snarryathonmod (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} snarryathonmod) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} snape_potter,@ 2009-04-22 06:35:00 |
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Title: A Necessary Condition
Author:
abbybanks Other pairings/threesome: None
Rating: R for language
Word count: 4000
Warnings: None
Prompt: #339 Destroying Memories
Summary: When Professors Snape and Potter have one argument too many, the Headmistress resorts to magic to make them behave. Now they are working together to lift her hex, but there's something that Harry's forgotten...
A/N: This fic owes more than I can say to wonder-betas n, who can eliminate bad grammar at 90 paces, m, whose knowledge of the stones of Hogwarts is limitless and invaluable, and s, who can spot - and plug - any plot hole you throw at her, and keep you smiling while she does it. My heartfelt thanks to all of you! Any remaining boo-boos are mine alone.
“The Headmistress would never’ve made you Defence professor again anyway. How did you ever teach 'Riddikulus' when the Boggarts all run for the hills as soon as you come into view?”
“Oh, very eloquent, Potter, this truly is the language of Shakespeare. Merlin forbid you should actually put those pitifully meagre brains to use; clearly Minerva felt you the ideal person to emulate the great minds of Quirrell, Umbridge, and a jumped-up canine.”
“Don’t you bring Remus into this!”
“No, I suppose you’re more of a Lockhart, all flashy tricks and reputation and not a grain of ability.”
“Well, we’ll have to see if I can hack it, or if I’ll have to back off to an easier subject. Quidditch, say, or Potions.”
“How dare you impugn my profession, you, you... short-arsed imbecile!”
“Tosspot!”
“Cretin!”
“Wanker!”
“Gentlemen! May I remind you that this is the Great Hall, not Knockturn Alley on a Friday night! What on earth is the matter?”
“I apologise, Minerva.”
“He called me a cretin! Again!”
“And that was being generous!”
“Silencio!”
“...”
“...”
“That’s better. Now. It is clear that matters have gone beyond all reasonable limits. I have asked, pleaded and demanded that you behave with a modicum of respect to each other, clearly to no avail. The children return tomorrow, and I will not tolerate such behaviour from any member of the faculty before them. You will both, therefore, remain silent for the rest of the day, and since you will not address each other with respect at my request, I have no other choice than to force the habit upon you. On pain of, well, pain. Do I hear any objections?”
“...!”
“...!”
“Splendid!”
I. Sunday Afternoon.
Snape, for reasons of duty and obligation he chooses not to contemplate, is dragging his colleague through the corridors of Hogwarts. Potter’s robes are bunched up in Snape’s hand, and Potter’s muscles are firm and warm beneath his fingers.
This is a matter of solely academic interest.
“So, remind me,” he growls, “why we don’t teach memory charms in school.”
“Because sometimes they backfire!” declaims Potter. “And then you can’t remember stuff anyway and you can’t stop talking, and then you get all maudlin and depressed, and then you pass out and when you wake up you feel like hell and everyone takes the piss!”
Snape forbears to comment. He steps neatly onto the moving staircase, and Potter stumbles on beside him.
“Do endeavour to remain upright, Harry," he mutters.
“Ooh!” says Potter.
“What? What?” he demands. He can’t reasonably be held responsible for whatever happens in the idiot’s own rooms. Minerva, however, is not always reasonable. “What’s the matter?”
“You called me Harry! Do you normally do that? You never used to. I sometimes thought I might ask you to but I never did. Or did I? Did I ask you? I don’t remember. But you never used to. Do I call you Severus? Why do we do that? Are we friends, now? Did I say something? Oh. Oh, no.” The staircase sweeps dramatically across the great vault of the stairwell, and Potter’s face falls. He looks mournfully at Snape.
“Was I drunk? I got drunk and told you, didn’t I?”
It is one source of irritation amongst many that the boy doesn’t even get red and snotty like normal people, but instead manages to look pale and manly as a tear rolls down his cheek, and falls to the floor.
“Told. Me. What.” Snape has untapped reservoirs of patience. He taps them now.
Potter’s floodgates open.
“That I like you!" he wails. "That I’ve liked you for years! Ever since you told Malfoy to fuck off, at the reunion dinner!”
Great Merlin. Snape stares at his nemesis, aghast.
“That I fancy you!” continues the subject of his regard. “That I want to get in your trou–”
“For God’s sake! Harry, shut – or rather, please stop talking!”
A bunch of round-eyed Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw third years back away, looking variously terrified and fascinated. Snape drags Potter off the stairs and into the nearest empty classroom, slamming the door in the children’s faces.
