An Unlikely Shape Title: An Unlikely Shape Author:bewarethesmirk Pairing: Snape/Harry Rating: G Category: 100 word drabble x 4 Challenge #74: Animagus Disclaimer: I do not own Severus Snape or Harry Potter – they own me. Warnings: Very Big spoilers for DH
Harry wiped the remnants of his long nap from his eyes, and trudged along the underground passage to the Shrieking Shack. He hadn’t intended to return so soon, but the mystery of a man brought him here.
Stepping up into the room, Harry braced himself to see a pale massacred body, with dried blood running in aged rivulets upon the floor; his severe face relaxed, eyes closed in eternal sleep.
When Harry opened his eyes, he saw the signs of heavy blood flow painted against the floor, but the man whose memories were burned into Harry's brain was gone.
*
His lungs rose and fell heavily as excuses, one after the next, paraded through Harry’s mind: someone else must have moved the body, maybe Snape limped off somewhere else to die, perhaps the Aurors had removed him. Yes, that would be it. The Aurors.
And much as Harry simultaneously did and did not want to believe it, the niggling sense of doubt that coursed through him – that intuition that rarely lied – told him otherwise.
His green eyes roved over the floor, searching for a trail of blood – but he saw none.
Even on his deathbed, Snape’s cunning outstripped them all.
*
Harry had only one mode of communication left. If Snape had disappeared, Harry doubted he would be answered, but he had to try, had to do something after all Snape had done for him. And Harry had never understood until it was too late.
Harry raised his wand and said the words, “Expecto Patronum,” and his stag shot out the front door at a brisk pace but slow enough to follow.
The stag craned its neck and stared at Harry with explicit purpose in its silver gaze.
Harry followed the stag through the edge of what was the Forbidden Forest.
*
Sweat trickled down Harry’s back as he ran after his stag. Pointless, it all seemed…
And then his Patronus stopped.
Harry looked up and felt dizzy upon seeing a familiar doe. Harry approached it, surprised at how real it looked, not faintly blurred around the edges like his stag.
The doe remained stationary, stiff and nervous, as Harry approached. Its black eyes locked with Harry’s – eyes Harry had been ordered to look into not too long ago.
A twig cracked beneath Harry’s trainer as he whispered a desperate question. “Snape?”