Direct the Other Way
by L. Inman
The boy was going to be the death of him yet.
Not that that wasn’t exactly fair play, but then fair play had never exactly served Severus Snape well. Better to try not to think about it at all; it was a shame one couldn’t Occlude one’s own thoughts without long-term adverse effects.
He staggered a bit under his burden despite the spell he’d done to lighten the body; there was no way he could free a hand to get to his wand, which he’d put away to Apparate them home. Miraculously, he had found no one waiting for him; the Dark Lord had reassigned Wormtail to Draco, and none of the others had chosen that evening to appear and question him at random. Snape was suspicious of miraculous fortune; he was never lucky—
Lucky. Of course. He looked down at the pale face of the young man he was carrying. Granger must have brewed him some Felix Felicis; it was hard otherwise to imagine how Potter had avoided being killed by the curse he had broken. If only he had arrived in time to know which curse...well, Potter would wake up in good time and betray the information to him soon enough.
If the potion held out, that is. Which, if Potter had brewed it himself, was unlikely, even with the help of that damned book.
The door to the stairs opened magically for them, and Snape took each step one at a time, grunting under the boy’s weight. At last he gained the top and made his way to the spare bedroom, where he put the boy down on the bed, a little too awkwardly to be gentle. Potter’s glasses, already dangling, fell off his face and onto the counterpane. With a utilitarian austerity, Snape picked them up, folded them, and laid them on the nightstand. Then, sparing only a glance to ascertain Potter was still breathing, left the room, pulling the door nearly to as he went.
A potion was the best bet to counteract the unknown curse; it would be more likely to reach the whole body comprehensively and quickly than anything else. Snape went down to the kitchen, where he kept his cauldron, and opened his cupboard. Dittany...dragonmint...valerian...he could easily make an all-purpose potion and add the right active ingredient once he’d got the information he wanted.
He allowed himself one deep sigh as the cauldron heated. This boy was going to be the death of him yet.
Once the cauldron had reached a simmer, Snape returned upstairs, quietly: if Potter had waked, Snape wanted to be ready for what he’d do. His fingertips on his wand, he approached the door on silent feet and edged round to get a clear view of the room through the brief opening.
Potter had indeed awakened, and was sitting dizzily on the bed trying to take in the room. There was blank worry on his face; as Snape watched, he reached out shakily and began to feel around for his glasses. He found them, fumbling, and threaded them on. Snape retreated a little, lest he be seen.
Now that he could see, Potter cut his eyes around the room, his pallid face shining; the sweat was from illness, but real dismay came into his face when he saw that he had lost his wand—the wand that Snape had stowed in his own robes for safekeeping.
Snape waited for Potter to rush to his feet and attempt to make a run for it (it would be just the sort of impulsive thing he would do); but instead of rising immediately, Potter took stock of the room, and a very familiar determined, stubborn look came over his expression, so that he looked almost normal to Snape for a moment.
Potter stood, slowly, one hand on the edge of the bed for support, breathing hard: he was looking in the direction of the bookshelf, which Snape could not quite see. He lifted a hand, as if holding out a glass, and it was a moment until Snape realized that he was trying to Summon one of the books wandless. Well, as a forlorn hope it wasn’t a bad plan, attempting to get prepared for whomever he was going to meet. Unfortunately, attempting wandless magic wasn’t agreeing with whatever cursed him: Potter went paler than an Inferius and gripped the bedstead to hold himself upright. Predictably, he reached out and tried again, with nearly the same result, though Snape heard a small sound in the room that could have been a book shifting toward the young man an inch.
Potter had not regained any color, but he tried again with compressed lips. With a sudden motion, the book flapped into view, hit Potter’s hand, and dropped to the floor, pages waving; but the boy was too sick to recover it. He stumbled two steps to the chamber pot at the foot of the bed and vomited violently into it for a long minute. Badly weakened, his face now dripping, he subsided, half-lying, half-kneeling, in the corner between the bed and the wall, the book lying open at his feet.
Snape waited.
Presently the blank look left Potter’s eyes and he dragged himself up to wipe the pages of the book to the front endpapers, as Snape knew he eventually would. He stared for a moment blankly at Snape’s signature, penned neatly in the top corner. Then, staggering, he began to get to his feet. Unerringly his eyes flicked to the door, in time to see Snape come in and lean a shoulder against the doorjamb, wand in hand. (He wasn’t stupid enough to come in unarmed, even if Potter was practically dead on his feet.)