“For heaven’s sake, Po– Harry.” He takes a precious moment to regain the tatters of his poise. “Harry. This is not the time or the place for this conversation. There will never be either a time or a place for it.”
Potter wipes his nose on a corner of his robe and stands looking at Snape in penitent silence.
“You appear, for convoluted reasons of your own,” begins Snape, “to have cast a completely half-wit– that is, a regrettably unsuccessful memory-enhancing charm on yourself. Predictably, it backfired, and left you with the usual symptoms of verbosity and melancholy. Do you follow me thus far?”
Another fat tear falls artistically from Potter’s lashes as he nods.
“I am taking you to the Infirmary, that you might ride these symptoms out in comparative privacy under Poppy’s eye. She will see to it that the spell dissipates as thoroughly as possible, and that you don’t suffer any ill after-effects. These unfortunate emotional reactions are no doubt a side-effect of the spell.”
“I understand,” whispers Potter, seeming to find the floor fascinating.
“What do you understand?” asks Snape, made suspicious by acquiescence after many years of spying, and even more years of teaching. Rightly so, it transpires.
“That you can’t stand me! You’re going to leave me alo-one!”
“Potter. I am not going to leave you. I am taking you to Poppy. Now, please, contain yourself until we reach the infirmary.”
“Do you promise?”
Snape rubs the spot between his eyebrows where he gets headaches when stressed. He takes a deep breath.
“Promise what?”
“That you won’t leave me?”
“You’re being ridicu– I mean, your current behaviour exhibits atypically over-dramatic and bathetic tendencies! And I won’t leave you until I know Poppy is looking after you.”
Potter sniffs again. “Okay.” His eyes are beginning to look glazed, notes Snape, taking a step closer, then two. Potter takes a stumbling pace towards the door, his eyes rolling upwards in their sockets, and keels forward into Snape’s reluctant arms.
A promise is a promise. Snape sends an elf for Poppy, and, tempted as he is to flee to his rooms, he waits with Potter until she arrives to relieve him.
“Minerva, would you pass me the salt.”
“Certainly, Severus. Where... Oh. I’m sorry, Severus, I can’t possibly reach it from here. I’m sure Harry will help you out. Professor Potter, would you oblige?”
“Certainly, what with... Oh.”
“So that’s how you’re going to play the game, is it, you vexatious old cat?”
“I’m sorry, Severus, I didn’t quite catch that. My hearing really isn’t what it used to be. You were saying, Rolanda?”
“By Merlin's... I see. Prof– argh! My most learned colleague! I wonder if you might oblige me by facilitating my use of the condiments. Dammit, you old besom, you’ll be sorry for this yet.”
“Get it your – Ow! Ouch! – Certainly, my revered fellow. Headmistress, this isn’t funny anymore.”
“On the contrary, gentlemen. We’re all finding it most entertaining.”
II. Monday Morning.
For more complex reasons even than duty and obligation, the morning finds Snape in the Infirmary office drinking tea with Poppy, when they are interrupted by an unfortunate noise from the ward. They leave the office to find Potter propped on one elbow, hanging over the side of the bed, and Slytherin green in the face. Snape slinks back into the office, unnoticed, as Poppy bustles to Potter’s bedside.
“Tell the man with the drum to stop,” whimpers Potter, pitifully. Snape tidies a stack of papers on the desk, and shuffles a few periodicals into a neat pile.
“What’s the last thing that you remember?” Poppy asks.
“There was this giant, and he brought me a letter.”
Great Merlin! His whole education, his career, more than half of his life... But the boy is laughing, damn him.
“Kidding! I remember Thursday, I think. The Hufflepuff Quidditch team practice? Maria broke her wrist, Anthony got a black eye, and Cameron, well, Cameron needs to remember to wear some padding next time he straddles a broomstick. What happened? I’ve got a stonking headache. Did Carina fly into me again?”
Snape releases his stranglehold on The St Mungo’s Medical Almanac, just short of breaking its spine. So that was intended to be humour. Just one of many incomprehensible Gryffindor traits.
Poppy is apparently too relieved to scold. “That was Friday. You tried to cast a memory-enhancing charm on yourself, Harry, and it didn’t go very well. You’ve just lost a weekend’s memories, and I think you should be grateful that’s all. It’s Monday today.”
“A memory-enhancing charm? On myself? But what on earth...” The words are bitten off unfinished; what on earth, indeed. Potter may be many things, none of them complimentary, but he has a modicum of native wit.
