyes are most noticeable ... The next day, Minerva engages him on a trivial matter by the entrance to the Great Hall, and he notes the glance Potter gives them as he goes in. For the next week, Potter is flanked by other teachers, and Severus sits isolated amongst his colleagues. Towards the end of the week, he notices, however, that the dishes Potter has, in this game of musical chairs, been offering him, somehow are by his hand when he thinks of them. He looks sharply at the boy the moment he realises the steamed vegetables are in front of him, and sees the little tired smile leaving the boy's face as he answers some question of Vector's.
Playing this game that Potter seems to have initiated makes a welcome distraction in the monotony of his life. He gives a huff of wry amusement at the thought of something Potter might do bringing him pleasure. He considers the boy - well, not a boy; his actions during what would have been his last year of schooling would have precipitated him into manhood, and the half-year as teaching assistant consolidated that, but to Severus, he still appears as he did in the classroom. Defiant, fretting against the curbs of his elders, getting himself and his companions into unnecessary danger. He has not seen Granger or the Weasley boy visit Potter recently.
His thoughts slide to Longbottom and the rest, put into terrible danger during his year as headmaster.
He shuts that thought down quickly.
There are places he doesn't go.
In the weekly staff meetings he must endure, he takes the seat furthest from the group of teachers from before, the seat half in the shadows. He doesn't speak. He accepts the duties assigned to him with an incline of the head, a brief meeting of McGonagall's eyes. She is kind, or does not trust him; he is not given Halloween monitoring, nor Yule Ball supervision, nor Hogsmeade chaperone duty. It does not matter which, he is spared the close interaction with overexcited students. Potter draws Hogsmeade weekends until it is obvious that most of the older girls and quite a few of the boys pester him mercilessly. The first time he comes back from a Hogsmeade Saturday, he is pale and shaking, in the close company of Flitwick, who pushes him toward Severus, saying, "Look after him," before hurrying back out to round up stragglers.
Potter grimaces, "I'm okay," at him.
"Nevertheless," he answers, escorting him up the stairs.
Potter turns away from the Infirmary towards his room, saying, "It's the girls. They're the worst. I'm alright, really. Thanks."
Severus remembers, when he started teaching, he was as young as Potter. And he, even he, had some difficult encounters with particularly persistent female students. Potter must have been mobbed. Before he can overanalyse, he brings out a small vial.
"Calming draught..?"
Potter seizes it without hesitation, muttering, "Thanks".
"Two drops," he says quickly, before the boy can throw the lot down his throat. Potter stops and looks at him, really looks.
"Thank you," he says, still looking, "I - how do you do it? I can't -" then shakes his head, swallows the drops and hands back the vial.
"I'll be alright," he says, and opens his door, apparently just the tapestry hanging. Severus catches a glimpse of a very sunny but bare room before he turns and makes his way back to the front hall and his duties.
He feels as though he is wading through a fog; each day, he performs the tasks allotted to him, he is present at meals in the Great Hall, he stands before indistinguishable faces in classrooms and moves to contain mistakes, he walks the corridors at night watching for mischief and danger, he fulfills the potions requirements of Pomfrey and Sprout, he attends the interminable staff meetings. Potter describes it best to him one night they meet, each patrolling their allotted sections of Hogwarts. As Severus is about to turn, having acknowledged Potter with a nod, the boy reaches out and touches his arm.
"Where are you, Snape? " he says softly.
"I am here, obviously," he says, startled by the touch, the question.
"No. Your body is here. Where are you?"
He shakes his head, turns and walks away, aware that Potter is staring after him. Uneasy that Potter has thought to look below the surface. Uneasy that Potter has wanted to look. He is more careful, the rest of that night, the rest of that rota, not to meet with Potter.
Potter finds him seated on the bottom stair leading to the Astronomy Tower. The school feels uneasy this night; neither of them has duties assigned, and that may be due to the headmistress’s kindness or cruelty. The boy sits beside him; they both are silent, remembering.
"He isn’t here, come on," Potter says, standing finally.
He looks up, but Potter reaches a hand to him.
"Would you come with me to his tomb? You weren’t there at the funeral."
"No. It would hardly have been appropriate."
Potter stares at him for a moment, before an unwilling snort escapes.
"Well, I was there, and I’d just made him drink that stuff Riddle had brewed up."
"Not Riddle," Severus says shortly.
"Oh."
He takes the still-proffered hand, hearing his joints creak with the long sitting.
"I can’t imagine making a friend kill me,"
"You are soft-hearted and entrammelled with morals."
"I guess so," Potter gives him a shy smile.
"It is not a compliment. I have no idea how you managed to do the deed in the end."
"I think I realised that no one else was going to stop him."
"Quite. They had all decided that a sixteen-year-old had the best chance against one of the most powerful wizards ever seen."
"Why didn’t you try?"
He looks at the boy – no, man – silvered in the moonlight, looking as enchanted as on another moonlit night long ago in a woodland clearing. He shakes his head to clear it; he is getting mazy in the strange night.
"I was persuaded of the same. There was another promise exacted from me."
"Dumbledore, again."
The tomb is glowing in the moonlight, and they are silent before it. Finally, Potter turns to go.
"No answers here, either," he says.
"None."
"At least I didn’t have to open his tomb; Riddle did that."
"Hm."
He glances over at Potter; the man is silvered with moonlight, though the moon has slid behind a cloud. He stares, and Potter notices.
With an unhappy smile, he says, "Another of Dumbledore’s legacies to me."
Severus can’t stop staring; the boy is leaking moonlight from his very pores.
"What? Don’t you think it’s ironic? Both Riddle and Dumbledore wanted this. I never did, yet I’m the one that gets stuck with it. Bloody freak."
The boy turns away; before he can leave, Severus shoots out a hand and grasps his wrist tightly.
"A glamour. That is why you are so tired."
"It’s bad enough being the Saviour, without being a glow-in-the-dark freak."
Severus can feel the power lapping against him; he’s astonished it’s taken him so long to recognise what’s wrong with Potter.
"Only you, Potter, would find this a burden."
He drops Potter’s wrist; the boy isn’t going anywhere, seems almost relieved, and lets his eyes roam hungrily over him. He knows the danger; he knows the danger, and yet, he can’t tear himself from it.
"No one else knows," he states.
Potter shakes his head; tiny silver sparks fly off and he is left wide-eyed. Potter reaches a hand out, almost touches him, but drops it.
"You’ve always helped me," he says softly, "Will you help me now?"
Severus nods, croaks dry-mouthed, "But what is it?"
"Dumbledore had all three, but the ring was still Riddle’s Horcrux. Riddle couldn’t get my cloak because my dad had left it with Dumbledore. I had all three, and then I died and came back. So I guess I got a double dose of the Deathly Hallows."
He stares at the young man, knowing he is lost, his previous servitudes have only been an apprenticeship for this. And it has been given to him. The fact that it is Potter is immaterial. It is as clear as the light shining from Potter’s eyes, eerie killing-curse green. He feels a terrific compulsion to fall to his knees, but wrenches away from that. It is not what is needed here, and would only horrify and repulse Potter.
"I was right. You can fight it," Potter says with relief.
He huffs mildly, taking Potter by the elbow and steering him back towards Hogwarts and his dungeons.