To Snape’s private surprise, however, Potter made no move to attack him, or even to glower helplessly. In fact, his expression was of outright calm and even a touch of grim humor. Whatever had happened since they last met, Potter had assumed a self-control that went further than skin deep.
Not that this was reassuring.
“What are you doing out of school, Potter?” Snape inquired dryly.
“What’s it to you?” he answered, with equal dryness.
“Considering your current condition and whereabouts, I believe I am the one in the position to ask questions.”
“Ask away,” Potter said. “Much good may it do you. But why bother asking me anything?”
The brat had a point. And the sooner he found out what that curse had been, the better. But to his dismay, he found himself blocked: a definite, and fierce, No Thoroughfare sign had risen in Potter’s mind. Snape couldn’t help his grim smile. Of all the times for the boy to get something right.
“Who has been teaching you Occlumency? I must find them and offer my condolences.”
“Nobody,” Potter said. “It just occurred to me that if I can throw off Imperius, there’s no reason I couldn’t stop a Legilimens.”
Snape sighed. “You never listen to me. That is exactly what I told you before.”
“Forgive me,” Potter said coldly, “for suspecting that you didn’t really mean me to hear it.”
“Rubbish,” Snape said in spite of himself. “I never sabotage my own work.”
“And yet it’s interesting I learned more from your book than I did from you.”
“The book wasn’t written to a personal enemy,” Snape said, recovering his calm.
Potter raised one eyebrow. “I did draw that conclusion myself.” Casually he reached out a hand to the bedstead, and his trembling steadied a little.
“You should sit down,” Snape told him. “You’ve been hit by a powerful curse.”
He was paler than ever, but all he did was raise the eyebrow again.
“No thanks,” he said, almost cheerfully. “I’ll wait till Voldemort gets here. Unless you plan to do me in yourself. Surely the favor you won last year is beginning to wear off.”
It was a well-placed jab, Snape reflected; and the calmness of Potter’s tone told him that there would be no convincing the boy of his goodwill.
“The Dark Lord has said he would prefer to kill you on your feet,” Snape replied briefly.
“Really?” Potter inquired, with interest. “That’s odd. He already tried that once, and it didn’t work out for him so well. I shouldn’t think he’d be up for another go, considering our wands don’t cooperate in a duel.” But then Potter’s lips compressed unhappily: for all he knew, his wand was destroyed.
The one with the power to destroy the Dark
Lord....
“Of course,” Potter continued, “you weren’t there, so you didn’t see what happened. You never sabotage your work.”
Snape drew a long breath. “And therefore you may conclude that I have not summoned the Dark Lord. It is inimical to my work.”
“I don’t see how,” Potter said.
“I won’t bother explaining.”
“Just so you know,” Potter added, conversationally, “if I get hold of a wand, you are going to suffer.”
Snape allowed himself an amused smile. “Fair play, is it then?”
Potter shrugged. He was trembling again, and the knuckles of his hand gripping the brass bedstead were yellow-white. “I pointed my wand at Sirius Black’s heart because I thought he’d sold my parents to Voldemort.”
“But the werewolf stopped you,” Snape sneered.
“His name is Remus Lupin,” Potter enunciated quietly. “And as it turns out, it was you and Wormtail who did them in.”
This was unexpected. Snape’s eyes flicked directly to the boy’s.
“But I forgot,” Potter said. “You weren’t there for that exchange either.”
Snape was seriously tempted to abandon this verbal war altogether, as he was certainly coming off worst; but he wanted the name of that curse. “You certainly didn’t stop at blindsiding Draco Malfoy with a Dark curse,” he said. “So much for fair play.”
“I didn’t know what that curse was,” Potter said, suddenly fierce. “And you invented it.”
“Goes to show, doesn’t it? You should mind who you trust.”
Instead of flushing, Potter paled, if it were possible, even further: not a good sign.
“For Merlin’s sake, Potter, sit down before you fall down.”
“No thanks,” Potter said, teeth clenched.
“Gryffindors!” Snape uttered half to himself. “First fair play, and now stubborn suicidal theatricals. I suppose next it’ll be a speech about—honor.” He had been going to say “courage.”
“Not really,” Potter answered him. “I’m done.”
“You certainly are,” Snape said. “Tell me the name of the curse that was on the Horcrux.”
Potter stared at him. “You know—? Dumbledore told you about the Horcruxes?”
“No,” Snape said smoothly. “You did. I was hazarding a guess. It’s no use being an Occlumens if you don’t bother to lie, Potter—”
But Potter had pitched forward and tumbled to the floor before Snape could raise his wand to stop it. “Predictable,” Snape muttered, stowing his wand and going to drag the boy up to the bed.
