Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Another Life ❯ Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater ( Chapter 10 )
Non Anime: Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 06.06.2006 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.1K | Visits: 484 | Status: Completed
Warnings: Yaoi/Slash, Angst, DARK themes, Backstabbing, Incest, Yuri/Fem-slash, and other various nastiness. Hard R rating.
Disclaimer: Ain't mine.
Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater
Snape noticed, two weeks after Harry had been removed from the Dursley’s, a fine layer of black hair beginning to appear on his charge’s chin. It shocking him at first, for he had always thought of Harry as a child, then he remembered that the boy was indeed sixteen years old and was going through another stage in growth. What was even more surprising was the slight pain to his chest that the boy was quickly growing out of being a mere boy anymore, and making his way to manhood.
Snape had always thought of Harry as a child and changing that perception caused him distress he didn’t even want to think about. He wondered if he would ever feel normally about the boy again.
That evening, Snape took Harry to the bathroom and taught him to shave. The boy was quiet as always and didn’t show any hint embarrassment, even considering the two faces covered in thick, white shaving cream staring back at him. Snape promised to teach him a shaving charm once he was of age and could perform magic outside of school. They managed to get through the whole thing fairly well, only one nick decorating Harry’s left cheek. After, the boy’s face was returned to the hairlessness it had been, though he would never have the baby smooth softness of childhood again even with charms and potions.
A day after the lesson, Snape was called. He wondered about leaving Harry alone, but then saw how wide the boy’s eyes grew when he saw his guardian clutching his arm. Harry was not to be left alone. Going to the fireplace, Snape hoped he was making the right decision.
“Of course. I’ll send Alastor immediately to keep him safe,” said Dumbledore’s head from the fire. Snape nodded and turned to look at Harry, who was still looking at him with those wide, terrified eyes.
“I will be back,” Snape assured him. Harry just nodded and bit his lip. The older man was struck with a great amount of pity for the boy who was progressively losing everything he had. He stepped over and clasped Harry’s shoulder firmly, unsure if he could give any better comfort. Harry smiled weakly at the effort.
Snape left as soon as Moody arrived. He apparated to the Dark Lord’s meeting place and, like the last time, there was only Narcissa and Lord Voldemort to meet him. Neither looked harried, but it wasn’t normal for either to show much of that anyway and they were as masterful as he himself at hiding their feelings. Still, he was rather sure he would come from this meeting uninjured.
“Come,” invited the Dark Lord quietly as they made their way to the comfortable sitting room. The three took their seats as a house elf quickly set a tray of tea and such on the table for them.
“Where is the boy?”
It was abrupt but still so strangely soft, and the brilliant crimson eyes set Snape with such an intense look that he nearly choked on his tea. Nearly.
“I have only been told he is safe,” Snape replied. Voldemort’s gaze narrowed, but he just nodded and looked down at his own cup.
“Have you recieved any new information about him?”
“None, my Lord. Only that he is well.”
Another nod. After that, they spoke of things that all of them knew were unimportant. The air of disappointment was thick enough for even the dimmest men to notice. It seemed the Dark Lord was truly counting on Snape to find his son.
After a few tense, nerve wracking hours, the Dark Lord left to see to his Death Eaters. Snape moved to the apparation point, but Narcissa stopped him with a hand at his arm.
“What are you hiding from our Lord?”
Snape stared at her and lifted a brow. “What are you implying?”
“I know you are not a traitor,” she replied quietly, and he was almost shameful for being just that for a moment, “but I also know that there is something being hidden here.”
“I hide nothing from my Lord,” he retorted. She looked at him a long while before sighing.
“I trust you, Severus.” She smiled ever so softly. “That is why I’ll let this go.”
Snape was then released. He started to say something but stopped and only looked away. He returned to his home, glancing up at the pregnant moon that made him feel more uneasy than he should have. Before the door, he stopped. The house was quiet. Too still. The lights were all extinguished. Snape took out his wand as he entered.
Nothing moved as the door creaked to full wideness. Snape cautiously entered the house, his eyes peering through the inky darkness. The moon cast frightening shadows and eerie light, making every object look dangerous and alive. Methodically, Snape moved from one room to the next, checking for damage, for struggle, for missing items, but mostly for a young man with hauntingly beautiful eyes.
He found it in the last room. A table, toppled onto its side as if someone had run into it. The rug rumbled at one end, as if someone had kicked it. A glass of water shattered on the wood floor. The air still hummed with long spent magic.
A powerful wave of rage overtook him as he realized what had happened.
Harry was gone and Snape had a horrible idea of who had taken him.
