literature

into the rabit hole: penseive memories (17.5)

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Summary: When Harry plunges into the pensieve, he sees more than he bargained for.

( First Chapter ) | Previous: The Penseive (17.0)

The girl with red hair was laughing, her back to a tree and her lap full of books. When she looked up, her green eyes sparkled. “Is that all you’re going to do, Sev?”

Harry stepped closer, unable to believe it. It was summertime; the sky was clear and the sunshine bright—this wasn’t Hogwarts, it was someone’s garden, or maybe a park. Everything was too tame, too mundane for Hogwarts. And here was a much younger Snape, talking with his mother. Why? How?

“And what would you have me do?” Snape demanded.

“Come off it,” Lily replied, and exasperation crept into her voice. “You’re not going to tell me about your grand experiments? After all that?”

Snape lifted his nose. “You wouldn’t understand. It is all very theoretical, very high-end magic. We’ve not even begun to cover it at school, so with your limited knowledge—”

Lily got to her feet fast, and the books tumbled down. “My limited knowledge? Excuse me, but who was it that saved your arse in Charms last year? Who was it that outlined the theoretical perimeters in terms that you and your lofty, high-end magic couldn’t handle?”

Snape flushed. On his sallow skin, it was hardly pretty. “I shouldn’t talk about them with you. You wouldn’t understand.”

“So explain it to me!” She hissed. Then she stopped, the tension falling from her jaw as her eyes widened. She stared at him for a moment. “This isn’t an experiment, is it? It’s the Dark Arts—you’re. Oh, I knew it. I heard rumors…these people! They’re bad news aren’t they? Severus, I hardly see you anymore. You’ve changed, and not for the better.”

Snape’s nostrils flared, just as they did in class when Harry said something. He drew himself up, but without his adult’s height, he looked like a weedy thing. “It’s not I who has changed. You’re always with those three, laughing when they torment the rest of the school!”

“I’m not laughing! Or do you remember who saved you last time? They were being idiots! You know I don’t like it when they torment you.” Lily was nearly nose-to-nose with him, and she was so angry. Harry’d never seen that side of her in the photos that remained, not once. “Is that what you think? Have you looked away from your precious Dark Arts once since winter? They’re not my friends. I’m not laughing at their stupid pranks. I’ve been named a Prefect, Severus Snape, and I fully intend to—”

“A Prefect.” Snape said softly, and jealousy or something like it flew across his face. “Congratulations, Ms. Evans.”

“Sev, promise me. Please. You know how dangerous the Dark Arts are; I don’t want you to lose yourself in them. Put your brilliance into something bigger—something that can help people.” There was no room for argument in her tone.

“…I will.” Snape replied, but Harry knew it to be a lie. Or perhaps his thoughts of ‘something bigger,’ and Lily’s just didn’t match up.
*-*-*

The memory closed abruptly, shutting the doors on Lily and Snape’s summer. The next memory was already clamoring for attention.

Hogwarts, the Great Hall. Instead of the long tables and candles, though, it was filled with rows and rows of individual desks. Professors stalked in between the rows, and students scribbled furiously over reams of parchment. It was exams. And there, Harry saw, a boy who looked very like—

“Dad,” Harry whispered, and found himself standing just before his father, the same age as Harry… And there, was Lupin… and farther up, Sirius Black before Azkaban stole his youth. Harry turned in a circle, looking for more familiar faces. There was Peter the traitor, and there was Snape, bent so far over his test that his hair brushed the paper. And there was his mother.

Harry looked at his father once more, looking at the way he frowned in concentration, the way his hand swept back his hair. And his mother… back straight and head bent. Harry went farther up to see her expression, to see her face, and not the back of her desk.

Harry walked through the rows of people, feeling like he was in a cemetery walking between ghosts. He stood in front of his mother just as time was called. She looked startled for a moment, panicked, but then she put her quill down and schooled her expression. Harry didn’t know what she was worried about; her parchment was filled with neat handwriting. She’d written a lot. Then the parchments and charmed quills collected themselves, leaving the question sheets on the desks.

Harry looked past her and saw Snape watching his mother too. Then he looked away, grabbed the question sheet and walked toward the doors. Harry looked away to see a funny expression on his father’s face, something too complicated for a single name. Relief. Exasperation. And then Sirius Black was loping back, gathering Lupin, James, and Wormtail to him. He was loudly exclaiming over the questions, not a trace of worry in his voice.