Snape can practically hear the cogs grinding. “Oh,” Potter says, eventually. “Goodness. Can I go now?”
Madame Pomfrey sounds surprised, as well she might. “Are you sure you’re feeling well enough, Harry? You’ve had a nasty shock, and Severus tells me you were in a terrible state last night when he found you.”
“Snape found me? Found me where?”
“In your rooms, I believe. You can ask him, he’s just– Oh. He was. He brought you straight here when he found you.”
“Snape came to my rooms?” Another pause. “So, can I go?”
Snape slips out of the office by the other door, the one that leads onto the corridor. As he passes the main infirmary entrance, he can hear Poppy reminding Potter that he is still wearing his pyjamas.
“Oh! Sorry, Poppy. Thank you, Poppy.” The boy sounds contrite, but Snape can hear the laughter in his voice.
The boy has lost the entire weekend. Snape doesn’t feel like laughing. He doesn't know what he feels like at all.
“I am certain that my most learned colleague will allow that this is intolerable.”
“I value your opinion most highly, and concur.”
“Minerva will not be persuaded to lift the hex.”
“Your acumen does you credit.”
“We have no other option, then, than to do it ourselves.”
“You have got to be kid– argh! Ow! – I most humbly defer to your superior wisdom on this point as upon so many others! God dammit!”
“My point precisely.”
“But she’s one of the most powerful witches alive, and Headmistress at that. It could take months, Sn– argh! – my valued fellow in academe!”
“Agreed. But I have no doubt she would be happy to let us labour under these farcical conditions for the rest of the academic year. I am the – a-agh! – We are the country’s leading Dark Arts experts. We can do this.”
“We’re only two weeks into the autumn term! I agree. Er, I've tried a few things already."
“This should be - agh! That is, do continue."
“Well, it’s not a Light variation on Imperius or Crucio.”
“Naturally.”
“It’s not affected by Veneratius or any of the Erubescitis family of charms. Aeternus and Proprius vows have no effect."
“How very thorough. Hmm. Nor is it alleviated by Coactum potions."
“Oh! I didn't try that, though I did wonder about... hang on. I've got an idea! Come he– ow! – Pray join me over here, good sir. There's a traditional Wizarding rite I came across when I was apprenticed in South Africa, and part of it's a vow to act in the interests of one's family or group - you know, to demonstrate mutual respect. I don't suppose it'll lift the hex altogether, but I think..."
“...that it might relieve us of some of the symptoms? Minerva appears to have specifically prevented the use of our surnames.”
“True. But this should let us stop having to address each other like something out of the 1890s... ”
“...perhaps by instead using our forenames.”
“Oh! Well, yes. You’re welcome to call me Harry, and if I may call you Se – argh! – by your first name?”
“This is... tolerable. Under the circumstances. Very well.”
“Aansien!”
“...well?”
“Um, Severus. It works!”
“Congratulations would appear to be in order. Harry.”
“Ha! I knew if I tweaked it a bit, it would work!”
“Tweaked...!”
“Hey, I'm a Gryffindor. Spur-of-the-moment successes come as standard.”
III. Monday evening.
Snape is ensconced in his armchair, a journal in one hand, and a Firewhisky in the other, when he finally hears a knock at the door. It begins too quietly, and ends too loudly, from which combination of nerves and bravado he deduces that Potter is outside. He allows the door to open without dropping the wards.
“What do you want, Potter?”
“May I come in?”
May he? It sounds like an exceedingly bad idea. “Why?” asks Snape, suspicious again.
“I wanted to talk to you. Why,” asks Potter, genially, "don't you trust me?"
“Believe me, that would be the last thing I'd do.” He still doesn’t lower the wards. “On what fascinating topic are we to discourse, this evening?”
Potter shrugs, a strangely eloquent gesture. “You helped me, yesterday.”
Snape hesitates a moment, the shadows of foreboding trembling in the edges of his perception, and finally allows Potter to enter. Potter steps into the room, and looks around, curiously.
He avoids noticing how well Potter's robes fit him and gestures at the armchair on the other side of the fire, pouring Potter a drink. A small one.
“Cheers.” The boy swirls his glass, sniffs it, and raises an appreciative eyebrow. Perhaps he can be civilised, after all.
“I just wondered,” he begins. Snape waits. He catches himself drumming his fingertips against his glass, and stops before Potter notices.
“Poppy says you took me to the infirmary, yesterday.”
“Correct.”
“She says you found me in my quarters, and realised what had happened.”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t understand why you were in my rooms. You’ve never been there before.”