But Potter wasn’t quite unconscious, and fought him. “Get off!” he muttered, attempting to fend off Snape’s grip.
“Stop—being—such a—fool—” Snape gave up finally and drew his wand. It ought to have given him pleasure to use Levicorpus on James Potter’s son, but all Snape felt was a mixture of exasperation and despair as he waved the boy over to the bed and let him drop.
Potter rolled instantly, attempting to get back up, his eyes glazing. “No!”
Snape didn’t give him the chance. He pinned him by the shoulders to the bed. “Give me the name of the curse,” he hissed through his teeth, as Potter struggled.
Potter swore at him. His glasses had slipped again, and his eyes were wild.
“The name of the curse, Potter,” Snape repeated, “if you’re interested in living at all.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Potter uttered, getting a hand free and pushing it in Snape’s face, now desperate, for he was clearly weakening. He turned his head away, straining.
Snape elbowed Potter’s arm away and gripped his jaw, forcing his face round to meet his gaze. “Oh, this is more like it,” he grated out, holding him down. “This is much more like the Harry Potter I know—suicidally stubborn and terminally stupid! If I’d needed a safeguard against Polyjuice disguises, this would be the one! I save your life every bloody year; might as well do one more for luck if not for gratitude. Tell me the name of the bloody curse. Now!”
But the boy’s eyes were rolling back in his head. Snape let go of him; he lay inert and rumpled, and made no move to get up. His eyes had watered into his temples; they remained half-open and blank, and his breathing was now stertorous.
Snape swore.
“Hasn’t...got....” Potter muttered.
“What?” Snape bent over him again.
“‘S’n...Parseltongue....”
Of course the curse’s name was in Parseltongue. Snape swore again.
Potter said nothing else, only hissed softly under his tortured breath. Rather than look at him, Snape stormed downstairs to his cauldron, which was now bubbling perfectly, and threw open his cupboard. He was going to have to guess.
Pinkweed; no. Nogtail hair; definitely not. Snape reached at random for a jar, and found himself clutching his supply of—saffron, of all things. Saffron, for spells finely spun...and snakewort.
Well, it would have to do.
Fifteen minutes later Snape carried a steaming goblet of potion up the stairs. It would have been much better if it could have aged for six months. Well, so much for that. Here was hoping Potter was still actually alive.
He was. But only just: his breathing was now quick and shallow rather than labored, and his only attempt at getting up seemed to be one hand flung over the edge of the bed. His glasses had fallen off again; they lay crazily on the pillow next his face.
The next few minutes would determine whether this would work. Snape lifted Potter’s head enough to tip in some of the liquid; he coughed, spluttered, and turned his head away. “No you don’t,” Snape murmured, and followed his lips with the cup.
For a few exasperating seconds Potter expended the last of the fight in him, and Snape considered briefly using Imperio; in his condition, Potter could hardly be expected to fight it off before Snape had got most of the potion down him. But before Snape could decide to risk underestimating him, Potter gave in and accepted five swallows before he drooped in a faint. Snape tried to shake him awake to take more, but he slept on. His breathing, however, had evened somewhat, and the faintest hint of color had returned to his face, just below his closed eyes. With a deep sigh, Snape took away the goblet and set it on the nightstand. He’d try again in an hour. In the meantime...
For the second time Snape folded Potter’s glasses for him. He went downstairs and decanted the potion. When he returned with the bottle, Potter had sunk into a deeper and much more healthful sleep. Snape picked up the book Potter had Summoned and sat down in the desk chair with it.
He turned to the title page: A Tale of Two Cities. Snape smiled wryly: he had forgotten that he’d put these Muggle books up here. Well, a few hours’ meaningless reading wouldn’t hurt him; no point in keeping up his refusal to actually read the things.
For the rest of the night hours Snape alternately read and forced potion down Potter’s throat. Sleeping, with his glasses off, he looked more like Lily Evans than usual. His face was still young, though his shoulders had broadened and his hands had the size and contours of a man’s. Snape was satisfied: saffron and snakewort seemed to have been a good choice. Not that Potter would appreciate it.
Finally, as a grey dawn crept into the room through the dingy window, Snape yawned and put the book down. He went downstairs briefly, and returned to find that Potter had stirred in his sleep. Snape was expecting this. He poured out another serving of potion and set it down next the boy’s glasses. Then he removed Potter’s wand from his robes and set it down on the desk, and resumed his seat in front of it, to wait.
It didn’t take long. Presently Potter’s eyes flickered open; he blinked and moved his head. Snape could tell he was already feeling much better. But he didn’t get much of a chance to admire his handiwork: memory came back into Potter’s face, and he sat up abruptly.