Then in front of him, Lily started to speak. She exchanged polite expressions of relief and bemoaned the difficulty of the questions with her neighbor. Lily glanced over at James and the others.

Harry stood frozen, uncertain of who he should follow. His mother, or his follow? But then the scene changed—he didn’t really have a choice. These were Snape’s memories; he would go where Snape went.

Outside, it was a beautiful day. Snape was still looking over the questions, oblivious to the clear blue sky so like the one where he and Lily had argued. Uninterested, Harry tried to edge back, to go focus on something else and explore the limits of the pensive magic. It wasn’t really what Snape remembered, he thought he remembered Hermione saying that; pensive magic was more omniscient…a piece of reality stuffed in a bottle.

He wandered nearer to his father and his friends. They were still chatting amicably, but Harry couldn’t focus on the words. He saw James purposefully mess his own hair (though he didn’t need to, Harry could have told him), and pull a tiny, half-broken snitch from nowhere. Now Harry was intrigued. He watched the little thing fly and twirl, speed and dip, but again and again, James caught the speeding little ball. Beside him, Wormtail made little surprised and impressed noises.

Sirius, “Ah, that’s enough James. You’d better stop before Wormtail wets himself.”

Lupin was leaning back, mind elsewhere after the exams had ended. He didn’t seem to notice where Sirius was looking, or what James said back to him. Harry wondered about that, but was too preoccupied by Wormtail to follow the conversation.

Wormtail flushed deeply and then straightened. “Look there. It’s Snivellus.” And his watery blue eyes gleamed. He nudged James.

“Ah, and what’s he so happy about? He’s still looking over that? You’d think three hours was long enough. Did you see him in hall? His nose was practically pressed against the parchment. Wouldn’t be surprised if it left a smudge.”

“I’d hate to be the one marking that.” Sirius chimed in. He was on his feet in an instant, striding over toward Snape. “All right, Snivellus?”

Snape reacted so fast it was as though he was expecting attack. He reached for his wand.

Harry’s mind reeled in shock. His dad and Sirius—he really did strut. Pained and shocked, he recounted how vain his father looked, showing off with the snitch and messing with his hair. And now, what was he going to do to Snape? He didn’t want to know. Was his father a bully? Snape had said as much, but Harry never believed him.

And then Snape was dangling upside down, his robes flung up and his skinny legs revealed. Not to mention a pair of dingy underwear. While James and Sirius taunted him, Harry saw Lily storm up from farther down by the lake. She was red in the face, and near bursting. Evidentially, James saw her too. He whirled around, and his hand jumped to his hair again. Behind him, Snape fell to the ground.

“All right, Evans?” James called.

“You think that’s funny? You think that’s a real laugh, do you?” She shouted across the way. “What have you done to him?”

“Look, Snivellus. Your lady in shining armor is here to save you again.” Sirius’s eyebrows shot into his hair. He was trying to keep Snape’s wand out of arm’s reach, but it was a long shot.

“Stop it!” Lily shouted again.

“I don’t need a filthy little mudblood like her to save me.” Snape’s fingers closed on his wand and he shot a hex straight at James, leaving a gash on his cheek.

Lily was white. Her normally expressive face was frozen. She shook her head. “Fine. If that’s what you think…I won’t bother in the future.”

“Lily—” Snape began to say—

*-*-*

And Harry was pulled bodily from the Pensive. A hand closed tight around both Harry’s shoulders and whirled him around. Harry felt a thrill of terror as he saw the adult Severus Snape glaring down at him.

“Having fun?” Snape asked murderously. One arm still clenched at Harry’s shoulders with a vice-like grip.

“N-no.” Harry said. Where was his wand? No, probably not a good idea. Harry couldn’t look away from Snape’s face, so transformed with anger. He looked like he’d lose control any instant now. All of the anger and hate Harry’d ever seen in Snape’s dark eyes seemed to fill the professor with homicidal rage. He was scarier than his Uncle Vernon ever was, who only looked vaguely funny when he turned maroon and yelled a bit.

“Thought you’d get some tips from your dear old Dad, did you? You’re just like him. You think none of these rules apply to you, do you?” he shook Harry then, hard enough to make his glasses slip down his nose.

“No!” Harry replied. “I didn’t!”

“You will tell no one what you saw.” Snape gritted out.

“Stop touching me. I won’t bow to you—I’ll never—”

Harry heard the voice again. ‘And here he is. The boy you thought to be my downfall…blooded and bound. But I will be generous. I will give you your wand and we will have a dance…a duel to the death, Harry Potter. But first? Bow.