Remus noted his scent before the boy entered the room. After a night of rest, he had healed enough to move with some assistance, which Sirius gladly gave. They took to the library almost immediately. Remus was awed by the sheer volume of books and Sirius had a favored window to sit by and stare out. He had taken to day dreaming lately, as he was still weak from his resurrection. When the boy finally came in, Sirius was firmly cozied in his chair and Remus curled up in another with a volume on vampires in his hands.
“So, we’ve taken in another stray,” Draco said with a sneer. His voice didn’t have quite as much bite as Remus remembered from teaching him, but it still wasn’t close to being nice. He looked up at the blonde and smiled softly.
“Hello, Mr. Malfoy,” he greeted. Draco eyed him wearily
“I figured you’d be in a cell by now,” remarked the boy as he folded his arms. Sirius turned from the window and frowned at him, but Remus didn’t rise to the bait.
“No, I’m afraid the Dark Lord has a use for me, apparently,” he said and looked back to his book. Draco scowled at the lack of effect and dropped into chair, glaring at his former professor. If Remus noticed, he didn’t react to it. Draco just glared harder.
“He’s not going to burst into flames no matter how much you want him to,” Sirius said nastily. Draco gave a little dismissive ‘hmph’ and promptly ignored the animagus. Instead, he rested his head on one fist and gave Remus a half lidded look.
“So how’s pitiful Potter?” he asked casually. Sirius’ head shot up. He hadn’t even thought to ask his best friend about his godson. Immediately, his blue eyes were drawn to Remus and he, along with Draco, noticed the dark look crossing the wolf’s face.
“Harry is…” The pause lasted too long. Draco lifted his head and looked at him pointedly. He hadn’t expected anything to be wrong with Potter, except maybe a bit of angst over the deaths of his relatives. Sirius went ramrod straight at stared hard enough that Remus was sure he was going to have a hole burned through soon enough. He gave a little sigh and finished off lamely, “…recovering.”
“From what?” Draco asked flatly, lifting a brow. “The guy can’t be too bad off.”
Remus shot him a hard look. “Just because someone smiles and says they’re fine doesn’t mean it’s true, Mr. Malfoy. It would do you well to learn that.”
Draco blinked at the stern tone and looked away, feigning disinterest when it was really the blazing gold eyes that scared him off.
“Remus?” Sirius asked hesitantly. “What happened?”
“Harry was brought to Hogwarts.” The lack of explaination was soothed by a look between the friends that meant it would be spoken of later. “The Dursleys are dead. Voldemort murdered them after Harry was gone.”
“He’s safe?”
“Yes, he’s safe.” The question of ‘with who?’ went unsaid because of the promise of information later.
Draco made a mutter under his breath, but wisely didn’t let it become more than that. After a long silence, he realized that nothing else would be said in his presence. Feigning boredom, he got up and left the library, but didn’t go far. He knew how well one could hear words said in the library from other rooms.
Remus gave a little sigh of relief when the boy left. It didn’t last long as Sirius got up and came to sit closer.
“What happened?” the animagus asked quickly.
“Dursley beat him,” Remus replied. It was quiet, near whispered, and Sirius saw red. If Vernon Dursley hadn’t been dead already, Sirius would have killed him. “From what I was able to get from Poppy, he’d gotten a few broken in the few weeks he was there. There were bruises…everywhere. Weeks old, days old, hours old…Cuts untended…”
Sirius looked away, his jaw clinched so hard that he was sure his teeth would break. The nails of his fingers dug into his palms hard enough to draw blood.
“She…she thinks he was b-beaten regularly.”
At the stutter, Sirius forced himself to look at the other man. Remus had a hand shoved in his hair, his body bent over as he rested one arm on his knee, his eyes shut tight against the immoral world and pain etched on every part of his body. Sirius threw his arms around him and Remus clung to his reassurance because he desperately needed it.
“That sick bastard crushed his throat,” Remus whispered fervently. He began to shake as the tears of weeks finally broke through in his friend’s embrace. “It took so long to heal and he still doesn’t talk, Padfoot. He barely says a word and never loud, never ever loud, and that’s not how it’s suppose to be, Sirius, he was suppose to be happy and healthy and loved and my God, Padfoot, why couldn’t he have been loved?”
And every word broke Sirius’ heart all the more. He found himself crying along with Remus, not daring to stop the flow of words that upset him with each passing second.