Snape has been awaiting this question all day.
“We met on Saturday evening to attempt to lift Minerva’s hex with a Helianthus-based potion, as we arranged last week. We later discussed a text which I said I would lend you. I neglected to pass it on at breakfast, and thought I would drop it off. It was a small act of courtesy, which I don’t –.” He cuts himself off short.
“Oh. But there are no new books in my rooms.”
“When you opened the door in some distress, I slipped it into my pocket, and carried it away with me.”
“Oh,” repeats Potter, too thoughtfully. “Well, I can take it now, I expect.”
Snape is visited by a memory. One weekend before the term began, the Weasley boy had stayed at Hogwarts, and Snape had encountered Potter and his friend playing chess in the staff sitting room. Potter, a decent player, if uninspired, had given the same kind of weight and consideration to each move then as he gives to each sentence now.
“Accio ‘The English Physitian’, the 1682 annotated edition,” Snape says, to cover his confusion. The book flies readily to his hand, and he passes it to Potter, who stares at it blankly.
“We discussed this book?”
“That’s correct.”
“I don’t remember that. Why did I want to borrow it?”
“It has an interesting passage on the preparation of Eryngium, which we thought might be useful as an alternative to the Helianthus approach.”
“Oh. Thank you,” adds Potter, belatedly. He sips his Firewhisky in time with Snape, and shows no sign of leaving. The room feels warm, almost stifling to Snape, who has lived there for decades and always found it perfectly comfortable.
“Was there anything else?”
“Yes. Is there a transcript of your notes from Saturday? From the sunflower potion?”
“Indeed so.” Snape indicates a scroll of parchment on the side table.
“Thank you. Accio Severus’s notes from Saturday evening.” The scroll doesn’t move. A coal in the fire shifts, breaking the silence, and making them both jump.
“They were only transcribed this afternoon,” yawns Snape, disconcerted and on edge. “Accio Helianthus preparation transcript.” He passes the scroll to Potter, who glances over it, frowning.
“Thank you,” he adds as an afterthought. Snape waits again.
“The thing is,” says Potter. “Well, it’s several things, really.”
“Pray proceed.”
“Um. To start with. The transcript. I wonder why it isn’t in your office, with all your other notes on the hex, but here in your private quarters.”
“Do you really.” Snape pours himself another drink. He doesn’t pour one for Potter, who appears to have forgotten about his.
“And now I wonder,” Potter continues, tapping a finger on the cover of the book. “Why I would want to borrow a book which Neville gave me a copy of for my 23rd birthday.”
Snape freezes. The chances of that.... He closes his eyes. So this is how it ends, after all.
“And why you felt the need to bring it to my quarters on a Sunday morning, when you could have given me it at Sunday lunch in the Great Hall. And why you made up a set of notes for our sunflower decoction experiment that even I can tell are fictional. And how you managed to call me Potter when I arrived this evening, for the first time in six weeks. Leading to why – most of all – why you didn’t tell me that we lifted the hex on Saturday, you arrogant, deceitful, manipulative bastard! God! That felt good!”
Snape manages to open his eyes again and sips his whisky, holding the glass in a hand which barely shakes at all. “Fascinating, Potter. And may I ask what conclusion you have reached?” His voice at least is steady.
“I think something happened.” In one smooth movement, Potter rises from the armchair, and paces back and forth across the hearthrug. His robes swirl dramatically about his ankles. “Either on Saturday evening, or Sunday morning. Something I didn’t want to remember, because I can get a memory charm to work all right, and I can certainly make it backfire if I want it to, just enough to lose a couple of days. I thought that maybe you’d done it, but you didn’t; I checked; it was my spell, with my wand, by my hand. But you were there, weren’t you? You were there when I did it. So, I asked myself, what happened this weekend that I didn’t want to remember?”
Snape says nothing. He watches Potter unblinkingly over the rim of his glass.
“And you know what the answer was, my respected Professor Severus Snape, Order of Merlin, First Class?”
Potter doesn’t wait for an answer, as he stops pacing and drops the parchment onto the fire. He tosses back the last of his whisky, and holds the book out to Snape, who reaches for it automatically. Potter holds on to it for a moment longer than he needs to, long enough to draw Snape into eye contact.
“The answer was, I trust you, dammit. Whatever happened, I already decided once to forget it. And, as I’m sure you’ll agree, we Gryffindors are stubborn enough not to change our minds. Goodnight, Professor Snape.”