His teeth began to chatter. “Severus Snape.” He realized. Not Voldemort at all. But someone’s hands were still on him, and he looked at Harry with no trace of kindness. Harry wavered on his feet. “I didn’t mean— I didn’t think—you were…”

“Liar!” Snape hissed.

“You want the Death Eaters to watch while you Crucio me? You call this a duel?” Harry snapped back, head spinning. The mist surrounded them like so much water, and Harry could almost forget the strange figure of the boy, cowled in stolen robes and watching from the tree line. He wouldn’t come.

Before him, a vision of Severus Snape glowered and leaned forward. He was determined not to be distracted. “You looked into the Pensieve with every intention to see what I put there!”

“How many people have to die?” Harry demanded. Falling. The strange boy was falling out of Voldemort’s grip, and he—no, he was behind the trees. No, on the altar. Gone. Not here at all. Harry shook his head, mind racing back, trying to find the truth. He latched onto what Snape had just said. “I didn’t know it’d be from when you were fifteen!” Harry shot back angrily, and the cold of the graveyard left him a bit. “I thought it’d be about Voldemort.”

“Mr Potter. Where are you now?” Snape asked, his hands (finally) releasing him. Snape’s black eyes were dull.

“The graveyard.” Harry muttered, shook his head. “I’ve never left.”

“Get out.” Snape whispered. “I do not want to see you in this office ever again—do not speak of what you saw.” At Harry’s expression, he paused. “In the pensive you idiot!”

Harry stubbornly stayed where he was. Visions of Cedric’s body, his mother and father’s spirits, Voldemort’s hate-filled eyes, Wormtail and the knife. James pushing his hair back. Sirius laughing. And his mother, condemning his father as an arrogant bully. Snape’s humiliation stung; it was hard to reconcile the pristine images he’d made of his parents against the memories Snape had. Everything Harry had constructed was…a lie? Or not.

“I don’t understand.” Harry found himself saying. “But…James…he…that thing with his hair.”

Snape did not reply. He stared at Harry, cold anger washing over him once more.

“You weren’t at the graveyard.” Harry added. “I’m…not at the graveyard.” He hazarded.

“I was not. You are not.” Snape’s lip curled. “Tell me, Mr Potter. Are you having difficulties discerning reality from memory?”

Harry shook his head mutinously. Then he stopped, reached out to touch a shelf of potions ingredients. “I’m not crazy.” He spat out.

“Aren’t you?” Snape replied, just as venomously. “If I find out, Mr. Potter, that this is an elaborate rouse for you to take advantage of people’s pity for the mentally unbalanced…then I will personally see you committed to an institution so that you might learn what it means to be socially stigmatized and deemed somehow less capable than your fellows, which I am sure you are, but that is beside the point!”

Harry laughed bitterly. “So now you think I’m faking? I don’t believe this!” Harry thrust out his hand at Snape, the scar white against his hand. “Do you know how often I’ve had detention with Umbridge? I’ve lost count. But even with her here, you are the worst teacher at Hogwarts. And Lockhart was insane, but you’ve got him beat. Vicious, blood-thirsty, vindictive—always trying to catch us up. You like seeing us fail. You’re not a teacher, you’re a bully!”

Snape took three steps forward, looming over Harry. “Get out of my sight before I do something we both regret. Get out!”

“My mum was right not to stay by you. You’re evil,” Harry spat.

Snape pushed Harry through the door and Harry landed hard on the cobles. As Harry scrabbled for purchase there, Snape threw a glass bottle after him. “Get out! You understand nothing.

Next: grim awakening: breath 18.0

Cover art by me.

Also archived at: Ao3 and Fan Fiction Dot Net
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dA archive: See the Folder | Chapter 00| 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 7.0 | 7.5  | 8.0 | 8.5 | 9.0 | 9.5 | 10 |   11 | 12.0 | 12.5 | 13 | 13.5 | 14.0 | 14.5| 15.0 | 15.5 | 16 | 16.5 | 17.0
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…Tom is sad (or indignant. Hard to tell.) He wants more screen-time, but all the other characters keep clamoring for attention…

…anyway, tbc. Thoughts? I’d really love to hear what you think—it’ll help buoy me through the rest of first term. :)

© 2014 - 2024 smallsmiles
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momo-anzu's avatar
I don't know who I feel more sorry for...Snape or the disillusioned Harry.