“It’s like he’s stuck, Padfoot. He can’t get past it. He attached to the first person who showed him any compassion and he can’t trust anyone else, not even himself, and Merlin, the way he screams at night, Padfoot, the screams…” Remus’ breath hitched as another sob left him. “I’ve never heard a child die, but I know that’s what it sounds like and I can’t…I can’t do anything to help him…I’m useless…I can’t do anything…”
Sirius held him and stroked his back. He soothed the wolf with everything he had. And when Remus fell into an exhausted sleep against his chest, Sirius finally let himself break down completely and promised to every deity there was that he wouldn’t let another soul hurt his godson ever again.
Draco sat very still in the side room long after the two men quieted.
Dumbledore’s blue eyes were glinting that vile, almost sadistic glimmer of known victory. He had played his hand fabulously and he knew it. Caught in the trap, Snape could barely contain his complete and utter rage.
“He is safe, I assure you,” the white haired demon said in a content purr. “I know that he will be much happier where he is, tended to by the Weasleys. You know how Molly thinks of him as her son.”
Oh yes. He knew that. Everyone did. That didn’t make it all right.
“The other children are sure to draw him out of his shell.”
No, they wouldn’t.
“Surely, you wish for the boy’s recovery.”
“Of course,” Snape said tightly. But he knew it wouldn’t come from Dumbledore’s plans. No, the old bastard would definitely manipulate him into the perfect tool, just as he had done to Snape himself. The Headmaster smiled.
“Your worry is transparent, my dear boy. I’m so glad that you have learned not to hate young Mr. Potter.”
Laughable. He was only glad to have the boy in his own hands now.
“As Mr. Potter is-” Snape paused as he fought the urge to curse, “-safe in your care, I will return home for a quiet evening.”
“Sleep well, dear boy,” replied Dumbledore with that damnable smile on his face. Snape turned on his heel stiffly and left Hogwarts all together. He went back to his home, straightened up the scene of the kidnapping, then stood in the middle of that room and tried to imagine what had happened. He could see it so very clearly in his mind.
Harry sits on the little chair by the window with his book of rhymes in his lap. Moody comes through the door and tells him they’re leaving. Harry refuses and Moody drags him out. Harry fights, knocks over the table, and at last, Moody stuns him and takes him away.
Snape glared at the nursery rhyme book sitting so innocently on the table. He snatched it up with every intention to fling the thing against the wall - though he knew that it would do nothing to ease the situation - but stopped and simply stared at it. There, in his hand, was Harry’s desperate plea for childhood. Snape brought it close, hugged the book to his chest.
He knew what he had to do.
He woke up covered in blood again. This time, he was standing with his wand held tightly in a shaking hand. His robes were thick and heavy and a mask was on his face. His breathing was so loud that he could scarcely hear anything else. The mangled bodies laid still at his feet. Their blood soaked into the hem of his robes. He just stared at them. The woman looking back had green eyes.
“Lillian,” he whimpered, but it wasn’t her body, nor would she clean him and soothe him from this horrible dream. She had gone. Left him alone. Months ago.
He left the quiet, blood spattered house. Nothing made sense anymore. He kept finding himself in these places. Kept rubbing the blood from his skin, scraping it from under his fingernails, washing it from his hair. The smell of it lingered all the time.
When he reached his house, he stripped the robes off and burned them. The blank, white mask, he kept, because for some reason he couldn’t throw it away. His own hand rebelled and didn’t allow it. Instead, he stowed it in the top of his closet. Then he went to his shower and spent a full hour scrubbing the blood from his body. Even after there was not a speck of it, he kept up, because he felt so very, very wrong and dirty and tainted and evil.
His skin was pink and irritated when he laid down on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. The house was cold and quiet and dead. It had been that way since she left. He got a message just a week before. An invitation to her wedding to James Potter.
He had never hated someone as much as he hated James Potter. That cocky, son of a bitch had stolen the only light in his life. He had quit teaching and instead spent his days doing odd jobs around the town. There was simply no drive left in him for anything more.
She was getting married the next day and there was nothing he could do about it.
Acknowledgements:
rosiegirl - Yes, it is rather silly but oh well... And he might.
animegurl088 - I've drawn some art for it, but I keep forgetting to post it on my deviantart account...
amy - Glad to be of service
Dreamless - It's pretty easy to feel sorry for everyone...and it's only gonna get worse.
sparkley-tangerine - I love your name. And no, there will not be any SS/HP in this. Snape is more of a father figure. As for HP/DM, even I don't know. I have two couples planned but they're way off and aren't the main focus.
suu - Again with the pairing? Can't say, kiddo. And eventually, Harry may join his dad. Gotta wait and see.
Conditions Met:
1. Voldemort must be Harry's father
3. Sirius comes back