He sweeps from the room, head held high, and doesn’t look back to see Snape’s open-mouthed reaction. It is an exit worthy of Snape himself.
“My head is killing me.”
“...”
“I think we drank too much, celebrating last night.”
“Uhhh.”
“This is why I don’t get pissed in term time. It always seems like a good idea at the time, and I always feel like crap afterwards.”
“Hmmm?”
“Tell you what, though, I slept like a baby last night. Well, you know. Eventually. Heh.”
“Potter?”
“He stirs! Thought you were going to sleep all afternoon, too.”
“Potter? Potter! What the f– !”
“Hang on; I’ve got some Pepperup somewhere. I think it’s in the bathroom cabinet, I’ll just...”
“POTTER FOR GOD’S SAKE COVER YOURSELF!”
“What? Hey, nothing new to see here. Oh, all right then. There. You can open your eyes, now.”
“I’d rather not. What the hell happened? Where– is this your bedroom?”
“Well of course it– Severus. You do remember last night, don’t you?”
“Oh God.”
“Severus?”
“It appears, Potter, that the sorry details are etched upon my mind in gruesome detail. Oh God. Oh Merlin.”
“Severus, what are you... where are you going? It’s nearly time for lunch.”
“Lunch! Potter, I have just destroyed my dignity and, no doubt, my career in the course of one sordid evening. Lunch is the least of my concerns. Give me some paper. Accio parchment! Where... where are my clothes?”
“Your robes are on the settee, and you've got one boot under the desk. I don't know where the other one is. Your socks ended up in the fireplace.”
“Socks are also the least of my concerns. Accio Professor Snape's clothes! Great Merlin. I knew it. I knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“Every time a Potter sets foot inside this building, I end up humiliated beyond all reason or justice. I’ve had enough. Accio quill and ink.”
“Severus!”
“It’s Professor Snape, you insipid little bastard, show some respect.”
“Sev– Professor. What are you doing?”
“Writing my letter of resignation, Potter, what does it look like? Admittedly I am in no position to demand anything, but I request that you wait until after lunch before you hand this to the headmistress. I have no intention of facing Minerva’s wrath when she discovers I have despoiled her golden Gryffindor.”
“Writing your letter of resignation? You’re kidding.”
“...”
“You aren’t kidding. Really? Because of this? All right, it was a bit, um, messy, but it was pretty good, wasn’t it? Do you think you, you know, pressured me into it? Because you really didn’t, I’ve fancied you for ages. And you’re a bit too late to do any despoiling. God, are you really serious?”
“Potter.”
“Se– Professor?”
“Shut up. Take this. I wish you every success in your undoubtedly illustrious future career.”
“No! I won’t let you!”
“Let me? You won’t let me? You have no say over what I do, Potter, none at all. I choose to go rather than to expose myself to the daily ridicule and ignominy that being in the same building as you will result in. That choice is mine, and mine alone.”
“Ridicule? You think I did this to ridicule you? I was doing it too, remember; I enjoyed it too; it wasn’t humiliating at all. It was brilliant. I think we should do it again, lots.”
“Potter! Enough.”
“No! This is your home. I won’t drive you out of your home. I swear, I won’t tell anyone. I won't mention it ever again if you don't want me to. Don’t you trust me?”
“I? Trust you, Potter? Ha.”
“Of course not, stupid of me to think it. Then, look, why don’t you Obliviate me? Don't tell me that we got drunk and, um, you know; tell me we didn't work out the hex cure, and then you can come and pretend you’ve worked it out tomorrow. I don't need to remember any of this, if it's all too, uh, shameful for you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I owe you a Life Debt; I once swore that I would protect you, you imbecile. I won’t do it.”
“Then I’ll do it myself!”
“Are you a Hogwarts Professor or not? You can’t Obliviate yourself, idiot.”
“Oh no? Well, I can do better than that! Accio Harry’s wand!”
“Harry, no!”
“Meminerim!”
“Harry!”
Postscript. Very late, Monday Night.
Harry is wakened by a scratching noise at his window. He stumbles from his bed, pushes his glasses onto his nose, and pulls back the heavy curtain. A small coal-black owl looks down at him, silhouetted against the night sky.
He opens the window, and the owl hops onto the sill. He holds one leg out, offering a small parcel to Harry. Harry mutters the words which release the owl of its burden, and examines the package. It contains a soft leather pouch, and when he opens its neck, he finds a tiny vial within. There is no message. He holds the vial up to the window, examining it for clues.
Shimmering in the starlight, it contains a single memory.
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