“Not so fast,” Snape said lazily, drawing his wand. “You’ll undo all my work.”
Potter glared myopically in his direction.
“There is a dose of potion next to your glasses,” Snape told him. “You would be well advised to take it.”
Potter gave him another glare for good measure (good, he seemed to be getting back to normal), and patted toward the nightstand for his glasses. With his sight returned to him, he took stock of the room again: the bed, the potion, the door, the bookshelf, the window (from which a watery daylight was now competing with the lamps), and Snape in the chair. And a brief flicker of a glance toward his wand on the desk behind Snape. Good.
With a mistrustful glance in Snape’s direction, he lifted the cup of potion, sniffed it experimentally, raised it, let it back down again, frowning.
“You’ve been taking it all night,” Snape said impatiently, “and you’re not dead yet.”
Without looking at Snape again, Potter lifted the cup and drained it in one, then set it down firmly on the nightstand, without so much as a grimace at the taste. “Where are Ron and Hermione?” he said, without preamble.
“Safe in hiding by now, I expect,” Snape said. “They were incapacitated when I arrived on the scene; you would have been beyond help by the time they recovered.”
“So you just left them there,” Potter said flatly.
“I did not just leave them there,” Snape responded, with a bite in his tone. “I sent Fawkes to procure help for them, and Disillusioned them before I left.”
Potter gave him a very slow, calculating look. “Why?”
“Because the world is a better place with Granger and Weasley in it,” Snape said, driven to sarcasm. “I assure you, I’ve had numerous moments of regret ever since.”
Potter’s mouth twitched, and he gave a very small snort that might have been a laugh. Snape suddenly had an arresting sense that he was stealing a glance into his own mirror image, not James Potter’s or Lily Evans’s. Potter, who ought to have grown up privileged and carefree and blithely Gryffindor, had instead been forced to develop a grim, sarcastic cynicism not unlike his own.
Before Snape could decide if this errant notion was comforting or unnerving, Potter pulled off his glasses and began to clean them on his dust-smudged robes. “Too bad they’re not here to share the charming hospitality,” he said mildly, glancing along the surface of the lenses. Then with a casual movement, he stretched out one hand and Summoned his wand, before Snape could react.
He resettled his glasses on his nose and stood to point his wand directly at Snape. Snape rose slowly, his own wand hand ready. He very nearly smiled: if this boy survived the war, he might very possibly become a wizard with some style.
“I did warn you,” Potter said quietly.
“Congratulations,” Snape said. “Not many can do that. And now, I suppose, I must face my imminent torture and death?”
“Are you afraid?”
Snape was afraid, but not of torture at Potter’s hands. For answer, he tossed his wand down at the boy’s feet and folded his arms, waiting.
Potter stared at the fallen wand in stony disbelief, then looked up, an angry feverish shine in his eyes. “Oh, give me a break,” he said, his voice rough and dark.
Snape rolled his eyes. “Gryffindors are so predictable. Of course you can’t harm me when I am undefended. Luckily for you, the Dark Lord won’t present such a difficulty, when you come to destroy him.”
He was maliciously pleased to see Potter’s face had gone chaotic with anger.
“Though I’m perfectly happy to give you some practice,” he added, for good measure.
Potter raised his wand and brought it down in a slashing motion; Snape felt a searing tear slice across his cheek. Before he could respond, Potter had pushed past him and out the door. Disregarding the blood on his face, Snape snatched up his wand and followed him down the stairs and out the door, into the deserted, murky street.
“Potter!”
Potter whirled to face him, still furious and now white-faced as well. Snape doubted he could get him to take the rest of the potion home with him.
For a moment they stared at one another, their breathing the only sound in the dull air. Then:
“Saffron and snakewort,” Snape told him.
For a moment Potter’s face registered no response. Then his mouth twitched once more, this time into a full, grim smile.
Then he Disapparated.
“What,” Snape said to the empty air, “no parting shot? No ‘I’ll see you in hell’?” He snorted and went back inside to attend to his bleeding face.
Once he had cleaned himself up, he went up to the empty bedroom and straightened it, Vanishing the debris of Potter’s illness and Banishing the potion downstairs. As the bedclothes straightened themselves with a flick, Snape reached down and retrieved the Muggle book from where he’d left it on the floor, thinking to replace it on the shelf. But he found himself pausing to stare at the tooled leather; and after a long moment he finally carried the book downstairs with him, to settle achingly into his armchair, and read himself to sleep.
*
Finis